Recovery from restricted eating.

This is a really excellent blog post on recovery from restricted eating.
http://www.gwynetholwyn.com/blog/2011/9/13/phases-of-recovery-from-restricted-eating.html

I think for many of us who are/have suffered from hypothalamic amenorrhea, even if we didn't have an eating disorder per se, we certainly had disordered eating.  Restricting to a certain (too low) number of calories, avoiding fats, eating an extreme amount of fiber - all behaviours that we have been told are "healthy", but taken to an extreme definitely become unhealthy and detrimental to not only our fertility, but in many cases our lives in general.

One thing that has been a common theme in the posts from women who have recovered from HA on the fertilthoughts forum, is how much more enjoyable their lives are when there isn't an unhealthy compulsion to get to the gym *every* day no matter what, how much freer they feel when allowing themselves to enjoy eating and not worry about every single extra calorie that goes in.

And also, how everyone worries that their weight will balloon out of control and they'll go from one end of the spectrum to the other.  It doesn't happen - our bodies have a happy weight, and even when you eat a lot more than you're used to, it seems to somehow settle there - and at that happy weight, things like hair, nails, sex drive, and fertility are all markedly improved.

This article provides a lot of food for thought - even if some of the references to an eating disorder don't fit, there is much in there that rings true for me.  Worth a read!