"Can’t identify with that person", Flintoff recalls struggles with Bulimia during playing days 

Andrew Flintoff said he used to throw up during matches after being labelled fat.

By Kashish Chadha - 28 Sep, 2020

Former England all-rounder Andrew Flintoff bravely revealed struggles with Bulimia during his playing days. Flintoff, who played 79 Tests and 141 ODIs for England, obsessed over his weight and eating habits, recalling in a report in The Sun that he used to regularly throw up during matches after being labelled fat. 

Having retired in 2009, the 42-year-old admitted he couldn't get him to watch himself play as he was ashamed of how he looked. 

Read Also: “You look like Tarzan but bowl like Jane” – Flintoff recalls sledging Akhtar in 2005

“I scored my first hundred in New Zealand in Christchurch. I came off at lunch and threw my lunch up," he said. 

“I knew all the grounds and where it was easier [to throw up]. Lord’s was so much easier because the toilets were away from the dressing rooms."

Flintoff also informed that he kept what he was facing to himself, fearing the response. "I knew what the reaction would be," he said. 

"I never look back on old games. I can’t identify with that person. I see this person who is a stone-and-a-half heavier than what I am now," Flintoff further told '5Live’s Headliners'. 

"I think in some ways I thought the way I was dealing with it I had a lid on it and I was muddling along in my own way."

"I remember when I started making myself sick it felt like my decision. I was getting hammered in the papers for being overweight. I was known as the fat cricketer and it was the quick fix to do it," added one of the finest English cricketers of his time. 

"Then I went from doing it if I had a drink and doing it if I had eaten foods I didn't want to eat or felt I shouldn't eat, to then doing it most meals. That was then it started controlling me."

By Kashish Chadha - 28 Sep, 2020

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