Feb 8th - Learning to like yourself is critical!

[@kecrn4132]

You are truly incredible, Tabitha.... I don’t understand how you don’t have millions of subscribers.... actually, maybe people know how right you are about all that you say on your channel and they are afraid. You knowledge, experience and delivery of all your materials is pure gold. Hope you know how amazing you are and how many people you have helped!!🙋‍♀️💕💕

[@MariekeNoortje8104]

I think you've hit the nail on the head.

[@hazeldavis3176]

T: People who can go all in right away are badasses Me: :O I went all in for free feeding from the start. It's been really really hard (lots of crying/anger/physical pains) but I'm three weeks food-anxiety-rules-my-life sober... dang. Maybe I *am* a badass! HECK YEAH! Thank you, I haven't felt proud in a long long time. It feels warm and fuzzy.

[@Lele-dk7tg]

Hazel Davis hi, I was the person who questioned about this. As scary as “all in” sounds, is it quite mentally freeing at the same time? I mean I guess it is, it’s my stupid anxious brain wanting reassurance for everything... You go keep going and be a bad ass! Hell yeah haha

[@hazeldavis3176]

@@Lele-dk7tg Hi! I don't know if I'd call it freeing as much as empowering. I cried for the first week straight at every meal because it was so scary. But by pushing through I felt 'my' power growing over my disordered eating's power... I know that probably sounds really weird lol but it's accurate. I'm only a few weeks into free feeding, so I'm hoping I'll feel more free once I get better at it. I still cry sometimes, or get angry but it's getting easier each time I push through and let myself eat. I think you are a badass too. It doesn't matter if you take the stairs or jump in the deep end- still in the pool yeah? :D

[@Lele-dk7tg]

Hazel Davis hi, thanks for the reply! You won’t believe this but I actually JUST want all in. Just now everything feel so unreal and I feel overwhelmed but I feel so happy just now. Definitely the scariest decision I made and I know I’ll be crying more in the future but I feel so proud right now. Like I took a huge step in recovery. Today’s a special day for me I guess!

[@hazeldavis3176]

@@Lele-dk7tg I m so happy for you!!

[@zeppgarde2150]

You are amazing! YES you are baddass! keep going!

[@kristinamiretinska3132]

I am recovered but somehow I enjoy your videos, your sense of humor and learning more. Thank you

[@eleonoreconstant]

and you're not missing out on anything! You're the only ED related content worth watching!!! With maybe one or two other girls but you're just the best, hands down and only the one truly worth watching for those who truly want to recover.

[@jags-gb4dm]

Just one other & that being Megsy 🥰

[@eleonoreconstant]

@@jags-gb4dm Exactly! Megsy is great! I love her IG account, watching her stories is super helpful and serves as a great reminder to do the work!!! (recovery work)

[@jags-gb4dm]

@@eleonoreconstant Totally🙌 Keep going & take care ❤️

[@greernorton8419]

Always such great videos. Your really truly a great person. You say it as it is and I love that

[@kathleendowner6506]

It is pure freedom 😁

[@yjnam8223]

“hope i don’t break up with matt, i’d hate to lose my appetite.” - tabs 2021😂😂

[@jags-gb4dm]

😂🤣❤️

[@emmamarshall5011]

Class🤣🤣🤣

[@joanneday9508]

Exactly what I thought! You’re supposed to say “ husband”, not “ appetite”, Tabitha! But that’s why we all love watching you for your straight talking, no nonsense daily telling off.

[@jags-gb4dm]

Love the new book Tabitha 🥰

[@TheOriginalBeautty]

I can not go all in, i always end up restricting. For me i am slowly adding in more calories.

[@ffiontill5924]

Hey Tabitha I believe I am on my recovery journey and doing well all things considered however my family keep saying im not in recovery or should be recovered or not doing it right or doing too much and I was wondering if you have any advice or tips for dealing with peoples ideas of recovery and not meeting their expectations or standards?

[@silviabedin1655]

For the "ugly-faced" person ... I used to be a boring teenager, no interests, super shy, no self-confidence ... Even though I was never fat, I hated my body ... I hated everything about myself. When I found *insert diet*, a lot of things happened in the meantime ... I found self-help books, spirituality, a cause I believed in, new self-confidence, belief in myself ... and all tied with diet-related weight loss . So what did my brain do? Associate being "chubby" with being a loser and "skinny" with being likeable Guess what?! It's bullshit!!! I'm almost 2 months into recovery now and yes I have gained some weight, but I've kept my hobbies, my passions, my bubbly personalities because it's a CHOICE!!! Trying to do exactly the opposite of what my brain asks me lol hehehe and guess what?? People don't even notice the weight gain and if they do they don't care a single bit.

[@marieluis3530]

Hey I don’t know where to text this but I just really really need help, I‘m so exhausted. I really want to have a fully recovered life. Everytime I try and eat to my mental&physical hunger I literally eat sooo much until my body starts to give me signs that its bout to vomit,I then stop eating eventhough I still think bout food, after that I can‘t do anything (socializing, not even standing up) because after that massive amount of food I can‘t even walk, literally. I feel so pissed of at anyone and sick after too. I‘m such a horrible person. If I keep continuing to eat so much until my body starts to vomit from itself (it feels like I have a food poisoning or something got over me, but it’s because I stuff my fucking face so much) I will end up overweight or obese because my body and brain still can‘t trust me. I cant neural rewire either when I feel like I‘m about to throw up and sick the whole day. It‘s not even that I‘m choosing this, my body gives me the signals that it‘s about to vomit, why the hell does my body send me this signs if Tabitha says that if we thinkg about food the body WANTS it??😭 That CANT be healthy wtf. I hate my life. I wake up I binge and eat so much and then the rest of the day is HORRIBLE to surive and absolutely sick of the food. XxMarie

[@sarahbartlett9870]

Can you try to establish a regular eating pattern such as 3 meals and 3 snacks or eating every 3 hrs to teach your body that food will always come and you do not need to eat so much in one sitting?

[@sandrahafner5854]

Hey Marie, it sounds like you started to eating to your body's hunger signals, but your body is not nutritionally rehabilitated yet. So even if you are eating a lot, your body is still starving internally from the (mental and physical) restriction it had to endure in the past. There are a lot of healing processes that kick in when you start to finally EAT, but they require much energy and your body is still not nutritionally rehabilitated. So yes it is perfectly possible to feel sick from eating but still wanting more. Have you read Tabitha's book? I HIGHLY recommend you do! Please read her book. She writes about how restriction creates an 'energy debt', and paying off that debt takes more than a few days or weeks of eating (read here tabithafarrar.com/2017/08/anorexia-recovery-weight-restoration-energy-debt/). You are experiencing extreme hunger (also read here: edinstitute.org/paper/2012/5/22/extreme-hunger-1-what-is-it?fbclid=IwAR0jZyBv2jKwdk65oixUYbj8sRUCL5hQRUye8gSPwqGdnYT__3RNBW7QmjA) which is perfectly NORMAL. Listen to it. When I decided to go all in and recover, I experienced the same as you. I stuffed my face every single day and wasn't able to move or do anything other than laying in my bed crying, feeling almost sick and still wanting to eat. I trusted the process and continued to eat. I have gained weight yes, but over time the extreme hunger went down and now I don't even remember my last 'binge'. I still eat a lot but never have this feeling of stuffing myself anymore. For the first time I feel like a normal person and can be satisfied with a normal meal/portion. Your body is smart. It will settle down once it trusts you again. Please also try to make sure you immediately start eating when getting up in the morning. For me, the longer I waited to eat and get hungry, the more the extreme hunger kicked in. I send you a lot of love and hugs, you can do this!

[@marieluis3530]

@@sandrahafner5854 Thank you so much Sandra! Also, I’d like to add something and also ask you something. How did you eat? Did you wake up and eat breaki eventhough you weren’t hungey? Like what did you do after you ate so much that you couldn’t walk? I can’t be in energy debt bc I’m eatin and gainin weight since 1 1/2year, also the first few month I gained on very low intake). I‘m at a high weight atm so I‘m not in the restriction underweight situation anymore. Everybody keeps saying to ,,trust my body,,. How can I? I don‘t do anything, I don‘t feel like doin anything anymore. My life is just sad, it really is. I hate it. I binge and binge and binge, then I sit there, sickly and awfully full, disgusting looking and alone. I feel guilty, then I go to sleep. The next day I try to do the ,,all in,, method again, as in something would go different this time. IT DOESN‘T. The same all over again. Don‘t have friends, relationship, just stuffing my fucking ugly face. I have no joy in living anymore.

[@sandrahafner5854]

@@marieluis3530 You don't sound crazy at all. You sound like everybody at the beginning of recovery I have come across, including myself. I know this is not what you wanna hear again, but trust the process and trust your body. That's what Tabitha always says, your body has no advantage in trying to 'sabotage' you, it only tries to save you - it knows EXACTLY what it’s doing. Have patience with yourself. As I said I HIGHLY recommend you read Tabitha's book (or best all of them). So much insight in what happens with our bodies and why. Please please read it, it has changed my life. I don't know if you know these already, but Kayla Rose and Followtheintuition are good resources as well. I know it sucks in the beginning, it was the same for me. I decided to trust my body and finally not depriving it anymore. Then: you are not ugly :-) Working on self-acceptance was key for me as well. I WANTED to learn how to accept myself as I am, I wanted to learn how to rewire my brain and not fear weight gain anymore, and how to break free of diet culture. The website beyondbodyimage.com is a great resource to start here. If you like reading and jouraling I also can highly recommend Summer Innannens book „Body Image Remix“, she also has a podcast here on youtube. Christy Harrison and Caroline Dooner (book „the F*** it diet) are great resources here as well. I just sucked everything in and tried to learn as much as I could about what’s happening in our bodies and minds and what diet culture has done to us. Oh and I was never technically underweight to beginn with as well. I was at a perfectly normal BMI when I started recovery. But I was underweight FOR MY BODY. My body obviously wants to naturally sit at a higher weight, and if I lose 15 lbs I’m underweight FOR MY BODY’s standards. That was a hard pill to swallow, but it’s just the way it is. We can’t decide or control at what weight our bodies function best. A lot of it is genetics. And if we are restricting - no matter at what weight we are - your bodies are deprived and send us hunger signals. Even if we are in larger bodies to begin with. You asked how I ate: I just ate whatever whenever however much I wanted. At first this was easily 5000+ calories every day. And to remind you - with a ‚normal‘ BMI of 22 already. In the beginning I was ‚feast eating‘ (what I used to call binging, but in the end it’s just our bodies gasping for food after restriction) every day from the moment I woke up. I totally trusted my body even if this meant laying in bed stuffed with food even before noon, crying from discomfort. But from all the resources I read I knew that this was normal and that I needed to trust my body. So I kept going and just ate whenever and whatever my body and mind was telling me. I’m honest, at first I almost wasn’t able to work or do ANYTHING other than eating and sleeping. Eat, sleep, repeat. And a good cry or two or three every day. But it’s not how this is gonna be forever. If you stick with it and don’t start to restrict again there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Eventually, slowly and gradually my extreme hunger subsided and now I feel almost like a ‚normal‘ eater. I still eat a lot and I’m still gaining weight slowly, but I don’t feel like I need to stuff myself anymore. This is a totally new feeling and only is possible because my body obviously now is at a weight it feels safe. And not it is MY job to mentally deal with the weight gain. It’s not my body’s job to be deprived just because I can’t mentally deal with a higher weight. So I’m working a lot on the mental side of things now. I find it very helpful to have people to talk about this, even online. Kayla Rose offers a free online ED forum here: www.damnthediets.com/store (scroll down to „DTD ED/Diet Recovery forum“). There you can find people who are going through the same. This helps a lot to see that you’re not alone and to hear from people who have sucessfully recovered. You can do this :) Hugs!

[@marieluis3530]

@@sandrahafner5854 Sandra thank you so so much, I really do appreciate it! I’m so sorry for annoying you...everything seems so promising. But, the truth is, I‘m just not willing to trust my body. I‘m FREAKIN scared of becoming bigger than I alr am or becoming obese. 😣😣😣That’s my BIGGEST fear, literally. Eventhough it seems like you went through the same I STILL can‘t imagine that would work for me? You basically woke up and the first time you thought bout food you ate until you were soo full (or satisfied) that you often couldn’t walk, then you rested and waited till you could/wanted to eat more and then you ate again, right? What if I end up obese? Because I know myself and I know that I can‘t trust my body so it wont trust me. I’m so sorry for repeating myself, I’m so helpless and desperate. I almost feel embarrassed, I hope I don’t annoy you.... It’s just that: Everyday, I wake up, I get super motivated to go ,,all in,, (proly cause I’m hungry) I than eat soooooomuch until my body starts to give me signs that it‘s almost bout to vomit (as alr mentioned) bc I’m so full and than I need to stop. Then I put everything away, try to ,,clean ma self‘‘ (I often feel super disgusted by me and the ridiculous amount of food I just ate) and than I sit in my room watchin netflix. I often wish that I would be physically ravenous again so I could eat all of the food again but because of the physical discomfert it‘s not possible to eat again. I often try to eat another cookie but it tastes DISGUSTING, BUT I STILL can’t stop thinking about food, but when I give my body food it doesn’t want it. Huhhh??Omg what is wrong with me. 😭So I basically wait till the day FINALLY passes. What a great life😃(not). I also do struggle alotttt with comparison to others. XxMarie