Never in a million years did I think I'd find myself publicizing this part of my life on an unrestricted public access blog. But hell, I've already posted "before" photos of me, so what more pride do I have to lose! :P In all seriousness though, as much as I have changed and moved on from this chapter of my life I'm about to share with you, it will still always be a part of me. And before I get into it, as sort of a thesis, I want to say that I'm discussing it not just so that you can get to know me better, or even that I may be able to help people currently in the throws of this disorder - but rather because I have done lasting, permanent damage to my body as a result of it. Some of this damage has been to my digestive system which has never fully recovered, causing me to deal with IBS-like symptoms and a lot of mysterious food sensitivities and intolerance which I am still trying to research and figure out. I will discuss that at the end of this blog, but just so that you know the direction in which I am taking this story now.
So, without further adieu.... here is a "Cliff's Notes" version of a large part of my past:
When I was 15 years old, I experienced my first round of anorexia...
It only lasted the summer going into my Junior year of high school, but I had gained a tremendous amount of weight during puberty partly due to hormones, but mostly due to a TERRIBLE diet and no physical exercise. And the diet was compounded by a severe depression I fought through for most (if not all!) of my adolescence stemming from a very ugly divorce my parents went through when I was 7, one of my older brothers being cripplingly ill for nearly a decade, being thrown into an unfriendly and borderline socially-abusive daycare system, and just general sibling rivalry that had gotten out of hand in our cramped, angry household. I found food to have an instantaneous enjoyment factor, and it really was a drug for me. I didn't have to work for the enjoyment, I didn't have to think about anything - all I had to do was sit down in front of a television and consume and it allowed me to fade immediately into a world of pleasure that drowned out the misery, the sadness, the fear and the anxiety of the world around me that was crashing down.
Now, before I go any further, I would like everybody to know I love my family, we survived those dark times, and I was never neglected; my parents did everything they could for us kids. It was just very hard - money was scarce, both my parents worked long hours, my mom spent all her free time in the hospital with my brother.... we were in pure survival mode. There was no irresponsibility on my parents' part. Sometimes I look back and think to myself, why my mom never said anything to me, never tried to restrict my diet when she saw I was obviously in the throes of adolescent obesity.. but then the realistic side of me chimed in and was like, "Dude. It's amazing we survived those times at all. My mom is only human, she can only do so much, and she was too preoccupied with keeping a roof over our head and my brother alive for God's sake. It's not her fault." The only thing I really wish someone would have reached out and helped me with was my obvious emotional issues. I would have panic attacks for years just from the stress of the instability of my home environment. My grades suffered, my social interactions suffered, and it would take me literally 2 decades to fully recover and see the light and learn all the brilliant lessons there were to learn from the hardships I endured.
But anyway, I digress. By the time I was 14, I stood at about 5'6" or 5'7" and weighed over 150lbs. I was a total fatty, and was teased by my siblings incessantly. Fortunately, for whatever reason, my friends at school never bullied me. I had serious emotional and attachment issues, but I was socially very well-adjusted and well-liked by my peers.
In any event, when I was 15, I decided I needed to make a change. But I was changing for the wrong reasons - I wanted to be skinny and popular and I wanted people to love me for how I looked on the outside. Really all I wanted was for a boy to love me; I felt so starved of love and attention. And while all of those reasons for weight loss are valid points because they do just intrinsically come with the territory of being aesthetically appealing to the naked eye, they should NOT be the sole motivating factors for weight loss. Otherwise, you are doomed to fail - or worse, harm yourself. I regret to say, I fell in the latter bucket.
I starved myself that summer. I didn't work out much (I didn't really know how?) but I would ride my bike around the block or go for mile-long jogs. I remember starting the next school year with a small sense of self-esteem, something I had never experienced before. I had no concept of nutrition though, but while I fell back into my old eating habits after the school year began, the weight loss I saw from unhealthy dieting stuck with me.
When I was 17, I went at it again.
This time I was older, I had graduated from high school, and was learning to be independent. I had my own income from a part-time job, I made it on my collegiate soccer team, and I was on a mission to get skinny. Not fit - SKINNY.
From ages 17 to 19, I went through the most violent cycle of eating disorders of my life. I know people have done far worse to their bodies than I achieved, but I can't imagine ever surviving worse than what I put myself through. Standing at 5'9", the lightest I got down to was 104lbs. Bones sticking out, period had stopped, hair was falling out, nails were peeling in half, my skin was a wreck... it started with the drive to lose weight, and that was all I cared about. But this time, it was with a vengeance. I blamed all of my failed relationships on my weight, and was convinced people would love and adore me the thinner I was. If this isn't a testament to how damaging media is in today's society, I don't know what is. It literally look me a decade to reverse this belief, despite how common sense it seems to me now.
I had both anorexia and bulimia. I was limiting myself to 500-800 calories a day. I would end up passing out at the gym on almost a weekly basis, to the point where I knew the signs and would excuse myself to my car and pass out there for fear that my gym would end up calling the cops or maybe just the Los Angeles Psychiatric Department and have them whisk me away because I was no longer capable of taking care of myself. I would eat apples - core, stem and all. I remember one time I was moving and I came across a Costco-sized bag of Sun-Maid raisins my roommate had, and I ate HALF THE BAG because I couldn't help myself. And then I spent 3 hours purging afterwards.
During the summer when I was 19, I went into cardiac arrest. And it saved my life.
It was 9am in the morning on a wednesday, I'll never forget. I had just got to work and had my standard breakfast - 3/4 cup of frozen peas (frozen, so that I had to eat them slower, which made them seem to last longer) and a small cup of black coffee. I noticed suddenly that I was terribly lethargic, disoriented, and confused. And also, I was sweating like mad! I think the sweat was what first tipped me off, I literally had drops forming on my forehead. That's when I noticed a significant lethargy, like I had taken a huge dose of vicodin and it was kicking in. I checked my pulse instinctively and was shocked to feel my heart absolutely racing. My breathing was very shallow, and it was almost like I didn't have the energy to breath at all. But it was the panicky, brain foggy, disoriented feeling I had that made me realize something very bad was happening.
I excused myself from work on the grounds of feeling ill. It felt like I had a 500*F fever and I could barely muster the energy to breathe. I was about 30 miles away from home and started the drive... in rush hour morning traffic.
I called my mom for comfort. She started asking me about symptoms. I told her everything that was going on, and that I had a terrible cramp in my arm and an ache in my back that sort of skipped my shoulder/neck area but then went up into my jaw and throughout the side of half my face. She asked me if it was the left side and I had answered her "no", and she breathed a sigh of relief. But it WAS the left side of my body. I didn't realize it until I made it home - in my mind, it was the right side of my body, not the left, because I was thinking of the pledge of allegiance "right hand over your heart." I knew on my phone call with my mom that I was having a heart attack; but she reassured me that it was ok because it wasn't my left side, and at the time, I still believed my pains were on the right side.
I hung up the phone with mom and focused on getting home, and I'll never forget this: I was at a red light at Sepulveda Boulevard and Washington, when a cop pulled up. I had no energy to cry for help, or flag him down. Every single cell in my body told me to put my car in park, get out of my car, and collapse in front of his squad car. EVERYTHING INSIDE told me to do it. But I didn't, because I have a history of over-reacting and I couldn't stand the thought of my mom's expression when she got a call from the cops telling her what happened, and a hospital bill for what we both believed was just a caffeine overdose. I very well could have died for that decision. Fortunately, I did not. I got medical help in due time, received fluids and saline to re-balance my electrolytes, and was sent on my way with a new fear of god and appreciation for life.
It was that night, as I lay in bed, with a foreboding sense of graveyard dirt all around me, that I realized how much my life meant to me.
It really was an overnight change. Personally, for me, I found that following the Alcoholics Anonymous step of "yielding to a higher power" did it for me. But it was because I was fully aware that I was unable to help myself. I needed a spiritual intervention because, in my mind and heart, I knew that was what would work for me.
But I'll keep my spirituality to myself and focus on other things right now. I immediately began researching about health and nutrition, and that's when I learned about BMR and that my body burns 1,450 calories just in existing, even if I weren't to move a single muscle all day long. That helped make boosting my caloric intake easier - I could eat 1450 calories and still not worry about gaining a single pound. That was a stark improvement from 500-800cals a day!
As I regained health and strength, I decided that to justify eating more and more, I could work out more and more - but in a healthy way. Have goals, you know? I started with training for a 5k... and then a 10k.... all the way up to training for a half triathlon! I had always been an athlete, and focus on athletic endeavors instead of strictly weight loss ones, truly saved me life.
So, all of that to say, it still took me half a decade to let go of all my eating issues and panic attacks when I may have had a week or two of indulgence and / or lack of workouts. And I'd be remiss to say I don't still *occasionally* have freakouts when work is so busy that I don't have time to workout or eat properly (usually around the holidays), but I know now that I will survive and that I can rebound and to just enjoy those indulgent moments because they are few and far between!
BUT. I am not without lasting injury from my eating disorders.
Ever since then, I get scary heart palpitations occasionally. PVCs and PACs, sometimes up to 500 a day (a Holter monitor confirmed it for me last year). But it's usually linked to poor electrolyte balance and I've learned how to manage it with adequate sleep, hydration, diet and wearing a heart rate monitor while working out to make sure I don't push myself TOO hard. But the most disturbing thing - and the reason I am writing this blog entry - is that I have had IBS ever since the peak of my eating disorders. There are so many foods I must avoid, and I really wish I knew what the underlying cause is (is it a particular sugar in the foods? Fiber content? Something else?) so that I knew how to treat it and what to avoid. So far, all I know is I cannot handle any kind of bean or legume, not even hummus, no matter how it is or isn't cooked or prepared. I can't eat pears, dried fruit, and COUNTLESS vegetables. Some of these issues can be mitigated thru the use of Beano, although it is only just so effective. The inspiration for this post was actually because I introduced Sweet Potatoes into my diet this week and wouldn't you know, HORRIBLE IBS symptoms!!!! It's terrible... the bloating and cramps and other things.....
So, in a nutshell...
I wish I had had someone in my life when I was a teenager to pull me aside and show me how much more attractive FIT was, than SKINNY. I don't ever want to be skinny. I want to be a lean, mean athletic machine! :D But now, when I reference foods I am struggling with, you can understand my grievances. And I may also write blog entries on things I've learned about certain foods, how they biologically affect me, and ways I've learned to treat or cope with them. After all, I am a HUGE supporter of doing things the natural way - no drugs, no "quick fixes". I'd rather lead a life of abstaining from my favorite foods to avoid symptoms, then to take drugs to allow myself to have them.
Has anyone else ever experienced anything like this before? Have literature on it? Maybe might know the connection between pears, sweet potatoes, vegetables, and legumes? I have no problem with wheat, protein, or dairy.....
Oh well. That's it for today!
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