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| My favorite place to hike: Franconia Ridge, NH |
I love to hike, but I need to tackle hikes that are
achievable. Hike Everest next Friday? That’s crazy! It’s so out of reach for my
fitness level, for this time frame, and for my psyche, that I think, “why
should I even bother to start training? I’m just not gonna make it”. But if I
set realistic goals—attainable heights allowing for modest changes in
elevation, I’m golden. Yes, small steps forward really work.
Now if I’m getting a bit fatigued on a hike or even a bit fearful, and I just feel
like stopping, I’ve got to consider my options. Is it safe to hover,
unprotected, unsupported, ¾ of the way there? Will I be left feeling like a
failure because I turned back? Or can I pace myself as I continue up, perhaps
accepting less change in elevation each hour, staying the course until I reach
my goal? Of course, I have to continue to refuel to enable me to think sensibly
about my options!
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| Gorgeous below, winter conditions at the peak. Even successful recovery has its surprises. |
As I near the peak my pace quickens. And then, at last, I
reach it. I can survey the beauty at the top, shifting my perspective. And I
can appreciate my achievement.
As for the descent—there are rocky times, to take this
analogy further. And for me at least, there are plenty of slips. Truly, I
struggle more with the downhill part of my hikes, perhaps due to my fear of falling.
But experience proves I can do it. That I can pick myself up and keep moving.
The view and the feeling from the top make it all worth it all.
“And what does this have to do with me”, you’re wondering?
Stopping Midway On
the Weekends
You worked so hard
all week, Monday through Friday, staying on track with your eating. For some,
this means sticking, more or less, to a meal plan. For others it requires
respecting hunger and responding appropriately, distinguishing hunger from a
range of other eating triggers.
You pushed past the challenges of social eating. And you countered your
unhealthy thinking which leads you astray. You know, the thoughts of “I’ll just
get back on track tomorrow” or “So I skip a meal—so what?” Or “What the heck,
I’ve already messed up—I may as well keep going since I’ve already blown it!”
So you cut yourself some slack on the weekends. You deserve
it, right? What’s a couple of day’s off
going to matter? Or maybe you’re just tired of working on your eating, or
controlling your activity or your behaviors. As one teen patient expressed,
“I’m not about to have this take over my life”, with “this” referring to his
time-consuming recovery.
I hated to tell him, but that is absolutely what he needed
to do—to have recovery take over his life. Yes, for right now, eating needs to
be elevated to the number one priority. In addition to medical appointments,
there is nothing more important than focusing on meeting your body’s needs.
You want to be present to assist your kids or an ailing
parent? You’ve got to nourish yourself first. You want to feel
well physically and take control of your health—to have more energy, to regain
your fitness, to prevent a wealth of consequences from a poor diet? (Regardless
of what side of the scale you weigh in at). Then you’ve got to shift
priorities.
Sure, I know it’s more challenging for most of you on
weekends. There’s the lack of structure, the shift in sleep schedule, and the
need to be flexible. There’s the social eating, and perhaps drinking. And the
fact that everyone’s needs may come first on your days off. Slips will, of course, happen.
But consider the consequence of a bigger slide. Recurring slips
on the weekends mean you’ve got to work even harder to get back on track on
Monday. View Saturday and Sunday as opportunities to check out, and you will
slip into viewing your week in black and white terms; you’ll be eating in
two phases—“on track” or “off track”, “in recovery mode” versus “off recovery
mode”—far from the moderate sensibility we are striving for.
You’ll feel more discouraged with this repeated process,
taking one step forward and two steps back. You’ll continuing to think you’re
working so hard, while failing to acknowledge that you’ve lost a lot of ground
on your day’s off.
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| It's a lot easier with support along the way! |
There’s no checking out for the weekends. There’s no
stopping half way toward recovery, or toward normalizing your relationship with
food. It can’t be a 9-5 job. And if you give in to this downward pull, it will
only make things more challenging. You’ll have to psyche yourself to start the
process again, to begin the climb from the start. You’ll be investing a lot
more resources—both time and mental energy. And ultimately, you’ll have a lot
more ground to cover!
Really, it’s a lot easier to move slowly to the top, with a few supports along the way.
Thoughts? Please do share!
I just started having to keep a food log for my therapist and I HATE IT! It makes me way more obsessive, I count calories, and I restrict more, so how is this helpful? I don't think it is. I hate having to put so much thought into food and what I'm eating. It's way too time consuming and takes up too much of my mental energy. Why can't I just eat and not have to do all of this?
ReplyDeleteYour reaction is quite common! Try this to start: record simply the time you ate, your hunger level, and what you were thinking or feeling. Skip the actual food recording to start. Truthfully, this will provide almost as much critical info, particularly when reviewed by a therapist vs a nutritionist, as the food itself. Over time, you can begin to record the food--without measuring adding up calories. You are right--that is hardly constructive!
ReplyDeleteLet us know how this goes. Good luck.
Thanks for that info. I'll see if she's cool with that when I see her on Thursday. This is a therapist I'm seeing while mine is on maternity leave. She had me do the food log two weeks ago and I did it for two days then told her I couldn't do it anymore. I ended up losing weight that week. I told her I'd try it again, so I am. I'm glad you agree with me that it's not constructive at all. That makes me feel better. :)
ReplyDeleteTHANK YOU!
Oh ya, I never really know what I'm thinking or feeling. :)
ReplyDeleteI think you're so dead on with this post. I think of myself as recovered now, and about 1.5 - 2 years ago, I put recovery as the absolute priority. This meant that my meal plan was the most important thing in my life. As a result, grocery shopping was essential, taking time to prepare food was essential, taking time to plan for how I could deal with certian events in the context of a meal plan (like how does brunch fit into a meal plan). Nothing came before recovery. And I swear that htat shift in my thinking got me to make enormous amounts of progress in the last to years so that I now am recently considering myself recovered - but it does feel like an accurate description of where I am. To take recovery seriously, it meant several things, such as: taking a more low-key job, planning my upcoming week's meals, grocery shopping, saying no to hikes with friends that were going to be too long, calling my dietitian and coming up with exact food plans for days in which activity had to be increased, spending about an hour every night prepping all meals and snacks for the next day, etc. That commitment really made a huge difference.
ReplyDeleteI would add that, for me, to make recovery a priority I had to get out of denial and THAT was a hard thing. one thing that helped me get out of denial was attending a treatment program in which I saw that the staff took me and my behaviors extremely seriously and just as seriously as the other girls in the program. I believed other people there had eating disorders... and if the staff was responding to me with just as much seriousness as they responded to others... well, it helped me take my eating disorder seriously - finally.
I also wanted to add that when you put recovery and your eating goals as the most important priority, you end up making progress a lot faster and it's really rewarding. In a couple of years, with this as my priority, I've been able to stay on a meal plan that completely freaked me out at first, become physically healthy, increase my meal plan when needed, at first only eat a predetermined list of meals and eventually be able to incorporate tons of variety, be able to handle restaurants in an intuitive way, stop counting calories, stop doing all kinds of behaviors that i used to do... and now, i can eat without a rigid meal plan, i can hear and respond to my hunger, i can eat until i'm actually appropriately full (and not just "not hungry"), I can eat every kind of food, i never consider counting calories, I can maintain a healthy weight easily, and i can add some moderate exercise back into my routine. it's kind of amazing to experience this change.
ReplyDeleteYour response is most inspiring! Thanks for sharing it with my readers. And I'm glad this post resonates with you.
DeleteThank you so much for your comment Laura! It was really inspiring and motivating to read.
DeleteI spend the whole week making up for my week-ends, eat clean, exercise sometimes twice a day. Then Friday comes and I feel like the week was so hard I gotta live a little. Then comes Sunday and I can't believe I allowed, yet again, food to take so much space in my life, that I ate so much garbage. So I vow to get back on track for the week. And so on. As the weeks go by, it becomes harder and harder to even stay on track during the week because I see that I'm not making progress, even though I'm putting what feels like more and more effort. The running hamster in wheel image is the first thing that comes to mind here. I'm tired of running.
ReplyDeleteDid you see that hamster wheel of life post? Yes, you're describing it well! Perhaps it's time to break out of this cycle...
DeleteThanks for this, I really needed it! I think I have opposite problem with the weekdays being hardest. I am a stay at home mom with a 2 year old, a 1 year old, and another baby due this Summer. I use exhaustion and lack of time/my husband's watchful eye as an excuse not to eat and exercise to an extreme. Weekends are easier because my husband is home and we can go do things with other people which makes me feel like a more "normal" person in my early twenties instead of a mom with so many responsibilities on top of recovery!
ReplyDeleteEveryone's "day off from recovery" varies, although they tend to be times when we have less accountability and less structure. That said, some patients I see do best on school vacations, when stress is lowest and options for eating are greatest. Thanks for taking the time to comment!
DeleteThis is a very great and insightful post. When I first entered treatment I was being pulled in 30 different directions at once, and taking care of myself and recovery weren't anywhere near the top of the list. The people on my treatment team kept asking me to consider taking a step back and stepping down from commitments that I had made. At first, I wanted nothing to do with this. And of course my health continued to suffer. Once I was finally able to put eating/taking care of myself/recovery first, I started actually improving and things got a little easier. Like mentioned above, I used to want "breaks" from recovery and thought that they were helpful. But now I realized, for me they were just excuses to justify my ED behaviors and slips. Recovering from an eating disorder is a full time job and has actually been harder then any classes I have taken (I have an engineering degree) and more time consuming then anything else I have ever done. However, I know in order to continue to get my life back and lead the life that I want to live that breaks aren't an option. Thanks again for this wonderful post.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your kind words and your very honest and insightful comments. And to say it's harder than any classes including engineering,that's quite a statement. People need to take stock of these words. Many thanks for reading, for commenting, and hopefully for sharing these posts to help others!
DeleteThis post resonated with me. I am definitely one of your patients who takes recovery breaks, only I never really know when I am doing so. It is not a conscious decision. Sometimes its merely super convenient! I slept late, skip breakfast, no big deal. I was out during snack, its no biggie. It seems like there should be an obvious reason that I go from doing better to stepping back into my old ways. If there was a reason it would be so much easier to address and prevent! I admit I just dont understand slips, not in myself and not in my friends who have similar struggles. Treatment teams always say that recovery is not a straight line but the erratic nature of this disease is so discouraging. The first time I got rave reviews from you on my progress over the course of a week I felt, for the first time, a sense of positive reward for shifting my behavior. It was probably the first time anyone on my team made me feel that way. I had grown so accostomed to negative reinforcement and this was a refreshing switch. I left that day with a smile I could not get rid of if I wanted to! It was a remarkably different feeling. And then, three weeks later I was two steps back. Is it from taking breaks from recovery? I don't know for sure. I know that sustaining recovery behaviors is extraordinarily difficult. And, fortunately or unfortunately, I am able to recognize the obvious -- sometimes you just have to do the doing. There is no other way. And I am a perfect example of someone saying, "I'll start tomorrow, next Monday, Wednesday seems like a good day for recovery". However, ED is manipulative and sneaky and he so easily gets me to choose what he wants for me.
ReplyDeleteThank you for this post, for all of your posts - I look forward to them every week. Hearing how others experiences so closely resemble my own helps me to understand myself a little bit better.