Eating

I can go on and on about how natural, instinctive eating does wonders for the mind and body.  I can write tirelessly about just eating what you want to eat, and not worrying about the calories, the fat, the whatever.  I strive to teaching the life changing role that natural eating plays in our lives.

And then, as I got done watching this TexX talk on anorexia, I remembered just how hard it all was just to do all of that. 

While it's remarkable that I have come to a place where I can somewhat forget how hard it is to start eating, it's something I need to remember too.  Because for the number of times I relay on here the benefits of changing one's patterns around eating, there is going to be someone - many in fact - who will not simply be able to do that and understandably so.

The TedX talk about wasn't really anything new to me.  Dr. Laura Hill, the speaker, starts off by biologically explaining how someone with anorexia has different chemical reactions in the brain to eating.  For a person without anorexia, or an eating disorder, eating is pleasurable and sends signals that eating is a good thing and something that should continue to refuel the body.  For someone with an eating disorder, these signals are misconstrued - absent even - so that eating does not feel pleasurable.  Instead, it feel anxious, stressful, and just awful.  Even food doesn't taste the same way as it does for someone without an eating disorder.

The presentation continues with this idea and explains how someone with anorexia would have to have food reintroduced, and this is where I can start relating to my original idea of this post.

Starting with any meal plan after having a disordered relationship with food is not just about putting food in your mouth.  It's not about just getting over it and accepting food in normal ways.  It just doesn't work that way.  Yet, somehow, food needs to be reintroduced to get to the state of normal eating.  It needs to be reintroduced to restore weight and metabolic functions of the body.

And how is this done?  By food plans.  By planning food, meals, bites, all of it - something I'm mostly talking against recently because to me, I think, this is not normal eating.  However, it is necessary to get back to normal eating, and may even be necessary to maintain recovery.  Perhaps I have been wrong, or too rigid in my intuitive eating mantras.

I remember it now.  When I was told in therapy to reintroduce food, I actually didn't do too bad at first.  After all, I was given permission to eat all the bad things and that felt liberating.  I ate it all and I ate a lot of it like the good little therapy student I was.

Then, the weight crept on.

As soon as my smallest size was not fitting me, I reverted back to old habits.  I relapsed, told myself this is not for me, this "recovery thing" and refused to move forward.  

This is why I needed a meal plan.  This is why I needed a nutritionist steering me straight because going from zero to 60 in a matter of weeks was not only overwhelming to my body physically, but it sure as hell was overwhelming to my mind which could not comprehend eating nearly double the food I was eating before.

At first, a meal plan seemed like a diet in and of itself.  While I was not given specific things to eat here and there, I had guidelines to follow and goals to work towards.  I took them one step at a time and each meeting with my nutritionist gave me something else to work on.   Together, I was able to tackle food groups, food ingredients, portion sizes, eating in restaurants, eating at conferences and eating around the holidays.  All this revolved around a strategic and well thought out plan.  While I still gained necessary weight through this process, I was able to translate it better into my life and apply what I learned in ED therapy to what I was eating.  Finally, taking things step by step allowed my body to adjust and keep up with my mind better than going all in.  Still, the process is not linear - relapses, stumbles and falls all accompanied this, and sometimes still do.  That's just how it goes - but, in the end, it works.

Because I don't have food plans anymore and I've adapted by working very hard at this, natural eating does come pretty natural to me I would say 90% of the time, with the other 10% being old ED habits and tendencies.  And you know what?  Sometimes when that 10% comes back to haunt me, I need to go back to the plan.  I need to tell myself to eat the things I am supposed to and use the tricks I needed at first to start recovering. Those days can be the worst - making myself stick to the plan when my brain is screaming at me "don't!"

When you listen to the TedX talk (and I hope you do - it's so good!), you will hear the example of the patient who had to fall back on her plan in a restaurant.  She had to survive that moment in public among her family and waitstaff when something wasn't right.  So the plan came back - not ED, not her disorder or old habits, but her plan.  When I think about it, we all need different plans to fall back on in various places in our life, and when we try to change our eating, there is no shame in having the security blanket, because pretty soon, with hard work and practice of the plan, you forget about it and you start fully living. 

If you're trying to change your eating habits, whether you have struggled with an eating disorder or not, give yourself that time and the plans you need to get there.  Work on each of those goals, no matter how small and keep your toolkit of ideas beside you for when you are falling down.  Do what you need  to do for yourself in the moment - respect yourself so you can truly begin to eat again.