In high school, I picked up two eating disorders. The first was during the end of my sophomore year, and I basically limited my food and calorie consumption by doing a calorie deficit. After three months, I lost 40 lbs., and considered myself to be healthy. No matter how much weight I lost, I believed I could always stand to lose more, despite how small I had become. Looking back now, I realize I was borderline anorexic and pushing my body to be a size that it wasn't naturally built to be.
During the beginning of my Junior year, there was drama within my friend group and I turned to food as a way of coping with the stress and emotions that ensued. After months of doing this, my coping turned into bingeing, and as a result, I gained more weight than I had originally lost. Food become an addiction, and as time went on, the bingeing progressively worsened and my stomach had stretched to a point where I couldn't determine whether I was hungry or not. Essentially, I was bulimic, minus the purging...which I eventually acquired later on. My thoughts of self-loathing carried on from my days of anorexia and became an obsession during my battle against binge eating.
All in all, I spent my entire high school career fighting myself and my eating disorders.
Okay, so you're probably wondering where I'm going with this story.
...Yesterday I didn't eat.
The night before I had fallen into old habits and turned to food as a medication for my emotions. I went to bed disgusted with myself, and decided that in order to make up for what I had done, I would skip all my meals the next day, or couple of days, in order to "balance" myself out. I had accepted the notion that by starving myself, I would become healthier, and happier. (I hope you can tell I just rolled my eyes at that statement--see this post-- Isn't it interesting that we think health and happiness can be derived from starving ourselves and strict dieting?)
I think that too often in our efforts to become physically healthy, we become emotionally and mentally unhealthy along the way. Through my experiences I've come to realize that eating disorders are composed of mental, and physical, aspects--you can have an eating disorder mentality, without physically acting upon those thoughts of self-hate and detriment. Although its been almost two years since my last binge, I know that time and distance don't end eating disorders; to end an eating disorder, you need to overcome yourself...which I'm still trying to do.
I have signs of being an eating disorder survivor spread across my body (especially my eyes due to burst blood vessels from purging), but because of this, I only have to look in the mirror to remind myself of where I've come from, the pain I went through, and the progress I've made. I've said before that our bodies tell our stories, and in my case, I'm a living monument to myself.
Although I'm not completely free of my past, my eating disorder mentality, or the consequences that came because of it, I'm still moving forward. I think we all have days where we either overeat or don't want to eat; however, the trick is learning how to eat and then moving on with life regardless of food amount, calories, or our personal weight.
In summary:
It's time to realize that food isn't our enemy, and eating isn't a sin.
I think that too often in our efforts to become physically healthy, we become emotionally and mentally unhealthy along the way. Through my experiences I've come to realize that eating disorders are composed of mental, and physical, aspects--you can have an eating disorder mentality, without physically acting upon those thoughts of self-hate and detriment. Although its been almost two years since my last binge, I know that time and distance don't end eating disorders; to end an eating disorder, you need to overcome yourself...which I'm still trying to do.
I have signs of being an eating disorder survivor spread across my body (especially my eyes due to burst blood vessels from purging), but because of this, I only have to look in the mirror to remind myself of where I've come from, the pain I went through, and the progress I've made. I've said before that our bodies tell our stories, and in my case, I'm a living monument to myself.
Although I'm not completely free of my past, my eating disorder mentality, or the consequences that came because of it, I'm still moving forward. I think we all have days where we either overeat or don't want to eat; however, the trick is learning how to eat and then moving on with life regardless of food amount, calories, or our personal weight.
In summary:
It's time to realize that food isn't our enemy, and eating isn't a sin.
I totally agree with your while last statement! When we eat with a feeling of guilt, the emotion itself harms us more than the food itself ever would.
ReplyDeleteI've started to bless my food and especially thank God for it before every meal and not just dinner. This helps eliminate stress, fear and guilt over eating food for me :)
Thank you for posting this!