Advice / Guidance
Replies
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As I am in “Restart”, too I like your ideas….I went back and read my profile and why I wanted to lose weight to start with!…I still want to continue losing for the same reasons!….keeping 75 pounds off of the 110 I had lost has been huge…at least I am not back at the very beginning!…I would have been in a few more months if I had continued binging….every day you go a little further on this journey is a win…losing a little is better than gaining….trust in the process because we know it works!…I hope you have a winning day and welcome back!3
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Thanks all!
As I get stronger, weighing and measuring will return to the fold easily. At this point in recovery, I feel like I expend all my energy (and more 😂) trying to function at work so by the time I get home, I’m pretty grateful for prepackaged salads that only require a fork.
Man Bella, if I could get the protein right I’d ne ahead of where I left off! 😂🤣😂. The 🐰’s really keep me going for sure. The amount and number of times I was eating a day when on the medication was out of control, so now I’m filling myself on the 🐰 while I regain control of my eating. Thank goodness for 🐰!
Sleep can be a killer for me. I seem to not sleep enough or too much but find on either end of the spectrum I’m not well rested. I learned early on how important it is — I need to work on my sleep hygiene though. Things like blue light exposure before/during, calming and relaxing activities before but not just lazy, etc.
Connie, I completely understand. I feel fortunate, given how horribly I was treating my body, that I didn’t regain everything and more. This is my 2nd active restart and it doesn’t get any easier even knowing what works; however, I’m sure grateful these restarts don’t include having to do all the research I initially did to start.
I also want to acknowledge appreciation for the support! I’m an independent soul but having community support is nice! 😊5 -
Hmmm, picture some hamsters...up on their hind legs...noses twitching in excitement. Sensing they're about to be unleashed to play havoc and wreak some severe damage.
I've spent lots of time with an old friend this weekend. I've known her 20 years. Once she was rail thin, with very disordered bulimic eating patterns. After some time in an inpatient eating disorder clinic, she developed a better relationship with food, and her weight increased from 42kg to 100kg. That was about 7 years ago. Then she discovered cycling. Got better at cycling. And better. And better. Her excess kilos started to melt away. Her weight stabilised five years ago at 56kg. Last weekend she finished her first 1000km audax, in under 60 hours. Phenomenal.
Anyway, we did some cycling together this weekend, and she took the opportunity to evangelise about her way of controlling her weight. She doesn't own any bathroom or kitchen scales. She doesn't track calories or restrict her calorie intake in any way. She's a clean-living vegan. No booze. No fast food. And she relies on exercise to maintain her weight (she's a UK size 8/10). Her routine cycling burns about 5,000 - 7000 calories a week. On an audax she can pretty much burn that in 12 hours. She refuels accordingly. Plenty of avocados, dates, bananas, houmous, veggie sushi, Clif bars and peanut-butter-filled wholewheat pittas. Gummy bears and jelly babies for quick energy boosts.
Throw away your scales and stop being in thrall to calories! she urged. Just have fun riding your bike and the weight will take care of itself...
Ooooh, how the hamsters loved that! Never seen them sit up so quickly, whiskers quivering... A seed's been planted and I'm desperately trying to grub it out before it grows roots and turns my carefully tended weight-management garden into a rampantly uncontrolled weed bed!
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This works well till the FIRST INJURY.
Till the FIRST MIL MEDICAL EMERGENCY that postpones the ride that will burn the calories.
Till the first hubby in hospital for a health issue that takes hours or days to resolve and you miss this ride and the next day and the next week.
Or till the time you replace bulimia with exercise bulimia and you end up in a meltdown when you can't rely on your exercise to control your weight. Good plan the "I will outrun my fork". Never been tried before!?!?!?!?
In the end THE WAY YOU VIEW THINGS, the way you feel/obsess, or are concerned/not concerned about them, and the way they are impacting on your life and happiness is of MORE IMPORTANCE.
I don't think you have anything to learn from someone with her eating disorder history... EXCEPT... that you don't want to be THERE.
If she has trailblazed to health and you're SURE of that, then the TRUE PATH may be worthwhile to emulate... but are you SURE that she has overcome her previous ED?
I'm not. The volume of exercise speaks... volumes!
SEEK BALANCE LITTLE HAMSTER, a balance you can be happy enough living with long term...
.... and send us aerial pictures that don't involve you going SPLAT tomorrow!!!! *I guess today by the time you read this in the morning*.... happy celebrations!3 -
I don't think any of us here will not have to make SOME compromises in order to control weight long term. My view is that the least impactful and easiest on you compromises, the ones you're willing to live with are the best ones to make.
Picking realistically reliable ones that you're likely to stick to long term is fairly important too.
But if it becomes TOO obsessive too rule bound too restrictive too intense too impactful on your real life and starts causing distress... well... chill pill hamster management may be best!4 -
Don't worry Pav, it was momentarily bewitching, but I've learned the hard way that I can't rely on exercise alone, and that I ditch my other tools at my peril. Been there, done that, got the XXXXL tshirt to prove it.
Has she trailblazed to health? Mmmm...maybe. Does she has an exercise disorder? Hmmm...also maybe. Cycling is now her job (she's a cycling journalist and vlogger) but there IS an undeniable element of obsessive over-exercising. But I can't deny that nothing puts a sparkle in her eye like getting in some bike miles, so there's genuine fun and enjoyment in the mix too.
Hence bewitching.
It's been pouring with rain for four solid hours here. The wooden obstacles and boulders will be treacherous. If you don't hear a splat report tomorrow it's because I can't type with both my arms in plaster casts...5 -
I am EXPECTING PICTURE LINKS tonight/tomorrow! M'OK????
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Wow to you both. My brain is too sun baked to write much except that. Nice to read the words of two smart cookies. Can't imagine the number of calories required to maintain that level of exercise. How do you switch it off when necessary?3
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Laurie, after many years there are glimmers that the body (when allowed by the 🐹s and not overridden by super yummy I want to keep eating because it's good not because I'm hungry--or the multitude of reasons we each have), anyway, there are glimmers that appetite does scale up and down.
I regularly range from 2500 to 3500 in terms of intake to correspond with activity without feeling particularly more or less hungry.
I too over rely on (relatively less strenuous than the cycling monsters above) activity that I enjoy. The enjoy part is the best.
The rely part is where if I don't get up and move during the day I do get extra cold. And me being cold is not good for the Calories 😉 so we will see how that evolves. Keep in mind that no one that I know has ever has argued that being sedentary is GOOD even though it is obviously something that happens for various reasons3
