I was an especially "sporty" kid. I played sports year round and always seemed to be on the go. Sports became my identity and even through college, the kept me busy during most of my free time. After college, I remember feeling a little lost, scrolling social media and came across a "wellness coach". I was intrigued and signed up with the desire to not only get my own fitness and nutrition "on track" but also to help others. This began a five year journey that ultimately led me to disordered thinking and over-exercising.
I've spent the past couple years healing my relationship with food, my body, and fitness. I've also spent a lot of time wondering how I could have fallen in this trap. While, I think everyone is suceptible to diet culture, I think athletes are especially vulnerable for many reasons.
Needing a Challenge
When you are in athlete, you become accustomed to physical and mental challenges. You learn to thrive on them; especially if you go on to play at an elite level. Once you are done playing formal sports, you feel like you are left with a void in your life. When exercising, you hear messages like "never miss a Monday" or "when it hurts, just keep going" and this type of "challenge" motivates an athlete contributing to further disconnection from your body. You look for ways to fill the need for challenge in your life. It's easy to slip into over structured exercise to see how you can push your body to its limits.
Structure
As an athlete, you are used high amount of structure surrounding fitness. You are used to somebody telling you when and what to do for training constantly. So, when you lose that structure, you feel disorganized and seek ways to feel in control again. I easily fell into an "all or nothing" type of mindset when it came to exercise and developed a lot of rigidity around food and movement.
Identity crisis
It's hard to leave sports and lose the sense of team and community. You go from athlete being a large part of your identity, to losing it. And it's difficult to figure out what your identity is after that. You transition to new roles, like wife and mom, and you wake up one day and you don't even recognize yourself. Then diet culture tries to lure you with the idea that you can be the person that you used to be if you only eat right, exercise enough, look a certain way.
Not Being Able to "Eat Like You Used To"
When you stop playing organized sports, society tells you that you cannot eat "like you used to", insinuating, that you will inevitably gain weight if you eat like you would prefer. This is all sorts of disordered. You likely aren't going to need as much food if your activity level has drastically changed. This way of thinking is focused on relying on external measures to determine how much, what, and when you should eat. If you eat the same amount of food that you did when you were a teenager, playing multiple sports, and growing, it likely wouldn't feel good in your body because it would be what it needs. When you learn how to eat intuitively, your body will tell you how much and what to eat, depending on your activity level which will change day to day. It's not something to grieve, but instead just a logistical fact. You can still eat to satisfaction and be happy with your food choices.
Having this insight is so useful because if you can find ways to fulfill these needs in other ways, you can distance yourself from the damaging effects of diet culture. If you feel like this resonated with you, you are not alone. Feel free to reach out and let's chat.
Kayla
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