How Nutrition Connects Us, Part 1: Kayla Martin
Connection – it’s a concept I’ve been thinking about over the last month…
One of my favorite reasons I have loved being a guest on podcasts is that usually the host and I can find some way to connect, to genuinely relate to one another. As Stephan Abrams says in his intro for the JH Connection, we have so much more in common than we realize, and his goal is to highlight what connects us in the Jackson Hole community.
Nutrition connects us all. We have to eat to live, but think about how many memories you've made over a meal with family and friends. At a time where there is so much division in our political climate and we are encouraged to socially distance from one another, I wanted to highlight a way that we are all connected even if we cannot physically connect.
Instead of posting about another nutrition trend, I am going to focus on what truly connects us to one another – our shared experiences.
I asked Kayla Martin, Lolly Stueart, and Max Martin to tell me their stories. Why do they care about nutrition, functional fitness, health, the outdoors, etc? Why do they feel called to continue down the paths they are on?
Their thoughts and words inspire me, and I am honored that they shared them with me. With their permission, I am going to share their stories with you in a series of posts over the next few weeks. First up…
Kayla Martin – nutrition educator, eating disorder survivor, mountain adventurer, and dog mom.
The longer I’m in the nutrition world, the more commonalities I see among those of us who end up here. Many of us have personal stories that landed us in this field, serving as fuel for the passion most dietitians and nutritionists have. Although I’m still a baby nutritionist (i.e. still in graduate school), I do have quite the story that got me here.
In high school, I played competitive soccer, basketball, and ran track. I didn’t continue any of these sports in college, and although my body exhaled a sign of relief, it also began to change. I’ll spare you the details, but over the course of my four years in college, I developed an eating disorder. I over-exercised and under-ate until I no longer had a social life or a healthy menstrual cycle. I remember feeling exhausted, chilled to the bone despite living in Southern California, every inch of the tiny gym at my school, but just about nothing else. I’ve learned over the last few years that when your body isn’t fueled properly, it focuses all of its attention on keeping your vital organs working. Therefore, things like a period and memory go by the wayside.
I’m lucky enough to have had great friends during this time of my life, despite my being a really low quality friend in return. Several of these good humans confronted me and encouraged me to see the campus doctor. I started regularly seeing the doctor to have my vital signs monitored. One common symptom of an eating disorder is a very low resting heart rate coupled with an extreme increase upon standing. This is why people who undereat are often dizzy and/or pass out. My heart rate would jump from the low 30s to the 100s in a matter of seconds, which called for constant monitoring.
On one of these doctors visits, I was having my blood drawn. I told the nurse that something wasn’t right and that I felt too dizzy to continue. Next thing I knew, I was in the back of an ambulance going the wrong way down the Pacific Coast Highway. In the UCLA emergency room, the doctor told me I was “just dehydrated”, which I now know was utter bulls***. At the time, I drank gallons of water a day in an effort to fill my stomach with something. To make a very long story short, I fled the emergency room out of fear that they’d make me eat those cardboard crackers, or god forbid, drink some juice. Over the course of the next few days, I’d learn from my doctor that my very low heart rate had dropped even more while having my blood drawn, I passed out, had a seizure, and they couldn’t find a pulse for several minutes. The doctor on duty later told my mom that it was the closest she’d ever been to losing someone during her career at Pepperdine.
It would be really great if I could tell you that this experience woke me up and I went merrily on my way to eating sandwiches and resting. But that’s not my story. It took me several more months of denying that I had a problem, a summer in a treatment center in Denver, and years of therapy, dietitians, etc. before I landed in the place that I am today. I realized throughout this journey that the misinformation I had about “health” nearly killed me. I don’t remember setting out to lose weight, I just remember becoming addicted to the idea of being healthy and my ability to control and change my body was intoxicating. Unfortunately, I think a lot of people set out with the best of intentions, only to find themselves right where I did.
My personal experience with an eating disorder, and the subsequent opportunity to work with many talented dietitians, sparked my intrigue in the field of nutrition. My hope is that my story can inspire people struggling with eating disorders to seek help before it’s too late, and encourage those who love someone with an eating disorder to speak up. My goal is to continue improving my personal relationship with food, while modeling healthier behavior to those I connect with as a nutritionist. I’m passionate about sharing science and research, and debunking the abundance of diet myths that lead people down long, scary roads.
Although my story has some unique twists and turns, I think it’s far more common than we as a society like to believe. I’ve met many people throughout grad school who have struggled with eating disorders, and even more who have had unhealthy relationships with food or their bodies. I take heart in knowing that each of these clinicians will work to curb the increasing rate of eating disorders and educate their communities on building healthier relationships with food.
