Finally accepting yourself after years of disordered eating
Every year around Labour Day weekend, I often feel somber. As a kid I used to love the Fall, new pencils and clothes, going off to school to see the friends you hadn’t all summer. There was so much hope and promise for the year to come. As I got older, however, and the anxiety around grades thickened, school became somewhat of a double-edged sword. (Read my post on perfectionism by CLICKING HERE) My stress around not doing “good” enough became the reason why I was not able to do as well as I would have liked; this lack of control in one area of my life became the catalyst for finding control in another area.
I suffered from Disordered Eating for what seemed like an extremely long decade. I then spent the subsequent 5 years teetering on the edge of relapse while pretending the problem never existed in the first place. With Fall in the air, the feeling is all to familiar to me which is why I wanted to share my story in this week’s blog post. My hope is to help someone who too is going through something similar, but mostly, I hope that by sharing it, I will unleash the burden I’ve carried around with me for good.
My story really begins early on in high school when that oh so wonderful thing happens to all of us, puberty. Prior to this time in my life, I never really thought about my body or food; most of my focus up to this point was around athletics and grades. I was lucky in that since I was always so petite, I had never really experienced much of a growth spurt; like my height, I gained weight at a slow and steady pace, allowing for me to gradually adjust to changes. But now, things started happening to my body in what seemed like an overnight phenomenon. It was like I woke up one morning and suddenly the jeans I wore yesterday no longer fit; then swiftly I could no longer do my blouses up. I would buy new clothes which I would then no longer fit in months later. What had taken 5 years to accomplish previously, I now had gained 10lbs in 6 months and a whole new perception of self.
This athletic little girl was now starting to look like a woman, and I hated it.
It wasn’t so much the weight that I was gaining that bothered me; it was that the shape of the body I had once known and appreciated, now looked nothing the same. I needed pants that could fit wider legs and a butt, shirts that had pleats for a bust and a waist. This athletic little girl was now starting to look like a woman, and I hated it.
In sports, people always seemed shocked that this tiny little thing had an ability to be able to keep up with the guys and gals twice her size. I attribute my unsuspecting success to my mentality which in the case of a sprint, for example, usually went something like this, “just run faster”; I had concluded that achievement was simply a choice, so just choose to do and be better. Given this tenacity and determination to never let one’s circumstance decide their outcome, I concluded that I would apply the same reasoning that had worked well for me in the past to this new problem I was faced with. If I wasn’t happy with my new body, I would simply change it.
Determination could get you anything you wanted after all.
I decided I would consume smaller portions of food at dinner time, but the weight kept coming and I kept growing. Then I cut out after school snacks, but the weight kept coming. I started eating only fruit at breakfast time, but the weight kept coming along with a sense of hunger now. My love handles no longer could fit into my child-sized clothes but I was steadfast on losing this unwanted fat and I would one day fit back into those jeans and so I kept wearing them. Determination could get you anything you wanted after all.
A year had passed and nothing had changed except my lack of food consumption and my discontent with myself, but I was still managing pretty well. It wasn’t until I went to a party one night and overheard some of the guys talking privately about who each of them had a crush on where my obsession with food and my looks truly began. It was then that the thing I was already insecure about would now be said by someone else and that my looks were in fact in question and this would alter my self-confidence for the remainder of my teens and early twenties. “Laura’s cute, except for her love handles”. The words shattered me; I had been trying so hard already to change my appearance and for one of the first times in my life, my attempt to achieve something was not met with the desired results. Not wanting to feel sorry for myself, I again decided that the result would come if I put in more effort.
My average day would go as follows: mornings would begin with a 30 minute run, breakfast would be an apple, lunches would be a Ziploc bag filled with carrots and cherry tomatoes, another 30 minute run would ensue after school, and dinner would be just a few fork fulls of penne pasta, 3 meatballs and lots of sauce. I started weighing myself, at first daily and then it became multiple times a day. I guess I hoped that after magically starving myself all day, the scale would somehow turn from one hour to the next. The goal was to be less than 100lbs.
The judgement of woman’s looks can feel intense, even more so however, is the judgement of how women eat; girls in my school were often mocked not only by their over consumption of food, but also by their under consumption of food. Who wants to hang around a person counting calories anyway, right? And so, when I was around people and I couldn’t hide, I would eat so as to not be judged. This lack of “perfect” eating would then cause me to eat more; I would eat and eat. To the point where I would go home and in the shame of not being able to control myself I would continue to binge eat for the next few hours. Tomorrow was a new day after all and tomorrow I would succeed.
This on again, off again tactic didn’t bring me to my goal weight; in fact it didn’t alter my weight at all. By no means was I big, however, when I looked in the mirror all I saw was fat and ugly. I would cry daily and the pressure became insurmountable. Eventually I began isolating myself from friends; the very thought of going to someone else’s house for dinner gave me so my anxiety because I knew I had to eat in order to keep up with the charade. My relationship with my friends, family and boyfriend all came a distant second to my relationship with food.
I was envious of the girls admitted to the clinic; for starters they were thin, and although I knew they were sick, I admired that they had enough mental strength to wither their way down to almost nothing.
One late night my mom found me crying alone and I finally caved in and told her that I thought I needed help. My parents marched right into action and I soon had an appointment with the doctor, who then referred me to an eating disorder clinic. I remember walking into the clinic and seeing so many sickly faces while being escorted into a meeting room. After a brief consultation, I was told that my problem was not severe enough to be helped by them. I was envious of the girls admitted to the clinic; for starters they were thin, and although I knew they were sick, I admired that they had enough mental strength to wither their way down to almost nothing. Here I was, not sick enough and not skinny enough. This resulted in more hopelessness and I was left to continue to fend for myself.
Failing to get the help I needed, I decided to immerse myself in becoming educated in Nutrition; I consumed TV shows, books and magazines on the topics of health and fitness and my obsession shifted. I had decided that if I couldn’t be the skinniest person, I certainly would be the healthiest. I was eating much more than I had been previously but now I would weigh and record every morsel I consumed. During this time I had also concluded that I wanted to work in the field of Nutrition and help others who suffered the same fate I had. I had found an Undergraduate program in Human Nutrition and applied. Upon acceptance, I had high hopes that this would be my cure, it was science that would teach me how to be healthy and hopefully skinny too.
You can imagine my disappointment when I learned very early on in the program that health and wellness can not be stripped down to just Science; if that were the case we’d all walk around with an IV drip of our exact nutrient requirements. Instead, the program explained that there are “non-nutrients” and health benefits to the rituals and gatherings around food. I learned there was no “bad food”, “good fat”, “cancer causing food additive”. I was left with the notion that all foods can be a part of a healthy diet and the goal should be to have a positive relationship with eating; listen to the cues of your body and you will maintain a healthy weight, which is really more an art than a science. Dammit.
Over the 4 years of hearing the same advice, I began to accept the fact that I was never going to receive a concrete list of what and how much I should be consuming and eventually I started viewing food and nutrition more holistically. My eating habits in my 20’s ebbed and flowed, but as I started working longer hours, I was left with less time to worry about food which seemed to help. Perhaps it was a balancing of hormones, or perhaps my body had settled into itself, but I somehow gained a new respect for this body of mine that I had put through so much and that still worked so wonderfully for me. I no longer get anxious at meal time, I certainly don’t track my food consumption, I don’t weigh myself or think much about it really. Having said that, every now and then when my stress hits a peak, the thought still occurs to me that I should start restricting my food intake again. I guess there’s always that part of me that yearns for control, but it subsides quickly.
There is so much more to life than 4 serving of grains, 6 servings of fruits and vegetables, 3 servings of meat and alternatives. I wish the heavier version of myself now could look back at that 14 year old and realize how tiny she was and appreciate it. I wish I could tell her to be confident in the body she was given and that everything always works out in the end.
I also wish I had more tactical advice to give any of you reading this who are currently suffering from a similar problem. I do know that if you are suffering from disordered eating, the healthcare system has gotten much better at providing services to those on the spectrum. Please reach out to your doctor and don’t take one clinic’s refusal to help you as the end; keep asking for help.
Some important distinctions:
Anorexia nervosa is a life-threatening mental illness characterised by behaviours that interfere with maintaining an adequate weight. While the causes of anorexia nervosa are not completely understood, most medical and psychological professionals acknowledge that an array of biological, social, genetic, and psychological factors play a role in increasing the risk of its onset.
Bulimia nervosa is a serious mental illness characterised by periods of food restriction followed by binge eating, with recurrent compensating behaviours to “purge” the body of the food.
Binge-eating disorder is characterized by recurring episodes of binge eating. It is important to note that overeating and binge-eating are not the same. Overeating can be described as consuming more food than your body needs at a given time. Most people overeat on occasion. Binge-eating is less common and is marked by psychological distress.
If you need help, contact your local mental health agency, or in Canada go to the National Eating Disorder Information Centre
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