so, i have no idea where to start.
mostly because i dont want
to sound like i am whining, but i
figure that maybe in typing this
down someone else can gain some
kind of perspcetive and help.
let me say befor i go on that i am
a terrible speller, so sorry
in advance.


so...my brief story. lets see... i
was a swimmer for most of
my life and a very successful one
at that. jr national record holder
when i was younger(i think i still
have the record) made olympic
trials and did well, made finals at
NCAAs throughout college. i was
good, no doubt about it.
because i worked out so much i never had to worry
about too many
calories. infact, it was exactlythe opposite. my main
concern was
getting enough food and calories into my system. i
could eat all day
long and still loose weight. a large papa john's pizza
was an after
dinner snack for me.
i can remember the first time i truely had a problem
with my
weight. my freshmen year in college- during winter
training. this
time of the year i was swimming around 25,000 meters a
day
(and i am/was a sprinter!), doing two hours of dryland
everyday
(stretch cords, sit ups, push ups, med balls, ect) and
lifting three
days a week for an hour. i was basically trianing for
about eleven
hours a day. (the 20 hours a week rule didnt apply
because we were on
a long winter break)
durring this time i went from 168 pounds down to 131
pounds.
this is in a period of just under two months. this was
not due to me
not having enough to eat, but rather, literally not
being able to eat
enough to keep the weight on. my schedule was such
that i was up too
early to be able toeat a real breakfast, by the time i
got home after
morning practice it was early afternoon. i would try
to stuff as much
food into myself as i could before i collapsed from
being so tired.
then by three i was back in the pool followed by
dryland. at night i
was home by 7:00(dead tired to boot- you try swimming
10,000 meters
for time breast stroke twice in one day, followed by a
20x 200s sprint
plus all the out of the pool stuff!). so anyway, 7:00,
cook as much
food as i could and take a tylonol PM to dull the pain
so i could
fall asleep.
side note here... as i had to stay on campus while we
were not
in school, we did get a daily allowance of 13 dollars.
trust me when
i say this was not nearly enough when you need so many
calories. it
makes me wonder what the deal is when the football
team gets 29$ a day
and they do a whole lot less anarobic activity than
many other sports.
let me also say that at this point i had my body fat
tested and
only one person on the entire team had a % body fat of
5 or more.
most of us were around 2/3%. and this was done in the
water chamber
and everything. (they tried to do it with the
forecepts, but we all
came up as 0%fat).
so, that was my first time dealing with weight loss in
such a sever
way. and it had a profound effect on me since we as a
team did really
well that year.


now, four years have passed and i am done swimming.
when i was
finished last spring, i took two weeks off before i
started flipping
out about how i was going to be out of shape, and how
i was going to
loose my swimmers build. so, i started swimming and
running everyday.
throughout the summer, i ran more and more. now,
looking back on
it, i can see that this is where my real problems
started. by august,
i was running a minimum of 10 miles in the morning
before work and
then running, swimming, push-ups, and sit ups, on my
luch break. then
after work, i would do my sit ups and pushups again
followed by a
short eight mile run.
by the time i got back to school in sptember i was
even more
intense. i was eating a lot less and what food i was
eating, had a
lot less to it. no longer was i eating pizzas, subs,
fast food, ect.
instead i was eating bagels for breakfast, tuna fish
(plain) for lunch
and salad for dinner( usually w chicken).
once school actually started it got really bad. i
started
running marathons every weekend and running five other
days of the
week.( i would run only around five or six miles the
day after a
marathon, but do lots of extra sti ups and push ups,
then the
following day i would have to rest my knees and
ankles, so i would row
for an hour and a half).
at this point i started loosing a lot of weight and
had to begin
to hide it from roommates and friends. i started
getting "are you
eating enough? you look really skinny" instead of "you
look really
inshape, congrats". i also started eating even less.
no breakfast,
lucnh only on thursdays and fridays (usually some kind
of soup). i
also stopped eating red meat for somereason at this
point
this continued on for until march ( marathons through
early
december, and then i mapped out my own course and ran
by myself. ,y
house was at the half way point of the loop, so i
oculd get water
there and finish there. i also had the loop pass
different friends
houses so i could stop for water/juice/ect if i needed
it. i live in
a flat area of the country, so all this running isnt
quite as
extreem as it seems) i had to make up an excuse not to
go home for
christmas because i knew my family would notice.
thankfully, turtle
neck sweaters are back in and helped me look thicker
throughout the
winter. i even grew my hair our so that my face looked
wider.
by the time easter rolled around, i had gotten a
little control
back because i had been really sick and had gotten a
little out of
shape and so, therefore couldnt workout as much.
now, it is may and summer is coming up. all i can
think about is
what i look like. i know i am by no means fat, but for
some reason my
ideal body fat % is still at 2/3%. i dread going out
onto the beach.
its all i can think about. so, i am working out again
, and i cant
stop.
im back to making up excuses to work out. i work out
with
different groups of friends every day so that they
dont know whats
going on. swim with the old swimmers a few days a
week, joined an
intra-murral soccer team that plays three days a week,
run the stairs
in the stadium twice a week( noboday can see you
there),run 10 miles
every evening with a roommate, go rock climbing every
saturday with
frat friends, go dancing for eight hours straight
every friday with
clubbing friends...i have all kinds of ways to do it.
i am also back to eating one meal a day, and often
skipping days
in a row. and im back to 139lbs.
so, thats the basic of my eating and work out
schedule.
here are a few other notes... ive had a lot of time to
think while
all of this was going on this winter... i had a LOT of
time to think.
so, if you are a docter reading this, maybe this will
help explain
where all this came from. i am convinced that some of
it must have
had some kind of influence on the person that i am
today and the
issues that i seem to have, haha...

-first off, i think somewhere in here i said that i
was a guy.
-im the oldest of three, the only boy
-parents were very strict
-never had a close relationship w the father although
parents are
still married
-was abused(sexually and mentally/verbally) by my a
babysitter
everyday from age 3-8 and have not ever told anyone of
it
-was never close to my parents, had a fall out with
the father last
august and havent spoken to him since
-i iknow i had an alcohol problem from about october
until late march.
-also very depressed this winter
-i had OCD as a child- ive mostly grown out of it, and
it was never
treated, but i used to get stuck for LONG periods of
time. missed
school many times because i couldnt stop loxking and
unlockingthe
front door. lol!!!
-father is overweight mom is under weight
-im the kind of person that NEVER asks anyone for
help, i am a total
loner when it comes to personal issues. never let
anyone see an
emotion, especially not sadness or anger. if i am mad
at someone i
just stop talking to them or i avoid them all
together.
-along the same line, i really enjoy being alone. i
take road trips
by myself all the time. go on vacations to other
countries alone. my
summer job is one where i sit alone for nine
hours(even at lunch)
without speaking, and nothing could be better.
-i always break up with girls when they start getting
too close. it
freaks me out when they start to believe i should
depend on them and
that they should diserve to know whats on my mind. i
never depend
anyone for anything.the end result is that i dont
havent had toomany
girlfriends... tend to go more for the random hookups.
- other than all the alone stuff, i dont know anyone
who has more
friends than i do.i dont know if its possible to
havemore friends,
unless you are someone in a very public position like
senator or
president.

im sure there are other things that i could put on
here,but i said
this would be a short story and its already way too
long. it feels
better than i though it would to write this down. i
wish there were a
person i could talk to and get help from and then walk
out of the room
and have them forget everything that i said to them.
i hope that someone reads this who is in a similar
situation and
realizes that there is someone else going through what
they are and
that, so far, i am still alive(i never though i would
be alive for
this summer). sorry for all the details about work
outs, but i thought
it important to show just what craziness fills my
head, haha.
sorry for the length.

if you read this an have questions, comments, feel
free to email.
pintofsmithwicks@y...