Who do you want to be?

Do you want to be the person who goes hungry? Do you want to be the person who micromanages their food and exercise? Do you want to be the person who misses out on friend and family time in case it involves food? Do you want to go on holiday but be calculating calories and thinking about food every second of every day?

Or, would you rather be the person who eats to fullness and enjoys every bite? Would you rather be the person who can order whatever they like, without considering what they’ve eaten before or will eat later in the day? Would you rather be the person who accepts a piece of cake at their friend’s birthday to enjoy and connect? Would you rather be the person who can take in the incredible cultural experiences of travel without the constant food chatter in your head? Would you rather be the person who can go for a spontaneous dinner and drinks without having it planned out days in advance?

The truth is, if you want to be this person in the future you have to act like that person now. Despite all the ED wiring telling you that you can’t do it today, that really you don’t want to, that you’ll do it next week, you must do those things today. It will feel uncomfortable and unnatural to begin with. It will not feel good in the moment. But eventually, by doing the things you want your future self to be able to do, you will become that person. There is no way around that discomfort - you will not wake up one day and suddenly be comfortable eating in an unrestricted way just because you’ve decided to. Sadly, neural networks don’t work like that. You will have to align your current behaviours to the behaviours you want in the future, even if that feels wrong in the moment. 

So much of my eating disorder lay in compensatory or conditional behaviours. I wouldn’t skip meals or even snacks very much, but I was trapped by what I felt I could eat in certain conditions. This showed up very clearly on days when I was going out for dinner. I would eat, but only certain things (that I knew the calorie content of). I would eat, but only at times that I knew would get me through to dinner time without being ravenous. I would eat, but only if I’d done a specific form of movement that day. This was a far cry from the person I wanted to be. I wanted to be the person who could go out for lunch with a friend and then go out for dinner too. I wanted to be the person who always responded to hunger regardless of plans later. I wanted to simply not be so hungry before going out for dinner. It took a lot of grit and a lot of courage to break that cycle. But in those moments of debate I would always come back to: who do I want to be? What would she do in this situation? And obviously she would eat. She would eat whatever the heck she wanted in whatever quantity would satisfy her. And if she was going out for dinner too, well how lucky is she? 

As ever, this wasn’t necessarily easy but it was simple. The shift in identity can make all the difference. Once you can identify with who you want to be on the other side of recovery, it is much more clear what you must do in the now to become that version of you. If you don’t want to do a particular behaviour in the future then you have to stop doing it today. And if you do want to do a particular behaviour in the future you have to start doing it today. This is the basis of identity change and neural rewiring. With enough repetition and continuing to align your actions to the version of you that you want to be, you will eventually do this without such effort. You simply will become the person you aimed to be.