Former gymnast Shawn Johnson says she went through a “kind of dark spiral” after the 2008 Olympics, dabbling in weight-loss drugs and battling an eating disorder.
“As soon as the Olympics ended, and I didn’t have gymnastics, and I didn’t have the Olympics to work with, I quickly realized that I had self-confidence and self-image issues, if I couldn’t maintain perfection, I would go at any cost to achieve it,” The 28-year-old said Saturday in a video posted on her YouTube channel.
Johnson, who won the gold medal for his performance on the balance beam, as well as a silver medal for his floor program at the Beijing Games, said he reached a “low point” while adjusting to his post-Olympic life in the center of attention.
“I was struck by ‘Dancing with the Stars,'” Johnson said of his 2009 career in the ABC competition series.
“And during this time, I had to deal with not being an elite athlete, not training 50 hours a week, eating more than 700 calories a day, which would naturally allow my body to adjust and gain weight, which was healthy at the time, but I didn’t know how to handle it, “he continued.
Johnson, who was 16 when he competed in the Olympics, added that he quickly gained around 15 pounds, which he considered “the worst in the world” at the time.
“When I followed ‘Dancing with the Stars’, I had my period for the first time, I had to deal with puberty on national television, I got to a very low point,” she explained. “I started taking weight loss pills, I started taking ephedrine, I started taking Adderall. I started doing anything and everything I could to lose weight and look like what I did at the Olympics. “
The 4-foot-11-inch athlete “went through this kind of dark spiral of a few years with terrible medications and drugs that tried to increase [her] metabolism. “He recalled taking diuretics, trying fad diets, and eating raw vegetables for three weeks straight. Johnson attributed his low point to lack of purpose.
“Now that the Olympics were over, he didn’t know how to function as a normal human being,” said Johnson. “I didn’t know how to follow a straight path and have a purpose and a goal outside of the Olympics.”
Three years after the Olympics, Johnson hit another low point and decided to return to training, returning to the unhealthy habits that come with it.
“I was on the track to form the 2012 Olympic team, and I started to burn out of my sport,” Johnson recalled, prompting her to start taking “heavy doses of Adderall.”
“I continued to compete in 2012, where I started to get depressed, I think as a consequence and a side effect of Adderall,” he shared.
At one point, Johnson said there was “nothing in [her] a healthy life, “as he continued to argue with loved ones and was” overdosed “on Adderall. Before the 2012 London Olympics, Johnson decided to call it a race.
“I remember practicing one day and I thought, I can’t keep doing this,” Johnson said.
In 2015, Johnson discussed his difficulties with an eating disorder, the same year he became engaged to Andrew East, an NFL long snapper. A year after they were married, Johnson revealed in 2017 that she had aborted, which she thought was the result of her past behavior.
“When I aborted, I had a heartbreaking feeling that it was because of my past,” she said. “I thought it was because of all those bad decisions I made that made me have an abortion and that could make me not have a child.”
In April of last year, Johnson announced that she was pregnant again. And though she feared past insecurities, the former gymnast said life was about “protecting” her unborn child.
“There was something that changed when I got pregnant, where it was no longer about me or my body or vanity or calories, or what I looked like or what I weighed. I could have cared less, it was about protecting my baby, ”Johnson said.
Johnson and East welcomed their daughter Drew in the fall of 2019.
“Now with Drew, all I want to do is be a good influence,” Johnson said. “I have had these difficult experiences that make me a stronger mother, which will also allow me to teach Drew how to be strong.”
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