I Didn’t Reach my Fitness Goals
By: Yoana Kircheva
Tags: Health, Weight Loss, Illumination, Self, Self Improvement

I Didn’t Reach my Fitness Goals

Photo by M. on Unsplash

At the beginning of 2020, I set some major goals I wanted to achieve by December. One of them was getting in the best shape of my life and having a healthy lifestyle. Back then didn’t expect that I will be led down a spiral of detrimental habits, guilt, and disappointment that wouldn’t leave me alone.

The diet

Following some questionable advice found on the Internet, I started undernourishing myself. First, I committed to finishing my meals until I was 80% full. But a sense of accomplishment crept it whenever I would do that. “The less I eat, the better”, I thought. It got to a point where half a bowl of soup would make me full. The most bizarre thing is I never felt hungry because my organism adjusted itself to those smaller portions.

Every week I would treat myself to a cheat meal( or two). Those were the times when I would go full-on making the most indulgent, sugary treats possible. Cocoa brownies with peanut butter and chocolate on top, 3 slices of cream cheesecake, etc. I would count the days until I was able to stuff my face with dessert. In my toxic relationship with food, I found a sense of reward.

The months went by and it was finally June. Putting a photo of myself next to one I took in March, I smiled brightly. I saw my flat stomach and slim legs and that’s when it hit me- I was in the best shape of my life.

Things didn’t stop here. It wasn’t a diet for me, it was a way of life and I wasn’t planning on giving it up any time soon. The people I was closest to started pressuring me to eat more. They were saying I was skinny when my sister looked almost exactly like me. I got tired of their comments. I hated people telling me what I should be eating for days on end. For the first time in my life, I didn’t feel like the less attractive sibling and I didn’t want to lose this newfound confidence.

Going downhill

In July I lost my menstruation. My period would skip a month or two before so it didn’t bother me until it happened again in August and then September, and October, and November.

And to make matters even worse, that summer my hair began falling out. Before I knew it I could effortlessly pull a small strand of hair out of my head. Now that freaked me out.

Around July was when Coronavirus depression hit me like a truck. I can’t point out exactly what caused it, but for most of the summer crippling anxiety overtook my life. It shattered the ways I thought I was, happy and optimistic, and then I slowly went down the spiral of binge-eating.

Every day I would feel it taking over me. With my heart pounding faster against my chest and my thoughts racing around my head, I sat helplessly. I was so afraid of my own mind. It wouldn’t pass for at least an hour and when it finally did, I was drained, moody and immensely tired. I started reaching for sugary snacks in hope of regaining some energy but soon found out they also comforted me.

In August and early September, I went on a few visits to a local endocrinologist and tested my hormones in two different labs to understand what was wrong with my menstruation. The endocrinologist was a middle-aged woman with a dull voice. One day I was in her office while she was reading the results from my second test. She went on to explain what the different hormones meant until she saw my blood sugar levels test results.

“Your blood sugar is out of the norm. I’m afraid you are prediabetic.”

Now that was a good motivation for me to stay away from sugar for a while…but it didn’t last long. Anxiety was still there and my mind was like a bomb that could explore at any time. My sugar addiction reappeared. I became the queen of starting over, I can’t even remember the number of times I’ve decided to quit junk food.

Aren’t you eating too much?

The worst part was that everyone in my family saw what I was eating. And while a few months ago they were telling me to eat more, now I was asked if I wasn’t eating too much sugar. Guilt was looking at me in the eyes, my heart was throbbing whenever I gave in and reached for a snack. I would hide and wait to be alone before opening the cabinet. But I was never alone. My worrying mind kept me company as it played the words of the endocrinologist over and over again like a broken record. I felt like I was harming myself.

But light always outshines the darkness.

Taking matters in my own hands

It was around November when I started making some real changes. My mental health was a lot better, which allowed me to have some more faith that I can be healthy again. I began eating more fruit and vegetables and soon remembered how much I loved them. I quit meat, something I wanted to do for such a long time. My passion for cooking reappeared. Just before a few days, I got my period back and my hair isn’t falling anymore.

Although I wish I could say it was a snap-of-a-finger, that’s far from the truth. I still have a long way to go before I can call myself healthy. I still struggle with sugar cravings, I sometimes feel like I’ve never left that vicious cycle of binging. I am still ashamed whenever I reach for the cabinet.

It’s almost the end of 2020 and I know I didn’t reach my goal. When I look in the mirror I pause. I see all the choices I made visible on my body — my double chin and chubbier face, my arms, legs, my stomach... These twelve months were anything but what I’ve imagined. I never knew I would fight so many battles with food and with myself.