Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM NOV. 29, 2025 15 Myself, I was always bigger, and weight was not something I struggled to put on growing up. I was in the mid-200s most of high school. Giant for most people, but right where I needed to be. I always knew I was going to need to be in the 300s and never really considered myself fat. My father — a former defensive line- man at Iowa, who had a cup of coffee in the NFL — is 6-foot-5 and weighs about 300 pounds. A large man with the wid- est shoulders you would ever lay your eyes on. Growing up in his shadow and want- ing to be just like him, it was my goal to get as big as him. He taught me the ropes of how to work out and play ball. My father and I never really talked about his weight growing up — post-college, that is a different story. When I was a kid, I always considered him healthy and a normal weight. I was pretty ignorant of the struggles he goes through and wh a t c o m m a n d s his attention on his health. He h a s fo r m e r t e a m m a t e s t h a t when their career ended, they would go one of two ways. They would either continue to eat and not work out. They would balloon up and become overweight. On the other hand, you would have people who would focus on their health, and you would never even know that they played. My post-playing career was not a main focus, but reflecting, this was al- ways on my mind. What did I want to look like post-career? College rolled around, and while red- shirting my first year it was all about gaining weight and strength. I had friends like wide receiver Chris Finke, who would struggle to eat food and even keep food down. He would sit by his locker and lose his breakfast al- most every morning. Coaches and trainers would ride our asses to eat more at training table, take an extra meal home and finish our weight- gain protein shake. This sounds like heaven to most people: being forced to eat steak, chicken, potatoes, fruit, grains, and all the snacks you could imagine. For people like Finke, this was not the case. This was almost harder for someone like him than the actual workouts! It was a full-time job eating and training as a redshirting player. Sit- ting in some of our first-year business classes, it was funny looking around and seeing my teammates eat eight-egg om- elets during a lecture. Basically, going from morning workouts to eating all day in class, back to afternoon practice and then back to eating all night. Every night before I would head back to the dorms I would load up my backpack with all the snacks you could imagine. Most would be for me, but I would also distribute the free grub to my roommates and other people in the dorm. Almost felt like Santa bringing the "toys" in my bag for all my friends. I was a pretty basic eater and did not need any special treatment. Gaining weight and strength was not a struggle. I knew the task. I came into college at about 275 and needed to be at least 290 to really compete with some of the specimens I would be playing with and against. As you started to gain weight, you could honestly feel your body changing. I still never considered myself fat. I was never embarrassed to take my shirt off. My non-athlete friends never made fun of me at all. I felt strong, powerful and on the right path! Still, I had that voice in the back of my head talking to me about what I wanted to look like post-career. I mentioned my body changing. A lot came with gaining weight. I was stronger and able to compete on the field more effectively. I could now take a bull-rush from a 300-pound D-lineman! I would not get pushed around like a little fresh- man. I could bench press 225 pounds 20- plus times! I was on the path to being an ass-kicker. These were the positives. The negatives also came with this body change. I was getting beat up. Waking up with a hurting back, a knee that would ache walking downstairs, and consistent concerns about more se- rious health issues. We would all live in the training room and walk around with ice wrapped around every joint. IMPACTING MY LIFE My struggles didn't end with the eat- ing disorder, but it certainly cast a long shadow. When I finished my Notre Dame foot- ball career in the 2019 Camping World Bowl, I weighed 305 pounds. I dropped all the way down to 155 in May 2023. I started losing weight gradually at first, but then I resorted to not eating once the weight loss slowed down. That period of rapid weight loss, the complete unravel- ing of my physical and mental health, left scars. It's not something you just "get over." It's a daily negotiation w i t h yo u rs e l f, a constant awareness of food, of my body, of the voices in my head that used to dictate so much. The discipline that made me a successful athlete became a weapon against myself. Now, it's about re-channeling that intensity, that drive, into something constructive, something healthy. It's about recognizing the triggers, un- derstanding the patterns, and actively choosing a different path. And honestly, it's exhausting some- times. It's a reminder that even when you've seemingly conquered a beast, its shadow still follows you. The biggest struggle now is accepting that this is a part of my story, not a detour, but a fundamental shift in who I am and how I perceive myself. The eating disorder wasn't just my battle; it was a bomb that detonated in the middle of my family. I saw the worry etched on my parents' faces, the way my mom would watch me at dinner, trying to subtly gauge what I was eating. I felt the immense pressure of being the "big brother," the one my little brother "I lost half my body weight, lost my strength, lost my personality, lost my faith, lost my drive, and almost lost my family. I spent 23 years building myself up, about two years tearing myself down, and now working to find the right balance. "This journey has changed me. … I am not the same person I was five years ago, but that's normal. Or is it? How much did fighting through an eating disorder change me?" RUHLAND