Unable to exercise due to health right now, unable to go lower than 800 calories due to health, unable to... actually get past this plateau!
I think? I'm always scared to weigh (sometimes I'll weigh 5 times a day or not at all) and have terrible time perception, so I guess there's not a way to know how long I've been stuck here.
One thing's for sure though, I'm having to actually leave the house now (have not been able to regularly since I was 11 due to transportation and agoraphobia) to go to doctors and psychologists and stuff, so people will definitely see me while I'm stuck at this plateau.. it's so embarrassing.
Gah and they'll have to weigh me too probably because it's going to be a lot of testing.. and they're going to think I'm a big lazy slob that's not trying hard enough and is working their way back up to being as fat as they used to be!
Any suggestions? 800 calorie a day vegan diet, bedridden, 18 year old with hyperthyroidism. (actually we're pretty sure it fluctuates, but in the test I got it came back as severe hyperthyroidism)
As a severely disabled, mostly bedbound vegan, I can definitely sympathise. But you cannot eat that little. No one should. Being ill actually makes it worse, because we are so much more fragile and really need the nutrition. I'm 4'11, and when I was dieting a few years ago, I was on 1050 calories. If I were your height, it would probably have been 1200. I put a bit of the weight back on years later, but this time I'm aiming for 1200, because I do not want to make myself worse in terms of health.
You sound so unhappy about all of this, my heart goes out to you. Do you have any issues with anorexia or similar? You mentioned that you're weighing yourself multiple times a day, which combined with aiming for a really low calorie allowance, not to mention thinking that you're fatter than you are (you are in the healthy range of the BMI! You are not a fat slob!), tends to be a sign of disordered eating of that type. How's your psychiatric care, are they helpful, can you talk to them about your fears about weight and food? I can very much understand your worry that you can't control it and that you will end up as heavy as you were in the past.
I'd suggest focusing on maintaining at the moment. Try to get comfortable with eating, to get out of any unhelpful patterns you may be in, whether that's forgetting to eat regularly, or getting into a deprivation/binge cycle. Severe disability is pretty horrible when it comes to making you feel betrayed by your body and out of control. You mentioned that you have terrible time perception: are you having any problems with remembering whether you've eaten? I used to have that, and it was not good for me or for my weight. I learned that I have to eat on a regular schedule, and then things settled down beautifully. (Actually, the first thing I did was sort out my circadian rhythm disorder, because you can't eat in an organised fashion when you're on a 25 hour day.)
I'm guessing that you use a wheelchair for medical appointments. Could the person pushing your wheelchair advocate for you a bit? (If not, could you bring someone with you for this purpose?) Could they ask the doctors not to weigh you, or at least not to discuss your weight with you, as it's something you find terribly stressful?
How are you doing in terms of your food content, is that something that is stressing you out too? With my medical condition, ME/CFS, I see an awful lot of people who are so obsessed with finding the right foods to eat that they have orthorexia, and have limited themselves to a terribly small number of foods and are experiencing problems as a result. It's an understandable reaction to being terribly ill and always hearing about how various foods are healthy/unhealthy. Apart from limiting sugar, since that has immediate and obvious effects on my pain levels, I am just going for my usual food, and am trying to avoid all the fuss about carbs and what proportion of fat you eat and so forth, because I don't need it. I've always eaten a wholefoods diet so that's not difficult for me, but I don't get stressed out about having the odd portion of nachos at a pub, or occasional veggie sausages, or that vegan cheese which I keep suspecting is made of plastic! I think a vegan diet is best ethically, and as for health, I think it has its pros and cons, most diets do. I've only recently started looking into this properly, particularly because my teeth are in a state, and have revised my supplements accordingly. So now I'm taking Vitamin K2 and Vitamin A, for instance, and was already on Vitamin D (there's a vegan D3 you can get these days), Omega 3 algae oil (also a great innovation) and high-dose B12. But I am not sitting around worriting about whether potatoes might be terribly bad for me, because life is too short and potatoes are fab. Anyway, what's this side of things like for you?
You also sound stressed and lonely, so I am sending you virtual hugs and a nice cup of tea, and am hoping you manage to have something of a social life in a way which is joyous rather than stressful. You're so young to be bedbound, it must be so hard to deal with. I'm 37 and have been ill since I was 19, I'm a lot more accustomed to it, and I still find it bloody hard. You do learn to cope with it better, though, especially if you have good support. I am lucky enough to have an awesome partner, ridiculous and adorable little cat, and fabulous friends.
(Also I'm LGBT too, and noticing that you're non-binary, so *waves*!)
Even people in a coma at the hospital receive at least 1500 calories a day. Eat a decent amount of calories and be patient. Bodies are weird. Sometimes they'll hold on to water weight (especially if you're sick) and then all of a sudden woosh it's gone. The reason why doctors/dietitians recommend not going under 1200 calories per day is that it's really hard to get all of the vitamins, minerals, and nutrients your body needs under that level. Please be patient with yourself and don't rush it. You really don't want to give yourself anymore health problems. Also, have you considered visiting a dietitian? He or she can give you a plan that takes your current health status into consideration.
I'm always scared to weigh (sometimes I'll weigh 5 times a day or not at all) and have terrible time perception, so I guess there's not a way to know how long I've been stuck here.
One thing's for sure though, I'm having to actually leave the house now (have not been able to regularly since I was 11 due to transportation and agoraphobia) to go to doctors and psychologists and stuff, so people will definitely see me while I'm stuck at this plateau.. it's so embarrassing.
Gah and they'll have to weigh me too probably because it's going to be a lot of testing.. and they're going to think I'm a big lazy slob that's not trying hard enough and is working their way back up to being as fat as they used to be!
Any suggestions? 800 calorie a day vegan diet, bedridden, 18 year old with hyperthyroidism. (actually we're pretty sure it fluctuates, but in the test I got it came back as severe hyperthyroidism)
I'm sorry to hear about your medical issues, that's tough to deal with at such a young age! I'm not sure if this is a medically supervised diet but 800cal is dangerously low for a teenager, eating this little can seriously impair your physical and brain development. Furthermore, depriving your body of the calories it needs to function it slows down your metabolism in order to desperately conserve those precious calories which would explain your "platetau." This is also referred to starvation mode.
I bolded some words that were red flags in your posts. Considering your stats it's quite obvious that your perception of yourself is not aligned with reality. It happens to all of us, we're perfectionists, we compare ourselves to magazine models and celebrites and come down hard on ourselves. But rest assured that nobody else is looking at you with the critical eye that you use to look at yourself. Nobody else is making any judgments on your body and if even if they are they are fleeting little thoughts that really don't matter to that person anyway.
The pressure you're putting yourself and on your body to lose weight is contributing to a lot of anxiety that fuels illness and agoraphobia. Let yourself be a teenager, take it from me, starting disordered eating patterns in your teens can blow up into a full on ED later on. If you have the opportunity and the insight to work on it now please do so.
I am at a complete plateau..
