An influencer who promotes health and wellbeing has come clean, revealing she masked an unhealthy addiction by pretending she was working out.
Fitness blogger Ashley Beeman admitted that her dramatic weight loss was actually from an addiction to Adderall, used to treat attention deficit disorder (ADD).
The 34-year old mother-of-two told news.com.aus her life was ruined by the prescribed medication she became addicted to in 2015, and went from weighing 75kg down to 58kg.
Beeman's blog, "Fit + Fabulous", promotes health, wellbeing and a balanced lifestyle to over 32,000 followers.
READ MORE:
• Fitness blogger Kayla Itsines hits back at trolls over pregnancy workout
• Blogger praised for 'real' body transformation photos
• Fitness guru Emily Skye's post-baby body transformation
"I would fake my workouts for my social media followers and my business grew a ton, and I feel terrible about that now," Beeman revealed according to news.com.au. "People were complimenting me which spurred me on and made me feel great. I thought I looked fantastic but I was just skin and bones."
Things became out of hand when Beeman would chew through her monthly supply in just two weeks.
She told news.com.au that she was once ran out of Adderall at a family get together and was so strung out that she couldn't even speak to anyone - and would make up stories to get more of the drug.
"I would lie to pharmacists and doctors," she admitted. "I would make up ridiculous excuses like I dropped my prescription script into the lake and they would just give me another.
She stopped taking the drug three years ago in June 2016 when she realised she had a problem.
"On Adderall I would hardly sleep. I would be up all night staring at the ceiling. Sometimes I would have a few glasses of wine just to get to sleep," she revealed. "I was always constipated. Sometimes I wouldn't have a bowel movement for up to two weeks at a time."
After a rough detox process, she shared the truth on social media, with the help of her husband Dusty Beeman.
"In the first three weeks I put on 9kg, which was devastating for me at that time, (as) my view of my body had become so warped," says Beeman.
"I had pretended to be living this really healthy lifestyle to all my followers and I owed them an explanation. I went live on Facebook and I received such a warm reaction - everyone was really supportive and they started sharing their own struggles with Adderall."