Why did you develop an eating disorder?

I have not yet found a common denominator among all who develop an ED. I can think of two that I have not seen mentioned anywhere and the first one is that we somehow- maybe from sexual abuse, comments on our body, growing up in an environment where looks is a hot topic, doing a sport that requires a thin body- was brought to focus a lot on our body and therefor used our body when we needed to solve an unsolvable problem. The unsolvable problem is cause nr 2. 

Lack of love. I can see many write on the famous ED forum they think they will be more loveable if they get thinner. I think they already lacked love in their life and because getting love is out of their control they try to do something to get it anyway. They try that by changing their body because of cause number one. A desperate attempt they know deep down will fail. If they grew up in an environment where being knowledgable was considered attractive I don't think they would have done the same. 

As a child we really need love from those closest to us so we pick up everything they say they approve and disapprove of. This way we also learn love is not unconditional; We have to be a certain way to be loved. If we hear a lot of talk about appearance we will believe this is highly valued by those who talk about it. No wonder we think of becoming thin when we need love then.

I don't think any of us would be destructive if we had the love we needed (the way we needed it to be shown to us) from those around us and was in a safe environment where we could be who we are. If those around us showed love without conditions we would not need to change, we could just follow our calling and live our life. 

As grown ups we can find people who do love us unconditionally and let go of changing our body.

Intuitive eating in eating disorder recovery

I understand it like it is about listening to both physical and mental hunger. In the beginning of recovery it is normal to eat more of the fear foods we have desired, but not allowed ourselves and you might fear that you will continue eating these foods forever, but you will eventually get used to them and desire vegetables and fruits again too. You can still use your knowledge about nutrition and. try to eat as varied as possible. You don't have to eat just chocolate for dinner, but have some after dinner instead. So if your mental hunger says chocolate it means you are hungry and want chocolate. Then you make sure you get food for the hunger and chocolate too. That is how I ate in my recovery and it worked perfectly. I felt I had full control even though I ate 3500 calories a day for several weeks.

Going all in is intuitive eating. You eat as much as you want and you allow yourself what you desire. We need the extra calories from our fear foods to be able to gain. When the weight is gained the desire for the fast food is low enough it is easy to eat less of it. It is normal to suddenly be less hungry, both mentally and physically, when the weight is restored, making it easy to eat normal healthy foods. If you have overshot your set point weight you will therefor naturally lose that overshoot weight because you eat less. Just let it come off by itself without pushing it by restriction. That last part is important so you don't end up where you were before the recovery attempt. In this phase it is important to focus on life and the mental aspects of the ED, not the body so much.