Reintroducing Exercise during Eating Disorder Recovery

A Reflection on a Reflection

This is an old reflection I wrote a couple of years ago, when I was still struggling with my eating disorder. It’s kind of crazy to look back on this now because at the time I wrote this I thought I was in such a great place.

I thought I was basically recovered, but I was wrong.

Knowing what I do now, I can see that I was still struggling, although I was making progress by accepting help from my treatment team.

It’s amazing to be on the other side of this illness, but I think that some of these thought processes are important to share.

It’s important to see how a sick mind tries to rationalize what is completely irrational…

In high school, I ran track, played softball, and did karate — I was an athlete. I wasn’t the best, but that’s what I enjoyed doing. When I started to develop anorexia when I was 17, I took my running to the extreme. As a sprinter on the winter track team, I was not advised to run longer distances, but instead of heeding that advice, I signed up for several races throughout the year and started running distance on the weekends. At first it seemed like it was fine — running is good for you, right? But when I started cutting out food groups and limiting my daily food intake, people started to realize this was a problem.

At 17, my parents told me that I had to make a choice, gain weight or stop sports. At the time, I didn’t know that I had an eating disorder, but I knew that I was too scared to gain weight, so I agreed to stop running, playing softball, and competing in karate. I don’t want to get into all the details of how my eating disorder continued to develop for the next nine years, but I will say that throughout that time I tried to reintroduce exercise, and each time I failed.

By “failed”, I mean that I failed to incorporate exercise in a healthy way. Each time I tried to start running again, I took it to the extreme or refused to nourish my body appropriately for the extra body movement. I was discouraged, but I knew deep down that running wasn’t right for me at this point in my recovery, despite being at a healthy weight and following my meal plan.

Fast forward and you’ll find that for the past three years I abstained from exercise almost exclusively. I went for some short walks and I had periods where I slipped and went for a long hike, but I didn’t run consistently for about three years. Now, just a couple of weeks ago, I broached the subject with my dietitian.

“I want to run a 5k,” I said at my nutrition appointment. I explained that I wanted to do a fun race for a holiday and get dressed up and potentially have my mom and grandma join me for the race. It sounded like a great idea to me to reintroduce exercise in a healthy way after consistently doing well in my recovery.

My dietitian was hesitant and wanted to talk to my therapist first. Eventually, they agreed to let me do the race, and even said I could run two days a week to get ready for it.

I started running two weeks ago, and man, the thoughts that accompanied my exercise addiction in the past came flooding back into my head. I was so happy to be running, but I was scared that it would get taken away from me again.

I was honest with my treatment team about the thoughts and they tried to tell me to stop running, that maybe now wasn’t the best time to reintroduce exercise, but I didn’t want to listen. I continued another two days of running the following week, and the thoughts got a little better, but I was definitely slipping regarding my food intake.

I write this piece now, an hour before I go to my next nutrition appointment, to say that sometimes, even when you’re in recovery from an eating disorder and you’re doing really well, exercise is more harmful than good.

I’m planning on being completely honest with my dietitian today about how things have been going. If we come up with a plan that still allows me to incorporate running into my recovery, that’s great, but if she tells me now is a good time to stop the exercise, I’ll defer to her.

Basically, what I’m trying to say is that everyone’s recovery is different.

You hear some amazing stories about people incorporating exercise into their eating disorder recovery and how much it helped them heal, but for me, I don’t know if that’s the case. You can’t rush recovery and it’s important to treat your body with respect — if you’re not able to eat enough to support the amount of exercise you’re doing, or if the ED thoughts get a lot stronger when you try to introduce exercise, maybe now isn’t the right time.

I hate being told what I can and can’t do, but I know that my treatment team has my best interests in mind, and if I want to continue on the path to full recovery, I know that I need to follow their advice. They are the experts in the field, and for those of us struggling, our judgment can often get clouded by the ED thoughts.

Stay strong and respect your body.

That was the end of my piece. You might think that I sounded positive in this post, but the truth is that I was writing what I wanted my treatment team to think I believed.

I remember the day I wrote this piece — trying to convince myself that I’d be ok with not exercising and that I was all-in with my recovery.

Guess what?

Shortly after writing this, I ended up back in treatment, and reading this back, I can see why. Yes, I was honest with my nutritionist, but I had to wait until I had fallen back so far that I physically couldn’t exercise before I finally stopped.

Even when I stopped exercising, I wasn’t eating enough, and until I learned that I needed to completely relinquish control and trust the process, this “positive” reflection wasn’t really going to help me.

I guess the message here is, you never know what’s going on inside someone’s head and when it comes to eating disorders, things get tricky.

I’m an honest person. I don’t lie. But when I was sick, I lied to everyone, including myself.

So next time you read an article about recovery from someone who is still fighting their own battles, try to read between the lines to get to the truth. And if you’re that person in recovery, think before you post. I regret all those posts when I was in quasi-recovery, and I see the value now in waiting over one year in solid recovery before getting involved in this field.