Hi,
I guess I need some advice, failing that, a reaction at least. I have a lot of baggage when it comes to weight loss. I think my understanding of the physical mechanics is excellent, but what's the use if I can't actually, you know, do the stuff.
I'm not even sure there is help to be had besides the "forget about that s***, stop whining and just do it", which does not work, believe me, I tried.
I grew up chubby, despite the conditions. To put it bluntly, I was abused by my schizophrenic mother while being required to be her sole caretaker (she couldn't get out of bed - unless there was nobody around). There was rarely food in the house. My grandparents knew. They supported me - by bringing me these huge bags of sweets to "coat the nerves" as grandma said. Otherwise they didn't move a finger. Still, better some love than none, right? I frequently went hungry and was stressed beyond what a child of that age should ever be.
As I entered my twenties and finally started gaining independence, my self-esteem was in shambles. The most obvious target was my soft body - I wasn't even that overweight, BMI of 26-28 I think. So I decided to eat less. And exercise. Well, eating less soon turned into not eating at all and exercise filled every free minute of my spare time. Enter.... my survival instinct. It brought me these glorious binges. They were wonderful, for as long as they lasted. Then I of course had to make up for it... I didn't lose weight as such, but it fluctuated wildly up and down and became the sole focus of my life. I was obsessed with the scale and calorie counting. I think it's safe to say I entered into eating disorder teritory. Thankfully, I had help getting out again after I started getting hypoglycemia attacks, even fainting on occasion. I haven't starved myself in 5 years, though I sometimes have the "bad" thoughts and very occasionally fly into a binge if some of my anxieties get triggered in the right way.
As of now, I am mostly fine (if I'm not trying to lose weight). I am occasionally battling the remnants of my PTSD but worked through the majority of the trauma already, and I also got a late diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder, which quite frankly explains a lot and helped me to be more at peace with some of what I previously thought of as personal failings. My BMI is currently 35.
The hurdles to weight loss I face now consist mostly of:
Numbers. Numbers are my love and enemy. If I can quantify something, I will. And put it in a graph. And I will grow obsessed over it. In the past, I tried losing weight by counting calories (responsibly, this time!). I felt dragged back into to the obsession. It was scary, I felt myself sliding back, the old thoughts came back. Obsessing over daily weight-ins, calories, minutes of exercise... The numbers took over my life and I had to struggle to snap out of it again, because this time I knew where it leads and that isn't pretty.
Anxiety. Anxiety around food, deprivation and exercise. I am very anxious if I'm limited in the amount of food I can eat, I am anxious if I know I can't eat some foods, I am anxious if I have to eat some foods right now. I am anxious if I'm trying to get myself to exercise for a goal (but I'm OK with exercising for fun). This kind of anxiety, if it overwhelms my coping mechanisms, leads to binging. No other source of anxiety does. This happens only a few times a year, but it's mostly me avoiding the triggers - which are an integral part of any reasonable weight loss program...
Executive function. Or lack of thereof. Thanks to my ASD diagnosis I have a nice term to describe the state of utter chaos my daily life consists of. Some people attempt to cope by setting rigid routines, but I find them worse than the chaos. I have an alert system that helps me keep up with most chores and feed myself on time and I generally just accept that sometimes things don't get done in time and set up ways to make it less of a big deal. I am as far from a creature of habit as a human being possibly can be. The weight loss advice that has me set up routines and habits just... falls flat. I form short term habits, but every minor disruption sends them flying.
My therapist says that all of what I wrote is perfectly normal, especially in someone with my history, and that I shouldn't stress over it. And if I start stressing about my weight too much, she asks me about my last hike or something. While this way of thinking is very valuable to me, I quite honestly do need to lose weight. But to do it in a realistic timeframe, I'd have to sidestep these issues and I have no idea how to do that.
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