‘Body dysmorphia nearly destroyed my life, I could not even look within the mirror’

A courageous woman has opened up about her prolonged battle with body dysmorphia and disordered eating.

Adella Hives, 30, from London, was unable to look at herself in the mirror without feeling that her body was “disgusting.”

She would consistently refuse to be photographed and often starved herself in an attempt to become skinny.

Adella, who works in client engagement, was able to overcome her struggles by taking up weight training, and realised that she needed to eat more and not less food.

“It all started about 10 years ago,” Adella remembers. “I had just moved back home after spending a year abroad, a time that was both incredibly exciting and, in many ways, quite lonely…Growing up, I never had any issues with food or body image.

“I was a trained dancer from ages four to 18, dancing about four to fives times a week.

“I never tracked calories or thought twice about what I ate because I was constantly burning energy.

“Food wasn’t something I ever worried about. But when I moved away, things changed.

“I found myself staying in more and turning to comfort food, yet my mindset of ‘I can eat whatever I want’ stayed the same, even though my lifestyle had become much more sedentary.

“Without really noticing, I gained around 13kg, which brought me to about 60kg.

“At the time, I wasn’t even conscious of the weight gain – it just didn’t register.

“But when I moved back home to Malta, the comments came quickly. People didn’t necessarily call me ‘fat,’ but the word ‘chubby’ was used, and that word stuck with me.

“It was like a switch flipped. Suddenly, I became hyper-aware of my body in a way I never had before, and it triggered a wave of self-consciousness that spiralled into self-hate.

“I started to see myself very differently, not just physically but emotionally too. I began to resent what I saw in the mirror.”

Adella began exercising with a personal trainer, but now that that switch had been flipped, she found it impossible to view her body in a healthy way mentally.

“I wanted to take control, so I started working out with a personal trainer and eating clean. My body bounced back relatively quickly because I didn’t have a huge amount of weight to lose.

“But, no matter how much weight lost, it was never enough. I had developed a distorted view of myself – even when I looked physically fit, I still saw that ‘chubby’ version of me.

“It was bizarre because, generally, I’m a very positive and happy person.

“But these negative thoughts about my body completely consumed me. And I felt like I couldn’t talk about it.

“So, I bottled it up, and it festered. This internal battle went on for years, a constant tug-of-war between how I felt and how I knew I ‘should’ feel.”

Body dysmorphia affected Adella every single day, and she never felt happy with her appearance.

“Compliments like, ‘You look amazing!’ or comments like, ‘You’re too skinny now’ just didn’t matter to me. No matter what people said, my own perception was the only one that counted—and I was never content,” she said.

“I’d berate myself, thinking, ‘How can I be so consumed by my appearance when there are far bigger issues in the world—people facing real struggles?’ But the self-criticism only fuelled the cycle. It was exhausting.”

She added: “People would say things like, ‘You’re going to snap in half!’ or ‘Just eat a burger!’

“But in my mind, certain foods—especially carbs—were the enemy.

“Now looking back at pictures I knew I had issues with, I am baffled as to how I could have ever thought I looked chubby!”

Adella decided to begin a workout programme with Ultimate Performance to try to develop a healthier relationship with her body.

“Ultimate Performance specialise in life-changing transformations, but I wasn’t the typical client who needed to drop a significant amount of weight,” Adella explains.

“I wasn’t starting from 100kg trying to get down to 60kg. I didn’t need to lose much weight, but for me, it was about refining my shape and hitting that ideal I had in my mind, as well as rewiring my brain as to how I think, to be more positive and kind to myself.

“When I’d show friends the transformation posts of other Ultimate Performance clients on Instagram, they’d be in awe.

“But when I showed my own progress pictures, while the reactions were positive, they were often followed by, ‘Well, you didn’t have much work to do in the first place.’

“That made me hesitant to share more or post my own progress on social media. It felt like people downplayed the effort I had put in because I wasn’t starting from a place of major weight loss.”

Adella wants to reach out to smaller-bodied women who suffer from body dysmorphia and encourage them to seek help, and to show people that it’s not just those overweight who are tormented by body issues.

“As a society, too many people think a life-changing transformation is only for those who are overweight,” she explains.

“I’ve spent so many years unhappy within my own body, allowing those negative thoughts to take root and fester.

“Looking back, I realise that if I had embraced a more positive outlook I could have avoided wasting so much precious time.

“My message to young women is simple: Be proud of who you are, be carefree, wear what makes you feel good, and don’t let the fear of judgment stop you.”

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