“In order to move on from the past and truly heal, I needed to share my story in order to help others who may be in the same situation.”
Fitness blogger and star of Blogilates, Cassey Ho, is known for her high-energy, empowering workouts and strong, toned physique.
She is an inspiration for thousands looking to be the best they can be, but this week she opened up about a struggle from her past that until now, she has kept secret.
In a candid blog post, the fitness guru revealed that she once struggled with an eating disorder, and didn’t always champion the “strong not skinny” message she upholds today.
She explained that her unhealthy relationship with food started after a bodybuilding coach put her on an extreme diet for a competition.
She wrote: “I was at 1000 calories a day.
“It was tough for me to get creative. I wasn’t designing. I wasn’t drawing. It was tough for me to even blog.”
She was even chastised for eating lettuce in the run-up to the competition.
Although she didn’t win on the day, she rewarded herself for her hard work by eating a slice of cheesecake.
She continued: “I cramped so hard and had to curl into fetal position in the car for a couple hours before I could walk again.
“My stomach wasn’t ready. I cried. It had been starved for so long that it didn’t know how to react to cheesecake.
This is where her fear of unhealthy food began:
“I kid you not, I was afraid of apples. I didn’t want to have anything to do with any type of fruit because I thought they had too many carbs and sugars.
“I thought they would make me fat. And I couldn’t even fathom having grains. Grains meant fatness guaranteed.”
When she finished with her restrictive diet, Instagram users began noticing that she was gaining weight, asking her why, and fuelling her obsession even further.
She developed orthorexia, an obsession with clean eating, and suffered for a year before she decided something needed to change.
By eating the foods that made her feel good, coupled with her strengthening exercises and focusing on the word “strength” instead of “skinny”, she slowly recovered and now feels ready to share her story.
She told The Metro: “My past disordered eating experiences have been difficult for me to share because I didn’t want to admit to myself that I had an issue.
“Four years later, I decided that in order to move on from the past and truly heal, I needed to share my story in order to help others who may be in the same situation.”
She offered advice to those going through a similar thing:
“The most important thing is to refocus your energy and ask yourself what your goals REALLY are.
“If your goals are to be “skinny” – then ask yourself if you’d rather be STRONG. If you work towards strong, the leanness will come anyway.”
