I get so many nice compliments about my food instagram (@itsabalance) and about my healthy lifestyle. It feels good to know that people like what I do! Although, sometimes when people give me these compliments, I feel guilty. I feel guilty because for a while, I was not balanced. I really wasn’t practicing what I preach. Now I have a better idea of how to be truly healthy, but I have many of the same problems as others when it comes to eating. It just so happens that I love to cook and bake healthy food. For about a year or so now, I’ve struggled with trying to diet, eating and trying look a certain way. (If you might feel triggered by reading about eating issues, please don’t continue to read this. I don’t want to upset anyone).
I wanted to be skinny. I wanted to be perfect. So I would diet, which started after I tore my ACL. I was scared of gaining weight, while not being able to exercise like I used to. After my surgery, I didn’t do a lot of moving. I had crutches for 4 weeks and I was resting a lot. I decided that since I couldn’t exercise, I would just decrease my calories. I told myself that I shouldn’t eat over 200 or so calories in each meal(keep in mind I ate 4-6 small meals a day) which overall only put me around 800-1,100 calories in a day. I did not gain weight while I was injured, so I was happy. I had lost weight and I was happy with it. It felt good to be “skinny”. Once I was off my crutches, I could walk around much more and I was very serious about rehab so I could get back to my first passion, running. I understood that I needed more calories because I was active and gaining muscle. Eating was much easier. I didn’t count calories as much and I ate until I felt full. I was eating a lot, too. To estimate, about 1,500-2,000 calories, depending on how hungry or active I was. So when school started, I joined the swim team to help rehab my knee because I still was not allowed to run. It was great because it really helped me stay in shape, but I wasn’t eating healthy. I was eating too much junk food, mostly because everyone around me were too. This resulted in me gaining weight, not a ton, but enough for me to notice and feel uncomfortable with it. So I started to eat healthier again, but also eating less. From late fall to early winter, I ended up being pretty small. So much so that I lost my period, my track coaches became concerned about my weight, and I was tired all the time, although I was sleeping 8 hours a night. My body couldn’t handle it anymore, so I began to binge. It started to be around once a week, but I would try to compensate for how much food I had consumed. I would skip meals and ignore hunger signals. This would progressively get worse until I began to not eat almost all day and binge 3 days a week. I almost didn’t have hunger and fullness cues and I was terrified to eat out in fear of overeating or not being hungry because I had already overeaten. Either way, I felt like it could result in me gaining weight. I felt extremely uncomfortable to be out in public if I had binged recently, especially if it meant being in a swimsuit.
Finally, I decided this was not the way I wanted to live. Never having real meals and constantly binging wasn’t healthy and I knew it. I became more aware of the potential longer term effects of what I was doing. If I continued to not get my period, my bones would become very weak. The female body only takes in nutrients to create strong bones when you are still growing. If I didn’t get back on track, my body could be very weak. My doctor told me a story of a girl who ran in college and she wasn’t getting her period. This resulted in her developing a stress fracture in her hip. Obviously, she couldn’t run anymore, or at least until she was healed. I also knew that if my period never came, I wouldn’t be able to have kids when I get older. I know that seems very far away, but I plan on having kids. It would be crushing if I am married and I decide to have kids and I physically can’t because of unhealthy decisions I made in high school. Along with the long term, there were also short term effects. I became very depressed and unhappy with myself and my body. I was becoming less social and motivated in aspects of my life that I used to love.
I understood that I was undereating before and binging was a way of making up for it, but I didn’t know where to start to get back on track. So I called my step mom, who was previously a therapist and explained to her what was going on. After a while, I got help from a therapist and nutritionist, which just started last week. The therapist listened to me explaining my life and what was going on. She told me I had a little bit of anorexia and a little bit of bulimia, but overall I had disordered eating. It was the scariest thing.
The scariest part, yet most beneficial, was going to see a nutritionist. I had binged earlier that day and I was feeling awful about myself. She weighed me, and I didn’t like the number on the scale. Then she gave me a meal plan. Seeing how much I was supposed to eat in a day terrified me. I started crying and all I could think was “I’m going to gain so much weight”. My thought was that your body needs a certain amount of calories to function, and when it is given more than it needs, you don’t need to eat for a while. I realized this was false. By doing that, I was putting my body into starvation mode to whenever I ate, my body would want to eat as much as possible, in fear of not being able to eat for a while. Once she explained how my metabolism was super slow because I wasn’t fueling it properly and frequently, I started to feel better. She explained that my GI track wasn’t on track because of my body constantly yo-yoing and that my stomach will feel bloated and uncomfortable for a few days. She also explained that I needed enough of each nutrient. She gave me the amount of servings I needed for each nutrient each day and that I was also allowed 1 snack a day and dessert 3-4x a week. If I didn’t get enough of a certain nutrient, my body would end up craving it, which could lead to a binge. She also said that I didn’t have to avoid “unhealthy” foods because then restricting leads to binging. For my height and age, I was told that I needed a certain amount of protein, dairy, fats, carbs, fruits, veggies, and water each day. I needed to eat a pretty decent amount of protein and fats, but even more carbs. It all seemed like a lot to me, but I realized she was 100% right. I was super bloated, but I followed her plan of eating enough of the right things, and I started to feel much better. I understood why “dieting” doesn’t work. In order for your body to be healthy, you have to eat enough. When you eat enough, your body gets rid of excess fat, but gradually. Plus that is only if you don’t overeat, which is easier said than done.
Overall, listening to what your body needs is crucial to living a healthy lifestyle because your body is smarter than you are. Now at my point, I didn’t even know where start without professional help. If you are dealing with disordered eating, I highly recommend asking for help, even though it is scary. For months I would look up the eating disorders hotline and I contimplated calling it. Without getting help from people that specialize in helping people like me, I don’t know what I would have done.
I am not writing this for pity. I’ve had enough of throwing myself pity parties. I am writing this because I am not the first, and I won’t be the last person to go through this. I want other girls (or boys) to understand that they aren’t crazy and that there is a way out. Although it wasn’t until very recently that I saw the light at the end of the tunnel, I know that you can become healthy again. I apologize if I have came off as fake to you because I wasn’t completely honest with my eating on my account. From now on you will be seeing more filling meals and snacks. My account and blog is supposed to be about how I stay in shape with running and how I fuel my body with nourishing foods. For awhile now, I have failed to do that. I am not perfect and I don’t eat healthy 100% of the time, because no one does. I know the idea of me being 100% comfortable with my body isn’t realistic, but being healthy is. If you are going through a similar problem, know that you are not alone. Living a healthy life is possible and I know it’ll take me some time to get there. You gotta nourish to flourish. 🙂
If you ever need someone to talk to, feel free to DM me on instagram or shoot me an email.
Hey, I just wanted to say that I think it’s super inspiring and amazing that you took control of your health (both mental and physical) like that! You are so strong!