Gaining Weight Too Fast?

Well a lot of us have come to accept the fact we need to gain weight. A lot of us have made a lot of effort to work towards it. But sometimes when we check our weights, we end up exclaiming "Oh God! I gained this much in a week?!" and then the negativity seeps back in and we slide back down again.

Well it's really very common. But at this rate you're not gonna go anywhere! I just want to gain weight at a healthy pace. What IS the "healthy pace" you're talking about then? 0.1kg a week? If you gain weight too slowly, the damage your body is going to receive will be more severe than you think.

Let's imagine a machine. This machine requires fuel. It consumes fuel at a rate of 10ml per minute. It has some back up fuel though. You used to give it 15ml of fuel every minute until last year. Then in the past year, you haven't been giving it enough fuel so it has been running on its backup fuel. And now there's only 100ml of back up fuel left. When you start to pour back fuel, you're afraid of pouring more than 15ml of fuel per minute because its different from what you have done. This is normal because we're all afraid of change.

But now look, if you are gonna "start slow" and give it 5ml per minute only, it will still have to partially run on its back up fuel! If you stay at this stage for too long, don't you agree the fuel will just run out? Exactly the same point. If you put let's say 30ml per minute instead because you know that you have to restore some backup fuel for future too, isn't that much safer than the first situation of "starting slow" and end up finishing the fuel?

Use this analogy to understand this point : There is no such thing as gaining weight too fast in anorexia recovery / when you are underweight. Of course I know we are all human and we can't suddenly change overnight. It takes time yes. But make sure you don't stay too long in that stage of "adaptation" because it will be really very risky.

On the other hand if you are progressing too slow, you're also lingering in the "danger zone". When you're in a place where it is unsafe, you'd like to get out of it as soon as possible right? It's common sense. Why would people want to stay in that life-threatening place longer?

This is why we cant afford to "take our own sweet time" in our recovery because really, you need to quickly mend your boat before it sinks. Slowly mending the boat won't help much, the water is going to keep gushing in. It won't stop when it sees you start mending the boat. Likewise your body is still experiencing the damage of anorexia as you're recovering. So QUICK MEND YOUR BOAT BEFORE MORE DAMAGE IS DONE!

"I gained too much weight this week!" No, you didn't. That's Ana lying to you because after all you're in a war with her. No one wants to loose in a war, Ana's trying to trick you into believing her. Then she'll back stab you and WALA! , she'll win. You've fought this much, don't let your efforts go to waste. You choose what you believe in, so believe that there ISN'T such a thing as too fast a weight gain, but instead an accomplishment in mending your body this quick, and you'll make your recovery a lot less torturous and demoralizing.

Binging during Anorexia Recovery?

A common problem faced by recovering anorexics is "binging". I put inverted commas because it is NOT binging and i'm gonna tell you why :

1. It is INTUITIVE EATING (body's natural hunger)
After your body has starved for so long, when you start to satisfy your body's hunger by starting to eat more, the supressed hunger will surface. Take for example you have a friend whom upsetted you a few times due to incidents that occured where he made you angry or upset. Finally today he's tipped it off and upset you again and you decide not to bottle your feelings anymore. You start to scold him. Is it not likely that you'll dig up those past incidents where he had up upsetted you and use it? This is what supressed feelings do to you. Like suppressed anger, supressed hunger will surface all together that's why you will feel like you are binging. But it is perfectly fine and WILL PASS when your body re-nourishes and makes up for the lack of nutrients that it experienced the past few months.

2. You will NOT GET BINGE EATING DISORDER (BED)
Binge eating disorder is a disorder where a person cannot control eating AT ALL. If you are recovering from anorexia and have anorexic thoughts screaming at you, how is it possible to get BED?! No you won't develop BED I can guarantee because like i said it's Intuitive eating and it's a PHASE that is TEMPORARY.

3. You NEED to replenish the lacking nutrients and these "binges" are GOOD FOR YOUR RECOVERY 
Hard truth : you need to gain weight. You are NOT going to recover on 1200, 1500, or 1800 calories a day. Basic caloric needs of a woman is 2000~2400 and that is the bare minimum. But look you need more than that in recovery. Take for example you have to pay the bank 2200 everyday. But for the past 30 days you only paid 500 a day. Now you decide you should pay the right amount before the bank mortgages your house. Of course you need to pay those that you shortchanged in that 30 days on top of starting to pay what you are supposed to right?! Now read that story again but intepret the numbers in terms of calories. It's the same logic!

So don't worry anawarriors, you are NOT binging. Since your body needs the nutrients, and you probably only "binge" on what you like to eat, and in fact these "binge periods" are SUPER EFFECTIVE AND HELPFUL in re-nourishing your body, why worry!

And since you already "binged", DONT FEEL GUILTY, INSTEAD FEEL PROUD OF YOURSELF AND ENJOY IT! You CAN enjoy recovery, it's a choice you can make, like how i enjoyed recovery and intuitive eating because i enjoyed those periods of eating loads of my favourite snacks :P and feeling guilty what can you do? You can't rewind and "undo" that "binge" either right! ;)

Choose to enjoy recovery because why not ;)