What It’s Like Rebuilding a Movement Practice in Eating Disorder Recovery

Content warning: This story contains references to eating disorder recovery, which may be upsetting or triggering for some readers.

The advice in this story is specific to the writer’s individual case of orthorexia recovery and current relationship to movement. Recommendations about restarting exercise in eating disorder recovery are highly individualized, and you should always talk with your doctor and treatment team about what's safe to do at your own stage of recovery. 

 

The first time I exercised outside of mandatory phys-ed classes was a 6 a.m. spin class when I was fresh out of high school in 2012. My avid gym-going parents had convinced me to take their favorite instructor’s class. “You’ll love it, Eva is so great!”

Eva was great, and I wanted to please her because she looked like she genuinely loved her class. So I cranked that resistance dial up each time she encouraged us to. It was grueling, especially for someone who never really did phys-ed. But in the end, I decided spin classes weren't for me.

My parents never explicitly said it, but with the influx of comments from relatives about my weight gain in the months after high school, the timing of pushing me into that spin class wasn’t mere coincidence. Nobody had ever commented on my weight before.

A year later, my relationship with my body began to fracture. What started as a weight-loss goal leading up to my university's ball continued long after the ball was over. Perfectionism had started to whisper (wrongly) that the control I had exerted over my body was an acceptable means to achieve its validation, and I fell into perfectionism's arms. It introduced itself to me with a new name, orthorexia, and it governed how I exercised. I moved my body for the sole purpose of achieving a certain aesthetic. I scheduled fun life activities around training and was wracked with anxiety and guilt when I missed sessions.

It wasn’t until 2015 that I fully recovered from orthorexia. Along with a full recovery came a distinct thought: I no longer desired to control how my body looked. Losing that desire was freeing—I was living life as intended. But losing the main driver for why I had exercised also meant restarting movement wasn't easy.

Over the last nine years, I've tried to work out consistently, but it's never stuck. I've gone through random spurts of exercising regularly for a week or two, but those bouts of motivation petered off quickly.

I now realize that, during my battle with orthorexia, I thought of movement as punishment, so it's no wonder I was subconsciously resisting it.

Lauren Muhlheim, PsyD, FAED, CEDS-C, a psychologist and certified eating disorder specialist at Eating Disorder Therapy LA, explains it's common for people in my situation to think this way. “Most of us don’t want to do things that we feel we have to do,” she says.

But it's possible to overcome this type of mental block—I'm living proof. Nowadays, I schedule more catch-up walks with friends, shamelessly dance in the kitchen to my favorite '70s and '80s hits, and play badminton on Saturday nights. I no longer feeling guilty for not doing the "right" workouts, and I can confidently push back when someone tells me that I should.

After what my body has been through in the last decade, if this is what movement looks like for me in my first year in my 30s, I feel proud. And when my movement practice shifts and inevitably changes, as life shifts and changes, I’m ready to welcome it, whatever it looks like.

Alongside Dr. Muhlheim, I spoke with Alanah Reilly, AEP, accredited exercise physiologist, and Leah Hantman, CES, clinical exercise physiologist, both exercise physiologists who help people re-engage in movement post-eating disorder recovery. Here are some of their most helpful recommendations in hopes that you experience the same freeing paradigm shifts that I have.

1. Learn how to choose movement that supports the life you want to live post-recovery

Reincorporating movement in your life after having been through an eating disorder is a unique experience. It requires reprogramming your thinking to learn how to select movement that supports the life you want to live post-recovery instead of choosing movement for body image control and perfectionism.

Reilly, who holds an advanced scope in trauma-informed movement and eating disorder recovery, says to remember this: “Every person's movement is highly individual, and we want movement that will help us be present and help us be the person we want to be.”

Reilly suggests reflecting on what you value and the kind of person you want to be before brainstorming movements that could support these.

2. Choose movement that you truly enjoy

Think about what you enjoy doing that falls into the realm of moving your body, Dr. Muhlheim advises. Not something you believe is “good” or “correct” or what you “should” do. Not something that pushes your heart rate past a certain number or provides resistance to your muscles. Something you actually like to do.

Taking a walk with a friend, dancing in your kitchen—“if you find joy in doing it, it counts,” Dr. Muhlheim says.

I thought back to how I'd viewed the exercise I'd done post-recovery and realized that I hadn't actually failed to incorporate movement into my daily life. I had been moving—dancing all night at parties, strolls with friends, walking my parents’ dog. Funny how I’d never counted any of these activities as “proper exercise.”

“There are usually barriers to [motivation], and when we get to the root of them, it might be self-limiting beliefs coming from diet culture about what it means to truly engage in fitness.” —Leah Hantman, CES

3. Make peace with your past experiences with movement

“If you feel safe to do so, reflect on how you've interacted with physical activity in the past, providing yourself with compassion and acknowledging that you were doing the best you could in your situation to keep yourself feeling safe and soothed,” Reilly says.

She suggests approaching it from a curious lens of “I wonder what has happened to me?” instead of “What is wrong with me?” Then, reflect on how there may be a different way of engaging with activity now.

Reilly recommends doing this with a psychologist or a trusted loved one.

In the past, I was doing movement that could silence voices—both inner and external critics—quickly. That meant doing workouts that I thought would bring results I could physically measure and see, proving to my brain I was doing "enough" and to shut those voices up. This was the best way I knew how to soothe myself at the time.

Today, I no longer have that inner critic, and I'm able to shut out those external voices. I have the agency to select movements I actually enjoy.

4. Compassionately notice all-or-nothing thinking surrounding movement

You may harbor a self-limiting belief that you're only truly engaging in fitness if it looks like “XYZ.” I know I did: I believed that if I didn’t exercise at the level I used to at the height of my orthorexia, I was unfit.

“High standards in all-or-nothing thinking as we move forward to reintegrating exercise can be a huge barrier for making progress,” Hantman says. “There are usually barriers to why someone is feeling unmotivated, and when we get to the root of them, it might be self-limiting beliefs coming from diet culture about what it means to truly engage in fitness.”

Reilly advises reframing how you view movement, such as: “I've been through a lot, and my time, energy, and capacity has got me through some really difficult times. I am now re-establishing my relationship with movement in a more sustainable way. I am worthy and morally good, regardless of my fitness status.”

If you have access to a psychologist, consider working with them to tackle all-or-nothing thought patterns (which happen outside of eating disorders, too!).

5. Remind yourself that movement is something you do throughout your entire life—not just right now

With my twenties came the niggling pressure to start exercising now to prevent disease. When I turned 30, the looming health risks of skipping exercise started to terrify me. However, it did nothing to get me back into the gym—I believed I had missed my chance. I was already 30. It was too late, wasn’t it?

“It's never, never too late to start,” Reilly says. “Consider looking at movement as being across the lifetime, so there's no pressure to do it right now, or have it be ‘perfect.’ If we're able to meet ourselves where we're at and engage in activity that is process driven, that's helpful to us, even if it's imperfect for what our standards perceive. It's actually predictive of better long-term well-being outcomes because we are more likely to actually do the movement.”

Knowing there's no ticking time bomb to movement is freeing. You have the power to choose when movement flows in and out of your life.

What to do if re-engaging in movement triggers past disordered tendencies

“If you find this experience of moving your body or exercising is triggering, I would recommend doing some journaling and self-reflection, tapping into what was triggering and why, and sharing that with your treatment team, therapist, or doctor,” Hantman says.

If you don't have a treatment team, you can seek immediate support through a helpline:

1. National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders
   • Call 1-800-375-7767
   • Cost is free from Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. CST
2. National Alliance for Eating Disorders
   • Call 1-866-662-1235
   • Cost is free from Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. EST
3. National Eating Disorders Association Helpline
   • Call 1-800-931-2237
   • Cost is free from Monday to Thursday, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. EST, and Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. EST
   • For a 24-hour crisis line, text “NEDA” to 741741

If you or someone you know is struggling with an eating disorder, call the National Alliance for Eating Disorders Helpline at 1-866-662-1235 for immediate support or go to allianceforeatingdisorders.com or anad.org/get-help for more resources.