If you read my “About Whole Hannah” I gave a quick introduction to myself and what brought me here to create this blog. For a quick recap, I spent a lot of my life overweight and really unhappy with myself in general. I spent so much of college yo-yo dieting and losing 20 lbs and then gaining it all right back.
In October of 2015, I had once again lost some weight for what felt like the 10th time. I had graduated from college and just knew it was time to “get my act together” and make a serious change in my lifestyle. I saw someone on Instagram doing a “Whole 30 Challenge” and I was, of course, interested. I was always on the lookout for a diet or quick fix that someone saw real results on.
I started my first Whole 30 shortly after doing some research and decided I could abide by these guidelines. It always made sense to me that I should follow a whole food based diet in general.
When I was finished I felt so great, better than I had ever felt in my life. I lost weight yes, but my mind was so clear and I felt like I could conquer anything. I became obsessed with this feeling. I never wanted it to go away. This led to fear of alcohol, grains, or anything not on the Whole 30. I also became obsessed with losing weight.
Over the course of a couple of months I became so restrictive and obsessive that I was only consuming 600 – 800 calories a day. I continued this for a very long time. Once I hit my first plateau, I started exercising. I fell in love with the high spinning gave you and began spinning every single day. Sometimes multiple times a day if I “binged”. Which looking back was probably 1200 calories in a day max.
This went on for a year. I would continually update my “goal weight” and was more unhappy with myself than ever before. Sure, people were praising me and telling me how great I looked. On the inside though, it was never enough. I was SO hard on myself. And I wasn’t enjoying life AT ALL.
I was constantly light headed, I had no energy, my stress level was out of the roof at work, I wasn’t enjoying any aspect of life. I hoped and begged that every morning when I got on the scale I would be lighter and feel happy for those 2 minutes before it was time to set a new goal.
I remember the day distinctly when I realized this had to end. I was 7 pounds away from my “goal weight” (which had changed 3 times) and I was barely eating 600 calories and going to spin everyday. But the weight wouldn’t come off anymore. I had actually put ON a few pounds and I was losing my mind.
I was at the gym and I felt like I was going to pass out. Unfortunately this wasn’t an unusual feeling though, so I persevered. When I finally got off the bike (10 minutes after spin had ended), I rushed to the water fountain as I was severely light headed and blacking out. On my way there, I lost consciousness and fainted.
I really only remember a girl who was a nurse standing over me checking my pulse and asking if I could hear her. It was the strangest thing I’ve ever experienced. It shook me to my core. I consider that my Day 1 on my journey to healing.
I slowly started to add more calories in my diet. Which again, looked like 1000 instead of 600. But even THAT was so hard for me. I went to see a functional practitioner who I continue to work with today on healing my body with nutrition and overall wellness.
My mental health is what has struggled most in all of this. I have tried to teach myself how to love myself. To forgive myself, to accept myself, just the way I am today.
I am FAR from this still. I still struggle every day with this one. I have put on about 30 pounds a few months in to my healing process while still consuming a relatively low amount of calories for the average person. To accept this weight gain after all I had to worked to lose it, knowing it was more beneficial for my body to have the proper nutrition, was so hard for me. It’s still hard for me.
I’ve still kept on about 15 pounds since my healing journey began and I am still working with different functional practitioners to see the damage that still exists with my metabolism almost 2 years later.
And sometimes…
I still want that goal weight
I still want to look like I did when I was beyond exhausted
I still want to restrict
I still want to binge
I still want to punish myself with exercise
It’s called a journey for a reason. I’ve come to realize that these feelings may always stick with me for life. Some days are certainly easier or harder than others. But I have to still try!
I share this with all of you to hopefully have you all avoid my mistakes. Or, if you are going through something like this, you are not alone. Never be afraid to reach out and ask for help. It is a sign of your strength, not your weakness.