Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness

I figure if I can't share this here, then I haven't really improved too much. As this is where it all started, I feel like it should (at least to some degree) be recorded here.


I haven't been on the boards very much since last year, which is too bad because I used to love it so much and still admire the people on here and am friends with many of them in real life. i feel like my fitness (and life) struggles can't be so rare that they are irrelevant to most people if i can help one person in anyway by doing this, then i'll be happy. Writing about a lot of this isnt easy for me, so try and be a little sensitive and non-judgmental when reading it.

This will be a blog of my current growth and also a recollection of my past year(s) simultaneously.

As some of you remember, i was a chubby kid, a fat teen and then went vegan for ethical reasons, dropped thirty pounds and then decided to lose the rest by getting fit healthily. this was all well and good and i was happy, healthy, fit, and confident. Then I found this board and got even more into fitness and got a personal trainer. I was fitter, leaner, and a good model for vegan fitness and strength. thats my (female) back at the top of this page. haha.

but over time, i became obsessed with fitness and nutrition, macro ratios, abandoned social outings to walk on a treadmill etc etc etc. but i would find myself restricting and restricting my intake and cramming protein down to achieve this ideal figure girl type of look (and it was working too!) but then i would gorge myself on foods that i would never normally eat. vegan cakes, cookies, vegan pizza-and i couldn't stop. i would always be so full and "oh well-huess i'll have to go for an extra hour on the treadmill tomorrow" this went on for months and months, sometimes with rare binges and sometimes with more frequent ones.

By about august after an 8 day juice fast, i binged badly. and i was feeling terrible about myself and thought, well-if i could just throw up a little of it, then the damage wont be so bad. ....... anyway-most of you probably see where this is going....

by mid september i was a full blown bulimic. Over the course of 8 months i gained about 25 pounds from all of the bingeing. The stress of moving across the country left little time to go to they gym. i joked that moving to Portland was "vegan junk food heaven" and thats where the weight came from. But in actuality-i was bingeing and purging up to 15 times a day. I was very very sick.

Lean and Green (giacomo) was as helpful as he could be, not knowing the first thing about eating disorders, and was at a loss. All of the competing and dieting down on his end, only made my mind that much worse, and i spiraled downward almost to the point of needing to hospitalized-scared of having a heart attack one day soon. No one knew but maybe 4 very close people to me, but no one could do anything. There was no money for doctor's and no willpower inside of me to stop. It was a monster in my head.

I took time to research people who had beaten the disorder for months on end and saw that although i NEVER SAW THIS COMING, that there were several warning signs that a more knowledgeable person would have seen. I have gone roughly 130 days without any bulimic behaviors and have developed a healthier mindset about food and exercise. I still have a long long long way to go, but they progress i made, on my own, is really something i am proud of.

Although this was a terrible thing to go through (my head has literally been my own personal hell) it has allowed me to learn a lot about myself and my weaknesses. I have some deep rooted childhood issues about food, self esteem and what it means to care about yourself. to this day i have little confidence in myself. and oddly ( i still can't figure this one out) i have incredible body-image/appearance issues. this is strange to me because i am not a superficial person and i dont care what anyone looks like-i dont judge anyone and i dont expect anyone to judge me.....but i judge myself???

anyway.....i'm hoping that i have the strength to keep up this blog. to share some things that i've learned, and hopefully help anyone going through anything similar-maybe even learn together.

Thanks for being supportive guys!
exoh

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the beginning is always today.

Oh my goodness I had no idea you went through all that! It must have taken a lot of courage for you to tell us. We're all your friends and we'll always support you no matter what.

Recovering from an eating disorder is no easy task. I was hospitalized for anorexia when I was 16 and although I made a quick recovery, it took me a long time to recover from the emotional aspects of it. It also took a long time for my stomach to return to it's normal size and for me to put weight back on. I was under 100 pounds for about a year or so afterwards.

It's important when you suffer from something like this to seek support from those who love you. Counseling helps too to help you regain your self esteem and understand what caused the behavior in the first place. It's also helpful for preventing yourself from falling back into the eating disorder trap.

I hope that you feel better soon and wish you the very best!


Your friend,

Marcina

Thank you for sharing that. I can relate as I've had binging/purging problems in the past as well. I thought I had gotten over those issues but right before my wedding this past summer I was slipping back into old habits...the stress I guess. Now I'm trying to get back on track...not obsess, but do things the healthy way and get fit. But it's not easy. I'll have a couple of good days and then freak out about things again. I don't write about it much in my journal...I have a tendency to keep it to myself which probably doesn't make things any easier.

I really wish you a speedy recovery and I'll be following along and hopefully will gain strength from relating to someone going through similar troubles.

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vegan for the win!

WOW, I hope you have a fast recovery past all of this and get back into the gym and a healthy eating habit. Thank you for sharing your story.


<insert penile joke here>


Take care and get on here more!!

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I was visiting Bif's blog, which I do on a regular basis.. And she actually posted something about eating disorders. There's a blog Bif wrote about her feelings on the subject, and also a very good video she included about how magazine pics are photoshopped.

Here's the linky:

http://www.bifnakedblog.com/2009/09/04/ ... -you-dont/

We should hang out soon....I'm away this weekend but around all week and around quite a bit in general this month...would like to see you and we still have to do our double date sometime.

Welcome back to the forum too

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Check out my Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness Book on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Vegan-Bodybuildin ... 497&sr=1-1

wow, thanks for sharing this to everyone. Hopefully it helps out some others who have/developing eating disorders.

Can't wait to read more of your journal entries and see how your "journey" progresses

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Online Vegan Consumer guide:
http://www.vegandetective.com

Free Vegetarian Dating
http://www.freevegdating.com

You're so courageous for writing that here. I think if more of us could do something like that, less of us would be running into this kind of challenge. You're really a hero, Dani.

Love to you.

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Radical simply means "grasping things at the root." - Angela Davis

thanks for the responses guys. it may seem brave, but thats only because i can tell that the worst is behind me now. when i was really in the thick of it, there's no way i could have done this. no. freaking. way.


So, i also decided to start writing this because of all of the recent debate over orthorexia-the "new-healthy-eating-eating-disorder" which i know sounds like a crock of shit. believe me i do. but i have to say that's how it all started for me.

i KNEW what i HAD to eat to reach my goals. i needed 140-150g protein, 50-60g fat and <100 g carbs everyday. tons of water. no flour, no nighttime carbs, protein protein PROTEIN! cardio up the ying yang..."but don't work too hard or you'll burn away your muscles--just go longer" I mean I obsessively read labels, recorded every morsel to pass my lips and at the end of the day totaled it all up and the day was a success or a failure. nothing in the middle.

listen, there's something to be said for the dedication that i put in. it was admirable. and it was a very fine line between dedicated and insane. so fine in fact, that i didn't even feel it when i crossed it. I avoided going out to eat with people. worked out twice a day. got into arguments about how much i was working out, etc. my boyfriend at the time would tell me at the end of the day, while i was beating myself up for having a whole sweet potato at lunch instead of a half, that i was being silly and i was beautiful and blah blah blah. "he just doesn't understand how important this is to me" id think.

But Sundays were my "refeed" days. It was supposed to be just one meal of pretty much whatever i wanted, but it always turned into "oh and i want this too. and you cant have vegan quesadilla without vegan sour cream!.... What's a god meal without a good dessert?" and so on and so on. people were usually happy with me on Sundays because I would eat what I wanted and to most people they could tell i was starving and assumed that i just needed the food. But what they couldn't see was that my stomach was so small, that i was actually eating until it hurt. and then feeling fat and gross and more than anything guilty.

I had pictures of fitness and figure champions up all over my house, staring at me, making me feel worse and worse all the time. I was trying to compare myself to these airbrushed professionals who even at THAT, only look like this for maybe a month out of the year for competitions. I mean, I didn't even give myself a chance.

in retrospect, i should have/could have seen it coming. but i was so close to the forest that i couldn't see the trees.










I just want to say that I really am not looking for sympathy from anyone at all. I am, honestly, just trying to put this story out there in the hopes that someone else going through something similar can maybe stop it from happening as well.

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the beginning is always today.

sweet video-thanks marcina!

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the beginning is always today.

Welcome back!
We miss ya!
Health is paramount!
Looking forward ...

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Happiness is a personal choice!
I am the sole source of all my sadness and joy.

"The logic of worldly success rests on a
fallacy: the strange error that our perfection
depends on the thoughts and
opinions and applause of other men."
Source: Thomas Merton

So, back to the present:


This is the second (maybe 3rd?) day of grey portland, and i remember now why i was so badly off last winter. This grey is miserable. If anyone is in or around PDX and wants to hang on Mondays or Thursdays please hit me up. I'm trying to not hermit this year. haha

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the beginning is always today.

I'm up for doing stuff....get in touch anytime.

I'm around for a while....next time I "leave" is near the end of the month, 24th or something. Lots of fun stuff to do in PDX...let's explore!

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Check out my Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness Book on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Vegan-Bodybuildin ... 497&sr=1-1

Hey there! I'm from Portland, I live downtown. My best friend just moved back to Chicago, where we're from, which has left me with a bit of free time. I'm always looking to meet new people.

Be well!
Brandon

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be well!
brandon

i saw michael franti and spearhead with giacomo on thursday night. bvp663 showed up too and found us in a super packed room by our crazy dancing! hahahah! it was an amazing show. i love michael franti-i wish sometimes that i could have his brain because it is so ridiculously positive. it was a blast. i also bought some paints, brushes and canvas paper to take a stab at painting which one of my dear friends is encouraging me to do. my father is a professional painter (is there such a thing?) so i know i have some hint of talent in me somewhere, but i have zero training. whatever, it was fun.

I also went to pick up my bass guitar (aka the first love of my life) and the jack is broken because one of my lovely puppies knocked it over, so i was super bummed out. i wonder how much that'll cost to fix. no bueno.

i also found out i have 2 days off in a row this week! HOLY SHIT!

decent week thus far!

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the beginning is always today.