My journey through anorexia…

I have been exposed to people with anorexia from a very early age, I was about 10 years old when I first learnt what it was from a TV program. I was intrigued, saddened and inspired all at once. I had a good friend in high school who looked like a walking coat hanger. She was so frail and pedantic but I secretly wanted to be her. Once when she came over my place, she accidentally left a little note book which contained her meagre calorie count for the day. I remember it totalled about 300 calories. I later found out how serious her illness was when she was admitted to a “special” hospital.

My personal experience with anorexia came not too long after this. I had always been very concerned about what I looked like and what others thought about me, so much so that I would avoid many social engagements because I thought I was too fat (I was about 65kgs, quite muscular 5’6”, although this number fluctuated a lot).

Not the best influence..:
I met my first real boyfriend when I was 17, I’ll call him John. John introduced me to the world of drugs. It was all very exciting! He was a drug-dealer so I never had to pay for anything. The first drug I had was an ecstasy tablet. Boy I loved it! I was on fire I could dance for hours and best of all I didn’t have to eat much to maintain this energy! The come down afterwards was really awful but as I became thinner and thinner it really didn’t matter, for me, happiness equalled a skinny body. Health came second.

John also introduced me to other girls in the drug scene, some of whom had serious eating disorders already. They would use laxatives through the day and drugs at night and sometimes cocaine for breakfast to control their weight. These girls were like many girls I have met on my life path, infected with the desire to be rail-thin like certain models and celebrities, even at the cost their health.

Restricting my calories big time
I began to count my calories like crazy. I used to do it a little before, but now I began to do it religiously…2000cals, 1500, 1000… before long I was averaging about 800 a day. I would have a bite of my breakfast cereal (to keep mum happy), half a sushi roll and a few bites of junk food for dinner with John. It sometimes took me hours to decide what i would eat, i became so obsessed. By night I was a drugged-up party animal, dancing sometimes 8hrs in a night by day my only real focus was on controlling my binges and achieving as little food intake as possible.

Sometimes I would be “really good” and stay around 800 calories a day, while at other times I would binge-out and eat over 5000, regularly downing a whole loaf of bread with honey and butter in one sitting. My body and mind were desperate for carbohydrates. After these binges I would stick my fingers down my throat and vomit it back up. I used to cry every time with guilt and shame and run straight to mirror and stare at my “ugly” tear-drenched face… but I knew it would help me stay skinny so I kept doing it. Sometimes I was so depressed that the only thing that would make me happy was the thought that I was succeeding at losing weight.

I began swimming regularly in the ocean pool down the road. I would jog about 2 kms to get there and back and always do 10 laps. I felt amazing afterwards and this drug-like “high” I no longer needed breakfast and sometimes lunch. When winter came around I continued to do my laps even though sometimes the coldness of the water literally took my breath away and winded me! I was absolutely burning through the calories to keep my body temperature up. Not only did I not increase my calorie intake to meet the extra demands on my body, but I actually dropped my calories further to around 500 and it was a particularly “good day” if I got through the whole day without eating.

I often saw someone else in the mirror...(note: pic is not me)

Food lost all appeal and became the “enemy”
I began to lose weight rapidly, food starting to become the “enemy” and after a while I didn’t need to purge anymore, I was so enervated that food was losing all appeal. After a while, I couldn’t keep “my secret” any longer because I was losing weight so rapidly my friends and family started to get really worried about me. They never actually knew the extent of my pain. My mum’s boyfriend would say “you will fall through a crack soon if you keep going…”. I used to love it when he said that – I knew I was on the right track! My friends would say “I had lost all my curve and looked bony and sick”, but I secretly thought they were just jealous and took it as a compliment.

My weight hit low times and I blacked out…
My weight had hit 47kgs (from a relatively fit 64kg’s in less than a year, a loss of 17kg), although I didn’t always weigh myself because looking at the scales would often upset me when I hadn’t lost anymore weight. This makes me think my weight was probably lower. I used to cut my pockets out of all my jeans because I hated my fat “47kg” thighs. I had a love-hate relationship with my body, part of me hated my skinny shoulders and part of me wanted to see more “definition” or more accurately… bones. I would walk around during the day in a world of fog which I now see clearly as being “under-carbed”. There was no way I could apply my mind to anything worthwhile but it didn’t matter to me because being thin was the only “worthwhile” thing.

It all came to a head when one day I was at work in the local supermarket serving a customer at the register when all of a sudden I blacked out and fainted in front of her, when I came to, everyone was around me in a panic. It was around lunchtime and I hadn’t eaten all day even after a 3hr powerwalk in the morning. After the fainting event I was strongly advised to see a Doctor. I did to keep everyone happy and the Doctor calculated my BMI. It came to below 17 and subsequently he put me in the anorexic category. I refused any treatment and convinced the Dr I was back on track. After that I began to see that maybe I was heading down a path of destruction.

Let the feeding begin
After about 3 years of this misery, my boyfriend and I broke up and went our separate ways. I was heart-broken and began to stay home all the time like a hermit. Fortunately during this time I also started to read a lot and increase my health awareness. I decided I wouldn’t purge anymore and would only take drugs on “special occasions”. I began to develop a raging hunger and of course started to eat! Food was ALL I could think about I would start the day with half a box of cereal with full cream milk, followed by a large strong coffee. Lunch would sometimes be just lollies or a whole baked chicken. Afternoon snack would be a couple of tubs of full fat yoghurt followed by a high calorie dinner consisting of at least 10 plates of sushi or fatty tacos or several dishes of thai food plus a creamy dessert to finish. Needless to say I packed on about 10kgs really quickly even though I was exercising like crazy.

My introduction to the raw food lifestyle
I started my raw food journey in 2001 desperate to find health and well-being, but not properly until July 2006. By this stage I was suffering from a multitude of health problems ranging from chronic fatigue syndrome to acne, not to mention a mega low self-esteem. I threw myself into the lifestyle, but still managed to keep my anorexic mindset of “the less calories the better”. Soon after going raw I experienced a massive gain in my health and a decrease in weight, the main reason being that I was no longer eating the foods that hurt me like meat, dairy and grains. The only problem with my new lifestyle was that I had to eat more than I wanted to. I was used to restricting my calories and I thought that I had to continue to do so on raw food. I go into this further in my upcoming ebook – which contains diary entries of where I went wrong on the raw food lifestyle and advice from me on how to avoid these obvious mistakes.

My apprehension to eat more calories
I hadn’t learnt to count my calories so I didn’t know how much I was meant to be eating or how much I was actually eating. Now looking back on diary entries sometimes it was around 2000, sometimes around 1200, not nearly enough to keep me on the raw path. So it’s little wonder that in Sept 2007 I starved myself back to a month of cooked food. It was distressing to say the least and I purged after every meal. I was paranoid about getting fat. After a month of hell I got back on raw and this time vowed to do the high fruit approach by the book. My weight was creeping up to 70kgs now, after coming from 47kgs years earlier – that’s a 23kg weight gain! Struggling with my urge to purge and obsession with calorie restriction, at first I felt a little uncomfortable eating such large quantities of fruit. I thought I would get fat for sure, my belly felt full which I anchored with vomiting and negativity… after all I was starting to eat kgs and kgs of food!

Part 2 coming soon…

I have photos from this period in my life, but not with me right now due to my transient lifestyle.
When I get them i will scan them in.

Still to come : Interviews with people overcoming their disordered eating through a LFRV lifestyle.

Here is a very interesting video of a male model with anorexia who unfortunately died at the start of this month.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIFAoRU1veo&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

A quote from an anonymous womyn with anorexia, my old self can relate completely….

You want food? Look at those THIGHS!

Starving is not pain, it’s the cure.

To be continued…