anorexia recovery Archives - Everyday Chocolate

September 18, 2024September 13, 2024 by Libby

7 Ways to Channel Your Driven Nature OTHER Than Your Eating Disorder

If you are like the vast majority of people who have experienced anorexia nervosa (in the past or present), I’d venture that there’s a good chance that you would use all or (at least) several of the following personality traits to describe yourself…

Organized
Hardworking
Diligent
Dependable
Perfectionistic
Intentional
Empathetic
… and Driven!

In general, many traits (including the ones listed above) can be good and fulfilling and helpful when they are channeled in the appropriate direction and with the appropriate intensity.

The same traits can also be harmful when channeled in the wrong direction and with too much or too little intensity.

Take being organized, for example. It can be a great quality to be an organized person, provided you aren’t completely obsessive with this to the point that it is negatively impacting your life and those around you, and that your organizational goals actually make sense.

We can channel our amazing organization skills towards keeping our home nice and tidy and staying on top of our household to-dos (while also being reasonably flexible with this). Or we can obsess over needing to organize the extra toiletries in our hallway closet for the third time this month.

There are two sides to every coin!

When it comes to drivenness, I think that being a driven person is a quality that can be AWESOME. I consider myself to be a very driven person and love to be inspired by the passion and intensity of other driven people.

But for all driven people, an important question to ask oneself is, where are am I driving?

And who is driving?

When it comes to anorexia nervosa, we are ferociously driving towards things like control of body size and food intake, and the suppression of distressing and uncomfortable emotions. Ultimately we are heading towards isolation, captivity, physical and emotional harm, and possibly even death.

It is our compulsions and fears who are in the driver’s seat, not our healthy, authentic selves, unhindered by suffocating grips of the anorexia.

In today’s blog post, I’m sharing 7 ways to channel your driven nature OTHER than your eating disorder.

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July 24, 2024July 17, 2024 by Libby

True Health (Including Fitness/Nutrition) and Recovery are NOT Mutually Exclusive

A common dynamic I’ve noticed in the eating disorder recovery world is this idea that if you want to eat a nutritious diet and be physically fit you are clearly disordered in your food/exercise approach.

There is a fine line (that looks different for everyone) when it comes to what is disordered or not in someone’s food/exercise approach.

Just because you care about nutritious eating and being physically fit does NOT mean this is inherently problematic!

(In other words, how you are relating to nutritious food and exercise may be disordered right now, but it doesn’t have to be that way).

I find that dietitians and other eating disorder professionals who approach their work with clients in such a black-and-white way tend to turn off and lose trust with a lot of clients who genuinely care about these things, even if they are struggling and experiencing health and fitness in a disordered way at the current moment. This can manifest from everything from direct interactions with clients (“you are disordered for wanting to eat/be healthy” vibes) to marketing (i.e., always showing photos of eating disorder dietitians eating cupcakes, as if anything else would be “disordered.”)

Maybe you are someone who truly does enjoy training for races and going to the gym, but these activities have become overly obsessive and disordered in how you are engaging with them. That does not mean that these activities are inherently bad, need to be “off-limits” for forever, or that you can’t engage with them in a genuinely healthy way in the future.

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July 17, 2024July 16, 2024 by Libby

5 Recovery Challenges to Consider This Summer

If you are in the midst of recovering from an eating disorder (or any degree of disordered eating), summer can be a good time to challenge yourself a bit when it comes to your recovery journey.

While summer certainly isn’t always this way, oftentimes we might have a little more energy, space in our routines, and motivation to intentionally focus on something like our mental/emotional and physical health. Maybe you are a student in transition between semesters or school years, and your schedule is more open compared to the fall and winter. Maybe your job is a little less busy this time of year.

Any way you slice it, I encourage you to use the mood-boosting effects of all the sunshine, longer days, and summer outdoor-beauty to lean into your recovery more intentionally before the fall is here!

Today I’m sharing 5 recovery challenges to consider this summer. If you are walking through anorexia recovery, working on your relationship with food, or trying to prevent a relapse, then this blog post is for you!

5 Recovery Challenges to Consider This Summer:

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July 3, 2024June 28, 2024 by Libby

Different Factors in Eating Decisions 2.0 {Beyond Hunger & Fullness}

Today we are talking about different factors that go into eating decisions BEYOND just our hunger and fullness cues.

(Note: I wrote a similar blog post on this topic about a year ago. If you’d like to read my previous post, here it is).

Listening to our hunger cues is important. If we are hungry, this is a clear sign our bodies are in need of nourishment. No questions asked! We are also more likely to feel satisfied with our eating when we eat when we are reasonably hungry most of the time.

That being said, there are also other factors to take into consideration when it comes to the “when” and the “how much” of eating.

From my perspective, especially for teens and younger adults, if you ONLY eat when you are hungry, you are probably not eating enough!

Not eating enough can lead to a slowed metabolism, hormone imbalances, loss of a period, lack of energy for sports/studying/daily life, and a chaotic/obsessive relationship with food.

IF you are looking to avoid these outcomes, I recommend considering whether you are truly eating enough each day. This likely means eating beyond what hunger cues alone would lead you to eat.

What might those other factors be? That’s where today’s blog post comes in!

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June 12, 2024June 11, 2024 by Libby

Ideas for Increasing Food Intake in Anorexia Recovery

One of the most challenging parts of anorexia recovery (specifically the weight restoration phase) is the AMOUNT of food that it takes to physically recover / get to a healthy-body-weight-for-you.

Clients I have worked with are often shocked by how much they have to eat to start gaining weight. It takes a LOT OF FOOD.

Most of the food/caloric intake early on in recovery is going towards normalizing your metabolism and bodily processes. This alone takes quite a bit of food before any weight gain will even be happening.

Eating this much can be quite difficult (to say the least). Your stomach and GI tract aren’t used to handling this quantity of food, so there is often significant discomfort. It can be hard mentally to increase your food intake that much and to be gaining weight as your goal when everyone else around you seems to be striving for the opposite.

What’s more, another challenge can be thinking of ideas to increase your intake when it comes to restoring weight efficiently and effectively. I’m guessing you don’t want to be in the weight restoration phase for forever!

You might be feeling…

Tired of thinking of yet another snack or breakfast idea
Unsure of how to get more “bang for your buck” by focusing on calorically-dense options
Like you don’t even enjoy food right now, so it’s hard to be creative

That’s where my comprehensive list for ideas to increase your food intake comes in!

Bookmark this page and come back to it as you find yourself feeling stuck, in need of a new idea, or in need of a little extra inspiration in your anorexia recovery journey. As someone who has been in your shoes, I am here for YOU!

(Note: If you aren’t already eating my recommended 3 meals and at least 3 snacks, you might want to start with this post first!)

Ideas for Increasing Food Intake in Anorexia Recovery:

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May 8, 2024May 3, 2024 by Libby

Ways to Increase Motivation in Anorexia Recovery

Recovering from anorexia is a long, challenging process. While it is normal (and okay!) for your motivation level to ebb and flow, it is vital to your recovery success that you work to keep your motivation as high as you can, more often than not.

If you are at the beginning of your recovery journey, you may have very little motivation right now. Anorexia is especially unique, when it comes to mental/physical illnesses, in that when we are stuck in it we don’t generally want to get better! (There are a variety of reasons for this, and this contributes to the danger/lethality of anorexia).

However, given that you are reading this blog post, I’m guessing that at least a small part of you does want to get better. Great – let’s start there! We can work with any ambivalence and hesitation you are feeling over time, no matter how strong. This is also normal.

On the other hand, if you are already full-force into your recovery journey, then hopefully the ideas in this post help you to keep building on and maintaining your motivation.

Ways to increase motivation in anorexia recovery:

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March 13, 2024March 8, 2024 by Libby

My Journey with Exercise

I’ve shared bits and pieces throughout various blog posts of my story experiencing an eating disorder and exercise addiction, and wanted to share a post today with more details regarding aspects of my story from the exercise angle. I know many of you reading the blog and many of the clients who I work with in my private practice also have experience with a disordered relationship with exercise. This can look so different for everyone, but my hope is that this blog post can provide some inspiration that healing your relationship with exercise IS possible, and that you can experience exercise and moving your body from a place of JOY and FREEDOM.

This post is a bit lengthy compared to usual… so bookmark for whenever is a good time and grab a favorite beverage to sip on!

When I think about my anorexia experience, it was in a lot of ways more of an EXERCISE problem. Obsessive exercise, exercise addiction, compulsive exercise – all of the above and whatever you want to call it. Addictions can happen with various “behaviors/processes” (such as exercise) — not only with substances.

My eating disorder was not primarily food or body image driven, like many of the anorexia stereotypes might lead you to believe. Exercise / athletic performance was the gateway to my spiral into anorexia. My “main issue” was and has been obsessive compulsive personality disorder (different from OCD), which led to an exercise obsession, and from there to an unintentional “free fall off a cliff” into anorexia.

But, let’s back up, and start with what is initially a positive story! 🙂

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February 28, 2024February 27, 2024 by Libby

Some Thoughts on Gut Health (& a new exciting tool for my practice!)

Hi everyone! I hope your week is going well so far. Happy you are here! 🙂

How great has the sunshine / warmer weather been for those of you who live in Michigan?? Such an instant upgrade to the week!

I wanted to do a post today sharing some of my general thoughts on gut health AND share about a tool that I’ve been excited to be incorporating more in my practice over the past few months.

First things first! Some random gut health and candid dietetics processing:

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February 7, 2024February 7, 2024 by Libby

Understanding Anorexia: The Highly Sensitive Personality Trait

I recently read Elaine Aron’s book, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You and found it incredibly helpful. As someone who often feels frazzled, overwhelmed, overstimulated, and in need of a great quantity of alone time, understanding this more and how I can “help myself out more” in managing this trait through various daily life choices has been quite useful.

I have known for years that I fall into the 15-20% of the population who would be classified as “highly sensitive,” but learning more in-depth about this is helping me to reframe some of my past experiences as well as move forward in making helpful changes in my life and business so as to not feel so overwhelmed, frazzled, and exhausted.

Thinking more about about the high sensitivity trait in general also has had me thinking more about how COMMON I think this trait is among people who end up developing anorexia nervosa at some point in their lives.

While I haven’t been able to find any stats that directly measure this, my personal experience with anorexia, my experience counseling people with anorexia, and what I know of anorexia from years of study leads me to believe that the vast majority of people with anorexia (past or present) are likely HSPs (highly sensitive persons).

Are you a highly sensitive person?

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January 31, 2024January 30, 2024 by Libby

6 Tips for Managing Anorexia Recovery in College

For many people, college can be a time of increased stress and anxiety. If you are a college student who is ALSO walking through anorexia recovery, it can certainly be a lot to manage.

In today’s blog post, I’m sharing 6 tips for managing anorexia recovery in college. College can be a time of GROWTH and HEALING in your anorexia recovery journey. With some additional intentionality and the right support in place, heading away for school doesn’t have to be a setback in your relationship with food and your body.

While a difficult stat to accurately quantify, according to this website, the average age of anorexia onset is 18.9 years — exactly the age of most college freshmen! While the vast majority of college students won’t ever end up meeting the strict diagnostic criteria for anorexia nervosa, it is still a population at increased risk for the development of an eating disorder. And, formal eating disorders aside, many/most college women do wrestle with at least some degree of disordered eating. You can read more about what I mean by an eating disorder versus disordered eating here.