Body checking is done to attempt to feel better about one’s body, more specifically about the parts one may wish were different. The belief is that body checking will provide us with some relief and help in decreasing the anxiety or worry we are feeling. However, body checking does the opposite and keeps you stuck in your eating disorder and/or body hatred.
Read MoreFor me, freedom has always existed in a boundary. When I didn’t have a boundary, I didn’t know where to go, what to do, or how to function. The meal plan served as my boundary. For the most part I now eat and move intuitively. However, if struggles were to pop back up, I can go back to the basics of the meal plan to guide me.
Read MoreChanging my social media lead me to the body-positive movement in 2014 which lead me to Health at Every Size ® (HAES ® ), the fat-positive movement, and Intuitive Eating (IE). It blew my mind! Talk about a life-changing moment. If I never changed my social media then I would have never found the movements that helped me recover.
Read MoreIf I could choose one word that best describes what helped me most in my recovery journey, it would be freedom. What helped push me to actually try recovery and give it a chance was the desire to have my life back and to lean into my core values.
Read MoreThe first, and most important, healing mechanism I would like to mention is: your mindset. When I was in the midst of my recovery, I was told a piece of advice that I still carry with me and spread to others to this day. If you want to get better, YOU have to make the choice. YOU have to help yourself. YOU have to push yourself.
Read MoreSlowly I broke down the rules I held around food and exercise and gave myself FULL PERMISSION to eat what I truly wanted without limits and move my body in a way that actually felt good instead of compulsive and self-punishing. Yes, it felt very scary at first. I definitely thought I was “messing up” and would never be able to “control” myself around the foods I deemed as “off limits,” but much to my surprise this didn’t happen.
Read MoreUnplanned Food Exposures: One thing that made a huge difference in my recovery from restricting, and I now teach my clients, was to eat foods I couldn’t count.
Read MoreThat is something that I would go back and tell myself a couple years ago when first starting recovery. With diet culture being as pervasive as it is, the message that our bodies are in constant need of fixing is creating a collective distrust among the inherent wisdom we hold. Trusting our bodies has become an abstract and strange concept.
Read MoreChanging my environment and finding a community that supported me (as I am) definitely helped me in the final stages of my recovery. This community included individuals on social media, in my workplace, in my personal life… but also me. I am the most important individual in the community that supports me.
Read More“Comprehensive reviews of the scientific evidence find mixed, weak, and sometimes contradictory evidence for intentional weight loss. We suggest that a different solution to the “obesity problem” is needed – a solution that acknowledges both the multifaceted nature of health and the complex interaction between person and situation that characterizes the connection between weight and health.”
Read More“Sustained weight loss of greater than 5% of body weight is rare. Even when people adhere to strict, high-volume exercise, weight loss varies. Both in naturalistic, longitudinal samples and in randomized controlled trials, various weight-loss efforts and strategies lead to long-term weight gain.”
Read More“Randomized controlled clinical trials indicate that a HAES approach is associated with statistically and clinically relevant improvements in physiological measures (e.g., blood pressure, blood lipids), health behaviors (e.g., eating and activity habits, dietary quality), and psychosocial outcomes (such as self-esteem and body image).”
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