A fitness coach who lost her period to an eating disorder known as ‘anorexia athletica’ has rebuilt her relationship with food and exercise after learning there’s more to life than having washboard abs.
Camilla Bazley, 31, played ‘every sport’ at school and swam for her home state of New South Wales before qualifying as a personal trainer in 2007. But it wasn’t until nine years later that she developed a life-threatening addiction to working out.
The then 27-year-old trainer who lives in Paddington, central Sydney, woke at 4.30am to run 10 kilometres before seeing her first client, every morning for 18 months between 2016 and 2017 in a bid to become leaner.
She followed each run with afternoon weight training and ate little but chicken and green vegetables, surviving on protein shakes and leafy salads which she weighed to the gram to calculate her calorie intake.
Ms Bazley also practiced intermittent fasting, a diet where you only eat within a certain window of time each day, which she now believes she used to ‘scientifically validate’ starving herself.
Sydney fitness coach Camilla Bazley three years apart, on June 24 2017 (right) and June 24 2020 (left)
Over time, the effects of starvation caused her to develop a string of serious health conditions, including liver dysfunction, stress fractures and ammenorrhea, the loss of the menstrual cycle.
‘I was losing so much muscle that I just felt weak. I went from being able to squat 100kg to not even being able to squat 40kg,’ she told Daily Mail Australia.
By the time she dropped to her lowest weight of 56 kilos in June 2017, Ms Bazley had lost more than half her strength and her health was in jeopardy.
‘Initially I was just right into my training, genuinely looking the fittest I had ever looked. My business was booming,’ she told said.
But in reality, her obsession with exercise was spiralling out of control.
As months passed and kilo after kilo dropped away, Ms Bazley developed debilitating social anxiety that prevented her from doing anything but working at the gym and sitting alone in her apartment.
‘I couldn’t even go out for breakfast with friends. The more control I had [with diet and exercise], the less I really had [over daily life],’ she said.
‘I naturally held muscle, so people just thought I was super fit. I’d tell them that I was training for an event so they wouldn’t question it, even though I knew myself I was in trouble.’
Ms Bazley (pictured in 2019) now exercises in moderation and focuses her fitness around group activities
Ms Bazley was finally diagnosed with generalised anxiety disorder and anorexia athletica – a form of anorexia characterised by an obsession with exercise to lose weight – when she sought help from doctors in January 2018.
‘I was lucky enough to have very good friends that stepped up and called me out on my destructive behaviour,’ she said.
While she wasn’t shocked by the diagnosis, she said it felt strange to be anorexic and a success in the fitness industry at the same time.
‘I would never allow my clients to act in the way I acted, so it was a really big reality check that the disease did not discriminate,’ she said.
Ms Bazley attended weekly sessions with a doctor, dietitian, and psychologist to resolve her compulsion with fitness, and took blood tests every two to three months to track her liver and kidney function which had been decimated by the disorder.
After breaking her leg as a result of low bone density in May 2019, she forced herself to take months off training and fully committed to managing her physical and mental health without relying on exercise.
‘I started to enjoy the little things in life more, like being social with my friends again,’ she said.
Now 31, Ms Bazley weighs 81 kilos and says she is the ‘happiest and healthiest’ she’s ever been after learning to develop a positive relationship fitness.
Two and a half years since her diagnosis, Ms Bazley (pictured in 2020) goes for dinner or drinks with friends at least once a week to strengthen her positive mindset towards socialising
Two and a half years since her diagnosis, Ms Bazley now trains to feel good rather than look good and says she is the ‘happiest and healthiest’ she has ever been at 81 kilos.
‘I love that I can safely say I never want a chiseled set of abs again,’ she said.
She runs twice a week, teaches spin classes at her gym and lifts weights to build strength whenever she feels like it, making sure to never exercise more than 30 minutes a day.
She no longer counts calories and goes for dinner or drinks with friends at least once a week to strengthen her positive mindset towards socialising and indulging in moderation.
If you need help with an eating disorder, please call Butterfly’s National Helpline on 1800 334 673 or e-mail support@thebutterflyfoundation.org.au.