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Relative Energy Deficiency in Older Men
Still in the Closet
“Eating disorders have the second highest mortality rate of all mental health disorders, surpassed only by opioid addiction.”
Chesney, E., Goodwin, G. M., & Fazel, S. (2014). Risks of all-cause and suicide mortality in mental disorders: a meta-review. World Psychiatry, 13(2), 153–160.
I’m an oldish guy (54), a noncompetitive runner, and as about as far away from the elite athletes typically associated with Relative Energy Deficiency Syndrome (RED-S) as one can be. Yet I am suffering from an energy imbalance that has surreptitiously hobbled me during the last two years.
As I write, I am attempting a self-driven recovery. While I have an endocrinologist’s diagnosis of RED-S, I feel a bit of imposter syndrome — due to my very average profile. I mean guys, or more specifically, 50 something casual athletes like me don’t get RED-S right? Wrong. We do.
Moreover, I am trying to manage my recovery without a nutritionist or counseling (because I am a stubborn bastard) and unlike most projects that I have undertaken, the grip that my eating disorder (and my RED-S is indeed born of an eating disorder — one I have had since my teen years) is so strong that my progress has been defined by fear, anxiety and piecemeal improvement. I know myself well enough that I will recover in the end — the RED-S fatigue is miserable and I can’t live like that — but my hugely reduced exercise routine and enormously increased caloric intake are terrifying to me. Moreover, I believe I will go to my grave without ever having fully resolved my disordered eating.
That said, after weeks of one step forward, one step back, I have gotten to a point where I am grudgingly accepting the idea of always feeling a full, and of not “burning” the surplus calories off through excessive exercise. I do use the notion of eventually getting back to my previous exercise routine (which in truth I really do not want, but it’s a decent mind trick) as a carrot to drive the recovery. Some days the carrot works, some days not. It has gotten me to a point where I am no longer seeing weight loss — which indicates a level of energy input/output balance. This is better than the slow wasting of my body that had been occurring.
