Lets Talk About Anorexia

It doesn’t take a lot of scrolling through my instagram feed (@joe_guy) to see that in recent years my bodyweight and body fat has taken some pretty major swings.

In December 2015 my bodyweight was 82kg, which then dropped to 69kg in July 2016, which then ballooned to 93kg in November 2016, before leveling out again to 85kg today. To some people that may look like the classic stereotypical bodybuilding cycles of bulking and cutting, bulking and cutting, but others may sense that there’s a deeper issue there, which there was.

After breaking my ribs in October 2015 I was unable to train for 3 months and although my diet was still relatively tight the lack of training meant aesthetically my physique went backwards. Upon returning to full training I decided that I was going to ‘prove’ to all those who said that I’d let myself go a little just how good a physique I had.

After 4 months things were going well, I was looking ripped and training well but I wasn’t ‘cover model ripped’ at this stage so I carried on dieting. My weight loss plateaued so I slashed the calories down to 2000 a day (maintenance for me is around 3000) and sure enough the weight began to come off again.

I continued to diet in this way until July, turning down social events and meals out because ‘I was dieting’. Unbeknown to me I had become anorexic in the chase of becoming cover model shredded. It took a photograph of me on the beach looking stick thin, bordering ill to finally make me realize that something needed to change. Even after seeing the photo I didn’t realize that I had a problem until a few of my behavioral traits was pointed out to me a few months later when my relationship with food had improved somewhat.

During the diet I would regularly drive to the supermarket just to stare at the chocolate, cake and pizza aisle. I would also regularly tell people how hungry I was and that I could eat two family sized pizzas to myself. Some people would say that I was simply showing strong discipline and that would be a fair argument at this stage.

I also however became a control freak. I wanted control of everything that involved food or caloric intake. I insisted on cooking all meals myself and would weigh out portion weight when cooking for more than just myself to ensure I didn’t overeat. To make matters worse I’m a pretty average cook for anything that doesn’t involve pasta!

On occasions where I couldn’t gain control of cooking a meal I had clever little tricks such as going to the toilet mid-meal before coming back to complain it had gone cold so I didn’t have to eat it, and initiating a deep conversation just as dinner was served to ensure that everyone was wrapped up in the conversation rather than the fact that I’d left half my dinner.

Then there was the punishment aspect of anorexia. If for whatever reason I did pass my 2000-calorie intake limit I would absolutely hammer myself with long, brutal training sessions.

I remember one particular Saturday there was a family occasion with a three-course meal and a free bar. Getting round the meal wasn’t a problem as I just didn’t eat anything else on that day, the bar on the other hand was a completely different kettle of fish as historically I’ve always been a relatively big drinker. I decided to avoid awkward conversations and just drank like people ‘expected’ me to. The next morning however I felt as though I had to ‘put things right’ and punished myself with a hilly 14 mile run on an empty stomach.

The only reason I stopped ‘dieting’ and managed to free the shackles of anorexia was because people kept bugging me about when they were going to see this ‘cover model physique’ and I told them July 1^st. After plenty of ‘beach pics’ and Instagram uploads I was inundated with messages from friends, family and followers who all said the same thing, which was that I now looked ‘skinny’ rather than ‘ripped’.

One friend had always insisted that once my ‘diet’ was over we needed to go out for a pizza so on July 1^st we did just that. They brought along a comparison photo of my physique in April compared with July and I couldn’t help but agree with what people were saying about me.

My gains were gone, I was just stick and bone, I looked weak. I no longer had the broad shouldered imposing physique that everyone came to know me for. I realized I had to eat more and bulk back up if I wanted to avoid looking like someone you’d pick on if you wanted a winnable fight.

I was lucky, I had people looking out for me. Although I had a ‘diet’ end date I believe that if people hadn’t of told me that I looked awful I would of tried to maintain that super lean condition because I still thought I was fat because I didn’t look ripped from head to toe all day everyday.

In reality you won’t look ripped all day everyday, its physiologically impossible. Cover models get lean for a particular date but have weights at the side of set in order to get ‘pumped up’. Those who say they can maintain the super ripped look all day everyday are one of two things, either lying or on steroids.

The worst thing about anorexia is that it screws every part of your life. You waste hours upon hours religiously calorie counting, you worry about things that really don’t matter with anxiety keeping you awake late into the night, you ruin existing relationships with people you love the most as you have uncontrollable mood swings, you struggle to focus on anything matching the attention span of a small fly, you lose your sex drive, and you constantly feel cold.

If you know anyone who has dramatically lost weight, to which you can evidence, show them! Don’t do it aggressively as people were regularly telling me in the last couple of months of my ‘diet’ that I was ‘too thin’ but I would simply dismiss them on they grounds of either ‘they had no evidence’ or ‘you don’t know what its like to get cover model shredded’. Instead, approach them sensitively and with reason to your argument. Don’t be scared or delay approaching either because if you don’t do it maybe nobody will!