How I starved myself & gained 30 pounds.

One summer in the midst of my eating disorder I decided I could no longer handle the bingeing and purging and was going to starve myself.  I had always beaten myself up about what a "lousy" anorexic I was but I was at a point in my illness where I didn't feel I had any other choice.

This was me around any food, not just cupcakes.

So I did.  I ate minimal calories, worked out maximum hours, and led a completely miserable existence.  I got dizzy every time I stood up, was winded by the effort it took to blow dry my hair, and twitched more than a crackhead every time I was around the day old Panera sandwiches they were serving at the executive luncheons.  I was tired, I was hungry, but I lost some weight so ultimately the end justified the means, right?

Wrong.

Eating excessively small amounts of calories over an extended period is not a "lifestyle choice."  It sets you up for bigger binges and at the same time slows down your metabolism.  This is a recipe for weight gain, not weight loss.  Plus, once you start eating like a normal person again your metabolism does not catch up quite so quick.  It can take years to get your body back to it's maximum calorie burning potential.  (It took me about 2 years and a nutritionist to fix the damage I'd done to myself.)

So, yeah, I lost 15 pounds.  And I was a completely raging bitch while I was doing it. I finally couldn't take it anymore and just wanted to eat reasonably.  So I did.  And I gained back the 15 pounds I'd lost PLUS an additional 15 thanks to my metabolism that had been part of a hit and run against my own body.

The only thing that can create sustainable, long lasting weight loss AND encourage your friends to still speak to you is by eating right and exercising.  I know that you've heard this a million times & that you've probably had a stomach flu or two that left you feeling a little lighter on your feet once you were able to stand upright again.  I wanted to share my experience so that you can hear a real life example of someone who tried it & was momentarily successful with it, and then had to learn the hard way that the inevitable failure is ten times (or pounds) worse than the original five pounds you were unhappy with.

This is one time where you shouldn't follow my example.

Monday Morning Motivation: Eat it right, get it tight.

This is not a good look.

What you eat can really make or break you in the fitness department.  Eat a bunch of gummy bears pre-pilates?  You're going to cramp up AND negate any of the calorie burn you get during your session. (Not that I'm speaking from experience...no of course not!)  Do this on a consistent basis and next thing you know your snake/twist is for shit and your Lululemon is cutting off your circulation.  Not cute.

This week, let's put all of the crappy 4th of July holiday eating behind us and face forward.  (Bonus: you can't see the effects of said eating on your ass when you're facing this way!)  Yes, junk food is addicting and can be hard to give up so let's take the challenge of cleaning up our eating in my favorite way: baby steps.

Your challenge this week: craving junk food?  OK, fine.  You can have it if, and ONLY IF, you complete these 2 steps before inhaling those Oreos:

1. Eat a healthy snack that includes some kind of protein first. (apples and peanut butter, string cheese, hummus & carrots, you get the idea.)
2. Distract yourself for 15 minutes post snack.  I don't care what you do as long as you aren't cruising the Funfetti website.  The idea is to distract your mind from the craving & that distraction paired with a steady blood sugar will kick the junk food's ass to the curb.

Let me know how it goes!

Preach on, Kelly Clarkson

A friend of a friend of mine recently made the very difficult decision to go to rehab for help with a problem he's been having.  Though all of my eating disorder treatment was outpatient, I know how hard this decision is to make and I admire and applaud him for his strength.  Talking to my friend about it has caused me to reflect on my own treatment experience and how true the old adage, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger," really is AND how helpful that phrase can be when you really USE it to help you get through a challenge, be that a fitness one or life in general.

See?  There's always a bright side.

Though it sucked, my experience with my ED is probably one of the best experiences I've ever been through.  Yes, I said that an illness that was causing me to make myself throw up 6 times a day, go to the gym for 4 hours at a time, and skip friends birthday parties because I was "afraid" I'd have to eat is one of the BEST experiences I've gone through.  I learned more about myself from it than any other single event I've gone through in life, and it has made me into the relatively self aware person that I am today.  I mean, hell, my boyfriend told me (with a straight face) this weekend that one of his favorite things about me is how rational I am.  I know that this is largely because of how all of my treatment throughout the ED taught me how to think.

When you're going through something that is so overwhelming you want to crawl into bed for a week, it's very easy to do just that.  What isn't easy is looking at the situation and going, "Wow.  This is HARD.  How do I get through this hardness?"  Sure, you can stay focused on the crappy events at hand and wallow in your misery, but what does that accomplish?  The most valuable thing that my treatment ever taught me, the thing that literally defines the aforementioned cliche is to look at a shitty situation and ask, "What can I learn from this?"

If I related every lesson that the ED taught me I'd be here for a week, but asking that question may be what saved my life.  It allowed me both to acknowledge all the bad feelings I was having (something that the ED never did since instead of feeling the feelings I would just stuff myself full of food and throw it up instead) AND forced me to say to myself, "Ok self, you're going through this and it sucks, but what can you learn from it to make it slightly more bearable?"  That latter option is what really made me turn the corner in recovery.

Sing it, sister.

Whether you're dealing with a workout slump or a boyfriend who cheated on you, finding the silver lining will make it that much easier to get through the rain.  Haven't been to the gym in a month?  Maybe your brain is trying to tell you you're bored with your routine and need to shake it up.  Boyfriend slept with some floozy?  That gut feeling you've been ignoring about him is probably right and in the future you should trust yourself more.  See what I mean?  Suddenly the situation isn't so overwhelming and is downright interesting!

Ok, so it may take some time to get to feeling THAT positive about hard situations, but I promise, much like your muscles, if you continue to train your brain to think this way it will become stronger & more fit just like your body does after regular time in the gym.  Give it a try!

Let's be honest....

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I've been struggling this week with my own motivation to work out.  I've been eating ok, but I have been feeling rather uncomfortable in my own skin and frustrated with myself for getting in my own way and, in some twisted way, intentionally sabotaging my own happiness.

Just having a sad panda kind of day.

Everything in my life is going pretty great at the moment: I just started a new job & I really enjoy it, I just made it "official" with my boyfriend, it's summertime....life is good.  But with all of this good comes a lot of change and change causes me anxiety.  As I've talked about before , this kind of anxiety manifests itself to me a via food and exercise obsession.  I am having trouble letting myself simply sit with that anxiety and instead I am taking it on myself by not exercising and focusing my energy on how "lazy" and "fat" I am.

I was thinking about all of this tonight when I came across this article in my favorite British tabloid: The Daily Mail.  In short, a judge ruled that a hospital must force feed an anorexic woman, aged 30, who was in danger of dying, despite both the girl AND her parents saying it is the girl's choice whether she lives or dies.  I really don't know where I stand on this issue.

When I was in the worst of my disorder I knew that if I did not do something to pull myself out of the misery that was my day to day existence that there was a good chance I'd end up another statistic of the disease.  (Eating disorders are the most fatal of all psychological diseases with the most common cause of death being from suicide.)  I was fortunate enough to be able to cling to some sliver of hope and decided on my own to get the help that I needed.  But that was the key: *I* decided.  No one forced me.

Can help be effective when it is forced and not willingly entered into by the sufferer?  I tend to not think so.  When my best friend confronted me about my issues and told me I needed to get help, I got a lot worse.  It wasn't until *I* made the decision to get help that I actually got better.  So what does forced treatment for this girl do?  Keeps her physically alive, yes.  But what good is being physically alive if you hate every second of it?  So what's the alternative?  Let her kill herself?  That doesn't seem like a good option either.  What's the happy medium?

Living in recovery from an eating disorder is like asking an alcoholic to move into a bar.  You still have to deal with you triggering substance every day of your life.  I'm not saying I have the answer to this problem. But when I see articles like these and I know most readers are probably thinking how obvious a solution seems to them, I feel like I must speak up, as someone who can see the situation from both perspectives.

Just some food for thought.

Rut busting.

I may be blogging about fitness, a spin teacher, and getting certified as a pilates trainer, BUT that doesn't mean that I am immune to the occasional bout of the fitness rut.  You know the feeling.  You've been on a long streak of working out, feeling great, bouncing to the gym in the morning, and then one week you decide to take it easy and the next, you CANNOT get yourself out of bed, no matter how many alarms you set.  This is fine, and needed, on occasion.  But what happens when it drags on?  When two weeks drags into three and suddenly your jeans are feeling a bit more snug.  How do you bust out of it?

That's part of the reason I issued the Monday Morning Motivation 10 minute challenge.  As much for you as for me.  Maybe even (seflishly) more for me.  I am having a hell of a time meeting my weekly goal of 3 cardio workouts a week.  So I went back to basics by focusing on just 10 minutes a day.  Here are some other tricks I use to pull myself out of a fitness rut:

- Eat better:  If I'm skipping the workouts I at least try to rein in my snacking a little bit so that I don't get SO panicky and so, "eff it, I've screwed up, now I'm going to screw up in a BIG way" and start ordering stuffed crust pizza from Pizza Hut.  Less Cheez-Itz, more carrots.  If I'm doing something healthy for myself, I am much more likely to get out of my own way and back on the fitness wagon faster.

Does your treadmill look like this?
You might be in a rut.

- Take the stairs: OK so walking up 5 flights may not be equivalent to a full spin class but it's better than nothing.  And sneaking in activity reminds my body that it actually does like to move.  When you're in one of these ruts I think it's important to not become lazier than a sloth or you'll never get back on track.

- Change it up: I've been working out in the morning forEVER.  So during this period of rut-ness, I've switched my workouts to the evening.  I don't want to stay on this schedule forever, but for now, it's the difference between not working out at all and doing something.  I've also been running by the beach instead of on the treadmill.  Little breaks from your routine can make a big difference.

- Commit to a new fitness endeavor & tell people about it: I am a loudmouth.  I like to brag about my fitness achievements.  So if I sign up for a 5k and start telling people about it, I would rather gargle with ground glass then not do it.  I am too proud.  This doesn't work for everyone but is a GREAT motivator for me.

The most important thing I think you can do when you're stuck in a fitness rut is to not beat yourself up about it.  That doesn't give you license to sit on the couch and eat bon bons and tell yourself it's ok, but you don't need to berate yourself 8 hours a day either.  We ALL go through this at one time or another.  It's ok to have short "off" periods.  Just be sure to keep an eye on yourself and keep trying to do little things throughout the rut and trying out new activities, workout schedules, or trainers until you bust out of it.

I'd love to hear your rut busting techniques so leave a comment or tweet me!

You get what you give: not just a one hit wonder.

Sadly, since I'm a pop culture addict, the phrase "You get what you give," brings to memories a one hit wonder band from the 90's called The New Radicals.  My boyfriend when I was 16 (hi, Tim!) was one of four people in America to buy the full album, so I heard the song often.  Thus, whenever this cliche is uttered I immediately start singing, "Wake! Up! Kids!  We've got the dreamers disease, age, 14, they got you down on your knees, da da da *mumble mumble* you only GET WHAT YOU GIIIIIVE!"  ((Check out this cute little video to hear it in all its train wreck glory. Oooh, penguins! )

Remember these guys?  Uh...me either.

What does this have to do anything?  Well, for one, the story amuses me, BUT the real reason I started on this tangent is because no where does the phrase "You get what you give" ring more true than in the gym.  This is what got me hooked on spin.  Sure, when you run a mile, you're only running as fast as you can push yourself,  but since I don't give a crap about running fast this was never a motivating factor for me.  BUT, put me in a dark room with Britney Spears blasting and some muscley sweaty man yelling at me to move my ass and I channel my hatred towards him into a killer workout that leaves me wanting to make sweet, sweet love to him by the end of class. (Damn you endorphins.)

I remind my students of this when I'm teaching my own classes: why did you drag your ass out of bed at 6am this morning?  To watch me work out?  I don't think so.  The ONLY person you are cheating when you don't give as much as you can during a workout is....yourself.  Sucks, doesn't it?  You think I don't see you pretending to twist the resistance knob to the right as we climb a hill in class?  I do, but even if I didn't, it doesn't mean you burned more calories because you were able to "trick" me.

Whether you want bigger muscles or a smaller size of Sevens, the ONLY person who can make that happen is YOU.  If you're not willing to put in the blood, sweat, and hours it takes to train and to shop for healthy food, then your dream will remain that: a dream.  

Whining doesn't burn calories.

Drop and gimme 10! - Monday Morning Motivation

Happy Monday Morning, ya'll!

Challenge of the Week


Get off your lazy butt and do 10 minutes of some kind of physical activity.

No GPS needed for this road map, just grab your MMM!

Like I said, I don't care if this is daily or just once this week, I want you to get out there and do just 10 minutes of exercise.  Try to pay attention to how your body and mind are feeling during the 10 minutes, but if the only thing you can is, "God, I hate this, how long til these 10 minutes are up?" then I give you full permission to zone out and think about something else completely.  We can work on visualization during another challenge.  This week, your sole focus is 10 minutes of activity.

Let me know how it goes!