Category: Lake Effect Series

Lake Effect Series

Lake Effect Series Final Wrap Up

Hollie

I am sad this is the last post regarding the Lake Effect Series.  I have had nothing but a great time fundraising and spreading awareness for Eating Disorders.  The support I received from friends and family as well as strangers has been overwhelming.  I will truly never forget this experience.

Before the race Ophelia’s Place shared that this race contributes 10% of their annual budget.  Every single dollar and donation truly does make a difference.  It is so hard for me to believe that together we raised 2500 dollars. There were over 70 donors.  Wow! 

Left to right: Heather, Laura, me, Brittany
Left to right: Heather, Laura, me, Brittany

 

If you haven’t already please go read some or all of the incredible stories.  These stories are truly amazing and show the incredible courage and bravery of the authors.  They will always remain on my blog under the “reads” section.

After adding everyone into the giveaway (donors, story sharers and those who shared the link to the giveaway or stories) I came up with 3653 entries to the giveaway!  I drew the numbers from random.org and ended up with these.

The race director and I
The race director and I

Without further ado here are the winners and thank you again.

KIND BARS: 2912 The Writer of the post “Binge Eating”(anonymous)

Pocket Fuel and Energy Bits 2355 Package 1: Jacqueline Klayman

Pocket Fuel and Energy Bits 1037 Package 2: Mike Post

Lindsay’s Healthy Bites: 962 Alex at Runwithin

Allie’s Hearty Handful Granola:  1202 Ashley Fincher

**Please email me and I will connect you as appropriate.

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Summary:

This whole experience was eye opening for me. It truly made me realize that we do possess the ability to make a change or a difference.  Every dollar donated, whether it was 1 dollar or 100 added up to 2500 dollars.  I can honestly say this was one of my biggest accomplishments in my life. I truly cannot thank the support of family, friends, readers and anonymous donors.  It was a great experience for me and I am truly glad that I ran this race.  To answer your question: I do plan to run the Lake Effect Half Marathon every year I am close enough to Upstate NY.

lakeffectwin

No questions today.  I just want to express how truly grateful I am for all the support from every single person. 

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Lake Effect Series

Lake Effect Series: I’m Healthy Now

Hollie

Note from Hollie: Today is the day that I run the Lake Effect Half Marathon.  It is hard to believe this is the result of three months of fundraising and eating disorder awareness.  We did it though.  We raised over 2500 dollars and we raised even more awareness about eating disorders.  Thank you everyone for your support.  It’s not too late to donate or enter the giveaway.  I will be doing a final post sometime this week to recap the campaign as a whole, announce giveaway winners and provide a final closure.  It has truly been an incredible experience and I never would have dreamed we would have raised 2500 dollars together. 

The final story is the most emotional and the most graphic.  Thank you for sharing.

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When Hollie asked me to share my eating disorder story, I jumped at the chance. Of course I’d help. After all, having a distorted relationship with my body and with food is all in the past. I’m healthy now. I’ve moved on. I’m recovered. Sometimes it’s hard to put yourself into the mindset of someone who has an eating disorder, even if that someone was just you at a younger age. Luckily, I happened to have kept an online diary during some of my darker years, and the entriesserve as a constant reminder of what that life was like, and how miserable it was. Some of the entries are truly heart breaking, and are hard to read, but I’ve included a few passages to paint a better picture of just how distorted your head can get when you’re suffering from an eating disorder.

Like so many others, my issues with food evolved over many, many years. At age 8, I determined that my thighs were too fat, and by age 10 I was trying out my first fad diet (Cabbage Soup). I’ll never forget going to McDonald’s with my friend’s family and passing on French fries. I felt triumphant; as if I belonged to a special society of people who were too good to put such trash in their bodies.

“I like going to bed with my stomach empty. Makes me feel…less like a failure”

During my adolescent years, I slowly started on the downward spiral towards food obsession. I went on numerous fad diets, counted calories and fat grams, skipped meals, went on fasts and eventually even tried to make myself throw up. At first I considered vomiting only as a last resort. Something I’d do in “emergency” situations where I had eaten something unplanned and “bad.” Most days I’d restrict my calories to practically nothing, only to binge on whatever I could find once I got home from school. Then, as I could feel my stomach churn at the presence of food, I’d rush to the bathroom in a panic, intent on removing as much of the offending substance as I could. But I hated puking. It was logistically difficult to manage while living with parents and it was just plain gross. There is nothing glamorous about vomit. I kept hoping that if I could just get a control on my diet, then I wouldn’t need to throw up anymore. If I could just get my weight low enough, then I wouldn’t need to diet at all. But the weight didn’t drop off like I wanted to, and instead, primarily due to my horrific eating habits, it increased.

“I want to see skin hanging off my bones. It’ll make me feel like my skin is more like a large sack and I can hide in it” 

My downward spiral continued into my first year of college. Surrounded by thin, beautiful, attractive classmates, I became painfully aware of everything that I was not. My body image plummeted, and I found myself increasingly turning to food to numb how I lonely and depressed I felt. I’d go to the dining hall and pack a to-go carton FULL of food. Starches were my favorites. Garlic bread, pizza, cookies, hot dogs, cakes, bagels. Not to mention drink containers filled with frozen yogurt and soft-serve ice cream. I’d sit in my dorm room alone and eat and eat and eat until my stomach literally couldn’t distend any further. Then I’d head to the bathroom where I’d wait until I knew I was alone and I’d vomit everything out. Over time I learned which foods came up the easiest, and which ones were difficult. I learned how to be quick and how to be quiet. I concealed my secret very well, but to my despair, my weight refused to drop, and instead, continued to increased.

“I feel like I’m falling apart. I’ve really come to detest what I’ve turned into. Physically, I’m really gross. I can’t even describe it. AHH! I can’t handle myself anymore! It’s like I’m teetering on the edge of this huge cliff. If I let myself go then I’ll plummet back into the world of extreme depression and unattractiveness. If I can manage to get myself on stable grounds then I’ll be okay but I’m just sort of handing there, my fingers grasping at the rim. But they’re losing their grip and I see it all just slipping away. My face.My hair.My ideal body.My grades.My friends.My future. I don’t know what to do. It’s like I’m too far gone. It’s too bad they can’t put me into solitary confinement for a month so that I can just slowly wither up and die. Or at least get thin.”

A couple of months into my sophomore year, I hit a breaking point. I couldn’t say exactly what changed, but something inside me snapped. I stopped eating.  I lost all focus on school or relationships and instead became entirely fixated on my weight. I weighed myself almost hourly, making sure that I didn’t magically gain a pound when I wasn’t looking. I hardly ate anything and what I did eat I immediately threw up. My hands couldn’t stop feelingmy hips, stomach, thighs, and collarbones, searching out for areas that felt thinner or bonier. I’d try on and retry on clothes to see if they fit any looser than the day before.

“I hate the way I can’t think about food normally. I hate how I can’t stand the way it feels inside me. I hate the way my mood is so dependent on those three digits the scale reads. I hate how throwing up doesn’t seem like a bad idea to me. But I couldn’t imagine living any other way. This way of thinking is too infused with my way of thinking. So throwing up food isn’t particularly good to a number of my body systems, but it gives me some sort of mental comfort, like some sort of accomplishment. Sick? Yes. But I can’t stop. If I did what would I do?”

By that spring, I had lost about 30lbs over the course of 3-4months. I was feeling good and in control. I just wanted to lose a little bit more.If I could just lose a little more, then I could give myself permission to be happy, because only then would I be worthy enough.But while my weight was still well within the normal range, the weight loss began to attract attention. My parents became suspicious and shortly thereafter figured out what was going on. I would like to say this was the point at which I finally got help, finally started getting better, but that was still a long ways off. Instead, I was forced to see a social worker and then a therapist. I know my parents were only doing what they thought was best, but I was not in the right mindset to receive help, and instead I resented them for it, and quit going shortly after only a couple of sessions.

“I have so much emotion stored up in me and I HATE having it come out. Crying is weak and therefore I am weak. I detest weak people. I want to be strong and resilient and independent and not need anybody but I’m nothing like that. But food helps me pretend. It gives me a focus. By constantly focusing on weight and good I can take my mind off everything else that I hate about myself. Because if my weight was perfect, then I’d have to find some other part of me that wasn’t and try to fix that too. Because there has to be a reason I’m so messed up. There has to be something wrong with me. But I can only fix one problem at a time because otherwise I’ll get so depressed and frustrated I’ll just give up and succumb to the sadness.”

Over the next year and half, I continued to struggle with my eating. I frequently found myself in debt after spending entire paychecks on food that would be gone in a night. I isolated myself from friends and avoided social situations, but I also became increasingly frustrated and angry with my situation. I hated that I had become so controlled by food, and gradually I tried to release myself from its grasp, which was of course easier said than done. I’d start off Monday promising myself I’d eat healthy and nutritious and in moderation, but by Friday I’d be consuming an extra-large pizza by myself. It seemed hopeless. I was hopeless.

“I’m sick of this. I’m sick of binging. I’m sick of throwing money in the toilet. I’m sick of wondering when I’ll get my next “fix”. What it will be, when and where I’ll do it. I’m like a drug addict.”

However, I did make tiny steps towards progress. With graduation looming, and threats from parents, I finally decided to commit to getting better. I bought myself a book on recovering from bulimia as well as a few books on intuitive eating. Despite appearances, I was still a somewhat rational person and knew that I needed some nutrition. So I started there. In between my massive binge/purge sessions I’d force myself to have an apple, or maybe some carrots, and let that sit in my stomach, repeating to myself over and over that while uncomfortable, the nutrients were necessary. Using the books as a reference, I relearned how to eat and how to recognize fullness. Once my eating had somewhat stabilized, the real work began. My eating disorder was an excuse for me to ignore some very painful emotions that I had hidden from myself. For years I had believed myself to be unworthy and incapable of so much. Identifying and confronting those beliefs as false has taken years.

“I’m slipping. I can feel my thoughts changing. I’ve been trying to stay so positive and so on top of things but it’s getting too overwhelming. I don’t know if I’m doing things right. It’s like standing on a point and being told by a million different people that in order to reach your goal you should go this way or that way or no this way over here. So you pick one, hoping it will lead you in the right direction, but now you’re feeling even farther away than you started and you being to think you chose the wrong path so you start to doubt everything you’re doing and try to backtrack or maybe hop on another path. But how far do you try out one path before you give up? How long do you go without your goal in sight before you try a different strategy?”

My recovery from an eating disorder, like my descent into it, was a gradual process. I still have days when my demons rear their ugly heads, attempting to lure me back into the darkness. Luckily, I’m stronger now than I once was, and I know how to face them. I still occasionally worry about weight, but I try not to let those worries consume me and my former obsession with food has even evolved into a loveof all things cooking and baking. I guess that a silver lining?

A big thank you to Hollie for letting me share my story with you all. Hopefully you gained a better perspective of what it’s like to be in the mind of someone with an eating disorder. If you have, or are currently suffering from, an eating disorder or eating disordered thoughts, my heart goes out to you. You are worth so much more.

Lake Effect Series

Lake Effect Series: 15 Year Battle

Hollie
Note from Hollie: This is the final story before the race tomorrow.  I cannot thank everyone enough for sharing their story, for donating and for being apart of this journey.  We are currently at 2361 and only 139 dollars from 2500!  There is still time to donate if you can.  Seriously, thank you.  Also it’s not too late to share or enter the giveaway associated!  There are lots of great prizes like Kind bars, energybits, granola, Healthy Bites and Pocket Fuel!
On another note, I have recently started following the author of this story Jackie.  She is an amazing, incredible and strong woman and I cannot sing her enough songs.  I definitely encourage you to check out her blog.
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Submitted by Jackie 
My journey from eating disorder to recovery has spanned 15+ years, but the sweetest feeling in the world is knowing that there IS life after an eating disorder. It doesn’t have to forever be the defining statement over your life, your relationships and your thoughts. Recovery is possible, just never give up.

My struggle with food and eating began in my elementary years, I can’t pinpoint a year, but I know I had an unhealthy relationship with food even back then. I slowly gained weight and by junior high was pretty overweight. The pre-teen/teenage years are pretty unforgiving when it comes to being overweight. It seems that people love to target and pick on the overweight kids. I was bullied and made fun of on a regular basis through junior high, but you would probably never know it, I learned to hide it well. By the end of 8th grade I remember having episodes of purging, but it was scattered here and there. It was often associated with stress and handling all these feelings that I didn’t know what to do with.

By high school (particularly later in 9th and early 10th grades) my struggle had become an all out battle. What was at one point a stress relief became an overwhelming addiction that I had lost complete control over. I lost over 100 pounds through this time and by 10th grade, not long after my 16th birthday, my family doctor recommended to my parents that they seek treatment for me. I spent six weeks at an inpatient eating disorder clinic and thanks to insurance was told I had to leave and pursue treatment back at home. I struggled with depression, anxiety, thinking that this was the end of my story, I couldn’t see hope outside of my eating disorder, it was my best friend and my worst enemy and it had its grips on me.

Fast forward through the high school years, I continued to struggle. I graduated and moved off to college and rather than the freshman 15 most gain, my eating disorder amplified and I struggled badly for those years. I am an overachiever and push myself to my limits at anything I do. I was trying to balance college studies and my struggle with an eating disorder, and having a hard time. I was pushing to graduate college with a double major in three years, wanting to keep all A’s. I used my eating as an escape for the stress I felt. A binge/purge cycle would relieve the feelings of anxiety that built up inside.
There were times that I’d get a handle on my eating, I’d think I had made a turn for the better, and then without notice I’d be swept into the struggle more fully than the time before. Eating disorders are rough because you always think you have control of it, until you realize that you don’t. I saw therapists. psychiatrist, etc throughout this time, all trying to help me…all aiding in my eating. None ever understanding how I kept falling back into the same cycles over and over.
I finished college in 3 years, and met my future husband. I got engaged and a year after college, I got married. Shortly after getting married I found out I was pregnant. Eating disorders and pregnancy are hard. You’re already freaked out about your body and then it starts morphing and changing in ways you cannot control. I did my best. My very, very best for my child. Trying my hardest to always put her needs before mine, I did well for awhile, but once she was born the struggles continued to come and go. Four years later I had another daughter and somewhere in between this time, in the highs and the lows, I began to crawl out of the pit I had been sucked into for 15 years. I can’t pin point a moment, I can’t tell you I did x,y,z, and that helped me. I don’t know exactly what it was. I do know I never stopped trying to get better.
Lets jump to today….I have 2 beautiful little girls that are 4 and 8. They look to me as an example, they want to look like me, act like me, be me. That is very scary when you struggle with an eating disorder and you’d give your life to spare them from this struggle. I started working out and lifting weights a few years back and begin to find the strength in my body to be amazing. Just very recently, I discovered my love of running. I just completed my first Half Marathon the past weekend (Feb 9) and am still in awe that I ran that far. I see beauty, I see redemption, I see a newfound respect for my body for its strength to carry me. I have found my legs to be such an amazing gift to me, food is now fuel for me and I have such a healthy relationship with it that I shock myself on a regular basis. I can truly say running has saved my life. It has given back to me something that I never knew I possessed….pride in myself and a love for myself.
Running has made me feel whole, see my worthiness. I am a Christian and I thank God always for sustaining me in my struggle. He truly has given me the strength to press on and never give up. My faith carried me in the darkness and that coupled with my running shoes are carrying me places I never thought possible.
I fought a hard battle, I never gave up having hope that one day I would live without the struggle of an eating disorder. I am a survivor. My voice may be small, but I am not longer ashamed of the battle I fought. I made it, many others are still fighting and I want to give people the hope….just keep going! If one person finds help, if one person sees hope, then my battle has been well worth it. Eating disorders don’t have to stay hidden and in the dark, there is such beauty in the freedom of the truth.
Thanks for letting me tell my story,
Jackie 🙂
Lake Effect Series

Lake Effect Series: Dear Diary

Hollie

Note from Hollie: This was sent to me by Sophie.  Thank you Sophie for sending me this and it’s a truly inspirational story. 

There is still time to donate.  Yesterday we reached 2231 dollars, every single dollar donated will be put to good use.  Thank you.  Thank you everyone for donating and sharing these stories.  I truly cannot believe that that the race is 2 days away.  I’m actually traveling to NY as you are reading this!  Finally don’t forget you can enter the giveaway by sharing any of the stories, giveaway link, fundraising link or anything involved.  Just let me know you did! 

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As many of you already know, I battled disordered eating, from puberty until my hospitalization in 2005. My official diagnosis was Anorexia – purging type. I would restrict calories and purge the calories I did consume with excessive exercise and/or vomiting. The disease evolved in the 15 years I battled it – making a transition in my early 20’s to full-on binge eating disorder then, back to anorexia again in my mid 20’s. There are so many reasons a person succumbs to such a disease. There’s much research and plenty of theories – none of which I feel like engaging you in with this blog entry. Mental illness is a very difficult topic because there are just too many factors – here are mine:

I was the oldest of two children born to 17 year old high school students. My parents married, got jobs in the local car factory, and did the best they could to support their young family. My mother was born into (and had in a sense escaped, when she became pregnant with me) a heavily toxic family as the oldest of 6 children. Sexual and physical abuse as well as alcoholism, were part of her daily existence as a child. My father was the 2nd oldest of 5 children born to a hard working family with a very emotionally unavailable mother. They raised their children the only way they knew how. My mother knew absolute instability, neglect, and abandonment – and my father knew how to disassociate. This was the perfect storm.

I was the oldest of 2 children and spent my entire childhood trying to keep my emotionally unstable mother happy so she didn’t fly off in a rage and abuse my brother – because when she did, I was powerless. In order to do this I had to keep my brother on his best behaviour and my father happy so he was always in a good mood. Even at the age of 6 I understood that my safety and the safety of my little brother, was in my hands entirely. As you can imagine, this didn’t work. My brother still suffered from my mother’s rage, my father still left, and I was still scrambling to pick up the pieces.

No one ever gave me this role but it was not a conscious decision that I would be the keeper to this household. I just fell into this place because of my basic survival instincts as a little girl. I learned that if I was one step ahead of everyone else, I would be safe. So, my quest for perfection began when I was 6, when my brother’s abuse began.  I was doing dishes, laundry, vacuuming, dusting, and making beds from the age of 6 to 8. By 9 I was left to take care of my brother while my parents worked, and I was in charge of cooking. I started babysitting other people’s children at that age for extra cash as well because it angered my mother when I asked for money for things for school – like pencils, erasers, new shoes. I learned that being perfect was absolutely critical to my safety.

Eventually when my dad left and my mother had nothing to be angry with me for, she started picking on my appearance. I was entering puberty and I was gaining weight, which became her focus. I would be so pretty if only I lost weight. I would be a better baseball player if only I lost weight. I would be a better… you get the point. So did I. The message was loud and clear.

My relationship with my mother would continue to be based purely on my productivity and accomplishments as I grew – and I tried to love her anyway. What I did not do however, was try to love myself. My identity was built and by hitting rock bottom with my eating disorder I was finally given permission to look at why and how that identity was killing me, slowly. I recovered in 2005 and went on to work tirelessly on rebuilding my self-worth and giving myself permission to find ME. I am now a successful entrepreneur with two businesses that allow me to embrace my two biggest passions: childcare, and fitness. I am a mother to an incredible little boy who is an absolute JOY to love, and I am a competitive bodybuilder. In spite of the rocky start and the rock bottom plummet, I am here, happy, enjoying discovering all of who I am and what the Universe has in store for me. This is the reason I decided it was time to share my experience.

Over the years I have kept a journal. Recently I came across the journal I kept while I was at the peak of my illness. While I understand the depth of my experience I was now reading these journal entries from a healthy mind, and I was absolutely floored with what I read. I want to share some of my entries with you. They are from the mind of a girl in her mid-20’s who has only the buds of consciousness that her lack of self-worth is controlling her drive to…kill herself for perfection.

Entry #1

Sometimes, like tonight, I want to stop. I picture myself as a bystander, watching this pathetic 26 year old ram her hand down her throat to remove the filth she swallowed. I see the superficial things like the mucus dripping from her nose and the strained blood vessels around her eyes, and the fear of failing to succeed at getting it all out – all of what? Food? Shame? Regret? Maybe all of the above. I see the filth all over her hand, the raw skin on her knuckles from her teeth as she pushes harder into her mouth – more frantic as time passes to get it all out. Regret kicks in, turns to shame and self pity. I see all this in my mind. What do I do with this image? Nothing usefull – clearly. I suppose I store it in my reserve pile of shame. Chances are, I won’t require it, there’s enough to go around. I want to stop, a little. I want to keep doing it more than I want to stop. I want to be skinny more than I want to stop. I see the health risks but I see them as “far away” and for those to will do this forever. I don’t see myself doing this forever. But I think I will.

Entry #2

I can’t tell him that I purge up to 6x a day, that I purge even vegetables. That I feel so unbearably alone. That I feel like no one would give a crap if I disappeared. That I take handfuls of laxatives, that I compare myself to every single person I see. That I hate myself. I hate my body, my face, my laugh, my voice, my thoughts, my dreams, I hate everything. I beg God to take me almost daily. I pray my suffering will end because I can’t end my struggle alone. I don’t have the strength to go on. How do I say that? So I don’t. I keep it all inside where I hope it will dissolve but I know it never will. One day I hope to look back on these entries in shock. Completely shocked by my words. But for now, they are mine, and all I have. My head hurts, I have to sleep. I’m too hungry to stay awake.

Entry #3

6lbs down. I swear to you that was the most beautiful thing I could ever see. I want to lose 8lbs more before I see the doctor at the hospital. How sad that I feel I need to be a better anorexic to deserve treatment, much less a diagnosis. I want to be a better, more successful anorexic. It’s insane but I can’t help it.

Entry #4

I had my assessment today with the Regional Treatment Center. After all the questionnaires and my interview with the head psychiatrist I’m told “You’re very ill and we recommend hospitalization”. Apparently I’m in a category of individuals who suffer from cardiac arrest and it’s a matter of time until I have a heart attack. You know, I honestly thought I was going to hear  “you’re not too far gone, we’ll set you up with a self-help plan”. Instead she repeated all the statements I made that stood out to her and explained how they reflect the views of a seriously ill person.  All I could think as she was saying all this was “but i’m STILL FAT! I still have fat on my stomach and thighs – can’t you see that?”

Lastly, if something does happen to me in my quest for thin, I hope my family forgives my selfishness. I’m afraid this may hurt me. Maybe not kill me, but i’m aware that it isn’t good. I know it’s selfish and vain but I can’t live without my ED. I don’t know how to undo 27 years of filth and shame.

Entry #5

The thing about anorexia that continues to shake me is that an otherwise intelligent educated woman can be convinced (by herself of all people) that she is hideous and unlovable. I can honestly say that I hate myself. No amount of weight loss can change that. I don’t like myself enough to feed myself. I feel unworthy of the food I put in my mouth, and once it’s in my stomach for any length of time I get a sudden fear that I don’t deserve what I just ate, and I purge it. Lately, even water. That’s a fucking sickness for you.

Entry #6

When things started to get tough in my life I just started to focus on destroying myself. I run twice a day, sprints in the morning, and a steady-state run in the evening – all on less than 600 calories a day. Every time I run, I pray to collapse. I realize the only way I could stop is if I died and I could only die if it happened to me. I couldn’t end my own life any other way. I desperately want it to end.

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As you can see this girl needed help in the biggest way and while she saw it – she didn’t want to acknowledge it. She was so far gone that she didn’t feel worthy of the help. The story ended happily but so many do not. There are hundreds of men and women on waiting lists to get into recovery centers like I did – some die on that waiting list. Death from starvation is one thing, but death from starvation of self-love is entirely another. No one should suffer from that, much less die from it.

If you take nothing else from this story, I want you to remember that there is absolutely nothing you cannot do with self-love.  As you can see from my story, I was not granted self-love – I had to build it – and I had to hit rock bottom to even understand the work that needed to be done in order to attain it. I work on it even now, daily – and I will never stop because that is my birthright – as it is yours <3.

Lake Effect Series

Lake Effect Series: Your Heart Will Stop

Hollie

Note from Hollie: I cannot thank each people for submitting a story and sharing. Each story has been powerful and so inspirational. It is motivating me to run hard on Sunday. Run hard for Ophelia’s Place. Run hard for all of the supporters, sharers and everyone.  So thank you. 

It’s not too late to donate and please consider it.  Donating or sharing will also enter you in the giveaway that multiple companies have participated in.  I know Ophelia’s Place will put the donations to good use.

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Submitted by Karla
First off, I’d like to thank Hollie for shining a spotlight on a topic so important and near and dear to my heart. Even though about 1% of American women are affected by anorexia, there is still a lot of stigma about it and other eating disorders. That’s why I’m happy to share my experience with anyone and everyone who will listen, because:

1. There’s absolutely no shame in seeking help when you need it,
2. My story is proof that there is life after anorexia, and
3. If even one person’s affected enough to assist a friend or consider treatment as a result, being open and honest about my past struggles is well worth it!

Eleven years ago, my weight was such a struggle (I reached nearly 180 pounds), that I figured all my problems, social, physical and otherwise, would be solved if I lost weight. So at 15, I started on a healthy kick, swapping grilled chicken for my beloved fried chicken fingers and visiting the gym each day after school for 30 minutes on the elliptical. As I—and my peers, boys included (finally!)—noticed results, I began cutting portions even more and adding minutes to my sweat schedule. Forty pounds lost by 6 months became 86 one year later, and I barely recognized the skeletal 94-pound girl I saw in the mirror.

My parents were at their wits’ end. We had consulted my family doctor, dietitians, psychologists and more to try to find a solution, yet nothing seemed to stop my downward spiral. At one point, I was eating about 800 calories and exercising two hours each day. I knew I was too thin and, since I was without any energy, felt myself pulling away socially from the new friends I had gained as a result of my newfound confidence. But something inside me wanted to keep losing. I needed to prove to the kids who used to taunt me as “big tit Karla” that I was in control and was not the chubby girl they believed me to be.

Eventually, my normally non-emotional dad sat me down and said, “Look. We’re worried that your heart is going to stop because you’re so thin. If you lose one more pound, we’re putting you in an inpatient treatment facility.”

I was officially scared straight, and after a few stops and starts, and years of visits with my psychologist (because, despite what I once believed, therapy is not just for “crazy people”), I got my body back on track. It took longer to get my brain on the same wavelength and move beyond the thoughts of inferiority, but within the last year or two, I finally feel like I’m becoming confident with myself, my body and what it can do for me.

One of the best things that’s come out of my eating disorder was a passion for health—in moderation. I went to school for magazine journalism and kinesiology so I could write and help educate about the importance and power of making wellness-promoting decisions while not letting that mindset take over your world. Today, I’m honored to be able to help FITNESS magazine spotlight real women who have done just that in the “I Did It!” section and aim to inspire my group fitness class students to strengthen their bodies in each of our sessions so they’re able to live long, vital lives rather than looking smokin’ in their bathing suits this summer. Because there are way more important things in life than being completely cellulite-free!

Thank you again!