u/flowersforfruits

(18F) hi, i work out quite a bit, like over 12 hours a week, not traditional gym n cardio, i do circus pre-professionally so i do a lot of aerial and conditioning, i also get 8-10k steps on active days. Problem is that the moment i dont have a class to go to, aka on my rest days, i crash out HARD. Like, depression, doomscrolling, not leaving my house, overeating, less than 5k steps, minimal movement :/ i take 1-2 rest days per week, so this seems to happen at least once per week and its pissing me off so bad. Especially because i want to lean out a bit since ive gained some fat over the months, after accidentally bulking from a combo of overeating+a lotta strength training lol… im stronger now, but i dont like how i look at all ☹️ im just not sure how to not fall into a depression on rest days. I know rest is important, and normally by my rest day my body is super physically and mentally exhausted. So rest is good. But im concerned about the effects of being almost sedentary once a per week, like that cannot be good for me …. And im just sick of how i boredom eat / eat for dopamine to combat my depression. Any advice is appreciated, or if anyone else has experienced this.

(18F) I recently realized how much faster other people seem to gain strength, and how long flexibility takes for most people. Im hyper-mobile, have been doing aerial-mainly silks- for a year and a half. Taken it more seriously over the last year, with 2-3 silks classes a week. I take the conditioning seriously, i do my best not to slack off about it…. But im still struggling with basic strength skills such as inverting, especially for inverting in the air :( only recently was i consistently able to invert in the air WITH TAGGING AND UGLY FORM!! And on the ground i can finally invert without tagging, yet its inconsistent and will randomly go away during training sessions without explanation.
And yet, i got my flat front splits within like, three months after starting circus. I dont remember a time when i didnt have a flat middle split. My hips are my most hyper-mobile part, i think. I dont have to warm up at all before middle splits. My back can be pretty bendy but only after a thorough warm up….. so ive found my contortion training progressing surprisingly fast, meanwhile my aerial strength goes a snails pace….
Just wanted to complain for a moment. Also the hyper-mobility makes my proprioception and body awareness really bad, so thats been annoying :/ my silks teacher says my fear of drops may also be partly because of the hyper-mobility, too. Which would make sense; since my body is constantly unstable and drops make it feel even more so, lmfao….
Does anyone else in here have this issue?? How did you get past it???

(18F) hi! Ive never had a flat stomach before and im so so confused about if its fat or bloating. I feel like i wake up already bloated?? I grew up overweight, maxing 190lbs at 13, i lost a lot from ages 14-16 (60lbs, lowest was 130lbs) but wasnt able to maintain and ended up gaining 20lbs back, making my current weight around 150lbs at 5’7 last i checked. Im not overweight, im in the normal bmi range, but i feel id like to loose 15-20lbs… I dont have stomach rolls unless im sitting down. i can pinch maybe a handful of stomach, which i assume is fat? When i poke my tummy, it feels mostly hard with a little give. Im very active, and i use my abs a lot, so despite the bloat and/or fat, i can see some abdominal definition (not a six pack, obviously, but definitely some core)
I just feel like my stomach protrudes farther than just fat would make it, and i cant seem to figure out how to fix it :/ some days its better than others , but that might also be my body dysmorphia..
i eat a heathy diet. I dont eat refined sugar, gluten, meat, seed oils blahblahblah…. Mostly, my diet is vegetarian and consists of 0% greek yogurt, honey, peanut butter or pbfit depending on whats in the house, soy- mostly tofu, nori sheets, lots of fruit, protein powder, chia seeds, sometimes oats, occasionally hummus. Id say the majority of my diet is fruit and protein. I cant place which of these things could be making me bloat,,, and i already dont eat a lot of food items so i fear removing more could make me risk nutritional gaps. Ive tried removing dairy, but i worry about the low calcium. Im wondering if honey could be bloating me because i eat probably too much of it.
Or it could be just that i need to loose more weight? Which is a struggle mainly because i had amenorrhea for years due to under-eating and only recently got my period back, so im uncertain about weight loss since it could make me loose it again :( but i also feel so uncomfortable with my appearance and i just want to be in the 130 range again so idk what to do..

(18F) hi! Ive never had a flat stomach before and im so so confused about if its fat or bloating. I feel like i wake up already bloated?? I grew up overweight, maxing 190lbs at 13, i lost a lot from ages 14-16 (60lbs, lowest was 130lbs) but wasnt able to maintain and ended up gaining 20lbs back, making my current weight around 150lbs at 5’7 last i checked. Im not overweight, im in the normal bmi range, but i feel id like to loose 15-20lbs… I dont have stomach rolls unless im sitting down. i can pinch maybe a handful of stomach, which i assume is fat? When i poke my tummy, it feels mostly hard with a little give. Im very active, and i use my abs a lot, so despite the bloat and/or fat, i can see some abdominal definition (not a six pack, obviously, but definitely some core)
I just feel like my stomach protrudes farther than just fat would make it, and i cant seem to figure out how to fix it :/ some days its better than others , but that might also be my body dysmorphia..
i eat a heathy diet. I dont eat refined sugar, gluten, meat, seed oils blahblahblah…. Mostly, my diet is vegetarian and consists of 0% greek yogurt, honey, peanut butter or pbfit depending on whats in the house, soy- mostly tofu, nori sheets, lots of fruit, protein powder, chia seeds, sometimes oats, occasionally hummus. Id say the majority of my diet is fruit and protein. I cant place which of these things could be making me bloat,,, and i already dont eat a lot of food items so i fear removing more could make me risk nutritional gaps. Ive tried removing dairy, but i worry about the low calcium. Im wondering if honey could be bloating me because i eat probably too much of it.
Or it could be just that i need to loose more weight? Which is a struggle mainly because i had amenorrhea for years due to under-eating and only recently got my period back, so im uncertain about weight loss since it could make me loose it again :( but i also feel so uncomfortable with my appearance and i just want to be in the 130 range again so idk what to do..

Hi! (17F) ive been doing aerial+circus for a year and a half. I mostly train silks and contortion, though ive begun trying to also work on hand balancing and acrobatics as well as dancing + other aerial apparatus’s. Circus has been the only thing ive ever found myself truly feeling passionate about, and I recently decided to join a local pre-professional youth training company. It starts in September, but there was recently a sort of orientation where students can meet each other and work on team building exercises / ice breakers. I found myself forgetting how to do simple silks movements when under pressure….. i couldn’t even remember how to do a hip key for probably a solid 20seconds because other students were watching and i was nervous😭😭 now im worried that might happen during performances (the youth company does multiple performances during the season) and im not sure what to do to ease that. Im generally a nervous person with low self confidence, so any advice on just how to feel more confident and relaxed in the air, or at least appear as such, would be appreciated!!!

(17F) My hunger cues felt pretty okay at the beginning of the day, but then during lunch i had rice cakes with cottage cheese and hummus , and suddenly i felt like i couldnt stop eating. I felt soo hungry and suddenly all or nothing mentality kicked in…. :( I ate more and finished half a hummus container and an entire container of cottage cheese on rice cakes, still wasnt full, ate watermelon, still wasnt full, ate more rice cakes but with crap tons of nut butter and honey…. I ended up eating 11 rice cakes!! With various toppings!!!! And i STILL feel strangely hungry!! Yes ive drank water. Ate almost 700 calories from JUST the rice cakes (lundberg brand rice cakes) and thats not even mentioning all the toppings which would have added soo many calories honestly i wouldnt be surprised if it ended up being close to 2000 calories because of the copious amounts of nut butter but im too scared to add it up and check since its not like theres anything i can do now that its happened. I just feel so annoyed because i really thought today would be my day for getting back on track (i lost 70lbs but have gained back like 30 of them bc of depression/ overeating/extreme hunger and having to recover my period)
I just want to be normalllllll i eat only healthy foods and enjoy only healthy foods yet somehow i still eat too much and its strangely so embarrassing to be borderline overweight despite my preference for healthy foods and the fact that im typically very active. Its feels like a moral failing.

!!!!PLEASE DO NOT READ THIS IF MENTIONS OF CALORIES OR WEIGHT LOSS NEGATIVELY AFFECTS YOU IN ANY WAY!!!
I lost my period for 3ish years, got it back last month. Since then ive had 2 cycles. wondering how long i should continue eating a lot before i can SLIGHTLY decrease my calories so i can be in a once again SLIGHT deficit and *slowly* loose some weight. I just want to loose maybe >!30lbs!< max, and i want to do it in a healthy way this time. I just want to get to around the weight i was before i started period recovery (>!130lbs at 5’7!<) Not a crazy deficit, not over exercising, just a little less food and a little more movement. I dont mind if it takes a while, i wont try to rush it this time.
But im unsure if i should wait until a certain point to start. Like, ive seen some people say to wait until you have had three cycles before you change anything. I dont wanna loose my period again so quickly and ruin all the progress :/

Im soo happy cuz i was worried the first one was just a fluke. It has been 24 days since my (recovered) first one. I had my actual first period in fifth grade, then lost it somewhere around when i was 14 (i believe) due to caloric restriction. and it had been 3 years since (17 now) i think this also explains why ive been overeating dates w peanut butter the last four days lol…

hiii guys! I got my period after 3 years, without stopping exercise!
just wanted to give others some inspiration :) i first had a period when i was 12. Stopped having it at around 14 because of under-eating and weight-loss. I was overweight growing up and when i lost weight i went from 190lbs to 130lbs at 5’6
I never got to a level of being “under-weight”, but my body was definitely shocked, and i got obsessive about food. never diagnosed with an ED but definitely some disordered tendencies.
Now, at 17, i just bled for the first time since then. Which feels totally unexpected and crazy because to be honest i had sort of started to give up. I refused to stop exercising, because i love exercise. I was even working out quite a ton for a while. I assumed because i was working out a lot, id never get my period again. Well, i guess i did after all lol.
Been resting and working out less over the past 2 or 3 weeks, which to be honest was just from depression. The depression has caused me to be demotivated and everything has felt hard, so i havent been working out as much. I’ve been eating LOADS. I dont count calories. Just been eating a ton of non-fat greek yogurt, nut butter, medjool dates, Japanese sweet potatoes, tofu, avocados, nori, berries and generally as much fruit as possible. I have eaten exclusively healthy foods because i genuinely dont like processed foods and LOVE the foods i listed. Genuinely obsessed w japanese sweet potatoes idk😭 and im vegetarian (was raised that way) have also occasionally eaten Hu chocolate bars and eggs, but not as often because i dont like them as much as the other things.
I go to the gym for weight lifting at least twice a week, i try to get in at least 8k steps but recently ive been more like 6k, i take a lot of workout classes (about 5 right now) stretch a lot and been doing yoga at home recently as well.
Yes, Ive gained weight. 20lbs, to be precise. I think it was inevitable. Yes, i dont like what i see when i look it the mirror. Yes, i would like to loose the weight again. I want to do it in a healthy way this time, slowly. But i knew my body was not ready to do that yet. So ive been waiting for my cycle to level out before i tried. Good news is, i think a lot of it is muscle mass which is awesome!!
At the end of the day, i think you just need to be consistent with eating a lot and consistent in weight gain and maintaining that gained weight for at least a couple months so that your body realizes you’re safe. I never stopped exercising! Its all about the balance between exercise and rest. And, to be clear, i have zero clue if I’ll have a regular cycle from here on. I could go back to secondary amenorrhea by next month for all i know. But it does feel nice to at least know that my body can still bleed, because the docs were about to do the progesterone test on me lol and i did not want to deal w that!!
Best of luck to us all, and remember be kind to yourselves :)