Know what your next steps towards health will be

Knowing myself, as I do, I’ve accepted that I will always have some anxiety or another. At the moment I’m anxious about having sufficient money and the time to do all the things I believe I must do. I’m also anxious about food options when we travel to Madagascar in April for our Kayaking Adventure and when we cruise to Europe in June how I will cope with food available 24/7 on the ship.

Body dysmorphic disorder is, according to Wiki, a psychological condition where sufferers believe something is wrong with the way their body looks and this becomes the basis for anxieties, obsessions etc. I first heard the term when I attended the Bariatric Support Group meetings while I was still in the running for the procedure and one of the speakers warned that people who shed lots of weight sometimes developed a dysmorphic view of their bodies.

I am actually eating now more than I naturally want to, and here’s why there are alarm bells about me skirting around the edges of dysmorphia.

I weigh myself every time I’m at the gym, which is sometimes twice a day, and over the last while my weight has been pretty constant between 81kg and 83kg. Remembering that my excess skin weighs, according to dietician Judy Kotze, between 5kg and 7kg, my true weight is actually as low as 76kg, so there isn’t a lot of room for me to lose more. What’s worrying me is that even when I eat more than a naturally want to; my weight doesn’t increase by much. It is as if my metabolism has been reset and I don’t have to worry now about the calories I consume. What I do have to worry about though is losing still more weight – please don’t tell me that I’m looking gaunt – so I’m supplementing my diet with protein shakes from Kauai or Supreme Protein bars adding an additional 600-odd calories to the mix.

When I look at myself in the mirror I see what I think is actually hanging skin as a fat roll which I want to get rid of. One part of me wants to remember that I once weighed 153kg but another wants to be slender and wear things like skinny jeans and skimpy underwear in which, and I own this, I look a bit like a stuffed doll.

The job now is to handle my stress about money by increasing billings, work smart rather than hard, and, thanks to SleekGeek, Eat Clean and Train Dirty.

How are you getting on with your journey towards health?