After the college entrance exam, I weighed only 98 pounds. You can imagine how terrifying my figure must have been at 172cm tall and 98 pounds. I'm the kind of person who can eat anything and not gain weight easily, making me the envy of those who seem to gain weight just by drinking water. Behind their envy, however, lay my unbearable colitis. My stomach is extremely sensitive; eating even a little cold food will give me diarrhea, and I can't predict when I'll experience unbearable abdominal pain. I'm always very careful about what I eat, afraid that my fragile stomach won't be able to withstand even the slightest bit of cold food. I've seen many doctors, both traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine, but my condition hasn't improved.
Finally, I started university. My thoughtful mother packed a lot of medicine for me, telling me to remember to take it if I had a stomachache. At university, I got the opportunity to participate in the 100-meter dash at the sports meet, which I volunteered for. My only goal was to participate and win a prize for my department, as my height is a significant advantage. After the leadership approved my application, I began an hour of intensive training every afternoon with the coach, including gymnastics, high knees, and sprints. After each training session, I was incredibly hungry, and my appetite at dinner was noticeably better than before, although the amount I ate remained roughly the same.
The training lasted about 15 days, and finally the day of the sports meet arrived. I was naturally very nervous about going into battle. But then I thought about how the 100-meter dash only takes a few seconds, took a few deep breaths, and completely relaxed my body and mind. In the end, I won third place in the first round with a time of 8.8 seconds. Sitting in the stands, my homeroom teacher came over to chat with me. She said that when I wanted to participate, she was worried about whether my thin body could withstand the high-intensity training, but she was willing to give me a chance to try. She never expected me to get into the top three. She also said that I had gained a lot of weight since I first entered university; my face was fuller, and my complexion wasn't as sallow.
After the sports meet, I weighed myself and was stunned when I saw the scale. Wow, I weighed 114 pounds! It's unbelievable that I gained 16 pounds in just two months.
At the time, I was puzzled and couldn't figure out why. Later, I learned that it was because of exercise that I gained weight. The reason my stomach couldn't get cold wasn't just because of colitis, but also because of spleen deficiency. One of my teachers often said that people with spleen deficiency have two manifestations: one is thinness, and the other is obesity, and I was the former. I clearly remember that every day after training, I would eat a lot at the cafeteria, but the amount was no different from before. But now I can explain it by the fact that through training, my spleen has become better, and my meridians have been unblocked, so I absorb more food than before, and naturally, I've gained some weight. Another thing is that since then, my colitis seems to have disappeared, and I no longer feel abdominal pain.
I remember a very famous traditional Chinese medicine doctor saying that the healthiest people are those who can eat and defecate normally. Actually, when I was very thin, I could eat and defecate normally, but my stools were always irregular, often quite loose. The doctor told me that this was a sign of spleen deficiency. So, being able to eat and defecate normally means eating normally, but only those with normal bowel movements are considered healthy.
