i have never been as thankful that i got to read a post before it was deleted as i am that i read LO's story.

sorry to those who didn't get to read it.

LO please keep them coming.

My contribution shows a bit about my personality (unfortunately). It's long and rambling (as if you guys would expect anything less) and has probably too much information, but I think it's necessary to set the tone.

When I was a kid, I was picked on. I was made fun of in camp and was never the really popular guy or the guy who was really good at sports. Mostly because I was chubby. I was never full on 'fat' but I wasn't in good shape and didn't contribute much to team sports.

My childhood and teenage years though, were punctuated by fantastic experiences. My dad's work allowed him to accumulate hundreds of thousands of frequent flier miles...and we used them. We went to Moscow, Hungary (his homeland), Israel, and my favorite family trip: Kenya. He took me out of school when I was 8 to fly with him to Tokyo, Beijing, Hong Kong, and Singapore before meeting my mom and brother in Disney World.

My dad sent me to Spain (or some Spanish speaking country) every summer after high school. I speak nearly fluent Spanish with an Andalucian/Mediterranean accent as a result. I did trail work on Mt. Chirripo in Costa Rica and lived with a family there for 2 weeks laying a concrete foundation for their recreation center.

So by the time I got to college, I was both insecure (mostly due to my appearance and the fact that I'd only had 1 real girlfriend to that point) and overly cocky/compensating (since I had more experience traveling and knowledge about culture than almost anybody at George Washington University, which said a lot).

I joined a fraternity and partied/lived it up as a freshman.

I moved in with my good friend and dealer (weed) sophomore year and quit smoking cigarettes. I smoked a ton of pot though and gained even more weight. By the end of sophomore year, I weighed like 200lbs (for the first, though not last, time in my life). Thankfully, I had a job that summer and ended up skipping breakfast and eating just lunch and dinner while doing lots of walking and sweating around congress. This got me down to like 185 or so by the end of the summer.

I hated running but I went to Florida to visit my mom and got on the treadmill. I will never forget this. I ran for 10 minutes at 5.5 miles per hour. I was exhausted.

But I wanted to get in shape.

When I got back to school, I visited the free nutritionist and cut calories properly, and continued running.

Soon I was hooked. Completely addicted to running.

I ran more and more. By halloween I was down to 160 and looked good. But it wasn't good enough.

From that point on, it would never be good enough.

By New Years, I had a girlfriend who would be the first love of my life and was down to 150. I played roller hockey even in the cold and ran on the treadmill 6-7 days a week. I developed plantars fasciitis from not taking care of my feet/buying new shoes.

That sidelined me for 2 weeks and I gained 3-5 lbs. I felt like ****.

When I got back to school I dropped that pretty fast and always played # games. On the treadmill I counted time forward, backward etc. I was running for 32 minutes at 7.5mph (8minute miles). I eventually got that down to a consistent 4 miles in 30 minutes and did that every day.

The next fall my girlfriend broke up with me and I was devastated. I changed the only thing I could about myself and cut calories and ran even harder and played roller hockey ever second I could.

I was eating ~1500cals/day, running 6 miles / day and 3days a week I played sprinting roller hockey for 1-2 hours (3 hours on Saturday or Sunday).

I dropped all the way to 137lbs. I'm 5'8. You have never seen somebody so cut. I was 'finally' happy with how I looked...but I was clearly, CLEARLY too thin.

My best friend Roxann (who had a key to my place) was the only one to do something about it. She baked me pasta dishes every day and was there with a joint and lasagne every day after work. To this day she's one of the best people in my life.

I also was clearly 'sick' in some fashion and was overly obsessed with how I looked.

Fast forward 2 years and I had moved to St. Louis and quit my job as an Economist at the Dept of Labor to go to grad school at Wash U. I was still running but now, there was no treadmill.

I ran on this bike path every day. On the third day, I noticed a small, slight, pain on the ball of my left foot.

I ignored it.

I altered my gait a bit (I had previously been almost slapping my foot down since I was so used to running on an inclined treadmill) and continued running.

It got slightly worse.

I kept running. I wanted to look as good as possible starting at this new school.

I met a girl immediately and fell in love with her dogs. Bella and the other one (guess which was my favorite lol).

We had a date to take the dogs hiking on Thursday August 12th. I ran that morning and noticed the pain lingered a bit after the run.

I ignored it.

I went on the 5 mile hike with Kelley and her pups and had a great time.

Then it happened. I awoke Friday morning, put my right foot down on the floor to go to the bathroom, put my left foot down, applied pressure...and collapsed in pain.

I started sobbing. I knew something was wrong. And I knew it was my fault. And I knew from that point on, my life would change. What I didn't know though, was how much.

I would fall inward into depression from the lack of endorphins. I would eat a lot. I would gain all that weight back and be 200lbs for the 2nd time in my life. I would lose my self esteem and mental image of myself. But I would make a lot of $ playing online poker and envelope myself in the online poker world (moreso than I had previously).

And worst of all, I would never run again...all because I chose my obsession over my long term health and ignored the obviously "something's off" feeling I had in my foot. That was the biggest mistake of my life.

I have regretted this series of events for almost every day since. I'm a bit out of shape now but I can swim and play tennis (amazing that I can do this). And I can ski. During the recovery process and after surgery, I would say to my doctor "please, please, please. All I want to be able to do is walk, ski, and swim. Let me do that and I'll forever be in your debt." He came through and I went skiing 3 days after being cleared following 3 months of rehab (though we put off surgery for 2.5 years from August 13th, 2004). I got him the nicest present he's probably ever gotten from a non-notable/non-rich patient. If anybody lives in NY and needs an orthopedic surgeon, call Dr. Martin O'malley at the Hospital of Special Surgery. He's the best in the world. Or at least in the running lol.

I now swim 3 times a week. Play tennis 1-2 times a week, and I will try to get another 20 day ski season in this year. I'm very very very thankful for my health (moreso because I have another one of these stories where I basically made another disorder I have much worse than it had to be) and enjoy skiing more than anybody who hasn't recovered from an injury ever could.

But I still regret that decision to this day.

so wtf even happened?

Thanks DcifrThs. What you describe seems like a variation of an eating disorder, with excessive exercise as the neurosis but with the focus still on your weight / physical appearance. Did many people point out to you at the time that your expectations about your body were either unrealistic or unnecessary? Or were you sort of aware of this and chose to grind through it?

BTW anyone who got part-way through the first story just PM me and I'll send the missing installments, I just couldn't leave it out there on a public forum for reasons I've already discussed. Realistically I'm not going to have the next one ready before next weekend, and it may well take a little longer. I certainly won't be asking for anything else I post to be deleted though.

lol. shows i ain't a great writer.

i got something called "fibial sesamoiditis." it's an inflammation in the bone (yes, the bone) underlying the ball of the foot. it sux, is very painful, and surgery is only used as a last resort option. thus, while trying to heal me using aircasts and boots and insoles, it made it worse for me. i actually developed it also on my right foot too.

i was aware of it but b/c my body structure was so muscular, i never looked sick. you could just see every line and i was insanely cut. i also loved how i looked and the attention i got from girls. i was dating multiple girls at the same time and credited that more to my appearance than my confidence/intelligence etc.

Very happy I had my bi-monthly EDF visit a couple days ago and read the original thread.

Dcifr,

Sorry to hear you went through that. I hope you're doing better now. I also had an extreme eating disorder, among other things, and was hospitalized, then institutionalized, because of my obsession.

thanks for the sympathy. i'm sure you can empathize and i'm thankful i never went that far and had a great support system...though looking back, more of my friends could have done something about it besides rox.

i'm definitely much better. i still obsess a bit but it doesn't drive my life. i hate the fact i'm this "overweight" (175 5'8) but i look good and have an infinitely better self image.

That's good to hear. Along with a more realistic self-image, I found it helpful to determine more realistic goals and strategies. I still obsess as well, and it's always a careful balance between redirecting the obsession to something healthy and holding it back before it turns good to bad.

DcifrThs, great post.

Edit: And amazing name.

This.

Estimated time of completion for the second story would be good too.

Such a very thinly veiled brag

Good to hear you recovered. I think this thread is going to need some happy(?) stories.

I have mistakes to post in thread but most importangly I am one of the people that send "Anna" facebook invite and she actualy accepted (I am very good loking).

I will keep comunity updates with how this goes, also post pictures of course.

This does feel like BIgest Mistake of my life so I will update thread as this develop.

oh...and Ostrish..she does not look anythin like Brad Pit wife.

LostOstrich likes this

Ah man! Pretty bummed. I read through maybe Part 10 I think? Basically up to you where you met her sister for drinks (there's something callous and terrible about talking about such an impactful event in someone else's life in this way, but what can ya do). Then forgot about it for a while. Just came back and it's gone =( Oh well, sorry to hear about it getting deleted/fu to the jerks that caused that to happen.