It didn’t come easy to me: My Journey to Health PART 1

It didn’t come easy to me: My journey to health started my senior year of high school. The year I stopped competitive cheerleading and tried working out in the gym for the very first time. My first year trying to be “healthy” and had absolutely no idea where to start.

Seriously, I thought cheerios were healthy. (The box said it was…so it must be?)

So my diet consisted of acai bowls from Sambazon and cheerios…super healthy, right? I literally had no clue.

I did 20-30 minutes of cardio a day, finished with 30 minutes of abs and had no idea why I wasn’t seeing results.

This diet led me to be hospitalized for 5 days so I took a break from my healthy diet kick.

Freshman year of college at SDSU: FALL SEMESTER

Everyone talked about the freshman 20 like it was bound to happen and you had no control over it. This kind of talk made me cringe. The thought of having no control scared the shit out of me. At first I gave in, I ate those late night burritos to top off the amount of alcohol I drank, dived into Panda Express on the daily, and chowed down on all the sweets I could afford.

I felt sick and out of control.

A month later I joined a sorority. I had never seen so many girls so absolutely beautiful. I noticed the girls I started to click with were all so skinny and everyone praised them for it. Feeling the need to fit in, I started watching what I ate.

Watching what I ate turned into obsessing over what I ate. I researched a lot on how to lose weight (because I thought being skinny meant you were healthy…FALSE), what foods didn’t make you gain weight, calories, and how to restrict myself. The list goes on.

My idea of being healthy was eating less, and eating “healthy” foods. My idea of healthy foods was salad, fruit, and veggies. No protein, no fats and no complex or starchy carbs. I thought those kinds of foods made me fat as soon as I would eat one bite.

Instead of gaining the freshman 20, I lost the freshman 20.

I went from 120lbs to 100lbs, lost my period and I thought I looked HAWTT. But it wasn’t enough. I still didn’t look like those fitness girls on Instagram and Pinterest. I was obsessed with having a thigh gap. (Scary, right?)It didn't come easy to me: My Journey to Health Part

People were worried, but that only fueled my fire. People stared, but I just assumed they were jealous. My friends made comments, my parents threatened to pull me out of college, my sister kept checking up on me and my sorority started to get involved. I was toxic and had no idea.

I lost friends who cared about me because I felt they were jealous, but really they just wanted to help. My relationship with my family worsened, but my drive for being skinny grew.

 

I needed help. However, I just continued to drink, party and eat what I thought was healthy.

Worried and afraid, my parents took me to multiple Dr. appointments. I would lie to everyone of the Dr’s questions.

The Doctor:

“Do you still have your period?”  yes

“Tell me what you eat in a day.” list of lies

I had no idea how much harm I was doing to my body.

Freshman year of college at SDSU: SPRING SEMESTER

I had a seizure at Starbucks. It was chaos. Waking up in embarrassment, I saw people running around trying to help. Someone gave me water, another person called 911, others were testing my pulse and asking me questions. Next thing I know the paramedics were there. Dazed and confused my friends Lauren and Maggie came to the rescue. After the paramedics ran some tests, and saw nothing wrong, they had still encouraged me to go to the Drs. I refused to go, thinking I was invincible so Lauren & Maggie drove me to their home. They took care of me that day/night.

Scared to call my parents because I knew what they would say, I decided to wait until the next day. Of course they blamed it on me not eating enough.

3 months later

I went to Coachella, tried a drug & had a horrible experience. I threw up everywhere, felt like I was dying, and had an out of body experience. (DON’T DO DRUGS)

 

I was a wreck after Coachella. That single tiny drug changed my life. I kept having blurry vision, constant fear that I was going to have a seizure and weird tingly sensations that ran up and down my arms.

Now I was scared. Now I was calling all of the Dr. appointments and now I was realizing “holy shit what the hell did I do to myself?!”

The neurologist said my symptoms were due to exhaustion. AKA depriving myself from nutrients and lack of sleep, partying too hard etc.

At this point, I was on board with my mom’s plan of getting myself a personal trainer and nutritionist. (T-GOD)

A plan that saved my life and my ability to have lil babies one day.

(To be continued)

Read Part 2 (here)

If you or a loved one is going through an eating disorder speak to a professional. Visit this website here. You are not alone. There is hope. 🙂

 

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  1. Kelli says:

    I know this is not an easy thing to share, but I, along with so many others, love and admire your transparency. I had a similar experience in college and it’s not easy to look back and share to the world. I’m not going to lie, I do not follow a lot of influencers but you speak to me with your content. You can feel the realness through the screen, so THANK YOU for being you and sharing your journey through life with all of us!