Disabilities and weight loss

mchopper1

I am new. I have a rare disease that is quite painful. Some days it hurts too much to eat and other days I eat way too much (usually when I feel sorry for myself because I am sick). I recently had a 8 week flareup during which I lost 14 pounds. I was happy to see the loss, but now I am worried that it may have screwed up my metabolism even more. I am not sure what do about that. Any ideas or pearls of wisdom? Thank you for any help you can offer.

sollyn23l2

Without knowing anything about your disease or life situation, it will be hard to get applicable advice. However, I would focus on health... if your flare up is back under control (with medication?) then I would focus on providing my body the best nutrition you can, focusing on whole foods.

kshama2001

Welcome! I know all about comforting myself with food. I'm taking a 10 week course on CBT skills that is helping with that.

I see you tagged your post "50+ pounds to lose" so you surely did have the fat reserves to safely lose 14 pounds in 8 weeks Your medical team would be better to reassure you though.

Are there any support groups for your condition? Or support groups for chronic conditions? Disclaimer: probably best to just join ones that are optimistic. When I was diagnosed with a chronic condition 24 years ago I had to work hard to stay positive in the face of overwhelming negativity about it.

AnnPT77

It's not really possible to completely "screw up metabolism". Metabolism is just an outcome of all of our body cells buzzing away doing things for us, and that process burns a meaningful number of calories. If you're alive, your metabolism is humming along in there to a reasonable extent.

It's possible for a pattern of under-eating to depress our noticed or subtle energy level a little bit, but it's recoverable, pretty much.**

If you have a disease, your body is already under stress from that. Do consult your doctor about tradeoffs between weight loss (which can be unhealthful when we're quite overweight) and the stress or other potential pitfalls of fast loss. For someone with other life stressors (like a disease), there may be reasons to take weight loss a little more gradually than for a similar-sized person without those stressors.

Maybe your doctor would refer you to a registered dietitian who can help to optimize your eating plan in context of your disease and your goals, so you're getting the right calorie-fueling & nutrition to manage your disease, but still losing weight at a sensible rate?

You mention eating too much some days, and not being able to eat much on other days. Clearly, persistent wild swings can have down-sides, but it's also true that what matters for weight management is where the average lands, over relatively short (week or so) time periods. Our bodies don't reset at midnight (even though MFP's diary does). We can eat more some days, less others - within reason - and come out OK.

Every day doesn't need to be exactly perfect for nutrition or calories. Think "close, on average, over a day or few" for calories and nutrition. That can work fine.

Hang in there. Give yourself credit for persistence, and keep going: Look for a set of reasonably-easy new habits that manages your disease, but gives you moderate weight loss over time. The time's going to pass anyway. Moderate progress that's steady can actually get us to our goals in less calendar time than some extreme attempt to be perfect that involves periodic compensatory over-eating, longer breaks in effort because it's too hard, or in some cases that makes us give up altogether.

You can do this. Even though I'm a total stranger, I'm cheering for you!

** Lots of good info about that in this thread, if you want to get technical about it. Read the first few posts, all of the ones at the top by the person who started the thread:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1077746/starvation-mode-adaptive-thermogenesis-and-weight-loss/p1

sista67

I know exactly what you mean about not being able to eat because it hurts too much. I have elhers danlos syndrome, EDS. This causes chronic pain, muscle weakness, and fatigue. Some days I can't hardly move and lay I bed or on the couch all day resting my body.
Then I feel better and I'm starving. I recently discovered that keeping mixed greens in the fridge and my favorite lite dressing makes it easy to deal with it. It's a quick fix and I allow myself to drown it in dressing. It fills me up with an easy, healthy, filling meal that stops the overeating.