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Edema, Water Retention and Bloating In ED / Diet Recovery

 

Are you experiencing:

» rapid and extreme weight gain and puffiness in recovery?

» uncomfortable physical symptoms in recovery?

» edema, pain and swelling (in face, legs, feet, stomach/belly, knees, etc) in recovery

» water retention: "moon face" swelling / swollen face, swollen tight ankles and knees, swollen bloated belly, all forms of Edema, and water retention in Recovery

» pain in your feet soles and knees?

 

 ..."recovery" as in, recovery from:

  • dieting,
  • too much weight lifting or cardio,
  • disordered eating,
  • diuretics,
  • low salt diets,
  • alcoholism / drug addiction,
  • bulimia,
  • orthorexia,
  • binge eating
  • and things of this nature?

 

And are you also wondering:

✦ what is edema? and the symptoms of edema and water retention?

✦ what the edema recovery time is, and how long does edema last in ed recovery?

✦ how to reduce swelling from edema?

✦ is swelling good or bad for healing?

Then you are in the right place!

 

I get how uncomfortable this process can be as I've been there and in this article, I'm sharing:

  • EDEMA in Recovery
  • what edema is and what the purpose of edema is
  • a bit about my story
  • what I did to cope
  • how my edema and swelling went away and subsided.

 


 

I talk about edema quite a bit because it's so common in recovery of any kind, and in this case and what I specialize in, especially after restriction and deprivation...

  1. Not only restriction of sodium, from being in a dehydrated state for a long time from diuretics or just not consuming salt or restricting salt
  2. But also from restriction of energy (calories) in general,
  3. And then of course recovery from stimulant drugs, appetite suppressant drugs, alcohol or any kind of recovery.

 

WHAT IS EDEMA?

First, I want to define what is edema, because you may have edema and not even know it, and then think something's horribly wrong with you, and then you may try to suppress (get rid of) it because you don't understand it.

Edema is not to be feared.

Edema is actually to be embraced and encouraged because your body is retaining fluids for a very well reason.

So, what is edema?

Edema could be, and not limited to:

  • Puffiness all over or to a limited spot on your body - it can be in your face, in your fingers, around your organs and your belly / stomach, around your ankles, around your knees.
  • You may feel inflamed and puffy and swollen, like you're going to pop.
  • You may feel like you're a bag of water.
  • You may feel like you're swollen and achy all over.
  • And you may feel like it's painful to even walk on your feet.
  • Also, if you press on your skin somewhere or usually around your ankles or your knees or your face, and you pit, this is "pitting oedema."

So if you push in skin and the skin is slow to react coming back out - that's pitting. But it can be edema without the pitting phenomena. 

You can have one of these and have edema.

You can have all of these.

You can have a couple.

Just because you have one or you don't have one doesn't mean you don't have edema.

And so you could have 15 pounds of water retention on your body, and then you see that scale go up, (which you shouldn't be weighing yourself or focusing on the number on the scale)

But if you did in early in your recovery journey or you haven't ditched the scale yet, you could be frightened.

You may think, "Holy crap, I put on 15 to 20 pounds in a couple of days."

That's typically water retention versus actual fat gain, and it's there for good reason, so remember that.

Do not try to suppress water retention or edema in recovery. Okay?

That's what edema is.

 

WHO IS AFFECTED MOST BY EDEMA IN NUTRITIONAL REHABILITATION?

 

Those who:

  • exercise a lot, think every day, no days off, for a couple hours plus, as it is a form of purging or exercise bulimia, (the more one exercises while restrively eating the more edema they’ll often face)
  • abused sweating without replenishing
  • used diuretics quite a bit,
  • abused laxatives/enemas, purge,
  • were on low salt diets,
  • were on low carbohydrate diets (as low salt and carbohydrate diets dehydrate the body),
  • and people who generally were very low calorie overall like 1200 and below as they will automatically be undernourished on carbs and salts (for example when I was raw vegan, and was doing fasting, juice cleansing, etc, I didn’t exercise at all for a couple years as I was told exercise was too stressful while trying to heal and detox, but I experienced enormous amounts of edema when I first started eating enough in rehabilitation)

But at the same time, through my research, some unique cases, even despite all this, don't experience edema, although it is rare, but it just goes to show, every body reacts differently to semi-starvation.

 

THE PURPOSE OF EDEMA

Edema is there not only for healing purposes, conserving purposes but so many reasons, which I'll touch on a couple right now.

Conservation.

So, you've been in a dehydrated state for so long.

And once you start to consume more sodium, (which is necessary for survival and hydration), or more water, your body holds onto the sodium and fluid, (just like your body conserves energy and food when you start increasing your calories again).

Your body goes into conservation mode as a protective mechanism from the threat of deprivation.

So the body is holding onto the salt and/or water in case you're going to deprive yourself again or you're going to lose a lot of water (aka, excessive sauna use, excessive exercise, diuretic use, low salt dieting, purging, etc).

The body needs water to function and to heal.

And the body needs salt and fluid regardless.

Your body is somewhere around 90% water.

Don't quote me on that. But it's something really high like that.

And regardless of if you're in recovery or you're not, you need a lot of water.

But right now, for healing purposes, your body wants to conserve water.

 

HEALING & NUTRIENT DELIVERY

The edema is like a slippery medium to actually speed up recovery process.

It helps transport and push in energy and nutrients even quicker into the damaged and depleted cells and tissues more rapidly and efficiently and as quick as possible.

So this is a medium to push as much energy and nutrients in as quickly as possible - to heal and recover.

 

PROTECTION

The edema is also a protective barrier.

It's protecting all of the inflamed and malnourished and damaged tissues and cells and organs.

Especially around your midsection, you hold a lot of edema and bloating around the belly because that's where all of your organs are, your vital organs.

The water retention you may experience in your head / face is because your body is trying to protect your brain.

Every part of your body is important obviously, but especially those organs.

So you're going to feel bloated, whether it's from the rebalancing of your metabolism and digestion, but also water retention to protect and encapsulate those organs to protect.

That's also why you gain more weight to the midsection of your belly, because it's a protective barrier right now.

Your body is in healing mode and it needs to protect this at all costs because it's been so damaged and depleted for so long that your body cannot risk anymore threats to your organ system and any of that for that matter.

So fat and water, they are there for protection and healing.

And the body will let go of all of this stuff when the body (not the mind) is ready.

You can't control this or speed the process up quicker than it will happen.

You can't step in and think that because you believe that you want and "should be" ready to let go of the water retention or the fat, that your body should let go right now too.

I understand this is frustrating, confusing and uncomfortable. 

But, unfortunately it doesn't work that way.

It will happen in due season.

The body's wisdom knows, and as your metabolism heals through the diet recovery process, the body will slowly start to release this stuff, when it's ready.

And this only happens when you are consistent with not restricting in any way - not restricting any foods, any macronutrients, any minerals, salt, no purging (which causes chronic dehydration and electrolyte imbalance)

...and overall not restricting yourself so the body doesn't feel in a threat that it will be starved of water and energy or food.

 

 

METABOLIC ADAPTATION

One of the main reasons we retain water and gain real meat and fat on you, on less than optimal amounts of food intake, is because your metabolism is suppressed (from caloric and/or macronutrient restriction!

But don’t think your metabolism is ruined and broken.

This is a survival mechanism your metabolism has adapted to keep you alive during semi- and full-on- starvation bouts.

The metabolism slows down to extract any bit of nutrition from the scarce calories coming in and stores it as fat for the famine and potential future famine..

All in all, your body does not care about vanity within Recovery;

Your body cares about survival...

 

 

 

 

 

NURSING YOURSELF BACK TO HEALTH

Think of yourself like a baby, okay?

Right now, you are like a baby in a sense.

Your body is having to go through all of the healing processes.

Healing of:

  • the digestion
  • the organs and glands
  • repairing all of these tissues
  • remineralizing your bones

And just like when a newborn has to go through all of this (except rather than RE-building it is the initial building and creation, but you get the point).

In the beginning, babies are super pudgy, swollen and just puffy everywhere, and you poke at their cute skin rolls and there's a lot of just fat and water. ☺️ 

It's there for protection, providing a constant flood of nutrients to the rapidly growing cells and tissues, growing, preparing and getting all of the nutrients that are coming in at such a crucial time and delivering them in there quickly and efficiently.

YOU are going to be puffy all around, just like a baby.

And you're going to have some stomach upset, the rebalancing, the inconsistency with your bowels and be super gassy, just like a baby.

Maybe some regurgitation, the nausea, the GERD, acid reflux. Your stomach can't quite handle whole foods yet so the more processed, pureed and pre-digested the better.

Because the stomach doesn't know how to function properly just yet because it hasn't had solid food in a while or not enough of it and it's been starved of nutrients...

...so the digestive organs, enzymes and functions actually started to shut down and not produce digestive enzymes anymore, and it started to shut off your liver and your stomach, also known as gastroparesis.

But that's why you may regurgitate some of the food or get acid reflux in your recovery.

And if you look to the early growing stages of a baby, you are pretty much similar to that. Just in a different way. πŸ˜‰ 

Your hormones are trying to rebalance.

So this is a crucial, crucial to time for repair and healing - eating and resting.

That's why your body is sending signals to back off and rest as much as you can.

And I know not everyone has the luxury to just rest all the time like a baby, but when you can, try to listen to your body.

 

THE IMPORTANCE OF INFLAMMATION 

Just like I talk about this in my book Damn the Diets, inflammation can be a sign, and a communication tool that the body uses, (nonverbal communication, just like hunger signals and satiety signals)..

...where the inflammation is trying to signal you to stay off of that body part (ie, feet, legs, etc).

Think of when you stub your toe and it becomes red and it becomes swollen, achy and sore - that's a sign to stay off of that until your body is able to heal that part of your body.

So in recovery, you may feel swollen and achy and pain and inflammation all over because restrictive diets, excessive training, restrictive eating disorders of any kind, overall restriction and extremes of any kind, on any level, even for a couple of days, can cause huge problems that are similar to starvation, that's why we say semi-starvation in this case.

But any kind of restrictive diet in any way can start to mimic this.

Again, I know the edema can be scary.

It is so scary, especially if we don't understand what's going on.

And really, it's just a matter of stepping out of the body's way and just letting your body do its thing.

Your body knows what it's doing, and we try to step in and try to control the process, and that's the worst thing you can do.

And you'll never fully come out of recovery if you're constantly trying to step in and be like, "Whoa, this isn't okay. I need to get my body back in check."

Just get out of your body's way and let it do its thing!

Your body is so intelligent, and it's doing so much at all times that we don't even realize, and we think we know more than the body.

We seriously need to quit, surrender and just let go and hand it over to the body and trust in the process and trust that your body is doing what it's doing because of your actions leading up to this, whether you did this all on purpose or not.

Restriction in any way or any kind of harm that we inflict on the body in so many different ways.

And as a result, the body has to go through a healing process and it takes time.

And because we're in this diet mentality culture of, quick fixes, instant gratification, take a pill mentality - we want it now and we want it how we think we should have it, the way we want it to be.

It's just not reality.

Things worth having in life take a lot of time, whether it's in your business, whether it's recovery, whatever.

You're not going to be an overnight success if it's going to be sustainable and reliable.

It's just how it is.

You have to work for it.

You have to do the work and be patient and believe in yourself and your body and trust in this process and just let go and be consistent.

And over time, things will happen slowly. 🐒 

Like I said, if you want to hear more about this, I mean, it's so important, edema and water retention - that's why I have a whole chapter on it in my book - that's why I have a whole module on it in my Find Your Balance coaching program or coaching course.

So if you want to hear more about it, you can enroll in my FYB signature program (which includes my book + so much more) or get my book Damn the Diets.

And if this helped you, I'm so glad.

And I wish that... When I was in recovery, when I dealt with my edema and it lasted for over 10 months and that was scary, I couldn't find a lot of information on edema in recovery when I was going through it.

And eventually I found something and it helped ease my mind and just trust in the process, and just having that knowledge, knowing that it was okay and that it was going to go away and it was there for a reason.

This helped me to be patient and just let the body do its thing.

So that's why I talk about it so much, because I wish that I heard more about it.

And I did some things to probably prolong the edema going away.

So if you can just not do that, just let go and let it be, you can probably not prolong your recovery as well, then my work here is a success! 😊 

 

QUICK STORY FROM MY RECOVERY..

I remember in my recovery, I was so edemic and swollen....

I was crying to my dad at one point....

I couldn't even walk across the hallway without my feet feeling like they were just painful and needles on the bottom of my feet, and they were so swollen in my ankles...

And I thought it just looked unhealthy and that I was unhealthy...

and that I was doing something wrong..

and that recovery just wasn't for me...

and that  I needed to go back to the other diets...

and that I needed to go back to the restriction to gain back control and get back to looking a certain way...

But every time I tried to do that, I just made it all worse and it didn't go away, because my body was already like, "No, we need to heal right now. I don't think so, missy."

And so yeah, that didn't work.

I was crying and he didn't understand.

But he was there for me and so supportive, but it was frustrating and confusing and discouraging.

 

Here's a photo of my swollen face in recovery and thereafter recovery:

 

The photo on the left is me super swollen, puffy, and miserable within Recovery.

I weighed the same, if not even a bit more on the right, but it was because of all the water retention during Recovery that made me look and feel swollen. 

This Edema happened after being on the bodybuilding diet, prepping for my bikini competitions, later as a raw vegan, and after water and extended juice fasting.

I did these things to try to heal, cleanse, detox, and be “pure” and be healthy; the Edema happened after stopping the purity quest of clean eating, quitting the diets, restrictions, purging, and over-exercising...

Hmmm… trying to be too healthy can often end up taking away our health and vitality...

 

Here's a screenshot from a client of mine in my Find Your Balance Program who also reports her edema going down:

Again, I’m talking about the Edema that hurts.

It aches, makes you look and feel pregnant, and makes your eyes and face look puffy.

I had such horrible Edema that it was too painful to even stand or walk on my feet.

I couldn’t even bend or cross my legs without them feeling as if they would burst and explode. It was a swollen, achy feeling but was severely uncomfortable...

If you have yet, to face Edema or water retention in the face, as well as all over your body, know Edema is an essential part of Recovery.

However, it can be scary, uncomfortable, painful, annoying, and make you feel not so beautiful. It should not be feared nor suppressed. Embrace it; it will go away...

 

 

Main Takeaways:

πŸ‘‰ The best thing for Edema and body aches is complete rest!

Complete: no exercise, but instead perhaps light stretching, but that’s it if you want something…

but rest, as in bed rest, if you have to…

...adding back in exercise will only prolong this process. If you'd like to know more about exercise and this process, check out this blog post.

 

πŸ‘‰ The thing with Edema is, the more you try to suppress, the longer it will last!

It’s there for healing purposes and conservation measures in your Recovery!

Instead, rest with elevated feet and compression socks will be your best bet at beating this! 

 

πŸ‘‰ I know it's discouraging, but just stick with it.

It will go away if you're consistent and you don't self-sabotage in your recovery.

I hope this article has helped you.

If you'd like further help and getting your questions answered, the way to do that is by joining my FYB coaching program.

You can learn more about it if you stick around until the end of the masterclass on my 4 step framework to stop feeling obsessed around food, for a free mind and thriving metabolism by clicking here πŸ‘† 

The best of luck to wherever you are on your recovery journey.

And it does get better, but just remember that this requires patience and trust and consistency and being honest with yourself.

 

To your freedom,

Kayla Rose

Holistic Nutritionist

 

P.S. I’m hosting a free masterclass specifically for people who want to stop feeling obsessed around food and truly heal their metabolism, and you’re invited! Click here to sign up.

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