"Work Eaten": Personal stories about sports bulimia
In March 2017, the popular American talk show "The Doctors" released a story about a woman who is addicted to exercise. In the past, a professional athlete, Erin trained eight hours a day. To have time to combine work with sports, Erin slept only two and a half hours a day. With tears in her eyes, the woman told me that dependence on workouts had completely subjugated her life and she was afraid that one day she would not stand the daily load.
Compulsive physical activity, which is also called sports bulimia, hypergymnasia and athletic anorexia, is as dangerous and destructive eating disorder as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. All these disorders are peculiar dependence of self-esteem on the shape and body weight. Only if in classical bulimia a person causes “vomiting” to “cleanse” from the eaten, then in sports “cleansing” excessive physical exertion becomes a punishment for every piece eaten. Physical activity is useful, but if training thoughts become obsessive and you feel guilty every time you can’t work out as usual, if you donate friends and family for gym classes, if no reason, including illness, becomes a reason for In order to skip the workout, this is a reason to be wary.
We talked with two heroines about how their passion for workouts turned into a relationship, and asked the expert what approach to training should not be considered too healthy.
Text: Alina Kolenchenko
Vitalina
24 years
I have been in sports since I was six. At first I practiced dancing, then volleyball was added to them. Every day I went to workout with pleasure, I liked to move and have fun. After the ninth grade, I was sent to study at the boarding school, where the lessons lasted from nine in the morning to six in the evening. So I did not have time for sports, and I had to forget about training. In high school came puberty, I had a hormonal failure, and from a slender dancer I turned into a huge bun. At seventeen, at the exit from the lyceum, I weighed 82 kilograms. The body seemed awful, huge to me, and I decided that something had to be done about it. So began experiments with food, all kinds of diets: kefir, buckwheat. In parallel, I started doing step aerobics on physical education at the university.
The coach of the Russian national team in this sport worked with us, and I set myself a goal to get into it. Once at the lesson the coach said: “Listen, if you want to enter the national team, you need to lose weight. You are awesome, these girls are not performing.” I was hurt, because I thought that my physical form allowed me to participate in competitions. I started to train in the second composition three times a week for four hours. It was very hard training, and there we were frankly rotting about weight, we were forbidden to eat - it seems that this is a standard topic of this kind of sport. I never got to the national team, but I was offered to train the cheerleaders. I began to train and in parallel to work out in the gym. I thought that I didn’t need anyone’s advice, I made up a program for myself: three times a week I did strength training, every day before going to bed I did one and a half hours of cardio. Now I understand that my body was in the deepest stress, but then everything suited me - in the mirror I saw a result that motivated me to practice even more and more diligently.
Soon I began to work at the reception at the fitness club and completely plunged into the exciting world of fitness: the atmosphere of the rocking chair, where people bring containers with sport pitches, and then they are killed in training, was truly infectious. One of the trainers, looking at me, said: “You have a good base. Let's prepare you for a bikini” (Women's bikini fitness, “fitness bikini” is a sports discipline for women, singled out in a separate competitive category by the International Bodybuilding Federation and fitness in 2010. - Approx. ed.). Of course, I was set on fire with this idea, but at the very first lesson the coach said: “Of course, for bikini you are fat, and you don’t have any muscles. Let's first lose weight completely, see what remains, and then begin to prepare for the competitions ". So I almost got to anorexia. I seemed huge to myself and therefore I trained every day: a week I had four strength training, one functional, one dance and one day of rest. But even on the weekend, I didn’t allow myself to relax - it seemed that I had to train myself, so I did cardio for one and a half or two hours. I, too, would definitely end up with any cardio training. At the same time, I severely limited myself to nutrition: I was on a diet that allowed me to consume no more than 100 grams of carbohydrates per day. My diet was very poor: oatmeal, chicken, lettuce, cucumbers, sometimes a little buckwheat. I excluded fruit, all dairy products and tried to eat as much protein as possible.
In the hospital I was diagnosed with pyelonephritis. It turned out that my kidneys stopped working due to a large amount of protein.
Once one of the coaches approached me with the question: "Did you even see yourself in the mirror?" I realized that I looked like a ghost: I had gray skin, sunken eyes and cheeks - but it still seemed to me that I needed to lose some more weight, so I continued to train every day. One morning I woke up from the fact that I was very bad: chills, the temperature was forty, I was delirious, but at the same time nothing hurt. I was scared and called the doctor, and in the hospital I was diagnosed with pyelonephritis. It turned out that my kidneys stopped working due to the large amount of protein. When after the treatment of my “dry” figure there was no trace left, a wild breakdown began: I ate everything, because there was nothing to lose.
Having barely recovered from the illness, I returned to the club, where my trainer asked how I was able to “work it out” in such a short period of time, and advised me to start intensive training again. He said that he understood that with my proportions, and now we will train for the masses. I used to lose weight, so psychologically it was difficult for me to restructure. With the weight gain, I again began to feel that I was fat, I wanted to start “drying” again, but I understood that the body could not stand the next rigid diet. I decided to deal with my diet, so I went to study at the nutritionist. This helped me understand my body, I realized how much damage it had caused, and decided that I would no longer torture myself with diets.
I abandoned the idea of competing in competitions, but a new fix idea appeared - crossfit and gymnastics; at the same time I began to study as a coach. I did not take into account that the body was not physically ready for such training. Visually, I had muscles, but it was just a three-dimensional picture - there was neither strength nor endurance. I trained with professionals, and I constantly felt that I had to run even faster, lift even more, train more intensively. Again, I began to spend all my free time in the gym and work out at every opportunity. My studies took a lot of time, so I slept two hours a day, in the morning I drank a liter of Americano and again ran to the gym.
To say that my body was in shock is to say nothing. Then for the first time in my life I understood what overtraining is. This is a state where you just can not get out of bed, everything hurts, there is no strength, no desire to do anything. I lay there for two days, on the third day my temperature rose and a terrible sore throat started in the middle of summer. It was the first call, but I did not pay attention to him - I drank the medicine and went to train further. But when my menstrual cycle got off, I still realized that something was wrong with my body.
When I see that someone starts going to the gym as a job, I try to convince the person to reconsider his approach to sports.
When I came to the doctor, first of all he asked me to tell me how I live, what my regimen is. I told how much coffee I drink, how much I sleep and how much I train - and the doctor pointed out to me the need to restore the regime of rest and recommended so far to give up physical exertion. I did not listen to him and lived for three more months in an ordinary mode, until one day while trying to make a gymnastic element I did not feel a sharp pain in my leg. I bought painkillers in the nearest pharmacy and ran on business, and in the evening, at home, I saw a huge hematoma on my leg. I realized that something had happened to the muscle, but I decided that since I could walk, the injury was not serious, and did not turn for help. The masseur, seeing my leg, advised me to temporarily stop training, and, surprisingly, I obeyed: I did not go to the gym for three weeks. And when she returned, at the first training session she felt pain in her leg and saw how a hematoma was formed. I called a friend's surgeon and said that I would like to come for a consultation, but he said that I urgently need to go to the emergency room. There, doctors diagnosed several muscle tears.
After a period of rest and recovery, I began working as a group program coach. Such coaches in the fitness community are called "disposable people" because they have to work hard. The break between workouts was twelve hours - this is very little. In one of the weeks I spent five such workouts in three days, and on the fourth I just could not get out of bed. My legs hurt so much that I couldn't take a single step. I was told at the MRI in the hospital that I had wild inflammation in my legs and that everything was very bad. I didn’t want to believe in it, because it meant that I would have to leave coaching for at least a few months. On examination, the surgeon found that my long bicep head of the thigh was completely torn off. The doctor asked how old I am. I answered, "Twenty-three." - "Well, it means that you will have time to master another profession. Now you cannot do sports at all."
I had to go through a long and expensive rehabilitation course, during which I finally realized that too intense physical exertion really does not lead to anything good. I continue to work as a coach, but now I am building my schedule so that I can have time to recover and rest. I try to convey to each client how important it is to treat their bodies with care. When I see that someone starts going to the gym as a job, I try to convince the person to reconsider his approach to sports. Now I am working on my own online project in which I teach people to adequately approach training, and not to turn fitness into the meaning of life, and I believe that my bitter experience will help others to avoid such mistakes.
Katya
27 years
As a child I was actively involved in sports: I went skiing and snowboarding, tried dances and jogging. I also participated in equestrian sports competitions several times, but I never tried to do this professionally - I just liked it. Now I remember how great it was: exercise for fun, without thinking how to burn more calories. I never complexed about my figure, but one day, looking at photos from a beach party with friends, my then-boyfriend started joking that my belly was sticking out of my swimsuit. After this joke, I seriously thought about losing weight.
At first I tried diets like buckwheat for a week. At that time I didn’t have any special knowledge about proper nutrition, and I tried to act according to the principle “you want to eat - drink some water”. But sticking to this rule was constantly beyond my strength, so sometimes I would break down and eat everything, starting to hate myself for it. Now, such a problem as eating disorders began to be talked about, but then I didn’t even know that it happened and thought that everything was fine with me. I counted calories and woke up at night from what I dreamed about, how I eat. Gradually, I began to fear any food and adhere to even more stringent rules: for example, I only ate fruit until twelve o'clock in the afternoon. I often broke the very same prohibitions, and every time I ate an apple in the evening, I experienced a terrible feeling of guilt. Visibly lose weight did not work, and to improve the effect, I decided to play sports.
Classes did not bring joy: for example, running on the track was a real torture, it was terribly boring, but the goal to lose weight justified the effort. The only thing that brought pleasure was yoga or stretching. In class, the coach often repeated that yoga philosophy is nonviolence when you do about forty percent of your body's capabilities. And I thought, "How is that? If you make forty percent of the capabilities of your body, you will not achieve any results." Therefore, I tried to do the exercises to the limit of my abilities, in order to work out all the food eaten. In my case, it was the pursuit not only of external attractiveness, but also of physical strength: I wanted to be in a form that, for example, would allow to go thirty kilometers over the mountains.
After two years of group training in the gym, I began to feel pain in my knees during classes. Then I thought: "It can not be, I'm only twenty-three." I was not ready to believe in it, so I decided to pretend that nothing was happening. It seemed to me that I did not practice too intensively, did not lift large weights - it means that I shouldn’t get sick.
After two years of group training in the gym, I began to feel pain in my knees during classes. Then I thought: "It can not be, I'm only twenty-three"
I realized that you should never go in for sports because you hate your body. Sport should not be a way to avenge itself on food eaten or missed workout. When you love and take your body, do not think about the calories spent, workouts bring much more pleasure and pleasant emotions. You need to be attentive to the body's signals during sports: if you feel discomfort or pain, this is a reason to stop. Unfortunately, you often hear that if you don’t stick in training at the limit of strength, you are weak-willed. I think this is the wrong approach, which undermines health and makes people slave rocking. Now I fully realized how true the words of my yoga teacher on non-violence towards my body were.
At first, my knees ached only during workouts, but then, when I went to travel to Latin America and took a heavy backpack for a long time, after a month and a half the pain became noticeable when walking. Despite this, I ran: if I ate a chocolate bar in the morning, I had to run several kilometers. To alleviate the pain, I bought elastic knee pads and constantly walked in them. One day, on the eve of my birthday, I felt that my knees hurt so much that I could not get up - it made me terribly angry. At that time I lived through a couchsurfing with a guy who was a trainer, and he advised me to consult a doctor I know. The doctor did not find serious problems, prescribed anti-inflammatory injections and advised him to rest and not to overwork. I had to lie down, and I was very nervous that I could not move actively - I was afraid that I would grow fat, and these thoughts drove me to despair.
On my birthday, I woke up in a terrible mood: it was sad and lonely in a foreign country, I was angry at my knees, which let me down. I put on elastic knee pads, clenching my teeth from pain, reached the coast and sat there alone for several hours, then went to the nearest supermarket and threw ice on my knee pads to somehow drown out the pain. In the sports nutrition department, I bought myself a protein bar called Birthday Cake - so I celebrated my birthday.
When it became a little easier for me, my friend and I decided to ride bicycles from Mexico to Central America. I was worried how such a heavy load would affect my knees, so I decided to consult with a sports doctor. He said that everything was fine with his knees, but it surprised me, because I was in pain even when walking. As a result, the bike ride did not take place, and I decided to take better care of my body, no longer testing it for strength. Several times I carefully tried to start running, but I realized that my knees could not stand such a load, and stopped pushing myself. At the same time, I revised my attitude towards food - the book on the intuitive nutrition of Olga Goloshchapova "Goodbye, Diet!" Helped me in this. When I finished reading it, for the first time in many years I went to the store and bought myself some macaroni.
Tatyana Koshkina
master trainer and fitness instructor, founder of the Art of Pilates fitness studio
The fashion for a healthy lifestyle has come to us, and on instagram thousands of fitness bloggers publish daily photos of their cubes on their stomachs and beautiful buttocks, motivating people to go to fitness clubs. And often a person comes to the gym and begins to engage in "amateur", without consulting with a coach who could develop a competent training program. Да и некоторые тренеры поощряют чрезмерную физическую активность: "Хочешь заниматься десять раз в неделю? Отлично, давай!" Такой подход свидетельствует о глубоком непрофессионализме. Хороший тренер, видя признаки перетренированности, должен постараться переубедить клиента, помочь человеку посмотреть на себя со стороны и задуматься о том, что увлечение перерастает в зависимость.
Now in the gym you can find a huge number of fitnessgoliki, who for the sake of training are ready to run away from work or sacrifice family relationships. Most often, women, when they come to the gym, set themselves a goal to lose weight, and they think that the more they train, the faster they lose weight. But overtraining has the opposite effect: progress, noticeable in the first months of training, stops. A person does not lose weight, he does not increase muscle mass, there is hypertonicity of muscles, mobility of joints decreases. This leads to diseases of the joints, a person begins to suffer from insomnia and headaches, quickly gets tired, loses his appetite, becomes anxious and irritable, there are problems with the skin and menstrual cycle. The nervous system suffers greatly: external stress, which is enough in our lives, adds an internal stress of the overtrained organism, which lacks energy. A person becomes irritable, it affects work and relationships.
For some people, fitness becomes the meaning of life. When a person goes to the gym as a job, his other hobbies disappear from his life, he is not interested in anything except training. He only thinks about how much he needs to eat meat, how much rice to eat, how much to drink water and what kind of training to go for. People become reticent, friendly gatherings or going to the movies they prefer to spend the evening in the gym. So a person destroys relationships, loses friends, but nothing will make him miss a workout.
Unfortunately, people whose passion for fitness has become an obsession is very difficult to convince. They are aware of the problem only after they face serious health problems, when the damage caused by excessive exercise is already so great that a person cannot physically continue to practice. He wakes up in the morning, the brain says that you need to go to the gym, and your legs do not go. People are difficult to get out of the state of "fitness", because as soon as it becomes easier for them, they return to training. During rehabilitation, it is important to work not only on the physical level, but also on the emotional one.
In the passion for fitness, as in everything, there should be a measure. It is important to properly allocate strength and priorities, thinking about what is more important: health and well-being in the family and at work or getting serotonin at the time of training. There are no uniquely harmful sports, but every training session must be approached with the mind and understanding of your physical form. Being active can and should be every day, but training should not be of the same type, including intensity: if today you spent the evening in the gym, then tomorrow do stretching or go to the park - take a walk, go rollerblading or cycling. Do a workout rest. Remember that we need muscles not for beauty, but in life there are many interesting things outside the gym.
Photo: YURIY BOGDANOV - stock.adobe.com (1, 2)