Hey Sunny Siders, I’m honor of NEDA week, I am talking about how I healed my relationship with food and was finally deemed fully recovered from my eating disorder. Please note, that these are the steps I took and things that worked for me, but not everything may be applicable to your situation. The best thing you can do is get help from a professional if you are struggling. I am sharing a combination of things I learned from my nutritionist as well as on my own accord.
1. Make a food schedule
One of the first things my nutritionist had me to was follow a food schedule. Now, this schedule wasn’t meant to say “eat this” or “don’t eat that,” but more of served as a way to get me to eat more consistently throughout the day. The schedule I was given to follow was to eat 3 meals a day as well as 3 snacks. I was also supposed to eat every 3-4 hours, as well as within an hour of waking up. An example of my guidelines in the beginning looked as follows:
8 am breakfast: oatmeal with fruit
10 am snack: granola bar
1 pm lunch: sandwich and veggies
3 pm snack: apples and peanut butter
6 pm dinner: chicken, veggies, and potatoes
8 pm snack: dairy free ice cream
At this point the main focus was to get me eating more, not necessarily tackling the foods I was afraid of. I initially struggled with the idea of eating breakfast so early, but after talking to my nutritionist I could logically understand why that is what I needed to do. I found that even when I wasn’t physically hungry, I still would eat the food and be hungry for a snack later.
2. Find podcasts/information that challenges the narrative
One thing that my nutritionist had me start doing right away was find podcasts that challenge the diet culture narrative. Personally, I fell in love with the Podcast Food Psych, which uses science to de-bunk the diet culture claims. Listening to podcasts with a different viewpoint on food that also were backed by science helped me to feel more confident in my recovery journey. I needed someone to tell me that what I was doing was right for me in order to truly keep myself on track. Also, whenever I felt like I was losing my pace, I would listen to Food Psych and I’d feel better and justified in my journey.
3. Take it slow at first
In order to make recovery stick, changes in the foods you choose to eat can either be fast or gradual. For me, I needed to go slow at first. Changing my eating schedule to include more throughout the day was already scary and a challenge. If I had tried to include eating fear foods and reducing my exercise all at once I would have been too overwhelmed and given up. If you have the capability to jump right in, then go for it. However, I’d you are someone like me who gets easily overwhelmed, I recommend tackling one thing at a time.
4. Re-introduce fear foods like a game
Once I got used to eating more consistently throughout the day, I began to tackle my fear foods. I made a list of everything I was afraid to eat and thought of it like a game. I got friends involved to support and do the challenge with me. And when I got over the fear I’d check it off. I personally found starting with the least scary foods to be the most helpful. Things like bread, dairy, and honey were foods that I mostly avoided due to stigma. These were the easiest to reintroduce on a regular basis because I didn’t necessarily fear them compared to something like chips or pre-packed snacks. Once I managed to get through the easier fear foods, I’d tackle the harder ones which happened to take a lot longer to consistently introduce into my diet. However, making it like a game did help to keep me on track and feel excited when I could check a food off my list.
5. Look at images of different body types
Something I was most afraid of in recovery was gaining weight. I was afraid that in gaining weight no one would be able to love me or see my worth. My nutritionist recommended that I take a look at a host of different bodies, until I became desensitized to all of them. Through doing this I was able to remove my stigma towards bigger bodies, as well as find some body types that I actually resonated with. A key part to recovery is being okay with all bodies and this little task helped me to do that.
6. Implement rest days into your workout schedule
I was someone who never took a break from the gym. While this may seem like such a great thing, it’s not sustainable. Your body needs rest to recover from working out and this was a hurdle I had to face. I started slow by giving myself one day off. However, if I took any more than that I would still feel guilty. It was not until I got burnt out of the gym that my mindset started to change.
7. Understand that movement is more than just the gym
When I faced my burnout from the gym, I had zero motivation to exercise. Nothing was enjoyable and every time I went to the gym it was solely to say “I worked out.” My nutritionist told me that it was time to view exercise in a different light. Movement is more than going to the gym. It’s the walk to the mailbox and back. It’s pushing the grocery cart around at the store. It’s cleaning the house. It’s going mini golfing, and a host of other things. Reframing your mind to see all movement as exercise is crucial to overcoming and unhealthy relationship with exercise. After I began to see exercise in this different light, I was able to take rest days with ease. I currently only go to the gym 4-5 times a week depending on what my body feels during that time.
8. Bench yourself from the gym
This one is not something you can do right off the bat. You have to be further into recovery and more in tune with your body before doing so. I heard during an episode of Food Psych that if “justifying meals,” “to manage weight,” or “to burn calories” are any of your top 3 reasons for going to the gym, then you shouldn’t go. The idea is that you should be going to the gym because you want to exercise, not because you’re trying to change your body. By benching yourself in these situations, you are showing your mind and body that movement shouldn’t come from a toxic place. This practice separates the gym from the idea of manipulating your weight and allows you to get true enjoyment from movement. I finally enjoy going to the gym, but if there is a day that my reason to go is body related, I bench myself.
9. Find a support system /audit your media
For me, a big part of my recovery was having people who understood what I was going through. Because diet culture is so engrained into our society, many of the practices I was trying to break were being done by other people I knew. Being around them would make me feel like what I was doing was wrong, and cause me to second guess my recovery. However, having a nutritionist behind me, as well as an entire community on Instagram really helped me to keep going and understand that I still had to recover even with diet culture around. During this time I also had to remove people from social media who were promoting a lifestyle and diet that were not healthy to me. People who were anti-fat or anti-anything unhealthy had to go.
10. Recognize your food rules and break them
Food rules are very common for those with eating disorders. They can be anything from excluding certain food groups like carbs, to only eating after x amount of hours of being awake. Food rules should be recognized and broken as soon as possible. However some may be easier than others, which is why I recommend making a list of your food rules and trying to break them one at a time. Starting with the smaller food rules can help with not getting overwhelmed, but make sure you are actively assessing your food rules and breaking them. Even in recovery new food rules may pop up, so it’s important to acknowledge them and break them as soon as possible. Even after recovery, it’s important to assess if the things you are doing with food are becoming food rules or not.
These are 10 of the biggest things that helped me in my journey to recovery. Of course there are probably hundreds of other things that helped me to change my mindset around food and exercise, but none of those were as important as the ones listed above. If you think you are struggling with disordered eating, a great place to start is talking with family or friends or even looking into a health at every size nutritionist or therapist to start your journey. Remember, no matter how far down the rabbit hole you may go, you can always come back out the other end.
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