Pizza and Exercise Addiction

I’ve been wanting to write about this complex topic for a long time but never knew how to start. I also feared that, once I started, I wouldn't know how to stop. But, as with past romantic relationships that I knew from the beginning would be complicated or difficult, I have decided to take the risk:

            Saturday evening, and I’m eating pizza with friends after a hike. This doesn’t sound like the beginning of an extraordinary story; Americans everywhere are eating pizza Saturday evenings (and, for that matter, Tuesday and Wednesday mornings). What’s extraordinary about it is that I’m refraining from dabbing the pizza oil with my napkin.  I’m then taking medium–sized bites, chewing, swallowing, smiling, and saying unrelated things like, "I wonder what's going to happen to Israel." I’m not compulsively hydrating in preparation for my next run or Hot Yoga or obsessing over when these events will take place. I’m relaxing –– even feeling grateful for the way this outing supports my recovery from exercise addiction.

            Because isn’t pizza with friends more enjoyable than what I might have otherwise done post–hike ––  lacing up first thing and going for a minimum seven–mile run to avoid weight-gain?  This, of course, was only going to be if the hike wasn’t fast enough or steep enough or if I ate more than two cookies in addition to the 360 calorie Pro Bar or didn’t go to Hot Yoga that day. All of these things having been the case, I’m primed for a post-hike run this Saturday evening. 

            But, instead, here I sit using my napkin right and eating pizza and only a little irritated like when there’s a fly in the room. Sure, I'd entertained the idea of the post-hike run, but I’ve come a long way. For example: I’ve been broken up with the stairmaster since the breakup with my last boyfriend. It’s been weeks since I’ve skipped a social activity to burn more calories (nothing like staying behind to do tricep dips off the edge of a hotel bed).  If I miss yoga because I’m with friends, traveling, or working, I haven’t panicked and tacked on extra miles to runs. I’m not obsessing as much over what to eat, how much, when, and the implications. I haven’t been questioning the accuracy of multiple scales in town. In fact, I haven't been weighing myself at all. Sure, I still think every mirror is a “fat” or “thin” one, and last week I asked a stranger in an airport bathroom what she thought, but I’m in a phase where I feel good about my body. I feel good in general. I’m well. And “wellness” is the goal, isn’t it? 

            And then something happens, and I'm in danger of falling off the wagon like an alcoholic at a wine tasting. My friend turns to our other friend, who isn’t eating pizza because he used to be 300 pounds and is working on legitimate weight loss, and says, “You know, Simone used to be super skinny.” Then, to me: “About 10–12 pounds lighter than you are now, wouldn’t you say?”

            Sure, when I was seventeen and one of the fastest runners in the country. And, yes, three years ago after a breakup. And definitely three months ago when my deteriorating relationship coupled with unemployment triggered a major episode of exercise mania. I’d managed the anxiety and uncertainty by controlling my calorie intake and burn –– eating almost nothing but eggs and sweet potato, doing Hot Yoga, and running daily in addition to doing eleven miles on the stairmaster so fast I fell off twice. I wouldn’t let myself stop until I’d burned at least 1,000 calories.  I’d resent the sorority girls who do only twenty minutes 3X/week on the elliptical, and their tanned inner thighs don’t touch. I’d had to remind myself that they lack muscle tone and live on cranberry juice, vodka, and salad.  The only things they eat in public are grapes and baby carrots. (By the way, I engage in exercise mania even when I’m working full–time. It is only slightly less intense and less infused with panic).

            Now, I look at my pizza wide-eyed like it’s my first lobster, and I’m questioning whether you’re supposed to eat the legs. Then I meet my friend’s eyes, which have also widened as she stops chewing –– maybe realizing she's entered territory from which there may be no graceful return. 

            Finally, my flat reply: “It’s muscle.”

            “Exactly,” she says, chewing again –– relieved. “And you look healthy now.”

            Fuck. That word “healthy.” It’s sick, but ask any girl suffering or in recovery from anorexia athletica or exercise bulimia or body dysmorphia (non-exclusive, these issues are a vortex), and she’ll admit how triggering this word is.  Because, to these girls, “healthy” means they’ve gained the weight people said they needed to gain or that they aren’t losing what they think they need to lose. The weight for which they’ve sacrificed so much to control as chemicals in their brains hiss, “Keep restricting. Keep burning. This is good. This will make everything okay.”  These girls have spent hours running ––– hungry, sleep–deprived, in the dark, in 90% humidity, and in snowstorms. With stress fractures and even concussions. They’ve exercised, starved, counted calories, had nightmares about buffets, and compulsively snacked in secret while everybody else slept–in, lounged, ate ice cream, drank beer, went to concerts, and enjoyed the vacation. There is no reasoning with these girls, who I can spot all the way across gyms, restaurants, and buses. I know because I ran with them on the track team and have been best friends with them. On and off for seven years, I have been one of them. Minutes ago, I wasn’t. Now, I am –– pinching my inner right thigh under the table. Like a cancerous gene mutation, the word “healthy” mutates into “chunky” in my brain. I feel sick. I want to throw up. In the past, this is what I might have done. 

            When I don’t say anything, my friend continues: “I mean, you looked anorexic before; I was worried.” 

            “It’s muscle,” I repeat, tapping my foot hard and fast under the table as if trying to release my diseased thinking through movement. I tap and remind myself I’d worked on a farm for two months drinking goat milk and eating meat. I tap and remind myself I’d started climbing again. I tap and remind myself my body builds obvious lean muscle when I’m doing strength-training and eating well.  I stop tapping and say the most logical, appropriate thing:

            “When I restrict and do excessive cardio,” I say, “My body consumes my muscle, and I lose weight and look 'emaciated.’ How I look right now is natural for me.”

            “Right,” she says. “And you’re hot. Remember this morning?”

            Yes, I’d never forget. She and I were eating pancakes outside a café downtown when the handsome man at the adjacent table approached me, placed his hands on my shoulders, and said, “I can’t focus on my breakfast. You’re stunning. Can I please take you out sometime?”            

             I thanked him and took his business card without thinking, but what I should have said was, "No sir, you can’t take me out because I have a kind and talented boyfriend who thinks I’m stunning too. Not to mention that he has the face and abs of a Greek god. . . "

         People have called my abs "godly" too and, envying my physique, asked if I'm a fitness competitor or professional athlete (flattering, but also uncomfortable; almost any body–comment triggers anxiety for me). Students who regularly come to the Power Yoga classes I teach appreciate how I kick their asses as hard as it looks like I kick mine.  Although I'm training for nothing and torturing myself on-and-off with exercise and food–related obsessions and compulsions, my dedication to fitness is paying off professionally.  But my increasing dedication to understanding these issues is also paying off.  I am learning that physical fitness is only a component of “wellness” and that true “wellness” is complex and something I’m not yet experiencing in a full–bodied, sustainable way. To me, “wellness” describes the state of being like a “well” –– a rooted, life–giving source of pure, positive energy upon which you and others may draw.  For me, to become like a well, I know I must nourish myself with good rest, physical activity, whole foods, cookies, friendship, sunshine, breathing, fulfilling work, writing, painting, mountains and everything else that brings me joy.  I complete and give good workouts, but I'm also working on becoming a good "well" for both myself and others. I am working on balance. Recognition of and discussion about these topics are the first steps.

            Still, for now, I cover my pizza with a napkin as if covering a dead body with a sheet. Goodbye. What a shame. I drink the remaining water in my glass to hydrate. Saturday evening, and would I stay home like a good girl, or would I spend it in the 24-hour gym?

            When my friend drops me off, she asks, “What are you gonna do tonight?” 

            “Read,” I lie.

            I go to the gym. But I haven’t done yoga in three days because the timing hasn’t worked with hiking, and tonight I’m going to a friend’s house to make pasta and blueberry cobbler. One step back, two steps forward. I wrote this post in my head while working out that night. I do much of my blog pre-writing while working out. Now, forcing myself to sit down and type this up is a way of managing my compulsion to exercise again even after today's ten-mile hike. The longer I write, my window of time for going to the gym before my friend’s house will close.   

            Eating pizza Saturday evening in America is common. And not uncommon is starving while watching others eat pizza, over-eating pizza, feeling guilty while eating pizza, and even throwing up or compulsively exercising to burn the calories from pizza.  Like compulsive overeating and bingeing and purging, exercise addiction is only part of the package for some of the 14 million Americans (and 70 million individuals worldwide) suffering from eating disorders. You don’t have to be thin or overweight or a woman to be suffering. 

            Sure, call these “first world problems” because people everywhere are starving not by choice and don’t have the "luxury" of eating disorders. But, nonetheless, these issues in all their manifestations are (sometimes fatal) illnesses, and discussing them is the first step to recovering individually and collectively. What is the origin of such thought and behavior patterns? Is it genetic, cultural or a mix of both? Did your food-related anxiety start when you first ate dinner with your Cross Country teammates in college, and you watched the skinniest/fastest girls migrate to the salad bar? Did you feel ashamed standing at the Hot Foods bar? Or did it start when you opened Seventeen magazine or when you opened your mouth to eat ice cream, and your mother said thin women were more successful? Was it when you needed to "make weight" for wrestling? Was it when your father only validated you based on your athletic performance? 
            How much happier and more creative could we be if we sat down and engaged with one another and (hopefully organic) pizza in non-fear-based ways? Sharing our stories while slowly enjoying the pizza or choosing not to eat the pizza because, for example, you're lactose intolerant, and you don’t want a stomachache. Or you have high cholesterol and feel like you might have a heart attack everytime you try to play with your kids in the yard. Maybe you really are 300 pounds and sick of feeling sick. In these cases, way to practice what so many yoga teachers talk about: “listening to your bodies." If we engaged in these ways, maybe we as Americans would allocate much of the billions of dollars we invest in diet–related products to working on the “third world problems” others remind us to be grateful we don’t have.
            Recently, I have been feeling hopeful. I received a birthday card from one of my best friends in college who was one of the skinny/fast Salad Bar vultures. She was an All–American runner and also severely bulimic. I was one of the only ones who knew. Two months ago, she had a healthy baby girl. In her card, she wrote, "Our world was relatively small back then –– focused on numbers: mileage, workout times, race times, and grades. If I could talk to the younger us, I would tell us to go ahead and work hard and school and in running, but that we didn't need to be defined by these activities. That we are worthy of love and happiness regardless of our performance –– regardless of the numbers that measured our lives. I think that has been the most important thing I've learned in the past ten years –– to have a sense of self and identity that doesn't depend on numbers."

               For me, creating awareness around this subject through writing is a personal step towards “wellness” –– towards becoming a positive, generative force in this world.  And now I’m going for a run because it’s a cool, July morning, the Bridger Mountains are stunning, and my legs feel fresh. Today the only thing that could keep me from enjoying my run –– a celebration of my vitality –– is stopping to pee in a bush and getting caught by the police. Along with many others things, I've always worried about this  . . .