was anorexic, about 2-3 years ago. I'm 5'3", and at my lowest I got down to about 95 lbs. I got into treatment, and starting eating to gain back the weight, but I couldn't make the gaining stop. Eventually, it got to the point where I was eating 1800 calories a day, swimming 3 hours a day (with a team) and still gaining ~2 pounds a week. I couldn't understand it. We went to every doctor we could think of, testing thyroid levels, taking blood tests, but everyone just insisted that everything was normal, that I just had to wait until my metabolism moderated itself.
It's not moderating itself, and it's been 2 years. I gained up to a high of 170 lbs, at which point I started taking an appetite suppressant and using a very low carb diet, 1000 calories a day, and was able to lose ~30 pounds. Then, I tried to readopt a more normal diet...and gained back 10 pounds and counting. Now I'm back to 150, and eating 1000 calories, approx 75 grams carbohydrates per day, and I continue to steadily gain a pound a week; relatively sure it's not muscle.
Additionally, I've sometimes wondered about potential blood sugar abnormalities. Sometimes, if I eat a "normal" amount of sugar (for instance, if I eat a cookie, and am not able to immediately combine it with protein) I get piercing headache that lasts for hours. Do you think blood sugar could cause the inexplicable confusion mentioned below?
I'm honestly getting close to depression right now. I have breakdowns on a weekly basis, it seems, because everyone's giving me advice like "Oh, just eat a normal diet of 1800 calories and lots of fruits and veggies and everything will even itself out" and "Exercise and weight lift!". Check, check, check, check. This isn't normal, please trust me; it's not that I don't know how to eat or that I don't exercise. According to predictions, my metabolism is about half of what it should be, and I have no idea how to get it back to normal. I feel so alone, and sometimes just get so angry at my body that I just want to hurt myself, because I feel like I'm never going to live a normal life where thinking about what I can and can't eat consumes every second of my day.
Please. If anyone has any ideas, I need them. As a result of this incomprehensible disorder, I have developed severe depressive and obsessive behaviors in relation to food, because I have to maintain constant control over what I eat in order to not balloon out of control (Example? I ate 1500 calories for ONE DAY instead of my normal 1000, still exercising 45-60 minutes daily, and I discovered that I had gained 2 pounds in the week that took place during my next weigh-in). I have lost my ability to feel emotions other than self-disgust and frustration, because whenever I try to relate to other people, I run up against my brick wall of envy, that they don't have this secret demon they have to battle every single day. I've never been in a relationship as a result, and I'm terrified that I'll never be comfortable enough with the mystery that I have become for that to be a possibility. So I appeal to anyone who might have any inkling, or know where I could go as I try afresh to find some solution to this...right now, all I can see looking into the future is cycle after cycle of self-hatred and frustration, with myself never finding happiness or contentment, and that future terrifies me...you have no idea how much of a godsend it would be to know once and for all why I have the metabolism (literally) of someone in a permanently catatonic state.
Thank you for your considering my dilemma