They come from your own mind, and you can't just leave it behind. You can't detox from that voice in your head that says you'll never be good enough, that people won't love you, that everyone will leave you unless you take control of yourself.
What do you do when the toxic person in your life, the one who is ruining your health and stealing away your happiness, is yourself?
There is only one thing to do. You somehow have to learn to get stronger than the voice in the back of your mind.
After I got pregnant with Nadine, I had very few relapses. Once every couple of weeks or so, just when I was feeling particularly crumby or having a bad day.
The relapses got less frequent as my pregnancy wore on, and after she was born, I experienced blissful freedom from the pressure to purge. I might have relapsed only a handful of times in the year after she was born.
It was amazing. After eight years of trying to ignore the eating disorder tape playing constantly in my mind, it was almost gone. Something had made it fade into the background.
Because I enjoyed the silence (something I had been seeking for what seemed like an eternity), I was hesitant to get back into any sort of calorie counting or eating control for fear I might wake a sleeping dragon.
I was heavy from pregnancy. I did not like the way I looked and I did not like how I felt, but those feelings were bearable if it meant my eating disorder was cured -- for a while at least.
But I wanted to run again and I was still experiencing terrible digestive system problems (years of purging will do that to you).
So I did something brave and I changed. I tried following a nutritarian style of eating to hopefully help support my workouts at Sisu.
I cut out meat, most dairy, eggs, sugar, refined grains, and added cooking oils. I started piling on the plants: fruits, legumes, tons of veggies, whole grains, nuts, and seeds. Some might call that change extreme. But it's less extreme than forcing yourself to empty your stomach as punishment for eating a cookie.
Nutritarian philosophy advocates not necessarily for a vegan lifestyle (I had a few bites of chicken last night), but instead for a nutrient-dense one. Veggies and fruits are highest in vitamins and minerals. They have the most nutrients per calorie. Meat, dairy, and sugar, while delicious, offer the least. So, these are eaten sparingly, if at all.
My digestive problems are gone. My body is healing. My skin is clear. I need less sleep to function properly. My weight is going down.
But the best side effect is that I never feel the need to purge. Everything I am eating is nutritional gold. Even if I go out and enjoy a non-compliant meal with a friend or on a date with my husband, I don't feel the pressure to go home and throw it up. Instead, I'm excited to go home and have a salad, a bowl of fruit with almond butter, or a smoothie for my next meal.
A few people who have seen me eat recently have made comments about how nice it will be to go back to a "normal" diet once I meet my goal weight. But I'm not going to go back. I'll always eat this way, and not only to avoid digestive problems.
I'm no longer afraid of eating until I am full. I don't see food as my enemy. I appreciate my body more. I'm more accepting of myself.
This is the new normal. And I'm happy about that.
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