Allie O Admits Eating Disorder and Enters Therapy

It's not her fault but she is brave for going public and hopefully she can help other people who are going through similar experiences and helping others avoid making the same mistakes she did.

sayyestonepotism wrote:

Being underweight really isnt a problem in society. Nearly everyone is overweight though. Runners are basically underweight because they must. It really only is a problem If you decide it is for yourself. Female runners i know are happy to not get a period.

It isn't a problem for society. It is a problem for the individual.

The fact went over your head. Obesity is a health issue that is 100 times as prevalent as the opposite. Both are a problem for the individuals but out of every 101 people with one of the problems, 100 have a problem with eating too much. Society is at a strange point in which it wants to help the thin but not the obese.

sayyestonepotism wrote:

Being underweight really isnt a problem in society. Nearly everyone is overweight though. Runners are basically underweight because they must. It really only is a problem If you decide it is for yourself. Female runners i know are happy to not get a period.

Most runners are not underweight. If you look up the BMI of professional runners, you would find many of them are in the normal range. Getting a period can be annoying but what sucks even more is getting stress fractures, being a much greater interruption to training.

Allie's BMI is higher than Koko or Hassan who are about the top 2 runners in the world.

I always wondered why anorexia and bulimia are considered eating disorders but what leads to obesity is not? The first ones are usually trying to eat to little for your level of activity and the second is just eating too much for your level of activity, but the problems are all rooted in the eating being off.

Big car daddy wrote:

Allie's BMI is higher than Koko or Hassan who are about the top 2 runners in the world.

You see, this is the type of thinking that exacerbates the problem.

I had an eating disorder in high school. I was constantly hungry but didn’t want to eat, not necessarily cause I was scared of gaining weight, but mentally I just thought that I shouldn’t be eating more.

Eating disorders suck. It’s just a constant anxiety and thinking about food or calories. When I started eating more food I got more energy, did better in running, and just in general felt healthier. Ran a 30 second PR in the 5k in a matter of weeks.

There’s a very fine line between light and unhealthy....

I always preach that fit does not equal fast. Most of the time there is a lot of overlap sure, but you can be fast without being insanely fit. Drop the mileage, eat more, lift more, approach things from a speed side rather than an endurance side and you will be surprised that you can achieve the same results, if not more, than you were before.

Those are just facts. You need to know facts in order to make informed decisions. It is funny how people get upset with facts being presented.

Nonsense! wrote:

Wishing her all the best and pulling for a fast and safe recovery.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CP_ahvQrtrK/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

The good kind of "admission": voluntary, responsible,

Opening up, not capitulation to an accusation.

Dufus wrote:

I always wondered why anorexia and bulimia are considered eating disorders but what leads to obesity is not? The first ones are usually trying to eat to little for your level of activity and the second is just eating too much for your level of activity, but the problems are all rooted in the eating being off.

You are conflating the disorder with the sequela of the disorder. Being obese simply means that you have a BMI of 30+ while being underweight means that you have a BMI of less than 18.5. Neither of these states are eating disorders in and of themselves. Both can be the result of eating disorders.

Yeah you're right. I think a lot of runners get caught up too much in endurance and neglect speed, when ultimately speed is the thing they need because thir endurance is already very good. If you want to run "fast" it makes perfect sense logically that you need speed.

They are both eating disorders. People always tell me that I am too thin. They tell me that I need to eat more but I am happy eating little and I am happy at my weight. So when is it a disorder? Allie obviously has world class doctors and trainers and coaches. She is a world class athlete. Did her eating become a disorder the day that she decided she wanted to gain weight? I imagine that her physicals resulted in her being in perfect health.

There's nothing wrong with talking about body weight/composition for a sport where these factors are obviously relevant for performance. Renato Canova has claimed that when Bekele ran his 2:01 marathon, he was in no better shape than usual and that the time savings came from his lower body weight.

I think it’s more prevalent with guys than you might think. I developed an eating disorder between track of junior year and XC of senior year. I noticed all of the super fast guys were 150-160 lbs at my height, and I was sitting around 170-175. I came up with the diet strategy of eating only when I’m painfully hungry, this came out to one moderate sized meal a day, and supplementing that with 50-60 mpw. It worked quite well for the first couple months, my body fat dropped and I ran a couple PRs. Then I started being constantly injured. I didn’t PR my senior XC season, until footlocker after I’d gotten things a bit under control.

I’m now a big believer that if you let your body’s instincts take control whilst running high mileage, it’ll mold into the shape it is most efficient for running. I eat when I’m hungry, and I eat what my body craves, whether it be protein, fat or carbs.

I feel so bad that Allie has had to deal with this for half of her life. It’s insanely stressful. Not only the not eating part, but when you eat you feel guilty, and at least for me I’d look visibly fatter every time I ate due to some kind of body dysmorphia.

I was never diagnosed with any sort of eating disorder, despite all of the signs being there. I was tired all of the time, constantly injured, and not performing up to par. Everyone just assumed I had lost motivation when it was really the opposite, I was sacrificing too much and it was costing me.

I hope she recovers. She is a huge inspiration to me.

I know we can get the running bug really badly, lean on it very hard if we are somewhat talented too, and maybe have other issues. However, Sometimes you have to admit you are too big to be a great distance runner and too slow to be a sprinter. Maybe you are not too big, but "just another good runner" in reality. I am(was) both, just another good runner a little too slow, 53 for 400M, and a little too big, 6'5 180-190 in great shape. Try to skip the self abuse of an eating disorder, and mileage too high for your talent/mechanics/ genetics, if possible. Not saying this applies to Allie , but it's at play here and there in the more average ability running population too.

Lots of non-runners go through this too. It seems lots of people with other addictions have an eating disorder underlying that they control with a substitute, smoking , coffee, alcohol, drugs.

Most the fat people do have eating disorders too.

When my son started running , I am glad he did not take it too seriously because he is just another good runner , a little too slow and a little too big. Take fitness and balance seriously, but don't go overboard for too long anyway.

An eating disorder is just what the names says...you are not eating right Low weight, injuries hormones issues is generally how it manifests itself, but not every thin athlete has an eating disorder. Some athletes are naturally / genetically thin, but when you see a female athlete getting smaller at a time when they should be getting bigger, something is not right. Shame on the coaches with the win at all cost attitude who should be able to clearly see something is not right. If you have been watching an athlete since high school and all through college and the athlete does not appear to have ever went through puberty, it is your job to question that.

TrackCoach wrote:

An eating disorder is just what the names says...you are not eating right

That's not true. An eating disorder should be defined as a perpetually obsessive focus on food intake to the point where it negatively impacts one's mental health and normal social life functioning. Emphasis on mental and social functioning. You can be eating a normal amount per your personal calorie requirements and still have a psychological disorder, or you can be severely restrictive and not have a psychological disorder.

For example, many Hollywood stars, such as Matthew McConaughy and Christian Bale, have gone to extreme measures to become underweight for roles in movies. That doesn't mean they had an eating disorder. Same with runners like Bekele, who've cut weight through calorie restriction in preparation for big races. Or underwear models who need to fit into small-sized bikinis for photo shoots. This is called doing the work required for your career. Sometimes work is unpleasant or hazardous: that's life. So long as you're able to balance your career and ambitions with normal, healthy connection to the community, there's no problem.

On the other hand, I've known people in real life who are normal- or overweight but have what I define as disordered eating. For example, one guy who used to be severely overweight, is still a little overweight, and is obsessive about "healthy" eating to the point where he won't go to a restaurant with friends if he hasn't seen the menu beforehand to verify that it has what he perceives as healthy options. He maintains a normal calorie intake per his moderately active life, but he can't bring himself to eat dessert or something like fried chicken. He'll pig out on what he perceives as low-cal, such as asparagus (cooked in butter and oil ...) or baked chicken (filled with hormones from Tyson corporation ...). I know several guys like this and I see it as disordered eating. One of those guys is overweight and only eats salads.