My story starts long ago, when I first came out of the womb. I was born into a family restaurant, Italian to be exact with delicious home made bread, pizza dough, lasagna, spaghetti sauce and so much more. As I got older, our dinner consisted of 75% carbs and 25% protein. I loved every minute of it and you could tell when you looked at me. Rewards with food were given, traditions of tons of food at the table were had and a mother who had to make sure you took seconds or thirds because there was enough would all affect me later on in life. I am one of the very lucky individuals that had a healthy, happy childhood and life, I never went through any traumatic experiences, my parents took care of me and did whatever they could do to raise me right.
As I
got to middle school, my chunkiness continued, I believe it was then that I
started having body image issues. I had a friend who was beautiful, all the
males flocked to her and I never got any attention. My senior year of high
school, 2002, I decided to take control and even ended up losing 15-20 pounds. I
was getting attention, people were noticing and it was like fuel to my fire. I
did this the nornmal way anyone would with eating more frequently and exercising
more. I was not a member of the gym at that time so I did home videos and I was
already bringing my own lunch to school but this time I was would start snacking
throughout the day. I will always remember my one friend conserned I had an
eating disorder bc I stopped eating at lunch but the truth was I had already
eaten what I brought by that time. A year passed and I gained most of the
weight back from partying and drinking and so then I decided to sign up for the
gym. The memebership went on for years with inconsistancy and yo yo dieting.
In 2008 I knew I wanted to take the NYS Trooper exam and so I realized I needed
to get more in shape for that, I started dieting again and going to the gym
religiously. This is where my love for working out came back. The employees at
the gym starting noticing my passion and told me I should be trainer that they
say what I did and I would be good at it. I was more than thrilled so I stated
selling memberships at an all woman's gym, I hate that so I went and took a
personal training test and starting training and this is where my struggles
began. When I was selling memberships, possibly even before that I was binge
eating, it's quite possible it was going on for longer than I realized but never
saw it as a problem.
When I started training I kept looking through
Oxygen magazines, looking for workouts, got to know all I needed to know about
training and food and started labeling foods as good and bad. Good foods would
be healthy foods and bad would be cakes, ice cream, processed food. I would go
weeks without eating anything bad and the moment that my lips touched something
"bad" it was all over. I was very much an all for nothing person, I was either
100% on my diet or 100% off and if I messed up even just a little bit
it was enough to throw me over the edge. This went on for literally YEARS. I
have tons of food journals, calorie journals, weight log journals, progress
pictures, etc etc and so one say I decided to take the big leap into the
competing world, After constantly reading fitness magazine it was officially my
goal to become a fitness/bikini model. I started working with a trainer but
encountered the same issues with binging, before it was 2-3 times per week
almost every week, it went down and I made progress but as soon as the
competition was over, I had a plan to follow but threw it to the wind because I was
deprived all of the "bad" foods and I was craving them all. That was still my
battle, I didn't know balance I couldn't eat things in moderation. I was
miserable I hated the way I felt and looked would always want to start over
but then some little slip up would send me to the bottom again, eating
everything I could find, going to various places thinking what I was craving
next. I would literally consume thousands of calories in one sitting. These are
all things I did before my first competition but I was compensating through
more exercise and more restricting leading to the same cycle over and over. My
first coach taught me to stop doing that and I only engaged in those behaviors a
few times during my first prep but afterwards all I would do was eat bc I knew
that over exercising would cause me to be even more hungry. Eventually I started
working with the same trainer and was shooting for a show date in Spring of 2012
but I opted out of it when my stress from 2 jobs, going to school, interning,
training 2x per diet, posing practice, food prep was all too much for me. This
time the rebound was worse and I found myself at my highest weight ever just a
few months ago.
In the summer of 2012 I decided it was time to get professional
help and the closest I got to was the Psychological Services at UB refereed to
me by someone I met off of Team Fit that just so happened to live in Buffalo as
well. I was diagnosed with Binge eating disorder non purging type and have been
in treatment ever since. I also started a new relationship at that time and
with his support along with all of the groups I have on facebook, family and
friends I am finally in place where I can eat a trigger food and not indulge or
let it lead to a binge. I know I am not in the clear and I know I am not
perfect but I have taken everything I have learned from counseling and other
peoples experiences with me and I am attempting another bikini competition in
2013. I hired a new coach and I feel like I have a brand new attitude. I never
thought I would get to this point but I am here now and I am so proud of myself
and thankful for all of those around me that never gave up on me and pushed me
to keep going!!! I hope to continue on this path and win my competition in the
spring or at least place top 3!
No comments:
Post a Comment