Your Body is NOT the Enemy

I once read a blog post that likened restrictive eating disorders to a sort of mental autoimmune disease. In essence, that comparison makes a lot of sense. When you have an eating disorder, you literally attack yourself.

In this blog post, I'm going to talk about my experience with anger towards my body. I'm going to talk about the war I subsequently raged against it via my vile actions. And then, I'm going to come onto talking about realising my bodies real agenda: a very innocent pursuit of genuine health.

Before I properly get going, though, I want to provide some reassurance. With enough consistency and committed action, your brain can and will unlearn the dissatisfaction that you feel now and you can and will relearn how to have a peaceful relationship of neutrality and respect with it. If you relate to any of what I write here, first, I am sorry. Second, please know this isn't how it has to be. You can move past this.

My Body: The Enemy

When I was in the early stages of recovery from my ED (a stage where it was far more externally forced than my choice), I lived as if my body was the enemy. And not only was it my enemy (who I sometimes felt like I couldn't even tolerate being associated with me), I also believed it had a sinister hidden agenda of some sort. My bet, is that if you're in recovery too, you know what I mean by that 'agenda'.

My body wanted me to gain weight forever and ever - didn't it?

My body wanted to turn me into a passionless layabout - didn't it

My body wanted me to look very different to all of my family members bodies for the sake of disproving genetics - right?

If I stopped fighting my biology, realistically, something would go really, really wrong, as per my bodies wishes - correct?

No. Times 4.

But on I went fighting.

Restricting.

Micromanaging.

Over exercising.

Ignoring hunger.

Ignoring tiredness.

If my actions could have spoken, they'd have said: "I don't trust you, body"

And in time, I was so used to working in opposition to my biology, that I didn’t even recognise I was doing it. Doubting and opposing whatever my body was feeling became my 'normal', my 'easy' and my second nature.

Tired legs? My body is failing me. Hungry, even after an adequate meal? My body is failing me. Tired and insanely restless at the same time? Physically full but mentally starving simultaneously? My body is failing me. I could go on and on and on. My body's very reasonable tiredness or feelings of hunger were, apparently, "failings". Only later on down the recovery line did it occur to me, "Actually Han, maybe you are failing your body..."

When I say that I felt my body failed me, I think that it falls short of capturing exactly how I felt towards my body and its demands. It turned me into an entirely different person. I had wilder thoughts that I can even comprehend running through my brain now. Honestly, on reflection, it blows my mind.

How I couldn't tolerate my skin being on me.

How I was jealous of people's bodies who weren't working against them like mine was.

How I was suspicious of hunger signals.

How I despised my tiredness.

The Change

I didn't wake up one day, have an 'AHA' moment, conclude that my body was not the enemy and frolic towards recovery. I gave every single thing I had to try to convince my brain that my body was on my side:

• I ate when I was hungry because if I was hungry, it was because I needed food.

• I rested when I was tired, because if I was tired I needed rest.

And I did both of those the vast majority of the time, because my body had been so deprived of both and so begged for both consistently. I didn't do those things because all of me wanted to, but because some small part of me knew that that war I was raging was a waste of my life.

And yes, of course, my eating disorder had all sorts of judgement about those actions. Never have I met a recovered person who didn't experience the backlash. Yet, nobody recovered while listening to eating disorder judgement. Nobody recovered cowering from that backlash. In order to recover, as those who have done it will tell you, you must get used to ignoring eating disorder judgement. Though the thoughts may enter your head for now, though they may be excruciatingly strong, you must choose not to act on them. And the good news, you're already practiced at ignoring things. (Hunger, for example...)

My body’s real agenda; to optimise health

I know part of you is going to be suspicious of the following facts, but I want you to read them with your cynical ED lenses as far from your eyes as possible:

Whatever your body is telling you is truth.

Your body is not lying to you.

Your body has no sinister agenda.

Your body is innocent.

You are not an anomaly.

I promise.

And additional to all of that, your body wants survive as long as possible. Why? Well, because that's how a species survives. As crass as this sounds, a biologically body functions long enough to bear and raise offspring. This is the case irrespective of whether an individual makes the choice to do so.

Your body doesn't care about opinions

In order to optimise your health, your body needs to find homeostasis. In order to find homeostasis, your body needs an unsuppressed bodyweight. It, and only it, knows the weight at which it will function best. Yep - far better than a BMI chart. Yep - far better than the doctor who hands you a maintenance meal plan as soon as you hit your height to weight goal.

Your body knows what weight it needs to be in order to optimise health because it is itself. No books or charts know more about your body than your body does. It doesn’t matter how many opinions you get or practitioners you ask, if you body deems a higher weight to be optimally healthy, then that is what is optimally healthy.

Is that hard to hear?

Your body doesn’t care.

Do you wish you could change it?

Your body doesn't care.

Your body is prioritising your health over your opinion.

I can’t tell you where your natural, unsuppressed bodyweight will be. Nobody can. But I can tell you with absolute certainty, that if you fight your biology, you won’t win. It will be like being trapped in a locked room with your nemesis forever, forever wrestling, forever no victor crowned.

But, I think you already know that.

Why? Because if you were winning, I don't think you wouldn’t be reading this blog. You would be living a full life and not seeking to escape from this ceaseless war. You wouldn't have that curiosity about recovery, and underlying inkling that your restriction is not the long-term solution.

Healing is the only answer.

Your body is on your side.