Food glorious food part 3

Part 3 is here! Not exactly the most exciting thing to wait for, but for anyone who's interested here it is...

Do you know what the biggest irony of dealing with the mental pressure to keep weight off is? I'm not happy with my body. Plain and simple. All this mental energy being wasted to achieve something I'm ultimately not happy about. So if I'm not happy , why not change it? Because its not that simple - the instant that scale goes up, or I feel bloated, I hate my body even more and panic. I've mentioned before that prior to losing the weight and being ill, I was confident and at the happiest with my body I'd ever been; yes I still had days of feeling 'gross' but they were completely outweighed (ha, pun not intended!) by the fact my body was so strong, and I was amazed at exactly what it could do. I think this is why I'm not happy with it now - even though I've very much got the desirable look for social media, skinny, my body feels weak and this 'desirable body' is another physical representation of the multiple conditions in dealing with. Now, if I'd gotten to my current physique through hard work and body recomposition training/eating, I think I'd have been proud, but I guess I won't know until I reach the point of feeling capable and strong again. 

As I've previously said, I didn't realise my issues until I became unwell, so those unchecked thoughts had 28 years of foundation. 28 years is a lot to unpack and definitely not as easy as saying 'i'll change my thought pattern'. It takes a lot of work on yourself, on self esteem and on learning to say 'no' to those thoughts. Most importantly, it's recognising them as what they are and doing something about it. This is where, surprisingly, social media has come in. In a world of 'skinny tok' and trends regressing back to the toxic 00's 'nothing tastes as good as skinny feels', there are some amazing influencers out there who are bucking the trend and broadcasting their own struggles with disordered eating. One of them, Leigh Ann Healy, is someone I respect greatly and have actually reached out to for some tips on how she started to win her own battle. Now, there was no pressure on Leigh Ann to respond to me at all, but she's been incredible, offering insights, understanding and actually useful information that resonates in the real world. One of the things Leigh Ann pointed me towards was a book: Life Without Ed by Jenni Schaefer, where the author has named her disorder 'Ed' and explains her journey to divorcing from Ed. Since I've been listening to this as an audiobook, I've gone through multiple emotions; shock, enlightenment, anger, frustration, sadness, and most of all, the feeling of being 'seen'. It's like the author is in my head. Although I could sort of recognise the disordered thoughts before, this book has made me realise that some of my other daily wonderings are part of Eds family. On top of this, behaviours that I thought were a sign of improvement, are actually part of a 'binge - purge' cycle. Purge may look different to everyone, I imagine you initially think of literal purging, like forcing yourself to throw up, or using excessive laxatives. For me, purge looks like anger and frustration with myself, which turns into excessive restrictions and forced burning of additional calories to 'make up' for the binge.  The restriction on eating is far too easy considering I don't feel hungry... Ever! The additional calorie burn... Not so much; it also has a bad impact on my body as a whole, making my overall progress regress.

In the book, it also mentions something all too close to home - that disordered eating feels at its worst when you're not 'bad enough' for formal clinical intervention. Being completely honest, this is something I've been told after having been referred to the eating disorder clinic when my dietician helped me to initially recognise what's going on. Being knocked back because I'm 'not skinny enough' really made me angry - here I was reaching out for help and they told me I'm not bad enough for them to help!? Surely this is the time to intervene before it gets to that point!? Also, I dread to think how many other people have been in the same position and gotten worse because of not fitting the required metrics for referral. Just because I don't fit their scales doesn't mean I'm not struggling - the obsessive calorie counting and having to 'earn' my food tells me that, but having that reassurance from the book made it real again, and reignited that feeling of being let down. 

I've realised this will be an ongoing battle, hopefully I've started to fight back, but I now understand far better the rules of the game so my 'Ed' doesn't have the upper hand anymore.

Ta ta for now!