Warning: This may trigger some who have troubles with eating disorders.
This past May I made a decision in my head. A decision that will probably affect me for much of my life. I decided to do something that I thought would improve my life dramatically. Something that would make me happier, healthier, and more attractive. I decided that I was going to be skinny. Little did I know that being skinny would not give me all of these things that I dreamed it would. Instead, my plight for being thin and beautiful made me a diet obsessed, depressed, anorexic.
I started off my journey to be skinny by getting a gym membership at 24 Hour Fitness. I started restricting my calorie intake to about 1,700 per day. I worked out for about an hour, four or five times a week, and tried to burn about 300 calories per workout. I lost a couple pounds and was starting to taste the control I could have over my body. I decided that I wanted to go from being XXX pounds to XXX. That was my goal. And a healthy one I think it was. I don't think I was overweight at XXX pounds and 5ft. 8inches, but I ate a lot of junk, didn't work out, and just wasn't feeling good. After a few weeks I dropped down to that XXX. It felt awesome. But it was not enough. I decided that I would look my best at XXX. So I restricted my calories to 1,500 and started to burn 400-500 calories per workout. I got down to that XXX with a snap of my fingers it felt like. At XXX pounds I was still unhappy with my weight. I decided XXX would be the best. So I restricted my calories to 1,300 and worked out a bit harder. I dropped to the XXX. Again, it wasn't enough. The vicious cycle continued until I was XXX pounds, burning 700-800 calories a day, and eating many times less than 1,000 calories per day. On top of all this I was working at a golf course where I was very physically active from 6 am to 3 pm. I would then workout for 2 hours after work and burn those 700 calories.
I was pooped. Utterly pooped. No energy, no happiness, no health, no increased beauty. The only thing that this brought me was the thinness I desired. And I will still admit that I miss that skinny frame. The shocked looks of friends when they saw how thin I had become so fast. The "WOW. You look great! You are so thin and fit!" The extra looks from guys when I wore my size 0 pants. Its like my anorexic voice and brain was happy and my emotional and spiritual brain was miserable. I felt like two different people. I was battling in my head all day long.
I started to notice physical changes too. My hair started falling out (I thought I was going to go bald!), my hair was snapping, splitting, and breaking like crazy. I was sleeping 4-5 hours each night. I had lost my womanly time of the month. I was freezing. Little fine hair started growing all over my stomach (gross!). I had NO energy. My stomach was hurting most of the day. I was kind of a wreck.
Emotionally, I was a wreck as well. I cried and cried. I thought about food every waking hour of every day. I was a slave to calorie counting. It was awful.
Once I reached about XXX pounds my family started to become concerned. My brother came up to me and firmly but lovingly told me to stop losing weight. For some sick reason, I loved that he was worried that I was too thin. I loved for once being the one who everyone was worried about and who was considered "fit". However, once I reached XXX pounds, my family decided that enough was enough.
There is no one in this world that I love more than my mom. She birthed me, she's clothed me, she's fed me, she's taught me, and she has saved my life. I read lots of blog where girls tell how they were 80 pounds, hospitalized, on a feeding tube, and near death. I am very thankful that I never got to that point. I lost 35 pounds in about 4 months. And to be honest, I wanted to go way farther than XXX pounds. However, I think if my mom had not stopped me I would have been in the same shoes as those other miserable girls. I am so thankful that I didn't get there and that my mom intervened.
My mom was brave and did a lot of research on anorexia. She had pretty much concluded that I was anorexic and basically told me as much. I didn't believe it. I remember being so upset with her. I had heard about people with anorexia. And in my head I was no where close to that.
I started researching anorexia for myself to prove that I didn't have it. And I could only find 1 or 2 symptoms that I didn't have. However I still refused to believe it. I had convinced myself that this is how all thin people live. That in order to be skinny you had to count the minimal calories eaten and work out 2 hours a day. I really believed it.
However, after I started reading some people's stories online I started to become worried. I was seeing pictures of anorexic girls who I was starting to resemble. I read of people dying, lying in hospital beds for months, and practically killing themselves over food. I became scared. I checked my BMI and I was at XX. I was underweight. I didn't believe it. I still thought I was fat. I excused that BMI.
My mom made me promise to not lose any more weight. I still lost weight. I was living in secret and was guilty as heck. After several talks with my mom, emotional breakdowns, and physical problems, I started to believe that I did have a problem. My mom was so patient with me. I would go one day thinking I was anorexic to the next day thinking I was healthy and needed to lose more weight. I changed my mind constantly. Eventually my mom told me that I needed to go to a doctor. I refused. But she insisted. I promised her again that I would not lose any more weight. When i did lose more, I couldn't live with myself. I was so guilty. She signed me up to meet with a counselor. I was so frustrated. I did not want to see a counselor. But she had me go anyways.
Thank goodness for that. The counselor started off asking questions about me that I made my mom answer (ugh I was so terrible then). My mom told Mary Ellen (my counselor) that I was anorexic. I denied it to the counselor. After answering several questions about how much I weighed, what I ate, how much I worked out, and what I thought about myself she said it to me plainly, "Your anorexic." I tried to excuse it but she wouldn't listen. (I love her!)
It took someone outside of my family to make me realize that I had a problem. She said that I needed to go to the doctor and get my blood checked out and my bone density. I went and I had an extreme vitamin D deficiency and was put on 50,000 mg a week. I also had osteopenia (pre-cursor to osteoporosis). While I had no major health problems yet, I realized that I was hurting my very bones. This scared me and I kept on going to the counselor. I had been going for about 12 months. Because I am consistently, yet very slowly, recovering, I am no longer going. This blog is my account of my journey from being un-healthfully skinny to healthfully happy.
