Why recovery rocks....

RECOVERY.

A scary word, right? Food, weight gain, loss of control.

Well, yes, it IS scary. But the best things in life often are.

Here are some reasons why you should take a step towards recovery TODAY!

1. So you can see friends and not stress about them asking you to eat
2. To feel HEALTHY
3. So you can learn to love your body for what it does for you
4. So you can, ultimately, be happy

Why do you want to recover? Even if you're not sure you really do.... Think of an answer anyway :)

"I'm Ana this week, I need to lose a few lbs"

Ahhh, a serious pet hate of mine, and an opportunity to ramble away to my heart's content :)

"Ana is a lifestyle choice, not a disease."

I shall start my dissection of this rather lovely statement with some statistics:

• Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness
• A study by the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders reported that 5 – 10% of anorexics die within 10 years after contracting the disease; 18-20% of anorexics will be dead after 20 years and only 30 – 40% ever fully recover
• The mortality rate associated with anorexia nervosa is 12 times higher than the death rate of ALL causes of death for females 15 – 24 years old.
• 20% of people suffering from anorexia will prematurely die from complications related to their eating disorder, including suicide and heart problems

Read more: http://weighingthefacts.blogspot.com/2008/03/eating-disorder-courage.html#ixzz19zP3I7pR

Wow. Some lifestyle choice.

There are two things in particular which drive me to screaming point about this.

1. Impressionable or just stupid people believing that "ana" is a diet. They think they can eat 500 calories a day for a week and that means they have an eating disorder.

2. Part of having an ED is the belief that you're fine, actually. Encouraging this through the pro ana movement is dangerous. Simple as. It normalises the abnormal for goodness sake!

If you are a member of the pro ana movement, I beg you to think very carefully about WHY. 

Is it because you get support? Well I'm sorry but pro ana does not give you sensible or healthy support. It encourages you to avoid treatment. join plentyoffish.org or anabites.webs.com for sensible support

Is it because you need to lose weight? Well then you are misguided, join minimins for healthy weight loss support.

Is it because you don't want to get well? Take another look at those stats at the beginning. Really? THAT is what you want? It may be what ED wants, but that is not you. Not really.

The problem with pro ana

In order to publicise my website, I've been visiting a lot of pro ana sites. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not naive, I know what they involve - I used to be a member of several - However the constant contact with this sort of material has got me thinking.

 Pro ana, what IS it? A lifestyle choice? a failure  to recognise an illness? A diet? I think to some extent it's all 3. A very bad combination in my opinion. It encourages extreme diets for a start.

What's wrong with an extreme diet? Well, when you embark on one of these, a chemical reaction starts to happen in the brain. Being hungry becomes pleasurable, you feel like you don't need to eat, food even becomes unpleasant to you. Why? Because your body thinks there is a famine and so tries to protect you by switching off your hunger mechanism. Great, you may think?

Wrong. Your body is now in starvation mode. Anything which passes your lips is instantly stored as fat. Your metabolism has slowed right down. Some of your organs are slowing down too. All this means that weight loss is very difficult, and long term weight loss impossible.

So. You've stumbled across the term pro ana, you need to lose a few pounds, and now your in starvation mode. What does pro ana encourage next?

Self loathing. It tells you that you are weak. Useless. Need to work harder. Of course it works, thats why anorexics are thin. You must not be eating little enough. Cut back more. Greedy cow.

It introduces you to the dreaded thinspiration. All those tiny women, they can't eat much, I'd  love to look like them. Must try harder.

Great, so pro ana gives us:

1. the idea that an anorexic lifestyle can be used as a diet
2. Feelings of inadequacy when we don't lose weight fast enough
3. a sense of failure and therefore a dented self esteem which can start a "restrict" cycle

Messed up metabolism meaning you feel trapped into continuing the crash diet to maintain any weight loss.

What a wonderful thing. And this stuff is available to insecure teenagers who think they need to look like Miley Cyrus to be popular?

And don't get me started on the ignorance around genuine EDs it inspires. That is a topic for another day.

love,
Bella xx

Remember to visit www.anabites.webs.com for some common sense advice and support for EDs of all kinds.

just some ponderings

I'm not sure what I'm going to type today - lets just see where I go with this lol...

We had Chinese take away last night. I ate vegetable chow mein and chicken with mushrooms. It felt like the safest option but I still felt the need to carefully monitor my portion size and I still made sure I ate fruit and yogurt for breakfast to make up for it. I guess that's something to get used to after an ED - it's not always as easy as you can make it look.

   Today, we are enjoying a lazy film day. So far we watched "Enchanted" (Except I kept getting distracted by Gisselle's skinny frame. She is TINY.) Then we watched Bee movie and Wall E. Lol a proper kids movie day :)

It's  nice though, just chilling. I should make myself do it more often.

Peace and Love,
Bella xxx