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 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. my house was at
the half way point of the loop, so i could get water there and finish
there. i also had the loop pass different friends houses so i could
stop for water/juice/ect if ineeded 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 anyoneof 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
unlocking the 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@...