Eating disorder

For what this is worth:

My wife of 30-odd years is an anorexic and has been since before we met.  She has looked 'right' since we met and generally eats properly, but she's still an anorexic.   She eats, but will quite happily not eat.  Eating is therefore a conscious thing that she needs to do, rather than a routine thing, and she'll have a snack instead of a proper meal.  Words are important - 'Does my bum look big in this?' 'No, but I really don't like the colour'....

You need to understand your relationship with weighing scales - she will not be without them, but some specialists say to avoid them - it depends upon what you are using them for - to drive an anxiety,  confirm stability, or verify control. In her case, it's the latter, so take the scales away and it's a car crash

Over the years, she has learned at what point she's too thin and what the indicators of that are. Ergo, using the scales she knows if she should gain more, or should lose a little.  It makes no sense to me because my weight seems to vary daily for no apparent reason.

Of course, 35 or so years on, we're looking at the menopause and all of the issues that that brings with it. Main thing is I now have to be quick to get a meal going before she's had a snack.  She's got a very busy day today and will be back late.  I know she won't eat any supper, and so she recieved a strict instruction to have a decent lunch.  She probably won't...

If I were you, I would harness your OCD to focus on something thing other than weight - someone has already suggested power to weight.  Initially, I'd forget about weight and look at power and what you need to do in terms of diet and training to get that up.   And avoid supplements, whether they are good, bad or a waste of tim.  The last thing you need is to be reliant on anything other than yourself and good food.  Eat well, eat clean and try to be as rational as you can.  Set yourself some 'good' objectives that are positive (i.e. more power, faster, stronger) and avoid the negative (lose weight, eat less, can't eat that). 

Out of interest, how old are you and have you had similar obsessive episodes in other areas of your life? 

Prior to the crash, how was your weight / attitude to food? 

As everyone else is saying, seek professional help. What that help should be is maybe a bit trickier to pin down. From my couch I'd probably looking at a wider behavioural therapist rather than something specific to eating disorders. 

As an aside, I've been racing for 27 years now, and my biggest bug bear when it comes to youngsters coming in to the sport is their obsession with weight and power to weight ratio. For the vast majority, the focus should be exclusively about building power at all costs. And by all costs, I'm talking about providing your body the building blocks it needs to develop, and that means energy in and sufficient amounts of stored body fat. 

Once you physically mature (anywhere between 19 and 22), you can then focus on leaning up and improving the W/KG. 

Good luck with it, from what you've written it sounds like you have great self awareness which I'm sure will help. 

Professional advice is always your gold standard. A GP referal is a good place to start but accessing those services can be difficult given the number of people waiting for help.

Fortunately, a'holes on t'internet are 2 a penny, so here's my 1/2 p worth with my only qualification being a bit OCD myself and having a bout of mental illness a couple of years back.

1. Recognising that there is an issue.
2. Being able to talk about it without any sense of shame, guilt or weakness.
3. Asking for help, even if from strangers.

So you are already half way fixed!

My suggestions:

Take a look at Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. I didn't get much beyond the idea of making a conscious effort to give yourself a mental thumbs up even for what might seem really trivial daily tasks. Fortunately I'm not a very complex creature and find even that one tenet is unbelievably powerful.

If you are the competitive type then don't compete with your pre accident self. If you are weaker then set yourself goals in something completely different. E.g try swimming. If you don't currently swim then you will be crap but rapidly see improvement which is rewarding.

Try not to focus on eating as the only problem, by which I mean keep a perspective and downgrade it so it doesn't get a chance to become all consuming.

You cannot avoid eating so a head on approach could be to actually do more peripheral food activities such as shopping and cooking. You get control of the demon, will generally eat better, gain new skills and make other people happy if you can share what you produce. Also, OCD is extremely useful for getting the washing up done and keeping the kitchen tidy!

HTH

M

Recent interviews with ex-riders like Janez Brajkovič (Cycling Tips) show examples of how eating behaviours can result in an eating disorder and affect your career and your life. This is not exclusive to professional athletes and can happen to anyone, including people who do not exercise much.

IMVHO unless you are eating substantially more calories than you are burning then some weight gain is perfectly healthy and natural. But it's important to try to eat nutritious food, since micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) are important as well as macronutrients (carbs, fat and protein).

Ideally you really should be speaking with a dietitian (i.e. medically trained, not a self-styled 'guru'). They can help you address some of your ideas, concerns and maybe some common misunderstandings about food.

Thank you for your courage in telling your story.

I would really like to encourage you to find professional help - a good therapist can help you to look at everything going on in your life and give you some techniques to at least mitigate the effects of what you are experiencing.

My amateur advice would be that if you are training, you will not get fat with extra food - you'll be using it for fuel and growth. If you add strength training in the gym to what you do on the bike, you can build muscle. Perhaps you know this consciously, but sub-consciously something is getting in the way of that logic. OCD can do that - someone I know very well with OCD has exactly that experience.

I wish you all the best in your recovery.