By: Emma Drozd
Four years ago I was diagnosed with Anorexia Nervosa. During recovery, I spent time bettering my relationship surrounding food, but now, I can say my fears about food seem like a distant memory to me.
While that step of my recovery seems squared away, there has been one relationship that has been hard to heal, even years after recovery — my relationship with exercise. In the past, I’ve always known a toxic relationship with exercising, especially when I exert myself too much and eat too little.
I’ve never known what a balanced workout looks like, or how to not view myself negatively when working out. Navigating exercising again has been terrifying because I feared that I would slip into those bad habits. Years later, I believe it is time to give it another shot.
As a way to destress after a long day of sitting in classes, I decided to start exercising again. To start, I knew I needed to reprogram how my brain views exercising if this was going to work. I had to tell myself, “I was not actively trying to lose weight or burn calories, I was simply moving my body to feel good.”
This would repeat in my head the entire time on the walk to the gym. I knew I never wanted to go back to the place I was in four years ago but I wasn’t sure if I could trust my brain to follow suit. After a month of exercising, the process has been an excellent learning experience.
At first, it was difficult to reframe my thinking surrounding weight loss because that’s all I ever did it for. My new goal was to enjoy myself. The progress I’ve made mentally beats any kind of physical “progress” I ever made four years ago. From this month of going to the gym, I learned some valuable lessons along the way.
The first of my biggest takeaways is that food is fuel. This might seem very obvious but I can not believe the difference in how I feel from working out on full nourishing meals rather than an empty stomach. I never realized that when you workout you are not supposed to feel dizzy and on the verge of collapsing. Now that I am properly nourishing my body, I feel energized and strong after a workout.
Secondly, exercising with friends can take a lot of pressure off yourself. When I tend to exercise by myself, it can lead to me thinking negatively about my body. Exercising with friends can help shift the focus from yourself onto literally anything else. I do not have any time to make comparisons or be mean to myself because my friends are the perfect distraction. This has helped me learn that working out is supposed to be enjoyable and I can have fun doing it.
I also used to never take breaks while working out because I thought that meant I was failing. It is important to listen to your body when it needs to take a break. Believe it or not, your body has a pretty good sense for when something is wrong.
Overexerting yourself and getting hurt is not worth it. If you need to stop for a minute, drink water or eat a snack. All those things are more than okay and you will thank yourself later.
Additionally, you don’t have to exercise every single day. Going to the gym once or twice a week is still beneficial for your health.
The most important thing I learned was to stay away from social media posts that negatively depict exercise and eating. My personal goal is to have fun, feel good and move.
I do not need to hear anyone telling me any differently. Everybody’s goals are different but no matter what eating is essential and you should be doing whatever feels good. Not what any influencer says you should be doing and what you should be eating.
For anybody, recovery from an eating disorder can be extremely difficult. Every so often I have to battle it out with my mind to make sure it knows getting healthy was the best thing I’ve ever done.
If exercising at this particular stage in your recovery is not appropriate, then understand your boundaries. It took me four years to feel comfortable and safe to try working out again. I’ve done a lot of work to acquire the tools and knowledge to exercise safely and healthily again. Ultimately, exercising again has been a huge step in my recovery and I am extremely proud of the progress I’ve made.
Eating Disorder Helpline: If you or someone you know has an eating disorder and needs help, call the National Eating Disorders Association helpline at 1-800-931-2237, text 741741 or chat online with a Helpline volunteer here.