Physical Recovery

 

 

Happy New Year to you all! I don’t know if anyone will be sad to say goodbye to last year ... I certainly was glad to welcome in the New Year! What about you? 

    

Well, I wanted to start the new year sharing with you a little bit about my recovery journey.  

    

A year ago at the beginning of 2020, I started a recovery program. I started 2020 desperate, emotionally exhausted, scared of the New Year and totally defeated.

    

I had a breakdown and was at my wits’ end, so I decided to try this recovery program. Now at this point in my recovery, I had tried every diet, program, app, book ... everything you can imagine to help me lose weight. I was scared to start this program. At the time this program was called HealED but now it is called Binge Code.

     

I was terrified to start this program. My thoughts were flooded with, “Why would this work? What is so different about this program? There’s no way it will work for me.” I was so close to not signing up, but I was at the end of my rope and I had nothing left but to sign up. So I did. And it was the best thing I did in 2020. It started me on my last lap to recovery. 

    

I signed up for the emailing coaching program. They have a phone call method but I chose the former. Basically you sign up and get a coach that you email (or call) once a week and you write whatever you are struggling with or dealing with and your personal coach will write back with encouragement, practical tips and challenges. To say this program helped me tremendously is an understatement. I was able to be very vulnerable and put into words what exactly I was struggling with. My coach and this program's methods showed me practical tips and ways to help fight the urge to binge and restrict. It also showed me scientific and physical ways why I was binging and how bad restricting is and the reasons why when you restrict, it almost always leads to a binge. They showed me what true balance looks like and encouraged me greatly to keep going and to not give up. 

   

One of the biggest things I learned during my time with this program was that recovery is continual. Every time I messed up, I wasn’t starting my recovery over ... I was continuing on. My coach was always encouraging me to learn from my mistakes. She told me that I would never recover without my mistakes and mess ups. She was right. I learned a whole lot from my mess ups and they encouraged me in how to move forward. But that wasn’t easy, being the perfectionist that I am. It was hard to really accept those mistakes ... to really learn from them and continue on after I messed up. This program truly led me to the last bit of my recovery.

     

Now, recovery is interesting. Recovery is on going, there’s not really an end ... and yet, there is an end, to an extent. I like to say “there’s no end” because we aren't perfect and will never be ... I still struggle, therefore recovery is continual. We are always learning. But I know I don’t have an eating disorder any more and at the same time, that I have recovered from my eating disorders.

   

See, my ultimate recovery started when I went to the treatment center in 2015. So I had been in recovery for five years and it was filled with relapses and all kinds of setbacks. But when I signed up for this program, it became my last lap to my recovery. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not perfect, I haven’t reached a place in my life where I don’t struggle ... I still struggle, a lot, and I have not figured everything out ... but I know I have recovered. How? Well, I have lived with a type of eating disorder for over ten years, with roots of it starting when I was a little girl. For as long as I can remember I have been sensitive, anxious, insecure and fixated on food and body image. Because I have lived with a form of an eating disorder for soooo long, when all the sudden it’s gone ... I could feel the absence of the disorder as much as I could feel the presence of my disorders. Does that make sense?

    

Now there is a spiritual side to all of this too. I will talk about that side of my recovery in a later blog post. That night I had my break down, I knew that I needed spiritual help and physical help in order to once and for all get over this eating disorder ... and Binge Code was just the thing to help with the physical side. I could not have recovered without it, I am so very thankful for that program! What a blessing. 

As I start this new year, I haven't signed up for any programs and I don’t have any resolutions. (Don’t get me wrong, goals and resolutions aren’t bad! It’s just nice to have the freedom and choice to not have to do anything.) I have kind of exhausted my goals and resolutions so I have chosen to not have any this year! And plus! I don’t need them now! For the first time in a long time I am starting the New Year ... free. I haven’t been able to do that in I don't know how long ... if ever! But all those years of trying programs and diets and apps and resolutions ... all those years were not for naught. It’s kind of like Thomas Edison finding the right way for figuring out the one way to create electricity: "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." I had been through my 10,000 ways that didn't work. I didn't fail when I couldn't complete recovery programs or diets. I just hadn't found the right combo to my ultimate success. Each path to recovery is unique and different and no path is alike.

So no matter where you are in your recovery, don't be discouraged. You never know what a year may hold. You may reach your everlasting recovery this year! Looking back at how desperately I started the year, there's no way anyone (including myself) would have thought I'd find my recovery in 2020, but I did!

With that being said, I encourage you that no matter where you are, no matter what has or hasn't worked for you ... don't give up. Keep fighting and hang in there. If someone like me can recover, you can.

Now remember, this was only half of my recovery. I would have never recovered without the spiritual side. But more on that later. I'll be addressing that topic in a coming blog post.

In the meantime, comment below your plans for the New Year. I want to hear how you are starting off this year! Let me know what makes you nervous or scared; what things you are excited about and what you are looking forward to this year!

Happy New Year!!