Recovery from Anorexia is often a time of heightened anxiety and stress. Managing recovery while looking after a young family is a reality for many adult sufferers. In this podcast Tabitha talks to an adult in recovery, Erin, about managing recovery with young children. About Erin: I am 36, […]
klep·to·ma·ni·a noun a recurrent urge to steal, typically without regard for need or profit. This is a hard post to have to write. It’s important as shame is a present enough feeling for a person in recovery from Anorexia as it is — thinking that you are a monster because […]
I published a podcast this week titled, Energy Deficit | Energy Debt | Target Weights | Weight vs State Restoration, and I will explain Energy Debt in detail in this post. Energy Debt: The accumulation of the effects of long-term energy deficit such as lack of bodily repair and maintenance […]
Just me in this podcast! Responding to questions that I get frequently around Anorexia recovery and weight restoration. How to know when you are really weight restored? Let me tell you it is not something that you can calculate via a math equation or estimate via looking on a […]
This week I was totally swamped and also finished the first draft of my next book (a complete recovery guide for adults with Anorexia). It’s over 100,000 words and my head is swimming. I’m cheating this week by not writing a blog and instead — with the permission of the […]
Tabitha Farrar talks to writer, speaker, and songwriter Jenni Schaefer about her recovery from Anorexia, and subsequent experiences with PTSD. In this podcast we talk about: Hope and ACTION in eating disorder recovery Motivation to recover Trauma and PTSD Exercise and lower-level movement in eating disorders Recognising the […]
All the horses in this picture are different sizes. All the horses in this picture are respected and thought of as beautiful. On Sunday I published a podcast I recorded with the wonderful Rachel Millner on the topic of Anorexia and people in larger bodies. I was written a […]
In this podcast Tabitha Farrar talks to Dr. Rachel Millner about Anorexia and people in larger bodies. This podcast was inspired by an email from a mother of a patient who has Anorexia and is in a larger body. Topics discussed include: The dangers associated with energy deficit in […]
You did not fail treatment. Treatment failed you. I lose count of how many times I say this. I had to say it again yesterday to someone who was convinced that she could not make a full recovery because she had been in and out of treatment so many times. […]
Last week I wrote about The New Body Problem in Anorexia recovery. Today I am writing about the other side: becoming recovery-body proud. Here is the paradox, before I started recovery, and even when I was supposedly at a “recovered” BMI, the thought of being in a larger body petrified […]
In this podcast Tabitha Farrar talks to Courtney Simpson about the work that she is doing looking at fitness tracker use amoungst people with eating disorders. We cover a lot of topics in this podcast that was originally about fitness trackers and the number of people with Anoreixa who use […]
New Body Problem = the thoughts and feelings that arise when we move through physical change in Anorexia recovery. I got an email this week from a person in a state of despair because he has weight restored somewhat and doesn’t like his weight-restored body. Mostly his despair was due […]
Tabitha Farrar talks to Hana Zickgraf about a recently published research paper titled: Adult picky eaters with symptoms of avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder: comparable distress and comorbidity but different eating behaviors compared to those with disordered eating symptoms Link to orginal study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5086050/ Study summary Picky eaters are people who […]
The short answer here is “No.” You do not need talk therapy in order to reach full remission from Anorexia. However, you might want it, in which case you should have it. Before we get into it, remember that weight restoration is one step in recovery, and re-wiring mental processes is another. […]
As if recovery wasn’t already difficult enough from a mental standpoint, there are often physical discomforts too! This blog post is about stomach in Anorexia recovery. Reading this blog post will not make your tummy feel better, but it may provide you with some knowledge that will make you feel […]
I’ll preface this blog post with this: this post is about intuitive eating and Anorexia recovery. If you don’t have Anorexia, go ahead and do all the intuitive eating that your intuition asks you to do —this post is not about you. I agree that intuitive eating may be a […]
Recovery from Anorexia certainly becomes easier to maintain with time, however, large and stressful life events can make even the most solidly recovered individual feel dodgy all of a sudden. When the shit hits the fan, even the most dormant Anorexia behaviors will make a bid for pole position again. Anorexia […]
I wrote about Anorexia and exercise last week and the case for cold turkey. This post is the follow up to that and it addresses lower-level, movement. If you read the last post and thought “well that doesn’t apply to me because I don’t exercise excessively,” this post is for […]
Dr: “Are you eating?” Me: “Yes” Dr: “Hmm … Well. you are still very underweight, so maybe try eating a bit more?” Me: “Sure, I’ll try that.” What my Dr never asked me about was the extent that I was exercising. I was eating, but that was on the condition […]
I have a nutrition qualification, but I don’t use it. In fact, what I was taught about nutrition on that course set me back a good couple of years in recovery. I was taught that fat was bad, calories should be minimized, meals should be planned as to balance macronutrients, and […]
While it may be broadly understood that effective knowledge, diagnostics, treatment and resources for eating disorders are lacking, I think that until certain parts of this system are conceptually overhauled we will continue to only see change and improvements happen slowly, and on the fringe rather than in the mainstream treatment model. […]
Anorexia: You can’t have that bagel for lunch. That would be a breach of Rule #382 Me: Rule #382? Anorexia: Yes, rule #382: Bagel for breakfast cannot be followed by bagel for lunch. Rule #382 Me: Since when did that rule exist? That wasn’t there before. Anorexia: You weren’t eating […]
I got the below email and decided that I would answer it in blog post because I think that these are questions that many adults in Anorexia recovery will have from time to time. Other than removing the writer’s name I have posted the email in it’s entirety. My responses […]
There are certainly problems that arise with “target weights” in Anorexia recovery. The biggest, overarching theme is that they are set too low. I wrote about this in length in this post titled Anorexia Recovery: Why is it that treatment seems to serve my eating disorder better than it serves my […]
One of the questions I get asked the most by both sufferers and parents/partners of sufferers is; “how did you find the motivation to recover?” often followed closely by, “how do I find the motivation to recover?” or “how does he/she find the motivation to recover?” These are very important questions […]
