Yo-Yo Diets & Disordered Eating

* If you suffer from disordered eating, and think that reading about it will trigger something in you, please do not continue reading this post. I’ll be back to my regular blog topics tomorrow! Promise!! *

In honor of NEDA week, I’d like to discuss with you all my experience with yo-yo diets and disordered eating. It is SUCH a common problem, yet I think it is still not common-enough-knowledge that the two are related! I truly believe that if I had never yo-yo dieted, disordered eating wouldn’t even be on my radar.

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As a child, I was very active– involved in track and dance all the way up until my sophomore year of high school. That’s when my life drastically changed! My family moved, ripping me away from my close friends and a school that I loved. It wasn’t my parents’ fault. We were a military family, and moving was the norm, but we had been stationed in Georgia for 5 years, which was the longest we had ever been in one place! I grew attached to the friends I had made, and didn’t want have to start all over again, especially in the middle of my high school career! I was angry and sad, and I could only tell my parents about it so much– I didn’t want to make them feel worse, either! So I started suppressing my feelings with food. Eating potato chips reminded me of spending days at the pool with my friends. Eating cake reminded me of movie night with the girls. All of the sudden, I was getting an emotional “fix” from food!

However, I was very naive and didn’t know ANYTHING about calories or weight gain. In Georgia, I was a competitive dancer, in the studio 10+ hours a week, and never had to worry about what I ate. While I wasn’t the skinniest girl in my dance classes, I had always been thin, and thought I’d stay that way. So let’s just say, I was utterly shocked when I started gaining weight from eating all that “comforting” junk! Clueless on how to get back into my old jeans, I looked into drastic measures.

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The only thing I really knew about dieting at the time, was that Jennifer Aniston had successfully lost some weight while she was on Friends. I looked into her diet of choice– The Zone. I was grateful that The Zone had a very informative website, and taught myself all about it. I immediately dove in– meticulously tracking my “blocks” of protein, carbs and fat at each meal. It was mentally exhausting, and I was always hungry, but it worked!

That is, until I went right back to eating my comfort food again. And this time around, I missed those foods so much that I ate MORE of them! And, thus, the cycle of yo-yo dieting began.

I managed to keep my weight in-check throughout the rest of my high-school career (thanks to a high-metabolism and teaching dance classes), but when college rolled around, I dreaded the idea of gaining the “Freshman 15.” I avoided the dining hall as much as possible, choosing the bagged lunch options instead– filled with bagels, sandwiches and baked chips (what I thought was “health food” at the time). What I didn’t know, however, was that ALCOHOL was the real culprit behind the Freshman 15! So here I was, obsessing over every bite I took, and then drinking countless numbers of beers and cocktails every weekend! Surprise, surprise– I gained the full 15, and then some.

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That’s when my experimentation with dieting REALLY kicked in– I tried Atkins, South Beach, The Abs diet, calorie-counting, and even weirder diets that my friends suggested (eating protein the size of my fist every two hours?!). It all worked for a matter of two weeks or so, but then my willpower would lack, and I’d fall right back into old habits. I even tried more drastic measures– becoming a vegetarian, then even a vegan! I still found food to binge on, and eventually gave up on the vegan thing, because the “label” was doing more harm than good for me. The more restricted I felt, the stronger my urge to binge!

I found myself more and more embarrassed by the way I was eating, so I started doing it in secret, when no one was home. I’d hide food, or eat it in the car– even in the bathroom! The more embarrassed I was by it, the more depressed I got, and the harder it was to quit. I got into a cycle of binge eating, followed by severe dieting to “make up” for it, then binging all over again. I never thought I had an eating disorder, because I wasn’t a “classic” bulimic– I wasn’t binging, then purging– I was just binging. I felt like I was “getting away with it,” too, because my size wasn’t really changing, despite all the binging I was doing. But I could tell my body was getting softer and softer, regardless of what the number on the scale said.

The turning point for me, was when I started actually LEARNING about health and how the body works. The first book that opened my eyes was UltraMetabolism, by Dr. Mark Hyman. I learned about how certain foods affect the body, and send triggers to our brain, causing us to overeat or feel satiated. I followed his principles for one month, eating plenty of foods that I loved, and lost 15 lbs! Success! As soon as I started associating this plan with weight-loss, however, I immediately fell into that “diet mentality” again. I needed one more push to truly get myself health-oriented, rather than vanity-oriented.

I soon discovered The Raw Food Detox Diet, by Natalia Rose. The funny thing is, I was still seeking-out a “quick fix” for weight loss when I picked up this book, but I got so much more out of it than that. She explained health to me in a way I had never heard it before– from a digestion standpoint. It finally “clicked” for me! I realized that the way I had been eating was accumulating waste in my body and creating an acidic environment, setting me up for countless problems in the future. I finally understood the importance of eating for health, rather than eating for a certain jean-size. She also emphasized the importance of transition. Creating a healthy, lean body doesn’t happen overnight, and you shouldn’t expect your old habits to vanish that quickly either. It’s a process. Finding whole, unprocessed foods that you enjoy is a step in the right direction.

And that’s where I am today. Still transitioning into a healthy lifestyle, both mentally and physically. Most importantly, I’m learning to appreciate my body and all it does for me, even after everything I’ve put it through! My body has a lot of healing to do from all the damage I’ve done, and I’ve been making great strides in my recovery. Incorporating raw food, and avoiding calorie-counting has been key to my healing. That’s not to say that I still don’t obsess over food on occasion, or have some slip-ups, but they are getting fewer and farther in between, and I’m becoming more aware of how to manage them now.

The key is to avoid crash diets at all costs. My biggest slip-ups in life have been right before big events, where I really care about how I’m going to look. Preparing for my wedding was actually one of the lowest points in my mental health, because the pressure to be thin for pictures was so high!

That’s when I realized that eating disorders don’t just affect you, either! My poor husband suffered right along with me! I think it was a big wake-up call for me– I realized I wasn’t just holding myself back with my food and body insecurities, I was holding “us” back, too! One of the hardest things I’ve ever done was admitting to my husband that I had a problem, but I’m so grateful that I did! It’s out in the open, and that’s a huge step! He has been so supportive, and I love him even more for it.

It’s truly been a journey for me, and while I’m not completely healed, I hope my story will help others from sliding down the same path. If you are struggling with disordered eating, I can’t recommend enough that you seek out help. To get started, check out the resources provided by the NEDA.

And if you have any more questions for me, you can ask them anonymously here!

Most of all, remember to love and accept your body, no matter what shape or size it is. The more you look at the BIG PICTURE (life-long health, disease prevention, preparing for pregnancy) the more trivial your jean size will become. You are beautiful, just the way you are!

Something to do:

For two healthy outlooks on life, check out:

Angela’s Size Healthy

Caitlin’s Operation Beautiful