What I Came From Before Fitness...

Charity_Phelps

Hello all!

I apologize in advance for this super long post, but this topic is so important to me. I started a personal blog a few months ago and this is the second blog post that I wrote for my site. It is about where I used to be (now almost 9 months ago) in regards to my bad lifestyle habits. It's a reminder to me of where I started 15 years ago and where I am now and why I should keep pushing!

I will include the link to my blog site at the bottom in case anyone is interested in the overall blog!

Would love to hear thoughts, opinions, comments, questions.. any feedback!

Thanks so much!

---

On this journey of finding myself and self-actualization, it is imperative to me that I acknowledge and celebrate all successes, big and small, as they come. This adventure is about myself and the bettering of me and my life. Any findings I have, aha moments, clarity I gain... all of these and more will be important along the way. What is big to me may be small to someone else and vice versa, and that's okay. Because after all, equally celebrating the big and the small would make for a happier life, don't you think?

Well, something that I am now working on in therapy and in my personal time as well is self-esteem. This is something I have struggled with for my entire life since I can remember and I can't even tell you why. There's nothing huge that happened to me that would cause me to have such low self-esteem; growing up I wasn't called stupid or ugly by friends or family; I wasn't 500 pounds in middle school or not hit puberty until I was 21; it's just me. It's all in my mind this low self-esteem and these insecurities I have. "You are your own worst enemy" has more and more truth behind it every day. Having said that, low self-esteem and insecurities can possibly lead to self-destructive behaviors, which I started at a young age.

Now in writing this, I'm going back and forth with myself as to whether or not I should share this with the world, as it is extremely personal. But it has been and will continue to be part of my story, and I think it is more common than anyone can realize. Maybe this will encourage others to open up, seek help, or help someone else who might need it.

For most of my life, albeit somewhat off and on, I have struggled with bulimia (bulimia nervosa to be exact). For those of you who don't know what this is, it is "an emotional disorder involving distortion of body image and an obsessive desire to lose weight, in which bouts of extreme overeating are followed by depression and self-induced vomiting, purging, or fasting". Primarily, in an effort to not gain weight, I would eat as much delicious and unhealthy food I wanted and was able to scarf down in one sitting, and almost immediately purge it back up through induced vomiting. The first time I remember this happening was in middle school, although I know there were periods of a few years where it wouldn't happen at all. As an adult, I reverted back to this and it became continuous and consistent. It's been a part of my life, my way of eating habits, for quite some time now. At my lowest weight I was practicing bulimia and going for a 5 mile run every day. I would get on the scale and be overjoyed with every pound I lost. Although I never felt like I looked thin enough like someone with an eating disorder "should" look. This was bittersweet to me: I knew I didn't want to be too thin and frail, so I was glad I wasn't that. However, at the same time, I was not as thin as I wanted to be, as thin as I thought I should be, as thin as my bulimia should make me.

Or so you might think.

Every single body type can be struggling with an eating disorder. To say that I, at a seemingly healthy weight, couldn't have an eating disorder is the same as looking at a person and immediately claiming to know they aren't bipolar or struggle with depression. You don't have to be held up in your house, unshowered and with a bottle of whiskey to struggle with depression.

So there I was, again, at a seemingly healthy weight and continuing to try and lose more and more pounds.

How unhealthy was my body?
How much damage was I doing to my body?
How long before I really messed something up in there that would be irreversible?

I had calluses on my knuckles, I had a scratchy throat, and sometimes there would be blood coming up with the vomit. When this would happen I might cut back for a week and then resume where I left off. Depending on the day or how fat I felt, I would purge anything I eat, from a single bag of chips to a ceasar salad: it's all coming back up. Sometimes to feel better about it, I would eat a small side of veggies after purging to give my body some sort of nutrients.

No where was out of bounds, either: at home, at the movie theater, at a restaurant, a bar. If someone hears me in the bathroom, I'm drunk or I'm pregnant (depending on the place and situation) and that's why I'm vomiting. With an eating disorder, you're going to find a way to make it happen, regardless. You have to. Your mind is telling you that you must. It's a trapped feeling like part of you knows it's bad and you know you shouldn't be doing it, but at the same time you have to do it. It's the only choice.

And eating disorders are more common than someone might think. I slowly opened up to a few people over the years, maybe a hand full, and to my surprise I was not alone. At first, it made me feel better: I'm not the only one! And immediately after, I felt sad. Look at us. Look at all of us struggling with this, destroying our bodies, feeling not good enough the way we are. Even starting my fitness journey three years ago, the disorder persisted. I would go to the gym daily, meal prep, try and eat healthy, but nothing with the bulimia changed.

So having said all that, here it is: my first celebration...

I am officially six months to the day free and clear of bulimia. It was extremely hard in the beginning and will continue to be a challenge. With bulimia, sometimes I planned to binge and purge. I would get all kinds of delicious food and it's a whole ordeal. Sometimes it was an accident. I would go to a restaurant intending to eat a normal portion, stop when I'm full, and keep everything down. And when trying to recover, those are the hardest times.

I meant to stop eating.
I meant to not overeat and make myself feel sick.

Those are hard because it still happens. When bulimia has been going on for years, you can't all of a sudden correctly know how and when to stop eating. So I would overeat and it was a painful struggle each time to keep that food down. I felt sick. I was terrified that one meal that one day would add 3 pounds to the scale, which it did. Every day I have to know and remind myself that I'm better than this. I'm better than ruining my body to be satisfied with the number on a scale. I'm better than even caring about that number. I've continued my focus on weight lifting, meal prepping, and finding/creating delicious healthy meals that I can enjoy in healthy portions. I attempt to eat my food slower so I can catch earlier when I'm getting full and stop.

It has gotten easier, but I expect this to be a continued struggle for me. But six months cold turkey just by my own accord, well that's something I feel gratified about. No slip ups, no "oops, just the one time". And I'm pretty damn proud of myself for that. I'm seeing my muscle mass increase, as bulimia diminishes it greatly. As long as I've been in the gym, I would be seeing more results by now if I hadn't done this to my body for so many years, so there's much progress still to come. I'm excited to get my body back on the right track, not just physically, but internally as well.

So to summarize, YAY ME! This journey is all about progress, and not only finding myself, but loving myself as well. Here's to a successful step one!

If you or someone you know is struggling with bulimia, or any other eating disorder, please get help. Seriously. Reach out. To me, to someone else, a friend or family member, a professional, someone you trust and know will help you. You don't want to cause irreparable damage. Eating disorders can cause many issues that you won't be able to fix later on.

Blog Site: https://clphelps04.wixsite.com/myplaceinthesun