Where I am Right Now

Hey guys! So as you may or may not know the main reason I started this blog is to share my journey on recovering from eating disorder and learning to grow into the person that God wants me to be. It is my hope and prayer that some of the things I share on here could encourage you in eating disorder recovery or just life in general. 

I don't want to go into my story in detail right now but I will share where I currently am. 

I call what I struggle with an eating disorder for lack of a better term but I don't necessarily like the label of eating disorder. For me my struggle with eating could better be termed obsession and idolatry of food and my body. I've always had a tendency to get bored easily and when I get bored I find something I think is wrong with my life and pick it apart. This is often where the unhealthy focus on food and my body comes in. 

I've had this issue for 7 years now but in the past 2 years I have seen a lot of growth in the way I think about and interact with food. I know these changes have come from God working in my life, getting out of the environment of high school, going to counseling at my college, learning about nutrition and how "normal" people interact with food, and hearing the stories of other recovery warriors.

How do I view things differently now than 4 yrs ago?

1.  I allow myself to eat as much as I want or don't want. I never used to trust my body so I'd measure out my food but now I do trust my body that if I want to eat a bigger serving of something my body will use the energy or if I eat less at one meal or on a certain day my body has enough energy stores to keep me going. 

2. I enjoy cooking and experimenting. This used to freak me out because I had to know exactly how much was in what I was eating. 

3. I had to eat at certain times and make sure my snacks were spaced about by an exact amount of time. Now I tend to eat around the same times everyday but rather than freak out if my eating schedule is out of wack I kinda enjoy it. Like last night I had dinner with my family at 8:30 and it was wonderful! 

4. I think about food less. I used to always be thinking about what I would eat next for a snack or for dinner and grocery shopping was the highlight of my week. I still enjoy grocery shopping and planning meals but there are many other things I enjoy doing and thinking about as well. Food should be part of our life. It should not be our life. 

5. I used to keep a log of how many times a week I had a super unsatisfying meal because food would cause me a lot of stress because I'd force myself to eat when/what I wasn't hungry for. Now I mainly eat what I want and if I find myself a little upset by what I ate I typically find something to distract myself and don't let food determine the quality of my day. 

However I wouldn't call myself 100% recovered. This is a journey and I'm still on it.

1 .I still don't have a period(probably an indicator of my body not having enough energy overall).

2. I still spend a lot of time in the mirror analyzing the way my body looks. 

3. Occasionally I'll still find myself distracted by thoughts of food

4. I am still learning how to exercise because I enjoy it and not because I feel like I have to

5. I still sometimes struggle with obsessive thoughts that I'm doing something wrong, eating in a way that's wrong, or that I look wrong.

Thanks for reading whether this applies to you or not. But know that if there's anything in life that's causing you distress and interfering with loving God and loving others, God has the absolute power to heal it. I remember crying out to him knowing that I didn't want to go on living life so focused on myself. Through the story in Luke 17 I

believe God was telling me to walk in obedience and faith and that he would heal me along the way. I'm still on that road but I know that he is and will continue to heal me everyday.  

Luke 17:14  "When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed."