Beyond My Body: Recovering from a Complex Eating Disorder, Reclaiming Movement, and Finding My Worth Pesta Ally Rae

Are you at war with your body? Do you dream of a life of purpose beyond worrying about your size and shape?Ally Rae Pesta's vignette-style memoir shows the inner workings of a young woman's mind as she becomes obsessed with "healthy" eating, exercise, and being exceptional. Do you use food or exercise to seek control?

After experiencing sexual assault in her teens, Ally feels her body is not her own.As people validate Ally for her athletic drive and shrinking figure, she plummets deeper into an eating disorder, convinced she's the "epitome of health." Monitoring food and exercising to exhaustion becomes Ally's attempt at control. Throughout adolescence, Ally vacillates between feeling too much and never enough in a culture that always demands more. At seventeen, doctors diagnose her with anorexia, orthorexia, and exercise addiction, forcing Ally to