Cassandra Bodzak - Eat with Intention: Recipes and Meditations for a Life That Lights You Up

My acting girlfriends and me (second from the right) all dressed up for a prom scene on set.

After that, things shifted. My mind was constantly flooded with negative thoughts about my body, but I wasnt willing to jeopardize my health with any more sketchy pills. I may have been self-conscious and unhappy in my skin, but the incident in the shower made me realize that it was more important to be healthy and alive, than to have the body of a Victorias Secret model. My disordered eating behaviors went dormant for a few more years.

It wasnt until I was at the University of Connecticut getting my BFA in acting that those old, menacing insecurities returned. As you can imagine, it was an extremely competitive environment and there has always been a lot of pressure to be a certain size as an actress. I felt so out of control when it came to auditions. I felt like I couldnt make them like me. I couldnt make them cast me in something. I couldnt make them see that I was worth it. But what I could do was lose weight. If I made myself smaller, I would have a better shot at getting the parts. And once I started getting some parts and established myself, the opportunities would come more easily and I would become a successful actress after college.

I started working out and dieting again. I was going to the gym for a few hours every day and I would eat cereal with skim milk for breakfast, lettuce with fat-free ranch dressing for lunch, and whatever diet dinner was available in the dining hall. I was successful in my efforts and I began to lose weight. I started getting compliments, You lost so much weight! You look great. How are you doing it? It made me want to keep on going. Suffice to say, I had an unhealthy relationship with my body throughout most of college. A night of partying with pizza and wings meant hating myself and feeling waves of guilt, which I would offset with iceberg lettuce and apples the next day.

This behavior continued until my senior year, when I started to have terrible, debilitating stomach painsthey were like the worst menstrual cramps Id ever had. I stopped dieting, but that didn't make the pain go away. At the time, I had been taking dance classesI love dancingand I had to sit out constantly because the pain was so acute. A couple of weeks later, my teacher Ms. Jean pulled me aside and said, I dont think this is normal. You need to go to the infirmary and figure out whats going on.