Once a Day. . .or Once a Week

I really am trying to post much more than I do. It is incredibly hard to say that you blog if you're blogging 4 times a month. But school and work have been crazy and by the time I actually get to relax, I am usually chilling with Mike or Haley or catching up on Once Upon a Time or New Girl. 

Anyways, this is going to be a quick post today. I am getting SUPER excited about Halloween! It should be a lot of fun dressing up and going out with good friends and hopefully new friends (yes Meghan, I mean you)! Mike and I are dressing up as 20s Gangsters and after 3 costumes and a lot of research, I finally put together a costume that I am comfortable with that also looks good. After all of that searching and returning costumes and buying new ones, I finally remembered that I have the perfect dress in my own closet! It figures! Now I just need to find a white tie (anyone have a white tie I can borrow?).

I have been feeling a lot better over the past couple of weeks (after my kidney infection that landed me in the hospital). However, today I have started feeling lousy again. . .hopefully it's just the weather and not a relapse. Being sick has been awful, it has set me back a little mentally. I lost about 5 pounds in the first 6 days of being sick last month and really don't want to gain it back. I don't really need to worry about gaining it because I am actually still losing weight, but I am fairly certain it is muscle loss since I haven't been working out a lot. I am struggling again to make myself eat. You get kind of a weird "high" when you have been anorexic and don't have to eat because you don't have an appetite. Not to mention the feeling of people tell you that you have lost some weight and seeing the lower numbers on the scale is invigorating. But I am trying to get through it and focus on eating healthy again and getting back to running and working out.

Mike is currently making us a healthy dinner, can't wait to eat it!

(Salmon & Broccoli)

The Shocking Truth!

It is amazing how much you see when you open your eyes to the world around you and stop obsessing about something. One of the biggest things I have noticed recently is how much society has messed up our views of "normal". Granted, because I work in the fitness industry, I am exposed to a lot more of it than I was before, but it is still shocking to see how easy it is for people to fall prey to these lies.

There is always the occasional woman at the gym who is so obsessed with getting that perfect skinny body, that she spends two hours or more a day doing cardio. This is not necessarily always a bad thing, but when a woman is overexerting herself and not replenishing correctly, there is a certain look that their muscles and body take from this lifestyle. Not only are they hurting their bodies internally, they aren't progressing. When you do the same workout every single day, your body adapts to it and the benefits of the workout diminish.

The biggest shock to me so far is what people consider to be an acceptable amount of food. I lived for a couple years trying to stay under 600 calories a day and making sure that I ran every day. Granted I only probably stayed within that limit 50% of the time. But I was very "good" at planning my days out. If I knew I was going out to eat that night, I wouldn't eat anything during the day to save up for later and I would generally try to split meals with someone or order sides as a meal (broccoli, salad, corn).  When I did splurge I felt SO guilty that I would make sure to get some extra running in and eat as little as possible for the next few days. I literally lived by the scale.

As a personal trainer I am exposed a lot more to people that overeat than under eat. Occasionally there is the person that has restricted their diet too much for their activity level, but that is rare and its not as much of an eating disorder as a lack of understand the body. Today I was reading a blog about a woman's weight loss journey and her extreme success. Of course I was interested in reading about this plan I had never heard of before. But within the first paragraph I realized how dangerous this diet was. Not only was it an HGC diet, but it had a calorie restriction of 650 calories per day! This was not the shocking part, I've read and researched such diets, and of course as I said before, I lived off of this little myself. The shocking part was that this woman and so many other woman that were reading and commenting on her blog think that this is perfectly normal and all just really good self-discipline! After reading through a good dozen comments of people congratulating her or asking questions or commenting on how they had also been doing something similar, I finally came across a few comments make by some nurses who stated their concern and the damage that these women are unknowingly inflicting upon themselves.

This is a great example of women who have been tricked into an eating disorder. All of these women defended themselves saying that the plan had been "scientifically" proven and that they had been backed up by their chiropractors and such. These women are choosing to believe the crap that they are being fed and are unknowingly developing eating disorders. And unfortunately these types of diets are becoming more widespread which is causing the number of eating disorders to rise. Although the life expectancy of our generation is higher than the generations before us, that could change rapidly if the number of people with eating disorders continue to rise. If a change is not made in our generation, what is going to happen to the next generation, to our children and our grandchildren?

If you had the ability to make a difference now that could save someone you love, would you do it?

Back to the Grind

I definitely have fallen off the blogging bandwagon over the last few months. I generally remember to blog when I have a revelation, am struggling with something, or have an itch to write. But that is not good blogging. I want to be able to reach out to others, to educate people on the reality of an eating disorder, and encourage others towards the goal of recovery.

So my new goal is to blog every day. Its going to be rough, I am already struggling with time management between a full-time job, being in school full-time, and keeping up with daily tasks. But I am determined to do it. In order to make a difference in your own life and others, you have to put forth the effort.

My first order of business is completed. I downloaded the blogger app on my phone and am going to update my twitter.

As for the ED update:
I am eating normal meals without having anxiety about it! Huge hurdle to overcome! I am struggling right now to eat full meals, but that is due to the terrible kidney infection I had a few weeks ago. But I will write more on that tomorrow.

Goodnight world!