#compulsivity

Decluttering disorder is when one's obsessions center on throwing items, or clutter, away, characterized by excessive desire to discard objects or getting rid of them. Can be considered the polar opposite of Hoarding OCD. Also called obsessive compulsive spartanism.

Based on OCD flags designed by @variant-archive.

So I was watching youtube randomly last night, not wanting to do my hw(which never really did get done btw), and I got the worst idea ever.

My brain: What if you made food?

Me: Aw Yeah i haven’t had dinner yet why not

My brain: MAKE RAMEN FROM SCRATCH!!!

Me: Ohhh, that’s cool!

So guess what I did?

I MADE RAMEN FROM SCRATCH PURELY BECAUSE I WAS COMPULSIVELY SUGGESTED TO BY MY STUPID BRAIN

So i made the dough for the noodles(i didn’t let it rise bc i wanted food but it didn’t make a difference thank god), made chicken broth, soft boiled an egg, sauteed some mushrooms, and drizzled soy sauce.

okay, to be fair, it turned out HEAVENLY somehow, and i would 10/10 make it again. But like, this isn't the fist time i've let my compulsiveness take control, and certainly not the last time.

So, my office got a treadmill desk, and I love it. I get into a flow state pretty easily at work, and as a result the treadmill desk is the only form of exercise I’ve found where I actually forget I’m exercising. It’s a shared desk, so I try to keep my sessions limited to an hour, but I’ve gone up to 20 minutes over that without noticing.

I have, predictably, been tracking my stats, and I have, predictably, gotten a little bit intense with the tracking. But the results have been interesting, I think! 

First, some basic data points:

It takes 2,000 steps to walk 1 mile. (That’s a general rule, but I’ve confirmed it for my own stride.)

"They say” you have to burn 3500 calories to lose 1lb.

I supposedly burn 93 calories per mile (this is based on your weight bracket).

Based on that:

I burn .05 calories per step, or one calorie every 22 steps.

To burn 1lb I need to walk 75,269 steps, which is 37.63 miles.

Assuming a pace of 2mph, it would take me 18.8 hours to burn 1lb.

I’ve been treadmill desking for 8 weeks now. On the treadmill desk alone, I’ve walked:

34 hours and 7 minutes, or 1.42 days.

That’s 135,700 steps, or 67.9 miles.

Ostensibly, that’s 1.8 lbs burned.

My enthusiasm peaked on week 4, when I did two sessions a day every day I was in the office. I only check my weight every few weeks, but from what I’ve seen it’s stayed basically the same, sometimes going up a bit, and only taken a dip this past week (for unrelated reasons, I think).

Some more thoughts:

On a "normal” work day (going into the office but no treadmill desk or evening activities), I walk about 6k steps. 

On days where I use the treadmill desk I always break 10k, and I’ve broken 20k steps 4 times. 

Without the treadmill desk, I’ve only broken 10k once in the past 8 weeks.

Overall, I think this has been a great and painless way to get more movement in my daily life, especially since my job is so desk-bound. Do I need to add a sentence here about why that’s important? Probably not.

Also, I don’t want to put too much emphasis on the weight part of this whole experiment, but it has been illuminating to see how much work it takes to burn calories, and how much of an impact food intake has on the equation. For example, people have always told me variations on “It’s impossible to gain 5 lbs in a week; you must be retaining water.” But 5 lbs is only 17,500 calories. My resting metabolism is 1662 (hypothetically), so if I ate 4,162 calories per day in a sedentary week, I’d gain 5 lbs. It’s not that much, really. A burrito lunch, steak dinner with wine, and a pint of ice cream, and I’m there. And I’d need to walk 8 hours a day for 12 days to burn it off again!

On that note, one last treadmill desk stat I track:

Hi lovely,

Thank you for reaching out to us! 

It is totally possible for OCD and OCPD to occur together! Although the two disorders have common features and people often assume that OCPD is much like OCD, there are some very important differences. It is rather uncommon for OCD and OCPD to occur together, but it is definitely possible and not unheard of.

To give you an idea as to what OCD might look like, here are the diagnostic criteria for that: 

Significant impairments in personality functioning manifest by:

Impairments in self functioning (a or b):

a. Identity: Sense of self derived predominantly from work or productivity; constricted experience and expression of strong emotions.

b. Self-direction: Difficulty completing tasks and realizing goals associated with rigid and unreasonably high and inflexible internal standards of behaviour; overly conscientious and moralistic attitudes.

Impairments in Interpersonal functioning (a or b):

a. Empathy: Difficulty understanding and appreciating the ideas, feelings, or behaviours of others.

b. Intimacy: Relationships seen as secondary to work and productivity; rigidity and stubbornness negatively affect relationships with others.

Pathological personality traits in the following domains:

1. Compulsivity, characterized by: Rigid perfectionism: Rigid insistence on everything being flawless, perfect, without errors or faults, including one's own and others' performance; sacrificing of timeliness to ensure correctness in every detail; believing that there is only one right way to do things; difficulty changing ideas and/or viewpoint; preoccupation with details, organization, and order.

2. Negative Affectivity, characterized by: a. Perseveration: Persistence at tasks long after the behaviour has ceased to be functional or effective; continuance of the same behaviour despite repeated failures.

The impairments in personality functioning and the individual’s personality trait expression are relatively stable across time and consistent across situations.

The impairments in personality functioning and the individual’s personality trait expression are not better understood as normative for the individual’s developmental stage or socio-cultural environment.

The impairments in personality functioning and the individual’s personality trait expression are not solely due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g., a drug of abuse, medication) or a general medical condition (e.g., severe head trauma). 

(Source)  

The diagnostic criteria for OCD are:

A. Either obsessions or compulsions:

Obsessions as defined by:  

Recurrent and persistent thoughts, impulses, or images that are experienced, at some time during the disturbance, as intrusive and inappropriate and that cause marked anxiety or distress

The thoughts, impulses, or images are not simply excessive worries about real-life problems

The person attempts to ignore or suppress such thoughts, impulses, or images, or to neutralize them with some other thought or action

The person recognizes that the obsessional thoughts, impulses, or images are a product of his or her own mind (not imposed from without as in thought insertion)

Compulsions as defined by:

Repetitive behaviours (e.g., hand washing, ordering, checking) or mental acts (e.g., praying, counting, repeating words silently) that the person feels driven to perform in response to an obsession, or according to rules that must be applied rigidly

The behaviours or mental acts are aimed at preventing or reducing distress or preventing some dreaded event or situation; however, these behaviours or mental acts either are not connected in a realistic way with what they are designed to neutralize or prevent or are clearly excessive

At some point during the course of the disorder, the person has recognized that the obsessions or compulsions are excessive or unreasonable. Note: This does not apply to children.

The obsessions or compulsions cause marked distress, are time consuming (take more than 1 hour a day), or significantly interfere with the person's normal routine, occupational (or academic) functioning, or usual social activities or relationships.

If another Axis I disorder is present, the content of the obsessions or compulsions is not restricted to it (e.g., preoccupation with food in the presence of an Eating Disorders; hair pulling in the presence of Trichotillomania; concern with appearance in the presence of Body Dysmorphic Disorder; preoccupation with drugs in the presence of a Substance Use Disorder; preoccupation with having a serious illness in the presence of Hypochondriasis; preoccupation with sexual urges or fantasies in the presence of a Paraphilia; or guilty ruminations in the presence of Major Depressive Disorder).

The disturbance is not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g., a drug of abuse, a medication) or a general medical condition.

(Source)  

So this is all pretty ‘formal’ and abstract. The main difference between OCD and OCPD is the fact that anxiety is involved in OCD but not in OCPD. Whilst an individual with OCD might get really anxious when they are unable to act on their compulsion, individuals with OCPD won’t get as distressed by it. They may think it will affect their productivity and organisation, and it could therefore cause a bit stress, but they don’t act on their compulsions to ease their anxiety. Furthermore, and partially because of that, individuals with OCPD often don’t regard their behaviour as something that is worrying and they won’t ask for help as quickly because it doesn’t cause as much distress and they don’t see it as something that is a ‘problem’. People with OCD however do experience a lot of distress and often want their symptoms to be gone. One other big difference is that OCPD often has to do with perfectionism and the need for control. This is less often the case in people with OCD.  

Still, it is possible that you have both of these disorders. In people that have comorbid OCD and OCPD, the number of obsessions and compulsions is often greater than the number of obsessions and compulsion in people with only OCD. Source (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20163876) Furthermore, because OCPD is driven from perfectionism and it can be hard for people with OCPD to recognise or accept that their behaviour is ‘abnormal’, it can be harder for people with comorbid OCD and OCPD to have a good insight as to whether their obsessions and compulsions are normal or not. (Source)  

If you are wondering if you have either of the two or if you have both, it is probably best to seek professional help. Because of the similarities between the two disorders, it can be hard to distinguish the two without the help of a professional, whilst that does seem important due to the different treatment options available. 

We recently did Whole30, and it’s easily the best diet I’ve ever tried.

And that’s saying something. Here’s a greatest-hits list of the crazy diets I’ve tried over the years:

Vegetarianism - Age 9 - 22. I mostly lived on pasta and popcorn, which I don’t recommend for overall long-term health.

Atkins while vegetarian - College. Probably the first real diet I tried. I loved it, because I pretty much lived on gobs and gobs of melted mozzarella cheese. Didn’t lose weight, but didn’t gain it either. 

800 calories a day - College, around 3 weeks. I also drank at least a gallon of water a day, and gave up alcohol. Didn’t lose any weight (!), and was so grumpy that my friends had an intervention to force me to start consuming food and alcohol again.

Power bar diet - College. I lived on power bars for a week or two. I think I ate 5 a day? No weight loss, got bored, gave up.

Pasta and mushrooms and port - College. While in the UK these three ingredients made up the bulk of my diet. I hit my peak weight (until the baby) at 185 lbs. Delicious, though.

Caffeine pills - College. Tried them for a week or so but they made me feel crazy.

Tuna pasta salad - 2005, living with Daphne after college. Every Sunday I would make a largeish batch of tuna pasta salad, and separate it out into 5 portions. I’d take one container to work with me each day (a data entry job where I spent all day silently inputting scientific research on eye infections). By the end of the week the tuna salad would be starting to go bad, and I’d eat it anyway. At home we mostly lived on margaritas. This was possibly my lowest moment re: food.

Bacon and ice cream - 2006. When I arrived in New Zealand I gave up vegetarianism and proceeded to eat a massive amount of bacon, every day for weeks. Simultaneously, Wigs taught me how to make ice cream, and I made batch after batch. I gained around 15 lbs. Delicious, though.

Restaurant leftovers - 2006. I was working in a cafe in Sydney and living on free leftovers, mostly very rich thai pasta dishes. A roommate worked at a bakery and brought home raisin bread, which I ate by the loaf, slathered in butter. I also binge drank at least once a week and overdosed on cornflakes. And... I lost weight! But was also walking all the time and having an undiagnosed thyroid meltdown, so who knows what was going on there.

Big Breakfast Diet - 2009. For a month, I followed a strict regime as a tester for a diet book that an agent at my office was pitching: Large breakfast, medium lunch, small dinner. I also misunderstood portion size and ate way too little for the first week (mostly meatballs, eggs, and vegetables). Even when eating the right amount it was still low-calorie (1500 calories maybe?). I spent 45 minutes making breakfast every morning, gained weight (!), spent a fortune, and was extremely annoyed about the whole thing. Definitely the worst diet I’ve done.

Sugar free - 2010. I gave up sugar for Lent. I’d been eating a huge amount of sugar -- multiple Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups per day, for example. I gave it up cold turkey, didn’t replace it with anything else, snack-wise, didn’t cheat… and didn’t lose weight. I found this kind of incomprehensible.

1500 calories a day - 2011. While working in advertising I worked with a nutritionist for a month. She recommended counting calories, combining carbs with protein, and exercising 20 minutes 3x/week. I lost a little bit of weight and felt more in control than I have before or since. But: I *hate* counting calories, and found myself mostly eating packaged foods, or the same thing over and over. I got bored and fed up and stopped. I did find ongoing value in eating protein with carbs, and in getting about 60 mins of cardio per week.

Exercise every day - 2011. 1 month. I liked it, but I started having crazy physical symptoms whenever my blood pressure spiked. My doctor diagnosed me as being “allergic to exercise,” a histamine reaction to blood pressure rising. I thought he was bananas, but I stopped exercising and my symptoms faded away.

Phentermine - 2011. Fresh off my first heartbreak and ready for a big change, I started taking phentermine, which was prescribed for my brain fog. I absolutely and completely loved it. I had energy, I could think clearly, I lost about 30 lbs in about a month, I was eating really healthily and with good portion control… I felt great. But I was getting heart flutters, and started having issues with sleep once I increased the dose. Eventually my doctor prescribed me adderall as a better long-term solution, which made me feel absolutely *insane* and I stopped immediately. I started working 80 hour weeks and gained it all back in the course of a year or so.

Thyroid meltdown 2.0 - 2012? My blood sugar was increasingly out of wack. If I wasn’t super careful to eat enough I’d have total physical meltdowns, especially in the evening. One day I had to sit on the sidewalk and take a rest after walking half a city block. I went to a new thyroid doctor who put me on a much lower dose of levothyroxin, and I gradually got better. Not a diet, but noteworthy.

Nine cups of vegetables a day - 2013. Based on this TedX talk, I decided to eat 9 cups of vegetables a day -- 3 cups dark green leafy, 3 cups colorful, 3 cups cruciferous. This was kinda fun because it felt like binge eating, but it was healthy! But I got fed up with all the chopping, and the cabbage bag I carried around with me at all times was winning me no friends.

Cabbage Soup diet - 2014. Speaking of cabbage, I did this with a friend while working at the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation. Definitely not a long-term thing, and I didn’t lose weight. But it was kind of fun! I liked not having to think about food most days, and I looooved the banana and sweet potato days. But by the end I was *very* sick of the soup.

Serotonin power diet - 2015. A crazy diet where you had to eat pure sugar with no fat or protein 20 minutes before each meal. The idea was that this increased the levels of serotonin in your brain. I did this religiously for a month or so and saw no benefit.

Anti-candida diet - 2016, 8 months. By far the most follow-through I’ve ever put into a diet. Brain foggy and exhausted and pretty sure I’d gone as far as I could with the thyroid thread, I went to a doctor who specialized in candida treatments. Lo and behold, he diagnosed me with a candida overgrowth. I did everything he told me: I went on a very strict anti-inflammation diet, no starches or sugars and a whole bunch of other restrictions, and once a week for a few months I went and had an IV of vitamins flushed through my system. I lost weight, about 10lbs total? But by the end it was taking all my willpower, like I literally didn’t have willpower left over to brush my teeth. A few weeks before the wedding I couldn’t hack it anymore. I started eating real food again, and then immediately after the wedding I got pregnant, which put an end to diet crazinesses for a while.