I don’t talk about this often. Usually when I get comments from coworkers or strangers regarding my weight, I laugh it off and respond with, “I’ve always just been small”.
In a way, it’s true. I’m a little below average height, and well below average weight for my size. It’s always been that way—up until I was 16, when things changed. I went down the road that many young girls do; picking at every little aspect of my appearance, and unrealistically comparing myself to my peers or to celebrities. Out of everything about myself that I knew I couldn’t change—my height, my facial features, even the sound of my voice—my weight was always something I felt in control of.
So I began to diet (ie. Restricting what I ate in order to lose weight). In high school my lowest weight was 105lbs (approx. 48kg). I began to get dizzy spells that would last for hours from a lack of nutrition. I knew that was why, yet I didn’t stop.
By the time I was in university, I had dropped down to 95lbs (43kg). I also had recently gotten out of a long-term relationship that ended extremely badly. Without giving myself time to heal, or to accept what had happened after the breakup, I began to date again rather quickly. This new guy I was with was very much into fitness and going to the gym, and would constantly tell me that “95lbs is good, but less than 90lbs would be better”. I knew he was wrong, and was comparing me to girls from his home country (a body type I know I don’t have). In the end, I broke things off with him.
But my obsession with my weight only got worse. I was eating between 500-800 calories a day, taking a full class load in university, and working as a waitress 5 days a week. I didn’t “have time” to eat, and when I did it was mostly tea and banana bread, or whatever meals were served in the restaurant after hours (a sushi restaurant). I had started writing a diary of my calorie intake, as well as how many grams of fat I ate in a day. I no longer have those diaries—a black mark I refuse to dig up.
I was dating my now husband at this time, and I played off my eating habits as being “vegetarian”, though being vegetarian had nothing to do with it. As he worked all the time, it was hard for him to keep track of what I was doing—or not doing. I began to skip classes due to exhaustion, and if I became hungry, I would just go to sleep instead of eating.
By this time, at 22 years old, I was 90lbs (41kg) and my skin had broken out like a pre-teen’s. My hair had thinned dramatically, and I looked gaunt. Complete strangers and regular customers at the restaurant would ask me my weight, or say things like “honey, you’re wasting away”. Yet, I liked it. I liked the attention of being the smallest girl in the room. The idea of gaining weight gave me physical anxiety and panic attacks.
A lot of people relate eating disorders to anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa. The reality is that there are so many more aspects to an eating disorder. I’ve never been clinically diagnosed as being anorexic, and I’ve never make myself purge. Yet, my doctor had constantly told me, “You need to gain weight, or your body will stop having its cycles”.
And it did. The first two months I missed my period, I thought I was pregnant. On the third month, my period finally came—relief! I was getting used to not having my monthly cycle, and I thought it was fine. I looked the way I wanted, so who needed that annoying visit from Aunt Flo?
It wasn’t until I actually did get pregnant—something my own doctor was convinced couldn’t happen—that reality set in. I found out I was pregnant with Suzuna at 11 weeks gestation. I felt terrible at the realization that I had a life growing inside me for over 2 months, and I had done nothing but starve it and deprive it of the nutrition it needed to thrive.
It was like a light that switched inside me. I began to take vitamins, I began to eat meat again, and I doubled—if not tripled—my calorie intake. I still struggled with the weight gain, and would often have breakdowns or call my family crying. I couldn’t accept that I was gaining weight, because what if it didn’t come off?
Throughout my entire pregnancy, Suzuna measured 4-5 weeks what doctors expected her to be at. And, at 6 months along, I went into early labour.
Thinking that I was losing the precious life inside me was terrifying, and all I could do was blame myself. What if I had taken better care of myself; would this still have happened?
Luckily, doctors were able to stop the labour—and to this day we don’t know what actually caused it—and Suzuna carried to full term. She was small, yes, but healthy. Extremely healthy, and I’m so thankful. I lost 90% of my pregnancy weight within 3 months of having Suzuna, and managed to keep a healthier weight of 100lbs until my current pregnancy.
It is still hard for me to mentally accept the changes that my body has gone through because of having Suzuna—and I still dread the idea that I may not be able to lose the weight after my current pregnancy. But one thing I know for sure is that pregnancy changes the way you look at your body, and your relationship with food. Now I have a daughter—soon to be 2!—and I can’t project my negative self-image onto them. The world is bombarding girls (and boys) with what the “perfect body” is, or was is considered to be “beautiful”. The last thing my daughters need is to see their mother projecting these false realities onto herself; because they will learn from that.
I know that I will struggle with my weight for the rest of my life. After all, an eating disorder is a mental illness. I don’t believe I will ever be 100% cured of that illness.
But, I know I’ve come a long way. I’m not an expert on this, but if I could give anyone going through pregnancy following (or during) having an eating disorder, I would say this: Don’t get caught up on the numbers on the scale, or the extra belly fat or stretch marks. You’re creating a life, and that is worth protecting—even if you’re protecting that life from your own self-harming behavior.
