Katherine Schreiber details her struggle of an exercise addiction

KATHERINE has been battling body issues since she was a child. Her struggle became a dangerous obsession — not with food — but fitness.

Katherine was addicted to exercise.

SINCE primary school, Katherine Schreiber battled body issues.

She felt “so self-conscious” and “obsessed with imperfections”, she had feelings of being “too ugly” to go to class.

Ms Schreiber’s condition continued in her teenage years, until she thought she’d found a solution to her problem — exercise, exercise and more exercise.

“If I exercised, I could control that feeling,” Schreiber explained to ABC News America.

But it soon turned into a dangerous addiction.

Katherine Schreiber was addicted to exercise. Picture: John Lamparski/WireImage

“[I] got into exercise in high school, started twice a week, then became three times a day.”

Her interest in exercise developed into an eating disorder. Restricting what she ate while continuing a strenuous exercise regimen, Ms Schreiber received professional help for her eating habits.

Following graduation, the treatment helped with her eating disorder, but failed to deal with her growing obsession with exercise.

“No one knew how to treat that back then,” she said.

“I was functional on paper, worked at a magazine.

“[I] would go to the gym before the office, lunch break and after work. My weight was dangerously low.”

Katherine struggled with body issues since she was in primary school.

It wasn’t long before Ms Schreiber, who is now 28, started to notice the impact her exercise obsession was having on her body.

Her period stopped for two years, she received stress fractures in her feet and even herniated discs in her spine. And while just one of those conditions would be a signal to slow down — Katherine continued working out.

“I was revolving my life around the gym,” she explained on the British Medical Journal podcast.

“I noticed that my social life wasn’t the same as my peers and the time when I really became aware of it was when I was in college.

“I had already had so many people — my family, my friends and even a professor approach me and say to me ‘do you think your relationship with exercise is healthy?’

“It seems that it is consuming you?”

Ms Schreiber explained she’d feel anxious if she spent too long with friends, because that was time she could be at the gym.

“I wouldn’t want to stay out late or do anything that would interfere with my gym schedule,” she told ABC America.

Exercise addiction is hard to diagnose, but there are telltale signs.

Ms Schreiber, who started receiving treatment for her addiction in 2015, has co-authored a review with researchers from Jacksonville University and High Point University in North Carolina to bring attention to the dangers of exercise addiction.

‘Exercise addiction’ isn’t officially classified as a mental disorder, however the condition exhibits many of the same characteristics.

Dr Heather Hausenblas, of Jacksonville University and who is working with Ms Schreiber, explained that in the last couple of decades, experts have realised there are individuals that are exercising too much and it’s having negative health effects.

“There is a tipping point where it does become too much and the individuals do become addicted to it,” she said.

“People say ‘Wow, I wish I was addicted to exercise,’ but exercise can be pathological if too much,” she told ABC News.

Ms Schreiber admitted there were times when her addiction forced her to power through severe injury and illness just so she could get her exercise fix.

“I can remember a few times when I had two herniated discs in my back and I was still running nearly every day,” she explained.

“I would go to the gym when I had a fever.

“I remember at the time I was dating someone and they came to the gym and looked at me and said ‘do you have a death wish?’”

Katherine Schreiber had two herniated discs her my back and was still running.

While Dr Hausenblas said there isn’t a diagnostic criteria or definitive description for exercise addiction, experts have been able to establish a common trend and signs to look for.

“The definition we specifically look at is a craving for exercise ... and it tends to be uncontrollable,” she explained.

“When that happens ... individuals tend to have psychological issues that go along with that as well as physiological.

“Withdrawals, if you continue to exercise despite injury or being sick ... these tend to be telltale signs.”

Dr Hausenblas said that the average person who is a regular exercise knows when to take it easy if they have an overused injury and their physician tells them to stop exercising, but for ‘exercise addicts’ — they just can’t take no for an answer.

“The telltale sign is when an individual cannot [stop], and continues to run through the pain because they need to get their exercise,” she said.

While people may associate exercise addiction as another component to an eating disorder, Dr Hausenblas explained that the ‘primary’ type of exercise addiction isn’t associated.

“It’s not the amount of exercise but the motivation behind it … the compulsion, the drive to do the amount of exercise,” she said.

“They are doing it from a performance standpoint and not related to body-image issues.”

While Ms Schreiber only works out for 45 minutes each day now, she hopes her experience and involvement with Dr Hausenblas will raise awareness on exercise addictions.