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Wednesday, June 27, 2018

Inspiration for Today

My brother this morning: "Is it really only Wednesday?"

The news this morning: going back and forth between tragic and inspirational.

We need more cute bunny stories and fewer heartbreaks.

Here's some inspiration for today. (I may have spent some time on Pinterest while getting ready for work . . . )




And, of course, a song:


"Life is Better With You" (Michael Franti and PS22 Chorus)

<3 Frances

Tuesday, June 26, 2018

Eating Disorder Recovery, Triggers, and Rules

Hi, loves! We're kitty-sitting, and it's a Tuesday, and I just got back from an incredibly long day of camp counseling. I don't know where my thoughts go while I'm working . . . most of my brain seems to be so occupied by counting students and helping them that I don't even identify as my own person until camp lets out and all of a sudden my own mind rushes back into itself and I remember that there's more to my life than a hot glue gun and band-aids. LOL.

Coming home tonight, I turned the computer on and began working on my assignments for health class. We're learning about nutrition, exercise, and "weight management" this week, and when I saw all those words, I immediately remembered being 15 and in my first high school health class again. There were a lot of positive things about my health class, and I am grateful for all my teachers, but I definitely attribute my descent into disordered eating behaviors to the "calories in, calories out" and "watch what you eat" guidelines that I learned both from the media and from my textbook. The textbooks all mean well, but when you've got a predisposition for any sort of eating disorder, reading that "activity levels must balance out with caloric intake" can be really triggering.

I didn't understand quite how triggering they could be until just a few minutes ago, when I opened a worksheet about BMI, negative calorie requirements, and goal weights that caused me to break down sobbing to my mother.

I'm not criticizing any worksheets or assignments, and I've known people who have incorporated fitness goals and calorie counting very successfully and positively into their lives, but as a person in eating disorder recovery, a worksheet focused on calculating my goal "pounds to lose each week" is really, really distressing. It reminds me so much of the very first rules I chose to incorporate into my restrictive eating habits several years ago, and it speaks to the rules I am now working so hard to let go of.
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The tricky thing is that any diet or exercise advice I read becomes a "rule" in my head--something I have to abide by "or else." I don't take the advice to heart . . . instead I take it to a very deep, dark, addictive place within myself.
Eating late is bad for you? Omigosh now I need to stress about mealtimes. Drinking water is good? Better finish two bottles of water in the next two hours!
Sitting is dangerous? Stop sitting!  
If you're serious about recovery, you need to actively remind yourself that these rules are NOT what are keeping you "safe." Honestly, breaking these rules won't hurt you nearly as badly as stressing yourself out about them will.

Stressing out about following a "rule" is much worse than facing your fear of the unknown. 
 My challenge for you (well, for all of us) today is to ask yourself where your "rules" come from. Are they from a textbook you read? An article you skimmed? An advertisement you saw? Try to imagine your life without these rules:
What if you listened to hunger cues, not to a clock?
What if you could eat food prepared by other people?
What if it was okay to sit down?
What if snacks weren't the enemy?
What if the answer wasn't always "eat less, exercise more"?
Think about it, now. Would your life open up without these rules? Would you feel less anxious? We often rationalize our diet and fitness rules as protecting us from uncomfortable feelings like stress, indigestion, and breakouts, but I've actually found that the angst I feel over following all my diet/fitness rules actually causes stress, indigestion, and breakouts. When we're relaxed and willing to go with the flow and just accept our bodies(!), we feel SO much better.

I'm definitely not recovered yet, but I'm working on it. I know so much more now about myself than I did when I was 15 and calculating my BMI for the first time, and I'm not going to let myself let go of all the hard work I've done to pull away from restriction, addiction, and compulsion. Life with an eating disorder is not a fun one. It's freaking stressful, and I think that, if we really commit to recovery, we can get to the other side and find that flexibility, flow, and acceptance bring way more joy than dieting ever can.

<3 <3 <3



Wednesday, June 20, 2018

Getting Over Disordered Eating

Hi, friends! Happy June! Today we have a special post to kick-start a little series on healing from eating disorders. In the past, we've written about exercise anxiety, control, and body image, and this post is from a friend who is currently in recovery. She's here to talk about getting over any patterns of restriction and fear so that we can be healthy, happy, and free. Yay!

When you're recovering from any sort of eating disorder, everything that you're doing can feel incredibly counter-intuitive. Or even counter-cultural.  The mass media is pretty good at conditioning us to pursue weight loss goals--we see FitBits and Nike "Just Do It" ads everywhere. And while these can be awesome and inspiring for some of us, they can be upsetting for those of us who are dealing with body image issues. If your brain is telling you harder, faster, stronger, lighter, eating an extra snack or working out less as opposed to more can feel like "wrong." But why are our internal and external dialogues surrounding health so judgmental, hateful, and fearful? Are judgement, fear, and hate really the foundations for wellness?

Since committing to recovery--which is a twisting, winding road and definitely not a straight, easy one--I've experienced many "wow" moments. Having an afternoon snack of cocoa-honey patties yesterday, I laughed and said, "I feel so weird just getting in the car and having chocolate."
My mum immediately called me out on this: "What's so weird about it? You're just a girl having a snack. There's nothing wrong with that." She said it very sweetly, but I knew she was reminding me to get my brain out of "Restriction" mode and into "Compassion" mode. Compassion mode is all about making informed, sustainable, loving choices with food and exercise, etc., as opposed to acting out of restrictive and fearful patterns.

So what do restrictive, fearful patterns look like?

  • Panicking about eating "extra"
  • Running miles in the gym
  • Doing HIIT even though it hurts
  • Trying to "compensate" for eating with exercise
  • "Earning" your food
  • Avoiding dessert, snacks, etc., at all costs
  • Picking at your stomach, thighs, etc.
  • Weighing yourself obsessively
  • Letting your worth be determined by the number on the scale/the size of your pants
  • Feeling guilty after eating
  • Feeling anxious about meals (i.e. obsessively planning out how to eat as little as possible, etc.)
  • Any other compulsive, repetitive, self-hating behaviors!
Does anything I just listed sound like fun? No! Wouldn't it be more fun to have free, compassionate patterns? Here's an idea of what they look like:
  • Doing movement you enjoy (when you feel like it)
  • Being able to go out to a restaurant
  • Being able to handle changes in your routine/schedule
  • Nourishing your body properly
  • Feeling excited about holidays again
  • Not letting your body dictate what you wear, how you carry yourself, etc.
  • Eating without worrying about compensation
  • YAYAYAY.
I definitely haven't reached this free, compassionate place 100%. No, I'm still very much in the "recovery process." But if you feel like I do and want freedom, then let's make a commitment to NOURISH and LOVE ourselves!  You can still be "healthy" without all your "rules." I've found so many fun recipes online that are friendly to my acne-prone skin and also friendly to animals (i.e. they don't promote factory farming), and making treats like coconut rice and mango chunks, smoothies, and mung dahl has helped me to see that food can be about COMPASSION instead of CONTROL. 

https://pathofselflove.org/2018/02/2018-self-love-poster/

I'm still adjusting to feeling "full" and to not running around the house every time I eat, but I'm finding that reading, doing yoga, and not worrying about my torso all the time are so much better than stressing out and controlling everything. If we are loving to ourselves and make compassionate food and movement choices, then we can be compassionate to those around us, too. Being restrictive and fearful didn't make me a fun person to be around!



Love to all!