You are absolutely right. I’d like to share some data and an encouragement.
I have coached approaching 1200 folks 1:1 on their diets. Full disclosure, I have no psychological training so please take all of this as heartfelt anecdotal discussion outside my academic realm of expertise. I have a PhD in Sport Physiology and Performance and a wife who is an RD and battled disordered eating since she was 10 years old. We have discussed and experienced this together at long length. Of my clients, roughly 500 of those folks are endurance athletes. Of those 500, it’s been about a 300/200 split between women and men.
I would estimate that more than 60% of my female clients and roughly ~30% of my male clients expressed immediate and somewhat intense concern for weight gain when I initially inform them of my recommended intra-workout fueling practices which are central to creating sustainable weight loss and maximizing physical performance as an endurance athlete. Table of Intra-workout Carb Needs Per Hour of Training
More than half of those concerned, if they are convinced to trial higher rates of intra-workout fueling, report amazement that it’s possible for them to consume as much during their workouts, and either maintain their weight or even lose weight. All had been intentionally restricting intra-workout fueling in an effort for weight loss or maintenance, and literally all of them report substantial performance benefit.
Probably approaching 90% of all my clients have attempted to restrict workout fueling, or to create rules of other sorts, often long lists, to aid in their weight management strategy.
The wildest part, and the reason I’m so glad that this thread exists… the vast majority of my clients who express amazement in their ability to fuel workouts with higher kcal and carb intake rates, think that they are unique in their concern over the intra-workout carbs or that their body, personally, will respond differently to the carbs than other folks. Or that they need different rules than the rest of the people I work with, or that their body simply needs a higher level of restriction and constraint than their peers. My brilliant and more-talented-and-harder-working-than-me wife, included.
To that I say: You are so not alone. And you have good reason based in your personal history to think and feel the way you do. I would feel the same, had I experienced and felt all that you had in your life.
I would offer you the encouragement that the best way I have seen folks overcome some of the restriction-based mindsets is to, for a very brief period of time, try a new way, and to form personal experiences that prove to your heart of hearts that you are safe to, and will even benefit from, a slightly new way of doing things. Action-based experiences based on small temporary trials, and the feelings that result, tend to be so much more powerful than trying to swallow whole “lifestyle” or “mindset” changes that are supposed to be permanent. Permanence is entirely overwhelming and very challenging to develop without first having some small positive experiences that lead to positive emotions.