Thursday, September 17, 2009

leave your baggage at the blog...


After reading a fellow bloggers courageous fight against eating disorders, I felt inspired to share my own feelings on the subject... beware I'm about to get serious :)

Actually it may surprise some that I used to be a size 0 in junior high and only hit a size 4 in high school; all thanks to an old Nemesis anorexia. I was in the dance team in school and at 5'6" I weighed around 115-120. I still remember a weigh-in for an upcoming competition where I weighed in at 123 and immediately started running in the track team after school (on top of 4 hours dancing in the morning). Eventually my mom figured things out and forced me to start eating... so I switched over to bulimia...not fun.

So after all that excitement I started in college and focused on getting my eating habits under control. I gained about 50 lbs... marriage and 3 kids later, there are STILL days where I want to purge, or figure it would just be a lot easier to just stop eating.

I'm not complaining, I know it must be horrible, for those people who have never seen themselves thin, to wonder if it's possible. I sympathise. Somehow you have to keep pushing yourself for that brass ring of health worried you won't reach it. But this side isn't all roses either, sometimes I wonder if I can be smaller AND healthy, or if the only way I can get thin again is to resort to these former habits.

Well, either way, I have a family now - it's not just my future I'm gambling with. So I keep pushing forward with health in mind... not a number on the scale. Ok 'after school special' is over. Thanks for listening, I have never really talked much about this part of my past. It's a little therapeutic. night all :)

7 comments:

Miz said...

thank you so much for being brave enough to step up and share this as so so many of us have been where you were and are.

it is about the health huh?
and, on days when I mightcould ALMOST forget that, I simply make it my mantra.

have a good weekend.

MizFit

Ak said...

What an amazing journey you have been on to overcome such obstacles along the way. Thanks for sharing this story that shows the other side of an eating disorder.

Diane, fit to the Finish said...

Thanks for sharing that. It's an incredibly complex relationship we have with food, just as you've so aptly described.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for sharing that. I think my issues started in my teenage years, as well. Now with family, well, the focus does change, as does the body. I have to remind myself that I will never have that body again (pregnancy ruined my belly), but I have a family in return.

jimpurdy1943@yahoo.com said...

We all have to travel different routes to reach the same healthy destination. It sounds like your journey has been interesting. Best wishes to you.

Friend of the Bear said...

Hi Natalie. I know what you mean about wishing sometimes that you could adopt those extreme behaviours that would make you thin again. Sometimes I think that too. But I just don't have the will to make myself that ill again. And being older I think it would just be far more damaging than when I was younger. Everything seems to fall apart after 35 even without any provocation!

So the only option left is to try for health.

Best wishes,
Bearfriend xx

beej said...

Thanks for the honest view into your struggles. It's honesty like that that will help you succeed!