Compulsive movement or exercise is a key part of an eating disorder for many… and I can confirm, first hand, that it is a miserable and cruel thing to live with. Feeling compelled to keep moving your body, no matter what, and when not doing so feels overwhelmingly wrong and terrifying, makes the movement side […]
Tag: exercise
Within the eating disorder recovery community there is a large following of the ‘strong not skinny’ movement and a focus on this in terms of recovering from a restrictive eating disorder. Being the naive person that I can be at times, on first hearing the term ‘strong not skinny’ when it was used in relation […]
When I first became ill with anorexia nervosa, I was a 27 year old woman who had never had any form of disordered eating, history of dieting or weight manipulation and I was at a stage in my life where I felt happy and settled. Therefore finding myself with a severe eating disorder was a […]
Today I went to the theatre on a wild, spontaneous, spur of the moment decision! I’ve always loved live theatre and can still remember the magic of seeing Cats on stage when I was a little girl. Since then the magic of the live stage has always captivated me. Sadly, for many reasons, my enjoyment […]
Let me talk a bit more about compulsive exercise and movement with an eating disorder and in recovery because it is not spoken about as much as it should be, yet it is a key factor in keeping many of us sick and rarely addressed sufficiently in treatment. Why it is not addressed more in […]
One of the most common questions about eating disorder recovery that I get a lot and that I asked myself when trying to work out how to approach recovery is do we address all the fears… the eating more food, the resting, the stopping all the other weird s**t we do at the same time..? […]
Why I believe compulsive movement in eating disorders is as serious & needs to be treated as such as any other form of purging… Somebody who purges through vomiting or laxatives to compensate or manage anxiety after eating is performing an action that is difficult for anyone to justify as non-disordered. Those of us who […]
For years, compulsive movement has taken up my every waking moment. If I couldn’t be moving then I would be hyper-anxious and my thoughts would be consumed by the need to move. This was my status quo and movement was my drug. If I was a smoker then movement would be my nicotine rush or […]
I’ve written in previous posts about lower level movement compulsions in eating disorders & the importance of addressing them in recovery. Facing up to eating more food and weight restoration alone does not a full recovery make! Recovery entails overcoming all the little behaviours and compulsions that have wormed in over the years – some […]
Resting & relaxing can be the hardest & most exhausting thing in the world! In eating disorder recovery, we are always told we must rest, relax & heal. To most people, this probably sounds wonderful & peaceful – creating images of lolling about on a sofa, taking naps, reading books, watching Netflix & generally just […]
Giving up compulsive movement in ED recovery is HARD! For those with compulsive movement/ exercise tendencies, stopping could be compared to an addict coming off heroin & that is not an exaggeration! I’ve found attempts to reduce activity levels to minimal amounts, while not reducing food intake, the hardest thing I’ve done in my life.. […]
Today has felt like an eating disorder recovery day in which I was stumbling through thick fog… and to be fair many days are like this! Recovery seems to be made of days of muddling through. It feels chaotic, really quite messy & very confusing! The sad fact about eating disorder recovery is that there […]
Cold Turkey To Overcome Movement Compulsions?? This is a question I’ve asked myself many times – how we approach stopping exercise & compulsive movement in eating disorder recovery? Cold turkey or gradually decrease? I don’t think there is a one size fits all approach. Recovery is messy & complicated & takes a lot of trial […]
HOW to stop compulsive exercise & movement in eating disorder recovery: It is all good knowing we have a compulsive exercise problem and even the theory behind why it is there but does that help us in stopping it? Please don’t think I am perfect. I am working hard to address my compulsions with movement, […]
What constitutes compulsive movement? Formal exercise is easy to identify as something that we should not do in eating disorder recovery. Putting trainers on, going for a run, swimming, going to the gym and formal sports are all blatantly understood as being ‘exercise’ by joe public. What about lighter exercise though? The ‘well it is […]
RECOVERING NOMAD 