My Eating Disorder Story: Part 1
“I wanna lose 5 pounds.”
A few weeks ago my boyfriend’s 15-year old sister, Katy, said those words to me. I almost cried.
It was like hearing myself five years ago. The teenaged me (like Katy), was in a healthy, and naturally thin body. I loved outdoor activities like ultimate frisbee, but I didn’t have a structured exercise regime. I ate mostly nutritious, home-cooked meals because that’s what my mom made, but I always ate whenever, whatever, and however much I wanted. Food was easy, exercise was natural.
Until the day I decided I needed to lose five pounds.
It was spring, and I was eighteen. I was at an MLB baseball game with some friends and we took a group photo. That picture changed my life (although I now realize it was much more than a picture that pushed me towards an eating disorder).
I saw the photo later on Instagram and hated myself — the way my cheeks spread out and eyes squinted when I smiled and how I hunched my shoulders and looked awkward compared to the others. Right then and there I determined that the only way to be pretty, worthy of acceptance, and “like everyone else” was to get thin. I had to lose weight.
My new resolve went into immediate effect. I started reading dieting tips in magazines, cutting out entire food groups, and running everyday. It was so easy to start the journey towards an eating disorder — everything around me, from commercials, youtube videos, social media, to calorie counts next to menu items at chipotle, helped me transition to a life devoted to weight loss.
For four years, I believed losing weight and achieving our culture’s ideal body (think Victoria Secret’s posters, clothing cover girls, and the countless ‘fitspo’ accounts on Instagram) would make me confident and happy. So I lived to lose weight. Obsessing over each bite of food that went into my mouth (because what if I ate the wrong thing or took one too many bites and gained five pounds?), always making sure to leave food on my plate no matter how hungry I still was, only eating low-calorie foods, like veggies and plain rice cakes, cutting out carbs, gluten, dairy, meat, eggs, and most fruits (what was I even eating?), guzzling water like I’d just been rescued from a dessert (because water fills you up and doesn’t have calories).
My drastic lifestyle changes didn’t really require an explanation or raise any concerns with friends and family. No one saw a problem with it — in fact, I was praised for my ‘diligence’, ‘commitment to health’, and ‘motivation’ countless times.
These “compliments”, however, were destructive and pushed me further into the life-choking grip of my eating disorder.
Side note: It’s never appropriate to compliment or comment on someone’s weight (at least without fully knowing their story). Period. You have no idea what they’re going through or why they’ve lost or gained weight. Personal tragedies, illnesses, depression, disordered eating — these can all be causes of weight changes and your judgements only hurt them more. And their weight? It’s none of your business!
Compliments from friends, family, and even strangers (like waitresses at restaurants who saw me choosing from the ‘skinny menu’ or ordering the no-sugar option), reinforced my belief that I had to prove — through dedication and starvation — that I was good enough.
But all I really wanted to hear was that I was perfect just the way I was. That I was worthy of love, could accomplish great things, and was beautiful — without being stick thin. That I didn’t have to say ‘no’ to pizza and cake at parties to be noticed or only eat salads to be praised and applauded. That I didn’t have to wake up and run 8 miles in order to be told I was amazing. That I was enough, just the way I was. But I didn’t hear that — most of us don’t.
Because the world tells us a different story. The majority of women (and many men) in western society are unhappy with their bodies, trying to lose weight, cutting out carbs and sugar, going on Keto, Paleo, and Whole-who-knows-what, talking about how ‘bad’ they are for eating this or that ‘fattening food’, complaining about the exercise regimes they hate… This is the regular ‘water cooler conversation’ in our culture.
Why do we hate our bodies and feel the need to punish and talk badly about ourselves?
Our society — the beauty and diet industry, social media, TV, marketing — make money (to the tune of $60 billion a year) off of insecurities…By telling us we need the new product, pill, or regiment they’re selling in order to find happiness and confidence.
We’re constantly bombarded with messages and pictures of an idealized image, telling us we’re not enough the way we are.
(If you’re interested in learning more about how the weight loss and diet industry is all about $$$, see this article I wrote.)
So I fought my body for four years until the fight nearly killed me…
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If you’d like to hear the rest of my eating disorder story, click here.
