I was so scared of food and gym-obsessed, I was infertile

A former bodybuilder has shared her harrowing story of infertility, which was brought on by an unhealthy obsession with food and exercise that was so severe, she stopped menstruating.

Nicola Chan, 39, developed non-purging bulimia in her teens, caught in a vicious cycle of binging on food and then excessively working out to burn it off, with her eating disorder escalating as she got older.

The Liverpool, England, native described being afraid to keep food in the fridge and often hitting the gym until her body ached. She even started to teach classes in different gyms to hide how much exercise she was doing.

However, when Chan — who now has two daughters aged 23 and 10 — got into bodybuilding, she realized she needed help. That’s when she developed a condition known as hypothalamic amenorrhea, which resulted in her becoming temporarily infertile and not menstruating for years.

“I would spend 95% of my brain [power] hating myself, focused on my food and exercising,” she told Jam Press, detailing her eldest daughter’s recollection of the impact her eating disorder had on the family.

“My eldest now tells me about her childhood of having no food in the fridge and I feel bad, but back then I couldn’t cope,” she explained. “I feared if the fridge was full of nice food, I’d eat it all.

“This is ‘last supper mentality’ — if you are deprived of something when you get it, you end up eating more of it than if you were allowed to have it all the time.”

The mom, who shares her body confidence tidbits on Instagram under @body_confidence22, admits sometimes she didn’t want to give up hating her body because it fueled her motivation to work out.

“I also feared that if I stopped, I would become lazy,” she said. “If I didn’t like my arms I would pinch the fat, feel terrible and then say: ‘Right that’s it, let’s go to the gym.’ “

However, Chan’s obsession led her to extreme lows — which came to a head when she was struggling to get pregnant.

“My lowest point was probably when I was infertile — I felt empty, like I wasn’t a real woman because I couldn’t conceive a child,” she said, adding she was going through IVF but the doctors weren’t picking up on the fact that she needed to do less exercise and eat more food.

When she eventually got pregnant, Chan stopped exercising as much but said when she took up bodybuilding in 2015 after having her child, she fell down a slippery slope.

“I had already had my child, so I was a ‘normal’ weight, but I still didn’t like my body,” she explained, saying she thought she might learn to like her body.

“I only meant to do one show, which I won, but this then led to another few shows, so I stayed lean for so long,” Chan continued. “It’s recommended that after a period of 12 weeks, you should return to your ‘normal’ body and eating — but I enjoyed being that thin.”

Chan said her brain was running on “such little fuel,” that she wasn’t seeing how she looked and the lines of perfection moved.

Chan said there are “many factors” that contributed to her control and body image issues, but said they were triggered when she was sexually assaulted and raped as a teenager.

She also says that ’90s diet culture and her mother’s diet and exercise habits played a part in her obsession.

“Like most women in the ’90s, the beauty ideal was to be thin with adverts for shakes, to slim down or workout videos where women were always very skinny,” she said.

“All of this sent me subliminal messages that there was only one way to be a woman, and that women needed to be attractive to be accepted and successful.”

However, Chan decided to end the vicious cycle of food and exercise abuse and train as a qualified NLP body positivity coach in 2018.

“Being an all-or-nothing type A character, I was always good at the extreme — so I went extreme with my recovery,” she said, saying her options were either going back into another bodybuilding show or healing her body image.

“I was inspired by all the coaches I had wanted to become and help others get out of pain too,” she said. “Since starting this personal development journey, I realized that much of my shame and dislike for myself was due to past trauma.”

Chan said once she discovered the body-positive community, she threw herself into that world, starting her company Wai-Shee coaching, where she helps people through courses on confidence and personal training classes.

“I want to be that voice that I was once looking for,” she said. “I promise you, you are not alone, there is help out there and you can find peace in your body and restore your relationship with food.

“I believe every woman has the right to feel confident in her body no matter what shape or size she is.”

If you or someone you love is struggling with an eating disorder, you can get help. Call the National Eating Disorder Association helpline at (800) 931-2237 or visit nationaleatingdisorders.org.