Cycling Saved Me! My FULL Story.

i've been fortunate enough recently to share some of your stories of how you found cycling and how some of the toughest times in your life kind of led you towards cycling and you've just been so open and honest and vulnerable about those stories and your life and your life experiences that i realize that i've never really shared fully my full story of how i got into cycling and the reason i wanted to do it was to hopefully encourage any of you are going through anything similar or just having a bit of a rough time that you know it's not always going to be like that hopefully so yeah so starting off i should say actually that if you are triggered by anything to do with maybe eating disorders or anything along that then maybe don't watch this video um but yeah so to start off i think as a kid i always just felt like big i think i was always tall i just felt bigger than everybody else it was always something that was in my head so i think throughout that like my teens i don't think i actually was but i just felt felt it and so yeah as i got older it was always kind of something that i felt but didn't really worry about and then when i went to uni i as most people do uni just drink loads and just eat a lot of rubbish and i gained weight and i was like i wasn't really that happy with it and it got to a point i was like i need to do something about this so i ended up going to one of my friends had done like slimming worlds and she'd lost a lot of weight and i was like wow like if that's worked for you hopefully that'll work for me and it basically swims slimming world in the uk is like a club that you go to every week you get weighed and it's like a weight loss club and so i started doing that and i lost i don't know like maybe a stone so and a half and it was really good and then my weight slowed down and like i said the premise of it is that you would go to this club every week you would get weighed your weight would be marked down whether you've gained weight or lost weight and that sent me on a really downward spiral of focusing so much on what i weighed and yeah my weight kind of like plateaued a little bit and i was like no i need to keep losing weight and so i then just started getting really obsessed with it and i remember like so like where you got weight it was like on an evening and like the day that i got weighed i wouldn't eat anything all day because i was like no i want to weigh like less on the scale so it looks like i've lost weight and then i would just get home from that and then just like eat so much food because i'm not eating all day and that really did just start me off just getting into a really bad relationship with food and weight and so yeah that carried on for a while and i took up running because i was like running will help that'll help me lose weight i go into the gym every day and then it got to the point where i was running literally five miles every single day no matter what the weather was like um i was just obsessed i had to run like i had to like it was like this obsession that it wasn't that i enjoyed it really i did like it but it was more that i have to burn x amount of calories i know how many calories that burns and then i was like um restricting the calories my calories as well so i would set myself like 1500 calories a day and if i went over that it means that i would then have to restrict my calories from the days ahead so i'd have to take account like calories from like sunday if i'd eaten more on the thursday and the problem with that is i would restrict restrict restrict but then i would then be so hungry i'll just binge out on loads of food and i just used to feel really guilty about it and then i guess the worst of it came where i'd gone on holiday i got to disneyland with my boyfriend at the time and his family and i just panicked i wasn't excited about going to disneyland i was just panicking like how am i gonna manage this i can't track calories and do all this running and stuff while i'm on holiday with somebody else but i've got no control really of where we're eating and we got out to a restaurant really fancy a restaurant were eating this huge steak it was just this huge meal and i felt good i didn't want to eat it all but i felt guilty that they paid for it i want to eat it i just instantly i just felt sick i was like what have i done i want to get fat like it was just this obsession i don't really know where it stemmed from i just felt like if i'm a certain weight or look a certain way then people won't i don't know i just it just made me i don't know like they i don't know i can't really describe it i just felt like i had to do it and it was like a compulsion like i have to do this so anyway ah this was like the worst of it in the in this restaurant and i remember it so vividly going to the toilet and throwing it up and i'd never done it before and i couldn't do it very easily and it was just awful it was physically painful and mental i was just like like what am i doing like and anyway i went back out and they were like oh why have you been so long i was like oh let's do my makeup i just felt like then i had this secret like this like i can't believe what i've just done um but it made me feel better i was like oh well i've not got that food anymore that can't make me fat and so i then that carried on throughout that holiday for that two-week holiday and then when i got back it just kind of continued on and i it just made me very sneaky and i don't i don't i can't i wish i could explain like what it actually was that made me do it i just felt worthless i just felt and this is the thing the more i did it the worse i felt about myself like i felt just i hated i really hated myself like i hated everything i hated how i looked i hated that i was doing this i hated that it made me so anxious and i would it was just i was just this just not i was not the person that i wanted to be and that went on for a while and it would like this this whole thing of like calorie restriction then like all this like running i hate like it was like a punishment i would run to punish myself and i would throw up to punish myself and i would weigh myself every single day even at night and i'd want to weigh the same that i was at night that i was in the morning it's like that's not possible you can't when you've eaten all day like how can you do that and it just got worse and worse and worse and then um one weekend we'd gone to a wedding and there was a buffet and i i'd restricted and i was hungry and i was like no i'll just have a little bit off the buffet i said he ended up eating a lot and then i made myself i went to the toilets made myself sick and for anyone that's had an eating disorder it's like it's mentally tough but physically as well it's like i don't know which is worse because you're mentally you hate yourself and you're telling yourself like think of the worst thing you could say to somebody and that is what i was telling myself like just these awful things and and then the physical thing like your throat would be so sore from doing this so often and your stomach would hurt everything your eyes like you'd get headaches it was just awful and um and so yeah so at this wedding my boyfriend he was really the only one that knew what was happening because i guess from the outside no one could tell like i was just it looked like i was just running and i was losing weight and i guess they didn't see but i was just obsessive like writing everything down and um so yeah the next day after the wedding he was just like i can't do this anymore and so we broke up i then moved back to my parents and i was just like just so down and just felt awful and because i think it was because of the breakup then i was just like right i need to really sort this out because i knew i want i just didn't know how and so i was like i'll just start eating normally again it'll be fine and so then i just tried to eat normally again but i was just so angry so i was silly and just i just started eating junk so it's kind of like went from one one extreme to the other so i was like i'll show i'll i just didn't want anyone to kind of know what i was or what happened so i was like if i just eat normally around people no one will know that i've had an eating disorder or you know that that's what was happening and so um so yeah i was eating all this junk basically and then i gained quite a bit of weight and then because i gained the weight then i panicked and i was like oh my god i need to go back to what i was doing before to lose weight so it was just kind of this yo-yo thing and then my weight was just it just kept going on i couldn't i couldn't get rid of it and and so yeah then i ended up having counselling and i don't know i don't really know whether that helped for me um not really i just i don't know why i just didn't it just i just went and i was just trying to eat better but it was still like this battle and then i remember laying in bed looking on youtube how like how to lose weight healthily and then i saw this video by like this aussie guy you probably know him durianrider um and he was talking about how his girlfriend had had an eating disorder and how she'd overcome it by eating plant-based loads of fruits not restricting calories and how athletic she was she was a runner and at the time i was training to run a marathon and i was like so it helps athletic performance you can eat like pretty much what you want like just abundantly and you can still lose weight and i was like this is too good to be true and so i was like maybe i'll just give it a go so i started doing that and then i still did gain weight but i felt i don't know what it was i just felt a lot better like meant i think because i was giving myself like actual nourishment rather than like restricting and just eating like just such small amounts of things like i was eating the best that i'd eaten in such a long time mentally i felt better but my body was just like it was just ballooning and i was like oh my god what's happening i was like but i felt better and anyway long story short i ended up i just felt fed up at work i still even though i felt good because of my weight you know what it was i just wanted to escape like i wanted to run away because i didn't even though i felt better and i thought that this was the right thing and i think that i did think i would eventually lose weight i just felt embarrassed that everyone had seen me so slim i think at my lowest i was probably around nine stone i was like i'm like 5 10. um and they'd see me balloon i remember one person like at work saying oh you're asking me like basically saying that i was pregnant like oh when you do and i was like i'm not pregnant and i just remember like that devastated me and i was like i did that was what i wanted to i wanted to get away so i went traveling to australia and i was just like i can just get away and i can't it was almost like i'll just lose the weight when i'm there and i'll be fine no one will see me um and then when i was there i eventually actually met harley and i'd gone away actually with all this stuff i've gone about 28 kilos worth of stuff with me i've had like hair straighteners hair curlers fake tan fake hair like a million outfits like 28 kilo bag of stuff and i remember meeting harley and he was so nice to me and he um had said you know have you thought about getting a bike like that would really help you'd get fitter that would help your weight loss um and so i was like yeah potentially but then because i had this huge bag i was like i can't carry a bike with me traveling and this huge bag and so i remember staying up the night before all night like thinking right what am i going to do which am i going to make i'm going to be like the past version that's totally about everything that i look and like the clothes and the hair and all that stuff or am i going to go down this new path and then i decided i was like you know what i am going to get the bike so i ended up the bike shop with harley he helped pick the bike for me and buying the bike was a big decision because that was a lot of money i think it was like five or six hundred pounds but because i've been traveling that that was a huge chunk of my budget for that year away so it was a big decision and got this bike no idea how to ride it no idea how the gears worked and from then it was literally that moment it was i just felt like this switch change and it was like more about like fun like in the past exercise or like running it's always been about calorie burn i want to lose weight whereas the bike was like this is really fun like oh you can do social rides you don't have to kill yourself right running like five miles a day and then he'd said to me how he said you know try and ride hills like they will make you the fittest the fastest you will you know lose weight i still didn't want to lose all the excess weight that i got i think at the the max maximum weight i was was probably around i think a couple of maybe 100 kilos maybe just over i'd start weighing myself at that point i just don't want to know anymore and but because i felt so good i was like like meant i just felt so much better and happier and so i was like you know what i don't even care if the weight doesn't come off because i just feel so much better because i was eating properly again i was eating like loads of fruits i was eating loads of rice i was eating loads of pasta i was eating just like just good food and yeah i just started writing i was really slow like i was not fast it took me like i went up this climb norton summit and it took me a good two hours to get up it's like 5k i did it last year i think like 17 minutes 17 just over 17 minutes so this took me two hours to get up it but i was so determined but i really loved it i loved the adventure of the bike and from then on i started going on group rides and then i came home with the bike and i literally came home so i'd gone with this huge backpack full of like hair and makeup and all this stuff and i'd come back with literally a bike and this little backpack with like two pairs of leggings and a jumper and a t-shirt i'm literally so excited um i've just got the taxi and i'm walking back to my mom and dad to my bike i just felt like a completely even though i was still bigger and i was still heavy i just was mentally i was like just felt amazing and then from then i just started commuting a bit and then i guess the rest of it is all on youtube i started filming when i was in australia just when i bought the bike and so the decision to buy that bike was the best decision i have ever made ever it's completely changed my life it made me from literally the darkest time of my life to what i do now and i love this like i love that this is my life now like i love it i love riding bikes i love that i get to share my adventures with you and i think that's the main difference in that like i said like the running thing was a way to burn calories almost a ways of punishment and now cycling to me is just about having fun having adventures and getting myself fitter and getting from a point to a point and and then i guess my relationship with food now is just it's just so different like i see food now it's like nourishment i see it as fuel i see it as like this amazing thing to be enjoyed not this thing of like you've got to punish yourself for eating it and that came through the bike and i will just forever be grateful for that and for what that has done for me and yeah and then i guess you've seen like i guess over the years the weight just eventually came off i wasn't restricting and i guess i'm not actually that far weight wise away from what i was when i was actually restricted and doing all that awful stuff to my body because there was a lot of stuff in that that had to like heal i guess because i just messed my body around so much and yeah that's that's how cycling literally changed my life and now it's like my job and i just love it and i just it just makes me so happy and so i think sometimes one i guess the way i see it is you sometimes have to have the really rough times to kind of like propel you into to tell you something's wrong for one and to to help you find a happier path that's more aligned with you if that makes sense because that's the thing as well in the past i'd gone out and i didn't really like drinking but i did it anyway then when i bought the back i was like you know i don't want to drink anymore and then since then like i don't drink anymore like all my social circles now really are people that ride bikes and i want to be outdoorsy and are more like my kind of people do you know what i mean and so just hands down the best decision i ever made and i'm so grateful that i get to share i i always keep saying but i just am i'm so grateful i get to share it with you so i want to stop now because i've been chatting for a long time this was a long video but i just wanted to to share it because it's i'm just yeah i just feel like a different person from what i was and how bad i felt about myself so if you're struggling um in any way know that there is always a way out because i literally didn't think i would feel better like they were timely just like i'm gonna feel like this for the rest of my life like i can't see how i'm going to feel better but you do and so i want to leave a couple of links to different people that you can speak to because there's always someone that you can speak to even if you want to just message me on instagram or you know leave a comment or yeah if you if you do want any help i can try um but i really hope you this has helped you in some way and i always felt like even if that was the whole point i made my youtube channel to be honest my first ever video is about getting over an eating disorder and if i've helped one person then it's 100 worth me starting the youtube channel so thank you so much for watching and yeah i guess i will see you next video you

Channel: Katie Kookaburra

Views: 154,220

Keywords: cyclist, carbs, weight, loss, gain, cycling, kits, high, carb, low, fat, get, healthy, easy, fast, cannondale, giant, liv, avail, carbon, female, training, hills, climb, how, to, tips, GCN, show, canyon, dolan, ribble, endurance

Id: Z-lCDyJKsa0

Length: 19min 19sec (1159 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 08 2021