5 Tips That Changed Natalie's Eating Disorder Recovery (Guest Post)
The following blog post was written by my incredible dietetic intern, Natalie Britten. Enjoy!
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5 Tips That Changed Natalie's Eating Disorder Recovery
1) Seek professional help.
Even if you feel like you can make it through recovery on your own, I personally believe those with eating disorders benefit from the following healthcare professionals in their treatment team; registered dietitian, licensed therapist, psychiatrist, and physician. Speaking from experience, when I first decided to pursue eating disorder recovery, I thought I could do it all on my own. It wasn’t until a year in that I realized I hadn’t made a lot of progress and my life still revolved around food and my body. Reaching out to healthcare professionals for treatment was tough for me to do because naturally I feared the unknown. However, the moment I decided to get myself the help I needed, my recovery started progressing like never before.
Healthcare professionals who are invested in your eating disorder recovery will encourage you and challenge your thought process surrounding food and your body. There were many times I wanted to give up on my own recovery because I felt so uncomfortable being challenged and feared changing my eating disorder behaviors. I am so thankful that I never gave up and continued to receive support from my treatment team. Throughout your recovery, it’s important to remain truthful to the professionals you are working with to ensure they can help you in the best way possible. I found that when I wasn’t truthful, I was only hurting my own recovery progress and needed to dig deeper to find out why I was so scared of change. In these times, it’s helpful to constantly remind yourself of why you pursued recovery in the first place.
2) Unfollow anyone on social media that makes you compare yourself, question your recovery, and triggers your ED behaviors.
During your recovery it is especially important to unfollow anyone on social media who is making you constantly compare yourself to them, question your recovery or trigger eating disorder behaviors and thoughts. While this can sound harsh, prioritizing yourself during this time is so crucial to your recovery and it is so much easier to do this when you are not constantly seeing posts that leave you feeling negative toward yourself. Speaking from my own experience, doing this immensely helped my own eating disorder recovery. I went from feeling hopeless and insecure every time I opened Instagram to feeling relieved and uplifted by the posts I saw. While this isn’t a cure all, it can help a lot more than you may realize.
3) Follow pro-recovery accounts on social media.
This tip goes hand in hand with the previous tip. Following positive and pro-recovery accounts is just as important as unfollowing triggering accounts. Following accounts that lift you up and encourage recovery will act as a daily reminder to keep going. During my recovery, I found it especially helpful to follow pro-recovery accounts ran by either registered dietitians or mental health therapists as I knew I was reading posts written by trained professionals. Most of these professionals I followed had also recovered from an eating disorder or specialized in eating disorders.
Here are some amazing Instagram accounts to follow!
dietitiandeanna
jennifer_rollin
feelgooddietitian
no.food.rules
malloryjpage
4) Surround yourself with positive and supportive people in your everyday life.
One of the best things you can do for your recovery is surrounding yourself with a reliable support network in your everyday life. Whether this is just one person or a group, having someone to lean on during your recovery is key. Your support network isn’t meant to solve all of your problems but instead to provide compassion and a nonjudgmental space on both good and bad days. I know that when I was going through recovery, having my significant other as my biggest supporter helped me cope with stressful and hard times. Your support network likely won’t know exactly how it feels to go through what you are experiencing but they should be able to provide you with a safe space to share your feelings.
5) Be patient with yourself and your recovery.
My last and possibly most important tip for recovery is to be patient with yourself and trust the process. Recovering from an eating disorder can take years and it is not a simple process. For me, full recovery took nearly four years and consisted of many slip ups, stagnant and pseudo-recovery periods, and challenges. It was not easy but boy was it worth it. Something that helped me during these challenges was thinking of what I would gain from recovery rather than what I was “losing control of” (news flash, you were never the one in control during your ED)… For example, I can go on spontaneous dinner dates with my fiancé without any stress, get ice cream because it just sounds good, and go on vacations without restricting or feeling like I need to change my body beforehand. What I have gained from recovery is a life I never imaged I could have but I am so happy that I kept pushing through the uncomfortable times and made it to the other side. With that being said, it is important to remind yourself that recovery is not a linear process, you will likely experience various ups and downs throughout your journey. It can be easy to be your own worst critic but remaining patient with yourself and giving yourself grace when you struggle is so helpful to your progress. When you notice yourself struggling, please reach out to your support network and treatment team because they are there to help when you need it.
Written by: Natalie Britten, Future Dietitian!