Rebroadcast: Recovery From An Eating Disorder

Chris Sandel: Welcome to Episode 208 of Real Health Radio. You can find the show notes and the links talked about as part of this episode at seven-health.com/208.

Hey everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Real Health Radio. I’m your host, Chris Sandel.

A couple of times a year, coinciding with Seven Health taking on clients, I release episodes of the show where I interview past clients. I always get lots of really great feedback about these episodes – that it’s nice to hear from real people that I’ve worked with, that it’s great to hear about what’s possible in terms of making changes and seeing improvements. These client stories can be inspiring; they can also be a bit of a reality check when someone hears themselves in someone else’s story and can jolt someone into action. But mostly, listeners just appreciate the realness and the openness of these conversations.

So that’s what today’s show is about, and as part of it, I’m chatting with Ilinca. Ilinca is someone I started working with back in February time, so February of this year. She’s in her early twenties and a Master’s student and had been diagnosed with anorexia. She’d moved to the UK as a student four years ago, and this is when her troubles with food and exercise really ramped up.

As we talk about, she’s worked with other practitioners before but was still struggling, but she was also unsure about if she even wanted to recover. So there was an ambivalence around this process, but one of the motivating factors for recovery was that she wasn’t getting her period, and she’d started to explore some of the issues that could come along with this.

I will say that during our chat, Ilinca probably made things sound easier than they were – which I think can be common. You forget how things used to be or what it was like going through the process when you’re further on the other side. I do think Ilinca has had an easier time in some ways than other people, but I don’t want you to listen to this and think that it was easy for her, because it definitely wasn’t.

We are still continuing our work together as she goes through the process of reintroducing exercise, so her journey is not complete, but it’s amazing what she’s been able to achieve since February time and the difference not just in her behaviours and in her habits and in her symptoms, but in her thought processes, her identity, and how she sees the world.

English isn’t Ilinca’s first language, and when I mentioned about coming on the show, she said, “This sort of thing is wildly outside my comfort zone. I hate how my voice sounds when recorded, and it makes me anxious to know that people could listen to this and judge me for my recovery. This is why my answer is yes. I’m trying to train my brain to seek those opportunities and make the most of them. I only wish I could’ve been so eloquent when speaking in a foreign language when I was in my early twenties.”

I’m currently taking on clients. If you hear parts of yourself in Ilinca’s words and her experience, then I’d love to have a chat and see if I could help. If you’re interested in working together or finding out more, you can head over to seven-health.com/help, and there you can read about how I work with clients and apply for a free initial chat. The address, again, is seven-health.com/help, and I will put a link in the show notes as well.

With the intro out of the way, let’s get on with today’s show. Here is my conversation with Ilinca.

Hey, Ilinca. Do you want to explain a little about your background and you getting in contact with me?

00:03:55

Ilinica's background and why she contacted Seven Health

Ilinca: I’ve been struggling with a restrictive eating disorder for almost four years, and I’d tried some therapists before. They helped me get to a better place. I was quite deep in my eating disorder at some point, and some therapists helped me get a bit up, but not all the way. I was comfortably in a quasi-recovery for a while, and I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t want to recover. I thought “I am the exception, the person who doesn’t need to recover and can just be on their weight and happy with their lives.”

At some point – I don’t remember exactly how I got to listen to your podcast. I really enjoyed listening to you, and it felt like you were the sort of person I would like to talk to, if that makes sense. A lot of my therapists weren’t really Health at Every Size or didn’t have an anti-diet approach. One of them was a doctor, so she wasn’t really aware of Health at Every Size, and the other one was a simple psychologist. None of them had any idea of what this is about.

Then in one of your episodes, you mentioned that you do client work, and I was quite surprised. I was like, “Ooh, this sounds good. I should give it a go.”

Chris Sandel: You said you were in quasi-recovery. Is that something that you can see now? Or at the time, would you have used that label or would you have thought about it in that way?

Ilinca: I probably would because I was reading a lot. I was on Instagram, reading a lot of people talking about quasi-recovery. Like I said, I just thought I was the exception, that I could just live there.

Chris Sandel: You said you listened to my podcast and that’s how you found me, and maybe it sounds like you thought I’d be relatable or something along those lines. Was there a hesitancy, though, with reaching out and getting the ball rolling with this?

Ilinca: Maybe a bit because I didn’t really want to recover. I mostly did it – I decided to contact you in the end because you had a free initial chat. I was pretty sure that you wouldn’t – not necessarily not respond to me, but you’d say something like, “I’m already full on clients and I can’t take any more.” I mostly did it for my mom, thinking about her and how she wanted me to be better. I’m like, “Okay, let’s just give this a try. It might not work, but at least I tried.”

00:06:26

How Chris and Ilinca worked together

Chris Sandel: Do you want to then describe the process of us working together and what that looked like and felt like?

Ilinca: We met once every two weeks. At the beginning I thought that was not enough, to be honest. I thought I needed a bit more constant supervision, I guess. But in the end it proved to be quite helpful that I had my independence. We talk and chat for like 90 minutes, which is quite a lot – it’s longer than other therapists do – and I can take something from our conversation and then apply it in the next two weeks. So in the end it proved to be good.

Also, I really like the email support that I have because if I have any pressing issues, I could just email you.

I found it really helpful that you would encourage me to come with solutions to my own problems. This is something I’ve never had before with any therapist. Rather than I come with a problem and you give me a piece of advice, you would just encourage me to come up with a solution. At first it was a bit annoying, I have to admit. [laughs] I have a problem, so I just want someone to give me a piece of advice rather than making me think about ways to manage it. But in the end it proved to be very helpful, in the long term.

I also never felt misunderstood or like you didn’t really get my struggles as well. Despite you not going through an eating disorder, I always felt like you really got how difficult it is for me to do some things that might seem unimportant, like little.

Chris Sandel: You said that initially you were doing this almost for your mom or that that was the impetus in getting in contact and then getting started. When do you think that shifted?

Ilinca: I think that shifted when I realised that I’m not the exception and I need to recover if I want to live a fulfilled life. Also when I realised the importance of having my period. That’s when I started to understand how actually detrimental to my health it is. Despite not actually being directly aware of them, like not seeing them necessarily, my body was still very much suffering from what I put it through.

00:08:56

Health improvements Ilinca experienced

Chris Sandel: What improvements have you noticed in your health since us working together? You can come at this from looking at symptoms, where they were before and where they are now, or in some other way if you’ve got a different way of answering that question.

Ilinca: The most important thing for me was getting my period back. I think I lost my period probably at the beginning of my eating disorder, so like four years ago. For a while I took the contraceptive pill because my mom said it would help me with my hormones and it’s also good birth control as well, so I wasn’t really aware of how bad it is for my body not to have a period. But then as I learned about it and when I got my period back, I was the happiest person ever. [laughs]

I read No Period. Now What?. I forgot the name of the author, but that’s the book that – the reason I decided I wanted to recover and there was no way around it. I recommend it to anyone. It’s great, and it puts everything into perspective – which is something people with eating disorders lack sometimes. I know I did.

They recommend eating as much food as you want and resting until you get your period back, which is what I did. I was very, very lucky to get my period quite quickly. I also stopped my contraceptives so I could have a cycle. I think my period came after two months – not two months of working together, but since I decided “I want to recover now, so I’m just going to do what I need to do.”

I wasn’t expecting it. Not at all. I’ve heard so many people saying it can take up to two years to get your period back after you’ve lost it. I lost it for four years, so it’s quite a lot. So I’m very grateful for my body, that I got it so early. I feel like some girls tend to complain about it, like it’s a drag, it’s annoying, it comes every month and is bloody and you have to be careful and wear pads and everything. I don’t think I can ever see it like that because I know how important it is and how I lost it for so long, and I honestly thought I wouldn’t get it back for a very, very long time. I find it a blessing. So that’s the biggest thing.

Apart from that, I have better sleep. I don’t wake up in the middle of the night five times to go and pee. I have better digestion. I’d never appreciated going to the bathroom regularly before, but now it’s great.

And I’m generally happier. That’s another very important thing. You underestimate how much happier you can be when you’re recovered.

Chris Sandel: Yeah, and I think that’s one of the things I do remember chatting with you about in the early stages. There was this feeling from your side of like “I don’t understand how things could be that much better. I don’t really think this is having that much of an impact.” I’ve received many subsequent emails that counter that where you’re like, “Okay, I now understand the difference between what was going on before and how I feel now.”

Ilinca: Yeah, exactly.

00:12:13

How Ilinca's relationship to food has changed

Chris Sandel: What about from a food perspective? How has your eating changed since working together?

Ilinca: I’m way more comfortable around food and around all types of food. I never felt like I wasn’t in control around food, as in I wasn’t binging or I didn’t feel particularly scared of food in that way, but I did have a very unhealthy relationship with it. I was avoiding certain types of foods and eating less than I would have liked to – which now has drastically changed. I don’t weigh food anymore. I don’t count calories. I just eat pretty much whatever I want in however quantity I want, which is amazing.

It’s such a great feeling to be able to eat until you’re full and then not think about food anymore – which is another thing that changed. I used to be completely consumed about my next snack or my next meal, or I’d eaten too much yesterday, so I need to eat less today.” All that brain space is now free.

I’m definitely consuming a more varied diet. I don’t stick to chicken, pasta, and veggies anymore. I add sauces to them. I make more complex recipes, like with butter and crème fresh and all that stuff that was off bounds before. I also allow myself to have burgers, even, twice a week if I want – or even more than that. Or pizza. I have pasta pretty much – I can’t say every day, but five days a week definitely, without worrying about too many carbs or anything like that.

Chris Sandel: Nice. In terms of body image – that was one of the parts of this, or it became more of a part as you started to make changes, so how is that now? How has that shifted?

Ilinca: I should say that I’m in a smaller body, so it was never that big of an issue for me, but I did still struggle with it. Maybe not as much when I was in my disorder because I quite liked my body. It almost feels weird to say because when I look back, it’s not – I didn’t look very good.

Now it’s maybe a bit more challenging sometimes because there are days when I don’t feel great about myself, but I feel like I have the tools now to realise that that’s just one day out of many others when I don’t see my body in a negative way. That helps me put everything into perspective and realise that this is just today. Tomorrow might be better.

00:15:08

Her changing relationship with exercise

Chris Sandel: In terms of exercise, how has that shifted over this time? Because that was also a big component.

Ilinca: The exercise was the most difficult thing to deal with in a way. Every time I read about people who have exercise addiction, they talk about how they exercise and they don’t enjoy it, so it’s kind of like a chore to them. I never had that relationship. I always loved it. So when I was told that I needed to stop it altogether to heal my relationship with – well, to get my period back first of all, and then to heal my relationship with it, I was like, “But I have a good relationship with it. Why do I need to give it up? It’s great. I enjoy it.”

So it was quite difficult for me to get to the point where I’m like, “I need to do everything I can to heal my relationship with everything that was part of my disorder, so I need to put exercise aside.” I did that for three or four months. I’m not exactly sure. I’m slowly reintroducing it right now, and I’m very careful to not get it to a point where it’s obsessive again. I need to balance it. It needs to add to my life rather than take from it.

Chris Sandel: You said this was the most difficult or one of the most difficult aspects of this. Was it a big decision for you? How did it feel when you did make that decision to say “Okay, I’m going to have some time off”?

Ilinca: I think I cried for three days. Not all day, but I started crying and I couldn’t stop, and then I would stop and then I would remember again that I have to stop exercising, and I would start crying again – which just shows how unhealthy my relationship with it was. But then once I decided “this is what I have to do,” I got some anxiety at the beginning, but at some point it just wasn’t there anymore.

Chris Sandel: Do you think you could’ve gotten to the place you’re in right now without having that break?

Ilinca: Probably not. I don’t think so, because resting was a very important part of my healing, I think. I don’t know because I can’t compare the two lives where I’m recovering and resting and recovering and exercising. Maybe I would’ve gotten to the same point, but maybe later, but I would still probably not have a very good relationship with exercise.

Chris Sandel: You were doing a lot of this work with us together through the pandemic and through lockdown. Do you think that helped the situation? Do you think it made it more difficult? How do you think about it?

Ilinca: I was just talking to my boyfriend that the gyms closed exactly around the time I decided I’m not going to go to the gym anymore, and they reopened last Friday. I mean, technically I’m allowed to go there at least once a week or something, so it’s like it came at the exact right time. So in a sense, it kind of helped. I was always home all the time, so I had access to all my snacks and all my foods. If I was hungry, I could just go and eat rather than wait until the right moment. So yeah, it kind of helped.

00:18:15

Other changes Ilinca has noticed

Chris Sandel: Overall or in other ways in your life, how have things shifted?

Ilinca: Like I said before, I’m way happier. It’s just a happiness I never thought was possible. I was happy before. You mentioned that back then, I thought I was quite happy, so this was the level of happiness that is the max possible. But now I can see I’m way happier and freer around food, and I can be spontaneous.

I can rest. I think this is one of the biggest ones that I didn’t think was related to my disorder, but I can actually rest, not worry about being productive. I can just play video games and eat pizza and it’s fine.

I think I’m also more fun to be around, if I do say so myself. But I don’t know. [laughs]

Chris Sandel: In what ways?

Ilinca: I don’t know how to explain. I’m a bit more carefree and funnier, I guess. I’m a bit more relaxed. I’m less obsessive about even little things that weren’t directly related to food or exercise, but apparently they were part of a disordered mindset. I have more brain space for other things than food, body, exercise, calories, which allows me to have hobbies.

That’s another thing that I completely disregarded at the beginning of my recovery. I just thought it was normal to think so much about food or exercise. Not necessarily normal, but I thought of them as my hobbies, almost. I mean, exercise, definitely. Just “yeah, this is what I think about,” and if you asked me, “Do you remember what you thought about before having an eating disorder?”, I was like, “Nope. I probably just didn’t think about anything.” I literally couldn’t wrap my head around the idea that I could have more interests if I let go of worrying about food and exercise.

Another important thing I wanted to mention is brain space. I think it’s important for people who struggle with eating disorders and are thinking of getting help but are not sure. It’s one of those things that I couldn’t really accept, and everyone would say, “You just have more brain space,” but for me it just didn’t click until it did. And it’s the best feeling.

Chris Sandel: You mentioned about hobbies. What hobbies?

Ilinca: I started drawing a bit. I used to draw when I was a kid, but then someone told me that I draw like shit, and I stopped. But I thought I would give it a go again. It’s quite therapeutic. You don’t need to think too much about it. You just let yourself go, pretty much.

Apart from that, I’ve considered starting playing the piano as well. I haven’t really put that into application yet, but I’m trying to gather my courage to do it. I’m also in the middle of a research project, so it’s a bit more difficult to be creative. I feel like all of my energy goes into my project, so then at the end of the day I don’t want to explore any hobby. I just sleep. [laughs]

Chris Sandel: Do you find that for the research project, you’re able to be more effective in terms of retaining information or being able to be efficient and stay on task when you’re trying to do work?

Ilinca: Yeah, pretty much. It’s pretty crazy because I used to work quite a lot during the day. In my first or second year of uni, I would basically work all the time. I would wake up, go to classes, and then come back home and work until it was dinnertime and then work again afterwards. It would be this constant productivity race, almost, where I tried to do as many things as possible.

Right now, I don’t know if the level of work I need to do is the same as it was back then, but I can easily fit other stuff. Easily. I stop working at 6:00, if that. I think it’s just because I find it easier to focus and easier to finish what I have to do in a reasonable amount of time, and then I can just go on with my life. Maybe it’s also because I have a bit of a life outside my work as well, which I guess wasn’t the case when I was deep in my eating disorder. It was work, exercise, and repeat, basically.

Chris Sandel: Yeah. You’ve learned to ride a bike?

Ilinca: That too. That’s mainly because of quarantine and we couldn’t really travel around. It wasn’t necessarily because of that. My boyfriend suggested, “Should I get you a bike?” and I was like, “Okay.” So I learned how to ride a bike, and it’s something that I probably couldn’t have done before because I wouldn’t have had the energy on top of my normal exercise routine to learn how to ride a bike and go for rides. I’d probably compare how many calories I burned during a bike ride with my normal exercise, and “Can I swap them? Should I go for very, very long cycle rides to compensate?” Just so many worries that it probably wouldn’t have been worth it. It’s very fun.

00:23:50

How working with Chris was different to what was expected

Chris Sandel: Nice. With us working together, did it look and feel like what you’d expected? I know you made a comment before of there were times where I would get you to be coming up with solutions, so maybe that was one of the aspects that felt different. But did this go in the way that you thought it would be heading based on your expectations of what should happen as part of our work together?

Ilinca: Not really. I wasn’t expecting you to be different from other therapists in the sense that – because I wasn’t really to recover, I didn’t think you would convince me. You didn’t even convince me. I kind of convinced myself, but through our work together. I honestly thought it was going to be five months of me going around recovery and tricking you that I’m doing something I’m actually not doing. I know that sounds a bit mean, but –

Chris Sandel: No, that doesn’t sound mean. I think that’s often people’s fear, that they’re going to be pressured and boxed into a corner where really the only option is for them to make stuff up because otherwise they feel like they’re in trouble or they feel like they’re disappointing me or being a failure or something.

My intention with the way that I do this is to always create an environment where I’m like, I’m not judging you. I know what you’re going through and I know it’s really difficult. Let’s try and work out solutions to this, and also let’s work in a way that feels doable and that it’s coming from you as well. It’s not just me telling you all the things to do, but have it be collaborative and have it be at a pace that is also right for you. Because it doesn’t matter how great a plan I can come up with; if you’re not going to actually do the things I’m suggesting, then it’s not a great plan.

So yeah, I’m always very cognizant of that, and it has got to be client-led. Otherwise it just doesn’t work.

Ilinca: Yeah, that’s another thing I really appreciated. I never felt like you were trying to put me in the box of people with eating disorders. I had some therapists that put me in the box and were like “Yep, you’re just like all the others. Do what all the others did and you’re going to get to the same final point.”

You didn’t do that. I felt understood and supported all the way, at my own pace, like you said, without you forcing change upon me. It had to come from me – which sometimes was difficult because when you’re not willing to do the change and no one is pressuring you to do it, you’re like, “Well, it has to come from me, but I don’t want to do it, but I know I should.” It’s this dichotomy in your head. But it was helpful in the end.

00:26:48

Ilinca's advice to others going through an eating disorder

Chris Sandel: Part of the reason we’re doing this recording is because I’m taking on new clients. What would you say to someone who is in a similar position to you at the start and is thinking about what their options are? This doesn’t necessarily need to be like “you need to work with Chris” or that kind of gushing praise, but just what advice would you have for someone given what you’ve gone through over the last handful of months?

Ilinca: I think I would say that you’re not the exception. No matter how much you want to be, you’re just not. It was very hard for me to accept that. I know it’s something that probably we all think, that we’re different and we don’t need help, but if you’re considering Chris as your therapist, you probably need help. So you should give it a go, basically.

The other thing I want to say is that, like I mentioned before, it has to come from you. No matter how good the person you’re working with is, they can’t recover for you. You have to do all the hard work for yourself. It might feel very lonely, but that’s what you have to do.

Chris Sandel: Is there anything else I didn’t ask that you want to mention that we didn’t get to cover?

Ilinca: I don’t think so. You asked me a lot about exercise, which is something I really wanted to talk about, so I think we covered everything.

Chris Sandel: Thank you so much for coming on the show today and for doing this. I really appreciate it.

Ilinca: Thank you for having me. It’s an honor.

Chris Sandel: I hope you found that conversation useful. As I mentioned at the top of the show, I’m now taking on clients. If you’re interested in working together or finding out more, you can head to seven-health.com/help. That is it for this week’s show. I’ll be back next week with a new episode. Stay safe, and I will catch you then.

Thanks so much for joining this week. Have some feedback you’d like to share? Leave a note in the comment section below!

If you enjoyed this episode, please ~~share~~ it using the social media buttons you see on this page.

Also, please leave an honest review for The Real Health Radio Podcast on Apple Podcasts! Ratings and reviews are ~~extremely helpful~~ and greatly appreciated! They do matter in the rankings of the show, and we read each and every one of them.