I’ve always struggled with binge eating. However, when I committed to my health journey of losing weight to be a better runner, I soon became enamored with the idea of being my healthiest self. Yes, I know that does not sound awful, maybe even endearing, but like what the world says, “Too much of anything is not always good”.
I started becoming obsessed with being healthy and researching the latest and greatest diets, articles, trends, etc. I started with the Whole 30. Then I watched a documentary about the benefits of the Keto and Leaky Gut diet, which caused me to change my diet. Then I took a blood allergy test and avoided all the foods I was deemed allergic to based on those three drops of blood. I was obsessed about being healthy.
After a year of trying to figure out the “Best of the Best diet”, I realized that I had a problem when people would invite me to eat and I could not find dishes on the menu that could accommodate my Whole 30, Keto, Leaky Gut and Allergy Based eating. So I started supplementing my “diet” with, you guessed it, supplements. When my supplements started replacing real food, I knew I needed to talk to my therapist about it.
I was diagnosed with Orthorexia in early March 2019. Based on the National Eating Disorders website, orthorexia is a disorder that describes the obsession of being healthy. I had all these symptoms listed on the National Eating Disorder Website, and I quote:
- “Compulsive checking of ingredient lists and nutritional labels”
- “Cutting out an increasing number of food groups (all sugar, all carbs, all dairy, all meat, all animal products)”
- “An inability to eat anything but a narrow group of foods that are deemed ‘healthy’ or ‘pure’”
- “Unusual interest in the health of what others are eating”
- “Spending hours per day thinking about what food might be served at upcoming events”
- “Showing high levels of distress when ‘safe’ or ‘healthy’ foods aren’t available”
- “Obsessive following of food and ‘healthy lifestyle’ blogs on Twitter and Instagram”
With this diagnosis, I’m battling inner demons related to my relationship with food that have always been there. I’m understanding my negative outlook on how I view fitness and health and tackling them head on. And to be honest, I’m really scared how this will affect my future fitness progression. So here I am, coming out with an eating disorder…and getting help for it.
So this is my explanation on why I have not been consistently blogging.I did not want my fitness blogging to trigger increased orthorexia symptoms. However, with this platform, I want to be transparent with my readers and show them my inner struggles with diet. Now, I choose not to follow a specific diet and rather practice “intuitive eating” by eliminating the fear of eating food and taking the time to ENJOY them. Like life, I will take this journey day by day with meal by meal. Thank you for the readers who have stood by me through all this. But, like how my blog says, we have to Lose, Lose, and then we Win.
Lose Lose Win 