It makes sense that many of the thoughts, emotions and physical symptoms associated with anorexia are the result of the body going into ‘starvation mode’.  In primitive times when food was scarce, it would be beneficial for a caveman’s thoughts to be preoccupied with food to motivate him to hunt.  Numbing his emotions would maintain his focus and ensure he wasn’t distracted by thoughts and feelings not linked to food.  If he was unable to sleep he might do a bit of hunting overtime. And if his metabolism slowed he would hang on to his energy stores for longer.  As a logical thinker, this idea resonated with me and sowed the seed for my comprehension of eating disorders as being rooted in biology.  I found the science element comforting.  

The lightbulb truly illuminated for me when I read Tabitha Farrar’s explanation of the Migration / Adapt to Flee Famine theory in her book, ‘Rehabilitate, Rewire, Recover’.   This theory in a nutshell suggests that anorexia is triggered in those predisposed by relevant genetics, when the body moves into a state of energy deficit.  This state is caused, quite simply, by energy in equalling less than energy out.  This is a survival reaction to famine that provokes a migration response.  A purpose of migration can be to escape famine and find food elsewhere.  This needs to be done as quickly and efficiently as possible so stopping to eat and rest would risk not reaching that bountiful land.  Ah ha!  So that is why in anorexia, the desire to eat shuts down and the urge to move increases.  Genius!  That’s why I couldn’t sit still, exercised relentlessly and didn’t want to eat. 

When that state of food aplenty was reached, it would have been feast time.  However, as modern day humans living in the 21^st century, whilst our bodies may still be triggered into this response, migration does not actually occur and what should be a short period of time, becomes extended and neural pathways are built in our brains.  Uh oh!  Eating is perceived more as a threat to survival and a fear of weight gain and subsequently food, develops.  This all happens within the ‘survival brain’.  A reactionary part of the brain that does not ‘think’.  So all of this happens without conscious thought when the body dips into energy deficiency. 

From this revelation, it became obvious to me that to recover, I needed to address my fear of food.  A fear that I didn’t even realise I had.  How?  By running headfirst into and doing exactly what my instinct was telling me not to do – eat.  Only by doing this would I teach my brain that food is safe.  So the key to recovery is to eat.  This made perfect sense to me but to do so when your brain is telling you in no uncertain terms not to?  That’s where this shit is hard and I’ll come on to that…..

Despite this apperception, there were still a fair few light bulbs pretty dim inside my brain.  So eating disorders are triggered when a body enters a state of energy deficiency.  Yep, got that.  But how does it get in that state in the first place?  I further came to understand that this can happen for any number of reasons; dieting to conform to a body ideal set by oneself or others, excessive exercise, a period of ill health or a stressful life event impacting appetite.  

The next challenge for me was figuring out my trigger(s).  Not only because I needed to understand, but also to make sure it doesn’t happen again…..