00:00:00

Intro

00:01:11

Why it’s important to prioritise recovery

00:03:18

Choosing specific priorities as part of recovery

00:07:11

How decision-making needs to occur during recovery

00:10:17

Recovery is hard – it shouldn’t be done alone

00:00:00

Intro

Chris Sandel: Hey! If you want access to the transcripts, the show notes, and the links talked about as part of this episode, you can head over to www.seven-health.com/325.

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Real Health Radio. I’m your host, Chris Sandel. I’m a nutritionist and a coach and an eating disorder expert, and I help people to fully recover.

Before we get on with today’s show, I just want to say that I am currently taking on new clients. If you are living with an eating disorder and you would like to reach a place of full recovery, I would love to help. I know the idea of full recovery can feel like some fantasy or some far-off dream and that it’s never going to happen for you, but I truly believe that everyone can reach a place of full recovery. It doesn’t matter whether you’ve had an eating disorder for one year or for multiple decades – everyone can get there.

So if you would like help in doing that, in getting to that place of full recovery, then just send an email to info@seven-health.com and put ‘coaching’ in the subject line, and I can then send over the details.

00:01:11

Why it’s important to prioritise recovery

On with today’s show. This one, I’m wanting to talk about the importance of making recovery a priority. I think it’s very easy for recovery to fall down the list of things that are important, for a number of reasons. I know it’s very scary to make changes as part of recovery, so it’s very tempting to avoid doing that. That then has a really big impact on the action that is taken and what happens in recovery.

Part of the reason for wanting to do this is just realising and reflecting on, the clients who really make inroads in their recovery are the ones that are finding ways for making recovery a priority. And when I say making it a priority, it’s not just in terms of the way that they are thinking about it; it’s in terms of the actions they are taking. The actions they’re taking are demonstrating that this thing is a priority.

The thing with eating disorders is it very much uses logic against you. It’s very easy to use this mix of logic and also even eating disorder logic for why certain actions should be put off for now. People can be very busy, there can be a lot going on with kids or with work, so the eating disorder says, “Just hold off having that meal now. Let’s have it later on, once we’ve finished all the things that we need to be able to do, or once we’ve picked up the kids, because then it’s going to be much more enjoyable.”

So it uses this logic of “It will be better if you just do this later on” and it can be very easy to then buy into that, and then later on you get there and “Okay, now it’s only an hour until dinnertime, so let’s just not do it now anyway. I’ll just have my dinner later on”, and before you know it, you’ve skipped over having a snack or a meal, and it was not intended in that way, but that’s just what happened.

What I’m talking about with recovery needs to be a priority is how to make sure that those things don’t happen.

00:03:18

Choosing specific priorities as part of recovery

One of the ways to do that, and one of the reasons why I’m so big on setting goals, is that this means that you understand, what is the thing that is going to be a priority? Because when we say recovery needs to be a priority, that can be pretty vague. That can feel like “Wow, I need to drop everything in my life and just focus on recovery”, and that’s absolutely not what I’m suggesting.

Often, I’m suggesting that people are bringing more of life back in as part of recovery, because too much of life has already dropped by the wayside, and when there’s a lot of idle time, that’s not great for recovery. It’s not great for the amount of thoughts that come up, it’s not great for how that time void is usually filled – which is usually with eating disorder behaviours.

So when I say recovery needs to be a priority, it’s understanding, what is the priority at this point? It could be that for this week, the thing that I’m focusing on is “I want to be bringing in this extra thing as part of my lunch” or “I want my lunch to be this new meal that I haven’t been having before” or “I want to be having my snack before 10 a.m.” So knowing that that is the priority, so when I’m looking at my day and everything that’s going on, no matter what happens, I’m going to make sure those things still occur.

What do I have to do in the morning to make sure that I’m able to have that lunch? Or what do I have to do in the morning to make sure I have the things for that snack at 10 a.m.? Do I need to be setting a reminder or something to go off on my phone? What are the things that mean that this thing will happen irrespective of the goings-on with my work or with my kids or whatever it is?

And that could mean that I’m now eating this thing way earlier than I thought I was going to because I’ve now got a call and I have to go pick up the kids, and I have to deal with something that I wasn’t expecting. So I’m now eating my snack way earlier because I’m going to make sure that this thing happens. Or I thought I was going to have 15 minutes to really relax and eat this thing, and now I’ve got two minutes and I’m just shovelling it in my mouth because that’s what I need to do to make sure that I’m able to keep up with this priority and to keep up with this goal, because otherwise it’s going to get pushed back and pushed back.

So looking at, “There are things that I need to do so that I can continue to make this goal happen, and I can make this goal a non-negotiable” and figuring out what that needs to be.

When I look at what happens for a lot of people, recovery seems to be one of the last things that is a priority, or it’s very easy for them to allow other things to come in and get in the way. So yes, work was busier, and it’s not that that is up for debate; it’s just there is a situation where you can have busy work and “I’m still prioritising making this change.”

I think just starting to make that shift where – as I said, it’s not just about your thinking, but I think that’s important as a starting point – “I’m going to make sure that this thing happens irrespective of what’s going on, and I’m going to always find a way so that this goal still happens. I’m going to do that with my thinking, but I’m also going to then do that with my action-taking.”

What happens when you’re super busy and you still find a way and you do that for two or three or five days in a row is that now becomes the norm, and you realise that “No matter what’s going on, I will still find a way to do this goal” versus the thought that happens when that thing keeps getting skipped: “I need to have the best of circumstances, all my ducks in a row, for this thing to actually happen, and if that doesn’t happen, well, I’m just not able to do my goal.” I think that’s the shift we need to have occur, which is “No matter what happens, I will still be able to do this thing.”

00:07:11

How decision-making needs to occur during recovery

One of the things I think could be useful here is just looking at how decision-making occurs with eating disorders. When I talk about eating disorders and when I think about eating disorders, I think of them as anxiety disorders. And with all anxiety disorders, they are about avoidance. With avoidance, it’s either “I’m going to do certain things or I’m going to not do certain things so that I can avoid certain thoughts or feelings or sensations or events or things from occurring.”

So often, what this means is that when I’m doing a pro-recovery change, because of the eating disorder, they will put up all the stops to prevent that from occurring. They will want to delay it. They’ll be like, “Let’s do this later on. We need to focus on this other thing first.” Really just doing enough to create doubt, to create delay, so that it’s more likely that as time goes on, we’re not actually going to follow through on making that decision. The opposite is when there is an eating disorder related behaviour, that thing just happens automatically, and it happens very quickly.

What I’m suggesting in terms of the decision-making process as part of this to help recovery be a priority is that really needs to be flipped so that when there is a pro-recovery choice or decision or change that needs to be made, this is made very quickly.

And again, this is why I think doing the goals in advance is really helpful, so you’re not entering into a meal thinking, “Okay, what am I going to do as part of this?” You’ve already decided in advance, “The goal for this week is that we’re doing this thing, so now it’s time to have that meal. I’m turning up and I’m simply eating, because I’ve already made the decision in advance, I’ve already prepared the thing in advance. All I’m having to do is actually take the action. There’s no decision-making as part of it.” So it’s “I’ve come to this time where it’s a pro-recovery change and I’m doing it very quickly.”

And then the opposite needs to take place in terms of the eating disorder thoughts. If there’s an eating disorder thought that’s suggesting you should delay something, you do the opposite and you do it very quickly. But if there’s an eating disorder thought of “We need to do this eating disorder behaviour – maybe we need to go for a run to compensate”, this is where we need to put in the delay. This is where we need to spend more time putting that behaviour off as opposed to it being an immediate thing. We’re going to put that behaviour off, we’re going to keep doing the goals and creating more and more distance between yourself and that behaviour.

Too often, it’s the opposite that is occurring, and all of the goals or the intentions for pro-recovery changes just keep getting put off and put off and put off, but very quickly are eating disorder behaviours being done.

00:10:17

Recovery is hard – it shouldn’t be done alone

I know that none of this is easy. I know it is much easier for me to say this than for you to do it, so I really want to acknowledge that. I do get it. And I’m saying this because it’s important, and this is the thing that starts to make a difference between you making the recovery actions and you making inroads in your recovery and starting to really notice some meaningful changes versus “I’ve been at this for six months, I’ve been working so hard with this, and actually I haven’t really seen very much at all, but it feels like I’m putting in a ton of effort.”

The thing I say with this is that you shouldn’t be doing recovery on your own. Recovery is a really challenging thing, and the eating disorder will make you second-guess, will make you unsure, will create all of these barriers and this indecision. That’s hard enough when working with someone, but it’s infinitely harder when doing this alone.

So if you are doing recovery on your own and would like some help so that you’re not having to do this on your own and you’re getting some assistance to make this a real priority, then as I said at the top, I’m currently taking on clients and I would love to help. If that’s you, you can send an email to info@seven-health.com and just put ‘coaching’ in the subject line and I can get the details over to you.

So that is it with this week’s episode. I know this is quite a short one, but it’s just been one that’s been on my mind lately of just how important it is to make recovery a priority, because people don’t just wake up and they’ve recovered. No-one sleepwalks their way into recovery. That can happen with an eating disorder; most people who find themselves in an eating disorder had no intention of getting there, and they unfortunately got into that place. But that doesn’t happen with recovery. It really does need to be made a priority where someone is very intentional about the choices and the changes that are being made.

So if you would like help with that, I would love to be able to do that, and I hope you’ve benefitted from this week’s episode of the podcast. That is it. I will be back with another episode next week. Until then, take care, and I will see you soon!