This sentence helped take away 8 years and 40lbs of my life – and I’m reposting it here today because in light of NEDA week, I think it’s a reminder to anybody searching for resources on the internet.
“I can’t even tell that you have one.”
Such a simple few words. We say it all the time.
Continue reading “The One Sentence You Should Never Say To Someone With An Eating Disorder”
…Because, likely, if you have an eating disorder you love Thanksgiving- but hate Thanksgiving food.
Personally, I have no problem admitting I am the scrooge of Thanksgiving (okay, fine. And Halloween… Costumes and Body Dysmorphia just DO NOT fly with me no matter if I dress like a slutty nurse or a Pentecostal nun.)
Anyways…
Give me your pilgrims, your Indians, your Thanksgiving Charlie Brown VHS, The corporate Vacation Days, Family small talk, The sweet smell of doughy rolls-
But my God, keep your stuffing, your pecan pie, your cranberry sides, your corn pudding like 1000 feet away from me.
There are times I wish I could use a get-out-of-jail-free card on my eating disorder; Thanksgiving is one of them.
If it were up to me, I’d sit at the ”kid table” far far away from the buffet of food and play airplane while someone feeds me a spoonful of carrot mash alongside my cousin’s 1-year old.
Alas, recovery- however- doesn’t exactly approve of carrot mash (although it might just be the ONE food item I actually don’t know the calorie count on…)
Anywho, despite my silent protesting- Thanksgiving feast occurs again- as it did last year and the year before etc., etc.
Continue reading “Holidaze: Surviving The #Blessed Season With An Eating Disorder”
If you follow Lena Dunham on Instagram, you’ve probably noticed that the Girls creator and actor has been developing lots of active habits.
So it’s no surprise that espnW tapped Dunham to share her thoughts on fitness and body image in an interview for its My Body Can campaign.
In the interview, Dunham discusses her surprising new fondness for running (and more established love for Tracy Anderson), what she likes about her body, and the ways exercise has improved her life, like helping her deal with anxiety.
Here are five of her brilliant observations from the interview:
1. “It [running] was the last thing I wanted to do. When it became something that actually gave me pleasure, I was shocked. Also, endorphins are real. You run with someone for an hour, you feel pretty good. Running for an hour does not make you feel worse.”
2. “When I go through weeks of not exercising, it’s easy to convince myself I don’t need to go to the gym today. I have to remind myself that when you exercise, there is a natural calm that comes from knowing that you did something with your body that day. Actually going and working out makes everything else easier and better.”
3. “As I get older, I’m realizing more and more that it doesn’t really matter if I’m good at it, it just matters that I try. My own effort, my own willingness, are becoming what’s appealing to me.”
4. “When we do exercise, when we really own and understand our bodies and claim our physicality, our superficial quibbles with our bodies lessen because we realize what our bodies can do for us. My relationship to eating, my relationship to critiquing my own shape, all of that has changed since I’ve started viewing my body much more as a tool to do my work. That’s been huge for me.”
5. “I have been 30 pounds heavier and I’ve been 30 pounds lighter, and it has never had an effect on my ability to find love or connect with people. What had an effect on my ability to find love or connect with people was never my thighs, it was how I felt about myself and the love that I was giving to myself.”
To read the complete interview, visit www.espn.go.com
(Photo: Instagram/lenadunham)
‘Cause we all need one:
7 (Real) Truths About Eating Disorder Recovery:
(Because there ain’t no sense lying about it) Continue reading “7 (Real) Truths About Eating Disorder Recovery”
Hi all,
Busy awareness week for eating disorders. Feeling a little ‘in my head’ about my own after having talked about it so much so while I’m sitting at a cafe with a French Vanilla Latte, I want to bring my recovery back into a personal perspective.
So often I get wrapped up in the story of my recovery that I tend to shy away from the reality of it. I forget sometimes to take care of my own mind so with that I decided to go back to ”the rehab diary.” It documents my entire time through rehab- from every good day to every bad.
Tucked away in the crevices of this messy journal, I found a letter I wrote one day and pulled it out only to be reminded of an activity we had to do where we wrote a letter to ourselves from our own body. Cheesy? Sure.
But it’s stronger than you think, and one year later I’m reading it again and it’s helping me take another bite of my Foccacia bread sandwich.
Try it. Write to yourself from your legs, your heart, your skin. Keep it for you. It’ll borderline on awkward when you start, but the more you think about it from the perspective of your body- the more your mind opens to the idea of chilling the f*** out.
Anyway, hope you all enjoy. Still reeling over being on the homepage of Refinery29 with “My Healthy Habit Almost Destroyed Me” and am so thankful for the mounds and mounds of support from people I know and those I have never met.
—
Continue reading “Recovery Tip: My Body Wrote Me A Letter- And It Hurt”
