mojorestoration
New member
May I begin with a disclaimer? I wrote this in a fit of emotion. Or...something like it. If you're on this forum, I know every single person has experienced this. Food, eating, body image...it's all highly emotionally tied. Well, I could go on about that, but I would just like to say that I'm generally a very positive and logical person. This post is not representative of who I am as a person, per se, but it was what I was feeling in the moment, and I did feel better after writing it...
***
The Catholics really know what's up, don't they? Confessions. You spill your soul to some anonymous person and you repent. And you feel better. And you're forgiven. And you leave that little box with clean slate and a renewed sense of self worth. Or, something like that, right? I'm not actually catholic, so I don't really know what goes on, but this seems like the jist of it.
So now I repent. In this cathartic post, I write all, and I hope that the Internet gods will forgive me. It's difficult to know where to begin, but being the logical, linear person that I've always been, I shall write a sort of time line
Spring 2012:
I was so disciplined. My focus on my studies was unparalleled, I was eating only salads and "healthy" foods, and I began running and doing yoga nearly every day. I lost a prodigious amount of weight, though I wasn't trying to. I had always been thin-normal, and never worried about my diet. I never had issues with food.
When I realized that I was going to Florida in a few weeks, and that I was borderline "bikini hot", I actually started trying. I became quite thin. There were bones in places I had never seen them. I got that those desirable little teardrop-shaped deltoid bumps in my upper arms.
I was cold. All the time.
I felt great being that skinny. I loved it when people told me how thin I looked. I have always been the "smart girl," never feeling that I have been that attractive, but now I walked with more confidence and felt I was more than just the nerdy academic.
Summer 2012
Our one summer "off" during med school...between our first and seconds years. I worked with my former boss doing research, house-sat in one of my professors' awesome mansion, and drank a lot of wine. I also decided to try online dating. I had toyed with the idea for some time, but had always been too scared. But now with my new "sexy" body, I had found the confidence. In my typical style, I went in head first.... there were so, so many dates. None of them were bad...but none of them were great, either. I met several of what I liked to call "perfect on papers": great job, similar interests, handsome, nice house...but no one with whom I "clicked." I wondered what was wrong with me...that I couldn't be interested in these seemingly quite desirable men who seemed to be interested in me? It was exhausting...emotionally and physically and I ended the summer with less hope for romance than I began it.
Fall/winter 2012-13:
I discovered the concept of binging towards the end of the summer. I'm not sure what triggered it...but I discovered I could eat and eat and eat and then I would forget. I suppose I was lonely. I would be in too much pain to think of anything. I didn't do it so often at that time. I decided to do the the "Master cleanse" (lemon juice, cayenne pepper, and maple syrup)...biggest mistake of my life. It wasn't to loose weight that I was doing it...just to "reset," but it was just terrible for my health. After I completed the 10 days of starvation, I ate everything in site for days on end and had stomach issues for weeks. Well, duh.
I then made the decision to become vegan. Why? I honestly can't tell you, but my eating was becoming disordered and I was looking for a way to control it. My German, sausage-loving father almost disowned me....ha!
From vegan to paleo overnight! Good lord. I hated paleo, though. It didn't work with my runner's lifestyle...I needed my carbs! The binging became worse during this time...I would drink entire cans of full-fat coconut milk (coconut products and I have some issues)! I stopped strict paleo after quite a short time, and then just floundered about, binging and starving, binging and "cleansing."
I didn't know what normal eating was anymore. By May 2013, I had gained about 4 lbs, but it wasn't really noticeable.
Spring 2013:
I returned to my childhood home, where my parents still live, to study for the Step 1 USMLE Boards, the bane of every medicals student's existence. It was a terrible decision. I wanted to go there to isolate myself from any social distractions, and that I certainly did, but I kind of went crazy...and I would eat to forget how much I hated studying 12 hours/day. I would eat until I literally couldn't study anymore...then I would watch some shitty show on Lifetime, and I fell further and further behind. I hated those five weeks with such passion...I questioned my sanity more than once. I've diagnosed myself with PTSD from that experience!
Summer 2013
The 8 hour-long dreaded exam came and went, and they tell me the worst of med school is over. Luckily, with all the exercise I did during the boards and the few weeks we got off after, I had been able to maintain my "baseline" weight, though I struggled internally with food a lot.
In early July, I started my clerkship rotations...surgery was my first. Jesus, surgery. I don't want to be a surgeon, and I never have, so I thought it would be a good idea to "get it out of the way".... I was working 14-17 days, 6 days/week, and had no more time to compulsively exercise, as I had been doing for several years. When I got home, completely exhausted, I didn't want to prepare and eat a nutritious meal. I wanted ice cream, and a lot of it. So much ice cream! I was wearing scrubs every day (which, by the way, I absolutely hate...I seriously don't understand people's obsession with them!), so I didn't notice any weight gain. My exhaustion was worsened by my food choices and my lack of exercise.
By the end of the 5 weeks, I had gained a lot of weight. I haven't weighed for a very long time (I previously weighed at least 3x/week, religiously), but many of my clothes didn't fit. My previously perfect, accutane-cured skin was getting bad again...I had to start wearing foundation to cover the blemishes...
I'm now almost finished with my second rotation, and though the schedule is MUCH better, the eating is not a psychological necessity. It's a vicious cycle. I don't want to go out with friends because I'm afraid they'll judge me...and really I don't want to be seen in public that much in my "state." So, I sit at home and am bored and lonely and...what do I do? Eat, of course. It makes me feel better for about 20 minutes. I am delighted, actually. I'll watch some bad TV and eat and be so happy...but that happiness is very fleeting. It is soon replaced by a feeling of disgust and utter guilt. I tell myself every time, EVERY *&^*(%@^ TIME, that it won't happen again. But it does. It happens again and again. And again.
I have started to exercise again, though, and for that I'm happy. Not running yet...I'm too scared still because I know it will be a difficult process to get back to the pace I was once at (and I know it will be worse because of the extra weight I'm carrying), but I'm biking to the hospital, about 8 miles total there and back, at a good clip, and have started Bar Method, with which I have a love/hate relationship. I hate walking in there with my "ugly" workout clothes on (all of my cute ones don't fit, of course), and seeing all the perky, pretty, LuluLemon-clad women. I know they're judging me. I used to be one of the judgers. I did some Barre3 last winter and spring, and I'd go into the room and prance right to the front, so that everyone would see me. I wanted these judgmental, bitchy women to be jealous of me. My body was great, and I worked really hard to get it that way. You just have to be a disordered eater and exercise compulsively and you'll have a body JUST like mine! Doesn't that sound fun? Now, I go to the farthest back recesses of the room with my head held low. I've always been a glutton for punishment, though (c'mon, I'm in med school, it's not that surprising). I see myself in those giant mirrors and it helps to stop me from eating as much. I see all those women with great bodies, and I know I can be one again.
I'm lost, and I know I can find my way...but it's difficult to see how I'll do it. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. It's there... I can reach it....but how? I try to run towards it, but sometimes it seems like I'm getting further away.
***
The Catholics really know what's up, don't they? Confessions. You spill your soul to some anonymous person and you repent. And you feel better. And you're forgiven. And you leave that little box with clean slate and a renewed sense of self worth. Or, something like that, right? I'm not actually catholic, so I don't really know what goes on, but this seems like the jist of it.
So now I repent. In this cathartic post, I write all, and I hope that the Internet gods will forgive me. It's difficult to know where to begin, but being the logical, linear person that I've always been, I shall write a sort of time line
Spring 2012:
I was so disciplined. My focus on my studies was unparalleled, I was eating only salads and "healthy" foods, and I began running and doing yoga nearly every day. I lost a prodigious amount of weight, though I wasn't trying to. I had always been thin-normal, and never worried about my diet. I never had issues with food.
When I realized that I was going to Florida in a few weeks, and that I was borderline "bikini hot", I actually started trying. I became quite thin. There were bones in places I had never seen them. I got that those desirable little teardrop-shaped deltoid bumps in my upper arms.
I was cold. All the time.
I felt great being that skinny. I loved it when people told me how thin I looked. I have always been the "smart girl," never feeling that I have been that attractive, but now I walked with more confidence and felt I was more than just the nerdy academic.
Summer 2012
Our one summer "off" during med school...between our first and seconds years. I worked with my former boss doing research, house-sat in one of my professors' awesome mansion, and drank a lot of wine. I also decided to try online dating. I had toyed with the idea for some time, but had always been too scared. But now with my new "sexy" body, I had found the confidence. In my typical style, I went in head first.... there were so, so many dates. None of them were bad...but none of them were great, either. I met several of what I liked to call "perfect on papers": great job, similar interests, handsome, nice house...but no one with whom I "clicked." I wondered what was wrong with me...that I couldn't be interested in these seemingly quite desirable men who seemed to be interested in me? It was exhausting...emotionally and physically and I ended the summer with less hope for romance than I began it.
Fall/winter 2012-13:
I discovered the concept of binging towards the end of the summer. I'm not sure what triggered it...but I discovered I could eat and eat and eat and then I would forget. I suppose I was lonely. I would be in too much pain to think of anything. I didn't do it so often at that time. I decided to do the the "Master cleanse" (lemon juice, cayenne pepper, and maple syrup)...biggest mistake of my life. It wasn't to loose weight that I was doing it...just to "reset," but it was just terrible for my health. After I completed the 10 days of starvation, I ate everything in site for days on end and had stomach issues for weeks. Well, duh.
I then made the decision to become vegan. Why? I honestly can't tell you, but my eating was becoming disordered and I was looking for a way to control it. My German, sausage-loving father almost disowned me....ha!
From vegan to paleo overnight! Good lord. I hated paleo, though. It didn't work with my runner's lifestyle...I needed my carbs! The binging became worse during this time...I would drink entire cans of full-fat coconut milk (coconut products and I have some issues)! I stopped strict paleo after quite a short time, and then just floundered about, binging and starving, binging and "cleansing."
I didn't know what normal eating was anymore. By May 2013, I had gained about 4 lbs, but it wasn't really noticeable.
Spring 2013:
I returned to my childhood home, where my parents still live, to study for the Step 1 USMLE Boards, the bane of every medicals student's existence. It was a terrible decision. I wanted to go there to isolate myself from any social distractions, and that I certainly did, but I kind of went crazy...and I would eat to forget how much I hated studying 12 hours/day. I would eat until I literally couldn't study anymore...then I would watch some shitty show on Lifetime, and I fell further and further behind. I hated those five weeks with such passion...I questioned my sanity more than once. I've diagnosed myself with PTSD from that experience!
Summer 2013
The 8 hour-long dreaded exam came and went, and they tell me the worst of med school is over. Luckily, with all the exercise I did during the boards and the few weeks we got off after, I had been able to maintain my "baseline" weight, though I struggled internally with food a lot.
In early July, I started my clerkship rotations...surgery was my first. Jesus, surgery. I don't want to be a surgeon, and I never have, so I thought it would be a good idea to "get it out of the way".... I was working 14-17 days, 6 days/week, and had no more time to compulsively exercise, as I had been doing for several years. When I got home, completely exhausted, I didn't want to prepare and eat a nutritious meal. I wanted ice cream, and a lot of it. So much ice cream! I was wearing scrubs every day (which, by the way, I absolutely hate...I seriously don't understand people's obsession with them!), so I didn't notice any weight gain. My exhaustion was worsened by my food choices and my lack of exercise.
By the end of the 5 weeks, I had gained a lot of weight. I haven't weighed for a very long time (I previously weighed at least 3x/week, religiously), but many of my clothes didn't fit. My previously perfect, accutane-cured skin was getting bad again...I had to start wearing foundation to cover the blemishes...
I'm now almost finished with my second rotation, and though the schedule is MUCH better, the eating is not a psychological necessity. It's a vicious cycle. I don't want to go out with friends because I'm afraid they'll judge me...and really I don't want to be seen in public that much in my "state." So, I sit at home and am bored and lonely and...what do I do? Eat, of course. It makes me feel better for about 20 minutes. I am delighted, actually. I'll watch some bad TV and eat and be so happy...but that happiness is very fleeting. It is soon replaced by a feeling of disgust and utter guilt. I tell myself every time, EVERY *&^*(%@^ TIME, that it won't happen again. But it does. It happens again and again. And again.
I have started to exercise again, though, and for that I'm happy. Not running yet...I'm too scared still because I know it will be a difficult process to get back to the pace I was once at (and I know it will be worse because of the extra weight I'm carrying), but I'm biking to the hospital, about 8 miles total there and back, at a good clip, and have started Bar Method, with which I have a love/hate relationship. I hate walking in there with my "ugly" workout clothes on (all of my cute ones don't fit, of course), and seeing all the perky, pretty, LuluLemon-clad women. I know they're judging me. I used to be one of the judgers. I did some Barre3 last winter and spring, and I'd go into the room and prance right to the front, so that everyone would see me. I wanted these judgmental, bitchy women to be jealous of me. My body was great, and I worked really hard to get it that way. You just have to be a disordered eater and exercise compulsively and you'll have a body JUST like mine! Doesn't that sound fun? Now, I go to the farthest back recesses of the room with my head held low. I've always been a glutton for punishment, though (c'mon, I'm in med school, it's not that surprising). I see myself in those giant mirrors and it helps to stop me from eating as much. I see all those women with great bodies, and I know I can be one again.
I'm lost, and I know I can find my way...but it's difficult to see how I'll do it. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. It's there... I can reach it....but how? I try to run towards it, but sometimes it seems like I'm getting further away.
