too much of a good thing.

Eight months into my lifestyle overhaul, I felt amazing! I was exercising 5 days a week, I had tons of energy. My muscles were growing and I was feeling muscles in places I never imagined. I had my eating routine down and I was super focused on my work, and sharing my journey through Instagram. I was connecting with tons of like-minded people and people that were in the position that I was in 9 months ago, and people in the position I hope to be in the future.

Everything was great! Until it wasn’t.

I have an apple watch which, for those of you who don’t know, monitors your heart rate. Well, I got an alarm one day on my watch that my heart rate fell below 50 for ten consecutive minutes. I was like huh? what does that even mean? So I did some research and found out that a heart rate under 50 is known as bradycardia, and it’s not a good thing, unless you’re an athlete; then it can be normal. Well I’m certainly not an “athlete”, so I started freaking out. I googled until I convinced myself I was dying, stressed about it all day the next day, looked up doctors, and then forgot about it.

A few days later it happened again, multiple times in the same day. At this point, I made an appointment with a doctor, just to make sure I was okay. Around this time, I also started to get really lightheaded and black out when I stood up. Not always, but enough to make me do a lot of further research on Google, which just made me even more terrified that I am dying.

By the time my appointment with the doctor comes around, I am getting low heart rate alarms anytime I sit for more than a few minutes, and the lightheaded feeling is pretty consistent. This doctor, wonderful man that he is, informed me that technically I am an athlete, since I work out 5 days a week, so the bradycardia is probably normal. He gave me a prescription for ALL of the bloodwork and a follow up appointment for the results.

Well thank you COVID for making everything in life so difficult! I had to wait 3 weeks for my bloodwork appointment. In this time span, my episodes of getting lightheaded upon standing turned to blacking out and almost passing out every time I stood up and even just randomly throughout the day. I started feeling weak and very tired all the time, so I started drinking more coffee every day to keep up with my routine. My low heart rate alarms continued, and my condition deteriorated, to the point that I was blacking out during my workouts.

I never told anyone that I was feeling this way, because for me, that would have made it real.

( I know, I know…) Well, at this point, it was starting to show. My trainer caught it a couple times and asked if I was okay and I just brushed it off like “yep, all good!” Then came the day I couldn’t hide it anymore. I had to go to the doctor. I was having the worst dizzy spell I’ve ever had, couldn’t focus, or remember things. I thought I had a brain aneurysm or something. Also, side note, I’m a hypochondriac, and I know it, so I try to control myself as much as possible.

I went to urgent care, where they did an EKG (normal), checked my blood sugar (normal), blood pressure (normal), pulse (low- 45) and came to the conclusion that my body was in starvation mode.

STARVATION MODE!

ME! The girl that eats all day long! Well, I was so busy loving all my progress, and pushing myself harder every day that I didn’t realize that even though I was eating all the time, and adding extra calories on workout days to compensate for what I burned, I was only leaving my body with 200-500 calories per day. WAY TOO LITTLE TO SURVIVE ON! I was so caught up in my “full steam ahead” mindset, I wasn’t listening to my body, or caring for it properly. Now I am paying the price.

As per the doctor’s instructions, I upped my calorie intake, and I started seeing a difference immediately. For almost a week, I was feeling perfectly healthy once again. AND I was still losing weight! Even though I was eating more calories!! I thought everything was back to normal, so one morning I went to the gym, then took an especially overzealous pupper to the beach and ran around, then went to the park and exercised, bringing my total calorie burn for the day to 1,500 (which is how many calories per day I was now eating). I felt great, I had a great day, I was so happy to be back to normal, and I ate an extra 800 calories to compensate for what I burned.

Turns out, my body did not approve of that vigorous workout, and the next day, I paid the price. I felt worse than I did the first time I went to urgent care. I almost went to the emergency room. Even though I was eating, at some point midday, my heart rate dropped, I got freezing cold and I couldn’t move without being nauseous and feeling faint. Well, this wonderful woman brought me ice cream (my favoriteeee) and I was cured! Back to normal, until the next day. I worked out the next morning, went home, had breakfast, started working, and realized a couple hours later I was having another dizzy spell, which went away as soon as I ate.

For the next week, my body would rebel

as I like to call it, whenever I wouldn’t eat every 2-3 hours, when it felt I needed to. I would feel faint, low heart rate, the whole thing, but more intense than before. Stupidly, instead of seeking immediate medical attention, I adapted to this, just having food readily available so when I felt this feeling come on, I could eat and stop it. Well covid prolonged the eventual demise of that solid plan, but I went to my friends house one day. We hung out for a few hours, and I didn’t even think about eating anything, I get out so infrequently now that I was preoccupied with that. Well I realized that 5 hours had gone by, and I knew my body would be rebelling very soon, so I decided to head home. I had a 100 calorie snack with me which I ate as soon as I got in the car, and stopped for a coffee (of course).

Ten minutes into my drive, I started feeling off. I stopped at a gas station and grabbed whatever snacks I could fit in my calorie budget. I got back on the road, telling myself I would be fine and chowing down on snacks I used to love that didn’t even taste good to me anymore. To top it all off, I wasn’t fine. Not even a little bit. a few more minutes went by, and all the lanes on the highway started shifting before my eyes, I didn’t know which lane I was in at that point, but I knew I had to get off the road, so I made my way to the right and managed to exit and pull over. I started having a massive panic attack, having almost just blacked out while driving. Thankfully, my bestie came to my rescue and brought me home, not without stopping for food first. As soon as I started eating, I started feeling better.

I knew I couldn’t live like this

The next day, I consulted my doctor who instructed me to up my calories to 1,800 per day, and stop working out for a few days, until I started feeling like myself again. Well I took that advice and ran with it.

I was so frustrated, scared, sad, nervous,

and just generally unhappy with the whole situation that I completely lost sight of everything. I decided for the four days until my bloodwork, I wasn’t going to count calories, and I wouldn’t work out, like the doctor said.

I enjoyed those four days thoroughly, eating pizza, pasta, steak, hot wings.. all my faves that I generally don’t eat much of because of calories and unhealthy ingredients, I WENT IN on. I still would have random moments of dizziness, but just for a second. Overall, things were 100x better.

After my blood work, I decided to start counting calories again, and see if my body would be happy eating 1,500 calories per day. I also went back to the gym for the first time in a week yesterday. I worked out harder than I ever have, I was so happy to be back. But I made sure that I consumed most of my calories burned afterwards. I’m hoping my body accepts this as sufficient, because it is actually really hard to eat more than 1,500 calories a day for me, when I’m eating mostly vegetables and protein.

I have no idea what will happen from this point

But I’m going to take each day as it comes, and document everything that I’m going through, mostly so I can help others not make the same mistakes as I have! I don’t want anyone to ever feel how I’ve been feeling lately!

what i’ve learned so far

LISTEN TO YOUR BODY! GIVE YOURSELF A BREAK!

YOU CAN’T FORCE NATURE! HAVE PATIENCE. YOU WILL GET THERE!

BE KIND TO YOURSELF! LISTEN TO YOUR DOCTOR!