This is my last column of four discussing my first outing into the world of aesthetic competition (in my case a physique show)….and it is a long one.
Although I will likely make a few jokes, this material is pretty embarrassing, distressing and “heavy” and I believe that it happens much more than most competitors will admit to.
I am not comfortable discussing it, but I feel it needs discussed, so that others have some warning of what could be coming for them mentally if they choose to compete. I am not in any way saying competing is a negative, or that people should not do it, I am just discussing my experience so as to hopefully help others.
So let’s start with some framework.
In my opinion, aesthetic competition, and what is needed to engage in it, can mimic both eating disorders and some aspects of OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder).
First, you often have an extremely rigid diet leading into a show, with prescribed foods, in pre-determined amounts, and with set meal times.
I had a diet, written out, dictating foods measured to the ounce and tablespoon.
And as you approach the show the foods decrease in quantity to amounts not meant to sustain the human body long term…..essentially, you are starving yourself, but in a calculated way, so as to try to retain as much muscle as you can, while getting your body fat levels down to single digits…..like 4-7%.
People cannot live healthily in this range and it is not meant to be sustained for long.
This is calculated anorexia.
Toss into this mix occasional “cheat meals” which are literally episodes of stuffing yourself with as much food as you can eat, healthy or junk, for a meal…..which is literally the very definition of a binge.
Then, on top of this extreme rigidity in diet, with occasional binges, you add excessive cardio, sometimes in the realm of hours a day. So not only are you not eating enough to sustain a healthy body weight, while also occasionally making yourself almost sick with food, you are now also burning yourself up with endless exercise.
For people with a history of any eating disorders, whether it be anorexia, bulimia, exercise bulimia (where excessive exercise is the purging method), or binge eating disorder, this calculated ritual starvation and ritual exercise is highly likely to trigger past disordered eating and body image issues.
These people are intentionally mimicking the very problematic behaviors they have had in the past, as well as creating an intense focus on the physical self…..what do I look like?
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Am I too fat?
Is the fat coming off fast enough?
Can I see striations yet?
Am I lean enough?
All this focus on how one looks not only leads to obsessive thought, it essentially REQUIRES it.
So what did all this look like for me?
Let me tell you a little about my past.
I have always been chubby, my whole life, until I got pregnant at age 25 and became absolutely obese.
I had binge eating issues in childhood, used to hide food, and partially that was due to having a mother who, in her childhood, was severely anorexic, so spent her adult life over-monitoring and criticizing my weight and food intake. From the time I was a young child I remember thinking I was fat, being worried about my weight, but also at times being unable to control how much I would eat.
When I got pregnant, I weighed 155lbs at 5’1”. When I delivered my daughter I weighed 216lbs. Two years later, I still weighed 200lbs. That is when I started going to the gym, and gradually, over 4-5 years, I pared my weight down with diet and exercise to 125lbs.
Then, somehow, I lost my mind.
I started exercising more, running daily as well as lifting, and extremely limited my food.
At my worst, I weighed 105lbs, about 10 years ago. I was afraid to eat, but starving.
The day things shifted for me I remember thinking of eating a cookie…it made my heart rate jump, and I was near tears even just thinking about eating it.
That was the day I decided I was fucked up. I then gradually started to gain weight, and maintained around 135-142 for years.
Then enter the decision to do a physique show…..I had no idea what this undertaking would trigger in the recesses of my mind, a mind prone to depression, anxiety, poor body image, with a history of obesity, near anorexia, exercise bulimia, and binge eating.
Let’s just say it was a shitshow and go from there. I have pretty rigid self-control when needed, so I did well cutting for months. But when my body hit about 125-130, I started to struggle with binges.
My weekly or bi-monthly scheduled “refeeds” turned into day long binges.
And when I could not “refeed” (binge) regularly, I found myself obsessively online, looking at recipes and gourmet food ordering sites. I would spend HOURS collecting recipes of desserts and junk I could make for “after the show”.
Eventually, just spending hours looking at food became ordering food. I spent literally HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS ordering high-end cakes, cookies, pizzas, ribs, candy, etc. I had a freezer FULL OF IT by my show. It was like I was still bingeing, but just saving up the food instead of eating it.
Look at how crazy all this is….collecting pounds and pounds of food, spending hours online looking at food and recipes, spending hundreds of dollars on cooking books and kitchenware to make all sorts of foods that I never normally make. I now have a fucking ice cream maker and everything to make homemade bread in large quantity at home in my kitchen, for fucks sake.
Do I like talking about this shit?
Hell no.
It is embarrassing as fuck.
I was off the rails, mentally and behaviorally, and acting in ways I had never experienced.
What’s worse is that I could not stop.
This shit was COMPULSIVE.
I was literally unable to stop, like a train on fire going 100,000 mph on downhill rails. I was trying to hide most of it, not talking about any of it, and felt like I was insane.
Post-show was a nightmare. Suddenly I could eat again, and although I was warned about the risks of refeeding like an idiot, of bingeing, that’s exactly what I did. I was a wreck mentally, run down physically, worn out, and had thousands of calories of junk food sitting in my house. The binge lasted 4-6 weeks, and I am still not “right”, still struggling with cravings for sweets, and compulsions to binge.
The interesting thing about all this was that when I did a little research I realized it IS A COMPLETELY NORMAL PHENOMENON.
I found several articles on the food obsessions during cutting, including watching cooking shows, searching for food recipes online, etc. In this setting, it was not “normal” but a known side effect of the cut. In addition, the post-show binge and excessive/fast weight gain is such a normal phenomenon that it is almost always discussed in articles on post-show refeed.
So, I realized I am not alone, and that while my feelings/thoughts/behaviors were completely “nuts”, they are in some ways “normal nuts” leading into and after a show. Given that many in strength and aesthetics sports are loathe to show weakness, discuss vulnerability, and show anything but constant motivation and “grind”, I suspect that the issues I faced are even more common than we know. Just knowing that these things are sometimes an expected result of an “abnormal” pursuit made me feel a lot better about my future.
I am not stuck, or doomed, and I did not ruin myself forever. Others have gone through this same thing, and rebounded, learned, and thrived.
I think openly TALKING about these things is how we can warn others what might be coming, open dialogue for change, and start to fix errors that we all make along the way when in aesthetic sport. Therefore, I am going to take this one for the team and tell you all what a little psycho I was for months, so that perhaps you can see the entirety of what competing is really like.
It’s a mental, physical, and emotional challenge way more taxing than I think people acknowledge. It is one of the hardest things I have ever done, and I learned so much doing it. Hopefully by telling others what I went through, others like me who share part of my history will be better armed to deal with what they might go through if deciding to compete.
(Disclaimer: I am in no way saying that competing is “bad”, that cutting is “bad”, or that refeeding is “bad”. I will someday do it again. Overall it was an incredibly positive experience…..but I feel that if you do not discuss EVERYTHING you go through on the road to stage, and after stage, that you do a huge disservice to others seeking to compete as well. Aesthetic competition by nature requires one push themselves to the edge physically and mentally, to achieve goals few would ever even attempt. I do not feel that discussing some of the pitfalls of the ordeal negates the worth of the experience itself.)
by Stephanie Tomlinson
©2018 tpsmethod.com
