i’m lost and don’t know what to do. need advice.

[stevow7]

There must be something about going to the gym that your subconscious brain doesn’t want you to acknowledge. For me, it’s the feeling of “Why do I have to compare myself to all these other people whose bodies are nicer than mine?” There’s A LOT of inferiority, inadequacy, incompetence, insecurity (I call them the “in’s”.) Question to myself: What motivations that aren’t for my highest good underlying this desire to work out?

hey! well i used to be a fitness addict, especially when it comes to weightlifting. i’m still addicted, but i’m slowly breaking this addiction. i used to want to do everything perfectly, wanting to diet correctly, sleep planty, etc to reach certain goals and didn’t actually use exercising for better health, but more wanting to become stronger and fit. now i’m switching that mindset. do i want to become strong and fit? yes, but i’m also wanting to be healthy and not ditching being heathy for being strong or fit. now being healthier is part of my goals, but if i feel like i feel now, is my brain trying to tell me that in order to keep improving in recovery i must stop lifting that to become healthier i must stop
lifting?

i’m healthy already and grateful for what i have and what i’m, but i do accept that i have thoughts that to become healthier and improve in my recovery i need to stop doing exercising (except sometimes walking when ever i want to and feel like it) to recover fully.

 

[stevow7]

update:

i actually feel like i progressed and i feel happy about it. yesterday i had an amazing workout and felt fine after. then i woke up today so pumped and great, but then bam! the mental fatigued kicked in.

i actually wanted and felt like going to the gym, but i said to break my addiction, i will do what i said i was going to do and went to the beach instead and went for a walk, but then the menta fatigue was there and was constantly overthinking, “i feel like i should stop going to the gym” “idk what to do” “ do i need to stop to fully recover” and i’m even still overthinking this.

i have tried and i’m doing better by living in the moment instead of overthinking. it’s a bit hard, but i accept this is TMS 100% and i accept what i’m going through, but i will recover even if i takes time instead of rushing things and wanting to recover fast. i’m taking things slow and trying to calm my mind. i’m also trying to not look into fatigue online (specially in forums) and not looking into symptoms of any conditions. right now i just accept and continue living.

i want to admit that if i stop thinking about this and focus in the present, i feel better.

 

[Linden]

hello! i’m actually feeling better, but the symtpoms strikes hard when i workout sometimes and sometimes the next day. like yesterday i had a great workout, felt fine and today i woke up feeling great, but a bit after i started feeling fatigued and overthinking everything like “should i stop weightlifting or working out to actually recover? why do i feel like this?” tbh i got sudden interest in weightlifting, but randomly goes away. sometimes i’m it comes and goes suddently. tbh, the thing that makes me want to quit the gym is because i don’t have the energy to perform exercise sometimes. i have certain goals, like i want to gain strength, gain muscle, feel that energy people talks about after exercise (which i sometimes do tbh), and gain weight in both, muscle and fat. i say and fat too because i’m willing to put fat on me since i have been obsess with body image for a long time and not wanting to put fat and i accepted that in order to put some weight, i need fat too and fat is a necessity for overall health too. i say the gain weight stuff because i had and still have an eating disorder, but i’m improving and freeing myself from restriction of food slowly, but surely. tbh i have lost a lot of motivation and interest in going and makes me think, “should i go?” “why am i really doing this if im not enjoying it sometimes or most of the times”. i do want to say that i do not enjoy it because i find it hard to get that energy to lift and because i lost interest and motivation which im trying to regain.

i’m also looking in other stuff to do, like tennis (for this one i would like to keep watching people play it because last time i saw people playing it i found it boring. so i’ll keep watching.), fencing and even calisthenics (need to look for more info on this one since im not truly feeling interested)

i also want to start doing cardio. weird because i never found interest in that, but i do now lol.

Hi again @stevow7 ... just reading this post, what's coming across to me (and I may be totally wrong) is that you say you had/have an eating disorder, and have been obsessed with your body image. I'm thinking that perhaps you're coming out of those conditions now enough that the gym just isn't so important to you any more, which is why you're not getting the same buzz you used to from going. Obviously it's good for all of us to keep fit (although personally I loathe the gym!!) but you know, it's ok if you don't want to go any more - loads of people don't and aren't massively UNfit, maybe they just walk, jog, dance or do anything else to keep fit. Maybe (like me) they don't do much at all to keep fit except rush around a lot! It's all ok though - life is short and there's no point wasting time with too many 'shoulds'. If I'm completely wrong, take no notice please, but this is just my take on reading your post. Good luck.

 

[stevow7]

Hi again @stevow7 ... just reading this post, what's coming across to me (and I may be totally wrong) is that you say you had/have an eating disorder, and have been obsessed with your body image. I'm thinking that perhaps you're coming out of those conditions now enough that the gym just isn't so important to you any more, which is why you're not getting the same buzz you used to from going. Obviously it's good for all of us to keep fit (although personally I loathe the gym!!) but you know, it's ok if you don't want to go any more - loads of people don't and aren't massively UNfit, maybe they just walk, jog, dance or do anything else to keep fit. Maybe (like me) they don't do much at all to keep fit except rush around a lot! It's all ok though - life is short and there's no point wasting time with too many 'shoulds'. If I'm completely wrong, take no notice please, but this is just my take on reading your post. Good luck.

heya! well recently i have been interested in doing other stuff that are not even fitness related. wanting to travel, find new friends, keep learning new stuff, i want to go back to study and when it comes to fitness related, well it might be a mixture of certain things, like the sometimes not having energy to perform the exercises, random interest to weightlift (sometimes i get excited and when i start training i get demotivated) and probably also because i keep doing the same stuff for so long that i might need to change routine (and i will). also about fitness and food is that i’m starting to release this restriction of having to eat so healthy and counting calories and stuff that i’m actually starting to enjoy other foods and not feel too bad about it. i say “too bad about it” because i’m recoverying and the eating disorder thoughts and anxiety comes, but i accept and continue living.

 

[Linden]

heya! well recently i have been interested in doing other stuff that are not even fitness related. wanting to travel, find new friends, keep learning new stuff, i want to go back to study and when it comes to fitness related, well it might be a mixture of certain things, like the sometimes not having energy to perform the exercises, random interest to weightlift (sometimes i get excited and when i start training i get demotivated) and probably also because i keep doing the same stuff for so long that i might need to change routine (and i will). also about fitness and food is that i’m starting to release this restriction of having to eat so healthy and counting calories and stuff that i’m actually starting to enjoy other foods and not feel too bad about it. i say “too bad about it” because i’m recoverying and the eating disorder thoughts and anxiety comes, but i accept and continue living.

All you say here @stevow7 seems to bear out what I think - that your body image and eating are now becoming more 'normal' (whatever the hell normal is!!!) and so you're not so driven to go to the gym, but are doing it when you WANT to, rather than because you feel you MUST. Great stuff, sounds like you're making massive progress. widening your horizons and trying new stuff! The phrase life is not a rehearsal' springs to mind, and you're now starting to live a bit more. The reason I have these thoughts is because my husband used to be obsessed with his body image/eating/going to the gym. He's now much more balanced - still goes to the gym but will eat unhealthily once in a while, nothing wrong with it and he's happier for it!

 

[stevow7]

All you say here @stevow7 seems to bear out what I think - that your body image and eating are now becoming more 'normal' (whatever the hell normal is!!!) and so you're not so driven to go to the gym, but are doing it when you WANT to, rather than because you feel you MUST. Great stuff, sounds like you're making massive progress. widening your horizons and trying new stuff! The phrase life is not a rehearsal' springs to mind, and you're now starting to live a bit more. The reason I have these thoughts is because my husband used to be obsessed with his body image/eating/going to the gym. He's now much more balanced - still goes to the gym but will eat unhealthily once in a while, nothing wrong with it and he's happier for it!

well i still try to go 3 days and i still feel like i must, but i’m going to be honest, i’m getting motivated to go! i’m also trying to be less restricting with food!

btw how you been doing?

thanks for replying!

 

[Linden]

well i still try to go 3 days and i still feel like i must, but i’m going to be honest, i’m getting motivated to go! i’m also trying to be less restricting with food!

btw how you been doing?

thanks for replying!

Doing really well thanks @stevow7 - sometimes, after only a few weeks of my TMS journey I have no pain at all, just a little lingering stiffness through my back muscles being locked up for so long but I'm staggered by how quickly it's working. I'm a bit of an emotional wreck sometimes, remembering shitty stuff from my past which, when I've thought about it before it's been like it happened to someone else so I didn't 'feel' it, now I'm feeling it and allowing those emotions to come out. Frustrated that friends who NEED this won't look at it, which has been talked about on here a lot. I'm trying to just let myself be selfish about it and fix myself and they will have to go to hell in their own way, it's their choice but it's created a bit of a barrier with people who I was very close to before. There's an elephant in the room now that wasn't there previously but I'm promising myself I won't mention it again (but that's the elephant in the room of course!!). So very glad I found this page but sad that TMS is so little known about that it's taken me 8 years of pain (5, then two years without pain, now 3 years) to find out about TMS although I never stopped searching for a cure. I can't even remember now how I stumbled on it but thank God I did - I am finally getting better although there's a long way to go yet, but I have times with zero pain and I can hardly believe that after being in agony for so long. But I never ever thought it would be forever, I knew I would be fixed, I just didn't know when!!!! Good luck and keep going - if you can think of anything to motivate me to go to the gym, tell me! My husband goes a lot and has recovered a lot from his stroke 6 years ago, just because we moved here 18 months ago and have a gym on the premises. So much for telling people they can't improve on a stroke recovery after 12 months. He's a different person now, and he's 74! I want us to be able to dance again, so now I need to fix myself then that will happen, also plan to go skiing in March if all goes according to plan, also to do the Trans-Siberian Railway because we love train journeys. Sorry to ramble but you did ask, bless you!

 

[stevow7]

Doing really well thanks @stevow7 - sometimes, after only a few weeks of my TMS journey I have no pain at all, just a little lingering stiffness through my back muscles being locked up for so long but I'm staggered by how quickly it's working. I'm a bit of an emotional wreck sometimes, remembering shitty stuff from my past which, when I've thought about it before it's been like it happened to someone else so I didn't 'feel' it, now I'm feeling it and allowing those emotions to come out. Frustrated that friends who NEED this won't look at it, which has been talked about on here a lot. I'm trying to just let myself be selfish about it and fix myself and they will have to go to hell in their own way, it's their choice but it's created a bit of a barrier with people who I was very close to before. There's an elephant in the room now that wasn't there previously but I'm promising myself I won't mention it again (but that's the elephant in the room of course!!). So very glad I found this page but sad that TMS is so little known about that it's taken me 8 years of pain (5, then two years without pain, now 3 years) to find out about TMS although I never stopped searching for a cure. I can't even remember now how I stumbled on it but thank God I did - I am finally getting better although there's a long way to go yet, but I have times with zero pain and I can hardly believe that after being in agony for so long. But I never ever thought it would be forever, I knew I would be fixed, I just didn't know when!!!! Good luck and keep going - if you can think of anything to motivate me to go to the gym, tell me! My husband goes a lot and has recovered a lot from his stroke 6 years ago, just because we moved here 18 months ago and have a gym on the premises. So much for telling people they can't improve on a stroke recovery after 12 months. He's a different person now, and he's 74! I want us to be able to dance again, so now I need to fix myself then that will happen, also plan to go skiing in March if all goes according to plan, also to do the Trans-Siberian Railway because we love train journeys. Sorry to ramble but you did ask, bless you!

well heres the thing, did you actually mentioned Sarno’s work to your friends? if you mention it to someone and they don’t feel it or don’t want too, then continue living your life. to go to the gym well you might want to think of some goals. i go with newer mindset and with newer and old goals. ha! it seems you want to do a bunch of stuff! i recommend one thing at a time and not rushing anything tho!

 

[Linden]

well heres the thing, did you actually mentioned Sarno’s work to your friends? if you mention it to someone and they don’t feel it or don’t want too, then continue living your life. to go to the gym well you might want to think of some goals. i go with newer mindset and with newer and old goals. ha! it seems you want to do a bunch of stuff! i recommend one thing at a time and not rushing anything tho!

Bang on target @stevow7 , and thank you for the timely advice! I have mentioned Drs Sarno/Schechter etc to my TMS-suffering friends, I've shared website links and loads of youtubes all to no avail. It's difficult but it's their choice if they really want to live in pain. Frustrating though as they are all seeing how much better I am - they just think their pain is real whereas mine clearly wasn't. Sod them!!! I'll still love them but I'm done trying to convince them.

 

[stevow7]

Bang on target @stevow7 , and thank you for the timely advice! I have mentioned Drs Sarno/Schechter etc to my TMS-suffering friends, I've shared website links and loads of youtubes all to no avail. It's difficult but it's their choice if they really want to live in pain. Frustrating though as they are all seeing how much better I am - they just think their pain is real whereas mine clearly wasn't. Sod them!!! I'll still love them but I'm done trying to convince them.

yeah, since you already tried just continue living your life and let them decide what to do.