A Reason to Exercise

So, I’ve just been told that I probably shouldn’t run for six weeks. Having run a half marathon on Sunday, I managed to pick up an ankle injury (ironically, the injury is due to the fact that my new trainers correct my gait and therefore exploited a weakness in my tendon). Anyway, details aside, my physiotherapist has told me I need to take a rest for a while until it’s healed.

For a brief moment, on realising I wouldn’t be running for a while and probably not doing much exercise in its place, I thought about how that would affect my body. Would I gain weight in the next six weeks? Should I start being more careful about what I eat? Should I download a food diary app to help make sure I don’t eat too much?

A second later I snapped out of it. Old habits, Millie. Pull yourself together and chill out.

When I was unwell, one aspect of my eating disorder was that I was addicted to exercise. I became obsessed with it, planning my day around my workouts, not seeing friends and missing out on social events and going to the gym instead. It became a compulsion, something I had to do. I remember there was a time when I had tonsillitis and felt really unwell, but I forced myself to get up and do my morning exercise routine because I didn’t want to even imagine the guilt that I would feel if I took a day off. As I performed my morning cardio in my living room, feeling even lower on energy than usual, I just started crying. I didn’t even know why. Because I felt so sick…or because I had no idea what the hell I was doing. How had I got to the point where I forced myself to do this? I had lost all sense of control.

Exercise had become a form of self harm. Something I inflicted on my body because of the way I felt about myself, the way I looked, what I had eaten.

I hear all too often people talking about exercise as a vanity issue. People at the gym or at running club talking about wanting to lose a bit more belly fat, adding in an extra session to make up for the cake they had at the weekend, working out hard for their bikini body. Obviously, exercise can change to our bodies, and I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with having aims. But when it becomes solely about how you look and what other people think of you, it can affect your self esteem and your emotions. I know that for me, this is a danger zone and can lead to unhealthy behaviours.

As part of my recovery I worked hard to separate exercise from my disorder. I stopped exercising all together and learnt how to eat again without feeling the need to work out. As I introduced exercise back into my routine it was simply there as something for me to enjoy. I run because I like to challenge myself and because it makes me feel great.

Exercise is a celebration of what my body can do, not a punishment for what I eat or how I look.