I'm Sick of Hearing About My So Called "Willpower"

My disordered habits, albeit disguised as healthy eating and exercise, are so often perceived as commendable or, dare I say, revered by those who do not realize the amount of time and brain capacity devoted to these aforementioned compulsions.  Several of my co-workers praise my daily sweat sessions at the gym and almost longingly wish that they too could adhere to such a regimented pattern of healthy eating.  My lunches have been nearly the same for over 2 years (And, boy, do people take note!), so it's easy for them to equate my rigidity with this coveted notion of "willpower."  Side note: I absolutely hate when anyone comments about my food choices. For example, "You're getting a salad again?" [This often comes from those most concerned about my habits, who are tired of me restricting.], or "I wish I could be as good as you."  [These come from the so called envious camp.]  Trust me, there's nothing right about what I'm doing.  Polarizing food choices as "good" or "bad" is part of how I fell down this rabbit hole of food obsession.   Please know that an excessive amount of thought goes into every meal selection I make at a restaurant, or a social gathering, so any further attention makes me question my own decisions and amps up my anxiety.  End rant.

I hate this notion of "willpower."  My behaviors should not be admired, or emulated.  I'm merely acting upon compulsions, many of which I've come to despise, yet can't seem to stop.  Nonetheless, I continue to receive such positive reinforcement, followed by a fair share of curiosity.  It seems like I will always be the overweight girl who lost the weight.  I've become that "success" story that naturally invites people to ask, "Well, how did you lose the weight?  What diet plan did you follow?  I really want to lose weight, too."   I politely respond with the quickest, most polite, answer I can muster, "I changed what I ate and I exercise.  I didn't follow any 'formal' diet"  And, I now add the following caveat..."It's still hard everyday."  I then receive a quizzical stare, as if being thin is worth far more than really enjoying food or exercising in ways that feel good to my body. Many also don't seem to realize that after nearly 3 years of completely overhauling my exercise and diet patterns, it's impossible to just resume this so called "normal" living.  And, of course, no one should take advice from me.  Hell, I can't figure out how to transition from weight loss mode to maintenance without fear of my weight ballooning.  I would never suggest that anyone adheres to the practices I follow. After almost a year of denying I had any problem, I now know that I am not healthy.  My behaviors are flawed and my thinking is skewed.  This doesn't feel right anymore.  

I was getting ready for work in my gym's health spa following one of my 5:45am workouts, when I was approached by the mother of a boy (Would he now be deemed a "man?" My Aiken peeps, his name rhymes with "Wustin.") whom I went to elementary school with.  She politely asked me how I was and then followed up with, "You look so great, Andrea."  With a smile on her face she added, "I know you must have worked really hard."  Two years ago I would have beamed after receiving a compliment of this sort.  That morning, though, I felt myself inwardly cringe.  This notion of thinness and weight loss is so highly regarded by our society, particularly women.  Do you think anyone ever made comments about my attractiveness when I was heavier?  Nope.  I guess I should be thankful that I wasn't the recipient of fat shaming. but it's comments like these that only seek to reinforce my unhealthy behaviors.  I quietly thanked her and left.  I felt my blood boiling.

I hate working this hard to maintain my weight.  I hate hearing my alarm blare at 5:04am each day, knowing what I will put my body through in just a matter of minutes.  I hate that I feel as if I have no choice about going to the gym.  Confession: Since moving into my apartment just over 3 months ago, I have only missed 2 morning, weekday workouts.  I don't consider that healthy or admirable. It's scary.  It's compulsive and symptomatic of overexercising.  The fact that I know the exact number, not that it's so hard to forget, is also telling.  This thing called "willpower" is a farce.  Sometimes working hard isn't always a good thing.  I need to keep reminding myself of this.  Maybe one day I'll actually accept this sentiment.      

  

Disordered Eating and Exercise 101: What Exactly Is it?

I am not anorexic, nor bulimic.  I eat.  In fact, I eat a lot of food that I have deemed healthy or "safe." I don't look emaciated.  My BMI falls in a healthy range with respect to my height and weight. And, nope, I don't spend 2 hours a day at the gym, but I do feel obligated to go every single goddamn day. Aside from Saturday morning yoga, I don't enjoy exercise.  When my alarm sounds at the ungodly hour of 5:04am (6:04am on my one sleep-in day during the work week), I  feel the dread immediately.  I  go to the gym with a job, an intention if you will, to burn as many calories as I can in a 45-50 minute period.  On good days, I aim for 600 calories.  If I feel especially tired, 400 to 500 will suffice.  On the off chance I attend an aerobics class, I gauge the quality of my work-out by the amount I sweat.  I realize that calorie burn calculators on gym equipment lack accuracy, and my "sweat-o-meter" is likely a flawed measure.

The simple fact that I endeavor to qualify the "quality" of my exercise reflects flawed, or disordered logic.  Here's the dirty truth: I exercise to earn the right to eat.  [Mind you, the food I eat is so far from the indulgent eating I was once so accustomed.]  I exercise for fear of gaining weight and jeopardizing all of the hard work I put into losing the weight.  Gaining weight means that the hundreds of hours I've spent at the gym and the countless times I have politely declined a piece of cake, a slice of pizza, or a hot, buttery roll [It takes every ounce of willpower I have.  In my head, I am screaming, "Yes, I want to devour you!"], a complete waste.  I'm not stupid.  I know my thinking is flawed, but it is my nature to polarize, to see the black or white, good or bad, healthy or not healthy.  I've never been able to see the "gray" in life.  I commit to something and take it to the extreme.  

Before I got on the weight loss bandwagon, my life centered around school work.  I didn't want to just be a "good" student, I wanted to be the best.  I still remember the phone call I made to my mom during the fall semester of my senior year in college.  In tears, I confessed, what at the time, was my biggest fear...this was going to be the semester I'd tarnish my 4.0 GPA.  I wanted more than anything to graduate valedictorian, and I knew that even with one A- on my transcript, any chance of earning that distinction would be lost.  Let me say on the record that my parents did not pressure me to be a straight A student.  This was a self-imposed expectation.  In fact, they would have been thrilled if I earned a "B."  I wish more than anything that I could slap some sense into my college self.  While I am proud of my collegiate accomplishments, I missed out on so much because I was completely focused on my school work.  Sense a pattern?  Four years later, and here I am scheduling my plans around my gym schedule, or declining dinner invitations for fear of veering off of my "safe" meals. This is disordered eating.

I've read a lot about disordered eating and eating disorders, and I'd argue that they are not one-in-the- same. I've spoken to professionals who would agree with those sentiments.  As is the case with any disorder, there is a continuum of behaviors and manifestations.  Anorexia, bulimia, or true binge eating are the most extreme, or profound examples.  While compulsive and, at times, extreme, my behaviors do not qualify under any of the aforementioned categories.  Is it possible that they have in the past, or could in the future?  Of course.  

Last summer, I reached my lowest weight by burning an average of 900-1100 calories a day, following a far more restrictive diet.  Hell, I was off for the summer.  What excuse did I have for not increasing the duration and intensity of my work-outs?  Fast forward a year later, and I'm trying desperately to adopt a more flexible approach to eating, but I find myself bordering on that fine line between "snacking" and "binging."  While true binge eating involves the consumption of an extreme amount of food (think an entire bag of chocolate chips, a whole pizza, a half gallon of ice cream), I find myself wanting to snack uncontrollably.  Nothing seems to satisfy my hunger due to the restrictions I have imposed upon my diet for the last 2+ years.  I'm looking to study more about the practice of intuitive eating, or eating what my body craves in order to find satiety. 

To put simply, my behaviors seem to fall under the umbrella diagnosis of EDNOS according to the DSM, or Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified.  Millions of people, particularly woman, fall under this distinction.  I hesitate to further self-diagnosis, but I also seem to present with some, but not all, signs of Orthorexia, a seemingly new disorder focusing on an obsession towards eating healthy foods.  I am by no means a  "clean" eater (i.e. I still do eat some processed foods), nor do I maintain a diary of my calorie consumption using an app like, MyFitnessPal.  However, I do see foods as healthy or unhealthy.  I think about food, namely what I will eat and when I will eat, far more than you realize.  As much as I have come to despise the gym, I feel tremendous guilt if I do not go.  When I leave the gym, literally dripping in sweat, I give myself a virtual fist pump, "See you can do it!  Aren't you proud of yourself for waking up and starting your day with a work-out?"  Exercise morphed from a place of self-care and stress management, the initial benefits I found upon beginning my weight loss journey in 2012, to a compulsion feeding (ha!) my desire for thinness and acceptance.  

If you're at all interested in learning more about Orthorexia please read Madelyn Moon's recent post here.  As a former fitness model, Madelyn subjected herself to extreme dieting and exercise in order to compete.  She has since left the industry and publishes a series of blogs and podcasts to help women, like me, develop a more normal relationship with food and exercise.  The first time I listened to her podcast, I kept thinking to myself, "She totally gets it."  By no means do I subject my body to the diet and exercise regimens characteristic of body builders, but much of my thinking and compulsions are one in the same.  One of Madelyn's most recent blog entries, How to Help Others With an Eating Disorder When You are Still Suffering, inspired me to start this blog as a vehicle to heal my relationship with food and exercise.  Again, the fact that I am "in a relationship" with food and exercise is another manifestation of disordered eating/ exercise!

I want to end this post with the following caveat, one that Madelyn so eloquently stated on her podcast 6 Things I Want You to Know About Orthorexia.  Her message just "clicked" with some of the thoughts that have been swirling in my head, but I have not been able to verbalize in a coherent manner.  I'm going to be blunt: Please do not comment on my body, my weight, or the food I eat (More to come on this in an upcoming post!).  Specifically, please do not tell me that I "look" healthy.  Here's me being completely transparent: As I have attempted to resume some normalcy in my eating habits, I have gained some weight and every single pound hurt.  There's no better way to put it.  Last week's post gave a glimpse into some of the mental anguish that comes from weight gain. So, to tell me that I look "healthy" is translated by my own warped thinking [I take full responsibility!] to mean, "I've noticed you put on some weight."  And, of course, I know that my friends and family have the best of intentions.  For those few that finally know how hard this has been, I am so incredibly grateful for your support.  I know this sounds vain and, once again, reflects my flawed thinking, but as I figure out what I need to do for myself to help heal these behaviors, I also need to differentiate between support that is helpful and that which is hindering.  

Thanks for reading and sticking with me.  

       

A Sweet Potato Fight Song

I have absolutely no idea how to start this.  Introductory sentences have always been the bane of my existence. I've spent hours, literally hours, attempting to craft the most spell-binding, catchy, make-me-sound- smart introductory sentences followed by an equally as profound introductory paragraph.  Once I've got the introduction down, everything else seems to flow accordingly, but this process of writing, deleting, and re-writing is unbelievably time consuming and a very blatant symptom of my perfectionistic tendencies.  I can't tell you how many people have urged me to just get my ideas on paper first [word vomit, if you wish], and then go back later to tighten it all up.  As hard as I've tried to adopt this practice, it is unbelievably challenging.  

Let me reiterate, I like to do things right the first time around.  I delay gratification in nearly every aspect of my life.  I was that kid who raced home from school, spread my textbooks across my bedroom floor, and did all of my homework immediately before even contemplating turning on the television, seeing a friend, or *gasp* taking any sort of break.  Now, I'm the 26 year-old who still walks in the door and, on auto-pilot, packs a lunch for the following day, assembles and re-stocks tomorrow's gym bag, files paperwork, responds to emails, and cleans before ever allowing herself to eat a meal, or sprawl out on the couch. This rigidity has served me well in certain situations, namely my beautifully organized closets and cupboards, but it more often than not rears it's head in far uglier ways.  

How I wish I could transition smoothly into my purpose for beginning this blog, yet I have set an intention to embrace honesty, transparency, and some semblance of flexibility (dare I say, spontaneity!?), so I'm going to start from a place that feels right to me.  What follows may be wordy, messy, and ill-sounding, but I finally am ready to get it out. 

I've been keeping secrets, ones that elicit anxiety and carry deep shame...As I dripped in sweat, watching my calorie burn increase on the ARC trainer earlier this week, I thought about starting this blog.  After eating a sweet potato the other night and feeling this incredible sense of fullness, I thought to myself, "That's how I should start my first blog post!  Write about the sensory overload I experienced eating a goddamn sweet potato."  Or, the moment I stepped on the scale this morning and yelled in frustration at the number staring back at me.  But, I didn't even order the ice  cream last night that I so badly wanted!  I watched my portions while eating Mexican food for the first time in months.  Why won't my body cooperate?  I got on and off that scale at least five times in the hopes it would miraculously change.  I moved the scale to different areas of my apartment, wondering if the calibration was off as a result of the slightly uneven flooring.  I hurried into the gym 20 minutes later only to jump on the scale and see a number even higher.  Immediately, I pealed off my socks and the number registered two ounces less.  Off came the spandex pants (mind you, this is a public area, but few women start their Saturday in the health spa at 7:40am), and I felt the tiniest bit of relief.  I start every Saturday morning in this regimented fashion, practically willing the scale not to reflect a gain as I try with every fiber of my being to find a sense of normalcy.  

Following a hard, but so very satisfying yoga session, two coffee dates, a visit to Marshalls, my zen place, I headed home.  It wasn't until I turned on the radio and started belting out Rachel Platten's Fight Song did I know I was ready to start this post: 

All those things I didn't say

Wrecking balls inside my brain

I will scream them loud tonight...Can you hear my voice this time?

This is my fight song

Take back my life song

Prove I'm alright song

Starting right now I'll be strong

Those closest to me know that music does not typically resonate with me.  I did, in fact, have to google the artist of this song and, yes, I have heard it just as many times as you have :). So, here's my confession, one that you were likely able to piece together based on the aforementioned anecdote, one that I have spoken aloud but have never committed to writing: I am struggling to overcome disordered eating and exercise. This blog is one resource I plan to use on my path to recovery.  I've got a lot of hard work, painful work, ahead of me, but I'm tired of living this way,  For those of you reading this, I intend to share my story in a way that I hope will help you to understand what I continue to battle with. And, yes, I've got a lot of fight left in me.