I've got a hunger and I can't seem to get full
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quite literally! (but I also love Bright Eyes! here's the song) forgive me for what may be an incoherent post: it's VERY early in the morning! the physical symptoms of refeeding are really freaking me out at the moment. I am constantly waking up after just a few hours sleep, drenched in sweat, and finding that I'm dizzy and weak with hunger when I stand up. hence the early morning (/kind of still night) blogging. I've heard of people experiencing this and know it's nothing to worry about necessarily, but I'm finding it really difficult. it seems like my metabolism is catching up to a normal rate this time, which is why I'm a bit sketched out cause that hasn't happened to me before. in hospital last year I never felt hungry in the slightest or had night sweats, and I gained a steady 1.5kg a week when I wasn't purging or otherwise messing around. of course to compound my worries I had to weigh myself when I got up, bad idea. well, I've been weighing twice a week and it's four days since last so fairly standard, but I now regret it as my weight has stayed the same. cue more confusion/weirdness. again, not necessarily actually an issue because theoretically I could have been retaining extra fluid the last time from stopping purging, and that's just died down now. just don't know how to interpret that...I mean I guess in general I gained in total 3.5lbs in just under two weeks. but obviously I don't know to what extent I was genuinely dehydrated from purging every day before that. ahhh too difficult to interpret. I should probably just relax. also I think some of the confusion is just eating disordered disbelief that I can have eaten a restaurant meal, carbonara, SNACKS that have multiple times the calories I used to eat in a day, and not see massive weight gain, or any in the past four days.
moving on, why all this random relatively inconsequential stuff is bothering me so much? well, I'm not feeling shaky at all in that I don't want to restrict or purge, I'm still confident about today's meals and so on. mainly I think, I've always been overly worried and paranoid (hence the premature concerns) that I will end up having to increase my meal plan substantially down the line to gain what I need to. while it's only one weigh in and considering circumstances it might not be 'valid', it's the intense hunger that worries me more, particularly because at some point it will make binge/purging a real problem. I know it's normal to feel hunger before meals, especially during refeeding, but this is getting to the point where I wake up 4 hours before breakfast starving and dizzy, and I would be 'ready' to eat my other meals over an hour before I'd planned to. clearly, it's all kind of scary :P bear with me cause I realise it may sound like I'm probably secretly happy about this but feel like I shouldn't be - the prospect of being able to eat more and justify it cause I'm hungry? yep, would have liked that but not wanted to admit it - when I had restrictive anorexia. now it's a prospect that really scares me...I think perhaps because I don't 'miss' food when I'm ill in the way I used to then...well y'know I miss being able to keep down normal stuff but not specific foods themselves. also I'm very aware of how my last relapse got so bad, after gaining for a while I had maintained for a bit on 2500 calories and went up to 2800...so when I cut back to virtually nothing overnight, the weight just fell off. my mental state went backwards insanely fast and in six weeks or so I had lost over 20lbs from an already quite underweight bmi. it would somehow feel 'safer' (bizzarely!) if I was gaining scarily fast, because it would feel like it was 'difficult' to get the food in, and like I didn't have so far to fall. feeling like a bottomless pit and being plagued by worries of how I'm going to gain the next 30-45lbs (haven't decided on a target yet, too early :P) is not my idea of fun!
right I seriously apologise for that post. honestly, if it annoys you that it's basically a stream of consciousness full of fairly distorted stuff, sorry and you don't have to reply ok? here's the thing: sometimes disordered thoughts float around the back of my head like annoying little snakes or something...I'm not even fully aware that they're there or of their exact contents, but I find them influencing my actions sometimes anyway. you know...I'm trying to think of an analogy...like if you fear a particular food and aren't sure why but after talking about it realise it's because you're worried it won't keep you full? in any case, I guess I'm, erm, using my blog to 'purge' the freakout that was in my head this morning. cause it's my blog and all ;) I might come back and edit some sensibleness or delete though, but it did help. firstly I can see that some of my fears are just illogical, like the fact that it's not a struggle to eat this amount triggering me. also it's fairly obvious from my ramblings that I am panicking and thinking too far ahead, and it'd be easier for me to try and 'stay in the day' (example: do not let the weight you've (not) gained in four DAYS make you panic about the weight you want to gain in the next four MONTHS, lol). also, if anyone's got any 'dealing with hunger' tips I might love you forever!
moving on, why all this random relatively inconsequential stuff is bothering me so much? well, I'm not feeling shaky at all in that I don't want to restrict or purge, I'm still confident about today's meals and so on. mainly I think, I've always been overly worried and paranoid (hence the premature concerns) that I will end up having to increase my meal plan substantially down the line to gain what I need to. while it's only one weigh in and considering circumstances it might not be 'valid', it's the intense hunger that worries me more, particularly because at some point it will make binge/purging a real problem. I know it's normal to feel hunger before meals, especially during refeeding, but this is getting to the point where I wake up 4 hours before breakfast starving and dizzy, and I would be 'ready' to eat my other meals over an hour before I'd planned to. clearly, it's all kind of scary :P bear with me cause I realise it may sound like I'm probably secretly happy about this but feel like I shouldn't be - the prospect of being able to eat more and justify it cause I'm hungry? yep, would have liked that but not wanted to admit it - when I had restrictive anorexia. now it's a prospect that really scares me...I think perhaps because I don't 'miss' food when I'm ill in the way I used to then...well y'know I miss being able to keep down normal stuff but not specific foods themselves. also I'm very aware of how my last relapse got so bad, after gaining for a while I had maintained for a bit on 2500 calories and went up to 2800...so when I cut back to virtually nothing overnight, the weight just fell off. my mental state went backwards insanely fast and in six weeks or so I had lost over 20lbs from an already quite underweight bmi. it would somehow feel 'safer' (bizzarely!) if I was gaining scarily fast, because it would feel like it was 'difficult' to get the food in, and like I didn't have so far to fall. feeling like a bottomless pit and being plagued by worries of how I'm going to gain the next 30-45lbs (haven't decided on a target yet, too early :P) is not my idea of fun!
right I seriously apologise for that post. honestly, if it annoys you that it's basically a stream of consciousness full of fairly distorted stuff, sorry and you don't have to reply ok? here's the thing: sometimes disordered thoughts float around the back of my head like annoying little snakes or something...I'm not even fully aware that they're there or of their exact contents, but I find them influencing my actions sometimes anyway. you know...I'm trying to think of an analogy...like if you fear a particular food and aren't sure why but after talking about it realise it's because you're worried it won't keep you full? in any case, I guess I'm, erm, using my blog to 'purge' the freakout that was in my head this morning. cause it's my blog and all ;) I might come back and edit some sensibleness or delete though, but it did help. firstly I can see that some of my fears are just illogical, like the fact that it's not a struggle to eat this amount triggering me. also it's fairly obvious from my ramblings that I am panicking and thinking too far ahead, and it'd be easier for me to try and 'stay in the day' (example: do not let the weight you've (not) gained in four DAYS make you panic about the weight you want to gain in the next four MONTHS, lol). also, if anyone's got any 'dealing with hunger' tips I might love you forever!
2 comments:
Ooh I like stream of consciousness style blogs...reminds me of Virginia Woolf ;)
The stuff you talk about reminds me of when I first started gaining at my lowest point. This wasn't until I got moved to a clinic and put on bedrest. I remember the night sweats, ridiculous hunger and general exhaustion...I think it's cos your body is finally getting what it needs, like you've given it an excuse to tell you how tired and in need of food it is.
You're right...don't think too far ahead and take it day by day. Wish I had some hunger tips for you...will have a think ;)
You are doing amazingly...
Sarah x
Aw Fi! Poor you. I remember my doctor telling me when I started eating more that one week of maintaining didn't mean I wasn't making progress, but that the calories were going into sorting my organs out rather than gaining weight. You know about specific heat capacities in thermodynamics? There are certain temperatures for every substance where it changes state from solid-liquid-gas, and while it is changing state the temperature doesn't change at all even though heat is still being supplied, because the heat is going into breaking bonds. After the change is over the temperature rises again. Not that you're melting :P but I always thought of it a bit like that. You know how hit and miss weight restoration can be. Sometimes you maintain for no apparent reason whatsoever, and it doesn't necessarily mean that you are going to need a million calories to gain. You remember how when we were both a bit crazy we separately decided that we were out of the woods because we had maintained our weight for a whole day?! I'm not saying don't stay on top of it because obviously it wouldn't be a good idea to lose (captain obvious here) but equally, try not to over think it. A lot of people find that even if they need a lot of calories to get over certain weights (maybe your hormones are getting back to slightly more sensible levels? I always plateaued for a while when going below OR above certain specific weights, maybe it was something like that), they stop being hypermetabolic when they are healthy. Needing lots to gain doesn't necessarily translate to needing even more to maintain.
Maybe you could try increasing anyway - if you're really hungry you probably do need to. Don't think about the long term implications, just deal with the day/week in front of you.
This comment reads like I've just dumped the entire contents of my brain on it in a random order :P sorry!!
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