For as long as I can remember I have had the desire to restrict my food intake. I try to think back as far as I can to see if I can conjure up a very early memory where I lived normally without the shackles of an eating disorder hindering my everyday life, but it seems that I must have come out of the womb with calories and food on the brain.
My father died very early on in my life and shortly after his death I can remember feeling good about being on a diet. I was in the first grade. My grandmother used to make comments about my weight all the time because I was a chubby little Italian kid. I don't think she even knew what an eating disorder was; she lived through the Depression after all, so eating and having an abundance of food is a luxury to her. However, her comments stuck with me and after a downright cruel comment from my aunt on my father's side about how I had a "weight" problem, I began to figure out very quickly that weight meant something. The funny thing is I look back and I was never really overweight. I was very active and muscular, I was just never one of those girls who had that bony figure. But I wanted to be.
Grade school, junior high, high school; they all were spent dieting. I loved to restrict my food, it made me feel like I was doing better than my friends. I loved seeing them eat fattening things because it meant they did not have the amount of discipline and willpower I did. I maintained a normal weight for my height during these years. I might have loved restriction but I also liked to eat too. That combination can be extremely frustrating. The anorexic was running rampant in me, but she had not truly shown her face yet at this point.
College came and with it my eating disorder took on a whole new life. I gained the freshman fifteen and then I lost it.....I was really good at losing weight...and gaining it. I am truly the definition of a human yo-yo. The summer before my junior year of college I decided I wanted to lose 10 pounds. I was a college cheerleader and I wanted to knock off some weight to feel more comfortable with my body. What started out as just another diet became a nightmare. I started with my normal restricting routine but combined it with an insane amount of exercise. The weight kept dropping off quickly and I became more obsessed than ever with losing weight. At the worst point I was eating about 300-500 calories a day and exercising between 6-8 hours. I ended up losing about 35 pounds in two months. I thought I was invincible. However, being invincible came with a large price. I was freezing all the time; there is actually a photo of me on the hottest day of the summer wearing a sweatshirt and gloves. My fingernails would turn blue because I would get so cold. I stopped getting my period for what would turn out to be a year. I was pale, miserable, and thinner than I had ever been in my life. I had lost enough weight that I was now considered officially an anorexic. I never really thought I had a problem though, I guess when you have an eating disorder for so long you always figure its normal to live that way no matter how out of control it gets.
Ironically I credit college with saving my life. The very place where my eating disorder raged furiously was what I needed to get healthy again. When the summer was over and I was back at school I had a full schedule of classes, cheerleading, and just generally having a life again. I did not have the proper amount of time to dedicate to my crazy exercise routine. I got a lot of stares and whispers initially. Why did I lose so much weight, was I sick? But eventually I started to gain the weight back. I was furious and miserable, but it was inevitable. Surely when you lose weight that quickly, its going to come back quickly when you decide to eat again. I felt like a failure.
It has been a long time since that period of my life. I would like to say I am still not constantly tempted by restricting my calorie intake but I am. There is always going to be a little voice on my shoulder telling me to restrict my calories and to exercise to the point where I can't exercise anymore, but the change now is I only let myself listen briefly before I silence that voice. I have no choice but to live at this point because I felt what it was like to just exist. I will always be someone who has issues with food, and I have to accept it and fight the good fight. All I can do is try and I will keep trying.