My Health and Fitness Journey
Losing 50 pounds and overcoming binge eating
Welcome
Hi there! Welcome to my website. My name is Sierra Roselyn, and I’m a certified health and weight loss coach with a specialist degree in psychology.
I have personally overcome many hardships throughout my own health and fitness journey, and my primary goal in becoming a health coach and posting content online is to help others avoid those same struggles. I want to provide others with the information I wish I had when I was facing my own challenges—not just what to do to achieve your health and fitness goals, but how to actually get yourself to do it, and do it for the rest of your life.
My journey has been one of resilience and transformation. From battling weight issues and disordered eating for many years to creating the balanced and healthy lifestyle I have today, I’ve learned invaluable lessons along the way. These experiences have fuelled my passion for helping others and equipped me with the knowledge and tools to guide you through your own journey.
Since you may not know me well yet, I wanted to share my entire health and fitness journey with you, from where I first started over a decade ago to where I am today. My hope is that my story will inspire you and show you that change is possible, no matter who you are or where you are along your journey.
Growing up overweight
Starting all the way at the beginning, I didn’t always have a passion for health and fitness. In fact, I actually grew up overweight.
My parents didn’t place much of an emphasis on healthy eating or regular physical activity when I was growing up, but it’s not like they completely neglected it either. My family’s diet was pretty average, and all of my family members had relatively normal weights. So while I do believe things could have been different if I grew up in a more health conscious environment, I think the main factor to blame for my weight gain was my extremely large appetite.
Ever since I can remember, I have always had an immense love and passion for food. Unlike my siblings, who were quite picky in terms of what they ate, I literally enjoyed everything, and obviously just ate much larger portions than my body truly needed.
Although I was never obese, by any means, growing up overweight still had a very negative impact on both my physical and mental health. I remember feeling extremely unhappy and insecure about my body throughout my childhood years, but was simply too young to truly take initiative and actually do something about it.
Struggling with body image in high school
My fitness journey didn't truly begin until I first attempted to lose weight in high school. Not only is high school when I started caring a lot more about my physical appearance and my personal identity, but I also started getting comments about my weight from some of my close peers.
I distinctly remember being called fat by some of the girls on the high school volleyball team, as well as being turned down by the boy I liked because, although he thought I was nice and pretty, he also thought I was “a little too chubby”. These comments were really harmful to my confidence and self-esteem at the time, and were definitely what caused me to start taking the idea of weight loss a lot more seriously.
The issue, however, was that I simply didn't know anything about weight loss at the time. I knew it had something to do with what I was eating, so I tried improving my diet by cutting out sweets and making healthier food choices, but nothing I tried really seemed to make a difference.
Discovering calories and rapidly losing weight
In hopes of learning a little bit more about weight loss and healthy eating, I decided to enrol in a food and nutrition course during my second semester of high school. This course is actually what changed everything for me, because it’s what first introduced me to calories and the science of energy balance. Specifically, I learned that in order to lose weight, I simply had to consume less calories than my body was burning. I didn’t necessarily need to change what I was eating, but rather how much I was eating.
Unfortunately, what I didn't learn at the time is just how dangerous it can be to overly restrict calories and lose weight too rapidly, especially at such a young age. Even after doing my own research about the subject online, all I learned was that the less calories I ate, the faster I would lose weight.
Hence, with little hesitation and awareness of what I was truly getting myself into, I decided to drastically cut my calories and change my eating habits, pretty much overnight.
It was the beginning of summer when I initially decided to change my eating habits, and by the time I went back to school in the fall, after just a couple of months sticking to a low calorie diet, I managed to lose more than 30 pounds.
Facing the consequences of rapid weight loss
As one could imagine, my life completely changed after I lost weight. After spending my entire childhood feeling unhappy and insecure about my body, I felt extremely proud of what I had accomplished, and was finally starting to feel confident about myself and my physical appearance.
As I alluded to earlier, however, the consequences of weight loss were not entirely positive. I experienced a lot of unexpected health issues due to losing weight so quickly; my metabolism slowed down significantly, I started experiencing issues with my sleep and my energy levels, and I even lost my menstrual cycle.
On top of the health issues I experienced, I also lost a lot of the natural muscle mass I possessed before, so although I reached a healthy bodyweight and looked quite thin in clothing, I still lacked muscle tone and had a fairly high body-fat percentage. This is commonly referred to as being “skinny fat”, and is definitely not the look I was going for.
Little did I know, I could have easily fixed my “skinny fat” problem by simply shifting my focus from weight loss to muscle gain; if I started resistance training and gained some more muscle mass, I would have been able to reduce my body-fat percentage and achieve a more “toned” look without having to lose any more weight at all.
Unfortunately, I simply didn’t know anything about the importance of having enough muscle mass at the time. All I knew was that I still had excess body-fat, and to my knowledge, the only solution for that involved losing more weight, so that’s exactly what I decided to do.
Restricting food and losing too much weight
Due to being at a much lower bodyweight and having a much slower metabolism than before, I had to become even more restrictive with my food intake in order to continue seeing results. I started skipping entire meals, stopped eating out with friends and family, and wouldn’t allow myself to eat anything unless I knew exactly how many calories were in it.
Over time, my obsession with losing weight started to consume my life, and the negative consequences of ongoing food restriction became more and more apparent. Food was basically the only thing I ever thought about, but rather than it being something I enjoyed, food was just a burden, as I only saw it as something that stood in the way of my weight loss goals.
Despite the negative consequences I was experiencing, I continued restricting my food intake for several months after I initially lost weight. During this time, I ended up losing an additional 20 pounds or so, which put me in the "underweight" category for BMI.
It’s not like I didn’t know my weight was too low, or didn’t know how abnormal my mindset towards food was becoming, but I simply didn’t know any other way of doing things, and I feared what would happen if I ever allowed myself to stop. I remembered just how miserable I felt when I was heavier, so although my situation wasn’t great, I still thought it was a lot better than where I was before.
My introduction to weight lifting
Thankfully, I didn’t let my overly restrictive tendencies continue for too long, but I can’t say it was because I suddenly started prioritizing my health. Rather, it was because I still prioritized what my body looked like, and simply wasn’t achieving the results I was looking for. Rather than looking lean and “toned” like I thought I would after losing more weight, I just ended up looking weak and unhealthy.
Up until that point, I had always thought losing more weight was the answer. However, when I still didn’t look the way I wanted to, despite losing all my excess weight, I started to question what I thought I knew about achieving my goals.
In order to learn more and figure out where I had been going wrong, I started doing research again, which eventually led me to discovering the world of weight lifting and bodybuilding. I came across pictures of girls who possessed the lean and toned appearance I was looking for, and learned that they didn’t get there by starving themselves or losing as much weight as possible. In contrast, they actually weighed a lot more than I did. The simple difference was that they also had a lot more muscle mass.
From that point on, I became obsessed with learning everything I could about bodybuilding and gaining muscle. Specifically, I learned I would have to start resistance training and eating in a way that supported muscle growth. For me, that meant increasing my calories and consuming more protein, which is exactly what I decided to do.
Although it took some time for me to adjust my mindset and develop new habits, I eventually started eating a lot more than I was used to, and started incorporating resistance training into my routine multiple times per week.
I started seeing results after just a few months of making these changes. I gained a few pounds of muscle mass, became much stronger overall, and was finally starting to achieve the lean, toned, and healthy appearance I had always been striving for.
On top of this, I also learned so much more about proper nutrition and training during this time, and even started enjoying food again. Overall, I felt so much happier about my lifestyle, and finally felt like I was on the right path to achieving my health and fitness goals.
The start of my binge eating
Unfortunately, this is where my story takes a really dark turn. Despite everything I was learning and all of the positive changes I was making, this is also when I started experiencing some other unexpected issues. Rather than struggling with eating too little, I actually started struggling with eating too much.
Although I was allowing myself to eat more than I was used to, I still didn’t want to gain any unnecessary weight or body-fat during this time, which meant I was still setting limits for myself in terms of my calorie intake. The difference was that, once I started weight lifting and being more flexible with my food choices, my hunger and appetite increased significantly. It’s as though my body realized the famine was over, and was finally starting to fight to make up for the months I spent restricting my food intake.
On top of this, since my goals were no longer all about weight loss, I simply didn’t have as strong of a reason to continue ignoring my hunger cues anymore. This change in motivation, on top of my increased appetite, made it harder and harder for me to control what I was eating.
My issues with overeating were not very significant at first, but as time went on, my body started urging me to eat more and more, and my eating behaviour started spiralling out of control. Before I knew it, what started off as small and infrequent calorie increases turned into full on binge eating episodes, where I would rapidly consume thousands of calories in one sitting.
Most people who have never lost a significant amount of weight or heavily restricted their food intake before have a really hard time understanding how or why someone would binge eat. However, after fighting my appetite and restricting my food intake for so long, it would just feel so good to temporarily let go of control and allow myself to eat what my body was craving in the moment. And because the foods I craved were things I normally didn’t allow myself to consume, foods extremely high in fat, sugar, and calories, I would experience an intense sense of pleasure and relief every time I would binge.
As one could predict, any pleasurable feeling I would get from binge eating would be extremely short lived. Not only would I feel physically sick shortly after binge eating, but I would feel an overwhelming sense of guilt, shame, and anxiety about the amount of weight I would gain and what I would have to do to get it off.
But despite knowing just how detrimental binge eating was to my mental and physical health in the long run, and despite knowing I would regret every single binge shortly after it was over, the urges to binge simply felt too strong to resist. No matter how badly I wanted to stop, I just couldn’t seem to make myself do it.
The horrible cycle of bulimia
When my issues with binge eating began, so did my issues with bulimia. For those who don’t know a lot about eating disorders, bulimia is characterized by bouts of extreme overeating followed by purging, which can include anything from fasting and excessive exercise to self-induced vomiting.
When I first started overeating, I would normally try to compensate by skipping an upcoming meal or eating a little bit less the following day. Of course, this only made my urges to binge eat worse, but since I was determined not to gain any excess weight or body-fat during this time, I simply felt like I had no other choice.
But when my issues with overeating became more extreme, so did my attempts to compensate. I just couldn’t make up for the thousands of extra calories consumed during binges by simply skipping a meal anymore, so I started fasting for days at a time, and eventually, making myself throw up after binges.
I don’t remember the first time I made myself throw up after a binge, but I know it didn’t start intentionally. At first, it was just my body’s natural response to massive binges, since I would binge until I felt physically sick. Once I realized it could relieve a lot of the physical discomfort I experienced after binge eating, as well as “get rid of” some of the excess calories I consumed, I just started viewing it as another way for me to compensate.
It is crucial for me to stress that allowing myself to throw up after binges was one of the worst things I ever could have done. Not only was it extremely dangerous and harmful to my body in several ways, but it simply wasn't an effective solution. Although purging may provide some sort of physical relief in the moment, it often only eliminates a very small portion of the excess calories consumed during binges.
Furthermore, allowing myself the option of throwing up after binges gave me a sort of “excuse” to continue eating well past the point of physical fullness, so even if I could manage to make myself throw up after a binge, I would still end up ingesting so many more calories than I would have if I simply stopped eating once I started to feel full.
Overall, allowing myself to throw up after binges was extremely damaging, ineffective, and just exacerbated my issues with binge eating. To make matters worse, even when I realized just how damaging and ineffective it was, I simply couldn't seem to make myself stop. Just like binging, purging became a very powerful habit that I felt I couldn’t break.
Gaining weight back
Inevitably, despite my best efforts to control my calorie intake and keep my binge eating at bay, my weight slowly crept back up over time. I first started experiencing issues with binge eating during my final year of high school, and by my second year of university, I had already gained more than 20 pounds back.
Since my issues with binge eating began after I initially lost weight and started restricting my food intake, I thought it would get better once I gained some weight and started consistently eating more. In fact, this is consistent with what many health professionals within the eating disorder community believe; if binge eating is the result of excessive weight loss and food restriction, it should start to resolve naturally, on its own, once these restrictive behaviours are stopped. However, this did not end up being the case for me. Even after I gained most of my weight back and stopped heavily restricting my food intake, my binge eating issues did not go away. In fact, they just continued to get worse.
Binge eating may have initially been the result of excessive weight loss and food restriction, but over time, it became so much more than just my body trying to make up for previously restricted calories. Due to the immense sense of pleasure I would experience during a binge, it became something my body started craving and relying on for instant gratification and short-term relief from negative emotions and stress. In other words, what started off as a physical need turned into a mental and emotional one, so no matter how much food I ate or how much weight I gained, the mental, emotional, and habitual components of my binge eating problem were not being addressed.
Struggling to recover
I continued to struggle with binge eating and bulimia on and off the entire time I was at university; over four years of my life.
I was still so passionate about health and fitness during this time, and continued trying to learn more and more about proper nutrition and exercise, but it just wasn’t possible for me to consistently implement any of the things I was learning with binge eating getting in the way.
Of course, I was extremely desperate to overcome my issues with binge eating during this time, but despite countless hours of research, experimenting with my diet, and even therapy, I just couldn't manage to permanently break the binge eating cycle. Even if I could manage to stay binge free for a few weeks at a time, I would always end up falling back into old habits.
As one could imagine, I became extremely depressed during this time. Not only did I feel like I had lost everything I had worked so hard for, but I felt like I was in an even worse position than I was before I even began my fitness journey. On top of being unhappy with my weight and body again, I now had an extremely debilitating eating disorder, and felt as though there was absolutely nothing I could do to change it.
Finding the key to change
It wasn’t until I started getting deeper into my psychology degree that I was finally able to start overcoming my struggles with binge eating and bulimia for good.
Up until then, my sole focus had been learning more about food and nutrition. I thought that if I just found the right diet or eating plan, I would be able to make my urges to binge eat go away, and as a result, be able to stop binge eating. However, this turned out to be the wrong approach, or at least an incomplete one.
Like I mentioned, binge eating may have started off as a physical problem, but over time, it became more of a mental and emotional one. So no matter what I did in terms of my diet or how much weight I gained, nothing I tried ever seemed to make the urges to binge eat go away.
Thankfully, I eventually learned that I didn’t actually need to make the urges to binge eat go away; all I needed to do was learn how to stop acting on them. In other words, rather than fixating on my diet and trying to find the perfect plan, I needed to learn how to stick to a plan in the first place, regardless of what that plan may be.
Before I started learning more about psychology, I simply did not believe this was possible for me. After so many failed attempts in the past, I had simply lost hope in my ability to control myself. I saw myself as a victim to my appetite, and truly believed that developing an eating disorder made me defective somehow, or simply less capable than other people. The truth, however, was that I was no less capable than anybody else, and I actually had the ability to control myself all along.
When I started learning more about psychology, specifically more about behaviour change and the neuroscience of addiction, I learned that self control is a skill, not a personality trait, and although it may take time and effort to develop, it is a skill anyone can learn, and this includes people who struggle with eating disorders. All you need is the right knowledge, belief system, and mental strategies in place.
Recovering and reaching my ideal weight
Unfortunately, there wasn't a single resource that provided me with a simple step by step guide to overcoming binge eating and regaining control of my eating behaviour. It was something I had to learn on my own, with the help of many different resources and a lot of self-experimentation. Hence, my recovery journey was not straight forward or linear. There were periods of time where I would go several months without binge eating, and other periods where I would fall back into old habits and go back to binging and purging multiple times a day, for weeks on end.
My experience with binge eating was, by far, the most difficult thing I have ever endured in my entire life, and there were many times I considered giving up on life all together.
Thankfully though, and most importantly, I never actually gave up on myself, and I continued to pick myself back up every time I would fall. In addition, every time I would make a mistake, I would learn a valuable lesson I wouldn't have learned otherwise.
Eventually, after a lot of trial and error, I was able to completely overcome my issues with binge eating and bulimia for good, and I did not need to give up on my weight loss or fitness goals in the process (unlike what a lot people within the eating disorder community will tell you).
Once I was able to overcome my issues with binge eating and bulimia, I ended up losing the excess weight I had gained due to binge eating, and have been able to maintain my ideal bodyweight for several years now!
More importantly than that, however, is that I finally feel free from the addiction and disorder that sabotaged my health and happiness for so many years.
Don’t get me wrong; my diet and my health in general are still far from perfect, and I know there will always be more to learn and improve on, but I can confidently say I am the healthiest and happiest I have ever been, and above all else, I know I will never struggle with binge eating or bulimia again.
The reason I became a coach
Although I am grateful for everything I have gone through, since my past struggles are what taught me everything I know today, I wouldn't have had to struggle so much if I simply had access to the right information and guidance at the beginning of my fitness journey. I didn’t know how to lose weight in a healthy way, and no one was there to warn me about the potential damage unhealthy weight loss practices can do.
Hence, that is exactly why I wanted to become a health coach and start sharing what I have learned online. I want to prevent others from having to endure the same struggles I did.
Whether you are just starting your health and fitness journey and don't know how to go about achieving your goals in a healthy and sustainable way, or already know a lot about health and fitness, but just can’t seem to consistently implement the things you know you should be doing, I know the information I share will be helpful and relevant to you.
My message for you
If you have made it this far, I would first like to thank you for reading my story. And if you are struggling with something similar right now, please know you are not alone. I know firsthand just how frustrating and debilitating it can be. However, I also know that change is possible.
Despite the challenges and the severity of my issues with food, I was able to achieve my ideal weight and transform my lifestyle, and I am no different than you. If I could transform from my lowest points, I truly believe anyone can. All you need is the right information, guidance, and support, and that is exactly what I’m here to provide.
Whether you choose to work with me personally, take advantage of the free content I provide online, or simply see my journey as proof that change is possible, I hope you feel empowered to never give up on what you truly want and who you truly want to be. As long as you continue learning and never give up on yourself, you will achieve your goals! That being said, you don’t need to do it alone. If you’re ready to invest in yourself and commit to becoming the person you’ve always wanted to be, I’m ready to help you get there. Contact me today to start your transformation.