Numbers.

I’m a numbers person. I’ve been a numbers person my whole life. Math makes sense to me and I’ve always excelled in anything that deals with numbers. Because numbers don’t lie. I can trust the numbers – what you see is all they are. And the second I wrote that I just realized how fucked up my logic is. I’ve always tried proving myself through numbers. The number of achievements I can have under my belt. The number of books I could read in a week. The amount of sports I could master. The 4.0 GPA. The salary I earn. The hours I work. The amount of tasks I can get through in a day. The numbers on my Apple watch – the miles I ran, the calories I burned, the steps I took, the hours I slept. The number on a scale.

Am I numbers person or are numbers my life?

I used to think being a numbers person was something people admired. My ability to easily understand math and accounting and maintain a high GPA. Sure, it’s admirable to be ambitious and disciplined to set yourself up for success, but at what point is the focus on numbers too much? The amount of hours I spent in the library in college is honestly disgusting. I was so caught up in the number on my transcript that I thought defined my intelligence, that I missed out on so many opportunities to actually discover the kind of person I am. I missed those experiences because of my constant need to prove myself through my accomplishments. But at what cost? Once I graduated, I couldn’t prove myself through my GPA. Once I passed my CPA, I couldn’t continue to prove myself through the scores on my exams. So how could I keep proving myself? How do I keep playing this number game? I became engulfed in this new opportunity to prove myself at work. I could show I was a hard worker by the amount of controls I could test, the reports I could tie out, the puzzles I could solve that no one else could. I could work longer hours, skip lunch to prove that I was so invested in my job that I didn’t need breaks. But that didn’t satisfy me. And then I realized I had a watch on my wrist that was filled with numbers. It had been tracking my runs all summer and I didn’t realize the calories I would burn on each run versus the calories it told me I burned in the gym. I didn’t realize how exciting it was to be in a competition with myself.

But how can you win a competition with yourself?

It started off as me training for a half marathon. Pushing myself each day to run a little farther, a little faster pace. The adrenaline I felt each time I upped my mileage or upped my pace was unlike anything I had felt in a long time. But at the same time, I had a passion for lifting. I loved going to the gym and feeling myself get stronger each time I upped my weight deadlifting or benching. But my watch told me that I burned less calories, even when I upped my weight. So I stopped lifting heavy and discovered HIIT and Orange Theory. The place that literally displays your calories on a screen for the whole gym to see. So now, not only could I compete with myself, I could compete with a whole gym of people and the calories they burned in a workout. Because the more calories you burn, the more successful the workout, right? Well, the Orange Theory adrenaline finally wore off because my calories burned each time was consistent. So I took the workouts and made them my own and 10x more intense. I’d wake up at 4:30 each morning and make my own HIIT workout that would range for 1.5 to 2.5 hours. And that’s when it got dangerous. Each morning it was an adrenaline rush to see how many calories I could burn before work that day. Some days I could hit 800 calories in a morning. Others I would hit 600. On the weekends, with no limit before work, I could get over 800. But what about on the days I didn’t hit that number? Or when I decided 800 wasn’t enough to burn because I lost the adrenaline I had originally felt? I needed new numbers.

Calories in, Calories Out

I had heard this phrase before but didn’t think much of it. And then once my life revolved around the numbers on my Apple watch, I started to think about it more. If I was going to burn 800 calories in a day and I wanted to maintain my weight, I would have to burn more calories than I’m taking in. The perfect addition to my personal competition. This is where the real number crunching comes in. A 1 inch block of cheese? 100 calories. A banana? 100 calories. A piece of bread? Anywhere from 80 – 150 calories. A bagel? 200 – 300 calories. Kraft Mac and Cheese? 1 serving = 400 calories, and there’s 3 servings per box. Pizza? 1/3 of it is anywhere from 300 – 600 calories. And that’s just from my memory currently. See how fucked up my brain is because of this goddamn numbers game? I downloaded MyFitnessPal and tracked everything I ate. I would aim to eat less than 1,000 calories a day. Sometimes I would treat myself and let myself go out and splurge, but that just meant an extra long workout the next day to make up for that surplus. So, if I’m burning 800 calories each morning, 2,000 to just stay alive, and a couple hundred for movement throughout the day. 115 to 110 to 105 to 100 and lower. The pounds were proving that I was winning. I was KILLING this competition.

Yeah, no. I was killing myself.

I started going to bed before 9pm so I wouldn’t be too tired to workout the next day. I liked going to bed early because it ensured I wouldn’t snack after dinner. I would smoke or take tylenol PM and pass out for the night. Until I stopped being able to sleep through the night. I’d run on 5 hours and be exhausted by the end of the day. My hair started falling out. My skin looked worn down and I was breaking out. My clothes got baggy and nothing fit. I’d be cranky most days because of my anxiety. I refused to believe I was depressed because I was doing everything I should’ve been. I was working out, I was eating only salads and egg whites. Minimal processed food, minimal fast food, minimal everything. I pushed everyone away so no one could call me out. And by this point I had learned that I was numb. I didn’t care that I pushed everyone away. I didn’t care that I was tired all the time. I didn’t care that I was waking up, doing the motions, and going to sleep. I felt nothing, adrenaline, and then nothing again. Maybe in another life I was an actress, because I like to think I did a pretty good job of putting on the fake smile and the facade that I was thriving in all aspects of life. Another win.

Where was my prize?

I began to realize that I had been working so hard at this competition, and I was getting all of these little wins of the the scale decreasing and calories burned increasing, but where was my prize? When was I going to feel accomplished and that I had reached my goal? And then it hit me. I didn’t have a goal. I was going to keep doing this until my body didn’t let me anymore. I realized I was so numbed out that I has been okay with that outcome. I don’t know the day that it clicked for me, but eventually it did. I admitted it to my roommates, to my best friend, boyfriend, my parents. I needed help. And after a few months of the spiral continuing and the repeated promise I was making to get the help I so desperately needed, I did. And over the last 8 months I’ve learned about the lies that numbers tell me.

Numbers don’t define me.

Numbers do not define me. They are not the purpose of life. If I’m going to care so deeply about a number, shouldn’t it be the number that quantifies the long, full, life that I want to live? Shouldn’t that be my competition? To do everything in my power to make as many memories and live in as many moments as I can with the people I love? Because no one is going to remember how much I weight at the age of 24. They’re going to remember me by the impact I’ve had, the lives I’ve touched, the memories we’ve made. One day I want to get married and have kids and watch them grow into whoever they want to be. I want to make sure they don’t make the same mistakes that I have. I want to be able to make an impact on as many people as I possibly can. I want so many things that are only possible if I allow myself to fully separate myself from the numbers I’ve used to measure myself. I’m so much more than a number, and you know what’s amazing? I actually believe myself this time.