Read Life Without Limits, A for Free Online

sick everywhere, but on the whole I knew when to stop.
    Compared to that other type of vomiting that had been a feature of my life, it was nothing. The friend from home who had first told me about bulimia was now at university herself. She had come across an article on eating disorders as part of her degree. She knew I was still bulimic and she was concerned, so she sent me the article. In it she had underlined key sentences, warning of the short- and long- term effects – insomnia, psychological problems, digestive problems, dental, cardiac, dermatological and hormonal problems. It was a full-on illness. I was shaken by that, but also strangely reassured to know that it was a recognised condition that so many others suffered from. It raised big questions. In the same way as her own experimentation had first sown the seed in my mind, now my friend’s concern was bringing about the beginning of the end.
    But it was the second summer in Boston that proved the watershed for my bulimia. Gabriel and I came clean to each other over our obsessions and concerns about body image. I have no doubt that such conditions are so much more widespread than any of those sufferers realise, as they fight their own private battles. The truth is, you only really feel able to talk about it after you have been through it, never while it is actually happening. I have talked to so many friends since who have revealed that they suffered from the same thing.
    That summer of 1997, Gabriel and I had some very open and frank discussions about the pressures we were feeling, about the tyranny of body image. Talking to somebody about it proved a great relief, and gave me the confidence to find other ways of tackling my obsession. Thanks to the article my friend had sent me, I was now far less bulimic anyway, but in America I was eating more than I should, or at least more than I thought I should. This precipitated my going for a few runs in Boston. At the swimming pool, I was soon back into the sit-ups. The desire to make the most of my body was still driving me, but at least it was in healthier directions for now. It struck me suddenly and quite forcefully that bulimia was not only irrational and dangerous, it was also disgusting. The sore throats were debilitating, and my teeth were not benefiting at all.
    In my third year at university there was no bulimia. The rational side of me took over, as I realised what damage I was doing to myself. I started to put on a bit of weight, but most of all, emotionally I felt a huge weight lift. I was no longer constrained by this mental chokehold.
    Pressure is a necessary evil if you want to achieve. It brings with it great stress, but you deal with it, and the redemption comes when you achieve things as a result. It can also be debilitating though, on a day-to-day level, especially if its benefits are illusory. The trick is to understand which pressures are necessary and which ones are the dangerous decoys, the ones that suck the life out of you for no reward. In ridding myself of bulimia, I had identified one of those and cut it out. I wish I could say that I had beaten the emotional urge to push my body to extremes in search of some self-devised notion of perfection. That was to lie dormant for the time being. But, physically, I had beaten bulimia.
    The alleviation of the mental pressure was similar to when Brett Sutton started to coach me as a triathlete, nearly ten years later. He lobbied me incessantly to stop thinking and just to follow his orders without question, to trust that he knew what was best and to channel all my energies into the programme he had devised. Surrendering control like that was incredibly difficult for me to do, but when I did let go it felt the same way – like a weight being lifted.
    Mentally it is hard coping with the weight of expectation I put on myself. Mentally it is hard trying to be the best the whole time. And I don’t know who I’m trying to prove myself to. There is something