Gaining weight is essential

When I was underweight, people often said that it was impossible to get better mentally until I firstly got better physically. To be perfectly honest, I was quite reluctant to believe this as I could not see how weighing more would help with what was going on in my head. I didn't understand how gaining weight would magically make my anorexic thoughts go away but that really is what seems to have happened.

Since becoming weight restored I now fully believe this theory that the key to recovery is to eat and gain weight. To me, it seems as though the anorexic part of your brain is most powerful when the rest of the brain is malnourished and weak. And it is not until the rest of your brain gets stronger and repairs whilst you are becoming weight restored that your thoughts get better and healthier.

I know it feels impossible to recover and that you cant ever imagine a time when your anorexic thoughts wont be as strong and loud but I am begging you to trust me and take this chance. Gaining weight IS necessary in order to recover from anorexia. I know that this is probably the last thing you want to hear right now but sadly, you will not recover otherwise.

I waited around for years in the hope that my anorexia would go away and that my thoughts would get healthier but they never did. Even once I started eating a 'normal' amount, my anorexic thoughts and behaviours didn't get better at all as I was still at a very low weight. It was only once I started eating recovery amounts of food and started gaining weight that I have been able to start getting my life back and moving foward from my eating disorder.

While I may not be fully recovered, I would consider myself to be 80% recovered and I can still feel myself getting better everyday. Without gaining the weight I have, I know that I would still be exactly where I was a year ago, extremely anorexic and extremely unhappy. I know the prospect of gaining weight seems far to painful when your mind is still so unhealthy however you need to remember that as you gain weight, your mind gets better which allows you to accept the weight gain a little more easily.

I found the following article which explains why gaining weight is such an essential part of the recovery process at this website;

'So why the heck do people seem so impervious to the message that without weight restoration you get nothing?  And I do mean nothing: no physical recovery AND no psychological recovery.  Remember: psychological recovery is about the brain.  The brain is an organ of the body; like all other organs it needs fuel to replace broken or used-up cells, and for functioning cells to communicate with each other.  Starvation is as bad for children and for any other living thing.  This takes no great leap of intellect:  you can’t become psychologically normal in a state of malnutrition. You don’t (or shouldn't) need access to all “latest science” to know this.'