Welcome to my new series, Let's Get Drinks. I decided I wanted to do a set of interviews with women about everything ranging from body image and confidence to sex, relationships, art, work, education, and everything in between.
This first interview centers around body image, weight, and health. We talk about mental health, eating disorders, the importance of diet and exercise, and the journey to heath and happiness. I think you'll find Nikki's story just as interesting and inspiring as I did.
Nikki Sterling
27
Full Time Student
Newlywed
Christina: How has being married changed how you feel about your body and about your confidence level with your body?
Nikki: Almost none at all, actually. Because we kind of did all of that - all of that changed happened in me way earlier in the relationship. I came into this relationship with a lot of body image issues, and a lot of - I dont have a very healthy relationship with food, and I don't know if I ever will. I'm working on it, and it's way better than it used to be -
C: It's easier with someone, also.
N: It is easier with someone and he's trying really hard to get healthy too. But I did a lot of my getting healthy before I met him. I just completed the end of the journey with him. Most of my teenage years, I was not aware of the fact, but I was anorexic. It wasn't a very obvious thing, but I only ate a meal every day, every other day. I would have fainting spells frequently, head rushes almost every time I stood up, I was exhausted, I was malnourished. Sometimes I would get shooting pains in my chest that got worse when I breathed deeply - and it never really occurred to me that it was anorexia. It was just something that I did. I didn't really like food, I didn't like the way eating made me feel, and that hollowed out feeling made me feel strong and in control. But I didn't really give it a lot of thought, I wouldn't have classified myself as having an eating disorder or having a problem.
C: When I had bad problems with anxiety, I wasn't eating because I didn't want to go to the dining hall. I didn't have anyone to sit with, so I didn't go. And I found a weird power in that emptiness, in that feeling - I felt beautiful when I felt weak and fragile. I didn't realize until later that it was fucked up. I felt like a feather, and I weirdly loved it. And I love eating, I love food. And I love feeling strong and stable now. But at the time, I enjoyed feeling weak.
N: And in a weird way, that physical weakness made me feel strong.
C: And I really wanted someone to notice, also.
N: See, I didn't. Because I had amazing friends, maybe I didn't have that. Because people did notice. My friends tried so hard to take care of me when I refused to take care of myself. They knew - people would always show up with food because they knew if they asked me when the last time I ate was, I'd say "oh, yesterday". It got to the point where I would go out with other people, having no intention of eating, and it would be someone's turn to order a sandwich, because if you get a sandwich I would eat your pickle because I really love pickles. And they knew that if they got me to eat the pickle, most of the time I would go "oh, that felt good, I guess I am hungry, I could eat half your sandwich," and that was how they would feed me.
C: I think if you were in it and you were aware of it, it might feel like a trick. But it's very smart of your friends to recognize that and to notice your patterns.
N: I have the most amazing friends. Honestly, I think I might have died if I hadn't had people so dedicated to taking care of me.
C: Does that scare you?
N: No. My own death have never ever, been something that contemplating has ever bothered me. I am always more afraid of the deaths of people that I love.
C: I think that's very selfless
N: That's funny, it actually feels totally selfish to me. When I die, I'm not going to care when I die, I'm gonna be dead, I'm gonna be moving on, in another life. But losing someone here and now that I love, that would destroy me. I know that my death will hurt the people that I love, but I'll be gone, it won't bother me.
C: I think that when I was not eating, I was never scared of dying, I scared more of being sent to the hospital. I was more scared of having to deal with it.
N: I told you earlier, I don't know if you caught that when I warn people that I'm going to pass out, the first thing I say is "Do not call an ambulance. I'm gonna pass out, it's gonna be fine, do not call an ambulance." And I got that from those days where I would regularly have sinkable episodes, but no I'm not going to the hospital. I will refuse medical attention.
C: Yes, because that's the moment, when you're faced with a doctor, they're going to say something's wrong.
N: And I was hospitalized against my will when I was sixteen, in a mental ward, for cutting and depression. And I was not given an option. Because I was a minor, I had no way to fight back, I had no way to say I don't want this to happen to me. And I can admit now that long term it was good for for me, but I don't think that it would have been any less good for me had I gotten the same type of help without being thrown into a mental ward. And said when I got out, never ever again. I will never let that happen to me, no matter how bad it gets.
C: Because that's when you lose your autonomy.
N: Because you have no control. They tell you when to eat, when to speak, how to speak, when to eat when to sleep when to get up, when to brush your teeth - you lose all control over your life.
C: I think I would have lost my shit. And that was another thing about not eating, I had control over that. And I had control over the way I felt. And at the time I was also, like I said, I was enjoying being fragile and so I was also wearing big shoes on top of it and I felt like I was in control of maintaining what I thought made me feel beautiful. Which is fucked up behavior, and I didn't realize that until I started living at home.
N: When I was a teenager it had nothing to do with my looks. Because people were telling me how tiny I was, how skinny I was, because I have a fairly small frame to begin with. And I'm 5'6", I weighed 115 pounds. Sometimes 110. And you could count my ribs.
C: I never felt like being skinny was beautiful, I felt like being empty was beautiful. It's weird because I never lost a significant amount of weight, I wasn't also working out or anything, but I felt like being unstable - I felt good. And sometimes I feel like I should stop eating and get back to that.
N: It's very difficult - It's not as difficult, actually, that's not true. That's the response I'm used to giving because for a long time it was true. It's not that hard for me anymore. It used to be that losing weight was so hard for me because I broke my metabolism as a teenager. And then when I did start eating, my metabolism was broken and I was on Abilify, which for a lot of people, it makes them gain weight. So I went from weighing 115 lbs to 215 lbs in the space of a year. So when I eventually got sick of that, losing the weight in a healthy way was such a struggle for me because if I let myself go even 15 minutes too long without eating, I would go from being hungry to having that hollow feeling and as soon as I had that feeling, all I wanted to do was not eat for three days. And I still get it. But not as much as I used to.
C: I still get that - I almost had that today. I'm always afraid, once it's gone past the 'I know I'm hungry' point, I felt like if I put anything in my stomach I was going to be sick.
N: Absolutely. Food becomes abhorrent. I'll be sick if I eat.
C: And I'll wait like a day or so.
N: I also had an interesting thing because of the way my eating habits, disorder, whatever you want to say, developed, I only actually want to eat when I'm full. When I'm hungry, I don't want to eat. When I eat I want to keep eating. Which again, makes getting healthy so hard because I'm constantly fighting against these wrong impulses that my brain is sending.
C: So when you decided it was time to start developing healthy habits, how did you start that process?
N: I got sick. I had an infection, I needed a root canal, and I had no insurance and I'm terrified of dentists. And the infection moved into my jaw, and according to the doctors that I ended up having to see, about three days away from moving in to my blood stream and killing me. So I spent a couple of weeks unable to eat, and I just stopped eating because I physically could not put food in my throat. I existed on water and broth. I mean I weighed 215 lbs, it's not like I didn't have fat reserves to burn. And I lost like 20 lbs in those few weeks.
C: It's a lot of fluctuation.
N: It is. So then having lost a chunk of weight, it seemed a lot easier to keep going with it. So the first thing I do before I do anything that I think is remotely important is research. Weeks and weeks of research, and I think some of that is the control thing. And everywhere I saw said the same thing - as strange as it sounds, your doctor has been telling you the only true thing your entire life. The only way to healthy weight loss is count your calories and exercise. That's it. So I got my Fitness Pal (app) and I started counting my calories down to 1500 calories a day, because you can't jump straight to 1200. And I did a juice fast. That was the other thing. But you can get all your essential vitamins from juice. So I subsidized it slightly with protein, so all day long, if I was thirsty I drank water, if I was hungry I drank juice. And once towards the end of the day I'd have four ounces of grilled chicken or two fried eggs or something. And I did that for a month and I lost another 20 lbs.
C: And did you ever feel like you weren't stable?
N: No, actually, I felt great. It was the initial period, like day 2, I was crabby and angry. But surprisingly quickly, I got great sleep, I felt energized, I didn't feel like I was lacking anything. Probably at some point I will do another one because it felt really good.
C: I think it's a great first step. A lot of people are gravitating towards that.
N: And because I had so much extra weight on my frame, cutting down my calories without damaging my nutrient intake, the weight just melted off of me, which then made the rest of it so much easier, because I suddenly had so much less of a journey. And I was already two pants sizes by that point. And then I started doing 1500 calories of day, and I started working out. I did half an hour three times a week, and then when I felt good about that I did half an hour five times a week, and then I moved up to an hour five times a week. And I moved my calories down from 1500 to 1400 to 1300 to 1200. So at the end of it, I was working out an hour a day five times a week and eating 1200 calories every day.
C: Are you still doing that?
N: Fuck. No. That, for me, is not a life style. It was something I needed to do, and I lost 75 lbs in a year and two months. I got down to 138 lbs, 135 was my goal. It's a healthy weight. And once I was under 150 I started to relax some, and by that point I had met Jack (her husband) and I think we had moved in together but my lifestyle was going to change. I wasn't going to keep working out as often and I wasn't going to force him to eat the way I was eating. And I didn't want to be eating separate meals from him. And I've gotten into a kind of rhythm with my body. I get down to 140, I'm comfortable, I stay there for a while, I stop worrying about food but I still think about what I eat. And then inevitably I get injured, I have to stop working out, and I start to put on weight and at about 150 I say I'm done and I need to start being better about it, and then at 155 I'm actually done and I start being better about it. And I go back down to 140. But to be honest, as far as the yo-yo effect goes, I feel pretty okay with that.
C: So are you in a place where you're happy with your body?
N: I am. I don't think I'm ever going to feel the best that I could about my body. Gaining the weight and losing it again has made my boobs very saggy, I have stretch marks, I'm never going to have a flat belly again and I had that, but my husband looks at me with undisguised lust in his eyes all the time, he tells me that I look fantastic all the time, he touches me in ways that make me feel sexy and beautiful, and I feel so healthy and so vibrant in a way that I never ever did.
Stay tuned for part 2 with Nikki on confidence
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