Conversations About Eating Disorders

I somewhat struggled with whether or not to post about this on my blog, not because I am ashamed of my experience with two (that's right...TWO) eating disorders. In the end, I decided I felt moved to share my own experience as well as advice for any person currently struggling with this or a parent/friend watching a loved one struggle.

I myself have struggled (suffered, experienced?) through 2 eating disorders in my 24 years of life, one when I was 12-14 and the second from ages 17-19. Eating disorders are spurred on by different emotions in every person: insecurity, a desire to be perfect, or an emotional response to a specific situation. For me, my first eating disorder came on when I began getting exposure to TV shows and magazines. I remember being 12 and suddenly thinking that my legs didn't look right. I thought they were "too big". Sounds crazy right? I was 12! But I just remember seeing all these beautiful girls in the media and wanting to look just like them.

With my first eating disorder I lost a total of 22lbs and came out at a low of 78 lbs at 13/14 years old. I remember stepping on a scale, seeing the weight and feeling proud of myself - as if I had accomplished something terrific.

But all along my mom knew what was going on. You see, she grew up as a very talented ballet dancer and so she knew in and out the pressure to be thin. At first she would have casual conversations with me about eating healthier and building muscles and how those were good things. However, as I got thinner and thinner she started buying me high calorie bars at our local health food store and sitting with me to make sure I ate at least half of one every night before bed. I remember one time we had a snow day and so school was out, and my mom made hot cocoa for us all, and she snuck some protein powder into mine.

So what was the breaking point you might ask? What helped me recover from eating disorder "numero uno" if you want to call it that? I suppose a combination of things. My hair started to slowly thin and was slightly falling out and my sister Marina noticed. None of my school uniforms would fit anymore, and I was getting bruises easily on my bony butt. I knew it wasn't healthy, and I wanted to find a better way. I wanted to be normal but didn't know how, and was too afraid to talk to anyone about what I was struggling with.

However, if I had to nail it down to one thing that helped me recover, it was my mom's unending support. She never sat me down and forced me to have a conversation about my eating habits. She never forced second portions on me at dinner. Sure, she made me eat some granola bars here and there, but she was so kind about it. She understood what I was going through, and she knew I was a perfectionist. She would almost run to make me food or buy me my favorite meal if I asked, but she never forced it. And when I finally broke down and started crying about how thin I was, she hugged me tight and made me my favorite peanut butter covered waffles and told me she was still proud of me.

Fast forward to age 17 and I was somewhat of an elite cross country runner. If you aren't familiar with cross country, it is a very weight focused sport. Thankfully, it is slowly evolving away from that as coaches and athletes are getting more educated and investing in strength training. I was running fast, but wanted to be faster. I would see such thin girls at the meets I attended and felt jealous, like I needed to look like them to be considered a good runner.

Thus, eating disorder "numero dos" was spurred onward. This one took on a slower turn, but from around December of my senior year to July of my freshman year of college I lost about 20 lbs and was a tiny 100 lbs. At this point I was 2 inches taller than with the first eating disorder, and my body was supporting a lot more muscle. I remember being proud when I was finally able to see my rib bones. Crazy!!

And you know what's crazy? My coach in college told me how great it was that I was eating healthy and how fit I looked. In reality, I didn't look that different from other girls I was racing against, so he probably had no idea what was going on. At this point I was literally afraid to gain any fat. You see, I was running in the SEC at an elite level, running sometimes 12+ miles a day and eating about 1000 cal a day max. I thought an extra pound would make me slower or possibly even get kicked off the team if I gained too much. I was afraid to eat almost anything before practice because workouts were so intense I feared throwing up.

Here is a brief example of what I would eat in a day back then:

2-3 cups cups coffee with 1 TBS creamer per cup

I would eat nothing before practice one (just coffee)

2 peices of gluten free bread with soy nut butter and sometimes honey after run 1

a banana and half a granola bar for lunch

half a sweet potato, maybe some brocolli and about 3 oz of chicken for dinner

If I ate again it would be some raisons or dried fruit

In hindsight what is so crazy to me is that I could have been so much faster, maybe a top 10 finisher in some events later on if I had just eaten. I was strong and I knew I had the potential to be a very good runner if I wanted it. So what happened? At the end of my freshman year I made up my mind that I needed to stop running cross country and track in college. For me, I truly did not enjoy racing at all- like even if I PRd I didn't enjoy it. I don't have a competitive drive when it comes to running. I actually remember asking my coach why we couldn't all just run on a treadmill and submit our times online to see who won the race. It seemed so illogical to me at the time that we were flying miles and miles in the sky just to race 2 or 3 miles. To me it wasn't practical. Of course I love and appreciate the sport, and there were hundreds of things I missed about having teammates after I stopped( and I was super emotional after stopping because I had invested 5 years of my life into training for this and it just left a huge pit of sadness), but it was still one of the best decisions I ever made for myself. One day I will talk more about the reality of how it all played out. You see, at the time I also knew I needed to step away from the sport in order to get healthy again. On race days I would barely eat. The anxiety of practices and races made it so hard for me to eat before or after running. I needed a clean start. To me, living a healthy lifestyle and finding freedom from this disorder was more important to ME than any PR would ever be.

About 2 weeks later I was driving to class and started crying uncontrollably in my car. I am talking about the kind of crying that comes from years of built up emotions. The kind where you can hardly breathe. I called my mom and could hardly get a few words out through the sobs and crazy breathing. She asked me if I would come home and she left work to meet me there. And there I fell apart. I finally confessed the reality of the hell I had been living with in my mind for the past two years with this second eating disorder. I told her all the dirty details of what it was like for me, and the day to day of it. I apologized for failing yet again. And you know what she did? She hugged me 1000 times. She stroked my hair. She told me she was proud of my strength.

After that day I felt like I could truly breathe for the first time since I was 12. I quite literally felt an enormous weight lifted from my body. I knew I was strong enough to make a change. I knew food could be my friend. From that day onward, I decided no matter how bad I thought I looked or how much I felt I needed total control over my body, I would never walk down that eating disorder road again.

Is it still a struggle? YES! Every darn day I look myself in the mirror and struggle with the emotions that accompany. Sometimes I still don't like looking at pictures or myself. But I am not ashamed of what I went through. I am not ashamed of the fact that I myself allowed two eating disorders to temporarily harm my body. My mom always reminded me to be proud of the fact that I overcame instead of ashamed of what I did. And I am thankful. Thankful that God gave me a struggle that allows me to connect with other women and girls on a deeper level because I truly get what someone with an eating disorder is thinking, feeling, and seeing in the mirror.

So....to sum up this incredibly long blog post I thought I would give my advice on what to do if you are currently struggling with and eating disorder or just basic body image issues.

1) Tell Someone: I cannot express the importance of this enough. You feel fat and ugly? Tell your best friend, your sister. You feel like you can never be thin enough? Tell someone. You spit up what you eat? Been there, done that. Tell someone. Find a friend, sibling, parent who cares for you. Tell them what is going on. Half the time I believe we suffer SO much more than we need to because we think we have to do it alone.

2) Meet with a Nutritionist: You want control over what goes into your mouth and how it affects your body? Seek out a nutritionist you like. Preferably one who practices functional nutrition (they will focus on food quality before quantity, look for food intolerances and missing vitamins and minerals specific to your body). Tell them exactly what you feel inside. Tell them your fears about weight gain. Tell them the foods you like and foods you hate. I guarantee you, they have heard it before. (I currently work with one now still!)

3) Stop Weighing Yourself: Guess what? Your weight doesn't really tell you much about what makes up your body. For example - how much of your weight is your skeleton, cartilage, water, muscle, brain and organs? Your weight DOES NOT determine your body fat nor is it a true determinant of your health (in my opinion). Currently, I weigh about 135 pounds. I lift weights a lot now and so of course I weigh more. I have put on muscle and am proud of the hard work that went into each pound.

4) Find Something Your Body Can Do That You Love: For me, I love to exercise. It makes me feel so much better. I am thankful that I enjoy it and don't have to force it. In the end, I wanted my body to be healthy and strong to fuel me to do what I enjoyed. I had to step back from elite running to realize this, because that level of training/the environment I was in had left me feeling burnt out and just generally overwhelmed and anxious. When I finally did figure out the things I enjoyed doing, I began seeing food as fuel to help me enjoy those activities more.

5) Appreciate something about your body: Do you love how soft your hair is? Do you love that your body is flexible and can do yoga easily? You have strong calves? Great fingernails? Find something that you love about your body, even if it is as tiny as a fingernail. For me, I loved my feet. Sounds weird right? But daily I would admire my feet and how they allowed me to stand, to walk, to run, to dance. Then I eventually moved on from there. I started loving my legs, which helped me to do all those same things, then my core which gives me the ability to sit up, then my arms which allow me to hug, to carry things, to cook, to do awesome stuff like pull ups. This small trick helped me to appreciate what my body can DO instead of give my body a rating based on how it looks.

So what am I doing now? Do these eating disorders still affect my day to day life at 24 years old? Absolutely. I still worry about how I look and my BMI (body mass index). But I am learning each day to breathe. The love I get from my husband has helped tremendously, as he tells me I am perfect even when I am bloated and haven't showered yet. Right now, I am in a season of life where I choose to still count my macro nutrients every day. It gives me a healthy sense of control over my weight and what food comes into my body each day. I have also fallen in love with cooking and getting nutrient rich foods into my daily diet to help me be the best me I can be. And lastly, I am working to use exercise as a sole means for moving my body and reducing stress as opposed to training for physique.

The one thing I want to be able to do and trust is the promises of God: that I am absolutely beautiful to Him because I am His child. That my image truly isn't important in this world. This is a struggle for me - perhaps it is a lack of faith and trust in the works of God. This is a work in progress. I am thankful that God remains faithful to me even when I am faithless.

I suppose that was quite a long post. I am sorry if it was a bit of a ramble! I hope that if you are experiencing an eating disorder now, you can draw hope from this knowing you CAN overcome!

" But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships,in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. " 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

Thankful for all God's strength in me in my struggle,

Analisa