TW: numbers, small descriptions of ED thoughts. I will try not to be triggering, but if you are in an active eating disorder or early recovery, it's way not the time to be thinking of weight loss!
Hi /r/loseit. I want to talk about my recent experience with losing weight as someone with a history of a restrictive eating disorder. Sorry, this is probably going to be a very long post! My very first post on this subreddit (and on Reddit!) was concerning my challenges and worries regarding losing weight considering my history. Before I posted, I searched for something similar over and over- and I didn't find much information similar to what I was looking for. The advice I did get was, basically, "don't lose weight." Which is well meaning, and I would have given the same advice to someone online I don't know, but I was also in a place where not losing weight had the potential of being just as dangerous as losing weight, or more so- I was BMI 37, had high cholesterol and blood pressure, and was struggling to walk up a flight of stairs. I did end up embarking on weight loss, and I want to share what I've learned in case someone else, like me, needs to lose weight but has a history of a restrictive ED. I am not a mental health professional, I am just a person trying to get through this weird life thing, and I can only speak for my own experience, but I hope some of this is helpful to someone somewhere down the line.
I am a long way from my most recent relapse, and truly felt it was possible to take on weight loss in a healthy way. By a long way out, I mean years- almost a decade. I am not fresh into recovery. Weight loss is not something that anyone fresh into recovery should be thinking about! If you are just starting to recover and hoping to lose the "extra" weight you gained in a "healthy" way, please speak to someone in your recovery circle about those thoughts, it's not the time to take on something as triggering as trying to lose weight. With this post, I am addressing people like me- the eating disorder is there, in the past, and you know it's a possibility that it could pop up again, but it's not something you ever wanna go back to, it's not something that's fresh, and you're mentally prepared, through a strong foundation of long term recovery, to do the hard work to keep it there in the past.
I'm mostly not going to talk about what worked for me in terms of weight loss, because there are plentiful resources on this sub and others about that topic, and I don't really have anything new to add. Anyway, most people with restrictive EDs are pros at weight loss already. I'm going to talk about how I've managed to not lose my mind while losing weight. So that being said, here are some things that made it possible for me to lose 70 lbs without relapsing into my eating disorder-
- Support network is crucial. People I can be honest with, including a therapist, were appraised of my plans and updated regularly. Having a good therapist and a support network outside of therapy has helped me to keep myself honest and on track, regardless of what thoughts have popped up. I am very fortunate to also have a husband that knows of my eating disorder history and who is someone I can share everything with at all hours of the day or night. Sharing my negative thoughts took away their power before they turned into negative behaviors. As soon as I want to hide something, I talk about it, and that keeps me accountable. It's tricky, and if you're not able to do this 100% of the time, I can't see how it would be possible to lose weight in a healthy way. Eating disorders thrive in the darkness. Shining light on all the dark nooks of my brain kept the eating disorder from taking power over me.
2) I needed to be able to know and challenge myself. I'm a big proponent of people knowing themselves best, but an ED takes away your ability to be honest about your own thoughts and behaviors. It's not the fault of the person with the ED, it's a terrible mental illness, but it's hard to acknowledge that your own brain has been hijacked, and all those things your inner voice are saying are not true. I needed to know when my inner voice was "me-" that is, the me that was looking out for my health and well being- and when it was influenced by my eating disorder. That's super hard sometimes! Point 1 helps with this, because people outside of me are really good at identifying when I am being influenced by my ED.
3) I needed to do a lot of soul searching about my motivations. Early on in my recovery, I tried to lose weight "healthy" (I didn't really need to lose weight at all, I was a perfectly healthy weight), because I thought if I could just eat "healthy" and be "naturally thin" all my issues would go away, and I could have the body my eating disorder wanted without actually having to deal with an eating disorder. Man, I was super wrong. Losing weight healthy is a totally different process than losing weight with an ED. I am never going to get the body my eating disorder wanted me to have if I am truly taking care of myself and approaching this from a place of health and wellness. I am good with that thought now (and I love my body!) but it took a long time to get there. My goal in losing weight is not to be "skinny," but to feel strong and capable, to have a healthy body, and to enable myself to do the physical things I want to do without any restrictions. Keeping those goals in mind has kept things in perspective.
4) I still have work to do in recovery. This whole journey has shown me more than anything the places where I am weak in my recovery. It's shown me that the behaviors that got me to my high weight were still eating disorder behaviors! That was a wild experience. All these years, I feel like I have avoided true recovery- namely, connecting with my body, understanding and accepting its urges and weird bits and needs, and taking good care of my physical and mental health. A therapist has been crucial. I never truly, 100% addressed some aspects of my disorder, and I am still very much "in recovery" as opposed to recovered. This experience could have gone a totally different way without points 1-3; that's why I put those points first. Because a good support network, and a lot of internal work and soul searching were the difference between enabling more complete recovery and relapsing into my eating disorder.
5) I deal with eating disorder thoughts sometimes. I have to have an action plan for the thoughts. I use a structured method of challenging these thoughts, which has worked well for me. I am not a bad or broken person for continuing to deal with these thoughts- I just have a mental illness that isn't completely healed. The difference between now and active ED is that I am capable of seeing these thoughts for what they are, that they are ugly little remnants of a disease that has taken away too much of my life. Understanding that it's ok for these thoughts to pop up as long as I deal with them in a healthy manner has been crucial to my success. In the past, I've been very all or nothing with ED thoughts- if my ED voice was there at all, I had to act on it or I had to stuff it down with food. Now I challenge it, or just observe it and let it flow away, and it doesn't influence my actions at all. Good therapy has been a godsend for this approach.
6) Having an action plan for "bad days." Every dieter has "bad days-" days where they eat more than they planned or are just struggling for whatever reason. For some people, bad days lead to "falling off the wagon." For me, they can lead to self-hate and further restriction, which can lead to binge-restrict cycles. These cycles are freaking horrible. I've needed to put a good plan in action for extra self love and focus on "bad days." I am learning to accept that I am human, and I sometimes eat more food than I do on other days, and this does not make me unworthy. When I have a bad day, I forgive myself, and move forward. That's harder than it sounds. I have learned to recognize when I am obsessing about a past event, like eating too much, and to break the cycle of obsession through meditation or cognitive behavioral techniques. Are you seeing a trend? LOL. Therapy is good.
7) Learning to accept that my life is not my body, and my body is ok. For a long time, most of my self worth hinged on how I looked. That's something I think a lot of people can relate to, and it really sucks. I am not how I look. Getting to my goal weight will not magically change my life. I have had to spend a lot of time coming to peace with my body, and with how I look at the present. I will never look 100% the way that my ED brain wants me to look. I am still me with 20 less lbs, or 100 more lbs. I cannot put my life on hold until I hit my goal, nor will my life be significantly different or better at my goal weight. This is why it's been really helpful to have goals that are not appearance related- I am reaching my goals of strength, of being capable, and of being healthy, and regardless of how my body looks, it is a good body that has taken me through an amazing life so far, and will take me through many years to come if I treat it with love and kindness and compassion.
8) Evaluating the techniques I am using to lose weight. Look, we all know CICO is king, especially people with EDs. Calories were king in my life for a long time; there is also absolutely nothing more triggering to me than strictly counting calories. I've lost weight using IF, and didn't count jack for most of my weight loss, and that was a way healthier approach for me than downloading MFP. Yes, IF works because it reduces your calories in. Not focusing on the calories aspect still made it a way better approach for me. Now I've done more recovery work, I have been able to work in more calorie tracking without losing my mind, but at first it sure was amazing to lose weight without constantly drowning in numbers. I think that any alternative way of eating that allows changes to calorie intake without strict counting could be helpful- I probably could have done keto, or paleo, or whatever. The important part was I found a way to lose weight and avoid my primary trigger mechanism until I was in a good spot.
There you have it, there is the heart of my experience. I am constantly learning and growing and working on myself, so this is by no means an exhaustive list, but it's the biggest points of what I've experienced for the last 8 months of weight loss. I hope this is helpful for someone out there at some point. If you are someone who is in the same spot, and needs someone to talk to, please feel free to get in touch. I would love to talk to you about your experience and help in any way I can.
I hope everyone has a healthy, happy, beautiful 2019!
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