She Was Told She Was Going To Die, She Battled Back to Become a Bodybuilding Champion

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She Was Told She Was Going To Die, She Battled Back to Become a Bodybuilding Champion

After waging a 6 year battle with anorexia, Nicola King went from skeletal to toned in just 18 months after focusing her attention on weightlifting.

Dropping to just 56 pounds, the now 24-year-old champion body builder, was admitted to intensive care a few years ago and doctor's told her parents to say their goodbyes because her vital organs were shutting down.

She managed to turn it all around in a dramatic recovery story that shows you anything is possible!

After starting to count calories when she was just 16, anorexia took hold of her life which caused her to refuse to eat or even drink water for 6 weeks on end.

Aside from dropping to a BMI of only 8, her hair fell out, her periods stopped and she was living with constant pain.

"At my worst my weight fell to four stone. I was admitted to hospital because I hadn't eaten for months or had any water for about three and a half weeks," she said.

"My body was starting to shut down. On two occasions, the doctors told my parents to say goodbye. They said I wasn't going to live," she said.

"The illness was so strong that they were trying to tube feed me and I had wires in but I kept ripping them all out. I wanted to die and I felt physically dead," she said.

She managed to survive 3 weeks after being heavily sedated and tube fed, and was discharged from hospital 6 months later in June 2012.

After leaving hospital she started going to the gym, where she got involved in bodybuilding at the end of 2015.

Nicola now weighs a healthy 125 pounds of her 5 foot 9 inch figure and eats a balanced diet to keep up her strength that allows her to dead-lift up to 88 pounds.

"Going to the gym has given me focus and something I can get up for in the morning," she stated.

"It has been a very long road since then but for the first time, I am proud of myself," she said.

"I never thought I would get to this point. I didn't even think I would still be here. It's surreal to have come this far - it's overwhelming," she said.

The woman who's battled anorexia to become a bodybuilding cham...

Nicola King from Andover is one of 750,000 people in the UK affected by an eating disorder. Her anorexia was so severe that, at one stage, she ended up in intensive care. But Nicola has found an unusual way to fight back. She's turned to Bodybuilding, and last weekend took top prize in a national competition. (This report includes a graphic image of Nicola when she was very underweight)

Posted by BBC South Today on Tuesday, April 4, 2017

"I still struggle because as much as I have overcome the illness, it never goes away completely, but I feel like I have beaten it. It is no longer strong enough to take over."