Welcome back lovelies ! Today I wanted to talk about something that has helped me tremendously in my recover. And thats the set point weight theory. You may or may not have heard about it but its actually a real thing.
If you need to restrict yourself, deprive yourself or if you struggle with restrict-binge-purge cycle to control your weight, then your weight may not be healthy for you
Or if you need to spend hours exercising everyday, or compensate eating with exercising to not gain weight – then maybe your weight is not healthy for you.
The theorie is that our body has a unique and natural weight in which it is comfortable and optimally working. And that basically, by eating our natural diet made for us ( whole food plant based ), you don’t have to actively be worried about gaining weight, manipulating your body…
Another important fact to know is that in recovery from an eating disorder, our body will most likely over shoot : this means, that you might gain more weight than your set point. And that is crucial for healing the organs, letting your body know that it is now safe to thrive without a famine. But over time, as you continue in recovery, not restricting, trusting the process, giving your body lots of food, love and rest, the weight will naturally fall off, to your set point weight.
That is why you can let go and trust the process. Gaining weight felt so much more « enjoyable » for me because I knew this is inevitable for healing my body. And it helped me to really don’t be scared of gaining and gaining and gaining as I knew it was normal and that eventually the weight will fall off. So LET GO of the fear and trust the process. Your body has been in so much suffering because of anorexia (or any type of eating disorder) so let him have a chance to heal.
Eating, moving, resting… all of these things should not be manipulated. They are natural and healthy if done without micro managing every single aspect. In an eating disorder, you most likely have gone to an extreme. For me, I went to the extreme of not eating at all, skipping meals, doing 5 hours of exercise a day, never resting, sleeping 5 hours per night, being extremely skinny ..etc. SO to find balance you can NOT just consider yourself like a « normal eater/ exerciser », you have to first HEAL the damage and this by going to the other extreme. For me this meant eating a lot and a lot of food, resting literally all day, sleeping up to 10 hours every night, not doing any exercise. And of course, gaining weight.
It is not :
Eating disorder → normal eater (intuitive eating and exercise)
It is :
Eating disorder→ recovery→ normal eater
Recovery is about taking charge of your life and protecting your body.
I Hope this helps, take care !
Eating disorder recovery 