#i've been feeling so bad about myself recently especially with gaining more weight bc of being so fucking stressed out meanwhile

[brattybutchybottomgrowth]

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[viktors-still-beating-heart]

Okay I'm way behind on these so I'm going to start doing two each day until I catch up with it :p

Day 6:

All of the time. Especially for the past year, I've basically just been losing and gaining from 42-45kg. I need to break out of my bingeing habits, I finally feel like there's a good amount of hope for it since I've been fairly consistently losing weight recently and I'm going to be living on my own soon.

(cut bc this is a bit obnoxiously long, these are just my chance to vent ab all the stuff I've kept hidden from people irl so I am making full use of them lol)

It's pretty rare these days that I have a kind of "true" binge of like thousands of calories in a short space of time and uncontrollably eating anything I can, although I have experienced that to some extent a few times. I also used to occasionally make myself an entire banana loaf or cookie dough tray or something and eat it all in one sitting. Tasted great but felt awful.

Nowadays it's mostly just that I have broken my hunger cues and tend to get insatiably hungry at night, regardless of whether I have eaten nothing or way too much. It's so stupid and a lot of the time I don't even want anything in particular, I just feel unbearably dissatisfied and it's like all rational thinking about how I will feel in the future is just gone. I know it'll feel bad and I will want to have lost weight the next day but it literally just doesn't matter in that moment, and I won't feel that bad right? I can just fix it tomorrow! It is ridiculous and I am wrong every time. I end up snacking on cereal, biscuits, crisps, and then I feel bloated and regretful and I can't even accurately weigh myself the next day because of the heaps of food weight.

So far as I know, although I struggled to control myself with snacks, I never truly binged until I had developed a restrictive ED. After the "honeymoon period" of being able to effortlessly restrict and fast, I started to get less control and stronger cravings for food. I learnt about BMR and TDEE and tracked my calorie intake, which just turned into making excuses for how I could eat more. With my friends I snacked and slowly trained my appetite to get used to eating large chocolate bars and entire packets of biscuits. These things, combined with becoming depressed and constantly understimulated, turned into me bingeing pretty regularly.

I'm not sure if I know the complete root cause but I think that's pr much it and it generally gets triggered by the classic things like if I get upset, or if I'm very bored, or if I've accidentally went over my calorie limit (the stupidest one).

[rahabs]

How are you staying active during quarantine? I just tipped into 180lbs, highest I've ever been, and I'm getting really depressed about it 😔 I've only gained about 7-8 pounds due to the quarantine, but back in January I was at 163, and I'm really struggling with the fact that I'm back up again after how hard I've been working. It feel like I can't get the weight to stay off, now esp. (Sorry for the mini rant, but I actually followed you Bc of your fitness posts, I appreciate them a lot

Many hugs to you, Anon, and there is no need to apologise 🖤  You are definitely not alone.  I have also been struggling a lot with my weight recently (I have deliberately been putting on muscle, about 25lbs of it, but it is still a struggle to do so and to feel sometimes like my work getting down from 210lbs is being reversed--I am up to 145-150lbs myself, even though I still fit most all of my clothes from when I was 122lbs), but please do not be too hard on yourself!  Some of that weight gain might be muscle, but I understand how frustrating and demoralising it can be nonetheless, I really do.  Like... I really, really cannot emphasise enough how much I understand and how much I get what you’re going through right now, and I wish with all my heart that you weren’t going through it, because it hurts and it makes you just feel awful and so I am really and truly wishing you all the best right now, but also I have the utmost faith in you and despite the setback it is nothing that you cannot fix going forward 🖤

To answer your question, I’ve been doing a mix of things, but the two biggest things for me are that I built myself a routine, and I try to just walk everywhere that I can.  Also, I track in an app called MyFitnessPal, because I need to hold myself accountable.  The gyms in my city have recently opened back up and I have usually been going five times a week (reduced capacity and you can only go for an hour, but I use every second of that hour because cardio is how I best manage OCD/PTSD/anxiety, and I love love love seeing some beloved familiar strangers at the gym--we all wave happily to each other, since we tend to book the same time slots 🖤), but before they opened up my biggest friend was just walking.  I have a lot of joint issues due to my improperly healed torn hip flexor and my former obesity, so I can’t run, but you don’t need to run.  Walking is your best friend.  Or even household chores.  I used to work for a landscaping company, so when I can I will help with the yardwork (even though I dislike it--I try to find ways to make it more fun, and I genuinely enjoy being out in the sun, so there’s that at least).  I make sure things stay tidy, I’ve been writing a lot and trying to see friends when I can, or get out to hike in the mountains.  If I go grocery shopping and I’m waiting in a line, sometimes I’ll lazily bicep-curl my grocery bags.  I’ll walk to the mailbox, I’ll walk through the neighbourhood, I’ll walk to the grocery store or to the nearest gas station.  My dogs are old so I cannot walk them anymore, especially since we are under a heat wave, but I’ll get up and play with them.  Bottom line: if I could find somewhere to walk and an excuse to walk there, I would.  When I couldn’t, I would sit down and exercise by following my favourite home workout YouTube channel.  (Seriously, she is amazing; I’ve followed her for years, since her channel was just starting out.  I just got a half-sleeve tattoo and cannot use a lot of gym equipment at the moment so I have gone back to her videos, as she provides a lot of modifications and alternatives and just so many good at-home exercises that you don’t need any fancy equipment for.)

The routine is the most important part, though.  I need structure, and if I have structure I find that I am less likely to binge, because my brain won’t freak out as much (whether out of boredom or something else).

You might know this already but I’m a (recovering) binge-eater and I also eat when bored or stressed, so I’ve just been trying to occupy myself with things other than food.  I had a really bad spot for awhile where I was doing really, really poorly in that department an binged every day, but I finally put my foot down last week and this is the longest that I’ve been binge-free in months.  I also have BDD, which I am working on (hard going when my attempts to ask the people around me for help often fall on deaf ears).

I think it’s important to realise that fitness and weight loss isn’t always linear.  There will be times where you falter and stumble and when that happens it’s important not to punish yourself--instead just accept and acknowledge that it’s happened and adapt for the future.  Like a little AAA battery!  Bodies are also weird, and sometimes they react to things strangely.  I’m not a professional in any way, but since working to put on some muscle I have noticed that women’s bodies at least like... they are strange things sometimes.   And I know it sounds weird, but try not to put too much emphasis on a number on the scale.  I’m not saying “get rid of the scale!” or “smash the scale!” or anything silly like that because I think to some people having the scale is really important, so long as it doesn’t become something obsessive you fixate on (I have severe OCD, professionally diagnosed, so easier said than done, but it’s doable by adding it to the routine and picking one day a week where I check in), but make sure it doesn’t become a focal point of your weight loss.

Instead, just notice how your clothes are fitting.  If you have body tape, you can use that too.  Pick a favourite pair of jeans and just see how they fit over time, or a favourite bra, or something that doesn’t stretch as easily as yoga pants.  Again, some of your recent weight gain might actually be muscle mass, especially if you aren’t noticing a lot of change in how your clothes from January fit.  When I first hit 145lbs when I was first losing the weight, I didn’t look like I do at my current 145-150lbs, after having got down to 120 and then making the decision to put some muscle back on.  Save for some jean shorts that I bought at my lowest weight, because I build thick muscles in my thighs, I still fit all the clothes I bought and wore at 120lbs--including my fitted dresses, my Stampede jeans, most of my bras, and the pair of “check Lulus” I bought because those things are without mercy.  I also have a couple really good friends I check in with who know me and who I can trust to tell me the truth when I cannot perceive it myself.  And, when I’m being honest with it (which I am trying really hard to be again), I have MyFitnessPal, which has been with me through thick and thin.

If you can, I would recommend a good fitness tracker, too.  Fitbit is really good and user-friendly.  I have a Garmin now, because Fitbit doesn’t make adult watches or watch bands small enough for my ridiculous baby bird wrists, but I had my Fitbit for years before that and it saw me through the vast majority of my weight loss/fitness quest.  It can be very helpful to just help you gauge where you are; most people grossly overestimate how active they actually are, and if you’re up for it, a tracker can be helpful in giving you empirical data from which you can base some better decisions around.

And just do you best to stay active.   I do not know if you have any gyms where you live or if they’re open, but I would really recommend getting a membership, though I totally understand that gyms are not for everyone.  If not, I really do recommend checking out that youtube channel I linked (Koboko Fitness), and just doing your best to walk wherever there’s the option to walk (and it won’t cause undue hardship/pain/etc).  Lift some boxes around the house.  Turn doing the dishes into a stretching exercise.  If you’re familiar with yoga, do yoga (I do not because I am not familiar with it and it can be dangerous to people like me with joint issues to start if you don’t have anyone around who can tell you if you’re doing it right, but my younger sister is working on a cert and she does yoga daily, even with the baby bump).  Many gyms are offering online classes right now too, including the gyms I go to (GoodLife Fitness in Canada), so they can be worth checking out too!

But also just know you’re not in that boat alone.  Many people are struggling right now, including myself, so if you ever need to chat my inbox and my DMs are always open (and I can toss my Discord handle out too if that helps), because a support system can really make all the difference.  I never had one for the longest time, and so when I fell back on old, bad habits it took me awhile to pull myself out of it (again).  I really can talk about this forever but I will stop myself now because I am a chatty cathy but!  Please feel free to send messages whenever you want, Anon, and please be kind to yourself!  I know it’s scary and I know it’s disappointing because I have been there many a time but you can do this, I believe in you!  You’ve had a setback but it isn’t anything that can’t be fixed/corrected and I have faith that you will be able to get back on the proverbial horse and mow down Alexander’s armies in a way that would make the Achaemenids proud 🖤 I hope this helped in some way and that I was able to answer your question!