Peace at Home: Ending the war with my body & finding health

Written By: Jenni Schaefer Date: June 25th, 2009. Topic: Eating Disorders.

I have one real home. It is my body. No matter where I go, no matter what I do, my body is where I live. I might move into a new house, but I can’t move into a new body. For more than twenty years, I was at war with my body. I did not trust it, and for good reason, it did not trust me. Not surprisingly, this relationship, which encompassed a life-threatening eating disorder, led to countless health problems, including a diagnosis of osteoporosis at the age of only twenty-two-years old.

My body was clearly unhealthy and out of balance, but my mindset toward my body was even more out of whack. Finding health meant gaining a balanced perspective toward nutrition, exercise, rest, and my body in general. It meant creating habits in my life that actually put these new perspectives into practice.

When it comes to food, I learned to apply the principles of intuitive eating. An approach to eating that teaches us to become the expert of our own body, I learned how to get in touch with my inner hunger and fullness cues. In other words, I learned to eat when I am hungry and stop when I am full (rather than eating according to the rules of the latest fad diet). This may sound simple, but for someone who was struggling with anorexia and bulimia, this seemed impossible at first. And, in the beginning, it would have been. So I actually began my journey to healthy eating with a food plan prepared by a registered dietitian who specialized in eating disorders. With her help over a period of several years, I eventually tossed the structure of the food plan away and embraced the no rules approach to eating. I stopped dividing food into “good” and “bad” categories, realizing that food is just food and does not have a moral value. At restaurants, I stopped saying things like, “I am going to be bad today,” when referring to eating cheesecake. Stealing cheesecake is bad. Eating it is not!

After I had some success with eating healthy, I began to incorporate moderate exercise into my life — with my entire treatment team of a therapist, dietitian, and doctors behind me. Rather than thinking about the calorie burning effect of exercise, I focused on feeling energized and on having fun. I began to participate in movement that I enjoy, so that I would actually look forward to doing it. I do not like to run, so I did not force myself to run. I do like to be outdoors and to be with people, so I started taking short hikes in a local park with a friend.

I could finally understand why my body needed food and exercise, but needing sleep was a different story. It did not seem very smart to me to spend eight hours a day in a state of near-total unconsciousness. My workaholic side said that sleeping would make me weak and unproductive. I felt guilty for sleeping, so I avoided it. Ironically, this lack of sleep is actually what made me weak and unproductive. It also made me irritable and angry. Throughout my personal growth work, I have learned that missing out on a good night’s sleep seriously affects — in a negative way — what happens when I am awake.

If I am taking care of my body by eating, exercising, and sleeping right, it is going to be the size and shape that it is genetically supposed to be. In the beginning, I did not like that size and shape at all. Over time, with the help of my Higher Power, I began to appreciate my body for what it does rather than for what it looks like. When I was at the height of my eating disorder, I did not even have the strength to do one sit up. Now my arms can propel me up a frozen waterfall while ice climbing in Alaska, and my legs can pedal my mountain bike through rugged trails in Tennessee. As a woman, my body is ingenious enough to nourish and to carry a child. This gratitude for what my body does ultimately led to my accepting my body. Today, I can honestly say that I not only accept my body, but I love it.

If I don’t eat, exercise, and sleep right, I don’t think right. When I am not thinking right, my eating, exercising, and sleeping habits are not right. So maintaining a healthy body is a priority in my life today. My body and me are no longer at war. We have called a truce, and we trust each other.

Do you have a war going on at home? Maybe it is time to make peace with your body. After all, like me and mine, you two will be together for a long time.

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