Thank you so much for this! I used to hav the same problem, being in a naturally smaller body I was incredibly scared when I went into treatment and they told me I had to gain to a "normal" weight which was higher than my pre ed weight. However, once I had been eating without restriction for a while I thought at some point - you know what? Fuck it, so what if I'm bigger than I'm supposed to be? It's totally worth the quality of life that gpes along with the weight gain when you really stop restricting and enjoy the process. It obviously wasn't easy to cope with at first and my weight stayed higher than before for a while but eventually it dropped down to my natural bodyweight again and i can eat whatevet I want now :) just go for it💪
About 4 months, then it started to drop again and stabilized at my pre Ed weight. I didn't have to do anything other than simply following my hungercues (including mental hunger, which was scarily high for quite a long time)
Honestly, everyone says that recovery is REALLY good and it is worth it, but right now I'm just in FEAR and DESPAIR. The first days were amazing! Me talking with my parents more, eating more, challeging myself to eat after "my hour to stop", trying to exercise less. I was so happy and confident - feeling more pretty and energetic. It is my second week right now. I upload all your books in my Kindle, just read "Fear of Gain Weight", and now I am reading Rehabilitate, Rewire, Recover. In the first week, I was very close to my parents - because I was exercising with my mom, ignoring me thinking about food (mental hunger) while I was with my father and passing a good time with him. Now, in the secong week, I just completely stopped doing ANY exercise - actually, I just laying down ALL TIME, eating A LOT MORE CALORIES (I think i ate around 10,000 just today and it still the middle of the day), trying to not care and ignoring my thoughts about my dad shopping "unhealthy food" - actually, i am eating it. As you see, in just 2 weeks I went "ALL IN" with LITTLE restrictions, i'm trying to do neural rewiring, but NOW I'M SO SAD, I'M CRYING ALL THE TIME, FEELING SHAME, TRYING TO SLEEP BECAUSE I'M THINKING ABOUT FOOD ALL THE TIME. And when I say ALL THE TIME it is ALL THE TIME - 10 sec to 10 sec - and I keep eating like I DO NOT KNOW, but right now i'm trying to distract myself sleeping, writing this, watching your videos, reading your books AND I KNOW I AM RESTRICTING AND THIS IS WILL JUST CONTINUE, BUT I JUST CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE. I'M SUFFERING! I'M NOT LIVING! I'M JUST ISOLATING MYSELF , FEELING LIMITED THINKING ABOUT FOOD ALL THE TIME (just like before when I was just exercising 4 hours a day and eating just ONE SPOON in each meal, doing extense jejum, etc). WHAT SHOULD I DO? I am thinking about going to a nutricionist and a psychologist, but I am afraid of them LIMITATING MYSELF and worsen my fear of gaining weight - what I am trying to fight! I just can't live like this - I am literally all the time thinking about food and asking myself everytime "it is fear of gaining weight?". Argh!
Your logical approach and straight talking is just what I need to keep me pushing forward with recovery. I love how you cut through all the excuses our brains come up with. Thank you Tabitha.
Thank you Tabitha ! I think that, in the end, we need to do it for ourselves. If you restrict, even if people around you think that you eat "normally", you are restricting. And if you overshoot, which happens for most people, you will go to you real weight eventually. It might take a while. You need to accept your body for what it allows you to do and not for what it looks like. The more you are recovered, the less your weight is going to be an issue. :)
super helpful video and indeed worry serves no purpose except to make us miserable. Overthinking sucks and keeps us stuck. The numbers do not matter...the numbers do not matter...the numbers do not matter. I can eat what I want. *breathe*
I’m also terrified of this. I was skinny my entire life and ate whatever tf i wanted. But then i started eating more healthy to “clear up my skin” (in reality i just wanted to go back to being as skinny as i was as a kid cuz i naturally gained a bit of weight at the start of puberty) Basically i was a super skinny kid and then gradually put on a bit of weight as i went into puberty but still pretty skinny far from overweight. Here is when everything went wrong. The “eating healthy” became stricter and stricter and when I turned 15 i decided i had to “tone up” and wanted a flat belly. I mainly wanted this cuz i thought people would like me more if I had abs and wasn’t “skinny fat”. Cue the over-exercising and restrictive eating. I lost my period within a month. I lost weight pretty quickly and since i was already skinny people began to notice. Even though i knew i was severely underweight i became completely obsessed and still continued to lose more and more weight. I then reached my lowest weight last December and at that point i was done. I had lost control of my bladder, I was constantly feeling dizzy and hadn’t had my period in months. So i took steps towards recovery. I was still not eating enough but everyday i would push more and more. But i was still obsessed with food and weight. That’s when i decided to go all in nearly 2 months ago. I’m eating constantly and frequently binging. At this point i stopped weighing myself since it only ever triggered me but ik im definitely at or above my pre-ed weight. This is quite scary since it’s not even been 2 months and everyone’s noticed my weight gain. People often question my eating habits and my extreme mental hunger has only seemed to have gotten worse. I have never eaten this much (even though i’ve always had a big appetite) ESPECIALLY this much sweets and “unhealthy” food since i basically restricted these foods for my entire life. Im terrified i won’t go back to my set point weight and become overweight. This is especially hard since my whole family is skinny and before this whole ed mess i was too so it’s just kinda expected of me and it was always sorta my “identity”. I was always the girl who could eat a tonne and not gain weight. But these past 2 months have proved otherwise. I probably fucked up my metabolism but it also doesn’t help that i eat basically from the moment i wake up to the moment i fall asleep. Im pretty happy with my body image atm but im terrified of gaining even more weight. I know i have to rewire this belief but i just don’t know if i can trust i won’t become unhealthily obese at this rate. Im scared of other peoples judgements since my friends have been telling me to “not develop BED” and i can see the side glances my father gives me everytime i go in for seconds. People weren’t so judgy when i was underweight but now that i look “healthier” im expected to eat less. I don’t know what to do cuz i’ve always had a big appetite and i wish everyday that i never developed an ed cuz then i would’ve stayed naturally skinny but i also know it wasn’t my fault but sometimes i just wish i had a time machine. How can i rewire the belief that i need to return to my pre-ed weight? I just want to be free from this mental torture
This is literally me too! I've never been at a healthy bmi even before I developed anorexia and now I'm in recovery and have gone over my pre-ed weight and I am terrified I will keep gaining forever. This has really helped me realise that I'm probably not meant to be that weight :-/
Your body is a work in progress. Just because at some point it looked different, doesn't mean where you are at now isn't perfect for you right now. Bodies change. And there is no reason to hold onto memories and previous weights of your body just because it is different now. You have changed yourself, you have grown and developed, why would your body not to do so?
i really relate to this a lot, I'm asian as well and my whole family is naturally underweight. my ed arose over puberty so I don't know how much I "should" weigh now, after having grown taller and all that
I just ate an entire pizza. I don’t even like pizza and I wasn’t enjoying it as I was eating it. Now I feel so guilty. It’s so much easier to justify eating unhealthy foods when you crave them and then really enjoy them 😔
In recovery, I have learned that guilt is an inappropriate emotion when it is food-related. It's no big deal! Keep eating without restriction and try to enjoy. No sense in feeling guilty about it! Take care :)
CJJK11 well done you!! I love hearing success stories, it’s so inspirational. Do the food cravings fade? Sometimes I wonder if I just keep eating sugar because I’ve now conditioned my body to it and am just eating it habitually.
@@jitseput4752 I felt the exact same way!! Don't worry, I (like @CJJK11) am fully recovered and I also don't think about food between meals at all. I had suffered with anorexia and bulimia for the greater part of 20 years and I'm pleased to say that after you respond to mental and physical hunger and TRULY cease restricting, recovery can happen pretty quick. I think it's important to eat to mental hunger just to show your brain that you are no longer depriving yourself and there is no such thing as too much/bad foods. After a while of doing this, your brain realizes that you are not going to starve your body anymore and you aren't in a famine environment. Just remember, if you restrict even partially (1 piece of cake instead of 3), your brain will know you are restricting. I know it's really hard but I was eating like full boxes of ice cream bars because I legitimately felt like another, and another.... Etc. But that will end. One day, the thought of ice cream bars literally made me nauseous. Your body will communicate with you and it's communication is not subtle when it is satiated. Good luck! Don't hesitate to reach out if you need support! My Instagram is free_to_be_c 😊😊
Oh and making an effort to neurally rewire thoughts around my body/eating really helped. I had to get rid of the guilt I felt after eating certain foods. I actively told myself: there is nothing wrong with this food. It is medicine for me right now. I ate how much my body needed. I did the right thing. I will never starve my body again. I will listen to it's hunger cues...". You WILL have negative thoughts and guilt but the more actively you fight those thoughts and replace them with new ones, the faster that guilt will dissipate! Keep going. You are stronger than you realize!
I’m also terrified of this. I was skinny my entire life and ate whatever tf i wanted. But then i started eating more healthy to “clear up my skin” (in reality i just wanted to go back to being as skinny as i was as a kid cuz i naturally gained a bit of weight at the start of puberty) Basically i was a super skinny kid and then gradually put on a bit of weight as i went into puberty but still pretty skinny far from overweight. Here is when everything went wrong. The “eating healthy” became stricter and stricter and when I turned 15 i decided i had to “tone up” and wanted a flat belly. I mainly wanted this cuz i thought people would like me more if I had abs and wasn’t “skinny fat”. Cue the over-exercising and restrictive eating. I lost my period within a month. I lost weight pretty quickly and since i was already skinny people began to notice. Even though i knew i was severely underweight i became completely obsessed and still continued to lose more and more weight. I then reached my lowest weight last December and at that point i was done. I had lost control of my bladder, I was constantly feeling dizzy and hadn’t had my period in months. So i took steps towards recovery. I was still not eating enough but everyday i would push more and more. But i was still obsessed with food and weight. That’s when i decided to go all in nearly 2 months ago. I’m eating constantly and frequently binging. At this point i stopped weighing myself since it only ever triggered me but ik im definitely at or above my pre-ed weight. This is quite scary since it’s not even been 2 months and everyone’s noticed my weight gain. People often question my eating habits and my extreme mental hunger has only seemed to have gotten worse. I have never eaten this much (even though i’ve always had a big appetite) ESPECIALLY this much sweets and “unhealthy” food since i basically restricted these foods for my entire life. Im terrified i won’t go back to my set point weight and become overweight. This is especially hard since my whole family is skinny and before this whole ed mess i was too so it’s just kinda expected of me and it was always sorta my “identity”. I was always the girl who could eat a tonne and not gain weight. But these past 2 months have proved otherwise. I probably fucked up my metabolism but it also doesn’t help that i eat basically from the moment i wake up to the moment i fall asleep. Im pretty happy with my body image atm but im terrified of gaining even more weight. I know i have to rewire this belief but i just don’t know if i can trust i won’t become unhealthily obese at this rate. Im scared of other peoples judgements since my friends have been telling me to “not develop BED” and i can see the side glances my father gives me everytime i go in for seconds. People weren’t so judgy when i was underweight but now that i look “healthier” im expected to eat less. I don’t know what to do cuz i’ve always had a big appetite and i wish everyday that i never developed an ed cuz then i would’ve stayed naturally skinny but i also know it wasn’t my fault but sometimes i just wish i had a time machine. How can i rewire the belief that i need to return to my pre-ed weight? I just want to be free from this mental torture
Thank you so much for this! I used to hav the same problem, being in a naturally smaller body I was incredibly scared when I went into treatment and they told me I had to gain to a "normal" weight which was higher than my pre ed weight. However, once I had been eating without restriction for a while I thought at some point - you know what? Fuck it, so what if I'm bigger than I'm supposed to be? It's totally worth the quality of life that gpes along with the weight gain when you really stop restricting and enjoy the process. It obviously wasn't easy to cope with at first and my weight stayed higher than before for a while but eventually it dropped down to my natural bodyweight again and i can eat whatevet I want now :) just go for it💪
How long did your body weight stay higher than normal for? How did you end up not over eating for your body?
About 4 months, then it started to drop again and stabilized at my pre Ed weight. I didn't have to do anything other than simply following my hungercues (including mental hunger, which was scarily high for quite a long time)
Honestly, everyone says that recovery is REALLY good and it is worth it, but right now I'm just in FEAR and DESPAIR.
The first days were amazing! Me talking with my parents more, eating more, challeging myself to eat after "my hour to stop", trying to exercise less. I was so happy and confident - feeling more pretty and energetic.
It is my second week right now. I upload all your books in my Kindle, just read "Fear of Gain Weight", and now I am reading Rehabilitate, Rewire, Recover. In the first week, I was very close to my parents - because I was exercising with my mom, ignoring me thinking about food (mental hunger) while I was with my father and passing a good time with him.
Now, in the secong week, I just completely stopped doing ANY exercise - actually, I just laying down ALL TIME, eating A LOT MORE CALORIES (I think i ate around 10,000 just today and it still the middle of the day), trying to not care and ignoring my thoughts about my dad shopping "unhealthy food" - actually, i am eating it.
As you see, in just 2 weeks I went "ALL IN" with LITTLE restrictions, i'm trying to do neural rewiring, but NOW I'M SO SAD, I'M CRYING ALL THE TIME, FEELING SHAME, TRYING TO SLEEP BECAUSE I'M THINKING ABOUT FOOD ALL THE TIME. And when I say ALL THE TIME it is ALL THE TIME - 10 sec to 10 sec - and I keep eating like I DO NOT KNOW, but right now i'm trying to distract myself sleeping, writing this, watching your videos, reading your books AND I KNOW I AM RESTRICTING AND THIS IS WILL JUST CONTINUE, BUT I JUST CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE. I'M SUFFERING! I'M NOT LIVING! I'M JUST ISOLATING MYSELF , FEELING LIMITED THINKING ABOUT FOOD ALL THE TIME (just like before when I was just exercising 4 hours a day and eating just ONE SPOON in each meal, doing extense jejum, etc).
WHAT SHOULD I DO?
I am thinking about going to a nutricionist and a psychologist, but I am afraid of them LIMITATING MYSELF and worsen my fear of gaining weight - what I am trying to fight!
I just can't live like this - I am literally all the time thinking about food and asking myself everytime "it is fear of gaining weight?". Argh!
What you gotta do, is eating a whole lot of food
Your logical approach and straight talking is just what I need to keep me pushing forward with recovery. I love how you cut through all the excuses our brains come up with. Thank you Tabitha.
Thank you Tabitha !
I think that, in the end, we need to do it for ourselves.
If you restrict, even if people around you think that you eat "normally", you are restricting.
And if you overshoot, which happens for most people, you will go to you real weight eventually. It might take a while. You need to accept your body for what it allows you to do and not for what it looks like.
The more you are recovered, the less your weight is going to be an issue.
:)
super helpful video and indeed worry serves no purpose except to make us miserable. Overthinking sucks and keeps us stuck. The numbers do not matter...the numbers do not matter...the numbers do not matter. I can eat what I want. *breathe*
I’m also terrified of this. I was skinny my entire life and ate whatever tf i wanted. But then i started eating more healthy to “clear up my skin” (in reality i just wanted to go back to being as skinny as i was as a kid cuz i naturally gained a bit of weight at the start of puberty) Basically i was a super skinny kid and then gradually put on a bit of weight as i went into puberty but still pretty skinny far from overweight. Here is when everything went wrong. The “eating healthy” became stricter and stricter and when I turned 15 i decided i had to “tone up” and wanted a flat belly. I mainly wanted this cuz i thought people would like me more if I had abs and wasn’t “skinny fat”. Cue the over-exercising and restrictive eating. I lost my period within a month. I lost weight pretty quickly and since i was already skinny people began to notice. Even though i knew i was severely underweight i became completely obsessed and still continued to lose more and more weight. I then reached my lowest weight last December and at that point i was done. I had lost control of my bladder, I was constantly feeling dizzy and hadn’t had my period in months. So i took steps towards recovery. I was still not eating enough but everyday i would push more and more. But i was still obsessed with food and weight. That’s when i decided to go all in nearly 2 months ago. I’m eating constantly and frequently binging. At this point i stopped weighing myself since it only ever triggered me but ik im definitely at or above my pre-ed weight. This is quite scary since it’s not even been 2 months and everyone’s noticed my weight gain. People often question my eating habits and my extreme mental hunger has only seemed to have gotten worse. I have never eaten this much (even though i’ve always had a big appetite) ESPECIALLY this much sweets and “unhealthy” food since i basically restricted these foods for my entire life. Im terrified i won’t go back to my set point weight and become overweight. This is especially hard since my whole family is skinny and before this whole ed mess i was too so it’s just kinda expected of me and it was always sorta my “identity”. I was always the girl who could eat a tonne and not gain weight. But these past 2 months have proved otherwise. I probably fucked up my metabolism but it also doesn’t help that i eat basically from the moment i wake up to the moment i fall asleep. Im pretty happy with my body image atm but im terrified of gaining even more weight. I know i have to rewire this belief but i just don’t know if i can trust i won’t become unhealthily obese at this rate. Im scared of other peoples judgements since my friends have been telling me to “not develop BED” and i can see the side glances my father gives me everytime i go in for seconds. People weren’t so judgy when i was underweight but now that i look “healthier” im expected to eat less. I don’t know what to do cuz i’ve always had a big appetite and i wish everyday that i never developed an ed cuz then i would’ve stayed naturally skinny but i also know it wasn’t my fault but sometimes i just wish i had a time machine. How can i rewire the belief that i need to return to my pre-ed weight? I just want to be free from this mental torture
How are you now? I'm going to tha same right now.
You are such a good person.. all the best for You, Tabitha
This is literally me too! I've never been at a healthy bmi even before I developed anorexia and now I'm in recovery and have gone over my pre-ed weight and I am terrified I will keep gaining forever. This has really helped me realise that I'm probably not meant to be that weight :-/
Your body is a work in progress. Just because at some point it looked different, doesn't mean where you are at now isn't perfect for you right now. Bodies change. And there is no reason to hold onto memories and previous weights of your body just because it is different now. You have changed yourself, you have grown and developed, why would your body not to do so?
Incredible helpful thanks for this Tabitha xx
This was highly motivational thank you
Life over weight gain..ty
Thank you so much
i really relate to this a lot, I'm asian as well and my whole family is naturally underweight. my ed arose over puberty so I don't know how much I "should" weigh now, after having grown taller and all that
I just ate an entire pizza. I don’t even like pizza and I wasn’t enjoying it as I was eating it. Now I feel so guilty. It’s so much easier to justify eating unhealthy foods when you crave them and then really enjoy them 😔
In recovery, I have learned that guilt is an inappropriate emotion when it is food-related. It's no big deal! Keep eating without restriction and try to enjoy. No sense in feeling guilty about it! Take care :)
@@DrCoCoMD Thank you for your encouragement! :) xx
CJJK11 well done you!! I love hearing success stories, it’s so inspirational. Do the food cravings fade? Sometimes I wonder if I just keep eating sugar because I’ve now conditioned my body to it and am just eating it habitually.
@@jitseput4752 I felt the exact same way!! Don't worry, I (like @CJJK11) am fully recovered and I also don't think about food between meals at all. I had suffered with anorexia and bulimia for the greater part of 20 years and I'm pleased to say that after you respond to mental and physical hunger and TRULY cease restricting, recovery can happen pretty quick. I think it's important to eat to mental hunger just to show your brain that you are no longer depriving yourself and there is no such thing as too much/bad foods. After a while of doing this, your brain realizes that you are not going to starve your body anymore and you aren't in a famine environment. Just remember, if you restrict even partially (1 piece of cake instead of 3), your brain will know you are restricting. I know it's really hard but I was eating like full boxes of ice cream bars because I legitimately felt like another, and another.... Etc. But that will end. One day, the thought of ice cream bars literally made me nauseous. Your body will communicate with you and it's communication is not subtle when it is satiated. Good luck! Don't hesitate to reach out if you need support! My Instagram is free_to_be_c 😊😊
Oh and making an effort to neurally rewire thoughts around my body/eating really helped. I had to get rid of the guilt I felt after eating certain foods. I actively told myself: there is nothing wrong with this food. It is medicine for me right now. I ate how much my body needed. I did the right thing. I will never starve my body again. I will listen to it's hunger cues...". You WILL have negative thoughts and guilt but the more actively you fight those thoughts and replace them with new ones, the faster that guilt will dissipate! Keep going. You are stronger than you realize!
this is me!!
I’m also terrified of this. I was skinny my entire life and ate whatever tf i wanted. But then i started eating more healthy to “clear up my skin” (in reality i just wanted to go back to being as skinny as i was as a kid cuz i naturally gained a bit of weight at the start of puberty) Basically i was a super skinny kid and then gradually put on a bit of weight as i went into puberty but still pretty skinny far from overweight. Here is when everything went wrong. The “eating healthy” became stricter and stricter and when I turned 15 i decided i had to “tone up” and wanted a flat belly. I mainly wanted this cuz i thought people would like me more if I had abs and wasn’t “skinny fat”. Cue the over-exercising and restrictive eating. I lost my period within a month. I lost weight pretty quickly and since i was already skinny people began to notice. Even though i knew i was severely underweight i became completely obsessed and still continued to lose more and more weight. I then reached my lowest weight last December and at that point i was done. I had lost control of my bladder, I was constantly feeling dizzy and hadn’t had my period in months. So i took steps towards recovery. I was still not eating enough but everyday i would push more and more. But i was still obsessed with food and weight. That’s when i decided to go all in nearly 2 months ago. I’m eating constantly and frequently binging. At this point i stopped weighing myself since it only ever triggered me but ik im definitely at or above my pre-ed weight. This is quite scary since it’s not even been 2 months and everyone’s noticed my weight gain. People often question my eating habits and my extreme mental hunger has only seemed to have gotten worse. I have never eaten this much (even though i’ve always had a big appetite) ESPECIALLY this much sweets and “unhealthy” food since i basically restricted these foods for my entire life. Im terrified i won’t go back to my set point weight and become overweight. This is especially hard since my whole family is skinny and before this whole ed mess i was too so it’s just kinda expected of me and it was always sorta my “identity”. I was always the girl who could eat a tonne and not gain weight. But these past 2 months have proved otherwise. I probably fucked up my metabolism but it also doesn’t help that i eat basically from the moment i wake up to the moment i fall asleep. Im pretty happy with my body image atm but im terrified of gaining even more weight. I know i have to rewire this belief but i just don’t know if i can trust i won’t become unhealthily obese at this rate. Im scared of other peoples judgements since my friends have been telling me to “not develop BED” and i can see the side glances my father gives me everytime i go in for seconds. People weren’t so judgy when i was underweight but now that i look “healthier” im expected to eat less. I don’t know what to do cuz i’ve always had a big appetite and i wish everyday that i never developed an ed cuz then i would’ve stayed naturally skinny but i also know it wasn’t my fault but sometimes i just wish i had a time machine. How can i rewire the belief that i need to return to my pre-ed weight? I just want to be free from this mental torture
Hi how are you today?❤