Anorexia, a weed in the garden

If the weed could be pulled up from the ground it would have been a miracle and only possible to do from a being higher than ourselves. If God had pulled it out what would we be challenged with? It would have been something else. It is there so we can have a life challenge we can learn a lot from and conquer one day. What we can do is stop giving it sunshine (attention) and water (nourishment) so it will weaken until it dies by itself. To dare to do that we must first understand that it doesn't serve us. When we dare to stop listening to it we can give attention to another plant that is very small if the weed is strong. One day this plant is taking more space than the weed did. Perhaps the roots may always be there just like we can not eradicate our past traumas, but I think the roots can become weak and dry. I think my mum had common pokeweed in her garden and fed me poisonous berries. Even if the plant is in our garden we don't have to eat from it (believe in it).

I found a light under all the darkness I usually lived with that grew in intensity and size the more I contacted it. The voice of love has the truth which the fear does not. This light is much more powerful than the darkness, if we just ignite it to shine. I shone the light on the little devil (ED) that was gnawing in my stomach. It was interesting to see how small and nasty it was in this light, but it hated the exposure and jumped out. It was as small as the people who acts cruel to us are. All the cruelty and neglect I took personally I had to look at again and detach myself from. It was never about me. It was them. They just couldn't do better at the time.

Inspirational comments from people in recovery.

I'm now 9 months in, and the unthinkable has happened. I no longer care what my weight is. It is the weight my body needs to be healthy and give me an awesome life. That's all I need to know.

Your ED played an important role in helping you feel safe, and for that you can lovingly and respectfully tell it thank you and good bye, and the edema is body language for sit down, eat more, let me rest, let me sleep, help me cry, help me feel, feed me, feed me, feed me.

We are so afraid to gain weight because what are we going to say to those who notice? It is so embarrassing. What excuse shall we make? No! That is so twisted! We don't have to come up with an excuse for the weight gain because there is nothing wrong with it. We should say the opposite: I was ill before. That is it. We got it all wrong because we are sick in our minds. No reasonable person supports starvation.

Every time you are unsure if you should allow yourself to eat or rest say: All food I crave is good for me now. I need this. If I crave amounts bigger than normal it is because I have not given it enough in the past. I can eat what ever and how much I want any time. I want to serve my body and it doesn't have to "deserve" food or rest by doing exercise to get what it needs. 

"I looked at my life, and I realized through obsessing over my body I was selecting the easy path. I was choosing to focus on externality, and ignoring the larger picture. I was choosing the ego path," she wrote. "Because the fact is, life is way too short to be focused on the exterior. Time spent worrying about your size is time wasted. There are far bigger fish to fry in the world than your thigh size. There are so many better uses for your brain."

When you look in the mirror just look for the positive because you are loveable just the way you are. We look at ourselves with a critical eye when we fear others look at us that way, but if someone close to us do that it is their attitude that is wrong, not our imperfections.

Holy anorexia

If I say I have been fighting against and tried to ignore my body because I don't want it to matter as much as many people think it does and I want to be seen behind the body, do anyone recognize themselves? It backfired though; To try to ignore and fight my physical body just made me more aware of it. I have been sick of my parents who can not see longer than the material aspects of things. Who never cared about me, just bodies and other things. Anorexia is like a hunger strike against the massive focus on bodies instead of souls, not sure how to live, survive in such a world so being half a ghost is preferable. Looking forward to a heavenly world where one does not have to eat, does not have to feel pain, will not be seen as a body, but where every thought and feeling is exposed like an open book. Transparency finally!

Holy anorexia is to have too high expectations. Expectations that can not be lived out at earth, just in heaven. I wanted to be selfless, serve others day and night on no food, no drink, no rest. I beat myself up all the time for not being able to fulfill those expectations. Angry that my body hindered me. Needed something all the time. Distracting me. It is hard to accept that we need to spend so much time on taking care of a physical body, a garment and tool for communication at earth only. A body well nourished is also distractingly sexual. Sexuality is also such a huge and difficult topic when one is a perfectionist who also doesn't want to let God down. 

I feel very alone with these thoughts as if I am the only one who has them. I looked up to saints who only ate communion bread. When I recently checked if they were anorexic I found that they were. Of course they were. They were not so holy the physical laws no longer applied to them as I thought. I thought I could be like them and become so holy the physical laws no longer ruled over me. They died of starvation. What a wake up call that was for me to read. Lower your expectations! God wants us to be realistic and spiritual. Spiritual, not only alone, but in the horrible world where people lie, murder and steal too. A difficult task indeed. To see the good only. To believe in the good in people no matter what they express so the good can come out. Be good to attract the good in them. 

So much easier to hunger strike against what I don't like than to be what I would like to see in the world myself. Try to focus! There is so many distractions as there is people in this world. Find your path.  God will guide you. What questions is important for you to find the answer to? What experiences is most important for you to experience? 

The body is more trustworthy than calorie calculators

Earlier I saw food as calories and calories as potensial fat. I didn't think about why the body was hungry. I never saw food from the perspective of the body. 

There is one thing left I have to give up to be fully recovered from anorexia and that is to stop calculating my calorie intake. I asked God for help to get over the fear of accidently eating too much and gain unnecessary fat. It took some days before I received the epiphany where I saw it all from the perspective of the body and understood that I can trust the body. 

The body is constantly doing a lot of work. For this it needs energy and nutrients. When it knows the fuel is running low it will send images of the food it needs for its tasks to the mind in time for the owner of the body to make the meal or go and get the food. I used to ignore these images because I was not yet physically hungry, but not long after I would be hungry so if I had started making the food right after I received the image I would not have to cook while hungry later. These mental images is what is called mental hunger. Someone who is never fueling the body enough will have these images a lot.

The body will give signals for the owner of the body when it wants it to eat food and when it register that it has got enough for the time being a signal of satiety can be felt. The body will not ask for more than it needs. It will not ask for extra fat so it can store it at your stomach area unless it is needed for protection and hormon production. It asks for food so it has energy and nutrients to work with.

Because the body knows exactly what and how much it needs the signals can be trusted. The only thing we should make sure of is to give it a variety of food and drink options. If the only food it knows about is pizza it can not send an image of anything else than pizza to the mind. If the only liquid you give it is pepsi max, it will send an image of pepsi max to the mind every time it is thirsty. This is also why good habits is important. If you normally drink water when your are thirsty you will think of water when you are thirsty. 

My advice to people who do not have an eating disorder or who have recovered physically from an eating disorder or at least have honored the body's cravings for sugar and fat as long as that was needed is to give the body a variety of whole foods so it gets as many nutrients (vitamins and minerals) as possible and as many options to choose from as possible so it can send an image of a food that will fit its needs the best each time. Then the body will work optimally and there is no reason for it to store more fat than necessary.

Letter to myself as a child

Your dad didn't reject you because your body had changed when he came to visit you after he had been gone for several years. He didn't know how to connect. That is why he was acting so weird. Your dad didn't leave you because you are not lovable. He left because he doesn't know how to be a dad because he lacks empathy. He is flippant. Don't trust what he says 80% of the time.

Don't change your body to be seen just because your parents and certain pigs can't see deeper than the skin. There are people who can see who you are behind the body. Who care about what you express through your body rather than looking at how it looks. There are loving people out there who can genuinely care about you. You just have to find them. 

It was not you who were disgusting. It was the guy that flashed himself that was. Don't think he tells the truth. What is true for him may not be true for you. He says what he says because he wants to use you sexually. He doesn't care about you at all. Don't listen to him. Avoid him. Do not trust what any grown up say. Trust your body and what you feel is right. Especially when he says sex and love is two different things. It is possible for some people to have sex without love, like this disgusting pig, but that doesn't mean you don't feel love when you are attracted to someone sexually. There are different levels of love. There is erotic love, but also a higher love that is unconditional and divine and that can be expressed through selfless acts. Pork is not disgusting. This pig was and it is him you should avoid. You are not like him at all. 

Know that all the girls that are mean to you envy you and wants to drag you down to their level, your sister and mum included. They even lie. Don't trust them when they say weird things. It is better to be alone than to have to do something you feel is wrong to do, just to be able to hang out with certain people. I support you when you don't want to hang out with the shallow girls who just wants a laugh, but avoid the ones that are destructive/negative and never laughs as well. Search for religious and intelligent people to hang out with. Fuck hanging out with people who want to drink, party and use drugs. You feel you don't fit in anywhere because it is true. You are not like them. You are spiritual and should hang out with religious people and learn how to meditate and pray because it is possible to communicate with God because God is within you and everyone else. And you are able to connect with Him because you are highly sensitive. You are a writer. A thinker. A creative artist. You can be anything you want. Learn anything you want and are interested in knowing more about.

Your dad, mum and brother are narcissist. Meaning they don't understand you, they lack insight in themselves and empathy. They see nothing wrong with themselves so they put all the blame on you. Be aware of their manipulations. Be aware of charming guys too that tries to win you over by giving you attention because when they have won you over they will change and just want to use you. They are narcissists too. 

If you don't truly love someone move on to someone else. Don't feel that you have to have sex with someone just because you are in a relationship with them. You never have to have sex unless you really want to and you can stop the act when ever you feel like. Read about tantra thoroughly from an early age when you start to feel the sexual energy. Karezza too. Sexual energy can be released on any level, not just the physical. Do not release it physically. And learn how to meditate and pray because it is possible to communicate with God because God is within you. 

Do not believe your mum when she says she can't afford your ballet classes anymore. She wants to spend money on her looks instead. She is planning to take a face lift when she pretends she lacks money and wants you to feel sorry for her. Your mum is a selfish bitch. Do not listen to her constant criticism. She criticize because she only thinks her ways is ok. She doesn't even love herself. She doesn't respect herself either. Yes she is weak as you know so don't fear her. She is not dangerous. She is mean until you stop her. 

You are not able to take care of yourself when you are only ten years old, honey. Do not think every woman is selfish like your parents, your friends parents and siblings. Other adults may care about you even though your parents doesn't, so try to talk to others because you need someone to care about you. Talk to the children service or the nurse at school.

Do not avoid learning things just because you are not perfect in those subjects already. Follow your dreams even though you are not perfect. You are good enough and can always improve. When someone corrects you (I am not talking about destructive criticism like your mum "gives" now) it is suppose to help you improve, not to tell you that you are a failure. You are not a failure just because you can improve and are not perfect already. No one is perfect and you don't disappoint anyone by showing signs of imperfections. Just relax. You are good enough as you are.  You are so good at school you can choose to be anything. To ask doesn't mean you are stupid. It only means you want to learn. Every intelligent and knowledgeable person asks a lot of question.

Replacing ED thoughts with healthy thoughts and how to deal with weight gain

From being ruled by fear that rejects to being ruled by love that has room to embrace everything:

Before I decided to recover I saw myself from the outside, as if I were standing 2 meters away. What I saw was a mentally weak woman driven by fear and I was thinking: That is not how I want to be! I want to be bold and conquer my fears! I also want to be fully authentic!

From emphasizing what society thinks to what you think:

We grew up in a society that emphasize how bodies look so even though we don't think peoples appearance matter much we still care about it because we were influenced by the opinions of others. We care about something because it is expected by others. Do you think body weight matters much? Do you value appearance much? Do you think it is ok to manipulate the body instead of respecting its needs? Do you think bodies should only look a certain way even though they naturally differ? Recognize the destructive thoughts when they come and look at them objectively. Ask yourself if the thought is based on fear or love and throw away the fear based ones.

Many fear that others will judge them if they gain weight. Remember that it is mostly people with eating disorders or narcissists that may be fat shaming. They may do that because they fear fat themselves. Most people have been misinformed about fat in food and fat on bodies and think it is something to fear for health reasons so they may show concerns if we gain a lot of weight and eat a lot of processed foods. We will be less vulnerable if we educate ourselves enough to be sure we are doing the right and healthy thing by eating a lot and a lot of unprocessed foods for a while. If we are educated we can educate all those who do not have the knowledge about eating disorder recovery. 

Apart from being educated and therefor confident we are doing the right thing, we should remember to not take things personally when people come with comments that shows they don't understand. Instead of being offended try to see things from their point of view and know you can not expect that they should know better. Both these things makes you less vulnerable. A third thing is to not care too much about other peoples opinion. If you have found your own. What others think doesn't matter much. It is only when we are uncertain we are open to other peoples view. If you are uncertain about something choose your source of information wisely.

Not lazy, but charging batteries.

There is nothing wrong with being lazy. If you have exercised without eating enough you need a lot of rest in recovery. In the beginning you will feel that need because the body will feel exhausted and need more sleep and rest. You don't have to do anything to earn your food. Babies don't do much, do they? They don't say to themselves: I am just going to drink from one breast this time because I have just been crying and sleeping the last hours. When I have been called lazy it is after saying no to do something for a person who doesn't want to do it himself.😅

From "unworthy" to unneurotic:

Many of us has said we don't deserve food, that we are unworthy. Would you say that to a child? If not is it fair to say that to yourself? When I think someone appreciates me I don't think I am unworthy. When we are sick we typically isolate ourselves. You will feel better if you socialize with people who likes your company and when you can behave a way you like.

To be neurotic is to be disappointed because you are not like your ideal. Trash the unrealistic ideals and focus on the qualities you do have and use them. Lower the bar and be humble.

From uncertainty to trust:

You don't have to calculate how many calories you eat to make sure that you eat enough or not too much. You want to calculate because you are afraid to eat too much, but in recovery what is enough is for the body to decide.

In recovery and in the future you should listen to your body and not your or other peoples head saying when to eat, how much to eat, when to rest, how much to sleep, when to sleep, how much activity you should have etc. The body knows what it needs so much more than anyone else does. And it will not gain more weight than it needs.  

There may be some uncertainties like how much weight you will gain, if you will overshoot or not and if so how much, how much food you will need at week "2, 7 and 10", if you will experience extreme hunger and how long it will last, when your period will come back, when your edema will go away. Things like that. So we must be patient, trust the body and see it happens when the body decides is the right time. In recovery we can relax. No more controlling and manipulating. The body is responsible to tell us what to give the body now. The only thing we need to do is give it what it wants.

From thinking only thin bodies are accepted and beautiful to see beauty in every living creature God made: 

I have started to follow plus size models and recovered people I think look amazing to rewire my brain to see that to have fat, even a lot of it, is beautiful. It helps me a lot actually. I have started to embrace the thought of being sexy. I hated that earlier. I liked being skinny and just cute, like a girl, not hot like a woman. Now I slowly try to get used to being sexy and to think that is ok. To see my body through the eyes of a man. He doesn't think: Oh she is fat. No, he will look at the boobs and the butt sticking out and just wants to sink into the soft body and explore every curve like a snake. Men look at the positive and the sexy. They don't care about cellulites and stretch marks. They love the soft bodies that we hate. We are to desire a mans body, not our own. I love a ripped body, but I don't need one. My boyfriend has it and he loves my body because it is soft. We must stop looking at bodies with a critical eye. Look for what is pretty only. Imperfections are everywhere and just makes us disappointed to focus on. We must stop looking for what could be fixed because in recovery we are not fixing anymore. We are accepting now and let the body fix. With fear gone we can love.

My boyfriend help me heal my body image when he gives me physical attentiona and makes love to me no matter how weird I feel about my "fatter body". I asked him the other day what he thinks about my body changing and he replied excited: You are just you. He sees me so often he doesn't see much change from each time while I am aware that I probably gain a kilo a week. It is easier to focus on the positive now that I have been in active recovery for 12 weeks. The positive in my appearance, personality, behaviour and qualities. Instead of focusing on what you lost, find what you gained instead. Examples: To go from anorexic to recovered is like going from being delicate to delicious, from cute to hot, from frail to fierce, from dishonest to honest, from stingy to generous, from miserable to happy, from mad to sane, from ghost-like to alive, from weak to strong, from self occupied to free, from fearful to loving.

The only way I managed to not fear foods was to overcome my fear of weight gain. Earlier I saw recovery as becoming chubby instead of seeing it as getting strength and health back. My fear of gaining weight was reduced when I saw a big and strong woman from the Masaai tribe in Kenya. I have feared not being taken seriously if I gain weight, but she was big and had a fierce attitude. I understood that weight doesn't matter. It is what you express through it that determined how people will perceive you and interact with you. It is possible to be elegant, cute, strong, intelligent, all the positive things no matter the weight of the body. But if you feel trapped in the body and hate it that's when you may experience all kinds of weird responses from people. People can smell insecurity and start criticizing, but people can also smell strength and respect you. For me who has authenticity as a goal should accept and have my natural body as well.

From looking for faults to looking for benefits:

It is easier to focus on the positive now that I have been in active recovery for 12 weeks. The positive in my appearance, personality, behaviour and qualities. Instead of focusing on what you lost, find what you gained instead. Examples: To go from anorexic to recovered is like going from being delicate to delicious😜, from cute to hot, from frail to fierce, from dishonest to honest, from stingy to generous, from miserable to happy, from mad to sane, from ghost-like to alive, from weak to strong, from self occupied to free, from fearful to loving.

Change your goals:

To be as thin as possible can no longer be a goal. If that is still a goal you will restrict at some degree and hope your recovery weight be as low as possible. You will probably end up restricting after you are weight restored if you have not already while weight was restored. You must get rid of all fear of bodyfat, weight gain and a bigger body. It is easy to say, I know, but it is possible to change this if you want to. I can tell you some ways that was helpful for me.

Before I even started to seriously think about recovering I had moved to Kenya where diet culture is non existent and most women are bigger than most women in Europe. Then I got a boyfriend who was brought up in this culture and was excited to support me if I chose to eat freely and gain weight. To conquer my fear of weigh gain I changed my mind about which bodies are beautiful by looking at plus size models. When I found plus size models hot and beautiful there were no longer any reason to fear eating and gaining weight. I started to find bigger bodies more interesting than the thin ones I had seen a million times already in magazines etc. I looked at bodies that looks similar like mine when it is at its set point weight and tried to look for the positive in it. I tried to remember how confident I once was in a bigger body before I started to restrict. Not right before, but before what triggered me to restrict food happened. I owned my body then. I knew it wasn't perfect, but I treasured the positive parts of it. I didn't focus on the negative. I didn't look at myself with a critical eye like I did during my eating disorder. To remember this as vividly as I could it helped me get back the same positive attitude towards my body. 

Shift focus: 

Even though my body looks weird now it is even weirder to criticize it since it is not my creation. If it was an illustration I had made it could be criticized and changed until near perfection, but it is not. And because it is not my creation it is not for me to force a change upon it. The body is given to me so I can use it for what I need to do in this world. It is not been given to me to be perfected. It is already working fine if I just take care of it. To take care of it and use it in a good way is my responsibility, not changing how it looks.

From taking things personally to be objective about what others say and do:

When we gain weight in recovery many of us are afraid of rejection and humiliation so we don't accept our weight gain and how we look. This is fucked up. I think we once (or more than once) felt that we were rejected or humiliated and therefor wanted to change to avoid it from happening again by changing our body. In recovery when we change the body back to how it looked when we felt rejected or humiliated the fear of this happening again comes back up. Now is the time to realize that it is not about the body. It was never about the body. It was about the other person. We should never have taken what the person/people said or did personally as rejection or humiliation. Try to understand the person who said or did the things you took personally so you can detach yourself from it and see that what the other person did is about that person and not you. If someone acted with lack of respect does not mean you did not deserve better. It means that person lacked respect in that moment for some other reason. Instead of changing your appearance, change what you will believe in. 

From trying to change our body to try changing our mind: 

We don't have to change to be accepted by others. If we do we do it based on fear. We have a drive to become better. A drive that is a loving force.  This natural drive has a love for divine qualities. The qualities that if we love them makes us attracted to heaven so that becomes our home. Someone with an eating disorder have many negative thoughts and beliefs. To get healthy we need to look at these thoughts and beliefs that makes us want to destruct our bodies objectively. When we focus on them we will see there is very little truth to them. Next step is to replace the thoughts with positive and truthful thoughts and beliefs. Another thing we can change is what we will focus on. We can stop focusing on things that will not help us to go in the direction we want to go and focus on what will support us. 

From masculine to feminine:

We live in a society dominated by masculine values like hard, strong and intellect. It is not healthy for women to be like men. Women has a softer body and softer voice. We function differently. Don't reshape yourself and your body based on the values in a patriarchal society. Be you. This society needs a balance between masculine and feminine. Be a part of the restoring of this balance. The world needs brave women who are themselves and contribute to the world with their uniqueness and feminine qualities. Even though a lot of people (mostly men) don't value or understand the importance of sensitivity, intuition, surrender, tenderness, empathy, humility, understanding, cooperativeness, kindness, devotedness, expressiveness, passiveness, vulnerability and so on doesn't mean they are not equally important as masculine qualities. Don't be embarrassed for being a woman. Be a natural one. Be authentic! See that a soft body is lovely. Let the men have the low bodyfat percentage. Let the men have the hard bodies. You don't have to be as active and strong as them. Don't be embarrassed for being vulnerable and emotional. Just be you. The world needs feminine qualities so don't suppress them.

If you have something you want to add, please feel free to comment.

When should I stop counting calories in recovery?

There is not much point in counting calories for several reasons. One of them is that the calories listed is the amount of calories trapped in the food and not the amount the body will absorb from the food. I kind of knew this, but I thought the difference was insignificant, which it is not. At least not when it is whole foods. It also requires energy to digest the food and that energy amount varies from item to item. Nuts, brown rice and meat requires more energy to digest than processed and refined foods. This is what I found:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/science-reveals-why-calorie-counts-are-all-wrong/

When people eat almonds, they receive just 129 calories per serving rather than the 170 calories reported on the label. People snacking on whole wheat obtained 10 percent fewer calories than those eating white bread. Proteins may require as much as five times more energy to digest as fats. Processed foods are so easily digested in the stomach and intestines that they give us a lot of energy for very little work. In contrast, veggies, nuts and whole grains make us sweat for our calories, generally offer far more vitamins and nutrients than processed items, and keep our gut bacteria happy.

https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/are-the-calorie-counts-on-food-labels-accurate 

The calories listed on labels come straight from the manufacturers — and are regulated by the FDA. But the agency allows for a 20 percent margin of error. Because of this, the caloric content is often higher than labeled, yet still within FDA limits. A 2013 study on the food label accuracy of snack foods found that their average caloric content was more than 4 percent higher than the calories listed. The researchers suggest this was because the foods contained more carbohydrates than listed.

In recovery we should stop counting when we have experienced that we eat enough if we follow our mental and physical hunger. I know this, but I am still too scared. I had a realization today though that may help me to stop: 

To stop counting is the hardest part of recovery and it is the only thing I have left to challenge. First I told myself it is ok to continue counting in recovery to make sure I eat enough, but truth is I was afraid of eating too much. I just realized this: To be afraid of eating too much is pointless now that I don't want to restrict anymore! I don't want to deprive my body anymore. I have counted calories because I wanted to make sure I did not eat more than needed because I want to be as thin as possible without starving or eating too much. It just means I still don't trust my body. I use counting to double check I eat as I should. If I could only trust that only my body knows the amount I should eat. Not my mind. I do though. I do trust the body knows. I am afraid it will make me eat more so that I gain more than necessary. Again not trusting the body, or rather not honoring the body! Yes, that is it! I still don't honor what my body needs enough. What I realized is that to get over this fear I must stop wanting to be as thin as possible. I should rather want to feed my body enough to get healthy and happy.