Tag: exercise

“You are looking well today.” My aunt’s words became frozen in time. As a 13-year-old with anorexia nervosa, my brain sprang to high alert. Thoughts raged: “I’m fat. I look horrible. I must eat less.” Recovery roared in reverse. That incident happened decades ago, and I have forgiven my ignorant...

Do you wish to look like the girl in the magazine? I will let you in on a secret… the girl in the magazine doesn’t even look like that.  I know: I have been that girl.  Representations of the ‘perfect’ female body are pervasive throughout modern society, consolidated and perpetuated...

In October 2014, at age 31, I achieved the award that marked the pinnacle of my fitness competition career: the coveted Bikini Athlete Pro Card. Standing onstage in a Hertfordshire theatre, smiling for the winner’s photographs, I appeared the epitome of health and fitness. But, in reality, I was suffering...

I have pondered this question repeatedly for the past few months. Sometimes it has kept me awake at night, because what if ‘it’ happens while I am not paying attention? What if the weight creeps in unannounced and I can’t do anything to stop it?  I panic. “I can’t let...

‘I swapped one form of control for another, exercise became my way to suppress emotions, to sculpt my body, it prevented me from reaching full recovery.’ If you scroll through social media, or read recovery stories about anorexia online, you might see a storyline like this: ‘I chose to recover,...

My story is not that different from most people who have experienced an eating disorder. My struggle with Anorexia Nervosa (AN) fits the textbook definition** and the similarities between my story and others are uncanny. However, for myself, as with others, the illness experience itself was incredibly personal. Most importantly,...

Today, I pushed another hole in the prison wall that an eating disorder erected in my brain at age 11. That wall effectively disconnected my healthy self from my body until I was 55. Thirteen years on, eating three meals and three snacks a day without guilt, shame and self-loathing...