The technical side of recovery
Trigger Warning: I name and discuss Eating Disorder Behaviors in this post.
I write a lot on here about the emotional aspects of recovery. Dealing with my feelings is a huge part of recovery. I keep pushing aside my thoughts about the more nuts and bolts of recovery because I keep saying it's window dressing. And yeah it is but when I worked in retail briefly, changing our window display was as big a pain in the ass as changing the layout of the store. I was reminded of a Cracked article about what happens when you stop drinking and I was surprised at how much of it was physical. And I admired the bravery of the writer for talking about how their abstinence affected their health, both in the positive and the negative ways. So here goes
I've talked on here about my behaviors before. Though EDA is not an abstience based program, but a balanced based one. There is one behavior I am hardline abstient from and that is my purging. If I do that, I reset my day count (which is just over 6 months!). I've never come up with a rule on when missing a meal becomes restricting and when flexibility is needed. Excercise is tough because while my time is shorter there are other ways to abuse myself while excercising. Cardio is easier for me to "slip" on than weights. My dad's back pain is a reason I'm very mindful of my form and how much when I lift. By the time I started recovery, purging was pretty rare for me. Even one time is still not good but it was not nearly as frequent as it had been during other periods of my life (Seriously, I went to this tiny bathroom when I worked in Japan to purge out of the way of everyone. Those moments when you look back and realize the ridiculous lengths I went to for my disorder.) Restricting is the hardest behavior to overcome for me, hands down.
I see a dietican ever two weeks. Recently, after I realized I was having post workout pain like I did last summer I checked my calorie intake and saw that, while better than last summer was no where near approachign normal. She now checks my ED recovery app where I log thoughts, feelings, and just a discription of what I ate and how strong desires for behaviors are. We decided that it was time to take the next step and increase my intake. That was two weeks ago and it's been a haul in places. I know my intake is still not close to a normal person's intake. It's frustrating to wonder why I can't just eat like a normal person. It's frustrating to have a list of fear foods that, while getting shorter, is still longer than I'd like. I mean, I'm a grown ass woman who was afraid of a mini-cupcake yesterday. Not even a full size one! And yes, I do know there's progress. I've eaten a whole cupcake in front of people and been ok. My ability to cope with fear foods at this point in my recovery, is based on how many challenges I've taken on that week. This week there were a lot of them and I was eating very outside of my comfort zone. This time though, my office was all really supportive and there wasn't any diet talk. Also, period bloating that coincides with yoru intake increast: Fuck. That. Shit.
Another hard part is hunger. I've starved myself for so long that my stomach doesn't tend to easily register that I'm hungry (and registers that I'm full really quickly but we're working on that!). As I'm trying to move to more intuitive eating, less "must wait 4-5 hours between meals and snacks!", I've noticed that my stomach is not good for hunger cues. By the time my stomach grumbles, I've already like mentally exploded most of my friends and coworkers in Hanger. Mood and fatigue are my most frequent indicators of hunger and while I'm starting to pay attention to those, it's taking me some time. It'll come as well my normal stomach rumbles. I get hangry waaaaay more often than I used to and I know this is a good thing. But seriously you guys, I'm sorry for the things I say when I am hungry...especially because I may not know I'm hungry.
I knwo it's frustrating for dorchadas when I'm like "hey I got X number of calories today (which is still below where I should be but higher than it's been)". But I also hear a lot of praise from him or Bucky or Rogue or a lto of you that I seem better than I was. And I can feel it. I can recognize more quickly why I'm not eating something and ask for the strength to correct it. I'm accountable now to my deitican and I surrender to her meal plan and our goals. I've added more protien into my diet, since she knows I feel safer with protien. We're working on my fear or bread-based carbs and my fear of sugar. There are parts of the way I eat that are healthy (lots of veggies and healthy fats) that I'm bringing with me into recovery. I know practice makes progress, not perfection.
I write a lot on here about the emotional aspects of recovery. Dealing with my feelings is a huge part of recovery. I keep pushing aside my thoughts about the more nuts and bolts of recovery because I keep saying it's window dressing. And yeah it is but when I worked in retail briefly, changing our window display was as big a pain in the ass as changing the layout of the store. I was reminded of a Cracked article about what happens when you stop drinking and I was surprised at how much of it was physical. And I admired the bravery of the writer for talking about how their abstinence affected their health, both in the positive and the negative ways. So here goes
I've talked on here about my behaviors before. Though EDA is not an abstience based program, but a balanced based one. There is one behavior I am hardline abstient from and that is my purging. If I do that, I reset my day count (which is just over 6 months!). I've never come up with a rule on when missing a meal becomes restricting and when flexibility is needed. Excercise is tough because while my time is shorter there are other ways to abuse myself while excercising. Cardio is easier for me to "slip" on than weights. My dad's back pain is a reason I'm very mindful of my form and how much when I lift. By the time I started recovery, purging was pretty rare for me. Even one time is still not good but it was not nearly as frequent as it had been during other periods of my life (Seriously, I went to this tiny bathroom when I worked in Japan to purge out of the way of everyone. Those moments when you look back and realize the ridiculous lengths I went to for my disorder.) Restricting is the hardest behavior to overcome for me, hands down.
I see a dietican ever two weeks. Recently, after I realized I was having post workout pain like I did last summer I checked my calorie intake and saw that, while better than last summer was no where near approachign normal. She now checks my ED recovery app where I log thoughts, feelings, and just a discription of what I ate and how strong desires for behaviors are. We decided that it was time to take the next step and increase my intake. That was two weeks ago and it's been a haul in places. I know my intake is still not close to a normal person's intake. It's frustrating to wonder why I can't just eat like a normal person. It's frustrating to have a list of fear foods that, while getting shorter, is still longer than I'd like. I mean, I'm a grown ass woman who was afraid of a mini-cupcake yesterday. Not even a full size one! And yes, I do know there's progress. I've eaten a whole cupcake in front of people and been ok. My ability to cope with fear foods at this point in my recovery, is based on how many challenges I've taken on that week. This week there were a lot of them and I was eating very outside of my comfort zone. This time though, my office was all really supportive and there wasn't any diet talk. Also, period bloating that coincides with yoru intake increast: Fuck. That. Shit.
Another hard part is hunger. I've starved myself for so long that my stomach doesn't tend to easily register that I'm hungry (and registers that I'm full really quickly but we're working on that!). As I'm trying to move to more intuitive eating, less "must wait 4-5 hours between meals and snacks!", I've noticed that my stomach is not good for hunger cues. By the time my stomach grumbles, I've already like mentally exploded most of my friends and coworkers in Hanger. Mood and fatigue are my most frequent indicators of hunger and while I'm starting to pay attention to those, it's taking me some time. It'll come as well my normal stomach rumbles. I get hangry waaaaay more often than I used to and I know this is a good thing. But seriously you guys, I'm sorry for the things I say when I am hungry...especially because I may not know I'm hungry.
I knwo it's frustrating for dorchadas when I'm like "hey I got X number of calories today (which is still below where I should be but higher than it's been)". But I also hear a lot of praise from him or Bucky or Rogue or a lto of you that I seem better than I was. And I can feel it. I can recognize more quickly why I'm not eating something and ask for the strength to correct it. I'm accountable now to my deitican and I surrender to her meal plan and our goals. I've added more protien into my diet, since she knows I feel safer with protien. We're working on my fear or bread-based carbs and my fear of sugar. There are parts of the way I eat that are healthy (lots of veggies and healthy fats) that I'm bringing with me into recovery. I know practice makes progress, not perfection.