Drained to exhaustion...but now it's time to start fighting

I am thoroughly Big Banged Out. Anyone who has experience with small children knows how exhausting they are but multiply that by 70,000….amazingly, I made it through to the other side of the nation's largest Science and Technology fair for young people. But what have the repercussions been?

As I mentioned in my last post, I set myself the challenge of not exercising during my stint of volunteering at the Big Bang Fair, partly because I would have to get up ridiculously early to do it, and also because I knew the work it self would be demanding. After all, you have to walk miles just to get into the NEC, never mind what goes on inside! Nevertheless, separated from my beloved spin bikes, I had expected my weight to creep up a little.

Oh the irony! Teaching people about the science of flavour perception

But there was little chance of this. Each day, I worked almost flat out from 9.30-4.00 pm, barely looking up for four hours at a time as I fought to keep up with the endless queues of children. “Lunch” was a snatched salad and a herbal tea – barely 200 calories if that. All my carefully packed snacks languished in my bag as my usual hunger cues became buried under an onslaught of adrenaline. In one sense, it was truly wonderful to become so utterly absorbed that I forgot food, forgot hunger and became briefly free from intrusive thoughts of sugary snacks or guilt about what I had consumed that day. From the view of personal fulfilment, it was a deeply rewarding experience: there is nothing quite as magical as inspiring young children with something you are passionate about! But from a personal health point of view, it was a disaster zone which should have been roped off with red tape.

Releasing a party popper in slow motion in the BBC Tent

When I returned to Sheffield on Sunday, I was so exhausted that the last stretch to my flat seemed to take forever. Several times I literally stopped dead in the street, staring blankly at my feet until I could persuade them to move again.

So I couldn’t be too surprised to see that there had been no change on the scales this morning.

Learning open heart surgery in the Live Operating Theatre

Which means that, although my only desire is to sleep, sleep, sleep - I must pick myself up and start the real challenge. I have scarcely more than two months to save my PhD. Whilst I stayed with my parents during my time at the BBF, we had several hard talks together and I was forcibly confronted with the fact that I am a continual source of worry for them, and will be until things are drastically different. I realise now that all my “plans” and “changes” so far have been based on the “rules” for healthy people. But now I know that when you are recovering from an eating disorder, all the rules go out of the window. It is no longer a case of any calories going in being used mainly for basal metabolism and any additional physical activity. On the contrary, the body is in a severe deficit with a backlog of repairs to address. I don’t know how much damage, if any, I have on the inside which is preventing me from putting on weight. But as my diet so far hasn’t worked, I have to presume that there is some.

After trawling the internet, I came across some calorie figures. One young lady described how she put on a pound a week on 2,500 calories a day, with no exercise. So for starters, I have to make sure that I am eating that amount every day at least. If I want to carry on exercising, then I will have to eat more on those days to compensate.

Who knew what you could build from newspaper?!

I start this new plan today. It will be tough: this morning I “indulged” in a spin class so I have a bit of a deficit to make up. But the push has to turn to a shove now. It’s the only way I can start to break the grip of this vile and fickle illness. And if this plan still doesn’t work….then I will have to be more drastic still and tear up my gym membership card!

I’ll let you know how this week goes…thanks for sharing it with me.

I will be writing a blog post about my Big Bang Fair experience for my other blog, Science as a Destiny if you are interested!