You are what you eat.

My relationship with my body has always been complicated and not always the healthiest. Even to this day I still struggle with it.

From binging to starving to self harm to not making the best choices with what I'm doing to and putting into my body it's been an uphill climb for most of my life.

I have not been kind to myself for most of my life.

Growing up my parents didn't really have much knowledge about nutrition. I grew up eating mostly Indian food. My parents ate as healthy as they knew how with good quality ingredients. I don't think I'd ever had anything out of a can until I was in college. However, I never particularly ate very much. I was always an anxious kid. I remember being punished as a kid for not eating. I'd be sitting there for hours at the table after dinner was done because I refused to eat. I was very picky and stubborn when it came to my food. Unless it was chicken nuggets....then you could get me to eat as many of those as possible. I was about 90 pounds for most of my life.

I remember being in kindergarten and refusing to eat the lunches my mom packed for me and getting in trouble because of it. My teachers and mom would try to force me to eat but I just wouldn't do it. I got really good at making it look like I had eaten.

Getting to high school and having severe body dysmorphia was a real thing. I had always been "skinny fat" I was very petite but I didn't like how my body looked. I never had a very healthy relationship with my body. As I got older, my anxiety and depression got worse too. I didn't understand how to achieve the body type I wanted. I would binge eat crappy food, feel like shit, then starve myself to punish myself or force myself to do hundreds of squats a day until the point where I felt like I was going to pass out. I'd be in the gym at 16 for hours at a time doing more harm than good. The pattern continued.

Going on 18 I don't think I broke more than 103 pounds max. I would either eat too much or not eat at all. It was an endless cycle. I remember at one point not having eaten more than a meal for 3 days. I was fucking miserable.

People would be envious of my body and I just couldn't understand it. I didn't like my body. I had stretch marks and rolls.

I wasn't making smart choices for my body. I was eating like crap. It was always either too much or not enough.. I convinced myself I wasn't hungry.On top of it, I was on adderall and Zoloft so I was never hungry and my stomach always hurt. Even if I wanted to eat...I couldn't.

When I got to college it was all you can eat all the time. I was drinking all the time. Excessively. I was no longer on adderall which suppressed my appetite for years. I was eating pizza everyday. Burgers. Panda Express. You NAME it. I quickly gained 15-20 pounds in the span of 6 months.

For a girl who had been under 100lbs most of her life? Culture shock. Except I couldn't stop. I wasn't going to the gym consistently anymore. I wasn't making good decisions. I was quickly and deeply falling into a depression spiral before everyones eyes. Now I was stuck in another body, different but still foreign. Still unhappy. I couldn't get myself out. I was too far down the rabbit hole.

Everything hit its head when I turned 19. I was depressed. The biggest I'd ever been in my life. Drinking too much. Eating like shit. Self Harming. Coming out of a break up. On multiple medications. Disrespecting myself. I was failing in every aspect of my life.I knew it too. I couldn't get out. I hated myself. I hated how I looked. I hated my life.

That's when I found boxing. Boxing saved me.

I bought a Groupon to title boxing and I fell in love. I quickly progressed, getting stronger and better everyday. When I was hitting the bag it wasn't because I was mad at other people or an aggressive person (Lets be serious I was a pansy)...I was fighting the parts of myself I didn't like. When I hit that bag, I was fighting the parts of myself I didn't like.

This is when my love for fitness really rooted its foundation in my NEED to live a fit and active lifestyle. I became obsessed with getting better. I started giving a shit about what I put in my body. I started giving a shit about my life. I got certified as a trainer. I took a lot of pride in my workouts and I developed a discipline oriented mindset. It benefited me and helped me grow.

I stayed on this track for a couple years. I even fought competitively. I lost all the extra fat, started focusing on building muscle. I cared about what I put in my body. The gym became my temple.

However, I went from anorexia to orthorexia. An OBSESSION with eating healthy. I swear I was just eating chicken and broccoli and salads. I was starving still. I still didn't feel GREAT. I still just didn't have a good relationship with food. Things were better but I wasn't cured. Just because I was making better food choices doesn't mean I had a healthy relationship with food or myself. It was the same issue popping up in a different way.

It stayed like this for a couple years. But life has a funny way of knocking us down. I had worked so hard to come out of my depression. I had finally starting putting on muscle weight. I started to develop better eating habits and go away from my obsessiveness. This quickly started deteriorating as did my mental health while I was dating my ex. The mental stress took a big toll on me physically. I lost all the weight. Started drinking excessively again. Fell lower than I knew was possible. That lasted about a years time. I'd get little spurts of energy and start coming back but my eating became disordered again. I started to become obsessive with every single thing that I put into my mouth. I began restricting again. It was something I had control over in a very uncontrollable time in my life.

But something was different this time...I had a foundation to come back to. As far off track as I veered, there was something still holding the shreds of me I had left back. It was the gym.

After that finally ended and I finally clawed my way out of the hole, I started hitting the gym hard again. It became my therapy. The weights were always there to listen. I started learning and studying more. I started training more again. I looked at food as fuel. I started training clients again.

After all, you wouldn't put McDonalds fryer oil in a Ferrari and expect it to win a race would you? How can you do that to your own body?

I've been pretty on track the last couple years. I eat healthy. I don't train myself to the point of fatigue and overworking my body yet I still manage to push it and go. I've found my happy place.

But that doesn't mean I don't still struggle.

My therapist and I came to the root of my problem, my anxiety causes me to lose my appetite. I have days where I literally will not be able to get food down when I know I should. I just won't be hungry. I know better and I know I have a support system I can turn to when I start struggling with this. It makes sense since most of my life I've struggled with anxiety.

Because I will not go back to how I used to treat my body. I will not go back to the relationship I had with myself. My body finally feels like home. I am in the best shape I've ever been in and happy to be in it.

So what changed? How do I (for the most part) maintain my healthy relationship with myself when the anxiety, anorexia, body dysmorphia set in?

I focus on an 80/20 diet. 80% Whole Foods. That's vegetables, good natural protein, and good carbs/fats. I got really good at seasoning my food. I learned to cook everything I loved and make healthier versions of them. And when I want some French fries or chocolate? I eat it. It's simple. I don't tell myself no. If I want a donut, I'll eat a donut. I don't track my food since it triggers me. I just track my protein macros to make sure I'm getting enough to sustain my muscles with how much I work out. I track nothing else. For me its all about how I feel and I feel my best and function my best on a mostly whole food diet. Avoiding most of that processed junk. I make my cooking time my meditative time. It's time where I am honoring my body and thanking it. I'm taking care of it.

I cross train. I lift 3-4 days a week to build strength. I throw in boxing in every work out I can. I take yoga classes, pilates classes, and meditation classes to build my body awareness. I run the stairs at the park. I hike. I am constantly switching it up. If I'm not feeling a heavy lift, I'll grab a yoga mat and go sit by the lake and stretch. Constant movement focused on optimal mobility, strength, and endurance. I'm not training for a look, I'm training for performance and my mental health.

I also try to not be too hard on myself. My body looks different every day. Somedays my muscles are popping out and other days I'm bloated. It's a part of this life we lead. Just be patient with yourself.

There is no magic pill or cure all for weight loss or to achieve rock hard abs. It's all about learning to have a healthy relationship with your body and focusing more on how it feels than trying to achieve a look. I care about myself now and I take care of myself now. It's made all the difference.

I thank my body everyday for getting me this far in life and I apologize to it for having abused it for so long. Everything I do for myself now is from a place of gratitude and thankfulness for being alive today.

You are what you eat. This applies to the food you put in your body and what you feed your mind.

Be careful about what you consume.