Life As An Experiment

Up until, even the beginning of this summer, it is fair to say that one of the main reasons I exercised (outside of rowing) was not because I wanted to. It was because I wanted to change the way I looked. My lil head was convinced that if I exercised to lose weight and make myself smaller life would just be better. My self-worth would instantly be increased, it would make me more accepted and it would make me happier. The reality is that it brought none of this, all it caused was me to absolutely hate the exercise I was doing. My whole life revolved around me going to the gym and would very much dictate the way that I was living. Which honestly, writing this now, feels bizarre as most of the training I do I absolutely love...it is obvious and absolutely fair enough though, that occasionally we get days or sessions which seem pretty difficult, it just shouldn't be something that is happening every single session. It is also important to make clear that, for those who train lots an...

I stayed on that f****** bus. The past year has not been easy but I have done it, I have finished university and had the best year yet. I have made some of the biggest decisions of my life, so the pressure has definitely been felt. Third year seems all about working hard and getting yourself on a grad scheme because that's what everyone else around you is doing. So, I got to the beginning of this year and absolutely freaked out! I was going into final year and really felt like I had not accomplished the whole 'uni experience' at alll. So I went and did things differently, decided to treat it just like first year; I joined different and new societies, got properly into my studying and met loads of new people. It was the best decision I ever made. A decision that I would not have made had Gramps not told me to stay on that bus. In September, having said when I was 15 that I would never row again, I decided that I would go back and give rowing a go, as a novice. I had noth...

York Sport Union spoke to UoY student and rower, Ellie Simonds - Gooding, about her struggle with an eating disorder, her journey to recovery and how rowing trains her mind as well as her body. ‘I was never really told about eating disorders at school. Then, when I came to university, suddenly I was aware of them and felt a lot of pressure to look a certain way.’ Ellie, who speaks so sensitively and openly about her experience with her own body image and mental health, said that her illness began in her first year at York. ‘Among friends I felt new and different pressures I had never experienced before. I felt I had to look a certain way and do things differently in order for people to like me. This is when I developed bulimia.’ Can you tell us more about the moment when your habits began to negatively change? I became completely obsessive over calorie counting, especially after I downloaded the My Fitness Pal app. Suddenly, I was able to see not only how many calories I w...

Yes  I was bullied, yes it affected me, but no way in hell nearly as much as the effect that one stupid app had on my life.  I’m tall, active and a fairly reserved person, which is very different I now note, to unconfident.  Of course  I was going to weigh more than those around me, (not lying about my height!). I was never really that  self conscious  or worried about how I looked to other people; I was happy .  In April 2017 I downloaded  MyFitness  Pal and this ended up being the catalyst of a period, which is safe to say, looking back on now was the worst period of my life.  Prior to downloading it I was very easy come, easy go. I’ve definitely recognised there were issues regarding disordered  eating  but I was blissfully unaware of what was to come.  The main thing I used  MyFitness  Pal was, to begin with, see how many calories I consumed because, as I recall telling my Mum, I was ‘curious...