Let’s talk eating disorders

I’ve been wanting to do a post on eating disorders for the longest time and I’ve been putting it off because I haven’t been able to figure out how I should approach such a “touchy” subject. I mean I’m no dietician or nutritionist and everything I have to say about it is a result of my own experiences and what I’ve learned in school or from the books I read…so a little part of me always made me question whether or now I had the “right” to give my opinions on such a topic. But I came across something last night that gave me the push to write up this post and publish it as soon as possible. I would also like to preface this post as it may be triggering to some.

The impact of social media on eating disorders

I was scrolling through my Instagram feed and noticed that I had a few new followers. So like I always do, I clicked on these new followers to see their pages because I’m always looking for foodspiration and most of the time that’s what I find but it was different last night because one of the new followers I had was pro-anorexia. Their page consisted of their goals to eat under 800 calories a day with previous goals to eat 500 or less a day because she wanted to fit into junior pant sizes. But what made it worse was there were comments from other girls encouraging her to keep doing what she was doing and these other girls were doing the same thing to themselves.

Now I’m not going to get too into it but this girl was 15. She was only 15 and this was what she was doing to herself because she hated what she saw in the mirror and this just broke my heart. This girl clearly had an eating disorder and all she was getting was encouragement to keep it up. I just didn’t and couldn’t understand why no one was doing anything about it or speaking up about the path she was going down. I don’t know if it was because I have a sister who’s growing up, about to go into high school and she’s experiencing the same pressures to be “thin” because “skinny = pretty” or…if it was because I too went through something like this before.

Let’s talk about what we don’t talk about

I’ve never really talked about this part of my life with anyone before as a matter of fact, I don’t even think my best friends know this about me and I think that this is the first time I’ve ever admitted it to myself that at one point in my life I, was on my way to having an eating disorder. I hated the way I looked and I remember looking at myself in the mirror every morning only to say “if you were skinnier, people might actually like you.” A part of me knew deep down that I had people around me who cared about me and loved me but I chose to ignore those thoughts because I chose to let the insidious negative thoughts from my depression takeover (well, while I’m at it I might as well admit I have depression too…but that’s a story for another day).

And so it began

As a result, I started restricting everything I was eating. At first I was only looking at my caloric intake…I started cutting down to 1200 calories a day and when that started to plateau, I started to aim for 1000. Then, I started to cut out fats, processed foods, sugar, anything that came out of a package, and red meat. Now, I’m not saying that cutting these foods out of your diet is a bad thing because to a certain extent, cutting those foods out help your body work optimally but…I wasn’t cutting it out for health reasons. I was cutting these foods out because I was AFRAID of them!

The spiral continued…

The thing is, I didn’t even notice that I was scared of them until it got to the point where I was being told that every time I looked like I was going to be sick every time a food that I didn’t consider “healthy.” And if that wasn’t bad enough, I started to hate eating out and every time anyone asked me to go out for a meal I would make up one excuse or another to not go out with them because I couldn’t control what I ate if I was out. I didn’t know everything that went into the plate of food I’d order and that made me anxious beyond belief. After a month of food changes, I finally decided to start exercising because I wasn’t reaching my “goal” fast enough.

At this point I started to exercise 1.5 – 2 hours a day and if I didn’t, I’d feel guilty about it all day and I’d start coming up with a “game plan” to make up for it the next day by eating even less or exercising even more. This was my life for 6 months and as much as I would like to tell you that they were one of the worst days of my life…I’m going to choose to be honest and tell you that I actually liked them. I loved watching the numbers on the scale go down and it was as though I couldn’t wait to be underweight.

It’s hard to admit

But that’s the thing about eating disorders…they’re ego syntonic. This means that the people who are going through it have a hard time admitting that they have a problem because it’s hard to see the negative side when you’re finally reaching your “goals” and feeling better about yourself. And you’d think that with all those blatantly obvious symptoms, I should of know that I had a problem right? But the truth is…I didn’t see it. I didn’t see it because I had this idea that unless you underweight and could see your bones, you didn’t have a problem. Honestly, I couldn’t admit to myself that I had a problem because I didn’t fit my mind’s “criteria” as someone who had a problem. Plus I was feeling good about myself for once in my life so why would I ever want to change that?

Ask for help

So please, if you know someone who’s suffering from eating disorders, talk to them and give them the support they need. It’s not going to be easy and they’ll most likely reject your help no matter how much you try but trust me, it’ll be worth the effort because persistence is key and you WILL get to them. Most cases of eating disorders occur between the ages of 12 and 25 and anorexia is one of the leading causes for adolescent deaths. Let’s not add to these statistics and work on loving and embracing ourselves as we are because afterall, you’re beautiful just the way you are. Your body doesn’t define you. It doesn’t have the ability to tell anyone about the wonderful experiences you’ve had in life nor does it tell anyone about what a great person you are.

Goodness, that was a wayyy longer post than I anticipated but I just really wanted to get it all out there. Of course my story isn’t as simple as I put it out to be but I think my point came across and that was what I was trying to do. I’m planning on doing a follow-up post soon on my current eating habits and exercise routines but I’m still a little hesitant about it because like I said earlier I’m not the best at approaching topics like these so I will see how this post goes and decide based on it. Oh and one more thing before I go, YOU’RE GORGEOUS! BEAUTIFULLY UNIQUELY, YOU. EMBRACE YOURSELF. LOVE YOURSELF. Spread self love and body positivity and tell someone that they are and should do so too!