Restoration

I'm tired of feeling weak and injured. I have started to work on range of motion for the ankle. The knee is starting to look (and feel!) a little better (although I've noticed a suspicious new area of inflammation creeping down onto the shin, though I'm sure it's nothing...). I have been trying to weight-bear as long as is comfortable, and I even tried to do a little yoga this morning, being mindful of my knees while doing floor poses.

It hurts now, of course, but I don't care. I'm sick and tired of this, and I'm ready to move on. Healthily. Safely. Slowly. But ready to move on nonetheless. 

Anyway, I've stalled long enough. Here's more of the Gainesville saga: 

To recap: I left Columbia as a 1st semester sophomore & entered the University of Florida as a senior. I was 150 lbs, and forced into becoming an English major but for the two math & science credits I still had to make up. I had a by-default friend, since we had been close in high school, but other than that, I was pretty much on my own. 

On the second day of classes, I was walking back from my "Math for Idiots Liberal Arts Majors" lecture when I ran into my friend Bradley, who had been in drama with me in high school. Though I was done with classes for the day, he hooked his arm into mine and literally dragged me with him to his Theatre-Majors-Only class, Dramaturgy, on the assertion that I absolutely had to be taking this class, and that, if any class had ever been meant for me, it was this one.

Turns out, he was right. The professor, Dr. Ralf, might be one of the coolest profs I've ever had (alongside the incomparable Prof Mass at Columbia!), and it turns out that Dramaturgy was not only right up my alley, it was exactly what I wanted to do with theatre.

For the uninitiated, and depending on who you ask, dramaturgy is something like curation for the stage. Whether you're working on a historical piece as a consultant for the director or on a new play as a guide for the playwright, a dramaturg's job is to, essentially, be an advocate for the text. Dramaturgs have a radar when it comes to plot, and they are on hand to keep the delicate threads of the story from unraveling, tangling, or fraying.

I loved that class with all of my heart--and when I found out that our final projects would be comprised of a casebook based on actual dramaturgy for an actual play actually occurring on campus, I was ecstatic. Even more exciting was the opportunity that Dr. Ralf presented to our class to work on the Spring season's Mainstage production, The Man of Mode. Dr. Ralf made sure to position it as an incredibly work-intensive commitment, since the play was written in the 1660s and the director was going to be doing some major script surgery as well as resetting the play in 1700 (which doesn't sound like much of a move, but the time change actually leapt the gap between two entirely different generations). So I, being the work-loving masochist that I am, volunteered.

The Man of Mode...and Dr. Pinkney

Working on The Man of Mode gave me a sense of purpose. After waking up early to go for my run, going to math or one of my English classes, and then coming home to my hellish apartment, I would spend hours reading and rereading the script, highlighting changes, making a historical reference guide for the actors, and chuckling to myself at jokes that haven't been funny since before the Revolutionary War.

And then I would go to rehearsal.

I loved the UF School of Theatre and Dance. Even though I wasn't a BA or BFA in Theatre, everyone accepted me. And even better, they became my friends.

A director who threw himself into the job...and the wig.

I can still remember the very first read-through, when I had to stand up in front of a group of actors, designers, and the director, Dr. Pinkney, and give a brief introduction to the dramaturgy of Restoration theatre and offer myself as a resource. I was scared to death & nervous as hell, because my focus has always been Tudor-Stuart drama ( & my experience with the Restoration was limited to a Shakespeare class I took during my second semester at Columbia in which we read Restoration rewrites of Shakespeare).

It went so well.

And then the next night, during the very first rehearsal, I was seated next to a tall, skinny kid who spent the entire rehearsal laughing at jokes that haven't been funny since the Revolutionary War.

And this is why rehearsal was my favorite time of day.

I felt like I was home.

To be continued.

How Gainesville Made Me Crazy

I don't know what to do. The pain this morning is horrible. It hurts to sit, it hurts to stand....I know it sounds dramatic, but I can assure you that I'm actually not exaggerating. My knee looks slightly purple and the pain is now traveling below the kneecap to the shin.

So I'm going to try to not think about that for now and just write some more.

We left off with my move to Gainesville. We pick up in my horrible apartment by the Beef Teaching Unit. It was horrible mainly because my roommates hated me. They belonged to a racially defined sorority, and I was the odd man out. It was so strange to me, since I lived at Columbia with roommates of every race, creed, and color, and nobody gave it a second thought.

My bedroom was also the bedroom closest to the front door.  In fact, the way the room was designed, my bedroom window was actually next to the front door, since the bedroom jutted into the hallway of the apartment complex. That meant that I could hear all of the noise in the hallway AND in the apartment any time of the day or night. And, with my roommates, that noise was ALL DAY & ALL NIGHT.

From abusive boyfriends breaking into our apartment to loud parties thrown until 6 or 7 am on a Tuesday morning (about the time I would be waking up for my Math for Idiots Liberal Arts Majors class), my apartment was anything but a sanctuary.

On top of all of that, I felt friendless and abandoned. I was fortunate to have Stephanie, one of my very best friends from high school, but she had developed friendships with other people (not to mention developed a relationship with the man who she actually just married this past month), so I felt like the third wheel most of the time. She introduced me to a guy who expressed his interest in hooking up with me until he could find a real girl friend, but I found it difficult to develop any meaningful friendships outside of the one I already had with Steph.

And so I started running. I felt fat and ugly, watching all of the pretty sorostitutes flaunt their perfect, tan bodies as they jogged around the campus, and so I started making changes to my lifestyle & diet.

I started eating oatmeal for breakfast, an apple for a snack, and a black bean salad for lunch. I had another apple and sometimes a rice cake around midday, and then one of the protein shakes that I was still taking from the cleanse for dinner.

I would run up and down 23rd st. every morning, logging first one, then two, then three miles a day. As we headed into March, I started to drop weight.

...to be continued.

Go Go Gadget Exposition:

Before we continue the story:
1. Ankle update: a) work is incredibly hard on crutches b) the stationary bike, despite being a non-weightbearing exercise, hurts me like a motherfucker.

2. I apologize in advance for the length of Part 2 of this story. It's the longest leg of my journey through ED. Bear with me.

Go go Gadget Exposition:

Sophomore year at Columbia was rough. I was fortunate enough to have the BEST ROOMMATE in the world, the amazing company of Shannon & Mark, who kept me (in)sane through Creative Writing, and a lead role in one of my favorite plays in the universe, Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing.

Greatest roommate in the entire universe. I am so lucky that I got to spend even a semester sharing a space--and a nest--with Ana. 

Once The Real Thing ended, however, and the semester wound down, I found myself sinking even deeper into a food-fueled depression. I was in a situation codenamed SOL (shit out of luck):

In high school, I had taken about 8 grillion college credits through the AP program & passed all of the tests with flying colors (with the exception of statistics, which was a hilarious waste of my high school's resources & credit hours). I had also taken the maximum number of credits at Columbia every semester (21), and even petitioned to take more one semester.

Because I had gained so many credits, transferring to a Florida school to take advantage of my Bright Futures scholarship was impossible: I had not only already earned my Associate's degree--with the exception of one math & one science class--, I had already completed nearly all of the requirements for an English major. Not only wouldn't the schools accept me as a senior, but I was also hindered by the fact that I hadn't technically completed my AA.

The University of Central Florida accepted me after hearing my sob story, but when I went down over Thanksgiving/my birthday of 2006, I was so depressed by the campus & the school that I considered dropping out of college altogether instead of transferring.

Somehow, however, the English department of the University of Florida decided to make an exception. The accepted me as a senior on the condition that I finish my AA in the next year. I took them up on it &, come January, I packed up my grandmother's car & moved to Gainesville, Florida.

I should have known that things were going to go awry when my tire exploded on the Turnpike on my way up to school. Murphy & his damn law have never been particularly nice to me...



To put it nicely, I was miserable in Gainesville. I was leaving the center of the apathetic intelligentsia & entering the center of all things sports & athletics related. Here, we celebrated football victories (like the National Championship, which we won on my first day of school); at Columbia we asked, "We have a football team?!"  At UF sorority girls in itty bitty tank tops ran around campus all day; at Columbia, we layered in scarves & sweaters so we could get milkshakes from Tom's or giant slices of pizza from Koronet's at 4 am.

Believe it or not, non-Columbia Seinfeld fans, Tom's Restaurant was just around the corner from my dorm. (& later, in grad school, on the same street as my apartment!)

I was fortunate enough to have one of my closest high school friends find me an apartment in the same complex in which she lived (3 miles from the school, around the corner from I-75, and right across the street from the "Beef Teaching Unit," which was just a glorified way of saying "cow pasture"). Nevertheless, I started the new year & the new semester with nothing but trepidation & sadness.

More soon...

I Can Has Moar Story Time?

I'm sitting here in my dark house with the rain pounding on the window, and I felt the urge to write. I don't have any fitness updates for you, since I haven't worked out in three days now**, and the only food worth talking about are the black bean & avocado brownies that I just made for one of my friends who is going gluten-free.

What better time, then, to start telling you Part 1 of Part 2 of the Story I Haven't Finished Telling You Yet. (The title changed, since we're on the prequel now.)

This story begins in New York City. The summer of 2006 is just beginning, and I have just received a letter from North Broward Preparatory School--the high school from which I graduated, and from which I received what was supposed to be a $50,000 scholarship to be paid out in $25,000 after the first year of college (assuming a 3.5 GPA or higher) and $25,000 after graduating (again, with a 3.5 or above). The letter informs me that I'm receiving $14,000, even though I have a 3.9 after my first year at Columbia University because now, somehow, the scholarship takes into account whether or not we're receiving student aid. Which I am, only it's so nominal that the scholarship wouldn't even begin to help cover the total costs even at its full promised amount.

So basically I'm fucked, is what they're telling me.

I make a decision: I'm going to work all summer, and maybe I will have enough money to stay.

At the same time, I'm also shooting past the "Freshman 15" and into the "Freshman 25" with amazing speed. Even though I'm not drinking like my friends are, I'm no longer running cross country, and my schedule is so crazy, between 20 page theses on the death of feminism as heralded by the "third wave" and rehearsals for 5 different theatre pieces (some full length, some not), that I'm eating whatever I can whenever I can--which does not make for healthy eating at all.

Doing German abstract theatre  on the steps of Low Library for my friend's final project.

Compound that with the fact that the boy who I've convinced myself I'm in love with has just made out with me &--literally--the next day gotten himself a girlfriend, and you have one very depressed, confused Kaila. (Or Kay, since that's the name I was going by throughout college.)

I spent the summer getting steadily bigger as I worked for Watson Adventures, an amazing scavenger hunt company down in NoHo; Jazz Improv Magazine, where my aunt was the advertising manager at the time; and Testtakers SAT Prep, which was my first experience teaching high school.

When I went home to visit my mother about halfway through the summer, I was wearing a size 8-10 in jeans (when I was previously a 2-4), and feeling terrible about myself. I decided to start working out at the gym when I got back up to NY, although I had no idea what I was doing. At the time, my mother & my aunt were doing a cleanse called "Isagenix." My mom ordered some for me, and I spent the next two weeks utterly miserable.

With friends in Central Park

The cleanse: drink a smoothie in the morning, drink 4 oz of this vile cleanse liquid for a snack, eat a salad for lunch, drink more cleanse liquid, and then drink a smoothie for dinner. If you get hungry enough to pass out, 6 almonds or 1/2 an apple are acceptable.

Needless to say, I didn't lose any weight, and all that happened was I felt tired and irritable for two weeks. I did it again two weeks later. Still no change.

I started the next semester angry and fat, and I was still poor. Which meant that this was going to be my last semester at Columbia. I would be leaving my dream school--and the Ivy League--for a Florida school, which my prep school had conditioned me to believe was far inferior. I was just starting my sophomore year of college, and I felt like I had already failed at life.

(To be continued...)



**PS the aircast was an epic fail. The doctor suggested crutches for when I'm at work or on my feet for extended periods of time. So...FML.

But My Kinetic Chain is Hurting...

Before we start today's post, I'd just like to share two observations:
1. I've never walked through soup before, but I'm pretty sure that it's the same feeling one would get if he or she took a walk outside right now.
2. A little bit of positivity goes a long way.

Moving on to the actual post:

It's amazing how a knee injury can come back and ruin a morning of single leg squats ten years after the fact.

When I was 12 or so (in the seventh grade), I spent the afternoon with my soon-to-be (at the time) step-brother Chris. This was the era of Blink-182 and JNCO jeans, so that means that he owned all of the necessary punk equipment--including a skateboard and a trick bike.

We decided it would be cool to go explore SW 18th st and take a trip over the turnpike passover. Chris took his skateboard, and I took the trick bike. The next morning, I woke up, and my knee was incredibly swollen. There seemed to be a huge knot just below the kneecap. Neither Advil nor RICE took the pain or the swelling away, and the lump continued to grow for the next week.

By the time I saw a doctor, things were bad. It hurt to walk, it ached when it rained, and the lump just wouldn't get any smaller. It wasn't a minor injury or a simple bursitis--it was a bone tumor called an "osteochondroma," which apparently run in my family. The only way to remove it was to actually shave the piece of bone off of my leg--but the doctor couldn't do it until after I'd finished growing because the tumor was sitting right next to my growth plate.

I spent the rest of middle school & the first half of 9th grade in and out of a leg immobilizer and even crutches by the end. Not being a particularly athletic kid to begin with, I rejoiced at the opportunity to spend phys. ed. on the sidelines reading a book. Unfortunately, though, I was in a lot of pain (like the "4-Advil-every-4-hours-was-completely-ineffective" kind of pain) and I was embarrassed by the ugly deformity that seemed a permanent part of my body.

Fortunately, I was able to have the surgery in January of 2002. The biopsy revealed that the tumor was benign (as expected), and I was all better, but for the ugly scar that to this day stands out on the front of my leg. And the whole nerve damage thing. Oh, and the damage to my kinetic chain.

So, in the fitness world, the kinetic chain is just a fancy way of referencing this song. So many injuries that occur in the gym occur because we have imbalances in our bodies, and when we compensate for those imbalances, we end up damaging the connected bones, muscles, ligaments, tendons, etc. (I'll elaborate on this in another post, 'cause I think it deserves some attention.)

In my case, I never properly rehabbed my knee. The muscles were all disrupted by the tumor and then the surgery, and because I never went about strengthening them properly after the surgery, I'm still feeling the after effects. I started running Cross Country in the 10th grade, but even though I was getting stronger, faster, and fitter, my leg was still weak, and my balance & stability were, in technical terms, "piss poor." As a result, I stress fractured my ankle twice--once in 10th and once in 11th, both times during the intensive training periods before District and Regional competition.

To this day, I have little balance or stability in my right leg...and lately, since I've gained a lot of weight and started running again, I've felt that familiar tweak in my ankle. Which made my morning at the gym hell. I could barely hold myself up while I tried to squat on just my right leg...and I had to deal with a throbbing pain in my ankle for the rest of the day.

I'm going to have to take it easy, and I'm NOT happy about it.
However...I'm going to try to keep it positive. I have a lot to look forward to in the coming weeks, not least getting to spend time with my family & some long lost friends :).
Buenas noches (and more tomorrow!)

Kaila

PS My workout for the day:

Dynamic warm up

Super Set 1: Reverse Woodchop (8x3) & Stability Ball Jackknife (16x3)

Super Set 2: Step Ups on Bench (8x3) & T-Pushup (4x3) 

Super Set 3: Single Leg Squat (8x3) & Alternating Lateral Raise (8x3)

Super Set 4: Supinated Hip Extension with Leg Curl on Stability Ball (16x3) & Inverted Row (8x3)

The End. Kind of.

Good (ish) morning to you all.

Before we get into the nitty gritty, here's today's fitness update, brought to you courtesy of celebrity trainer Rachel Cosgrove of Results Fitness. 

(A quick aside about Ms. Cosgrove: I stumbled upon her book, The Female Body Breakthrough in June of last year after hearing her husband, trainer Alwyn Cosgrove, speak about it on a fitness podcast. I am a huge fan of her methods for training, since they involve functional movement and progressive unilateral strength & stability training interspersed with plyometrics for power. This is the second time I've gone back to her book for "rehab" after an injury (the first time was my shoulder, the second was my back), since her workouts help retrain proprioception and core stability. I also love that, if I keep my heart rate up and my rest time down, I can not only get in a little bit of cardio while I lift, but I can also get in and out of the gym--from warm up to cool down--in exactly an hour. I am a huge fan--and if I ever make it big in personal training, Results Fitness will be the first place I apply to work.) 

Today: 

Dynamic warm up

Super Set 1: Reverse Woodchop (8x3) & Stability Ball Jackknife

Super Set 2: Step Ups on Bench (8x3) & T-Pushup (4x3) 

Super Set 3: Single Leg Squat (8x3) & Alternating Lateral Raise (8x3)

Super Set 4: Supinated Hip Extension with Leg Curl on Stability Ball (8x3) & Inverted Row

Cool Down

FOAM ROLL!

My calves hate me. 

Lesson for the day: balancing barefoot is a lot harder than in stability & motion control shoes. Whodathunk? 

So my squats and step ups were incredibly wobbly, and definitely not as pretty as I would have liked them to be. But I think that in the long run, doing the "barefoot" thing is going to help me with improving my balance and range of motion for those pesky squats. And I hope so--'cause mine suck right now. 

Anyway. 

Onto story time: 

My little dog and I moved back in with my mother, my then 10 year-old brother, & her 5 dogs in July. She had just sold my car (with my permission, since I hadn't planned on coming home) to help with my sister's college expenses, so I was without wheels or the money to purchase new ones. I spent the entire month going to the gym at 5 am (so I could borrow her car) and then sitting in the house all day, watching iCarly on Nickelodeon and cooking. 

My little dog!

I applied for lots of jobs, all half-heartedly, since I was massively depressed. I acquired wheels after about 6 weeks (which I'll be paying off for a long time to come), as well as a front desk job at The Gym of Boca Raton. That meant that, three days a week, I had to be awake at 4 am to open the gym by 5. Mind you, I was still working out too hard and eating too little. I had also tweaked my shoulder & was working through the pain instead of letting it rest. 

Women would come up to me in the gym and ask me how I got to look so amazing. Men would stare. I had people telling me I should become a model. I was dropping below 120, 118, 115...

I was convinced I was going to do a bikini competition with the NPC before September. 

Then I saw a doctor. By this point, I was 112.5 pounds. I was diagnosed with secondary amenorrhea (I'll let you look that up, I don't want to explain it here for those who might be squeamish about women's issues), bradycardia, and ostepenia. All very fun things to have happening inside one's body. I left the doctor's office and ate a whole sub, with cheese and bread and everything. I felt sick the rest of the day. 

In early September, I was hired by an amazing company. I started my training on the 22nd, and, I hate to say it, but the job might be what saved me. I had to leave the gym, since I couldn't do 4 am-10 pm days and still be expected to function like a human being, but it didn't matter, since I had a job that actually offered me hope for a future. 

In April I moved out of my mom's house and into a house with my little dog, two of my coworkers, and my coworker's big, goofy, adorable dog. It's a little ridiculous, but it's my life so there's that. 

So that's where I'm at now. Well, that, and I'm also at 137 lbs, with a metabolism that hates me for fucking with it so much, but I'm working on fixing that part. 

Anyway. That's my story. 

Gotta run to work now...

Kaila

The Never-Ending Story...

Before we begin Part Two of Part Three of my story, I figured I'd post a little bit about today's fitness regimen. Since that seems to be what all the cool kids are doing. (Have I mentioned that I am a total fitness/food blog lurker? Because I am.)

5:45 am: 20 minute run. 2.58 mi. 2 min warmup and then alternating 1 min sprints/1 min recovery jog.
6:05 am: Plyometrics
      SET ONE (repeat 3x with 1 min break between each set):
             Jump rope (1 min)
             Lunge Jumps (30 s)
             Mountain Climbers (45 s)
             Squat Jumps (30 s)
       SET TWO (repeat 3x with 1 min break between each set):
             Lateral Step out Squats (1 min)
             Fairy Skips in Place (30 s)
             Step Out Plank on Swiss Ball (30 s)
             Burpees (30s)
  
I'm not sure if the fairy skips are really called just that...but that's what we called them back when I ran Cross Country in high school. (Coach used to make the boys do them whenever the football team walked past us...)

Anyway.

I was also forced to buy new training shoes yesterday. I can't afford to spend money on another pair, since I just had to go out and buy new running shoes (since I haven't run in a year), but it was time.

So now I am the proud (?) owner of a pair of Vibram KSOs...These are the geekiest things I have ever owned, and I definitely owned a pair of four inch white foam platform Spice Girls-style sandals in the fifth grade. Just sayin'.

I feel silly. 

I can't wait to see how these babies fare in the gym. I've heard that they're awesome for lifting--I was going to get another pair of Converse for the gym, but since I'm adding plyos, I needed an all-purpose shoe, and this was the one that they told me I needed. (Yes, "They." You know who "They" are. "They" live in Google and dispense good advice so long as I refine my search terms properly...)

So now that you're caught up on the immediate, here's the backstory (continued):

Over Christmas break, I made the decision to stay at Columbia. I finished my outstanding assignments (which meant writing over 50 pages of theoretical & dramaturgical analysis and the first draft of a full length play in a month) and went back up to the city. I staked out a seat at the famous Hungarian Pastry Shop, which was to become my new home for the next several months as I worked on revising my play, and I took advantage of daily bottomless cups of coffee (it tasted terrible, but refills were FREE!) since my new apartment was right next door.

But things still weren't right with the world. Although I was trying hard to go out with my incredible classmates (to sing musical theatre karaoke at Marie's Crisis with Ian or to the village for a Sweet Fix show with my fellow dramaturgs & Leslie), to see 3-4 shows (Broadway, Off-, and way-the-fuck-Off) per week, to sit through late night rehearsals for Collaboration class, and to generally find a more positive outlook on life (told you I hate periods--this whole paragraph is only two sentences long), I was still more concerned with working out, eating less, and losing weight.

Our playwriting class was a clever ruse to convert innocent dramaturgs into Sweet Fix groupies.

Celebrating a successful Collaboration.

By the end of the semester, I was spent. Emotionally, physically, and financially. I got two jobs, one at the Columbia Arts Initiative as a social media/bitch-work intern (read the articles here), and the other folding towels and swiping ID cards at the Dodge Fitness Center.

Mind you, I still wasn't making enough money to live, so even though I didn't feel like I was losing enough weight from my body, my bank account seemed to have an overactive metabolism...It was also the hottest summer I have ever experienced--which was miserable to begin with, a misery only compounded by the fact that I had no A/C in my apartment. So I was waking up at 4:30/5, running to (and from) the gym, working out, biking to work, working all day, biking to my second job, folding towels until midnight, and then packing my meals for the next day...I was over everything. I even cut off all of my hair to cut down on the time I spent getting ready after the gym in the morning.

Boy hair! (Which I actually kind of miss...)

It was over the summer that I started studying for my certification in Personal Training through the National Academy of Sports Medicine (hereinafter referred to as NASM). As a theatre/english major with next to no background in biology (outside of that awesome 10th grade AP Bio class), studying the anatomy and physiology portion was a massively intensive endeavor. But it was the first time all year that I felt like I was studying for a reason. While the rest of the world seemed like it was crashing down around me, I had my own little oasis of reason and sanity in the NASM textbook.

I attended the NASM hands-on cPT workshop on July 11-12, and on July 13, I took a medical leave of absence from Columbia.

Guess I'll leave you here for the night, since it's already 10 pm, and I need to get up early to run with my dad...Stay tuned for Part Three of Part Three!

-Kaila

How I Got Here, or Fitness for All the Wrong Reasons

Before we get started with today's (sob) story, I'd like to share some goals with you, the internet world. Why? Because if I write them down & make them public, you're going to hold me accountable to achieving them. (You are going to hold me accountable, right?):

1. Improve squat to full range of motion below parallel by August 1.
2. Clean up my diet & fit back into my work pants by September 1.
3. Bring my body fat back to the 15% range by September 1.

Okay then. Story time: (*Ahem*) "How I Got Here, or Fitness for All the Wrong Reasons."

(Oh, and before I get started, I should let you know that I'm actually telling you Part Three of the story. You'll get Parts One and Two another time. When I feel like writing about them. Which I don't. So. Without further ado...)

(And I apologize for all of the parenthetical asides. All of my professors gave me shit for my inability to complete a thought before interrupting myself. And for being unable to finish a sentence. I'm a fan of commas, and I'm not too fond of periods. Right. Story time. Sorry.)

Parts One and Two of our story cover my descent and relapse into the fun and exciting world of eating disorders. Suffice it to say that  EDNOS and I are well acquainted, and that he's my closest frenemy. So let's start at the summer of 2009, where Kitchen Jouissance left off.

The top photo (Part One) is from 2001. I'm the skinny chick in red. The bottom photo (Part Two) is from 2007. 

I had the perfect boyfriend, I had a fellowship to the perfect grad school, and I had found the perfect apartment in the perfect city.

After a perfect run of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Palm Beach Shakespeare Festival, the boyfriend and I spent the rest of the summer just hanging around his house in Jupiter, baking cookies, and making plans for the future. He and I would also get up at the crack of dawn to alternately go to the gym or run six days a week. At the gym, he would spend the hour lifting by himself. I would spend the hour climbing stairs to nowhere or elliptical-ly training. He did deadlifts; I did cardio. He ate nothing (well, nothing but oatmeal, black beans, chicken, and spinach); I ate everything (including lots of peanut butter and cereal). He lost weight; I ballooned up to 131 lbs.

At 128

The boyfriend and I had to do the long distance thing, since he was going to business school in North Carolina, and I was headed to grad school in NYC. The problem was, NYC wasn't all I had built it (back) up to be in my head after my hellacious year of teaching. I had a month until my program started, and I was stuck in Washington Heights without furniture or a source of income. The worst part was, I was feeling horrible about my body, and my boyfriend was far, far away (and making me feel bad about it.)

So I decided to sign up for a temporary gym membership at Jay's Big Gym on 181st & St. Nick's. I remembered that the boyfriend had brought up (on several occasions) the name of a fitness model who he would have dumped me for in a heartbeat: Jamie Eason. Hell, I would dump me for her. I decided to give up my long hours of cardio-ing myself crazy and look up what Jamie did that made her body so incredible.

After a few hours on Google, I found a sample workout of hers. I took it to the gym & dared to enter the weight room for the first time. I had no idea what I was doing, and I'm lucky that I got away with nothing worse than plantar fasciitis.

The school year commenced, and I began a horrible semester of waking up at 4 am, eating breakfast, commuting to school on the 1 train, working out (& showering in the gym--ew.), going to class (where we would spend three hours debating whether or not theatre was a legitimate career anymore), and then coming home, writing papers/reading plays, and crashing. I had no life, and I missed out on several opportunities to get closer to the fabulous people in my class because I was too worried about not having time to talk to the boyfriend on the phone or staying up late and missing the gym in the morning.

Blah, blah, blah, the semester progressed, my weight started dropping (but not fast enough) and things got worse. Boyfriend and I started fighting all of the time. I started cutting and counting calories and weighing myself every day. I began having anxiety attacks when I had to stay out after dark or go downtown to see a play. I started talking to my advisors about dropping out.

You see, I was trying to look like Jamie Eason by Thanksgiving, and I wasn't losing weight fast enough. I was still 126 lbs, and I wanted to be 120 by the time I went to visit the boyfriend. He had bought me a plane ticket & I was set to spend the holiday (and my birthday) in NC with him, but I knew somehow that he would be disappointed in me for not looking like a fitness model. So I called him up to cancel. And during that same phone call, I cancelled our relationship. The morning after, I woke up, and he had removed our "In a Relationship" status on Facebook. Shit was serious. (<--sad, no?)

Not thin or fit enough. 

I took an incomplete for the semester, and went home for Christmas break. All I cared about was getting thinner and stronger and fuck grad school and a future and my first real long-term relationship. I was obsessed, and not for the better.

Okay. Don't want to overwhelm you AND you need a reason to return again tomorrow SO: stay tuned for Part Two of Part Three of the story I haven't told you yet!

Kaila