- This topic has 19 replies, 15 voices, and was last updated 8 years, 10 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Ok, all of you Serial Orthorexics, how many diets have you tried over the years? List them and give any fun details.
For me it was just low carb with a insanely high amount of protein diet. Did that for around 6 months. Symptoms were anxiety and cold hands. Also skin was drier and hair more difficult to gel. Anyways that is done and at least I can say that I learned to listen to my body and eat what I feel needs to be consumed. I have usually been at a low body fat level and before the low carb experience my body seemed to lose fat by increasing calories and cardio at the same time. With low carb the calories seemed to decrease as time went on, which worked for the first 1-2 months, but was counterproductive later on. I can still remember my doctor surprised with my cortisol levels 3 times the normal limit lol. I did not have any outward symptoms of cushings except lower belly fat that did not want to disappear.
Oh and I did try the vegan diet but it was a family tradition we have from good Friday to Easter. I guess there is nothing wrong with that type of diet in moderation. But my gym routines suffered and I can not see myself being vegan for more than three days.When I was younger I tried many diets: weight watchers, juice diets that I ordered from magazines, cabbage soup, Marilu Henner (she wrote a book in the 90s that I followed), zone, just eating 5 balance bars a day, not eating dinner (this was a sad one that I started in Paris), and then not diets per se but just pretty much not eating and then binging and purging, had some days where I’d just eat a bit of fruit, lettuce with BBQ sauce… In college I would exercise twice a day, take laxatives, vomit, etc. Fun times! I then recovered and was a vegetarian for about 8 years. During that time I was a completely normal eater but after having my daughter and starting crossfit I fell into orthorexia with the start of Paleo.
After learning about Paleo, then I followed a primal way of eating, followed Chris Kresser’s healthy baby code, followed Ron Rosedale’s plan of mostly fat with limited protein (this just sent me over the edge because I was used to eating high protein and couldn’t figure out what to eat for just fat. I remember being starving and then eating fish stew that i made from Mark Sisson’s primal cookbook and feeling so guilty and just wanted to curl up in a ball and cry). I’ve tried intuitive eating, mindful eating, peaceful eating, normal eating but the entire time my goal was to eat less. I read all the intuitive eating/mindful eating books that I could find. I actually started coaching with the woman who wrote normal eating and she told me I was orthorexic and was very surprised at my obsessively clean diet. I would freak out because I wouldn’t feel like i “mindfully” ate my extremely large salad because it was so big that I’d have to rush through it to finish it in my 30 minute lunch period. I also wouldn’t use oil if I was having avocado or any other fat. I wasn’t ready to believe that so I stopped our sessions. I thought something was wrong with me because I would eat huge salads and large amounts of veggies. I thought that was emotional eating but now I realize I was just hungry! I would also listen to OA podcasts so I would learn how to stop eating so much.
Here’s my story:
- Macrobiotics Stage 1 Did this for about 9 months. Even took some classes at the Kushi Institute. Literally emaciated me and started turning yellow and green. Home for XMAS, I saw a pan of lasagna my mother had made. Lunged on it and ate the whole thing. Good for me!
- Macrobiotics Stage 2 Couple of years after above incident was going to graduate school in Paris. Somehow ended up eating at the restaurant “Le Bol en Bois” (know that one @saisrice ?) Under the tutelage of Rene Levy and Francoise Riviere (both had been direct students of Ohsawa) I started eating their version of macrobiotics (much stricter). Actually, I did better on macrobiotics this time around, maybe because it did not require me to cook so much. Still low energy though.
Eventually I met the famous organic agronomist Claude Aubert and his wife Marie, who ate a very wide spectrum of food based very loosely on macrobiotics. That was actually ok. - When I moved out here to California, I spent the first 6 months at a sort of hippie school/commune up in Garberville called Heartwood Institute Mostly vegan food at the time. Once a week they served fish. I recall that on the fish day the director of the place used to run in, get his food real quick, the run out. He didn’t like the negative energy of the dead fish. The darling of vegans everywhere Paul Pitchford taught there at the time, and I always thought he looked like he was starving to death. You might have seen his best-selling book, Healing With Whole Foods
- I was semi-vegetarian (meaning I ate fish) for years and then encountered the ER4YT diet. I was a type O and therefore started eating meat. I don’t believe in the science behind it, but this actually was a pretty good diet for me.
- Then the WAPF diet
- Then Paleo Even though I never went really low-carb, this was horrible for me. I was so hunger, I used to eat sticks of Kerrygold Butter!
- Peatarian Actually this was a good correction to Paleo. I didn’t do so poorly on it, except for the T3 which made me manic. However, besides correcting the carb-deficiency of Paleo, didn’t do anything for me and was too monotonous.
- And now, here I am stuck in the middle with you.
I did weight watchers 9 years ago, lost 30lbs got pregnant with my first child. That was the first time I was ever on a diet, I was almost 30.
About a year after the first child (2005) I went back on Weight Watchers and didn’t have any success. Then just went to the gym working out and lost some weight from increasing activity, got pregnant with my 2nd child (2006).
About a year after that I started Weight Watchers again….no go again. I never stayed on any of it long enough. My weight bounced all over the place probably from a mixture of the hormones and stress.
Then in 2010 someone introduced me to Primal Blueprint. I immediately lost 30lbs and found myself pregnant with my 3rd child (2010-2011).
In the winter of 2011 I went back on primal blueprint and between Jan-May of 2012 I lost 40lbs. I ended up only gaining 10lbs of it back and since that time have gone up and down in that same 10lb range.
In the Fall of 2012 I ordered a month’s worth of Medifast in desperation…couldn’t make it longer than 3 days on that crap. It tasted bad and I was starving, went through the holidays just normal without any diets.
Then in March 2013 I attempted Carb Nite Solution….lost that 10lbs in a month and couldn’t handle the low carbs anymore. Too much brain fog, I was training too much to be able to be sustainable.
April 2013 I stopped and started reading up on eating at your TDEE and working out moderately and that is what I have been doing up until I got a hold of Matt’s books through Batty a former Primal BPer and then I also found Go Kaleo in that time. So here I am. I have been eating about 2600-2900cals a day consistently for 3 months, I gained back the 10lbs I lost on Carb Nite but have gone down 2 dress sizes since April. I am 5’10” and at 210lbs, 39 year old female. I lift 2-3x’s a week with an occasional HIIT maybe once a week or once every 2 weeks.
But the reason is why? Was it health? Self esteem? Trying something new for the hell of it? Or even being convinced by anothers point of view or physique? There must have been a trigger. Honestly I was happy before and I believe if I kept doing what I was doing originally before dieting I would have got to my goal. But that is ok I take it as a learning experience.
Personally for me it was to lose weight and get back to the prebaby weight and quickly but the joke was it never got me there quickly did it 9 years later LOL. I picked up Matt’s book after doing paleo and getting the cold hands and feet and taking my temps and finding them in the 96’s and then I became concerned. The eating at TDEE was before finding the Eat for Heat book and that was finally just coming to terms that slow and steady wins the race and with consistency in cals intake and training I would eventually level at the weight consistent with my training and intake. Which I still believe is the safer route to take. I don’t know where it will take me weight wise and that’s ok as long as I am getting stronger and am healthy. Before kids I never had to think about my weight, I just worked out and ate a somewhat healthy diet, never had a weight issue.
I would love to re-tell my saga here, but it would just take too damn long with too many twists and turns and phases.
What I really wanted to say was that I pictured Thomas tea-bagging that lasagna by choosing to word it “Lunged on it.”
Good thread to start though Thomas. Over time I hope it accumulates a buttload of misadventures in diet.
please do tell Matt!
This is mine,
Through highschool had bad inconsistent eating, skipped breakfast everyday, meals at school were sometimes big sometimes small and after school i think i was binging. After high school started trying to eat under 1000 calories. had a book where i would write down literally everything and i was STARVING. keptthis up for a month or so. was doing workouts twice a day (bodyrock.tv). then i started skipping rope for up to five hours a day, at least 3 hours every say though.thank god for my ipod. then i tried the atkins diet, eating cheese bacon and eggs mostly. felt really bad for a while and immediatly jumped to the alkaline diet. was literally eating only salad and tonnes of avacado. that is all. oh and quinoa. one time i remember drinking about 3 litres of water in one go thinking i was being healthy and i remember feeling extremely dizzy asking mum to take me to hospital then i threw up all over her floor and i imediatly when and ate carbs. from there i found your site and did a major half assed attempt. was eating all i wanted but ignoring all the rules about liquid and sleep. i was buying about 5 blocks of chocolate at a time and downing them all in one night. Just having a binge. then i went onto d.h kiefers carb nite and only lasted a couple weeks. i then tried no food after 5 olcolock but was probably only eating under 1000 calories. now here i am giving eat for heat a proper go.
Weight watchers – my mum first took me when I was 14. I was a UK size 12 at 5’9″ – perfectly fucking awesome in other words.
Atkins – I love fat so this was easy for me at first, but I think this is where I first started really screwing up my thyroid.
Vegan – this lasted 4 weeks until I went to a BBQ and someone was cooking lamb chops.
Weight watchers again – I did the Core program this time which focuses on unlimited amounts of unrefined foods and I actually did really well this time. I went from 120 to 90kg in six months.
WAPF – my kitchen looked like a mad scientist’s laboratory but I learned some cool stuff about grain preparation and cooking nose-to-tail. I still use some of the stuff I learned from them.
Paleo/Primal – basically Atkins again but with more memes. This is where I managed to finally mess up my metabolism properly, which led me to….
Ray Peat – this cured me of my Paleo-inspired fear of sugar and for that alone has been a lifesaver. There are a lot of great takeaways from Peat’s work: balancing muscle meat with gelatin, eating sugary foods (fruit, honey or just sugar) with every meal, saturated fat > PUFA. I can’t get behind the fear of starch because it just hasn’t proved to be anything other than a boon to my health as far as I can tell.
RRARF – this is the final piece of the puzzle for me where I can take everything I’ve learned about nutrition and health but relegate it to the level of importance it should occupy in a sane person’s life. In other words eat well most of the time, eat foods that support your metabolic rate, don’t drink too much water, don’t workout like a mad woman unless you really feel it and for heaven’s sake don’t stress about this shit too much – life is too short to not go out for nachos and margaritas because you’re worried about the ingredients in the corn chips.
It started when I began college. I had purple hair and was really lean and healthy, so hey, why not skip dinner most nights and get skinnier? Flash forward to sophomore year, eating out of a 5 lb bag of gummy bears after griping about how unhealthy the cafeteria food was.
Last year was the first time I ever formally dieted, although I spent seven solid years undereating and over exercising trying to not be fat, and having my weight fluctuate every time I was stressed out. The thing is, I’m 5’4″ and I started dieting last year at 132 lbs. WTF.
So last summer I would net 1200 calories most days, and would do crazy things like a day of farm work followed by mowing the lawn, then for the rest of the week run, do yoga, and practice martial arts. I had little time for much except exercising and managing the various family crises that occurred.
So in the last eight years of food madness I gave myself IBS, and intolerance to nuts, food anxiety, and a seriously pompous attitude about “being healthy.” to say I was a frigid bitch is not an overstatement.
I refed in April and am still giving myself license to take indefensible amounts of naps, and I still need to make myself eat frequently to avoid an IBS episode or blood sugar crash. I’m overweight-ish but really not all that fat… I only put on 20 pounds since last year. I’m glad that I learned through all of this to listen to myself again and value my body, my time and my desires (to create).
Some days, though, I wish I had a DeLorean from Dr. Emmett Brown so I could go back to last year and bitch slap my skinny self.
It all began with “Stop the Insanity”…an insane very low-fat, almost vegan diet along with lots and lots of cardio. Then Diet Center, another very low-fat *and* low-calorie diet with purchased foods where my mother was trying to force feed me because I became such a bitch on it. Some kind of WW knock-off…counting points, only they called them something else to avoid being sued. The cigarettes and diet coke diet through most of college. A brief stint as a vegetarian where I gained 15lbs.
Gave up dieting for a long while. Stress-induced weight gain, fibromyalgia. Managed to have two kids, (both with Gestation Diabetes while pregnant) didn’t sleep for 5 years.
Got scared about the Gestational Diabetes, lost 70lbs on Atkins. I preached it to the world. Sugar and carbs were “da debil”! Man, I missed fruit. But I looked good…even if my hair got thin enough to see my scalp and I wore fleece jackets 90% of the time.
Pressed my doc about thyroid function. Got tested, forwarded to endocrinologist who ran same more tests, said my thyroid was perfect, but I had PCOS and sent me on my way with Metformin.
Found the Weston Price crowd and added “good carbs” back into my life, along with going back to work to support my new “grassfed beef” habit. Had fun taunting the Vegans on the crunchy-healthy forums. Don’t even get me started on the raw foods crowd. They scare me.
Noticed I was much more productive while taking cold meds. Got diagnosed with ADD. Ended up on Adderall, which helped with fatigue and my declining brain function so I didn’t lose my job. Occasionally jacked it up with Red Bull or coffee. It worked, I ate less, but strangely didn’t lose weight.
Fell off the low-carb wagon for real, still sticking to whole foods, avoiding processed crap, but put some weight back on, then a little more…but I was still cold, jittery, spaced-out, and my hair was still *really* thin.
It’s really depressing to be fat, nervous, stupid, *and* bald.
And here I am. Contemplated going back to low carb, but just couldn’t do it. Priced out treadmill desks and wept. Low calorie never worked for me, and low-fat? Really? Spray butter substitute isn’t allowed in my house…ever. “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter”…”I Can’t Believe People Eat That Shit”.
Unfortunately, after consciously eating more for a few months, my weight is up, my temps are still averaging 97 or below. I cheer when I eat something particularly warming and they go over 98, but they don’t seem to stay there. My appetite is pretty low and my energy level is way down. The Adderall doesn’t seem as effective, but coffee just makes my stomach hurt before I feel like napping.
*sigh*
Yaya, the coffee and adderall are probably just juicing your adrenals, which are totally worn out at this point, so it’s not working. Unfortunately, healing from the place where you are takes time and you will probably just need to cope with the exhaustion, hard as it is, while you allow yourself to heal. Weight gain is normal, especially from the low place where you are, but you should start to see other improvements after the exhaustion clears. Just go with it and be sure to sleep a lot. You need it. Do not be afraid of the sugar or salt either. You need those, too, when your adrenals are worn out. Vit C. might be helpful, too.
Oh, where do I start?? I have to think hard to go back that far. This is going to be long —
Age 10 – Went on Jenny Craig with my mom and teenage sister because I was probably 10 pounds overweight after a stressful move across the country.
Age 11 or 12 – After not losing any weight on JC and gaining even more, I went on Weight Watchers (this was back when it was packaged meals). Also at that time I read lots of Seventeen and Teen magazine and decided to lose weight by limiting my meals to just breakfast. So I’d eat a bowl of cereal and then try to starve myself the rest of the day. Quite unsuccessfully, of course – I usually binged by 2 or 3pm on whatever junk I could find. I also started weighing myself daily. I gained even more weight and by the time I was 14 I wore size 14 adult women clothes.
Age 14 to 18 – Drank diet coke to replace meals and joined my high school track team for exercise. Ran daily and mostly didn’t eat. I lost about 20 pounds, became a size 8, and got lots of compliments from just about everyone. Also became a vegetarian somewhere in there, partially to give people an excuse for not eating. I also used Dexatrim and these disgusting chocolate flavored laxatives. I tried vomiting but didn’t take to it. Struggled with depression throughout high school. Contemplated suicide more times than I can even fathom now. Horrible, horrible time.
Age 18 – Went to college, became more “health” focused. Ran 6 miles a day, but ate a bit more. Still drank tons of diet coke. Gained about 15 pounds.
Age 19 – Went to study abroad in Italy. Became a vegan to further keep myself in check. I didn’t even TASTE gelato while I was there because I was a crazy food freak. Replaced food with alcohol. Lost about 10 pounds, but gained acne towards the end of the year.
Age 20 – Transferred schools, met my future husband who thought I was beautiful and totally crazy for hating on my body. Started eating again. Dropped veganism, but stayed vegetarian. Gained about 15 pounds back.
Age 21 – 28 – Stayed vegetarian, attempted veganism a few times but always felt awful. Did Weight Watchers five times. Lost 25 pounds just before I got married, gained it all back within TWO months of getting married after a family crisis sent my stress through the roof. Did the Master Cleanse three times. Liver cleanses. Cabbage soup diet.
Age 28 – Had my first child. Gained 60 pounds while pregnant even though I was restricting calories and exercising 5x a week. After he was born, discovered my hormones were so out of whack I was unable to breastfeed. Saw lactation consultants, was on heavy duty meds to get it going…never lactated at all. I was devastated. Used a milk donor for a few months. Dropped vegetarianism, tried Weight Watchers a few more times. Cried myself to sleep because not only couldn’t I lose the baby weight, but I was still gaining despite very strict eating habits (mostly low fat, calorie restriction). Tried Intuitive Eating and hypnosis.
Age 30 – Pregnant with my second child. Even heavier now – after he was born I was almost 80 pounds overweight. Even with prep (metformin during pregnancy, domperidone after) I was still unable to breastfeed.
Age 31 – Had weight loss surgery in desperation. VSG (no malabsorption or rerouting). Lost 65 pounds in 10 months eating tiny bits of protein.
Age 32 – Pregnant with my 3rd child. Worried I wouldn’t be able to eat enough to sustain a pregnancy (I could only eat about 1000-1200 calories a day without extra effort) I worked to get enough calories. It worked! I gained 60 pounds again. Since I was smaller when I got pregnant, post-pregnancy I was about 40 pounds overweight. Dropped about 10 pounds by restricting calories. Nada on the breastmilk.
Age 32 – 35 – Delved deeply into nutrition and health. Spent hours pouring over books and websites. Did South Beach, then Atkins, which led me to Gary Taubes and Cate Shanahan. Read all the books in between. Low carb all the way. Lost about 20 more pounds, felt good. Thought I’d found the holy grail. My Dad is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease after decades of ultra low calorie dieting (always slim, he had what I now see as an eating disorder and serious fat phobia).
Age 35 – SURPRISE 4th pregnancy! Gained about 30 pounds eating low-carb while pregnant. Had my tiniest baby ever. Still couldn’t breastfeed.
Age 35 – 37 – Tried losing the rest of the baby weight with low-carb. Primal, then Paleo. Found WAPF and incorporated fermented foods and started my kids on raw milk and sprouted grains. Zero sugar in the house. My baby is now almost 2 and I have gained about 10 pounds. Strict Paleo the last year or so. Very few cheats. Interval training. Gaining weight, skin getting worse, weird rashes showing up on my body. No sex drive, exhausted. Sad. I realized I’m sending the wrong message to my kids. I want them to love and respect food, but not obsess over it. I traded my diet coke starvation diet for an orthorexic mindset. If it’s all in the name of health its ok.
Last week – after reading Diet Recovery a few months ago, I looked Matt Stone up again and saw his new book. Read it in a few hours and called my husband at work. He was totally onboard (what a sport – he’s never complained about my “clean out the cupboards, we’re starting a new eating style!!” mania). I don’t know if I’ll ever be less than 40 pounds overweight, but I’m starting to think that 40 pounds overweight and eating stress free is much better than my past ways of living. I don’t aspire to “skinny” anymore. I just want to feel comfortable in my clothes, have energy for my kids and live a productive, happy life (and hopefully not get Alzheimer’s).
My kids were jumping for joy because I made mashed potatoes last night with dinner. They’re so used to eating Paleo that they think mashed potatoes are candy. I already feel happier. It’s fun eating. It’s much less stressful planning meals that I know my kids (and I) will enjoy. Tonight we’re having homemade chicken pot pie and they’ll gobble it up and that will feel really good. Honestly, it never occurred to me that what I was doing was disordered eating, just like when I was in high school. All these years I just needed a big food hug.
This looks like a good place to say howdy! My first post :) But by way of introduction I can give a simple history of diets I’ve done.
1) Age 12-14 First began to feel “fat”. Doctor prescribes some sort of insanely addictive amphetamine painkiller pill for my horribly painful periods and VOILA! they are anorexic as heck and I discover a fun and easy way to lose weight. It was great until I was about 16 and he stopped letting me take them. Bummer.
2) Second time I attempted to diet was about 2 yrs after the birth of my daughter. While breastfeeding and living on Food Stamps for part of her infancy, I gained weight massively until finally someone suggested Weight Watchers. I gained Weight on their then newly-touted Quick Start Program. A counselor told me that unless I was a lying, self defeating cheater, I must have a medical condition and get thee hence to a doctor to get your thyroid tested. I did and I was hypo thyroid – badly. On to Synthroid for about 15 yrs.
3) After about 3 yrs on Synthroid (which I know now did nothing good for me) I tried Diet Center. Worked. Lost about 35 lbs and looked good. Was working out, living the single life and all was good til I remarried in 1988.
4) More years on Synthroid, weight steadily working upwards, tried a few quick crash diets (you know, like SlimFast for 2 weeks til you puke, or the Cabbage Soup diet until you can’t be in public due to well….you know and a few other stupid Lose 25 Lbs in 3 Day diets), until in about 1998 I and my mom went on The Cambridge Diet, I think it was – all liquid all the time. Errrrgggh. Lost about 10 lbs and quit. Hated it.
5) In 2000 & 2001 I did a more sane thing: Body For Life Challenges, 2 back to back. Did well, learned a lot more about healthy eating and exercise. Was well into my second 12 week challenge, looking fantastic and feeling awesome til I had to have a hysterectomy. Buh-Bye BFL. Tore my rotator cuff the next year at work, never got back into it.
6) Gained it all back plus another 20 lbs and hit my lifetime high weight of 200 lbs by about 2007. Was diagnosed with Metabolic Syndrome. Discovered natural thyroid therapies, Dr. Brownstein, Stopthethyroidmadness, etc etc. and, last but not least in my panic over my weight, a precious diet not a lot have heard about, KIMKINS. A low carb, low fat starvation diet that actually was run online by a 300+ lb alcoholic sociopath who ended up being sued by a class action…but I digress. KIMKINS was my intro into the LC lifestyle. When I about kilt myself trying to stick to her recommended 600-800 calories a day (“a finger-pinch of lettuce and cheese stick”) I tried Atkins. I became a devoted Low Carber. Yanno how much I lost with both diets combined? less than 25 lbs. before I hit the wall.
7) 2009 brought me cancer. Not a diet I’d recommend, but the chemo & radiation did take some weight off. But I’m a survivor. That was the year I became a food fanatic and learned everything I could about alternative medicine, nutrition, supplementation, vitamins, you name it. Read Gary Taubes, every Brownstein book, learned about the WAPF and good fats, began following Jimmy, and the Eades and the HeartScan Blog by Dr. Davis, posted constantly on the big low carb forums and so on.
8) Segued from Low Carb to VLC and then finally to cheese/cream/butter/meat/eggs only aka Zero Carb. Didn’t feel too well after a few months on that, and began to CRAVE vegetables. <<sigh>> From there to Mark’s Daily Apple forum and Paleo.
9) Still fighting hypothyroid battles, most likely burnt out adrenals, Hashimotos, old age, diet burn-out and a divorce in 2011, I lost 35 lbs living on apples, coffee, coconut oil, salads and intermittent fasting for about another year.
And that brings me to now. I’ve gained back all but about 10 lbs of the 35 I lost. I’ve remarried, am happier and healthier (I think) than I’ve ever been in many ways, but the WEIGHT!!! :( I really don’t want to weigh 185-200. I’ve been insulin resistant for a couple years, and they put me on Metformin to try to avoid me heading into full blown diabetes. At 58 and as a cancer survivor, that is all I need!
I found Matt’s 180 blog, and read the Kindle version of “Diet Recovery” last week. I admit, it’s shaken me, but intuitively I feel this is probably what I need. I began taking morning temps and found I was at 97 most mornings. I have tentatively begun his RRARF plan for about a week now, and also added Thytropin PMG to my daily regimen of supplements in the hopes it will heal my poor Hashimoto’s battered thyroid gland and maybe help my adrenals too.
I have a LOT to learn and I’m happy to have found this forum. So hi ya’ll, and I’ll go back to reading now :)
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.