How to start recovering from an eating disorder

Recovering from an eating disorder can be very difficult. Of course its a life challenge where you are basically creating a new life.

Today I wanted to start up this blog by giving you all of my best tips for starting recovering from an eating disorder. Because, for me, the hardest part was starting, taking the first step and giving in. I went on and off for 5 months before finally going all in recovery. But I think that if you can go all in as quick as possible then its always best. Alright, here are my best tips to jump in recovery.

1. Realize you have an eating disorder : That is so important. If you don’t realize it, you can’t identify the problem and work on healing. Take a look on your current life, what behaviors you are doing, the exercise you are engaging in, the restriction, the OCD behaviors. Make a list. This list will be very helpful to identify what to change and clearly see that these behaviors are not serving you. They are destroying you.
2. Create a recovery list : Now that you have identify the behaviors, the eating disorder in itself, you can change, you can create a recovery « plan ». Now, I am NOT recommending creating a rigid plan that involves a meal plan, exercise plan… because the ultimate goal of recovery is being totally free from rules. BUT, I personally took the previous list I made (about the destructive behaviors) to make recovery goals . For example, I personally had a very strong exercise compulsion and was exercising up to 5 hours a day. In recovery, I recommend going cold turkey on exercise. Exercise is DESTRUCTIVE in this part of your life. When you have a strong urge to exercise and basically can’t not do it, then stopping ALL exercise is a necessity. So, I used this as a goal. I wrote it on my recovery list : go cold turkey on exercise and stop it all. And you do this for every behaviors – creating a goal, a recovery goal.
3. Going cold turkey : ok so that may not work for everybody, but for me I found that the best way to start recovery was to basically change everything over night. Doing small little changes in one direction but still engaging in some other behaviors was just not doing it for me. The eating disorder was still present in my life because I was accepting it in some directions. But when I finally decide to go all in, everything changed. I became so much motivated to recover. I could make changes a lot more easily because I knew I was NOT going to compensate by increasing a ED behavior to try and compensate. So I decided to go cold turkey on everything. I started eating way more, never compensating, Not doing any exercise, relaxing as much as possible, stopping all OCD behaviors. Of course, this was bloody hard. In fact, it was the hardest thing I had done in my entire life. BUT my number 1 tip is  » feel the fear, but do it anyway ». You know what you have to do to recover, I do not doubt in your motivation because often its not an issue, the real issue is the fear. This fear is huge. But, feel the fear and do it anyway. The feeling after it is amazing. Its like you get out of prison. You CAN !
4. Get support : this one is also huge for me. I did not know anyone with an eating disorder so it was hard to ask for help or just know where to start. So I started reading a ton of books and looking for online support. And thankfully there was a lot of resources available. It helped me so so much. And thats the reason I decided to create my own blog ! To help anyone who is struggling with an eating disorder. You are not alone and I promise you that its possible to fully recover. I recommend watching Alice Olivia’s videos on youtube, and reading « rehabilitate, rewire, recover » from Tahitha Farrar. There is a lot more .(Follow the intuition, itsahealthylifestyle, Kayla rose (damn the diet), Kate noel…)

All right then ! I really hope this was helpful and that it will motivate you to finally go all in. Recovery is scary but its the most amazing thing you can do for your life. It is so so worth it. You can start, and right now !! not tomorrow and not waiting to be more ready. There will never be a perfect moment to recover. The perfect moment to recover is now ! its when the voices tell you to wait. FEEL the FEAR, BUT DO it anyway !