Fit and Healthy Olympic Hopeful Mary-Kate Slattery has a bright future back and forth in the ring.
But it took a law student at Trinity College Dublin for a long time to be happy with himself.
The 21-year-old amateur boxer talked openly about how her desire to be thin as a child caused her to put her own health at risk.
She told Ryan Tubridy this morning about how her life developed after being diagnosed with anorexia nervosa at nine years of age.
"There was a person in my head who told me not to eat … we both were very committed to losing weight, scaring people, pushing me into this frenzy of hunger and self-esteem," she said.
Decided to name her anorexia "Eunice", an imaginary friend, she said "there was nothing I could understand".
With a family death as triggering factor for her illness, she said that weight loss soon became "a source of happiness."
At nine years, Mary Kate would be like Kate Moss as she observed in magazines with legs that stood out of her feet and thought "I want it".
Go to school for help while she was in the fourth grade, she was too young for God's John, so she went to Britain after spending time at Crumlin Children's Hospital.
At one point she felt she almost died when her heart rate fell so low.
Having discovered a love in boxing, the team student has not looked back and hopes to be the first Irish pro boxer and barrister.
Talk about the weight element, she said it shows how far she has come and says, "It has really come full circle for me."
Listen back to The Ryan Tubridy Show on RTE Radio 1:
