Until relatively recently, I could not remember a time that I felt at ease in my own skin. Some of my earliest memories- prior to kindergarten, were of comparing my (completely normal, pre-school) body to my rail-thin, cousins’ bodies. They visited for a month in the summers, and we practically lived in the sprinklers and in the play pool. Alongside the memories of fun and sunburns, I also remember thinking that my swimsuit should hang off my bum the same way that theirs did. That’s how early the body comparisons started for me.
I don’t know why- no one in my family ever said anything about my little kid body (that came later). I just came wired as a perfectionist, always worried about what other people thought about me and worried that I didn’t fit in. This body dissatisfaction followed me into school and colored every experience- from play at recess, to dance and gymnastics lessons, and while playing with friends. I thought I was never as pretty, as fun, or as fast as my friends or schoolmates, and this was because my body was wrong. Too big. Too much.
Around the time I started junior high school, I began to believe that if I was ever to be ‘normal’ successful or loved, I needed to lose weight. I started Weight Watchers for the 1st time at the age of 15, believing that if I could just lose weight, all my problems would magically disappear.
For the next 10 years, I joined and quit WW at least 7-8 times, joined and quit Jenny Craig 3 times, joined a swim team and a gym. I even bought a cassette tape (retro, I know!) that was supposed to subliminally trick my mind into not wanting to eat while I slept. In the daytime, I did ‘affirmations’ for releasing ‘extra weight’.
I was already prepping for the wellness diet, I just didn’t know it yet. I also didn’t really think of the diets as just a way to shrink my body. I thought that I was so out of control with food that the diets were teaching me how to ‘just eat like a normal person’. I though there was a thin person inside my fat body, and that through ‘rewiring’ my mind, I could believe my way into my ‘real’ (aka small) body.
Each time I tried, I had varying degrees of weight change, but it always creeped back up eventually, leaving me feeling more out of control, more ashamed of my body and like a complete failure. I became a super over-achiever in order to compensate, which led to more stress, more pressure, and a bigger desire to control. It was an unholy mess. 
In early 2000, at the age of 26, I moved to New York City to work as a make-up artist, where I discovered hot yoga, then all types of yoga. I LOVED it! My whole life became consumed with being a ‘yogi’ on all levels- physical, mental, emotional and spiritual- and I was introduced to the ‘wellness diet’. I wanted to look like the willowy and ethereal teachers whom I idolized and strived to gain acceptance from. I would attend multiple classes a day, in order to ‘get better’. I sought help from ayurvedic practitioners and holistic health ‘experts’ to understand why my body just would not ‘release’ the ‘extra’ weight with regular diets. And they had ANSWERS!
So I did everything they recommended. I did cleanses, I did elimination diets, I ate only ‘whole’ foods, I became a vegan off and on, I tried eating only two meals a day, I stopped eating after 5pm, I eliminated all dairy. I cut out all processed foods, and all refined flour and sugars. I took the supplements. Everything became secondary to my time in the yoga studio (and in the pool and in the gym). And this time it ‘stuck’. I became small! And obsessed.
People around me noticed the changes to my body and to my ‘lifestyle’. These changes were always with praise, never concern. After all, I was doing what everyone in a large body should- e.g.whatever it took to become smaller. I had a love-hate relationship with this praise. I loved hearing that I was acceptable, even praiseworthy, but I was also deeply ashamed that I hadn’t always looked that way and lived in constant fear of the weight coming back.
I was hyper-vigilant. I weighed myself at least once a day, but most days I weighed myself 2-3 times. Even a small increase would send me spiraling, rushing to a yoga class, or the gym or the pool and cutting more food out. All in the name of ‘health and wellness’. If I was having a bad scale or body day, I’d cancel plans with friends, for fear that they would see that my body had changed and judge me. When I declined to meet up for a drink after work or to hang out on the weekend because I was too busy exercising, swimming, grabbing an extra yoga class, no one batted an eyelash.
The saddest part is that no matter how much my body changed, I was always ashamed of it and never felt at ease in any situation. I never felt like I had ‘gotten there’. It was never enough. I was never enough. I was exhausted all the time, on a constant emotional rollercoaster and was often sick. But I had transformed from a plus size to a lower-end straight size. I thought I was ‘HEALTHY’, FINALLY! My BMI was dead center in the ‘normal range’ for my height, and I could shop at any store and find something cute. Even the luxury retailers and high-fashion lines. In my size! I was thrilled. It was alllll worth it and I was never looking back, no matter how miserable I became.
In the summer if 2004, I moved back to Salt Lake City and opened yoga studios and started bringing all my teachers here to offer workshops, then offering my own workshops- all with the intention of helping people discover the secret to health and wellness. There are lots of stories about food and body and yoga for the next 10+ years, but suffice it to say, things pretty much continued as above. Constant hyper-vigilance, restriction and over-exercise, weight-cycling and so much distress. It took a serious toll on every aspect of my life and my relationships.
After the closing of my yoga studios in May of 2014, I decided to return to the University of Utah to pursue a degree in health promotion and education. I intended to add the ‘western’ point of view to my understanding of health and wellness, and to gain the skills necessary to help other people live ‘healthy’ lives like mine. I wanted to add health coaching to my list of offerings, but I wanted to make sure that I had a ‘solid degree behind me’. After all, I was still that over-achiever perfectionist and wanted to make sure that I had every credential available to me. So, I applied for admission to the University of Utah in the fall of 2015 and began classes in January of 2016. By this time, I thought I had everything figured out with regards to health and wellness. I thought that although I still hated my body, and was constantly fighting to keep my weight down, at least I wasn’t actually fat, I (obsessively and judgmentally) ate only ‘healthy’ foods and I moved my body a LOT (3+ hours a day, also obsessively).
Things really began to change in the fall of 2016. I started facing the physical and mental consequences of YEARS of the wellness diet. I began bleeding for 30-40 days continuously, developed major depressive disorder, lost roughly 30% of my hair (including eyebrows and lashes), could no longer regulate my temperature, leaving me either freezing or boiling much of the time (mostly freezing), developed hypothyroidism and was exhausted almost to the point of disability. The cleanses, ‘resets’, elimination diets and excessive exercise all became harder and harder to maintain (I have since learned that this is a protective mechanism), and I began gaining weight, even though I was restricting more than ever. I still don’t know how I made it through school.
At this time, I was beginning to question some of the more extreme regimens recommended by my ayurvedic practitioners and holistic doctors, because none of the things they prescribed seemed to help. Then, I took a class on eating disorders and body image as part of my undergraduate studies, and my world was turned completely upside-down. I found out that much of what I was doing in the name of health and wellness turned up to be straight-up disordered eating and body dysmorphia. And even more of a gut punch was when I realized that just about everything I was evangelizing as health and wellness was complete garbage. This is one of the hardest things to confront- my complicity in perpetuating the diet/wellness culture. I truly believed that the workshops and cleanses I was offering on a bi-annual basis were about health and helping people, but I’m sure I harmed some people along the way, and for that I am deeply and truly sorry.
So I began unpacking all my beliefs. I was introduced to Intuitive Eating and Health at Every Size (HAES), and the evidence-based science that supports these frameworks. I was introduced to the concept of diet and wellness culture and the harms that come from living in it. I took three giant steps back from all things wellness. I read all the books about HAES, Intuitive Eating and Body Image. I listened to all the podcasts I could find, and blew through all the scientific literature I could get my hands on- even making every single one of my projects in graduate school about HAES and diet culture. Then I started working on getting myself out.
It wasn’t easy, and some parts still present challenges today, but now I have real freedom with food and in my body. I no longer panic over what I’m eating and I don’t restrict or yo-yo.I have accepted and now respect and care for my now larger body in nourishing ways, no longer punishing myself to try to make my body smaller. I am happier, more settled in my body and more confident in my own abilities and worth that I ever have been in my life.⠀ Six years later and two degrees later, I’m a published researcher in nutrition science, have a professional license as a Health Education Specialist, a certification as an Intuitive Eating Counselor, and an evidence-based health coach.
Oh, and I still love yoga. Through all of this, I relied on my practice to anchor me to my body as it healed from all the punishment and hatred I had shown it for nearly my entire life. My practice has completely transformed and is a refuge for me. My practice is filled with compassion and grace and breath. I am gentle with my body, no longer striving for advanced poses, but seeking a deeper connection.⠀⠀⠀
Now I want to help you find your pathway out. Your best self. Your freedom in your relationship to food and your body. I promise you can, because I did.