Alright, everyone, back by popular demand, I’m going to keep writing about my eating disorder! Enjoy!!!
I did it for years.
Too many years.
I still sometimes want to do it.
Yo-yo diet.
Binge.
Over-exercise.
Restrict.
You know the drill.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
The never ending cycle.
You do it too? You are not alone.
I want to write to you today if you’re in the thick of struggling.
Binge eating. Over snacking. Whatever you want to call it. It makes you feel like crap, then you beat yourself up, swear you’ll “start a new diet tomorrow,” begin planning out your meals, over-exercise, and by Tuesday at 4pm, after trying the “no-carb thing,” you stress eat the rest of the stale donuts in the breakroom, even though you did such a good job at avoiding them all morning.
I can’t even tell you how many notebooks I have with numbers in the side margins...counting my calories.
How many events I’ve missed out on ...because I was too worried about my body and the food that would be served. How many times I've....counted up the calories in a meal I consumed and stayed on the elliptical until I burned it all off.
Shame gets us when we are in the dark, when we give into the lies in our head.
You, sweet girl, are not alone.
And you do not need to use exercise as a way to punish yourself for eating too much.
I think that’s all I’m trying to say today.You have been struggling alone for far too long, I’m sure, and I just want to tell you right now that you’re not crazy, you’re not going to struggle with this forever and you are not alone in your battle.
I restricted, binged and purged for YEARS.
I wasted so much time obsessing about getting a workout in and what I looked like in my clothes.
I was constantly living in fear of food and it affected every aspect of my life. I’d fear going out for ice cream with my friends or having dinner with my family. I would get scared when family vacations were coming up and I’d plan out in advance what I would be eating all week to prepare for them.
I was CONSUMED with losing weight.
I used exercise as a way to control my life and to overcompensate for when I ate too much or “had a bad food week.”
And now, I am trying to unlearn all of this. And un-learning something is freaking hard.
And I'm unlearning it today through deadlifting.
But hold on a second. Let me just pause here.
^^^^^^ This was what I was going to post today.
But then something happened.
You see, this is the raw, unfiltered stuff you guys really want to read about. Sure, I can be encouraging, but I don’t think I’m REALLY that encouraging until I am in the thick of it and the point I’m trying to make hits me right in the face.
I think you’ll relate to this one a bit more than my first version of this.
This was where the rubber met the road.
I actually had to come to grips with the fact that I’m going through this hard stuff and I am unlearning negative patterns. And that I have been addicted to exercise for far too long.
And weight training is bringing it all out of me.
So when this happened this morning, I knew I had to be more honest and tell you about it.
So, let me really tell you what’s going on. So here we go. Raw, unfiltered, Elsa. Because healing is hard. Why don’t they ever tell you that? I'll tell you why. Let’s start by going back to this morning, when I almost cried before deadlifting.
Yes, you heard me correctly.
I wanted to cry my entire workout today, actually. I was fighting to keep the tears back. I couldn’t stop thinking about how much food I ate last night and how uncomfortable I felt in my leggings, and how fat I felt because I'm not working out the way I used to.
My inner dialogue went something like this,
“My butt is HUGE and my cellulite is out in full force...I ate too much at that party, I feel so bloated, I need to make sure I eat well today."
"Gosh, my skin is atrocious too, I have a zit on my neck, like really, how does that even happen. And a giant one is growing on my cheek. Ugh. I feel disgusting."
"I don’t want to be here. I just want to crawl back into bed. Why am I even doing this? I want to go back to my controlled exercise classes where I don’t have to think for an hour. This, this weightlifting stuff, this is hard, and I don’t like it.”
My brain wouldn’t stop. My mind couldn't stop spinning. The enemy was right there on my shoulder screaming at me.
I felt the shame, I felt the insecurity and I felt really ugly.
Like really, really ugly.
And fat.
Ever have those days? It’s like, you didn’t gain ten pounds overnight, but it sure feels like you did.
It also felt like everyone was watching me and looking at me. Everyone else was noticing how horrible my backside looks too, right? And how I still have some flab on the back of my arms? Can other people notice that I’ve gained weight? Or how I have so many underground zits and clogged pores that I could be a model for those Biore strips? Heck, Biore might not even hire me!
And as I’m at the gym, adding weights to the bar, sitting and resting between sets, I’m just thinking to myself, “This isn't it enough. Why am I even doing this? I need to be doing more HIIT and cardio. I’m getting huge. I feel so fat. I hate this.”
But deep down, through the suck of it, I held in my tears.
This is how I know my healing has begun: I am finally NOT using exercise as a way to control my life.
And I am finally not using exercise as a way to “make up for” eating too much.
You see, I’m trying this new thing where I’m training. I’m not just exercising to numb my internal pain and sweat and jump around for an hour so I can forget about my life and so I can feel better about the binge I had last night.
I’m changing my training regime and I didn’t even realize the effects it would have.
I think what’s happening is this: I am becoming un-obsessed.
Is that even a word?
This must be a fraction of what withdrawal feels like for an addict. Holy shiz is it hard!
I am becoming un-addicted to working out. I used to wake up with fear, every single day, about getting a workout in or not. It gave me anxiety if I DIDN'T workout.
I’d plan my week and my weekends around working out, and I would be so on edge if I couldn't make it to a class or make it to the gym to lift on my own and get my cardio in.
Can anyone else relate?
Why did I love going to classes? Why did I “have to” go to the gym? Because I didn’t have to think. I got a mental break from my life and from myself.
I could go, feel the burn, sweat it out and leave.
And it made me feel like I was in control.
Everything else felt out of control in life, but I knew if I could get a workout in, I’d be okay.
But that never got to the root of my issues.
It just gave me a break from myself for an hour.
It just made me feel like I was worthy enough for my next meal.
Why is this weight training thing wigging me out so much?
Because it’s not just physical, it’s mental too. And it’s hard.
And when you’re about to do a heavy set of deadlifts, you better believe it’s mental.
You either psych yourself up or you psych yourself out. And you can’t just stop thinking for an hour to get through it. You actually have to focus. You have to tell yourself that YOU CAN. And you have to tell that horrible internal dialogue to STFU.
So, turns out, I didn’t cry before I deadlifted.
I went into the bathroom, looked at myself in the mirror and told myself, “Elsa, you are stronger than you think you are. You can do this. Even though you think you can’t, you can.”
And then I pulled 250 for 5.
And I didn’t cry.
I managed to do the set and it wasn’t even as hard as I thought it would be.
And then I got in my car, drove home, and bawled.
You see, healing is really, really ugly.
Did I mention it’s ugly?
REAL ugly.
That’s the cold hard truth that nobody actually wants to tell you. And that’s why I knew I had to be really vulnerable writing this. How much more encouraging is the post from the girl who’s in the thick of it as opposed to the “girl who used to struggle with an eating disorder and is totally fine now?”
Exactly.
I want to be the girl you can relate to.
I spent a lot of years believing a lot of little lies.
I bet you have too.
I still leave the gym feeling like it’s never enough.
I’m still fighting through old thought patterns.
I still think that going back to working out 6 days a week will solve my problems.
I still had to tell myself it was okay to eat a real meal after I worked out today and to not restrict, even though I still feel a little gross from eating too much at that party last night.
I still fight the lie that once my body is perfect that all my problems will go away.
So why am I sharing on the world wide web that I cried after lifting today? Because the root of my problems are being ripped out. And it’s painful. But as much as it sucks, I want your problems to be ripped out too. It is the only way we will fully heal.
And I am so done with this partial healing crap.
It's like when I'd help my dad weed the garden growing up. I'd just pick off the top of the dandelions, feeling all accomplished. But that wasn't really weeding. They were just going to grow back because I didn't get them out by the root.
So, sure, you can get the perfect body, but what happens when the inside of you isn't healthy? Is having that nice body really worth it when you're in a state of constant anxiety? We have to rip out our issues by the root. That's why this healing stuff is scary. And painful. Because it's safer to keep doing what we have always been doing than to actually heal, isn't it?
You know what happened after I made it through my workout? Before getting in my car and bawling my eyes out? (which I don't recommend because it's hard to drive straight and cry at the same time)
Two different people complimented me on my strength.
Not my body, but my strength.
One girl said how impressed she was that I can do chin ups, and another said she was amazed at the weight I squatted.
And here I was berating myself on the inside for not being good enough, for feeling like a fatty and for eating too much at a party last night....
They didn’t see any of that, they just saw my strength.
WOW.
Are you like this too? You’re so horrible to yourself and then someone gives you a compliment and you’re like wait, what???
I have lived through so many hard things. I’m sure you have too. And we give ourselves zero credit.
I am strong emotionally, physically and spiritually, and I don’t give myself enough credit at all. I compare my life to other people, I fear that I'm not doing enough and that I haven’t accomplished enough.
And then I look back and remember how much I have been through. Yeah, I pulled some heavy weight today, but what I’m talking about is the ways I am strong mentally.The crap life has thrown at me that I’ve overcome.
I moved across the country by myself. I’ve had job after job that weren’t the right fit but I persevered through them. I’ve done the hard work and grown in having boundaries. I’ve watched my mom suffer from mental illness, chronic pain and be and hospitalized for years on end. I’ve seen my sister through a mental health crisis. I am stronger than I think, and I think you are too.
I’m not saying this to get phone calls from friends telling me that I’m strong. Or telling me that I’m beautiful or enough or blah blah blah.
I know the truth, finally.
I want to share this today because I bet you are giving yourself NO credit. Friends of mine who have lived through hell and have not let bitterness taken root, despite the horrible things that have happened to them, YOU are the people I’m talking to.
You are so much stronger than you think you are. How do you not realize it??
Today I proved to myself that I am strong mentally when I deadlifted. Much like life, strength training is such a mental game. It sounds cheesy, but it really does prepare you for life.
And it’s also really scary because it does change your body. And for someone who is overcoming years of distorted eating and body image, and being addicted to exercise, it's scary as hell.
My body is changing. I am no longer using exercise as a way to control my life and my emotions and my body.
It's actually excruciating, to be quite frank.
Why?
Because I still want to.
I still want to do the things that I know will help shape and mold certain areas of my body.
I want to have control!
I want to go back to what was easy!
But did that get me anywhere in my healing? No.
It was only a partial fix.
It only took off the top of the dandelion.
I have said this to a few people, but I really think it’s true. I am a little bit heavier than I was a year ago, but do you know how much lighter my mind is? And that is the scariest and most beautiful thing.
I’m trusting the process. And it’s really hard. And part of me doesn’t even know why I am sharing all of this.
And here’s the thing too, no matter what size I’ve been, it hasn’t mattered. I’ve never been okay with the way I am.
Up 10 pounds or down 10 pounds, it was never enough.
A year ago, I was obsessed with maintaining the weight and physique I had.
But, it was still never enough.
I’m not saying that exercise is bad; it isn’t at all.
It’s actually one of the best things we can do to clear our minds and to combat depression! What I’m talking about here is the kind of exercise that consumes your life. The kind that gives you anxiety.
The kind that you become obsessed with, where if you miss a work out, you get anxiety. That’s what I’m talking about.
Girlfriend, when will you stop being so hard on yourself? What do you need to tell yourself today to remind you that you are strong? You might have to fake it for a while, but start with that internal dialogue.
And those feelings you have about how your butt looks in your leggings? They’ll go away.
I’m on this journey with you. I’m still struggling, I’m still crying after my workouts, but I’m healing.
And I want you to heal too.
You are strong.
You are enough.
And maybe it’s just time that you start squatting and deadlifting. It’ll be so challenging that you won’t even think about your butt….
I can almost promise you that you’ll forget you even have a butt!
So, are you with me?
What’s a pattern you need to change today to start your own journey of healing?
What’s something you need to become a little less obsessed with? What weed do you need to get out by the root?
Maybe losing the 10 pounds in your mind is the only weight you need to lose after all.
E
P.S. Huge shoutout to my dear friend Cailtin, who received the 4 minute long voice memo of me bawling after my workout. Real friends are truly gifts from above. They are the ones who love you at your lowest and always point you back to the truth. Love you, Cait. (and Raj and Zeke!)
Written November 16, 2019
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