Recovering after a period of chronic dieting or caloric restrictions is not always a smooth process. There are several struggles that you may experience during recovery and you may even feel worse before you feel better. 

You Should Know What to Expect

Many of us who want to encourage recovery are hesitant to mention some of these potential roadblocks in fear that it may dissuade girls and guys from attempting recovery. The problem with this approach is that there are two parts of recovery: the initial motivation and the follow through. The initial motivation doesn’t mean much if he or she quits due to some unexpected hurdles. With that being said I want to be as honest I can be about what you may experience and know that while somethings may actually be better on your super restrictive diet, I promise that you will be better as a whole once you finally stop dieting.

Black & White Thinking

Humans, especially the type to embark on extreme eating and exercise plans, have to tendency of seeing things as either black or white & good or bad. This is mostly good–it helps us navigate through life much easier, but sometimes it gets us into trouble.  

I deeply feel that addressing this mentality is important because It kept me from recovering for years. For most of my time with disordered eating, I followed the keto dieting along with extreme intermittent fasting. This would be a good time to mention that although I no longer suggest basically any dieting, following a crazy diet doesn’t automatically give them an eating disorder, no matter how bizarre it is. There are people all over the world that follow every diet imaginable and I’m certain that not all of them have an eating disorder. Disordered eating is more about the way you approach food and letting your eating patterns control your life.

The Halo Effect

With that out of the way let me tell you about my experience. When I first heard that dieting and weight loss themselves could have been the cause of my plethora of symptoms, I was all in. I don’t know where I heard it from, but the source assured me that it would give me my life back. I am very grateful for becoming aware of what I needed to do at the time, but I entered into this initial recovery with the black or white mentality. I mean, the diet that was best for my strength must also be the best for my wellbeing, right? I also thought that the diet that is best for my energy must also be best for my long-term health. The problem is that like everything in life, diets are rarely black and white.

My thoughts at the time were being influenced by the halo effect. This Halo effect is the tendency for humans to assume that if something is beneficial in one area (e.g. staying lean), then it must be beneficial in other areas as well (e.g. health). It is a type of heuristic that helps us make quick decisions, but often leads us to the wrong conclusion.

Principle of Specificity

It’s important to see dieting through the lens of the principle of specificity. The principle of specificity, which is often applied to strength training, basically explains that there is no approach that is best in all aspects. If you want to lift heavy weights, then longs runs aren’t going to do it for you and vice versa.

What this means for diets is that he may have to accept that, at least initially, the diet and lifestyle that is best for recovery is unlikely to be the diet and lifestyle that maximizes your performance or physique goals. 

Running on Overdrive

With that being said, if you decide to continue down the path of restriction and extreme dieting it may work better for you in the short-term, but over time those benefits begin to subside. Many others and I have experienced a similar phenomenon. The best explanation for this is that your body is running in sympathetic dominance, which is a fancy term for running on overdrive. This state can give you loads of energy and even make you feel euphoric.

Our bodies have evolved to not only survive but actually perform optimally given stressful situations. That is why many of us who have experimented with long-term fasting have seen a surge in energy rather than total exhaustion as you might expect. 

Not Meant for the Long-Term

The caveat to our bodies’ impressive abilities to rise up to stressors and challenges is that this was not meant for the long-term. If you continue down the path of running your body into the ground with extreme dieting and exercise, you will slowly see the negative effects in your health. 

Contrast this with a lifestyle congruent with recovery. By eating more and exercising less you will probably feel worse at first. I was so convinced that carbs weren’t for me because I would get sleepy right after eating them. The same goes for long runs. Without the runners high that you experience from cardio you may feel depressed for a short time. If you are life me you will probably question, “how can something be bad for my health if it makes me feel so good?”

Takes Time to Adjust

I had to learn myself that in the same way that my body has to adjust to fasting or eating keto, it took some time to adjust to eating noramally again. I no longer feel bad after meals and my exercise performance is back to where it was before recovery. I no longer have to choose between having my body functioning properly (digestion, hormones, etc.) and performing/looking good. It took some time, but the path to these goals are now one-in-the-same.  

Takeaway

The takeaway here is that you should not look at this in terms of good vs bad or health vs nonhealthy lifestyles. You might feel better with your restrictive diet and intense exercise, but if you have symptoms that you want to fix then it might mean changing up your lifestyle at least for some time, even if you feel worse at first.