To all sufferers of Disordered Eating: you are beautiful and the world is better for your presence in it.
A lifetime ago, it seems, I was in the throes of full-blown Anorexia Nervosa. Now, 40 years on, I continue to struggle with body dysmorphia and disordered eating (DE).
What follows is a personal essay intended to ease the loneliness of others struggling with an isolating DE and to convey a sense of hope for overcoming a problem that has a steel grip — one that feels impossible to escape. It may seem discordant that I begin by admitting that I have felt DE’s grip for 40 years. But read on.
Support for those suffering from DE — and all that it entails — back in the 1980s was poor. Moreover, if you were a male with DE in the 1980s you were essentially perceived as an alien. My mom carted me off to see a couple of Anorexia Nervosa “specialists” whose approach was: “gain weight or we will force feed you and gain weight or you will die.”
That was a short relationship. Other interventions were just as ineffective. I eventually left home not really understanding what DE was, how crippled I was with anxiety — a disorder intertwined with DE and how my excessive exercising fit in. I just move on with my life and muddled through my 20s hating my body, always underweight, and over-exercising.
Surprisingly it was during my late 20s when I met a rather ordinary personal trainer at a neighborhood gym. It was my admiration for his physique that motivated me to follow his advice to the smallest detail.
As with my 1980s triathlon heroes, I pursued his training commandments with a passion (i.e. an anxiety-driven obsession), more importantly, I ate what he told me to eat. My body changed — and I actually began to like what I saw in the mirror. I gained 25lbs, mostly muscle, and kept much of it through my mid-40s. DE defeated. Well, DE managed was a better way to put it.
At the time I thought I had escaped the grip of DE. In hindsight, I merely loosened it. I had received no counseling, no assistance — and as a result, deceived myself that DE was in my past.
I was getting positive feedback on my ‘new look’. Sadly, in this culture, we are often judged on how we look. Hence the relative epidemic of DE we see today is amplified by social media.
My experience as a male was that I was either too thin (i.e. not manly), or too heavy (i.e. lazy and lacking self-control). Internally I took these cultural values to an extreme. Although I was able to live a largely fulfilling life, I was also perpetually terrified of becoming either too thin (again) or too heavy by societal standards.
As I aged, I settled in at about 10 lbs beneath my heaviest weight. Moreover, as I advanced in my career and took on more responsibility, I skewed towards more and more daily cardiovascular exercise to manage stress — this at the expense of strength training.
One constant though: I remained very controlled about how and what I ate. I also managed to find a borderline socially acceptable way to eat to avoid being called out for DE.
Then I relapsed. But not in an obvious (to me) way. The beginning of the Covid pandemic coincided (coincidently) with my plan to travel the country as a nomad — living in an Airstream travel trailer. From March of 2020 until June 2021 I did just this. With gyms closed, I gave up strength training altogether.
I did however try to maintain my relatively rigid eating regime. It had kept me at a fairly stable weight for many years. Unfortunately trying to find the foods that were acceptable both during the pandemic and while traveling the country proved challenging.
A small calorie deficit snowballed. By the end of my experiment with nomadism, I had shed 15 lbs, felt exhausted all the time and finally sought help.
The toll? At age 55, I had, through restricted eating and over-exercising done the following:
Suppressed my pituitary gland hormone production
As a consequence, almost stopped producing testosterone
Discovered I had advanced osteoporosis (likely a consequence of decades of DE)
Lost interest in all forms of cardiovascular exercise — in fact I just wanted to stop. To rest.
This is where I am now. As an older man, I now feel my mortality and I want to spend the time I have left in a more fulfilling way — not obsessing about weight, body image, exercise, etc. But rather living a life of balance. I accepted that as I age, my body will show the signs of aging regardless of how I eat and exercise. I am struggling but determined to get there.
Clearly, the “healthy” life I always tried to convince myself I was living was in fact damaging me. My skeletal system has less integrity than my 80-year-old mom’s skeletal system. Yet despite knowing this, it is a daily battle. I fight it. You may be fighting it. We are struggling but not alone in the struggle.
My credibility in offering advice to those of you sharing DE with me is nothing more than telling you I have both struggled with the condition for decades and still have many fulfilling moments to reflect upon — as well as hope that I can shake myself from its grip before my time is up.
My intent in this essay is to convey to you, the reader, the following:
1. You are not alone. Male, female, young, old, elite athlete or casual exerciser — the DE community includes all of us.
2. Disordered Eating has a steel grip on all sufferers. You will struggle — perhaps throughout your life. Not because you are weak. But because food is necessary for life and because our society is obsessed with subjective definitions of beauty that we internalize.
3. You can escape from the grip and lead a fulfilled life. As I said — I have struggled with DE throughout my life, yet have still, on balance, lived a fulfilling and rewarding life. That said — there are so many more resources now. Take advantage of them. Get help. Find counseling. Your odds of success increase enormously if you choose not to go it alone!
4. Practice being kind to yourself. DE robs us of self-compassion. You are beautiful and deserve to be treated that way.
Some resources that may help you begin or continue your recovery:
Project Red-S (Relative Energy Deficiency- Syndrome)
National Eating Disorder Helpline
National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders
There are many places to turn for help. Please do it!
Thank you. Thank you very much.