Breaking My Silence: Reflections of a Division I Athlete Overcoming Anorexia

/in , /by

This following piece is written by an anonymous athlete who chose to share their story in hopes of shedding light on the realities of eating disorders. Note: eating disorder behaviors are mentioned.

Part II will be published in the near future.

 

To anyone running in silence: I was once there too. I was afraid to speak up, afraid of the unknown ahead.

I want you to know that recovery is possible. I made it to the other side, and you can, too. I believe in you. You’re stronger than you realize. You are never alone. Recovery is worth it, and so are you.

Choosing Anonymity

While battling and recovering from anorexia, I carried an enormous amount of shame for what I went through, for letting myself and others down, and for not being “strong enough” to stop it. This anonymity is not about hiding. It’s about creating a space where I can be honest and vulnerable while I continue to navigate my own healing. One day, I hope to share my story under my own name. For now, this is part of my journey – a step toward acceptance and owning my story fully, safely, and courageously, at my own pace.

My Battle

There was a simplicity to my younger self: untouched by pain, unburdened by doubt, just carried by the momentum of the world with joy. Beautiful and flourishing in the morning light. Living among a swift breeze so sweet, daydreaming of dandelions and sunflowers in a patch of fluorescent green, with seagulls soaring through a pastel sky. Through her luminescent blue eyes, an entire world of potential shimmered.

That younger version of me is my glimmer of hope, my role model.

Read more

Drowning For Perfection: Guest Post by Erica King Kubowitsch

/in , , , /by

Note: Eating disorder behaviors mentioned. Events and conversations have been recreated from Erica’s memories of them.

~

Before the anxiety, before the creeping doubt, there was simply the water. 

Swimming felt as natural as breathing. The pool was a sanctuary where I felt calm, strong, and truly myself. As a child, especially during those endless summers, the public pool was my second home. I spent countless hours there almost every day, completely lost in games of pretending to be a mermaid and launching myself off the diving boards. I always dreaded the moment my parents would call me to go home. By six, I relentlessly pestered my mom to sign me up for the swim team.

By age eleven, I was immersed in swimming, consistently ranking among the nation’s top swimmers in the mile and finding both joy and challenge in every competition.Yet, alongside the triumphs came observations from coaches and friends about my slight frame: “How are you that fast and that small?” they’d ask, laughing. 

Slowly, subtly, these comments twisted my understanding of myself. My size, I started to believe, was not just a characteristic, but the very foundation of my success, my specialness. If I stay small, I stay fast, I stay special I thought. This insidious belief took root, shadowing me even as my body matured and the once-effortless act of swimming grew complicated.

Read more

“You Can Never Have An Eating Disorder That Isn’t ‘Serious Enough'”

/in , , , /by

Charmaine is an undergraduate at the University of Bristol reading International Social and Public Policy. When she’s not running, you can probably find her in climbing gyms, the mountains or some corner of Bristol. If she’s not outdoors, she’s probably cooped up with a book about the human condition, a social issue or someone’s adventure. All things aside, she believes in sharing and connection. We are all walking libraries, connected by the power of stories for the empathy and understanding that they can foster.  

NOTE: Eating disorder behaviors mentioned.

2017: An Innocent Diet Journey

For the bulk of my teenage years, I struggled with disordered eating. I was a competitive athlete in Triple Jump, and failed to perform during the 2017 season. That prompted me to go on a weight loss journey, with the innocent desire to improve my performance. I thought that if I weighed less, I could ‘jump further.’ 

I started off by eliminating certain food from my diet and tracked every food item I consumed. Knowing cardiovascular activity was known to help with weight loss, I started running. As the numbers decreased on the scale, I became more motivated. I decreased my calorie limit every week while increasing my weekly mileage. 

Read more

Creating Community: Recovery is Better Together (Guest Post by Sarah DeGraff)

/in , , /by

Sarah DeGraff is a Grand Rapids, Michigan native running the Afton 50K Trail Race this Saturday, June 2. She decided to run this race and raise funds for Running in Silence to support bringing eating disorder awareness to more athletes and coaches around the country. Every $1,000 donated helps us reach another group of athletes and/or coaches. You can donate here!

Sarah holds a BA in International Development. She is currently earning her Master’s in Horticulture at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where she is researching organic vegetable variety trials. Previously, she has worked as an Agricultural Extension Educator with UW-Madison Division of Extension. She enjoys running on the Ice Age Trail and Kettle Moraine trails nearby, as well as gardening, backpacking, hiking, traveling, and biking.

I ran my first marathon at age 27. “Limped through” is probably a more accurate description. Thanks to IT band issues I had throughout training, I wound up walking the final three miles into the finish chute. I immediately signed up for another race, despite my coworkers laughing at me as I hobbled around the office for the following week.

I had fallen in love with the training process of endurance sport.

I am not a traditional athlete. I didn’t join a track or cross-country team in high school or college. Training competitively started about five years ago, when I joined a marathon training team organized by a local running store. When my pace improved, I signed up for as many road races as I could.

Two years later, I moved away from friends and family to work on an organic farm in northern Wisconsin and began to train for my first ultramarathon trail race on my own, away from friends and family. I stayed busy working forty hours a week on the farm plus ten hours of training. The improvements I saw in my running performances added to the excitement. I felt a strong emotional connection to running, identified myself as a runner, and started to win age group awards and place in races.

Read more

What I learned as a Collegiate Runner Majoring in Dietetics (Guest Post by Maggie Farrell) Part II

/in , , , , /by

Read Part 1 of Maggie’s Journey here.

Donate to her Running in Silence marathon journey fundraiser here!

My eating disorder and running goals had me focusing on one common thing: how to be less. How I could spend less time on the cross-country course or track? Eat less throughout the day? Weigh less on the scale? And take up less space in this world? These thoughts of how to be less took up most of the space in my brain. It seemed the better I got at running, the more mental space was taken up by these goals.

This hyper-focused mindset, in addition to the irritability that came with under-fueling, made it difficult for me to form meaningful relationships and spend time with the ones I loved.

Looking back at the time I was struggling the most with my eating disorder, I can now identify several ways my social life and relationships were impacted:

  1. I went to bed early due to a fear of eating too much or “giving in” to my cravings. At this point in my life, it was a miracle to find me out of bed past 8 p.m. I was afraid the later I stayed up, the less willpower I had, and the more likely I would eat more food. Plus, thanks to the lack of energy I was consuming at the time, I just didn’t have the energy to stay up late.
  2. I turned down offers to go to social gatherings where food was involved. I would do just about anything to avoid my “fear foods.” These are foods that people avoid due to negative thoughts about the healthfulness of the food. I avoided foods that were commonly deemed by society as “bad” since I thought they would make me run slow or gain weight. I would do just about anything to avoid these foods.
  3. My thoughts were always dedicated to food. Like I said earlier, most of my thoughts at this point in my life were dedicated to food and my diet. How could I cut a couple of extra calories from my diet? What would I allow myself to eat the next day? Is the dressing that they served with my salad “healthy?” How many more calories should I eat today? This obsession with food was exhausting, but I couldn’t control my thoughts, so I just tried to ignore them. Little did I know that this was my body’s cry for help. I was starving.
  4. I didn’t have much energy for social events, and I was easily irritable. As I mentioned in my previous post, constant under-fueling translated into me feeling irritated a good proportion of the time. In addition, I was restricting my caloric intake, which meant I didn’t have the energy to do much else other than run.

Read more

A Destructive Numbers Game

/in , /by

I thought it was just a numbers game. I thought it was just about having discipline and willpower. I thought it was running until you threw up, that you had to grit your teeth, and push through pain. When I valued these things in running, it wasn’t difficult to grit my teeth and push through hunger.

I thought I was smarter than my body, that to lose my period and happiness was a worthy sacrifice.

I had one season where I accomplished the dreams I had set for myself for years. One season where I felt the wave of praise, admiration, and accomplishment, while each night I lay in bed thinking about the next meal I’d allow myself to eat.

I thought it was just a numbers game–calories in, calories out. That emotional eating was “bad,” and “wrong,” that I didn’t “want it bad enough” if I gave in too quickly to my emotional and physical cries. I practice denying myself in running, so how would it not easily translate to how I lived outside of each run?

Read more

NEDAW: “Let’s Get Real” with Recovery and the Prevalence of Eating Disorders

/in , /by

The first time I “got real” was in an email to my mom.

“I think I have an eating disorder,” I wrote.

In that moment, I recalled the terror and pain of binge eating alone each night. I thought of the race, days prior, where I had revealed my bloated, heavy body for the first time in months.

All-American runner from freshman year, gone?

My mom wasn’t sure what to think at first. We were talking about my binge eating experiences before it was even a diagnosable eating disorder in the DSM.

After our conversation, I feared speaking up again. But there’s something about talking–about getting real with all of this–that prompted me to say something more.

Read more

Interview with National Champ Erin Herrmann: Speaking Up About Eating Disorders

/in , /by

I had the privilege of interviewing National Champion for the 3000m Steeplechase from Hope College Erin Herrmann, who came out about her eating disorder in May. She shares her story and advice for others who may be struggling in the video interview below! Her biggest tip? TALK ABOUT IT.

“Trust in the love of the people you are surrounded by. They will help you see what you need to see in yourself.”

“They Just Disappeared”: Beyond Anorexia in Runners

/in , /by

Post updated March 16, 2021, to improve clarity and readability.

We often picture eating disorders in the running world in the form of a frail girl crossing the finish line. There’s an assumption that this person will run into multiple stress fractures in the next few years. And that, that is how they will disappear from the ranks as quickly as they came.

Injury. Lack of energy. Infertility. We bring up these consequences of not eating enough, of becoming too thin. Meanwhile, the least-discussed part of this “disappearing act” is what you might call the other side of anorexia: binge eating disorder, a very common rebound effect from restricting calories or food groups.

Binge Eating Disorder

Just as serious as anorexia (and even more common), binge eating involves consuming vast quantities of food in a frantic, guilt-ridden manner. It prompts sufferers to eat foods they may have never touched before. It leaves them feeling guilt for days afterward. It often triggers a response to restrict again, which only makes binge eating worse.

Read more

Guest Post With Megan Flanagan of Strong Runner Chicks: The Dark Side of Distance Running

/in , /by

I met Megan Flanagan through social media thanks to our interest in preventing eating disorders in the running world. With a similar mission of speaking about the topic, and encouraging those who struggle to speak up. I am excited to work with Megan in the near future, and I’m especially excited to share what she’s doing through  Strong Runner Chicks, a website dedicated to fostering strength in the female running community!

Strong Runner Chicks started as a way to inspire female runners to embrace their strength rather than cover it up; to embody the curves, muscle, and female bodies that we were given; to foster strength in the female running community and connect females of all ages, competitive and recreational runners alike, to an online space where they share ideas, tips, and personal stories on topics related to running, racing, strength training, fueling right and defining what it means to be a strong runner chick.

When you think “female distance runner,” what image comes to mind?

Thin? Lean? Wispy? Emaciated?

Likely, the word “strong” doesn’t appear first in your head, if at all.

Read more