Fuck it, here are some tips on how to stay safe when you have an ED.
I want to first put a disclaimer that these will not be "Ana tips". This is not going to provide you with tips on how to lose weight. These are tips on how to stay as safe as is reasonable when you have an ED. Remeber that the only way to completely and definitively get rid of the dangers and unpleasant symptoms associated with having an ED is to recover. These are just tips to keep you as safe as possible when you're relapsing.
Here they are, in no particular order:
Always keep emergency food on you. I don't care if its low cal or high cal but keep SOMETHING with you. In the event that you feel severely dizzy, nauseous, sick and/or like you're about do pass out, eat that food. Personally I keep low calorie vegan chocolate, a small packet of two biscoff biscuits and a Graze pot of edamame, peas etc to eat in the event that I ever feel like that.
Either invest in sports drinks or electrolyte water. Especially if you fast for long periods of time but it honestly applies regardless. When you starve, fast and restrict you're restricting your body's access to nutrients, which in turn leads to your electrolytes depleting without your body being able to replenish them. This is bad fucking news because low electrolytes can result in everything form things as mild as dizziness to heart problems or heart failure. Whichever you choose, always keep one with you or money to buy some with you just in case.
I know every goddamn post you see tells you to basically be constantly be drinking water, but please monitor your water intake and don't overdo it. When you drink too much water you flush out your electrolytes, and we all know what having low levels of electrolytes can do.
Take supplements and multivitamins. Obviously check labels to make sure you're not overdoing it on some, but this again is something important to make sure your body is at least getting some of what it needs. I personally take a multivitamin with iron and a multivitamin for hair, nails and skin.
Keep in mind your brain needs calories. Your brain consumes around twenty percent of the calories you burn in a day, which for the average person is anywhere between 260 to 400+ calories a day. Don't eat the calories you need and your brain can't function as normal, because as much as your body can break down fat stores to fuel itself, your brain can't use the energy produced by those fat stores to completely fuel itself. It can't run properly on those fat stores alone. Your cognitive function will suffer as a result and if you're in college, work or school your performance is going to suffer. If you're going to restrict, at least eat enough to fuel your brain.
Bananas are your friend. Low potassium is another big factor in people with EDs feeling dizzy and/or passing out. Eat a banana or five.
Don't purge. If you purge now, focus as much as you can on quitting. If you don't purge now, don't even consider it. Purging takes your already low levels of electrolytes and fucks them into the ground. It ruins your teeth, for some people after a long time of purging their bodies can't actually physically hold down food and just automatically bring it back up, and if you binge and purge you run the very real and gruesome risk of rupturing your stomach or bowels which can leave you dead with your head on the toilet seat and vomit in your hair and on your hands. It really isn't worth it.
Another thing that really isn't worth it is laxative abuse. Don't use them unless you actually medically need to. Abusing lax can get genuinely addicting, it can ruin your ability to shit without taking pills, and if you abuse them badly enough you might flat out end up fucking up your bowels so badly you spend the rest of your life shitting into a bag. Just don't do it. There's nothing beautiful about shitting into a bag for life because you fucked up your bowels.
Realise that you can't do this forever. This isn't sustainable. At some point you either have to make the decision to recover (for good) or you're going to die. Theres no way around it, and the longer you leave that decision and the longer you remain in the grips of your ED, the more dangerous it becomes. As amazjng and resilient as the human body is, long term starvation and restriction can and will permenantly fuck up your body.
Understand that in your mind you will never be "sick enough" to recover. There will not be a point where you look in a mirror one day and think "yep, I'm sick enough now".
Understand that you will never be satisfied. There won't be a day where you step on the scale and think "I'm happy at this weight".
Understand that you always were and always are deserving of recovery and that it is never "too soon" or "too late" to recover.
yousharknotpass
gracieabrams
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