Like many teenage girls who are pressured by society, Laura Payne from Texas was anorexic by the time she was 16. She claims a bad breakup threw her into the disease.
“It starts out because you think you are too fat or someone thinks you’re ugly,” Laura told the Daily Mail.
She went to college, and things only got worse—exposed to as much food as she could get her hands on, and a student gym, she developed exercising bulimia.
“I also had a compulsion to over-exercise so I would spend hours on the treadmill each day to make sure I was burning off many more calories than I was consuming.”
At one point, her parents intervened, forcing her to leave school and move in with them. Then they discovered how bad it had really gotten.
“My parents were terrified but there was nothing they could do. There was nothing anybody could do.”
But now, she’s 33, and she’s a bodybuilder. And she owes it all to her husband.
Laura met Jason in 2008. He was a bodybuilder, and she started to attend the gym regularly with him.
Now, she eats 2,000 calories per day to keep up her physique, and she believes that training saved her life.
The struggle is not over though, as her and her husband are both aware.
“I lived off frozen grapes and animal crackers,” says Laura. “I am alright now, but it isn’t gone. I constantly think about food and I am constantly worried about how I look.”
Her husband admits that he doesn’t fully understand her condition.
“It’s taken a lot of patience to get her where we are today,” says Jason. “It can be frustrating as I have to push her to eat out and enjoy food.”
Laura also worries for her daughter, Kylee.
“When I found out I was pregnant I just did not want it to be a girl. If I found out she had developed similar problems it would break my heart because I would feel responsible.
“After this competition season I gained weight fast and I just broke down in front of her.”
But Laura is committed to her fight.
“My eating disorders are always there at the back of my mind—I’ve just got to keep focused on my bodybuilding to ensure I never relapse.”
