Looking at Texas native Laura Payne now you would never think she struggled with eating disorders as she is in the best shape of her life, a bodybuilding champion even! Payne began struggling with anorexia when she was a teenager in high school, which then escalated to battling both anorexia and bulimia once she entered college. Her disorders became so intense that all she thought about was how skinny she could get, and in 2002, she weighed only 82 pounds. Once her parents found out about the severity of her eating disorder, they took her out of school and got her counseling.
Over the past few years, the 32-year-old has made great strides in achieving a healthier lifestyle. She consumes 2,000 calories a day and works out at the gym she owns five days a week. Her weight is a healthy 150 pounds normally and is 125 pounds during competition. Payne even nabbed the top spot in her first bodybuilding competition. And while Payne tells the DailyMail, “I’m okay now,” she acknowledges that her eating disorders haven’t completle disappeared for good, and “I still constantly think about food or how I look.” She says she keeps her old photos and food diaries as a reminder of how far she has come. “You don’t overcome eating disorders, they are something you learn to live with,” said Payne’s counselor, Daniel Dorethy, in the interview with the DailyMail. Watch her video below and read the full interview with the DailyMail here.
