Bryan Bixler is dying.
He feels it in his bones a little more each day, as if passing the mirror in his Laguna Beach, Calif., apartment and glancing at himself isn't evidence enough.
Here's what greets him: sunken eyes, paper-thin arms and legs that hang like a puppet's, the slow-motion gait that he fears will define his movements for the rest of his days. What happened, he wonders, to that young man who once ran half-marathons?
It's all so crazy. That's what he tells himself. Dying a bit more every day and knowing how to fix it, but being unable to do it. Knowing that if he would just start eating like a normal person he'd give himself a fighting chance.
But he's not a normal person, not anymore. Not at 5 feet 9 inches and 82 pounds. Not when he's got a master's degree and knows how the body works and yet can't make himself fix spaghetti or drink a chocolate malt.
Bixler is 39 and anorexic, suffering from an eating disorder traditionally associated with young women but which generally has been thought to include a 5-10 percent male component. In recent years, however, some researchers suggest that figure might be approaching 15 percent.
He doesn't remember a day or week or month that he turned the corner and inexorably headed down the path to anorexia nervosa, but he and family members think it was a slow-moving journey that started in his teens. He remembers those years as a time when his parents went through a difficult divorce and he simultaneously was caught up in the fitness craze and bent on avoiding junk food.
"I was Mr. Healthy," he says. "I was a vegetarian, I wanted to be a runner. Before I knew it, I lost weight without realizing it."
As he moved through his 20s, the disorder plunged him into what he calls "the vortex," a swirling downward spiral of weight loss and a deepening inability to reverse course.
Read the rest here.
“You can sit there. The doctor will be right with you.” The nurse gestured me to the waiting room. Come on, do I really need to be here? I’m not sick enough to be here.
“Jane! The doctor will see you now.”
Great … The office door closed behind me.
Let me explain how I got here. I’m a dancer. I’ve always had problems with my weight. I was never fat, just chunky. I always felt self-conscious in my leotard. I think that’s what triggered it. One day, at the end of freshman year, I told myself I was going to stop eating and get skinny. So that night I skipped dinner. And that’s how it started. I would skip meals or throw them away. I drank a lot of water and ran on the track at school during lunch.
It felt so good to see the pounds melt away from my body. I was invincible. But in reality, I was ignoring the symptoms I was feeling. I was light-headed, dizzy, cold, and tired. By now it was May, and I was always absolutely freezing in school. I wore two sweatshirts and was still chilled. But I was losing weight and that was all that mattered to me. People were noticing too. All of my friends told me how great I looked. It was such positive reinforcement. Only they didn’t know that I wasn’t just exercising – I was starving myself.
My parents started noticing when I was at the point of no return – the point where I couldn’t go back to regular eating. They said I was getting too skinny and needed to stop. They took away my gym membership, like that would make me stop. In fact, I started eating even less because I couldn’t work it off. I was so preoccupied with my weight and calories that I avoided my friends. I would never go out to dinner with anyone. The friends I still talked to were annoyed with me because all I would talk about was dieting.
School ended, and I went to summer camp. It was perfect. I didn’t have my mother monitoring how much I ate, so I did what I wanted. I didn’t eat much, and when I did eat, I had salads. No dressing. When the two weeks were up and my mom came to get me, she was shocked at my appearance. I was skin and bones. You could see my back bones through my skin. I was so proud of myself, but this was the last straw for my mom. She made an appointment with a doctor.
At that first appointment, I weighed 104. My mom was shocked and angry with me. I had lost 21 pounds in a month and a half. My doctor went on and on about how my weight was too low for my height – like I cared. I loved to hear that. By this time I was sick. I had anorexia.
I spent the next few weeks doing exactly what I had been doing – not eating and lying about food. Then it was my first day of summer dance classes. I hadn’t danced for about two months. The first thing my teacher said was, “Jane, you’re looking very thin. Are you eating enough?” It was a serious question, but I smiled and nodded yes. I was so proud of myself. A week into dance class, my teachers asked to talk to my mom and me. They told me I looked very unhealthy and that they didn’t want anything to happen to me. This meeting made my mom cry. I hated that. My mom made another doctor’s appointment for me.
At the appointment, I weighed 99 pounds. I had lost another five pounds. I tried to hide the smile on my face. But this time, they took my vitals. My temperature and blood pressure were both low. My heart rate was low. My body was starting to shut down. I knew this too. Now I had to have weekly doctor’s appointments to make sure I wasn’t dying.
I lost more weight. I was 94 pounds, and I had never been happier with myself. My mom set up weekly counseling sessions with the school social worker. The counseling did help. We found out why I was doing this. It really had nothing to do with food; I needed control.
What really hit me, though, was when one of my friends said she didn’t want to be my friend anymore. That way, she explained, when I die, it won’t hurt her as much because it wouldn’t be her best friend who had died. That got to me. Then another friend said, “You will die if you keep going.”
Hearing my friends say this changed me. Slowly but surely I started to gain some weight back. Let me tell you, it wasn’t easy. I hated stepping onto the scale and seeing 100 again, and then 105. All that hard work was being ruined. My favorite feeling used to be my stomach growling. But I had to let it go. I didn’t want to lose everything I had.
I started gaining weight and people starting telling me how beautiful I looked. So I became healthy again, and my vital signs improved. This made everyone happy. My mom was happier, my friends, my doctors. I’m still recovering, but now I know I need to stay healthy for everyone who loves me. But most importantly, I need to stay healthy for myself.
Emma adored her father but his constant gorging drove her to stop eating - and nearly killed her.
Next week, the BBC3 series Born Survivors chronicles the story of an anorexic 15-year-old, Emma Stevenson, whose eating disorder stemmed from her relationship with her overweight father, 40-year-old Grant, who, at his heaviest, weighed 22-and-a-half stone.
An only child, Emma lives in Heysham near Lancaster with her father, a contract manager, and her mother, Christine, 48, an accounts administrator. Here, Emma and Grant tell Diana Appleyard how they both faced their demons. GRANT SAYS:
One of the most moving moments for me was returning home from a BUPA health screening for my job a year and a half ago. I've developed this persona as a big, jovial chap who laughs at everything. Jokingly, I said to my wife and daughter, 'Apparently I might be dead by 50 if I carry on at this size.'
Emma became anorexic after her father's obesity scared her into stopping eating Emma went as white as a sheet, and immediately I wished I hadn't said it. At that point, I suddenly realised the hell I was putting my family through, and I could no longer pretend there wasn't anything wrong with my weight.
I've always been big - I was ten stone at the age of 12, and both my father and grandfather were very overweight. I'm six foot one, and the weight is fairly evenly distributed, so I felt I could carry it off.
But, because of Emma, I got involved with the eating disorders charity Caring Whispers, and took part in their therapy programme, which, over the past five months, has made me realise how badly I was in denial.
It also helped me face my demons. I now understand why I have eaten so much all my life. My mother died when I was just five. My father sold our house and we went to live with his parents.
They were very prim, very Victorian, and they showed no affection. Nobody hugged me. I was a lonely boy, and at mealtimes my grandmother, who cooked stodgy food, always with a pudding, sternly insisted I eat everything on my plate.
I'd also gorge on fatty snacks like crisps and chocolate - food became my comfort, feeling full up my way of feeling loved.
I now realise that at any sign of mental pressure, I would turn to food. Anything stressful would trigger a food binge. When I met Christine I was around 14st. But then my job became more and more stressful, and I turned increasingly to food.
Grant, 40, has lost three stone thanks to healthy eating
I hid my bingeing from Christine - I'd stop off at a garage on the way home and eat three chocolate bars. I love food and wine, and at the weekends I would make the family meals - but I'd eat almost an entire meal in the preparation. Then I'd sit down with what looked like a normal portion, and I used to say, 'How come I'm so big when I eat normally?'
When Emma was born I was determined to lavish my child with everything I never had. Emma and I were very close, always hugging and cuddling each other. But, once she became a teenager, that started to change. She got a boyfriend, and I hated that - I felt as if I was losing her.
She used to spend ages in her bedroom with him, and even ate her meals up there. I think I might have smothered her a bit; I wanted to be with her all the time. When she was a child I made sure my weight didn't stop us swimming together, playing and running about in the park. Then, I don't think she even noticed my weight. But, once she became a teenager, it became a different matter.
Not only did she start to withdraw from me, she became much more critical. Along with Christine, she'd say, 'Please, dad. We're worried about you. You keep getting breathless. It isn't healthy to be so fat.'
In my arrogance of denying I had a problem, I didn't even notice that Emma was picking at her food. It really hit me last year, when we were on holiday in Egypt. We'd taken her friend Emily with us, and she was always the skinny one.
Then I saw Emma from the back, sitting in her bikini with her legs in the pool. You could count every notch of her spine. As the dad of a teenage girl you don't often see them without clothes. I was horrified, but even then I didn't make the link - I couldn't see that my obesity had affected her relationship with food.
I had tried to diet in the past - crazy diets consisting of eating just cottage cheese - and once I managed to lose two stone, but I couldn't live like that. At my heaviest, I could barely get through the day. I was exhausted all the time, and I'd get home from work late at 10pm, eat a heavy meal, and then fall into bed.
Christine had been trying to get help from our GP for Emma, but had been told that she wasn't skinny enough to get help on the NHS. We would have to pay for an eating disorder clinic, and the prices were prohibitive. But, thanks to her tenacity, she got Emma into Caring Whispers, and they suggested I might like some counselling. I was astonished at first, but slowly it dawned on me that Emma's eating disorder was linked to mine.
Finally, I had to stop denying I had a problem. The counsellor made me keep a Food and Mood diary, and for the first time I realised how much I relied on food to take away my worries.
It wasn't about the food, it was about my own insecurity. There was no miracle diet, just healthy portions of vegetables and protein, cutting down on the carbohydrates and, most important of all, introducing me to a personal trainer, Matt, who gives me two one-hour sessions a week.
I absolutely love it, running and going to the gym. I have been losing between two to three pounds a week, and have now got down to below 19st, with a target weight of 17st. I don't stand on the scales obsessively - I can just tell by how my clothes fit. I've thrown out all the 'fat' clothes, and that was such a thrill. Before, XXL didn't even fit me. Emma is proud of me, and I am proud of her, too, for the way she has fought her anorexia. I didn't think of myself as a selfish person, but I can see now that I have been utterly selfish. I thought I was giving her everything as a father, but all I was doing was making her feel anxious. Now we are planning swimming and gym sessions together. When I think back to her saying to me, 'I need you to be here to give me away at my wedding, Dad. I want you to be grandfather to my children', it almost makes me want to cry.
Family counselling helped Emma and Grant to overcome their disorders
EMMA SAYS:I'll never forget the sight of finding Dad with his head buried in the fridge. He was making a sandwich and, as he did so, he was stuffing slices of ham into his mouth. I love my Dad so much, but it was repulsive. Overeating made me feel sick - the last thing I ever wanted to be was as fat as him.
I've always been aware that my dad was big. When we went swimming, I was conscious of the fact that he was bigger than everyone else's father. I never said anything, though, as he was such a lovely dad. Then, when he had a health check, I realised that it was more serious than I'd imagined: his weight could actually kill him.
I wanted him at my wedding; I wanted him to be a grandfather - and yet, selfishly, he was continuing to eat all this stodge. He said he loved me, but how could he? Perhaps he couldn't love me that much if he loved food more.
When I became a teenager, both Mum and I used to get on to him about his weight, but he'd just laugh it off and say it wasn't a problem. I would sit at meals and think, 'How can anyone want to eat so much food?'
I think my anorexia began in 2006, when we were on holiday in Sri Lanka and I caught a tummy bug. I lost a lot of weight, and I liked the feeling of being very empty and the weight falling off me. I'd never been plump, and I enjoyed the way my body looked, being thin.
Watching Dad eat so much had made me quite a picky eater anyway, and it was easy to push food around my plate and pretend I was eating.
All that year, I began to skip breakfast, saying I'd eat a cereal bar on the way to school. Then I'd skip school lunch, too, but tell Mum I was having it. I'd try to eat a small meal in the evening, and say I was full up from lunch.
Mum noticed, though, and took me to see our GP. But I was told I wasn't skinny enough to get help, so in a way that just reassured me that I was fine.
At school, I would see that large people got picked on. Being skinny was cool. It was my way of controlling my life, too. I had a boyfriend, and if we had a row, I could just not eat. If I was happy, I'd eat a little, but if I was sad I would starve myself.
But I was beginning to feel very weak. I passed out doing P.E. at school, but just said it was the stress of exams. Mum was by now really worried about me, and managed to get me into Caring Whispers' weekly therapy session.
For the first time I was made to confront my relationship with food, and realise how much of an effect my Dad's obesity had on me, and that I was actually killing myself by starving my body.
It's been hard to start eating again, but I feel so much better in myself. I've put on 12lb and my target weight is eight and a half stone. I have so much more energy, and my friends say I look much prettier, and their support means a lot to me.
Best of all, my relationship with my dad is so much better. We're having family counselling too, and I can see how hard it was for him to accept me growing up and that I don't always want to be with him. But we're going to do much fun stuff together. We've always been close, but now we are so much closer and I am so proud of his determination.
Born Survivors: My 22 Stone Dad And Skinny Me, BBC3, Monday, 10.30pm.