Not giving up

[porkkchop]

Hi! Recently hit a weight loss hurdle and gained back 5-7kg. I’m a major over-thinker so my boyfriend suggested it would be a good idea to find an outlet for that with some like minded people that could be able to offer some support. 

 

A little context: I’m a 19yr old female, currently around 67kg, 170cm. Got serious about weight loss around 12 months ago starting around 73-75kg. Was just using basic calorie counting, stayed lowering slowly from around 1800, which became 1600, 1500, 1200 over the period of a couple months, wanting to speed up results. 

 

I’m pretty active, was exercising 1-2 hours of sport (including cheerleading, swimming, volleyball, indoor rock climbing) or high intensity cardio at the gym most days but at least 4 days per week. 

 

Was going pretty well for a couple of months but after being hungry and pretty lethargic, going through a period of a bit of stress including, changes in relationship, changing studying situation, family conflict / disagreement, changing employment things took a bit of a downturn. Started to fall back into old bulemic habits, binging and purging to self medicate. Habits that were occasional from about the age of 11/12 had become pretty regular again. I was just pretty desperate to eat, and would have episodes of 5000-6000 calorie binges where I could just shut off and eat everything that I’d been craving until I was in pain and then I could mitigate that by throwing it all up again. I did this knowing that being sick didn’t actually ‘remove’ all the calories.

 

Admitting what I was doing to my boyfriend, and after a bit of additional convincing from family and friends and calling my old psychologist, I made a commitment to stop purging. The issue being that the binging didn’t stop with it. I was now holding onto all of those calories and with that came a lot of guilt, pain: physical and emotional, and self loathing.  

 

Sometimes I would have days afterwards to make up for calories where I would fast, or go for a stretch of a couple of days of reduced calories (around 800cal days). This would usually end in a binge, which seems pretty obvious now, but at the time I was pretty emotional, caught up in it all and just desperate to loose weight. Because my weight was a representation of everything I hated about myself. 

 

At some point I had a major wake up call, and an intervention of sorts after daily binging and gaining back the 8-10 kg I had lost. Raised calories back to 2000, and started slowly losing weight again with a more conservative approach so the whole weight loss journey wasn’t at the cost of my emotional health. Only ever getting as low as 1600cal, I was able to to keep up consistent and fairly easy weight loss of around 0.4-0.5 kg a week, and this was over the holiday period, birthday and a month on travel which included plenty of ‘cheat days’ opposed to ‘binge days’. And the binge days were few and far between. 

 

About three months ago, was feeling a little lethargic and hungry from lowered calories but the biggest tipping point was probably stress. I know I’m an emotional eater and was dealing with a less than ideal financial and working situation, change in living situation and worsened family drama. At the time I got to a lowest of 59.6kg, the lowest I’ve been since I can remember and was actually starting to like the way I looked. 

 

But I had a bad binge on a stressful day, and then another the next day, and then a few days after that and then a few days after that. I’ve been in a downward spiral since, and have have days where I’ve broken down, believed that I’ve ‘reset’ and been ready to start fresh, I’ve raised calories, lowered calories, read, watched and listened to as much about binge eating I could find, reached out to people, kept to myself. Over the last two months I’m currently weighing at 68.7 (a couple of kg of which is likely food and water and would drop of in a week or so of consistent eating). But I’ve gained back a lot of fat, which had been pretty obvious from monthly progress photos. 

 

Had a bit of a breakthrough yesterday where it became very clear that a large part of the reason I’ve been binging recently (aside from stress and forming some pretty bad habits) was the fact that I’ve been pretty fucking mean to myself, and until I started saying it out loud, I hadn’t realised the words I was abusing myself with, in my own head just about every second of the day. 

 

So upon another ‘reset’ I’m trying as best I can to come from a place of self love, remembering why I wanted to lose weight in the first place. And it’s taken me a while to realise that: ‘not feeling like a fat ugly useless piece of shit’ is not the same as being a ‘confident, happy and hot woman’. 

 

As of right now, I’m doing the ketogenic diet in combination with intermittent fasting (OMAD) to deal with hunger and cravings, and giving myself a range of 1200-1800cal in order to have a little wiggle room. This hasn’t been great the last couple of weeks because of the binging, meaning I’ve needed to keep resetting and experiencing the periods of hunger and cravings again and again, which also hasn’t helped binging. 

 

I’m also recovering from a back injury that I’ve sustained for the last 6 months which has made me unable to exercise consistently for around 3 months, so exercise is only recently being re-introduced, cautiously, back into my routine. 

 

This is going to be a good way to have accountability with my progress because I’ve pretty much decided that I will die before I give up on getting to 55kg. And hopefully this will be a good way to keep me on track with where I’m at with food as well as where I am mentally. I’m excited to start feeling good again.

(Just attached some pictures of where I am now vs where I started) 

NSFW

Spoiler

 

 

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Just a heads up, the pictures you posted are a bit more revealing than is normally the case on here. I didn't delete them, but I did hide them behind a spoiler tag with an NSFW warning. 

[Jean]

You seem to understand what's happening pretty well though, I know, knowing is only half the battle. You seem to have gone through hardship and retreated to your comfort zone when you did, your comfort zone being full of self-loathing because it's easier to feel mediocre than to accept ourselves and shine. On various levels, that's the story of several of us, here. You are in good company, welcome!

 

Also: There's nothing wrong with either were you started and where you are now, both are beautiful women. Of course, what's important is that you, yourself, feel beautiful and you can have the body you want.

 

Also also, reacting to that:

5 hours ago, porkkchop said:

Because my weight was a representation of everything I hated about myself. 

 

You seem to realise there's a big part of mindset mingled in your situation. If you can't tackle on your weight face on, I'd try to see what are those things you hate about yourself, ask myself why I do, try to accept them if I have no good reason for it (it all starts with being kind to ourselves) and work on changing those other things that I hate for a reason (we also need to look reality in the eyes and work on it). Self loathing seems like a big player in this game, developping self love could help.

 

Have fun and success on your journey!

[porkkchop]

Hey Jean, that’s definitely a good point on the point about being in comfort zone when I’m binge eating. I’d always thought about it in a self destructive light, but in retrospect there’s something very comforting in the familiarity of old habits, even if the habits themselves don’t feel too good. And it’s a whole lot easier than putting myself out there, wanting something like weight loss, wanting to work to try to feel good. The prospect of failing at that is pretty scary. 

 

I actually haven’t really stopped to think about the reasons why I haven’t liked myself, where that’s come from. If I had to think on it now: 

1. I had a lot of perceived expectations placed on myself throughout schooling, a lot of which I probably invented. So what I was doing never felt quite good enough. 

2. Self deprivation was a way for me to seek approval growing up 

3. I was brought up in a reasonably high performance and result focused environment so I had a fairly skewed perception of what was average. 

 

I guess now I’m starting to learn that I can work towards success while being nice to myself, still achieve things and enjoy the process rather than engaging in the self flaggelation and hating every second of the journey. Self love is definitely a priority for me right now. Really appreciate the perspective, it’s given me a bit to think about. 

[Jean]

4 hours ago, porkkchop said:

1. I had a lot of perceived expectations placed on myself throughout schooling, a lot of which I probably invented. So what I was doing never felt quite good enough. 

2. Self deprivation was a way for me to seek approval growing up 

3. I was brought up in a reasonably high performance and result focused environment so I had a fairly skewed perception of what was average. 

 

This resonates a lot with me. I've built selfdestruction into a comfort zone myself, so this is why I thought of it. It may apply to you too but it also may not, we each have our own way to deal with those things. If you're like that too, the good news is that after having made being at the bottom a friend, then jumped back up into the light, most everything becomes a comfort zone (except for when we actively push ourselves to get better). The bad news is that the way is awfully hard.

 

I just want to warn you about your goal: I don't know a thing about what's a woman's normal weight for a given height but muscle does have some weight and you're not small, 55 kg might be a tad low depending on how sporty you want the journey to be. What's important is how you feel and how happy with your body you are more than the numbers on the scale.

 

That being said, I wish you real fun on the journey, there sure is the potential for it (as is for pain and hardship, of course, but with enough perspective, those can be kinda fun too).

[Deckard Gainz]

Welcome porkchop. I agree that you're in good company here.

 

On 5/20/2019 at 5:12 PM, porkkchop said:

remembering why I wanted to lose weight in the first place

 

What is your reason, if you don't mind me asking? I don't think you really go into this reasoning in the post but it's probably pretty important seeing that so much of your dealings around this topic are heavily psychological.

[porkkchop]

Hey Deckard. There’s a couple of reasons for me wanting to lose weight, and they’re always something I want to keep in the back of my mind, but the big ones are: 

- confidence: being fat has been a big pint of insecurity for me since I was a kid. I’ve never been a ‘pretty girl’ because of it and it’s given me an excuse to hold back or withdraw, I want to feel attractive 

- fitness: I feel like I’m held back as an athlete in volleyball, cheerleading, rock climbing because I’m heavier and slower and my lack of confidence (a self mentioned by versions coaches) also inhibits my playing 

- self love: I want to feel good about myself, I want to feel attractive, and my fat has always been something I’ve hated, and it’s been a big part of the reason I’m hard on myself, because I really have been disgusted with myself. This is something that I could respect myself for. Something I’ve never really been able to do 

Its very interesting how people dismiss caring about your appearance as shallow.  How I’ve seen people preach loving yourself for what you are, and accepting that. Maybe I take it to the next extreme, and I am working on being nice to myself in the process of improving, but I really want to work hard to improve myself, something I can be proud of. 

[Harriet]

On 5/20/2019 at 3:12 PM, porkkchop said:

A little context: I’m a 19yr old female, currently around 67kg, 170cm. Got serious about weight loss around 12 months ago starting around 73-75kg. Was just using basic calorie counting, stayed lowering slowly from around 1800, which became 1600, 1500, 1200 over the period of a couple months, wanting to speed up results. 

 

This is going to be a good way to have accountability with my progress because I’ve pretty much decided that I will die before I give up on getting to 55kg. And hopefully this will be a good way to keep me on track with where I’m at with food as well as where I am mentally. I’m excited to start feeling good again.

 

Hey there! I feel you. I also restricted calories to lose weight, motivated by self loathing. It didn't actually work, because of course my body wanted to be a normal weight and the psychological pressure from dieting just built up until it was irresistible. And the harder I tried, the more irresistible it became. So I eventually put the weight back on. The good news is, I discovered powerlifting which really boosted my spirits and confidence and gave me a different shape (just as heavy, though) that I'm a lot happier with.

Still, when I kept at trying to lose weight and asked for advice, the nice people here on the forums asked me some pointed questions like "why do you need to lose weight?" and I realised I have this fantasy (very common) that I'll have what I want as soon as I look the part. 

Anyway, I wanted to offer a different view. Here it is: you are already thin in both those photos. 67kg is not too much for a woman your height, let alone 55kg. And any amount of calories under 2000 is not much for a woman your size who does 8 hours of cardio per week. You can have everything you want--all the things you attach to thinness--without being thin, if you go for them directly. How would you feel about stopping the cycles of restriction and binging and directly aiming at confidence, fitness, and self-love? 

 

I guess from your comment about hitting 55kg that this is not the path you want to take, but if you do get stuck, or interested in trying a different way, you're welcome to visit us at the intuitive eating forums. <3

[porkkchop]

Hey Harriet, 

I guess this isn’t dissimilar from advice I have been given about my dieting from my psyc. But we’ve come to a point where we are trying to work with what u am willing to take on. 

 

Completely understand where you’re coming from and I appreciate your advice. The approach I’m taking at the moment is definitely a lot more reigned in compared to where I started, but ultimately I don’t think I can delude myself into being happy with my body at the moment with where it is, not do I want to. 

 

But I am definitely working on making the journey something that is manageable, rather than an experience where I feel like I’m constantly suffering though hunger and exhausting my willpower. I’m currently raising my calories a little to help this process. And I guess this is all part of an exploration period where I can work find some acceptance with the fact that I’m not a finished product. And ultimately, after a lot of reflection I’m not looking for my weight loss to magically fulfil any emotional voids, I’m looking to achieve something I want, that will mean a hell of a lot to me, while also working on how I view myself as I go about that process. 

[Harriet]

10 hours ago, porkkchop said:

Hey Harriet, 

I guess this isn’t dissimilar from advice I have been given about my dieting from my psyc. But we’ve come to a point where we are trying to work with what u am willing to take on. 

 

Completely understand where you’re coming from and I appreciate your advice. The approach I’m taking at the moment is definitely a lot more reigned in compared to where I started, but ultimately I don’t think I can delude myself into being happy with my body at the moment with where it is, not do I want to. 

 

But I am definitely working on making the journey something that is manageable, rather than an experience where I feel like I’m constantly suffering though hunger and exhausting my willpower. I’m currently raising my calories a little to help this process. And I guess this is all part of an exploration period where I can work find some acceptance with the fact that I’m not a finished product. And ultimately, after a lot of reflection I’m not looking for my weight loss to magically fulfil any emotional voids, I’m looking to achieve something I want, that will mean a hell of a lot to me, while also working on how I view myself as I go about that process. 

 

You know best. Enjoy the experimenting and make sure you go for the other things you want/deserve at the same time as going for the weight loss - no need to delay them. Good luck!