Binging and sport
Hello fellow bingers!
Sorry, terrible first line but I'm trying to keep this post on a lighter side...
My relationship with my body were always weird, I never loved it much, I tried dieting but it never led to anything serious. Until I moved to Japan and, well, something snapped. It started with terrible restricting and unhealthy amount of at home cardio workouts which led to binge episodes and the cycle continued for a very long time.
I got better over time, stopped counting calories, started exercising smarter (and switched to weight lifting) but my body issues never really went away. And never did my ED thoughts.
I always had those thoughts in the back of my head saying that I should loose weight and eat less. That I should skip meals. I went vegan a couple of months ago and I actually lost a bit of weight at first and my mind fixated on it as if it was a good thing. While another part of my mind was telling me it wasn't - I was loosing hard gained muscles!
So I've decided to go on a bulk - basically eating more than my body burns so I can gain more muscle mass. But usually that means gaining fat along with it, and I am terrified. And I guess all those conflicting thoughts inside my head got to me and I've started binging again... Which led to me restricting. And binging. And hating myself for it.
I am 164 cm and 57 kg, I have a partner who tells me my body is gorgeous. I preach body acceptance and body positivity and I find people of all sizes and shapes attractive. In fact my partner is big and tall and far from skinny. And yet, all of my principles shutter when it comes to my own body.
The thing is I don't even know how I want my body to look. Sometimes it seems like I just hate it no matter how much it weights. I want to be strong and muscular but also skinny and small.
So here's that.
If you've read so far, I'm sending you some virtual hugs because you deserve it. Thank you for listening to me.
@proactiveClementine2515 In the weeks since you posted this no one seems to have known how to reply, sadly, although you did get three upvotes (and a fourth from me 😉).
It does sound like those thoughts in the back of your head are very persistent and troublesome. A lot of your life seems to revolve around them. That's the kind of thing that therapists can help with, of course, although finding a good therapist can be difficult.
Charlie
@proactiveClementine2515 I feel you. I have had an eating disorder since I was 13, and I have restricted a lot (and binged too, as a result of the restricting). I have come to a point in my life where I wanna build muscle and get muscular finally, but the voices in my head (I have schizophrenia) and my ED thoughts wants me to be skinny and dainty.
It's really hard to understand if I wanna be skinny or muscular which confuses me a lot, bc one day it's skinny and the other it's muscular. I can really get it straight in my head either :3
But I have decided that I wanna be as lean as possible while muscular, which is the best of both worlds for me 😊