Food For Thought: Eating Disorder Awareness Week

Last week marked ‘Eating Disorder Awareness’ week. For those unfamiliar with what an eating disorder may entail, the NHS states ‘An eating disorder is when you have an unhealthy attitude to food, which can take over your life and make you ill. It can involve eating too much or too little or becoming obsessed with your weight and body shape’. The World Health organization estimates around 70 million people worldwide suffer with an eating disorder at some point in life, usually during adolescence. Therefore, it is not as common as depression or anxiety, but is not rare either.

Rather than chucking around a load of statistics and psychological jargon, I wanted to talk about my own experiences with an eating disorder.

Growing up, I loved my food. I loved my food a little too much if were being completely honest. It felt like I was being good to myself by eating whatever I liked, whenever I liked. It didn’t really dawn on me until I hit high school that the way I was treating my body was unhealthy. I decided to cut out ‘bad’ foods and eating a bit cleaner. Initially, when I had a fair amount of weight to lose, things were going quite well.

A little while down the line of dieting, I realized that I didn’t really know when to stop. I felt really positive if I could skip a meal, despite feeling so hungry. It felt like an achievement to eat as little as possible. The ‘bad’ foods that I had cut out, began to terrify me a bit. I would have nightmares about eating pasta (I know this sounds ridiculous). I felt so incredibly guilty if I ate more or something different to what I had approved for myself. My eating became increasingly restrictive.

I had a sense of control over what I was eating, that got out of hand. The more weight I was losing, the more I was achieving in my mind. It didn’t matter that I had lost my period, that I barely had energy to hang up my clothes, fainting, feeling sick and pretty much depressed 24/7. Nothing made me want to eat. The disturbing thing I guess was also how “amazing” people told me I looked, but I felt far from amazing.

I looked in the mirror, and I couldn’t see what everyone else could see. I thought I was ginormous. I didn’t want to go out and socialize with my friends. I would wake up in the morning and think about food, I would go to bed starving and just hope I could get off to sleep.

This was me, probably at my lowest weight- very unhappy despite my smiles :)

You are probably all thinking…why the hell didn’t you just eat something?

When you starve your body, you starve your brain. I wasn’t thinking properly to put it bluntly.

When I went off to university, I couldn’t have the same level of control over food that I did at home. I went into a catered hall and all my meals were made for me. I was pretty worried and anxious to begin with, but I had to do it. I slowly started to relinquish control and the more this was happening, the better grip I regained on my reality. It wasn’t by any stretch an uphill easy journey, but over the years things have improved massively.

I wanted to do more in the gym, but I was so weak to start off with. This motivated me to eat more, to build up strength. I still have control over my food, which you may think with my history isn’t a great idea. However, it works well for me. I no longer demonize food as ‘good’ and ‘bad’, I look at things in a moderation and incorporate everything into a healthy balance. I can do a lot more generally in life and am so much happier.

Me at a healthy and happy weight after being guided by my fab PT

Moral of the story is, I never thought I would be free from the irrational ways of thinking I once had. But I really am. So, if you do feel like you can relate to anything I have mentioned, just know that you aren’t on your own and things can completely turn around.