Sometimes, the little things in life are what mean the most. That’s how I think of “little memories”. They can happen on any given day, at any time, unexpectedly. They’re not planned and they might not mean much to you in the moment. But looking back, it’s those little moments that make life so special and worth living. There are countless examples of how my eating disorder took what would have been “little memories” away from me. I decided to make a list, because I believe that recognizing and learning from past mistakes helps keep you from ever making them again.
Read MoreUsing it was a morning ritual: wake up, use the restroom, remove my clothing to be as light as possible, step on the scale, and anxiously wait for a number to appear. I did this without fail, every day. Since I found my self worth in how much I weighed, I panicked when I was traveling and didn’t have access to my scale. This habit extended far past my weight restoration and “recovery” from anorexia. Although my relationship with food and my body was, by comparison, much healthier at this point, it was nowhere near where it should have been. I still relied on numbers to dictate how much I could eat and how far I needed to run. Doesn’t sound quite “recovered”, does it?
Read MoreIf you are someone who’s never experienced any form of disordered eating, then hunger is most likely a very normal part of your day… something you don’t give a second thought to. You feel hunger pangs, so you eat food until the feeling subsides. But for those who are combatting restrictive forms of eating disorders, hunger is the enemy. Many of us have tried everything under the sun to allude it, but hunger can only be defeated with one thing: food.
Read MoreRoughly 65 percent of dieters regain 100% of their lost weight within three years, according to Gary Foster, Ph.D. (clinical director of the Weight and Eating Disorders Program at the University of Pennsylvania). Diets aren’t new, of course, and they’ll likely never go away. There’s plenty to choose from, too: the Atkins Diet, the Paleo Diet, the Zone Diet, the Keto Diet, Weight Watchers, South Beach, the list goes on and on. The differences between these diet types are immeasurable, but they all have one thing in common: they require the dieter to put their own intuition in the back seat. If following one of these diets correctly, you must let go of your hunger cues and stop listening to what your body is trying to tell you. Instead, you’re obligated to stick to the strict set of rules that probably promise to “not be strict”. That doesn’t sound very instinctive, does it?
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