First, I planned to lose weight by not eating anything but cereal and fruit as a senior in high school. I planned to run 8 miles every day, in addition to intense soccer practices and tournaments for my competitive soccer team. I planned to avoid social situations and restaurants where eating is not avoidable. I planned to have control, be perfect, and look the part. After I succeeded in losing 20 pounds, reaching a goal weight of 104 right before college, I was skinny enough to raise some red flags around school and home, prompting my pursuit of thin even more.
In college, I planned to maintain my thin physique and even lost weight during my first semester as a freshman soccer player. 100. What I didn't plan for was the introduction of alcohol to my lifestyle. Alcohol took hold in a way I could have never anticipated, made me relax, and loosened my grip completely on controlling my diet and exercise. The more I drank, the less I cared. Until drinking because the norm and the feelings of fat, ugly, and out of shape set in.
What I also didn't plan for was learning how to purge. I learned to purge during college by trying it once. I was somewhat of a natural, or at least had the ability to purge food fairly easily. Having the wherewithall to purge changes your life forever. It provides a guaranteed sense of guilt for keeping anything down. This aspect of an eating disorder can make everything so much more complicated. You don't want to eat, but you know you can and have minimal consequences on weight - at the expense of heavy consequences on health and quality of life. Learning to purge set the stage for the rest of my life. I type this blog 7 years after learning to purge and the repetitive emptying of my stomach has resulted in an inability to hold anything down. I purge hands-free now, simply bending over and releasing. Try recovering from that, even if you want to.
I have always planned to start living my life without my horrifying habits and binding eating disorder. I've always thought I could shake it if I really and truly tried. In recent years, I have started to hate feelings of fear and anxiety that accompany every bite of food and obsession with burning calories through exercise. I desperately want to be like my friends and significant others, giving zero thought to planning meals, exercise, and calories. No more calculating and recalculating calories in and calories out. No more undereating, overdrinking, and obsessive exercise. No more obsession over deviations in life that cause deviation in plans.
I planned to get over my eating disorder in college as a Nutrition and psychology major, then as an intern studying to be a Registered Dietitian in graduate school, and then as a PhD student studying, you guessed it, Nutrition. But as life progresses through ebbs and flows, trials and tribulations, and constant stress and strain, the eating disorder and associated issues persist, flaring up and subsiding slightly, but always existing.
Sometimes, more often than not, facing your fears requires changing your plans. Day treatment was an attempt to change my plans by facing my fears, but it's not enough for me. On Monday, I start residential treatment for my eating disorder, exercise addiction, and alcohol abuse after relapsing heavily over the past week and a half. Today, I've run 19 miles, thrown up 4 times and keeping no food down, and weigh 98 pounds. I am ready for treatment and I'm ready to be healthy and happy. I am ready. I am terrified, but I am ready.
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