How Gaining Weight Made Me Happier + Healthier

Sharing what it’s like to battle with an eating disorder, how eating disorder recovery has changed me + why I’m still fighting 6 years in.

In 2013, I lost 45 pounds in 4 months. I did it quickly + I did it recklessly. Strangers + friends told me how good I looked, how they envied my willpower and my motivation. Sadly, beneath the size 0 clothes that I had dreamt of fitting into for years suddenly lived a girl that I didn’t recognise anymore.

I bought into the lie + it changed everything.

I bet you’ve believed it too. That voice that tells you how much more desirable you’d be without the belly roll that sometimes pokes out of your jeans. Or the one that insists you have to cover up your arms with a long sleeve shirt to look pretty. It’s the same lie that shames you for eating a cookie + keeps you from doing that thing or going out on that date or chasing that dream until you’ve lost those last 5, 10 or 50 pounds.

But what I found on the other side of my culturally accepted obsession with thinness and my learned food restriction wasn’t happiness like they promised. It was an eating disorder.

I lost the weight, yes, but my crushing need for approval only grew as my stomach shrank. With each pound, I watched my ability to dream, my capacity for joy + my reserve for hope go right along with them.

They told me that being skinny would fix everything, and they lied.

How I Accidentally Became Anorexic

I never intended to starve myself. In fact, all I really wanted was for my stomach to look a little bit flatter in my bikini. Funny how these things work…

I had just left my first job out of college + moved across the country, back to my home town. After almost 7 years away, I didn’t really have friends or any sort of routine. I had left a home that I loved to pursue a new job + I felt uncentered + unfocused.

When some people that I knew from church invited me to swim with them each week, I said yes, excited for some human connection in this new place. Then I panicked. Compared to the other swimmers, I was a bit of a bigger girl. Surely if I was a bit smaller, I’d fit in better, they’d like me more.

I’d never missed a meal on purpose before, but I learned that skipping lunch on swimming days helped with the belly bloat. It worked for awhile, but before I knew it, skipping lunch turned into skipping breakfast and lunch. Then, the snacks went too. In a matter of weeks, I was living on energy drinks, diet soda + less than 700 daily calories worth of vegetables and jelly beans each day.

I never set out to develop an unhealthy relationship with food. And yet, here I was.

How Disordered Thinking Becomes Disordered Eating

My eating disorder continued just as it started, hard + fast. Within a span of a few months I went from eating like a healthy, normal human (consuming what I craved when I was hungry + stopping when I was full) to a skinny, self-obsessed, fearful girl who spent all of her free-time working out, making forbidden food for other people, or lying in bed watching youtube videos about dieting.

I was completely out of control.

The thing is, I was under no false impression that I was okay. I knew that I was ill. I felt trapped, lonely, desperate.

But I also felt powerful.

If I stepped onto the scale in the morning and the number had decreased, I walked on air for the rest of the day. I loved when people noticed that I was thin. In fact, I wanted them to know just how much will power I had – that I could do whatever it took to get smaller + smaller + smaller. Every compliment about my weight loss spurred me on. People applauded me, asked me for tips, envied my new figure.

I was obsessed with maintaining my new status. I was desperate to continue my new life as the “small girl”, always taking up less space.

But I was also tired + cold all of the time. Spending time with friends was scary because food was almost always involved. I became terrified of eating. It triggered guilt + shame + self hatred. So I starved my body until I didn’t even feel hunger anymore. In fact. I couldn’t really feel anything.

This kind of toxic behaviour continued for nearly 6 months before I got desperate enough to change.

Choosing Eating Disorder Recovery

I dropped 3 dress sizes in a matter of weeks, and the people that loved me realised that something was wrong. But no one knew how to help me. Even I knew that I needed help. Late at night I would research eating disorder rehab facilities, but the fear of letting go of control was too overwhelming for me to reach out.

I just prayed + cried a lot.

One evening, about 6 months into my new reality, I went into the bathroom to get ready for bed. I turned on the light + looked into the mirror. I was wearing this little, pink nightgown with small roses on it, and I pulled it tight around my waist. My normal, evening routine involved a thorough examination of how I looked that day. I’d study my stomach from every angle and lament over every imaginary roll and bump and imperfection – motivation for the next day of restriction.

A common struggle of eating disorder sufferers is hyper awareness of their body. They’ll often “body check” multiple times a day, pinching and prodding the parts they don’t like. Body dysmorphia unfortunately spurs on this weird obsession.

But on this particular evening, instead of the fat, frumpy girl I had grown accustomed to seeing in my reflection, I saw a thin one. One who had bones sticking out of her skin + dark circles under her lifeless eyes. And in that moment, I couldn’t lie to myself anymore. I hated what I had done.

I knew that I didn’t want my life’s story to be anorexia, and so I fought with everything I had to change it.

The Long Road to Wellness

If you would have interacted with me in the months that followed my severe restriction, you might have believed that I was healed. You might have even believe that I was well. I know that I did.

But, the thing is, I wasn’t.

My true, clinical eating disorder, my anorexia, only lasted 6 months. But the mental + emotional beliefs and habits were more deeply rooted.

I knew the calorie content of almost every food. I knew how much I’d burn in each hour of exercise. I knew the measurements of my stomach, my arms + each of my legs.

And as much as I wanted to be well, I couldn’t get away from the same old lies. I constantly heard women talking about their weight + how to lose it + how to diet everywhere – on the news, in the magazines, on social media, in local coffee shops, at work + even in my own family. What in the world would I be if I wasn’t the “skinny” one?

I wish that I had immediately sought out a professional for help, but I didn’t. Instead, I clawed my way out of the hole I was in with the help of dear, dear friends who loved me back to life. It took grit + fight + a lot of hard work (and tears).

The battle of returning to some sort of “normalcy” has been one of the most challenging things I have ever done. It has involved doing things that I didn’t always want to do + stopping behaviours that would have been much easier to hold onto. But every day it feels more and more worth it.

Fighting for Food Freedom

It’s been 6 years since I actively struggled with anorexia. I would consider myself fully in eating disorder recovery + living an incredibly happy and healthy life. And do you know the single most important aspect in every single facet of my recovery both past and present?

Gaining weight.

I know it’s countercultural to say that and even more so to believe it, but I do. To my very core.

I always believed that if I gained weight people would think that I “let myself go”, that I was greedy or lazy or lacked willpower. But do you know what? People aren’t thinking about me nearly as much as I think they are.

And those extra pounds that I carry now, my bigger booty + my tummy rolls? They’re my husband’s favourite.

And while I can’t lie and say that I don’t still have days where my old patterns of restriction or my formerly emaciated body feel tempting to me, because at 6 years in I still struggle, I can proudly say that I choose recovery every single time. I acknowledge the thoughts, replace them with truth + move on.

I know that what I want more than anything, especially more than just being thin, is to be well. It’s to love my body. It’s to live a life where my appearance is the most boring part of me, where I don’t even think about food because I’m so caught up in loving the people around me. I want to eat birthday cake with my future babies. I want to have a spontaneous ice cream party with my husband. I want to eat what I want, when I want + for it to mean absolutely nothing about my worth or value. I want to love those extra pounds because they represent joy + freedom + life.

I’m the healthiest that I’ve been in years, and I’m also the biggest.

But you and me? We’re so much more than what the number on the scale or the size on our jeans tell us.

Life is about so much more than what we eat.

***If you or someone that you love is actively struggling with an eating disorder, seek medical help immediately. The longer an eating disorder goes untreated, the more entrenched the behaviours and thought patterns become. My story is not normal. It’s the exception, not the rule. Most people are unable to break the cycle without intervention. A doctor or therapist is best equipped to help you start your own road to recovery.

P.S. This is part one in a series that I’ll be sharing on how I built my own current version of food freedom + what wellness looks like for me now. I’d love to hear what you’d like to know or any questions that you have! Leave the in the comments below.

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