One More Time

I am as I mentioned before in the last gasp effort to fight off this insidious anorexia nervosa disease.

Going to the gym proved to be the tell tail sign of how fragile and weak I am and how I must at all costs overcome my phobia of putting on weight and getting healthy, although I am desperate to get to well and dig myself out of the unhealthy hole I have created over the last two plus years.

I have really struggled over the past year to overcome my anorexic mindset through my use of Radical Will with my health care providers. It has worked yet it has failed.

I am no longer desiring to lose more weight but I am just as intense about not gaining weight from my current place of wavering just at the 100pound mark.

I wonder how can this be? I came all the way back from 69 pounds to 100 pounds which is quite the feat and I did that without much trouble once I got my hypermetabolic syndrome straightened out and began eating the right prescription food to gain weight back instead of continuously losing it.

The big question mark for myself and everyone else is how I could climb from 69 pounds to 100 pounds quite healthfully and then freeze myself in place and completely struggle with putting on any additional weight.

My first two days at the gym have been the most humbling days of my existence post anorexia and I can’t say it or stress it enough the fear brought on by my fragile body that once glistened at the gym and paid no attention to the lightweights like I do now. I am only able to concentrate on the lightweights and it wouldn’t be embarrassing or humbling if when I last visited the gym prior to anorexia I was lifting 6-7 times more weight then I am now.

Forget my ego, forget my pride, I just want my healthy body back which was capable of more than holding its own at the gym.

I am caught up in my fiery brain and my mind that is keeping cadence with my brain, and I wonder out loud and to myself if all this sedentary life that I have adopted due to injuries in May and August are somewhat to blame indirectly for my fragility in all other ways my body expresses itself.

I have been certainly doing brain exercises and improving my state of mind and my output of productivity but I have abandoned my physicality and my exercise for more writing and reading. Is it a sign of turning forty or is an easy out so I don’t have to face the consequences of the anorexia?

I don’t know but obviously better balance with my body and mind is needed. I stopped exercising because people told me I was losing weight but I believe that was not the right answer. I believe that excessive exercising is not helpful for the anorexic but that moderate exercise is probably much more healthy than letting ones self become out of shape and fragile. I was walking 5-7 miles a day which was excessive but walking 1-3 miles a day is a normal amount of healthful exercise that at the very least healthy people accomplish and when you have anorexia and when you restrict exercise you are that much further from overall health of the complete body and mind than if you stopped exercising  and continue on with the anorexia.

I believe all anorexics should have some sort of physical exercise while using Radical Will to overcome the anorexia in the mindset of the patient. The benefits of exercise on the brain/body is indisputable and I believe I really took a turn for the worse giving up the exercise all together and that left me with my mind to concentrate more deeply on the anorexia.

I certainly don’t blame anybody, but I am going to share what I know and what I learned to help others so they might be able to avoid my mistakes or correct the issue for anyone who has restricted their exercise due to their anorexia and restriction of food.

I am disappointed that I didn’t put more forethought in the decision to cease all exercise with my continuation of anorexic tendencies and habits.

I am learning that no one knows without rhythm or reason all that anorexia entails. I know no one understands anorexia fully or completely but I do believe the professional advice I received was ill-fated and has caused me further damage than the sole act of restriction of foods.

I write from a broken heart that I exposed and that anorexia revenged and sadly the medical professionals did not have the right answers for me. I am no way suggesting that medical professionals involved in anorexia do not offer good, sound advice for some patients. However, we are all individuals and what might be right for one person doesn’t necessarily work for another.

In the matter of exercise on the brain, it  has endorphin effects that are priceless to both the healthy individual and the anorexic patient. I am not quite sure how this could be overlooked and with reducing exercise and maintaining anorexia. You now have two gravely unhealthy habits of lifestyle.

I believe for me the reduction in exercise was the complex effect of my lackluster weight restoration, that again remains one of the most controversial aspects of the recovering anorexic. I was not typical in my weight restoration, and as a result perhaps all aspects of caloric expenditures were reduced or nullified to make it more likely that weight gain would eventually take place.

With my case it was far more complicated and got into hypermetabolic syndrome which was a separate issue than the insidious anorexia. No matter how much I ate naturally and with the usual feeding protocols I did not and wouldn’t have gained weight.

I am here today, with a shake ingested, and my gym bag packed ready for the gym , and ready to keep my chin high and fight back the tears of my body’s own fragility and my desperate place I am starting from which is so very far from where I once was.

I hope for all of you suffering from anorexia that you do maintain some strength now or eventually to go for a little walk outside, and smell the fresh air, and get your blood pumping through your veins as you recover from the anorexic mind that is staring you down right in front of you. You may lose a little weight, but I truly believe you will be healthier for getting your body moving, getting out of bed, or away from the computer, or away from the TV, and get in a small yet desperately needed walk. You can do this by yourself, a friend, your dog, or whomever makes you happy for just a moment, as you forget your anorexia and the fact that you are a recovering anorexic.

I have hope and I am filled with hope for today and the days that follow. You can only start where you are. If climbing a set of stairs is too much, work on that today, and get closer to getting to the top than you did yesterday. It doesn’t matter what you do, the feeling and the actually accomplishment of exercise is priceless to the anorexic mind and body. I do believe wherever you are you can and will with daily work, get to your next goal and than your goal after that. I think that I am so devastated because even though I was once anorexic I had my physical health about me as something I was proud of and didn’t have stripped from me like I had done with the food restriction.

So I will crawl to the gym, and you my dear friends, start where you are, and make a goal preferably a six week goal, so it is not too long or not too short. I will hold back my tears, but feel free to cry, to yell, to sob if you must to get to the next day of facing your goals. You are not alone and I know I am not either.  Thank you all for your support.

-Corey

BORN THIS WAY-2016