Fit Not Healthy

Book excerpt: Fit NOT Healthy is the gripping story of Vanessa Alford, a self-driven, ambitious young woman who, in her early twenties discovers her love and talent for long distance running. Two years after completing her first marathon, she finishes third at the Melbourne marathon. Driven and determined to run faster, she subjects her body to gruelling workouts coupled with a restrictive diet, desperate to maintain her lean physique. Despite her own training as a physiotherapist and nutritionist, her unwavering will and determination to be the fastest leads her down a dangerous path of self-destructing exercise and extreme dieting, until one day her body rebels in a way she could never have imagined. This book shares Vanessa’s journey from extreme elation to the lowest point in her life and the struggle she faced for several years after her exercise addiction took her to the brink of infertility and irreversible physical and physiological damage.