I posted on the Exercise board with a different focus, and got some helpful comments but I’m posting here for more traffic.
I am in recovery from an eating disorder. I am weight restored to BMI 19.5ish, but whilst obviously it’s better because I’m not restricting my intake I still have a lot of disordered thoughts around food, my weight and my body. They take up quite a lot of my day.
I joined a gym recently and decided that I wanted to focus on building muscle - basically not getting smaller, “lean”, focusing on losing fat etc. I have found this has actually really helped because I now see my scales as useless as I presume I’ll be putting on weight due to gaining muscle. I also have stopped constantly checking for a thigh gap in the mirror.
During my ED I never had an issue with exercise, it was purely food. I’m only going to the gym three times a week at the moment as I’m a beginner.
Because of my ED I can’t track calories or eat anything other than intuitively. Any control I try to put on food quickly spirals and it’s not good. All I can say is with my knowledge of calories I’m probably eating 1800-2000 a day and increasing my protein.
At the moment I feel completely fine with it, not compelled to go to the gym more or push myself crazy hard (I have zero desire to be in loads and loads of pain the next day so I’m starting slow). However I don’t want it to become another way to control my body. I just wondered if anyone else with experience of starting the gym/exercise during recovery had any tips or advice?