My journey through disordered eating

I’ve briefly shared my disordered eating history previously but never felt I was being totally honest. Perhaps because to be honest and open in a vulnerable way (i.e. online) is scary to me. I am afraid I will be judged or misunderstood. I’m nervous people will doubt my ability to be a Registered Dietitian because I have a history of disordered eating. Nonetheless, I think it’s important to talk about it because to ignore it is to perpetuate the diet culture that we live in and all the harm it’s doing.

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Disordered Eating and Me

Middle School

I can tell you the moment it started. It was in sixth grade at a Penn State (where I would later go to school and mostly beat this disordered eating — talk about full circle) volleyball tournament. I was playing club volleyball, and I was staying in the dorms with my teammates. I already had pretty low self-confidence about my abilities as a player because I was smaller and less aggressive than everyone else. I remember it was an evening after playing and we were all at the pool in the hotel where some parents were staying. Previously, I hadn’t really thought about what I looked like in a bikini. I just put it on and started swimming with everyone else. My roommate for the weekend told me later that night that some of my other teammates said I looked fat in my suit. “Am I fat?” The thought terrified and enveloped me. It was all I could think about. I know now that that fear was not actually about being fat but about being rejected and devalued. Because fat has been traditionally associated with being “bad” that’s how it resonated with me. Now I know that’s definitely not true and views like that actually perpetuate weight stigma for people in larger bodies. (Note: I’m still learning a lot about size diversity.)

Fast forward a few years — I was spending a weekend in the Poconos with extended and immediate family. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was going bowling, wearing jeans and a long sleeve shirt, and I remember having extreme body dysmorphia.  I remember going upstairs after we had gotten home and doing crunches because I thought that would negate the food I ate.

High School

Ah, ninth grade. You terrible SOB. This was where the disordered eating escalated to new heights. (It’s really hard for me to remember some of these instances because they have become so foreign to me.) When I was in high school, I had a friend who also suffered from disordered eating (of course at the time, we didn’t know that’s what it was). For the sake of time, let’s just say we spoke a lot about what other people looked like, what we wished we looked like, and how we thought we might make that happen.

Sometime in maybe tenth grade, I did go to the doctor. She told me that I had lost 7 lbs since my last check up and asked if I was eating enough. “Of course I am,” I said back to her. “I just workout a lot.” She didn’t question me further. Man, it was so easy to hide. I even had my mom (bless her soul, she didn’t know) convinced it was “normal” for me to go to volleyball camp from 8-4pm and then workout at the gym after. (I’m sorry, what?) I have to admit, though, the doctors visit did freak me out. My disordered eating then transitioned from “I want to eat as little as possible” to “I can only eat healthy foods.” I mean, I didn’t want to harm my body (oh, the irony), so I decided I would eat a little more — you know — healthy foods. It became part of me. At family dinners, there was “different, healthy” food for me at every meal. I became a vegetarian for awhile in order to restrict further. My mom would defend me when relatives questioned my eating because she truly thought I was doing it for my “health.” Looking back, I wish they had seen it for what it really was: an eating disorder.

I distinctly remember being at training camp for high school volleyball (~8 hours/day) and bringing only small snacks for lunch. Can you imagine how much better of an athlete I would have been if I ate appropriately before and after these workouts?

Several times throughout high school I can remember going out to eat with friends and scanning the menu for what I deemed “acceptable.” I was usually extremely hungry since I barely ate earlier in the day, but, yes, I’ll take an unappetizing and unsatisfying salad, thank you very much. Then I would stare at my friends who seemed to be able to eat anything and not feel the way I felt all the time. On weekends, I’d often come home late at night after restricting all day and want to eat whatever was in the fridge. I only recently realized that this was probably a binge because I was for sure out of control around that food. (Note: restriction leads to bingeing). Subsequent shame always followed these occurrences.

It was a good day at school if I could make it through with only a very small amount of food. I wasn’t nearly as successful as I wanted to be though. (The ironic thing about restriction is that it actually makes us want to eat more than if we were to eat the foods we crave). Consequently, I would feel guilty if I “gave in” and had some chips — or worse, ice cream.

These patterns followed me through the rest of high school — at every school dance I felt either shameful that I couldn’t fit into the smallest size or uncomfortable because I did force myself into that size.

My restriction peaked when I spent 2 weeks in Spain with a bunch of my closest friends from school. It was an educational trip, and we spent a lot of time on a bus traveling to several cities. Because I couldn’t exercise, my restriction was maximized. I barely tried any of the local food (something I would love to do now!), and I never enjoyed anything I ate. I remember one day in particular I was on the beach and by noon I had barely eaten anything. I think to myself and wonder how something far worse didn’t happen to me.

Oh yes, I did lose my period. Something I was both terrified of but sort of proud of too. I vaguely remember my doctor asking me the last time I had gotten it and I couldn’t remember. “June?” I said. It was November.

College

The start of college was an exciting but stressful time for me. It was the first time living on my own, and I didn’t quite know who I was or what I believed in. I was worried (re: terrified) about gaining the “freshman 15” — so much so that my restriction only allowed me to eat salads or vegetables. If I went “out” I often wouldn’t eat much during the day in order to prepare for the calories I would consume from alcohol.

I spent most of the day thinking about food — because I was never satisfied by what I ate. Ironically, I did gain some weight because I would lose control around food late at night (especially after a night of going out).

I worked out only to burn calories. I did a lot of cardio. I didn’t care how strong I was — I cared how skinny I looked. This continued until the middle of my sophomore year when I found CHAARG, changed my major to nutritional sciences, started dating Josh, and made some new friends. Then things started to change.

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How I Got Better

Though I can remember when my disordered eating started, I can’t really remember exactly when it started to fade away. I know it was sometime during my sophomore year of college when my mind started to shift, but I wouldn’t say I was “recovered” until a few months ago. It took a lot of introspection on my part. I had to straight up call myself out on something that had become part of my identity. While every eating disorder is unique and I would never try to generalize someone else’s experience, I want to tell you what happened to me.

1] I realized this wasn’t about eating at all.

A lot of eating disorders (but not all) are rooted in a desire for control. Your family fights a lot? Let’s control our food. You feel lazy and unproductive? Let’s control our food. There’s a genetic component. There’s the power of influence. I’ve had clients who tell me their mom is always dieting, so they think they should be too — then it goes too far. For me, I was seeking to control my life in areas where I was insecure. I didn’t always have the happiest home life, and I would never blame my family for that — but my tendency to be a perfectionist and the messages I was constantly fed from the media led to a need to control how small I was. If I was smaller, I was better. That was my thought process. Once I began to unravel that and feel the parts of my life that were challenging and hard and uncertain, I was able to separate my worth from my size.

2] I rejected the diet mentality.

This one took a LOT of time because diet culture is so pervasive. They make so many promises that you want to believe are true. The hard truth? Diets don’t work, and they often leave people heavier and more out of control around food than they were when they started. Not to mention — diets are annoying. There’s so many rules and counting and restriction. Ain’t nobody got time for that. Intuitive Eating basically saved my mental health.

3] I worked out because I wanted to feel good.

As part of my disorder, I was a compulsive over-exerciser. Or at the very least, I used exercise to compensate for anything “bad” I ate. It wasn’t until I found CHAARG that I began to appreciate all my body could do. But even then I was still kind of overcompensating. (Like I would be anxious if I couldn’t work out for 3 days in a row.) It wasn’t until I was basically forced to stop exercising 5-6 days a week because of my work/life schedule (I decided to choose rest and relaxation over exercise for once!) that I realized how much I was overdoing it. (Re: exposure therapy helped me a lot). Now, I’ve found a happy medium. I “go to the gym” a few days a week, but I move (re: walk) almost every day. But more than anything, I listen to my body. If I’m really tired or sick, I don’t exercise (which hopefully sounds self-explanatory but it wasn’t for me). Movement has become stress-relieving, not stress-inducing, and I’m grateful for that.

4] I learned about nutrition, for real.

Changing my major to nutritional science was a game-changer for me. For the first time, I learned what carbs, protein, and fat actually do in your body. I stopped being fooled by fear-mongering headlines that warned me of the dangers of bread. I appreciated the human body and all it does.

5] I surrounded myself with people who didn’t have disordered eating.

You are who you surround yourself with. You are the music you listen to. You are the books you read. So if everyone around you talks about diet culture, you’re probably going to talk about diet culture. It’s as easy as unfollowing diet-obsessed people on instagram but as hard as convincing your best friend she doesn’t have to “resist” the dessert we just made. I’m not saying to get rid of all your friends (ok, maybe some) — but get rid of all that noise that tells you you’re only good if you’re tiny and you can only have cake if you ran 10 miles today.

6] I found Jesus.

Absolutely the most important thing for me was finding Jesus. He is the ultimate Healer. Every day, I am able to cast my worries on Him. I want to be able to share my faith in this space without pushing it onto you, but I honestly cannot express that this is key. I learned my worth isn’t in my size or even in my accomplishments. I’m worthy of love and kindness and happiness — just because. So are you.

My journey through disordered eating has been a long one, and it’s never really going to be over. As a Registered Dietitian who now specializes in eating disorder treatment, I know how to process eating disorders. I know the “protocol.” That doesn’t mean I’m immune to my own insecurities or fears. Though my symptoms are much less severe than they were at one point, I work through things just like someone else would. The more we’re honest about our struggles, the more we can invite others to be too. If you are struggling with an eating disorder or disordered eating, I encourage you to 1] know you are NOT alone and 2] seek out help from a professional who specializes in this field. Your mental health is worth it.

Rooting for you,

Alyssa