A stunning fitness influencer with almost a million followers has revealed how she had to battle with anorexia that almost killed her.
At one point, beautiful Antonia Elena weighed just 38 kg, despite being 1.7 metres tall (5.7 inches) which gave about the same weight as a 10-year-old child.
She said by that point she had been starving herself for almost four years, saying: “I’ve never really cared about being skinny. Not eating was my way of self-harm. My childhood was marked by violence and comments from my mother about my supposedly being overweight. So when I left home, that was my way of dealing with the pain. Others numb or cut themselves – I became anorexic.”
Antonia said that she started the whole downward spiral after seeing two girls on a TV show that were throwing up in order to lose weight, and she said that it had seemed the perfect solution.
She said it was a comment by her grandfather Helmut who helped put a stop to it when she overheard him sadly saying: “I don’t want to have to bury her.”
She added his genuine concern opened her eyes and she contacted the “Cinderella” organisation in Munich. There she was given an experienced practitioner and therapist that helped her turn her life around.
Antonia said it took three years of outpatient therapy to learn how she had ended up in this position and there were many relapses.
The 29-year-old said: “I had a serious relapse in my mid-20s. This time into bulimia. I found this type of eating disorder even more dangerous. Because the illness remained invisible to those around me. I ate normally, didn’t lose weight that much. I was seriously ill without anyone noticing.”
But three years ago she said she finally turned the tables around for good with no more relapses with the help of her grandmother Helga and her fiancé Chris.
She said that Chris had simply been there for her, and had not attempted to control or tell her what to do.
One of the best things he had done was help her understand what a normal-sized portion was, as she had no idea anymore if she was eating too much or too little.
The influencer added: “It was embarrassing to have to ask at first, but after a while I managed to be able to estimate it myself.”
She also started exercising regularly as well.
She said: “The movement finally made me feel alive and good again.”
She added that sport became her passion and she realised that she needed food in order to do the sports that she enjoyed.
Not only is she now a fitness influencer also regularly shares her favourite foods on her Instagram account, which include healthy dishes like spinach and potato casserole or other baked pasta with salmon.
She added that it was now under control although probably always present in her life, and added to anybody else stuck in the same position that the best advice is to “speak to the person who is emotionally and physically closest to you, because to keep quiet about it only supports the problem and doesn’t help you or your health.”
