When do we stop?

I assure you the goal you're trying to achieve, whether it be beauty, athletics, health, or simply societal acceptance, can be completed without tracking your daily calories on a phone app and calculating how many fractions of a kilogram you lost each day.

There is always an alternative strategy.

Finding clothes that complement your body, building long-term strength and muscle, learning to eat a balanced and intuitive diet, or gaining enough confidence to smile even in the face of judgement are definitely difficult, but the fulfilment and satisfaction you'll feel looking back at yourself decades later will make it all worth it.

Become a person whose kindness, intelligence, courage, and sincerity shine through regardless of what their body looks like.

Become a character, not just an image.

Except...

ᯓ★ You can't really control your weight in the long run without suffering even more

ᯓ★ By using restriction/binging/purging/overexercising as a coping mechanism, it's gonna be harder to deal with stress in the future

ᯓ★ All ur other problems (that you claim to have no control over) are still there

ᯓ★ Being tired, hungry, and filled with guilt all the time will make it harder to fix those very problems

Your eating disorder will end up controlling you.

Reminder that you don't need to "burn off", "justify", or "compensate" for your holiday feasts/desserts/snacks or anything!!

By overexercising or fasting, you can't even guarantee that you're burning what you just ate since your body changes the ratio of carbs/fats/proteins it uses all the time.

⋆.˚ Trying to become and stay skinny can literally eat away your bones, and this is especially true if you're female. Don't be looking to have double fractured femurs, joint pain, and osteoporosis at 60. Your bones will never strengthen unless you feed them and exercise them! ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

It's okay to not know how to eat intuitively!

I've been seeing a lot of online wellness advice recently stressing the importance of intuitive eating and idk, but some of us just don't know/don't remember how to do that?? Eventually, I do hope to be "in tune" with what my body needs, even if it takes months or years or decades. It's just that right now, I simply don't know how to distinguish between a craving, a necessity, or simple boredom/stress responses.

Intuitive eating allows us to eat for both joy and nourishment. If we haven't unlocked that skill yet, there are still ways for us to accomplish the same thing:

I've found that when I have a dead or hyper appetite, it's less stressful to eat at regular times during the day instead "whenever I feel hungry" (bc let's be real, some of us are unfortunately way too used to hunger to know when to stop). I set aside time solely for breakfast, lunch, snack, and dinner without trying to multitask or distract myself from the meal.

There was also a period of time where I really struggled with making decisions related to food, which often delayed when I ate and sometimes even stopped me from eating entirely. For those days, I look at meal plans I've written that include a mix of comfort foods in familiar flavors and 1 or 2 new foods (since I enjoy novelty but I understand that many do not). Simplifying the decisions with a meal plan makes it sooo much easier to eat in regular intervals when I'm tired and still get enough energy and vitamins/minerals. Recovery can be a pain in the butt, and I am so done with forcing myself to do a 180° change in habits in an attempt to "heal faster". This stuff takes time!

***I'm not a nutritionist, so I'm not qualified to give advice on others' specific diet choices. Please speak to a professional and read a variety of sources when you start your own journey towards the elusive land of "intuitive eating." You will get there someday!

You are equally valid for trying to recover at any point of your experience. The person stopping at a month is not less deserving of acknowledgement for their ed, and the person stopping at 3 decades is not less self-aware of their condition.

However long it took for your mind and body to warn you to stop, the ultimate goal is still to find comfort with yourself. Isn't this something we should all reach for throughout our lives?

ᝰ. Relapsing is a sign that your old ways of coping might need to be replaced with new ones.

Was it a specific moment or thought that triggered it? If the event happens again, is there something else you can do to create a healthier reaction? Talk to someone you trust and seek their support; it can be hard to figure all of this out on your own 𐔌՞. .՞𐦯 ♡

During recovery, you might be focused on "meeting your macros" through high protein/carb/fat foods. However, getting a variety of micronutrients like vitamins and minerals from fruits and veggies are just as important!

Recovering isn't always just eating a lot more or less than you used to. If you've had disordered habits for a long time, your body might not be able to handle the sudden change. It's completely fine if it takes a while of gradual increases or decreases before you feel comfortable with being healthy again.

And if your physician is giving you weight quotas to meet before every appointment, try talking to them if you feel like you're forcing yourself to do the impossible. They might not know how hard it is to go from black to white, so please tell them!