BREAKING ED HABITS : All or nothing mindset

I'm either a failure or I'm not. But I have failed so many times. I am a failure.

Yeah, you're not the only one who has those thoughts. I have them too, honestly, I guess I mean or else I wouldn't be suffering from a psychological illness too right? I'm sure many of us have this problem, and it's evident. In Instagram news feeds and like through conversations, it's obvious many of us have this mindset, not only people with like depression or eating disorders.

It's a tough thing to do but you've got to break this habit. Personally I used to think that if I accepted myself for who I was, I'd be a cocky and arrogant person. I used to think that if I said my results were quite good, I was proud. If I said I was quite ok looking, I was vain. Sometimes I still think that way to be honest, I won't deny. But I've realized that that's not true, rather if you are "over humble", people dislike you and find you annoying.

Just think of a classmate who always topped the class and exclaims after an exam that "Sure fail one lah". 

I'm sure topping the class is possible with an F grade.

Haha honestly feel a little like a hypocrite when I say that because I kinda think sometimes I do that too, but that's why I want to change this "All or nothing" mindset of mine.

Just because you're not underweight anymore doesn't mean you're fat. So you're saying your best friend is fat. Your mom is fat. Your dad is fat. Your sisters and brothers are fat. The whole world is fat? Besides fats and appearance doesn't depend on your weight! (Read on WHY WEIGHT DOESN'T MATTER HERE!). 

And just because you b/p once, or twice, or s/h once or twice and broke your streak doesn't make you a failure. There is absolutely NO ONE who recovered totally smoothly. Looking back at my "sample dietitian meal plan" in which I didn't use because I went for therapy and opted out of dietitian meal plans, it was actually so so little. But over that meal plan I literally cried and like totally ignored my dietician for the rest of that appointment, throwing a tantrum at her and everyone around me. 

Look, we have to all accept that we screw up here and there. But one action doesn't determine you. One habit doesn't determine you. People change and people can change, I know it's difficult to try to be positive and think on the bright side sometimes but everything that's not a habit takes effort to do right? Everyone has inertia, everyone is resistant to change. No one likes stepping out of their comfort zone, not even extroverts. Try asking an extrovert to shut up for a whole week, I bet after 10 minutes they'd give up haha.

Either way, be it if you have depression, an eating disorder, self harm tendencies or none of the above, if you have a all or nothing mindset, you'll never feel happy and fulfilled in life. You'll always feel like there is something bad in everyday, you'll always feel like you're never a "non-failure". But you need to realize that's not true. Life is never a smooth sail 24/7.

If I failed an exam by 1 mark, and told you that I'm a failure in life, what would you tell me? Tell that to yourself too. 

ED Habits To Break – Weighing Yourself Every Other Day

This has probably become a habit for some of us, weighing yourself every day. You can’t deny that your life had been ruled by the numbers that appear on that machine. If the number was lower than expected – your mood would have been great for the whole day. If it was higher than expected – you would be upset and for the rest of your day you would be troubled over those digits that you saw in the morning.

This is obviously a very unhealthy relationship with weight. We all know weight fluctuates throughout the day, and also that you won’t be the exact same weight every day of the week; but the ED voice in our head doesn't buy our “COMMON SENSE KNOWLEDGE” and tells you otherwise.

To recover of course we need to have a healthy relationship with our weights. Here are some things about weight that I found online that I found useful in changing our mindsets towards the number on the scale!

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1. MUSCLE IS DENSER THAN FATS 

Yes i know this is so cliche. But really! Fat LOOKS "more" than muscles because fatty tissure are jello-like while muscles are firmer than fats. Thus for the same "size" of fats and muscles, muscles are actually heavier! So if you wanna be fit  and tone those muscles, get a nice figure, I don't think a very very low weight is gonna be very possible! Toned looks > weight, because after all NO ONE WILL KNOW THAT NUMBER UNLESS YOU TELL THEM, BUT PEOPLE CAN SEE TONED MUSCLES ;) 



2. THE STOMACH IS CAPABLE OF CONTAINING UP TO 25 POUND OF UNDIGESTED FOOD! 

Ok 25 pounds is rare but does happen in like constipated people, sometimes even more than 25 pounds... But you get my point; you don't have X-ray eyes to look if your stomach has digested the food and if the nutrients have been absorbed by the body yet!



3. WATER RETENTION CAN CAUSE US TO GAIN A FEW KILOS

Water retention is due to too much salt intake. Water retention can also happen after exercising. This is because your body needs to replenish the water in your body thus whatever you drink will be "clung on to tightly" by your body. And if you didn't know, 1ml of water is 1g, so if you drank 1 liter of water you'd weigh 1kg more!



4. LOOK AT THESE WOMEN YOU'D NEVER HAVE GUESSED THEIR WEIGHTS!

        This woman in yellow is 176 pounds, aka 79.8kg.

 

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This Girl in white is 218 pounds! That's close to 100kg!          

 

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       The Woman beside the horse is 157 pounds! Which is 71.2kg! 

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This Woman looks toned doesn't she! She weighs 190 pounds (86kg)! 

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         This girl is 133 pounds, aka 60.3 kg!

 

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[ photos are NOT mine, cr: http://www.mybodygallery.com/photos-24037-body-shape.htm?StartAt=10#.VBBkgPm1Zp4 ]

 

 

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Now do you see, weight is merely a number! No one is going to ask you "How much do you weigh?" during self introductions, why let that number control you? It is but a number :)

ED Habits To Break - Unhealthy Mindset Towards Exercise

Of course everyone knows exercise is important for a healthy lifestyle. But it's very likely when you have an Eating Disorder, you have an unhealthy mindset towards exercising.

Even if you think that you're exercising to keep fit, highly likely you're lying to yourself. "How would you know? You can't read my mind". Well do this experiment and you'll see I'm right :

Don't exercise for a few weeks. How do you feel? Do you feel fat? Do you feel guilt? Do you feel uneasy? Well that is enough to prove that you actually use exercise as a "guilt buster" to eating and not for keeping fit. If you're unwilling to give up exercise for recovery, it shows that your exercise has been sabotaging your recovery, and you need to stop it. 

During recovery you'll NEED to give up exercise. Until you're fit enough that is at a acceptable weight to exercise. If you're this thin, and you exercise and your body runs out of glucose and fats to burn, you're gonna start eating up your muscles. And yes your heart is a muscle. For all you know you can just drop dead. 

It's not that serious. I'm sorry but it actually really is. You NEED to ban yourself from exercise for the time being. Use exercise as your motivation to recover quickly. 

When you ban yourself from exercising for a period of time, you'll develop a healthy mindset towards exercise after that. You'll realize exercise is for keeping fit, not jut a calorie burner. Exercise is a choice and enjoyable, not a torturous compulsory routine. 

To choose recovery means setting aside everything else and putting your health first, so temporarily set aside your exercise and get well first! 

Be true to yourself. Are you addicted to exercise? If you are, no you're not keeping fit and you need to break this addiction. 

 

ED Habits To Break - Counting Calories

If it's not obvious enough, you need to give up your disordered eating habits to recover from your disordered eating. But are you totally aware of what you have to give up? The next few days, I'll be posting on a series of habits that I feel will sabotage your recovery! First up, COUNTING CALORIES.

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Yes, we all know it's hard. But it's possible and I can assure you that because i don't count calories anymore. How? I think to start off you need to delete MY FITNESS PAL (RECOVERY KILLER I SWEAR). Promise yourself to not google up on calories either. Of course this doesnt instantaneously make you stop counting calories, but it's the first step.

Secondly, instead of using precise numbers, use estimates. Instead of 105 calories, take it as 100. If you think you ate 100 calories worth of snacks, estimate it and don't go and find out the exact value off the nutrition label. This might sound dumb, like "how is this even helping me?" but I assure you, this can help you slowly get rid of counting calories.

After you stop using precise values, you need to stop totaling up your day's calories. HIDE YOUR CALCULATORS. Yes this may be hard but you'll get used to it eventually. You can start off totaling meals only and not the whole day's worth of calories. Then slowly stop totaling the total daily intake of energy you consumed. You can still continue estimating the different calories of food though (e.g. "I think this biscuit is about 15 calories") but don't think too much about it. That thought of the biscuit being 15 calories should not bother your mind any more after you have eaten it.

Lastly, you'll realize you won't count calories anymore! After you don't total up your day's calories for about 1 week, it'll become like a norm. Off course it takes CONSCIOUS EFFORT AND SELF DISCIPLINE. Put away My Fitness Pal! Put away your calculators! Put away google! You can do this :)

So to summarize : 1. Delete any apps that count calories
                             2. Don't use exact figure (e.g. 146 cal) instead use estimates
                                 (e.g. 140 cal)
                              3. Total up individual meals instead of total daily intake
                                 (e.g. lunch was 600 cal)
                              4. Don't total up meals but total up single foods instead
                                  (e.g. rice = 200 cal)
                              5. Try to not think of calories at all when you eat anything
                              6. Free from counting calories :)