This might be the scariest and most vulnerable post from me so far, so be gentle and bear with me. The courage it has taken to share this with you all is tremendous, and I hope that from this, I can shed a light on how pressure and mental illness of many types can affect people during a fitness journey.
Somewhere in early 2013 I made a promise to myself to lose weight. I had promised myself this so many years in a row, and I honestly wasn't sure if my promises to myself even meant anything anymore, but nevertheless, I made the promise. I was in a dark place, dealing with anxiety and depression, and relying on my social life for happiness. I really had put my happiness in the hands of how others looked at me, and thus began a journey...
I began my journey as expected. I didn't know anything about what I was doing, but I was eager to learn and to find the "answers." I quickly adapted to counting calories and tracking my foods, and the weight came off as expected. I exercised, I ate healthy food, and I lost weight. I did everything right, and I went through all of the right motions. Of course, it wasn't always easy and I slipped up and fell off the wagon time and time again, but I always got back up and made progress. It was successful, despite the times when it was tough, but that's not what this particular post is dedicated to...
Fast forward to 2015. I was really at the top of my game in 2015, I was featured in a Buzzfeed video, featured in Yahoo Health, featured on the Quest Nutrition blog, Fitfluential, Myfitnesspal, and so many more sites. I had quickly accumulated close to 2,000 followers on my personal Facebook page who were hungry for my next post. These people were following me because they wanted inspiration, and somehow, I had provided them with that. I had lost 95 pounds and I wanted to help everyone! I was receiving hundreds of emails a week from people I didn't know, and I undoubtedly overwhelmed with the small-scale fame I felt. I was 5 pounds from the numeric goal I had set at the beginning of my journey.
That is honestly where I think I went wrong... I was working out and eating healthy and looking uh-mazing, no doubt, but I couldn't get those stupid last 5 pounds off that would give me that glorious "100 pounds lost" title. I would work SO hard in the gym, setting new records for myself, and still inspiring others, and then go home and hate myself in the mirror, over 5 pounds. That number consumed me. There was so much pressure to continue to inspire people, and I was afraid that if I didn't reach that goal soon, that people would realize that I was somehow not worth what they initially thought I was worth. My worth was now in their hands somehow.
When I was obese, eating was how I soothed my depression and anxiety, even when I didn't realize that's what I was doing. Up until 2015, I hadn't had many issues with binge eating because I was feeling on top of the world and I wasn't feeling the pressure. The pressure was suddenly real though, and I found myself MORE miserable than I was when I was fat. I couldn't be proud of the 95 pounds I had lost, because I was too focused on the 5 pounds that I couldn't seem to lose. I felt like I was letting everyone down and I ate my feelings away. I don't honestly know how I ended up binge eating a whole package of chocolate chip cookies in one sitting, crying on my bedroom floor because I felt like a failure, or how I managed to eat a half gallon of ice cream all at once while sitting in my swimsuit in front of a mirror. I had never loathed my self so much in my life. I found myself feeling guilty about binge eating knowing it would set me backwards, and then it started...
I couldn't shake the thoughts, no matter how I tried. "You're a failure Sarie, what sort of motivational person eats cookies?" My anxiety was through the roof, and I just HAD to try and "control" the situation. I had never had my finger down my throat before and I cried the whole time. I cried because it hurt to throw up, and I cried because I hated myself so much. I found myself knowing that this was wrong, but not really understanding how I ended up in this dark place. I couldn't shake the thought that I had "done wrong" by throwing up my food, and therefore needed to be punished for it. I didn't know exactly what I meant by "punished" but the thought still lingered and it scared me to not feel in control of my thoughts. I went to the emergency room that night and had never felt more ashamed and alone in my life. It was humiliating to tell them what I had done. It was humiliating to be in an empty room with a nurse on "watch." I couldn't even say the word "throw up," because there was so much shame over it.
I began seeing a therapist for a few weeks and I really felt so much better. It seemed that I had quickly escaped the clutches of what could've been a terrible life to bulimia. How could I be better after only 3 weeks? Amazing! I stopped seeing the therapist and continued my life motivating people to lose weight the healthy way. The way I had.
I kept my secret hidden, even though I was better, because I was afraid people would think I was less credible because of it. I was worried that somehow, people would think that I lost weight by having an eating disorder and that I was a fraud. I am 100% not a fraud, and I lost weight by eating healthy and exercising and I can't stress that enough. Bulimia struck me when I was at my most fit, most active, and smallest weight. I had already lost the weight the healthy way BEFORE bulimia was a part of my life. You see, I only binge-purged, I didn't throw up my healthy food, not that it was any less dangerous.
I was great for several months after I stopped seeing the therapist, and 100% purge-free, and then my husband deployed. Deployment is hard on anyone, and its hard on a marriage and to say that we struggled is an understatement. I threw myself into hobbies, and friendships, and tried to keep busy and somewhere along the line, I had gained 30 pounds back. It was partly because I had stopped going to the gym, and of course because I stopped going to the gym, I was gaining more and more. I really tried to ignore the weight gain, and I stopped posting about fitness for a while.
My friend bulimia was not gone as I had thought. In fact, I found myself noticing that I had gained weight again and it became worse than ever. My depression was back with a vengeance and so was my anxiety. This time, it was a REAL problem, because I couldn't focus on food at all without seeing the calorie counts in my head, and if I couldn't mentally feel confident in how many calories were in the food, I had to throw it up because I was so afraid to gain more weight. This meant I could eat food like plain chicken, because I knew how many calories were in chicken per ounce, and I was good at estimating how many ounces it was from years of weighing my food. This meant however, that I could NOT eat food like chili, or something that had multiple ingredients in it because I couldn't seem to mentally calculate what I was taking into my body and I stressed over if there were added oils which meant added calories. The problem with this, is that I already knew how to lose weight properly, but my mental state was clouding my judgement and I was looking for happiness through food. At my lowest point, I was hunched over the toilet, covered in my own throw up, crying, hoping I would just have a brain aneurysm or a heart attack already because I didn't want to feel the pain anymore. I was tired of bullying myself. I felt like I was a disappointment to anyone who had ever followed me.
Here's what I need to stress: I made one mistake in my weight loss journey, and that was having a goal to lose weight as a way to "fix" myself. I chose to lose weight because I wanted to look better, feel better, and somehow be better by being skinnier. I should never have set out to lose weight as a way to fix myself, I should have set out to lose weight as a way to get stronger, healthier, and more badass. My reasons were very negative and that is what I want all of you to be very careful with. I "dieted myself" into an eating disorder because I had the wrong mindset from the very beginning. I don't want you to set numeric weight loss goals, I want you to set positive goals. You should set a goal like "I want to be able to run faster" or "I want to not be pre-diabetic." I want you to focus on health like it is a sport, something you do because you LOVE it.
If you eat off plan, you 150% do NOT need to punish yourself for that, or even feel bad. So you ate McDonald's tonight instead of your meal plan? No big deal because your goal is to have the RIGHT mindset, and you will never have a positive outcome from feeling bad about what you ate. If you eat something off plan, oh well, move forward with your day and focus on how you will happily eat on plan for the next meal. The past is not something you can change, or control, but you can control what is in front of you.
"It happened, it's behind you." This is something I had said to myself one day and it stuck with me like nothing ever has. Fitness is something I do to challenge my muscles, so why associate it with negativity? If I was a volleyball player, I wouldn't beat myself up over eating a cookie, so why should I beat myself up over it just because I workout? Now I am not saying you should binge eat, because believe me- that is not at all something I would ever recommend. I'm saying that I know you are all human, and so am I, and that occasionally, we will eat things that might not fit into our fitness macros. Progress is not linear, and no one has ever succeeded by expecting to be 100% perfect all of the time. Your progress will probably look like this:
You will still get to your goal! So set yourself up for success from the start, and have the right reasons for losing weight or beginning your journey to health. As for myself, I still struggle with those thoughts that tell me I am not good enough, or that I should purge my food, but I am learning to silence them and correct them because that is a part of me that might always be there. Mental illness is real, and as long as I tackle it and stay on top of it the right way, I can stay out of the dark places that I don't want to be in. Remember, I did not lose weight by being bulimic, I binge ate and actually gained weight by being bulimic. My success in weight loss was real, and healthy, and the advice I give is real, and healthy, and it starts with your mindset. Healthy mind, healthy life.
in 2018, I will focus on what I love about myself, and how I can grow as a person and improve the things I love about myself through fitness. I will focus on loving myself and the amazing things I have learned that I can do. I will lift weights and run and be fantastic motivation, but not because I believe anything about me needs "fixed." I will push you all to focus on what you love about yourself as well, and I hope that like always, my journey can help someone. I am real, and I will always be a recovering bulimic no matter how far behind me it is. I will always have anxiety but I will not always struggle because of it. I am being mindful in everything I do now, and hoping that the choices I make, and the thoughts I have, are always constructive and that when I feel bad, I can find ways to reroute those thoughts by reminding myself why I am absolutely, positively, exactly the way God made me.
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