Well. I made this blog a long time ago with the intention of posting about my baking (I'm a bit of a baking addict he he) and working on my food photography. At the time, I had an equal love of fitness, specifically group fitness, that pretty much balanced out any baking I ate. Outwardly, life was good; I had a decent job with great hours that meant I could easily fit in all of my gym/group fit responsibilities, I had awesome friends, a nice place to live and, to be honest, I looked pretty damn good too (although my means of maintaining this look were less than ideal). I'd broken up with my boyfriend a couple of years previous and although I was happy with where I was in life, things felt so good that it was a bit disappointing not to have anyone to share it all with. Seed of discontent #1. Anywho, a friend and I had spoken about entering a local beauty pageant and I figured it was worth giving it a go for the experience. It proved to be one of the best things I'd ever done and the cocktail evening for the pageant remains one of the best nights of my life. I felt invincible. Somewhere along the way, I even began to think I might have a chance at placing in the comp itself, despite being short and distinctly athletic rather than the stereotypical tall and willowy pageant figure. During this time, I'd started seeing a decent guy but after being single for quite a while, I've got to admit that I was way keener on the attention than the guy himself. He gave my ego a huuge boost that I'm sure contributed to my confidence in that darn pageant and I will always be grateful to him for that. Long story short, I was flying pretty high as the competition approached its end and I was quite hopeful of picking up a prize or placing. But when it came to the end, zip. Nada. Nothing. First world problems, huh? At the time I just brushed it off as I was very aware that I didnt want to look like a bitter, sore loser. But in the weeks that followed, it really plagued me. Seed of discontent #2. Things didn't pan out with the dude I'd been seeing (seed #3, just as well really, poor guy deserved someone who was equally keen on him!) And I started to descend into a bit of a self-pity pit of doom - I'd worked hard to get in good shape for the pageant, I was in a good life situation but I was STILL 'sad and alone.'
I'd organised a holiday with close friends as sort of a celebration after the pageant. Unfortunately, this is where it all started to go wrong. I developed this attitude that, 'well feck, being super fit and confident didn't get me anywhere so I might as well just let it all go.' The cosy, girly chocolate fests turned into binges for me; I took a perverse pleasure in shocking people with how much crap I could put away. Needless to say, it didn't take long for me to lose all the condition I'd worked so hard to gain. Negative thoughts led to negative actions, negative results and incredibly negative, destructive habits. I developed disordered eating.
I had had brushes with disordered eating in the past. When I was about 17, I fell into a restrictive eating habit fueled by a desire to lose what I felt was excess weight. In hindsight, I was completely healthy but I sure didn't feel that way at the time. I would only eat a piece of toast for breakfast and lunch and maybe an egg toasted sandwich at dinner. Exercise was part of it too. If I didn't go for a really intense bike ride every day, I would be overwhelmed by guilt and would skip meals to try and make up for it. It was my first year of uni. I was tired, volatile and unhappy. I can't even remember what shook me out of those habits but something did. Even after that, I was still very regimented with what I ate. It was not unusual for me to eat the same three meals for months on end. For example, breakfast would be half a cup of oats made into porridge with milk. Lunch was a cheese sandwich. Dinner was a sausage made up with a curry sauce and served on couscous. Every day (with the exception of desert nights where I would just eat dessert in lieu of dinner). Again, not sure when it changed exactly but it was probably around the time I got into group fitness. Wanting to be super fit and look the part too, I started cutting food so that I could lean out. Breakfast stayed pretty much the same but I was now only eating an apple for lunch. Dinner was pretty normal but I'd started snacking on dates/choc buttons after dinner. I was working out at least 3 hours a day. I was hungry. Scratch that, I was HANGRY. But it worked. I mean, I was maintaining the figure I thought was ideal, or was at least a starting point for getting properly ripped. I got really mixed reactions from people about my weight at this time. Some told me I looked great. Others, like my mum, thought I was getting too skinny and literally tried to feed me my favourite danger foods to (in the nicest way possible) fatten me up. This just made me hangrier and I would be even more determined to stick to my restricted intake/overtraining regime.
This brings us back to the post-pageant blowout. From that point, I seesawed up and down with my weight, mood, nutrition and workouts. I did really well for about two months at one point and ate clean the entire time. But something stupid eventually unsettled me and it all ended with an epic binge. I'd had enough of the ups and downs at this point and I'd also given up trying to explain what was happening with me to my mum. She was of the opinion that I just needed to stop worrying and that everything would turn out OK, that somehow something would click in me and I'd no longer have these problems with food. I really wish it were that simple! Any who, I wasn't prepared to sit there and do nothing at this point so I booked an appointment to talk to the nurse. I am so grateful to the nurse I ended up seeing. She listened, helped me to talk about the difficult bits, let me cry, gave me tissues, advice and even a hug. I walked out of the doctors that day feeling like I might be able to get back to normal after all. Well, whatever normal is.
That was about 6 months ago. My situation has gotten better, worse and better again. It's definitely a two-steps-forward-one-step-back kinda thing. I've learned a lot about what doesn't work for me in the last while and despite being physically in the same place as this time last year, mentally, I've made some important progress. I still screw up. I still spend way too much of every day stressing about food. Binges happen. But I am finding better ways to pick myself up after these events and not take it out on myself or those supporting me, primarily my fantastic manfriend, of whom more will be spoken in a future post. I am incredibly lucky to have him around :-)
I haven't said much about my destructive/disordered/self-abusive eating patterns because it's still hard and raw for me to talk about. I've been stimulated to post all this by the words of an incredibly inspiring young woman who has gone through many of the same things (and so much more!) as me. Her honesty, sincerity and eloquence is humbling and a huge source of comfort and encouragement to me in my own journey back to a healthy lifestyle . Check her out at http://fitmissnz.blogspot.co.nz/
