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RG1 · 06-14-2009, 06:38 PM

I was listening to Leigh's first podcast yesterday, don't know how I missed it when it came out. She was talking about getting information to the anorexic, (I didn't see where she put the links that she was talking aobut there) that anorexia and bulimia are really the same thing, and I wonder if I'm on the same spectrum. I've been exercising/ dieting for 18 years since I was 21. Before that, I knew that foods were bad for me but most of the time I just ate whatever. Some healthy, some junk, little exercise. And then one day I hit a weight that was too much and went on a low-fat diet and started riding a bike. I lost a lot of weight, obsessed about the low-fat diet and tried to keep exercising. Eventually the low-fat itself was'nt enough to drop my weight or bodyfat, and my workout schedule scared my roommates. Clearly I wasn't eating enough protein then. Anyway, it feels like I am always either "on" a diet and doing everything right or "off" a diet and gaining weight. I haven't found maintenance.

I think the most recent time I tried to hit maintenance, what happened is that I dropped the cardio, and had only small amounts of yoga, walking to an otherwise sedentary lifestyle. Adding junk at the same time led to the obvious result. I don't know if this is a kind of long-term bulimia/anorexia cycle or this is just normal, figuring it out. I think that in order to maintain, I can either 1. eat out and eat junk but workout like a fiend or 2. eat clean and drop the cardio. Finding a balance is hard. When I know I need to lose weight, it's easy to say "no" to fries and eating out and alcohol. And is there some medical, hormonal kind of reason that I don't go from losing weight to maintenance. Is it like, when the psychological control is dropped, then my body wins and eats stuff that I should have eaten all along?

I'm curious what other people think about this issue. Is it common, is it just about finding the right balance and not see-sawing between loss/gain, is it about realizing that I can never have certain trigger foods?

06-14-2009, 06:38 PM	#18 (permalink)
RG1 Junior Member Join Date: Jul 2008 Posts: 10	I was listening to Leigh's first podcast yesterday, don't know how I missed it when it came out. She was talking about getting information to the anorexic, (I didn't see where she put the links that she was talking aobut there) that anorexia and bulimia are really the same thing, and I wonder if I'm on the same spectrum. I've been exercising/ dieting for 18 years since I was 21. Before that, I knew that foods were bad for me but most of the time I just ate whatever. Some healthy, some junk, little exercise. And then one day I hit a weight that was too much and went on a low-fat diet and started riding a bike. I lost a lot of weight, obsessed about the low-fat diet and tried to keep exercising. Eventually the low-fat itself was'nt enough to drop my weight or bodyfat, and my workout schedule scared my roommates. Clearly I wasn't eating enough protein then. Anyway, it feels like I am always either "on" a diet and doing everything right or "off" a diet and gaining weight. I haven't found maintenance. I think the most recent time I tried to hit maintenance, what happened is that I dropped the cardio, and had only small amounts of yoga, walking to an otherwise sedentary lifestyle. Adding junk at the same time led to the obvious result. I don't know if this is a kind of long-term bulimia/anorexia cycle or this is just normal, figuring it out. I think that in order to maintain, I can either 1. eat out and eat junk but workout like a fiend or 2. eat clean and drop the cardio. Finding a balance is hard. When I know I need to lose weight, it's easy to say "no" to fries and eating out and alcohol. And is there some medical, hormonal kind of reason that I don't go from losing weight to maintenance. Is it like, when the psychological control is dropped, then my body wins and eats stuff that I should have eaten all along? I'm curious what other people think about this issue. Is it common, is it just about finding the right balance and not see-sawing between loss/gain, is it about realizing that I can never have certain trigger foods?