Recovering from an eating disorder can be very challenging. Each person will have their own path toward recovery and will recovery will look different for everyone. While there isn’t a magic solution to fix your eating disorder, hanging onto the right habits will help. Adopting new, healthy habits into your lifestyle will help you improve your overall habits. If you ditch the toxic habits, adopt healthier ones in their place, and stick to these changes, then they may become a part of your daily routine.
Ditch the Scales
If stepping on the scale is a negative experience for you, it’s time to ditch the scale. The moment you step on the scale, you’re deciding things for yourself- whether you’ve succeeded or failed, or how you feel about yourself. In addition, the hard work of diet and exercise isn’t always reflected on the scale for new exercisers, especially during the first few weeks. Scales also don’t tell you about your body composition and how much fat you’ve lost, they only tell us how many pounds you’ve lost. However, you don’t want to lose muscle because losing muscle lowers metabolism and, eventually, contributes to a loss of mobility and power.
Ditch the Comparisons
The first step to stop comparing yourself to others is to identify your triggers and avoid them. Once you are aware of situations that make you likely to engage in comparisons, you can take action to avoid them. Another great way to ditch comparisons is to limit your time on social media and maybe even delete it all together. You can also unfollow accounts that cause you to compare yourself to others. When trying to ditch this habit, think about how you can spend your time instead. Some healthier habits include going outside or for a walk, reading a book, or calling a friend.
Adopt Affirmations
Affirmations can be a great tool in helping you overcome your eating disorder. Affirmations can help strengthen self-worth by boosting both your positive opinion of yourself and your confidence in your ability to achieve your goals. A great way to remind yourself to say these daily is to say your affirmations at the same time every day, write them down, and stick the on a mirror. Some affirmations for eating disorder recovery include “I am confident”, “Small progress is still progress”, “my worth is not defined by the scale”, and “I will be kind to my body today.” You can find a longer list of affirmations for eating disorder recovery here.
Adopt Gratitude
Gratitude is more than just saying thank you and is a great habit to adopt on your way through recovery. Expressing gratitude can also be about acknowledging and appreciating where you are in life and giving back to others. One way to adopt gratitude into your daily life is to have a gratitude journal. People have reported that they experience greater levels of optimism and overall satisfaction with their lives, in addition to improved physical health and lower stress levels when they keep a gratitude journal. In your gratitude journal, there are many different prompts you can write about. Some include listing things that made you smile this week, thinking about a time when you were able to help someone else, writing a thank you note to yourself, and writing about something that you’re looking forward to. To learn more about gratitude journals and to find more prompts, click here.
