“’Oh help,’ said Pooh, ‘I’d better go back!’ ‘Oh bother!’ said Pooh, ‘I shall have to go on!’ ‘I can’t do either!’, said Pooh. ‘Oh help and bother!’
I weigh myself on Sunday mornings. I’m down below 57 kilos on our scales. I’m sure this isn’t accurate because I haven’t totally collapsed, as I’d’ve expected, but presumably the trend downwards is correct.
I guess I’m displaying other symptoms of weight loss, also. My arms are maybe a little more veiny and I may have lost a little muscle; I often feel cold and have a cold nose; I’m very tired and have involuntary micro-naps in class if I have to sit still. Mind you, I’m not letting myself sleep very long at night. Looking in the mirror, I see hints, sometimes, of the ghastly yellow-skinned, red eyed spectre that used to greet me. If I do extra exercise my legs feel very slightly shivery.
I’m also getting night sweats and anxious dreams. Last night I had some terrible dream in which I was having a heart attack or something. I awoke sweating and thinking my heart was drumming. I tried to take my pulse, but couldn’t see my watch in the dark. It seemed quite slow. Was it? Was it weak? By that point the particulars of the dream had escaped me. Anyway, I was in a right old pother and worry, now, that I’m going to die in my sleep, which makes dropping off a bit fraught! I seem to spend my life in a state of damped down alarm.
I’m loving my food, again, especially yogurt and honey, and seem, to Jo, very manic and fussy. Certainly, I feel I’m coping less well with the normal argy-bargy of the children and am being a dreadful nag around their food. (Poor kids!)
I do eat, lots, just not quite enough. The problem for me appears to be individual decisions I make, rather than a goal of losing weight. I don’t want to gain weight, but I’m happy not to lose it, either. However, faced with a decision to be made about food, I inevitably go for the low fat, low-calorie option. I “err on the side of caution” if faced with an unfamiliar meal, but with no clear purpose in mind. I guess I want to be in control, or command of my body, and my life, but these decisions are habitual and virtually automatic, these days. For example, I was dithering, on Monday, about whether to have a plain ham roll (279 calories) or a plain ham sandwich (220 calories) for my lunch. After the fright I’d got with my weight, I decided I’d better go for the slightly more calorific option. I was happy with this and felt decisive and forthright as I entered the canteen, yet I walked out with the less calorific sandwich. It was a totally impulsive decision.
I’m also becoming pretty obsessive about exercise. In addition to my daily run, I’m now doing 200 star jumps a day, in four groups of 50, went swimming on Friday, and did an extra run on Saturday and Sunday. The swimming felt very invigorating, and, on Saturday, I really felt I could happily exercise all day. It’s not even about compensating for individual bouts of eating, as it used to be. (I guess you’d call them “meals”, not “bouts of eating”!). Yesterday, finding myself unexpectedly free at lunchtime, I signed out, ran home, got changed, did a 20 minute jog around the park, and got back to school before the bell went. Then, at around 11.30 at night, feeling unhappily full after my dinner, I nipped out for another 15 minute jog. The question is: can I back pedal, before I really go off the cliff? I ought to put on some weight before Christmas, because I tend to lose weight at Christmas. Isn’t that astonishing?! I guess it’s an anorexic thing.
Middle-aged Male Anorexic 