Do the Behaviors Just Mutate for Some People?

I spend a fair amount of time reading body building forums. While there are a number of women who focus on competition prep, there are plenty of others who are looking for the opportunity to lose fat and to build muscle while on a caloric deficit. While there are a number of moderators who talk about the impossibility, the needs for high protein and increased food intake, it strikes me that a number of people who are looking for an option that allows them to just keep doing what they are doing, but to give it another name.

Eating disorder behaviors, it seems, are something that some people never quite give up; they just start to look at them a different way. For some, it’s the way they eat:

(source)A lot of people become vegan to mask an eating disorder.
I was vegan for 6 years.
I didn’t give a crap about the animals. I just wanted an excuse not to eat.

In many cases, it’s a similar story when it comes to workout routines that will help them to stay toned or to get toned or who are afraid to lift weights because the only thing that they are used to doing cardio to the extreme and don’t want to “look like a man” or somthing similar.

I think in these cases, a lot of the issue is just a change in focus. Rather than focusing on eating disorder recovery an to d getting the body to perform at its best (in other words, focusing on health), it’s a matter of still looking for excuses - looking for ways to continue their behaviors.

Early in my own recovery from my last major relapse - years ago now - I started to go to the gym when I started eating, however, there were some interesting contingencies that I put into place:

• The gym that I went to was in the same building as my therapist’s office - and she was a member; in other words, I had an external control in place that I couldn’t control.
• I discussed my workouts with my therapist and my doctor - and I met with both at least once a week. Had I been seeing a nutritionist, I would have been keeping those meetings as well. My therapist and doctor also talked regularly.

What happened was that I gained weight that I needed, I strengthened and build muscle and limited cardio because the only reason that I’d ever used it was to burn calories and all of the equipment in the gym kept tabs. It wasn’t about that for me, whereas for many people it seems as though the transition is merely a way to burn off the additional calories of refeeding.

I’ve always had some concern about eating disorder behaviors just shifting and becoming something else, something with a different name or face. The more time that I spend seeing others making that choice, the more that I’m glad it’s something that I’ve managed to avoid.