Is Crystal Renn‘s anorexia surprising? No, Crystal Renn’s anorexia and similar ordeals is a common occurrence in the modeling industry. We just do not hear about this kind of stuff often enough to realize that being anorexic seems to be a requirement in the world of fashion and modeling.
Crystal Renn’s anorexia did not just happened by some serendipitous accident. Crystal Renn’s anorexia was a product of pressure from her agents to be skinny. She was starving for three years, and finally realized that she does not want to die for fashion.
Before she found success as a plus-size model, the 5’9″ Renn was only 95 pounds, on a good day. Her pre-anorexia weight was 165 pounds. How did she manage to lose that much weight?
Was she eating nothing but soy protein bars? No, she was not. And contrary to some rumors, she has not been using clenbuterol to lose weight. Some models go on what is known as the fiber-water diet, which involves drinking about 10 glasses of water with a fiber supplement a day for seven days – yes, it is much worse than your typical Metamucil-weight-loss-diet approach, but Renn has not tried either, she found a way to dramatically reduce her calorie intake by eating lettuce, chewing gum and drinking Diet Coke.
She was constantly trying to figure out how many calories she was burning during a day. She joined two gyms and spent countless hours there doing cardio on the treadmills and elliptical machines. Despite her extreme efforts to stay as think as possible, she could not maintain her weight. Her weight started to increase from 95 pounds to 105, 111 and eventually to 123 pounds.
When she arrived for one job, the casting director kicked her out – the photographer said he cannot use her because she is too fat. She was a size 4. It was a turning point in her carrier which saved her life. She stopped constantly checking her weight and counting calories, and eventually her body came back to a healthy weight. She is a size 12 now. [source: People]