Overcoming an Eating Disorder by Dispensing Inner Strength

by Katie Taylor, PharmD, BCPS

It's 5AM on a cold, dark winter morning at a barbell gym on the outskirts of Boston.  Only the diehards are here; a small, but mighty gang of lifters doing more before 6AM than most people accomplish in their entire day.  I am among them, trying for a personal record on my squat for not one rep, but two.  And the only person I must prove anything to, is myself. 

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At six years old, after the first time someone called me “fat”, I took to wearing a bungee cord around my waist in a failed attempt to not “get bigger”. 

My relationship with food and body remained the evil demon in the periphery as I went through adolescence and young adulthood, with many tries and failures at restrictive dieting.  

I was always an athlete and took joy in moving my body and feeling strong, but repeated negative body comments made to a young, insecure woman can leave deep scars.

When I was 24, I began my first “successful weight loss diet” which prompted my slow and insidious decline into a long battle with an eating disorder. 

It is often said that genetics loads the gun and situation pulls the trigger when it comes to an eating disorder.  I had always thought that I might be set up for one due to my baseline perfectionistic personality and body image issues. My trigger was pulled when years of restrictive dieting collided with a very stressful period in my life.

When I felt I had lost control of the external forces of my life, I turned my attention instead to what I thought I could control, my body and food. 

I held on so tight to an increasingly restrictive diet, that I inevitably also began to binge.  I would go days of being “perfect” on my diet before the cravings became too much for me, or a particularly anxious moment would arrive.  Then the binge would occur.  Think of holding your breath for a long time.  What is the first breath you take afterwards?  A huge gasp.  This is what binges were like for me.  Then afterwards there were extreme periods of self-loathing and shame, which would lead me again to restrict even further…thus starting the vicious cycle all over again.  

This is what I struggled with for years, periods of restriction followed by binges.  Rinse and repeat.  Through this process I did manage to lose a substantial amount of weight, but when the weight loss slowed and I could restrict my calories no further, I turned to exercise.  First by signing up for a 5K obstacle race, then cardio-kickboxing, then high intensity fitness classes interspersed with hours on the elliptical.  When I began to stall again, I found CrossFit.  

CrossFit was really a blessing and a curse for me.  I found an amazing community of individuals that I still call very close friends.  It introduced me to the barbell and the incredible feeling of being strong.  But it also introduced me to not listening to my body, often pushing it beyond safe limits, and an even more restrictive diet. 

Now keep in mind that I have been a practicing critical care pharmacist since 2006. I understood biology and physiology and metabolism.  I knew what was healthy and unhealthy, but when it came to the disease of my eating disorder, all this knowledge did not apply.  I have many risk factors for eating disorders such as being a Type A personality, perfectionist, high achieving, white, middle class, female. I also know by practicing for the past 14+ years, that there many others in the pharmacy profession who also suffer from this same disease.  It is a little known fact that anorexia nervosa is the MOST fatal mental health disorder.  I did not even know it myself as I descended and suffered with this disease as well as compulsive exercise.  

I fought for my recovery through a variety of modalities, but it was the day my gynecologist brought to my attention that not having a period was unacceptable for a young vital woman that I began to make a change.  It was through baby steps, many trials and failures…sheer determination and resiliency that I was able to recover.

It was a long hard process and my practice in the ICU gave me focus to take myself out of my own suffering to attend to the suffering of others.  The other “gift” I was given was the day I walked away from Crossfit to concentrate on studying for board certification.  This pursuit gave me an alibi to remove myself from something that had become so toxic to my existence.  This was further solidified when I suffered a subluxation in my right hand due to the extreme nature of my lifting. This injury allowed me to lift no more than five pounds and placing my hand in a restrictive brace for months.  

For two years I was unable to touch a barbell.  I tried everything to find movement that would take the place of what was missing in my life.  While I was weight-restored, I still suffered with binge eating because I still restricted my food, though not to the same degree as before and without the compulsive exercise. I tried yoga, belly dancing, hiking, even pole dancing, but nothing felt right.  

In 2017, a nurse I worked with told me he had a garage gym and his roommate was taking strength lifting clients.  I cautiously had a consultation…worried about my hand…worried about a relapse, but I agreed to start training with him three times a week.  It was nothing fancy - squat, press, bench, deadlift, chin-ups. The goal was getting stronger, the aesthetics of my body did not matter.  I learned that I had to eat more in order to fuel the increasingly heavy weights I was putting up.  When food was given permission, and served a purpose to further something I loved, I was able to eat.  And when I started eating more freely, the binges went away completely. 

Weightlifting became the last 10% of my recovery from my eating and exercise disorder.  

Now, I strength train three times a week, no more.  I follow the program my coach set up for me, but I lift independently. I train at 5AM since it fits my life better that way.  I am strong. I am capable.

Despite the fact that I could compete in strength-lifting meets and do well on a national level, I find protecting my recovery is more valuable than any glory I may obtain on the platform.

I have been recovered for two years and counting.  This year I decided it was time to pay it forward and start to talk about my story with others.  I have included a lecture to my undergraduate students.  I was trained as a Peer Mentor for Project HEAL, a national eating disorder recovery organization.  I have a topic discussion with each of the 20 PharmD candidates who rotate through my company each year.  I share my story with you now on #FitPharmacistFriday.  

As pharmacists, we are in a unique role to impact patients with health information across the spectrum of care.  However, we do need to realize that we are not immune from our own health battles.

This is made more difficult when the traits that made us successful as pharmacists can be the same ones that are risk factors for eating disorders.

In our culture where “better, faster, more” is lauded, we need to check in with ourselves and our fellow pharmacists, just as we would with our patients, to make sure that what we are doing under the guise of health, is not actually hurting us instead.  One in ten Americans suffers from an eating disorder and the hardest thing I ever had to do was recover from mine.  It was harder than my accelerated PharmD, harder than board certification.  

So what does being a Fit Pharmacist mean to me?

It means I can attend to my patients and fellow medical professionals with a clear mind and focus.  It means I am no longer preoccupied with food and body.  It means I do not measure my worth by the weight on the scale.  It means I move my body in a way that serves me and eat food that brings me nourishment as well as joy.  It means that if I miss a lift at the gym or overeat at a meal, I simply move on rather than beat myself up.  It means that I recognize that the whispers of my eating disorder are still there, but I no longer listen to that voice. 

It means that I tell my story to pay it forward and possibly help someone else. It means that I am proud to choose to do hard things, with a body that finally feels like home. 

If you or someone you know needs help with disordered eating or an eating disorder, please see the following resources:

Project HEAL: https://www.theprojectheal.org/

National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA): https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/

About the Author:

I am a practicing per diem critical care/cardiology clinical pharmacist at Maine Medical Center and a board-certified pharmacotherapy specialist. I serve as Adjunct Faculty at Worcester State University (instructing Drugs & Society) as well as Husson University (instructing Medical Terminology). I am also a Principal and part owner at Gore & Company (a division of PharmaCompany, Inc.), a boutique strategy management consulting firm in Boston serving the bio-pharmaceutical industry.  I precept PharmD candidates from four pharmacy schools in the northeast as well as serve as a Peer Mentor for Project HEAL, a national eating disorder recovery organization.  

Personal records: deadlift 315 lb squat 255 lb bench 110 lb press 85 lb

You can connect with me via:

Instagram: @kttaylorbeast

LinkedIn: https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/katie-taylor-pharmd-bcps-40664228/

Email: [email protected]

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