Eating disorders and Endurance Athletes

Courtesy of the twitterverse, one of my favorites Chrissie Wellington tweeted this article: Why Eating Disorders in Endurance Athletes are Especially Dangerous

And I felt it was an important enough topic to warrant my comments on this.  So sit tight folks, we are about to get a bit serious here.

The article highlights some important physical reasons of why being an endurance athlete and having an eating disorder is exceptionally crippling.  The article highlights bone mass, malnutrition, hormone disorders, and absorption/food sensitivities.  It's a nice little blog article, you should really go read it.  There are a few (Wellington being one) athletes out there who describe their own struggle with an eating disorder and how it has impacted their own journey either through life, career or both.  It is not easy.  I feel the mental impact of an eating disorder, the underlying reasons contributing to it, and living with it are on par with the damage an eating disorder has on the body.

How can I speak on this you might wonder?  Because in college I struggled with it.  Now granted, I never reached the point of hospitalization (thank God).  But I went to counseling.  I was diagnosed as pre-anorexic.  I had reached 125 pounds on my 5'11 frame.  I was working out hours upon hours and eating only two or three (max) granola bars.  So while in some ways, I did not have it as bad as others, I still know that place.  It took a good friend of mine to say to me: "Jacquie you look better, not just skin and bones anymore" and my initial thought was  "I have to get back to that"-to scare me enough to go into therapy and seek help.  Now granted, I was a terrible therapist client (how is that for irony given my profession now?).  But it also took some very supportive friends, significant other at the time, and going to therapy to pull me out of a very bad rut. 

The thing about eating disorders, and I can only speak for myself, is that these thoughts never really go away.  It is something you are always aware of-on some level.  For the longest time I could not have a scale anywhere near me.  But the thoughts of weight and whatever contributes to the drive that creates an ED are never really gone.  As I approach a point in my life where everyone around me is having children and I am constantly faced with this expectation of bringing life to the world-the other side of that is the fear that is associated with these thoughts.  A fear of gaining weight, never being able to lose it, triggering old habits, not being sure if I can manage all of those at once-it's exhausting. 

And as an endurance athlete, I have to be always aware of nutrition.  I will say that entering into the endurance world has saved me.  Right when I was starting to pull out of my worst rut, I started getting into running.  I believe it was then that I ran my first half marathon.  The energy I put into worrying about weight and need for some sort of perfection could be put into endurance work.  And I was doing it safely.  I am still doing it safely, but that is not without the creeping up of thoughts from old habits. 

I was lucky to never truly develop the negative physical side of an ED.  But the mental part of it, well I don't think that those ever truly go away.  It is not an easy road.  I think it is very important to bring these issues to the forefront and make it easier for any athlete (or anyone really) to talk about their experiences.