Not ironically, I was just making some book edits and reading through part of my bout with bulimia before I was readying myself to write a little about the healing relationship I have with food today. Never do I want to forget my experience. It seems like somebody else’s story now; like somebody else drove miles and miles from store to store, shoveling food down her throat and puking in trash bags and clogging pipes. That couldn’t really be me, could it?
But it was. It was me. I was so riddled with fear and self-hatred, I had no resources to escape myself but to cause harm and suffering to the person closest to me. I had no idea that the cycle I was stuck in was temporary, optional, and ultimately going to lend me an experience to benefit others. I had no idea that it wasn’t food or my body that deserved the abuse, but that I had a disease and it wasn’t my fault. It still isn’t my fault, and never will be.
Coming off of a race weekend I am always introspective. Hard efforts do that to you. They encourage you to take a look at yourself and get honest. They also invite your doubts to come out and sabotage any success that you did have, so it’s a delicate balance between taking inventory from an objective standpoint and pummeling yourself with the frequent thoughts that “I could have, should have, would have”. Truth is that no, you wouldn’t, because you didn’t, and if you could have, you would have! Don’t argue with reality – you will never win.
This weekend was the most put together I have ever felt in a competitive event. Not that I am Olympics bound or even moderately elite, but I do care about how I perform and I do put a lot of effort into my training and recovery efforts so that I can show up on the day and not blow a gasket. When you’re dealing with fitness and your own body as the vehicle to your success or demise, there are a lot of things to look after way before and after the event itself: nutrition, hydration, sleep, rest, active recovery, and training itself. The first piece has taken me the longest because of my disordered relationship with food and body. Hydration was fairly easy for me because you can’t perform for too long under many conditions dying of thirst (at least I can’t), so my will to go on without liquids left me a long time ago. Sleep I learned a lot about over the last few years, and especially after falling nearly every run because of too little shuteye. Rest and active recovery (walking, light biking, hiking) I have learned to respect because I have seen the fruits of my labor and learned how happy my body is when she moves around more frequently and gently (and let’s be real: no one has ever had to force me to move more). After commuting for a year and waking up stiff as hell and having sore and tight everything every day, I learned the benefit of stretching and walking and haven’t looked back since. Training I continue to navigate the balance as I am the fittest I have ever been with respect to aerobic capacity and carrying power, but my pound-for-pound pulling and grip strength have declined a bit. It took me a long time to trust that I could let go of hypertrophy work and lifting a lot, so I know a little tweak and the balance will readjust again. Despite my terror that I am weak (laugh, go ahead), I know this is temporary.
But food? Never did I imagine or believe that it would be true for me, that food would release so much power and energy. I have listened to podcasts, read books, sat in doctors’ offices and watched other people’s success eating more and their bodies responding to it, but me? My body? Eat how many carbs? How often? More because I have a race? What? No. It was not for me. It was not applicable because I looked at a carb (I’ll quickly define carbs as whole grains, potatoes, fruits, vegetables, rice, cereals and not the often assumed cupcakes, cookies, ice cream) and blew up. My body “didn’t like carbs”. “I look better on fat”. But how did you feel, Alison? How did you feel trying to push yourself on minimal fuel?
True story: I didn’t use a single gel in any endurance event or race until after my first marathon last November. WHAT!!!!!!! As someone who now uses a watch to fuel and hydrate during anything over 60 minutes in duration, training or competitive, I can hardly go back there. But I didn’t know. Despite the professionals guiding me and being paid to do so, I didn’t know. Nobody told me I should take fuel with me beyond drinking calories, even for efforts under 20 miles. Nobody told me I needed carbs to help balance the glycogen stores that were constantly being depleted. Nobody told me that fasted cardio and workouts were in fact damaging my energy stores. Or, before I keep going down the list of “nobody’s”, I didn’t hear them tell me. I didn’t think the rules applied to me. I didn’t think I needed to adequately fuel myself because real talk? I was terrified. I was terrified of being fat. I was terrified of looking bad in photos. I was terrified of not being enough, of not being worthy, of not being lovable if I didn’t look a certain way.
And I was missing out on so much. Today I am eating more in both calories and carbs than ever before and in a balanced approach. I am following macros, but I follow the same macros every day unless I have a long run (2+ hours) or an event in which we (a professional I pay) bump my carbs the day of or a few days prior. Yes, it’s ungodly uncomfortable for me to eat that much food some days. My stomach feels heavy, I see a baby Beluga in the mirror and I feel grossly full. But guess what? My nutritionist doesn’t care how I feel about what I see in the mirror; she cares how I feel at mile 8 of a 14 mile effort on a mountain with 37 obstacles and whether or not I can maintain the energy to finish strong, and walk the next day. She doesn’t care if I feel bloated or pick up a few pounds (in my head, I don’t own a scale) in water because my body will suck that up immediately when blasting past people who used to believe what I did and that their bodies don’t need fuel or hydration if the effort “isn’t _____ enough”. Bless them. Because I was them.
Never have I been able to sleep in my sober life, until more recently when I started eating enough. Never have I had a consistent period because I never ate enough carbs. Never did I not have evening cravings and hunger pangs because I wasn’t fueled based on the activity I was doing. Never did I trust the process long enough to let go of the temporary discomfort to do right by my body. I felt so bloated going into the race Saturday, I was dying. But guess what? I didn’t think about my body or how she looked once during the race because I kept pounding away, burpees and all! Never did I question if I ate too much all week because guess what? I could run up every hill that was runnable! Never did I question my plan that I adhered to under professional guidance because guess what? I could run again on Sunday and again yesterday and am better for it! My energy stayed. And even more magical? My body “looks normal” again after one day. Interesting, huh?
I don’t know your deal with food or if you even have one. But I do know that there are more articles, more books, more podcasts and more companies toting the power of food and that it is our medicine and our poison. Society is obsessed with food: to eat or not to eat it, to eat more of it or to eat less of it, to avoid certain things or to play with moderation, to decorate colored chemical cakes or to go all natural and vegan – the list is endless. But what I do know, especially coming from a place of “less is more” and then “eat it all right now” – the middle is my Unicorn. Except I found it. Not only can I do more, but my brain is coming along with me. Who cares if you can crush a workout if you can’t park your car further away in the parking lot and make your way up a few flights of stairs because you have no remaining energy? Who cares if you have striated abs but you can’t enjoy a piece of fruit in season? Who cares if you eat “clean” all week, but then pollute yourself all weekend? Who cares if you’re “back on the wagon”, desperate to lose the belly you developed again?
I care. I care a lot. Because I have done all of those things and I have been all of those people, and I just can’t be her or do that anymore. So I ask you: come join me, or support the person in your life that used to be me, and share this blog with them and let them know that yes, it can be different. I promise.