‘I felt empty, sad’: Tennis star Caroline Garcia opens up on Bulimia, eating disorder

WTA Finals winner Caroline Garcia said she struggled with bulimia – eating disorder – as she looked to fill a sense of “emptiness, sadness” when things were not going her way on court and how “defeat became an excuse”.
“Everyone is different. Some don’t eat anymore, I was the opposite: I took refuge in food. These were times of crisis. You feel so empty, so sad, that you need to fill yourself up. It was the dress of not being able to do what I wanted on the court, no longer winning and suffering physically. Eating calmed me down for a few minutes. We all know it doesn’t last, but… It was an escape. It’s uncontrollable,” she told the French sports newspaper L’Equipe.
She said she found it difficult to control when she was alone. “When you’re alone, it’s harder to control. And in tennis, you spend a lot of time alone in your room. That’s often how it happened. Afterwards, I started talking about it, to my relatives, to friends, to my parents. You begin to understand. You realize that if this happens to you, it’s not the end of the world. Sometimes it’s just fatigue that makes your body crave sugar. It’s not going to change your life either. Sometimes it was inexplicable. I needed to fill myself up to make up for the defeat and the pain.”
Caroline Garcia says it has reduced these days though when the bouts reappear she feels “less guilty”. “Since I take advantage a little more of everything there is around tennis and that I take more time for myself, it happens to me less. And when it happens to me, I accept it more and feel a lot less guilty. Allowing myself more regular little pleasures avoids having too often this craving (irresible desire) for something. At one point, I didn’t allow myself much. It was getting too much”.

Garcia talks frankly about how how defeat became an excuse for her and that she is learning about herself.
“Now, if for two days, I want a pizza, I’ll take my pizza and it will stop obsessing me. I had a hard time accepting the fact that it wasn’t going to transform my body. I allow myself a small dessert from time to time rather than thinking about it all week and ending up completely cracking. Defeat became an excuse to allow everything to me. This is much less the case today. In the players’ restaurant, there are plenty of temptations, it’s not easy. You learn about yourself as you go,” Garcia said.
The eating disorder clashed with her image of how an athlete should look. “In fact for me, an athlete needs to be fit. This is the image you need to send back. At one point, I was pretty hard on myself. I’m more of the type to weigh myself often, to be to the nearest gram.
“These days it’s better. I manage to have fun when I feel it. If I want to eat that, I do it knowing I’m doing it. And I see that the next day, it’s fine. Sometimes you need proof that it’s not going to do anything to your body (smile) . For example, I(at the Masters, third pool match) . I wanted it. I found a gluten-free dough. I was so happy with my pizza! And I held 2h30 on the court the next day (she won 4-6, 6-1, 7-6 [5]) .”
She also suffered from a unceasing foot pain that made matters worse.
“After being top 10 (4th in the world in 2018) having won Masters 1000 (Wuhan and Beijing in 2017) , it’s hard to accept. In Miami (in March) , I couldn’t take the pain anymore and I couldn’t train anymore. I didn’t want to anymore. I told myself that I would never get rid of these foot pains which also bothered me in my everyday life. There have been many tears, sleepless nights, this year and last year already. When things are not going well, you are more and more alone. You think. You lose a lot, so you no longer have the emotion of victory, even that of a first round, when you need it. And you don’t sleep anymore.
Last March, she took a break to take care of her foot.
“What was hard in this period [of rehabilitation] is that we didn’t know how long it was going to last. You see several specials, no one tells you the same. The aponeurosis can evolve very differently from one person to another. It depended on what shoes and soles I was going to find. But I took the positive. In tennis usually, making a calendar, having a schedule for a week, telling your friend “see you next week at this time”, it’s impossible. After a while, it was a little hard to live with. There, we knew that for at least a month, I could not play. I had time, I could plan. I was doing rehabilitation in Lyon. I had physical and physio from such time to such time, the whole upper body, the cladding, specific care, a lot of hyperbaric chambers too. It took me time, but I had lunchtimes and evenings free. I got to see friends I hadn’t seen in a long time. It’s good for the head.”