Letting Go of Weight Control

In the highly structured environment of treatment, I did not find it difficult to give up my most extreme behaviors. I admitted myself to the hospital because I was frightened by the way I was destroying my body, and wanted to stop. As I sat for the admission interview, the case worker asked me “How ready are you to change?” and wanted it expressed as a value on a scale from 1 to 10. I think my answer was a 9. But then I was thinking about my actions, like purging and restricting, not my thoughts. Only later would I realize how much I did not want to give the thoughts up, especially the idea of weight control.

“Weight control” is both a practice and an aspiration. The regimen prescribed for ED recovery usually prevents the patient from practicing weight control—but it does not take the aspiration away. It is that nagging and faux-redemptive hope that in the future, you might be 5, 10 pounds lighter.

When I was a month into programming at the hospital, I felt confident that I could continue, indefinitely, to abstain from purging. Maybe I could call it quits for forever; regurgitation held very little sentimental value for me. But I was already looking forward to my upcoming freedom, in which I could begin “watching my weight” again. Substituting green smoothies for dinner every once in a while, exercising regularly, eating fewer grilled cheese sandwiches (seriously, as the only green-lighted vegetarian on the unit, I ate SO MANY grilled cheeses that I hoped to never inhale one again).

There’s nothing wrong with drinking green smoothies, or not eating something you don’t like, but I now understand that the reason for these actions does make a difference. The aspiration aspect of weight control is everything: wishing desperately to lose weight is just as miserable as doing something about it. And I think this is true for everyone, regardless of whether you have an ED inclination or not.

If I have a thought about changing the way I eat or exercise, I have to ask myself: is the goal, or even a residual goal, to be skinnier? Does the idea of restricting French fries make my giddy with anticipation? Am I holding weight control in my palm like a silver talisman, hidden from others, but always there for my own good luck?

When the answer is yes, I have to shut that thought loop DOWN. Because one green smoothie leads to one less snack a day, which leads to two less snacks, which leads to hunger and food preoccupation, which leads to the debilitating obsession that once made me so hopeless. Even if my weight control wishes did not have the tendency to spiral out of control, what would be the point of nurturing them?

In treatment, we are taught that pursuing a lower weight will have no impact on our health or happiness. Even for people who are deemed overweight by doctor’s charts, a number on the scale is no indication of health, and health goals can be reached by changing habits, not losing pounds (although this may or may not be a side effect). For many athletes, however, a lower weight can offer immediate and practical advantages. A fighter has the dangling carrot of a lower weight class, a rower or cyclist the promise of a more aerodynamic load. A runner can also reap instantaneous speed benefits from the loss of a few pounds. I know this to be true because I lived it. I lost ten pounds from a prolonged case of the flu, didn’t change my training at all, and was suddenly running 5ks at 90 seconds faster. The loss didn’t fix my body dysmorphia at all, but at least I was charting more impressive times. This correlation helped me hold on to the illusion that weight control had a purpose. That it could be a part, albeit small, of a healthy, happy lifestyle.

Here’s the bottom line: a person can manufacture a million reasons why a lower weight is a genuine, live-affirming aspiration. I know I can. But every one of these reasons is bullshit. In a vacuum, there is nothing beneficial or glamorous or healthy about losing weight. I hope that, as a culture, our dialogues about health will eventually omit weight entirely, because even mentioning it as a “residual benefit” creates space in our minds for weight loss. What does the weight loss aspiration replace? More effective and honest avenues to achievement, like trying a new training style to cut seconds off my mile time. Most insidiously, the weight loss goal replaces more meaningful ones, like becoming a better comedian, a better writer, a better friend, or a better teacher.

Letting go of weight control is easier said than done, but I know that it has to be done if I want to stay recovered and be happy.

When Your Significant Other Has the Appetite of a Syphilitic Baby Bird

Sorry, this is not a post on recognizing the symptoms of avian syphilis, nor is it about the pros and cons of cross-species dating.

Instead, we will consider how the food habits of our loved ones can worm their way into our brains, causing angry, obsessive thoughts, and how to approach the age-old but perplexing proverb, “You Do You.”

Let me begin by saying that my boyfriend, Dan, is the light of my life & fire of my loins.[1] Without his unconditional support and encouragement, I may not have had the guts to get myself some help with this whole ED thing.

But Dan is also a thin person with a tiny appetite. For example: the other day, I complimented the look of his torso, astonished that he now seems to sport an 8-pack of abs. According to him, most of these “abs” are protruding ribs (…oops). He is not, however, sickly or undernourished. It’s just that his body has always been this way. Because his natural body weight is lower than mine, it makes sense that he should have less of an appetite.

That doesn’t stop it from infuriating me, though.

During treatment, there were times I hated him, appallingly and selfishly. When you start a recovery program, you don’t get the layperson’s luxury of “eating until full.” You eat until you finish your goddamn food. So I’d sit there at the dinner table, staring at the portion of stir fry still on his plate, and fume. “It’s not fair that you get to eat less!” I’d whine. “YOU HAVE TO EAT ALL OF YOUR FUCKING FOOD, TOO!” I’d bark between tearful mouthfuls. Have you ever wanted to see a full-grown woman regress into the temper tantrums of her diapered youth? Just head on over to your nearest ED treatment facility!

“I hate you and all things,” said Kat hangrily.

I felt terrible for the way I treated him, this man who cradled me and held my hand while I thought about choking him with his leftover spaghetti. But he understood, better than I did, that this cranky and belligerent Kat was just a phase of the process.

Now I am starting to separate the idea of how much Dan eats from the way his body looks. Despite what popular culture and even “science” wants us to believe, different people process food differently. Some people with bodies larger than mine don’t get as hungry as I do, and some tiny people have to shovel food in all day to keep up with their metabolisms.

Nature’s idiosyncrasies can drive you mad, if you let them. The only way to deal with these comparisons is to stop indulging in them, which is no easy feat. I believe that everyone in our culture struggles with assessing their bodies and eating habits in relation to those of others. For people in the throes of an eating disorder, comparisons are a full-time job.

So, in recovery, you have to keep your head down and repeat to yourself, “Oh yeah that’s right I’m doin’ me.”[2] And maybe try be nice to your significant other, even if he does eat like a syphilitic baby bird.

 

[1] I told him that this post is a flattering treatise on all of his laudable traits, from calm demeanor to sparse & graying chest hair. (It is not.)

[2] Drake voiceover and table dancing optional.

Eating is Hard; or, Should I Register for an Ultramarathon?

My last post was about how cRaZy I got about marathon training. So it would make sense for your response to be, “NO KAT. NO ULTRAMARATHONS FOR YOU. No regular marathons, no halfs, and if you must race a 5k, you must do it by sitting on a skateboard and propelling yourself with a kayak paddle.”

But where I left off in my last post is far from the full picture. I allowed marathoning to become a tool in my hateful attitude toward myself and my body. When my ED treatment team first helped me see that I was using exercise in an alarming way, I felt totally bereft, because before my habits got out of control, running was an integral and healthy part of my life. During treatment, I took a two-month training break. This forced separation gave me insight into which of my exercise impulses were about controlling my body, and which impulses were about the joy of movement and dedication.

I intend to dedicate future posts to further explaining this dichotomy, but for the question at hand, suffice to say that my relationship with exercise has healed tremendously. We still have our struggles, but I’m confident that my current training attitude is healthy. Right now I am preparing for the Mexico City Marathon, which I am running with a friend at the end of August. My goals are simply to finish strong in the heat and enjoy a short vacation with my bestie.

But an endurance racer always needs to plan ahead—not only because training cycles are so lengthy, but because registration fees are hella expensive if you don’t book several months (sometimes years) prior to race date. Currently, I have my eye on the Isle du Bois Trail Run. I’ve been curious about ultras[1] for a while, and would like to try my hand at one. I have also decided to step away from BQ-ing/speed as a training goal for now, so I think that greater distance at a slower pace is a fair trade.

Here’s my one misgiving: eating for endurance training is HARD! A lot of people (aka uninformed assholes) react to high volume training and the accompanying high calorie eating with something like, “Omg you’re so lucky, you can eat WHATEVER YOU WANT lololol! Bacon cheeseburgers up to your eyeballs!”

Um, have you ever had to stuff tofu and beans down your gullet until you are convinced that your stomach will split down the middle? That is the reality of endurance fueling for a vegetarian athlete. It is not glamorous, and it can also be pretty taxing—if you’re doing it right, you need to carefully plan your macronutrient ratios, make sure you have enough food packed on the go, and, honestly, eat past the point of being comfortably full. This is to make up for the huge calorie deficit you create by running 35+ miles a week. You also have to take your regular lifestyle into consideration. For me, that’s biking everywhere (I don’t have a car), and being on my feet for most of the workday.

Infuriatingly, there is a lot of shitty information masquerading as sound nutrition science out there. A lot of this is packaged in attractive manuals written “by athletes, for athletes.” For example, I recently picked up a book called Ironfit Strength Training and Nutrition for Endurance Athletes. The author explicitly states that his audience is marathoners, long distance cyclists, and Ironman[2] triathletes, both men and women. After a couple of chapters on fueling techniques, he includes sample meal plans at three different levels of daily intake. Those calorie levels? 1700, 2200, and 2500. WHAT?!? 1700 calories is what a sickly, petite woman should eat every day just to keep her organs functioning, and I know a lot of mildly active men who need to eat more than 2500 calories per day to have any kind of functional energy. My dietician at the treatment center (who, coincidentally, focused on athlete nutrition in her private practice) had me, a 5’6” woman, on a 3000-4000 calorie diet for my level of activity, and that was not a weight gain diet.

Another book I read when I was still sick, Racing Weight by Matt Fitzgerald, straight-up glorified disordered eating behavior. In the first few pages, he recounts the story of a famous elite athlete who was known to buy only one day’s worth of food at a time; he would get so hungry at night that having food in the house would be too much for his “will power.” Fitzgerald portrays this man as an American hero. Here’s another, more accurate way to frame that parable: “Elite athlete utilizes anorexia to maintain low body fat percentage!”

That’s the culture that athletes are up against. But back to the inquiry that spurred this discourse: how should I approach the task of training for an ultra while staying healthy and well-fueled? If you’re an endurance athlete who has successfully completed one of these events, I would love to hear about how you maintained a high calorie intake during your training!

 

[1] For those of you unfamiliar with endurance running, a full marathon is 26.2 miles, or ~42k. “Ultramarathon” is a less exact term that encompasses pretty much any race longer than 26.2 miles. The shortest is usually 50k, but the one I’m considering is 55k, or ~34 miles. From there, shit gets real with 50 milers, 100ks, and even 24 hour races where you just run a loop course as many times as you can before you collapse in a stinking pile of raw muscles and very concentrated urine.

[2] An Ironman triathlon consists of a 2.4 mile swim, a 112 mile bike ride, and a full marathon (26.2 miles). ALL IN A ROW.