What do you do when you fall into old habits? —UK
I recovered from hypothalamic amenorrhea at the end of 2021 (which means I also had to recover from all of the things that put me in the state of a missing period; disordered eating, fear of food, obsessive exercise, chronic stress, and perfectionism).
The first step is recognizing that I’ve slipped. The easiest way to see this is tracking my cycle and my symptoms. Am I sleeping the whole night through and waking feeling rested? Do I have cystic acne? Have my basal body temperatures dropped? Am I still seeing cervical mucus at the right times? Is my PMS out of hand? Have I skipped a period altogether? Now, I can proudly say that since I recovered, I haven’t skipped any periods, but I definitely have seen my menstrual chart go haywire.
The second step is to figure out what the heck is going on. It's not as easy as taking a supplement and moving on. Find out what the trigger was and work yourself through it. Did I go to the beach and start comparing my butt to every other girl’s in a thong bathing suit? Did a family member make a comment about my eating habits? Do things feel out of control in another area of my life? Is my job extra chaotic right now? Do my relationships feel rocky? Do I have a wedding come up where I want to wear something specific? Identifying this trigger is the key to working through it.
The third step after identifying that trigger is to then figure out what which “old programming” my mind started to play. Just because I’ve worked my way out of these in my recovery by rewiring a lot of my thought processes doesn’t mean that that old faulty wiring doesn’t exist anymore.
After that, my fourth step is to immediately tell myself what’s true. I remind myself what my body needs nutritionally, emotionally, mentally, and physically. Then, I take time to plan for each one of those.
Let me walk you through up to where I currently am with an example:
Wow, my temperatures have dropped dramatically this morning for what they should be. I’ve recognized there’s a problem. Well what happened yesterday? Well, yesterday, I had to stay later at work and I didn’t have enough in my lunchbox so I hit the Reece’s cups in the breakroom. Then when I got home, I felt kind of sick from all the candy and tried to make up for it with some beef jerky. But then, I was too full for dinner. Because I was out of routine and stressed out, I found myself running a mile or two longer than I had energy for. I’ve identified my trigger. My old programming told me to exercise more to make up for the loss of control I felt from, in my mind, overeating and being late coming home. Now into my fourth step, let’s give myself what my body needed yesterday and therefore also today. I had to stay late yesterday, now I’m taking care of that mental/emotional stress by making sure I leave early today. Nutritionally, I need to have more food in my lunchbox regularly so that if I do need to stay later, I have something to help me feel successful. I did a lot of cardio yesterday which caused physical stress; today I will do a short lifting session or take a rest day. And lastly, I sweeten the deal. What would REALLY make me feel rested today? Watching an episode of The Office later? Yes please!
So that’s what I do when I find myself slipping into old habits. I pause. I regroup. I take action to do the next right thing in taking care of myself. I recognize that my priorities switched for a few days; I switch them back to my health.
