Dating Men and Women, Relationship Men and Women, Friends, Activity Partners

Sep 2003

Chelsea/West Village(NYC), WeHo(LA), CASTRO(SF)

http://profiles.friendster.com/2160119

Fitness

Working out 8 x week, cardio fitness, body building, supplements, gays, metrosexuals, Abercrombie, J Crew, creatine, wheat grass, staying fit, Jamba Juice, gym, ephedra products, the circuit, getting PUMPED, whey protein, GNC, Hydro-colon therapy.

Men's Health, Men's Journal, Atkin's Diet, The South Beach Diet, Body Building Today, AnF Quarterly

Why see a movie when I could be Pumping Iron??! Wait, I love that movie! JK!! JK!! Love Schwarzenegger, Van Damme, & RAMBO!!!

Techno..hi-Energie...House...diva vocals..anything with a beat that I can workout to on my i-pod!

Tony Little's Workout, Bowflex infomercials, early morning workout shows, Taebo

You've heard of anorexia, that mindset that can make young
women starve themselves because they think they're too fat.
But in gyms and weight rooms across the country, experts
have noticed the exact opposite: buff men and women who
worry that they're too small.
In bodybuilding circles, it's known as "bigorexia" or
"reverse anorexia." And now it's getting some attention from
psychiatrists. In a report that appears today in the journal
Psychosomatics, a group of psychiatrists suggests a set of
criteria that other doctors can use to diagnose the disorder.
Take the case of a 27-year-old man we'll call Andy, one
of the men they studied. He's 5 feet 6 inches tall, weighs
203 pounds, has below-average body fat and ripples with
muscles. But since the age of 19, Andy has been obsessed
with his body, convinced he's positively puny.
He weighs himself two or three times a day. He checks
his physique in the mirror a dozen times a day. Even on the
hottest days of summer he'll wear baggy sweats to cover up
his body. He never eats in restaurants because of his strict
adherence to a muscle-building diet. And he refused to go to
a recent college reunion, afraid of what people might say
about his "small" size.

Related to Anorexia?
Andy is a classic example of what Dr. Harrison Pope calls
"muscle dysmorphia." Pope, chief of the biological
psychiatry laboratory at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass.,
says there's nothing inherently pathological about being an
avid gym-goer, but it shouldn't take over your life.
He suspects the disorder may somehow be related to
anorexia nervosa. "They are both disorders of body image,"
he says. "The preoccupations simply go in opposite directions."
Muscle dysmorphia isn't as acutely life-threatening as
starving yourself, Pope says, but its victims are more
likely to take other risks with their health, such as using
steroids or other bodybuilding drugs. One muscle dysmorphic
woman was hospitalized for kidney failure, brought on by her
high-protein diet and steroid use. Within months of her
release from the hospital, she was back on the drugs and
unhealthy diet.
In a 1993 study of steroid use among weightlifters,
Pope noticed that a substantial number10 percent of the 156
men he interviewedsaw themselves as punier than they really
were. His curiosity piqued, he later launched another study
comparing 24 muscle dysmorphic men to 30 healthy bodybuilders.
The study is ongoing, but so far he's found that the
men who think they're too small are much more likely to have
histories of other mental disorders, such as depression,
anxiety, eating disorders and obsessive-compulsive behavior.

Men More Vulnerable
That makes sense to people like Charles Staley of the
International Sports Sciences Association. He's worked as a
strength coach for years, and says he's noticed the disorder
not just in weightlifters but also among shot-put, discus
and javelin throwers. He traces it to a lack of self-esteem.
"Bodybuilding can be a way for people with low
self-esteem to call attention to themselves," he says. "If
someone doesn't have much else going on in their life, their
whole self-image gets caught up in their body."
Guys may be more vulnerable, because social stereotypes
dictate that men should be muscular, but Pope says it's not
just a guy thing. Another study, this one of 38 competitive
female bodybuilders, found that 32 of the women had symptoms
of the disorder.

Who's Got It?
Since muscle dysmorphia is still gaining recognition among
psychiatristsand because many people who have it refuse to
seek treatmentit's difficult to estimate how widespread the
problem is. But with so many people working out at home and
at health clubs, the number could be substantial.
"There are probably more than 10 million people who
lift weights," he says. "Even if only 1 percent suffered
from muscle dysmorphia, that would be 100,000 people."
Even in recognizing the disorder as something worthy of
established diagnostic guidelines, Pope isn't optimistic
that much can be done for these patients. Like anorexics,
they often refuse to get help. And the likely
treatmentantidepressants like Prozac or Zoloftmight not go
over well if the patients thought the pills might affect
their ability to work out.

Body builders, personal trainers, fitness gurus, bikram yoga
students, workout buddies, GNC workers who want to hook me
up, gay men & metrosexuals who want to get CUT and BIG. Also,
anyone suffering from dysmorphia so we can start a support
group.
Add me bdysmorphia@yahoo.com
**********************
Bonus tip: "Make sandwich wraps with lettuce instead of
tortillas," says Beth Sweeny, a low-carb caterer in Kansas
City, Missouri. For an Atkins-friendly taste of the Orient,
wrap a mixture of 4 ounces of deli chicken slices, 4 ounces
of brocco-slaw (prepared slaw made from broccoli; you'll
find it in the lettuce section), and 2 tablespoons of
bottled peanut sauce in a large romaine or butter lettuce
leaf. The result has 350 calories, 24 g protein, 19 g
carbohydrates, and 19 g fat (3.3 g saturated
fat).**********************************