"But, you are all muscle!"

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“You have an athletic build,” is the phrase I have heard since my body began developing and puberty occurred. Prior to that point, I was a tiny, petite girl, always low in the charts in both height and weight. I suppose it was because I was too active to sit down and eat, or I was blessed with great genes. Whichever the reason, I never had to worry about my weight during my early childhood. It seemed my body began maturing and changing at the same time my social life became more elaborate and glamorous. It was the start of high school when I beganRead More →

Mordy, The Soccer Ball

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For my entire life, soccer was my identity, and I knew no different. Between year-round training, competition, and tournaments, my life had profoundly revolved around the sport. I lived to sharpen my game through constant skill work and daily fitness exercises. My accomplishments gave me pride and confidence, and most importantly,  provided me with ongoing social and psychological benefits. I had suddenly not only despised the sport I had once loved, but the mere thought of soccer made me queasy and highly anxious. Literally, the word soccer became repulsive to me. Through the entire fall season of my sophomore, I struggled to survive. I was lethargic, foodRead More →

The Disorder that can Lead to Sport Aversion

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“She grew too weak to continue performing and had to quit,” an article referred to a collegiate dancer on scholarship at Davenport College in Michigan. “I began struggling the summer before my junior year in college.. The pressure of it all, dancing in front of a large crowd, being judged a lot, that kind of caused it a little bit,” Tylor Davis reflected on her battle with anorexia during college competition. I, too, experienced an overwhelming amount of pressure during my college years in both soccer and school. Davis, unfortunately, quit the sport in which she had grown to love, enjoy, and excel. With hopeRead More →

Ran to Lose

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In my pursuit for thinness and continual weight loss, exercise became a significant part to my compulsivity. As a competitive athlete, exercise was an imminent part of the daily grind. Between both individual and team weightlifting, conditioning, and practice, it seemed as though I was always training. But, my mentality had shifted. The fine line between exercising to be fit and strong, and exercising to be thin, had been crossed. In the typical college soccer season, the training schedule revolved around games. Therefore, as competition neared, training tapered in intensity and time. Tuesdays were known as the “toughest” and most grueling day of training as it followed a day offRead More →

Apathy at its Worst

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I had once been vibrant, loud, outgoing, and dramatic. I had a love for people, animals, activities, and sports. Hyper was one word that many people would have used to describe me. Unfortunately, as a result of a predisposition and genetics, and the stressful environment I was in, the obsessive compulsive disorder trait became uncovered and exposed. Consequently, it manifested into an eating disorder, ultimately resulting in depression. In 2003, there were several major events across the world and country that sparked various emotions out of millions of people. For example, in 2003, the United States planned for an invasion of Iraq due to anRead More →

The Cookie Monster

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In most instances, the “Cookie Monster” symbolized a googly-eyed, hungry, and playful Sesame Street muppet. With an insatiable appetite, he craved cookies, and consumed anything and everything. Ironically, in my case, I identified a cookie as a complete monster. A small sweet cake, typically round and flat, became a demon. We had just finished our last team lift of the week. As a reward, our strength and conditioning staff directed our team over to the desk where they were offering a special treat– those ever so popular and scrumptious sugar cookies with thick pink frosting covered with sprinkles. As my teammates rushed over to the display, I hesitated, and realized I had aRead More →

OCL: Obsessive Compulsive LIAR

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Growing up, my parents instilled in my brothers and I the fundamental morals in life: to be respectful of others, be accountable and take responsibility for our actions, treat others as we want to be treated, and to ALWAYS TELL THE TRUTH. Sounds reasonable, especially now as a parent. Similarly, I hope and will strive to raise my two boys with very comparable standards and values. Of course, throughout my life, I demonstrated weak moments where I was unable to live by and fulfill the expectations of good character. I was guilty on different accounts at distinctive times. The most glaring shame I recall was the year I lived as an anorexic. I was diagnosed with ObsessiveRead More →

Weight Just Washed Away...Overnight

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It felt like an overnight body transformation. Literally, one night. I stepped in the shower and washed all the weight off my body. It did not matter if I was a freshman or senior, the first day of preseason was the most stressful and anxiety inducing day of the year. It revolved around mandatory meetings, physical examinations performed by the sports medicine staff, and ended with the dreadful, horrible, beyond nerve-racking fitness test on the track. It was my sophomore year, though. With a year of experience under my belt, I should have been more confident, used to the routine, and understanding of expectations. ItRead More →

My New Self-Proclaimed Regimen

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I declared my major at Michigan State University in Elementary Education, with a concentrated subject matter in Language Arts. My certification requirements encompassed various teaching courses and English studies. I am not sure when I became an expert on nutrition, food and diet, but I took it upon myself to create a new regimen and menu in order to reach my goal. By the end of the summer going into my sophomore year of college I was going to be the most fit I had ever been at the time of presesaon. So, without delay, I began my two-a-day workouts, while eating “healthy” and restricting myself from whatRead More →

Army of Athletes

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It may seem awfully unforeseeable, but I would like to compare a female athlete entering college sports to a female soldier entering the army. Though two extremely different undertakings, both have immense responsibilities, all while adjusting to a heightened level of physical and emotional demands in new environments. A freshman athlete is attempting to prove herself to her teammates, coaches, and opponents, and competing against veterans who have been in the program for three years already. The same goes for soldiers who are introduced to an unfamiliar type of training, and exposed to such intense pressure in the army. Both situations share a greater commonality, and that is the prevalence ofRead More →