Learning to Live in My Body Again.

By Lisa Fiore | IG: @lisakfiore

Awareness, not perfection.

My story doesn’t start with food.
It starts with movement.
In high school, I was an athlete. From the outside, it looked like dedication. Discipline. Drive. Inside, it was anxiety looking for somewhere to land.
At sixteen, compulsive exercise became my language. I was at the gym before school, and then again after, sometimes for hours. Around that time, I started experimenting with purging. I didn’t binge, so technically I didn’t “fit” the definition of bulimia nervosa and I was quietly proud of that. In my mind, it meant I had more self-control.
More control than who?
I couldn’t tell you.
But eating disorders are competitive, and I truly believed I was doing it “better” than someone else. Saying that out loud is hard but it’s true.
What started as control quickly became a war.
A twenty-year war inside my head, and an all-out assault on my body.
In college, the behaviors escalated. Long-distance running. Marathons. Weeks of surviving on an apple a day while studying for exams. Four-thirty-in-the-morning gym sessions. Five-hundred-calorie diets. Secret B-12 shots to speed up my metabolism. Nights in the emergency room because I couldn’t stop throwing up blood.
There were failed attempts at treatment attempts I didn’t follow through on, because letting go felt more terrifying than staying sick.
And yet, athletics also saved me.
Movement was where my anxiety first hid but eventually, it became one of the places I learned how to heal. Not all at once. Not cleanly. But slowly.
Early in recovery, my body spoke loudly. If I thought about food, I would sweat. My skin would crawl. My instinct was to exercise but exercise wasn’t always safe for me then. I had to learn new tools.
One of them was distraction.
In college, I found refuge in a quirky little place called The Beehive in Oakland a coffee shop with a movie theater and couches instead of seats. I’d go alone, sink into a film, and let my mind rest somewhere other than food, numbers, or shame.
Distraction wasn’t avoidance.
It was survival.
Over time, something began to shift.
I stopped using movement as punishment and started using it as connection. I learned to move my body to feel strong not to burn calories. I learned to eat to fuel myself, not to disappear. I began talking to myself with kindness instead of cruelty.
Recovery wasn’t linear. It still isn’t.
I’m now 52 years old, and I live in a body that has carried me through decades of fighting and decades of healing. I’m more accepting of myself than I’ve ever been, but I remain aware. I know that lack of sleep can pull my brain into dark places. Stress is still a trigger. Doctor’s appointments can still send me spiraling especially when a scale is involved.
I’ve learned how to advocate for myself. I’ve learned how to say no. I’ve learned how to pause instead of cancel, breathe instead of bolt, and write instead of run.
The nightmares, the ones where all my teeth fall out and my gums bleed, have mostly been replaced by dreams of my family, time in the woods, professional goals, and my next adventure. The terror of eating in public, the hot sweats, the need to escape they’ve all but disappeared.
Now I face new challenges. Aging. Weight gain. A body that changes again.
And this time, my brain is winning.
I talk to myself kindly. I refuse to place my worth in my size or shape. I remind myself that every stage of life brings new tests and that I already have the tools to meet them.
That’s why I speak out.
Because silence and shame thrive in isolation. And I was recently reminded, by a young woman fighting to end her own struggle, that telling our stories matters.
Especially during Eating Disorder Awareness Week.
Especially during the holidays.
Especially in a world obsessed with perfection.
So here’s what I ask:
Be aware. Not perfect.
Don’t comment on bodies.
Don’t police plates.
Don’t force food.
Understand that irritability might be fear.
That someone next to you may be fighting a battle every single time they decide what, or whether, to eat.
Awareness is kindness.
And kindness saves lives.
Athletics once helped me hide.
Later, they helped me heal.
And today, I stand strong, not because I’m perfect, but because I’m aware.
To anyone listening who is still in the thick of it:
You are not weak.
You are not failing.
And you are not alone.
Recovery is possible,
one moment, one choice,
one small act of self-compassion at a time.