The ups and downs of REDs recovery
The ups and downs of REDs recovery
By Ambassador, Freya Bennettt
I was told that REDs recovery was straightforward: eat more and do less. Sounds simple but if it were that easy, I probably wouldn’t have spent 5 years struggling with REDs. This seeming linear journey in my experience is more comparable to a nightmare travel story – full of delays, diversions and exhaustion. As many people who have been through injury will recognise the psychological aspect is often just as painful as the physical.
The complicated nature of navigating REDs lies within the nuanced psychology behind each aspect of recovery: fuelling, exercise and rest, and the underlying mental battle to be overcome.
It is hard to put into words how difficult it is mentally to rewire your brain and overcome the daily struggle of giving yourself permission to eat and re-learning that you are allowed to rest."
What started during COVID-19 lockdown as seemingly harmless weight loss and an increased time capacity for training, quickly spiralled into serious detriment to both mental and physical health. Suddenly two of my greatest joys – food and running – turned into unrelenting methods of restriction, with any deviation from control resulting in extreme distress.
The sport that I loved had gone from hiding mid-session in the water jump pit with my friends, to persistently pushing my body to the extremes, and I was trapped. Trapped in a relentless cycle of excessive compulsive exercise and an eating disorder. Trapped in feelings of isolation and anxiety. Trapped, yet to my disillusioned brain, wanting to stay here – I was, after all, running faster than ever before. Every day was an uphill battle, filled with depression and fatigue but too scared to let go of the sense of control that was anchoring me.
Fast-forward a year, I had started medical school and found myself surrounded by wonderful friends and part of an athletics club that I loved. We would have frequent talks about nutrition, reminders to bring snacks post-training and warning signs to look out for.
By this point I had gained some weight, I now looked healthy, I felt happy, I had achieved my first England vest, I was running better than ever, I had never been injured and I wasn’t getting ill."
There was no way I could have REDs as everything seemed to be going perfectly (ignoring the fact that I hadn’t had my period for almost 2 years). Despite training to be a doctor, being aware of all the signs and symptoms, I turned a blind eye to my health, instead focusing on how seemingly well everything was going; I didn’t want anything to change.
Yet when my friends would speak so openly about their periods, I had nothing to say, shame and fear held me back from opening up that something was evidently wrong.
Gradually my performance began to decline, no matter how much training I did I just couldn’t improve, I couldn’t hit paces and I felt rubbish and upset. Looking through a warped lens of what normal eating habits were, I couldn’t understand why this was happening. Despite eating more than in the depths of an eating disorder, habits still lingered, and it still wasn’t enough. There would be brief spells of running well and thinking I had reached the light at the end of the tunnel, ultimately these didn’t last adding to the confusion and anger at my body during this phase of quasi-recovery.
Eventually, after seeing an endocrinologist and sports doctor I finally got a diagnosis of REDs, 4 years after everything started. Almost immediately after, I unlocked the final piece of the puzzle, my first major injury. Then another, and then another, and then another. I could just about manage 3 months of training before a different muscle twinged, a different niggle emerged and I was back to square one.
Frustration was an understatement. I was now at a point where I was eating well, sleeping well, and hardly running; doing everything I could to prevent injury. Yet despite it all, I was repeatedly cycling through injuries with no clear end in sight. The injuries and performance loss chipped away at my self-belief and the one thing I felt defined by my identity as an athlete.
Ironically during the period with lowest energy availability, highest mileage, the least sleep and recovery, I never picked up so much as a niggle, yet now I was never free of them. It felt as though all my efforts were futile, why bother recovering when it seemed to be causing more issues?
Still, I persisted through uncertainty, and now one year fully recovered after 5 years of REDs, I feel both mentally and physically the strongest that I can remember."
I’ve hit yet another bump in the road with a sacral stress fracture. It was initially difficult to come to terms with, feeling entirely unjust and beyond my control, and brought with it feelings of grief for everything I had worked so hard to rebuild.
With time that has shifted and I have found myself reflecting on my journey which has surprisingly also brought up feelings of gratitude. I may not be able to run with my friends just yet, but I can still enjoy spending time with them and support their successes. The same friends who unknowingly provided such healthy examples of what proper fuelling looks like.