When I was 20 I went to the gym every morning, taught martial arts, competed on my university horsebackriding team, walked to all my college classes, always took the stairs and mostly ate food that I cooked myself. I ate when I was hungry and didn’t overeat. I *looked* great. What I didn’t know was that my body’s autonomic system was beginning to go haywire for no apparent reason. At first I noticed that I got a bit more tired than usual after a workout or I would get dizzy spells. Then one day I collapsed on my way to an organic chemistry exam and couldn’t move. I went to the hospital. They ran tests. It took months to get my first diagnosis, POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, meaning that for reasons unknown my heart rate tended to suddenly spike upon standing or moving which sent fight or flight signals to my brain which released excess adrenaline for no good reason and caused my body to maintain a heightened level of alertness until it crashed and burned with exhaustion). Then I proceeded to see more doctors who found more problems. Crohn’s disease. Probable celiac disease (awaiting final confirmation due to the next point). Completely defunct immune system. Inability to naturally absorb most vitamins and minerals and nutrients. Lyme disease. Lyme co-infections. Hypotension (really really low blood pressure can actually be as bad as really high blood pressure it turns out). Brain trauma (possibly from The frequent fainting spells brought on by POTS, possibly due to MMA practice or falling off a horse or really any number of things). Fun stuff. I can’t exercise anymore, really. If I do it’s a choice between ten or fifteen minutes on a recumbent bike or walking around that day until I collapse. I always collapse. All through this I continued eating fairly healthy. I moved back in with my parents (fourth floor apartments with no elevator are not safe if you tend to randomly lose consciousness it turns out, also I was not allowed to drive for the same reasons and had to regularly go see doctors in various parts of the country while also not being able to go on planes as pressure changes also caused passing out and fainting people that are slightly incoherent due to lack of oxygen to their brain after fainting really freak out the TSA). I ate meals my mother and father cooked (they don’t trust me near the stove again for obvious if inconvenient reasons). Good portion sizes. Good foods. Healthy stuff. I also was on a lot of medication that messed with my metabolism. I also had new doctor proscribed diet rules- no gluten until my immune system returns enough to test if I actually have gluten antibodies; two, drink Gatorade, coconut water and water constantly; three eat salt, more salt, seriously if you have to take a spoonful of salt two or three times a day and eat it straight; four drink caffeine as often as possible until about five pm. Very special diet advice, that, but they had their reasons. And surprisingly, for months without regular exercise and with the drugs and the “diet” my weight stayed the same. Until suddenly in the span of about two months, while not changing anything I dropped to 110 lbs. I’m nearly 5'7. That was not a healthy weight for me. I looked creepy and you could see my ribs and I had to buy new clothes in a size 0 or 00. Then I started getting nauseous. I could not keep food down no matter how hard I tried. And during that time I went from 115 lbs to 175 lbs. Eventually they changed my meds and I was able to eat food again (hooray!). My weight stayed around the 175 lb mark. I got a bit better. I was able to exercise a bit. I was eating smaller, healthier meals. I stayed at 175. I went shopping again. This time clothing was more difficult to find. I had somehow went up four cup sizes in my bras. I had hips and a butt again. My stomach was surprisingly still mostly flat (but tragically no longer showing the fantastic and of my pre-sickness days, sigh). I looked good, even if I was now a size ten or so (girls clothes are weird and are often not equipped to deal with boobs bigger than a DD). I felt awful. But I continued fine tuning my medications and slowly increasing my tolerance to various forms of exercise that did not involve sudden changes of motion, being upside down or anything that might make might heart rate go up past 140bpm (who needs a cardio workout when just standing up puts you in the “maintain for ideal cardio workout” heart rate range, right?). I continued to eat small, healthy home cooked meals. My weight stayed the same. For a year. Today I went out to a fancy dinner with my family. While getting ready I kept trying on clothes only to find that they no longer fit. Somehow I had lost weight. My stomach is now back to pre-sickness flatness (still sans abs). I’m still a 32 G. I still have an hourglass figure. I don’t know where the missing weight came from but now none of my clothing fits right. Shopping time again, I guess.

My point is, I ate small portions. I exercised because I genuinely enjoyed it. I ate healthy. I did everything right. And my health was a ticking time bomb. It’s great that you are incredibly healthy. That’s wonderful. But eating smaller portions and healthy food were not the only factors that went into that. It’s really just not that simple. If it were I would not be a 23 year old woman with a permanent handicap placard (the kind that you hang on the mirror, I can’t get a license plate one because that would tie me to a certain car and I’m still not allowed to drive due to being a fainting risk, but the ones that hang on the mirror are tied to the person not the car.) I look great though. I couldn’t tell you why at the moment but hey, I’ll take what I can get.