Starvation and Flab

Humor me for a minute while I tell you my sad tale.

I clearly remember sitting in the kitchen reading a magazine article about
anorexia and saying out loud to my horrified mother, "I wish I could get
that." Well, you've heard the old saying about being careful what you wish
for! I mustered up the willpower to cut my calories to 1,200 a day - then
1,000 - then 800 - then 500 - then none. Every time the weight loss stopped
I dropped it a little more. I was within the normal weight range for my
height when I started this but I dropped 30 lbs anyway.

Now, this was not a pretty state of affairs. I wasn't chic or beautiful. I
was dry-skinned, dull-haired, sunken eyed, and FLABBY. The calorie
restriction had cost me all of my muscle tone so I looked awful. I was
"thin" but I still had a sagging butt, cellulite, and a distended stomach. I
still wouldn't have worn a bathing suit or shorts in public if my life
depended on it. I didn't grasp that this was a direct result of the
starvation diet. I just thought that I was cursed with bad genes or some
drivel. I was really perplexed that I could be so thin and still be saggy
and dimpled.

I couldn't exercise because everything turned purple when I moved fast. I
was freezing cold all the time. I was always shaky and nauseous from low
blood sugar. Nothing like that pounding headache and nausea 24 hours a day!
I couldn't have endured this indefinitely. Every fiber of my being was
urging me to eat, so when I did eat, I totally lost control. I ate
everything that wasn't nailed to the floor. I ate until I hurt. I ate until
I puked. I ate until I felt *horrible* about myself. I mean, what a
weak-willed slug! What a failure! I would become more determined than ever
to starve and re-gain control. And then, of course, I would eventually cave
in and eat everything in sight.

I finally came to my senses and decided that I didn't like that ugly cycle.
I decided that was going to just eat a modest 800 calories every day. That
way I could keep the weight off and not feel so crazed... I thought. What
actually happened is that I had my metabolism so screwed up I began
*gaining* weight on only 800 calories a day. I gained 10 pounds in 2 weeks!
On 800 calories a day! I can't even tell you how much that scared me. What
does that mean? If I want to be thin, I can't eat at all now???

After I started eating again and I started gaining weight, I pretty much
gave up. I ate anything and everything. I quickly regained the 30 pounds and
then some. Only here's the real horror, when I lost weight, I lost a
combination of fat and muscle. What I gained back was *all fat.* Muscle is
metabolically active, the more of it you have the more calories you burn
around the clock and the easier it is to stay lean. And I now had, like,
*none*. NO MUSCLE. NO METABOLISM. Thanks to my brilliant brush with
starvation, I'd managed to transform myself from a normal athletic looking
teenager with a normal metabolism into a pudgy human dough girl with the
metabolism of a small snail.

It took years to fix this. I mean, it was like a decade of hard work for me. The
only way to have a lean, strong, fit body that doesn't jiggle is to build
muscle. In order to build muscle you need a calorie surplus. If you suddenly
have a calorie surplus after months or years of starving yourself, you're
initially going to gain fat as well as muscle, and that's going to do a real
number on your head. That's where professional help comes in. It's a whole lot
more complicated than just giving you a menu and a few exercises. I would
recommend finding someone who's qualified to treat eating disorders. That's the
fast track to getting healthy and fit. I took the big self-guided detour through
Pigville, which I don't recommend. :-)

Here's a good website for info and support:

Something Fishy Website on Eating Disorders
http://www.something-fishy.org