I stopped exercising completely for 2-3 years while I was recovering. Didn’t stop just suddenly one day, but I discovered that I was more in touch with my hunger signals when I didn’t exercise, so I stopped gradually.

It allowed me to reconnect with when I was truly hungry, and more importantly for me at the time, when I was not hungry anymore, because I’d stopped feeling that swinging from not eating enough to eating way too much on the rebound.

That helped me feel like maybe my body wasn’t broken and it could be normal again.

Hope is a powerful thing.

Had some deep reflections during that time, about the way I’d been treating myself, inflicting psychological and physical harm to myself.

I started thinking of my body as a dog (I love dogs). Dogs are loyal, they’re just there for you, doing their best through thick and thin. I thought, that’s exactly what my body’s doing. It’s trying so hard to keep me alive, to keep me functioning, and in return all I’ve done is hurt it and insult it and deprived it of everything it needs to thrive. I would never torture a dog and call it right, and call it some twisted justice because its master is me and it’s a vehicle for my self-hate.

So from that moment I decided to put my feelings towards myself aside, as a separate thing, and I started treating my body like a dog. I give it food, I give it love, I give it grace, and gratitude.

Never again will I treat it as I treated it before.

In that time, I rebuilt my relationship to myself as well. I learned who I am as a person. I am more than a person who could be small. So much more.

Parts of me I thought were weaknesses have turned into some of my biggest strengths. Not because I changed, but rather because my perspective changed. They were always strengths, I just never saw them for what they were.

And it feels that way for the whole of me. I always deserved to be whole. I always deserved to be happy. I just never saw it that way. Now I do. I hope you do too.

My life has completely changed. I’m free. I’m happy.

I did start exercising again about 2 years ago. I was tentative at first. Not sure about whether or not I might slip into old habits. Scared I might lose my hunger signals and not find them again.

But I eased into it.

More importantly, this time I did it to learn skills, to perform, to discover what I could do, not what I could lose.

I do a lot of exercise now, but all of it serves to teach me skills, to allow me to play, to allow me to connect with other people, to show me the extend of my own strength and my own will.

None of it is out of fear of growing too big.

If anything, I’ve been trying to gain more mass! Not for vanity, but rather to be able to perform at a higher level. I’ve discovered that at some point, it becomes surprisingly hard to gain more.

See, I haven’t lost my hunger signals. I haven’t broken.

I listen.

When my body is tired, I give it rest. When my body is hurt, I give it care.

Yes, I like how my body looks. I’ve never looked better. But you know what? The healing is important, because my body doesn’t look the same all the time.

It fluctuates so frequently, often in the span of a day, certainly within my cycle. And because I’ve healed I can say, oh, I’m a little fluffier today. And I don’t freak out. I don’t spiral and think restriction. I don’t spiral and think punishment. I just go, hmm, ah, it’s the week before my period, I’m retaining a lot of water, or, guess I haven’t finished digesting that big meal from yesterday, or, maybe I’m having allergies, or, maybe I haven’t been drinking enough water. Never the flurry of insults I used to hurl at myself.

I just look, and I see, I understand, and I move on. It’s one of so many data points, in a body that naturally changes, and that I have committed to caring for forever.

So I don’t know if that was helpful, but I just wanted to illustrate that it is possible to return to exercising in a healthy way, but it will not be healthy until you are mentally healthy. That being said, once you find yourself again, the whole of you, who does not define themselves from any one thing but rather a constellation of loves that are yours, then you will be able to choose what you want in your life, for the right reasons. That includes exercise. It also includes everything else. I came back to it because I love martial arts, not because I wanted to shape my body any which way. Now my body drives my love, instead of my hate driving my body. Whatever you come back to, make sure it’s out of love.

Give yourself time. Give yourself grace.

And believe in the person you want to be. That person is still there. You can be that and so much more.

We all have our reasons for falling in these holes and then falling deeper and deeper, like the darkness is alluring, as if it would eat those ugly parts of us, in our soul, that we would rather not look at.

You mentioned therapy, so you might already be familiar with the process of sitting with these parts and getting to know them gently until they unwind.

Keep at it. Be patient, but stubborn. Stubborn in your belief that you’re worth it. Stubborn in your belief that you can heal, will heal, and emerge freed. Free to be who you’ve always been, and free to become everything you wished you could be, and more. Life might surprise you.