Learning from the past

    I had the chance to read something today from a person who battled anorexia, and it brought up some memories of my own.  While I can say that I was  fortunate to have friends and family that knocked sense in to me before I went too far, it is scary to think about easily I fell into that state of mind.  It started off with the simple desire to be thin. Looking back, I know now that it was anything BUT simple.  And it was the wrong desire.  Sometimes I wonder that if I had focused on getting healthy, not being thin, that maybe I would have avoided the trap I fell in to. However, I am glad that I did experience what could have easily led to anorexia. It taught me a great lesson, and helped me stay in a healthy state of mind as I spent the last year working to lose weight.
     I still wonder why it was so easy to get into a pattern of skipping meals. I knew then, as much as I know now, that you have to eat to lose weight.  At first, I was going about the weight loss in a healthy way.  Instead of eating the cafeteria food (specifically the pizza), as was my usual habit, I started bringing healthy lunches like Tuna with celery or fruit salad. I quickly began to lose weight, but it was not quick enough.  Tuna and celery quickly became a slim fast bar and a piece of fruit.  Still not fast enough.  It became just the slim fast bar. Then half a bar, then nothing.  It was not long before I started skipping breakfast too.  If I did eat during the day, it was usually nothing more than celery, maybe a bite of a Slim Fast bar and a couple of grapes.
    The weight fell off of me, and I enjoyed it. Yet it didn't matter that my size had gone down drastically, I still felt very fat, and that I needed to lose more weight.  It did not take too long for friends and family to start realizing that I was not healthy.  I was having dizzy spells, and fainted quite a few times.  I actually skipped periods occasionally.  I couldn't focus at school, and I was always moody and miserable.  In fact was as miserable when I was skinny, as I was a year ago when I was severely obese.
    I had support all around me thankfully, and they all saw how quickly I was letting myself go down a very bad road.  But the person who really helped me the most was Ben. He stuck with me through the whole thing.  We had not even been together a year, and yet he made it his goal to help me get past that bump in my life.  See why I married him?  He is an amazing person!
     Ben spent every day telling me how pretty I was, and how much he loved me.  He would make sure I ate my lunch, and fuss if he found out I skipped breakfast or dinner.  As much as I hated gaining the weight back, over time I began to understand the risk I had faced.  In only a few months I had lost close to 60 pounds.  That doesn't sound like a lot, unless you consider that I was not really THAT heavy to begin with.
    This time, I am so glad I was able to lose the weight in a healthy way.  I would be lying if I did not say that I am occasionally met with the temptation to skip a meal again, or fall back into old habits.  Running has certainly helped with that.  My runs suck if I have not had enough calories during the day.  Let me tell you, few things irritate me more than a bad work out, and skipping meals will pretty much guarantee that your workout will not go well.  Having set for myself the goals of running a 10k and a half marathon, not eating is certainly out of the question!
    As much as I would like to say that I regret that part of my past, I can not.  It taught me far too many valuable lessons, and it has made me the person I am today.  The same can be said for the bullying that led to the disordered eating, I wouldn't change it.  Hard as those times were, they are an important part of who I am. If my experiences can help even one person that reads this blog, then I am even more grateful for that part of my life.

   I know that some of my friends have experienced, or are currently experiencing, the same fight to varying degrees.  And it is for them that I wrote this. For every person like me, who was able to stop, there are at least two others who are unable to.  I'm thankful for my family and friends, and I often thank God for giving me an awesome boyfriend that stuck around through a very rough period to become my husband. Without them, I do not know what would have happened.

    If any of you are fighting this frustrating battle, just know you are in my thoughts and prayers, and that you do not fight alone.
Kristina