poledriver
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Jul 21, 2005
- Messages
- 11,543
Exercise addiction ruined my life
BEN Carter is addicted. Not to drugs or alcohol, but to something which is potentially just as dangerous. Exercise.
It started innocently enough back in 2011. Ben was struggling through a period of acute anxiety and depression when his therapist suggested exercise as a way to manage his symptoms.
"The first couple of weeks were easy because I felt good for once. From there it was a slippery slope," Ben tells news.com.au.
Over the next two years, Ben's exercise regimen grew ever more intense and obsessive. By late 2012 he was exercising for five hours a day, six days a week. As the workouts piled up, Ben developed an eating disorder and started shedding kilos at an alarming rate.
"I guess I began with anorexia athletica, which developed into anorexia nervosa when I quit running," Ben says. "I lost, in 18 months, around 33 kilos, and I was definitely not overweight to begin with."
By the time Ben stopped running in January of this year, his social life was in ruins and so was his health. He's still fighting the addiction, struggling against the urge to pick up a dumbbell or go for a run.
Exercise addiction hasn't been officially recognised as a disorder, but it has been investigated by several scientific studies.
According to those studies, the addiction could be caused by the release of "high-inducing" chemicals in the body during exercise, psychological factors such as the need to relieve stress, or a combination of both.
There are psychological side effects as well. In 2004, a group of Hungarian psychologists concluded there was "a strong link between exercise addiction and various forms of eating disorders." The condition is commonly linked to anorexia, along with more general concerns about body image.
Ben says society pressures men to be muscular, in much the same way that women are pressured to be thin.
"I think blokes are just as pressured and manipulated as women, but rather than being skinny we are supposed to look fit, big," he says. "It's a much more positive body image in the eyes of society, it looks healthy and feels healthy."
That attitude breeds competition between young men, who pile more pressure on each other.
"It becomes almost an unspoken competition over who can be the best," Ben says. "People start posting photos on Facebook and Instagram of their progress and it only fuels the desire."
In addition to his regular exercise regime, Ben played cricket once a week. He developed a "fitness rivalry" with one of his friends during the team's training sessions.
"At preseason training for my cricket club it was me and another bloke who outlasted everyone else in all the fitness drills, and it only spurred me on to try and best this guy," he says. "Even though he is one of my very good mates it killed me to know I wasn't the fittest."
Ben's workouts became his "buffer against the world", helping him overcome the mental problems caused by a previous addiction to alcohol.
"Exercise was so far removed from the usual stereotypical coping mechanisms," he said. "You feel good doing it, you feel good after doing it, and the only hangover is sore muscles."
At least, that's how it worked at first. But as Ben pushed away from one addiction, his new one spiralled out of control.
Ben's body began to implode as he pushed it too far. Making matters worse, he ate nothing during the day and binged on unhealthy food before bed.
"I would eat litres of ice cream and yoghurt a night, tubs of hommus, kilos of chicken schnitzel drenched in cheese," Ben says. "I'd eat for a solid three hours.
"Working out in the afternoon before dinner was especially tough. I'd suffer severe dizzy spells. I almost passed out a few times.
"Honestly I have no idea how it was possible. I was very unwell."
Ben's body was constantly aching, and he was losing weight fast, but he was still obsessed with exercise. By late 2012, he considered anything less than 12km on a run to be a failure.
"There was nothing that would get in the way of my workout," he says. "If I started work at six I'd be on the road at four. I cancelled holidays, came back early from others, took time off cricket.
"On the ultra-rare occasion that I couldn't run for a morning the panic would be intense. I would be thinking of absolutely nothing else but my run or my workout. I'd be calculating how many kilometres I was going to do, what route I was going to take, and nothing would distract me from it until I managed to get that workout in.
"I wasn't living. My mind couldn't process anything else. Sometimes I'd feel physically ill if anything kept me away from the weights."
Finally, in December of 2012, Ben realised he had to stop.
"I hated running. Despised it, obsessed over it, thought of nothing else. I ran as soon as I woke up because I couldn't bear to think about it all day. I'd finish, and relief would flood over me knowing I wouldn't have to put myself through that for another 24 hours.
"I sat on a chair at 7am listening to David Bowie's Heathen. And I sobbed. Sobbed like I hadn't for years.
"I felt completely trapped, I was so strongly compulsed to run yet my body was so weak and tired that I'd be crying in pain every step."
Ben spoke to his psychologist, and the pair decided he would stop exercising.
"I remember asking him to specifically tell me to stop. I said I needed to hear from a professional that I was damaging myself. He did, and we agreed to a tapering down process followed by a complete cessation."
Ben says he was lucky to have a good support structure around him at the time. Others might not share that luck.
"If someone is dealing with these problems alone and can't recognise the warning signs it can be very dangerous," he says.
Having quit all serious exercise, Ben now has an extra four or five hours to fill every day. How does he spend that time?
"I've tried to develop different coping strategies," he says. "I've begun cooking, continued to write my blog. I'm growing my own veggie garden and trying to reconnect with friends that I've lost along the way.
"The key is distraction. Keeping busy doing things other than exercise. Redeveloping relationships with my family, trying to meet new people, hopefully eventually going back to work."
But Ben hasn't kicked the addiction yet. He misses the endless runs and workouts, even knowing what they did to him.
"I still walk every day and feel ultra-anxious if I don't do any incidental exercise in my daily life, although I am now getting on top of my recovery," he says.
"I miss the endorphin rush, the self esteem boost, the compliments, the feeling of achievement, and the social aspect. Once you really dedicate yourself to exercise you feel the comraderie of other people who are pushing themselves to the limit.
"I even miss the worst bits. Trying to push for one more rep when your muscles are screaming in pain. The days after a hard workout when you can barely walk up stairs. It's good pain."
As someone who has fought both alcohol and exercise addiction, Ben says the latter is a bigger challenge.
"I've dealt with alcohol addiction, and trust me, that was bloody hard to kick and it took a lot and still takes a lot of willpower every single day. But exercise addiction is a different beast altogether," he says.
"How are you meant to even recognise you have a problem when everyone around you is telling you you're doing something brilliant for your body?
"I would post a picture on Facebook of my fitness app showing I'd run 90kms in a week, or send a picture to friends of the body I'd painstakingly crafted, and the response would be overwhelmingly positive," he says. "Contrast this with someone with an alcohol problem posting pictures of mountains of empty bottles or pictures of them passed out."
While society is soaked with warnings against the overconsumption of alcohol, the dangers of overexercising barely rate a mention, Ben says.
"It's so far off the radar of most medical professionals, in my opinion."
By the way, Ben Carter has an awesome blog. You can and should read it here.
http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/he...tened-his-health/story-fneuzlbd-1226775942243
BEN Carter is addicted. Not to drugs or alcohol, but to something which is potentially just as dangerous. Exercise.
It started innocently enough back in 2011. Ben was struggling through a period of acute anxiety and depression when his therapist suggested exercise as a way to manage his symptoms.
"The first couple of weeks were easy because I felt good for once. From there it was a slippery slope," Ben tells news.com.au.
Over the next two years, Ben's exercise regimen grew ever more intense and obsessive. By late 2012 he was exercising for five hours a day, six days a week. As the workouts piled up, Ben developed an eating disorder and started shedding kilos at an alarming rate.
"I guess I began with anorexia athletica, which developed into anorexia nervosa when I quit running," Ben says. "I lost, in 18 months, around 33 kilos, and I was definitely not overweight to begin with."
By the time Ben stopped running in January of this year, his social life was in ruins and so was his health. He's still fighting the addiction, struggling against the urge to pick up a dumbbell or go for a run.
Exercise addiction hasn't been officially recognised as a disorder, but it has been investigated by several scientific studies.
According to those studies, the addiction could be caused by the release of "high-inducing" chemicals in the body during exercise, psychological factors such as the need to relieve stress, or a combination of both.
There are psychological side effects as well. In 2004, a group of Hungarian psychologists concluded there was "a strong link between exercise addiction and various forms of eating disorders." The condition is commonly linked to anorexia, along with more general concerns about body image.
Ben says society pressures men to be muscular, in much the same way that women are pressured to be thin.
"I think blokes are just as pressured and manipulated as women, but rather than being skinny we are supposed to look fit, big," he says. "It's a much more positive body image in the eyes of society, it looks healthy and feels healthy."
That attitude breeds competition between young men, who pile more pressure on each other.
"It becomes almost an unspoken competition over who can be the best," Ben says. "People start posting photos on Facebook and Instagram of their progress and it only fuels the desire."
In addition to his regular exercise regime, Ben played cricket once a week. He developed a "fitness rivalry" with one of his friends during the team's training sessions.
"At preseason training for my cricket club it was me and another bloke who outlasted everyone else in all the fitness drills, and it only spurred me on to try and best this guy," he says. "Even though he is one of my very good mates it killed me to know I wasn't the fittest."
Ben's workouts became his "buffer against the world", helping him overcome the mental problems caused by a previous addiction to alcohol.
"Exercise was so far removed from the usual stereotypical coping mechanisms," he said. "You feel good doing it, you feel good after doing it, and the only hangover is sore muscles."
At least, that's how it worked at first. But as Ben pushed away from one addiction, his new one spiralled out of control.
Ben's body began to implode as he pushed it too far. Making matters worse, he ate nothing during the day and binged on unhealthy food before bed.
"I would eat litres of ice cream and yoghurt a night, tubs of hommus, kilos of chicken schnitzel drenched in cheese," Ben says. "I'd eat for a solid three hours.
"Working out in the afternoon before dinner was especially tough. I'd suffer severe dizzy spells. I almost passed out a few times.
"Honestly I have no idea how it was possible. I was very unwell."
Ben's body was constantly aching, and he was losing weight fast, but he was still obsessed with exercise. By late 2012, he considered anything less than 12km on a run to be a failure.
"There was nothing that would get in the way of my workout," he says. "If I started work at six I'd be on the road at four. I cancelled holidays, came back early from others, took time off cricket.
"On the ultra-rare occasion that I couldn't run for a morning the panic would be intense. I would be thinking of absolutely nothing else but my run or my workout. I'd be calculating how many kilometres I was going to do, what route I was going to take, and nothing would distract me from it until I managed to get that workout in.
"I wasn't living. My mind couldn't process anything else. Sometimes I'd feel physically ill if anything kept me away from the weights."
Finally, in December of 2012, Ben realised he had to stop.
"I hated running. Despised it, obsessed over it, thought of nothing else. I ran as soon as I woke up because I couldn't bear to think about it all day. I'd finish, and relief would flood over me knowing I wouldn't have to put myself through that for another 24 hours.
"I sat on a chair at 7am listening to David Bowie's Heathen. And I sobbed. Sobbed like I hadn't for years.
"I felt completely trapped, I was so strongly compulsed to run yet my body was so weak and tired that I'd be crying in pain every step."
Ben spoke to his psychologist, and the pair decided he would stop exercising.
"I remember asking him to specifically tell me to stop. I said I needed to hear from a professional that I was damaging myself. He did, and we agreed to a tapering down process followed by a complete cessation."
Ben says he was lucky to have a good support structure around him at the time. Others might not share that luck.
"If someone is dealing with these problems alone and can't recognise the warning signs it can be very dangerous," he says.
Having quit all serious exercise, Ben now has an extra four or five hours to fill every day. How does he spend that time?
"I've tried to develop different coping strategies," he says. "I've begun cooking, continued to write my blog. I'm growing my own veggie garden and trying to reconnect with friends that I've lost along the way.
"The key is distraction. Keeping busy doing things other than exercise. Redeveloping relationships with my family, trying to meet new people, hopefully eventually going back to work."
But Ben hasn't kicked the addiction yet. He misses the endless runs and workouts, even knowing what they did to him.
"I still walk every day and feel ultra-anxious if I don't do any incidental exercise in my daily life, although I am now getting on top of my recovery," he says.
"I miss the endorphin rush, the self esteem boost, the compliments, the feeling of achievement, and the social aspect. Once you really dedicate yourself to exercise you feel the comraderie of other people who are pushing themselves to the limit.
"I even miss the worst bits. Trying to push for one more rep when your muscles are screaming in pain. The days after a hard workout when you can barely walk up stairs. It's good pain."
As someone who has fought both alcohol and exercise addiction, Ben says the latter is a bigger challenge.
"I've dealt with alcohol addiction, and trust me, that was bloody hard to kick and it took a lot and still takes a lot of willpower every single day. But exercise addiction is a different beast altogether," he says.
"How are you meant to even recognise you have a problem when everyone around you is telling you you're doing something brilliant for your body?
"I would post a picture on Facebook of my fitness app showing I'd run 90kms in a week, or send a picture to friends of the body I'd painstakingly crafted, and the response would be overwhelmingly positive," he says. "Contrast this with someone with an alcohol problem posting pictures of mountains of empty bottles or pictures of them passed out."
While society is soaked with warnings against the overconsumption of alcohol, the dangers of overexercising barely rate a mention, Ben says.
"It's so far off the radar of most medical professionals, in my opinion."
By the way, Ben Carter has an awesome blog. You can and should read it here.
http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/he...tened-his-health/story-fneuzlbd-1226775942243
lol.