Hey there,
I have come on here by suggestion of my therapist... and I have to say after reading on here for a while I really like it. So now everyone is asking themselves why would a therapist recommend a forum... so here comes my story for you to understand:
My name is Caterina (Catie) and I am 22 years old. I have lived in London, England since I started boarding at the Royal ballet school at age 11. I started dancing very early and at that age (11) joined the RBS to be educated at their centre. As you can imagine weight is a big issue at any ballet school but especially the boarding ones and we had a lot of pressure on staying thin. We also had regular weigh ins with teachers present. My weight was pretty low back then. I was told and taught that my ideal weight for my 5'3 body was between 95 and maximal 100 pounds.
When I was about to graduate school and shortly before starting to audition for ballet companies I had a major snowboarding accident. I broke my hip, my lower leg, my lower spine, my wrist, tore muscles in my foot... you get the idea. I had operations and was in a cast (lower body cast from my belly button to my feet) for more than 3 months and then needed over 3 years to fully recover. The accident robbed me of everything I had, my dreams, my hopes, my future...
I have had major issues since the accidents and one of them is my body image. Of course not being able to move and to do sports I put on a lot of weight and since I was brought up in anorexia-paradise this tortures me. But I am determined not to get an eating disorder.
I have gone from 99 pounds which I weighed the week before the accident to 150 but have lost 7 so far (in the past month I think), so I am weighing in at 143 as of today.
I do not want to (and do not think I can) go back to my low weight, because I am clearly not going to become a ballerina anymore (I am studying in college now), but I would like to be happy when I look at myself and I think right now that would be at around 120 pounds.
My biggest problem is that I do not have a clear image of my body, I feel and perceive myself as much bigger than I am.
I have decided to venture back into dancing (amateur of course, since I have lost fexibility and ability) and I want to start taking 3 classes this year. I also want to go swimming maybe twice a week (used to do it as part of my physiotherapy) and if I have time go to the gym to do some cycling or something. But I am going to start implementing things once the ones I know I want to do work out to be ok.
For my food intake, my problem is comfort food, during the recovery I started eating what I had never been allowed... chocolate, crisps, sweets and bread lots and lots of bread (with nutella).
So I think I have an idea of how I want to do it, with a breakfast based on fruit, yoghurt and some cereal, a healthy lunch like salad, raw vegetables etc... and a dinner based mainly on fish and cooked vegetables. I will also take two snacks in form of fruit. I will allow a bit of comfort food but would really love if the sport became my comfort like it used to be.
OK I know this story was long and depressing but I hope I won't be as depressing from now on. I used to be bubbly and I would so love to be like that again and not angry at the world anymore and this is one of my baby steps towards that.
Thank you all for listening (reading more like it), I need to write this stuff out my therapist says, so...
I will start a diary tomorrow, now I want to go to bed, Catie
I have come on here by suggestion of my therapist... and I have to say after reading on here for a while I really like it. So now everyone is asking themselves why would a therapist recommend a forum... so here comes my story for you to understand:
My name is Caterina (Catie) and I am 22 years old. I have lived in London, England since I started boarding at the Royal ballet school at age 11. I started dancing very early and at that age (11) joined the RBS to be educated at their centre. As you can imagine weight is a big issue at any ballet school but especially the boarding ones and we had a lot of pressure on staying thin. We also had regular weigh ins with teachers present. My weight was pretty low back then. I was told and taught that my ideal weight for my 5'3 body was between 95 and maximal 100 pounds.
When I was about to graduate school and shortly before starting to audition for ballet companies I had a major snowboarding accident. I broke my hip, my lower leg, my lower spine, my wrist, tore muscles in my foot... you get the idea. I had operations and was in a cast (lower body cast from my belly button to my feet) for more than 3 months and then needed over 3 years to fully recover. The accident robbed me of everything I had, my dreams, my hopes, my future...
I have had major issues since the accidents and one of them is my body image. Of course not being able to move and to do sports I put on a lot of weight and since I was brought up in anorexia-paradise this tortures me. But I am determined not to get an eating disorder.
I have gone from 99 pounds which I weighed the week before the accident to 150 but have lost 7 so far (in the past month I think), so I am weighing in at 143 as of today.
I do not want to (and do not think I can) go back to my low weight, because I am clearly not going to become a ballerina anymore (I am studying in college now), but I would like to be happy when I look at myself and I think right now that would be at around 120 pounds.
My biggest problem is that I do not have a clear image of my body, I feel and perceive myself as much bigger than I am.
I have decided to venture back into dancing (amateur of course, since I have lost fexibility and ability) and I want to start taking 3 classes this year. I also want to go swimming maybe twice a week (used to do it as part of my physiotherapy) and if I have time go to the gym to do some cycling or something. But I am going to start implementing things once the ones I know I want to do work out to be ok.
For my food intake, my problem is comfort food, during the recovery I started eating what I had never been allowed... chocolate, crisps, sweets and bread lots and lots of bread (with nutella).
So I think I have an idea of how I want to do it, with a breakfast based on fruit, yoghurt and some cereal, a healthy lunch like salad, raw vegetables etc... and a dinner based mainly on fish and cooked vegetables. I will also take two snacks in form of fruit. I will allow a bit of comfort food but would really love if the sport became my comfort like it used to be.
OK I know this story was long and depressing but I hope I won't be as depressing from now on. I used to be bubbly and I would so love to be like that again and not angry at the world anymore and this is one of my baby steps towards that.
Thank you all for listening (reading more like it), I need to write this stuff out my therapist says, so...
I will start a diary tomorrow, now I want to go to bed, Catie
