• News
  • Life
  • TV & Film
  • Beauty
  • Style
  • Home
  • News
    • Celebrity
    • Entertainment
    • Politics
    • Royal Family
  • Life
    • Animals
    • Food & Drink
    • Women's Health
    • Mental Health
    • Sex & Relationships
    • Travel
    • Real Life
  • TV & Film
    • True Crime
    • Documentaries
    • Netflix
    • BBC
    • ITV
    • Tyla Recommends
  • Beauty
    • Hair
    • Make-up
    • Skincare
  • Style
    • Home
    • Fashion
    • Shopping
  • Advertise
  • Terms
  • Privacy & Cookies
  • LADbible Group
  • LADbible
  • UNILAD
  • SPORTbible
  • GAMINGbible
  • UNILAD Tech
  • FOODbible
  • License Our Content
  • About Us & Contact
  • Jobs
  • Latest
  • Topics A-Z
  • Authors
Facebook
Instagram
X
Threads
TikTok
Submit Your Content
Mum says her gym 'obsession' caused her to become infertile

Home> Life

Published 15:25 12 Aug 2022 GMT+1

Mum says her gym 'obsession' caused her to become infertile

Body positivity coach Nicola Chan reveals how sexual assault triggered her obsession with the gym and an unhealthy relationship with food.

Gregory Robinson

Gregory Robinson

Trigger warning: This article contains details of eating disorders and sexual assault

A mum became so obsessed with the gym it led to her becoming infertile from a lack of nutrition.

Nicola Chan, from Liverpool, started suffering from the eating disorder non-purging bulimia in her late teens. She would gorge on food and do excessive workouts in the gym to burn it off.

As an adult, Nicola became afraid of keeping food in the fridge and would hit the gym until her body ached.

Advert

Nicola (@body_confidence22) now has two daughters aged 23 and 10 and when she became a bodybuilder she experienced a condition known as hypothalamic amenorrhea, which commonly occurs in women of childbearing age with eating disorders.

Nicola Chan has spoken about becoming a bodybuilder.
Jam Press.

It stems from an abnormality of the release of the hormone GnRH which is usually attributed to poor diet, chronic stress, over exercising and suggests the individual is not getting enough calories.

Women with this condition do not menstruate and Nicola has shared how she became temporarily infertile, struggled to get pregnant and did not menstruate for ‘years.’

Advert

"I would spend 95 percent of my brain [power] hating myself, focused on my food and exercising," Nicola said.

"My eldest now tells me about her childhood of having no food in the fridge and I feel bad, but back then I couldn’t cope.

"I feared if the fridge was full of nice food, I’d eat it all.

"If I didn’t like my arms I would pinch the fat, feel terrible and then say: 'Right that’s it, let's go to the gym’."

Advert

Nicola realised something needed to change when she was struggling to get pregnant.

Nicola shared what led to her unhealthy bodybuilder diet.
Jam Press.

The 39-year-old said: “My lowest point was probably when I was infertile – I felt empty, like I wasn’t a real woman because I couldn’t conceive a child.

"I was having IVF treatments and even the doctors didn’t pick up on the fact that I needed to do less exercise and eat more food.

Advert

"Instead GPs and clinicians blindly followed the advice at the time to eat less and move more.

"When I eventually got pregnant it was because I stopped exercising so much."

In 2015, Nicola took up bodybuilding, hoping to find confidence in her body, but it soon saw her go on a 12-week eating binge.

She said: "It's recommended that after a period of 12 weeks, you should return to your 'normal' body and eating – but I enjoyed being that thin.

Advert

"My brain was running on such little fuel, that I was already not seeing how I looked and the lines of perfection moved, to the point where I wanted more."

Nicola struggled to get pregnant.
Jam Press.

Nicola believes her control over her eating and exercising was triggered when she was sexually assaulted and raped as a teenager. She also says diet culture in the ‘90s and the ‘beauty ideal’ back then also played a part.

"Like most women in the ‘90s, the beauty ideal was to be thin with adverts for shakes, to slim down or workout videos where women were always very skinny,” she explains.

"All of this sent me subliminal messages that there was only one way to be a woman, and that women needed to be attractive to be accepted and successful."

To find a way out of her obsession, Nicola trained as a qualified NLP body positivity coach in 2018 and she now runs her own company Wai-Shee.

She said: "Since starting this personal development journey, I realised that much of my shame and dislike for myself was due to past trauma.

"Now, I help people to see what is underneath their eating disorder or obsession with body image."

If you have been affected by the content of this article, or need further support, contact the eating disorder BEAT here.

Featured Image Credit: Jam Press
Gregory Robinson
Gregory Robinson

Gregory is a journalist working for Tyla. After graduating with a master's degree in journalism, he has worked for both print and online publications and is particularly interested in TV, (pop) music and lifestyle. He loves Madonna, teen dramas from the '90s and prefers tea over coffee.

Advert

Advert

Advert

  • ‘Boil in the bag’ funerals set to become available soon
  • Rebel Wilson surprisingly revealed which celebrity she lost her virginity to at age 35
  • Gisèle Pelicot’s daughter Caroline has disturbing theory about her dad after he’s sentenced to prison in horrific abuse case
  • What Ariana Grande actually said about Pete Davidson's manhood after he gave her savage response back to NSFW remark

Choose your content:

2 hours ago
21 hours ago
23 hours ago
a day ago
  • 2 hours ago

    There’s only one Starbucks in the world where staff are not allowed to ask for your name

    No butchering someone's name in this store...

    Life
  • 21 hours ago

    Ozempic user shocked to learn what 'symptom jump' is after no one warned them of bizarre weight loss drug side effect

    The drug is traditionally prescribed to help sufferers of Type-2 diabetes

    Life
  • 23 hours ago

    Dark history behind dangerous war weapon that’s now used by millions of cancer patients

    The clue was hidden among the battlefields of World War One for decades

    Life
  • a day ago

    24-year-old vape addict issues terrifying warning after suffering heart attack

    Jacob Temple told his terrifying vaping story through a series of TikTok videos

    Life