How To Find a Healthy Balance With Exercise After Eating Disorder

Hi Elisa. Great presentation you did here. You are so right about this. Before I get started, apologies for this epic reply. Feel free to edit or not include it here – as you wish. My own case is different from someone who decides to engage in disordered eating. Mine had never started out that way and yet, sadly, had wound up that way in 2016 up until recently. I am now going through recovery as a promise that I had made to myself; recovery is all-encompassing of mind, body and spirit. It goes way beyond the weight thing which acts as an obsession in sufferers and on the opposite side of the spectrum as growing numbers of people judging others unfairly and narrow mindedly based on what they see with eyes only and no healthy good reasoning skills that there could be other medically established reasons why a person appears as they do physically.

In 1992, I had initially suffered a nearly 40 lbs. rapid, high volume involuntary weight loss event with no change in my appetite, eating habits or lifestyle/exercise routine back then. There had also never been a medically diagnosed anxiety level rise in me or anything else that could have been medically established to cause this rapid weight loss in eight days. I had sought medical intervention in the immediate aftermath, yet the physicians had never arrived at an official diagnosis. I had wound up 40 lbs. heavier after having suffered from my first high volume involuntary weight loss event in 1986 with no change in my eating habits or lifestyle routine back then. I had never sought routine clinician oversight and had just increased me eating while focusing on nutrition to hopefully gradually restore my weight to it’s pre-involuntary weight loss in 1986. I had gained 73 lbs. in 7 weeks during my 1987-88 recovery after 40 lbs. had fallen off of me in eight days in 1986.

During my self-directed recovery (between 1987-88) my metabolism had obviously been suppressed at the time the weight had plummeted off of me in eight days in 1986. My heart and mind insist that recovery is a promise that you make to yourself. Anyone whose body decides to wind up thin on it’s own – or those who intentionally eat a certain way to attain a body size that is not healthy for them – is playing a major “roll the dice twice” gamble with their health if you don’t have your vital body composition routinely clinician monitored and assessed to serve as an acceptable diagnostic way of establishing a person’s overall health status. To me, it is really is what goes on inside a person’s body this way – and their mind as mental health status at the same time – that define the unique, optimal health status of an individual.

The episodic chronic fatigue and physiological (body organs and body systems function) trauma that my own body had gone through explains why people get tired while the body and metabolism team up trying to self-direct energy balance and optimize their own health status. What’s key to realize is that you wind up not seeing yourself as you really are, physically, once a high weight volume is removed from your body leading to unanticipated yet real medically diagnosed illness. This also tends to mess with a person’s self-identity and self-esteem especially had you started out at a higher weight to begin with even when it had wound up as a metabolically-directed, stabilized higher set point weight based on my own experience.

Some people are also medically classified as “higher weight anorexics”, who wind up engaging in disordered eating just to get away with looking physically “normal” on their exterior and, yet, still suffer from malnutrition regardless. This is where I had wound up as a disordered eater after my 12-2016 third high volume, involuntary weight loss event. I do not know what my true set point weight is, as an adult woman who had gone through more than one involuntary weight loss event. There are people whose bodies and metabolisms and cognitive/behavioral response are medically diagnosed to function more optimally than at today’s society co-created cultural weight “ideal” trend or standard. This means that not everyone can attain this cultural weight “ideal” and still be diagnosed as healthy unique to them and them only based on my own ill-fated, weight-related experiences to date, depending on your own opinion of it I suppose.

In 12-2016, I had made a terrible decision when 18 more lbs. of weight and body mass had dropped off of me in seven days with no radical change in my appetite or eating habits back then. This is when I had decided to limit my eating to one small meal/day and live on supplements. Some people had actually told me that I looked good, physically, even though I realized that something physically painful and emotionally draining had happened to my body in 12-2016. I had suffered from muscle and lean body tissue and bone mass wasting as outcome. In 12-2016 after this third involuntary weight loss, I had wound up suffering from medically diagnosed central nervous system negative impact leading to an aneurysm/stroke. Thankfully, my mind is now fully operational again. I am in the process of writing a book covering my own unusual ill-fated, weight-related health backstory as a survivor of multiple, involuntary weight loss events causing me to become underweight and decide to engage in what has clearly been eating disorder activity. It’s an awful way to live while you also become phobic about your weight status on a given day. Obviously, what appears to be emerging as a weight- and looks-obsessed growing numbers of one-track minded society doesn’t help matters. Especially when they don’t know the truth that had caused a person’s body to wind up ill as either a deliberate or non-deliberate disordered eating outcome. More people need to show some aspect of interest in learning about this “darker” side of the spectrum of today’s controversial weight topic. I believe that this would help people be less harshly visual first impression obsessed and judgmental of one another. It would also help restore the health and lives of those who still remain silent in the shadows and suffering for no good reason at all. Unwarranted weight stereotyping, bias not only by society but even some medical practitioners well factors into why we now see an equally disturbing rise in disordered eating and growing numbers of people who rely only on visual first impression to define the worth of a person just based on what they look like, physically, more often than not never knowing the true cause of their weight status.

I am now going through recovery from having suffered from multiple, high volume unintentional weight and body mass loss events. I had started out at a metabolically directed 37 lbs. weight overshoot outcome that had lasted for four years (1988-1992) since my metabolism and physiology had suffered damage. In theory, regardless as to how one wind’s up as severely underweight or even looking physically “ideal” and not too thin on their exterior, how one winds up that way, what body mass is damaged inside as outcome, the rate at which weight is lost or restored, and what is happening inside one’s body at the same time is what matters more than what a person’s exterior winds up as their own metabolically-directed and optimized body size based on my own unusual ill-fated, weight-related experiences. It really is what goes on inside a person’s body, physiology (body organs, body systems, body mass percentages) and mental and behavioral response that defines the unique, medically diagnosed, optimized health status of a person unique to them and them only than what their weight status is. To me, what this means is that everyone cannot attain what is seemingly well evidenced to be today’s society co-created weight “ideal” cultural trend or standard because of medically established reasons like I had just cited here. Health for an individual, themselves, cannot always be defined by a person’s weight status. There are many other medically established variables including a person’s own body composition, metabolic response, mental and behavioral response diagnosed health status that define their own medically diagnosed level of optimal wellness for themselves. I have no idea what my metabolism will do, from one day to the next, as outcome of having had 50 lbs. fall off of my own body by way of multiple, involuntary weight loss events. People need to know how a person’s metabolic rate and mental health status are key for a physician to routinely test and assess during their own recovery phase. Recovery, itself, is bound to look different on everyone’s body.

Many thanks for having made it this far in my bravely shared ill-fated, weight-related health backstory. I have found all of these posts on your phenomenal website to serve as solid, evidence upheld, relevant learning for anyone – not just those who still suffer in disordered eating many of whom do this silently. The more who care to share their own weight-related backstories this way, the more people will learn to show a badly needed interest in these. I see healing on many levels emerging from this while less obsession is made on the weight of one another coming from both sides of the weight suffer and weight judge spectrum.