Speaker 1: Hi everyone, I'm Stephaney Wilder Taylor, and this is Drunkish,
the podcast based on Drunkish, my memoir about quitting drinking,
which is available. I'm just saying, please do me a
favor and rate or review this podcast, give it a watch,
and follow it on YouTube. It really helps me out.
My guest today is my friend Misty Milner. Okay, I'm
switching things up a little bit. Misty not an alcoholic,
but she did struggle with anorexia and disordered eating for
several long periods in her life, and I know her
story will be relatable to a lot of people. And
I'm excited to tell you that you can find Misty
on a substack called That's what She Said writers Dot
substack where she discusses this topic and a lot more
to come. So here she is. Well, Hi, Missy, thank
you for coming and doing a little Runkish the show
got you for having me. Oh, I'm so glad I
know all about your story. Today. We're talking about anorexia
and something that you've struggled with on and off for
many years, and I think will be a very relatable
story to a lot of people.
Speaker 2: Yeah unfortunately, Yeah, yeah, So I don't know.
Speaker 1: Let's just start. Let's just start at the beginning. You know,
I know the story, share it with our listeners. How
did it start? What was your upbringing?
Speaker 2: Like? Sure, sure, So I grew up in a suburb
of Salt Lake City. I still live in the same city.
It's called Sandy Utah's Yeah, twenty minute drive from downtown
Salt Lake City. Grew up in uh. I was raised
LDS Mormon, but not we weren't completely entrenched in the
Mormon religion. My dad was not Mormon, my mom was
raised Mormon. We kind of just got sent to church
because that's what everybody did, and so a lot of
my I think early memories are of just perfect families,
perfect you know, moms, and you know, just that whole
sense of appearances matter kind of kind of thing. And
so kind of stopped going to church around fifteen, which
was fine, which was also right around the time that
I had my first disorder situation. I wasn't extremely overweight.
I was just kind of a little pudgy end of
elementary school all through middle school, and I really just
didn't want to go to high school being heavy, and
so I dieted between eighth and ninth grade and went
to school and everybody was like, oh my gosh, you
look so great.
Speaker 1: Was this after that kid made a comment to you. Yes,
And I also want you to touch on because I
think this is really important. Prior to you starting to
have an eating disorder and things switching up, you loved
treats right like we all do.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, No, I definitely had a sweet tooth. My
mom was just an amazing baker, an amazing cook, and
so a lot of I think, just like most people
you're upbringing, childhood memories are of food and holidays and
and things like that. So I always loved that kind
of thing. And our house, we kind of our pantry
was known in the neighborhood as the pantry that had
all the great treats, and we had being dogs and
Susie hughes and grew loops and all the sugar cereals
and pop tarts, and a lot of our friends didn't
have that kind of food at their house, and so
a lot of times they'd come to our house and I,
you know, just like a lot of kids, I'd sneak treats,
and you know, there, you always knew that you shouldn't overindulge,
but I like to overindulge a little bit, So yeah,
so I was. I was a littler on the heavy
heavy side. And in middle school, we had like a
National Honor Society banquet from eighth grade to ninth grade,
and I remember they had like this huge cake that
they kept and there was a lot of pieces of
cake on plates, and I was there with my friend
and we went to go get dessert, and I thought,
I'll just grab a piece for my mom and dad.
So I had three pieces of cake, and this kid
that I was friends with with two other kids, very
popular boys at the time, made a comment to the effective, gosh, missy,
do you really need three pieces of cake? And I
was just humiliated and devastated, and I just wanted to leave.
So we kind of just left, and I remember crying
in the car on the way home, and yeah, I
just I just was like, I don't want to be
like this when I go to high school. I want
to I want to get some weight off and look good.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that was kind of prospect that you were
even honestly chubby.
Speaker 2: Not I would say, yes, I think so, you know,
in comparing to my two best friends who. I'm short,
five foot two, and my two best friends were you know,
they're five five five seven, you know, somewhere in there,
very tall, thin girls. And I don't know, I was chubby,
and I feel like I was buying clothes from like
I stopped buying clothes out of the girls department earlier
than I probably should have. And but I wasn't like
obese or anything. But yeah, I would say I was
probably a little heavy.
Speaker 1: So maybe so that comment tapped into something that you
already were maybe slightly worried about.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, I knew, and you know, I in
looking around and comparing, and I knew I was on
the heavier side. And you know, like you do in
middle school. I think I remember, uh, that movie Oh
Flash Ants came out and that Cynthia Rhodes character had
that cute, spiky haircut, and I, you know, kind of
it was like a female mullet essentially, And so I
got that haircut and not good. It just like accentuated
my roundness of my face. And you know, you just
traveling hard and you're just so awkward in those years anyway,
it's just a hard it's just a hard time. And
so I just didn't want to feel awkward anymore. I
just wanted to feel like everybody else is what I
wanted to feel like.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. So you tell your mom, right.
Speaker 2: I tell I tell my mom, and she uh says yea,
she says, you know, I I understand. I'm happy to
help you and very supportive and let's walk. Let's you
know that kind that kind of thing. Normal mom shit,
normal mom, normal mom stuff. So I remember walking with
our neighbors across the street. Uh, they're uh that mom,
and and my my friend who was a year older,
and we would walk, you know, like an hour every night,
maybe not every night, but several nights a week. And
all I remember a lot of the women in our
neighborhood walked and walked and walked, and every everybody's mom
was on the diet, and you know, everybody's mom was
doing Jane Fonda in the basement or going to jazz
or size and so you know, I just you just okay, Well,
I guess that's why I've got to do too. So, yeah,
I lost weight, and I came to my freshman year
in high school is like a completely different person.
Speaker 1: Now. Were you also starting to restrict food or were
you just walking?
Speaker 2: Well, I was mainly just walking, and I would say
that I wasn't really restricting food until I got into
my freshman year in high school. I was mainly just
kind of watching what I was eating. And but the
comments that I received and the oh my gosh, how
do you do it? You look so amazing. I just
thrived on that I didn't get that kind of attention,
and I just in the back of my mind, I thought,
I wonder, you know, if I lost another five pounds,
what would people say? And then it kind of just
started to spiral, and I just that's when I really
started restricting foods and massive like exercise. But at the
time for me, it was walking. Like if I didn't
get my walk every day, I was just a horrible,
awful person. I feel bad for my family apologizing for
the behavior. I was awful to live with. If I
didn't get, you know, my meal the way I wanted it,
or if it wasn't something that if my mom made
dinner and it wasn't something I wanted, I kind of
threw a fit. Yeah it was. I was kind of awful,
like it was not it was I don't have you know,
happy memories of that time. I was very, very in
the throes of it.
Speaker 1: So what happened? So you do start to lose more weight.
Speaker 2: I do start to lose more weight. And I really
don't have clear memories about how I stopped doing it.
I just I just kind of, Yeah. I went through
high school and I gained a little bit of weight,
probably more towards graduation time, but I'm still pretty thin.
But I got a scholarship to a great university here
in Utah, and I just kind of stopped doing it.
I just put it on the back burner.
Speaker 1: And and that's our show. Everything was, yeah, that's it.
Speaker 2: And I'm great, falfety stable. Yeah, I just it just
went away.
Speaker 1: Yeah, listen, prettybody out there that's struggling, just like it'll
just go away. You're fine, no problem.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. So I I went to college and I
gained some weight. I remember going to like once a week,
I would treat myself and go to RB's and they
would have a chicken cord on blue sandwich and French
fries and I loved it. And so my schedule was
such that I had a break that I could go
to RB's in between, and uh so I, you know,
I don't. I don't know that I put say I
put on the freshman fifteen, but I just kind of
loosened up a little bit. But I kept my walking,
I you know, still tried to kind of watch it.
But I gained a little weight. But I looked great.
I'm sure, like just fine. But at my job, I
think I was. It was in between my sophomore and
junior year. I was doing some work at the company
where I worked. In the summer. I was staining some
decks and we would always have like once a month
we'd have a weekly lunch meeting, and I'm pretty sure
we had like Little Caesar's Pizza and I had grabbed
a couple of pieces of pizza, and I loved their
crazy bread, so I grabbed a couple of pieces of
crazy bread. And someone made a comment about, you know, oh,
you better, you better, you know, maybe put one of
those bread stakes back. You know, you don't want to
fall through these decks that you just stained. And I
just I was horrified. Again. I just felt that exact
same feeling I felt, you know, when I was going
into high school. And I remember sitting at that meeting,
I didn't eat a thing, and I was just horrified
and I just was like, how did you let yourself go?
I just immediately thought, oh, I'm I'm just like terrible, terrible,
And this is when I really really this was my
worst bout with anorexia. So pretty much junior and senior
year of college, I was very very restrictive. I had
like one of those little like putting capsize things of
special k with like a splash of milk. That was
my breakfast. I had the same lunch every day, a bagel,
an apple, and a yogurt. That was my biggest meal
of the day. And then at dinner I would try
and I would always have these meals by myself.
Speaker 1: Always.
Speaker 2: I didn't want to eat in front of people. I
didn't want people to question what I was eating or
critique what I was eating. I just wanted to be
left alone. And then at work, I would in between
lunch and dinner, I would go the seven to eleven
and I would get a big gulf of diet coke.
I probably had had six cans of diet coke before this.
I just kind of lived on diet coke. But I'd
get a big wolp and then like two pieces of
bazooka gum and that was kind of my treat and
I would just keep the gum in the side of
my mouth. I totally have enamel problems right now because
of it. Every time I go to the dentist, he knows,
but sometimes someone there doesn't and they'll ask me about it.
So I have to like relive that a little bit.
But that's kind of how I got through the afternoon
until I had something for dinner, and then my dinner.
I was working almost full time at the time, plus
full time school. I didn't eat at home a lot.
A lot of times. I was just kind of in
between school and work. So I love those days because
I could have like a can of chicken little soup,
and like I gave myself like five saltines and that
was pretty much all I ate. And I got down
to I think eighty six pounds, and at the time
I was really upset my work. My boss at my
work told me that, you know, they were concerned about
me and if I if I kind of didn't get
myself together, I could find another job. And I was
very offended.
Speaker 1: Which is so crazy, though it is crazy from today's standards.
Speaker 2: Absolutely they are feel comfortable? Yes, I was just like,
this is none of your business. I'm getting I'm getting
my work done. I'm doing good job.
Speaker 1: Did your mom like also, but you still lived at home?
I still lived at mom must have been concerned.
Speaker 2: Oh my mom was. My mom was horrified and you know,
I don't know how she put up with me, but.
Speaker 1: But wasn't she worried, like a problem are you eating?
And you probably died?
Speaker 2: And well she knew about this because you know, she
she knew from my high school experience. And I don't
know that as much was known back then as is
today about eating disorders. But yeah, she was very concerned,
and I was very just kind of leave me alone. Yeah,
just not pleasant to be around, just not happy.
Speaker 1: You know you think that was also because I mean,
I want to also talk about this later like advice
to moms. You know, yeah, a lot of moms our
age listen to this show and my concerned about their
teenage daughters eating. I'm wondering, though, if your prickliness was
to kind of keep people from trying to ask too
many questions, because yes, if I wanted to, then nobody's
gonna want to deal with you.
Speaker 2: Then you're like, good, yes, yeah, no, I just wanted
to be left alone. And you know, my weight was
like number one. What I was wearing was the most
important thing. It was some sort of correlation to my worth,
you know, and the smaller I was the better, kind
of the better, which is ridiculous, but yeah, I know.
But my mom and dad were both very, very very concerned,
and looking back on it now, I am so happy
that that my boss did this. But he pretty much
forced me to go see an eating disorder therapist and
I only saw her for about five months. And this
was my senior year, as right as I was graduating graduating,
and she really helped me kind of understand that, you know,
one of my hangouts was eating the sweets that I
loved so much. And I had.
Speaker 1: These too where you were like, I'm yeah, tell tell
people about the your yea, not yeah, your rule about dessert. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I I told myself that I could have a
dessert on holidays and birthdays and that was it. No sweets,
And so I was very rigid about about that kind
of thing. And and it was kind of fine in
the first of the year because we had several birthdays
in a row. But like from from like June until
like you know, uh, I feel like it was, yeah,
my brother's birthdays in November, like it was just like
the desert, and uh so I loved that period of time.
I'm where I actually got to have a dessert.
Speaker 1: But is amazing, and I think people do this with
other things too, But the rules will make for ourselves
as if as if it's some magical like, Okay, this
is how it works. I figured it out. If you
have a dessert, one dessert in January, one dessert in February,
and one dessert in March, and then nothing till November,
like that's how that's how life works.
Speaker 2: That's that's exactly. Yeah, I know, that's exactly how I was,
And so I always was, you know, literally counting the days. Okay,
and thirty eight days it's dad's birthday or whatever, you know,
so I'll get I'll get a piece of cake.
Speaker 1: Did you have a big piece of cake?
Speaker 2: Oh no, no, it's just you know, teeny tiny, little
like half stup of ice cream. But but you know,
after you eat it, you feel a little guilty and light.
But it's kind of really what I was living for
was the next the next dessert, and so yeah, just
really kind of crazy.
Speaker 1: So your food therapist.
Speaker 2: So my food therapist helped me understand, you know, it's
okay to have dessert. And you know, she I kept
a food journal and I would drop it off with
her at my appointment and then i'd take a new
food journal and I would have to write about like
have to write down what I ate, how I felt
when I was eating. I had never you know, nobody
in Utah had therapy, like you know what I mean,
nobody that just wasn't the thing, and so you just
didn't really talk about how you were feeling about it.
Speaker 1: I feel like Mormon people, you know, from all the
crime podcasts I've listened to. Yeah, I always feel like
Mormon people are very big though. On keeping journals, Yes.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, that was a huge that's a huge thing.
And I do have a lot of journals from when
I was younger, and yeah, it's really big. And so
I would I would express my fee things in my
in my journals. But you're just gonna talk to other
people about your deepest thoughts and fears, and so it
was just really interesting and I just felt so safe
to tell her what I thought and that was at
the beginning.
Speaker 1: Were you eating still only your regimented Yes, and then
you would just sow your food journal would just be
like little thing of special k or whatever, Yes, yes,
and a chicken noodle soup. So would she say.
Speaker 2: Hey, yes, yeah, she would say hey, instead of the
diet coke for breakfast, you know, hop out some juice.
And I was just like, no way, I am not
drinking one hundred calories. That's ridiculous. No. So I never
really like I never really like did that, but like
it registered, you know, it did register. But like I
remember in the journal, I I my mom makes the
best banana cream pie. And she just made a banana
cream pie for Sunday dinner. And I remember writing my journal,
I just decided to have a piece, even though it
wasn't a special occasion. And and she was like, you know,
she had she put like stickers in it, like you know,
like your elementary schoolster like great, and you know, like
this is amazing, and she's like and nothing happened, right,
and and you know, so it really worked for me,
like that that feedback and that validation about my feelings
and and and that it's okay, you know, make doing
something different really really helped me. And I had a
trip scheduled to go to Europe for graduation with a
friend and I had to make my dad just told
me my mom and dad. I mainly remember my dad
just telling me, hey, we're very concerned about you, and
we don't you know, you need to gain some weight
in order to go on this trip. And so the
deal I made with him was to weigh ninety pounds.
And so I gained the weight, and it was it
was scary. In the back of my mind. I thought,
as soon as I get back, I'm just gonna I'll
just lose it. But for whatever reason, the therapy clicked.
I came back from Europe and I just stopped. I
stopped doing it, and I think I maintained around one
hundred and twenty five pounds for years, years and years.
Still exercising was importing important, But I didn't have the
same rules.
Speaker 1: You know, did you ever discover during that time? And
I know, again we could say like, okay, yay, so
totally cured, done, fine, yeah, yeah, end of show for
three minutes, that's it. But with I mean, I'm interested
in if you figured out because the behavior is one thing.
I wonder how important it is to figure out like
what are those feelings or are they feelings underneath it
that you're trying to camp down with controlling your weight?
I mean, do you think it was just random, like
something clicked in you and then you got caught up?
Or did you did you discover that there were feelings
of like any childhood stuff or or just low self
esteem or what that was? You know, drastic? I mean
eighty six pounds.
Speaker 2: Really drastic. I think I really don't know why I
did it. You know, I think it's self sustained, definitely,
you know, just to have a stupid comment, offhand comment
that someone made that they never even really thought twice about,
just joking kind of thing, but like I just really
took it to heart, and I just I really placed
a lot of value on my worth in my size
for whatever reason. And I think too, in college, I
was pretty stressed out. I worked a lot, just that
whole thing of like what's next, you know, what am
I going to do with my life? What I think?
Just all those feelings were hard to kind of to
deal with, and it was just really comforting to just
live in this routine and to kind of live in
this self imposed structure. You know, if I had regimented day,
I could control that, And it just felt like like
I was getting to a place where, oh, there's all
these things that I'm not quite sure that I'm going
to be able to control when I graduate from college,
you know, And I think that that's what it was.
I kind of wish I would have continued doing therapy.
She was in Ogden, which was an hour away and
wasn't super convenient, but she was kind of the only
one around, and so in retrospect, I probably should have
continued going or continued some sort of therapy.
Speaker 1: I'd love that touch on yeah, which was taking you
back a little bit that incident, it's not really an incident,
but that time that you went back to school shopping
with your sister and you realize that your body was changing,
because I also, yeah, I think that that can sometimes
spark off, like when you're a young girl and then
your body starts changing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think that that kind of goes back
to This would have been probably like middle school era,
and you know, my parents were so like generous back
to school. We always got five outfits and we got
new underwear and new bras and new socks, and you know,
looking around at my friends, they didn't get that. And
you know, we didn't have a ton of money, but
my parents really tried hard to, you know, and they
always wanted us to have you know, guests and your
beaut and and you know, been nice things, and they
had to work a lot to do that. But I
just remember going I don't remember how old exactly I was.
I'm pretty sure it was middle school, and I just
remember going to Mervin's and like having to go to
like the junior's department, but also kind of relieved that
I wasn't gonna have to try on clothes in the
in the like girls section, because I knew, like nothing
was gonna it's gonna fit me. But you know, I
also remember my little sister, super cute, you know, just perky, cute,
happy kid, lots of friends trying on all these cute clothes,
and just that feeling of like that's never going to
be me again. I'm always going to have to wear
clothes are a little bit bigger then, you know how
like clothes used to be, Like I six, you were
six years old, you know, remember that? But I don't
know X six eggs and yeah, and like that was
just like horrifying for me, Like I had to be
whatever age I was. I had to be whatever I
was supposed to be, and you know, kind of later
elementary middle school, I wasn't and that I just felt
like I just wasn't. I just wasn't. I didn't want
to be different.
Speaker 1: You know, if you remember the story too, correct me
if I'm wrong, being like, you found something cute, then
you needed it one size up and you were like
hor you were like what like wear a size three
or whatever.
Speaker 2: Whatever it was, whatever it was. Yeah, and yet you.
Speaker 1: Were like felt horrible after that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, just like you know, I just I just
didn't want to be different. I just wanted to be
what was expected of me. I just wanted to be
the right size. So you're if that makes sense.
Speaker 1: Get you. You have therapy, you're uh graduating college. You
obviously adjust, I mean you gained a good a good
amount of weight because you became normal way yeah yeah yep,
and then life goes on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, life, life goes on.
Speaker 1: Or are you restricting at all or are you just like.
Speaker 2: Mainly mainly managing way through exercise? Again? Big walker walking,
I was really big. Walker had to walk about that
very rigid about that. I had to walk thirty minutes
a day. I would you know. At this point in time,
I was living alone, getting up at five o'clock in
the morning, cracking the diet coke on the way to
the gym, being at the gym for mainly on the treadmill,
just walking in the winter and outside in the summer.
But you know, and then you know, living my life.
I I got married and married for six years before
we had a baby, which in Utah is very I
was old, I was twenty seven then. Oh god, I know,
I was like total spinster. So but then we waited
for a long time to have kids, which is even
weirder in Utah. And my my father passed away. And
that week that he passed away, I told my husband,
I'm just really sad, but my like, my dad's never
going to know kid if we have kids, they're never
never going to know him. And we started trying to
have a baby that like, I stopped taking birth control
that week and I had a baby like a year
and one day after he died, and everything was fine,
like everything was great. My daughter's too almost two, and
I asked my husband. I'm like, we really should have one.
More like, I don't want her to be I don't
want her to have to take care of us. She
needs to have someone to help, you know.
Speaker 1: So my daughter, yeah, you The weight kind of came
back off.
Speaker 2: Yeah, really, really easily. I you know, people tell me
if you nurse that that would help. And I wasn't
excited about nursing, but I thought, well, I'll give it
a try. And I actually ended up really loving it.
But it really was hard with work and you know,
all of that kind of stuff. So I did it
for six months. Weight came off back to normal, just fine,
no problem. And so we get pregnant again a couple
of years later, and pregnant with twins, I was terrified.
I was terrified of a lot of things. Terrified of
am I gonna be able to work? How could I
afford daycare for three kids? How much weight am I
get to gain? With with twins? I gained. I felt
like I gained a lot of weight with my my daughter,
and I'm so small. I was pregnant everywhere with my daughter,
like my face, my back, my arms, my leg I
just felt like I was huge. Girls it's just really hard.
And so I was scared to be pregnant with twins,
and you know, you go along for a couple of
months and and and then you find you kind of
get excited about it. And we were two boys, and
it was like, great, we have one of each. We
can be done. Well, you know, two boys and a girl.
We've got both genders. That's great. And you know, then
I start thinking about all this will be fun little
league and you know, matching clothes and all the stuff.
And then you know, we go into the you know,
five month ultrasound and find out that one of the
babies had died and they were not identical, so there
was no danger to the living baby. But it was
very shocking. It was shocking. It was sorry shocking. It
was looking back at it, it was it was really devastating.
It was it was weird because there was no danger
to the other baby and there was nothing to be done,
and so I just had to carry on with the
pregnancy knowing that one of the babies had passed away.
And we also, you know, you're kind of like what
happens when when we have these babies, Like are we
going to have a baby that looks like, is it
going to look like a baby when the other baby's born,
or it was just really there was just all these
weird things that we just didn't know how to do.
And and I, you know, we just I had this
toddler at home, I was working, I had another baby
that I had to to make sure was going to
be okay. And I spent the rest of the pregnancy
trying to make other people comfortable with this bad thing
that happened to me and my husband and a lot
of you know, I think this happened for a reason,
you know, I probably you know, probably really you only
kind of get what you can handle. I just did
a lot of trying to justify and this tragedy that happened.
I just didn't want people to feel bad, yeah for us,
And so we kind of just lived our life and
didn't really talk about what had happened. I never really
talked about what had happened. And my husband, I never
asked him, are you okay? And we just, you know,
we were busy and we were dealing with our kids,
and so it was just it was just this thing
that was just really you just kind of didn't know
what to do with so so we have our son.
He's healthy, he's fine. The other baby didn't look like
a baby. So we just decided to do like a
medical waste situation, which felt so just so kind of
it just felt so careless. I don't know if that's
the right word, but we didn't We didn't know what
else to do, and I didn't want this big production
over it. I had this new baby, he was healthy.
I should be grateful for what for what I have.
And so that was kind of how I have built that.
And so, you know, I had weighed like one hundred
and seventy two pounds when I had given birth, and
it just was horrified, like, oh my gosh, this is
going to be really hard to get this weight off.
And and so I decided a couple of things. I
kind of started running a little bit. My husband, you know,
is definitely more active than I was, and so you know,
i'd see him running half marathons and I think, oh,
that looks kind of fun. I wonder if I could
do that, But I I hated running though, you know,
I would just go cheer him on. But so I
would do some five ks or just some thirty minute dogs.
That kind of thing. But I thought, I wonder if
I could run a half marathon to help me lose
some of this baby weight, and so I really got
into running. But I also decided, you know what, I
think I need a little extra help, so I'm going
to go to weight watchers to help me lose this weight.
And so went to weight Watchers and loved everything about it.
You know, there's rules, there's points, there's math. You know,
it's easy, makes sense to me. This is it spoke
to me and like, I can do this, and it
really just helped me to kind of get get back
on track a little bit with feeling in control of
like I'm in control of myself. Now I can I'm
going to do this. And then I also started training
for a half marathon that we did. I think my
son was about he was almost one when we found
that half marathon, and I actually really loved it. And
so for the next couple of years, I just ran
and ran and lots of half marathons and went to
weight watchers. I made my lifetime goal before I even
ran that first marathon, you know, my my targeted weight
that I had said that I wanted to wait, and
you know what, I just did it again. I just
kept losing weight. I just kept losing weight and.
Speaker 1: And you changed your goal I did.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So my healthy weight range they told me was
like one oh nine to one, I want to say,
one thirty five or something like that, and I had
told them, you know, I want to I want to
get back to my one twenty five. So I hit
that one twenty five really quit, and uh so like, well,
why don't I let's go to one to fifteen. You
know that's that's that's not bad. It's still within my
healthy it's healthy. So let's do that. So I went
down to one fifteen.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure the weight watchers people were all the
happier to to go are great, we're keeping you in
the full.
Speaker 2: Keeping you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you have to keep paying because you have it,
because now you have a different I have a new
goal now.
Speaker 2: But as all anorexics do, I hit that goal pretty
quickly and so I kept you know, I kept that goal.
I actually kept that goal for probably ten years. But
you know, when I really got I'm pretty I decided
to try to run a full marathon before I turned forty,
and so it was about a month before my thirty
ninth birthday, I did run a full marathon and that
takes it out of you. And I was I was
down to like one oh seven at that time, and
so I did not want to be kicked out of
weight Watchers. And so I you know, my tricks at
weight watchers, you know, is I wouldn't eat before I
went to weight watchers. I would go on like a
six to eight mile run, no water, no nothing, and
then I would make sure to go to the bathroom
before I went, and then i'd go way.
Speaker 1: And when I was.
Speaker 2: Down that low, like, it was fine if I was
lower than one fifteen, but I couldn't be lower than
one of nine. That was not okay. They were going
to kick me out. So when I was down to
one o seven, I would wear a hoodie when I
wighed in, I wouldn't take my shoes off. I would
throw my car keys in my pocket of my hoodie.
And I did that probably for about six months, just
to stay in the program. And I I you know,
over time after that, I was able to kind of
keep around one hundred and fifteen, but I was leaning
on the no desserts less it's holidays or birthdays, and yeah,
I kind of kept doing that for a long long time,
and I think what's helped me helped me now. At
the time I was frustrated about it was just COVID.
I got a running injury. We got a dog, so
I started walking my dog more than running. And I
you know, I'm of that age now where you know,
I'm working my way through menopause and I've gained weight,
and it's hard. It's really hard because I I was
able to keep that weight for a long long time
and I was really proud of that, and I just
I haven't been able to And it's kind of this
double edged edge forward where I know that it's like
one hundred and fifteen is probably not enough for me.
I need to wait a little more than that. But
you know, this is the most I've weighed in my
whole adult life. And it's it's really it's a hard thing.
It's a hard thing to to kind of reconcile.
Speaker 1: But it's really brave to share. And I think it's
very interesting because so many of us, and you know,
you're in my writing writing group, anybody that wants to
write a memoir, I have opened.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's great fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there is like a theme. I mean, people
struggle with the that they don't necessarily talk about. And
we're living in this society where we are still very
focused on weight loss. We now GPS are becoming a
huge thing. You know, I've tried it even because I
think this is the thing that people really struggle with.
And it must be such a unique struggle for you
to know that you have been on the opposite end
of it, where you've been trying, where you've spent so
many years restricting yourself and punishing yourself about the number
on the scale, and then it still must be hard
to just go. But mentally it's better for me to
weigh a little like who cares? You know? The thing
is so it's so hard to go. You have this
husband who freakin' adores you, always has, would not care.
I mean I have that too, you know, they don't
care about the number on the scale. So what is
it that is so locked into our brains and our psyches?
And as I could say, as women, maybe some men
have this too that even at the age you are
now and going through menopause, it's still difficult to just go.
Why can't I just be happy? Yeah, it's have to
be striving for a goal or wanting to be in
or wanting to be this certain number on the scale.
And I think it's brave to acknowledge that after all
the years of this, you're not cured. You're not like
no now and now I just like have dessert when
I wanted, and as long as I'm exercising, I'm fine. Yeah,
what is that?
Speaker 2: I don't know what that is. It's it's it's it's
really hard, like it's it's really hard to be a woman.
You know. There's just a lot of weird things that
start happening to your body when you, you know, get to
be around my age, and I don't know, it's it's
interesting though, you know, I do have an amazing husband
and he's also noticing things as well. And we you know,
of course, we have talked about the loss of our baby.
It took us probably gosh, thirteen or fourteen years until
we actually really talked about it. And it was really
great to understand how he felt when this happened. Things
I just didn't quite understand, and that was very healing.
That helped, and it's been nice to you know, my
husband's starting to do different sort of exercise with me
as well. He's a you know, cyclist, a by Grazer,
and you know, we just are We're kind of at
a place in our lives where like we don't want
to like get up at or four thirty in the
morning every morning to exercise. We enjoyed going on walks
with our dogs. We had to talk when we're exercising,
and I think that's been really helpful for me. It's
kind of help me feel a little more comfortable in
this body than than I have in the past. And
I just wish that it wasn't that way. I just
really wish that there wasn't such a focus on how
people looked. You know, it's it is really kind of sad,
but that's that way, and that we torture ourselves.
Speaker 1: And maybe like before we wrap. As a mom to
a daughter too, that must feel important to you to
strive to have more body acceptance, like for your daughter,
so that she can that same acceptance.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and yeah, to.
Speaker 1: Not like I know that for me, I've always had
no matter what's going on in my head, I've had
to be really careful not to denigrate yeah, look and
have it be about wheat and talk about calories or
say and one. And I know I told you this story.
But one time, many years ago, like my sister in law,
who did not have kids at that point, came over
and was like, oh my god, I'm such a fat fuck.
I am like too fat to live. And I lost
my shit. I was like, you cannot. Yeah, even though
my kids were pretty young at the time, I was like,
you cannot talk that way. Yeah, in front of my kids.
Speaker 2: Oh, I think that's great that you did that. I
you know, I have my daughter's twenty. She's beautiful. She's
a dancer. She's in college and a modern dance program,
and you know, has been dancing since she was three.
And I never wanted her to do competition dance because
I knew how just I just didn't want her to
get stecked into all the body stuff associated with dance.
And I think it's a different world now than it
was when I was growing up. And I also did
dance a little bit, nothing near or anywhere near as
good as my daughter is. But she I feel bad
because I was in the throes of a lot of
this when she was growing up, and I don't think
I was, as you know, cognizant of that behavior. And yeah,
it's been I tried, really, I've tried really hard as
she's grown up, even with my son, and I've told
them about my struggles and kind of what I've gone through,
and then I just don't want that for them. I
just want them to love themselves no matter what. And
my my daughter attacked my daughter, Thank goodness. She she
loves food, she loves to eat, but she's very she's
very conscious of what she's eating and the exercise that
she's getting just because of what she's kind of doing
right now in her life. And I can't say that
I'm not worried about that. It does worry me. And
I'm trying really hard to not say those things about
myself at all, but for sure not in front of
my kids. But man, it's just a really it's an
easy thing to do. It's an easy thing to put
yourself down. And yeah, I struggle, I really struggle with that.
I'm trying so hard to not to not do that.
But yeah, like I say, I'm I feel like I
was not a great example when when they were a
little younger, because I was I was kind of doing
all this stuff to myself and going to weight watchers
and all that stuff. So I I'm hoping though, that
sharing more about this helps people understand.
Speaker 1: But that's all you can do is try to have
a cycle, you know, right, I mean your mom before
you also restricted food, but you guys never really talked
about it. So at least you're open about your struggles,
and I think that helps the next Joe go oh, okay,
this is a thing that goes on and that I
could get caught up in this kind of thinking.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Yeah, it's addictive thinking. It's very addictive, it's very
compulsive behavior. It's very it's a hard thing to break.
It's a really hard thing to break.
Speaker 3: So yeah, thank you so much for sharing your sty
I think this is honestly going to help a lot
of people like I. We have to have more stories
where people are like, hey, I'm still struggling. Yeah, not
like you know, I mean, anarexki is a very difficult thing.
It's very hard to just cure it. You know, it's
a whole way of thinking. And if we could just
acknowledge that, you know, the compulsive nature, whether it's drinking, shopping, food,
it all. It's brilliant about the same thing.
Speaker 2: It is. There's as I've heard you talk about, you know,
listening to your podcast for all these years, several of
your podcasts. There are so many similarities with when I've
heard you explain your struggles. There's just so many similarities,
and it's so relatable. It's all. It's all just a
coping thing or a way to deal with your emotions.
And yeah, yeah, it's it's it's really interesting, and yeah,
I appreciate you having me on to talk about it.
Speaker 1: All right, thanks everybody for listening, and we will see
you next week. I lie, it's good.
Speaker 2: It's good.
Speaker 1: It's good again.
Speaker 2: Yet it after his time. He can't be dealing