Hopelessness
LittleLionGirl1304
Posts: 24 Member
I used to be fat. Really fat. Like 190 lbs, at 5'5" and 12 years old fat. Then I went to high school, and the girls were so thin and pretty. I envied them. I wished I was them.
But I wasn't.
At age 8 my family mentioned how wide I was becoming every chance they got. (I was a normal weight, but not skinny enough for them at the time). I tried to avoid my family.
At age 9 my mom openly questioned "if I *really* needed to be eating *so* much" loudly, so all my friends heard. I stopped eating when friends were around, and started eating more while I was alone.
At age 10 my family called me "pizza face" because of my acne, and the shape of my face. I cut my bangs to cover up my pizza face. I ate even more, to cope.
At age 11 I became that kid the others used for target practice. I kept my head down and did my schoolwork while my classmates called me "fatso" and made fun of my disgutingly fat thighs. They pointed at my stomach and made sure everyone knew that I was the only girl not wearing Abercrombie, because they didn't make "fat sizes". I cried myself to sleep 2 months straight. I shoveled the food into my mouth, lamenting how fat I was.
At age 14 I attended a beginners guitar lesson and outplayed every kid there. They hated me for it. They called me "fatso", "fat lard" and "fatty" because I comitted the crime of being gifted with music, while fat. My guitar instructor did nothing but smirk. I quit guitar lessons.
At age 15 my hairdresser laughed and made smalltalk with me by calling her previous client a "fat sea cow". I knew she'd tell her next client the same thing about me. I started cutting my hair at home.
At age 16 I became bulimic. I lived at the gym. I starved myself for days at a time. I weighed myself every chance I got a high every time I lost a pound.
I 60 pounds in a matter of 3 months. I was slowly killing myself, but I finally felt beautiful. I wore the size 6 short shorts I always wanted. I wore tank tops in public. I wore the Abercrombie shirts I coudn't fit into before. I was happy.
At age 18 I started college and couldn't keep up with the obsessive excersice, calorie counting, and purging. I regained 60 pounds in 4 years.
I'm now 22, and I'm right back where I was when I was 12.
For the past 3 years I've been doing anything short of being bulimic again to lose weight. I went strictly paleo for 4 months. I did Intermittent fasting for 2 months, I've counted my calories for years. I do cardio daily. I weigh every gram of food I eat.
I've ended up gaining even more weight.
When I asked my doctor why I was having such a hard time losing weight I was told that I had essentially destroyed my metabolism when I was bulimic. My metabolism is basically nonexistent. She told me I'll have to fight tooth and nail to lose the weight again and even if I do, the weight is almost guaranteed to bungee back on.
It was all for nothing.
I wish there was hope. But it seems hopeless.
Feel free to blame me for what I've become. It's what I deserve. But take this as a lesson to yourselves. I tried to take the desperate, "easy way" and destroyed my metabolism. The same will happen to you if you take the desperate path.
But I wasn't.
At age 8 my family mentioned how wide I was becoming every chance they got. (I was a normal weight, but not skinny enough for them at the time). I tried to avoid my family.
At age 9 my mom openly questioned "if I *really* needed to be eating *so* much" loudly, so all my friends heard. I stopped eating when friends were around, and started eating more while I was alone.
At age 10 my family called me "pizza face" because of my acne, and the shape of my face. I cut my bangs to cover up my pizza face. I ate even more, to cope.
At age 11 I became that kid the others used for target practice. I kept my head down and did my schoolwork while my classmates called me "fatso" and made fun of my disgutingly fat thighs. They pointed at my stomach and made sure everyone knew that I was the only girl not wearing Abercrombie, because they didn't make "fat sizes". I cried myself to sleep 2 months straight. I shoveled the food into my mouth, lamenting how fat I was.
At age 14 I attended a beginners guitar lesson and outplayed every kid there. They hated me for it. They called me "fatso", "fat lard" and "fatty" because I comitted the crime of being gifted with music, while fat. My guitar instructor did nothing but smirk. I quit guitar lessons.
At age 15 my hairdresser laughed and made smalltalk with me by calling her previous client a "fat sea cow". I knew she'd tell her next client the same thing about me. I started cutting my hair at home.
At age 16 I became bulimic. I lived at the gym. I starved myself for days at a time. I weighed myself every chance I got a high every time I lost a pound.
I 60 pounds in a matter of 3 months. I was slowly killing myself, but I finally felt beautiful. I wore the size 6 short shorts I always wanted. I wore tank tops in public. I wore the Abercrombie shirts I coudn't fit into before. I was happy.
At age 18 I started college and couldn't keep up with the obsessive excersice, calorie counting, and purging. I regained 60 pounds in 4 years.
I'm now 22, and I'm right back where I was when I was 12.
For the past 3 years I've been doing anything short of being bulimic again to lose weight. I went strictly paleo for 4 months. I did Intermittent fasting for 2 months, I've counted my calories for years. I do cardio daily. I weigh every gram of food I eat.
I've ended up gaining even more weight.
When I asked my doctor why I was having such a hard time losing weight I was told that I had essentially destroyed my metabolism when I was bulimic. My metabolism is basically nonexistent. She told me I'll have to fight tooth and nail to lose the weight again and even if I do, the weight is almost guaranteed to bungee back on.
It was all for nothing.
I wish there was hope. But it seems hopeless.
Feel free to blame me for what I've become. It's what I deserve. But take this as a lesson to yourselves. I tried to take the desperate, "easy way" and destroyed my metabolism. The same will happen to you if you take the desperate path.
17
Replies
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Your story makes me sad. But what you tell me about your doctor makes me angry. Your metabolism is fine. You have a hard time losing weight because you are using food as a coping mechanism. You will lose weight as long as you're in a consistent calorie deficit. And your weight will bungee back when you consistently eat more than your physical needs. Weightloss is not dependent on hope. Weightloss is dependent on you really eating less, consistently, and for a long time.10
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I am so incredibly sorry for what you have experienced throughout your life. Please know that you are not alone. I hope your family naively had no idea how much their words would negatively impact you. I've found that the majority of the world completely lacks empathy, but there are still people out there who do. I hope you can build a circle of supportive and loving people around you who remind you of how incredibly valuable you are. I can relate to many aspects of your story and it breaks my heart to know how much influence others have on the way we view ourselves. Like you, I have struggled with my body image the majority of my life. Please know that your worth and beauty encompasses so much more than just your physical self. If you haven't found enough people to love you for exactly who you are at any weight, I promise they are out there. More importantly, I promise it is possible to love yourself at any weight, too. I'm not there yet for myself, but I've seen people get there. I'm anorexic and working in a treatment group to get better. Hold on to your hope as much as you possibly can. All amazing possibilities are out there for you, and clearly you are amazingly strong-willed to get through everything you have so far.xo
ps...Have you seen "Embrace" on Netflix? So inspirational. My ED group instructor recommended it.
pss...My sorority sister's wonderfully uplifting blog: https://buxombabeblog.wordpress.com5 -
One day at a time. Don't be so hard on yourself. And Don't give it too much u will burn out. Make one change see how that affects you over 3 months. Take your time. Everytime u have a negative thought try to smash it with a positive thought as hard as that might be. Keep on going:) have some grit and have some hope.3
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you need a better doctor!3
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wow, you are committing so much energy, time and emotion looking back at your past .... if you could use that resource to look forwards you could really achieve your goals.
I dont think you can do this alone though .. you will need a support group but they need to be people that actually car about you and your well being, people that will stand by your plan not people with there own agendas or think they know whats best for you.
you might also want to spend some mony and get some proper therapy from a physcotherapist, ED therapist or the like that specialises in EDs5 -
Agree you need better medical advice. Do some research. Seek out the best Drs you can find. Seems like there’s a lot of room for improvement
As pointed out, you will lose weight when you are consistently eating at a deficit. Finding your number involves trial and error. All of the calculators and gadgets create the impression that they can tell us the right number. But the gadgets are just based on averages. No one is exactly average.
Use the gadgets to find a number to start with. If you aren’t losing after several weeks, yes weeks, cut some calories. Keep at it until you find the number that works. Prepare yourself for the time it takes to lose a significant amount.
Find a counselor to try to get you past the ruminating.
If you are saying you quit guitar, go back. Or go online for lessons. If you’ve got the ear, the gift, you’ll pick it right up. I’ve been in lots of guitar classes, loads of fun, but I lack the ear. Please don’t let it go to waste. 14 yr olds are asshats btw. When you get with real pickers, the only thing they will notice about you is how you play. You familiar with a band called Alabama Skakes? Fronted by bigger young woman who is a guitar monster. Really. May not be your thing but Britney is worth a look.
You don’t need to live like this, fight back. No one can do it for you.
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Dear one ,your journey hard but not in vain . Your pain has become others victory . Now from this Prophetess/mom/grandma You have never deserved what you been through. I would be honored to become your friend a second mom sort off .. you are gifted talented and so very beautiful. I hear it, see it, feel it .
Please add me ..please ..Ohh what you deserve is love mercy and a great life and it will come to you with time .
No dear one not blame you..rememmber to add me if you please
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No blame here. It sounds like you may benefit from speaking with a mental health counselor. That will be a start the rest will come day by day. Do one thing nice for yourself today.2
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I can relate to your story a lot, i know it's hard when nothing seems like it's working and everyone that you ask will say the same thing. It's not easy to feel like this and it's not easy or even completely possible to go to mental health services for this. I added you so I hope you accept. I'm 5'7" at 240 pounds and I spent my whole life yoyoing until I reached my highest weight at 277 last year.
You need a better support system, cheeriness and kind words don't always help. Its nice to have people who have suffered the same and are still fighting.2 -
I'm very sorry, sounds like you've had a tough time.
I do think you should get a new doctor though. That advice was lousy and irresponsible. She should know better.
You can do this. Yes it will be hard but you are worth it. You are worth the fight.
I'd start by finding someone to talk to. Have you tried counseling?1 -
Like others I want to encourage you that it is not hopeless. Your metabolism may be a bit slower than average but I know you can lose weight. One thing that has been determined by scientists is that metabolic slowdown is slight and does not make it impossible to lose weight. If that were true no one would have starved in the past. Below is a link to a study on this subject:
https://www.sciencestrength.com/sciencestrength/2017/1/19/debunking-the-metabolic-damage-myth
I'm sure your doctor was telling you what he believed to be true but it doesn't hold water. Don't let him steal your hope. Many people here have lost weight and kept it off and you can too. Take your time. Learn what works for you and you will get there.1 -
LittleLionGirl1304 wrote: »
<<snipped>>
When I asked my doctor why I was having such a hard time losing weight I was told that I had essentially destroyed my metabolism when I was bulimic. My metabolism is basically nonexistent. She told me I'll have to fight tooth and nail to lose the weight again and even if I do, the weight is almost guaranteed to bungee back on.
It was all for nothing.
I wish there was hope. But it seems hopeless.
Feel free to blame me for what I've become. It's what I deserve. But take this as a lesson to yourselves. I tried to take the desperate, "easy way" and destroyed my metabolism. The same will happen to you if you take the desperate path.
Wow. Your story makes me mad at all those people. :mad:
Here's the thing. Your doctor is wrong. You have a metabolism. You'd be dead if you didn't.
There is a calorie amount that will allow you to lose weight. I don't know what it is because I don't know how tall you are or what you weigh now. A 500 calorie deficit a day will allow you to lose a pound a week. To insure you actually have that deficit, you will need to accurately track and log your food. This website and a food scale are great tools to do that. Check out this thread.
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10634517/you-dont-use-a-food-scale/p1
As for blaming you?!? NO WAY! You deserve grace and forgiveness, especially from yourself.
It's time to educate yourself on the true science of weight loss. Not the diet industry woo. The truth is: To lose weight, you have to eat fewer calories than your body uses in a day. That's it. No special shakes, no special exercise, no pill or patch or apple cider vinegar.
It's simple, but it isn't easy.
You CAN do this.4 -
The thing about looking at what others have done to you is that it's not helpful. And it disregards your own agency. Whatever happened to you in the past, you are not there today. Today you have the ability to choose your own friends and your own situation and your own way of eating.
Your doctor gave you bad advice. Ignore it. Log honestly and without cutting calories for a month and figure out how many calories you maintain on, then reduce them. I apologize for saying something insulting, but many studies have found that people in general are bad about logging, and obese people are even worse about logging honestly than normal weight people. It's not true that you can't lose weight by cutting calories. If this were true, you should sign up for the mission to Mars so they won't have to solve the problem of how to ship enough food for the astronauts. You may need fewer calories than someone without a history of restricting, but the effect is small, and you can still lose weight,0 -
(((hugs)))
I'm sorry you've had so many worthless people in your life that made you feel worthless. You're not.
Take it one day at a time. Some days will be good. Some days will be bad. On good days, figure out what made them good. Do more of that (within reasonable limits
). 0 -
Blame? For blame to occur some offense must have taken place? What would this be?
You're not a victim, you are a survivor. You adapted and overcame and will outlast all of them.
I used to get angry with people who do this, but over the years it just makes me pity them. At some point they were treated the same or worse and their brain told them this was normal. It takes incredible insight, courage, and determination to stop the cycle.
I would recommend a good counselor/psychotherapist to help turn this past trauma into growth. This is not something to tackle online or alone. Face to face guidance is required.
To second (third, fourth?) the others responding to this your metabolism is just fine. You need to fire that doctor - all they did was spew diet industry woo. Metabolism is nothing more than a series of biochemical reactions - there is no such thing as a slow or fast metabolism, it either reacts, or it doesn't. If you typed this, then you have a metabolism. It isn't wrecked...or you'd be quite dead. I'll happily put my degrees and experience over the 1 semester of biochemistry this quack took.
Welcome aboard!3 -
LittleLionGirl1304 wrote: »I used to be fat. Really fat. Like 190 lbs, at 5'5" and 12 years old fat. Then I went to high school, and the girls were so thin and pretty. I envied them. I wished I was them.
But I wasn't.
At age 8 my family mentioned how wide I was becoming every chance they got. (I was a normal weight, but not skinny enough for them at the time). I tried to avoid my family.
At age 9 my mom openly questioned "if I *really* needed to be eating *so* much" loudly, so all my friends heard. I stopped eating when friends were around, and started eating more while I was alone.
At age 10 my family called me "pizza face" because of my acne, and the shape of my face. I cut my bangs to cover up my pizza face. I ate even more, to cope.
At age 11 I became that kid the others used for target practice. I kept my head down and did my schoolwork while my classmates called me "fatso" and made fun of my disgutingly fat thighs. They pointed at my stomach and made sure everyone knew that I was the only girl not wearing Abercrombie, because they didn't make "fat sizes". I cried myself to sleep 2 months straight. I shoveled the food into my mouth, lamenting how fat I was.
At age 14 I attended a beginners guitar lesson and outplayed every kid there. They hated me for it. They called me "fatso", "fat lard" and "fatty" because I comitted the crime of being gifted with music, while fat. My guitar instructor did nothing but smirk. I quit guitar lessons.
At age 15 my hairdresser laughed and made smalltalk with me by calling her previous client a "fat sea cow". I knew she'd tell her next client the same thing about me. I started cutting my hair at home.
At age 16 I became bulimic. I lived at the gym. I starved myself for days at a time. I weighed myself every chance I got a high every time I lost a pound.
I 60 pounds in a matter of 3 months. I was slowly killing myself, but I finally felt beautiful. I wore the size 6 short shorts I always wanted. I wore tank tops in public. I wore the Abercrombie shirts I coudn't fit into before. I was happy.
At age 18 I started college and couldn't keep up with the obsessive excersice, calorie counting, and purging. I regained 60 pounds in 4 years.
I'm now 22, and I'm right back where I was when I was 12.
For the past 3 years I've been doing anything short of being bulimic again to lose weight. I went strictly paleo for 4 months. I did Intermittent fasting for 2 months, I've counted my calories for years. I do cardio daily. I weigh every gram of food I eat.
I've ended up gaining even more weight.
When I asked my doctor why I was having such a hard time losing weight I was told that I had essentially destroyed my metabolism when I was bulimic. My metabolism is basically nonexistent. She told me I'll have to fight tooth and nail to lose the weight again and even if I do, the weight is almost guaranteed to bungee back on.
It was all for nothing.
I wish there was hope. But it seems hopeless.
Feel free to blame me for what I've become. It's what I deserve. But take this as a lesson to yourselves. I tried to take the desperate, "easy way" and destroyed my metabolism. The same will happen to you if you take the desperate path.
You didn’t destroy your metabolism, so that should help ease your thoughts.
I’ve had an eating disorder for 20 years, and I can still lose weight with healthy eating.
My opinion, don’t weigh daily (I know you probably do since I did from my ED.) only count weekly weigh ins. We both know how much food weight our bodies can hold from food weight and fluctuate throughout the day.
Second, drink a lot of water. The kidneys function to filter water. When you dehydrate yourself, the liver has to step in and help the kidneys, leaving the liver to abandon its job of metabolizing and aiding in the digestion of food.
Third, bulk up your meals with fruits and veggies. They’re lower in calories and made of mostly water and fiber. They are also digested quicker than other snacks if you’re a mindless muncher like I am.
Fourth, weight lift. Research shows each pound of muscle burns an extra 50 calories a day. Take measurements and progress photos because your body may stay the same weight by losing fat but gaining muscle. And since muscle is denser than fat, you can lose inches but not lose weight.
Fifth, do yoga at least once a week for mind clarity. Stress raises cortisol levels and it makes your body hold onto fat.1
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