So, I think that a little known part of my story is the fact that I secretly wrestled with an eating disorder circa 2014.
If you're like me...I know what you're thinking: "black girls don't have that!" haha just kidding...but seriously...that was my attitude at the time. It didn't even dawn on me to call it bulimia because it was just something I never saw myself becoming a victim to.
Backstory:
I've pretty much always been an active person; I played tennis and golf my middle school summers and was in at least one sport every year of high school. Hence, my weight had never really been an issue for me...
Until freshman year of college. *deep sigh* Yes, I gained the dreaded freshman fifteen. LOL. The irony is that I was in ROTC, so I was still really fit. In fact, most people just thought I was intentionally building muscle. However, with that added bulkiness, a few of my friends had started to taunt me...calling me "big back" and making little jingles like: "You can do it, put ya back into it". Honestly, I just brushed it off because I hadn't really noticed the weight gain too much.
That is, until I compared pictures of myself the beginning of the semester versus the end. And that my friends is what sparked my initially noble quest that I named: Project High School Skinny. It started off innocently enough. I began with some Jillian Michaels tapes and then I started doing Hip Hop Abs by Shawn T. Within about a month, I was back down to a reasonable size and weight.
Where it Went South:
Despite my fairly rapid and reasonable results, there was this little voice in the back of my mind that would constantly whisper: "Well, you could always be smaller"...
Mind you, when I graduated high school, I'd been a toned, muscular 147 lbs...snatched waist, nice legs [aka evidence of running track.] lol But once I hit 147 in this quest, I thought to myself well, you were 135 lbs in 9th grade...a few more pounds shouldn't be too much.
And so I started eating within Paleo guidelines (fruits, veggies, meats, no grains or processed foods) and doing Insanity (also by Shawn T) six days a week. I also implemented a grossly exaggerated version of intermittent fasting (i.e. I would not eat until after a workout {which most days wouldn't be til 12pm} then I would stop eating 3 hours before bedtime). This meant that some days I wouldn't eat until 4pm, and by that time, it was time to stop eating. [Ridiculous! I know] But I was so focused on this goal, that that's all I could think about.
Seriously, within another month, I was smaller than I'd even been in high school and I was loving EVERY. BIT. OF IT. If you knew my grandma, you would know that I'd inherited her loving but notably cushioned cheeks. But now that I was about 144lbs?? Aw. baby...that jawline?? CHISELED. lol Even my fingers looked more slender and at that point I became obsessed with staying skinny.
The thing is...though I've always been slim and muscular...I've never quite been bone skinny naturally. I come from a family of women with thick thighs and pronounced derrieres. Thigh gap? Never heard of such lol. But as time went on my expectations became more and more ridiculous. All I would talk about was myself. How slim I was..how much weight I'd lost.
The Perfect Storm
By my sophomore year of college, I was crushing all of my PT tests in ROTC and reveling in this new svelte physique. I'd since realized that I could afford to eat more with this super high metabolism and life was great!
...That is until the weight of all of my depraved living crashed down on me.
In the summer of 2014 leading to my junior year, I started getting barraged with unprecedented bouts of anxiety. If you're familiar at all with how abrupt, yet intense turbulence can be....it was exactly like that. Out of nowhere, with no imminent threat or pressing worry, a pocket of internal turbulence would hit me and I'd just be...insatiably restless....and hungry. And so in response...I would binge.
Full On Bulimia
By this point I was a long way from any form of sensible eating habits. What was once Paleo had morphed into an obsessive veganism. Somehow I'd stopped eating meat and went from restricting grains to all but eliminating even healthy carbs like fruit. FRUIT for crying out loud! If I slipped up and ate something "unhealthy" then I was like eff it..throw the whole diet away and would proceed to eat repulsive volumes of ...carbs. The very thing I tried to restrict would be the very thing I would crave the most.
I would spend literally hours riding around, buying, and eating volumes of food that the likes of an obese, pregnant, MAN would eat. It never once dawned on me that perhaps my body was merely begging for more calories to rebuild itself from my grueling workouts.
I wish I were exaggerating, but there were times I would honestly MARVEL at how my body hadn't exploded from all the food I'd stuffed into it. But of course, I couldn't let all that crap actually digest and ruin my perfectly slender body. Nope, my solution was to only binge on carbs, (think whole boxes of waffles, whole cakes, whole containers of any sweet or breadlike foods) and then eat a whole quart of icecream. I found that somehow, the ice cream would completely neutralize my stomach acids and make it effortless to vomit all the food back up.
The twisted part about this, is that for a little while this was even enjoyable. I thought I'd found a loophole to be able to eat whatever I wanted with no evidence of it. However, I'd soon find that this twisted pattern would not only consume my life, but my peace as well.
Stay tuned for part 2