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“Just one more minute,” I told myself. Sixty seconds later, “c’mon, you can do one more.” Forty-five minutes later, dripping in sweat and muscles burning, I stumbled off the elliptical machine, looking proudly at my wrist to see the number displayed on my heart rate monitor: 550. Five hundred and fifty more calories I was allowed to eat that day.

Living with an eating disorder is rarely obvious. Case in point: I have never been skeletally thin, starved myself or forced myself to purge. However, I have spent the greater part of three years meticulously tracking every gram of food and ounce of liquid entering my body and recording every calorie burned.

I thought this was what was required to be fit, healthy, and thin. What I didn’t realize was that I would lose myself in the process: turning down plans with friends for fear of not having access to “healthy options” and consistently choosing calories burned over memories made. I obsessed more about how I looked than what kind of character I was developing.

I’m recovering now. I haven’t tracked a single meal for over four months, and I exercise for fun, not punishment. However, disordered thoughts are hard to shake. Recognizing that sometimes my body needs sleep more than an intense workout causes me anxiety. Taking bites unassociated with a caloric number is a struggle. I won’t stop working toward recovery, though. Regaining normalcy, and with it my life, is worth the effort.

CanadianWolf wrote:In my opinion, this writing will not help your application to YLS. To be blunt, it does not put you in a positive light , and it is not an interesting topic.

mrgstephe wrote:Seems more suited for a diversity statement, but even then, I would never write about an eating disorder for a diversity statement.

In my mind the Yale 250 is more of a showcase of your writing abilities, and this reads more like a run of the mill blog post.

Also definitely thought this was going to be about erectile dysfunction when I opened it hoping for a laugh. I did not find said laugh

throwaway92 wrote:

mrgstephe wrote:Seems more suited for a diversity statement, but even then, I would never write about an eating disorder for a diversity statement.

In my mind the Yale 250 is more of a showcase of your writing abilities, and this reads more like a run of the mill blog post.

Also definitely thought this was going to be about erectile dysfunction when I opened it hoping for a laugh. I did not find said laugh

well, you successfully made ME laugh because I didn't even think before posting that ED usually refers to something other than what I was writing about

anyway, thanks for your feedback. based on my two responses so far, I think I'll probably scrap it and start over. but since this was only the first draft, I'm not too worried (and quite honestly expected it)

“Just one more minute,” I told myself. Sixty seconds later, “c’mon, you can do one more.”