How can you differentiate between "pushing yourself" to reach your goals & slipping into abnormal eating behaviors? **Trigger Warning: Eating Disorders/Anorexia/Bulimia**
You can't say "no" to having an eating disorder, but you can identify when obsessive calorie-tracking & working out becomes a problem.
As I'm sure most people viewing my blog at this point know, I suffered from anorexia and, eventually, bulimia for most of high school and on into college. I had been made fun of A LOT for my weight growing up & ultimately got to a point that I blamed every problem in my life on my weight. Every criticism I received, every time I didn't excel at something, every boy that didn't like me back - it was my weight. I wish I could identify the day when I snapped - where my weight was no longer just my embarrassing reality & suddenly became what I considered to be my entire worth as a human - but all I know is that it was my sophomore year of high school. I do remember the first time I skipped breakfast, the first time I skipped lunch and dinner, the first time I binged and consequently purged, the first time someone told me I was skinny, how people started to call me pretty for the first time in my life, the first time a pair of Abercrombie jeans fit me (at a size 0,) the first time I skipped plans, lied to my parents, lied to my friends, and definitely the first time I passed out in the shower. In hindsight, there were so many moments that I thought "this is getting extreme" but the voice inside my head countered and reassured me I was just weak & this is how everyone else behaves in order to be skinny and ~pretty~. It's been almost 5 years (AHHHH) out of rehab for me now & as much as I wish I could report that recovery is a steady process and one day you'll eventually just be "recovered," its not that simple. Recovery is 1 step forward and 2 steps back for a very long time until you can identify for yourself when your eating disorder is taking control of your day to day functions. When everyone tells you that choosing recovery is the hardest, most important part of beating your eating disorder - its true. The ONLY way to overcome your eating disorder is to be able to identify it as separate from yourself, and, ultimately, be able to take action to shut it up every time it pops up again.
It can be really, really difficult to identify an eating disorder, especially when you don't find yourself necessarily meeting the *requirements* for anorexia or bulimia. That being said, even if you're not dying or suffering, abnormal eating and exercise behaviors can do much more harm to your body than good. Up until a few months ago, I was still eating 1300 calories a day and working out 2-2.5 hours five days a week. Its not healthy. If you're going to bed still hungry, the gym is starting to become a chore, you're pulling muscles and getting weird joint aches, you're skipping out on plans and obsessively tracking your calories - you might be reaching a point where its time to ask yourself whether or not what you're doing is "extreme." Its one thing for fitness to be a hobby and something you enjoy doing, its a whole other story to be letting it completely take control of your life -ESPECIALLY if you're recovering from an eating disorder. Pushing through a 2 hour workout with a messed up knee is not a testament to your strength - you're being a psycho. I have to look at myself in the mirror and convince myself of that a lot, but if you are in physical pain, having a really hard time getting through your workout, or going to bed starving - you are not being strong, you are being a crazy person. Be blunt with yourself, its most effective.
All that being said, one of the most helpful choices I've ever made was to stop counting calories as obsessively and limiting my time in the gym. If I tell myself "okay, you have 1.5 hours to get your workout in" not only am I going to have a better workout because I don't need long recovery times between sets, I'm going to have to throw in the towel at a set time instead of just doing every workout imaginable for my target area of the day until something rips. By not counting calories as much (I'll glance at the nutrition info if I genuinely have no clue) I find myself playing it safe and eating food I KNOW is healthy and more of it. Its much better to pound a greek yogurt or protein shake if you're hungry than it is to be nibbling on exactly 100 calories of dry cereal and still be hungry when you're finished. I've found that cooking and learning to make good food from ingredients I can control has really helped me to allow myself "fun food," while still having control over what I'm putting in my body.
Getting into fitness and health can be challenging enough when you're not facing it as someone recovering from an eating disorder. Its absolutely crucial that you're in a place where you 1) will be able to identify extreme tendencies and 2) are doing this because you want to be healthy and active - not just to be skinny. Its one thing to want to see results and recognize yourself as getting stronger and developing more stamina, its a problem when you're obsessively trying to lose weight and punishing yourself by cutting even more calories or adding more workouts that your body can't handle. Take it from someone who is currently still working on taking her body out of starvation mode from this past summer/fall- if you eat too few calories, or workout way too much, you're not going to see results. You're just going to remain stagnant (is that redundant,) gain weight, and/or be really pissed off all of the time.
If your goal is to be confident enough to wear a bathing suit or be "ready" for an event, remember that your goal is how you want to FEEL, not how you want your body to look. Starving and overworking yourself won't bring you long term results, and you're really not going to feel anymore confident. Its perfectly okay to set loose goals for how you want your body to look, but those can quickly become more discouraging than anything. Try making your goals fitness or nutrient oriented as opposed to weight focused i.e "I want to be able to squat 140lbs," "I want to run 5 miles nonstop", "I want to like how my butt looks" "I want to eat more protein and vegetables" & I promise those goals will not only be more exciting to reach than hitting a number on the scale, but are much less likely to send you spiraling into relapse.
I know being into fitness is really trendy right now & it can be particularly difficult as someone with a history with eating disorders to feel like you need to have some miraculous recovery story that culminates with you being happy and healthy with a six-pack, but you need to take your time and listen to your body in order to get to a place where you're being safe. If you can pinpoint times of stress when not getting to the gym is going to send you over the edge - ask yourself if its because you LIKE being at the gym and you LIKE sweating it out, or if you think missing the gym will make you feel like you've lost all control. If you start trying to console yourself by eating or not eating, ask yourself if what you're eating is going to make you feel any better, or worse - sometimes the answer is "yes, this wine and this ice cream is going to make me feel better." You should never feel guilty for taking care of yourself both physically and mentally.
All that being said, I will be posting a bit about fitness and health on my blog, but I'm not an expert & I'm definitely not the person to be in your face about the necessity of counting every calorie that goes into your body and never missing a workout - that's not healthy for me and I don't think its healthy for most people. Your health and fitness routine should never make you feel poorly about yourself. As long as you're making the effort to create a routine that works for you, that's all that matters! I hope the advice I give on here is helpful, but please remember that not everything works for everyone and your mental sanity comes first.
If you're suffering from an eating disorder, or think that you're slipping into unhealthy tendencies, PLEASE reach out to someone you love, or me, if I don't fall under the category of someone you love (boooo,) because the sooner you recognize the behaviors the sooner you can start recovering. As always, here is my plug that eating disorder research is insanely underfunded and you should donate to NEDA or reach out to an elected official and let them know that by funding eating disorder research, they're saving lives.
Here is the link to NEDA! There's a ton of great information on the website and a link for you to donate.
https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org
& here is aerie's yearly ED Awareness campaign! They do awesome work for NEDA & a percentage of your purchase will go to NEDA as well!
https://www.ae.com/featured-aeriesupports/aerie/s-cms/7610002
:)
Ally