- Hi, everybody.
It's Tuesday and it feels like a Monday here,
so I have to motivate myself to do things today.
If you're new to my channel, welcome.
On Tuesdays, I'm on Tumblr.
So if you are an avid fan of Tumblr,
you can find me on there.
Just Kati Morton all squished together.
If you use the hashtag Kati FAQ
and you asked your questions, I have three of them today,
as well as an awesome journal topic.
It's pretty long, so I've got to get through these
so that we have time to talk about that.
Let's get started.
Question number one.
Hello, Kati.
I have another ED appointment next week and I'm
nervous about bing weighed.
Aren't we all?
When will blind weights end?
I'm not allowed to see the number because it previously
sparked a suicide attempt, but being weighed
in general makes me feel so awful.
How can I better manage this worry?
This is a good question, and something I haven't
really talked about much.
If you're out there and you're struggling
with an eating disorder, whether it be anorexia, bulimia,
or binge eating, being weighed is something
that we never let you see the number.
It's part of recovery.
There will come a point where you will be able
to see it because mentally, you'll be able to manage that
number and know that number doesn't define who you are,
but until you're at that point, they're always
going to blind weigh you because of the fact
that it sparked a suicide attempt.
It can push you back into the eating disorder.
It can cause a relapse.
It can do a lot of thing to us.
Just having the number, because we all know,
and whoever asked this question, you can't tell me
that you don't take that number, spin it into a gazillion
different ways that you can make the number less
or whatever and it makes you crazy again and you
go back into the eating disorder, like full bore,
even if you're really fighting.
At least, that's my experience with a lot of my clients.
They take that number and they ruminate
and ruminate and ruminate.
It's way too much.
There will come a time when you're so far along
in your recovery that you are able to hear
and help yourself understand the mantra
a number doesn't define who I am or my weight
doesn't make me better or worse or whatever it is
you need to say, and that's something you can still do now
to better manage the worry of it, is talking
yourself down from it, having mantras you say,
journaling about how you feel before and after,
talking to your therapist.
If you know you're going in to be weighed,
make sure you have a therapist appointment
coming up quickly, even if you can do it that day,
that'd be even better, or if you could do it the next day.
However you can prepare yourselves so that you're getting
the support you need externally from like a therapist
or maybe just getting together with a friend
that knows you're in recovery and is helpful,
to internally having the mantras, journalings,
stuff like that because we know we kind of need both, right?
Once you're far enough along in your recovery,
where the number won't define who you are anymore,
that's when they'll let you start seeing it,
and that's something that they'll probably have a discussion
with you about and talk about
before they even actually do it.
I hope that helps.
I hope that makes sense.
That's kind of how we gauge when you're ready
because it can be really difficult at first
and we've worried a lot about that number
for a really long time and to have it taken away,
we're hoping, can give you one less thing to have a hold of
where you can think about it,
ruminate about it, subtract, divide, multiply,
whatever you're doing in your equations.
It'll help you save that brain space.
You don't have to use it on that anymore.
You can use it on your recovery tools.
What do you think about that?
Question number two.
Hey, Kati.
How can you tell when you're using
your eating habits as a coping skill?
You know how I always talk about our self harm
or eating disorders, how we use those as coping skills,
kind of any destructive behavior.
It could be drug abuse.
It could be alcohol abuse, where it's not just
a social thing or for fun every now and again.
It's like something that we do
when we're really stressed out.
Now, that's how we kind of know.
A lot of my clients will say, "I don't know if that was
"my eating disorder or not," and so we go back.
I track back in that day or even the day before.
It might even be the week before, and we start
talking about what's been going on.
I would encourage you, if you're concerned that maybe
you're using your eating as a coping skill,
I want you to notice your emotional hungerfulness.
If that doesn't work, if that's not something
you're in touch with, notice what's been going on.
Has it been extra stressful?
Is work really busy?
Is school just starting and it's kind of anxiety provoking
or if things are rough at home,
are friends being mean or nice.
You want to notice how things are going in your life.
You can kind of stick with those quadrants of like,
you know, work or school or friends or family or
home life or whatever, how many buckets of people
and experiences have going in your life.
I want you to consider each of them and how
things are going in each of those buckets
because then, we can say well, you know, even though
school's going fine, at home, things are really chaotic
and I find myself not wanting to go home.
That will help gauge your emotional experience in the now.
If you are feeling overly emotional, it could be anything.
It could be I'm feeling really sad.
I'm feeling really anxious.
It could be any number of feelings.
If you feel that building up and you find yourself
not eating as much or eating more,
that's when you can link the two.
You can see that what you've been doing as a result of the
fact that things ar really stressful or uneasy
or schools have changed and it kind of makes you anxious
and you're meeting new friends and you don't even know.
Sometimes, taking some time to figure out
where you're coming from and what's going on
can make you realize, wow I have been really stressed out
or wow, my depression has really gotten bad.
I haven't painted in a month and I really love it
or I haven't sang or I haven't one whatever.
It helps to notice.
Sometimes, we go forever without noticing.
That's how you know.
Question number three.
Hi, Kati.
Can you ever safely lose weight
after having an eating disorder?
That's a good question.
I feel like I may have answered it before,
but I wasn't sure, so we're giving it a round two.
I currently struggle with bulimia
and I'm working on recovery.
Right now, I'm just under the highest weight
that I have ever been and I an not happy about it.
I know.
I know I have to leave it and work on recovery,
but will I be able to lose weight afterwards
or will it push me back on my eating disorder?
Thank you so much for everything you do.
You've given me hope.
This is a tricky one.
Yes, is the answer.
You could definitely lose weight after you're in recovery.
However, I would encourage you strongly, very, very strongly
to do it with a dietician and a therapist.
You're probably thinking, "Kati, why are you
"being so crazy?" but the thing is, is that
we have to protect our recovery.
We worked our asses off.
We're like so intense and we're so strong and we
fought all those urges and we don't
want to want to have to go back, right?
We don't want to find ourselves backsliding.
If we are planning to lose weight,
I would first consult with your physician to make sure
that you even need to because it
could still be our eating disorder.
Secondly, when working with a dietician,
they'll make sure that you're doing it healthfully.
It won't feel like a diet.
You shouldn't be hungry all the time.
You shouldn't not eat things that your body's craving.
They'll help you manage that and eat properly
so your body's getting nutrients so your hair
doesn't fall out and your skin doesn't get all weird
and you're not tired all the time or irritable.
Then working with a therapist can help you gauge,
as I call it, food and feelings.
You at that, so were you okay?
Your friends went and got donuts and you got one too.
How are we doing with that?
Whatever, as you're working through it, you need to
continually talk about it, and I know it sounds like
it's overkill and it's like, ""But I've already done
"all this recovery work."
It's to protect the recovery.
You can definitely lose weight, but I often find
my clients were like, "Can I lose weight
"after I'm in recovery?"
My answer to them is usually no because I'm like,
you're not even at your ideal body weight
from your doctor yet.
Let's not talk about that right now.
That's why the first step is to go see your doctor.
Make sure that it's medically okay.
Then we have to have some support, right, because it'll
have to be a long time, like many years in recovery
before we can just do it on our own.
I would encourage you to get some support
to make sure that you're doing it healthfully for your body.
Now, here is our journal topic, and it's kind of long,
so I'm just going to read through it, and then
I'm going to help you get started.
It says, "Hey, Kati, I wrote this in my journal today
"and I really like it as a journal topic.
"I thought about setting myself the goal
"to get off the scale for at least three days.
"Then one week and so on."
So just progressively moving her goal along.
This is a little quote from Steve Maraboli Life
the Truth and Being Free.
I assume it's a book that she read
and it says, "Get off the scale," exclamation point.
You are beautiful.
Your beauty, just like your capacity for life,
happiness, and success, is unmeasurable.
I really like that.
Rewind it back and listen to that again, okay?
Day after day, countless people across the globe
get on the scale in search of validation
of beauty and social acceptance.
Get off the scale.
I have yet to see a scale that can tell
how enchanting your eyes are.
I've never seen one of those.
Find one, send it to me in my P.O. box, okay?
Let's see.
I have yet to see a scale that shows you how wonderful
your hair looks when the sun shines its glorious rays on it.
I have yet to see a scale that can thank you for your
compassion, your sense of humor, and your contagious smile.
Get off the scale because I have yet to see one
that can admire you for your perseverance
when challenged in life.
It's true, the scale can only give you
a numerical reflection of your relationship with gravity.
Rewind that back and listen to that again.
That's it.
It cannot measure beauty, talent, purpose, life force,
possibility, strength, or love.
Don't give the scale more power than it has earned.
Take note of the number and get off
the scale and live your life.
You are beautiful.
I thought that this can not only apply to those of us
who are struggling with our weight, whether it be,
"God, I got to lose that last 10 pounds," and the
depression that sets in when that's really a struggle,
to people who struggle with eating disorders
and it's really severe and we may binge eat all day long,
every day, or I the evenings or whatever.
We may not eat, we may binge and purge.
Whatever it is, I want you to rewind.
I want you to listen to this again.
It might be something that you might even put up around
the house or portions of it on Post-It notes at your office.
Also, for those of us who let the negative voices
run our life, we're struggling with depression and anxiety
and you let all of those, some words that people said
years ago or something that happened years ago
rule your life and run in your head.
People don't deserve that power.
If you're running these old records,
you have the ability to stop it and I would
encourage you to not give it more power
than its worth, just like the scale.
Don't give it more than its earned.
They haven't done anything.
You can stop it.
I could encourage all of us to get off the scale,
get off the negative train.
We don't have to keep chugging through it.
I think we'll feel better for it.
What do you think?
Let me know.
I'll see you all tomorrow on the website and YouTube,
so ask your questions below this video
using the hashtag Kati FAQ and on my website
under Kati's videos FAQ, I think is hashtag FAQ requests.
See you then, bye.