“I ended up almost starving myself for the whole year”
Back in December, the 39-year-old Mickey Burke committed to a remarkable 22nd consecutive season with the Meath hurlers.
The Longwood man’s journey with the Royals began back in 2004, and he was also a dual player for nine seasons.
Last year he made his 200th appearance for his county (hurling and football), and also won the Meath Senior ‘B’ Championship with Longwood, his first championship title with his club.
What has made his journey even more impressive is that he has been battling with an eating disorder throughout his career, which has seen him go through periods of both starvation and binge eating.
In an exclusive interview with SportsJOE, Burke opened up about his struggles with food, and how it began:
I suppose even as a young fella I was always into food, I don’t know where that came out of.
I always had a passion and an interest for it, and when I was going to secondary school I was bringing boxes of fruit.
There were no dieticians there, there was no social media, I don’t know where that came from. Maybe I just knew that eating fruit was better than eating a breakfast roll every single day.
But the food issues then and the football really came along because the manager said that I was carrying too much muscle and that I was too bulky.
I ended up almost starving myself for the whole year, caused a lot of trouble but I needed to go get some help, which I did.
“It’s just something I have to be mindful of and contain.”
Burke also discussed his binge eating; in one incidence ‘gorging’ through 16 Dairymilk bars in one go.
However, assistance from well-known nutritionist Daniel Davey – who has worked extensively with both the Leinster rugby team and the Dublin footballers – has helped Burke overcome his issues.
Burke said: “I ended up going to see Daniel Davey about it, I spoke at length about it with Daniel Davy.
“He was really, really good, the former Dublin and Leinster rugby nutritionist. He was top class he really helped me along.
“It’s actually really common, bizarrely. I thought this was only me. It’s common in sportspeople.
“It’s called REDs syndrome. Rapid energy deficiency.
“It’s basically just training unbelievably hard and starving yourself, because you want to be leaner, and you can end up getting very sick.
“You can get flus, get injured, because you’re not fuelling your body correctly.”
