Distractions during recovery

Hi there. Well, I got a lot of suggestions on what to write but one that really stood out to me was what distractions I used to cope with the weight gain.

Well if I'm being completely honest the only person that can help you feel comfortable in your own skin and gain weight is you. Distractions are defiantly helpful during the weight gain process, but what worked for me might not work for everyone so you need to find what works for you. My family gave me a lot of tough love during the recovery process and didn't give me a choice but to eat, but being accepting of myself I see it as completely different from gaining weight.

First things first all those tiny clothes I brought during the point of losing weight were not gonna fit me forever and that's something I had o come to terms with. I struggled with this a lot of cause as I felt as if all those months I spent losing the weight to fit kids size clothes was wasted. Those months were wasted but not because of losing weight to fit clothes but in the sense, I lost my life and my personality. I know personally when I meet a person I don't care what they look like or even really notice it, It's their personality that shines through and makes me like them as a person. Which sounds cheesy but it's true. So instead of focussing on what size you are, it can help to transfer that into trying to be a better person all over. Smile at strangers and be nice cause it takes up a lot more energy and thought than you realise and can also be used as a distraction.

Okay, I may have used a lot of weird stuff for distractions but as I said everyone is different and different things will work. I'll start off saying things I used for distractions while I was gaining the initial weight back but then I'll talk about what distractions I used when I would say I was actually "recovering" cause I don't believe gaining the weight to a healthy weight was what made me recover it was after that.

One of my main ones was writing, I've always kept journals and written down thoughts and ideas since I was very little. I still keep a journal now and it's my favourite thing in the world. When I was recovering I tried writing down 100 reasons to recover. I only got to 12at the time which is a piss poor effort but if I was to try now I could easily write over 100 (this will be done in a later post). I'm not gonna lie I almost lost hope when I couldn't think of things to write but looking back now its because I couldn't see clearly, I would also write down goal foods I wish I could one day eat without fear. This is what I had originally wrote

sport

Cereal (don't know why this is number two but oh well)

to not always be cold

to grow taller (turns out I stunted my growth so that didn't really happen or maybe I was always gonna be shortish, but oh well)

to not care about my weight

a good nights sleep

no more blood test

two-minute noodles (starting to think I was hungry when I wrote this)

to be me

hang out with friends

go to nationals

be allowed to not be hungry

Knitting was one of the things I used when I was released from the hospital. I know it sounds boring but I couldn't do anything thing too physical and learning a new skill and something I could do at any time that was calming, was a good distraction. I also used colouring books (the adult ones of course...most of the time). These two activities were often what I would go to after a draining meltdown and they took my mind off things. I used a lot of unhealthy and detrimental "distractions" that were brought on by my anorexia that I'm not going to discuss cause I don't believe me talking about my bad habits are going to help anyone, but all I can say is it's fucking hard to break habits and change your whole mindset, but I can reassure and promise that it is more than possible and 1000000% worth it.

I have also always loved baking and did a lot of this during my recovery. I'm not going to lie as much as I didn't want to eat I was lowkey excited deep down to be able to eat again, cause I'd been deprived for so long. Baking was fun and I actually got to eat what I baked instead of just looking at it.

After I had gained my weight back I stumbled across a whole community of people recovering from ED on Instagram who encouraged each other and posted what they ate and would do challenges like eating a whole pint of ice cream in one sitting. I found this really cool, how there is a whole community of people encouraging and supporting each other from around the world. When I look back on my weight gaining process I wish I took advantage of being able to eat as much as I could and whatever I wanted (as I do now, I always eat a pint of ice cream to myself and let me tell you it feels amazing not to hate yourself). I just realised I sounded like everyone I hated during recovery because so many people judge you and just tell you to eat cause "its not that hard" "I do and I don't even need to gain weight haha". Honestly, it is fucking hard and no one can expect to wake up one day and be like wow I better let eat cause its a long process that doesn't work that way. So if you know someone recovering maybe restrain yourself from saying those things cause it isnt easy and from my experience, you have no control over the stupid voice in your head controlling you.

Moving onto things that distracted me and what I believe is what made me better. The most stand out one for me came from my swim training. One year we had to weigh ourselves every day before training, at this point I had already gained over the weight needed for "healthy weight" mainly cause of muscle from the gym (which ill talk about soon). I was terrified to weigh myself in front of everyone every day after I had just eaten a big meal. Although I had to do it and over those weeks I began caring less and less as everyone was doing it and the number on the scale didn't mean anything anymore other than a stupid number. It took me a long tie to realise this but how much you weigh actually means jack shit. It can be water intake, muscle, what your wearing and it goes up and down all the time. Realising this through that experience was probably one of the biggest turning points for me and I had struggled with a constant obsession over the number on the scale.

Going to the gym and lifting weights also became a distraction for me that made me care less about how I looked and made me feel good at the same time. I didn't focus on toning but more strenth and seeing my progress of lifting more and more each week, giving me a sense of achievement.

Seeing and hanging out with friends and family is always good but can be scary. As when you're with friends you can be yourself with no stress and that's when you know you have good friends. I'm incredibly lucky with the people n my life and I love them all more than anything in the world. They helped me more than they realised, just by being with them when they ate so carefree and I would just do the same and the funny conversations during meal times keep my mind off the fact I was actually eating.

There is so much that goes into distraction when recovering cause your whole life revolves around food and in reality, it doesn't have too. It about finding what works for you ill write a quick list of stuff you can do to keep your mind off things but what written about is what helped me the most.

knitting

colouring

baking

seeing friends and family

shopping

writing

movies

walks

adventure outdoors when you can

setting proactive goals (my favourite one)

helping raise money for charities

working on being a good person

learning to love yourself....(this takes time but is possible)

MOTIVATIONAL VIDEOS ON YOUTUBE, how could forget those they help me so much and would highly recommend ill attach links to my favourite ones when I find them

wowee, I really suck at writing long lists. So there you are.

I hope everyone has an amazing Christmas!!! xox