The ex-Wimbledon champion, Monica Seles, admits she suffered a nine-year battle with binge-eating.  In her new book, Getting a Grip: On My Body, My Mind, My Self, she discusses her career as a professional tennis player and her fight with food addiction.  She said she gorged on food to cope with being stabbed in the back while on the court back in 1993 and then also because of the death of her father/coach.  The 35-year-old tennis champ wrote,

“Food became my best friend. I was lonely and I would just eat. It was my coping mechanism. Food was how I dealt with stress.”

Even after the stabbing and her father’s death she tried to get back into the game but after a typical six-hour workout on the court she would get back home for secretive late night binges.  At one point, she had put on 35 pounds.  While competing on Dancing with the Stars she realized she had finally beaten the disorder when she was able to withstand the hard criticism of the judges on the show.  She said,

“I cried – but I didn’t go back to my old habits.”

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