The other side of weight problems

[JungianZoe]

So much HRT discussion revolves around losing weight and/or maintaining weight when HRT screws with metabolism.  Well, for those of us who suffer (or have suffered) from eating disorders, there's very little out there.  It's old news that the media pushes an ideal of thinness that for many seems attractive yet unattainable.  Yet some go to any length imaginable to reach it, then take it too far.  For too many years, I was one of those people.

The sad truth is that disordered thinking about food and calories never goes away, even after recovery, so how do we reconcile that inner disciplinarian with the knowledge that we need to gain weight so we can experience the magic of HRT?

• For starters, I look at my girlfriends.  None of them are model thin, but all of them are healthy and beautiful.  They're the models of the self that I want to be.


• Anyone with an eating disorder probably heard and internalized that poisonous message about the taste of food and thinness (which I refuse to quote here).  Well forget that.  The best feeling is knowing that true power comes from a healthy mind, spirit, and body.  None of that is attainable in the throes of disordered eating.


• Untreated eating disorders can be fatal.  Do I really want to die before I've lived my real life in my true gender?  Everything before HRT was a dress rehearsal, and now that I'm full time, I've made it through opening night (to rave reviews).  I don't want to be the tragic star, I want to be the venerable actress who lasted the full run.

So how about the rest of you?  Let's not suffer in silence, but build each other up with our successes in overcoming those pervasive thoughts!

----------------

The whole idea for this thread came from the emotion I felt while cleaning pictures off my phone tonight and seeing the following images side by side.  That I could look at myself now and actually feel comfortable with the weight I've gained is not only a huge step in recovery, but verified some recent discussions about the importance of having enough weight for successful HRT.  The difference weight makes in feminization is night-and-day, and I wanted to help inspire others who may not see this yet.

A quick before and after of what a few pounds can do:

Pre-HRT, 20 pounds heavier than my lowest weight (still with a BMI in the anorexic range)


Same weight as the first picture, but one month into HRT
 

Three months HRT, 20 pounds heavier than the pictures above, 10 pounds to go...
 

[Jameve]

Congrats! You really do look a lot better with that weight on   

I'm still looking for a weight gainer. Now that I lost some mass in my upper body I look even skinnier even though I'm the same weight. It seems there is no weight gainer with a low amount of potassium in it.

[JungianZoe]

Thank you!

Wish I could help with the weight gainer, but I tend not to check potassium content of stuff (I'm not on spiro because it didn't suppress my T levels at all).  It's probably really bad for me, but my staple food is Sun Chips (harvest cheddar variety).  Even if you were to eat a whole bag in one sitting, it's only 22% RDA of potassium.  I also like the whole grain PowerBars, which are good light foods with a lot of calories, but the problem is that each has 20% RDA of fiber, so you'll be in pain if you pig out on them. 

In between my so-called "meals," I like to munch on pistachios.  Ever since stomach surgery a few years back, I no longer eat regular meals, but I prefer to munch on stuff throughout the entire day.  Full meals give me too much gastric distress to be bothered with.

[CrazyTina]

Funny you mention it. I just recovered from Purging type Anorexia. I nearly killed myself weighing only 103 pounds at 6 foot 1 inces.

This video goes into more depth with pictures of my transition, but 1/2 of it revolves around my eating disorder, as that became a huge part of my life. So please watch it. (Warning: you will cry)

[Rock_chick]

You girls were light, the lowest i got down to was 121lbs, which is way underweight for my hieght but not light enough for a clinical diagnosis of anorexia, though i display all the traits of an anorexic (I fast and calorie count like a deamon). The huge, huge problem I have is not that I can't gain weight, but that I like being the weight I am now...well at last count I'd gained four pounds, but 120lbs was a weight i felt comfortable with (though I could easily push it lower even though I know that doing so would be just takingmyself even further down the rabbit hole). Trouble is I realistically need to be 133lbs minimum if i want to have grs at the end of the year...I know i need to gain weight, trouble is i don't want to.

And gaining weight is a pig, it's just like reverse anorexia...i'm still religiously counting calories and obsessing about what I eat

[CrazyTina]

You girls were light, the lowest i got down to was 121lbs, which is way underweight for my hieght...<snip>

How tall are you? I am more curious because you mention you should weigh 133. I weigh 135 now after my recovery which I feel fine with, I eat whatever I want (whenever I want)

[rejennyrated]

And then there is the obverse side of the coin. I'd love to be able to lose a few pounds but whatever I do my body remains stubbornly in the 220lb to 230lb range - which is technically just obese for my height.

Even if I wanted to I cant purge because I hate being sick even more than I hate being overweight... So I have just had to learn to accept that this is the size I am.

Mind you Helena is right - if you are underweight seriously don't even think about thinking about thinking about going for SRS - because no surgeon will ever accept you unless you are of healthy weight, because you will be nil by mouth for at least 5 days - and the healing takes a lot out of you.

You really NEED to achieve mid range healthy weight before you start thinking GRS. So that should hopefully give you some extra impetus.

My best advice is that it will be easier to do if you can mange to stop obsessively looking at the calories and instead just concentrate on enjoying the food. Most of us have bodies that are naturally programmed towards a certain weight - in my case evidently 16 stone

oh and Helena is somewhere about 5 foot 9 I think - I'm 5 foot 8 and she is just a shade taller.

[CrazyTina]

Even if I wanted to I cant purge because I hate being sick even more than I hate being overweight...

Let me stop you right there. Even if you could purge, DON'T! here is why. Your body absorbes all of the nasties in the food as soon as it hits your stomach... all the fat, all the carbs, all the calories... when you are purge even 10 minutes after eating you are only throwing up the nutritious part of the food (vitamins and minerals) and the waste product (that which will be excreted and passed as feces.)

Also your sodium and potassium levels get all out of wack... your body has a very hard time making a stomach worth of acid every couple hours that you binge and purge. It taxes your system heavily, and leaves you feeling drained.

But even though it sounds awful, it is addicting. It is a natural high that releases as much endorphins as drugs and sex. Stopping was harder than quitting smoking cigarettes. A lot harder.

Just a heads up, in case you get any "ideas" from her or I.




{EDIT}
Oh and Purging with laxitives is worse! You develop a resistance the more you use them (even the non stim kind) so you need to take more and more... this basically strips your whole digestive system of it mucus lining and it WILL kill you.

[JungianZoe]

At my worst, I was 100 lbs (at 5'11").  I was completely restricting, since a stomach operation in 2007 left me without the ability to throw up.  Though technically, I might have qualified for the purge subtype diagnosis because, if I was forced to eat more than 300 calories a day, I'd walk 10 to 15 miles the next day to make up for it (easily counted thanks to the markers around the lake near my apartment).

My decision to transition is what saved me.  If I had to spend the rest of my life pleasing others, the way I always had, then I wouldn't transition, stop eating, and let myself go into heart failure.  Instead, I decided that I wanted to live and I wanted to transition.  Though I fretted about every calorie, I got myself back up to 120 lbs (the first three pictures above) without the use of any psychological intervention because I had no health insurance.  It was starting HRT four months ago and my desire to have a curvy, feminine body that finally pushed me to gain another 20 lbs and I'm now 140.

Trust me... I know the struggles of counting calories and having maximum allowed  weights.   Been there for so long that my brain still screams at me every day for doing what I'm doing.  The mirror shows me how incredibly fat I look now and I bitterly fear becoming another number in America's weight statistic.  But through sheer willpower I tell myself it's alright, I'm just becoming healthy again.  I don't have anyone in my life to hug me, so I hug myself, cry, feel my newly smooth skin, and dream of a future that I know I'll at least get to have because I'm fighting off anorexia.

[rejennyrated]

Let me stop you right there.

Not a chance in hell. Seriously you have nothing to worry about...

I'd like to be thinner - but there is no way that I am going to do anything other than what I have done for the last thirty years which is to be proud of my immense cleavage - there really arent too many of us who can honestly say we reached a G cup WITHOUT any breast augmentation... and be happy with the size I am.

[CrazyTina]

...If I was forced to eat more than 300 calories a day, I'd walk 10 to 15 miles the next day to make up for it (easily counted thanks to the markers around the lake near my apartment).

Same hon. I was doing the ABC diet (also known as the Ana diet). Everyday you have a different max number of calories all under 500... and then fast every now and then, it looks like this...

Code Select Expand

Day 1: 300 cal
Day 2: 150 cal
Day 3: 450 cal 
Day 5: fast
Day 6: 200 cal
Day 7: 50 cal
...and so on

I also know the exercise well, only 10-15 miles is crazy girl! It was winter when I was struggling I would walk between 4-8 miles a day. One day I decided to cross lake elmo... it was covered in knee deep snow... I got half way out and was iike "WTF AM I DOING?" I decided to silence the hell up and finish crossing, and when I got to the other side I realized that I couldn't get back home unless I walk ALL THE WAY around the lake, or cross back... so I crossed back. I came back (I was living at a treatment center) and  when I walked in the door, I collapsed on the floor and blacked out.

We were stupid weren't we girl?

It is amazing we are both alive. And for me toss in 3 suicide attempts in addition (not all in a row, they are spread a couple months apart.) and I am a walking miracle.

there really arent too many of us who can honestly say we reached a G cup WITHOUT any breast augmentation... and be happy with the size I am.

*Jaw falls on the floor*

I didn't know they made cups that big! <3
*snuggles up close to jenny's chest*

[rejennyrated]

Gordon Bennett! 450 calories a day! I struggle to eat less than 1800 at an absolute bare minimum! No wonder you are thin and I am not.

[CrazyTina]

Gordon Bennett! 450 calories a day! I struggle to eat less than 1800 at an absolute bare minimum! No wonder you are thin and I am not.

450 is a horrible number. If you eat that little your body goes into starvation mode, and any weight you lose will be gained right back and more the next time you eat.

The bare minimum that is healthy, and I do mean bare because this isn't healthy either is 1,200 calories a day.

A good diet amount of calories is 1,500, though if you exercise an hour or so a day, you can take in 2000 and still lose.

[JungianZoe]

there really arent too many of us who can honestly say we reached a G cup WITHOUT any breast augmentation... and be happy with the size I am.

  Whoa...... and to think I'll think myself lucky to get B's. 

And wow, Christina, that diet is really extreme!  Though not as bad as what I put my body through during my worst time.  Not content with a strict limit of 200 per day, I started a little game to see if I could push it down each day to be lower than the day before.  It was the 40-calorie followed by the 20-calorie days that scared me enough to stop.  I couldn't get out of bed but I couldn't sleep, I was hallucinating, and my mouth was like sandpaper.  To be honest, it was so bad at that point that my coworkers were talking about me and my boss one day brought me a case of Ensure.  I actually drank them, and though I started restricting some food in order to make up the calorie difference, one of those drinks was more than I used to allow myself in a whole day (and they had vitamins and nutrients I needed).

The first turnaround point for me was a seven-day stretch where I lost three relatives and my now-ex told me she filed for divorce (in that order).  Then I watched my grandmother, who was married to the grandfather who died during that awful week, go downhill and pass away seven months later.  The second turnaround point was the decision to transition, six months after my grandmother passed.  As painful as those memories were, they may all have played a role in saving my life by taking me out of my head long enough to eat mindlessly for awhile.

For the past three months, I've been on a 4,000- to 5,000-calorie per day diet so that I can get some of the curves I want so badly.  My anorexic brain hates me, but the rest of my brain, my body, and my soul all love the new me.  I'm starting to look like my girlfriends, none of whom are overweight, but look healthy and beautiful.  That's all I really want now.

[Rock_chick]

How tall are you? I am more curious because you mention you should weigh 133. I weigh 135 now after my recovery which I feel fine with, I eat whatever I want (whenever I want)

133lbs will put my BMI at just below 20, which will hopefully be enough in the healthy range to get surgery but low enough that I don't feel fat.

Jenny will prety much laugh and spit out her tea (if she's drinking any that is) when she reads this because when I look at myself I think i have a fat sticky out tummy and I hate it.

[Rock_chick]

20 calories a day? [shocked face]

I thought that the month when I'd eat 1200 calories on a good day was pushing it.

[JungianZoe]

133lbs will put my BMI at just below 20, which will hopefully be enough in the healthy range to get surgery but low enough that I don't feel fat.

Jenny will prety much laugh and spit out her tea (if she's drinking any that is) when she reads this because when I look at myself I think i have a fat sticky out tummy and I hate it.

That's unfortunately a side effect of a weight-gain (or refeeding) diet.  It's not fat, it's just bloat because your body is becoming re-acquainted with consuming a more normal number of calories.  Trust me, after maintaining a normal diet for a while, the sticky-out tummy goes away.

There's also a reciprocal lightening of moods that occurs with a healthy intake of fat.  We need fat for the glial cells that form the myelin sheaths around our neuronal axons.  They speed up neural communication because depolarization (the means by which our nerve cells transmit signals across their membranes) only has to occur at the nodes of Ranvier (the gaps between the myelin sheaths).  Stunted neural communication can cause the psychomotor slowing seen in depression, which itself may worsen based on the amount of slowing taking place.  That sluggish, can't-get-out-of-bed feeling is the slowing in action.  Unfortunately, depression often triggers restricting, which can make depression worse, which triggers more restricting...

It's all about breaking out of these circles that seem so comforting when you're in them, but looking back you wonder why they had such an allure given their danger.

[andream]

You girls were light, the lowest i got down to was 121lbs, which is way underweight for my hieght but not light enough for a clinical diagnosis of anorexia, though i display all the traits of an anorexic (I fast and calorie count like a deamon). The huge, huge problem I have is not that I can't gain weight, but that I like being the weight I am now...well at last count I'd gained four pounds, but 120lbs was a weight i felt comfortable with (though I could easily push it lower even though I know that doing so would be just takingmyself even further down the rabbit hole). Trouble is I realistically need to be 133lbs minimum if i want to have grs at the end of the year...I know i need to gain weight, trouble is i don't want to.

And gaining weight is a pig, it's just like reverse anorexia...i'm still religiously counting calories and obsessing about what I eat

I used to fast for days too, and I actually convinced myself it was a healthy thing to do, cleaning out all the toxins from the body and all that stuff, not to mention losing weight - and preferably muscle. The thing for me about fasting is, after day two, when the dizziness has subsided, you stop feeling hungry, and you have this amazing sense of clarity. I actually enjoyed it on some level, although I never went past three days mainly because my wife would shout at me for not eating. The sad thing is I know I would have tried to fast for two weeks or more if I had been living alone. After my second fast, it became less about weight loss, and more about being in control - it was like the rest of my life was spiralling out of control, so at least I could control my food intake.

I used to take inspiration from this woman on youtube who undertook two 40 day water fasts for God, with a break of a couple of weeks or something in between. 80 days with only water and vitamin pills. What madness!

I wouldn't have thought you'd need to count calories to gain weight? Or do you just not want go too far beyond calorie surplus? It didn't take me long to gain 25lb, but I enlisted the help of Ronald Mcdonald and Colonel Sanders for a little while.

[Rock_chick]

That's unfortunately a side effect of a weight-gain (or refeeding) diet.  It's not fat, it's just bloat because your body is becoming re-acquainted with consuming a more normal number of calories.  Trust me, after maintaining a normal diet for a while, the sticky-out tummy goes away.

Yeah, I'm still full from the cheesy chips I had 6 hours ago and have only just stopped feeling sick.

I wouldn't have thought you'd need to count calories to gain weight? Or do you just not want go too far beyond calorie surplus? It didn't take me long to gain 25lb, but I enlisted the help of Ronald Mcdonald and Colonel Sanders for a little while.

Unfortunately I do, because otherwise I get 1500 calories a day max because that's just my eating habbits...I cheat outrageously, I'm verging on vegitarian but i started having a stupidly big bacon and sauasage roll at work in the morning...not because i particularly enjoyed it, but because all that protien would keep me full all day and i could have a piece of fruit for lunch and more for dinner. I'll eat high fibre foods wich will make me feel fuller and pass through quicker and I'll spend all morning just drinking hot water if i feel hungry. And that happenes on the days when i'm not thinking about how many calories there are in things.

[JungianZoe]

That calmness you feel from a few days of not eating is a decrease in sympathetic (excitatory, fight-or-flight) cardiac response, and an increased parasympathetic (rest-and-digest) response.  Basically, your body is in a lullaby state where deep thoughts can occur because not much else is happening.

Fasting to lose muscle mass is particularly dangerous though, because the body doesn't discriminate what muscles it pulls from to draw energy in order to make up the difference between the calories you consume and the caloric requirements for your basal metabolic rate (BMR).  The heart muscle is just as likely to be a target for wasting as the bicep.  It's why anorexia often kills through heart failure.

I wouldn't have thought you'd need to count calories to gain weight?

Very true... except that, even though I've moved to a diet where I eat when I'm hungry (and I'm currently insatiable), the anorexic voice in my brain doesn't let me stop counting.  It never stops adding and subtracting every morsel that passes my lips or the calories burned every hour I play my drums.  So while I'm not counting toward a limit, I'm still counting.  One disturbing thing I've noticed--which I sincerely hope goes away--is that after years of anorexia, I no longer feel full.  I can literally sit down and eat an entire bag of Sun Chips, two PowerBars, drink three bottles of water, eat two scoops of ice cream, and not feel a single signal from my stomach that it's time to stop.  In fact, after all that, my brain still tells me I'm hungry, though my eyesight tells me I've eaten too much and I'm dizzy.  I only know when I've had too much when I get dizzy!  It kind of concerns me...

Unfortunately I do, because otherwise I get 1500 calories a day max because that's just my eating habbits...I cheat outrageously, I'm verging on vegitarian but i started having a stupidly big bacon and sauasage roll at work in the morning...not because i particularly enjoyed it, but because all that protien would keep me full all day and i could have a piece of fruit for lunch and more for dinner. I'll eat high fibre foods wich will make me feel fuller and pass through quicker and I'll spend all morning just drinking hot water if i feel hungry. And that happenes on the days when i'm not thinking about how many calories there are in things.

Careful with the greasy sandwiches and then the fiber... that can be a painful combination!   I also just recently became vegetarian again (last time stopped for health reasons) and studying ways to supplement what I no longer get from a meat diet.  It's tricky though!  I don't want to wind up in the same health situation I was in before.