How Shawn johnson He said, “I wouldn’t change a thing for the world.”
The famous gymnast and Olympic gold medalist was referring to her journey to recovery after struggling with “perfection” and the cost it cost her, a journey she reviewed in depth in a new video posted to her YouTube account titled, ” Body Image Problems: 110 lbs for pregnant women. “
In the video, Johnson began by explaining that he restricted his diet to about 700 calories a day while competing for the 2008 Olympics, passed out during practice, had no energy, and could not have a period.
“I think one of the things that was a sacrifice and a cost of the sport was my perfectionism,” he said, noting that he had taken that perfectionism too far.
Once the Olympics ended, Johnson, who went on to compete in Dancing with the starsHe gained weight as a result of not training as he had been during games and thought the gain was “the worst thing in the whole world.” As a result, he started taking diet pills and Adderall and doing what he could to lose weight and see how it went for him at the Olympics. Johnson noted in the video that he realized he had a problem with self-image and that if he couldn’t maintain perfection, he would go to “any and all costs to get it done.”
“In my opinion, everyone praised me for what I did at the Olympics. They praised who I was as a human being when I was there,” he explained. “In my opinion, if I could look like this, not necessarily compete or do gymnastics, but if I could be that person again, then the world would say that I was enough and that I was accepted, which didn’t make any sense.” “
