I guess this will be a tl;dr for some of you, but I can't shorten my feelings anymore. I just don't know who to talk to. I'm tearing myself apart. PLEASE HELP.
Let it be known that this is my first ever post to Reddit. I'm one of those upvote-but-never-post kind of meme people. But lately, I've felt so horrible that I have no idea what to do. I honestly just looked for a place in Reddit that might be able to help me because everyone on Reddit (for the most part, hah...) is usually very uplifting and not giving up on depressed or down people and I found this popular page about weight loss. It's so difficult to talk about this because any time I talk about it to anyone around me "in real life", it's just "well don't eat trash and work out". The problem is that I have been and I've had unstoppable motivation, but now, I feel like a hopeless basket case - like I'll never make it. So... I know this will be very long. I just am struggling to put this feeling into words. So please, spare me just a few minutes of your day and have some patience with me. As a nursing student I have patience with people all day long while being spat in the face, hit, and all kinds of things... and now I'm asking for a return.
I think what triggered this was a text I got today.
My boyfriend, of whom I believe to be my best friend and pal, mentioned a record pace for a three mile run. It was extremely impressive. I'm talking I thought that kind of speed was impossible. He's the ectomorph type. Tall and thin, but he's very muscular - abs, biceps, all that. He's never had to struggle with weight. A little bit with building muscle, but never true BF%/lean/fitness or obesity. No one in his family has - they're all ectomorph type boys. And he hasn't trained, done a single push up or run, for moooooonths. And today he just up and decided to beat his record in running. He eats whatever he wants, does whatever he wants. And he just stays fit. Even his Dad who is upward of 50s looks amazing so it's not just a young phase. It hurts me even though I am SO happy and thankful for him... I didn't breathe a word of how I feel in the moment because I didn't want to bring down his high, that's not fair to him. Here's the thing. I've trained for months, eaten healthy fresh foods, stay hydrated, trained, cried through the bad days and trained harder... just to get nowhere. I am sitting here typing staring at my rolls of my stomach feeling sick at the thought. SICK. AT. THE. THOUGHT.
Relevant to my appearance, weight, and mental well-being, I feel as if I've never been so deeply depressed before.
I'm not really the type that struggles with anxiety or depression. I just kinda roll with things and I'm the happy-peppy-weird one of the friend group. Lately people have noticed I'm different and irritable, feeling hopeless. In reality I'm actually at a good place in life right now. But, in my eyes, I've become this fat and hopeless monster. I feel like no one understands what this feels like. I'm a 22 year old female who lives at home with my parents and worked for years and years to go to nursing school without working. I'm on semester 4/4 so if I can pass this semester and boards then I'll be a nurse by approximately February. So stress is through the roof, but it's getting better. I've had health problems my whole life that doctors can't figure out. Ankles, back, shoulders... even my jaw will lock for days at a time and I have to pop it out of place to talk or eat sometimes. I have pain that radiates through my back and down my legs to the point that, at periods of time, it would get so bad (after maybe yardwork or something) I couldn't move my legs for a day or two without screaming. I have smallish squirrel rings and a chubby tummy and rough looking thighs, maybe cellulite.
I say all that because I gained 40 lb in my first semester of nursing school and the stress of school caused SERIOUS physical repercussions. I would get sick for days, heaving and crying, throwing up. My hair started thinning and breaking off a lot around my ears and forehead. Nails got brittle... bones hurt. Skyrocketed from about 140ish and 20-50k steps a day at an active job to 170+lb and barely managing 8k steps a day. I couldn't even fit into my very nice ($$$) scrubs someone got me for Christmas and that was beyond heartbreaking and embarrassing.
I felt like maybe it was a vicious cycle. Okay, so I'm injuring myself because I'm too weak to workout properly and get strong so that my body can heal... but since I'm too weak, I keep hurting myself, making it impossible to do the workout, making me gain weight... etc. So I just HAVE to jump in and start doing it.
Right now I go to the gym 3-5x a week, interval training for 30min-1hr 3 times a week and lifting 3 times a week. It fluctuates heavily but I do my absolute best and I always make it to the gym at a bare minimum of twice a week. I could macros and calories relentlessly with the MyFitnessPal app. I have a FitBit tracker watch I use most of the time. I used to simply do a lot of cardio and stick to >1300 calories a day, but now I lift weights and eat about 1800-2000 calories a day. Good quality proteins and vegetables. Right now, I've been back in the grove for about a month. I've seen no weight change, but I can fit (barely) into a couple shirts I couldn't wear before. I have a small tricep/bicep growth, maybe some thigh muscles.
I'm trying so hard and I feel so horrible.
It seems like such a strange thing to say. I don't understand why I feel this way. Even my boyfriend said my skin looked so much better now than it did at the beginning of summer, that I looked more hydrated and healthier and happier. But... I don't feel it now. I went to a CrossFit thing this morning and it was amazing - I felt like I could push myself to the absolute limit and no one doubted me (they actually cheered me on toward the end - they saw I wasn't giving up and I was sweating so hard my glasses fell off). I loved it so much. But tonight, I just... crashed. I thought about the girl at CrossFit that only goes once every two weeks and has a flat tummy and a beautiful figure. I go to the gym 4x that much and I haven't even started losing belly fat. I felt overwhelmed with this depression to the point of it being hard to breathe. IT HURT. I wanted to cry, but everything felt so dark that I couldn't even cry it off and move on. I couldn't cry at all, actually. I wanted to.
Even my boyfriend has no idea - NO IDEA - what it's like to struggle SO HARD with body fat and do everything in your power to get healthy/toned/look and feel good and get nowhere. He's texting me even now, taking it for granted, saying stuff like "meh I'll get better with time I guess. That sucked" etc. It's taking everything in me not to sob at the computer. I'd give anything just to be able to run without throwing up or feeling splitting, deathly pain. Not cardio soreness - pain.
Sitting here overthinking (and I darn well know it's not logical, and it's not the normal me) worrying that I'm going to get hate on this post or that it's too long or chatty or that I'm not making sense... or maybe worse, that no one will see this at all. I feel like I don't even know what I'm asking you. Maybe a reason why? How long it will take? A success story? Some form of encouragement, or knowing that someone understands? I don't know. People taking their health and stature for granted is making my tear myself apart. I just know I can't keep going and feeling like this. I can't. I have to know that if I keep trying that I can look toned and lean. I have to know that I won't live in debilitating pain like this for the rest of my life. I have to know that getting healthy will change things, and that if I take care of my body it will take care of me.
I feel so broken even though I don't want to give up.
