OVERCOMING A ONGOING BATTLE OF ANOREXIA WITH GOD.

8th of June 2023 entry.

📝08/06/2023. Why was recovery hard?

This very night was a depressing emotional rollercoaster.

It was at night I was scrolling on TikTok and came across a TikTok a fitness coach reacting to someone who's eating less than 1300 calories. He was shocked and went on about how it ruins ones metabolism and is very very dangerous. 

I was already aware lack of food was dangerous but I thought what I was currently doing was safe. I knew it was definitely lower than 1300 calories a day that I was consuming hence panic overtook me. 

You see, I believe God shows people stuff as a warning/ reminder. I believe God put that on my for you page to warn me what I'm currently doing isn't enough. This was a blessing as he showed his grace of wanting to save/help me.

ANXIETY.

I felt so anxious, paranoid, scared.

 Scared because I knew I was eating such low calories and my hormones had definitely been deregulated or damaged. I knew my metabolism had probably decreased significantly due to what I did to my body and I always wanted a high metabolism. Scared because I knew my body had such low energy.

I was anxious about my future. Thoughts arose of me not even having a future. I was curious if my health in the future would be horrific and I mostly asked myself if I'd ever get my period back; if I'd ever be able to have children.

I thought about God and how in the bible he commanded 'be ye fruitful, and multiply' In Genesis 16:10. Meaning he wants us to bear children and multiply. I was scared I won't be able to fulfil this will.

I grew angry with myself, I don't know if I regretted everything, I think I did.

I felt, no I knew I had just ruined my life. 

What made it worse is that even if I wanted to fully get better and eat loads, I had lost my appetite exceedingly. I trained my body so well that food doesn't even tempt me. Vanilla cake or McDonald's Mc Muffin were two thing I could not resist in the past whereas when seeing them I had no interest at all.

I always felt really full. Whenever I'd consume something I'd be full or satisfied for hours. My body was too used to having tiny amounts of food- maybe I just needed to keep training it to consume more to grow a appetite; build my bodies trust back.

I also forgot to mention but I bought a bikini.

 A bikini is something I had always wanted to wear but was too insecure too as I had rolls and felt my stomach was too large. However, with my anorexic body my ribs were visible and my stomach was flat, so I bought a bikini. That's when I realised, do I still like my new, underweight  body? 

If I was insecure before, that I'd never buy a bikini, the fact I bought one showed I was no longer insecure. I liked my new body- I felt confident. That's the real reason why fully recovering was hard because I still feared gaining. I knew recovery would lead to weight gain. 

But look guys, I learnt weight gain= life gained, happiness gained, energy gained, period restored, hair restored, strength restored, broken relationships restored.

I'm not sure buying the bikini though was a good idea as It became another burden to me that night; I started to fear I'd like the fitting of the bikini, I feared gaining weight as it meant the bikini wouldn't fit anymore. (I bought a small size, a size my old, original, healthy body, that my parents wanted back, would not be able to enter).

So that night I was having unhelpful thoughts that was crowding my mind: bikini, metabolism, hormones, tiktok, weight gain, babies.

And udon.

Remember how I didn't finish all the udon from the day before that I separated into 3 portions, I had the 2/3 of it and  I started to fear the calories in the udon and what it could do to me. Gosh I wish I remembered this verse in the bible ("Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes'' - Matthew 6:25). Especially (Matthew 6:34 "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself). I worried so bad about the udon and the calories as I hated how  I didn't know the measurements of the ingredients inside so I searched the restaurants socials forages and emailed them asking how they made it, then got my sister to call them and ask if there was any oil in it. That was CRAZY, I WAS CRAZY. The amount of time I spent trying to figure out the calories. I also felt I had an interolarance to oil for ages as my face would always go hot, red and sore when having fried foods. When eating the udon my face reacted to it which caused me to know there was oil as I originally thought the recipe I ordered didn't consist of oil as I did research on it before hand. (BTW my sister did call them and they admitted they added oil and my anxiety grew as it was a massive fear food of mine for 2 reasons).

I got a journal app at that moment as I was getting too much anxiety that night. (The journal app is what I refer to and how I remember everything that happened on the days to when writing this book). The journal app said to challenge my thoughts.

I challenged them and it helped a bit. This is what I thought:

- If I gain weight, it was meant to be. The weight gained is precious weight and it's how God created/ intended me to look like.

-If I gain, I'd be healthy again.

The app also made me add a alternative thought, the thought was:

-I was confident before when I was 'bigger', before I was exposed to how I look now, before I even knew what a calorie was. I also felt stronger before.

These thoughts are good to think about as they can encourage you!