Trying to Find a Beacon Through the Bullshit

The Internet can be really good at making you feel like a freak of nature ... or even worse, a giant fuckup. 

(You can tell I'm in a Mood about something when the expletives start falling like rain. I think that's part of why I realized that Dr. BIEL got it when she randomly exclaimed during a session,"What if you said fuck it, and walked away and let the building burn?" After similar outbursts from Therapist 3.0 and the Dietitian, and the fact that Dr. New Person looked horrified when I said "Crap!" I'm now also firmly convinced that a provider who doesn't let themselves swear in front of a patient likely doesn't get how my mind works.)

While trying to weather the perfect storm, and before getting to the point of frantically messaging providers because I was losing my blasted mind, I went down the rabbit holes of the Internet. 

Some day I will learn that the rabbit holes of the Internet do me no good. 

The Dietitian said that she doesn't think I accept or tolerate what my body wants to do naturally. That that's why I couldn't cope with the sudden increase, and why I started spinning.

That may be true.

But what's also true, and more prevalent, is that I don't trust or accept random acts. Give me data, and give me facts. 

So as I went down the rabbit holes, I got more frantic. Because everything I could find about sustained weight increases after an endurance event (because now, I begrudgingly accept Wikipedia's definition about endurance, even though I think that 5K is pretty darn short, since that's my short-run during the week now) that that the weight should come off fairly quickly. And if you were an athlete who gained weight that wasn't coming off, it was purely on your shoulders. That you were eating too much. That you were eating more than your activity. That you did something wrong, and that's why it was happening. 

And when you're like me, and you know precisely what you are eating, and you know that it's not what you're burning, and you can't find anything that explains the situation?

THAT FUCKING HURTS AND DRIVES YOU CRAZY.

The truth? That I'm going to post here because deity knows you don't find it on the Internet well enough?

THAT ISN'T UNIVERSALLY TRUE. You can eat at a deficit, and still end up gaining water weight that takes between three and six weeks to fall off. As much as it feels like a failure, and as much as other sites and bloggers tell you it's your fault, that's not necessarily true. 

Sure, that probably happens with some people. That you eat to your old training levels, and maybe are over slightly. But it isn't the sole truth and the sole situation. 

In my situation -- because while I want to put this out there, I'm also not going to be all "YAY ALL ATHLETES ARE THE SAME" -- the sports med doc explained it as my body getting really angry after the toe. That I went from lots of activity, to suddenly no activity, to suddenly running a half marathon, and then doing nothing. 

That the body likes status quo. And it doesn't like being tossed around that much. And that most people will retain for three weeks or so after a half, and six weeks after a full. (And, she noted, that maybe I'd want to think about that nutrition thing some more, and maybe considering actually fueling and hydrating during and after workout.) 

Sure enough, to her word, at week three, things started turning around. Still not perfect, but OMG so much better.

And you know something? Despite what the Internet told me, it wasn't my fault.