Grieving What Eating Disorders Take
Written by Tim Frie
For more than fourteen years, my entire life was focused on nothing more than food and fitness. During this time, my friends and family would frequently complement the shape and structure of my body, how frequently I went to the gym, and how well I adhered to whichever workout plan or dietary protocol I was following at the time. Even my own therapist made comments like, “I wish I could eat like you!” and “If everyone else worked out the way you did, people would be so much healthier.”
As a result of these well-intentioned comments that were intended to serve as praise and admiration, I convinced myself that my preoccupation with food and endless rumination about my body was not something to be concerned with. I thought that I just achieved some sort of fitness and nutrition milestones that others yearned for. I told myself that spending hours each day looking up nutrition facts, critiquing my posture, crunching the numbers from my workout log, reading articles about bodybuilding diets and workout plans, and frequenting online body comparison and fitness progress discussion forums was a sign that I was just “passionate” about fitness and nutrition.
This so-called “passion” drove me back to graduate school to earn a third degree in human nutrition and functional medicine. At the time, I felt a sense of excitement about learning about the biochemistry of food and a strong curiosity surrounding whether or not this advanced education and training in nutrition would allow me to crack the code and find the “perfect” diet for myself and others.
One day in the last six months of this graduate program, I had a thought that never once crossed my mind until just then: why does all of this feel so exhausting to me?
It was the first time that I became aware of and acknowledged that assessing every single detail about the food I was eating, analyzing the way I was moving, and exploring the biological effects that food and movement was having on my body was making me feel exhausted. It was consuming every single aspect of my life.
I soon realized that my endless stream of thoughts about food, my body, and my next workout weren’t indicative of a passion, but instead, they were indicative of body dysmorphia, disordered eating, orthorexia, and binge eating disorder. I also realized that, despite earning a graduate degree in human nutrition -- a degree that met the requirements for me to become a licensed and registered dietician nutritionist in the United States -- it did not teach me how to recognize any of this, nor did any of the certifications in nutrition, wellness, and personal training that I completed prior.
During the two years that followed, I began to research the origins of the diet industry, read stories written by fat folks, explored the gaps in training and education related to disordered eating and eating disorders, and learned how injustice, inequity, racism, anti-LGBT+, misogyny capitalism, white supremacy, xenophobia, colonization, weight bias, systemic oppression, institutional violence, and other sociocultural stereotypes, stigmas, and biases all intersect and contribute to how we view and treat our bodies. I learned about diet culture, Health At Every Size (HAES), and intuitive eating.
Many of the people I initially learned about these topics from were white women, so I began to question why there were so few stories and communities written by and created for men and folks assigned male at birth -- especially LGTBQIA+, Black, Brown, Native American, and Asian men -- who struggled with the same things. I started to realize that the online forums I used to frequent, the websites I used to refer to, and the brands and companies I used to purchase supplements and workout equipment from were simply exploiting the rampant and unidentified body dysmorphia and disordered eating among men and folks assigned men at birth.
During this intense period of deconstruction, unlearning, and relearning, I experienced an abundance of intense emotions. I felt disgust, anger, disappointment, denial, and frustration. I was privileged to be able to finally have access to a therapist who specialized in eating disorders, trauma, and intuitive eating and have a safe space to explore how my mind and body were responding to everything I’ve realized in such a short period of time.
Amidst everything I felt, there was one feeling that was most prevalent: grief.
This grief was comparable to that of losing a loved one, even though I was actually grieving things that I never had or never experienced, which was a relationship with my body that didn’t consume my entire life.
I felt grief because so much of my identity was tied to food and fitness, and I had spent nearly half of my life lying to myself about the true impact it had on me.
I felt grief because, without thinking and learning about food and fitness, I didn’t know where to focus my time and energy.
I felt grief for all of the fun times I missed with my friends and family because I wanted to avoid the food that I would have access to, or because spending time with them would interfere with my gym schedule.
I felt grief for all of the things I had said to my friends and family about their body in the spirit of “tough love” and “encouraging them to live a healthier lifestyle.”
I felt grief for the countless times that I censored myself, covered my body, and didn’t speak up about something I cared about because I was worried about how my body would look while doing so.
I felt grief for all of the folks who were harmed or even killed as a result of weight discrimination, anti-fat beliefs, stigma, and stereotypes related to people’s body size.
I felt grief for all of the time I spent with my “gym bros” and the realization that I hardly knew anything about them beyond what body part they were working on and how much protein they wanted to aim for each day.
As a gay man, I now compare this grief to the experiences I lost before I felt safe enough to share my sexual orientation with others.
The more I have these conversations and hear from others who have experienced similar circumstances, the less overwhelming this grief has become. Some days, the grief simply washes around my ankles like a gentle wave breaking far away from the shore. Some days, it feels like a twenty foot wave washing over my entire body.
Even though it hurts to know that others have and will likely continue to experience the same things I did, there’s a part of me that can continue to heal, grow, and recover through hearing other’s stories and reminding myself that I’m not alone.