Giving My Body to the Internet

I got a physical.   

He didn't mention weight loss, my blood pressure is great, and then they took my blood.

A week later, someone calls and tells me that my cholesterol is very high and the doctor wants me to eat less fat, sugar, and exercise more.

And this is AFTER I told him that I have IBS and control it with diet. No grains, no sugars (certainly no processed foods), just meat and vegs and fruit.  For YEARS!  I am the living, breathing definition of eating clean.

I asked for my cholesterol number, even though she had, "already put my file away and had to get it out again."

Bitch? Seriously?

258.

So I eat perfectly. I work out everyday, weights and cardio and I'm about to die from a heart attack?

Can't be right.  I have an iphone, apps to the rescue!  I started tracking my cholesterol and calories.  Ok, clearly I'm eating too much.  I can eat less. I can always eat less.  If I could only lower my calories I might actually reach my goal weight, which had remained elusive except for one afternoon, when I got all the way down to 127 pounds--and then ate lunch and that was the end of that! Of course, to get there, I biked for 30 minutes every day, then hit the weights for an hour, and did this all with 1 Lean Cuisine a day.  In 5 months, I lost 50 pounds and to get that final 5, I stopped eating for 3 days and went to a water park to burn as many calories as I possibly could!  Voila!  Success! So I can do this!  I can drop more calories.  As long as I'm eating, I can drop more calories.  Noooooooooo problem.  

After a week, know what I learned? My average daily cholesterol is 66 (300 is the norm) and my average daily calories is 777.  Huh. 

Ok, I know I don't eat a LOT but that seems low. Apparently, some days I only eat 300 calories.  Sometimes more, but never more than 777.  And OBVIOUSLY, high cholesterol ain't coming from what I'm eating.  My liver is making it all on it's own with no help from me.  But why?  Why is my body making so much cholesterol?  I did some research and messed up thyroid and starvation both raise cholesterol. Matter of fact starvation messes up thyroids.  I see a viscous circle forming.  So much for dropping calories.  It ain't making me thin yet, it's just keeping me from getting fatter, actually. 

Sigh.

You know how diets have for years said to lower your calories to 1200 and I'd laugh and say there's no way I can eat all that food! Yeah, well seriously, not only was I never overeating but I started looking at what my calories should be for my height and all.  It's like 1800. The internet says I need to be eating 1800 just to maintain.

Huh.

And then the internet says to add 500 extra calories to build muscle.  And gee, I guess it's not shitty genetics why I never built an ounce of muscle in the 38 years I've been lifting. 

Ok, internet. I have turned my life over to you.  I'm eating.  I'm eating so much that it hurts.  I'm up to 1300.  It's so hard to eat so much. Eating too much has always triggered my IBS and this is not helping.  I'm eating a lot of SCD yogurt and...well, eating. Nuts and olive oil are my constant companions to raise those daily calories and oils are another trigger so...this is so difficult.