MY STORY

      Do I regret anything that has happened to up to this point in my life? No. Would I wish it to happen to anyone else? Never.

      At the end of my sophomore year I started to develop habits that should have been a red flag from the beginning. I wanted to be healthier. I wanted to be able to run faster and become a better runner. I started to count calories at the end of my sophomore year and did not think anything of it. I joined a health challenge on Instagram at the end of the summer before my junior year of high school. I won, and it is awesome to eat healthy!! However, I was in the mindset that eating less and eating only certain foods was what you had to do.

      I did not realize things were spiraling out of control. This all led to me cutting foods out of my diet, being scared to eat anything if I did not know what was in it or the calories, I started to eat less and less. While doing all of this I was working out more and at intense levels for cross country.

      My junior year I had the best cross country season I had ever had and still have ever had up until this point. My times got a lot faster than they had ever been but my life was going down hill. My body could run fast at the time, but your body can only stand being that thin and running intensely for so long until it starts to break down. After my best cross country season I did not take a break from running but just kept on going. I was too scared to not exercise, I had to do it.

      Not only did this do terrible things to my body but I was always in a bad mood, did not want to hangout with anyone, and avoided social situations that had anything to do with food. An eating disorder leaves you with nothing. It takes everything from you because you are constantly thinking about food and you can not live your life.

      It was around February when  my mom finally said something to me about it. I refused to get help from anyone, but I wanted to get better. Recovery is a lot easier said than done. In April I finally gave up counting calories and really started to try and get better. It wasn’t until late July going into my senior year that I really took it seriously. I reached out to a girl on Instagram and she helped me a lot. Whenever I needed to vent, need advice, or needed to people talked out of the crazy ideas in my head she was there to listen and help as much as she could.

      Recovery is not a straight road, it is full of ups and downs and you never truly recover 100%. I would go through times where I was super confident and doing great to feeling awful once again. It is natural to not always feel great about yourself all the times, but you can not the bad times force you to throw in the towel and quit.

      Something I learned the hard way was that you can not get better if you still count calories, track steps and how many calories you burn in a day. You have to let it all go no matter how hard it is to do. As well as you have to really want to recover. You may think that you want to but if deep down you really are not willing to try nothing is going to change. Recovery is scary as heck!! But we are all strong enough to do it.

      Today I still struggle with eating disorder thoughts. “Did I eat too much? Did I burn enough calories? But I just went out to eat. I can’t eat that because it is too many carbs.” Some days are better than others but on the bad days you have to power through and remember that goods days are coming.

      Yes my eating disorder is something that I would never wish on anyone because it is exhausting and miserable disease. However, without going through what I went through I would never have found my love for HEALTHY exercise and nutrition. I would have never realized that I want to help others out there that are going through the same things that I have went through.

If you ever need anything or are struggling please reach out!!