As I stated in my last post, there is so much hope as it pertains
to overcoming emotional eating. Just as
my eating disorder didn't start in an instant, it wasn't over with one single
choice either. However, the end did have
a beginning. During my freshmen year at
Ball State I had a crazy-fun, wild roommate.
Cassie was tall, thin, blond and gorgeous. She was a Heather Locklear look-a-like. I wanted to hate her but she was so dang
funny I couldn't help but want to hang out with her. She also struggled with eating issues. I'd say she was more on the anorexic side but
she also dabbled with binging and purging.
She had a rough time growing up.
Her mom died when she was about 12.
We would talk about our problems, but I was in such denial I never discussed
my Dad's drinking and the difficulties it cause in my life with her.
One day while talking to Cassie I was flipping through some
magazine. I started reading an article
on anorexia and bulimia. There was a
summary of sort of the article in a little box off to the side. It stated the effects of bulimia. One was death. I was stunned. I knew one could die from anorexia but never
knew anyone could die of bulimia. I was
scared. I realized I could actually die
a number of ways from bulimia. One way
is that my electrolyte balance becomes so off that my heart stops beating. Another, even more horrific, is that the acid
from the constant vomiting can erode the lining of my esophagus. My esophagus could explode instantly right in
the middle of a purge. I vividly
pictured me dying, lying with my head right by the floor of the toilet in the
dormitory bathroom. It was a horrible
image. I cut the article out right away
and hung it up on my mirror. Cassie
already knew I was bulimic and a few of my teammates did too but for some
reason I didn't care if anyone that was just visiting our room would see that
article. I needed that up on my
mirror. I would draw on that vivid image
when I felt like binging and vomiting.
It just wasn't worth giving my life to continue living like I was. My reasoning was if I die young, I want it to
be doing something cool. Haha! You know,
cool, like sky diving or bungee jumping or scuba diving. No way am I going out with my head next to a
toilet. I just wouldn't let that be a possibility.
Hanging that article up on the mirror and proclaiming I was done
was a huge leap in the right direction.
I still struggled, though. It's
not like I never, ever willingly caused myself to throw up again but the
frequency and its hold on me was greatly diminished. I remember riding to a gymnastics meet with
my college teammates and one of them talking about bulimia. She didn't know I had it. She was discussing Jane Fonda and her
struggle and gave a completely demoralizing summary of it. Stating, as if she were some kind of
authority, people struggle with that their whole lives and never get over
it. I remember thinking if Jane Fonda
couldn't kick it with all of her money and power, I was doomed. Simultaneously though, and innately I
suppose, I also had a little bit of I'll show you, too. I guess that was my survival mechanism
kicking in. I said to myself I'll get
over it. I lived before and didn't have
it. It's not a life sentence.
I still struggled with eating for the rest of the season and that
following summer when I went back to Iowa.
I definitely still had an all-or-nothing mentality in my approach to
eating. If I allowed myself one piece of
pizza I had to just blow it and eat a ton of it. I'd tell myself, "It would be the last
time I would eat pizza. I was going to
clean up my eating for good after this one last binge." Making up my mind not to vomit reduced my
overeating quite a bit though. If I knew
I was keeping my food I wouldn't eat to the point of pain. It lessened the amount of food I could
eat.
My coach Mary knew I was bulimic.
Another huge motivation for me to overcome bulimia came from her. We were talking in her office one day before
practice. She lovingly, or not so
lovingly told me that my scholarship was in jeopardy if I didn't overcome
it. WAIT! What?! No way am I going to
live in Clinton, Iowa, as a failed gymnast and college drop out. I said with pride to myself, "I live in
Muncie now!" Muncie was a sprawling
metropolis of fun compared to where I grew up, plus my dysfunctional parents
weren't in Muncie. Mary set me up with a
nutritionist to help.
I met with the Ball State nutritionist. She offered nutrition advice on how to eat
healthy and fuel my body properly. She
also offered me encouragement. I
remember her telling me that I was a beautiful girl. She used a little bit of scare tactics
too. She stated, "You have gorgeous
teeth and a beautiful smile. If you
continue with bulimia your teeth will be ruined. It rots your teeth and causes them to turn
brown. You can't reverse it. Is that what you want for yourself?" I think
this tough love approach really helped me. I was angry when she said it, even
though it was what I needed to hear.
Although the purging was getting under control the over-eating
wasn't. Her calorie prescription was
detrimental to me. I was an extremely
active 18 year old. We practiced
gymnastics four hours per day. I also
probably walked the equivalent of three to five miles per day just walking to
class. I was 5'9" and weighed about
150-155. She told me to eat 1200
calories per day. I did my best to stick
to this allotment. I would leave lunch
incredibly hungry but figured if this is what she told me to do, I needed to
follow her advice.
To put this woefully minimal calorie prescription in perspective,
I'll fast forward about 8 years. When I
was 25 years old I worked at the National Institute for Fitness and Health in
Indianapolis. This wasn't your average fitness
facility. N.I.F.S did exercise and
metabolic testing. I had a basal
metabolic rate test, or BMR. Your BMR
determines how many calories you can eat per day at rest. That’s not sleeping, but how many calories
per day you use to maintain your body weight lying on the couch. At that time, this test involved lying down
completely still with your head in what can only be described as a clear helmet
the The Jetson's characters wore. The
tester measures your CO2 output and from the results of that measurement gives
you a very accurate assessment of your Basal Metabolic Rate. The test stated that I used 1650 calories
everyday AT REST. The Ball State
nutritionist recommended me to eat 1200 calories! No wonder I couldn't stick to it long
term. Not only did it not account for my
activity level, if wasn't even high enough to maintain my muscles mass if I
were lying on the couch all day. The
nutritionist was a tiny woman, probably about 5'2". She had also been a high level figure
skater. I'm still grateful for her
advice and encouragement. I only wish
she would've had me tested then or given me a more reasonable calorie goal.
For the next year I did my best to stick to this calorie
restriction but of course would fail because I would get too hungry to
function. Then I would binge. I was still letting my obsession with food
and my feelings of inferiority to my diminutive teammates. I hated being tall and big. I wanted to be tiny and petite like most of
my friends. This was not how I was
built.
The single biggest piece for me ending my food obsession began
when I picked up the book Guide to Overcoming Emotional Eating. I had a brief stint in my life in Texas. I was working but had more free time to
myself than I had ever created before. The book was by Geneen Roth and it was
as if she were speaking directly to me.
She had been overweight as a child, obese as a teenager, anorexic as a
teenager and obese as an adult. After years
of struggle and torment, dieting and binging, being thin and being overweight
she had a moment of clarity and developed the Cardinal food rule to live
by, eat when you are physically
hungry.
I read through the book voraciously. I had also purchased the workbook. The workbook went in depth about how you felt
about food. There were questions in the
workbook such as:
What does your fat life look like?
What does your life look like if you are perfectly thin and in
your version on your "ideal body"?
What are you gaining by being miserable and compulsively eating?
Geneen Roth chronicled her story.
That yes, she had been very overweight, then very thin, achieving her
"perfect" life. Except it
wasn't perfect, even when she was very thin.
This non-perfect thin life only caused her more despair than before and
she became overweight again. Being thin
doesn't magically cure all of your problems.
Thin people still have problems.
Start behaving like the "thin" life you want. Go after your goals, go after a boyfriend, go
after the job you want. You don't have
to wait for your life to start until you're thin enough. Stop procrastinating.
It was a beautiful, heartfelt message that I needed to hear. I completed the book and over time, the
workbook. Of course I didn't want to
always think about all of those crappy feelings. I did realize that I really needed to in
order to help myself change. I
dramatically changed my attitude about my body.
I purposely started mental training and disciplined myself in the
following ways:
I changed my mind about being tall and big. I decided that because there was nothing I
could do to change it, I might as well learn to like it. I've kind of flipped the other way now. I love being tall and strong. It's actually a lot of fun. I took for granted all the things I had
gained about being tall. I challenged
that whole mentality that small is better on a daily basis. Small is better for some things, like sitting
in an airplane or a car. Tall is better
for a lot of things too, like reaching for something, walking into a room and
having a presence, not having to wear completely ridiculously high heels just
to fit in with the crowd and picking stuff up.
Even for gymnastics height was in advantage with long lines and the
presentation I had. A leap for someone
with long legs looks even more beautiful than someone small and more
compact. Of course, my small and compact
teammates could flip easier, but I was good too. I was good enough to earn a scholarship. I could be just as good as them, just in a
different way.
I went on a media diet.
To me a media diet was lessening the amount of time I spent reading
magazines and coveting the perfect people and their appearances. It wasn't until later when I did some fitness
modeling how much I realized the images created in magazines are truly
art. Even in those days before
ubiquitous Photo Shop, no one on a daily basis looks like the images created in
glossy photos.
I quit ripping on my image in the mirror. It may sound trite but I purposely quit
saying mean things to myself. If I was
"feeling fat" on any given day, I'd find something nice to say to
myself. "Well, at least my legs
work." "My complexion is clear
today." If I would consider it mean
if someone else said it to me, I wouldn't allow myself to say it either. I certainly wouldn't say any of that to my
friends either. Besides, I was more than
what I looked like. Geneen Roth said it best
when she said, "Do you want your epithet to say, 'She was a great dieter?"
You can't run away from yourself. In other words, I had to start feeling my
feelings. I could stuff them away, but I was the one paying the
price. Me shoveling food in my mouth
because I was furious that my Dad was an alcoholic jerk, didn't hurt him one
single bit. To live the "thin life"
version I wanted, I had to work through my emotional garbage. This didn't happen in one day. It took years but the decision to quit
abusing food happened in one day. The application of that decision took
discipline and effort. Now it's such an
ingrained habit that it's pretty effortless most of the time.
I can eat whatever I want, whenever I want, as long as I'm
physically hungry. Embracing this
idea was the single most critical point to my success. I've followed it for the past thirty years,
really ever since I read that book. Do I
still have days where I eat when I'm not hungry or eat too much? Uh....HELLO! I'm a person.
I know about Thanksgiving Day!
These days are the exception, not the rule. There are times when I continue to eat when I
know I'm not hungry, I stop and say to myself, "You can eat this food
whenever you want. There's not going to
be an international shortage of chocolate or pizza or anything else
really. We live in America! The land of plenty. Eat these amazing, chocolate truffles when
you are hungry again and thoroughly enjoy them then. They will even taste better when you're
hungry.”
This is my story. Some
people get really furious when I bring this up.
They want to believe being fit and healthy is just easier for some people
or that I live like a monk and never eat good tasting food. I love food now more than ever, certainly
more than when I tried to control every morsel that entered my mouth. I even eat processed food sometimes. Gasp!
Pop tarts are delicious! I eat them as a treat- maybe a box or two per
year. I read a story about a 92 year old
barefoot water skier that has eaten a Twinkie every, single day for the past 50
years. Do the Twinkies keep him barefoot
water skiing? I doubt it. I'm sure healthy living and eating
nutritiously the vast majority of the time have. Eating a treat he greatly enjoys and loving
his life has helped him more than the Twinkies.
I aspire to be like him when I'm 92. However, just slalom skiing when
I'm 92 would be enough-- bare footing is just straight up crazy!
