My untold story: how my fixation on my goals put dangerous strain on my heart

My untold story begins here

My name is Sander.
I’m sharing my story so that other young people don’t make the same mistakes I did.

First, a little about me: I’m 178 cm tall and will turn 25 this summer. I’ve been fairly athletic all my life. I discovered cross-country skiing when I was young and took it seriously. While I was still in secondary school, I eventually managed to record the school’s fastest race time in my age group. So sport is nothing new to me, but there is one problem. I have an incredibly fast metabolism, which makes gaining any weight extremely difficult. Of course, the upside is that I can at least eat whatever I like without worrying about excess calories. But when I started military service two years ago, the medical examination on the first day revealed a stark fact: I weighed just 59 kg. Bear in mind that my height hasn’t changed for at least 5 years. Looking back, I wouldn’t say I had an eating disorder. At least, there was no particular reason for it, but for some reason I kept skipping meals, such as breakfast. Why? Who knows…

During military service, I set myself the goal of training properly, and with three proper meals a day provided, it seemed as though it would all be very easy. The weight did start to come on at first, and halfway through my service I weighed 66 kg. By the end, I was down to 63 kg. So somewhere along the way, 3 kilos had disappeared. Fortunately, I stayed at 63 kg throughout the final year of my bachelor’s degree, but in March of the year before last, I realized I was still completely unhappy with my body.

This brings me to the main reason I want to tell my story. Around that time, I also discovered Fitness.ee, which had plenty of genuinely useful reading. I picked a training program, bought some equipment to use at home and searched online for more information. I also tried to put together a meal plan and bought my first batch of supplements. I set myself a goal: by September, when I started my master’s degree, I had to weigh 75kg. So I began training at home at least 3 times a week, sometimes following the training program from Fitness.ee and sometimes following workout videos online. At first, I started gaining weight, but it wasn’t happening as quickly as I wanted. So I kept training, hoping I might still reach my goal.

In August, I was offered a job at a prestigious Estonian company, which I naturally accepted, knowing that I would now be both a full-time student and a full-time employee. In September, I joined a fitness club because I felt I couldn’t achieve what I wanted with the equipment I had at home. At that point, I weighed 68 kg. Then I made one of my biggest mistakes: I decided I’d trained enough to start working out 5 days a week. But my biggest mistake was stepping on the scale every morning, hoping to see some progress. There was none, which pushed me to train even more. Despite my parents’ advice and warnings, I started essentially running myself into the ground 5 days a week. Being young, I naturally didn’t go to bed at a reasonable time to get enough rest. I kept pushing myself to the point where I came close to leaving the gym on an ambulance stretcher. There were times when I had to leave halfway through a workout—at least I recognized my limit—and on the drive home I was ready to pull over and call an ambulance for myself. I kept feeling as though I was about to black out. By then, I had reached 73 kg, which of course encouraged me to believe I would finally reach my target weight, although the magic number of 80 kg was already on my mind. But my health could no longer take it, so I had no choice but to step away from the gym, at least for a while. Stress from work and university may also have played a part.

I’ve now started easing back into the gym. When I returned, my weight had dropped to 68 kilos, and none of my former strength or energy remained. I’m currently trying to go 3 times a week. In total, though, I spend just as much time there each week as I did when I was running myself into the ground. That’s because my heart still hasn’t recovered: every movement sends my heart rate extremely high, and I need longer to recover between sets. Fortunately, that recovery time has slowly started to decrease. Another change is that I now step on the scale only once a week, on Sundays. Yesterday morning, after I got up, the scale read 69.6 kg, so I’m slowly starting to make progress again. I’ve also got my diet back on track, and right now consistency is the only key to success.

My untold story: advice from my experience

• Make sure you get enough rest before your next workout.
• Good nutrition is important.
• More isn’t better, so fewer training days can be enough.
• Finally, the habit that started my problems: you shouldn’t step on the scale or stare at yourself in the mirror too often. Progress doesn’t become visible that quickly, and constantly looking for it will only lead you to damage your health.

Best regards,
Sander

Edited by: Janika Jürgenson

Source:Turg.Fitness.ee

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