To The Person In Eating Disorder Recovery Who Is Struggling To Accept Body Changes

Your recovery from an eating disorder has been going strong. Perhaps you’ve been making strides in facing “fear foods,” are opening up in therapy, and learning how to use new coping strategies. Then, for some reason or another, you find out your current weight, which often causes “the eating disorder self” to start freaking out. Suddenly, you may find yourself faced with loud “eating disorder thoughts” and a desire to go back to your disordered behaviors. For some people with eating disorders, recovery can bring about body changes. Not everyone’s eating disorder causes weight loss. However, for those whose eating disorder kept them below their natural weight range, recovery will help your body to get back to its set-point weight. What is Set-Point Weight? Our set-point weight is a range (typically consisting of 10-20 pounds) that our body will biologically fight to maintain. The same way that we cannot choose our eye color, or height, we cannot decide our bodies natural set-point weight range. Body diversity is real and thus our set-point weight range can vary from person to person. When we try to suppress our body below our set-point weight, our appetite and metabolism will adjust to try to maintain our set-point. If we are below our set-point, our bodies may try to conserve energy by stopping our period, turning off our temperature regulation, or slowing our metabolism. Our thoughts will start to turn more towards food, as our...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news