It is not till recently that I have realised over the past few weeks that she has been disguising herself. When I mention her or she it is the Anorexia. The temptress, the demon, the monster, the Captor and the abusive partner who I was in a long relationship with. She had me throughout most of my life ruling my thoughts and actions making me feel worthless. She was disguised in many forms, for which she was not properly exorcised. As going back to the treatment in 1999 when I was gravely in danger of dying from this illness. She was not properly treated as they did not allow me to gain control or full reign of it, as intervention was needed.

She had been disguised either through binge eating, alcohol, and the times I started training for fitness events. It’s like she gains strength from any weakness or any events that happen in my life. For which she gets stronger and her voice within me is getting stronger telling me I am not good enough therefore creating anxieties. For 20 years I can honestly say with everything I have achieved wether it was from my travelling career or fitness career. To achieving my qualifications and numerous marathons and sports events. I have never had that true moment of satisfaction within myself. I felt like a fraud and I could always do better. It’s been this inner demon fuelling my emotions driving me to use food and exercise to control these emotions and tricking me into believing I am achieving something or it will make me feel good. However as I have mentioned I am also grateful this anorexia had returned out of hiding during my adulthood so I can really experience what it was like and learn from its ways and discover ways on how to slay the beast along with proving myself I can do this and i am worth more than the Anorexia.

I have been lucky to also have an army of people behind me to support me all the way through recovery and beyond. The positive comments received have been overwhelming to how I am also helping others who are not necessarily going through Eating Disorders. Saying that I am keeping them motivated every day through their lives from updating regularly on facebook my progress. I feel this path has been given to me for a reason to allow me to be stronger, value myself strongly and to spread awareness. I have more going for me now than there was a year ago. I never realised recovery was going to be such a positive experience and now I realise everything happens for a reason. I am also grateful I saw the light myself and took action rather than someone else doing this for me. I know now that this achievement of battling it myself along with an army of people behind me will be an achievement like no other.

As in previous posts I have spoken about my recovery moment or the wake up call. It was a moment that I had to reach rock bottom for to really see the light. I realised Amy missed her life and that was just enjoying life with friends. She used to like going out for drinks, meals and treats at the cinema. But mainly enjoying life with friends and not thinking about calories, food, exercise and the feelings of anxiety as I have eaten an extra rice cake. As during my last few weeks I even felt guilt from just having an extra rice cake or eating a full apple, as I only used to have half. As this voice within me was saying no and making me feel anxious for eating the other half of the apple saying I have had enough calories for the day. Even though I had ran a 10km burnt over 600kcal and eating less than 400kcal. Keeping to set calories in consumption and exercise I felt I was in control. The numbers on the scales, my garmin and watch was the tools she used to control me. When ever I cut things out she saw that as a window of opportunity to cut it out the next day because I coped fine without it. This became the viscous cycle. Along with exercise if I did not do the full amount of burnt calories the previous day I would feel anxious and would feel the need to cut further calories. Also my weigh ins became a dictator to how much exercise to do and how much food I should eat.

My diet during the last few weeks consisted of egg white omelet usually with onions, mushrooms and a bit of tomato. To then having numerous cups of coffee with the occasional Ryvita Crispbread. Even having the crispbread with marmite on she would get me thinking about the calories and even dictating how much marmite to spread on it. She was even getting me to be conscious about how many calories are in sugar free squash towards these last few weeks. As I used to also drink a lot of water and using squash to make it more drinkable, but also to have a different taste in my mouth.

I also had a thing for pickled gherkins, onions, beetroot anything that was pickled, as well. Its writing all this that I realise that the Anorexia in me made me feel this was normal at the time, but I felt at the time I needed something low cal that I can bite into so I can feel like I am eating more. I had an obsession with eating vegatables, for which my plate used to be filled up with all kinds of different veg. I used to feel hungry and felt this was the only way to feel full along with having different types of veg this was also having different flavours. I used a lot of seasoning and spices on my food again for this reason so that my taste buds are at least tantalised with something during the time. Fruit also became the enemy during this time, as I know from my knowledge how many calories are in apples, oranges, melon, mango and bananas due to the natural sugars. I used to also have moments of trying a biscuit but the emotions of swallowing this and adding extra calories was too much for me to handle, as my anxiety would feel too intense knowing I had consumed this. So I would spit this out. It felt good for a moment as I had the taste. But felt even more depressed because it made me do something shameful and not really enjoying it by properly digesting it.

It has been nearly 4 weeks now since I had days of eating vegetables, exercising till my muscles can not take the strain. Along with just generally feeling depressed and anxious for being out of control. Having a life dictated by weigh ins, calories I was taking in and calories out from the exercise. It has been a rollercoaster journey of recovery so far.

I have learnt many things along the way during this journey. I want to share the things I have learnt to also help people in recovery and to see there is a light and a better life than what the Anorexia was giving you. I realised this the hard way, as I have mentioned in my previous blogs about how I felt on my last day before recovery. I literally felt my body was going to give up at any time as it was severely malnourished, damaged and abused through exercise, laxatives and diet pills. Not to mention the price I am paying to my long term health. Currently having a symptom called foot drop meaning I have limited movement in my foot, which currently I am lucky to even move my toes. As I have lost feeling in my left foot due to some neurological damage. I should hopefully find out in about 2 weeks what the prognosis is but been told by 2 GP’s this is down to my anorexia and very low body fat. Our nervous system needs our essential fat to function, as they are protected by a layer of fat for this reason. As I was well into my essential fat levels for months during training and now my nervous system is showing signs of deterioration.

It was when I was training for the Spartan event in October I managed to get my body fat percentage to 10%, for which is incredibly dangerous for long durations. I saw my image along with muscle definition as a goal to work on back then. But little did I know this was Anorexia in disguise and I was fuelled by her traits. Because I am a perfectionist and I am competitive I became stuck in a vicious circle of figures, charts and goals. It was wanting to better myself each time I trained, for example lifting heavier weights or beating my own score on a Vo2 max fitness test on a treadmill. I was matching scores of elites during this time. However I just did not feel the satisfaction of this achievement. I used to feel anxious, depressed and down hearted if I wasn’t progressing at the speed I wanted to. However I knew as a Personal Trainer its not possible to achieve results over night. As the saying goes ” Rome wasn’t built in a day”. And in the fitness industry it takes a lot of time, patience and commitment to achieve goals. People that I worked with along with friends and family was shocked how quickly I had gained strong muscles, definition and a high level of fitness in such as short space of time. However in my eyes I could not see this and felt I was not good enough. However this again is the Anorexia in me feeding my confidence and self esteem with negativity.

Focusing on my recovery and how I have managed to tear myself away from the abyss that anorexia was allowing me to fall down to. It was writing in my journal, talking and taking videos that things started to make more sense. I was so frightened of breaking away from anorexia to recover, but part of me knew there was no choice otherwise today I will not be recovering or writing this blog. Its the people around me that gave me a helping hand through this because I fell very deep into a hole so I needed the help of many people to help me get out of this. Reaching out to me is the first step of recovery. As breaking away from isolation was a huge step in recovery, as I remember anything anyone said was upsetting me because she was distorting everything from comments and peoples actions. This set off a spiral of anxiety within me. Followed by the severe depression, for which I became a shell of a person lacking life and lustre, for which I was known for. I knew the first step was actually reaching for help so I told my mum I need to recover because I had no other choice. I said to her that evening I need a decent meal, as I partly knew it will help shift my mood slightly. As when your nutritional deprived you are not feeding your brain with calories that it needs to function for itself and the nervous system. I was very irritable and used to get angry over the smallest thing. I even got angry at my brothers Beagle Lilly because she wanted some attention.

From every meal I felt myself restoring and feeling more energy within myself. This is when I realised how much food was vital in my recovery to really get me feeling a bit like myself. The day after my decision, I remember smiling for the first time, as I felt I had pulled myself away from its nasty ways because I hated how I felt and felt better when I woke up knowing I am still alive, but also want to be able to do things that I used to enjoy. That was my job, as I had a vivid dream that evening about my job and i knew I had to eat to get this part of me back. I had a decent breakfast with egg and spinach along with a decent lunch. I then felt chatty because I was in silence for a very long time. My mum didn’t know what hit her when she suddenly saw this drastic change over night. It was not only my mum, but many other people from other family members and work colleagues who had witnessed me going through the rough stage of the illness. It was this moment people also realised I wasn’t myself and it was the anorexia on the surface.

My head now feels more focused, as I was able to go back to old memories that was forgotten about because the illness was the center of attention not allowing me to think about who I am. This then sparked a new lease of life within me. I never realised that the illness takes away your own personal qualities too for which are jumbled or hidden away. Its during recovery I have learnt the importance of reconnecting. As weeks went by with treatment along with actions I took to gain control over my life. I reconnected through people, music, places, photos and social media.

My headspace was becoming clearer through brain dumping all my thoughts into my journal. I have really realised this has and has become a saviour to my recovery. As it allows what ever you are thinking onto paper. This also clears your mind of any niggling thoughts clogging up your brain. I always say it’s like a paper version of a counsellor. It allows you to review what you have written and to think clearly. I usually journal at set times mostly before meal times in the morning and evening. I will blog more about journalling and writing as I go on. It also through my journal i refocus myself with goals and affirmations daily especially before my meal times.

In my recovery journey part 2 I am covering about my tools and coping strategies that have been the weapons used against the anorexia to beat her in this battle. For which I want to share with people recovering or thinking about how to get out of the hidden depths of the Eating Disorder. To also help people who are also going through any mental illness or problems in their life. To help ease stress, anxieties and clear your mind along with refocusing.