Reclaiming Life: A College Athlete’s 15-Year Journey to Overcome an Eating Disorder

Looking back on this one moment, I see how it influenced me to associate “weight gain” with “slowness.” Having a coach, someone that I trusted and believed in to make me an NCAA Champion and possible Olympian, outwardly address my slower-moving dives as a result of weight gain, definitely deepened this association. However, his words were not the sole culprit.

I’ve always been afraid of being labeled as lazy, sedentary, or weak, which is certainly influenced from societal norms and the discipline often found in Division I athletics. But after this “bad” practice or other instances where I felt sluggish, I didn’t feel it was suitable to confess my inner thoughts. Talking about gaining weight felt as if it would have been a crime. That I should know better not to gain weight and should have tried harder. And I didn’t want my teammates to think I wasn’t doing my best or that there was any miniscule of me that was slacking.

Not having an outlet to shed the hardcore athletic mentality, express my worries, and still be seen as a committed team player laid the groundwork for my eating disorder to thrive.

After I graduated from Stanford University and had earned Newcomer Diver of the Year, three All-American titles, and a second place NCAA Division I Championship, on top of a world-class education, I should have been elated. However, I was lost. Since I was seven years old, I was a diver. My friends and family had always referred to me as “the diver.” Suddenly, this deeply entrenched identity had vanished.

At the same time, I was stressed about my job, debating if I had made the right career choice, and missing the “Stanford bubble.” The Stanford campus, as students affectionately call the “Stanford bubble,” provided a microcosm of people from all walks of life to learn, be their true selves, and blossom. And since 98% of students live on campus—California housing is too expensive not to—we were committed to the bubble. I loved the bubble and all the people floating inside it.

Dealing with my identity loss, uncertain career choice, and deflated bubble was the combination (for me) that fueled my eating disorder. It didn’t happen overnight, and I didn’t make a declaration like “I will starve myself” to feel better. Rather, I thought,

 

How can I avoid another disappointment? Or, if there is another loss in my life, what can I guarantee is still “good?” 

My size.

I can control how much I eat, ensuring that no matter what other harsh reality hits me, I can find relief in being thin. It became my personal insurance policy. I transferred my athletic discipline into meticulously monitoring my food intake while regularly exercising. Initially, I received compliments on how I looked, which encouraged me to stay strict. But eventually, my eating disorder turned into my own deadly competition.

Can I eat less than I did yesterday? Can I weigh one pound less than yesterday?

There’s the critical one pound again.

It’s like I fabricated my own athletic games, which for me was comforting, familiar, and success driven.

I will be the winner, no matter what it takes.

Over the course of 15 years, I dipped in and out of this eating disorder game. I started as anorexic but as the restrictions became too hard to manage over time, I turned to bulimia. To hide any evidence, my binge and purge sessions typically happened late at night while others were sleeping. Thankfully, these five elements moved me into recovery.

1. Acceptance

For the majority of my eating disorder days, I never believed I had an eating disorder or even called it that. I still achieved professional and personal success and wasn’t hospitalized so I didn’t think my situation was as severe as a disorder.

This is just my life. I have to eat less than most people to maintain this size. I can control this element of my life when so many other pieces are unpredictable. This keeps me safe.

I truly believed my food restricting and purging was protecting me until, “Dorito night.”

Dorito Night

“Just eat this Dorito, please.”

It was nearly midnight during one of our family vacations and my sister was crying like I’d never seen her cry before. She was clutching to this single Dorito and holding it in front of me as if it were the last piece of food on the planet. Her eyes were bloodshot red from all the tears.

All she wanted was to see me eat a Dorito.

Really, is this Dorito going to solve all her worries? Will this really make it all better?

I knew that wasn’t the truth. But I could tell she was so distraught that if eating a single Dorito made her feel better, then I could put on another show. I put on a façade all day, every day. Nothing new.

I ate the Dorito. My sister showed relief.

For weeks after that night, I couldn’t get my sister’s pleading and terrified look out of my mind. She’s not one to wear her emotions on her sleeve so her unmistakable distress really stuck with me. Even though my family had been telling me for years, “eat more,” “you’re too thin,” “you’re not yourself,” or “you could die if you keep going like this,” my commitment to the food restriction game was unbreakable.

Until my typically stoic, reserved, and pragmatic sister let herself be vulnerable and showed me her sincere worry. I didn’t want to believe it, but her reaction was so clear. I finally confessed to myself that I had an eating disorder.

2. Individual and Group Therapy

About a month after “Dorito night,” I wrote my family an email expressing my gratitude for always supporting me, but most importantly that I was going to find an eating disorder group therapy. Admittedly, I had been in individual therapy previously and talked openly about my stress as well as food restricting and purging behaviors. This time, I realized that I needed to be around other people who I could relate with and work together as a team to get well.

My group therapy teammates and our therapist provided the exact setting I needed. I could share my odd regimens and rather than receive weird looks, they nodded and could add their own, similar experiences. Group therapy gave me encouragement to be honest rather than hide, like I had become accustomed to doing. Moreover, we could cheer each other on and start to see we deserve to give ourselves grace just as we wished that for one another.

My group therapy leader recommended her, and I do individual sessions too. This gave me a one-on-one outlet to go deeper into my journey and develop individual goals.

When the Covid-19 pandemic began, telehealth allowed me to continue my appointments. While I missed being in-person with my group therapy teammates and therapist, I used the former commute time to add more therapeutic sessions to my schedule. So, I gained more time to focus on my recovery.

3. Journaling

I like writing so journaling was a critical part of my recovery. I learned to write down my feelings instead of suppressing them or use it as evidence to limit my food intake. I carried my journal in my purse everywhere. If I had to stop to write down an emotion while grocery shopping, driving to pick up my son and daughter from daycare, or while working, I did. Now, I see my four notebooks—hundreds of pages filled with my stream of consciousness—as a rite of passage for my recovery.

4. Reading

Two books were incredibly eye-opening and constructive for my eating disorder recovery. Carolyn Costin and Gwen Schubert Grabb’s 8 Keys to Recovery from an Eating Disorder gives steps and exercises to follow. Both authors are therapists with long-standing experience in treating eating disorders; Grabb has even recovered from her own eating disorder. They include personal stories and write with compassion.

In Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch’s transformative book, Intuitive Eating, they provide 10 themes for re-discovering and channeling your natural insight into eating. Essentially, we are born with the intuition to know when we need to eat and how much to eat so that we are thriving. I embraced their teachings; so much so, my husband and I have raised our children with this mindset too. Ever since following Intuitive Eating, I appreciate all types of food, listen to my hunger cues, respect my palate, and have zero quilt.

5. Judgement-Free Support

My husband has never judged me for my eating disorder behaviors. Even when I wasn’t forthright about my situation (while we were dating) and he slowly learned more as we grew closer, he continued to love me. He encouraged me to “give myself a break” and supported me reaching recovery on my own timeline. I am eternally grateful for his patience, compassion, and trust.

Two reasons my husband and I adopted two wonderful children from Colombia were: 1.) My husband was adopted at nine months old from a Colombian orphanage, so we wanted to pay it forward and help more children; and 2.) I couldn’t get pregnant. I wasn’t having menstrual cycles (due to my eating disorder) and fertility injections proved unsuccessful. But adopting our son (at one-and-half years old) in 2016 and our daughter (at five years old) in 2019 was amazing. Plus, having a daughter motivated me to stay in my eating disorder recovery; I did not want my daughter to follow in my footsteps, so I knew I needed to role model a positive relationship with my body and food as well as demonstrate that sharing, not hiding, emotions is welcomed.

In 2022 our family of four got the most unexpected surprise. I was pregnant. After my menstrual cycle returned and following Intuitive Eating helped my body reconnect with its healthy size, we were given a miracle. Now, our beautifully diverse and special family of five is perfectly complete. But I know that my eating disorder and my recovery were part of this path so there’s no regrets.

It’s no longer about one pound. It’s about enjoying my one, loving family and our life together.