OVERCOMING A ONGOING BATTLE OF ANOREXIA WITH GOD.

27th of October 2023 entry.

📝27/10/2023. How getting help in recovery raised up ones metabolism and fixes a lot of physical issues in the body: My experience.

I really underestimated how hard my body could work.

I feared food at the beginning of recovery because I feared I'd gain a huge chunk of weight however I had started professionally recovering CAMHS for 4 months from this day and I had barely gained weight from when I started.

Some days I'd stay the same weight, some days I'd even loose and when I'd try really hard I'd gain but it was all going very slowly. The lack of progress in my weight gain proved to me that I didn't need to fear calories as now I was eating 4x the calories I used to eat, I am not even gaining weight. 

This proves once you start eating more, you'd realize there was nothing to be scared of as you can trust your body to just digest and break everything down. My body did this for me even though I had digestive issues.

In conclusion, I was just surprised how some days I'd even loose weight by eating the required calories females are to have when in the previous days of my ED I ate 1/4 of that amount. My body burns way more energy than I thought it could without me having to working out.

This is because of recovery. Recovery raises up your metabolism as when you were undereating, your body got used to burning such little amount of energy as that's what you were providing it with. When you start to eat more, your body gets used to burning more calories as you are feeding it more energy. If you don't believe me, you can check out other people that have recovered and they'd say the same - or even research if eating more raises up your metabolism and I'll be proved correct. I learnt this myself by getting professional help to recover and realized calories weren't so scary as I thought.

On the other hand, being completely transparent, I still had a lot of body dysmorphia but once I got weighed, I was proved wrong. It kind of reminded me of the previous times when I didn't even know I had an eating disorder. I felt I was getting really chubby and my parents were telling me I was looking very slimmer. I was shocked and thought they were lying to me for some odd reason. It was then when I told them how I was feeling they were taken aback and got a scale. When I weighed myself, it exposed how much weight I had lost and that is what informed us that something was wrong with me and my brain.

I was just so glad I was and still am getting professional help as it has helped my body so much. My body got used to burning more energy, I stopped having; night sweats, mental hunger phases when physically full, fainting sessions, hair loss and seizures.

Getting professional recovery, and I say professional as when I was recovering myself I was still eating such little calories, had helped my hair grow. My hair was getting thicker and longer. I remember crying as a lot of my hair had thinned and fell out due to my body giving up using energy to help my hair grow and instead using that energy to keep me alive. Now I was giving it more energy, it could do both. I'm not sure if everyone goes through this but with recovery, they made me eat a lot of dairy due to me having more fragile bones, they made me stop having almond milk and ever since then my teeth and hair had started getting stronger. Maybe that was the cause.

I had gone to see my nutritionist that CAMHS provided me  on this day. She had also helped me a lot as well.#

 At the start of recovery, I feared calories and was having such healthy low calorie foods; at the end of the day when reflecting if I had met my calorific goal, my parents would realize I was about '500 calories off' resulting in me having to stuff my face  with more food to reach the goal. Evitable, it was so hard for me to due due to it being a lot of volume- I was working with foods I felt comfortable with meaning I would have to eat more and I was stuck. I ended up always being nauseous, full and I threw up some days. It was then when I was provided with a nutritionist that told me that the foods I'm working with are such low in calories being the cause of me getting more full as I was eating more of these foods to get my requirement.

 When I told the nutritionist about how I was always feeling full, she examined the list I would record of everything I was eating and she told me if I wanted to eat less and stop feeling nauseous , which I wanted, I should start eating more dense foods with lower volume. She told me higher calorie foods would ensure I am eating less but getting the requirement at the end of the day. This obviously scared me but I really didn't like eating a lot so I considered this.

We ended off the appointment with her announcing what I was hoping she wouldn't. She had told me that since my metabolism has raised a lot, I had to start eating even more calories. 

The reason I was praying she wouldn't say this is because I knew I'd have to start eating more which I already found difficult.

I told myself to keep pushing. 

I knew now I could trust my body and I knew I could reduce the feeling of fullness by eating more dense foods.

I had all the information I needed to take recovery to a further level.