Travel Tips for People with Eating Disorders and Exercise Addiction
For anyone who is in recovery from an eating disorder and goes traveling knows the following thoughts only too well:
What if I can’t eat any of my “safe foods”?
What if I can’t exercise like I used to?
What if I gain weight?
Will I find food I like when eating at restaurants?
Is street food “safe/clean/healthy” enough for me to eat?
What if I’m starving and have nothing “good” enough to eat?
What if I don’t have WIFI and will unable to stream a workout video?
I wonder if people will suspect my eating habits are restrictive?
Should I stay in a dorm or rather get my own private room so that I can work out or eat alone without anyone seeing me?
I don’t have weights/treadmill/kettlebells etc with me so how can I get my workout in?
These are real questions I have asked myself countless time before embarking on a trip and while on the road too. While these questions are valid and ok to have, I want to plant the seed that it is also possible to not have such exhausting, obsessive and time-consuming thoughts. Traveling can help shed these layers and layers of thoughts. In fact, I have used travel as a tool to help me to let go of these thoughts, to think of myself in new ways and thus free up my headspace for more productive, fulfilling and joyful experiences.
Of course, like any attempt at freeing oneself from an eating disorder, disordered eating or exercise addiction, it can be scary and terrifying. So, it is no wonder that traveling can be very stressful for many of us. This is because hitting the wide, open road shakes up any routine, pattern or habitual thought we have.
We meet people who show us new ways of experiencing life free from food and body image stuff that inspire us. We eat foods we’ve never tried before. We skip our workout routine for a once-in-a-lifetime daytrip or tour. We make interesting meals in communal spaces with our new friends. We eat out a lot more. We sleep in and chill out. We don’t have access to a scale. We don’t have access to a gym. We don’t have access to our trusty blender. We find it’s too hot to exercise. We hear our bodies asking us to slow down. We experience profound connections when we choose to be present in a conversation rather than trying to rush off to do a workout alone on a dirty dorm room floor.
And so our bodies may change as our relationship to food and exercise shift. We may feel grief, anguish and out of control. We may even wish we never even went traveling in the first place because of these physical changes and ache for the gym back home and familiar meal plans. We also will meet people who trigger us - but if we can look beyond the jealousy or resentment, we realize that they embody aspects of ourselves that we wish to ignite, such as body freedom in the form of being comfortable nude or acceptance of one’s sexuality through dance, for example.
This is what traveling can bring up. This is what we must face should we choose to hit the road.
There is no hiding as all the structures and walls we so carefully built up disintegrate before our very eyes. And these are the walls that we thought would help us come across as perfect and thus be accepted by others.
It’s become clear to me that these walls have only caused separation from those around me and have kept me from experiencing connection - which is what I desired in the first place. And of course, let’s be real, trying to be “perfect” is a pointless game. For more talk on the pursuit of perfection, head here.
This is what I discovered while traveling: the walls that I thought kept me safe are all an illusion. They are not real, let alone strong enough to protect anything.
Traveling shows us how we are really meant to live: in flow, in trust, in a surrendered state, in awe-amazement of the beautiful synchronicities, excited, grateful and alive. To reach that stage requires shedding; an uncomfortable transition from one way of existing to another. Growing pains, resistance and fear are inevitable, but if we can start testing the edges of our comfort zone, like trying new foods, eating out and easing up on our exercise routines, we will realize how resilient we are, how a healthy vessel is what we need to adventure through life, and that true connections are made when we are present: in our light and fullness of spirit.
Wishing you all healing and transformation on your next travel adventure. Choose life. It’s waiting to be lived through your bliss.
Traveling through the jungle island of Ometepe, Nicaguara