I finally asked for help. Just days after the breakdown, I was sobbing through appointments with a psychiatrist, psychologist, nutritionist, and physician specialising in eating disorders. I wanted to know, in excruciating detail, what damage I had done to my body — and mind. I sat across from my nutritionist, equal parts stunned and embarrassed, as she patiently illustrated the fact that I had no idea how to put together an actual meal. Week by week, she slowly re-taught me things I’d deliberately forgotten, like how many sushi rolls equalled a lunch and how to fill my plate. She gave me cheat sheets to help me figure out if I’d fed myself enough. Daunted by all this food work, I quit the gym entirely. I told friends and family I didn't want to complicate my recovery, claiming that eating properly was already overloading my plate. I had to straighten out the food thing first, and later I’d deal with the exercise. It was a healthy choice, I told them.The truth was too hard to admit: That self-inflicted torture had been comforting. The pain was scheduled, planned, predictable. The familiarity of this harrowing routine was a siren song calling me back. Instead of trying to shut it off, I simply covered my ears — and the fear I was trying to conceal intensified. A jaunt on the treadmill would never be just a jog for me. There was no grey area there, I thought. Just health without the gym or hell with it.But recovery is never that simple. Burning off every calorie that I put in my body obviously tamed my fears of food during my sickness, but exercising had been a huge part of life before college, before I knew anything about calories — before I felt that food was something I had to deserve. I wanted that back, though I had no idea how to go about getting it. But I am lucky enough to have my life complicated by a boyfriend who worries about my “old age” and risk of osteoporosis. So I let myself be pushed back into the gym — to lift weights this time, not to run.My wimpy little weights immediately labelled me a beginner, and I fiercely embraced the blank slate. This was the one place where none of my training mattered. Putting one foot in front of the other past the point of exhaustion may have been possible for my nonexistent leg muscles while running, but doggedly pushing through deadlifts was not. For the first couple sessions, I stubbornly threw myself at this wall, sinking down into squats my body could not complete — but something amazing happened. Instead of pushing through stabbing pains or pulled muscles, I had to just let go. My muscles stopped working, and I actually had to listen to my body.It was the only time in my life I've been happy about failing.But the truly amazing thing about lifting was that it made me finally listen to my hunger cues, both appetite and cravings. The truth is that exercise eases my relationship with food, for worse and for better. Working up a physical hunger instead of working out to suppress it helped me accept the fact that, yes, my body actually demanded food — whether or not my mind deemed it deserving. I had only one option: to finally fuel my body.Realistically, I may never undo the damage I inflicted on my body. A quick enough shuffle up the subway steps can cause a familiar twinge in my shins. Jogging half a block to catch up with friends, I hear a whispering voice pushing me to just keep running. But I'll keep walking through the gym doors because, for the first time in almost 10 years, working out isn't about buying minutes of freedom from food guilt. It is freedom.If you think you or someone you know may have an eating disorder, visit the National Centre For Eating Disorders to find help.