Here’s to Trying Something New! (And hoping you all enjoy it in the process)

“Count your blessings, not your calories.
Weigh your options, not your self-worth.
Starve your self-hatred not your body.
Hate the disorder not yourself.”
– Unknown

Powerful words huh? I thought so. Those words sum up the thought reversals that need to take place in a person with an Eating Disorder (ED as I like to call it). Many of you know that I have struggled with an eating disorder and body image issues for about 12 years and for many of you this comes as a shock, as you had no clue. I look healthier than I did a few years ago, and by looking at me it is hard to tell that I still, to this day fight a battle with Anorexia Nervosa. I have decided to create this blog as a way to try and supplement my treatment and help me become more confident in myself as a person – making an attempt to learn that I am so much more than the definition of an eating disorder. I am a living, breathing human being with goals and dreams that will not be destroyed because of a bump in the road… a very large bump. This is your WARNING… This is MY blog, it is MY story. There will be ugly parts and there will be happy parts. It will be raw and honest and true to no one else but myself. It is to be MY outlet and way of dealing with my struggles, innermost thoughts and emotions. If you can’t handle honesty, I am asking you not to read this post or posts here after. There are to be ABSOLUTELY NO comments about my physical appearance – they don’t help and I am not asking for the pity. If you wish to comment do so, but please do so in a way that does not focus on the physical or tries to disvalue thoughts, feelings, or emotions I share. Read my story here and my future post and support me as a person, for where this journey has taken me, what it has put me through, and where it will take me. Support me in my journey to recovery and being ED free. Share this blog with your friends and family if you wish. Share it with young girls who struggle with body image and self worth. Share it with athletes and non-athletes, men and women. Chances are there is a male in your life that struggles with his body image too – its not just women. Eating disorders and body image issues affect men and women of ALL shapes and sizes, of ALL ethnicities, of ALL socioeconomic status’, and of all ages. Maybe this will encourage them to seek out help or admit they need it. Maybe this blog will prevent another person from dealing with the devil that is found in an ED. Enough ranting, this is my first blog and this is an overview of my journey with ED thus far.

My name is Kaitlynn. I am a 24 year old female who lives with Anorexia Nervosa. My eating disorder started at age 13 with the Atkins diet. All my life I have been tall, I am 5’7″ currently, and growing up I stood a foot taller than everyone else. I was called “big foot” and “jolly giant” in elementary school and then “fat” in middle school. I didn’t like to run or play soccer and I could barely stand to play basketball because of the names I was called by my coaches, teammates and their parents alike. I had parents tell me not to block their girls because I was “too big” and “too dangerous.” I had basketball coaches who made me run extra laps because I was “too slow due to my size.” I formed a hatred for running. I was picked last on teams at recess and made fun of in gym class because I have never been all that coordinated. I was always told to hold in my stomach when I was trying on clothes and asked if I really needed that cookie for dessert or if I really wanted that much food. I never fit in with the “popular crowd” and in fact was made fun of by that same crowd. I thought that in order to fit in I needed to have blonde hair (blonder than my natural color), wear lots of make up and most importantly, I needed to be SKINNY. So I dieted. Hard core, strict dieting. No carbs and LOTS of protein. I started out consuming enough calories to meet my needs as a competitive swimmer at the time and I lost some weight. Eventually, as is the case with most diets, I plateaued. So what did I do? I should have stopped and said okay that’s where my body is comfortable, but no… I got even more strict and cut calories even more.Counting calories and exercising became my obsession. I would constantly think about food, counting the calories of the foods I had already eaten, the ones I had already burned and trying to figure out how many more I could eat for the day. It had to be a negative balance or I panicked. Focusing on anything else became challenging. My brain was consumed with how I looked, how my clothes fit, and what other people saw when they looked at me. This obsession could have killed me… By the time I was 16 I weighed MAYBE 95 pounds sopping wet. I was at this weight for two years and I continued to swim between 2 and 6 hours a day… competitively. Don’t ask me how I did it without killing myself from lack of nutrition or how I managed to actually be a fairly good swimmer, but I did it. By the time I was 18, with my performance in the water declining and my frustration with my body and my athletic abilities growing I took up running. Running gave me another outlet, one that made me feel in control when life around me felt so out of control. It was not until January 27, 2008 that everything changed. My grandfather died that day. He played a major role in my life and he taught me so many life lessons. his death was plain HARD. I didn’t care at that point. He wasn’t around to see me graduate high school (he died 4 months prior), he wasn’t around to see me swim in state that year…. He was gone. period, end of story. At least that is how I saw it at the time, and it is because of the way I saw it that I didn’t care about how I looked either. From February to May I gained 50 pounds. Yep that’s right… FIFTY! That’s good right? No more ED for Kaitlynn? WRONG!!! I gained 10 more pounds my first semester away at college. I was disliked in college and excluded from certain crowds based on appearance, purely appearance. When I came home in January 2009 I started dieting and working out again to try to loose some of the weight I had gained. I wasn’t as excessive this time around, but it was definitely old habits coming back and they have been back ever since. I have since lost a good amount of the 60 total pounds I gained, but the thoughts, emotions and restrictive behaviors are back. It is because of those behaviors (and the tremendous love of my family and boyfriend) that I finally decided to seek help. I do not EVER want to be 95 pounds or anywhere close to it EVER again. I do however, what to have a HEALTHY relationship with food and exercise and love my body for who God made me to be. Forget what other people think.. I want to be comfortable in MY skin. I want to be confident enough to love ME for ME and no one else.

So there you have it, my story in a nutshell (yes, the long version is much MUCH longer than you want to read or I want to type all at once). So from here on out I will post quotes, motivation, inspiration, specific stories about my past and my treatment and of course, I will post about the good, the bad, and the ugly parts that make up an ED. I hope you will embrace this journey with me and maybe learn something along the way! I hope in that making this public, I will be able to not only share my story and possibly help someone else, but also gain the confidence in myself to not let this demon dictate who I am as a person – I am so much more.