Posted on 11/21/2019 3:10:31 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
“Why haven’t we been told this information?”
A coach at a clinic asked me this near the end of a presentation I gave about my eating disorder, where I told my recovery story and offered strategies for what coaches can do to support their athletes.
Disordered eating stories amongst runners seem to have been shared mostly through murmurs between coaches and private conversations between athletes who were feeling alone and struggling in silence. As a cross-country coach for Grandville High School in Michigan—four years assistant, two years head coach—I’ve noticed that eating disorders in sport is not a regular or mandatory topic at coaching clinics, and it’s not part of the annual coach trainings.
This lack of education and awareness is problematic. It keeps behaviors secretive, makes it difficult for coaches to identify risk, and perpetuates both the belief system and the behaviors that chase weight as the ultimate predictor of improved performance.
During my freshman year at Aquinas College in 2010, I was an All-American runner who failed to realize that my “little obsession with food” was turning into an eating disorder. Misconceptions about eating disorders kept me silent. I looked like a fit runner to the naked eye; not suspiciously thin that anyone would risk the social awkwardness of saying something should they be wrong. I didn’t seek help because I felt my preoccupation with food wasn’t interfering too much with my training and that I was just eating “very healthy.” The physician who found out that I hadn’t had a period for months never followed up on it. And when my food restriction eventually turned to binge eating, my teammates and coaches thought that the weight I gained proved I was healthier.
(Excerpt) Read more at runnersworld.com ...
When stories about elite level women runners include missing their periods for months or years it can’t be too healthy.
So tired of everyone’s problems. Man or woman up and eat better ....see that was easy. Have an issue? Here’s a tissue.
Is that like eating dinner before breakfast, or nuts before soup?
Nope, the guys will be charged with harassment and weightism.
Nope, don’t do it. You’ll just get blamed and/or be in a lawsuit.
Paywall means I can’t read it to know what she ran-long distance, middle distance or sprints. I’d guess that she was a distance runner. In my experience those were the girls/women battling control issues like that.
Sprinters not so much. Perhaps it’s due to how the different types of exercise affects hormones? Distance runners in my day didn’t do much in the weight room other than low weight high reps. Sprinters, however, hit the weights hard and build up a fairly high amount of muscle mass for a female. That along with the radically different types of training must impact body chemistry. Hormones affect us so much-as one who has an autoimmune disorder that impacts the thyroid I’ve learned just how much hormones can influence our thought processes.
Competitive runners eat healthy or they can’t compete. Maybe not even finish the race.
And they eat a LOT.
Running 50-70 miles per week, with runs over 15 miles twice a month requires a lot of calories. Even if you’re only 115lbs small woman.
That woman will consume 4000 calories per day, minimum of which there will be 120grams of protein.
4eggs
1/2 chicken
two glasses of milk
a cup of beans
two cups of brown rice
two salads and a banana
Butter, bread, EVOO, gravy and desert.
Many years ago, I reffed high school volleyball. There was a player who was player of the year in her district when she was a junior, but didn’t even make honorable mention her senior year because of an eating disorder.
Forever grateful that I never developed a ‘taste’ for cigarettes or hard liquor and that I never lost my ‘taste’ for yummy foodstuffs. ;) (Army Training, Sir!)
All of my Nieces were very athletic and very motivated to WIN during their high school and now college years. Those girls could out-eat ANY of the men at the table. Tall, thin, healthy and gorgeous, all! :)
Competitive running is hard on women’s joints.
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