HUNGRY FOR MORE
Written by Molly Turner
I was a young and overly competitive athlete who was exposed to unhealthy eating patterns.
You should know that I am now 25 years old and in year three as a Professional Beach Volleyball Athlete. I’ve had an eating disorder since I was a sophomore in college; that’s seven miserable years of hating my body and having an unhealthy relationship with food.
As a Division I beach volleyball athlete, I was trying to be the best physically, emotionally, and mentally. I felt that the fastest way to the top was to look the part. To be ripped and thin, but not too ripped and thin - just the “perfect” amount of skinny and strong. That’s when I was exposed to dieting and restricting. While I used learning about nutrition and food as a cover-up, I actually was learning how to count my calories and macros as well as how to lose weight quickly.
While dieting, nothing was working, and I wanted to keep shrinking. I needed to do this to fit the mold of “the perfect athlete”.
The pressure of being a strong female athlete while looking “sexy” and small in a dress was a strange and difficult task. I was at war with my body constantly, eating to fuel while also having strict eating patterns and eating to recover from practice while also starving myself.
I’m feeling exhausted just writing about it and reliving it.
I graduated from college as a two-time All-American, Female Athlete of the Year and was labeled as one of the best to play at my university. Even with all of these accomplishments I still wasn’t satisfied and continued to take it out on my body. How small could I get? How much could I restrict while still functioning? It got to a point where I was falling asleep for the night at 5 pm because I didn’t fuel myself enough to get through a full day.
I stumbled into my professional career trying every diet imaginable. My body was fighting to stay alive. I took fasting to new levels and was introduced then to the pitfalls of binging and purging. My eating became so disordered that I knew I needed help. I thankfully met my eating disorder therapist soon thereafter.
As a professional athlete, you are expected to look even more physically flawless than when you were a collegiate athlete. It’s been hard trying to juggle my eating disorder recovery and continuing to be a world-class athlete. What have I learned, though? All food is good food. In my mind, no food is off-limits anymore. I am fully aware of what makes my stomach turn and when I should or shouldn’t eat a particular food before the competition. I will never label a type of food as off-limits with this new, healthy mindset that I’ve worked so hard to develop.
While I was going through recovery, I was still counting my macros and hypersensitive to how my clothes fit. My dietician recommended I try MyClearStep, a numberless scale that sends my weight to their phone directly. She was wanting to track how my body was adapting to recovering. In recovery, you take one big step forward and a few steps back sometimes; that’s why she wanted to be involved as much as possible with my weight. I personally did not want anything to do with the number of pounds I weighed, so it worked out perfectly.
I never needed to blindly weigh myself and send a photo to my dietician; she just knew. It let me focus on other things such as fueling my body without a number hanging over my head.
I’ve been working with my therapist for nearly four years and I’m slowly relearning everything about food, my body, and living. After seven years of pain, suffering, and struggling, I’m finally starting over. It took seven years to relearn that dieting is not the way to heal my relationship with food and my body. I am currently in the best shape of my life while not dieting, restricting, binging, or purging. I’m eating what I want how I want, whenever I want to. It took seven years to relearn that dieting is not the way to heal my relationship with food and my body. I am currently in the best shape of my life while not dieting, restricting, binging, or purging. I’m eating what I want how I want, whenever I want to.
I feel like I’ve been reborn.
Molly Turner is a 25-year-old professional beach volleyball player for Team USA. She is originally from Chicago Illinois but moved to California immediately after graduating college at Grand Canyon University. Although a large part of her life is volleyball, she loves to travel to national parks and experience nature in its most perfect and most untouched state. She is a photographer in her downtime and loves to be creative. Her end goal is to reach the Olympics in 2028. To follow along on Molly’s journey, please check out her Instagram accounts: @mollyevelynturner and @mollysbodyblog.
MyClearStep serves clinicians in guiding their clients through their eating disorder journeys with a remote blind weight monitoring solution. MyClearStep is proud to partner with the largest eating disorder centers, hundreds of private practices and support clients through their recovery process. To learn more, visit us at MyClearStep.com Follow us on social media including Facebook, Instagram and Linkedin.