Watching The Pot.

Have you ever heard the saying, “A watched pot never boils?” I mean, the water always eventually boils, but it seems to take FOR-EV-ER when you are staring at it waiting for it to happen. It’s like the minute you walk away from it, it starts boiling and you are like WAIT, when did that happen?!

I feel like this saying describes the past couple months of my recovery to a T.

When I first entered treatment I was told that I would gain weight, it would stop and then I would lose it and go back to my normal size. So far the first two steps have happened. I gained. A LOT. It stopped and it just stayed there, for like over a year! Soooo, when does the last step happen? When do I lose all this overshoot weight? What can I do to make it happen? Am I doing something wrong? Am I eating too much? Am I eating enough? Should I work out harder? Maybe my body is different and won’t ever heal? If I work out will my body gain again? I’ll never feel like myself again?! These are all thoughts that I was having daily. It was stressful. It basically consumed my mind all day every day. When will I lose this weight?!

I was concentrating so much on my recovery and my desire to finish recovery and get my body healthy and back to normal, a lot of other things in my life seemed to drop off. I didn’t care about my job, I didn’t care about being social, I didn’t care about who I was as a person and what my purpose was, I was just obsessed with getting my weight back to normal and feeling better so I could get on with my life.

A couple of months ago I finally came to a breaking point. I was stressed, anxious, exhausted and knew there had to be something better then just day in and day out hating myself, hating my weight and waiting for it to change while doing EVERYTHING I could with tiny results. I felt like I was watching the pot and it wouldn’t, freaking, BOIL!

I’ve talked to SO many people who have recovered from an eating disorder. Many of which had weight overshoots like mine and very similar journey’s. Literally every single one of them told me that when they accepted their body where it was at, stopped thinking about it and just lived their lives, that’s when the weight started to come off, their body healed and then went slowly back to normal. I pretty much refused to do this for the longest time. I didn’t want to live life overweight and was desperate for it to go back to normal. But, in the wise words of my father, I sat back, assessed the situation and asked myself, “How’s that working out for you?” The answer was, it wasn’t working out well that’s for dang sure!

So I decided that it was time to stop the insanity and listen to the wisdom of those that have gone before me. I needed to stop watching the pot and live my life to the fullest. I decided to accept my body where it was at and just move on. I knew I was going to a good doctor. I knew I was doing everything I could to heal and get back to normal. So, the only thing left to do was get out there and live life and let my body slowly heal and return to it’s happy place when it was ready.

I decided to concentrate less on recovery and more on living life! I was going to therapy, my dietician, my support group and doctors appointments almost weekly. Once I decided to stop watching the pot and get out there and live I scaled back all of these right away. I needed to trust what I learned and put it into practice. I started going to therapy every other week or every three weeks. The dietician I would go to every other week and my doctors appointments every 8 weeks!

I knew that this was a major turning point in my recovery. There have been a lot of woman in my support group who knew they were almost recovered when they realized they wanted less treatment and more LIVING! After three years, I was finally at this point. I wanted to do less treatment, trust my body to heal, accept this is the way it is and get back to living!

So I did just that. I bought some new clothes, started to get out and move more. I bought a bathing suit and actually wore it with my family. If you read that blog you know I was nervous to wear it in public, but guess what?!?! I DID! Last weekend I was in VA beach and I wore my bathing suit at the beach! I took off my cover up, got in the water and had an AMAZING time! I’ve started to work more again, started a book club, up’ed my involvement with church and more!

You know whats crazy? Everyone was right! In the past three months I’ve started to feel a lot better. I’m not as anxious and stressed and to top it all off my body has been slowly and steadily losing the weight. It will take another six months to a year to fully get back to normal, but it’s happening! I was so busy living life and before I knew it I went into my dietician, was weighed and bam, I had lost weight and I didn’t even know it! This is EXACTLY what the people who went before me said would happen.

It’s been a great change and it came at the perfect time. I’m about to move and start a new chapter of life and I can do it know with renewed hope that my body will heal and I can love myself and LIVE LIFE exactly where I’m at while it does.

When I took my eyes off the pot and got busy living life, the pot started to boil! I feel like I’m so close to the end I can almost taste it. I have a feeling that by next year I will be able to say I’m recovered and I CAN’T WAIT!

xoxo

- Sara -