The Dragonfly Warrior

I see. Yeah, the exercise part is fine, but, my friend… you need to eat a lot more food and drink a lot more water. For a person of your size and activity level, even if you’re trying to lose weight, you should be eating at least 2000-2500 calories and I doubt you’re making even half of that. And that is why you are gaining scale weight (that, and water retention from not drinking enough). You’re not giving your body enough fuel to support itself versus your level of activity, which is causing it to freak out and hold on tight to everything you put into it. You should also be drinking about 100oz of water, and that’s probably lowballing it - I drink about 150-200oz a day. 

Nutrition-wise, every meal you eat should have a source of carbs, a source of protein, and a source of fat - a balanced meal. Almonds and coffee isn’t a balanced meal; sauteed veggies and coffee is not a balanced meal. Health, fitness, safe weight loss etc. is much more about solid nutrition than it is about exercise. I feel pretty confident in saying that you need to work on the nutrition part. Learn about meal planning and what your energy needs are.

Also worth noting that at 6′4″ and 182lbs, you are definitively NOT overweight and I’m curious as to whether you are looking to lose weight, maintain, or gain muscle. To maintain or gain, you seriously need to start eating way more, and even if you’re trying to lose (??), you still need to be eating more than you are right now. If you’re having trouble with this (I’ve known people who are literally only hungry for what amounts to ~700 calories a day), I can make some suggestions for choosing foods that are more nutrient- and calorie-dense and can help meet your nutritional needs.

To answer your first question, I don’t think you’re doing too much, but only you can be the judge of that. What might be a perfectly manageable exercise routine for one person, could be overtraining for another person. We all have different bodies and different needs. If you’re feeling really tired, having any persistent pain, have low immunity or slow healing, or irregular appetite, those are a few signs that you are doing too much. But as long as you’re eating properly (enough), getting adequate sleep, and taking a rest day each week, it sounds fine to me. Consult a professional IRL if you need a definitive opinion.

As far as the weight gain… I’d need to know more to give you a really good answer. How much weight are you gaining? How much are you realistically eating? What’s your macronutrition like? (What percentage of your calories are coming from carb/fat/protein?) What’s the timeframe here - have you gained over a number of days, weeks, or months? 

If you’re judging your weight gain over a time span of less than a couple weeks, that’s not enough time to accurately judge results. Temporary and random weight gain can happen for a million different reasons. You also referred to “normal eating” - what does that mean to you? Are you dieting yourself into deep calorie deficits? (I absolutely do not recommend this.) Are you eating without nutritional tracking and according only to appetite cues? (This is better, but can also result in overeating if one does not have a solid familiarity with nutrition etc.) What do you mean by three bottles of water? An active person would do well to drink a lot of water, probably about a gallon (or about 4 liters, if you’re metric). Not drinking enough water does cause water retention, though. Conversely, drinking a lot of water helps your body let go of the stored water. Aside from these factors, I could point to a couple different general possibilities.

Possibility #1: You are gaining muscle. Insanity is heavy on plyometrics and on bodyweight strength exercises (from what I remember). These can contribute to muscle gain. However, if you are in a deep caloric deficit or are not eating enough protein, you are probably not gaining significant muscle and the weight gain is probably something else.

Possibility #2: You’re overtraining/not eating properly, and your body is responding by hoarding calories and jacking up your cortisol levels (a stress response hormone). The body works really hard to preserve its energy (stored fat) when too much physical stress is put upon it. Also, running is particularly notorious for raising cortisol levels, which also triggers fat storage/retention as well as water retention.

Possibility #3: A combination of both? Bodies are weird, complex, organic machines that react to things in strange ways…

Hi anon,

Sorry it took me awhile to get to this ask, but I wanted to answer with care.

It’s very hard to move on beyond ED ideations. It can be incredibly painful to let go of the days/months/years controlled by an ED. When we start trying to make positive changes for health instead of calories/weight, the hardest thing was starting to let go of what I sacrificed “for” the ED. It’s like I wanted to feel like the years I spent torturing myself were “worth something”, that I didn’t want to acknowledge that it was “all for nothing”. But sometimes the only thing to do is to allow yourself to start over. Don’t try to hold on to xx pounds lost or xx clothing size. To grow into a healthier and happier version of you, old emotional baggage must be released. I promise that it hasn’t all been for nothing; you have learned a lot and are conquering a terrifying, seemingly impossible experience. But you have to let your body, mind, and emotions start over. Tons of nutritious delicious food and a super awesome badass fitness plan will still be deadly poison if you track it obsessively and use it to beat yourself up when you don’t do it perfectly. Unhealthy desires wearing a new faux-healthy face will still rip you apart in the same old ways. 

Moving past the philosophical advice, though ;)

It’s hard, but the best thing to do is to stop counting food. (If you’re not counting food, I apologize for seeming presumptuous.) Don’t count calories, carbs, sugars, fats, proteins, or anything. It’s a nerve-wracking and painfully anxious endeavor for awhile (”how do I know what anything is worth if it doesn’t have a number??” etc) but it gets so much better as you go about your life and you’re not counting food and the world DOESN’T END. (Holy shit.) You can start smaller, like not tracking one meal. Then maybe one meal per day. Again, this usually creates some anxiety, in varying levels of extremity depending on the person. I encourage you to examine and address the anxiety instead of burying it in something else. Since ED’s are generally coping mechanisms used to divert or numb uncomfortable feelings, simply diverting negative feelings caused by addressing your ED behaviors is not actually addressing the root problem. Support people/groups are very important in recovery for reasons like this. Above all, food is fuel, but it is also important to us as humans for enjoyment reasons. Find ways to allow food to be more than numbers to you.

On the subject of exercise: It’s a great thing. But we use it in the worst ways. It’s not compensation for something “wrong” we think we did/ate or are planning to do/eat. We tend to think of food as “plus calories” and exercise as “minus calories” and at the end of the day we’re just looking at whether there’s a positive or negative number. But that’s skewed, aberrant, distorted, really just flat-out wrong.  Exercise makes your body stronger and happier. Food is what your body wants to use with exercise to make itself physically greater. It’s intricate and complex and more than math. To have a better relationship with exercise, find a modality that speaks to you. Something that inspires and elates you. Something that speaks louder than the ED voices, something that helps you decide to nourish and refuel after that incredible session because that session was so much more important than the bullshit your ED has to say. I found that freedom in powerlifting, and then in martial arts. The amount of weight I could move was so much more important than a bit of pudge on my tummy or the scale number. In martial arts, teaching my body to whip around and strike with intense accuracy and power is so much more important to me than worrying if my thighs jiggle when I land a hard kick. My little sister just discovered a natural talent for dance. She recently gained significant weight and still struggles with disordered thinking, but she is learning to love - not just tolerate - her wide hips and gently rounded belly and the way her body moves so impressively through space. The ED thoughts may never go away entirely, but when you find something that is more important, that speaks louder than ED thoughts (even just a little bit, even just for a second), the thoughts begin to lose their power… slowly, but surely. 

At some point, you may grieve for the time you spent being bullied by your ED, and that is okay. You won’t get that time back. You have to mourn for it and eventually move on. But it wasn’t for nothing. You can nurture a more positive relationship with food and exercise. I won’t ever say that it’s easy or that it just happens one day. It’s a lot of work on your part, not just on a private level but also in constantly fighting insidious messages from the disordered, toxic diet culture we live in. But it is a battle worth fighting and you DO have it in you.

My advice is to never make weight loss the goal. Weight loss, in and of itself, is (in my experience) a hollow goal. Your body becoming “lighter” doesn’t mean very much in terms of health and wellness. Yes, a person’s weight will often change when they make healthy changes to their lifestyle, but weight can also change when a person is sick, if their hormonal balances shift, it can depend on the time of year, it can fluctuate with changes in digestive health that might be completely unrelated to anything they’re actually trying to do, etc etc. 

If you’re working on eating better and getting healthier, your body might offload extra weight that it doesn’t need, which is/may be a direct response to your healthier habits. But that cause/effect relationship doesn’t go both ways - “losing weight” doesn’t necessarily mean that you got healthier.

If you’re tired of struggling with motivation, try setting a goal that actually makes sense. Perhaps your goal could be “building a healthier lifestyle”. Instead of constructing your “plan” around changing your body weight, construct the plan around figuring out what positive changes and habits will make your life a healthier place - physically, mentally, and emotionally. Your body will respond accordingly to how you treat it/yourself, which certainly may include weight loss if your body is carrying more than it needs to.

If I may speak from personal experience: I consider myself physically healthy. My current body weight is at least 100 pounds lower than my highest weight, which was at a time when I was very unhealthy in my habits. If I had “started” making changes by saying “my goal is to lose 100 pounds”, I never would have stuck to anything I tried to do. By saying “my goal is to create a healthier lifestyle”, I found that it was much easier to stay motivated to do that. My body has responded accordingly and become a much healthier version of itself, to match the healthier lifestyle I built for myself. That healthier version happens to involve a 100+ lb. weight loss that I have not struggled to maintain, at all. It also involves a happier, stronger, better-educated me that enjoys exercise, eats lots of tasty food, and actively works to navigate unhealthy thoughts and concepts perpetuated by our society’s harmful diet culture. I never would have gained all of those things by just trying to “lose weight”.

I also strongly encourage you to practice body positivity and be open to the idea that your body's version of healthy may involve a scale weight that does not "match" the weight you've been told you should be, and that is totally okay! Health and happiness is the ultimate goal, not a number on a scale.

No!!! If you are trying to lose/cut weight for any athletic reason, the WORST thing to do is to eliminate strength training from your routine. 

Strength training is responsible for preserving your muscle mass during a time when you are (probably) in caloric deficit. If you are 1. cutting calories, 2. doing extra cardio, and 3. suddenly doing no lifting, your body is going to start cannibalizing muscle tissue instead of the spare fat you’re trying to drop. If you’re in caloric deficit, you won’t be gaining muscle even if you do lift, but you still need to use the muscles if you want to maintain your strength.

The thing to change about lifting during a cut period is how you lift. Restructure your lifting routine to preserve your muscle tissue and strength while you are losing the fat. Usually this means lifting for endurance, instead of power/strength/hypertrophy. (Not necessarily "low weight and high reps" though!)

The best way to go about this can really differ between athletes, so I’m not going to throw any numbers at you, but Google something like “how to lift during a cut”. Or, if any followers have some good info, I’ll do my best to reblog/repost it for you.

Yes and no. First of all, muscle gain and strength gain are not always synonymous. Training for mass usually results in strength gains, and training for strength usually results in mass gains, but often in different proportions/ratios.

Hypertrophy-targeted training (gain of new muscle mass) will always require a caloric surplus. Strength-targeted training (improvement and conditioning of muscle tissue to handle heavier loads) is best accomplished with a calorie surplus but can also often be achieved by eating maintenance levels. Many people who train specifically for strength vs. size/appearance (example: powerlifters) are often able to make strength gains while maintaining their bodyweight.

I do not recommend training for muscle mass improvement while eating at a caloric deficit unless you have a very considerable amount of spare bodyfat you wish to lose. In that case, keep your deficits small. The human body cannot work to improve or strengthen itself if it is not receiving the nutrients and fuel it needs to do so. I also strongly advise against attempting to gain muscle mass if you are not eating at a surplus (lots of effort for subpar results).

I also do not recommend using scale weight as your primary measurement of progress. If you have to measure something about your body, track your body fat percentage as doing so will take focus off your scale weight to offer a better perspective in planning nutritions/workouts for muscle gain/improvement.

You’re right, I’m not really qualified to answer this and neither are most people on Tumblr unless they are certified medical professionals, but I can offer you some unofficial advice. :)

Depending on the length and intensity of your workouts, I would estimate that your regimen sounds solid bordering on heavy, and your amount of rest is probably adequate but maybe pushing it.

If you’re running a few miles on your running days, doing a solid full-body workout on weights days, and busting a good healthy flow hour on your yoga day and sleeping in/taking it easy on your rest day, that sounds great to me. If you’re running 10 miles on your running days and doing hours of extreme strength training on your weights days and hours of intense yoga on your yoga day and cleaning and gardening and shopping on your “rest” day, that’s probably too much. 

If you’re a beginner who “started” recently, in somewhat decent health and you have no outstanding medical issues, this routine is probably not going to hurt you. One full rest day a week is definitely mandatory (which you have), and depending on the intensity, your yoga day could count as active recovery. (Active recovery is very beneficial by increasing circulation to the joints and muscles, improving their strength, flexibility, and recovery time.)

If you’re a beginner who is coming from a very sedentary lifestyle, have issues with your joints and/or cardiovascular system, please use caution. Overtraining the body has no benefit whatsoever, and it’s very easy to get excited and overtrain without consciously realizing it.

There is no 100% accurate way to determine what is the right amount of training for each individual person. Please listen to your body. If you are always sore, coming up against mental walls in your workouts, feel dread at starting a workout, find it impossible to get up in the morning, get sick or injured more often than usual, feel moody/cranky/depressed/numb, experience irregular fluctuations to weight and appetite - these are all distinct signs of overtraining. 

Feed yourself when you’re hungry. Sleep the extra hour if you need it. Take your designated weekly rest day(s) and never feel ashamed for taking another rest day if your body is not feeling right. And tend to your mental wellbeing always - don’t allow peer pressure from the disordered “fitblr” mentality of “no pain no gain” and “never stop” and “if you don’t get up at 4am to workout you’re a lazy failure” and “eat clean 110%” and “no excuses” because none of that will get you to where you want to go. Balance, positivity, patience, and being gentle with yourself are so very important.

If you want “official” advice, please visit a sports doctor or physical therapist for personalized recommendations for activities and training intensity. Otherwise, I hope this is helpful. :)

Did you even read my post?

The worst thing that has ever happened to the veg*n world is angry judgmental piss-offs who think it’s their “moral duty” to weigh and define everyone’s reasons for eating a certain way or calling it a certain thing. I would have gone vegan years ago if not for people like this. Piss off. There are plenty of other places on Tumblr for you to be.

"Yoga" is a pretty broad term when it comes to fitness. There’s a lot of different styles and approaches. Have you considered looking into a "strengthening" variety of yoga instead of the "flexibility" ones where people try to bend themselves into pretzels?

For example, Iyengar yoga is a style where you use a lot of props (blocks, towels, etc) to achieve the exact posture and hold it for longer intervals than you would in a traditional flow. Practicing in this way actually strengthens the joints and the muscles around the joints, which may literally improve your joint condition. I’ve seen similar styles of yoga recommended for people with weak/loose hips, shoulder problems, spine injuries and so on. There’s also hybrid stuff like weighted yoga, which is also great for strength, core, posture, etc.

Yoga is a lot more than just being super bendy or doing handstands. I am of the belief that there’s something for everyone. I hope you can find something that suits your needs. :)

First of all, that nutritional precision thing? It doesn’t actually exist. You have literally no possible way of calculating exactly how many calories your body uses/needs. It’s different every day and is influenced by an infinite variety of factors. And, you have literally no possible way of calculating exactly how many calories are in food, because the nutritional content between things is never exactly uniform. The living world cannot be calculated to precision. Even with heart rate monitors and food scales, the closest thing we have is still an educated estimate.

To build muscle, your body needs to be receiving enough material (food) to be able to construct new tissue. When losing weight, you are receiving less than maintenance amounts of food, therefore deliberately putting your body in a state of existence where adding new mass is not possible. “Something” (muscle) can’t be created out of “nothing” (negative net calories). That is literally a law of physics.

Generally, the only people who experience fat loss while gaining muscle are people who are new to gaining/muscle building. This is usually a result of their body having no choice but to burn fat, to keep up with their newly elevated metabolisms (which is achieved by gaining muscle). However, this is a change in body fat, not a loss of “weight”. Muscle is gained and fat is lost.

After the initial gain, usually a body won’t respond that way anymore. This is why people go through bulk and cut cycles. You commit to building muscle and gaining a little fat, then you commit to slowly losing the fat while retaining the muscle. Attempting to do both at once is a whole lot of effort for substandard results.

You’re right, there is a lot of conflicting information. And I honestly think the majority of it is thrown out there to try and sell us something.

I know I always answer these things with bullet lists, but here’s another list of pretty safe recommendations:

It doesn’t have to be complicated, and I feel like a lot of people get turned off trying to make gains because conflicting information makes it sound like rocket science when it doesn’t have to be. Lift heavy, eat lots of nutritionally-dense food, get your protein, rest, and repeat.

Other than the fact that I encourage people to post something positive on a daily basis: 

No. 

The whole point of this is to get away from the mindset of numbers and rules. We can’t do that if there are daily rules. I will, however, be frequently posting prompts and resources and thoughts and mini-challenges for any who WANTS to do them, but it doesn’t “have to” be done on a specific day or on a deadline. This is all supposed to be pressure-free. The challenge comes from within.

This was my favorite part:

Translated:

"BEING A WHITE GUY JUST ISN’T THE SAME ANYMORE!!!"

It was bad. Just so bad. Pulsing forehead vein bad. Luckily it wasn’t a whole paper, just a post that got WAY too long and pretty heated by the end. I really tried to not get mad but I just couldn’t. If it makes you feel better, I shoved this very good article in the first guy’s face:

(Breathe easy, we got this one covered.)

Hey, sorry you’re feeling so bad lately. I know that feeling and I hope you can get out of it soon.

One thing you said stuck out to me, is that you went back to bad habits and your weight crept back up. Could you go back to healthier habits and let your body settle where it wants to, in a healthier lifestyle? And take the weight part out of it completely?

I find that people use weight as a marker of when something was “good” or when it was “bad”, which is actually backwards thinking. People say “I weighed 150 so it was good”, and “I weighed 200 so it was bad”. It’s a false reversal of the cause and effect relationship, and it is a very illogical way to assess whether you’re in a good place or not. A more accurate way to look at it is, “I was in a good place, and I also weighed 150 lbs” and “I was in a bad place, and I weighed 200 lbs” type of thing (meaning that your healthy or unhealthy lifestyle was the cause of weight change, but a weight change cannot define your lifestyle).

My advice to you is to eat well and try to eat normally: 3 meals and 2-3 snacks per day, of mostly nutrition-dense foods, without eliminating any food groups. Get some exercise 3-5 times per week - a mix of strength, cardio, and recovery - and don’t let yourself overdo it. Get enough sleep. Putting a good effort towards these three factors will do wonders for your physical health and your mental wellbeing, even if you don’t get them all totally right every single day, it still makes a huge difference. And, I advise you to stop weighing yourself for now. If you feel that weighing yourself is important, start weighing again after you have started to feel better. Using scale weight as a motivator can be the wrong message to yourself, and if you are equating worth/wellness with a scale number, you’re not doing any favors to yourself right now making yourself feel like shit every time you step on. Because yes, that is disordered logic and it’s a terrible trap.

If you want to keep talking, feel free to send me a message off anon and we can carry on from there. Thank you for sharing this.

And,

Yeah, actually I don’t recommend this to a lot of people but have you looked at trying the Insanity program? It’s mostly athletic cardio drills and bodyweight-based strength training in intervals of increasing intensity. I personally do not enjoy the program very much, but from my experience with it, sounds like it would be very well suited to your goals. I am pretty sure you can download the videos or subscribe to their service thing, new routines/”blocks” come out every couple months or so I think.