My answer to the question “how did you deal with weight gain during recovery?” a question I get asked a regularly when I am speaking at eating disorder recovery support groups may surprise you.
Because my answer is, I delt with it well.
Very well.
In fact, I was expert level at weight gain.
I set my mind to it, and I did it.
I had no problem with the weight gain per se.
What I failed at terribly and what I did have a major problem with was maintaining any weight I gained.
Weight gain was always the end goal.
I was assured time and time again by many well-meaning health professionals that after I gained weight everything else would fall into place.
It didn’t matter that I could count on two hands the number of times I’d already gained (and lost) that very same weight.
I was being told yet again that gaining weight was the ultimate holy grail of my recovery.
And I trusted or at least I never lost the hope that this time would somehow magically be different.
After all no one else seemed to be offering any other answers.
And I was undoubtedly lost.
Floundering.
Just above water.
Endlessly trying.
So, my only other option would have been to lose hope altogether.
Spoiler alert (although if you’ve been trying to recover from anorexia nervosa for any lengthy period this won’t come as any surprise) weight gain wasn’t the holy grail of my recovery.
I believed for the longest time that I was broken.
I believed there was something inherently wrong with me.
I saw what other people ate (correction I obsessed over what other people ate) and they always seemed to eat less than me.
I was eating so much.
I was certain I had a metabolic flaw and there was never going to be a way I could eat enough food for my body to maintain weight.
In hindsight aspects of this thinking weren’t too far from the truth.
A lot of things within me were altered and damaged but what I didn’t know was that this was not due to inherent flaws within me.
It was not a life sentence.
What I didn’t know was that all those things (or rather almost all of them) I thought were permanent and “just how I was” were fixable because they were due to the eating disorder.
What Weight Gain Meant to Me Back Then
I remember telling a man I was dating that I was in recovery from anorexia nervosa.
I remember him looking my body up and down.
I remember feeling confused, flushed, ashamed as I realised, he was judging if it was in fact “necessary” by his (expert opinion) that I gain weight.
I remember him coming to the verdict that yes, I should gain weight, but what I also remember is that it was quickly followed by a “but not too much”.
What I wish I did was run.
What I did was nothing.
The world was simultaneously telling me that I should and shouldn’t gain weight.
That some weight gain was ok, but you had to manage this.
That you really had to control and monitor how much weight.
That there was a way to get it wrong and if I got it wrong I then would somehow be worth less…
I don’t believe it was diet culture that started my eating disorder (I believe it was genetics and early experiences that instilled in me a desire to be “good”, to not stand out and most importantly an unconscious attempt to cope in a world that seemed impossible to understand) but I do see, in hindsight, that the messages promoting and idolising thinness and disordered eating played a role in preventing me from recovering earlier due simply to how undeniably loud and plentiful these messages were (are).
These messages become beliefs.
They become so ingrained that we don’t question them because we don’t know there is anything to question.
We adopt them as if they are ours and as if they are the truth.
We don’t even know we are thinking them or that they are running our thoughts, feelings and behaviours.
But they are.
These beliefs operate behind the scenes 24/7 (unconsciously).
If you need proof of how ingrained these beliefs are, please know that the global weight loss industry is expected to reach $278 billion by 2023.
Amazing given that not a single one of us cares what we weigh.
What we do care about is belonging, attention and feeling loved and appreciated.
What we do care about is what our weight/appearance is taken to mean about us.
You’re not afraid of weight gain because you should be, you’re afraid of weight gain because you’ve been taught to be.
I was not protected from that, few (if any) of us are.
Ultimately, and I don’t know how to word this in a way that gets across what I want to say because I am aware it’s not something I would have considered possible when I was sick… but I will give it a go… ultimately, the only way to “deal with” weight gain is to not deal with weight gain.
Ultimately the only way to deal with weight gain is to get to the experience of life where weight gain just is and isn’t something that needs to be “dealt with”.
It’s not something to deal with and never will be.
It just is.
The way I found that helped me to reset my unconscious programs and to reach a life where I really couldn’t give a damn what the scale said (not just logically but feelings wise also) and where I truly feel I trust my body was through clinical hypnotherapy and neurolinguistic programming (NLP).
Why? Because these are both tools that work with the unconscious mind.
And because the unconscious mind is where the “problem” exists this makes perfect sense.
We could talk for years (and years and years and years) about why food is safe and ok to eat, why it doesn’t matter what you weigh and so on but at the end of the day the logic and information is not where the issue resides. The issue is at the unconscious level. Go there, work there and you will make change faster than you ever imagined possible.
What Weight Gain Means to Me Now
Nothing.
I don’t think about it.
I want to stop there because there really isn’t anything more profound to say here. It doesn’t require a deeper explanation.
But I know if you are living with anorexia, and you are reading this you are unlikely to be satisfied with such an “easy” explanation.
Therefore, I want you to think about not the weight loss or the low weight as the problem but the why the inability to maintain weight?
I want you to think about not the wanting to change the weight, shape or size of your body but the reason why you are wanting to do that?
What does looking a certain way mean to you?
Most importantly what would that mean about you?
What I didn’t realise when I was sick was that it wasn’t the weight loss that was the problem it was the “why” the inability to maintain weight?
What I didn’t realise when I was sick was that it wasn’t the not eating enough that was the problem it was the “why” the inability to eat enough?
Because and let me make this abundantly clear it was an INABILITY.
It was not a choice.
You may know what looking a certain weight, shape or size means to you and you may not, it may just be emotions and feelings and always at the core of it fear.
Fear of being less than, fear of being unworthy, fear of being rejected and so on.
When you live with an eating disorder there are biological reasons why our bodies respond to food and eating in different ways than people who don’t live with eating disorders, that’s not up for debate but there are also the societal conditioning that adds an extra layer to keeping us stuck.
All of these things operate at an unconscious level (habitual, second nature, autonomic nervous system whatever label you want to give it) and therefore, from the perspective of a clinical hypnotherapist to me we are wasting our time and breathe to address them from any level but the unconscious level.
I no longer have to weigh myself to make sure I’m not losing weight or to make sure I’m not gaining too much weight.
Whatever my body does and however it chooses to change as I move though my one precious life is perfect and correct.
It feels so silly that this is something that needs to be said because in my life now it’s difficult to connect to the ways I once felt when I lived with anorexia nervosa but the truth is you can trust your body.
Your body is unconditionally on your team.
The Major Difference Between “Then” and “Now”
Overall, the major difference between when I lived with anorexia nervosa and my life on the other side is that when I lived with anorexia to not lose weight was a massive struggle, to eat was a monumental effort, I felt confused and overwhelmed most of the time, I felt terrified at the prospect of having to eat for the rest of my life, it seemed impossible to “get right”.
Now, it seems so simple.
It seems like, how could it ever have been a big deal?…
It is so straightforward.
My body knows exactly what to do with everything I eat.
My metabolism has finally healed (this legitimately took about 3 years) and now I have 100% trust and faith that my body is not going to lose weight or need monumental amounts of food to maintain weight.
Eating really has become “just eat”. A phrase I could not stand, could not fathom when I was sick.
Therefore, the major difference between “then” and “now” is that then being afraid of food, losing weight seemingly every time I blinked and believing it wasn’t possible for me to maintain an adequate weight was my norm.
Anything outside of that was temporary.
Weight gain was temporary.
It was never who I was.
Now, the opposite is true.
This is who I am.
I am healthy.
I am a higher weight.
I am.
It’s not temporary or a stress to be here, eating, living.
It’s me.
Summary
Every day I work with men, women and children of all ages and from all walks of life who are doing eating disorders or disordered eating of various kinds and every day I hear sentences along the lines of “if I gain weight people won’t like me as much”, “if I gain weight I won’t be as successful”, “if I gain weight people will think I’ve let myself go”, “if I gain weight I won’t be as loveable” and numerous variations on these themes.
It no longer breaks my heart in quite the acute way as it once did to hear these things from the lips of 7-year-old boys and 59 year old women.
Now, more than anything it makes me mad.
You are far from alone if you have a sense within you that some weights and ways of looking are better than others even if you can’t describe why in any reasonable, logical terms you feel this way (it’s all that past conditioning and continual reinforcement).
There are plenty of people living as if their relationship with gravity (aka their weight) is one of the most important things about them as a human being, is true!
The truth is it’s not true.
The truth is it’s never been true.
And never will be true.
The truth is there was no point in time where any of us have ever sat down and consciously decided to believe this.
With my whole heart I hope you found this information useful and inspiring.
Become Great. Live Great.
Bonnie.
2 thoughts on “How I Delt with Weight Gain During Recovery from Anorexia Nervosa”
Thank you. Felt like you gave me another little opportunity to be with some stubborn thoughts and consider them today.
I am always happy to present the opportunity for challenging stubborn thoughts… 🙂