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Scholastic Writing Gold Key: "This is Me"

Writer's picture: Lily SunLily Sun

I sat quietly at the dinner table, staring at the delicious plate of food in front of me. It seemed to taunt me, asking me to eat, to savor it, to gain weight. No! I told myself. You have to stay controlled! No more food! You’re fat! My mind seemed detached from my body as one kept telling me to starve myself while the other was begging for nourishment. Every day, this constant internal battle occurred before every single bite. To eat, or not to eat. The two voices in my brain fought endlessly against each other, one telling me to devour everything in sight, the other reminding me that I’m a figure skater, I have to lose weight.

Nobody has ever explicitly called me fat, and to be honest, I never was. I was always a lean athlete, with a slim upper body and muscular quads. My jumps were markedly powerful, yet my artistry had a distinct grace to it. But those same legs that gave me my unmistakable power were also the origin of my self-consciousness. For as long as I can remember, I was told that my legs were too wide, too fat, and too muscular. I never cared, per se, but that little insecurity remained buried in the back of my brain. Slowly but surely, my confidence began to falter. I hated seeing pictures of myself because all I could see were my short, fat legs. I stopped wearing leggings, I never wore skirts, and I definitely did NOT wear jeans, but concealing my insecurities from the world only fueled them to grow even further.

While watching the skinny Russian skaters win the PyeongChang Olympics, I discovered a video on YouTube called “Counting Calories with a Ballerina.” For my whole life, my main focus was always on my performance and strength and I never worried about or understood the calories on the nutrition label. That video introduced me to the unpredictable world of dieting, and I decided that if I was going to achieve my ideal body line, I needed to cut my calories and lose weight.

With almost no knowledge of nutrition or health, I immediately downloaded MyFitnessPal to track my food intake, and ambitiously decided to stay under 1,200 calories per day. What started out as a “fun” little experiment quickly escalated into a completely new lifestyle, and a dangerous one at that. Every day, I woke up ravenously hungry, restricted myself to “clean,” low calorie foods the entire day, and went to bed with my stomach rumbling, hoping the night would pass by quickly so I could eat again the next morning. My life began to revolve entirely around dieting and my thoughts were constantly concentrated on what to eat, when I could eat, if I should eat, and how many calories I could eat. Without knowing it, I rapidly sunk further down into this dangerous state of mind.

Over the next few months, I was delighted as my weight loss earned positive feedback from coaches, parents, judges, and officials, who all applauded my self-restraint. Fueled by the numerous words of encouragement, I continued to restrict myself from eating. By then, food had taken over my entire life and I felt obligated to burn extra calories in order to make “room” for food. On top of my rigorous training for skating, I often ran miles at the gym after going the slightest bit over my calorie limit. Every day, I was exceedingly hungry, but every time I took an extra bite of food, I felt unbearably guilty and often cried myself to sleep. I was aware that I was on the verge of developing an eating disorder, but I couldn’t put an end to it either.

After several more months went by, I had lost so much weight that I was almost unrecognizable, and all the positive exclamations had become ones of worry and concern. Simply viewing food as “calories” on the nutrition label made me terrified of eating and I continued to starve myself, not knowing the repercussions I would have to face. I was constantly depressed, became increasingly introverted, and sunk deeper into diet culture. I became exceedingly prone to injury, and my malnourishment began affecting my performance, making it difficult to finish my programs. Nevertheless, my brainwashed mind still perceived weight loss as beneficial and I couldn’t recognize the true severity of my condition.

While training for sectionals, I felt a sharp jolt of pain as I slammed my left hip on a fall. I immediately knew something was wrong when the pain became intolerable. My fears were confirmed by the look on my doctor’s face: I had torn my IT band and would have to pull out of sectionals. My season was over. I had no one to blame but myself, for even I couldn’t deny that my rapid weight loss was a prominent cause for my injury. However, getting injured finally forced me to realize that by trying to please everyone around me, I hurt myself the most.

Throughout the four months of my recovery, I was given plenty of time to reflect on the past year. Being forced to take a break allowed me to recognize that I had spent the entire season trying to become someone I wasn’t and that by trying to achieve this “perfect” body to please others, I forgot the true reason I was skating. I forgot how much I loved the feeling of gliding on the ice, the adrenaline before competition, and the moment of a jump takeoff when you know you’ve nailed it. I forgot that I should be skating for ME and me only, regardless of what others think. I’m learning to love not just my strengths but my weaknesses as well, and embrace all of me, including my powerful legs, because that’s who I am.

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