Lately I’m been super obsessed over my body image. I will randomly cry at times when I see myself in the mirror. May I mention I have been working out consistently, or almost everyday, for about a month. I was originally trying to grow my glutes, but now I want a flat stomach It gives me conflicting interests because in order to lose weight you have to restrict and in order to gain muscle you have to have surplus. I’ve always been bad about making decisions, too. Not only this, I used to have a problem with checking in the mirror constantly because I thought I was fat, but I was underweight. It sucks because I’ve started this cycle again. I really don’t know what to do and it’s overwhelming because I have to make this decision for myself. Has anybody had similar experiences??

Body dysmorphia is a really common comorbidity with OCD, and I've had a pretty good outcome from treating it as if it's OCD- if you can break it down into triggers, intrusive thoughts, and mental & physical compulsions. It's also a really common condition for bodybuilders, who can see themselves as too fat and too skinny at the same time, feeling that they have too little muscle and too much fat. Most people with eating disorders have it. You can have a body you feel comfortable with and a healthy exercise regimen without having BDD making you take those things overboard, and working on your BDD and mental health won't prevent you from having those things. You tend to get much further with compassion for yourself and appreciation for your body than with berating yourself, it's much more sustainable and you actually get to enjoy the results of it without being focused forever on "problem areas". So yeah, definitely don't avoid treatment of an ED or BDD because you want to look a certain way, treating those things really does just make your life better. If you take rest days, your muscles have more opportunity to repair, and it's during repair that more muscle tissue grows. And not being perfect on your diet once in a while wouldn't ruin your progress, either. With body issues our OCD brains tend to want us to do it all perfectly otherwise we've failed and will never get there, but it really doesn't work in the long run to treat yourself that way. It's good to treat feelings like those as intrusive, and to do things which people would generally say are a good balance and moderate and healthy, even if it causes anxiety. On the actual physique issue: muscle burns fat, that's why bodybuilders alternate between bulking and cutting, starting by bulking. Anyone's stomach will get flatter eventually after they build muscle, and then cut calories a bit but keep protein high and cut down carbs. Careful diet can preserve muscle while you're in a calorie deficit. Much better idea than trying to body recomp. You can survive the anxiety of only being able to work on one thing at once, if you can treat the bit of your brain that finds it intolerable as OCD, and be kind but firm with it that there's no danger going on and that whatever bit of your body goals you have to put to one side just for now, it doesn't mean that you've forgotten about it or something bad is going to happen- and anyway mistakes can *always* be fixed.

If you're interested in learning more about BDD to see if your experience aligns with it, here's a link https://bdd.iocdf.org/