It's that time of year again: winter lbs

[run it, ride it]

Every year around this time I crave more and more food and put on 5-8lbs for the winter--tell me I'm not the only one! In the past I've fought it tooth and nail--but there's no winning. I run, bicycle, cross-country ski, skate, and weight train all winter. If I excercise more to balance out the higher calorie intake, I end up eating more. If I deprive myself, I binge later.

I was a high performance varsity track athlete when this started happening at age 18. My body actually went into starvation mode because I wasn't feeding it enough. I was getting fat deposits around my jaw and middle and thought I was eating too much, so I effectively entered an unintentional anorexic state. Yes, I was fitter than I'd ever been in my life, I am capable of extreme amounts of self control--but I was very, very unhealthy. I had a breakdown at the end of the season and didn't run for two years. My metabolism hasn't been quite right since--I'm now 21.

What sustains me in the summer leaves me utterly famished in the winter. My only theory is that I get cold VERY easily (I'm also allergic to cold) so my body is trying to better equip me for Canadian winters. My genes also aren't exactly the 'skinniest,' among other concerns.

I'm in a healthy weight range to begin with: 5'5" and 115-118lbs in the summer, 120-124lbs in the winter. Believe me, I work hard for it in the summer months (44 hours hard outdoor labour a week, 30km cycling commute, 1 hour working with the horse a day). I certainly don't put on weight in flattering places (under jaw and lower back), so any higher than 118lbs I start looking blobular. You know, otherwise I really wouldn't care about this winter weight. It's just that it goes to such strange places!

But I've noticed something else: every time I put on weight and then take it back off, I come out of it in a more feminine shape. Before my first varsity season I had perfectly normal proportions (no bizarre back or jaw fat!) and a solid B cup. Come that first winter when my body got all out of whack, I wasn't even close to an A cup; my breasts were all saggy and shrivelled looking. That's when I knew something was really wrong. After I gained and took off weight the next winter, I was an A.5, since last winter I'm a B again--AND my jaw is more defined.

I eat only healthy foods year-round: whole grain bread/pasta, daily multivitamin, fortified cereal for vegetarians, raw fruits/veggies, (no added sugars, greasy or processed foods), skim milk, low-fat soy products, natural peanut-butter. I've had my iron and thyroid and fasting blood sugar tested time and again: always normal. Oh, and I was vegetarian long before this started happening--meat gave me more digestive trouble than it was worth, so I cut it out completely at age fifteen.

It's just that, from the last week of October to mid-April, I eat MORE of everything. What am I trying to prove tormenting myself trying to 'fix' it?

You know what? I'm not going to get so worried about it this year. Who am I trying to impress, anyway? My boyfriend has made it very clear he thinks I'm crazy for worrying about it and he's all for the winter weight gain ("Haven't you noticed your breasts get bigger every year?"). I'm still very active in the winter, I'm still in a healthy weight range, and I know by June I'll be right back to a weight I'm comfortable with.

Please, help me out here: am I crazy, or is this normal? Let me hear your experiences!

[velogirl]

There are women who have 5-10 pound fluctuations in their weight every month during different times in their menstrual cycles. It's really not that significant, even for someone as small as you. You're very young. You're probably still developing what will be your baseline adult weight and proportions.

Given your history with anorexia, and given some of your statements in this post and others, it might not be a bad idea to find a qualified counselor to chat with about how you feel. Working with a qualified individual might help you develop a healthy perspective about your body image, food, and your eating habits. This might also help relieve some of the anxiety you feel about your winter weight gain.

Good luck to you!

Lorri

[run it, ride it]

Adult weight and proportions? Oh, no, no.. I decided at age three that I wasn't going to grow up

Unrelated to the winter weight gain, the winter depression/anxiety/paranoia are making themselves heard once again... I should really start seeing my counselor -before- I'm spending my days shaking in a corner. I've never mentioned my weight concerns to my counselor/psychiatrist before as I had, well, more prevalent problems to try and figure out (never did find out what triggered the paranoia--once winter ended I was sane again).

Thanks for the great advice--and I must stress, my anorexia was not intentional! I was responding in what I thought was a logical sense to my irrational weight distribution. ...Wait, that's not helping my case, is it?

[velogirl]

I left New York because I had debilitating SAD (seasonal affective disorder). Maybe you need to relocate somewhere the sun shines year round!

[Bikingmomof3]

You are very young and very small. I remember being both of those. I agree with the advice Velogirl has given you. My body, can fluctuate upwards of 10 pounds in a given day! I stay away from scales or I will obsess.

[run it, ride it]

I left New York because I had debilitating SAD (seasonal affective disorder). Maybe you need to relocate somewhere the sun shines year round!

If only it were that easy! The warmest part of this country is Windsor (across the river from Detroit). I've considered moving down that way before... my boyfriend lives down there, and visiting him is literally like a tropical vacation. But it all depends on what I want to do for school. Nice as the windsor area is, U of Windsor doesn't have any of the graduate programs I'm interested in.

I -do- know I need to get out of the particular university city I'm in--every day is overcast and the wind is enough to drive anyone over the edge. Even my horse gets SAD!

[Geonz]

have you considered a SAD light? http://www.apollolight.com/index.html is the one my friend swears by... reads the paper with it every morning starting around Labor Day.

[run it, ride it]

Yes, I will talk to my counselor about it. They rent them out for two-week stints with a prescription. Last year I got to it too late and they were all on loan. Hopefully if I strike early I'll get a chance this year!

I'm also considering visiting a tanning bed (they have packages that are SAD-specific, whatever that means!)

Oh, grey-skied city, with the wind and the damp and the light pollution--why must I live in you to complete my degree?

[Hammer]

My weight fluctuates by 5 pounds on any given day too. Right now, I think my low is 156 and my high is 160-163. Lately it's 160. Drives me nuts! I do spin class ideally 3x a week if I'm not out of town for work. And I run 2-3x a week.

I continue to try to monitor my food intake. I'm not very good about tracking calories. I think that I hover around 2000 calories, I don't drop weight, but I'm maintaining alright. Some days when portion control flys out the window or I submit to sweets then I overshoot too.

I would like to see if I can maintain a solid 150 instead of a solid 160. But my weight is in my hip/thigh/butt area. I'm just built to be curvy and carry my weight in the area that is MOST difficult to lose it from. But on the good side, my thighs are starting to feel pretty solid. And, I figure that muscle does a better job of retaining water than fat would, so on those days the scale really screws me over.

I try to focus on the notion that I'm a healthy young woman. I'm 5'9", 27 years old. A solid 160 is NOT bad. But, I can empathize with you. When you work so hard, it's tough to see numbers not reflecting your work.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Run it,
I think it's normal to gain 5 pounds or so over the winter months. Why torture yourself about it? And yes, it's totally normal to fluctuate 3 pounds or so depending on one's menstrual cycle too.
It's not good to have only empty skin flap bags as boobs if it's because you are starving yourself. It means you have NO fat on your body at all, and we need some fat to be healthy.
As to the thing you mentioned about the feminine shape becoming more distinct every time you gain and lose weight- when I was 20 -and my 2 daughters as well- we all had very thin willowy body shapes. It was only during our mid 20's that all 3 of us began to get more womanly shapes- with more defined hips, breasts, and thin waists in contrast. It's normal development, and it's meant to be this way. I have some friends that never got hips at all, and they're shaped like little boys still. That's fine, but my genes would never have had that happen, and there's no way I could have kept a willowy figure even if I starved. It wasn't fat, my hip bones just matured!
Hope this allays some of your fears. Don't freak out, try to be kinder to yourself.

[run it, ride it]

Thank you, ladies, for the personal accounts and the support. Reading through all those other posts about maintaining absolutely strict diets to 'lose those last ten pounds, because those are the hardest to lose' was stressing me out a little.

I have the ability and determination TO lose those last ten pounds. But I think it's more beneficial to my overall health right now to let my body try and sort itself out, even if that means it wants more food, more rest, more sleep than I think it should need.

I'm just terrified of getting into the same situation as my mother--she was overweight through to her 20s, then lost something like 75lbs through Weight Watchers and became very active. But because of her thyroid she will never be able to take off her remaining weight, despite all her activity.

I'm afraid to gain weight--what if it never comes off!? I'm afraid I've worked so hard in the past to stay thin that I'll burn out. That's why it's so scary to let a few pounds slide.

[Kimmyt]

I've learned to ignore the scale. I fluctuate regularly, like everyone else. 3 lbs here, 3 lbs there. I ignore the numbers, and pay attention to clothes fit (because that's more permanent). 3-5 lbs won't necessarily mean i'm getting bigger. It could mean i'm dehydrated, or bloated, or still digesting a big meal. As long as I don't go up several sizes, I'm happy that I am still healthy. And as long as I can do all my very physical hobbies too!

That being said, the other day I did a little 'experiment'. It was unplanned, The Boy and I had just gotten a new scale since the one we had was broken. We weighed ourselves on it to make sure it worked, then we went out to dinner with some friends where we stuffed ourselves (I reserve the right, no matter what food plan I'm on, to indulge once in awhile! What can I say, I'm a foodie!). Then when me and The Boy rolled in later that night (almost literally...) we decided to weigh ourselves again. We were both up 5 lbs. My Gosh! No wonder I felt so overstuffed and gross. I didn't want to look at food for a long while!

The next morning I weighed myself again and found that all 5 lbs had been burned off overnight. Whew! I guess it just took a while for my metabolism to catch up with my stomach and mouth!

Anyway, not making a habit of eating like THAT very often, but at least I know that if I do it once in a great while, my body will do it's job, especially if I take care of it!

K.

[run it, ride it]

Be thankful for the fact you can digest a large meal overnight! Just reading that made me hurt a little

I have a slow metabolism and irritable bowel syndrome--I experience sharp pain for 3-5 hours after just about everything I eat. The more I eat at once, the worse the pain. Sometimes it takes up to 15 hours for my body to process a meal enough that I can handle any more food.

And 5lbs for me IS a big visual difference--the difference between a defined jaw and another chin, or between feeling sleek and having my back bulge and wobble above my shorts when I run! As I said, I carry weight in all the wrong places! My ribcage is gigantic--do you think it takes advantage of that with remotely proportionate breasts? Nope.

Right, right. It's not my body that's all wrong, it's the unobtainable body-types depicted as the norm in the media.

[Trek420]

I go by a combo of how my clothes fit and how I feel/perform.

If I didn't, I'd go batty.

Today I had the day off to take care of evil-infernal-combustion-vehicle so while waiting I hit the gym.

Since I don't own a scale, the one in my "usual gym" doesn't work, I'm at a different location....hey...look...one of those Tanita Body Fat thingies ......

!

Printout says I should be on the Bigggest Looser.

But I feel good, workouts feel good, I'm in my "thin jeans"...yes, I know by any charts I could drop 25+++ lbs and I probably will loose both lbs and inches by the AIDS ride in June.

But I'm not sweating it; I feel good on and off the bike, that's what counts.

Even my LBS who never talks about training or weight when he built up my wheels on the commute-mobile said something like "good for you riding off season, you know that more commute miles, off road, anaerobic workouts...you'll feel hungrier and you may gain weight but you'll be better in Spring"

[run it, ride it]

Even my LBS who never talks about training or weight when he built up my wheels on the commute-mobile said something like "good for you riding off season, you know that more commute miles, off road, anaerobic workouts...you'll feel hungrier and you may gain weight but you'll be better in Spring"

It's true! I too am always one step up the next spring. I still remember being so on top of my game in high school track after a winter of cross-country skiing. Now, could spring please come sooner? Or at least snow to ski in and gallop through the fields.

Good luck on the winter commuting. I'm sure we'll have a support group in that forum within a few weeks once the snow really flies!