Here's to Running and HEALTH!

Boys. Cover your eyes and just don't read this post. I don't think you'll like talking about this type of stuff.

First of all, I've had/have the Female Athlete Triad as a runner. The Female Athlete Triad consists of these three components:

• Energy Deficit/Disordered Eating
• Menstrual Disturbances/Amenorrhea
• Bone Loss/Osteoporosis

I have went through an eating disorder due to my running. I wanted to be perfect in every way and I would think about my diet and try to eat perfectly. I confused "perfectly" with very little food to cut down to a weight that gave me a BMI of 14.9. Yikes. Scary, was really the word.

I saw the light though and realized that I wasn't myself anymore. Eating nothing gave me enough energy just to run and get up for the day. I never talked to my friends. It was a dark place that I realize I was in. I was having a lot of success, but I had to let it go and eat a large pizza and a jar of peanut butter. No, seriously. My size 0 pants didn't stay up on me anymore.

After that, I had a bone fracture in my left foot that left me out of running for a close of 3 months. I tied my eating disorder with my fracture, and my bone density tests were low on calcium levels, that's beause I mainly avoided any and all Dairy in fear it was too fattening. 

I am free from both of those things, I'm happy to report!! While I'm still on the low level of the BMI scale, my weight isn't scary anymore and I don't look like a walking skeleton. I'm the old Megan again!

However, I have Amenorrhea. 

Loss of my period.

Okay, I'm going to be honest. I eat like a horse now (and try to eat a lot of healthy food most of the time) and I'm nowhere near strict about working out. I had my period once back in August, but since, it never showed up. And in all honesty, I love that I don't have to worry about it. HELLO!, Freedom! :) And in all honesty, if it comes, it comes. I am NOT worried about having a kid at this age, but someday I will be.So recovering from this Triad has been hard and long.

A lot of runners go through this I know. We all want success and we'll do anything for it to get our personal record and to run that extra mile. We'll run to the end of the Earth to find success and make everything (maybe it's even not running! for me, it's a lot of things) perfect. I'm a huge perfcontist. 

I'm not going to cite any book or put facts in here from a website. This exists if you want success. But you won't exist for long if you keep battling it out. I have those times where I feel like "if I were only as thin as I was before." Those are powerful and hard words to listen to. However, I love the person who I'm becoming. Being a skeleton with no energy is not me. I'm the girl who loves Mondays, curling my hair, singing, running many miles, smiling, talking, meeting new people. I don't want broken bones. I want to carry my kids around someday and still be running like a nut.

Run. And Be Strong. Don't be a runner who wins races just because you eat nothing. Be that runner who works her ASS off and eats every good thing for her body to burn off later. Be that runner who has family and friends cheering loud for her because they love her cause she's there physically AND mentally everyday. Be that healthy runner believing she can, and if she can't that day, someday she will. 

Go get 'em girls!

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