srhfit-blog

[srhfit-blog]

4.21.17

I’ve decided to start a blog where i can post long drawn out text posts about my struggles and accomplishments that have been occurring in my fitness journey. I think I’ve always mentally known what has brought me to this point in my journey; but i’ve never sat down with a therapist or wrote it down in a journal or anything and really let it all out. So lets start from the beginning:

 My mom struggled and continues to struggle with eating disorders. Growing up I remember we would never buy anything that was considered unhealthy. I always remember eating plain cherrios for breakfast and always wondered why i couldn’t have something like Lucky Charms or Cocoa Puffs. I always had this feeling that she would be embaressed to have children that were even mildly overweight. It was only up until I was about maybe 15, my mom started allowing things like pizza and honey nut cheerios into the house. 

Fast forward to when I’m about 18 and Netflix Instant was just becoming a thing and that movie “Food Inc” was what a lot of people were watching including my brother and I. We both started eating healthier. More oatmeal and quinoa and chicken. However, the oatmeal was made with vanilla flavored soymilk drenched in honey and peanut butter. The chicken was soaked in teriyaki sauce and baked until it was dry AF. So it was kind of like “eating healthy on training wheels”, and I wasn’t at all 1,000% committed. I still went out with friends and ate Taco Bell and whatever else. Side Note: I was never ever fat or ever at a body fat % that would be considered overweight. 

Then in the spring of 2014, my sort of relationship of close to 3 years ended and I felt so completely out of control. When I came to the realization that my ex boyfriend would never come back, I did the sad yet empowering thing some people do after a break up. I joined a gym and started working out, and by working out I mean I started doing lots of cardio on the elliptical. I did this in the hopes that I would lose some weight I had no business losing and one day I would run into my ex somewhere and he would see how amazing I looked and feel horrible for ever leaving me. About a year into this journey, we did run into each other. He told me he had a new girlfriend of 4 months, but he would like hang out. The first time we scheduled to hang out, he showed up and hour late. I should have taken that as a sign, and yet I didn’t. I so badly wanted him to love me again and I would do whatever it would take to see him. 

We would hang out a handful more times before I never heard from him again. During this time I was still going to the gym, doing my cardio and eating healthier. This time, not a lot of sugar, more nuts and veggies. Until this one day when my whole world changed. My coworker and myself were discussing our workout routines and eating habits and I exclaimed why I couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t losing weight. “Well what’s your diet like?” she asked. I went into my purse and pulled out this large bag of pistachios. “I’m hooked on these! I’ve been going through like a bag a day”. She was shocked. “Half of that bag is about 600 calories!” She went on to tell me how I was probably eating way too much. The rest is a blur. From that moment on I was completely changed. After my ex made it clear I had no place in his life I subconsiously found a way to have control in my life.

The very next day, I downloaded a calorie counting app. After one day I found out I was eating probably close to 2,000 calories a day. After reading up on online magazines and articles, I found that no one on the internet found that acceptable. So began the game of “How Little Food Can I Get Away With Today?” I remember at one point i was eating as little as 800 calories a day. But it was okay because I was eating very healthy foods. At one point I believe I was only eating something like 10 different foods. I would only eat perfectly portioned out nuts (I would literally count the peices and halves out), lean meat, salads with no dressings, no tomatoes (too many carbs), no cheeses, no croutons, eggs (i think sometimes up to 6 a day), low carb breads (I would actually special order these in the mail), bananas (I would buy the smallest ones I could find and would only eat a third a day), and veggies with exactly 2 tablespoons of hummus. 

I also quit the gym because they wanted to charge me some crazy re-enrollment fee. So I started doing Blogilates videos every single day except maybe Sundays (on her calendar they were like rest days or stretch days). On those days I would still do 4 laps up and down my road that had a large incline. Eventually I bought ankle weights because i discovered the more you weigh, the easier it is to lose weight. Within the course of about 5 or 6 months I lost probably 15 lbs. Thats another reason I thought I was healthy, I never weighed myself. I instead went by how my clothes fit and they soon were becoming loose. I absolutely lived off the high of that feeling. I truly believed I was happy. I would only have a cheat meal every 2 months or so and I felt like the hottest skinniest fit person alive. I felt I was the image of what it meant to be living a healthy and active life style and someone who practiced balance like a pro. I couldn’t stop and I didn’t want to. I was a changed person with new habits and no one was going to change me back into the “fat” “lazy” “unnattractive” ex girlfriend that wasn’t worthy of love. 

I remember a few conversations my parents had with me. They told me many times what I was doing was going to eventually screw up my entire life and that I should try to look into getting some help. I remember sitting in my kitchen and very calmly explaining that I know what I was doing was insane and totally unhealthy but I didn’t want help, nor did I want to stop. 

In 2015 I thought it would be fun and a great way to lose even more weight to start taking kinesiology classes at my college. Units AND I burn an insane amount of calories? Of course I did it. It was at this point that I started to notice that I no longer saw any progress in my weight loss. I could barely sustain the mere 1,000 calories I was eating a day and I couldn’t imagine going any lower. I remember being in my cross training class and mid way through the semester I started noticing I was having irregular heart beats. I also remember a big thing about myself back then, was that I never sweated anymore. The people close to me told me it was because I wasn’t eating enough/I was underweight. I would deny it but internally deep down I knew that was the reason and internally deep down I loved it.

I was soon posting all my progress on Instagram and following like minded fit people and things started to change for me. I started following trainers and people who preached about balance and not to fear food. They also talked about how eating more would help you lose more weight. All I saw were the posts about “lose more weight”. Slowly but surely I found myself sort of eating like a normal person again. Not entirely by any means, but eating about 1,300-1,500 calories a day. I also started lifting weights and was becoming more empowered when I would accomplish something in my strength training class. For example, when my instructor showed me how to properly perform a deadlift with the bar. I then found enough strength to try out a “bulk” during my fall semester. I started loving the progress I was making. I could lift things I never thought I could and my butt had way more shape than before.

Fast forward to just a few months ago when I was trying to figure out when to stop my bulk and sort of go low carb to start preparing for summer. I decided I would eat healthy and then have one cheat meal a week. At the beginning of Spring semester I could only get Fridays off for school and I decided I would have a cheat meal every friday. At first I was pretty successful. At that point I was eating anywhere from 1,400-1,800 calories a day depending what I trained that day and how active I was at work. 

However within these last 2 months or so, I’ve come to find I now have a new problem surface. I can’t really remember when the first time it happened that I realized it was a problem to be honest. But I’m now currently struggling with binge eating. At first I didn’t really think much of it. I would sort of write it off as “today’s my day to relax and not care!” and then I would find myself 20 candy bar wrappers deep, curled up on my bedroom floor writhing in pain from eating so much. But it was ok because Fridays were “my day” to do whatever as long as I made sure I trained legs that day. And I would also only do it once a week. Currently that’s still what I’m doing. However, I now accept that it’s most definitely a problem and one that I can’t really understand or comprehend. When I am in the middle of a binge I can’t stop. My stomach could feel like it’s about to explode and yet I don’t care and I also don’t have much train of thought either. 

I realized it was a problem shortly after Valentines Day. I did the basic bitch thing and bought the day after clearance heart shaped boxes of Russel Stover chocolate and told myself it was reserved for my cheat meals/days. And thats exactly what I did, except my behavior surrounding it was totally abnormal. I remember I didn’t have class for a few hours, so I went to Safeway and bought the deli’s fried chicken and potato wedges (a guilty pleasure), and drove back to my college and parked in the very bottom level of the parking structure because I knew people rarely parked there. And I sat in my car and ate this food happily until I saw anyone drive by or park near me. I didn’t want anyone to see me eating this food. They would know I was unhealthy and a “fat slob”, like anyone gives a shit about anyone eating in their car. Then I moved on to one of the heart shaped boxes I had in my car. I told myself I wasn’t going to eat the entire thing. Well guess what, I did. And then I ate a MASSIVE Reese’s peanut butter heart. I remember thinking “I’m already so full, why the fuck am I eating this?”. But every time I tried to just set it down I couldn’t stop thinking about eating it. I knew I had a problem on my hands when I was sitting in my car afterwards, in so much pain i truly believed I was going to vomit. And I felt so miserable that I skipped my class that day. I literally skipped a class because of my binge eating. 

Today I’m currently still struggling with this. I’m trying to help myself by watching youtube videos by Kelly U and the like. And it’s helping but some suggestions these people give I can’t seem to bring myself to do. The big one is incorporating these “cheat foods” into your every day life so you don’t feel so deprived and binge. But I can’t possibly see myself allowing myself a reese’s peanut butter cup or a slice of pizza every day. It absolutely terrifies me for some reason. 

This first post is super long, its my story so of course its pretty lengthy. But I really want to use this as my online platform to talk about myself for myself and to keep accountability and maybe even find people who share my struggles.