T Minus 4 Years
“I’m not exercising too much, Mom!”
She was worried, and rightly so. I was 7-10% body fat. I knew, because I purchased test equipment and tested almost daily. I still felt my thighs were too big; I couldn’t stand to look at them in the mirror. My body had started to cannibalize its own muscle for fuel. When a body reaches this point, it starts shutting down all non-essential functions. I would complain on the phone to my Mom about how awful I felt: I was exhausted, I couldn’t think, my digestion wasn’t working and I picked up every cold and flu bug. I felt like I was dying, because I was.
“Mom, the only thing that makes me feel better is exercise!”
“I’m worried you are going to have a heart attack though honey.”
“Mom, you are crazy, I’m just not feeling good, I don’t have heart issues. I gotta go, it’s almost sunset and I want to go for a run along the cliffs.”
I hung up the phone and put on a hot pink sports bra, hot pink skin tight shorts, size XS, and hot pink shoes. Just getting dressed exhausted me. I set off for a run along the cliffs, watching heads turn rather than watching the sunset. I made sure to run fast enough to pass any other girls out for a jog. I also made sure to notice who had thinner thighs.
It was Kurt’s mother who finally pointed out that I might have a problem with food. Kurt was befuddled at his mother’s suggestion. He thought I looked great. He hated to see me feeling so crappy, so he suggested I give up running for a while and take up yoga. I agreed that something needed to change, since I didn’t even have the energy to cook myself food. So, I joined a hot power vinyasa studio and took the most challenging classes offered, sometimes twice a day. But I didn’t feel yoga was a very good workout, so I would arrive early to do crunches and stay late to work on handstands.
The health issues worsened as I refused to eat carbs and my weight continued to drop. I couldn’t digest my food because my body was diverting energy away from digestion to spare my brain and heart. The food would sit in my stomach and rot. As soon as I ate, one of two things would occur: nausea, or an urgent need to poo. If it was the latter, my food would exit looking much the same way it had entered. So entered bulimia.
It started innocently enough. I ate, I felt ill, I vomited, I felt better. I was, however, forcing the vomiting part by sticking a finger down my throat, but it was easy enough. Secretly, I loved the fact that eating made me feel sick. I could eat enough to satisfy the watchful eyes of those around me, then say I wasn’t feeling well–which was true–and excuse myself to the bathroom. I fooled both myself and Kurt into thinking my illness was physical instead of mental. Being able to enjoy a meal without hours of painful nausea became addicting. It wasn’t long before I discovered that it didn’t matter if I cheated on my diet or not. I was going to vomit it out anyway, so who cared what I ate?
During this time, I was working for a software company. The job required a great deal of travel on airplanes and a lot of overnight hotel stays. I arrived to my hotel late one night, exhausted and frail, as usual.
“What do mean the elevator is broken?” I glared at the woman behind the front desk of the hotel.
“I’m very sorry ma’am, but we just have you on the second floor tonight and the stairs are right there.”
That was all it took. Exhausted, I burst into tears right there in hotel lobby. I turned around so I wouldn’t embarrass myself. How could I explain that I was so entirely worn out that even the thought of walking up a flight of stairs made me cry? I made a scene of slamming the retractable suitcase handle down, knocking the bag on its side and bending over awkwardly to hoist the bag off the ground by the side handle. It might as well have been filled with lead, I could barely lift it to knee hight. I teetered in my three inch heels. My size zero pencil skirt restricted my thighs as I began to take tiny steps toward the stairs. Five stairs up, the edges of my vision went dark. I dropped my luggage and clutched for the rail to catch my breath. My stomach churned. I felt like I was going to barf.
Eventually, I completed the odyssey to my hotel room. I found fruit and dark chocolate on the bar, a thank you for being an elite hotel club member. I threw them in the trash, lest I give in to the sinful temptation of carbohydrates. I had already eaten 1100 calories that day. The food tracker app on my phone told me my carb intake was at 17 grams. If I went over 20, I was in danger of being knocked out of ketosis. I had awakened that morning in a different city and had gone to the gym in a different hotel. I had given a presentation on my feet for 7 hours, dropped off my rental car, boarded a shuttle to an airport, got on and off a plane, took another shuttle to another rental car company, drove to another hotel, and in the morning I would go to the gym at this hotel and do it all over again.
I went through my nightly routine, adjusting the AC, closing the blackout curtains, choosing the firmness setting on the adjustable bed and brushing my teeth. Standing in the bathroom over the sink, I saw the apple peeking out of the trash. The trash bag was fresh. I could just give the apple a quick rinse and it would be fine. NO! There are so many carbs in an apple! But the skin is pretty much just fiber. Fiber would help keep me full overnight with almost no calories. I could just eat the skin by taking shallow bites with just my teeth. I reached in the trash, retrieved the apple, gave it a rinse and sank my teeth in just below the surface of the skin. I allowed myself an additional two bites of the sweet white flesh. Oh, the decadence, the aroma of its natural sugars, the way the flesh exploded in my mouth! My entire body sighed in pleasure. I took two more deep bites, filling my mouth with with delicious sin.
Guilt. Sickness. Disgust. I had to get it out of me. NO! It’s just an apple. Don’t puke! Go to bed. But this lack of discipline is exactly how people end up fat and unhealthy. Out! NOW! It has to come out! But then a thought gripped me…what about the chocolate…if I was going to puke anyway, I might as well enjoy the chocolate first. I fished the chocolate out of the trash. It was gone in under 15 seconds. I was already leaning over the toilet before I swallowed.
I pulled back my hair, lifted the toilet seat, dropped to my knees and inserted the index and middle finger of my right hand deeply into my throat. I gagged once, twice, and there it was. First the frothy brown chocolate and then, still perfectly red, the skin of the apple came up looking the same as it went in. I made sure to look closely. Success! It hadn’t had time to be broken down by stomach acids, which meant almost no calories had been absorbed. I flushed the toilet, washed the vomit off my face, rinsed my mouth and went to bed. Tomorrow, I would wake up and do it all over again, and the scale would be none the wiser.
The thinner I got, the more my body revolted and the hungrier it grew. It is awful to feel you have no control over your body. Each morning’s first thought became, what can I eat today that won’t make me fat? Thoughts of eating held my mind hostage, consuming more that 90% of my brain power. My animal brain was fighting for survival, and all I wanted to do was to stop being hungry. I spent countless hours researching the physiological causes of hunger and how to stop them. I tried every bio-hack on the internet, from fat-adaption to juicing to intermittent fasting. It didn’t matter how much or little I ate. I was ALWAYS hungry.
A few months earlier, a friend suggested I see a therapist about my issues around body weight and fitness. I felt incredibly weak-willed. I felt like I had a problem controlling my desire to eat. I agreed that maybe a therapist could help–help me lose weight, that is. I met this particular therapist only one time. I don’t remember her name or anything from the session, except when she took off her glasses, sat down her pen, leaned in and said,
“You have an eating disorder.”
“Oh…no, I don’t think I was clear, This isn’t an eating disorder. I’m legitimately really hungry. I don’t starve myself, and I only throw up when I feel nauseous. I don’t have an eating disorder. I only throw up if I don’t feel good. I just have a physical stomach disorder, not an eating disorder.”
“Melanie,” she leaned back in her chair and folded her arms, “you are paying good money for my professional opinion, you can do with it whatever you want. But you DO have an eating disorder.”
I never went back to see her again. I wish I could remember her name. I’d like to send her a thank you note.
So Hungry
Midwestern farmer’s granddaughters from homeschooling, evangelical Christian families are not allowed to have desires. We are wholesome. Singing in the choir, we are girls who can cook and clean and raise children. We are mild mannered women who marry very attractive, tall and muscular white men with nice white collar jobs. We live in homes we own. We drive cars we lease. We definitely do not want. We support our husbands in their work, stay quiet and suffer long. We put the needs of our families in front of our own. And, if we are ever honest enough with ourselves to feel a want, we are even more miserable–because we certainly would never try to get it. That might inconvenience someone.
Because we have no idea how to say no, we assume no one else does either. So, we avoid asking for anything, as someone might say yes but not actually want to do the thing we’ve asked. Then, we worry they won’t like us because we bother them too much, And what could be worse than not being liked? Then we will be lonely. Instead, we say what we don’t mean, trying to make everyone else happy and ending up the loneliest people on earth. Women like me do not have the luxury of acknowledging desire. Better to learn to stop feeling it.
We get really good at talking in code, skirting the topic when we want something from somebody. In turn, we get really good at guessing what someone might want from us. We become chameleons with our words. And we become mind readers.
I feel every person’s watchful eye. I feel every word spoken in subtext, just beneath the actual conversation. I feel every flinch, pulling away, bristle, and cold shoulder. And it all feels the same. I feel everything, yet I have only ever felt one thing. I feel hungry.
Not long after I fired my therapist. my eating issues grew more and more distracting. Eventually, as my body began starving to death, survival instincts began to triumph over will power. Minor indulgences gave way to full on binges.
I remember my first intentional binge. It was the beginning of my work day. I checked my work email for the third time. I opened a PowerPoint I should probably edit. I checked Facebook. I took a quick peek at my personal email. Gosh I’m hungry! I walked to the kitchen. In the sink, my dirty breakfast dishes were soaking. I gave the bowl a quick rinse, poured a second bowl of granola, added some plain, non-fat, Greek yogurt, and returned to my desk. Munching, I clicked over to my work email and back to the PowerPoint. I finger-scraped the remaining yogurt from the bowl. I sat the bowl next to my computer and began edits on my presentation.
But the bowl was so gross and distracting and my fingers were sticky. I carried the bowl to the kitchen and gave it a rinse. Gosh I’m still freaking starving! I grabbed the box of granola and stuck my hand in. After eating two or three handfuls, I flipped the box to inspect the nutrition information. I didn’t want to know. I set down the box. I picked it up. I set it down. I picked it up and carried it into my office and sat it next to my computer. An hour later, the box was empty, my Facebook status had been updated twice, my presentation still wasn’t done, more emails had arrived in my inbox and I was still starving. Desperate to feel full, I speculated that maybe I hadn’t consumed enough micro-nutrition. I found a banana, slathered it in almond butter and devoured it. Shit! I was still hungry! Maybe I hadn’t had enough protein? I opened the canister of protein powder and measured a scoop into a cup. Darn, we’re out of milk….Well, I need some more fat to feel satiated anyway! I mixed the powder with coconut oil and ate the concoction with a spoon. It was a little too dry, so I added a bit more oil. Then it was runny, so I added more protein powder.
Guilt. In my head, I quickly tabulated my sin: box of granola, 900 calories, yogurt, 250 calories, banana with almond butter, 300 calories, scoop of protein powder, 150 calories, 2 tablespoons of coconut oil, 250 calories…Ugh! I had just eaten my entire caloric allotment for the day, plus some. It was only 10:23 am…and I was still hungry.
Screw it! This has to come out. This has to come out! All of it out! I made up my mind that what was in my belly would have to come out. But then a thought struck…I had already screwed up, I was already about to make myself vomit, why not just feel full for a few moments of pure bliss before I pay the penalty for my sin?
Like coffee jitters, panic shook my body with anxiety. My hands flew from cupboard to fridge to freezer and back again, looking for something I could eat. I didn’t want Kurt to get suspicious, so I decided just to eat a little of everything. The more “bad” I had deemed the food, the more I enjoyed it. Two pieces of bread with almond butter, 4 triscuits, a scoop of ice cream, a little more ice cream, a handful of nuts, a bite of a chocolate bar from the freezer, a little of last night’s leftovers.
The food went in faster and faster, I chewed less, tasted less and swallowed more. I careened from sweet to salty, from cold to hot and back again. Each bite brought a tiny hit of dopamine and each swallow a feeling of loss. I wanted more, more, more! I checked every cupboard, the fridge and freezer, I checked them again. Anxiety gripped my body when I realized there was nothing left to eat without arousing suspicion. I sped to the bathroom.
Hair in a ponytail, toilet seat up, knees on the ground, fingers down throat. I watched as my sins were punished in reverse order: leftovers, then ice cream, followed by nuts, bread, and finally granola. I gagged one last time, trying to rid myself of any final calories. I rose, washed my face, cleaned the toilet bowl, brushed my teeth and returned to my computer. Exiting the bathroom, my entire body relaxed. For the next two hours I rode the calm; my PowerPoint was completed and emailed, and I was onto my next task before I knew it.
Two more binges followed that week. Over the next couple of months, the frequency of my binges increased and the amount of food I ate in each binge increased as well. I hated it. I didn’t want to do it. I knew how unhealthy it was. But I was starving, all day, everyday, constantly wanting to eat but denying myself until all my willpower was spent. The only time I wasn’t thinking about food was that brief window of euphoria immediately following a binge. I hated feeling so helpless.
I became better and better at hiding what I was doing. The night of my 28th birthday, I was sucking down the last bite of my complimentary birthday Double Chocolate Brownie Ice Cream Sundae at a fancy restaurant. I faked a smile toward the other couples at the table and to my husband, inwardly converting caloric guilt into nausea. My churning stomach felt like it was going to boil over. I excused myself to the bathroom. I made no sound as I purged myself of my sin. On the drive home, as Kurt drove the dark truck, I secretly picked at leftovers in a white styrofoam box. I felt guiltier than ever.
A binge feels like the ultimate fuck-it. Fuck being skinny, fuck what I’m supposed to do, fuck the food rules. I’m fucking hungry and I’m going to fucking eat. At least that’s how it starts. That is the animal inside, trying to survive at all costs.
But once the rules are broken, the first forbidden food consumed, I want to stop, I really do. And I do stop. Chewing stops, swallowing stops, I set down the empty container. And I feel sick. What have I just done? The guilt-induced nausea gets worse the longer I am still. There are two ways to stop the sick feeling: I can vomit or I can eat something flavorful enough to overpower the guilt. For a moment, I can distract myself with decadent chewing, slurping, tasting and swallowing.
The problem is, I knew I shouldn’t purge. But the only options seemed to be chocolate or ice cream or chips or–most typically for me–protein powder mixed with coconut oil, because there was nothing else “bad” in the house. But 5 seconds later, when the chewing has ceased, when the flavor has left my tongue, after I have swallowed, the nausea returned, and stronger. Three more bites, a momentary pleasure, yet more nausea. I ranged from concoction to concoction, each one richer and sweeter than the last. Each time I finished a dish, a feeling of loss gripped me, to be soothed only with yet another bite. My body fought to live, and I struggled to be thinner.
A binge is awful. And I hated doing it. So I started reading eating disorder books. They suggested I ate to fill some emotional need. I hated this idea. It was the most idiotic thing I had ever heard. The books suggested I try to comfort myself in some other way, like taking a bath or a long walk. Bullshit! I was hungry, fucking hungry! I went to see a new therapist, this time semi-admitting that I had a problem in my relationship with food. She suggested I pay attention the the emotions I was feeling just before a binge. Emotions? I was HUNGRY, really really HUNGRY. I didn’t know anything about any emotions. All I knew was that I was hungry and, no matter what, I wasn’t going to get full.
Finally, I stumbled upon a book which explained scientifically what happens to our brains after prolonged extreme caloric restriction. The author explained that a body that has been starved will continue to feel starved even after proper feeding due to disrupted hormones. That the only way to reset the metabolism was to increase caloric intake dramatically. I had been starving and underfeeding myself for over a decade. My body was throwing a protest rally. The book said to eat until you were full. It said you should expect to gain a significant amount of weight at first, but eventually, the body would restore itself to its set point. I felt vindicated. All of these years, books, therapists, group meetings…at last, I wasn’t crazy or not dealing with my emotions or battling childhood traumas. I was fucking hungry.
But I didn’t like the idea of gaining weight. In fact, I hated it and refused to do it. I wasn’t ready to give up my “perfect” body, which I had worked so hard to earn. My therapist suggested I read Geneen Roth’s books. In her books, she tells the story of battling an eating disorder, finally abandoning all her food rules and following only one guideline: eat whatever the hell you want to eat, and stop when you are full. She recounts eating nothing but sweets for three months. She gained a significant amount of weight, but eventually her body no longer craved such sugary foods. After a period of re-feeding, she found her very healthy, slender, natural weight without ever needing to pit will power against cravings. Her books seemed to confirm scientific books on the biochemistry of starvation. I loved the idea of eating anything I wanted, as much as I wanted to eat. But I couldn’t possibly do that. I would gain weight. I could imagine no worse fate. So I continued to find myself kneeling on piss-covered, gas station bathroom floors, my fingers down my throat and vomit in my hair. Nothing could be worse than getting F.A.T.
My risky relationship with food progressed and my health issues worsened. I had my hormone levels tested and discovered that I was in early menopause–at 30 years old. My body had stopped producing the hormones needed for childbirth, tricked into thinking I lived in a period of famine, that it was an unsafe environment to bring forth a child. Not only had I stopped menstruating, I was exhausted, had hot flashes, night sweats, aching joints, aging skin and extreme emotions. I had, what seemed to me, a perfect-looking body. But I felt like a 60 year old grandma. And I had no idea why, totally incapable of being honest with myself. I had seen several doctors who continually referred me to more doctors.
The first wake up call came during a work trip. I was battling a fever, but doing my job anyway. It was late at night and I was driving to the hotel after my flight. I was too exhausted to think, my body too frail to fight the illness, and I made a mistake. At 60 mph, I swerved slightly off the road and hit a rock the size of a basketball on the shoulder with my rental car. The tire blew out, the fender was smashed, and I got lucky. That week, my fever would turn into the flu and, along with it, a urinary tract infection, bronchitis and an outbreak of staph infection on my skin. My immune system had no energy to keep up. I was so ill that I feared for my life. My high school weight was 155 pounds. Now, at 117 pounds, my body was giving up. I admitted to myself that something was wrong.
Several times, I controlled my urges to binge and purge for months at a stretch, swearing never to do it again. Totally swearing off unhealthy behaviors, I took a hammer to my bathroom scale one day. My obsession evolved from not eating to “healthy” eating. I started juicing, eating super foods and drinking chalky shakes. If it wasn’t organic, non-gmo, gluten free and paleo, I was too good for it. There is a clinical name for this type of eating disorder. Its call orthorexia–an obsession with healthy eating. I still refused to believe that I had a problem. I convinced myself that I was just physically sick, which I was, but I couldn’t see that I was the cause of my own misery. I read every blog about healing the gut and autoimmune diseases, listing to podcasts on “bulletproof eating” and “primal living”. I paid hundreds of dollars a month for supplements. As I started to be able to eat more food again, the hunger came back, ten times stronger. And I started gaining weight. Eating breakfast 3 times in a single morning and puking up the last two became a daily ritual. I couldn’t fight the hunger, but I couldn’t gain weight either…not after I finally looked this good! I couldn’t understand why I still felt awful, drained of energy, constantly sick and not getting my period.
Sitting on crinkly white paper, perched on a table in another doctor’s office, I hit my eating disorder bottom. I had endured the University of California San Diego hospital for more than three hours that afternoon. I had been to the lab twice to get needles stuck in my veins. I had seen four different doctors and three different nurses. Each specialist had entered, chatted with me, ordered labs, and returned with results. My labs showed I was sick, but they couldn’t figure out why. Finally, the fourth doctor strode into the room and shut the door behind her. She was in her second year of residency at UCSD. She was beautiful, thin, younger than me, wearing heels and a white coat. She sat down and didn’t even bother beating around the bush.
“Melanie, have you ever had bulimia?”
My instantaneous tears answered for me. I made the decision in that moment never to make myself throw up again.
But I had no idea how much work that decision would require of me.
__________
*some names have been changed to protect privacy
__________
New episodes are released weekly but you can subscribe to be sure you never miss an episode and to get early access each week.
If you liked this episode a Behind the Scenes Video Commentary is available for Insiders only.
While you wait for more episodes from “100 Days in Mexico” you can read a lot more content in the VIP section: Become an Insider.
If You Liked it, Share it
English