@johnjs37 Definitely feel this hardcore lately. I'm 5'1, 150lbs. Like most people here, I'm trying to stick with around 1,300 calories per day with 5 days of exercise per week.
When I see how much other people get to eat per day with no exercise, it bums me out. 1,800 cals a day? A whole entire 2,000 cals a day??? I sacrificed dinner last night so that I could enjoy a hard cider and a small chocolate chip cookie with my boyfriend.
Dating men makes it extra annoying because so many of them are oblivious to their calorie consumption and they just never gain weight. A large McDonald's meal with fries and a coke the side of my head? Wham, bam, thank you ma'am. I could eat one third of that SINGLE MEAL and it would blow my daily calories out of the water. My ex used to go on cycles of "fitness"/being sedentary, and I swear he could lose 20 pounds in a month by just eliminating soda. That's IT. No exercise (or even counting steps), weighing his food, keeping track of macros, NOTHING. And there I would be, waking up at 5 AM every morning to walk in the pitch black frozen tundra to the gym trying to pack as much protein into 1300 cals as humanly possible.
With my other extenuating circumstances, weight loss often feels impossible. I have celiac disease, which means the food I can eat has been severely reduced while also facing a high chance of weight gain anyway as my small intestine heals. It should make me happy that I've gotten a diagnosis and can start getting better! But I'm fighting the weight gain from that combined with the water retention from my birth control AND my nerve pain meds for fibro. I'm in physical therapy for hEDS and I just started a running program, but it hurts EVERY damn day that I do it.
To a point, it feels hopeless and like I'm robbing myself of what little pleasure I can get out of life by being so restrictive and pushing myself all the time. But I also struggle immensely with how I look in the mirror, and my favorite clothes are starting to not fit. So, which form of discomfort am I more willing to endure?
Why is that a choice I even have to make?
Solidarity, OP.