I now have less than two and a half months to put on a stone to make my target weight or I will lose my PhD.
Those words look so frightening... you must wonder why I don't simply GET A MOVE ON ALREADY!!!
Please understand that back in October, I had NO idea how hard this would be or how long it would take. After all,the pervasive message in society is that it is all too easy to put on weight and that we could all do with losing a few pounds. I feel that anyone would put on weight with the amount I am eating - it's so much volume, I seem to do nothing but eat! But then there are three points which I have come to realise through family, friends and the incredible Internet community:
1. A lot of what I eat is just water and cellulose
2. I do not know how much of a backlog my body has of internal repairs to address before it can put on fat deposits.
3. Even the diet I eat now might be 'restrictive' for the exercise schedule I keep up.
With anorexia, the rules for weight gain go out of the window. All the 'wisdom' I had followed before was based on healthy people, who can say with reasonable accuracy "If I add in 500 extra calories each day on top of my normal diet, I can expect to gain half a pound a week,etc'. But in this condition, the rules go out of the window. I have seen the oft quoted figure that anorexics need 3,000 calories a day to even START gaining weight...and that is with NO EXERCISE WHATSOEVER.
Yesterday, I checked my weight again. STILL no change.
Something in me is starting to snap. I have felt very depressed at work recently, hating myself for letting this vile, vicious little voice of negativity keep me from doing what I want, doing what I love. WHY do I listen to it??! It does not want me to be happy, it does not wish me well - it mocks me, keeping me in a job washing test tubes and cleaning up bacteria when I could be doing my own research! WHY am I so naive to think that anything good can come out of this??
Will I give up exercise? Will I chuck in another 500 calories? I have to do SOMETHING and soon...
But for this week, I am back at my parents house whilst I volunteer for the Big Bang Science Fair at the NEC. Normally, I would have got up extra early to fit in a cardio HIIT workout before a full day of work giving science demonstrations to endless kids with manic energy. But yesterday's result gave me the imepus to give myself a blanket ban on exercise during this visit. After all, the work itself is exhausting!
I need to take a serious think about what BIG change I will make when I go back to sheffield though. And it HAS TO BE DONE. Or I need to stop telling people that I am halfway through a PhD.
Phew, one day in and I am already exhausted. But then, I have fitted countless pacemakers today....yes,the organs are real but don't worry - they are from pigs, not people!
Thanks for reading
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