I was always astonished by the fact that there were people in this world that would willingly keep themselves from eating in an attempt to change what they looked like. The idea that people would turn away treats after mentally analyzing every ingredient, every calorie, and how exactly it may impact their body was so foreign. Why on earth would somebody enjoy a wonderful meal only to turn around and make themselves throw it up? I used to judge people with eating disorders, but now I fear that I am exactly like those people.
I think it started small. I would tell myself I could eat the delicious, homemade chocolate chip cookie if I got in my workout first. Then I would tell myself I could take one, put it in the freezer, and enjoy it at the end of a successful week. Then came in the "smart scale" that could apparently tell me exactly how my weight, BMI, and body fat percentage changed everyday. I got on that scale every morning (and I still do), and let that number dictate exactly what I do with my day. How severely I limit my calories to punish myself for a weight gain, how stressed I become about maintaining any losses, and how hard I had to push myself to keep going-all determined by a stupid number.
Fast forward a couple months-30 pounds down, almost to my "goal weight", and as unhappy as I've ever been. The scale stopped moving. No matter what I did, the number didn't budge. Now the severe restriction and intermittent fasting came into the picture. I was letting myself have about 500 calories a day. I was going as long as I could between times when I would let myself eat-validating this behavior by deeming it intermittent fasting. The number wasn't going anywhere. I would step off that scale in the morning, curse at it and threaten to throw it out the window, and then go lay on the couch, crying, and carefully analyze every decision I made the day before. "Of course the number didn't move, you ate that stupid apple. You didn't need that. You were weak. You didn't run as far as you could have. You didn't get in that extra HIIT workout." I let this continue for about a month before I sought out therapy. I think deep down I knew something was wrong, I just didn't want to accept what the probable answer and solution was. A couple months passed, I learned about energy and metabolism, the need our body has to be fed appropriately, and the number began to go down again. I stopped therapy-convinced I knew exactly what I needed to do to keep the number moving in the right direction. As you can guess, this lasted maybe a week before my behavior turned once again.
At this point, I'm down about 40 pounds. Slowly inching closer and closer to the new goal weight I gave myself (a number that has gone down every time I hit it). The loss starts slowing again. I tell myself it's the fact that the therapist convinced me that the minuscule amount of calories I was consuming was hindering my progress. Now comes in the restriction again. This time I cut out almost everything. I go as long as I can between meals, attempting to live off the "fullness" I got from Diet Coke. I was walking 10 miles a day, running when I could, and still coming home and telling myself I needed to do a HIIT workout. At this point I have no energy. I can barely get outside to do my walks. I feel shaky, light-headed, and like there's a mental block that is preventing me from being present in anything. This continues until I hit about a 45 pound loss.
Now fast forward to last night. I hadn't eaten all day and I ended up caving and eating a full sleeve of graham crackers (while simultaneously gawking at weight loss successes on Instagram). To say I was disappointed in myself would be an understatement. My mind became so controlled by the calories, sugar, and carbs that I had just consumed that I did something I used to judge people for, laugh at people for, and vowed that I myself would never do. I sat in front of the toilet with a toothbrush in my hand-willing myself to shove it as far down my throat as I could. I hit my all-time low last night and I'm not sure if I'm more depressed, or more thankful that this might've given me the wake up call I finally needed.
As I'm sitting here typing this, I feel the hunger pains, the headache, the fatigue and weakness, but for the first time in this whole journey, I also feel a bit of hope. Maybe that's naive, maybe it's stupid. Maybe it just doesn't matter. I just needed someone to hear my story.
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