When food becomes an obsession
- AK
- 28 janv. 2020
- 10 min de lecture
Food: harmless little pieces of energy that humans need on a daily basis in order to stay alive and to be able to perform the tasks they are meant to.
Obsession: a persistent disturbing preoccupation with an often unreasonable idea or feeling
Calories: a unit of energy
Eating is something that is supposed to be natural for humans because it helps us function. Food keeps us alive. It gives energy to our body to do amazing things in our lives. Nevertheless, sometimes one can have unusual reactions and behaviors towards food.
The reasons? Emotions, trauma, pressure, and comments from people, social media, society “standards” to follow and the list goes on.
According to NEDA, close to 70 million people in the world are likely to experience disordered eating or have an eating disorder in their life. I was shocked by this high number but it is actually not surprising to me. Triggers are everywhere in our daily lives, might you be aware of them or not. Nobody taught us how to healthily cope with them. To protect ourselves, we all create our own way to cope.
Since I was a child, I have always loved food. I was always curious to try new things to eat. I always stood next to my grandma and my mom when they cooked and when I was not next to them, I was never far from the kitchen to help them. Mealtimes have always been a time well spent with my family when we talked about our days and laughed around a tasty homemade meal. I have never heard of calories, “bad” foods and diets in the household as a child. I ate when I was hungry and stopped when I was satisfied.
But sadly, things changed when I grew up. When I started to go to national camps, I learned that food was apparently something we all needed to control. We were not allowed to eat too many carbs. Sugar was the enemy and the less you ate the better. Mealtimes became feared because I knew that I would hear comments and discover new rules about what we were allowed to eat and what we were not. Plates were always checked by coaches. They were not always aware that they were doing it, but as 9-10 years old children we noticed and found it annoying. After mealtimes, my teammates and I were still hungry. In fact, we probably ate less than 400 kcal after having practiced for 3 hours in the morning and before having to practice for 3 more in the afternoon. In the morning, we went for a 30-min run without anything in our little hungry stomachs (at 9-10 years old !). How unhealthy was that?
With time, it became normal for us. If we wanted to perform, we had to follow the rules. The older gymnasts around us were also controlling what they were eating. I thought it was normal so I did the same. In gymnastics, the way you look is very important. The thinner and lighter, the better. We throw our bodies in the air all day long so it makes sense that being in a good shape can make things easier. We got weighted every single day before practice (yes, every single day !). When we gained as little as 200g, something was said to us. We either had to do more conditioning or to watch what we were eating or both (lol). Comments about how our bodies looked came from everywhere and from everybody (coaches, spectators, judges …). It was not necessarily directed to me, but when you constantly hear that “this girl needs to lose weight”, or “this one is too chubby”, “this one looks great, she probably lost weight” etc… then you quickly understand that people only care about the way you look and not even about your gymnastics.
I associated being thin with being successful.
Because I wanted to be successful, I started the only thing I knew would help me: controlling my body.
At 13 years old, I started to weight myself at least 5 times a day: before breakfast, after breakfast, after lunch, after practice, before dinner, after dinner, and before bed. My weight was obviously fluctuating throughout the day, but I knew how to control it. I started to eat more healthily. I felt great because my coaches told me I looked good and that I need to stay like that. I started to count calories. In class, I was planning what I would eat during the day and calculated how many calories I’ve already eaten during the day.
I was thinking about food every second of my day. At first, I was hungry, but hunger went away slowly. I never stopped eating ever, because as a high-level gymnast I still needed some energy to practice. But because I was restricting and practicing so much, my weight started to go down. The doctor, dietician and even my coach became concerned. I had to answer the questions from the SCOFF questionnaire because they wanted to see what was wrong with me.
While answering the questions I thought “they are stupid if they think I will be honest while answering those questions”… and I answered what I thought was expected. The doctor even called my parents to know if I was eating while at home. The thing was that I was heavily restricting during the week, and ate during the weekend so that nobody could have a hint about what was going on. I just told everybody that I lost weight because I was stressed and because practice was hard. Everybody believed it which made me happy because the last thing I wanted was being bothered with that.
I was freaked out about gaining weight. When I say freaked out, I really was. Like the world would stop if I did.
If in the morning I gained as little as 100g, I would be in a bad mood for the rest of the day … Honestly it makes me sad to write that because I remember the fear I had every single morning for years before stepping on the scale.
My teammates always asked me how I was doing to stay the way I looked. People always told me that I looked good and that I was lucky to look the way I did. But it actually meant that something complicated was going on.
Something shifted one summer after I got food poisoning for a week while abroad on vacation. I was not able to eat a single thing for 5 days and I could not get out of my bed because I had literally no energy at all even just to stand up. The week after that I returned to the gym. People kept telling me how great I looked. I told them I was sick for an entire week but nobody seemed to listen and to care. What matters was that I looked good. A couple of weeks later, I started going to college in France. It was hard and stressful. Some of my coaches noticed as I kept losing weight and one of my teammates knew. They wanted me to talk to the doctor but I never went. I always found excuses not to go. I became very tired, I had no energy and my mind was still consumed with thoughts about food. I was more focused on my food intake than at school. I still do not know today how I managed to get good grades in school and being competitive in gymnastics. I mean, I know actually… PERFECTIONISM. When I set my mind to something, I do it the best I can. I put all my energy in it until I succeed even if it means being drained at the end and at the edge of burning out…(But I learned not to do that anymore:)) Not very healthy though but it worked for years. It is actually well known that people with eating disorders are high achievers. In fact, most of them have a type A personality (temperament characterized by excessive ambition, competitiveness, drive, impatience, need for control, unrealistic sense of urgency)
In 2017, I thought I needed to go away from this toxic environment. I got the opportunity to move to the US and to do college gymnastics which I was thrilled and so excited about. On my first medical appointment of the year, which is required to be cleared for gym, I also had to answer the same questions from the SCOFF questionnaire. I still wasn’t completely honest when answering them. I was tired of having those constants thoughts about food in my head, but I was also too scared to let go of this control and to let anyone know. I was at a “healthy weight” but the doctor still asked me to go see the dietician. She explained to me what I needed to eat. I listened but in my head, I was thinking “there is no way I am eating this”. I was probably annoying with her at times (sorry…) She just tried to help and to educate me about how to eat healthy and enough to be able to perform and to have enough energy for practices and meets. Even if I was not listening back then, what I learned is very helpful to me today. It was scary because compared to what was taught to me in France, I was now allowed to eat while being a gymnast. I tried to add little snacks after practice in order to recover faster. I was surprised to see that it helped me to recover faster. At times it was easy for me to follow what she said, and other times, especially when stress kicked in, I couldn’t and went back to old habits and beliefs.
Because practice was different in the US with more conditioning, I saw my body changing and gained muscles which I hated. I don’t know why but I just don’t like being muscular. I got sort of used to it but I still hated it. Then, season started and I was scared about what people would think about my body. The stress of traveling, school and competing was hard to manage. But the season was so much fun !
The following summer was though. I was always sad and was not motivated to do anything. I was a little lost with myself and still had those constant thoughts about my body and food… I remember going to a doctor's appointment that summer. She asked me: “ Do you rather be sad and skinny or be happy in a bigger body?” The answer was obvious to me and she sent me to therapy.
She didn’t ask more questions which I was happy about, because I was not ready to share anything at the time.
I was referred to a therapist specialized in sports performance and eating disorders. At first nobody, except the doctor, knew I was going to therapy. I felt bad because I thought therapy was for people who had problems and for me even though I was struggling, I thought that my issues weren’t serious enough. While opening up to someone, I learned that I really needed help…I slowly started to open up to my coaches who were very supportive throughout the entire process. They never asked about any details but were there if I needed. Same for my teammates that were supportive.
Recovery Journey
The first step of starting recovery was to accept and understand that what I was doing was unhealthy and even harmful for my body. It took me a long time to acknowledge that… but I understood it at some point after hearing my therapist saying the same things to me every single week.
Then, not weighting my food was the next step. Slowly, the next big step was to stop weighting myself multiple times a day and then not weighting myself at all anymore. Breaking the scale was something freeing even if I freaked out about not being able to weight myself at first.
Understanding that I am not defined by a number and that the number on the scale just tells me my relation to gravity was something hard to believe but at some point I did believe it.
I learned that knowing how much I weight is not going to add anything to my life. Therefore, I don’t do it anymore and when I go to the doctor I do blind weights-in and I ask her not to mention any number(Yes you are allowed to ask that. I didn't know it was an option but it's honestly a game-changer because who cares anyway ?!).
Finding the right balance with exercise was also very challenging. It took time, but today I have a healthy relationship with exercise. I am not obsessing about the number of calories I am burning when I do exercise, but I rather listen to my body and to how working out makes me feel. And if I am tired or just not motivated, I don’t do anything.
Last but not least, I am not going to lie, the food part was the hardest and most challenging thing. Eating enough, not restricting, not overthinking it and not planning what I eat was not always easy every day especially during stressful times. I am still not ready to eat all of my “fear foods” but I know I will be one day and I am not stressing over that anymore.
It is a process and it takes times. Unlearning the past beliefs and behaviors requires lots of work, time and patience.
Coping with triggers is also an everyday challenge. In fact, every single day, I hear someone talking about dieting, the amount of weight they need to lose, that x food is bad or that y needs to exercise to burn the calories from the meal y ate yesterday… During those times, I try to remember that those thoughts are irrational and that I don’t want to go back to old habits again because it doesn't feel good.
Please remember that someone’s look and eating habits is none of your business. They might be trying to recover from an eating disorder or disordered eating. They might be sick. Or they might be healthy. We are all different and so are our bodies. We all have different needs and different tastes. Even if we all ate the same, we would still look different. You need to find out what works for you and what makes you feel good.
There is no need to comment on what people decide to eat or not to eat.
You are ENOUGH and UNIQUE just as you ARE.
And if someone wants to share their experience with me, I am always here to listen and to support you just as people did for me. Having a strong support system is key.
If you want to learn more about eating disorders and disordered eating, check out the National Eating Disorder Association website: https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/
Thank you for reading until the end :)
References:
Comments