Exercise and Eating Disorders: How To Safely Incorporate Joyful Movement During Your Recovery.

Often a useful tool in mental health disorders, exercise has sometimes been overlooked in eating disorder recovery. Due to the addictive or obsessive nature of eating disorders, exercise can often fall under the umbrella of potential triggers for relapse, or may already be an existing issue in conjunction with someone’s eating disorder.

So, can you exercise during your eating disorder recovery? Well, it depends.

Exercise can be okay for some and not okay for others. Whether or not introducing exercise into your life is safe and valuable is dependent upon your triggers and the professional advice of your therapist and dietitian. An individual's approach and intrinsic motivations towards exercise must be closely monitored to ensure that they are not replacing one maladaptive coping mechanism for another.

Joyful movement can aid in fostering a positive relationship with ones body by pouring into oneself. By approaching physical activity as a positive choice that focuses on pleasurable activities, celebration of body and strength, and the intuition of the mind body connection - joyful movement can aid in your recovery.

Joyful Movement

Joyful movement is the idea that exercise should be enjoyable and emphasizes 

• Mindfulness

• Personal embodiment

• Pleasure

• Physical health

• Mental health

And removes the emphasis on

• Body shape

• Ability

• Recomposition

• Control 

• “Making up for” bad habits

This philosophy of movement purposely refuses the notion that exercise is an obligation, a tool to change your body, a punishment for eating, or a means of controlling something in your life. Joyful movement means leaning into what you like, confidently avoiding what you don’t, and listening to your mind and body's needs.

Joyful movement can improve one's ability to manage 

• Emotions

• Mood

• Body-image satisfaction

• Quality of life

• Symptoms of depression and anxiety

Move In Ways That You Actually Enjoy

Commonly in eating disorders and exercise there is a tendency to gravitate towards movement that burns the most amount of calories. However, discovering what you truly enjoy is paramount during this process of treating yourself with kindness and listening to your body.  If you don’t like running, then stop. Don’t be afraid to try new things because you never know what is going to spark joy. Cycling, yoga, weight lifting, swimming, sports, kayaking, hiking, dancing, aerial, gymnastics, circuit training, crossfit, pilates, you name it. If you’re not looking forward to what you’re doing and it isn’t evoking joy, that is not joyful movement.

Be Mindful of How You Fuel Your Body

Eating in alignment with your eating disorder recovery goals and having sufficient energy and fluid intake for movement is incredibly important. Feeling sluggish before or after a workout can be combated with fueling your body properly. You should always have a pre-workout snack that focuses on carbohydrates one hour before your workout. This ensures that you have a surge of glycogen (our body's main energy source) to fuel you throughout your workout. For a post-workout snack, protein and hydration is important for muscle recovery and carbohydrates are important for replenishing glycogen stores.

Recognize The Need For Rest

The cycle of intense exercising and the compulsion to workout everyday is a thing of the past.
Your body requires downtime to rest and recover. This can be a hard habit to instill in someone recovering from an eating disorder, but remembering that rest is just as, if not more important than movement is key. During exercise, your muscles tear and you may experience something called delayed onset muscle soreness, also known as DOMS. This is a normal and  healthy physiological response to your muscles being challenged. However, muscles require down time to repair and grow. In addition to rest, it's important to be flexible and grounded in the choice to skip a session or take consecutive days off. Part of joyful movement is putting energy into all the things that bring you joy which can mean taking a break and leaning into other areas of your life.

Practice Gratitude and Mindfullness

Intentionally take time to express appreciation for what your body can do. Its strength, its abilities, its grace. Starting a gratitude journal can also be helpful to take note of how you feel before, during, and after exercise. Being mindful of your experience and paying attention to your mind and body's feedback while introducing exercise into your recovery process is a great way to practice mindfulness. So often in eating disorders, individuals can feel out of touch or foreign to their body and what brings them joy. Taking inventory, expressing gratitude, and practicing mindfulness are beneficial practices to add to your joyful movement experience.

Interested in exploring what joyful movement can look like for you? We can help!
We are here to provide expert guidance and address any questions or concerns you may have.