Food is our medicine

I know I have talked about this on my blog before but I think that it is an incredibely important message to get out there as realilsing it really is esseential to recovery, so I am going to talk about it again. In the years I spent losing weight and also mantaining my weight, people tried to tell me that food was my medicine and that through eating, would come recovery but I didn't believe them. I could not see how eating food would change the way I felt towards my weight and food and I was convinced that I would never be able too eat proper recovery amounts.

I just couldn't see how gaining weight would make any difference to what was going on inside my head and gaining weght just seemed far to difficult.  The best decision I ever made was when I committed fully to my recovery and decided to give eating real recovery amounts a go. Since then I have been able to develop a whole new attitude towards recovery.

Through giving my body the energy it needs through food, my mind has started to repair which means that I can think a lot more clearly and can fight my anorexia much more successfully. Now I have the ability to think for rationally and clearly and I know that this is only because my brain is repairing.

I know how scary the prospect of increasing your intake to a proper recoevry amount may seem, but unfortunateely the only way you can overcome this fear is by doing it. Try not to think about the weight gain or any of the other things that eating more may bring. Just think about the fact that food is your medicine and that you WILL NOT be able to successfully recover unless you increases your intake to proper recovery amounts.

Please trust me when I say that the weight gain really does get easier as it continues as your mind is also getting better from the extra food and you can therefore handle it more than you would have otherwise. Some people regain their weight while eating lower amounts (i.e. 2000 calories) and I honestly think that the weight gan would be a lot harder for them, as their minds are not repairing at the same time so their anorexic thoughts are still as strong as ever.

Through repairing your mind with food, you are able to better accept your body and learn to accept it the way it is supposed to be. Ihave gained 10 kg throughout my recovery so far and I can honestly say that I like my body just as much now as I did when I was 10kg lighter. I think that this is because as my mind repairs (due to eating the extra food) my body dismorphia has also improved so I am starting to see my body more accutrately.

Also whenever I do feel self conscious about my body, the non anorexic part of my mind is strong enough to tell me that there is nothing wrong wrong with my body and that they are only anorexic thoughts I was having. Eating recovery amounts does not only let your mind repair but the rest of your body too.

Your heart and other organs are all damaged whilst you are starving yourself and the only way they can repair themselves is if they have the energy neccessary to do so. The body truly is a wonderful thing if you think about it. The way that it is able to undo a lot of the damage we have done to it is truly remarkable so I think the least we can do is provide our bodies with the energy they need in order to do this.

The Food Intake Guidelines

Here are the guidelines for when 2500 calories applies as a minimum daily intake for recovery:

1. You are a 25+ year old female between 5’0” and 5’8” (152.4 to 173 cm) and,
2. The regular menstrual cycle has stopped and/or,
3. You have other symptoms of starvation: feeling the cold, fatigued, foggy headed, hair loss, brittle nails, dull skin and/or,
4. Even if you were only underweight/dieted for a very short space of time (a few months) these guidelines apply. And remember “underweight” is relative to your body’s optimal weight and is not a clinical measurement.

Here are the guidelines for when 3000 calories applies as a minimum daily intake for recovery:

1. You are an under 25 year old female between 5’0” and 5’8” (152.4 to 173 cm) or an over 25 year old male between 5’4” and 6’0” (162.5 and 183 cm) and,
2. The regular menstrual cycle has stopped and/or,
3. You have other symptoms of starvation: feeling the cold, fatigued, foggy headed, hair loss, brittle nails, dull skin and/or,
4. Even if you were only underweight/dieted for a very short space of time (a few months) these guidelines apply. And remember “underweight” is relative to your body’s optimal weight and is not a clinical measurement.

Here are the guidelines for when 3500 calories applies as a minimum daily intake for recovery:

1. You are an under 25 year old male between 5’4” and 6’0” (162.5 and 183 cm) or female with young children or an equivalent and unavoidable level of activity.
2. The regular menstrual cycle has stopped and/or,
3. You have other symptoms of starvation: feeling the cold, fatigued, foggy headed, hair loss, brittle nails, dull skin and/or,
4. Even if you were only underweight/dieted for a very short space of time (a few months) these guidelines apply. And remember “underweight” is relative to your body’s optimal weight and is not a clinical measurement.

If you are taller than the guidelines listed above, then add 200 calories to the guidelines that match your age and sex. If you are shorter than the guidelines listed above, then you may eat 200 calories less than what is suggested for your age and sex, however these are all minimum guidelines and everyone is expected to eat well above them for a good portion of the recovery process in any case. Please see this this blog post for more details: Extreme Hunger I: What Is It?

*REMEMBER THESE ARE MINIMUM GUIDELINES, YOU MAY NEED TO EAT MORE IF YOU STILL FAIL TO GAIN WEIGHT EATING THESE AMOUNTS!