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What Running While Fat Taught Me About My Body
An “I Desire” essay
Trigger Warning: Disordered eating
Despite the hype, anyone who has ever tried to lose weight solely by running knows that it’s rarely successful. There are a lot of reasons for this: after a run, you often feel ravenous, and end up consuming more calories than you burned. After a few runs on the same path, your muscles become used to the effort, and you burn fewer calories than you think. But for me, it was perfect, because I didn’t want to lose weight. When I first downloaded the Couch to 5K running app four years ago, I had a BMI well into the obese range, and I couldn’t jog more than 30 seconds without feeling overwhelmed and out of breath. So, why wouldn’t I want to lose the weight? And why did I think I should or could run anyway?
Though never formally diagnosed, I have a history of disordered eating. As a young teen, I restricted my calories to give myself a sense of control after the death of my mother. As an older teen, tired of having to be so controlled, I began binge eating. I preferred jars of peanut butter and bags of tortilla chips that I could purchase at the gas station on my drive home from school, and then eat in secret before my healthy dinner. And more than once, I attempted to purge. Fortunately, I was never successful, and after several attempts, I stopped…
