Rosie Carlile

Accepting Weight Gain

It is the most difficult part of eating disorder recovery. Letting go of the sick and emaciated body that you spent years striving towards, the safety of a ribcage that sticks from under your bruised skin, and the comfort in listening to anorexia and her sickening demands. Your body changes day to day, meal to meal, as it tries to readjust itself to a regular feeding schedule and a substantial food intake. Bloating, cramps, stomach pains and no appetite are all part of the refeeding process. But what happens after that? When your body gradually remembers how to digest something other than diet soda, and you can see the numbers scribbled in the weighing room begin to increase. There is plenty of support to get you back in a healthy, strong and functioning body, but little to none when you are faced with dealing with the unavoidable weight gain, and the new body you begin to see in the mirror.