Looking for your stories

Hey

I’m writing an ebook on dieting, and I am in the process of finding anecdotes.

If you have one please send me an email (ishavek@gmail.com).

I’m looking for your experiences: mental struggles, social struggles, and health problems you encountered from dieting.

Here’s my story:

I went on a raw food diet my freshman year of college. I was young and wanted to change the world (still do). My overly enthusiastic nature and impatience however led me to believe much of the well-marketed BS on the internet, including the likes of David Wolfe and other raw foodists. I went raw for 13 months and did fine, although I noticed significant adrenal fatigue after intense prolonged weight-lifting. My whole body felt a grade lower.

I continued to pursue strict diets after my 13-month-long experiment: I restricted ALL sugar and salt, eating plain brown rice and plain eggs for dinner for example. No pepper. I would drink turmeric tea with no sugar or salt.

Eventually I just felt tired. My quality of life declined. Sunny days weren’t as awesome. I wasn’t bursting with life. My eyes felt heavy, burning, tired, and I wanted to sleep more often and be lazy, but my sleep wasn’t as restful. My motivation felt weaker as well, for anything.

I started my journey for two reasons: to break a school record in the long jump, which I never did due to overzealous training, and to get to 6% body fat, a goal which I didn’t put any thought into. Just another vain emotional reason to pursue “fitness.” Too bad the fitness industry sells infertility, which isn’t fitness by any standard I know of.

I trained intensely: I lifted heavy, heavy, weights. This means they were close to the maximal I could possible lift; that number is called the one-rep max. This type of training is supposed to be easier on the nervous system I read, because fewer reps are lifted, and although it’s more intense, it’s a lot shorter in duration. Well I’ve realized over the years that the short-duration high intensity stuff can be very stressful.

Eventually the same catharsis I initially felt from lifting heavy weights disappeared. It didn’t feel as great. I didn’t go into the gym feeling as excited. My body was calmer. Probably a compensatory response to the extremely high blood pressure caused by lifting so heavy. I’m now at 100/50, not even sure if that’s a bad thing, but it’s low. I don’t wake up feeling as energized. The whole day is just, reduced in quality and value because I have less energy.

In the summer of 2013 I was at 11-12% body fat with decent abs and leanness, getting pretty strong in the weight room as well. I was squatting 2x by body weight, with my long legs, which makes it a lot harder. However, three years ago, my hairs started greying prematurely and they weren’t stopping now. Wrinkles started to develop under my eyes from fatigue, and my eyes continually burned and felt heavy. After sets of squats or other heavy exercises, my eyes turned even redder. It didn’t feel right.

I started eating more finally, letting go of dogma, and now it’s been about 10 months. My eyebrows were thinner than they are now, which means my thyroid is better. My feet are still kind of cold at times, at night and in the mornings, but I’m backing off exercise (the hardest part), and I’ve gained weight since moving back home, away from work, school, and other stresses: the weight is mostly muscle actually.

I feel better but still have recovering to do. I think the premature greying, just a few hairs here and here, but still alarming, is from mild hypothyroidism, which is linked to the adrenal issues. If there is anyway to stress the body more and cause it to release more ACTH, it’s to lift heavy or diet.

I’m finally lifting less but it’s an addiction. The worst part is that it’s tolerable, which means I don’t stop.

Anyway that’s my brief story, please let me know what yours are and if you’d like to be in my ebook.

my site is http://www.stopbeingconfusedabouthealth.com, I have no products to promote atm, just looking to share free and hopefully unbiased information. Cheers