My Battle with Eating Disorders

***There are some extremely upsetting images in this post - please look on if you are of a sensitive nature***

I apologise now for the serious nature of this blog post, but I've been wanting to come clean and blog about this for a long time but either haven't had the confidence or the courage to do so. I've been open about the fact that I have suffered with an eating disorder in some of my videos or some blogs but I've never gone into detail, mainly due to disappointment in myself. 

This blog post was prompted by an experience which I hope not to have to ever repeat. I was on Tumblr looking around as I normally do for motivational images/blogs etc. I then spotted a tag on one picture which said 'pro mia'. I don't know if it's because I'm naive but I had no idea what 'pro mia' meant so I clicked on it and all of a sudden I was directed to a ton of images/blogs/quotes/questions that supported both anorexia and bullimia. One quote I came across reduced me to tears;

"I am a fat and disgusting pig. I am a failure at everything. I have no self control and I hate myself right now. I will always be fat because I can't break these habits. I can't say no to food. I'll never reach my goal and I'll be a fat, disgusting, pig forever."

The images that these girls were using for 'thinspiration' were of girls that look like they could have come out of the holocaust. All I see is rib, bone, spine and sunken in eyes. A lot of the pictures are black and white to avoid people seeing the colour of the skin. 

One of the most upsetting things I found is this image. The caption read "Too fat to have an eating disorder...too fat to exist"

The post under this image was of a 30 day cutting challenge. Yes that exists. I cried for about 15 minutes.

The worst part of discovering these blogs for me was...

I used to be one of these girls. Now I never self - harmed but I did struggle with Eating Disorders for a big part of my teenage years.

I'm coming clean because this was a major part of my life, just as Tone It Up is now and I need you guys to know about this. 

It started when I was 14 (very nearly 15), I became obsessed with Nicole Richie; I loved everything about her. It wasn't long before I became obsessed with her weight (at the time she was skeletal). I began to cut down my portion size in a desperate bid to lose weight. I had a strategy; I would tell my mum that I was buying lunch at school and then take a tiny piece of bread for my lunch and skip breakfast all together.

My Motivation...at the time

I then got my first real boyfried, and whilst I don't hold this against him at all, as I have come to terms with the fact that what I went through was my own doing. He once asked me why I didn't look more like Cheryl Cole. He was joking, but I took it to heart. He would go on and on about Cheryl Cole and Megan Fox and I felt so sick to my stomach about how I looked because I wasn't skinny. I was heavier than I am now so this is when I began to make myself sick occasionally when I got home from school, whilst I was on my own so I had time to get rid of the smell and the mess - it was very strategic and secretive. 

Cheryl Cole

I still wasn't losing any weight. I thought that I still looked like an elephant and I hated myself. I started to look at it in a way which was dangerous. I told myself that bullimia was the easy way out - you get to eat what you want. In order to lose weight I was going to have to work for it. I was going to have to cut out food all together. 

I started this new diet when my parents and sister went away and I was home alone for three days, by this time I was 16. This was the turning point. After about a year of occasionally making myself sick it was time to move onto anorexia; I saw it as 'working' to get the body I wanted, and what I thought my boyfriend wanted. The pivotal moment, and I remember it so clearly, was on a Tuesday evening and I was talking to my boyfriend online and I said;

"I'm so proud of myself...all I've eaten in the last 3 days is 5 little pieces of carrot"

Looking at this sentence now makes me feel sick. Needless to say, the next day I went to school and I passed out. It was in the morning, I'd not eaten since lunch time the day before and we were in registration. The bell rang and I got up to go to my first lesson and I felt light headed. I fell onto my friend who (luckily) caught me, as without her my head would've hit the edge of a table and the situation could have been much worse. My tutor quickly got everyone to leave and I came round to see my boyfriend at the time fighting his way into the room shouting "Ask her what she's eaten! Ask her!". I'd never seen him so angry nor have I ever since (we are now good friends).  

That evening after school I came clean to my tutor (who I had an extremely good relationship with) and I was there very very late and we talked it through and I knew I had to stop. I had to get better. 

By this point I'd been suffering with forms of eating disorders for 18 months; and not lost any weight.

Recovery wasn't easy. In fact it was extremely difficult. It took time and I did it alone. I was too embarassed to even tell my mum; she still doesn't know. 

However I did recover and I was no longer scared to eat, in fact I looked forward to every meal and I binged like there was no tomorrow without working out; this is where my Tone It Up journey begins.

My journey has not been easy. I look at those blogs on Tumblr and I feel deep regret for what I did to myself and deep concern to what those girls are doing to themselves now. I want to help them like my tutor helped me but I don't know what I can do for them. I can proudly say I am fully healthy now and am losing weight like never before but it's taken me a while to get here.

My journey is ongoing. Today I got on the scales and (due to my period) I'd put on a pound and yes I considered starving myself for the day, or to binge and then purge. My anorexic and bullimic traits will always be there but I will not cave into them. Not anymore. Instead I'm doing things the right way - you eat clean and you work out and you lose weight. It's as simple as that.

Eating Disorders are not the answer. They never were.

Thank you for reading and thank you for your support and I'm sorry for cheating the system. If you have any questions about my journey, my recovery or eating disorders, or if you have any comments - please contact me. I welcome your emails.

Georgia.