The Truth About Boxing and Eating Disorders with Pro boxer Danny O'Connor

Today I sat down with Olympic and Pro boxer Danny O'Connor to talk about his book Weight Class, where he gives a raw and honest account about his eating disorder while pursuing his professional boxing career.

He’s won many national titles including the US National Championship and the National Golden Gloves and is thought of as one of the best fighters of our time. Danny turned pro in 2008, competed at the highest level for more than ten years, had 31 wins, and held the WBC International Silver Super Lightweight Championship.

Now, Danny is a powerful advocate for weight class sports and eating disorders in men. He is also the founder of the DO Boxing Academy, a youth wellness and enrichment program that integrates non-contact fitness boxing and mindfulness for young people seeking a safe, structured, and supportive environment to channel anger and stress, build connection and learn emotion regulation, all the things Danny learned when he first stepped into the ring at 19.

Danny also started bitelikeaman.com, a virtual support community for men and athletes with eating issues. Lastly, as another way to give back and honor his past, he’s volunteered as a Court Appointed Special Advocate where he’s assigned to support a young person involved in the court system.

In his book, Danny takes us through his process of making weight and how it connected to his eating disorder. Today we are going to talk more about his book, his successful boxing career, and how he overcame his eating disorder.

Danny’s hope is to spread awareness and understanding of eating disorders and to feel less alone if you are struggling with one. Danny encourages prevention and gives permission to not engage in cutting weight in weight class sports. He encourages fueling your body and harnessing skill to be successful and strongly points out that restriction leads to the opposite.

Danny also graciously answers some poignant questions including why he’s the only one who has written about this topic, when he first realized he had an eating disorder, whether it’s possible to compete in a weight-class sport without damaging one’s relationship with food or increasing the risk of developing an eating disorder and how weight class sports can change the culture by changing how talk about men and eating disorders.

To reach Danny O'Connor:
 https://www.instagram.com/therealdannyoconnor

To order his book go to his website:
 www.bitelikeaman.com

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:03

Hi everyone, and welcome to the Wise Body Podcast, where we talk about eating disorder recovery and all things body. I'm your host, Dr. Sarah Hughes. I bring 20 years of experience as an eating disorder therapist, and I've worked with hundreds of clients to feel more empowered and connected to their body by tapping into the wisdom it holds. I'm so excited to keep learning with you as we navigate the windy path that is recovery. So let's get started.

SPEAKER_04 0:31

Hi, and welcome to season two, episode nine of The Wise Body. Today's guest is timely and he's amazing. Let me explain. I recently started working with a former high school wrestler turned bodybuilder. And during our first session, I asked him if he knew of any books written about cutting and bulking. He didn't, and I did a quick Google search and nothing came up. A couple of weeks ago, a colleague reached out to me and introduced me to Danny O'Connor, who is a former top-ranked pro boxer who just wrote his memoir about his boxing career while being in the throes of his own eating disorder. I love the way serendipity works. Let me introduce you to Danny O'Connor. He is a former elite professional and Olympic boxer from Boston. He's won many national titles, including the U.S. National Championship and the National Golden Gloves, and is thought of as one of the best fighters of our time. Danny turned pro in 2008, competed at the highest level for more than 10 years, had 31 wins, and held the WBC International Silver Super Lightweight Championship. Now Danny is a powerful advocate for weight-class sports and eating disorders in men. He is also the founder of the Dio Boxing Academy, a youth wellness and enrichment program that integrates non-contact fitness boxing and mindfulness for young people seeking a safe, structured, and supportive environment to channel anger and stress, build connection, and learn emotion regulation. All things Danny learned when he first stepped into the ring at 19. Danny also started BiteLikeAMan.com, a virtual support community for men and athletes with eating issues. Lastly, as another way to give back and honor his past, he's volunteered as a court-appointed special advocate, where he's assigned to support a young person involved in the court system. His family is everything to him, and his wife and four kids have supported him through some of his toughest boxing matches and eating disorder episodes. In his book, he gives a raw and honest, detailed account, an inside look at making weight and how weight class sports can be linked to eating disorders. And the book is called Weight Class: A Fighter's Life or Death Battle with an Eating Disorder. Today we are going to talk more about his book, his successful boxing career, and how he battled in the ring as a boxer and outside the ring with his eating disorder. First, I want to introduce and welcome Danny O'Connor to the podcast. And Danny, thank you so much for writing this very important book and being on the Wise Body podcast today.

SPEAKER_00 3:20

Thanks for having me. I'm I appreciate it. I'm happy to be here. I'm happy to speak out about the message. Um, you know, this project was the most purposeful thing I've ever done writing this book. And I hope that it can be a valuable lesson and a blueprint for people to maybe, you know, have the ability to save their life if they're struggling.

SPEAKER_04 3:41

Yeah, really. Thank you. Your book is the first of its kind because literally a month ago, I couldn't find a book on making weight. And I really thought someone must have written a book about this, but I couldn't find it until your book. So PS, I ordered it the first day it was available, couldn't put it down, and would have finished it in three days if I didn't have children. It's so well done, so well thought out. And you give such a raw and detailed account of your story. And I really appreciate you just sharing so much of yourself and so much of what this was like for you. And so I'm wondering if you don't mind we start here, that like, why do you think that no one besides you now has written about boxing, making weight, and having an eating disorder?

SPEAKER_00 4:34

Well, first of all, thank you very much for the kind words. It means a lot to me because with this being the most purposeful thing I've ever done, with the impact that I wanted to make on a population of people in this world, I took a lot of time and effort and put my heart and soul into this book because I felt like this was a book that I needed to read when I was in my struggle and I had no idea what was going on. I didn't know what was happening to my body, I didn't know what was happening into my mind. And so I felt like this was the book I needed. And because of that fact that there was nothing out there, like, you know, I looked. I had to go outside of the normal supports of the eating disorder world to try to get a grip on myself. I didn't have any male support. You know, you look at like the stats from like National Eating Disorder Association, right? 10 million men and adults can mass symptoms. So you're, you know, thinking a lot of those stats might come from children. Do that means children are affected here. I felt kind of like it was my responsibility to speak out about something and to tell my story because number one, there's no books out there, there's no literature, there's no like blueprint. I had to figure out a blueprint of a weight class and an eating disorder, two completely separate things for a greater part of 20 years. This wasn't like a bad habit that I just had to quit. This was something that changed my health maybe forever, almost took my life numerous times and put me in the ICU. So the severity of it was unquestionable. And because there's no one talking about it, because there's no books out there, there's no information, I felt like it's my responsibility that I had to do something because there are people that are affected. 10 million men suffering in silence. It may not have the support or ability to understand what's going on with them, they might need help. Then you look at early intervention. I looked like back in my eating disorder, and I think like a lot of it I gave to myself, and that's hard to live with. You have to understand some of the tactics I used and all these habits I created, and it didn't happen overnight. And eating disorder was developed over time, and so you know, I always look back like, what about if I had some more information or awareness or understanding when I stepped on that scale for the first time? Could have things been different? I knew alcohol was bad, right? There's a bar, a pub on every corner in Boston, like you kind of know, you know, and so I had no idea about food or what it could do to me, or I just thought that I was going to use these tactics to make weight. And then when my career was over and I achieved my dreams, I'd just go back to what you would view as normal. I didn't realize that that might not be an option. And so I felt like I had to tell my story because for all the people suffering, but then early intervention, if you can knock up somewhere a link in that chain before it progresses, you're gonna be ahead of the game. So somewhere in the world right now in Iowa, there's some eighth-grade kid stepping on a scale that doesn't have an eating disorder, and his life's at risk, and he doesn't even know it. And he doesn't know it because there's not enough awareness, there's not enough understanding. The complexity of eating disorders are out of this world, and it still baffles my mind that as an elite athlete that had discipline to the 100th in anything I wanted to do, that this wrecking ball came into my life, and it didn't matter how much willpower was involved. I had a loss of control that no matter what I thought or did or tried, I couldn't get a grip on that. And that's a really, really scary place to be when your body is out of control and your mind knows it and is trying to change it, but your body's not listening. And so I thought it was really important to get that message out there to the world. I mean, parents listening that have a kid in combat sports, or you know, um a mother that's listening that has a husband or a brother, like these people are out there suffering, and until someone starts talking about it, and it's not gonna change. So I didn't just want to write a book, I wanted to do something that could have a cultural impact in the whole world. And because there was no books out there, because no one was telling the story, because there's so many takeaways from this story, I felt like I had to do it.

SPEAKER_02 8:48

Yeah, it didn't feel like a choice for you at one point, it sounds like no, had to write about it.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

Nope, had to, yeah, for that kid that doesn't have an eating disorder yet. Don't go down this path, don't catch one. I mean, this thing was the most chaotic thing that I've ever been through in my life, you know what I mean? And I didn't expect it, like I didn't want an eating disorder. I was just trying to make away class and I was trying to fulfill dreams of being an elite champion. I didn't want this thing that was gonna come in and ruin my career and almost kill me, and it didn't matter what was on the line, like it just didn't. So, you know, I people gotta know that. People gotta know that in a real way. And so I tried to write that in the book so I could give you a glimpse of what I went through. And what I went through was craziness. You can't fathom it until you read it because your brain can't understand it until you're inside of it. And once you're inside of it, it's insane.

SPEAKER_04 9:45

While reading your book, it seemed like there was a moment that you realized you had an eating disorder. So even though you know things were happening and aligning in such a way that then developed into an eating disorder, I totally understand that and the progression. And if you read the book, you will see that. But it sounds like there was like a moment you realize like this is an eating disorder. Can you like tell us about that, what that was like for you?

SPEAKER_00 10:11

I'm gonna keep saying it's crazy and I'm gonna keep saying it's complex because it is both crazy and complex on every twist and turn of the way. So, like I said before, when you really understand eating disorder, I think there's many different ways that can accumulate to developing one, right? So, you know, what I understand through professionals is what I call the predisposition. Wheel, there might be a lot of things that make you more susceptible, right? Like, you know, trauma. I would call that the emotional aspect of it. So any type of like, you know, trauma or whatever, then you could be in diet culture. It could be like a family culture, how you're brought into food. So like they have all these little markers of things that could make you more susceptible. The other thing you have to realize is what develops it is for me, was all the habits I was doing to myself. So when I was trying to make weight and I was manipulating my body and my fluids and my weight on a continuous throughout, you know, I was a professional for 15 years. So, you know, that just was the norm. I normalized these crazy tactics that put my life at risk every time I did them. And we're talking about, you know, when I'm losing 15 pounds overnight to make a weight, like those are acute instances that I'm putting my life at risk. And so all of these things contributed to what I knew I was doing. I knew how I was making weight and I knew it wasn't the healthiest, but I also didn't know that it couldn't just change. You know, okay, when boxing's over, I'm just not gonna do this. I'm not gonna make weight anymore, I'm gonna live a happy life. And so I never really had the education or the awareness of what eating disorder was, how it could develop. And so I kept doing these things to myself and putting myself in harm's way and creating habits of going against these bodily functions. Like when you go against the primal needs of your body, like when it's hungry to feed it, or when it's not hungry to feed it more, or to make yourself go to the bathroom when it shouldn't be going to the bathroom. When you go against all these needs, there are serious repercussions in your health, in your psyche, in your physical. And so I didn't really realize any of these things. I thought that I was just manipulating my body and then it would kind of go back to normal. And also weight cutting and all that stuff wasn't it wasn't as talked about back then in that time. Like the first time I stepped on a scale, you know, we're talking about like 2001, maybe like it just wasn't as advanced. And so these things kind of just progressed into something that I always controlled. When I went into training camp, I could flip a switch and I could be 100% disciplined. And even though my discipline was in a non-healthy area, it takes a lot of discipline not to eat and to do all these unhealthy things because your body doesn't want to do them. You're going against your body. So even though my discipline was in the wrong departments because it was causing harm and I didn't know it, it was still discipline to 100. So when I went into training camp and I had to do these things that I viewed as what I was gonna do to make weight, to starve, to be on point, to train, to have this regiment, this schedule. Every single day I'm eating at this time, at this time, didn't matter if I was hungry or not because that's the time that I was gonna do it as an athlete to get all those nutrients, but it was always controlled. Then training camp would be over and I could do whatever I want. And then I could change it and do whatever I want again, and then I could be opposite. And then one day I woke up and I couldn't change it anymore. And that's when I realized damn, there's a real problem right now. Now I am trying to do something in my mind, and my body is not following. Now it's a disconnect. Now it's beyond willpower because if it was willpower, it would have already been done. I would have changed the habit in an instance because that was the discipline I had for athletics. But now I knew that because it didn't matter what it was. I had the ability in the discipline area of my life to do that. If I have to wake up at three o'clock to go running, I was up at 2 30 every single day, no matter if I wanted to or not. And the same thing came with food or the schedule or training, like it didn't matter. Like that was the level of discipline for the elite athletics I had to compete and to try to achieve my dreams. And when that like aspect that was my most powerful thing because it did separate me a lot, when that aspect then changed and I couldn't do that, I knew that there was a really big problem. And in 2013, I was in training camp in Texas and I was in the middle of a binge eating episode in the kitchen, and I had this little like uh it was like a one-bedroom with the town home type of apartment thing. And I was there by myself. I didn't have any family because Diane and I only had one child at that time. They were back in Boston. I was in training camp. I had a fight coming up. There was a lot of things on the line, and I knew that I had to make weight. I knew that I was in an elite training camp where my weight was gonna be checked every day. Like I was gonna be on top of it. People were gonna, you know, uncover things. And I remember having a binge episode in the kitchen, and I remember being like, I can't stop. I cannot stop right now. I'm trying so hard and I can't stop. And that's like the epiphany when everything hit me like you can't stop. Like, we got a problem right now. And then, you know, I'm like, all right, I have an eating disorder. And then it's like, okay, well, I don't really know what that is. I don't know what an eating disorder is, and I don't really know how to cure mine. And that's kind of when this journey for recovery and to reclaim my life and to not die began. And it was kind of crazy because as an athlete, I just treated it like a sport. Like, this is what I'm gonna do to train, to get better, to overcome it, to beat, you know, whatever. And so I had to step away from the sport at that time. The weight class, because remember, they are two separate things the weight class, which is my job, my livelihood, and the eating disorder. They're two separate things. But because it was my job and my profession, those two things always clashed and they made each other worse. And so when the eating disorder was worse, the weight tactics to fit in my weight class was worse and more intense and more unhealthy. So it came to a point where I had to separate those two things and I had to step away from the sport because it was getting so bad that I was gonna kill myself. So I stepped away from the sport. And when I first went home, I thought this is a mind issue. I'm gonna read all these books about how to operate under pressure, how to control your mind better, how to do all this stuff better. I'm gonna beat this thing overnight, and then I'm just gonna go back to my sport and continue on. And humbly, I was wrong, very wrong. And, you know, 10 years later was from 2013 to 2023. Like I'm still on that journey of recovery. It wasn't overnight, it was a long year with an S because I was already so deep into it. When my delusion came, and that's what I was saying about early intervention. Look at yourself, assess it, understand what abnormal eating is and abnormal habits before an eating disorder develops that then is out of control. I didn't catch any of these signs. I didn't try to make changes, I didn't have awareness. And then when I left the delusion and realized that there was a big problem right here, it was pretty late in the game. I I was already well, well in this thing that I had already lost control of a long time ago. And so I urge you like look at yourself, look at your habits, look at your education around it, and you know, make sure you're good because if it's early intervention, if you can break that thing up early or make changes before it gets so progressed to where I was, it's just better. You you don't have to go through all the suffering that I went through for 20 years. Like, you can learn about an eating disorder right now and then not get one. Like, that's my advice. Don't get an eating disorder, don't do it. Don't do any of the habits associated with it and just know what you're doing because like there's no immunity. You know what I mean? There's no immunity, like there's no class, and that's why food is so sneaky because it's just right there underneath, you know, just hidden in plain sight. Everybody eats and nobody's immune. It doesn't matter what color you are, what body shape you are, what size you are, like anybody can be affected. And so look at it like this eating disorder is the second highest mortality rate, second to opioids. That is a very serious statistic. And you know, just uh because I just talked about that, here's an example. When I was looking for things in recovery, I did all the traditional supports that you would think would be involved in the culture. And because there was such a lack of males and being able to like have that connection, I tried so many things that were out of the box to recover from the eating disorder that didn't even have to do that with the eating disorder that I thought I could bring back to myself and try to use it on the eating disorder. And one of those things was, you know, I had a heroin addict and I went to the number one. If eating disorders mortality rate was number two, what's number one? Opioids. Okay. So I found someone that had a 20-year habit with opioids, and we talk weekly. I just tried to figure out like what's going on with you, like how's it affect you, and then bring it back and relate it to food. Like, okay, well, this is different with you. Obviously, you can do an abstinence. I can't do that. I have to have a relationship with food for the rest of my life, even once I get it back in control, right? So my relationship with food is gonna now be different than anybody else, than anybody else. Like, I have my own relationship that has to be a healthy one for me to survive. So there were some differences, but there were also some similarities. And, you know, I did that with everything. Like I did a lot of self-help and different, like mindful self-compassion with Chris Gurmer. It was a really good, like, self-help modality that, you know, allowed me to assess myself. So I was doing everything in the eating disorder world and everything outside of the eating disorder world, just trying to figure out what the hell was going on with me and how do I get rid of this? How do I save my life? And that's a really hard topic because think about it like this. And a lot of the times when it was at its worst, like when you wake up on a normal day and you're thinking about like, okay, like, you know, what do I have to do today? What's my job? Like, how do I get ready? Like, do this stuff. Like, there was a time in this easing disorder that I didn't have the luxury of thinking about any of that stuff. I was just thinking about how not to die on a daily basis. And when that is all your thoughts, it's pretty consuming. It's pretty consuming, especially when you have a family. You know, I got four children. So I just urge people to understand this disease, this disorder, and understand the severity of it because unnoticed, it can kill you. It can for sure take your life, disrupt your life. And that's one of the best feelings now. It's like the freedom because that thing seems like somebody attached at your hip all day, every day. You know, some days it beats you up a little bit more than others, but it's always there every day, all day, no matter what. Even when the weight class was gone, the eating disorder remained. And so I just urge people to understand the seriousness of this.

SPEAKER_04 21:35

Yeah. Thank you for saying all of that. And I want to go back to a few things that you said to highlight. Actually, two days ago, I was on a call with a client, and she's in an impatient program right now. And I only had like a few minute phone check in with her. And I felt like really pulled in that moment to remind her that this could kill her. And Not to say in like a dramatic kind of way, but in a very stark reality kind of way that eating disorders have the second highest mortality rate of all mental illness. And it recently actually, so I've been an eating disorder therapist for 20 years. And it used to be, not that this is a competition. I know I'm speaking to a competitive athlete, but it used to be number one. Eating disorders had the highest mortality rate of all mental illnesses. And now opioid addiction has sort of claimed that. But it is serious. And it sounds like maybe it didn't feel serious to you while you were doing it until it was, right? Like that this is just something that you do and that you restrict to make weight and that you feel like you have to. And there's a saying with in this field of eating disorders, and I work with a lot of athletes, and that is a question which comes up, I think, for a lot of like competitive athletes, which is are you a serious athlete? Right. And if you're serious, you're gonna do things maybe to the extreme. So are you serious about this? Is this something you really want? Or are you an athlete with an eating disorder? And for a lot of athletes, it's a very fine line. And sometimes, like you're explaining, it goes unnoticed because maybe that these tactics or strategies maybe are universal or justified. And so that leads me to asking you a little bit more about that. So do you think that, you know, as I was reading this, and and I'm going to be like completely blatant about my bias, but like what came up for me was is it possible for someone to box or wrestle without complicating their relationship with food and risking it to evolve into an eating disorder? And that question comes from this place of like I ask it because I ask it this way because the weight loss strategies for weight class sports seem so universal and justified. So I don't know. What are your thoughts about that? Like, do you feel like it's possible to go into these weight class sports like boxing and wrestling, as you have, without like complicating your relationship with food and that then evolving into an eating disorder? I don't know. Have you like talked with boxers and wrestlers about that? Or and what's your own personal feeling on that?

SPEAKER_00 24:21

I think you absolutely can. I mean, I'm never gonna like down sport, I'm not gonna down the combat sport, and I'm not gonna down the weight class either, because ultimately I was using these tactics to fit in that weight, like, you know, yes, you know, purposely or or unconsciously, whatever you want to call it. I was still doing this tactics. So if I had awareness at the beginning, there it could have been a different story. I could have walked a totally different path. That's why I wrote the book so that that kid that's stepping on a scale right now will go a different path. Because I absolutely think you can compete in a combat sport without the weight developing into something, right? And that has to be culturally like a lot of the culture of combat sports is like, you know, maybe a little bit of cut and weight, and then you fit in a scale. But it's also changing because that's not true. I mean, every single fight I've ever got in in my life, I walked into the ring at not 100% because of the tactics I use to get there. And you can't compete as an athlete, especially elite, at that level at 100%. You just can't. So in a combat sport or any sport, any athlete, the best way to be the best athlete is to train yourself, have discipline, fuel yourself optimally, you know, be hydrated, train hard, and then go compete at 100%, fully rested and the best athlete you possibly can with all the skill you have. And so if you have that mindset, you're gonna be in great shape because you're working at your profession, at your craft, and you just fight wherever you fight, wherever your weight falls is where you fade. You know, you don't need to cut weight. And so I think that's probably a cultural thing that shift has to come. And also, it's just more education about what weight cutting does to you. Like the amount of times I almost died, and then obviously ended up in the ICU, basically dead, is more than a normal person. But a lot of that stuff is acute. Like, I did something so extreme in one instance that it almost took my life, and a lot of that had did have to do with cutting weight. But you gotta understand eating disorders. I normalized cutting weight. I didn't know any better, and that's what I did to compete, and I was winning. I never normalized the eating disorder. Once I was out of delusion and I realized, whoa, this is out of control, I never normalize that. Now, I did have to keep it a little bit secret. I viewed my job, my profession, what I did, my livelihood in the weight class, as like the eating disorder was a direct liability. I thought if people thought I had a problem with that aspect of my profession, it would cause turbulence and me getting fights or my career. So I did keep it secret. I mean, outside of my wife, I mean, I've been married for 15 years, she's been by my side for everything. She doesn't have an eating disorder. She can't see on the inside, but she can see on the outside. So outside of her and many people on the professional team keeping me alive, nobody really knew the depths of my eating disorder. I wrote a book and came out to the whole world. So here, here's everything, right? But during the 20 years suffering, there wasn't really anyone outside of me and my wife and the professional team that knew about this. So a lot of it was suffered in silence because I didn't have a man, I didn't have people that I thought I connected. And it was just kind of me on an island figuring this shit out. And so I never normalized the eating disorder. From the second I knew that this is out of control, this is a big problem, and this is only gonna get worse. It was all gears were set towards I'm gonna beat this thing just like any other opponent. You know what I mean? I didn't know what that looked like, but I just never quit. And so you can definitely compete in a sport without that eating disorder, but there has to be awareness so that things don't develop and you're not doing these things subconsciously that are gonna make you more susceptible to it. And so I think that just comes with awareness. I mean, boxing saved my life for all the hardships because of the weight that I've had over the years. Boxing saved my life in a time when it needed to be saved, and I will be forever grateful for the sport. And it's a great sport that, you know, and not just boxing, combat sports, it's a great sport that, you know, saves lives all over the world from what it does to people. So I try to always keep that in mind when I think like back about my time and through all the suffering, like awareness, early intervention. And, you know, if you're past that point and you're already stuck in the struggle, then it's about help. It's about support and help. And that's not always easy. It's never easy. I mean, even if you have the best supports in the world, it's still hard to do emotional stuff when it comes to your health and your life. It's still hard, but it becomes extra hard if you don't have those supports and you're just doing it alone. And they don't have to be traditional. You know, the traditional ones didn't always connect with me. They can be untraditional, they can be whatever. You just have to find supports in, you know. I always credit my wife. I couldn't have done it without her. You know, she drove me to the inpatient clinic, you know, she picked me up, she flew with me to one of these retreats in another state, and you know, I knew she didn't have an eating disorder, and I still wanted that connection with a guy that so I could understand like what was going on, but I still had someone that had my back no matter what. And that meant a lot to me. You know, there was a lot of times when I could have probably went a different way, but I didn't because it wasn't an option. I had a family, I had a wife that was counting on me, I had kids, and I think that's the biggest thing. Like, I just didn't quit. I didn't quit. And you could hear that. Like, I like business, I'm a good businessman, and you know, you always hear about these people, like they're just relentless, and like I just didn't quit. No matter how bad it got, no matter how messed up I was, I just didn't quit trying to win, you know what I mean? And and I did view that eating disorder as a sport, like I put it in as like a sport, like I'm an athlete, every aspect of it was like a sport, like winning the competition, beating the eating disorder, you know, whatever it may be. So I think that is the biggest thing. And like, don't get me wrong, like I just didn't quit. It wasn't like every day I woke up and I was super motivated. Like this thing beat me down to like, you know, just worthless on some days. So some days I wasn't even putting up any type of fight. I had no motivation to do anything. I just never quit. Every day was a new day where you know, maybe today's the day. And I do think that it was an accumulation of things. I tried a million things. Sometimes I was trying seven things at one time, and it was an accumulation of things, like different things helped me at different times, and I kept progressing, and I kept unlocking the puzzle of the eating disorder, and then I'd take 15 steps backwards, and then I would take two forwards and then seven back. So it was a very chaotic, kind of like unstable, up and down journey that I just didn't stop because it's like boxing, right? And I wrote that in the book. Like, you can be losing every round, and then the last round and the last second, you win because that's the sport. And so I brought that over here. Like, yeah, maybe it beats me up 55 days, but maybe on 56 I get it. And I thought, like, maybe it would just take that one time, like I get it. And so having that resiliency and resolve not to quit is probably the hard part because it's just tough. It's tough. And you know, I'm not saying like eating disorders in in general, like any mental health is tough. Like when you suffer internally and you only try to like express that to other people, but you don't know if they know or if they can understand, it's a very tough situation and it can be isolating. Like I always call like the eating disorder a disorder of loneliness because it really was like not one single person, including my mother, who had to, you know, come up obviously after she read the book. Not one person in this world outside of my wife, Diane, really understood the depths of this. And so I can't tell you how many people read that book. And then because you could see the habits, you could see things a lot of the time. I hid those habits inside the sport because I could like I'm an athlete, this is how I gotta do, or this is what I am doing. So, but if you look back, you could see things that were abnormal, and nobody could have ever known, no coach, no parent, no adult, nobody could have ever known the depths of this, and that's why eating disorders are are crazy because they can be so personal. Like, you know, maybe I'm using substance and I have some visible things that you can tell that I'm you know not taking care of myself. Eating disorders are different. Like sometimes there might not be signs for you for how deep I am into it, unless I want to tell you. And so supports are really important, man. And and I I think leaning on them, finding ones that you really trust that you know, like have your back and leaning on them when times are tough. And you know, I think that that's really important, along with all the stuff you have to do, because at the end of the day, it doesn't matter how many supports you have, like you have to do this stuff. So that stuff is incredibly hard. But on top of that, you know, having the right support is really, I think, pretty essential too.

SPEAKER_04 33:36

For sure. And I'm so glad that you had Diane and your family supporting you, Diane and your kids, right? And it makes sense too that you didn't tell anyone in the beginning that it was something that you felt like you couldn't because boxing was your job and it was your livelihood and you were supporting a family. And at the same time, right, eating disorders can live in secret and often do, and can be very shameful. And there are so many wild misconceptions about eating disorders. I think you've highlighted a very important one, especially around binge eating, which is it's not a matter of willpower. You, of anyone, I think, have the strongest willpower. And so you cannot will away an eating disorder that it requires much more than that. And I appreciate like how you use your discipline and focus in boxing towards your recovery, because eating disorders don't discriminate and they can affect anyone, and even when maybe it seems unlikely. But as you said, like there were a lot of predispositions that created this, what I refer to as like a perfect storm, which is the eating disorder.

SPEAKER_00 34:54

And yeah, like the biggest perfect storm. I had like all of them.

SPEAKER_04 34:59

Yeah. And you did a lot of work teasing apart what contributed to that storm, and that takes a lot of work. And you said years. And so yeah, I'm so glad that you did the work and that you committed yourself fully to your recovery. And it's really, really inspiring.

SPEAKER_00 35:17

I also didn't tell people because it wasn't just a profession, like my sport, yes, that was it too. But also, like, you gotta understand, I had the ability to control every aspect of my body. Like, that is my job as a pro athlete. I tell it what to do, and it goes and does it and performs at this really high level, and then I train it to perform higher. So, like in 2013, when I knew that I couldn't control this, I didn't understand what was going on with me. I came from the like most control to zero control, and so I was scared. Like, I didn't know what was going on with my body. Like, and for anyone that knows what a binge eating episode is, it was wicked scary. I had no idea like how my body could even put this food in my body, and I was like scared for my health. Like, sometimes I couldn't even breathe when it got so bad. So, like, I was very scared and I didn't know what was going on with my body, and I didn't understand it. So, like, I was kind of a little bit nervous to go talk to you because I didn't understand it. So, like, how can I like tell you stuff that I don't know, and then now I don't know if you know. So, I was embarrassed that I couldn't just get a hold of this thing overnight. Like, I'm gonna let this eating disorder ruin my career that I've worked so hard on, you know, disrupt my life, disrupt my money, you know, potentially kill me. My health was on the line, and I still couldn't get control of it. It still baffles me to this day. And that's why I'm so outspoken because it just baffles me the amount of power it had. I didn't think really anything in this world could have that type of power over me. And I would never willingly give that power to anything, to anybody. Like it was just like crazy.

SPEAKER_04 37:02

Yeah. Well, and thank you for saying that, right? Because for being known as someone that has a lot of power and a lot of strength, and this is something that sort of, in a way, I'm very simplistically saying it's beating you. And I can't imagine the level of frustration that may have been for you.

SPEAKER_00 37:22

It was like beating my head against the wall. I mean, literally, every single day, at one point, I mean, the intensity of the eating disorder shifted back and forth. And obviously, you know, when I was doing good, it shifted into less. But sometimes when I reintroduced the scale in my weight class because I wasn't giving up on my career, you know, things got worse. During some of the most intenseness of the eating disorder, when the binge eating episodes were, you know, daily, right? Because they chunked out. Sometimes, like I could get away with, you know, not daily, maybe like once a week. There was a time when they were so intense that they were daily every day. And then there were times when they spanned a couple days. You know what I mean? I've taken a binge in into the shower, into the car, into you know, other places. So at the time when they were the most intense and it was on a daily basis, it was like beating my head off the wall because every day was just how do I fight this urge and not do this, right? And so when my whole body and mind and everything, I'm just trying not to binge eat, you know, and I tried everything like how do I distract it here? How do I delay it here? How do I do it here? And nothing was working. And even, you know, no matter how much I tried, I still get swept away on this binge episode. And it just like every day I woke up, just defeated, so defeated, not understanding why, I just couldn't not do it the day before. Whole day is now set out to try and not to do it again, and then it comes again and again and again, and it was super, super defeating.

SPEAKER_04 38:58

Yeah, and you kept at it and you kept getting up and literally and metaphorically, and yeah, I think that speaks to just how strong your character is. And I'm wondering, too, as we're talking more specifically about boxing, what would you say to like a young fighter who thinks that disordered eating is just part of the sport and it's to be expected and it's just what you do?

SPEAKER_00 39:24

I would just say don't do it. And I mean, I guess it depends on what your definition of disordered eating is. Like, if you're an athlete, especially an extreme one, like you know, you might be in some sort of nutritional plan from a dietitian that gives you the most optimal, which might have parameters. But the key takeaway is no matter what it is, it has to be healthy. You have to fuel yourself and you have to feed yourself, and you got to recover and you have to fuel yourself when you're exerting all that energy, right? And so when you're a young athlete, like you just have to make sure that whatever you're doing, you're doing that. And so if you're not doing that and your eating is abnormal because you're restricting, I would say the restricting was one of the things because I starved myself so aggressively and so many different times for so long against everything that my body wanted to do that I literally felt like I broke myself. And so I think you got to get education, you gotta get the awareness of what is disordered eating, right? You need to know all this stuff, you need to know what habits are and then just know what they can lead to. Like I know because it led me to them, and that's why I wrote the book. So you don't ever have to walk down this path. Just learn what not to do and then act accordingly and the sneakiness of it. That's what I would like really like you to take away. The sneakiness of that eating disorder. It snuck me, it got me. And for as much as I did see it coming, I didn't. And that's a big problem. You know, I can walk into any liquor store right now and yeah, maybe I'm gonna have a really nice night with my wife and a couple glasses of wine, but I don't for once think that even though I'm gonna have a good night and it's not a big deal, that anything I'm putting in my body is healthy for me, right? And so, you know, I live a real clean way, I don't drink or do nothing anyway. But what I'm saying is, is you just have to know like what the repercussions of stuff can be. And, you know, like I said before, going against the body systems has so many repercussions that even after you don't have an eating disorder anymore, you still might have some repercussions because you've affected body systems. One time I made myself anemic and because of the starvation, and I was so anemic that I had to get in the ring on showtime in front of the whole world and compete. And I competed at barely a half of myself. It ended up with a nasal reconstructive surgery because I got beat up. I had nothing. I made myself medically sick before I got in the ring where I should have been competing, and I'm fighting another man for 12 rounds. Like that's a whole different conversation in itself. So, you know, the health stuff's real. I mean, I can't tell you how many times yeah, I had to go get a blood test before a fight to get cleared, and it came back saying I was pre-diabetic because of the crazy amounts of sugar that I ate the night before. You know, one time I turned all of my skin orange, all of it. My elbows, my palms, everything was orange because my consumption of like beta carotene and carrots and sweet potatoes and pumpkins was at such an intense level that I turned myself orange, which is insane. And so, like the health issues attached to eating disorders are real, super real. So that's one thing. Like, I try to live really healthy now. I just eat when my body's hungry and I don't when it isn't, and I try to exercise and you know, just have a really healthy, well balanced life. And it's really, really fulfilling because I couldn't get that for 20 years of the disorder and then 10 years of trying not to have a disorder. I couldn't get that. I couldn't get that stability where I just felt healthy. And then, you know, obviously I had to remedy a lot of health issues too. Like I have a primary care and I have a doctor of psychology that I deal with. I stay up on my health. I get my normal checkups. You put your body through so much for so long in the making weight and the eating disorder, two separate things that are both drastically unhealthy. And so you just don't know what the repercussions are, you know, down the line and in the future. So anytime anything comes up, I make sure I'm on top of it and I watch my health, I watch what I eat, you know. And I just try to do everything in a very healthy way, the healthiest that I can in the moment.

SPEAKER_04 43:51

Yeah. Well, I'm glad you're listening to your body and you're taking care of your body and you're paying attention to your body, and because I think that's really. Common that like there often is like a disconnect with eating disorders. There's a disconnect to your body. And so you're paying attention to it now. You're paying attention to if something feels wrong or when you're hungry. And before we hopped on, I know I told you like that's why I call the podcast The Wise Body, because your body knows, right? And an eating disorder can rob your sense of self of your body knowing. But your body always knows what to do. And it's always trying to keep you alive and it's very resilient. Your body has been through so much, Danny. And here you are, like a true inspiration standing and telling us about it. A few more questions, if you don't mind. How do you think like conversations about men and body image and eating disorders need to change in weight class sport?

SPEAKER_00 44:48

Well, first of all, that's exactly why I'm doing what I'm doing. I'm gonna reach the highest platform possible in the world and spread a little bit of awareness because I think that's where it starts. Awareness, understanding, you know, it's crazy that I have the only book, the only story. There are more stories out there. And so awareness, I think, is a big thing, but you got to normalize, you know, seeking help. You got to normalize, you know, speaking out about it. Like especially if you're a man, like I understand there's could be some reservations, but I think we have to normalize kind of just the conversation with eating disorders that if you're affected, you need help and you need help now. And, you know, you got to go find help or find a comfortable way to get you to help. And so it doesn't matter if you're a guy, it doesn't matter if you're a girl, it doesn't matter what you are. Like we got to normalize it. Like, hey, if you're affected, we got to get help. It doesn't matter. Your life's on the line, that's the only thing that matters. Let's get you healthy. And so the more you can talk about that, the more you can talk about the dangers of cutting weight, the more men that come out maybe that now might feel a little bit more empowered because they read my book. Like, the more that we change that narrative, I think the more that the whole industry really will change. And people want it. Like, I can't tell you how many people have already called me and been like, man, or wrote me a message on Instagram or something, being like, Man, your book, like, I needed this. I know you needed it because I needed it too. And it wasn't there. That's why I did it. And so I hope that it can save a lot of people's lives. When your purpose is life or death, like, what are we really talking about here? What are you gonna match against life or death? Because when it comes to death, it's really like what else matters? Like, so it's like when the purpose behind it was to put out something that I thought might save somebody's life because they don't have any literature right now to grab onto to say, yeah, man, I I can beat this, I can do this, I can get at like whatever, like that's how much impact I wanted it to have, and that's how purposeful it was. So, you know, I hope it does do that. I hope it definitely does do that.

SPEAKER_04 46:41

Well, I mean, as we first started our conversation, I needed this book. I was looking for it and it wasn't there. And I'm so grateful that you've written it and that I can share it with clients as well. And maybe we end with one more question. So if a young boxer picks up your book and is looking for guidance, what's one lesson you hope stays with them after they read it?

SPEAKER_00 47:08

You gotta listen to your body, right? Still to this day, I don't know if I'm hungry or if I'm full. Those cues have never come back. I mean, there's on occasions, like, but for the most part, I've gone against my body so much that I think it's really important that these guys coming into weight class sports, they know that like you want to train to be optimal and compete and use your skills. Like, you don't want to cut weight, you don't want to go down that path of manipulating your body to fit in a thing because it's only hurting you. It's not making you better, it's not making you compete better. It doesn't matter if you're bigger, like, and that's what I should have realized a little bit sooner. My skills are really good. I'm good at fighting, I'm good at boxing. I don't care what size you are, I'll put my skills up against anybody in this world. And I never really had that mindset from the beginning. I just had the mindset of, oh, let me just get, you know, fit into this weight class. And so I think it's really important for athletes that are coming into a combat sport, like take that scale away. It doesn't even need to be part of the sport. Like, just make the sport, training, being disciplined, and competing. That's it. And so I didn't do that. The sport was the scale, that was the fight for me. And I always had to fight that one first before I was able to get in the ring and compete. So I think that's the biggest thing. And for people that are struggling, you know, obviously it's get help, but I mean, also find the information out there. Like, there was different sources that helped me, just because they weren't related to an eating disorder, there was different stuff that I read that did help me. And there was so much literature out there. I read a book about eating disorders that nobody else really knew, and it was from this lady, and that book helped me drastically. And that was like a different perspective on like the whole eating disorder world. So, like, you know, just find all the information that's out there. And I mean, that's how we all just try to do the best you can, you know, try to survive.

SPEAKER_04 48:57

Yeah, that you can find resources maybe in some unlikely places, right? And you sought them out and you did the work and truly are an inspiration, Danny. And I'm really, again, very grateful for your book and really grateful for your time today. And I'm really glad that you are sharing your story and your message. And I'm also very honored to be a part of that today. And so thank you very much, Danny, for your time and for writing your book. It's really important.

SPEAKER_00 49:28

Well, thank you. And and I appreciate being here to talk to you. And I think that that's the biggest thing. Like, I'm not really trying to be an inspiration, I'm not trying to be anything. I'm just a man. And if it can happen to me, it can happen to anybody. That's like the message I'm trying to take away from this. Like, if it can happen to me, it can happen to anybody. And so just be really cautious. And I'm glad that I can share what would be the point of going through 20 years and surviving this thing if I couldn't tell you how to do it. So maybe you don't have to go through 20 years. Maybe you just get two years or one year or five years, or maybe best case scenario, you get no years and you just have a better outcome. And so I'm just happy that I was able to do it. It was hard, it was extremely hard.

SPEAKER_04 50:10

Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you. Thank you so much again. And thank you all for listening in today, listening to my conversation with Danny O'Connor. And if you haven't already, get his book, Wake Class. It's super awesome. And yeah, thank you all for being here today. Bye for now.

SPEAKER_01 50:34

Thank you everyone for taking the time to listen in this week. I'm so glad you're here with me as we learn more from our wise bodies and about eating disorder recovery. For more, follow me on social media and please share the Wise Body Podcast with your friends. Lastly, if you're interested in a free client consultation, please reach out on drhughes.com. And remember, always take care of yourself and your tempo. See you next time on the Wise Body Podcast.