My Fitness Journey

When I was in high school, I heard tons of cautionary tales about the “freshman fifteen” - AKA, “you go to college and eat nothing but crap because you’re poor and you stop exercising because you’re so busy and also drinking is a thing so you gain a lot of weight.”

I was a size 0 in high school. I played soccer, did show choir, ran track, danced, was a cheerleader - the whole shabang. I was never not involved in a physical activity, and upon hearing about the dreaded freshman fifteen, I merely shrugged and said “that will never be me. I’ll always have time to exercise!”

Oh poor, young, naive Bailey.

In my first year of college, I went from a size 0 to a size 4. Now, a lot of this came from the fact that my body decided to develop a more ~womanly figure~, but it was also partly due to the fact that I didn’t go to the gym more than once a month - if that. I became so self-conscious…which is just ridiculous right? A size 4 is not big by any means, but it was the biggest that I had ever been, and therefore I viewed myself as overweight.

This combined with the anxiety that comes along with college resulted in me having an unhealthy relationship with food. I felt incredibly guilty if I ate anything that was even moderately unhealthy, and because I was a freshman with a dining plan, I spent a majority of my time living under the weight of food guilt. It got to the point where I would sometimes skip meals, and then purge snacks at 2 am while I was doing homework.

Basically, I didn’t have a healthy relationship with eating.

Fast forward one year, and I’m living in an apartment. I had a kitchen, which allowed me to cook for myself. I also had a large living room, where I had space to exercise. The issue was that, because I had spent a year eating terribly and not exercising, motivating myself to do so was incredibly difficult.

I ended up trying a diet that my parents were on, called Xyngular. It was a combination of keto (no carbs, no sugar) and supplements that were supposed to help reset your body. In the first 8 days of the diet, I lost 10 pounds. I was so proud of myself, but little did I know that I was actually contributing to the unhealthy mindset that I had about my body and food.

To make a long story short, after about 10 days my body developed an allergy to the supplements I was taking and I ended up in the emergency room, covered head to toe with hives. Goodbye, keto.

I quickly fell back into not exercising and filling my body with junk, and then feeling guilty about doing so. This continued for the next year and a half or so, until this last Summer. Some incredibly emotional events transpired, and I couldn’t bring myself to get out of bed or eat for an entire week. My best friend tried in vain to get me to eat anything, but I was so depressed I could barely get anything down.

The worst part was that I kind of liked it. I liked not eating. I looked in the mirror and saw the skinny girl that I was in high school, and I wanted her to stick around.

I began going to the gym during this time, but my body was so weak from not eating that it was hard to exercise for more than 15 minutes at a time, which made me feel bad about myself.

I eventually started seeing a therapist, and I talked to her about my negative relationship with eating. I told her about the wave of shame that I felt whenever I ate something “unhealthy” or if I skipped a day at the gym. She explained to me that the shame I was feeling stemmed from my need for control, which made a lot of sense to me. I was in a spot in my life where I felt incredibly out of control, so I was attempting to control anything that I could - in this case, my weight.

She told me to work on detaching my view of “being healthy” from “being skinny.” She also told me that mindful eating, not restrictive eating, was the key to relieving my food anxiety and improving my health.

Mindful eating is not a diet, therefore is not restrictive. It focuses on building an awareness of what you’re feeling and combining that with the food you take in. Basically, there is no “right” or “wrong” way to eat, you just need to listen to your body and acknowledge what you’re feeling as you do so.

This concept sounds so flowery and hippy-ish to me, but y’all…it works. I barely struggle with food anxiety anymore. Don’t get me wrong, it still tries to creep in sometimes, but I just have to remind myself that I am a human being and that there is nothing wrong with eating.

This carried over to exercise for me. I aim to go to the gym 4-5 times a week, but if I miss a day, it’s no longer the end of the world. I’m a busy girl, and if I want to skip the gym to go to bed an hour early, I am allowed to do so. I am in a much healthier mindset now, and my body is rewarding me for it. I am now the healthiest that I have ever been, and it’s because I started with taking care of my mental health first. You cannot be physically healthy until you are mentally healthy.

If you have ever experienced food guilt, felt out of control, struggled with an eating disorder, or felt self-conscious about your weight, I want you to know that you are not alone. There are billions of people on this earth who have been in the same mindset that you are (including myself), and I want to let you know that it’s okay to reach out and ask for help. I wouldn’t have ended up in the place I am without it.

If you need help, the National Eating Disorder Hotline is (800) 931-2237. You can always reach out to me for prayer as well, and I will support you in any way that I can.

You are beautiful, loved, and worthy of the space you occupy in this world. Remember that!

xo,

Bailey