My Dilemma

...I've come across a dilemma. Earlier this year I had gotten my food intake up enough so that I was healthy and able to focus. Everything started changing and I felt so much better, it was like night and day. Then I had my mini relapse/large hiccup type thing and fell off the band wagon and noticed a difference. I recently started working on getting my intake back up to normal and at the same time establishing a healthy relationship with exercise. What I didn't realise was that since I was working out and using more energy, that means that I now have to be taking in more energy than before to be able to exercise safely. This never occurred to me before and is becoming more and more apparent every day.


When I started exercising I felt wonderful. I had energy and I was having fun. I started adopting a more positive outlook and a much more energetic attitude. But after the first week I started finding that I was tired all the time and unable to focus on anything. I am absolutely exhausted, and am falling asleep in class - something that I had gotten out of the habit of when I started eating well again. I am getting head rushes when I stand up and find I'm constantly cold. At first when I was freezing all the time I assumed it was just the weird Canadian weather, but when all of the other symptoms started up again a the same time I knew something was wrong. I took a look at my food intake which had been pretty good (for the most part), and looked at my sleeping habits which have also been much worse in the past (again, with only a few exceptions). I was really confused as to why this was happening. Then one day in my nutrition class my prof said something about needing more food when you exercise a lot... which makes sense anyway. It was like a light bulb moment!


At first I was so excited; now that I know what's up, I can fix it! And then I realised that this means actually eating more food. This is the dilemma...


Of course when I realised this, EDs voice got really loud. Like really loud. I got to hear his wonderful thoughts and opinions like..."You're supposed to stuff your face even more than you already are?!?!", "Oh now you've done it, now you're going to gain even MORE weight!", "What if you didn't have more? it could be our little secret..", "You can't have more fat ass, you're not allowed!!", "Are you nuts?? This is your chance to fix the damage you've done!" ...to name a few.


Through the day I can hear "You know, if you don't have lunch you won't have to worry about burning off both lunch AND breakfast at the gym later.", "You just worked off all that food from today, why ruin a good workout by eating supper??" and "Well if you must stuff your face, only have vegetables; they won't add too much to your ass and you won't look so pathetic."


It got even worse when I kept getting shitty marks back. Since I was losing control of school ED used that for ammo as well.. "Just stick to losing weight, at least you're good at that", "Bitch wake up! you can't hide behind your learning disability, you're actually just a dumbass. Why are you in school?", "You will never be good at anything without me! Why can't you get it through your stupid head!?!". It really just creates a domino effect every time something goes wrong in my recovery. When I start having issues I feel bad about it, and then it usually effects some aspect of my life which makes me feel even worse. So I try and fix one aspect of my life and some other aspects fall by the wayside as a result. It's just a vicious circle.


It gets so exhausting, honestly... if I could spend one day outside of my head I would be the happiest person on earth...


Anyway, so when I started falling asleep in class, and slipping on my guitar practicing/progress, and losing interest in school in general I got pissed. This was one thing that ED took from me before - the two things I love the most; music and school. I won't let it happen again. Just no.


It's going to be a long and hard road, but I need to keep going no matter what. I just keep thinking "Fit, Strong, HEALTHY!". If I need to eat more to achieve that, than so be it. Bring on the carbs!




Until next time,


Steph