About
Where There’s a Will There’s a Way…to Bring on Life
The bitter, endless, cruel battle with body image…Been there, felt that
Feeling physically uncomfortable in your own skin.
I know that feeling all too well.
I know exactly how it feels to look in the mirror and what you see makes your life a living hell.
You feel worthless and hopeless.
You feel inferior to other girls.
You feel that everything is wrong, and there is nothing good in your life.
When you happen to glance into a mirror, you criticise and loathe yourself as if somehow all that anger would magically transform you from who you are to who you want to be.
Here, the raw and honest truth about the girl behind Bring on Life – There was once a time when I hated my body.
This is my story
It’s an honest talk about fad diets, depression, eating disorders, pain, loss and gain.
It is the only story I wanted to read many years ago.
A story that wasn’t easy to write down, and downright intimidating to make it publish.
Ever since I was a child, I was told that I needed to lose weight.
You probably weren’t expecting this, but I grew up as a fat girl.
Truth is, I wasn’t obese. I was just chubby.
But I was born in a society where diet pills are touted as cures for sadness and cultural norms are teaching young girls to associate their weight with success, or lack thereof.
So, in the Philippines, where small, delicate, bird-like women are held up as the ideal, chubby is fat.
I vividly remember being a flower girl at my aunt’s wedding. I couldn’t fit the dress which was only given on the wedding day.
Out of desperation, my Mum had to adjust it to fit my 8-year-old-body. Even so, my dress was so tight during the ceremony that I could hardly breathe.
I felt miserable.
Culturally, being fat also implied that I lacked self-discipline.
Classmates called me “baboy”, which means “pig” in Tagalog.
Being treated as the “fat girl” by kids convinced me that I was different. I was not within society’s beauty standards.
The most painful part?
I had no one to turn to. I was painfully shy and insecure. My self-esteem was cripplingly low.
I felt unable to put out the flames of anxiety.
For oh-so many years, I heard comments like, “She’s pretty, but she could be better if she wouldn’t be fat.”
That moment was the first part of my toxic eating cycle when my relationship with food became a thorny issue.
As I grew up, I got stuck on thoughts like “I’m worthless”, “I’m unattractive”, and “I will never find my tribe and create genuine connections”.
Or, “Happiness can only be found in some size 4 jeans”.
Want to know the darkest thought that popped into my head?
“I will never be truly loved as long as I’m fat”.
So, as a fat girl (that happened to also have a brown complexion), I went through a really dark time where all I wanted was to be someone else.
My Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) made me feel ashamed about how I looked, gnawing away at all my happiness and self-confidence.
Then I started learning about what “diet” means.
In the Philippines, to lose weight you’re encouraged to eat less. They tell you that every morsel of food you put in your mouth needs to be monitored.
That’s where I first started to skip meals and not eat enough food.
Not to mention that with a packed schedule at school, eating on time became a low priority.
So the seemingly impossible became possible. I lost weight.
I wasn’t the fat girl anymore. People stopped calling me “baboy”.
I felt happier with my body and couldn’t wait to drape a tiny dress over it.
But it came at a price – starvation.
I deprived myself just to stay thin, be accepted, build friendships, and feel that I’m finally a normal person living a normal life.
At that time, I didn’t know that there was no shortcut to a good outcome. There was no magic pill for weight loss.
So I felt on my own skin the yo-yo effect of my crash diet.
I lost weight and gained it all back after graduating – especially because I started my on-the-job training. The exact time I was introduced to pizza, alcohol, and other unhealthy eating habits that certainly didn’t help me maintain my weight.
An eating disorder that had entirely consumed me
I was in my early 20s when I started fearing food.
Without having any idea what intermittent fasting was, I would eat one meal a day for months.
As I flung myself wildly into weight loss, my old self got lost in the eating disorder that took control of my life.
I starved myself until my body was light as a feather.
I was around 42 kg. And yet, I felt so heavy inside.
I was so hungry that I felt physically full. I stopped feeling anything. I got better at hiding away. I shouted. I cried.
I felt physically and emotionally drained.
I felt so weak and dizzy that picking something on the floor was enough to get that lightheaded, woozy feeling.
I felt numb and empty like I was dying inside.
The scariest part?
I started losing hair. I was diagnosed with “Alopecia Areata” – a disease that causes your hair to fall out in patches.
For every girl, hair is the most noticeable part of her beauty. It is a fundamental part of femininity.
So when my hair started falling out in clumps, I felt deeply miserable.
After losing almost 40% of my hair, I went through lots of medical examinations and tests and took steroid injections to grow my hair back.
Until that time I had no idea that undereating is a scary, dangerous world to enter.
I saw, for one fleeting moment, everything that I lost – and that was not just my hair. I lost my smile. My enthusiasm. My whole life.
So I went back to work in an office and surrounded myself with positive and like-minded people. This also means I started eating again and going out with colleagues.
Two fingers in the mouth: bulimia and food guilt
I was in my mid-20s when every day of my life became a cycle of restrict, binge, guilt, throw up, and restrict again.
How did that happen?
I gained weight back due to overworking and sleep deprivation.
I remember I was so busy working at least 90 hours a week (yes, you read that right!) that I was unable to grab a full night’s sleep.
Just think: If even one night of short sleep can affect you the next day, what are the effects of months of sleep deprivation?
Easy – Slowed thinking, low quality of life, lack of energy, anxiety, irritability and, of course, weight gain.
I wish, with all my heart, that I could tell every girl who is depriving herself of sleep, not to sacrifice shut-eye for anything in the world.
It simply wreaks havoc on your body.
So I continued spiralling downwards as I was bingeing and purging and sometimes even calculating how much food I should throw up to maintain my weight.
I often scared myself with the intensity of my food guilt.
I was eating uncontrollably, then ending up in a puddle of tears on the bathroom floor before getting rid of the offending calories with a simple gesture.
Two fingers in the mouth.
The binge-purge cycle went on for some years, and it became too much to deal with after moving from Cebu to Melbourne.
While life was uncontrollable, food was the only thing I could control.
I was exhausted. I had no self-confidence. My body image took a beating.
I felt locked into the cycle, believing that I couldn’t function without my erratic eating behaviour.
Every single thought in my mind revolved around food and hatred for myself.
I hit rock bottom.
Our darkest hours reveal our strengths
Laughing. Exercising. Sleeping. Travelling. Loving. Eating. Partying. Living.
This list is one that I began when recovering from my eating disorder and that I carry with me to this very day.
While trying to get adjusted after moving to Australia, I have found my mind drifting off into better ways of being.
Initially, I blamed the culture shock for my insecurity and low self-esteem, without taking responsibility for my own actions and feelings.
It was only when I realised that our darkest hours reveal our strengths that I finally came to understand a powerful truth that has changed the way I look at myself and the world.
The time to embark on a journey towards creating the life you want to live is now.
Now tomorrow, not next month, but NOW.
It was then that I realised I needed to take immediate action to gain back my self-confidence.
I started to understand that I restricted what I love (food) because I didn’t love myself.
I didn’t know who Hazel really was.
I didn’t know I had infinite power to change my reality.
I also started to understand that building the body you want is about being the best version of yourself, the you that you want most, in every aspect.
It’s about being relentless and resilient and jumping into action to accomplish what you want most in life – whether it’s related to mate selection, life in general, or even employment opportunities.
So, after several heart-wrenching talks with my friends and then-fiancé (he is now my husband), I took the leap to start my healing journey.
After years of lying to myself, it felt so good to just live my truth.
I learnt to love myself, exactly as I am.
I learnt that self-confidence gives you the power to conquer the world.
I learnt that all I ever wanted has always been inside of me – all the time.
I learnt that I’m a conscious creator, not a victim.
I gained mental clarity.
From there, it was relatively easy to educate myself on nutrition and fitness.
I have managed to make health and fitness a lifestyle and find food freedom.
Freedom from processed foods. Freedom from crash diets. Freedom from the rules of an eating disorder that controlled me like a dictator.
I wish, with all my heart, that every girl who suffers from hormonal imbalance, bloating or digestive issues reads this.
Because most of the time, all of these problems stem from bad nutrition and lack of exercise.
After achieving my first fitness goal (losing some kilos before travelling to Europe), it took me three months to get in shape while training properly and eating healthy food without starving or depriving myself.
This, in turn, helped me adapt to a new culture and cope with the adjustment process, build stronger relationships, and live a more fulfilling life.
I started losing the weight and fat that led to my deeply ingrained, destructive, self-defeating thoughts and behaviours.
I am not the person I was before.
I became strong.
I am a woman who knows how to love herself with all her flaws.
I am standing in my own truth.
I am truly confident in myself.
I am waking up to more happy days.
The old adage that goes, “Beauty is how you feel inside” does not fall on deaf ears anymore.
Remember, when you realise your true potential, you can set the world on fire.
I am living proof that you can achieve anything you set your mind to because where there is a will, there is a way.
A year from now you may wish you had started today
My own fitness journey – and ultimately the reason I can help you become the best version of yourself – is the result of me being honest with myself and admitting what I truly want from life (and getting it).
If you want to be living the life you desire, you have to start somewhere, anywhere.
Or, you can keep flaking out on plans, tell yourself you will do it later, and let life pass you by.
Then, a year from now you may wish you had started today.
Looking back, I wish I had started earlier.
I wish I had someone to support me in the creation of my own healing before starting to battle the monster of bulimia in silence, desperation and pain.
I wish I had someone who could help me with exactly what I needed.
With my work as a fitness, nutrition, and life coach, I want to open a space for every woman struggling with weight loss, eating disorders, and low self-esteem to take back control of their life.
Many women I now call friends have made the seemingly impossible possible with me by their side and I couldn’t be more proud of the outcomes they achieved.
When you find someone who understands you, you’ll soon realise they’ll help you get to know yourself.
Trust me, you can feel whole again.
Inside you, there’s a space unaltered by self-loathing and self-criticism.
No matter what your past may look like, your yesterday cannot determine your tomorrow.
There is just here and now that is important, and your tomorrow depends on what you do today.
So think about your daily routine and eating habits. Write it down if you like.
And then ask yourself: “Is this really going to take me where I want to be in life?”.
If it does, you don’t need me.
If it does not, then it’s time for you to join Bring on Life!
I’d be honoured to support you on your journey to a better you!
With all my love,
Hazel