How Running Saved My Life: Going Beyond Physical Transformation

What if the toughest run of your life wasn't a marathon, but a personal journey of transformation? That's precisely the epic saga of my life as a former fashion model turned competitive runner. In this episode I uncover my struggle with disordered eating and alcohol abuse, and how I used running as a life-saving tool. My journey is a stark reminder that real success is not always reflected in glossy magazine covers but often lies hidden in the strenuous run of life.

My transformational journey is a testament to the power of human spirit and discipline. Come with my as I navigate through the challenging world of fashion modeling, battles her self-destructive habits, and discovers her salvation in running. My story navigates beyond physical transformation, delving into mental resilience and the art of setting goals. As I share valuable insights on living a healthy lifestyle and the transformative power of running, you'll be inspired and motivated to embark on your own journey towards a healthier, more fulfilling life. 

INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/luciebeatrix/

Transcript

Running for Healing and Transformation

Speaker 1 0:00

Running saved my life . Running helped me heal from an eating disorder , recover from alcoholism and find a sense of purpose . My name is Lucy and I'm a runner . I was a fashion model for over a decade , and this is my story on how I used running as a tool to start over and basically take control of my life and live a more fulfilling life . So let's go back . I started modeling when I was 16 years old . I signed with a big agency and I started traveling right away to work in a highly competitive market for all of the big names that you know , from department stores to magazines , and I was living the dream or so it seemed . The porcelain veneer of success was my life of being on the covers of magazines , and I slowly but surely fell into the throes of getting obsessive about what I ate and how that looked , as well as resorting to using alcohol to numb out and basically having both disordered eating and an abusive relationship with alcohol . I was a hot mess . I woke up in my 30s , my early 30s , and I realized that this was not the life that I wanted , and so I got sober , cleaned up my act and I determined to get healthy Now , all the while kind of over the years , as I was modeling in my mid to late 20s I got really into running and at first I didn't know what I was doing because I was never an athlete growing up , and so I kind of stumbled into the sport , just running here and there and making little challenges for myself .

Speaker 1 1:49

And if you've seen the video where I talk about running 10 miles a day for three years , that became how I got into running . So I had this goal of running 10 miles a day and I did that for three years and I managed to run 10 miles in under an hour , which is kind of a competitive pace . But I didn't even know what that time meant at the like when I was doing it . It was only until I started racing that I realized that I could actually use this running thing for more competitive reasons and enter races and try to compete . So back when I was modeling I tried really hard not to fall into the cliche of a fashion model with an eating disorder . But the reality was that the standards that I had to uphold and the internal struggles that just strengthened and got louder and louder , with thinking that my size was a direct reflection of my self worth really snowballed And with eating disorders , i find that it's a very slippery slope with descending into this headspace that your worth comes from , what size you are .

Speaker 1 3:03

And for me , from the time I can remember signing my first contract , there was a standard with my hit measurement . That's kind of how agencies in modeling , the modeling world , works , as they measure your hip , the widest point of your hip , and they have a number that you basically you're either that number or you're not . And I was always told that I needed to be this one measurement And over time I just always felt like I was kind of trying to be just a little bit under that number so that I could stay in check . Like I felt like if I was just a little under , then I could have some wiggle room is what I called it where I'd be like okay , well , maybe I'm a little bit under , but that means that , like , if and when I do decide to eat more , it won't like totally derail me and get me in trouble or have it so that people are commenting on my weight And I remember getting really below that number .

Speaker 1 4:01

It was in my early to mid twenties , i think it was about 24 . And I got in such such a bad position with my weight . I was so so , so underweight , and in turn I used that low weight as like I would have this feeling of fear because I knew it was bad . I knew I was like too far gone , like this was not a healthy life . But in order to not have that sense of fear , i would just drink alcohol to be able to like go to bed at night or like not panic so much that I was hurting myself . And slowly but surely that just became this vicious cycle of under eating or not eating at all , and then drinking alcohol until I would go to sleep day after day after day after day , and to think that I did that to my body for so long , it's really scary .

Speaker 1 4:52

So when I started getting into running out this is a very gradual process of like learning , like the ways of running and stuff I realized that if I was going to get out there and run the way that I wanted to every day , the way that I was treating my body with food and alcohol , wasn't going to work . Like I started to feel the direct negative return of drinking a couple of bottles of wine , to go to bed at night , waking up and trying to run just felt bad and that , like those 10 miles felt like just miserable . And I would be thinking I'm just trying to get myself back to normal and sweat it all out . And what if I just don't drink at all And I'd start from a different baseline of not like down here but like a moderate baseline , and then I feel even better when I finish . So with that kind of deductive reasoning , i kind of tricked myself into thinking okay , well , if I don't drink , then I'm going to run better . And sure enough , that worked And I could replace an unhealthy thing that I was doing of not drinking and under eating with something healthy .

Speaker 1 5:59

And the reason that I know that running isn't an addiction I wasn't just replacing one addiction for another is that it is really easy to go drink a couple of bottles of wine . It's pretty easy to do that for me , but it's not easy to tie up my shoes at five in the morning , roll out of bed and start running . So I think that like having to do something hard to reach this sense of accomplishment and feeling good is very different than doing something very easy , like picking up a glass of wine to then feel good . So and then , ultimately , i realized that with drinking , i would drink and then feel terrible about myself , or I would be not eating for a few days and feel terrible about myself and just know that I'm doing something wrong and this isn't sustainable , whereas with running , it was more of like a gradual building towards something wonderful , to a better future me . So it's like these ideas of is this action that I'm doing right now making me better or is it making me worse , for me under fueling and drinking making me significantly worse , whereas running is making me better because it's the hard thing to do and it's hard for all of us . So I'm doing this achievement for a 244 marathoner to get out there every single day and just log miles .

Speaker 1 7:17

So let me bring you to how I saw these results directly , with , like what it meant getting sober and then starting to eat properly , and then how that affected my running . So , as somebody who wasn't an athlete growing up , as I mentioned , i didn't know what my body was capable of . I had no idea , and so I started running and I realized that as I would run , i would get hungry or for certain kinds of foods and I started to replace like I would eat . I used to just like eat rice cakes like the eating disorder model me would just eat rice cakes and just little like no low calorie foods with little to nutrition , the little nutritional value , and what I started to do was crave things that had a lot of nutrients , so like things like beets and sweet potatoes and salmon . I would eat these things because I knew that I needed that sustenance to go hard and run fast the next day . So I think that that was kind of an interesting way to learn how to eat was to like use the food for fuel to go like run and perform strong . And I noticed too that if I ate these foods the next day , i would have these magnificent runs and break my PRs and run 10 miles an hour and be like , wow , that felt pretty good And it's because of what I ate the night before . And it also helped me not be afraid of food , because I think for a while it sounds kind of like silly to think I was afraid of certain foods because I thought that they were going to automatically make me gain weight And the reality was I needed to gain weight and I needed to have those foods like cushion my organs to be able to have the like , even mental clarity , to go do things . So , yeah , i think that was very important , but I also think that , like , what was really amazing as a as an end result to all of this , was starting to fuel my body .

Speaker 1 9:16

To run then taught me that there was this whole new world out there of competitive running and how these times and these dreams that I never even knew I could have , like trying to go to the Olympic trials , were even possible . And so something that I say to people , especially people who are getting into running and are beginners , is there are no rules and you have no idea what you can do unless you get out there and just get started . And I think about myself and that first the first run or the first 10 mile run and thinking , man , that was so hard And I could hardly do a nine minute mile pace . And now to think that I've run an entire marathon at a six , 15 minute mile pace and I'm training to run one at a six flat minute mile pace , that I would have never even known that that's even possible if I didn't just start , just get started . So it's like the first run , and I even say before that when I was teaching my 60 something year old mom how to run , who had never run in six decades ever . I got her out there walking And I was like , just walk a mile , walk a mile a day . And that was the first step And before she knew it , she was running a mile at the pace that I was running my first miles at .

Speaker 1 10:29

So just getting out there helped , helped me just open up this new potential And I think that , like anyone could just start with that , even if it's not for running , if it's about like writing or doing some kind of a hobby that you're interested in playing music these are two other things that I like to do . Playing music and writing , where it's like just doing it a little bit every single day , leads to something you didn't even know was possible . So , yeah , running saved my life . It helped me get over my relationship , my toxic , horrible relationship with food , thinking that it was going to make me overweight and have problems . It helped me to see the body that I was given is a lot stronger and can do a lot more things than I ever imagined , and it helped me just realize that I don't want to be dumping alcohol into it every day .

Getting Started on Your Journey

Speaker 1 11:19

So , wherever you are on your journey , i really encourage you to just get started And I hope that my story somehow reached you and that you are watching this And you see that we have a lot in common . If that's you , because that was me and I was completely lost and I had no idea what I was doing , and now I'm training towards some really big dreams . So , thanks so much for listening . You can find me on Instagram , i'm at Lucy Beatrix , luci , eba TRIX . And until next time , just be fast , just win .