Posts by cruumb

p.s. not stupid <3

i sent you a message, love 

hey, zopta!

i've had unbelievable amounts of dental work...no fun. and osteoporosis. seems when you are undernourished for so long, the body leaches calcium from wherever it can (teeth, bones, etc.).  no dentist has ever been able to explain why the incredible amount of decay in my teeth, other than malnutrition.  i think, even if i never brushed my teeth at all (which i do...about 8253 times a day) and had been more nutritionally stable in the past 15 years, i would never have incurred this much damage.  

soooo ya, agru's right. work on feeding your body and focus on better nutrition before worrying about "toning" and muscle mass. you can't control or have enough energy to manipulate your body composition until you are healthier.  

i'm really glad you're being proactive.

lots of love

cruumb

keep working hard, sweetie.  remember the body processes trauma in ways that the brain cant always understand.  i hope you feel better soon and find some way to ease the pain.  love you xo

PMed=Private Messaged

i really should put more effort into capitalization and punctuation. 

i was prescribed fosamax years ago when i was in the hospital but i, yes, stopped it because very little research has been done on pre-menopausal women in terms of fertility.  it's hard to know what is best.  if you are supplementing but your blood calcium levels are low, there could be something else going on.  or you could be having malabsorptive issues.  love ya

fidget's on the nose. all the calcium supplements, weight bearing exercise, etc. really won't have much of an effect until you regain your monthly menstrual cycle.  i'm right there with you, girl. 

i could be entirely mistaken in thinking i recall you are recovering from being underweight?

if you have primarily gained a lot of fat mass, your body composition could naturally be reverting to a leaner state if your genetics push you in that direction and you are more active now with have more energy to do things. 

also, if you were sick for a bit and were very dehydrated at the time, your body could be holding onto more water now until it trusts that it has a consistently adequate supply again.

those are just my ideas. try not to sweat it too much if your clothes are still fitting fine and you feel healthy <3

hi! no, you haven't made me feel worse. in fact, it's comforting that i'm not alone in my quandary.  it seems like most people struggle to gain, and this has been quite the opposite.  i feel the same way...if i could just stop gaining and try to learn how to accept and maintain all the changes that i've already incurred, maybe i could learn to cope.  but knowing day after day that it just keeps going up, i, too, fear that it will swing far into the other direction.  my body hasn't really followed logic so far...

hi, abbi! you always are so reassuring.  i really appreciate your support and experiences. thank you for sharing.  i haven't been around much lately because of my utter frustration with this process, but from what i have read, it seems you have been struggling lately.  i hope you know what an inspiration you are to me and that i really respect your process and think you are amazing.  i wish i could be more supportive for you because i think you are swell. <3

jnorth, don't decrease your calories.  you will get yourself uber-f*ed even more if you do that.  i think abbi is right that we need to just keep going and be patient. i dont know how long you've been dealing with this, but it's been a loooong time for me, which may be why my body is being a bit slow to speed up. i also have been overmedicated for hypothyroidism, which was diagnosed because of labs that showed abnormalities, which were probably simply a result of survival mechanisms from long-term starvation. but when my dr went out of practice and let me stranded, i took matters into my own hands and definitely took too much medication for awhile.  at this point, i think my body is just super-confused and perhaps has even developed mechanisms to counteract the medication. leaving me totally in metabolic slowville.  there seems to be nothing i can do. but yeah, have your thyroid tested (not just tsh, but free t3 and free t4).  and maybe if you've never gotten past 1800 you should try 2000 and see if it pushes you beyond the hoarding-mode your body may still be in. i know, easier said than done. just an idea. 

xxoo

no, your body will not freak out. your body needs some serious rest.  this is precisely the reason i won't let myself have an exercise "routine" anymore. it's way too easy to fall into that place where disordered thoughts are generated and obsessions make you do things not because they are necessarily healthy or what you want to do, but because you did them yesterday. and then comes that looming fear and the "what if i can't fit it in today? tomorrow?" ...and it's just no bueno.  i'm sure part of you likes to be active, as i do too. activity is healthy. but hardcore every day regimes only increase my compulsions and take away days of cap'n crunch in my pajamas with a crossword puzzle on the couch at noontime.  <3

thank you so much for sharing this, clay. 

i know it sounds like a whole lot when you've been at much lower levels for so long, but in reality, 1800 isnt that much at all. there are a lot of calorie-dense foods that are full of nutrients and make it easy to get enough without feeling too full.  are you allergic to nuts and nut butters? avocado, hard-boiled eggs, cheese, oatmeal (made with whole milk, with some pb mixed in, raisins, maple syrup - BAM mucho calorifico), granola, 4% greek yogurt. . . .when i am having a particularly difficult time i, too, like pre-packaged bars, like luna bars.  drink a big glass of 100% juice or milk with every meal and you'll nearly double your caloric intake right there.  

if you force yourself to get your intake up to that point, your metabolism will increase to a healthier level and you will find it's not enough to keep you satisfied.

you really, really, really should NOT be running at this point. you are risking serious damage to your body.  source: personal experience.

you know all this already. the hard part is convincing yourself that you have to make a very important change in order to take charge of your health.

i understand it's not easy, but you've got to do it. your metabolic problems are really an indication of the serious damage you are doing in so many ways. years of overexercising and undereating have left me with so many issues, and i'm discovering more every day.  

<3

i think that as a baby i looked to my mother to see my reflection (as all babies do) and because my mother was a shell i never was able to feel "real" so i created something tangible that would help confirm my existence 

now that i dont have it anymore i've got more than just an identity crisis but the actual gut-level feeling that i dont exist

you may (or may not) need to accept a small short-term gain in order to restore your metabolism to full function. i know it's entirely counter-intuitive but you really do have to eat more to get your body working again. on such minimal calories you are risking a lot of damage from exercising at all. when i was going through something similar, people used to tell me this, too, and i didn't believe them.  your body really is storing everything you give it. the longer you drive yourself into the ground, the harder it will be to get things going again in the future.  trust me on that one. you have got got got to get your intake up to a healthy level consistently.  is it an option for you to see a therapist who might be able to help you with some of the psychological components that make you feel like you don't deserve to eat normally? because you really are worth more than this. <3

monkey it is very hard for me to hear that you are going through that.  you DO NOT deserve to be treated that way, no matter what.  period. 

even though my parents f*ed me up (and i'm just beginning to sometimes stop blaming myself for everything), they never ever did anything to intentionally hurt me.  the fact that your father has called you such names is abuse.  and your brother does not have a right to hold a grudge against you for so long because, perhaps, you had a momentary lapse in judgement or said some things that upset him.  

it was one of the hardest decisions in my life to pack my life into my car and drive across the country.  but if i hadn't gotten away i never would have grown and gained the perspective that i have. being under my parents' roof gave me such a feeling of obligation and guilt complex that i still struggle with today.  

in fact, about a year ago, after having been away for awhile and thinking i'd figured some things out, i decided i'd move back east to be closer to my parents. i thought being near mom and dad would help soothe the pain of a really bad end to a really bad relationship i'd been in. 2 weeks in their house (until i found a place of my own) was enough to throw me back into the state of mind of a person i didn't even know was still inside of me. it was an amazingly profound experience. i relapsed hard almost instantaneously. about 3 months and 40 pounds later, i called my movers back and hauled my bony arse back west to be near the support of my friends, because otherwise i knew i'd die (which really didn't seem like such a bad idea at the time).

the funny part is that i, too, always blame myself for my family's falling out.  my parents are in such denial about their own issues that they absolutely don't see the role they play in the whole mess.

i'm telling you all this because i want you to know i can relate. it is the worst position to be in, and without the unconditional love and support of my dear friends, i can say without hesitation that i would not be here today. i think being away is going to give me the opportunity to gain the strength to be an equal part in whatever relationship i share with my mother and father in the future.  i dont ever speak with my sister...she and i have never been very close, but it is very important for me to be able to have some kind of relationship with my parents again. but i need to be away for awhile, figure out who i am as a separate entity, and gain strength in the knowledge of who the hell i am before i can subject myself to the riptide of those dynamics again.

i rarely feel such certainty or express myself with such conviction, but it is my forthright and perhaps slightly biased opinion that you need to get away from patterns that will only persist your self-hatred. 

ill be thinking of you <3