I understand that you mean well, but you seem to continue to display a misunderstanding of what is actually being discussed.
Do you have any experience with disordered eating? Either yourself or someone you know?
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Thank you for the kind thoughts, @JMT.
I think this also illustrates one of nature’s cruelties inherent in discussing both mental, and physical, health. The last thing I want to do is break your heart, be a burden or give you something to worry about, whether you’re family, a friend, or a caring internet stranger. Worse yet is if it doesn’t even come with any apparent agency to make things better. The easiest way for me to avoid that is to not talk about it, but that obviously comes with its own problems.
We also already knew that fitness isn’t health, which we usually think of in terms of physical health, but this is really just another example. Even “good” things can be made bad. I’d been averaging c.500 steps a day, so I’ve been going for 10k step walks in the evenings. In another context, that’s probably good. In this context, where it’s another way to increase kJs, maybe not so much.
Someone earlier mentioned the need for control, and I agree that it’s a big part of it. Where that need comes from can be key. There’s often a thicket of issues that brought, and keep, someone to that place and it can take a lot of time and energy to hack away at it in an effort to try to get out. For me there are some deeper seated ones I need to deal with first, so we’ll see how that goes.
In the meantime, I continue to appreciate the work being done here and those who have shared their stories.
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I am so sorry and absolutely do not mean to cause you any guilt. Please don’t feel any guilt. Please. I just wanted you to know how much what you said resonated with me. Your words made me think about my own motivations — why I run when I am injured, why I don’t take real rest days. I’m so sorry and really do not want to add to any negative thoughts for you.
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I know that you didn’t, and tried take hard not to convey otherwise and apologize that I failed. It’s just one of those minefields that makes discussing this so tricky, and may help someone understand why it might be kept secret.
I really do appreciate your thoughts and your words @JMT.
I’ve also edited my last post to try to clean up those thoughts, and I’m open to removing that section altogether if it’s not helping the conversation. I’ll endeavour to also only use personal pronouns, because these are my thoughts and experiences and may not represent someone else’s reality.
I think there’s a disconnect in that perception of burden. I don’t want to be a burden on anyone, and it’s really hard for me to internalize not being one even if told otherwise. Again, something for me to work on in this thicket.
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I chose my words very poorly. I meant to say that I think what you shared was important and that it meant something to me.
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Edit: @preferuphill my initial reaction was to put a heart to echo @JMT …then I read how you were feeling about it. This is difficult to put into words. I feel such a strong kindness towards you, from listening to your story. That can only be a good thing. The world needs some kindness right now.
Today I am doing some remote support for parents of children with autism and special needs. I will do it with as much kindness as I can, knowing I don’t know their full story.
Thank you so much for sharing @preferuphill and @JMT
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I would like to hear your story @JMT.
Why do you run when your injured?
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You are very kind, @Bullseye. I am not interesting. I just have been interested in health and nutrition for a long time. I love wellness websites and I spend an incredible amount of time thinking about and preparing food that I think is “healthy.” Though the bulk of food I eat and prepare is “whole food” I love any excuse for treats and I was so happy to be encouraged to take in carbs on the bike. I jumped right on to that bandwagon. I eat way more food than most women that I know and I am not ‘overweight” and I don’t really “diet” - so from a distance, it might be hard to see that I have never felt good about myself. But I started cycling because I ran myself into chronic injuries. My injuries were so bad because I never let them heal. Through cycling, I learned about the concept of suffering and how endurance sports, to some extent, entail suffering. And since then, I have wondered why all the running and cycling appeal to me so much and why I cannot seem to do things in moderation. I want to love myself and to be kind to myself. I am getting older and I know that life is short. Who knew that a relationship with self could be so complicated? But I do feel like I am at least starting a journey of trying to be more self aware. And this interaction, on this thread, with amazing people has taught me so much already. Thank you so much for caring.
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I’m really glad you shared your experience. It made me reflect on my own motivation to train. I definitely enjoy cycling, but I can also recognize that I often use it as a coping mechanism. You definitely shouldn’t need to feel that you are burdening anyone.
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It’s so tricky. Control can be the way you overcome binge eating, but it can be the mechanism for restricted eating.
Letting go of control is part of how I got back to a healthy weight, but exerting control is also the way I force myself to eat the high carb diet I currently need to train successfully. Still haven’t figured out the balance
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Thanks for sharing @JMT
I know what you mean about pushing through injury @BlueHeron wrote about the need for control. I think pushing through injury could be related to the need for control. Not allowing our bodies to prevent us doing what we perceive we need to…?
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Pushing through injury, illness and hard times for me is so familiar to me as well, but I relate it to - I must at least do something, or I’ll gain weight and get fat. This is obviously an irrational way of thinking, but once I’m in that scenario, I just lose rationaliy and do stupid things I can’t explain. I remember last winter when my trainer broke and I wouldn’t get it back for a week. I ran for the first 3 days and the last 3 days and went into -5 degrees at 5am to do hill repeats on my bike just to “do something” that day. I don’t know, I guess it’s pretty much an eating disorder paired with exercise addiction matched with deep insecurities …
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I’ve totally been in this same spiral.
The good news is that you are self-reflective enough to recognize what is going on. That’s a good place to start building better habits, and thought habits from. Just don’t get down on yourself if get stuck. It’s hard
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Yeah, recognizing what’s happening, thinking about it and making small changes day-to-day really helps. I’ve been on the right track for the last couple of weeks and hopefully I can make a complete change in the future.
It really takes small changes, like eating a banana before a workout, or preparing an energy drink for during the workout, and things kind of move on from there 
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Interesting watch from my other sport, also one where your power to weight ratio is important to performance.
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Thank you for posting this, it was a really interesting watch.
There’s a part where Dr. Gaudiani describes what being seriously underfed does to a person’s mental and emotional state. I had never heard this expressed before, but immediately recognized that it was the state I was in for a long time.
It’s a catch 22 situation, my mental health is poor so I control food intake and that means I get poorer mental health. Similar to alcohol abuse they feed (pardon the word play) off each other.
Yeah, it’s a vicious circularity.
But if you can start to reverse it, it can work the other way as well.
In my case, I had to just force myself to eat more. Once that started, I began to get back to thinking more clearly again. Once I began thinking more clearly, I found more motivation to keep myself at a healthy weight
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What an amazing share. Thank you so much for this.
I can corroborate that one of the most useful things for many of my clients has been a focus on intra-workout fueling. It is absolutely a constant battle to avoid old habits. My wife holds a masters Sport Physiology & Performance and is a Registered Dietitiion with emphasis in intra-workout fueling and a strong interest in disordered eating among women athletes, and she still has to fight daily, personally, to not “delay” or “avoid” intra-workout fueling as a means of trying to restrict kcal. It’s been a very interesting study for the both of us to see how powerful a history of habits borne from personal history can be, even when in a person remarkably well-versed in the scientific literature on optimal fueling strategy, nutrition science, and sport phys.
Most of all, thank you for this contribution to the forum and the internet. I hope that it will find it’s way to broader audiences because while you say this…
…my practice has shown me that there are probably hundreds more in the races today doing the same thing as you did in the past. My beloved wife included (not ironman but other distance events).
Thank you again for sharing.
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You are absolutely right. I’d like to share some data and an encouragement.
I have coached approaching 1200 folks 1:1 on their diets. Full disclosure, I have no psychological training so please take all of this as heartfelt anecdotal discussion outside my academic realm of expertise. I have a PhD in Sport Physiology and Performance and a wife who is an RD and battled disordered eating since she was 10 years old. We have discussed and experienced this together at long length. Of my clients, roughly 500 of those folks are endurance athletes. Of those 500, it’s been about a 300/200 split between women and men.
I would estimate that more than 60% of my female clients and roughly ~30% of my male clients expressed immediate and somewhat intense concern for weight gain when I initially inform them of my recommended intra-workout fueling practices which are central to creating sustainable weight loss and maximizing physical performance as an endurance athlete. Table of Intra-workout Carb Needs Per Hour of Training
More than half of those concerned, if they are convinced to trial higher rates of intra-workout fueling, report amazement that it’s possible for them to consume as much during their workouts, and either maintain their weight or even lose weight. All had been intentionally restricting intra-workout fueling in an effort for weight loss or maintenance, and literally all of them report substantial performance benefit.
Probably approaching 90% of all my clients have attempted to restrict workout fueling, or to create rules of other sorts, often long lists, to aid in their weight management strategy.
The wildest part, and the reason I’m so glad that this thread exists… the vast majority of my clients who express amazement in their ability to fuel workouts with higher kcal and carb intake rates, think that they are unique in their concern over the intra-workout carbs or that their body, personally, will respond differently to the carbs than other folks. Or that they need different rules than the rest of the people I work with, or that their body simply needs a higher level of restriction and constraint than their peers. My brilliant and more-talented-and-harder-working-than-me wife, included.
To that I say: You are so not alone. And you have good reason based in your personal history to think and feel the way you do. I would feel the same, had I experienced and felt all that you had in your life.
I would offer you the encouragement that the best way I have seen folks overcome some of the restriction-based mindsets is to, for a very brief period of time, try a new way, and to form personal experiences that prove to your heart of hearts that you are safe to, and will even benefit from, a slightly new way of doing things. Action-based experiences based on small temporary trials, and the feelings that result, tend to be so much more powerful than trying to swallow whole “lifestyle” or “mindset” changes that are supposed to be permanent. Permanence is entirely overwhelming and very challenging to develop without first having some small positive experiences that lead to positive emotions.
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