Hungry2Live
Hungry2Live
H2L Ep.18 - When Exercise becomes a form of Self Harm - Sydney Freidin, previous NCAA gymnast, mental health advocate and ED Recovery
**TRIGGER WARNING **
On today’s episode, Rachel continues her conversation with Sydney Freidin. Sydney’s battle with over exercise (exercise bulimia), inevitably ended her career in gymnastics. Sydney talks about diet culture, clean eating, orthorexia, perfectionism and getting help before it’s too late. This episode is for the male and female listener, as we are blasted with images and ads perpetuating an unhealthy idea that “fit”, “skinny”, and “in shape” equates with happiness.
No, I
Speaker 2:Don't care,
Speaker 1:But they say I came here to stay
Speaker 2:Through the days. The most is wasn't lazy kid. He never gave up cuz I got God, God, the darkness turn the lights.
Speaker 3:Hi. And to another episode of hungry to live, my name is Rachel. And today I'm here with Sydney again for part two. So last week I talked with Sydney about being a gymnast, an NCAA athlete, going through multiple surgeries, having an eating disorder, not knowing she had an eating disorder until it was brought to her attention. Then having the eating disorder come and go as if it was a yo-yo diet. And then her feeling like she was incredibly at her best, but really it was the disease telling her no Sydney keep on going, keep on going. And she was just trying to heal from a surgery. So for those who haven't listened, I wanted to ask Sydney, can you please tell the listener how many surgeries you had throughout your career as a gymnast?
Speaker 4:So technically speaking, I have had five that I've been completely asleep for. They were all separate. However, when I had calf surgery, I had calf surgery on both legs at the same time in two different places. So technically nine, but actually five.
Speaker 3:Wow. Okay. And then, so it was the calf surgery. Was, was that your last one or was that your hip surgery?
Speaker 4:That I had calf surgery for compartment syndrome when I was 16. And then I last year had two surgeries for my hip for hip dysplasia. And then I recently just got the other one done the same exact thing, just different side.
Speaker 3:Got it. And during that time from 16 until now, how many times have you been in treatment for your eating disorder?
Speaker 4:Three.
Speaker 3:Three.
Speaker 4:Okay. Three three in a program.
Speaker 3:Okay. Three in a program.
Speaker 4:So I've been in therapy and dietician for, I would say probably 75% of those years, but in a program where I went every single day, three times.
Speaker 3:Okay. Thank you so much for bringing the listener up to speed. So when it comes to eating disorders, as we talked about last week, um, there are many kinds of eating disorders. And one thing that I wanted to really draw attention to and bring awareness to was excessive exercise. And this, what is the diagnosable term? It would be exercise bulimia, which is not something that is talked about often. And I think that it's so important to have this conversation because especially as an athlete, how did your excessive exercise play a part in what you thought was athleticism?
Speaker 4:I would say that's mainly how my eating disorder started. And like I've mentioned prior, I had no clue I had eating disorder because my sport, I was a gymnast. That's just what was expected of me. You were expected to put an extra work outside of practice. I mean, as a kid growing up, I practiced 25 plus hours a week and I was still expected to do more things outside of. So my brain already had this concept. It was conditioned to, this is normal. This is what we do. And I would go on the weekends and go to Santa Monica muscle beach and climb the ropes and do pullups and all of those things. And to me, that was so normal. All of my friends did it. I had privates before practice. So when I went to college and had freedom, that's just what I did because that's what I did my whole life. And no one had told me it was wrong and it made me a better gymnast. So in my head I was just doing the right thing and I was healing from major calf surgery. So in my head I needed to do extra because I was 10 steps behind everyone else. And I was trying to make up time. And that led me to become very good friends with our rec center and our gym when other people were not in it. Like we were allowed to go in and on the weekends alone, um, just for strength and cardio and to use the machines, not for actual gymnastics. Um, no one else did that.<laugh> just me. However, being that I was recovering from surgery, that is really how my eating disorder eventually got to the point of a diagnosis. I would say I probably have had an eating dis. I would had very disordered eating my whole life. However, I was not diagnosed with my eating disorder until April of my freshman year of college. And I on Sunday mornings, we didn't have practice and Sunday was supposed to be our arrest day. Nothing. I, the wreck opened at seven 30 on Sunday, the later day of the week. And I was there before I opened waiting outside. My roommate was knocked out asleep. I was like really quiet in my dorm, getting all my stuff together. And I just kept telling myself, you know, no other people don't need to do this because they're already where they need to be. But I'm behind. And it worked, worked in quotations<laugh> cause it did not work for a long period of time, but it worked until it didn't. And once you develop a correlation between, okay, exercising, more, eating more in whatever way that for me, it was a very orthorexic mindset, eating cleaner, whatever that word means, healthy or quote unquote foods and doing a lot more movement is getting me back to the gymnastics that I used to be able to do. I made that correlation so quickly and no one could tell me otherwise. And so that just became my college experience and it, like I said, it worked until it really didn't work. And even when I medically retired from gymnastics, I didn't know what to do with myself. I had trained so many hours a week and all of a sudden I was went to nothing and so running and I became friends. And now if you ask me, I hate running. I never wanna run again.<laugh> unless it's to my car. Cause I forget something. But um, it really took control of everything. And the first two times I was in treatment, it was a big focus this time. Thankfully, it's not a problem anymore, but it's really hard. And no one tells you that that's a form of an eating disorder. No one, everyone praises you, no one says, you know, you're, you're doing this in order to change your body. It's a normalized concept. And normally the word bulimia in people's head, the initial thought is, I mean, exactly what you would think. However, there's so many forms of purging. And I didn't know that until I went to treatment and someone was like, yeah, just because like it's not coming out of your mouth. Doesn't mean that you're not, you're not purging. And that's exactly why, like you said, it's called exercise bulimia because it's just a different form, but we normalize it in society because we wanna be fit and all of these fad diets, fad workouts, and they all work until they don't. And I found that out the hard way. Um, so yeah,
Speaker 3:So you talked about, um, disordered eating versus eating disorder. And I think it's really important to define that for the listener disordered eating is having patterns that, of eating that are not normal and an eating disorder is when those patterns become your cycle of eating until you cannot control them. And they're controlling you, um, at any given time, like we live in, we live in a society where our portion size, for example is larger than a lot of other countries that in itself is disordered eating as, as a a country. We should look at that, but we're also in a society where diet culture is fed to us. And every other ad on my phone or on social media is literally like, take this pill or do this exercise or join this, uh, group of women and work out X amount of days a week because it hears my conversations and we are normalized to this idea that it's okay to, like, you need to look a certain way in order to be happy. And I'm assuming, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, going through treatment and being in a program, your intrinsic value is something you need to feel for yourself that food or any other addiction cannot take the place of. And you can't feel it because you're numbing yourself out
Speaker 4:A hundred percent
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm<affirmative>. And so I realized in terms of like my, um, exercise bulimia, that I was literally running away from my problems and numbing myself out until I literally either couldn't feel my legs or at this point, um, I knew I was having, I was getting back inside that cycle in my head because I have a scar on my knee now because at the beginning of COVID, I thought it was a great idea to run a certain amount every morning to start my day and a certain amount in the afternoon. And I fell, I tripped on the cement and I cut my leg and I have a scar from it, cuz it never healed because I didn't, you know, you start to have a lot of physical and biological issues and my skin never grew back the same way. So I'm reminded of a, like I have a physical scar from the disease and it's pretty incredible that you just got out of treatment in March. You said, right? Yeah.
Speaker 4:March 10th. Mm-hmm
Speaker 3:<affirmative> wow. So you got out of treatment in March and it is now this episode will be aired in June. So it hasn't been that long. How is it talking about your experiences so fresh out of your program?
Speaker 4:I think since this is the third time I've been in treatment, it's a little bit different because I have broken that wall of shame. And for me right now, the first time I was in treatment, I had no clue I had needed disorder. I was convinced I was fine and everyone else was crazy. The second time I was in treatment, it was very much a treatment. Hugging treatment felt really safe and it protected me from the world. And because I didn't have gymnastics, my eating disorder became like that was me. There was nothing else. It was just my eating disorder. And the third time was not my choice to go back to treatment. I had that choice made for me and the other two times, or at least the one in the middle I had the choice to go back. It's very different. When someone tells you, you have to go back to treatment and when you make the choice to go back to treatment, your motivation is very different. Let me tell you. And now, and I think because I didn't have the choice, I really had it. It took me probably like two months to get on the train. But the idea of, I don't want to be in treatment. I don't want this to be me. And so now I'm able to look at it as like, yes, everyone has their thing. This is my thing. And it's not all of me. And also I have no shame in talking about it because like it's part of my story. And I feel like that makes a really big difference in terms of talking about it. I think if you would ask me fresh out of round one, I, I don't think I could have talked about it. And also in the first time I went to treatment, I went through what is a lot of people call second puberty. It's super fun. And my body changed a lot. And so externally I couldn't connect and internally with the body that I was in. And so I don't think I would've been able to communicate to anyone else what was going on, cuz I didn't know what was going on. Whereas this time I think I'm able to come at it from a lens of, it was just the time I needed it. I needed to go and do it. And like I'm fully able to recognize for two months I did not wanna be there and I did not do anything anyone told me to do. I was, I was physically there, but I did not do anything I was supposed to do. And that is really, I think for me it really shows me the value. I have a lot of privilege to be able to go to treatment. Treatment is not something that everyone gets to go to. And once I figure that one out, I was able to use it to my advantage. And this time was really different. I think the first two times I went in, most athletes are very perfectionistic, but gymnasts tend to be, it has to be perfect, that's it? And it's a cultural thing. Unfortunately it gets taken to the extreme and I went into treatment and I was like, I'm gonna do everything they tell me to do. I'm gonna be perfect because I'm just gonna eat all the food. I'm gonna tell them, I'm sad. I'm gonna talk about my feelings and I'll be, I'll be better while I did that twice. It didn't not really work. Um, and the third time when I was really mad, when my treatment team said like, you don't have the option, this is happening. I was crying. I was really upset. And I really just, they just told me, you know, this time you need to let yourself struggle. You need to have a hard time. You need to have the mental breakdown. You need to not eat a hundred percent of what everyone's telling you. You need to take your time because that's how you do it. Right? And I feel like the athletic community, no one told me that everyone told me, you have to be perfect. You have to look perfect. You have to say, you know, when you're doing an interview or you're interviewing for a job or on TV, whatever it is, what you say needs to come out and articulate sentences and be on point. And no one ever told me that struggling would get me farther along than just being perfect. And this time I learned the hard way and I struggled a lot, a lot. It was really hard. And I left feeling a little bit like on my sure I'm supposed to be leaving. Um, because I'm not doing a hundred percent of everything. And my team said, no, Sydney, that, that means you're doing this right, because you're not doing it. Cuz someone told you to do it. You're not doing it to do it for two months. And then it falls apart, which is like all these fad diets, you know, they work for two months and then they're gone. Treatment is hard unless you get on board and that's the thing. You, you have to be on board or it doesn't last. And I think that's the hardest thing about eating disorder is the eating disorder voice takes so long to go away. It's so easy to go back to and it morphs itself. Anyone who struggles with it knows it, it morphs into things that sometimes you don't even know is an eating disorder. You're like, that's just like my regular thought process. And someone has to tell you, mm actually that's probably not so different times in treatment have given me different things. But I think the biggest thing is breaking down that wall of shame. And that's what this podcast does is, you know, this is not an abnormal thing. This is not something that is a weird thing. Or some people like this is a very common thing, but you're made to feel like you can't talk about it or it's bad or you are bad and that's just not true. Everyone has their thing. And this is my thing. And if this is your thing, there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. It's just a matter of once. You know, it's a thing of taking action and trying to do the opposite thing and getting back on a track of actual health, not diet culture, health.
Speaker 3:So as you were saying that I was Googling because I agree it is way more prevalent than we make it known to be. It's way more prevalent for reasons like these fad diets. Um, it's also, we live in a, in a culture where it's really common for people to comment on your physical appearance. Oh, you look great. You must have lost weight. Why does that matter? Like why does the first thing somebody has to say when they haven't seen someone in a long time, what their body looks like instead of hi, how are you? How's it been in the last three months? I've seen you like that doesn't actually happen nearly as much as it should, but as you were, um, talking, I was Googling some stuff. So referral.com says that research research suggests that about 1% of female adolescents have anorexia in terms of bulimia research suggests that about 4% or four out of 100 college-aged women have bulimia about 50% of people who have been anorexic developed bulimia or bulimic patterns, males with eating disorders only about 10% of people with anorexia and bulimia are males. But in fact, out of all of the people who have been diagnosed, 10% is still a very large percentage of men who get diagnosed and it doesn't get talked about. And I think it's really important that people understand that going to the gym and doing something on a routine basis to build muscle and do this and do that and blah, blah, blah, whatever it is, those are beha eating disorder behaviors. And it really, really needs to be brought to the general public's awareness while they might not have an eating disorder by no means, am I diagnosing people who go to the gym on a daily basis? I'm just saying that there are, there are patterns that happen. And if anyone is having anyone listening is having any thoughts that they might be struggling with something. If, if you are having any thoughts, like definitely talk to a, a doctor, talk to somebody who is a medical professional that can help you because it is super important to know that you are not alone. And those statistics from a website that refers people with eating disorders to, um, other programs they're on the, that website for a reason. And it's to help people understand that they are not the only ones dealing with those issues. So I really wanted to say thank you again for expanding on your story cuz I know, wow, this is just still part of your story. And part of your eating disorder experience. You brought so much in the last episode about your eating disorder and then barely touched upon exercise bulimia. And I think that that was something that really needed to be talked about. And so something I wanna ask you is what is something you learned in treatment to help you cope when you felt like the only thing that you could do to cope was exercise? Hmm. Let me think on
Speaker 4:That for one second. But I wanted to touch really quickly on what you said about going to a medical professional. I have been told so many times by medical professionals who are not educated in eating disorders, things that are super, super unhelpful. So if, if anyone happens to go to a medical provider and they are very truly think that there is something going on and this medical professional tells you or is invalidating of no, because you're not X weight or you don't look a certain way or your symptoms don't add up exactly. Or your labs aren't offered, you have a period or any of these things go to another medical professional because there is such a lack of education. I've been in so many doctor's offices and told them I have an eating disorder and they look at me and automatically assume which one I have and that's just not fair. And so if you truly are really looking for help and no medical professional is able to give it to you, definitely try a different one. Psychology today has tons of references of eating disorder, specific dieticians doctors, someone who really knows what's going on because you do deserve the help. And it's not worth getting turned away by one ignorant doctor who doesn't all they think eating disorders are just not eating.
Speaker 3:Yes. I, I want to piggyback off that because I have to say about 10 years ago when I was going to, or 12 years ago, when I was gonna go into treatment myself, um, the insurance company denied it and said, my parents were gonna have to pay out of pocket because I wasn't quote unquote sick enough.
Speaker 4:So that's very common thing.
Speaker 3:It's very common. And this was a company that has never met me face to face, had no idea what I was going through, but because of the criteria, I didn't meet their criteria. And so yes, thank you so much for sharing that Sydney, because it's so important just because one person or one group or one medical facility or one insurance company says, no, if you need help, you need help. And you know, and if you are seeking that kind of treatment or that level of care or just help in general, then you know that that's what you need. And no one can tell you no, because it, you just know internally and please reach out. You can reach out to myself. You can reach out to Sydney. You can find me on instagram@hungarydotthenumbertwo.live. You can also find my website at Hungary, the number two live.com. You can find Sydney at
Speaker 4:Sydney underscore and just Sydney fried on Instagram.
Speaker 3:All right. And to, to get back to that one question, what was what's<inaudible> mechanism?
Speaker 4:So something for me that has been super helpful is finding other ways to move my body. That don't involve physical exercise. So for me, I got really into crafting because it was a way to use my hands. And that was a form of movement and things that I actually had to cognitively think about, not just like coloring in a coloring book that helped kind of, but only for about five minutes, but I really have come to love embroidery and sewing and things that you have to pay attention to, or, you know, things aren't gonna go very well. Also just typing poetry, doing school, things that I, my brain had to work, anything that could work a muscle that didn't involve me getting up and going out of my house and doing things that were gonna harm my body really have been the most helpful things to me because there are other ways to move your body that don't involve harming yourself. And I think that's also a big thing. And you kind of touched on it about running until your legs. You can't feel your legs and such people don't tell you that exercise can be a form of self-harm. It is a hundred percent. If you use it in the wrong way, it is, and it's super easy to twist it. And so I think that is a huge thing I got out of treatment is having my eyes open to like, oh yeah. Running in excruciating pain, probably not a good idea or doing gymnastics when you probably should be taking break. Not a good idea. And so finding things that, I mean, I think one is finding people who you can do stuff with to distract you from that go out of your house with other people who can take your mind or who you can talk to and cry to about why you can't go outside right now. But for me, the biggest thing when I'm alone is anything else that moves piano, an instrument who you name it, art typing, it seems to help the most. Uh, if your brain keeps busy, at least you can't be thinking about all the stuff you, probably your eating disorder wishes. It could be doing.
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm<affirmative> exactly. I'm just processing all of that because it it's so true. And for those who have not experienced this, and I hope you never have to experience this, it, you have to find things that it it's like as a special ed teacher. You have students that have accommodations in the classroom to make learning more accessible to them. We have to find accommodations in our life to make our things that we enjoy more accessible to us. And while we have, as you said, it's been conditioned while it's been conditioned that you need to have a balanced diet and exercise every day exercise every day for people like us looks different because something I've realized is when I now go and work out at the gym, I cannot be placed with somebody next to me in the same station. I, I do like a hit class and I cannot have somebody in the same station because that will trigger me to keep up with them. And me keeping up with them means I'm pushing myself out of my comfort zone, which then means that I'm going to keep trying and trying and trying and trying, because I have a competitive mindset and I will do that until I throw up. And that is not healthy. And I know that now. So
Speaker 4:I've Well for me, I still, I, I have not gone back and used workout equipment besides the physical therapy workout equipment that I gently ride the bike, um, with no resistance. And I sit down, um, and last year when they told me, okay, we're gonna put you on the treadmill to start kind of getting your gate back to normal and maybe try a little light jog. And I, I was completely like, no, we can't do that. We're not I'm I cannot do that. And I actually ended up doing it and not compulsively moving after that. And so I think sometimes there is the balance of like, okay, we're gonna dip like our pinky toe in the water, and then we're gonna have a plan for after. And also my physical therapist knew about my eating disorder. So this wasn't something that like I was just doing in my own head. Um, there was a lot of supervision going on. However, I just, I completely agree with you. And I follow very similar patterns of when I'm next to people who are doing things. I wanna one up them. And honestly, I'm a big one uper for myself. I don't really need anyone else to be there, which is half of the problem. Because if you only wanna one up yourself, can't really get rid of that part. So it's finding, like you said, alternate ways to one up yourself, maybe you one up yourself by you watch an extra Netflix show or you watch five more minutes while you craft, instead of getting up to do whatever you do. And it doesn't start out as you just don't do the thing. It starts out as, okay, well, I waited five extra minutes to go run and then it's 10 minutes. And then I ran five minutes less. And, and then maybe I ran 40 minutes extra. It's all over the place. It's not a linear pattern at all. Anyone who has meeting disorder will tell you that there is no such thing as a linear recovery and recovery takes time. It takes time. And a lot of patience, a lot of patience, and a lot of sitting on your hands, almost of just your body is telling you to do one thing. And you have to completely divert because logically, you know, it's not true. However, that logic doesn't transfer into an emotional feeling. And I think also there's so many, so many people that I know, especially in the athletic community who struggle with anorexia or bulimia or an eating, whatever kind of eating disorder and then their recovery is to go back to, okay, well, I'm gonna track everything that I eat. I'm gonna do macros. I'm gonna do this. And that is just a different form of an needing disorder. It doesn't matter how it is micromanaging of your food. And there's a difference personally, for me, like for my dietician, she needs to know what I'm eating. So I have an app, but it's an eating disorder app and it tells you, oh, what are you feeling? Oh, how do you, blah, blah, blah. How does your stomach feel? All of these things tracking your food is not, it's a misconception that that is a form of recovery because when you go to a restaurant and you wanna have food freedom, which ideally is recovery, having food, freedom and independence from all these rules, you wanna be able to go to a restaurant and pick what you wanna eat and not have to think about it. You don't wanna think about how many grams of this you need and how many carbs and fats and proteins. It's just another way to accurately measure things. And one of the things that they teach you in treatment is that measuring all of your food is very disordered. It's not, you don't think it, people do it all the time. And so I think there's also a lot of fake recovery things that like, we all think are recovery, but it's because your eating disorders, like it's the less bad version. Yeah. I'm eating more, but I'm not really actually going in the direction that I should be.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It's, it's about balance and boundaries and you learn that in recovery and then that starts bleeding into your whole life, which makes your life even better. And there's so many things, but, um, I want to know what is something or where do you see yourself? Where is this new recovery that you are working through and working on? Where do you see yourself with that?
Speaker 4:I still think since I'm pretty fresh out of treatment, it's, it's a very up and down right now. Um, some days are great and some days are not, and that is completely normal. And I think I have to remind myself that just because I'm not in treatment, doesn't mean I should have everything together and leaving this time, not doing a hundred percent of everything and being the perfect client really was different. And I came out and I wasn't like, okay, I'm doing a hundred percent of my meal plan and everything is on par. I came out still needing to get more work done. And I think naturally when you leave treatment, there's a, a slight like backwards push because all of a sudden you're thrown into the world. You don't have as much support. Now you have to do this on your own. You have to find external motivations. And it's just hard. So I think it's definitely an up and down thing, but I think the biggest thing for me this time has been really finding things that I want to a look forward to and that I need to be recovered to do and finding things here and now in people that I like to see and things, and I think it's interesting this time around I'm able to do a lot more fear food challenges. Like that's been pretty cool, not something that has happened in the past, but there's also, and movement has been, I don't have movement bridges. It's great. That's, I've never experienced this and it's truly amazing. And also there's a lot of stuff that is still extremely hard and makes me cry sometimes and need to call my therapist and have a whole mental breakdown. So I just feel like in certain categories, there are things that are a lot better and there are things that still need a lot of work. And really everyone tells you this, but the work starts after treatment. The work is not done in treatment. Treatment is where you get on track and you get back on, on the train and you have so much support and help. And then recovery happens for, for you. It doesn't happen for your therapist or your dietician, and that's when you have to do it by yourself. And that's when it's really hard. So I feel like I'm at the beginning stages of moving in that direction. We're making progress, but progress looks different this time around than it has in the past, which sometimes is a little hard, but I'm coming to terms with it. And I think the more I talk about it, the more that I find in other people that it's a very similar situation. And I think that piece breaks the shame of self punishment, which leads into more behavioral things. So I think just being on this podcast has been great in allowing me to talk about it two times. And I mean, as much as I say it for other people, I say it so I can hear it myself and remind myself of, you know, what I have and what I, and what I have to lose, what I stand to gain all of these different things. And reminding myself that recovery is worth it, even though it's really, really hard, probably the hardest thing I've ever had to do and will do, to be honest, especially with how long it's lasted. Um, but it doesn't matter how long it's lasted. You're always able to still recover if you really want to. So I think that would be the biggest thing is it doesn't matter how long you've been in it. There's still hope for you to get out of it.
Speaker 3:So it sounds like what keeps you hungry to live is this constant yearning for more self discovery and to continue a healthy path of your, um, recovery. And I know I had asked you last episode, what keeps you hungry to live? And for those who haven't listened yet, you can listen again, or you can listen and then you can listen again, if you would like<laugh>, um, Sydney talked about how she wants to be a NICU doctor and she has baby fever and all those amazing things. Um, but it, her recovery's essentially keeping her hungry to live. So thank you so much. And you may not think that this is gonna happen, but I wrote you another poem. I'm not sure about that. Yes<laugh> all right. Restricting never won you a medal over exercising perpetuated what was mental numbers on this scale meant nothing to the judges. However, obsessing caused more. Self-inflicting grudges, physically feeling at your best. It's a disease and you failed its test because your body needed to heal and rest. Instead, you chose to train through the pain because your brain couldn't abstain from the cyclical criteria of your exercise. Bulimia, thank you so much Sydney for being on hungry to live. And thank you for listening. Thank you for having me
Speaker 2:Through the days the most years, it wasn't L again, he never gave up KA God
Speaker 1:Have
Speaker 2:Through the darkness, through the tears, turn the lights off face. My fear never gave up. KA gotta.
