Shreen El Masry - Be You Be Free

Your 12-Step Body Positivity Plan

Be You Be Free

Shreen El Masry

BE YOU BE FREE

First published in Australia in 2022 by

Simon & Schuster (Australia) Pty Limited

Suite 19A, Level 1, Building C, 450 Miller Street, Cammeray, NSW 2062

Sydney New York London Toronto New Delhi

Visit our website at www.simonandschuster.com.au

Shreen El Masry 2022

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 9781761103056

ISBN: 9781761103063 (eBook)

Project editor: Alix Nicholson

Cover and internal design: Meng Koach

Cover and internal illustrations: Kevin Hetebry

Cover design: Meng Koach

Illustration: Kevin Hetebry

For my son, Bryn. You are the best thing to ever happen to me. I love you so much.

And for everyone who has had their joy stolen by dieting.

I f you had a genie in a lamp, what would you wish for? My primary school teacher asked me this question just before we started rehearsals for our school play, Aladdin.

To be skinny! I shouted, before running off with my friends to the changing room. I was seven years old. And I believed that being skinny would bring me all the things I thought I needed to become a successful woman in the world: a husband, an amazing career, great friends, money, travel and happiness.

This memory came back to me when I was sitting in my counsellors office in 2012. She had just told me that she would hospitalise me for my eating disorder if I didnt get better. You cant do that, I said, horrified. Im 27 years old and I am from the UK. You have no right.

Yes, I can, she replied matter-of-factly. I will section you under the Mental Health Act.

As I sat there on the couch in her office and my genie-in-a-lamp memory came back to me, I realised that I had, in fact, already achieved all of the things I once thought being skinny would bring me and I had done so before I went on the diet that eventually led to me developing an eating disorder. But the irony was, I was about to lose all those things

I went on my first diet at 13 years old. I had just been to see the movie Theres Something About Mary, starring Cameron Diaz. Her character, Mary, was my seven-year-old genie-dream skinny, beautiful, tall, blonde, successful, kind and popular. Everyone in the movie was in love with her. There I was, short with brown hair and brown skin, and what I believed to be a bit chubby or chunky, as my older brothers used to tease me. As soon as the movie finished, I ran straight to the chemist to buy diet shakes. And that is where it began: the war with my body that lasted nearly two decades.

When I was 14, my biological dad told me that I needed to lose weight. He would force me to go down to the gym with his very glamorous and beautiful Russian bride. At 15, on my last family holiday to Spain, I spent the whole trip avoiding being photographed and refusing to wear a bikini as I didnt think my body was good enough. When I was 17, my older brother told me not to eat so much so that I would look good in photos Id take on my upcoming trip around the world. At 23, when I was standing in the changing room being measured for a bridesmaid dress, I was body shamed because they didnt stock my size in store. When I was 24, I was weight shamed by an Australian doctor who told me I had better lose weight if I wanted to get my visa to live in Australia.

I tried diet after diet after diet, and I would lose the weight, but then

I would gain it all back and end up heavier than I was before.

After being body shamed most of my life and then moving to Australia, I began a diet that would lead to me developing an eating disorder. This diet was different from all the others I had been on before. This time, it wasnt shakes and diet foods. It was a calorie-counting app. This app told me that I could eat whatever I wanted as long as I didnt go over my calories for the day, and that I could even earn more calories by exercising.

I lost a lot of weight incredibly fast. More than ever before. I thought it was all my dreams come true; that I had finally found the diet that worked. Thats when the compliments started.

You look amazing, Shreen!

How did you do it?

Whats your secret? Please tell me!

I felt respected and I felt accepted for the first time in my life. That was, until the weight started to come back just like with every other diet. But rather than giving up like I had done previously, I started to restrict my calories even more and I began exercising excessively every day in an attempt to maintain my weight loss.

Thats when things got really bad.

I stopped going around to my friends houses for dinner because I was too afraid to eat anything if I didnt know the exact number of calories Id be consuming. I was hiding in the toilets and vomiting after client lunches at work. I was sneaking out of parties so I could go home and binge. I spent the weekend of my 11-year anniversary over the toilet with my fingers down my throat.

Then there were the really dark days, when my partner, Josh, would come home and find me slumped on the floor crying. The days I fantasised about falling off the cliff as I ran along its edge and the days when I would stare out the window at night looking at the stars, tears gently falling down my cheeks as I silently prayed that I wouldnt wake up in the morning.

Once the horse has bolted, there is no going back.

My counsellor said these words to me in our very first session. She was talking about my eating disorder and she was right. That horse was ready to bolt and if I didnt do something right there and then, I might never be able to get it under control. So I tried to get better but all I did was get worse. Thats when she gave me the ultimatum: get better, or Im sectioning you.

It was terrifying, but it was the turning point I needed the real threat that my eating disorder would destroy me completely. It had already taken so much of me and I couldnt let it have any more or it would have all of me. I threw myself into recovery and I learnt as much as I could about health and wellbeing. I discovered the truth about dieting and what health actually is; that it is so much more complex than just food and exercise (Ill explain this shortly).

It was also where I found intuitive eating, Health at Every Size and the amazing non-diet community full of people just like me, with stories like mine. It was liberating to know I wasnt alone and that there was another way one that didnt involve a lifetime of dieting.

I fell down a lot. I nearly gave up many times and I even got sucked into a few its not a diet, its a lifestyle diets on the way (more on this later). But I picked myself up and I kept going until I made a full recovery.