The Sixteenth: What I've Learned

This is what I've learned in my years and years of disordered eating, weight gain, and weight loss.

1) If someone you love is having these problems, shut up.

No, really. You're just trying to be supportive? That's a very nice sentiment. DON'T ACT ON IT. No, seriously. No comments, no encouragement, no questions, NOTHING. Despite many, many discussions about this, A just told me he's proud of me and that he can see more muscle, and now I have spent my day obsessing. THAT'S NOT HELPFUL. If that doesn't help, neither will your extremely misguided "hard love" or "telling it like it is" or "honesty". Your loved one is in serious trouble? Send them to a professional. YOU, YOURSELF, CANNOT DO ANYTHING, EXCEPT SOMETHING BAD.

2) Baby steps.

It is very tempting to go on an extreme diet/exercise kick because you see huge results in a very short amount of time. But, aside from being unhealthy, that is just really hard to do. Lots of discipline, lots of misery, lots of pain all of a sudden. Make changes really, really, really easy on yourself. If you keep derailing, keep reducing the change until you don't. I'm serious. Five minutes of exercising a day can grow. Forty-five minutes a day won't if you give up after two days.

3) Invest/Plan.

Be very, very realistic (this is key), and set yourself up from the beginning with anything you could possibly want/need. Change the plan if it's unrealistic (and be extremely honest with yourself about what you will and won't do). Anything you can get to make the experience more pleasant is WORTH THE MONEY.

Initially, I never wanted to invest in any equipment until I could prove to myself that I would stick with it. I never bought myself an mp3 player for running, because I felt I had never run long enough to warrant the expense. A bought me one for my birthday, and it is so, so, so much more pleasant to run now. And I run longer, faster, better.

Seriously, buy/do anything that will make your regimen easier/more pleasant. You will stave off derailment.

4) Eating disorders are unique.

Your eating disorder and all its attendant stuff is not going to be like anybody else's exactly. No one professional, no one book, no one website, no one diagnosis, no one diet is going to be the key. But, all of these things can help. Consult everything, and try everything. It will be a long, long process to find exactly what combination of things helps you. Good luck.

5) The public is deeply stupid.

Most people with severe weight issues have a very serious underlying problem, be it depression, compulsion, medical, or situational. THEY DID NOT SUDDENLY CHOOSE TO BE ANOREXIC OR OBESE OR CONSTANTLY FIGHTING 20 POUNDS OR WHATEVER.

You tell anyone doesn't understand how you "let" yourself get that way (as if you don't hate it, as if he/she actually put effort into his/her naturally good eating habits, as if he/she isn't a complete moron) to stuff it.

If you want to check my references before you follow my advice (or if you seriously love dense reading), here are my experiences with my stuff in full:

Exercise: Before college, I played team sports my whole life, but I never exercised during the off-season or anytime outside of practice. No one in my family exercised regularly (except for my sister, who was an accomplished college athlete), so I genuinely thought that people who went to the gym were complete health nuts who also chugged raw eggs and ate wheat germ while running marathons.

In college, intramural sports conflicted with my Italian classes, so I was almost totally inactive for the first three years. However, in that time, I observed tons and tons and tons of totally normal people going to the gym all the time and realized that the average healthy person works out several times a week.

The summer after my junior year, I started working out. I had a really unusual internship in the Florida Keys where the people I met went nowhere, got bitter, and died. There was NOTHING to do outside of my job. NO ONE who was at all interested in doing anything ever. NO PLACE to spend time that was affordable and interesting. Except this one beautiful gym. There, people cared about health, happiness, and the future. The gym was clean and new. It was a lovely, lovely atmosphere. I went every day at lunch time.

Senior year, I went to the gym sporadically, usually being very responsible and then very bad in cycles. After college, I did some intramural sports at my job and went to the gym and got some personal training sessions with A, but all of that did not amount to regular, frequent exercise.

This past summer/fall in China, I ran on the dirt road behind the school for several weeks until the administrators told me they were very, very concerned that I'd get bitten by one of the stray (and, admittedly, very aggressive) dogs that belonged the local farmers who worked back there. So I started doing the occasional workout video in my apartment, but nothing significant.

Five weeks ago, I began a half-marathon training program, currently running about 4 days a week.

Eating: Until college, I ate the healthy food my parents provided when I liked it (I am a very picky eater), threw away anything I didn't like (in elementary school, this was usually my entire lunch), and scavenged junk food from any available source. My success with the latter was moderated by my lack of funds and the limited generosity of my schoolmates, so I generally ate a mostly healthy diet with some junk food in moderation.

I had/have a massive sweet tooth, which my father was particularly worried about. His excessive restrictions turned sugar into an absolute obsession for me--I ate any available sweets, whether I was hungry or not, whether it was good or not, because I never knew when I was going to get another opportunity.

The summer before my junior year of high school, I slimmed down due an active, healthy lifestyle at summer camp and loved the results. I decided to continue avoiding junk food (which was not available at camp) and to eat well. That was a really busy school year for me (two AP's, soccer, and waterpolo), so I fell into the habit of eating the same thing every day. It was very healthful food, but not enough calories or protein to fuel what I was burning in waterpolo. Unfortunately, I had neither the time, nor the energy, nor the awareness to pay more attention to my hunger pains.

After my weight plummeted (and my period stopped), my worried mother took me to a nutritionist who put me on a weight-gaining diet. After ignoring hunger for so long, I was directed by a professional to ignore satiation, to eat no matter what my body said. To this day, seven years later, I still can't read my body's signals. To this day, I have a problem with overeating.

Freshman year of college, I developed a very serious problem with bingeing. I lived right next to the dining hall, all freshmen had the unlimited meal plan, and, for the first time, I had no parents restricting my junk food.

After the initial horror and a flurry of failed ambitious diets, I tried to focus more on learning how to maintain my weight and to understand my compulsion. This took the edge off the crazy. I began weathering the binges way better by making a point of giving in as soon as the cravings hit and reminding myself that it was temporary, that I would eat well afterwards (I tend to eat light, fresh fare when I'm not bingeing), that my simple goal of maintaining allowed for some binges. As soon as I stopped resisting/stressing about the binges, they became less frequent and shorter.

During the rest of college, by paying careful attention and trying a thousand different ways of eating, I figured out my own disorder. As my understanding of my triggers/neuroses/habits/cravings grew, my bingeing got less and less.

After college, I started eating a bowl of Grape-Nuts (what? they're good!) every morning. I had large meals once or twice a day (classic for those with hunger/satiation problems) at constantly varying times of the day (I'm disorganized), eating mostly healthful foods except during binges. Binges happened once/twice a week on average and usually took the form of a pint of ice cream, or half a cake.

This December, I finally succeeded (after many, many attempts since college) in giving up sugar, which is what I always binge on. This was largely assisted by the fact that I was in China, where there was only one tempting sugary item (Oreos), but I'm in the habit of no sugar now, so I can resist the temptations at home.

This week, I have just started eating small amounts frequently and at regular times. The food is almost the same every day. Sometimes (often) I eat until I'm good and full, which I know is past satiation, but I am not really bingeing anymore.

Weight: My weight was very normal most of my life. No problems before puberty. After puberty, I wasn't perfect with a flat stomach, but normal and stable enough that I really never thought about it much.

Junior year of high school, I slimmed down and had that perfect flat stomach, which made me very happy (even when I got too thin). Unfortunately, I think this is when I started to think about my weight all the time, even if it was all good thoughts at that time.

Later that year, I briefly followed the nutritionist's diet and started a steady, unstoppable weight gain that continued through the end of high school. I began college having just gained another 10 lbs. during a totally inactive the summer on the couch.

During my first year of college, I gained 40 pounds--30 during the first semester alone.

The following summer, I managed to stop gaining (I tapped out around 195) and maintained in the 180's, which gave me the chance to finally get used to my new, larger body. I faced buying new clothes (I had been living in pajama pants) and generally began feeling more attractive.

In the next 2 1/2 years of college, as I learned more about my eating disorder and my bingeing improved, I slowly lost 30ish pounds and then plateaued, hovering in the 160's for all of last semester senior year and for many months after graduation (about a year total).

In the last 1 1/2 years, with slight increases in exercise, I've been hovering in the 150's. I'm fairly happy with my body at this weight, and I'm not that worried about my eating, so my motivation to make anymore lifestyle changes is pretty weak. (I'm not sure what finally made me stick with giving up sugar -- low resolve derailed me half a dozen times before I really did it.)

Future: These days I have become more proactive about my health, which is causing some weight loss again. I began exercising because I am totally sick of being weak, and because I am going to hike across England with my mother in September, for which I need to build up some endurance. Plus, for my lifelong health (I've been thinking a lot about my future since A and I made a lot of grown-up future decisions), I should really be exercising regularly and getting enough Calcium starting now.

The truly shocking thing is that I just realized that my priorities have changed so much. No, I'm still not the vision of skinny perfection I've been dreaming about for seven years, but, honest-to-goodness (and contrary to an earlier post), I don't really care that much anymore. My weight's been stable for a long time, which is key -- I don't feel different in my own skin on a daily basis, and my wardrobe fits me all the time, so I'm not constantly triggered to think about my weight. And I'm lean enough that it is possible for me to look/feel hot when I want to.

What I do care about is that I ran to class the other day (I was late) and didn't get winded at all. And, two days ago I was most of the way around my first lap on the track when I realized that I was still breathing normally through my nose! I used to think about all the jaws I could drop and the insane first impressions I could make with my hot, hard-bodied self, but these days I am fantasizing about the day I can write an email home that says,


Dear Family,

Today I ran 10 miles.

Love, Molly


I mean, me. Ten miles. That's a lot of miles.

.....

That's the story for now.