You've found your way to this blog post which means you may be wondering if you have an eating disorder. Maybe you've been diagnosed already, or maybe you realize your relationship with food is heading into danger territory. Either way, you're here which is a good thing.
When we start to realize that we may need help, or when we start down the journey of recovery we can find ourselves spending a whole lot of time trying to pinpoint WHY we have an Eating Disorder.
Eating Disorders are complex, multi-factorial and disordered eating has become commonplace in diet culture. This makes it extremely hard to determine when we need higher levels of care of help.
The "Sick enough"trap and the rockbottom myth often delay us from getting help until we have fallen down the rabbit hole.
If you've done any of the following, it's time to start seeking help:
Googling: Do I have an Eating Disorder?
Googling: Why can't I lose weight even though I restrict?
Googling: Why do I binge?
Body checking or looking in the mirror incessantly to judge your body.
Avoiding certain food groups.
Assigning moral value to food. Good vs. Bad.
Comparing your body to everyone else in the room.
Putting yourself down all the time.
Making efforts to avoid social events with food or drink.
Feeling physical symptoms that are red flags (cold, dizzy, fatigue, mood changes, etc.)
Ok, so... How many of the above did you relate to? YOU ARE VALID OF HELP NO MATTER WHAT!
Disordered eating has become so normalized that many people often say they don't have a problem and everyone is doing it.
Here are things that are not actually healthy that Diet Culture makes us believe is OKAY:
🚩 Strictly Counting Calories and feeling bad about it
🚩 Weighing yourself daily
🚩 Restriction
🚩 Eating less than 1500-1700 cals a day ( MOST PEOPLE NEED WAY MORE)
🚩 Cheat days and meals (ALL FOOD SHOULD FIT INTO A HEALTHY DIET)
🚩 Food group elimination
🚩 Diet hopping
🚩 Hours of exercise a day (are you a pro-athlete? if not, this IS A RED FLAG)
🚩 Swapping movement for calories
🚩Food rules
🚩Sugar is evil
Again.. do these resonate? We don't need a label. We don't need to hit rockbottom. We can simply know that our relationship with food and fitness is not in alignment with living our most authentic and genuine life. If you feel bad about yourself daily, something has to change and it isn't your BODY!
QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF INSTEAD OF "WHY IS MY BODY THIS WAY?"
How long am I willing to settle for this?
How long am I willing to struggle?
How long am I willing to starve myself?
How long am I willing to hide?
How long am I willing to let my children see me treat myself like this?
When we start to ask these kinds of questions instead, shit gets real!
You realize it isn't normal for human beings to suffer at the hands of diet culture.
You realize it isn't normal to be exhausted and unhappy all the time.
You realize how many other women are settling.
You realize your children absorb everything you say and do.
You realize YOU CAN TAKE YOUR POWER BACK.
YOU DON'T NEED PERMISSION TO EAT OR TO WEAR ANYTHING.
You realize that diet culture is an illusion.
At Empowered RX we take small steps to create big transformations over time. AND NO the kind of transformation we are talking about has nothing to do with your body. We are talking about an inside job that impacts all aspect of who you are. We work on the physical, emotional and spiritual. It all matters.
What's next?
If you're feeling overwhelmed right now we get it. Once we see through the illusion of diet culture we can feel like everything we've known about food and fitness is a lie. It is natural to feel betrayal or anger. It's natural to start thinking about all the things you wished you had known in the past. Pause. Take a few deep breaths.
Here's what you can do next:
Delete myFitnesspal
Reach out to your Doctor
Subscribe to our newsletter at www.empoweredrx.org
Download our body image workbook to get started: www.empoweredrx.org
Book a discovery call to see how we can help! HERE
Join our FREE FACEBOOK GROUP for community support HERE
Head to Spotify or Apple Podcast to check out our podcast: Finding Food & Fitness Freedom
You deserve to feel at peace with food & your body!
You are not alone!
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