Coming to terms with weight gain isn’t just one of the hurdles you must face in eating disorder recovery; for many, it is the one that is often the hardest pill to swallow. The idea of gaining weight can seem like a betrayal of everything you once fought for while struggling with disordered eating.
Giving up and growing past this deeply rooted fear can feel overwhelming. However, it’s necessary to live a life that’s so much more than your eating disorder. Understanding why weight gain is so crucial can help you accept where your body needs to be and start moving in the direction of peace and recovery.
Weight Gain = Control Lost
This fear of weight gain is so much more than just worrying about appearance or numbers. When you’re entrenched in your eating disorder, weight and body shape can become symbols of success, of effort paid off.
The time, energy, and control spent commanding and containing your body can feel like a personal achievement. In reality, this distortion only benefits your eating disorder’s ultimate goal: reducing you, your body, your health, and so much more until you are almost nothing.
So when it comes to gaining weight, it might feel like losing control and undoing all the effort put into managing yourself. The body you once controlled may now seem unfamiliar, like a suit that doesn’t fit right.
If you’re struggling with body dysmorphia or dissociation, this can create an even greater disconnection. In these moments, it’s easy to feel like you’re trapped in a body that no longer feels like your own.
Why You Need Weight Gain in Recovery
The discomfort and fear is real, but you have to process it as part of the recovery journey. Your body needs proper nourishment to heal and function optimally after the battle it’s been through. When you’re underweight, your body is operating in a state of survival rather than thriving. Weight gain in recovery is about giving your body the resources it needs to restore itself and function as intended.
Repair and Restoration
At the fundamental level, the biggest benefit of gaining weight is you’re gaining your health back. You’re giving your body what it needs most: the room to repair and heal the physical damage caused by malnutrition.
When you’re underweight, your body lacks the essential nutrients it needs to stay healthy. Gaining weight helps rebuild your strength and energy, supporting a functioning immune system, denser bones, and a hearty cardiovascular system.
It also helps with aesthetic issues that weaken over time due to disordered eating. Problems like brittle hair, weak nails, and worn-down teeth and gums can all start repairing themselves with the proper nourishment. By gaining weight, your body can finally prioritize more than the bare essentials. It can start regaining the energy it needs to thrive.
Benefits to Mental Health
As you start eating more healthily and gaining some weight, you might find that the “brain fog” you’ve been dealing with starts to clear up. Your brain needs the right nutrients to work well, so as you nourish yourself, you might find you have better focus and clearer thinking.
Moreover, when you’re struggling with an eating disorder, the drive to restrict or control can inversely create a constant obsession with food. The more you deprive yourself, the more intense those food thoughts can become. But as you begin to embrace recovery and eat more consistently, those persistent thoughts can start to quiet down.
By giving your body the nutrition it needs, you’re not just helping your physical health; you’re also easing the mental strain of constantly thinking about food. Over time, as you nourish yourself and start gaining weight, you might find that those intrusive food thoughts become less frequent, giving you more space in your mind to focus on things that truly matter.
Other Things to Keep In Mind
Going all-in in recovery, as we know, will bring inevitable changes to your body. Some things to keep in mind especially if you have been on a restrictive diet is that recovery may not look pretty.
In the first few weeks or months of improving your diet, your body will be processing more nutrients than ever. This uptick in digestion with more food in circulation will more likely than not cause bloating, gassiness, and/or nausea due to the changes in usual food intake.
This can make an already uncomfortable process feel even more intolerable, embarrassing, or upsetting. But know that, like you, this is just your body processing change. These symptoms with lessen over time as your body becomes used to being properly taken care of.
Coming to Terms With Body Changes
Initially, weight gain can feel uncomfortable, even alienating. If your body feels unfamiliar, you’re not alone. There can be a sense of detachment that rises to the surface initially, seeing your body change in ways that you spent so much time avoiding. But the only way through these feelings is, well, through it.
While body positivity is an important goal, it might not be the ultimate goalpost in those first initial recovery stages. The first step is to accept the body you have now and understand that it’s the one you need to live a fulfilling life. Your #1 goal at the moment should be making sure it’s nourished, watered, and rested.
Embrace Body Neutrality First
Recognizing your body for what it can do above looks or appearance will start the process of appreciating it for, instead of despite of, its weight gain. This acceptance isn’t about achieving perfect positivity; it’s more about coming to terms with the body you have and understanding what it needs.
Over time, you’ll start to gradually remember the reasons why you love your healthy, unaltered self. The reasons are numerous; you can hug better, dance stronger, sleep sounder, and feel warmer. This will take time, of course. But you can get there, along with a newfound sense of self-compassion and love.
Affirmations for Weight Gain
Handling the difficult emotions tied to weight gain can be a barrier to your recovery. However, there are ways those who have been through it too have navigated these feelings. Working on positive reframing through affirmations, for instance, can help change your perspective when it comes to weight changes.
Affirmation Examples
- I’m taking care of my body and helping it heal.
- My body was never meant to stay static. I will grow and change and that’s ok.
- Weight gain is becoming closer to myself and who I am actually meant to be and look like.
- As I gain, I get closer to be done with recovery.
- I deserve to take up space and live my life fully.
- I am not just a body, but my body can do things I love and want to do by getting better.
- Gaining weight means my body is getting stronger.
- I deserve treats and being treated!
Moving Forward
As you prioritize your health, you’ll find that you can better connect with and support those around you, as your focus shifts from disordered eating to things more important outside your bubble. Friends, relationships, family, passions, hobbies, and more all get strengthened as you come to embrace yourself and what makes you, you on the inside and out.
This journey is an act of self-care and self-love. It’s about recognizing your inherent worth and choosing to live a life where you can thrive. Moving beyond disordered eating behaviors allows you to rediscover yourself and embrace a more meaningful, connected existence.
Coming to terms with weight gain during eating disorder recovery is no doubt a challenge, but still an essential step towards healing. It often involves confronting the deepest fears and personal issues that ignited your eating disorder in the first place.
Your Body is Not the Enemy
But the enemy isn’t weight gain itself; the enemy is the disorder that kept you crippled for so long, with no energy, passion, or light to spare. Each step you take towards trying new foods or eating old favorites will put you closer and closer to a stable, beneficial perception of yourself and your body.
Remember that recovery only brings good things. It might not seem like it at first, but as you work towards healing and things settle, you’ll realize just what you were missing all along.
Embrace this process with compassion, and remember what else you gain besides weight when you’re in recovery. It is all worth it in pursuit of a fuller, more vibrant life.
