Discovering Recovery?

In January I published one of the most popular blogs I’ve written on this site – “When Exercise Becomes A Problem”. Thank you so much for all the people that got in contact, to ask questions, to understand more, who were inspired to read more about the subject or think twice about what exercise might mean to people. I’m really glad it made an impact.

So I didn’t do a great job at following it up.

This is a bit of an update on eating disorder recovery, and exercise addiction.

Its been a difficult start to the year. There have been a variety of events and stressors in my life – many way beyond my control, which have significantly impacted my mental health and my ability to move steadily forwards with eating disorder recovery. I’ve suffered from massive setbacks in most areas of life at one point or another.

But I’ve learnt so much.

And similar to how a year ago, I learnt so much about self-harm because I was supported through an incident rather than having support/care/treatment withdrawn. I am learning a lot about my eating disorder because I continue to be supported despite the ups and downs and setbacks and relapses.

I have never had eating disorder treatment that has followed me through the ups and downs of my chaotic life. Previously care at home being chaotic meant I was unable to engage with eating disorder programmes (or they were unwilling/unable to engage with me) so treatment was terminated. Relapses in ED behaviours resulted in treatment being withdrawn. Mental health crisis meant that I was considered unable to engage. I’ve never had the opportunity to continue being supported in eating disorder recovery through these events. Until now.

And this has helped me start to explore what recovery means for Ellie, in the context of my chaotic life, the situations that are beyond my control and at times traumatic, my fluctuations in mental well-being. These things aren’t going to go away any time soon. Recovery for me means learning how to batten down the hatches to weather the stormy times. And right now, that involves an eating disorder team helping me work my way through those times, instead of jumping ship and leaving me blind at the helm.

I’ve always been told what recovery should look like. Being a certain weight, doing a certain amount of exercise, eating 3 meals and 3 snacks and a wide variety of foods, being weighed when it suited the ED team – not me… but now we are exploring what recovery looks like on my terms, and I’m still not 100% sure what that actually looks like, but the point is I’m getting to explore where I didn’t have the choice before.

Understanding recovery and exercise

My only interventions regarding over-exercise and my eating disorder previously have been total exercise bans. Which teach me nothing. Every single time, my exercise problem comes back worse than before. The back end of 2023/beginning of 2024 this had reached an all-time peak. My whole life was dominated by exercise. There wasn’t time for anything else, not friends, not family, not food, not work, not forms of exercise that I actually enjoyed and definitely not rest.

4 months on I’m maybe not where ideally people would like me to be regarding exercise and rest, but my attitude and understanding around it has changed significantly, and although I’m generally unable to rest, there has been some decrease in intensity and more importantly an increase in more enjoyable forms of exercise. I don’t feel quite as bullied as I did before, but I am still over-motivated to move and feel overwhelmingly guilty if I don’t.

What has helped?

We spoke extensively about my exercise. We spoke about it now and through the course of my life. We explored why exercise became such a coping mechanism. We spoke about what Ellie enjoys and what her goals are, versus what Anorexia would like me to do and what her goals are. They understood that being active is part of who I am. Instead of banning me from the gym entirely, we scheduled a meeting with the gym manager, myself and a member of the ED team. We talked about the problem at hand, we worked together to think of a reasonable plan, discuss what I did and how it was basically cancelling each other out – so I would never reach any of my own personal goals, and we met again with one of the personal trainers. I worked with the personal trainer for a couple of sessions to try and extract my goals from Anorexia’s, to learn about the importance of rest, and to have some accountability. Now that people at the gym knew my problem, that did help me think twice before going straight in for my rigid exercise routines. More people at the gym (both staff and other gym members) are aware of my situation – and are less likely to push me further than I should go, or to make unhelpful comments. I have at times walked away from a class when I have felt uncomfortable (for example a circuit that involved timing the exercise based on calories burned) and this has also been OK.

I really still have a lot of work to do but there have been some major changes. The main one being that I am not excessively on the cross trainer multiple times a day (or generally at all, though I do sometimes slip back into it for a couple of days). Yes I do exercise every morning and evening, but its varied – sometimes its a run, sometimes its weights, sometimes its a class, sometimes its yoga. I’ve even started skating and doing acro again. Because I’m not running every single day and being pushed forward by Anorexia’s bullying voice, I’m actually enjoying running more. I go to the gym for the social aspect, not just to burn calories. I feel part of the community there and have people I chat to and hang out with, its not just about the exercise anymore. On a recent trip to France to see a friend I got great joy out of running in the early morning April sunlight along the canals, soaking up the beautiful French countryside and feeling energised rather than depleted.

Understanding recovery and trauma

For the first time ever in eating disorder treatment I have been allowed to speak about trauma and how that plays a role in my attitudes towards food and my body. Of course there is still a hell of a lot I can’t and don’t speak about or even understand myself. But of the things that I do understand, or things that affect me, we are able to explore that and not brush it aside.

What has helped?

Acknowledging that trauma does play a significant part in my eating disorder and attitudes to food and my body. And that some of this is on-going. Understanding that some battles are best not fought, but thinking of back-up plans that keep me safe and healthy in those circumstances.

We have looked at the specific impact of my trauma-related inability to use heat-producing devices which means I can’t generally cook for myself. We explored which of these might be easier to address and settled on if I was able to use a microwave and an air fryer (I can already use a kettle) that this would provide me with so much more freedom over my food than I have had in years – instead of having to rely on others all the time. I touched a microwave for the first time in 5 years, and put a cup of water in and shut the door. This sounds like nothing to most people but for me its a huge step.

Unfortunately this has all had to be put on pause as I was living in an unsafe situation, but throughout this time my therapist has reminded me that we will be coming back to it, once its safe enough to manage. I’m constantly reminded that its still in their mind, and we don’t stop working on it entirely just because there was a wobble.

Understanding recovery and mental illness

Instead of turning me away at points where I am in crisis, they have gently supported me and let me know I can feel held. This in itself is massive. Even through a significant mental health crisis, where I actively tried to push away support as I was convinced I was a waste of time, a hopeless case and unable to recover – they refused to let this happen. Their absolute belief in me when I have none has gone a long way into me trusting its worth investing in this process.

What has helped?

All too often, having mental health problems and an eating disorder is a huge barrier to treatment. Eating Disorder services don’t like working with mental illness (especially in crisis or if risk is present) and mental health services don’t feel confident working with eating disorders. This time, things have felt more collaborative – me, my carer, my community psychiatric nurse and the ED service met together. They communicate with each other. My CPN has always felt a bit anxious about pushing me too far about eating disorder stuff, but (much to my dismay) the eating disorder service modelled how to be more assertive when addressing my eating and exercise. This has meant that try as I might, my eating disorder can’t run rings around professionals anymore. The same goes for my regular carer – she has been involved in my care and received a course of 1-1 carer sessions which has boosted her confidence in managing my eating disorder. Sometimes I wish all of this didn’t exist, so I could slip down the cracks and get on with what Anorexia wants me to get on with – but I know that the real Ellie is grateful for this deep down.

Understanding recovery and neurodivergence

There are aspects of me that are somewhat neurospicy. I struggle with change, changes of plan, rigidity (which is a problem when in my eating disorder but can sometimes be a benefit in recovery as I can also be quite rigid about “getting it right”), sensory stuff is a big issue for me, things feel “right or wrong” for no particular reason, I struggle with choosing things, I can’t handle eating with a big spoon. All things that can, and do impact my eating and my recovery. In the past I have struggled in some eating disorder treatment settings because I wasn’t allowed to eat with a small spoon (I have never eaten with a big spoon in my life, and my family are the same), prefer to sit in the same place when I eat, have very specific ideas about which foods go with what. And some of these things have lead to me being “unable to engage in treatment”- and there was very little wiggle room for accepting that some of these things were just me and how I am, not eating disorder behaviours. Being asked to eat dessert after lunch is hard enough, but being told I have to eat it with a big spoon that makes me physically shudder (nails down a chalk-board sort of thing) is nigh-on impossible. For the first time, we’ve talked about these things and how they might influence what the reality of recovery looks like for me

What has helped

Acknowledging that some things are eating disorder related and some things aren’t, and some things do get worse when I’m more anxious so are more likely to be prevalent when I am less well. In particular we have discussed how much I struggle with decision making, choosing what to eat, managing the supermarket and all the choices there etc. In the past treatment has often encouraged full recovery to be something that involves eating a variety of different meals each day. But this is overwhelming for me, because there are too many choices, too many decisions and I literally will melt-down because of decision fatigue, not because I don’t want to eat. So we discussed that maybe a way forward would be to choose meals for breakfast, lunch and tea that I then eat for the whole week, before making a new choice for the next week – therefore reducing my decision-making from over 20 times a week, to once.

I can spend an epic amount of time in supermarkets, just looking at food, but when it comes to doing an actual food shop I flounder, there is too much choice, its too overwhelming. So I’ve started shopping at Lidl. Not only is it cheaper (handy on an unstable income) but most Lidl shops are laid out more or less the same, and there is not a particularly wide choice of each different food. When things are going smoothly now I can do a quick Lidl shop for my weekly food plan in 20 mins, without help. Which was impossible before.

For the first time I’ve considered how my sensory issues with clothing might affect my body image and therefore recovery. I’m quite well known for not wearing leg coverings – and this is largely a sensory thing, I really struggle with the feeling of material on my legs. So I go bare-legged most of the year. I also struggle with trousers, so I wear leggings, shorts, skirts and dresses. But I’ve realised this extends a lot further, and social pressure to constantly wear different outfits, or the have the right clothes, maybe doesn’t fit for me. I really struggle with the sensations of different materials, bands, fits – and it makes me hyper sensitive to my body. I’ve started to pay more attention to my clothing from a how it feels point of view rather than a how it looks or how socially acceptable for the situation it is. Its not quite that straight forward but it has helped my body image, to not constantly be able to feel every inch of my body all the time. It has also helped to reduce the options of clothing I have to wear. Though I have realised I have a problem with buying black yoga/cycle shorts – different ones can feel very wrong or right at different points, even though they look the same to everyone else.

Understanding recovery and body image

Although I have had body image input in the past its either been in a group setting where I’ve felt too ashamed of my body to really speak about it properly, or I’ve simply been too distressed by my body to engage in exercises. Body image takes up about 95% of my headspace, is something that never really gets any better when I’m in a remission period, and is nearly always at the forefront of my mind in relapse.

What has helped?

We have talked about body dysmorphia, we’ve talked in raw detail about how I perceive my body, and how this can change literally within seconds. How I find life so disconcerting when I genuinely don’t know what I’m going to see in the mirror. My self-image is very distorted (and fluctuates) and I do know this from previous interventions that have given me concrete numbers to evidence this. But despite that, I can’t really ignore what I see for myself, and my body image and how I see myself continues to distress me significantly on a daily basis. I’ve been allowed to cry and be upset about this without fear of judgement, or people saying “it doesn’t matter what other people think” etc. Because it does matter what I think. I don’t know if I’ll ever get to a better place with body image, from the age of 3 I’ve had problems with it. But at least I have a non-judgemental space to be honest about how I feel and explore that a bit more.

Understanding recovery and relapse

I’ve had an eating disorder for over 20 years. And I’ve pretty much had issues with most eating disorder behaviours during that time. Although I’ve reached periods of relative “wellness”, this is never sustained very long. And in particular, I’m unable to sustain this independently without carers or support workers supporting eating.

What has helped?

We have started to explore why I am unable to sustain “recovery” for long. Is it because I am striving for something thats unrealistic for me? Is it because I define recovery as a very fixed term with fixed criteria? Is it because we don’t plan for the inevitable ups and downs in life (which are particularly accentuated in mine) and only plan for a nirvana where I have all the things I need for recovery easily accessible? Is it because we’ve missed some major things before? A lot of the points I have discussed above have all helped me start to understand some of these things that mean I repeatedly relapse.

I have relapsed during this course of treatment – quite significantly at points. But because I’ve been supported through this, helped to explore and climb my way back out, I’ve started to understand more some of the specific triggers for relapse. Some of these include housing instability, wanting to gan back control in a life where I have little control over a lot of aspects, burn out and not prioritising food…and many more. Some of these are more easily dealt with. If I can’t prioritise food and manage decisions around food then I can go back to basics, mechanical eating, just get the fuel in. And thats OK for a period of time. Some of them are harder to manage – my social situation remains chaotic and sometimes I just simply don’t have the means to get access to food, or the headspace.

When I’m relapsing I don’t always have the desire or means to get out, or belief that I can turn it around. Sometimes climbing a hill I’ve already climbed feels too much. But at the moment I have people pointing out where I’ve already anchored points up the slope – so all I have to do is reach to grab them and its easier to pull myself up than before. But I still need reminding.

I still have a long way to go. I’m not in the greatest place with eating at the moment but I am much wiser than I was at the beginning of the year. I’m really grateful for the support I’ve received and I am determined not to throw it all away. I do want to show that there is hope for people who have been unwell for a long time. That sometimes by doing things a different way we can find that life worth living.

Appearance Matters?

Its almost considered a rite of passage in modern society to have some hang ups about your body. We’re constantly bombarded by adverts offering products for “flawless skin”, “banishes wrinkles overnight”, “lose arm fat”, “burn those pounds away”. Despite the more recent body positivity movement, we are still saturated as a society by this weird pressure to have at least some hang ups about your body. Its almost not OK to love the skin you were born in.

I’m not denying that this is a problem for a large amount of the population – and that most people will have some issues with their body to some extent. But when do these little hang-ups and gripes become a serious problem? Issues with body image are fairly common, but at the most extreme end of the spectrum is the less-common body dysmorphia – a mental health condition where the suffer spends so much time worrying about a particular aspect of their body that they perceive to be “wrong” in some way, that it severely impacts their ability to live a normal life, with sometimes catastrophic results. These flaws are not perceived by anyone else, only the sufferer and can cause significant distress and even lead to suicide, Body dysmorphia is often associated with eating disorders but not always, the sufferer could for example have such a belief that their nose is the wrong shape that they go to extreme lengths to cover it, up, try to change it, constantly check it in the mirror. They are not vain, they are in distress.

For some sufferers of eating disorders, body image is never an issue – after all, eating disorders are not ultimately about weight – but about things a lot deeper down than that. For some, they may have great body image before the onset of the eating disorder, struggle with body image whilst unwell but get back to a better place when their body and brain is adequately nourished and physically healthier. For some, body image is an issue for a lifetime, and recovery means battling these issues every day for most of your life.

I am one of those people.

I first began to perceive myself as “too fat” aged about 3. By the time I had reached junior school (aged 7-8), this had become a major issue that took up most of my thinking time. I struggled massively with my thighs and my stomach in particular. When we had to sit cross-legged on the floor in assembly I would cringe at the way my legs bulged behind my knees when I crossed (anyone who has legs and is able to cross them will notice that this is perfectly normal), I would sit with my elbows covering my knees, or sometimes pulling my t-shirt over them (which would serve the double purpose of covering up my stomach) – a behaviour that always got me told off by the teachers. In school orchestra in Year 4 I can remember sitting there, horrified at the way my thighs splayed out on my chair, when I couldn’t see that other peoples’ were doing the same. PE lessons were a constant source of stress. Not only did I have to do my spectacular changing over to my PE t-shirt without anyone seeing even an inch of my tummy, but the actual lesson of PE filled me with dread as my perceptions were that fat people couldn’t do sports and that was A Bad Thing. As a self-perceived fat person this meant I was constantly presuming others were judging my sporting ability based on my fatness.

Objectively the situation was very different. I was a competitive swimmer and trained 4-5 times a week. My legs were muscle not fat. Old photos show a perfectly normal-sized child (admittedly with some seriously dodgy haircuts) – wearing baggy clothes because she was a “tom boy” when in actual fact it was because these covered up my body more.

I vividly remember the first time I wore a strap top, I was so self-conscious. Now I had the tops of my arms to worry about too.

Moving on to secondary school didn’t make things any easier. My first secondary school had no uniform and clothing was an absolute nightmare. I felt self-conscious in everything, and spent years in oversized t-shirts with a sweatshirt tied around my waist to cover my “stomach rolls” and my bum. I was delighted when, halfway through year 10 I moved to a different secondary school with a uniform. A combination of not having to decide what to wear, feeling more comfortable in school polo shirt and jumper, and the “mosher” trousers phase (40cm diameter on my trouser leg hems) meant my body was fairly hidden. Though I still couldn’t think about much else aside from my fatness. Puberty definitely didn’t help the whole situation.

After that I developed Anorexia aged 17 and started self-harming age 18. I don’t think I have had a day in my life for at least the last 30 years where I have not felt fat, ashamed of my body and conscious about it in every way. I have been a multitude of different body sizes since then – underweight, overweight and all over the spectrum of normal weights. I hated myself at every one. Even when I am underweight, and I may understand this factually, and be able to see a variety of things on my body that confirm my under-weightness… I will still be hung up on my double chin, the saggy skin on my stomach, the fact my arms have some flesh on them which splays out when I squish them to my sides.

I come across other people who complain about their bodies (something that I rarely do out-loud at all in public or to many people except on a one to one basis with a handful of people I really really trust – mainly due to the fear of someone turning round and agreeing with me) but can laugh it off at the same time or not feel the need to sit and worry about it. Or who feel vaguely guilty about eating something but then just carry on with their lives. I think this where the line between normal issues with body image and pathological issues with body image is. Whether or not you can carry on your life because of it.

My life is impacted in every single way by how I feel about my body from the moment I wake up and every when I’m asleep:

My sleeping position (on my front so my stomach is squashed)
It takes me 10 outfit changes every single morning (if not more) to finally feel acceptable enough (and just because an outfit was OK yesterday or this morning doesn’t mean its OK now) – and thats nothing about fashion, its simply do I look fat in it or not.
Conversely sometimes I am so overwhelmed that I can’t change my clothes and will wear the same thing day after day.
Never being sure when I walk past a mirror what I will see in it. For me my perception of my body varies wildly throughout the day. I can feel OK about it one moment and turn round and see something grotesque and disgusting the next. Every single time I look at a reflective surface I have no idea what I’m going to see. I can’t picture myself and what I look like in my mind’s eye at all.
Constant body checking – this might involve pulling at my clothes, touching part of my body, looking at mirrors/windows etc. I’m pretty much doing this all the time.
How I stand/sit and how I hold my body. If I am having a conversation with you I will be conscious of how you are definitely perceiving my fat bits and will be doing things to try and cover them up or hold myself so I look less fat. I will often sit with a pillow or cushion in front of me to cover my stomach, or fold my arms over it or pull my knees up if I’m sitting down.
Worrying about my size, shape and weight every second of every day. I often lose track of conversations because I’m too preoccupied with it.
Crying and feeling hopeless when I think about my body. I can even feel suicidal (and have attempted suicide) over this.
Self-harm can sometimes be around body image for me (especially my face).
And obviously, any eating disorder behaviours, including exercise are driven by my want for a different body.

Even when I’ve been at the point where I have been really physically unwell due to my low weight. I am still convinced I am somehow fat. Right now as I write this I am thinking I am fat. Nothing anyone will ever do or say will change this. Complementing me often makes things worse, I can’t take a compliment on my body – I whole-heartedly don’t believe it and don’t see it. For me, I am too fat. That is a fact. And that fact never changes, regardless of my size.

I’m not vain, I’m not into being stylish or having the latest clothing and fashions. But I am obsessed with how I look. I don’t judge other people and their worth as a person based on their body or their body size, I couldn’t care less what you look like. But I care what I look like – even if I haven’t washed or changed clothes for weeks and look a state and might not look to you like I give a dam about how I look, its way more complicated than that.

There are treatments that can help with body image problems and body dysmorphia. Usually there are root causes – bullying, trauma, other mental health conditions, societal pressure etc. and these are what are often needing to be addressed for any long-term change. CBT can help keep certain behaviours and thought patterns in check. Medications such as anti-depressants can also help. I do know people that have got to a much better place with their body image issues so change can happen. Often if the body image problems are associated with an eating disorder, once the brain is appropriately fuelled some of these issues resolve themselves naturally.

For me I’m not so sure. I have had a lot of input into my body image issues over the years, but there has been very little change in my perception of myself, if any. I think for me it is still a case of there are a lot of unresolved, very deep down issues, so surface-level treatments such as CBT don’t do much for me. I am trying to come to terms with the fact that recovery from my eating disorder might still involve having body image issues. I’ve been to quite well places with my eating disorder and still struggled immensely with preoccupation about my body. But when I think too hard about that fact it makes me quite distressed so I try not to.

It can be hard to know what to say to someone who struggles with body image. The chances are if they’re not talking too much about it it is troubling them more. I tend to advise that people just avoid commenting on bodies and size/how well someone looks etc. at all – its not useful or necessary. Things like “I love that colour on you” is more helpful if you do feel the need to comment – things that can’t be directly related back to the person’s body. Even if you are saying something with good intentions (“you look well’ is a common one), chances are that person’s brain is twisting the words around to back up their perceived ideas (for example, “you look well” for me means “you have put on weight”.). There is no point saying “well I think you look beautiful” or “you don’t look fat to me” – as it probably won’t change what that person is feeling. But validating their feelings (not agreeing with the perception but agreeing that the feeling it provokes is hard and that you are there for them – for example “I can see that thought is really upsetting to you. I’m here if you want to talk about it” could be helpful).

Letting someone know that you love them/like them as a person/appreciate their friendship regardless of how they perceive themselves is nice.
Accepting their feelings and not judging them as vain or obsessed, or presume that they are judging you because of it.
Offer space to talk
Acknowledge feelings rather than thoughts/perceived ideas. “I feel fat” is not a true feeling – its a thought. “I feel fat and that makes me feel ashamed” – has a true feeling in it, shame – and thats what you need to focus on.
Practical support – sometimes body image issues can interfere with every day life – do they need support going out of the house, shopping, choosing an interview outfit?
Celebrate successes – have you noticed your friend body-checking less? Let them know you see the hard work they’re putting in.
Learn their triggers. If there are specific comments or scenarios that trigger your friend’s body image thought patterns try to avoid them, or stand up for them if someone else is triggering them
Don’t get drawn into debates about how someone looks. This is not helpful.
Boost their confidence in other ways which isn’t about how they look.

When Exercise Becomes a Problem…

Trigger warning: Eating Disorders, Purging, Hospitals, Exercise.

NB: I will refer to myself as a fat person with negative connotations in this blog. This does not mean this belief that fat = bad relates to other people. The only human being I believe this of is myself.

*Takes a deep breath*

“My name is Ellie. And I am an addict”

Not something most people probably expect to hear from me. And my addiction isn’t what people default to thinking about when they think about addictions.

I’m addicted to exercise.

Most of you are probably reading that thinking “Big deal – don’t see the issue there”, “I could do with a bit of that exercise addiction”…and things along those lines.

Too much of anything is never a good thing. And that includes the holy grail of “things that are good for you”…physical activity.

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m an active person, I skate, I cycle, I do circus stuff, I like being outdoors etc. And thats totally true of me and who I am. Most people who know me will also know I have Anorexia. And these two things don’t always mix well.

I’ve always had a complicated relationship with exercise. As a child I did ballet and swam competitively. Ballet in particular has a reputation for being less-than-helpful for a child’s body image and the development of eating disorders. PE at school was horrific, I was shy and not good at any of the sports they did at school (the half-term of swimming lessons we got in Year 5 was my only time to not feel like a sedentary, worthless, fat blob). And all of this, paired with a complex relationship with netball and the politics that came with it at university – meant that for quite a while I avoided sports.

By the time I was an adult I had a full-blown eating disorder. And I have always displayed purging-type behaviours. My “go to” being self-induced vomiting but also other behaviours such as laxative abuse. However, over the years, exercise started becoming one of these behaviours.

Exercise saved my life, when things got very complex with my mental health – one of the ways out of the pit of darkness was re-discovering physical activity on my own terms – skating, circus skills, outdoor things. I am in no way saying exercise is bad, nor that it is bad for me in particular. But everything in moderation.

Over the years though, my attitude to exercise changed, even though I was doing activities because I genuinely enjoyed and was passionate about them, at the back of my mind was how many calories I was burning, and that it was something to keep my weight in check, that I needed people to know I wasn’t lazy, or that I needed people to know I was doing something about my fatness. Because exercise was so important in managing my mental health and well-being, I started to see this as one of my only ways of coping with difficult feelings. I was yearning after a toned-svelte body. Or more to the point, not to feel “fat”. Or more to the point, not to feel emotions. The girl in the mirror repulsed me, when I looked at my body I could see nothing but rolls of fat and bits that I hated. I was pushed forwards by my hatred of my own body.

The first time this became a proper issue was around 2018, when in a relapse of my eating disorder I became obsessed with skating as much as I possibly could. Although I came out of this relapse in terms of eating, I also came out of this relapse with a fairly high idea of what “normal” was for amount of exercise. But it was in check, I was doing stuff I loved and was sociable and fun, and I was fuelling my body properly. Things over the next couple of years perpetuated this dependence on high levels of physical activity – including another relapse of my eating disorder, an absence of anywhere safe to be during lockdown when the only reason to be outside was “partaking in exercise”, a loss of my driving licence which meant that my main form of transport was walking or cycling, and a huge part of my identity being “Ellie the roller skater”.

Fast forward to 2022. I’m in a really crappy life situation and had very little control over it. Perfect time for Anorexia to rear her head again. And she did this with all guns blazing. Combined with restriction of nutrition and fluids, purging and laxative abuse, my already high levels of exercise remained high – my body couldn’t handle all this and I ended up seriously physically unwell in hospital multiple times that year, coming close to dying at one point. My brain became more and more obsessed with burning calories – a starved brain will go back to its pre-historic ways of working which is to notice a lack of fuel and encourage us to move – as back in caveman days if we were hungry we needed to go hunting. In today’s modern day society that translates to excessive exercise and movement. In hospital after a near cardiac arrest, I was convinced I was off on a 4 hour bike ride the next day. My starved brain couldn’t understand why this physical activity wasn’t compatible with my body’s physical situation. Throughout this year I continued to exercise against medical advice. I honestly didn’t understand why it was a problem, exercise is good for you. I’m fat, need to lose weight, I’ll continue.

At the end of 2022 I was so physically unwell that I had no choice but to give up exercise. At that time in my life I could barely sit up for more than 10 minutes at a time. At the beginning of 2023 I began to get a little better physically and improved my intake and cut down other purging behaviours, I had some support from the eating disorder service but I was still banned from any physical activity and this was never fully addressed before I reached a “healthy” weight and was discharged from the service. Straight away I launched myself back into cycling everywhere, skating and other things that were a normal part of my life. Straight away I also started restricting. In July I started running. Every. Single. Morning. Rain or shine, injury or no injury, late night out or early night. I still ran. I have never really run before in my life. I was delighted that I went from hardly being able to run a few hundred metres to running non-stop for 30 minutes in a matter of weeks. I was finally getting fit and healthy! Maybe I’d no longer be a fat person.

Spurred on by my first park run (sub 30 minutes, 2 months after taking up running), and positive feedback from the world around me “you’re so dedicated”, “you’re so determined”. I continued. I got worried about the winter and that I would get fatter as it got darker and colder so I joined the gym. The person doing the induction commented on my ability to hold a plank “forever and a day” and my visible shoulder muscles when trying out the weight machines. This spurred me on even more. People seemed to be perceiving me as a fit person not a fat person. Gosh. They must be half-blind, I’m just a fat, lazy person masquerading as a fit person – I’d better do more to prove myself. I. Could. Not. Stop.

As my exercise increased, my intake decreased. I had been subsisting mostly on fruit and vegetables for several months – but eating in front of people from time to time when going out for a meal. Everyone thought I was doing well with food. Nice to see you out and about. Great to see you doing the physical activity you love. I. Could. Not. Stop. It would be letting others down.

But I wasn’t loving it. I would be wishing that someone would stop me. Physically hold me down and stop me having to go out and run in the rain. I would be crying in the gym. Constantly aching and feeling horrific. I turned down more and more social events. If it wasn’t physical activity orientated then I wasn’t going. Then slowly this balance tipped even more. Even my previously loved active hobbies like skating and circus were replaced by running, cross trainer and random gym classes. I managed to keep doing things like yoga – but even this I would be doing an excessive amount of times a week on top of everything else. Each week I had to do more than last week, to prove I wasn’t lazy. I. Could. Not. Stop.

I perceived nothing wrong with what I was doing. The reason I hated it was because I was still too fat and lazy. I would find any excuse as to why I needed to do my exercise. Things started happening that were quite scary. Collapsing after park run. Finding myself on a dark country road in the rain, no bike lights, muscles not responding and brain hallucinating police cars going past again and again. Spraining my ankle after a morning of being bullied by my eating disorder to run from class to class. Cross trainer, run to yoga studio, hot pilates class, run to gym, weights, yoga class, run, run back to gym, dance fitness class…I carried on going despite having fallen, sprained my ankle and spent 10 minutes crying on the floor in the woods because I was worried I wouldn’t get my exercise hours in that day. I. Could. Not. Stop.

The recommended weekly physical activity levels became my daily minimum. Hours in the gym before work, followed by more activity after. If I was working from home then I would pop across to the gym in gaps in my day. If I was working from the office it was chance to get an extra cycle in. But I still had to sit down to do my job. I was genuinely considering giving up the job I loved in order to do one that was more physically active. I. Could. Not. Stop.

I referred myself to the Eating Disorders charity. They took me on straight away. The care was so Ellie-centred, so trauma-informed, so much more than I was expecting or thought I deserved. But the exercise is a problem. People are telling me its dangerous, I’m at risk. I have a history of a dangerously low heart rate and other cardiac issues and these could happen again. But I don’t understand. I’m not on death’s door like I was a while back. I understand I do a lot of movement – but I have my reasons for it. My intake was increased and my exercise just increased with it. I’m sitting in meetings with professionals who know me well, who I trust and respect. They’re all on the same page, telling me this is a problem. My eating disorder doesn’t have anywhere to hide and I squirm throughout the meeting with nowhere to escape to. But something in my mind makes me feel like I must be pulling the wool over their eyes in some way. Can’t they see I’m fat and lazy. I. Can’t. Stop.

The last few paragraphs are all things that have happened in the past few weeks. I’m still in the middle of it. My whole life is exercise. Last week I counted 27 hours of exercise – and I definitely didn’t include everything. I. Can’t. Stop. I want nothing more than to recover from my eating disorder. And I’m almost happy to be told I need to eat more. But I can’t stop exercising. I can’t imagine how I would function without it, what I’d do with my time, how I’d manage my mental health, how my body would balloon in size, how my body image would just get worse. People probably think I’m being less active because I am not turning up to the skatepark, to work, to acro practice – but in reality I’m stuck doing things that burns calories more intensely. I hate having to spend hours on the cross trainer because thats what my eating disorder tells me to do. I will turn down a skating session with friends in order to do that. I hate having abandoned all my friendships and social life. I hate that I only wear sports clothes and that it took me 4 months to dye my hair and even when I did it I had to go to the gym to work out with bleached hair before I had time to dye it properly. But I hate my body even more than all of these things. And thats what keeps this going. I. Can’t. Stop.

I have read a bit more recently on exercise addiction. And I do see everything in myself in the writing and the criteria. I do understand I have a problem. But I don’t know how to solve it. I’ll take a little advice from exercise professionals – but many don’t notice the problem. But I struggle to take on board what everyone else is telling me.

Exercising a lot is only ever perceived as a good thing. Society encourages us to do more – chastises those that don’t move enough and putting those that push their bodies to the physical limits on some sort of super human pedestal. The feedback I get from people I come across in my day to day life who don’t know the extent of the problem just give me more encouragement to keep moving. Recovering from a restrictive eating disorder is hard enough when society is full of diet culture and you have to go against the grain of what your head is telling you and what society is telling you, but most people can conceptualise that an anorexic needs to eat more. The general population struggle to conceptualise that its possible to be too active, and my brain does too.

I don’t know what happens next. And I’m not writing this blog with any words of wisdom of how to help someone who is addicted to exercise, or putting themselves in danger because of it. I’m also not writing it asking for advice. I think I’m writing it to raise awareness. Ultimately the change needs to come from within me, but I’m not sure I’m there yet. I don’t want to throw away this opportunity I have of excellent eating disorder support which is right for me. I also don’t want to throw away my life and the good stuff that could happen. I have genuine things I would like to do in life and some of these involve physical fitness – do a sprint triathlon, more trekking and bike packing. But anorexia is so strong, so all consuming – the thought of fighting my way out terrifies me. I’ve been in some dark and dangerous places with my eating disorder in the past and this doesn’t feel like one of them, although I’m told it is and also that my “baseline” for “I’m fine’ is spectacularly low compared to most people. It feels like a horrific thought to have to fight my way out again. But I know if I carry on it will only be harder to get out.

I don’t often write my blog posts in the moment of something being an issue. Most are retrospective when I have had chance to process the subject matter. But I felt that I maybe needed to blog at this point to show how confusing eating disorders can be for the sufferer. We have so many conflicting internal ideas of right and wrong. So I apologise for the raw and rambly nature of this one. But I hope it educates and gets people thinking.