HEAL Week: Nnenna’s Recovery Story
I went on my very first diet the summer of my sophomore year of high school. This was in the early 2000s, so there wasn’t social media like Facebook and Instagram to get tips from. Instead, I purchased magazines like Self, Glamour and countless others guaranteeing weight loss in less than six weeks. I never thought I needed to diet but in my mind, in order to gain optimal fitness as a soccer player and track runner, I needed to be leaner. So, at the tender age of 15 I started cutting out carbs, sugar, sodas... you name it.
I focused on eating “clean” - even though that term wasn’t used 19 years ago. When people started complimenting me on how lean I looked, I knew I was doing something right. My fitness level even improved. I was winning track races… yet I wasn’t happy or satisfied.
My life started to spiral the end of that school year. I quit track - the sport I loved - because of toxic behavior from the coaching staff. Since I no longer had what I loved, I leaned onto my eating disorder for comfort, because only “she” knew what was best for me. Restriction of food intensified, and then, the depression showed up, soon followed by suicidal ideation. I felt alone, even as my eating disorder told me I wasn’t alone.
It was actually my mother who noticed the signs that I needed help. She had great insurance through her employer, and I was able to go into an outpatient eating disorder treatment center. From my first day at the center, I knew I was different as the only Black girl in the waiting room amongst a sea of white girls. The staff were mostly thin, blonde white women. I thought - how are they supposed to relate to me? Eventually though, I opened to my support team because they had lived experience and understood some of what I was going through.
Through recovery, I did put on substantial amount of weight. Being a size I never was before, there were comments here and there, but I didn’t allow myself to internalize them because I was finally feeling like my pre-eating disorder self. Additionally, since diet culture and wellness culture were not so pervasive at that time it was easier for me to recover.
By the time I was into my 20s, however, social media was everywhere. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter - you name it, I probably had an account. Even though I was recovered from my anorexia by then, looking back now, I did show lingering signs of disordered eating. I followed every “wellness” (code for diet) plan from Paleo, Atkins, Whole 30, Keto… the list goes on. But I didn’t see it as an eating disorder because I was at a “healthy” weight.
I started noticing more weight talk and diet talk amongst my friends, co-workers, and even random strangers. To me I thought that was normal, because it was everywhere.
So the year I turned 30, I decided I wanted to lose weight to be at “optimal health” - whatever that meant.
I embarked on yet another diet, but this time I had social media and weight loss apps to "help me reach my fitness goals.” I joined FB weight loss groups, used workout videos on YouTube, and tracked my calories on an app. Weight loss seemed like it would be simple with so many tools to help me.
As the number on the scale went down, the number of compliments I received went up. Felt like déjà vu. There I was, back to the same cycle I thought I had released 10 years prior.
With the weight loss came the body checking, the obsession over everything I put into my mouth, and of course, the weekend binges because I deprived myself all week of so many of the vital nutrients my body needed.
To be honest, I couldn’t fully admit to myself that my eating disorder was back because wellness culture told me fasting every day was a good thing! It wasn’t until a year into this cycle that I realize my eating disorder was back. One night after a massive binge, I found myself on my bed in tears, feeling out of control, lost and alone all over again. I berated myself for going on a diet, knowing full well the pain I suffered in my teens.
I needed help but I didn’t know where to start. This time, I didn’t have my mom’s awesome insurance because I’d aged out of her coverage. I barely had insurance, to be honest. My work insurance didn’t cover nutrition and the therapist I saw who “specialized” in eating disorders told me that I needed to just cut carbs. (That was the last time I saw her.)
My weekdays of restriction followed by weekend binges then turned into full blown daily binges. I felt like I was no longer in control. I needed help but from where? I couldn’t afford to see a therapist and nutritionist that specialized in eating disorders…
After countless Google searches and Instagram follows of individuals in the eating disorder recovery field, I finally came across Project HEAL.
In Fall 2019, I applied for support from Project HEAL to get outpatient grant for therapy and nutrition - thinking I would never get it because I didn’t look like the “type” with an eating disorder. I wasn’t white and I wasn’t even anorexic anymore.
I thought there is no way I am getting this grant - but guess what? I did! Project HEAL offered to pay for the outpatient therapy and nutrition sessions (with actual ED specialists) I desperately needed but couldn’t afford.
Recovery this time around was much harder, if I’m being honest. Diet culture and wellness culture were everywhere, from TV ads to magazines, and of course, social media.
Eat this, not that. Train this way. Cut this and that out. Do it for your health.
But I made a promise to myself.
Recovery mattered even more because I was given a second chance.
My treatment team helped me get to a place where I could finally see past the weight that the eating disorder had convinced me was so important. I learned that size doesn’t equate to health and started to incorporate Health at Every Size (HAES) principles and intuitive eating to my life.
As a Black woman, I never thought in a million years I would have an eating disorder - let alone two different ones over a decade of my life. I always thought this disease only affected white women and girls. But through my experience I realized eating disorders do not discriminate by sex, race, sexual orientation or socio-economic status.
My body has changed in the past two years since the start of my treatment. I am no longer in a smaller body, and it has taken time to get used to. But I wouldn’t want it any other way; I am now happier and healthier - and food is no longer my adversary.
Now I use social media for good. I follow body positive, fat positive and fat activism accounts. Wellness and fitspo accounts have been blocked.
Thank you, Project HEAL, for all you have done in helping with my recovery. I couldn’t have done this without you. Without your support, I don't know if I would be where I am today and for that I am forever grateful.
Nnenna Ugwuala (she/her) has been in active recovery from an eating disorder for almost two years. She has become an advocate for eating disorder awareness in BIPOC individuals and is currently pursuing a career in the eating disorder recovery field.
“I feel like I have so much to offer the eating disorder recovery world — as someone who has been there and come out the other side — but especially as a Black woman as we are so underrepresented in this space.”
- Nnenna Ugwuala