[AAAESLLESO]

Katharine McPhee is opening about her five-year struggle with bingeing and purging, revealing the condition not exactly did in her voice. The "American Idol" runner-up, whose first individual, "Over the Rainbow," just happens to introduction next week, shows to People who in the lowest position in her battle with bulimia, she was vomiting up to eight times a, which she likens to "putting a sledgehammer to your oral cords." Food was my crutch," McPhee, 22, admits for the journal. "It was how I handled feelings and unpleasant situations." And nothing says "uncomfortable situation" very like experiencing Simon Cowell in most his tight-T-shirted glory, so she chose to seek therapy on her issue, which she says was when she auditioned in August, late this past year prior to the opposition started "out of control". "When I managed to get onto 'American Idol,' I understood that food -- my eating disorder -- was the thing actually keeping me back," McPhee describes. "I was bingeing my lifetime away for days at the same time... Then when I got to the present, I said, 'Guess what happens? I will prosper in this opposition. I would like to give myself an opportunity and only get ahold of the thing.'" To that end, she entered a therapy plan in October at L.A.'s Eating Disorder Center of California, where she under-went treatment periods six times per week. "I actually had to submit and quit having a free life to complete this program, since I'd be there from 9 each morning until 7 at night," describes McPhee, who states her parents and her actor-boyfriend, Nick Cokas, 41, reinforced her decision. "I keep in mind that first evening, my father keeping me, sobbing and saying, 'I actually do not know why you've to experience through this, however it will be okay.'" The performer says her decreasing number throughout the work (she lowered three gown sizes) and dropped 30 pounds was because of "intuitive eating," a technique marketed at the center: "If you appear at a doughnut, people believe it is an unhealthy food -- why? Because in the event that you eat it you'll receive fat? No, you'll receive fat in the event that you eat 10 doughnuts." Katharine also "learned to deal with my feelings differently, to deal with them, in the place of with food." Today, she enthuses to Teen People, "I am actually just starting to accept my curves." She also breaks "AI," a display that's not always kind towards the curvy (Simon, we're considering you), for preserving her life, "because if I'd not auditioned I don't believe I'd have gotten a handle on food." That's unfortunate. I'm glad she's improving. I am unable to wait on her record to emerge.