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Posts tagged with “anorexia”

How I Finally Starved the Disorder That Was Eating Me Alive

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“If we are ready to tear down the walls that confine us, break the cage that imprisons us, we will discover what our wings are for.” ~Michael Meegan

It’s weird, isn’t it? One day you’re playing hide and seek with friends without a worry beyond the playdate you’re having or dinner options for that night. But in a blink, those carefree days vanish. That’s what happened to me, and my teenage years started ticking away right in front of my eyes. Eleven, thirteen, fifteen, seventeen, nineteen…

And a realization hit me: “It’s still eating me alive.”

Maybe it wasn’t …

Thinner is Not Better – Healthy, Connected, and Happy Is

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“Standards of beauty are arbitrary. Body shame exists only to the extent that our physiques don’t match our own beliefs about how we should look.” ~Martha Beck

I have so many women around me right now—friends, mothers, clients that are on a diet—constantly talking about their weight and how their bodies look, struggling with body image.

I am profoundly sad about the frequency and theme of those discussions.

At the same time, I deeply get it; it is hard to detach from our conditioning.

I too struggled with body image at one point in my life, and for a very …

Abandonment Wounds: How to Heal Them and Feel More at Ease in Relationships

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“I always wondered why it was so easy for people to leave. What I should have questioned was why I wanted so badly for them to stay.” ~Samantha King

Do you feel afraid to speak your truth or ask for what you want?

Do you tend to neglect your needs and people-please?

Do you have a hard time being alone?

Have you ever felt panic and/or anxiety when someone significant to you left your life or you felt like they were going to?

If so, please don’t blame yourself for being this way. Most likely it’s coming from an …

How I Learned the Power of Letting Go After My Father Developed Dementia

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“There is beauty in everything, even in silence and darkness.” ~Helen Keller

When I was eleven years old, I would force myself to stay awake until the wee hours of the morning.

I was severely anorexic at a time when eating disorders were considered an “inconvenience” you brought on yourself. Anorexia was dismissed as a rich, white girl’s disease (although we were certainly not rich)—a disease that was easily curable with a prescription for a chocolate cake.

Although my emaciated body was a dead giveaway of my condition, it was school that noticed the change in me first. My once …

How to Protect Our Kids from a Lifetime of Food, Weight, and Body Image Issues

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I went on my first diet when I was around fourteen or so because, as they often do in growing teens, my jeans started getting tight.

And because I grew up in the same anti-fat culture we all have, I hated myself for it.

Around the same time, an adult in my life who was always obsessed with “eating healthy” gave me a copy of the new book she was reading outlining the healthiest way to eat.

It was a book on the Atkins/low-carb diet.

The author spent the bulk of the book demonizing carbs, explaining in convincing-sounding …

The Childhood Wounds We All Carry and How to Heal Our Pain

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“As traumatized children, we always dreamed that someone would come and save us. We never dreamed that it would, in fact, be ourselves as adults.” ~Alice Little

Like most people, I used to run away from my pain.

I did it in lots of different and creative ways.

I would starve myself and only focus on what I could and couldn’t eat based on calories.

I would make bad choices for myself and then struggle with the consequences, not realizing that I had made any choice at all. It all just seemed like bad luck. Really bad luck.

Or I …

The Unconscious Vows We Make to Ourselves So the World Can’t Hurt Us

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“You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.” ~Jonathan Safron Foer

Are you aware that we all make unconscious vows early on, and they become our internal blueprint for life? These vows dictate who we can be and are often deeply engrained.

Our vows are attached to a deeper need we’re trying to meet—the need for love, acceptance, safety, connection, and security. They’re not bad or wrong, and neither are we for having them; they come from a smart part of us that’s trying to help us feel safe.

Vows are more than a belief; vows are …

Obsessed with Healthy Eating? 9 Things I’ve Learned Since Recovering from Orthorexia

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“Sending love to everyone who’s doing their best to heal from things they don’t discuss.” ~Unknown

I used to obsess over healthy eating, and I mean OB-SESSSSS. I spent virtually every waking moment thinking about food. What should I eat today? Is there too much sugar in that? What will I eat when we go out next week? Should I claim that I’m allergic to gluten?

Although I didn’t know it at the time, I was suffering from orthorexia (that is, an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating). Yes, I fully agree that eating nutritious food is good for you—there’s few …

Disordered Eating: What We Need to Understand and How to Heal

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“Food can distract you from your pain but food cannot take away your pain.” ~Karen Salmansohn

Long before I was watching The Biggest Loser (a popular weight loss reality TV series) and trying to look like a swimsuit model, I was hiding in my closet eating candy, fiercely addicted to sugar.

I remember feeling completely out of control over my cravings for all things sweet, and I didn’t know how to stop myself from eating until I felt sick. Food played a bigger role in my life than simply to support the processes in my body that lead to optimal …

The Surprising Strategy I Used to Stop Bingeing (and Why It Worked)

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“Sometimes the thing you’re most afraid of doing, is the very thing that will set you free.” ~Robert Tew

I recovered from binge eating and bulimia by giving myself permission to binge. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it?

My decades-long weight and food war started in my teens, immediately after reading my first diet book, about Atkins, to be exact. I spent the following two decades trying to lose weight (only to keep gaining) and struggling with food.

By my early thirties, I’d finally managed to lose weight, but it hadn’t end the war, it had just started a new one. The …

Freedom from Food – This Time for Good!

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“Nonresistance is the key to the greatest power in the universe.” ~Eckhart Tolle

I cannot say that I didn’t struggle in my life. But there’s one area in which I have overcome the challenges I was facing with hardly an effort: letting go of the eating disorder I was suffering from, getting rid of the extra weight I was carrying, and maintaining the results easily for twenty-eight years.

How Did I Do That?

In a minute I’ll tell you exactly how I did that and how you can do it too. But first let me take a moment to explain …

How to Befriend Our Unhealthy Survival Mechanisms

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“Wounded children have a rage, a sense of failed justice that burns in their souls. What do they do with that rage? Since they would never harm another, they turn that rage inward. They become the target of their own rage.” ~Woody Haiken

Survival mechanisms are ways of being that we picked up along the way to help us cope with what was happening in our reality.

Getting mad at ourselves for doing what we do only promotes self-hate. We’re not bad or wrong; in fact, we’re pretty damn intelligent. We found ways to help us soothe our traumas, hurt, …

Overcoming a Negative Body Image: 4 Things to Remember

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TRIGGER WARNING: This post deals with an account of anorexia and may be triggering to some people.

“You will never be free until you free yourself from the prison of your own false thoughts.” ~Philip Arnold

I really don’t remember my life before anorexia. I think back to my early teenage years when I ate peanut butter sandwiches and drank hot chocolate without a single thought of how many calories I had consumed. There was no guilt, no worry, no need for perfection. How I wish I could get those carefree moments back.

A few years ago anorexia completely …

Why We Can’t Have Healthy, Happy Relationships Without Self-Love

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“Worry about loving yourself instead of loving the idea of other people loving you.” ~Unknown

Body image and self-love have been my biggest struggles. They’ve affected every area of my life, including relationships.

I developed anorexia in high school after experiencing a number of losses in a short period of time.

During my high school years I didn’t date much. I had a few boyfriends, but the relationships never progressed because I was afraid of intimacy, due to the fact that I was uncomfortable in my skin and didn’t like my body.

I had body dysmorphia, thinking I was overweight …

What You Need to Do If You’re Struggling with an Eating Disorder

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“The human spirit is stronger than anything that can happen to it.” ~C. C. Scott

It starts accidentally.

Addicts don’t plan to become addicted to a substance or behavior. It’s an invisible progression, a newly discovered way to feel peace, trust, and control.

You don’t remember the day you became addicted—the day your addiction became your identity.

You do, however, remember the relief of the first time your addiction helped you cope.

Many bulimics remember in vivid detail the day their eating disorders started. Up until that moment, they suffered with chaotic home environments, low self-esteem, the inability …