exercise addiction

Off topic, but my cat is biting my toes while I type (:

I recently read this article from The Great Fitness Experiment about exercise addiction. In it she mentions how she would find any excuse to exercise, she became weak, she ran a marathon and collapsed and then went to her high intensity interval training right after. She was doing workouts early morning and late at night, any chance to exercise. All that wasn't enough to convince her she had a problem. It was going to the doctor and seeing that she gained weight that did it. It was a really sad article but it made me think. She cites research that discusses how stress can impact the thyroid.
This made me think about how I didn't lose weight running even though I was putting in the miles and watching my diet very carefully. I wonder if I really overstressed my body, especially considering the fact that I had pneumonia in the last weeks of training and on race day. I am considering scaling back my exercise after reading this.  I am just maintaining now and not losing, which is really frustrating. So something needs to be done differently. I don't think I was eating enough and I was exercising really hard a few weeks ago and it made me feel really weak and just exhausted. I started having more protein and I felt a lot better.
I was already worried about my thyroid since I had my nose fixed (yes a nose job!) 3 and a half years a go. After my procedure I felt freezing (for about 3 years) It would be 100 degrees and I was happy because I wasn't too cold. I would wear layers of clothing in a house with no air conditioning because I was cold, when everyone was saying how hot they were. I had my thyroid checked at the doctor and they didn't tell me my number but they said it was within normal limits. However, I have read internet articles and books that say the thyroid test doesn't tell the whole story. It is actually tied up with insulin resistance and these two things can play on each other and make you a mess. I found an article that discusses how propofol induces systemic insulin resistance! Hello, I steadily gained about 6 poounds after this surgery with no change to my diet or exercise. I didn't know what the hell was going on. Then I had to have prednisone last year for ulcerative colitis, while training for my race and that put on another 10 pounds. And here is where I am stuck. I have lost 2 pounds and I'm going nowhere. I don't think that this Biggest Loser style working out is a good way to go for me.
I just read this ebook from Charby Ibrahim of  The Ancesteral Body, I really recommend reading it. It's free. Anyway he does mention not over-doing it and how you can get what you need from shorter workouts.
For more on the thyroid, I recommend The Thyroid Diet. It explained a lot to me, and helped me see that I was hypothyroid regardless of what the blood test was saying. With all this being said, I want to have a eating lifestyle and daily activity that doesn't stress out my body to exhaustion. It looks like this is not giving me the results I want. In fact the opposite. What does this mean for marathon training? I don't know. Maybe I'll take it down to the half or do a relay? Well see what happens in the next few months.