DEALING WITH WEIGHT GAIN
Weight gain sucks; there is no other honest way to put it. It’s uncomfortable, weird and embarrassing to gain so much weight over a short period. You feel self-conscious, and the thin body you once felt so comfortable in slips away, and you're stuck in what feels like someone else’s body.
Your clothes become tighter, your stomach wider, and your digestion is so confused it doesn’t know where and how to store the food it’s been given, causing additional stress and discomfort. During my many attempts to recover, my inability to cope with weight gain sent me relapsing time and time again. I couldn’t handle the shame of losing my ‘bikini' body’ and becoming anything less than what I thought was beautiful. I didn’t want to revert to the girl I was; the weight loss transformed me into someone beautiful and interesting to look at, but the fear of being ugly and irrelevant crippled me, setting me back multiple times.
The final time I attempted and succeeded at recovery, I developed some tools to help release the limiting ideals I once held myself to. By pushing through fear and allowing myself to ‘lose control’ of what I thought was beautiful and valuable, I was able to rewire my mind and develop a healthy, well-balanced relationship with food and myself. With these tools, I was able to eat without guilt, manage binge triggers without purging and embrace the discomfort associated with weight gain. By overcoming the fear of being imperfect, I gained insight into the human body and worked with its changes rather than controlling it.
LOSING CONTROL
Control is comforting; the ability to starve your problems away, lower your calorie count each day and purge the guilt away is empowering. Each controlling move we make feeds the eating disorder voice, enabling it to become stronger and more logical as each day passes.
Part of recovery means allowing yourself to lose control. We lose control of what we think is normal eating, what we think are healthy habits, and what we consider ‘good’ and ‘bad foods’. This ability to lose control means allowing the body to work with you, not against you.
The body is a very clever vessel; it energises and self-regulates itself, communicating daily what it needs from us. The mind, however, plays tricks on us, ignoring body signals to satiate the toxic mental demands. The more you lean into your body's physical signals, the more you can nurture your mind into understanding the body is here to take care of you, not punish you.
Self-control is a battle between the body and mind; once we drop the battle, we become harmonious within our goals, working together, not against ourselves.
ACCEPT IMPERFECTION
Perfectionism and OCD are ED’s best friends. They feed the constant desire to be perfect and repeat the necessary steps daily to achieve it.
If you look at perfectionism and OCD, they are mental entanglements distorting our perception of what is and what should be. They are dilutional set up by ourselves, influenced by our peers. These ideals are not REAL, and acknowledging their faults is important for overcoming and rewiring how we look at ‘being’ or ‘achieving’ perfection within ourselves.
Knowing that we will never be perfect and our body doesn’t define our self-worth is important when rewiring our minds. Eating disorders often manifest as a result of Low self-worth; instead of healing inward, we destroy ourselves to control our lack of self-esteem. While recovering, focus on self-confidence, boosting content and activities to turn your attention away from achieving the ‘perfect body’ to achieving the healthiest and most intelligent mind.
WEIGHT GAIN IS TEMPORARY AND BEAUTIFUL
Recovery of weight gain is confronting and uncontrollable. To ease the stress, know that the weight gain is temporary; it won’t last forever, and your weight will not spin out of control. Focus on healing your body and your mind through food and nurture the growth that you are going through. Weight gain doesn’t mean fat; it means healthy. If it helps, google some healthy curvy figures you aspire to be like and keep an image of their body in your mind. Some of the most beautiful women in the world are known for their curves, such as Sophia Vergara, Selena Gomez, Beyonce, Marilyn Monroe and Ashley Graham.
BINGES OCCUR
Part of learning to eat again means over and under-consuming to find what balance looks like for you. Don’t be disheartened or anxious when binging or overeating. Your body is trying to consume as many calories as possible to store additional weight in case another famine occurs. Trust your body is eating what it needs to heal; you’re not overeating. You’re consuming the correct amount of nutrients your body needs to survive.
Binges in recovery are not unhealthy; they are necessary for healing. Rewire any negative voices in your mind to condition yourself to believe food is medicine, and your body will stop when it’s full.