Meredith Healey: My turning point

• Meredith Healey shares her TURNING POINT
• What’s the Freshman 15?
• Dieting can become dangerous
  

Meredith Healey got healthy

She credits her recovery to being open to advice from others.

Extreme experiences offer universal lessons.

No matter where you fall along the disordered eating spectrum, you’ll find information in Meredith’s story that can help you or the ones you love who have a complicated relationship with food.

Meredith Healey Feared The Freshman 15

I remember the day I decided to lose some weight. I anticipated a journey of courage and determination with physical and mental rewards. What I got was the darkest moment of my life, looking into an abyss of mental fatigue and depression I thought I couldn’t escape.

How dare people tell me I would inevitably gain 15 pounds?
– Meredith Healey, journalist

I was 125 pounds and 5”5 – average for an 18-year-old girl. I was the top student in my class, in my fourth year of varsity basketball, and held the role of Copy Editor of the Yearbook. But I had an unusually easy final semester, and as someone who thrived on competition, I sought a challenge with myself. In the winter of 2006, I set a goal to lose 15 pounds. The purpose? To get ahead of this ‘Freshman 15’ everyone kept talking about.

It wasn’t just fellow students who talked about ‘Freshman 15.’ I read about it in Cosmopolitan magazine. Teachers warned us about it. Parents referred to it jokingly when looking ahead to our first year of post-secondary. I was disgusted by it.

My Mother who kept a healthy cupboard and fridge – skim milk, whole wheat bread, triscuits and salsa instead of Tostitos, sugarless cereals.

I was disciplined.

How dare people tell me I would inevitably gain 15 pounds?

Meredith (top row, first on the right) playing varsity basketball

When you think you’re dieting, but loved ones worry

I started simple. First I set myself a diet of 1,500 calories maximum a day. And I ran 15 minutes outside. After I finished with a 15 minutes Pilates DVD my Mom used. After a couple weeks, little result. Granted, I didn’t give it much time. But I’ve always been a stubborn woman who wants results fast. I stepped it up to a limit of 1,000 calories a day and worked out twice as hard. Two weeks later, I felt my body getting thinner and tighter. Perfect. Exactly what I was looking for.

… Meanwhile, the oil to my weight-loss engine was a stack of fashion magazines.
– Meredith Healey

At THIS age and in this state of mind, I probably would have gorged on poutine as a celebration for my strict regimen and rapid result. Instead, the transformation slowly turned into a mental disease. I didn’t know, of course. In that current state of mind, I thought, “This is great. This is easy. Why am I even setting a limit? I should try to eat as few calories as possible.”

Meredith Healey explains how people tried to support her

Meanwhile, the oil to my weight-loss engine was a stack of fashion magazines. I once idolized Barbara Walters and Meredith Viera. But the ambitious journalist I was, turned into a narcissistic yet self-deprecating and ugly version of who I used to be. Again, I didn’t see this.

Friends came to me with their concerns, tried to help, some even cried at my doorstep.

To me, they were jealous. “They just wish they could have this kind of willpower,” I sickeningly thought.

The models in the magazine epitomized my vision of beauty — frail but feminine, gaunt but powerful.

Come summer, I was 100 pounds. The weight fell off of me once my diet became black coffee, red grapes, and watermelon. To quell the pang of hunger, I would chew gum, take hot showers, stare at the magazine models, or take a walk.

You’re probably wondering where my parents were

They both spoke to me about my weight loss. As medical professionals, they recognized what was happening. But I was a teenager who knew how to trick her parents. Here and there, I would agree to a family steak dinner. They didn’t know that when I laughed into the napkin, it was the medium rare filet mignon they perfectly cooked coming up into it. I was never a deliberate bulimic. My body just could not sustain substantial amounts of food. I tried to swallow a piece of steak and my stomach rejected it.

Anxiety attacks, hair loss & insomnia haunted Meredith Healey

My first year of university is when my illness took a turn for the worst. I never thought my weight loss could manifest into anxiety. But it did, at one of the most critical points of my life. Balancing my drive to lose weight with my first year of journalism school became a disaster. And not the kind Donald Trump talks about. I mean an actual disaster, at least mentally.

In my mind, I was healthy, and everyone else was fat.
-Meredith Healey

Meredith continues to lose weight

Why Meredith Healey started to worry

I would wake up at 6:30am to go to the campus gym, work out for an hour, then make it to my 8:00am class. I always skipped lunch, replacing it with a tea or coffee, and would return to my dorm at 6:00pm. But in October, panic attacks disrupted everything. My first one occurred while walking to French class. My heart started thumping against my chest. I stopped in my tracks, clutched my chest, and took a breath. It didn’t last long. So I took another one – even worse. I can only describe my feeling in one way:

I 100% thought I was having a heart attack.

The ER doctor told Meredith Healey it was a panic attack

This diagnosis made me angry.

She took a brown paper bag and forced it over my mouth.

After 20 seconds, my breathing was back to normal. And then she told me to return to my dorm.

I spent two more months enduring panic attacks, hair loss in the shower, spontaneous nausea, faintness, and insomnia until I finally sought help. Don’t give me credit yet. I booked a health appointment to fix my panic attacks. In my mind, I was healthy, and everyone else was fat.

Meredith’s loving family

Meredith Healey’s Turning Point

My saving-grace moment happened in November of 2006. I was in the campus health clinic, explaining my panic attacks to the doctor. My obsessive self-control meant I had come with a list of drugs that WebMD had advised for me. He nodded, politely, at my suggestions. Then he brought me to the weight scale – routine for any doctor’s visit. I’d done it before. I knew I was 100 pounds and proud of it. This was the moment, the second, everything changed. My weight was 89 pounds.

I have never been happier in life and love. What else really matters?
– Meredith Healey

I collapsed into the doctor’s arms

And I began sobbing over the realization that I had completely lost control. It might have been the number that snapped me out of my mental condition. I guess it’s because I weighed the equivalent of a soaking wet grade school boy, and how could that ever be healthy or sexy. The doctor prescribed me anti-anxiety medication, and I pledged to re-nourish my body of all that I had deprived it of. The panic attacks quickly stopped, but it took months to get my stomach accustomed to meals again, and years to push back against the demons that tried time and again to return.

Meredith Healey made a full recovery

Today I’m 28 years old. I’m still 5”5 and now 130 pounds. I work out 30 minutes 3 days a week. I eat three meals a day with the occasional snack in between meals. My idols are once again renowned and history-making journalists like Dan Rather and Benjamin Bradlee. And I’m senior writer for CBC’s Power & Politics, our national political show.

I have a loving and supportive family, a large group of hilarious and comforting friends, and a boyfriend who can only be described as the love of my life. I sometimes look in the mirror, and pull at my love handles or curse my Mother for the ass she gave me, but then I remind myself — I have never been happier in life and love. What else really matters?

You can hear Meredith Healey share more of her story on CBC Radio’s show Campus.

Thank you Meredith Healey for sharing your story with the goal of helping others.
Your awesome work ethic made it a pleasure.

Build healthy eating and exercise goals. A healthy weight will follow.

Galaxies, by Jenn Grant

I heard this song recently on CBC’s q with Tom Power. I love the dream-like feel to the music. The first time I heard it was on the radio. The audio-only effect helped me get lost in the lyrics. I love when the song asks: “What are we made of?” We are made of every experience we’ve had. It’s the dark days that allow us to appreciate the fantastic beauty found in the bright ones. And it is our trials and tribulations that allow us to empathize with others and be more human.

 

Want a One-Day Meal Plan? It’s an example of what I eat each day These kinds of meals and snacks unlocked my HAPPY weight 21+ years ago (I lost 30 pounds without dieting!)

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Want a One-Day Meal Plan? It’s an example of what I eat each day These kinds of meals and snacks unlocked my HAPPY weight 21+ years ago (I lost 30 pounds without dieting!)

You'll also be subscribed to my newsletter. Don’t like it? Unsubscribe in one click

Want a One-Day Meal Plan?

It’s an example of what I eat  each day

These kinds of meals and snacks unlocked my HAPPY weight 21+ years ago (I lost 30 pounds without dieting!)

You'll also be subscribed to my newsletter. Don’t like it? Unsubscribe in one click

Have you ever opened up to someone when you’ve had a problem? How did you start the conversation?