Do you ever look back on pictures from the “good ol’ days” and think: “If only I looked like THAT again.”
When I see this Senior Portrait, that was always my initial thought…
Until I had a reality check with myself years later: I actually was not happy (with my health or body) at all.
In other words: What you see is not always reality (No wonder we look at other people’s pictures on social media and think THEY HAVE IT ALL TOGETHER, but about 70% of us feel worse about OURSELVES).
Senior year of highschool is a blur.
The eating disorder had grown into an entirely new monster—often fighting with mom and dad about what went in my body; sneaking out of the house to get my 3rd workout in for the day; and eating ONLY protein powder, turkey patties, steamed veggies and Crystal Light still.
I wanted to be HEALTHY and FIT, and did not feel accomplished unless I worked out at least 3 hours each day, and ate lots of protein.
What was so wrong with that?
There were times I was unable to get my longer workout in the morning before school, so I’d sneak out of class to go workout in the football boys’ locker room…Every morning, before I ate breakfast, I HAD to complete AT LEAST 300 ab exercises (which soon grew to 1,000)…And I was grounded multiple times from my car because I was working out “too much”—even at times using some of my best friends’ cars to JUST GO GET MY WORKOUT IN.
I obsessively read “Oxygen Magazine” and dreamed about being a bikini body girl on the cover one day…
I Google searched things like: “How to lose fat and gain muscle,” “How carbs store body fat” and “Fruit good or bad?”…
I’d sneak away from my cheerleading sideline after our half-time performance to quickly scarf down a cold turkey patty and green beans in my car instead of eating anything at the game.
And I counted my macros obsessively.
Even though I was eating…I was STUCK and miserable.
The outside looking in from this picture only tells so much.
Desperate to get out of Little Rock, and my past, I applied to 13 different colleges—anywhere but home.
I got my ticket out to UT-Austin in Texas…On one condition: I’d get a doctor…