A Recovering Bulimic Tells Why It Started and How She Stopped

It was a casual observation, really. The type of remark hundreds, maybe thousands of young women hear every day. But this was my coach talking. And I listened carefully.

“Hey, Ludovise,” he said. “Better stick to salads this week. Your thighs are looking kind of heavy.”

Had I not felt so vulnerable that day, maybe I could have brushed the words aside. Maybe I could have realized no one needs to worry about heavy thighs when she barely weighs 100 pounds. But I was coming off an injury. The state track meet was a few weeks away. My normally confident attitude was running scared.

Driving home that afternoon, I remembered what a triathlete friend of mine had told me a few days before: that he kept his weight down by throwing up. What a disgusting concept, I thought. But he spoke about it as if it were some great training discovery.

I never had a problem with food in high school. I wasn’t a “Tab Addict,” as the diet soda drinkers called themselves. I didn’t live off carrots, celery and salad bars as many girls seemed to do. But as I got older--and more into running--I couldn’t help but notice that the best runners seemed to be very thin.

As a college sophomore in 1982, I was 5 feet 1 and 105 pounds. Yet I became increasingly concerned about my weight. Everything I ate had to pass inspection--calorie count, grams of fat, sodium content. I bought one brand of bread because it had five fewer calories than another. I substituted salsa for salad dressing, nonfat yogurt for sour cream. Peanut butter became a childhood memory.

I did all these things to be a better runner. A healthier runner. It was with the same rationale that I first made myself throw up.

No one sets out to be bulimic. It isn’t something you catch, like a cold or the flu. It has nothing to do with intelligence or will power. Like alcoholism and other addictions, it creeps up on you slowly. As does denial.

I passed out from heatstroke after running in the state junior college track championships that year. I finished third but have no memory of the last two laps. All I remember is waking up with trainers and paramedics at my side, my body packed in ice and one of my coaches screaming for an ambulance.

At the time, everyone, including me, blamed the high heat and humidity. Certainly that played a part. But it wasn’t until years later that I realized I was partially to blame--my purging the night before meant I went into that race dehydrated.

I began to set deadlines. Started telling myself I wouldn’t binge again after tomorrow. Or next week. Or maybe just after Labor Day. . . . I was a month away from transferring from junior college to a Division I program in the Midwest. Expectations would be higher. Training and racing would be more intense. I knew I couldn’t afford to play games.

We started the cross-country season that fall with a weeklong training camp in Colorado. I drove from Southern California with two of my new teammates. When we pulled into camp, the other runners were already outside, warming up for the afternoon workout. The three of us sat in the car and stared.

“My God,” one of my teammates finally said, “I’m the fattest one here.”

Like bulimia, anorexia isn’t contagious. Not in the medical sense. Starving yourself to skeletal proportions isn’t something you consciously set out to do. You lose a pound. Then another pound. You feel quicker, lighter, maybe stronger. People begin to notice. Wow, they say, you’ve lost weight. Gosh, they tell you, I wish I could have legs like yours.

The first night of training camp, I told my coach I hadn’t been able to run much over the summer. Shin splints had kept my training limited to bicycling and swimming. He asked me my weight. One hundred and five, I said. How much did you weigh in high school? About 100. He shrugged as if the answer were obvious. Those five extra pounds, he reasoned, were more than my body could bear.

I joined my teammates in the kitchen. The conversation, as always, focused on food. The best runner, a senior, told us she had averaged 100 miles a week that summer, a third more than of the rest of us. She was 5-5 and 100 pounds. Her dinner plate was filled with salad and vegetables. She ate half and threw the rest away.

The season started. We were required to weigh in after every afternoon run and write our weight on a chart for our coach to inspect. If you weighed more than he wanted you to, you heard about it, often right there in front of the team. He once called a runner into his office after he found out she ate a candy bar.

Everyone had a theory on how to fool the scale: Stand on the edge. Stand in the middle. Lean forward. Exhale. No matter how hot it was, few dared to drink water before weighing in. Some took off not only their running shoes but socks, tights, wrist watches and jewelry.

It was as ridiculous as it was sad.

It’s difficult to say when losing weight became as important to me as running well. It certainly wasn’t a conscious decision. But I know, way back in my mind, I began competing with the scale the same way I ran against the clock. It didn’t matter that my coach told me I didn’t need to lose any more weight. By then, I was too caught up to believe him.

By my senior year, I was no longer bingeing but starving instead. I was coming off another injury and putting in two to three hours of intense cycling every morning. I allowed myself about 800 calories each day. I drank a lot of coffee, took No Doz and figured my daily vitamin pill would keep me healthy.

I dreamed of food almost every night.

I remember how envious I felt when our coach told one of my teammates to add an additional 10 minutes to her morning run to help her lose weight. I remember how upset I became when, after going months without a menstrual cycle, my period returned--for about one day. It had to be a sign I was getting fat.

When I was able to start running again, I came back to the track, and the compliments poured in. I was 94 pounds and leaner than some of my male teammates. One of the guys on our team spent a good portion of the workout that day raving about how fit I looked. After the workout, I looked in the mirror and thought, “Just a couple pounds more.”

A former anabolic steroid user once told me his dependence on steroids became like a “reverse anorexia.” No matter how big and muscular he became, he always saw himself as small and weak. It boils down to self-esteem. Somewhere along the line I made the connection, subconsciously at least, that being thin equaled happiness.

It’s not an unusual line of thinking, not in our weight-obsessed society. Not where women are often conditioned to believe--through movies, magazines, even beer commercials--that they’re valued for their body above anything else.

Add to that the pressure in certain sports to be thin, and it’s easier, perhaps, to understand how healthy young women can become entangled in eating disorders. You’re trying to be the best you can be--but it backfires.

I was lucky. After six years of being controlled by food and weight, I was able to come to terms with my problem, thanks to persistent counseling and the tremendous support of my parents.

I would be lying if I said I was 100% recovered--few with eating disorders ever are. I still feel anxious when I put on weight, and sometimes find myself obsessing about the size and shape of my thighs. The difference is now I realize those anxieties are merely a distress signal. Every time I start focusing on my weight, I know it’s time to ask myself what’s really going on inside.

I don’t blame my coaches. Certainly, I think some of them could have been more sensitive in dealing with the weight issue, more responsible, perhaps, with some of their comments. But the same goes for much of society. Few people seem to understand how body image plays into a woman’s self-esteem.

Just hearing the word anorexia or bulimia makes some people cringe. Others make sick jokes. A person with a drinking problem can hide behind the image of being the life of the party. They can talk about how wasted they got last night and still have a certain segment of the population think it cool. With an eating disorder, you’d hardly brag about a wild night of bingeing.

There was a time I thought I would never be able to eat normally. Now I can actually eat a hamburger without being consumed by guilt. I can’t tell you what a joy that is.

Happiness, I’ve learned, doesn’t come in a size 2 or 4. It isn’t found in low-calorie foods or diet pills. The answer, for me anyway, was rediscovering self - worth.

And learning again how to eat in peace.