Boredom = overanalysis = relapse = frustration

I am new to the board and have had an eating disorder (restricting calories and obsessive exercise) since December 2007. I finally sought professional treatment in February of this year and have been having a few up's and down's since.

I a a 5ft 8.5inch female and currently weigh 112lbs. I am aiming to get to 120lbs which is close to the heaviest I have been ever (i.e. when I was healthly 3 or so years ago). The lowest I got to was 106lbs.

Does anyone else find the problem that when they get some 'down time' whether it be from study or work and just the general business of life their mind starts to revert back to old ways and start to overanalyse things i.e. how much you have eaten, the fact you haven't exercised etc? I have recently had a quiet patch of a few weeks at work and this has been the main cause of a relapse for me. I have been back to my dietician and she has put me back on a meal plan but I am struggling a bit with this - I have a positive day then a bad day as we all do!

I have not managed to put any weight on in the last few weeks but expect that's because I just need to try harder to stick to my meal plan.... sometimes we just need people to reinforce this or give us the 'permission' though - do you know what I mean?

The other issue I am struggling with - maybe more than the eating part - is the lack of exercise I am doing... that, coupled with the fact that my boyfriend has been advised to exercise more as he needs to lose weight is creating a lot of anxiety for me at the moment.... Does anyone have any tips on this - any advice for me???

I have tried pilates and yoga but don't find it is a good enough stress release for me. As such I am trying to limit my cardio to 2 x 30min runs per week but as soon as I get time on my hands and a bit bored I really want to push this....

Any words of wisdom, encouragement, motivation would be appreciated!!!

Original Post by eringo2:

I am new to the board and have had an eating disorder (restricting calories and obsessive exercise) since December 2007. I finally sought professional treatment in February of this year and have been having a few up's and down's since.

I a a 5ft 8.5inch female and currently weigh 112lbs. I am aiming to get to 120lbs which is close to the heaviest I have been ever (i.e. when I was healthly 3 or so years ago). The lowest I got to was 106lbs.

Does anyone else find the problem that when they get some 'down time' whether it be from study or work and just the general business of life their mind starts to revert back to old ways and start to overanalyse things i.e. how much you have eaten, the fact you haven't exercised etc? I have recently had a quiet patch of a few weeks at work and this has been the main cause of a relapse for me. I have been back to my dietician and she has put me back on a meal plan but I am struggling a bit with this - I have a positive day then a bad day as we all do!

I have not managed to put any weight on in the last few weeks but expect that's because I just need to try harder to stick to my meal plan.... sometimes we just need people to reinforce this or give us the 'permission' though - do you know what I mean?

The other issue I am struggling with - maybe more than the eating part - is the lack of exercise I am doing... that, coupled with the fact that my boyfriend has been advised to exercise more as he needs to lose weight is creating a lot of anxiety for me at the moment.... Does anyone have any tips on this - any advice for me???

I have tried pilates and yoga but don't find it is a good enough stress release for me. As such I am trying to limit my cardio to 2 x 30min runs per week but as soon as I get time on my hands and a bit bored I really want to push this....

Any words of wisdom, encouragement, motivation would be appreciated!!!

yes, i absolutely know what you mean! good for you for making an effort. it sounds like you definitely need to get busy and get your mind off food and exercise. personally a good book does that for me, or sometimes a movie. also sitting down to art, but i know that's not everyone's thing. or you can call up a friend and talk (about the ed or not). when i really wanted to exercise, i would either go on a leisurely walk or lift light weights (not cardio, which is better). i didn't forbid myself to exercise, as it does help with depression, but i would figure out how many calories i burned and then have to eat four times that many calories on top of a normal day's calories (pretty easy if you just make a dense protein shake with protein powder, 2% or whole milk, peanut butter and a banana). that way i made sure that the ed wasn't using the exercise against me.

Thanks for your quick reply! Unfortunately I still struggle with 'relaxing' exercises so have trouble concentrating on just reading a book or something to occupy my mind but it is all part of re-training ourselves. Getting out for a leisurely walk does help as it allows me to be active without pushing myself.

I have also been doing weights so will continue with that - what kind do you do?

Also - how much and what kind of cardio do you do and how often? Do you really need to eat four times as many calories on top of a normal days calories to compensate? I have heard others talk of adding the amount of calories they burned to their daily intake but not 4 times!

Any advice on how I can be supportive of my boyfriends need and want to do cardio to improve his fitness without feeling anxious and jealous? This is a big stumbling point for us at the moment. He wants me to get better and sees that him doing exercise makes me want to do it which puts him in a difficult position...

Original Post by eringo2:

I have not managed to put any weight on in the last few weeks but expect that's because I just need to try harder to stick to my meal plan.... sometimes we just need people to reinforce this or give us the 'permission' though - do you know what I mean?

Yes, you need to stick to your meal plan. But nobody else can give or take away your permission to eat. It is you that has been refusing your body of the energy it needs: so you are the one who needs to learn to give yourself permission to eat, gain weight and be healthy.

Do it for yourself, eringo. You're eating so that YOU can get better and live a fulfilling life, not for anyone else. We've all been there, in fact I'm really struggling with eating today, but I know it's only ED that makes me not want to eat, and ED isn't my friend. 

I don't really lift weights, honestly. I have a set of 2 lb weights and 5 lb weights, and I just lift them different ways when I'm sitting down at least once a day for about ten or fifteen minutes. Nothing strenuous. I also walk about a mile two-three times a week. And no, 4X the amount of calories is probably not necessary, but I would do more than 1X because exercise also increases metabolism. Also by having to eat more than I burned I ensured that I was exercising for my enjoyment, not by any twisted scheme of ED. 2 or 3X might work better for someone else, but I think the more exercise-obsessed you are the more it should be.

Hmm... I know what you mean about having to support your boyfriend improving his fitness. That's a struggle for me, too, as the whole rest of my family is overweight. I don't have any great suggestions, but maybe you guys could go to a gym together, and you could lift light weights for a while? You guys could talk while you do it. Just make sure to take breaks, and get enough snacks in around the workout. Protein shakes and bars are great, especially since they help you build muscle. Or swimming, an activity that can be very leisurely or strenuous, and then you guys could still be together, maybe share a picnic blanket or something afterwards. Just an idea.

Thanks to all of you for your good advice. As with everyone with real struggle is changing the psychology of how we got ourselves into these situations.... and as we all wish - i wish i could snap my fingers and turn off that part of my brain for good and get back to normal!

I get so frustrated at myself as it seems that it can't be that hard to just go back to eating normally, exericising for fun and when I wanted to and having a lazy day watching movies when I wanted to and having carefree and loving relationships with friends and family etc.... but I have this wall that I am trying to slowly break down which is kind of a mask of my emotions and feelings and that wall is my eating disorder/compulsive exercise... it is like the filter through which all my thoughts go through and through which messages from others come through... I need to change what the filter 'set-up' is to let through only positive thoughts or I need to eliminate this all together!!!

I really find this forum very motivational though and appreciate the support and advice you are all able to offer as learning from other people's journey's only helps keep us all motivated to go on.

My challenge for this weekend is going to stay with my boyfriends mum who I have known for years but she is aware of my eating disorder and likes to encourage me (gently) to eat a lot while I am there and I do feel scrutinised whilst eating and around exercising whilst there.

Does anyone have some good anxiety/calming practices for when they get anxious about facing a big meal/expectations of others etc???

Breathe slowly and deeply. You can't calm down unless your breathing slows down.

Thanks for the tips re: breathing. That is what I try to do immediately when I feel anxious/under pressure then my mind tries to assess why I am anxious and rather than obeying the irrational thoughts, I tried to process in my mind what the logical thought is. I find that this works a lot better if I can write it down as it seems to 'stick more' than just thinking it but I can't just pull out a pen and paper at the dinner table! :)

eringo2 - This may sound like a silly idea, but since you like writing... have you ever heard of NaNoWriMo?  It's also known as National Novel Writing Month.  Basically during the month of November, a lot of people across the country sit down at a computer and just write.

The rules are mainly that you don't nitpick your writing, you just keep going no matter what.  You don't worry about whether you have a steady plotline with subplots or anything.  You just write for the sake of writing and try to hit a word count goal by the end of the month.  Some people try to get a certain word count by the end of each day, some people go for weekly goals since they don't have time to write every day, but it's a great tool to exercise your stream-of-consciousness creativity.  Some people do end up writing great rough drafts and get their final copies published eventually!  It's just a celebration of writing.  You're not limited by genre, or characters, and it's highly discouraged to go back and edit until after the month is over since that tends to make you worry and slow you down.

November IS coming up, but that doesn't mean you have to limit yourself to that one month.  You could start now.  Writing is a GREAT seated activity, something that really works the muscles of your mind, and if you enjoy it, you can get SO absorbed.  It's much more active than reading, and you're creating this world that's all your own.  And at the end you feel so accomplished!  Plus... this may sound weird, but it seems to me that it might parallel your current experiences a little.  If you don't go back and analyse everything you did, it means you get to keep going.  You just keep adding word after word, until you're done.  And at the end, you have a story that's all your own.  It's yours to share if you choose to, or yours to treasure all by yourself.

I know you don't even know me, but I really, really hope you feel better.  Please, take very good care of yourself.

-Rae

just wanted to say welcome. im not sure i have anymore advice that has been given. i can totally relate to the way you feel infact it looked like id written it. starting to recover seems like so much to get your head round. try to just take eat day at time , dont think about the weeks and months ahead , if i do this it tends to set me bk. you will have bad days , they are healthy in recovery , its just making sure you pick yourself up te day after. i know what you mean about time exercise totally ruled my life and it was so hard to get used to not doing it and replacing it with other things. i also found if i was to busy it was almost an excuse not to eat , and if i wasnt very busy id get bored think about things and relapse. it all about balance like it is with the food . try to distract yourself listen to music , read tidy your room . watch a film i know its hard to concentrate , but this will improve. i started keeping food logs and a journal of my recovery so hopefully i can look bk in years to come and think god how did i get like that. i write lists of my goals , reasons i dont want the illness , why i am doing it, sounds daft but its easy to lose sight. i leave myself little posties to challenge those thoughts that occur . i go on facebook to spend time doing silly quizzies but its fun. as for your boyfriend i can understand that bothering you, but you have to think of you , and you need to gain weight despite what else is going on . think ill go know i ve gone on enough just remember we are right behind you  keep fighting h x

Thanks antipixie and tessa1223 - very helpful responses from both of you.

Antipixie - I have to say that when I started reading your response I was not the excited about it but as I got further through and into your explanation I started to see more and more that this might be something that a) I will enjoy and b) may prove to be quite therapeutic and useful to me in my recovery so I am going to jump onto the website now and check it out.

I never have really thought about myself as a writer but as I said, writing down my thoughts definitely seems to help me share my emotions and put things into perspective/is the logical voice for me. Also I definitely agree with your point about allowing me to keep writing and moving forward without going back and over analysing things. I think i will just need to focus on the present and what i am feeling and how i can use the current feelings as lessons or motivations to move forward to achieve my goals in recovery.

Which brings me to my response to tessa1223.... Up until this point i don't think i have invested anywhere near enough time or valued enough the process of actually sitting and writing down my thoughts and also consciously developing some responses ready to answer my ed voice when it starts to raise its ugly head and tell me messages which are simply rubbish. As such I think that has been one of the main weaknesses in my defence. I just need to actually take the time (as these responses dont come easily to me as yet) to sit down and do this exercise. Do you really find these help? And the post it notes to yourself? what kind of messages do these have on them?

I am curious to know more on how you have managed to get over the exercise thing.. it seems you are at quite a serious stage of your anorexia so I am amazed you have energy at all to exercise (although we all know how much the voices drive us...) but it is just that I have so so so much trouble sitting still and switching off my brain... something i just need to train myself in!

Take care guys... :)

i definitely think the writing works it helps me stay focused on what i need to do , with having this ed for so long it almost seems like a way of life that is normal. oh the posties i bt daft i know i write things like you must eat more you need to gain , you shoulnt be exercising at you weight , it just reminds me to keep going when the ed kicks in

as for the exercise i wouldnt say ive beaten the demons , i was forced into stopping due to injury and my osteophrosis , your right though i often didnt feel like it i felt exhausted, it became a chore rather than something to enjoy. not doing this helped me see that what  was doing before was way to much, and that i need to let my body repair , its also helps as a good indication on how much you need to eat it confusing when you are running around burning everything off. and i found it became a habit if i did so much one day id have to do the same the nxt and more, and actually this isnt normal, you need days off even when at a healthy weight. my theapist told me exercise is inaffective when at such low weight. i didnt believe this until i tryed it out , it was hell and so hard not to cut my eating but she was right because my weight was no different h x

I agree that writing does help. Putting thoughts on paper makes me see the logic or irrationality in what i am currently thinking - something that I cannot seem to do in my own head at the moment so I guess that is an interim step until I can get my mind to process thes thoughts without me writing them down.

Do you share your thoughts with others e.g. your partner/husband/family? Is he/they supportive of your recovery? Do they find it helpful as an insight? Some stuff I write is quite personal to me though so not sure if i would feel comfortable sharing... hmm...

I have tried writing statements like the examples you gave and have not had great success so far but maybe I just need to concentrate on them more and take them more seriously. it is probably the ed voice that tells me they are stupid and that shouldnt be the way!

I am at the same point as you re: exercise. I find it a great stress/tension release but more often than not feel I MUST exercise rather than i WANT to exercise... When you talk about it showing you how much you have to eat what do you mean? Do you mean you have found that by stopping and eating more you feel better and have more energy? I have found that for sure. I totally agree with the cycle you get into re: I will run x miles today and then i feel like i need to do the same tomorrow but go a bit further rather than taking the day off etc.. and this also links back to what I allow myself to eat i.e. have I been for a run? if yes then i can feel relaxed about how i eat - otherwise i start to get anxious about food...

That is interesting and useful what your therapist said about exercise - when you put it that way re: being inaffective when you are so thin that makes it less attractive. plus the fact you are eating away at vital body components as you have no more fat to burn is the real problem....

My main body issue i have is with my stomach... I think the rest of me is way to skinny but always see my tummy as rounded and bloated and hate this. I swear if i could come to peace with how my tummy looks i would be able to move foward so much more quickly.... do you have a similar situation that has kept you in your anorexia cycle e.g. body image issues or are your issues wider???

hmm... i struggle with the same "tummy issue" and the bloating and all that. i have to remember that (1) the bloating will eventually go away, but more importantly, (2) organs and food are where you say your "tummy" is, so actually when you gain more weight it's NOT just going to make your tummy bigger looking, but will add to the rest of your body, making it look smaller, or flatter in any case.

Thanks for the comforting thoughts - it seems to be the general comment on here thats where your weight first goes to protect your organs and also it feels bigger from bloating - all makes sense really!

Do you still struggle with this? How do you get over it mentally?? I see this and my immediate thought is to go exercise and eat less and i have to really tell myself not to be stupid - it only feels bigger as you are actually eating like a normal person now so it needs time to expand and get used to it!

How long has it taken you for your weight to redistribute?

personally i can't give you a great answer on your last question... my weight hasn't fully distributed after many months but i also haven't reached an acceptable weight yet. it only took a few weeks to notice a slight difference, though, and it's been getting better and better ever since. at first when i ate the smallest amount of anything, just half a sandwich or something, it would be sooo painful and i literally looked like i had swallowed a beach ball or was pregnant with triplets. now if i eat a normal person's amount of food i don't swell up noticeably (but of course i have to eat more than that, so it does show). also i still bloat a lot more than my friends if i have a large drink or we eat watermelon or something, but that will pass.

again, i just remind myself over and over again that it's not my stomach that's too big, it's the rest of me that's too small. good for my stomach; it should serve as an example for the rest of me to follow! hehe. XD

eringo - now that I'm weight restored, my stomach no longer looks bloated. It has taken about four months. Throughout the entire duration of my ED I had a bloated stomach - at my smallest I still had a bump that looked pregnant (unless I completely fasted for two days, which wasn't something I frequently did). Do you know what that "bump" likely is? A symptom of malnourishment.

yay!!!! you are so encouraging/inspiring. <3 hearing from people who have conquered the evil ed. :)

Thanks guys - very helpful and I absolutely agree re: the malnourishment thing - it does not look cool at all! So that's the incentive to just keep soldiering on and eating more to get over this hump (no pun intended!) and just deal with it til it redistributes and keep the positive thoughts running over and over in my mind about how I am getting back to being healthy.

Blueberry_lips - I see that you are well on your way to recovery and it is so encouraging to see how you are progressing. I think we are aiming towards similar goals so i would be interested to know if you have done this at home (ie. not at an intreatment facility) or if you went intreatment to start the process. Are you on a meal plan? Do you have any examples you can share with me? This is something I am trying work hard on now. Do you draw a lot of support from your family around eating?

You mentioned you do weights - do you factor in much cardio? Has exercise been part of your problem too?

Sorry - just trying to reach out and learn from others in similar situations!

i tend to keep alot of it to myself although somethings i go over with my theapist. my family are quite supportive well my mum anyway but i think my dad thinks as long as im eating im ok plus when i reach a healthy weight everything will be fine . i find the writing insightful as when this ed creeps in i lose siight of things. but you need to find whats comfortable for you. i guess if there was one answer for everyone for recovery it would be pretty easy to treat us all what i mean about knowing how much you ned to eat i mean if you arnt exercising you will learn how much your body will need to gain or maintain once you know this you can make sure you add extra for your exercise like if you have a 40 min walk you need something extra for that , but im talking more when your weight is higher hope you understand that . when you are a low weight and od on exercise i think your body gets as confused as when you dont eat .

i totally relate to the stomach think its something i noticed in myself like when i sit down i actually have folded flesh now but i try to remember it is only because there was nothing there before. everybody has different shapes some of us are pear shaped some are apple . i guess we wont know what is till we get to it. remember even people who dont have ed have issues with there body. but it is proven i weight gain that it does distributre in time as nina said . i know what you mean about the anorexia holding you where you are due to issues . just for me things like not seeing all my bones and feeling better the ed convinces me im ok , but then i try to take heat on this and look around me and realise its all my irrational beliefs h x

i usually stay out of this forum, but i'm pm'ing you.