“You are so STRONG, Audra.” Jodi said years ago when I first met her. This was a huge compliment
coming from a PA-C who has seen and worked with so many patients. I never understood what she meant by these words until now... as I write this post and share, “My Story.”
It was in fifth grade when I
weighed over 180 pounds that I made the decision to lose weight. That summer, I
lost 40 pounds by allowing myself to drink as much water as I could and eating thirty crackers
a day. Little did I know at the time, this was the beginning to my struggle
with anorexia. After losing that much weight so quickly, I dedicated myself to
losing another 20 pounds by repeating the same diet. I easily met that goal in a
month. Throughout middle and high school, I was able to keep all the weight off
by yo-yo dieting. After graduating from
high school, I began to obsess over what the scale said and set a goal to lose
as much weight as I could. I started to binge and purge up to five times a
day to lose more weight. It felt like an accomplishment to see the numbers on the scale
continue to drop. About six months later, I dropped out of college, couldn’t keep
a steady job, was financially struggling and refused to admit that I needed
help.
I finally felt satisfied being
5’3 and weighing about 85 pounds. My family and friends were starting to worry because
I was at my lowest weight. My family doctor said that if I was to lose any
more weight that I would need to be sent to an eating disorder treatment center for
help. It was about a few weeks after this visit, when I remember sitting in
my car at the McDonald’s parking lot when I finally admitted to myself that I had
an eating disorder. As I cried, I realized that I was slowly killing myself. I
knew that if I continued down this path that I was going to eventually die from
malnutrition. I was lethargic, tired and depressed.
It took me about three months
to get back to a healthy weight. I focused on making better
choices by creating a healthy relationship with food, staying busy so that I had
no time to relapse by going back to college, getting a job and began exercising. My goal was to work toward getting
mentally and physically healthy.
In the next few years, as I continued to eat a healthy and balanced diet and exercise regularly, I graduated from a community college with my
Associate's degree and transferred to Washington State University in Pullman. During
my WSU college years, I found my faith through Catholicism, began studying
Psychology to learn more about myself and enjoyed working at the WSU fitness
center. I was slowly making
progress toward bettering myself as an individual. I eventually moved back to my hometown to
finish my last year of WSU online so that I could work full-time as a
para-educator to help pay for school and be closer to Seamus who I had been
dating for seven years. After graduating with my Bachelor's degree in
Psychology I continued to work as a para and pursue my Master's degree in Teaching at a Distance Learning weekend program. In 2011, I finished my Master's degree in Teaching, completed my
student teaching internship, worked as a 1st grade summer school teacher, was
hired as a first grade full-time teacher, got married, bought a house and was pregnant with my first
child. I felt overwhelmed but determined to KEEP GOING!
It has been ten years of working
toward balancing exercise and nutrition and I feel like I am still learning
more about HEALTH and FITNESS every day. My definition of HEALTH continues to change and it means more than body image and exercise. It includes so
many more factors and takes dedication and hard work. Over the years, I have gained much endurance and strength from running
and exercise and continue to track my nutrition. I’ve rather developed an interest for
health and fitness due to all the damage that I have put my body through. I have grown to appreciate that I am physically able to run and keep up with my kids at home and students at
school. Most importantly, I feel so blessed to be ME: a Wife with a supportive husband, Mom of 4 Beautiful Children, Elementary PE Teacher, Fitness Instructor and RUNNER. Overcoming
bulimia years ago, was the hardest obstacle I have faced in life. Those dark days will never be forgotten because they have taught me to lead by example and encourage others to BELIEVE that THEY CAN DO THE IMPOSSIBLE.
