How To Deal With Weight Gain in Anorexia Recovery

I felt like this post may be one of the most relevant posts I'll ever post on my blog. My blog is a lifestyle/recovery blog therefore the majority of my readers will be those who are suffering or looking to recover or who are recovering from their Eating Disorder.

I'd just like to say well done for making the best decision of your life and deciding to recover. 

Weight gain is obviously a vital step in recovery. To help nourish your brain and to progress in recovery it's important to gain weight to get it back up to a healthy weight for you! 

When I was faced with the idea that I had to gain weight I freaked out. I hated the thought and did everything I could to stop me from gaining weight, even though everyone around me was practically force feeding me I'd just hope I wouldn't put weight on. After a while though, something clicked in my mind and I realised; I have to gain weight otherwise I'll die. This is something that I keep in my mind (even now) to help myself keep pushing forward. 

The first thing to do when gaining weight is to forget about the number on the scale. You're worth so much more than that and that number doesn't define you as a person. 

Now here are some bits of advice which I've found work and recommend you try if you're struggling to accept weight gain;

1. Try to avoid spending too much time in-front of the mirror. This is when the negative thoughts come in. When you spend a good 10-15 minutes in-front of the mirror looking at every part of your body, this is when the bad thoughts will leak back into your mind. Just look at yourself quickly in the morning or whenever, and leave. If you want - tell  yourself some positive thoughts! Such as "I look really beautiful today" because I bet you do! Positivity works wonders. 

2.Throw out the scales! There's no need for you to keep a set of scales in your house. If you're still in treatment, you probably get weighed when you go for your sessions (I used to at CAMHS). It's doing you no good weighing yourself once a day (or even more). You're worth much more than that number and having that number play on your mind all day won't help you accept that you've gained weight. 

It's important that you tell yourself that weight gain isn't a bad thing, but a thing which your body needs and will love you for. Gaining weight and going into recovery is one of the best decisions of your life. You won't be gaining weight all of your life; once you're at a healthy weight you'll just maintain. It's just for a period of time and then think about it - you'll be weight restored and hopefully mentally healthy too! 

Also remember - when you first start to eat a large amount again you're going to bloat. Bloating is totally normal (I'm going to do another post about it in the near future) and you may feel "huge" as you're bloated but you're not! 

These are just somethings to think about :)

Izzy