Thoughts on My New Low Weigh-In After My Past Eating Disorder

First off, yay to me!

I just reached a new low weigh-in — I’m 5 pounds away from my bodybuilding stage weight back in the day — sitting at 145.8 pounds this morning. 🤓

I’m currently cutting, not for bodybuilding, but for powerlifting, to get into the 67.5 kg (148.5 pounds) weight class.

I’m feeling great about this; feeling great in general and more energized than I ever have been while cutting, mostly because, when in competition prep, most of my favorite foods (and drinks) tend to be cut out, but I decided to continue eating my favorite foods (just less of it). Alcohol also tends to be cut out when cutting, but I said, “not today, Satan” and continued to sip my cup of Bailey’s throughout this cut and still made progress. *orders myself another Bailey’s.

So while this is all great news, I’m going to say something that may sound like I’m contradicting myself for a second. Let’s talk about what happened with me last night.

About Last Night…

So there’s a lot running through my head about this— I’ve been more open about my past with binge eating disorder (BED) which had developed from my bodybuilding days.

When I jumped on the scale today, I expected the number to be higher for a couple of reasons, but we’ll talk about the biggest reason: yesterday was a mess for me mentally.

When I got home from the gym, I ate my normal rice, beans and veggie bowl….

But then 30 minutes after, I ate half a jar of M&M’s, two rows of Oreos (but normally, in my BED days it was 6-7 BOXES of Oreos), 1/3 of my family-sized goldfish, and I drank 1/3 (what was left) of my Bailey’s…. Then I ate Domino’s pizza for dinner with cinnamon sticks.

Now this may sound extreme (because it truly is; this isn’t normal or really something to accept as “normal” even in today’s society), but this isn’t even CLOSE to what a binge looks like. Not. Even. Close. For me, this is emotional eating.

I struggle too, just like most people. But yet, I hit a new low weigh-in today.

Take My Advice with a Grain of Salt, But Here’s What I Recommend…

This is what I want to say to you if you currently struggle with emotional eating / S L A S H / here’s what I told myself when I was recovering from my eating disorder. These are all based on my own experiences, and I am absolutely not an expert in this; I’m just a girl who went through this and am sharing some of the mindset changes that helped me.

1. Lean into the struggles

Stop resisting it. It’s going to happen. Its going to happen because slip-ups tend to happen when recovering from something (or even when you feel you’re fully recovered). 

Do not shame yourself for that, but also understand that it is your responsibility, for next time, to figure out how you can better deal with this situation so you can get better. 

These things happen. No big deal. Lean into that shit, stop resisting it, accept what you’re going through, while having a bold determination to overcome.

2. If you’re feeling like you’re not getting better, get help!

I never got help, but it was because I felt I was too ashamed of myself / didn’t believe I deserved help / also didn’t know if I could afford help. Most of my BED stemmed from depression. 

Even if your struggle is emotional eating and not BED, getting help is important for the process and takes the “trial and error” out of something that is so beyond important to get figured out for yourself. Trial and error isn’t the best option when it comes to your mental and physical health. I can only imagine what it would have done for me.

I relied on people on social media in my community as my “help” and this turned out to make things so much worse for me. 

This is also why I can’t stand the “mental health experts” on Instagram who regurgitate what their therapist says to them and then preach to be mental health experts themselves. That shit can be damaging and, as you can see, immediately fires me up because it was damaging for me.

3. Stop worrying about anything but this moment.

I wanted to get better, but many people in my community at the time who had struggled, told me and everyone else that if you get an eating disorder, it will NEVER GO AWAY. 

Man, when my depression heard that, it said to me, “then why are we even trying to fight it here?” And so it was this back and forth of: doing really good and then getting really depressed and remembering the “good” didn’t even matter because it will never truly get better.

So that was my mindset at the time. I spent years in this “I’m okay, no, wait, I’m not okay” loop. 

Finally, I got to a point where I could say for myself, “binge eating is something I am not even worried about anymore,” even if I sometimes overeat or emotionally eat.

When I overeat, I don’t worry to myself, “oh shoot, it’s coming back.” You CAN heal from whatever struggles you have— whether it’s an eating disorder, emotional eating, or something completely unrelated.

When people warned me, “it never truly goes away,” I now understand that this meant something like, “its always going to be on your mind;” not that it never goes away. Also, this person was trying to get me to buy coaching with them and I also believe, after being deeper into the fitness realm, that this was a scare tactic to make me feel desperate enough to buy coaching (which I could not afford). This did more damage to me than it did help me.

Going back to the, “It will always be on your mind’ — it may not ALWAYS on your mind, but more-so when I eat Oreos; it’s on my mind. When I eat candy; its on my mind. When I eat peanut butter; its on my mind. Anything that I binged on or that used to trigger me into a binge; you don’t forget that, just like you don’t forget other big life experiences. It’s there. It just doesn’t hurt you like it used to. It doesn’t control you like it used to. You control it now.

Mostly when they say, “it doesn’t go away,” it’s because of reflection. I oftentimes reflect on the situation, thinking to myself, “I can’t believe I’m eating this so comfortably right now and not being triggered into a binge.” So sure, you think about it, but you think about a lot of things. That doesn’t mean it hurts you anymore.

Final Thoughts

Sometimes we still emotional eat, like I just did. It’s really not that big of a deal and one day you will be in a place where you will feel that way. Maybe a few years back, when still working on my recovery, I would get frustrated and say, “I already messed up, who cares if I eat more?” and then continue eating more.

That may be where you’re at now; it’s weird to not even be in that situation anymore. Realistically, I ate what I wanted because I allowed myself to, and while using food as an emotional outlet isn’t the healthiest; it’s something you learn from and move on. I really didn’t care about it that much and woke up to do my check-ins and weigh-ins to find that I dropped to the lowest weight I’ve ever been since my eating disorder and that’s when this became a moment of irony and reflection for me.

Just remember: if you overeat or even eat emotionally, it won’t hurt you. It won’t completely destroy your progress (just as it hasn’t with mine). I didn’t gain a bunch of weight after one moment. If its something you’re truly struggling with everyday or a couple times a week, though, its important to take action and get help because that’s when it will start to effect your progress.

I find this is a great time to express that because I know that the holidays are one of the times that many tend to eat emotionally and/or overeat in general. Anyways, I totally meant for this to just be an Instagram post, but I got carried away with my writing as usual, so I hope you enjoyed this unplanned blog post — have a great rest of your day and happy holidays!