nutritional rehabilitation

SHOULD, is not a nice word..

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Should has no place in most daily language, but especially not in eating disorder recovery

Should implies rules, an obligation. That word is the reason I’m sat on my ass writing this. I was looking forward to going for a run, or joining my husband at boxfit tonight. However throughout the day at work I started to feel tired and that what I probably needed was to chill out with the cat.

Then that sneaky SHOULD word crept into the foreground. I heard my thoughts say “you should go tonight, you’ve not done anything all week”

That was the point I decided I will not exercise today. Exercise should be a priveledge/ pleasure, not a punishment.

This “SHOULD” demand was from my eating disorder, “HH” thinks I should exercise today, but that’s the very reason why not. A few months ago, I would have acted on this demand, the next day I would find it harder to eat or I’d feel more anxious about what I was eating.

Now I move my body because I want to, because it feels good, not because I feel I have to. The discomfort I used to feel if I missed a day of exercise was insurmountable before. I have to really listen to where the intent is from, whether it’s my voice, or ’HH’s.

I’m feeling proud, I can sit here and write this, instead of dragging my butt out to torture myself without enjoyment. Because I know when I truly want to move/ exercise it’s for me and not for the service of ‘HH’.

I have been a runner all my life. One of my favourite things even a a tiny child, before the days of my eating disorder was to go outside in the rain. As I got a bit older, if my athletics session was a wet session it was like Christmas for me! I loved the feel of the rain and being hot and the smell of it on the track or grass. Then ’HH’ showed up some years later. And my running, exercise was no longer for me, for the fun. It was all about targets, shifting goal posts that I would never be satisfied with.

It would be like the world ended if I had to miss a day, or I’d exercise when I was injured, sick and obviously that’s not fun. I’ve had to work really hard in my recovery to re-kindle my healthy relationship with movement, channeling that child who loved running in the rain and not the crazy person running in gale force winds/ all weathers all hours.

I took a period of abstinence, but not an extended period. I had a good support to help me workout where the intent was from. Some days I had meltdowns when I knew it wasn’t my healthy self and had to abstain. But doing that has got me here. If it feels wrong it is wrong. Exercise/movement is never meant to feel shameful, guilt driven (pre or post), like a chore. It’s a pleasure/ priveledge. Today was a day I know it was not for me, rather for ‘HH’. One day by continuing to listen to my healthy voice over and over, ‘HH’ won’t suggest I move when I don’t want to. The voice will be gone.

Challenge, Practice, Repeat…..Recover I hope.

Today was definitely helped by ‘Recovery Warriors” resources. Check out The Recovery Warriors app, website. They are currently holding a ‘holiday special” with lots of useful resources and videos etc. https://www.truewarrior.me/holiday-support

https://www.instagram.com/recovrywarriors/

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Weight gain in eating disorder recovery

Recovery belly

For most of us recovery means committing to weight gain. Learning to accept our bodies unsuppressed natural weight. Getting there has for me been far harder than simply just putting on weight. It’s weight we were never meant to have lost, our bodies didn’t want us to lose this weight but learning to accept this doesn’t happen overnight. We taught it that losing weight feels good, gaining weight feels bad. We taught our brains to believe “skinny = happy” but we know this isn’t the truth. I was never more unhappy than when I was at my sickest. My emotions blunted, isolated from friends, family and bound by strict rules that my life revolved around. No I was not happy. I was a ghost.

But that doesn’t mean accepting weight gain was/ is easy. It’s going against everything I’ve taught myself to believe is ideal. The weight restoration phase on ED recovery is a small part but is so painful because of our neural pathways and our beliefs and distortions.

Weight restoration is messy. I think if no one has told you, now is a good time to tell you. When you gain weight after waging war against your body, your body no longer trusts you. Whether this is from diet cycling, restriction, purging or over exercising. Your body likes to be in homeostasis and sits at a steady weight when left to its own devices. But when we intervene everything slows down, the body has a massive freak out. It thinks its starving (which in many of our cases it literally is) and when we start eating again the body is like, oh thank fuck. It holds on to everything initially in case we are cruel enough to inflict war on it again. The most common place this extra weight/ fat goes to is the tummy a.k.a the “recovery belly”. You can easily look 6 months pregnant. I look pregnant now. Staving off unwanted comments can be an unwanted side effect. But if this happens it’s because you are recovering and doing well so don’t give in. This is hard. My belly has been here a while and likely It’s here to stay for a while yet. I have made peace with it, doesn’t mean I don’t freak out when I see it in reflections some days. Today has been a hard day. But I know it’s keeping me alive and acts as a reminder to not go backwards and the progress I’m making. I know it will redistribute and if it doesn’t well then I’ll learn accept that too. I did a lot of googling when I started my weight restoration journey and so I expect with time my body will trust me once more, so long as I am kind to it.

Doesn’t matter how much I hated how I looked at my sickest, I was still terrified of weight gain. I have had to and am working very hard on rewiring this fear. By challenging it every day. This has involved many melt downs, sobbing in the shower but it’s so much easier with time as your brain shifts with you. This takes a bit of time.

Ditch the scales..

Ditch the scales. They are not your friend. You should break up with this unloving/ non compassionate partner, it’s a one sided relationship. ( *There may be times where you have to be weighed for medical reasons) this does not mean YOU need to know your weight. If this scenario occurs request it to be blind, because no matter what the number, it will not serve your recovery but it will fuel your ED.

My relationship with the scales was messy, unforgiving. In my depths of my ED, I would live my days by the number in the morning. It would stipulate whether I was going to have a good day or bad day, whether I deserved to eat. I would weigh myself multiple times a day and go to great lengths to do it. In early recovery I used it as an excuse I was making progress. BULLSHIT, I was still using it as an excuse not to gain “too fast”, “too much” this is not recovery.

You do not need to deserve to eat. Eating is a necessity every one shares. Your weight does not define you. It is a number. It means nothing in relation to health, your worth. So ditch them. I binned mine. I have no idea what I weigh now. It’s not relevant because I am getting healthy. Sure in early recovery teams may need to know our weights. We do not. Be free and kind to yourself.

Ditch the things that are holding you back in ED recovery

Fitness trackers. These are not our friends in ED recovery. I do not think anyone with an ED history should EVER wear a fitness tracker watch etc. similarly to the scales my day revolves around steps, calories burned, moving raising my HR bla bla bla. Why would you need it unless training for an Olympic event? I don’t even really see the necessity for my patients because if they have problems with HR etc it’s monitored formally. So like my scales I binned my watch. It wasn’t easy but it will be liberating I assure you.

So I hope if this resonates you can make some changes and move forward. You deserve better. Your worth cannot be defined by a number.

Clothes shopping in eating disorder recovery…

Phases of clothes shopping through recovery is Like “the origins of man” demonstrated by this spongebob gif!

I went clothes shopping last week. No one tells you how hard this experience is in recovery.

I decided to charity shop my “skinny” clothes. I will never need them again. It’s almost like a grieving process. I never liked how I looked at my lowest weight. I was self conscious. But buying small clothes was something my ED used as targets. Although I never felt better when I met them. I actually felt worse and worse, especially when nothing actually fit. When I started gaining weight, “HH” freaked out. Suddenly nothing fit and I felt self conscious all over again.

EDs will try and make you hold on to old behaviors or reminders of it. For me it was keeping these clothes “just in case” but they were holding me back. How can you recover with the thought you might one day fit in the clothes that fit when you are nowhere near your natural body shape or size. You can’t stay there. Not healthily anyway.

Buying clothes throughout the “weight restoration phase” is traumatic. I would recommend if you’re going through it, you don’t do it alone. It’s triggering no matter how far in you are or how committed. I would say this corresponds to the third picture in the gif. You are in no mans land. You’re not in the emaciated shell, you have fat in weird places so it’s hard to find things that fit and feel comfortable.

I went with a friend I could trust and my husband. I asked them to ask me questions like, how I felt in the clothes rather than making comments about appearance or fit. I looked for clothes I’d feel comfortable in at this stage in my recovery where my weight isn’t evenly distributed. Clothes that would accentuate other features that I’m less insecure with. For me this was flowy dresses. I have spent a long time in clothes hiding my weight for the other reason. I don’t want to hide my shape at all now, but I do want to feel comfortable. ‘HH’ longs for the old clothes but healthy me sees it a triumph of how far I’ve come.

You don’t have to like your body, I have become relatively neutral towards it. However uneven distribution, clothes shopping with size tags, mirrors is not fun. I also only bought a few things I really needed rather than a whole new wardrobe.

I didn’t do it all at once and checked in regularly. I talked through my HH thoughts with my psychologist.

Last week I went shopping on my own. It wasn’t that hard. It doesn’t need to be hard. Plan what you need, check in with your support and look after yourself.

Reckon this stage 4th sponge bob on the gif. Powering through, accepting the changes. Grateful for what you can do in your body and with your recovered body. Don’t think it’s necessary to love your body but if you do that’s a win and definitely the last sponge bob on the gif.

When will I be done?! Anorexia recovery

If you’ve read my “About page” you know how my eating disorder started.

Let’s get real about some things I wish I’d known when I started recovery. I hope being for-warned is forearmed.

When I finally sought help, I couldn’t bring myself to acknowledge or repeat the diagnosis I was given Anorexia nervosa, restrictive type.
My therapist was patient, despite my denial. She normalised the name, she used the term anorexia as if it was as routine to her as me diagnosing my patients with asthma, diabetes- no judgement. And really why should it be any different. But still, It felt dirty and shameful, I know now this was the ED talking. The ED does that, makes you think it’s your fault that your eating disorder does not deserve the same care or compassion any other diagnosis would. It’s a choice right? You can stop anytime. If you could- it’s not an eating disorder, eating disorders lull you into a false state of security and control. You think you are in control. But when asked to stop, why can’t you? Because you are unwell, you are not in control, it’s not your fault and it’s not a choice. Recovery is a choice. It is the best choice you will ever make.

After I was officially diagnosed with anorexia, orthorexia, perfectionism and over exercising my first question was; if what you say is true, when will I be done?

SO WHEN WILL I BE DONE?

This is a common question I’ve come to learn many of us ask. You will be done when you are done. Some people’s recovery takes months, some much longer, years. BUT I think the most important take home from this is, this is your journey, no one can tell you “when you’ll be done”

“your worst day in recovery is never as bad as your worst day in the ED” .

If I think I’m having a bad day, be it loud “HH” thoughts, criticism or self image, I remind myself of how far I’ve come and repeat this phrase. Thankfully the “HH” thoughts are now just a mere fleeting whisper in the wind.

Who knows how much healing you have to do, physically & mentally. The years, months of damage you’ve done by going into war with your body. But one thing is true…each step towards recovery gets easier, each step outside of the grips of your ED. Each positive step is a little bit further than the day before. I heard this phrase early in my recovery and I think there is nothing more true:

The next thing that I wish I knew when I first started recovery…

RECOVERY IS NOT LINEAR, it is NOT PERFECT

Since then I’ve had some pretty big lapses and one full relapse. But I learnt from them. I feel stronger for them.

Slips happen. It’s how you get over them that counts.

3. Recovery is hard.

There are many things we are told about when starting recovery, looking out for signs of refeeding syndrome ( metabolic disruption when nutrition is reinstated, can be life-threatening), but no one tells you: Healing is painful. It will always get worse before it gets better. But it does get better. Stick with it.

The oedema, the irratic bowels, bloating, nausea, fluid retention, acne, night sweats, second puberty, growing pains, awakening of your numbed emotions ( often leading to a clusterfuck of emotions all at once without warning), the changing body shape, uneven weight distribution. I will write a seperate post on this. I think this is a blog in itself. It takes strength to recover, it is easy to continue in what comes easily and takes a lot of unlearning of many beliefs and behaviours. It’s exhausting. BUT IT GETS better. It’s also not complicated. Food is medicine. Resting is healing. These are just a few things I wish I’d known early on in the recovery process. There’s many more thing’s iv’e learnt along the way that have been helpful, some not so much. I intend to share these on this blog, hopefully by sharing my experience you may find something to help you in your recovery.

Sharing is promoting awareness and I hope changing the stigma.