Invasive Surgery Became The Start of My Recovery Journey

At 21 years old I was heading down a very dark path with my body image and relationship with food (I’m 26 now). I had tried every diet and workout in the book to lose weight but nothing worked and as a result I began binge-eating to cope with the stress. I’m positive the yo-yo dieting contributed to the need for surgery but it also became the chance I needed to begin recovery, I just didn’t know it then.

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

I’ve spoken multiple times about my upbringing, natural tendencies to be very self-judgmental, and ultimately my desire to want to feel ‘wanted’. And at a young age, I quickly became very aware of how my physical appeal could get me there, so I begun working out and ‘watching’ what I ate to feel that I was in control of other people’s perceptions about me. I started dieting as early as 15 years old and did not re-asses my relationship with food until I was 21, after having my appendix removed. Let me tell you how that went down.

On a Thursday afternoon on April 2016, I think, I was watching a YouTube video from a fitness vlogger telling her story about…