Tag Archives: orthorexia recovery

What Does Being Fully Recovered From An Eating Disorder Look Like?

It’s a big question, but often people in recovery ask it: what will it mean to be fully recovered?

Before you read my own experiences of being in remission from a restrictive eating disorder, you might want to read my post: Am I Still Disordered? which can help give you some idea as to if you still have things to work on in your recovery.

Being fully recovered will mean different things to different people, but this post is about what it means to me and how I think it should be for people when they are in remission from their eating disorders.

For me, remission means that I eat what I want, when I want, and I don’t worry about that making me gain weight – and it doesn’t. I maintain my weight by following my hunger cues and cravings. I trust my body and I eat what I want to eat. I never make excuses not to eat something that I want to eat, and I don’t ever choose food based on calories or macros.

For me, remission means that I accept my body as it is. I don’t love it, but I don’t loathe it any more or have the intense desire to change it. I have accepted it as it is, and always try to see it in a positive light. Some days I am unable to feel positively about my body, but I accept that I will have bad days and then put my mind and thoughts to better use.

For me, remission means that I can enjoy being active, but I know it won’t have any effect on my weight or shape, and my reasons for doing it are not linked to my body. I do not engage in exercise that I do not enjoy because that would be disordered. I engage with physical activity that I find genuinely enjoyable and any health benefits come secondary to me having fun. For me, exercise has got to be something I look forward to doing, enjoy participating in, and feel good about after. At no point must I feel like I am forcing myself to do it. This means that for me I tend to do physical activity when other people are involved. I don’t see exercise as exercise – I see the activities I do that are physical as just another of my hobbies.

For me, remission means that I do not resort to eating disorder habits when angry, stressed, or upset. It means treating myself, relaxing, talking to other people, and doing things that I enjoy to make myself feel better.

For me, remission means that I don’t second guess myself when it comes to food. I don’t think about becoming “healthier”. Food isn’t so important to me any more – except for the fact that I now really enjoy it instead of feeling anxious and guilty! I am now myself and not my eating disorder. I am a woman who is interested in feminism, psychology, writing, reading, social politics, blogging, watching movies ad TV series, seeing friends, art, baking, swimming, badminton, and helping others in their journey towards recovery. I have energy and I put that energy towards my passions. I am now focussed on the things I enjoy and the things that are important to me, and my eating disorder does not play a part in my life any more.

For me, remission means that I am now able to do whatever I want to do, without being limited by anxiety towards food. I eat lunch at the pub with my friends, and go for evening drinks with them. I can go out to restaurants and end up eating a bit too much (as in, can’t stand up for half an hour because you are so full because you just had to have a dessert because it looked too good not to get it) and not think anything of it. I can go out for coffee and cake and sandwiches and picnics and eat whatever my mum has cooked for dinner without worrying about what is in it. I can lie in bed all day and not feel lazy. I can go for a stroll and not worry that I’m walking too slowly, because my reason for walking is not burning calories any more – it’s because I am enjoying the countryside or getting from A to B, or taking a walk with my brother.

My body is now not particularly important to me, in so far as it doesn’t take up much of my head space. I am eternally grateful to my body for keeping me alive, and for healing me when I decided to work with it rather than against it. I am thankful that I am strong, and healthy, and I am thankful that I am able to be me again – the real me that I am supposed to be, rather than someone taken over by an eating disorder. I do not body check, and I am not distracted by how my body looks. I live life, and rarely think about how my body looks like doing it.

There are always traps that you can fall into when you are in remission. Remission does not mean that your eating disorder is gone entirely. Occasionally, you may come across something that triggers the little ED voice to pipe up. In remission, I have found that I don’t have that many triggers any more, but there are some that still remain. When the ED voice pipes up, I tell it in a very bored manner to shut up and go away, and I never act on it. When it gets ignored, it slinks back into hiding in a dusty corner somewhere in my mind. Usually, I do the exact opposite of what it is telling me to do, just to show it how much it is not going to affect me. It generally does a vanishing act then.

In remission, my eating disorder has no impact on what I do in my life, and how I do it. I am now a functioning, healthy, energy-balanced woman, living out her life in relative peace from the eating disorder’s voice. It has no place in the life that I have made for myself by fighting the eating disorder and winning. I now do things freely. I enjoy my hobbies, I work hard at my passions, and I have a full time job doing something that is extremely important to me. I have healthy relationships, eat well, and take care of myself. The life that I now have is full of me being me, and that’s what remission is all about.

Am I Still Disordered?

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So you have been recovering for a fairly long time and have come a very long way. Your life has improved dramatically, you feel like you are eating well (what you want, when you want), and you’ve let your body rest up and repair, and haven’t engaged in formal exercise for a significant amount of time. You feel healthy, you feel pretty happy, and you’re wondering to yourself: how will I know when I am fully recovered? How do I know if my eating habits and thought patterns are still disordered?

This is definitely something that I thought about when I was recovering, and I am pretty sure it is something that you have thought about too. When exactly do you know when you are in remission as opposed to still recovering? When is that point where you go from one to the other? What signifies it?

The things that are disordered vary from person to person. One person may never has used coffee as an appetite suppressant or for energy during their eating disorder, and may now just enjoy a cup or two a day, whereas another may have used it and are still using it under the pretence of enjoying a cup or two a day, but are in fact not being honest with themselves that it is in fact driven by their eating disorder. One person may avoid some foods because they genuinely don’t like them, whilst others may avoid the same foods because their eating disorder has persuaded them that they don’t like them. It all varies from person to person, and it is about being 110% honest with yourself as to whether you are going to keep progressing forwards and reach remission or not. Because of these individual differences, it is hard to put together a whole list, but here are a few things that are signs that your eating habits and thought patterns are still disordered.

1. You are still worrying that food is going to make you fat, and you still worry about when to stop eating. This is something that when you are fully recovered you will not think about. You will eat what you want, when you want. You will eat when you desire to eat, and when you don’t have any desire to eat, you won’t. You will not worry about it “making you fat” because you know your body will maintain its natural healthy weight whilst you eat what you want, when you want.

2. You are finding reasons to not eat something. You should always eat what you want, when you want. If you are trying to find reasons not to eat something, then you are still having disordered thoughts. You eat when you want to eat, and you don’t eat when you don’t want to eat. By not wanting to eat, I mean that food is unappealing because you are not in any way hungry or needing any energy.

3. You are linking food and exercise together. Food and exercise should come separately. Burning off calories from your meals = disordered. Only allowing yourself to eat what you want because you have exercised = disordered. One should not effect the other.

4. You are still trying to control your weight. Being in remission includes accepting your body at whatever weight it is healthiest at naturally. That means trusting it to take you to that weight without you restricting any types of foods, exercising to try and keep your weight from going up, or trying to keep to a certain amount of calories without going over. It means eating what you want, when you want, and not exercising (or later on, only exercising for fun), and allowing your body to do what it needs to do.

5. You are trying to convince yourself that you enjoy exercise that you don’t really enjoy doing. Exercise should not be a part of your recovery. It should only be done in remission. If you are trying to convincing yourself that you love going to the gym when you don’t, start being honest with yourself. If your eating disorder has persuaded you that you love aerobics when actually you don’t, be honest with yourself. This includes “I’m doing it to be fit/toned/healthy”. That’s still disordered. Exercise should not be linked in your mind to changing your weight, shape, or size. Exercise that you don’t genuinely enjoy should not be done to get fit or healthy. It is the enjoyment that should come first and foremost, and the health benefits are secondary benefits that should have had nothing to do with the decision to do something physical. “I feel great after though!” is not a valid excuse. If you are going to do any form of recreational physical activity, you should feel good before doing it, whilst doing it, and after doing it, not just the latter. I would suggest checking out my videos on exercise here, here, and here).

6. You are avoiding certain foods or food groups. You might convince yourself that this is for “health” reasons, or you may even convince yourself that you don’t like them when actually you do. Again, this is about being really honest with yourself. Are you just trying to avoid them because they make you anxious?

7. You hate your body. Those in remission are able to accept their body as it is naturally. This doesn’t have to mean loving it. It just means being at least okay with it.

8. You lapse when you are stressed, angry, or upset. Those who are fully recovered have healthy coping mechanisms and do not respond to stressors by engaging in eating disorder habits.

9. You are still weighing yourself frequently. You do not need to weigh yourself any more. You don’t need to weigh yourself at all, ever. The number on the scales is irrelevant and for those with eating disorders, is a massive trigger. Those in full recovery don’t bother stepping on the scales because it’s meaningless and they don’t need to know their weight.

10. You keep planning ways to be “more healthy”. Those in remission eat what they want, when they want, and don’t need to think about “being healthy”, because what they are doing is what is truly healthy – listening to their body and not trying to control food or their weight, and eat what they desire, when they have the desire to do so.

Those are the ten things that sprang to mind when I thought about things that aren’t always entirely obvious to the person engaging in those habits or thought patterns. I hope this makes you think about where you are in recovery and if you still have some things to work on. Remember that these things take time, and you don’t have to rush to the finish line. If you try to do that, that finish line will get further away. Be patient and gentle with yourself, always.

Anxiety Management

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Anxiety can feel extremely overwhelming when in recovery for an eating disorder. As I talked about in the FAQ, it is pretty much impossible to avoid anxiety when it comes to the recovery process, and that is one of the reasons as to why recovery is so difficult.

Again, as I have said in the FAQ, I use this metaphor for eating disorders and recovery: There is a terrifying dragon in your garden, and every time you try to leave your house the dragon tries to eat you. You have a choice: you can resign yourself to being trapped in your house forever, or you can find a weapon and go out and fight it.
These are the choices you have regarding your eating disorder. You can either choose to remain trapped by it or you can face yours fears and fight it. You can only make the anxiety calm down and eventually stop altogether by facing your fears regarding food, weight, and other eating disorder habits. You can only make it stop by going against your eating disorder. For example, check out this path below:

This path has been created by people walking along it. Someone walked that way then another person did then another, and they all kept walking over this one track more and more, making the path deeper and more worn in until it was a very clear path that everyone would now automatically follow rather than walking along the grass beside it. This is what happens in your brain: the more you do something the more it becomes the norm to follow. So if you respond to your eating disorder over and over again, that becomes the habit to follow and not doing it creates anxiety. When you fight against your eating disorder, you start treading on the grass that isn’t the path. At first this is anxiety-provoking and scary, because it is not the norm, and it will continue to be scary for a while, but each time you are making more of a path in a different route. Eventually, that route will become a solid pathway, and the other one will start to disappear as grass starts to grow on it again. Eventually the old route will disappear and the new one will become the norm. What I am saying is that to do new things creates new neural pathways in the brain, making your new behaviours eventually become normalised (right now your old behaviours – those created by your eating disorder – are normalised because you have repeated them so often). This is when the anxiety will start to lessen. The more you do something the easier it will become, and eventually it will become easy, and the norm.

So anxiety is going to be something that you experience during your recovery. Maybe that anxiety occurs before you challenge yourself, maybe it occurs during, or maybe it occurs after, but either way, it’s there, and you don’t know what to do about it. You probably feel like responding to your eating disorder, which is probably telling you either not to challenge yourself, or to compensate for doing so. Ignore that voice. I know it is extremely hard but that voice is trying to make you sick. It is trying to get you to live in misery. Ultimately, it is trying to kill you. So how do you cope with that extreme anxiety when it is upon you?

One thing that is important is distinguishing its voice from yours. Recognise what is you, and what is the eating disorder. Argue with it. Use your rationality. Use your logic. Use the facts against the negative feelings it is trying to evoke in you. Beat it with logic.

One of the best ways to deal with anxiety is to use distraction techniques. When you are feeling anxious, distract yourself by doing what you can get most absorbed in. Here is a list of suggestions:

Watch a movie
Read a book
Write
Paint or draw
Blog
Collage
Knit or sew
Research something you are interested in
Play XBOX
Play games on your phone
Do fun internet quizzes
Play computer games
Call a friend or family member
Meet up with someone
Watch a documentary
Play a musical instrument
Do homework
Tidy your room
Do some internet shopping
Take photographs
Do puzzles

Puzzles in particular are very good for distraction as they really engage your mind and so distract you from the negative emotions you are experiencing.

Other things that you can do include:

Doing things which evoke a different emotion in you from the one you are experiencing. This could mean reading emotional books or letters, or looking at photos that bring up happy memories. It could mean watching films that evoke a different emotion to anxiety, such as a comedy, romance, or even a horror! It’s also good to listen to happy music when feeling sad, or calm music when feeling anxious. We tend to listen to angry music when we are angry, or sad music when we are sad, but this only reinforced the emotion rather than helping it to settle down.
If you are really, really anxious, and feel like you can’t contain yourself and are reaching a very intense level of anxiety, you can use the ice diving technique. If you are on beta blockers, have a heart condition, or any other medical condition, consult a healthcare provider before doing this. The ice diving technique means filling a bowl with ice, and sticking your face in it. This lowers blood pressure, heart rate, and body temperature, which helps with distressing emotions and reactions and lowers the anxiety levels. It can take around 15-30 seconds for the effects to occur.
Changing your environment can be good when you are anxious. Whether that means going to an imaginary safe place in your head, going to a place in your house where you feel most safe, going for a brief calm walk, or going to a friends house, a change in scenery can help calm you down.
Keep your reasons to recover in mind and find purpose in those negative emotions. For example: “I’m doing this because I want to recover.” Knowing that these negative emotions are playing a part in moving forwards can help.
Relax your body. Tensing up, which is a natural reaction to anxiety and stress, signals to your body that you are in danger and therefore continues to make you feel anxious. Try to relax. Let your shoulders drop. Lean back into a sofa or lie down on the bed. Unclench your muscles. This signals to your body that you are not in danger, and so can decrease anxiety.

Anxiety relating to recovery from an eating disorder is unpleasant at best, and overwhelmingly awful at worst, but it is something that can be managed, and something that will improve when it as your recovery progresses. If you can, do get a therapist to help you to help yourself throughout this difficult time. Hang in there, you can do this!