Anorexia Athletica [HealthLine]
Anorexia Athletica is a form of eating disorder where a person manages their caloric intake via obsessive-compulsive over-exercising. The individual exercises to the point of malnourishment, injury, and even death. Those afflicted tend to feel they have no control over their lives other than their control of food and exercise.
Signs of Anorexia Athletica
i. Excessive Physical Activity
Feeling they must exercise every day or they become restless
Feeling depressed, irritable or anxious if they miss a workout
Exercising even when they are sick or injured
Neglecting responsibilities and relationships suffer to exercise
ii. Restrictive Calorie Intake
Calculating how much they need to exercise based on how much they eat, or vice versa
iii. Irregular periods in women
Women may experience irregular, missed, or absent periods due to the low body mass associated with anorexia athletica.
Physical Repercussions
i. Electrolyte imbalance
ii. Muscle and bone fatigue
iii. Organ failure of the liver, heart and brain
What Does Fitness Mean After An Eating Disorder?
I’m sure those who have experienced eating disorders will wonder, “what even is healthy anymore?” With the vast amount of conflicting health information available online, health has become so subjective. Ironically, pursuing “health” once almost killed me. Being naïve and exposed to impossible societal standards, it is easy to take things to extremes without even realizing it. Soon enough, three clean meals become none; 30-minute jogs become 3-hour cardio sessions.
In terms of modern fitness culture, hustle and grit are hugely celebrated. Your discipline is measured by your determination and consistency. Longer workouts mean more calories burnt. Harder sessions mean more strength gained. While those are completely true and are indeed positive things to pursue. There’s always that fine line which people unknowingly cross, and very gradually end up at the extreme side of the spectrum.
When I was in the depths of my obsessive-exercise rituals, I could never think straight. I would lie to my closest family and friends about my schedules and whereabouts so that I could hide away to do more sit-ups and run extra miles. I would walk around multiple blocks in school during breaks or climb up the highest floor to use the washroom. Walking a few steps less felt like I was going to put on another pound, and I would compensate with another hour on the treadmill. These rituals were very much motivated by what I assumed as “hustle and grit”.
Exercise after recovery can be anxiety-provoking. Besides the perplexity of rebuilding a good headspace with food, cutting ties with obsessive exercise behaviors was just as, if not, more difficult. Going cold turkey with exercise for a period of time was imperative for me to gain back the necessary weight and fix my absent menstrual cycle. It was uncomfortable to the core, but that period of resting allowed for a lot of self-reflection and re-evaluation of these unhealthy habits.
Going back to the gym after gaining weight was scary too. Facing heads on with people who used to see you as the “skinny girl” as well as the loss of some stamina and momentum. I knew very deeply in my heart that I needed to do it right this time. There used to be a point in my younger ballet/gymnast days that I stayed active for the sake of enjoyment, and I really wish to find that again within movement.
Fast-forward to today, I’m glad to say that I have re-established that positive relationship with movement again and have even become a licensed fitness instructor. Though it may require constant reminders and awareness to avoid relapsing, here are some strategies that helped me stay relapse-free.
1. Embrace Slower Movement
Firstly, if you had taken time off exercise and are just coming back, do commend yourself for how strong you’ve been taking that leap to recover. As getting back to fitness may feel like a really intimidating and anxiety-provoking event, starting off slow is the key.
Walking and stretching are some things I started off with and am still doing today for rehabilitation. As you’re creating a healing process with your relationship with exercise, you want to get yourself warmed up to it again, slowly and steadily. It felt weird in the beginning because “it doesn’t feel like exercise”, but then again, it’s important to note that those are just cognitive errors from your past. Walking and stretching are amazing yet meditative exercises. These activities have healed a lot of my anxiety around movement as well as helped me find an appreciation for enjoying nature outdoors.
2. Avoid Engaging In Past Exercise Rituals
If you’re planning on starting fitness again, switching up your routine would be a good start. As I mentioned with the previous point, start off slow with walks and some yoga. As anxiety around movement improves, you can begin to play around with the intensity and duration, but always stay in tune with your body.
Vary your workouts throughout the week with activities you enjoy rather than routines you think you have to do. I never went back to my hourly-long treadmill runs and the compulsive routines following it. If I were to run on the treadmill, I would limit my time on it to no more than 20 minutes.
3. Change Your Exercise Environment And Find Community
I used to always work out alone in my room as working out with others “felt distracting” or that “I would risk cutting short my sessions”. Eating disorders can be an extremely isolating thing. We withdraw ourselves from social connections to keep up with our disordered behaviors – especially when it comes to our exercise routines.
Upon recovery, I signed up for a public gym for an environment change. Doing so encouraged me to try out different forms of movement through group classes. It was also nice to finally step out of isolation and to immerse myself in a more diverse fitness community.
Making friends with people in the community had been extremely enlightening – many of whom have taught me how to engage in movement for positive impact instead of purely aesthetic reasons.
4. Be Performance Rather Than Weight Focused
Upon the necessary weight gain during recovery, it’s tempting to want to engage in weight-loss behaviors again.
However, going to the gym or eating a meal with weight-loss goals in mind may risk you of relapsing into old patterns and hinder overall performance.
As I’ve been back in fitness for a while now and have become a licensed instructor, my training sessions these days can get pretty intense. For me to perform optimally in these sessions, creating enough mental space by letting go of my eating disorder tendencies is imperative. I had to delete the mindset of weight loss and replace it with the mindset of fuelling-for-performance. Letting go of the need to look a certain way allows for more mental and physical capacity to focus on the training at hand.
Giving up on micromanaging your weight provides you the freedom to focus on performance and functionality – not just in the gym, but also in other areas of your life. Keeping this goal in mind encourages you to take care of your overall well-being. You can’t perform well in any aspect of life if you are mentally/physically in a bad place.
5. Rest, Refuel and Avoid Compensatory Behaviors
Prioritize rest days just as much as your workout days. One very liberating scenario was that I was able to achieve better results despite working out less frequently than I used to. This was because I gave my body ample time to repair and recover. Prolonged or chronic stress caused by overexertion is known to bring detrimental side effects on your wellbeing. Hence, incorporating extra rest days helps rid of excess water retention caused by cortisol build-up.
Educate yourself on proper nutrition, but also give yourself the flexibility to enjoy your favorite treats. Incorporate ALL food groups (from salads to ice cream). Ditch the black-and-white mentality of junk food and clean food. We know what foods make us feel good long-term and help repair our muscles while providing us with sustainable energy, have more of that. We also know what foods make us feel good at the moment and are good for the soul, have that too. Building a good relationship with all food groups is essential for preventing that binge-restrict cycle. Food just becomes food, a substance that your body metabolizes to generate energy, rather than something to worry about all day.
Lastly, avoid compensatory behaviors. We’ve all been there. “Oops, I over-indulged in this meal, gotta work out harder later.” While for the general population this may be a positive thing, someone with a restrictive past may resemble these to binge-restrict and/or purging patterns. You don’t have to work out more if you’ve overindulged; you don’t have to skip dinner because you had a big lunch. To heal your relationship with food and exercise, you have to stop punishing yourself this way. Overindulged? You have all permission to give yourself some time to rest and properly digest and appreciate the energy you will find in your next training session.
Concluding Thoughts
My body has maintained a safe weight the past two years by eating both what I need and want on a daily basis, doing the exercises that I genuinely enjoy, and allowing myself to rest when I need to. The energy and clarity I have now have helped me achieve so much more than when I limited myself to my eating disorder behaviors. More so, being part of the fitness industry, it has become a duty to educate people about movement in a sustainable and healing manner.
While life circumstances and social media will always tempt you to fall back to old habits, others’ journeys and goals are not yours. Stay firm on your recovery and keep your head high. There will always be bad days, but better days are ahead as you allow yourself more compassion and care.
