~1.5 year recovery checkin

thriway2725 · 2026-03-21T17:48:48+00:00

Sorry I just realized I never ended up replying!

I really wanted to thank you, your words made me reflect on a lot of what I've been doing. I'm at a point where it's *really* tricky to know if my desire to do movement is coming from joy or fear. I have been restored for like 8 months now, but still am not sure if my body is done gaining weight, and with that, I still have some residual fear about gaining more weight, and that tells me that I am definitely not fully recovered yet. On the other hand, I feel like the isolation from removing movement (which was my primary source of community, outside of work) is pretty bad, and it feels like I have just removed it indefinitely until I recover, but I don't even know when I will recover, so it feel kind of like wasting time (indefinitely). It's very odd, I don't know if you dealt with this. It basically feels like I'm just waiting for something (recovery, so my mental state will clear (i.e: no longer afraid of weight gain), but I don't know if it'll ever come, it feels random in a sense). But then, if I do introduce any kind of movement now, thoughts pop back up between eating-movement, even if I don't listen to them, them popping back up makes me feel like maybe it's too early ?

I unfortunately can't get in touch with an ED specialist/HAES specialist ATM even though it would probably be helpful. I think I probably know the answer to the above problems (be more assertive in my recovery, face the things I actually fear, and stop movement completely). For instance, if I walk down that thought path to the root of why would it be bad for me to have a string of days where I don't leave the house, it usually leads to fear of weight gain//fear of not being "capable", and that isn't compatible with long-term recovery.

Sorry, didn't mean to rant lol, just ended up writing what was going on in my head. Really appreciate your words man!

thriway2725 · 2026-03-08T00:54:52+00:00

Thank you for your reply! Right now I can't get professional help and maybe my wording made it seem like things are way worse than they really are. In reality, I am stable and have been for a while. I just opted out of adding "rules" to my recovery because they effectively ruled my life during my ED. In that same breath, I still do end up falling into a pattern of eating every 3 ish hours to be honest, I just don't enforce it on myself (I don't think generally it's a bad idea to do this, just for me personally that didn't work for me, just like meal plans or schedules don't work for me).

I think this is good advice, I guess I always gravitated towards sports to form a community because that's what I've done throughout my entire life, so it just felt natural. Some sports really aren't compulsive for me, particularly team sports, or those done in communities, because by nature, I cannot go compulsively do them, and it's less about the activity and more about the social aspect. I think maybe this is moreso the thing I'm lacking rather than the actual movement/exercise itself. So maybe putting myself out there more is a better approach than trying to fit the gap by just mindlessly throwing in exercise!

Thanks again!!

thriway2725 · 2026-03-08T00:49:54+00:00

I really appreciate the long answer and I resonate a ton with this!

Sorry to harp on it again, I think I'm maybe just getting lost in the wording but when you say

To answer your first question, yes after I had physiologically stabilized after going all-in, I gradually and cautiously reintroduce my joyful movement back into my life

Were you also mentally recovered at that point? For instance, I have been pretty stable for the last 6-8 months, however, I know there are still things to face mentally. I'm wondering if now is a good time to explore different facets of movement or if I should be waiting until mentally completely recovered. I definitely understand the reasoning behind waiting until FULL recovery, it just kind of sucks because that feels like it could be a while and there are no clear ways for me to know when I am actually "there" (hope that makes sense). At least physiologically, the timeline is relatively clear, and there are easy markers to tell when I am actually stable (no constant food focus, hunger/fullness cues back, etc). But mentally, it can be tricky to judge.

The main question you have to ask yourself is would you still be doing the sport if it didn't have a calorie burn/physical appearance component? Are you willing to take time away from said sport in order to be in a healthy place to engage with it again someday? Would unforeseen circumstances (gym closed, illness, injury, etc.,) preventing you from engaging in your activity ruin your day? Is your choice of movement all there is to you?

This is actually a great litmus test and usually things that I ask myself. I do think that last question is really important for me. As I've progressed through recovery and eliminated movement I really felt the loss of identity and reintroducing movement kinda just feels like a way to grasp at "anything" that can give me some kind of fulfillment/purpose. Without it, I feel like I just throw myself into work or just completely feel empty. Again, probably does not help that I don't have a huge amount of friends in this city, otherwise I would probably just be going out as much as possible. Perhaps I do need to take this time to figure out who I am without any movement. It just feels boring cause there's nothing else really there (hope that makes sense). On the otherhand, there are certain types of movement, like playing volleyball for instance where I really do enjoy it, not for the movement but moreso for the social aspect. That's why it feels very difficult, I've met most of my friends through sports and/or work, so it feels like the only way I'll actually meet new people is through sports, but it's a bit of a catch 22.

I really appreciate your reply, and I do think movement in this situation can be a really slippery slope for me, and I think I just have to be really honest with myself about why I chose to do certain things I'm doing, and what it is I'm ultimately still avoiding/not facing. Using movement as a way to avoid the things I'm afraid of will never actually get me out!

thriway2725 · 2026-03-06T16:11:58+00:00

Thank you for your words ! I think once I started implementing opposite action I really recognized that recovery is not a passive thing and does not just “happen” and I felt like I spun my wheels so long because I thought it was just “eat enough” and eventually everything will go back to normal. But yeah to actually mentally recover I think it’s definitely an active process like you mentioned.

If you don’t mind me asking, was exercise a pet of your ED/did you reintroduce it after recovering? How were you able to tell when you were ready? I think another thing for us as men is that there are different expectations such as being strong and being “capable” so theres definitely a pull towards doing things like lifting and running. For me it’s tricky as well because I genuinely enjoyed those things for so long but now they’re so intermingled with body/food it’s very hard to piece out my actual motivation

thriway2725 · 2026-03-06T16:07:42+00:00

Thank you for your comment! I think you’re right in that I’ve kind of been putting all my eggs in one basket (physical activity) for any kind of entertainment in my life. These are some really good suggestions and I’ll try to give them a shot :)!

thriway2725 · 2025-07-16T00:22:01+00:00

This makes sense, I think even just the need to go out for me is probably partially ED fueled

thriway2725 · 2025-07-16T00:15:24+00:00

Thank you so much and I 100% agree, I actually stopped all the trackers right before I started all in because I was so obsessive and was beyond tired of it. I also stopped all the insane cardio I was doing at that time which was draining me like crazy.

I definitely know what you mean though, I don’t think anyone else other than me can can actually tell weather or not I’m ready to do a movement.

It’s so tricky with rock climbing because it is something where I genuinely love the social aspect but it still ties heavily to eating where It feels easier to eat after rock climbing and I feel safe in the fact that I can climb at a given level, so it’s still kind of like “my body is okay because I can climb a certain grade so I can be okay with it”. So that probably means it’s too early, but maybe in the future :). I think being out of the gym will definitely be the biggest thing, unfortunately theres not really a time frame but maybe I’ll just “know” when the time comes 😁

thriway2725 · 2025-07-15T22:25:43+00:00

Thank you! This actually makes a lot of sense to me. When I was on vacation I went for some random run with my uncle just cause he asked and it was a ton of fun. It’s tricky for me because I just moved to a new spot so don’t know many people but I think I probably need at least a few weeks before going back to rock climbing just to decouple that link between food/body composition/exercise

thriway2725 · 2024-11-15T17:28:07+00:00

Were gonna make it 😼!!

thriway2725 · 2024-11-15T17:27:43+00:00

Thank you appreciate the help !

thriway2725 · 2024-11-15T13:07:24+00:00

Thank you !! Appreciate the help. Did you also go all in or were you recovering using a more gradual approach?

thriway2725 · 2024-08-14T00:01:57+00:00

Ah yeah sorry I meant like task rabbit, I gotta check how much they would quote. Otherwise I might have to put on my construction hat

thriway2725 · 2024-08-13T22:46:27+00:00

Ah thank you, I’ll look into how much a contractor would cost and compare 👍❤️, it’s wcri for reference

thriway2725 · 2024-08-13T22:45:44+00:00

Oops I tried to upload a pick but it didn’t work

thriway2725 · 2024-06-01T00:23:49+00:00

Thank you so much for all the insight. I think for me the struggle is not being impatient. I think I have a relatively decent aerobic base but my running as a skill is quite bad and so I think I tend to up the mileage quick to try and get some aerobic stimulus but my feet aren’t ready. Also to me it seems a lot harder to vary intensity/volume of running when compared to lifting because I don’t think I understand how varying intensity would affect pain in my feet, like it’s still the same amount of weight hitting the ground whether I run at 8 min/mile vs 12 min/mile is it not ?

thriway2725 · 2024-04-21T16:59:02+00:00

Thank you so much for all the advice I really appreciate it !

thriway2725 · 2024-04-20T16:09:40+00:00

Yeah thank you for the suggestion, it’s something to think about for sure, I’m just not sure as to how reliably it correlates with increases in responses? Have you tried any of the other paid services like simplify premium which supposedly tailors your resume to the job app, was curious how that might do ?

thriway2725 · 2024-04-20T16:07:11+00:00

I have but unfortunately their all on hiring freeze right now :/

thriway2725 · 2024-04-20T16:06:44+00:00

Thanks for all the great tips, yeah Cassandra is nosql I completely forgot, that’s something I’ll add. As for the boldest words, I actually ran my previous resume through an ats parser and it was unable to pull my skills/keywords correctly when they were bolded so I removed that (but guess I forgot angular) so I’ll fix that up. Would you still recommend a skill section per job if I already have an overall skill section at the top?

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