From Fat to Fit to a Hospital Bed

Enter 2006 (trumpets sound), I had lost 65 pounds through increased exercise and severe caloric restriction (read anorexia). It was wonderful (not to make light of any eating disorder) I could run, bike, hike, jump - or do anything I wanted and I was gaining confidence in my body. By April of 2007, I was down to 130 pounds and had run my first 1/2 marathon. I had arrived, or so I thought. After losing over 100 pounds, FEAR overcame my enthusiasm.

You see, I hadn’t taken a benadryl in a couple years, I was no longer disdained for taking up more than my fair share of an airline seat, and I looked like a paragon of health, but emotionally and mentally I was far from out of the woods. The FEAR of regaining weight and need for social acceptance led me to continue over-training, under-eating and idolizing our modern ideals of beauty. Even though I lost the weight, I hadn’t accepted myself, I didn’t love myself. Yes, I know, men are not supposed to care about how they look - well actually we are supposed to care but not ever admit that we care because that wouldn’t really be what a man is supposed to care about…but I digress. I fully admit that I succumbed to the same societal pressures and fears that our media reserves for teenage girls. I guarantee that body shaming and pressure to resort to dis-ordered eating holds its sway equally on men as it does on women - recognized or not.

So there I was, it was February of 2007 and my wife and I had planned a three week trip to Europe in April. I had been 160 pounds for the past few months and the bit of increased weight accumulated through copious servings of pumpkin pie (like 10 pounds) was finally worked off; terror gripped me. The last time I had traveled to Europe was in 2005, at the pinnacle of my weight curve (see the above photo of me eyeing the guinea fowl). I experienced the uncomfortable stereotype of the obese American - actually it was my reality but still uncomfortable (you know the staring, questioning looks as you eat an entire baguette - hey nobody told me it was customary and culturally revered to leave something on the plate). Even though I was nowhere near that weight anymore, I still held those emotions, feelings, and insecurities in my heart and mind. I defined myself by those stereotypes and past failures and I strove to distance myself from the person I was a few short years ago.

That’s when I did the unthinkable, the step you swear you will never come to, I tore down the last bastion of self denial I had erected to protect my still fragile ego - I had to admit that I had problem, and was in crisis yet again.

As I lay in the hospital bed in Missoula, MT, the young night shift nurse looked me in the eyes and said, “You are far too young to be in here. You need to get out as soon as you can.” It was May 20, 2014. I was 37 years old and had just spent the day in the ER, admitted for a Mallory-Weiss tear. Basically my esophagus had torn from my stomach - not completely - we are not talking about Mortal Kombat here, but enough to where I had lost a couple units of blood internally. This was certainly a turn for the worse.

Over the last seven years I had reduced my weight to around 125 - 130 pounds, ran in at least one 1/2 marathon per year including the Seattle, Knoxville, and La Jolla races. I was proud of my accomplishments and would gladly tell anyone that asked how I was following a high fat, moderate protein, low carb whole food diet (think Paleo/Ketogenic/Whole Food) and that held the key to my fitness. BUT I WAS A FRAUD, A CROOK, A LIAR, AND A CHEAT. You see the reason I was laying in that hospital bed was on the previous night I had visited Taco Bell, Red Robin, Starbucks, and Safeway to contrive a smorgasbord that would decimate even the most voracious high school football team. This was a common thing for me. Before every work trip I would strategize for days, identifying where I would go to buy cupcakes or Indian food (LOTS of it), so on and so forth. I would collect this food and huddle in my darkened hotel room armed with water, a fork (but let’s be honest I rarely used it), and 10 pounds of food.

That’s when the binge and purge cycle of bulimia would begin. I was too scared to take control of my actions (eating habits) in the winter of 2007 before our travel to Italy so I took a route that is dark and slippery, yet I found comfortable (I know it seems odd but we often find comfort in regular, predictable, “controllable,” and addictive behavior). It’s true that binging releases endorphins and it most certainly is an addicting disease, but my immediate problem was what to do with all those calories once they were inside me. The terrifying specter of my past weight and all the pain it wrought would well up inside and…I’d purge, and then do it again, and then do it again, and again.

I had the perfect plan, I had been doing it daily for nearly 7 years (2,500 days). It was simple, drink a bunch of water, eat a bunch of stuff, drink some more water, and purge. Always follow up with a mouthwash of baking soda because I was smart enough to know what stomach acid does to the enamel of your teeth (really smart eh?). I was kicking myself when I noticed the blood, “How can you be so stupid that you forgot to drink water?” Not, “How can you be so stupid to continue to try and empty your stomach?” (that was just a constant thought). I went to bed shaking, light-headed, heart pounding, and worried, I even googled “bloody vomit” or something like that. I was terrified again. Terrified that this was the legacy I was leaving my wife and beautiful daughter (she was 4 years old). Once again I felt shame in my character, shame in who I was and shame in my failure as a human. I woke up at 6:00 AM, heart still racing, bloody stool, the taste of copper in my mouth. I checked out of the Holiday Inn, put my suitcase in my car and walked to the Emergency Room. I was weak and afraid, demoralized and beaten. I hated myself.