Pointers for overcoming eating disorders

[Ashley-Kate]

well i thought that i could start a list on the ways i used to help myself out and to limit and eventually stop my eating disorder and i thought it would be a good idea to share some of the pointers with people that are having a hard time:

• eating in presence of people
• during meals start a conversation or join the conversation - don't stay focused on eating
• express how you are feeling after your meal to someone that you can trust
• find something to do after the meals - go out for a walk with a friend or family member or start a game of cards, etc.
• don't rush yourself when you eat - take your time
• don't restrict during the meals because that will only cause you to have a binge later on, during the night most likely
• at the beginning, don't try to enjoy the food cause it will be nearly impossible - just tell yourself that you need it - your body needs it - no matter how strong you think you are, your body needs food
• above all get help: go and see a nutritionist or a therapist, someone that you can trust, and tell them what is going on

if anybody has anything to add on to this list please be welcome to

yours truly ashley

 

[Eunoia]

great post Ash!!! you've come such a long way, thanks for sharing....

• don't force yourself to eat food that you know will trigger a binge
• eat a variety of foods to get all your nutrients, vitamins, minerals instead of following rigid patterns of "good" vs. "bad" foods
• eat small meals during the day, if you restrict and then eat one big meal you are setting yourself up for a binge
• once in a while let yourself enjoy a food that you would previously not eat out of fear of calories, this won't make you fat, but it will make you a whole lot happier
• be food- conscious, not -obsessive
• if you don't like what people want you to eat, take an active approach and help prepare the meal or add something in you know you will be okay to eat
• it's all about balance: if you only let your body, it will compensate for the amounts & types of foods you eat each meal so that you can enjoy a healthy & balanced diet
• if you feel like you have to restrict/b&p, stop and think about why you're feeling this way, learning to recognize your emotions & expressing them in healthier ways is they key
• most importantly, give yourself time to feel comfortable with all of these changes

 

[Ashley-Kate]

• have "alies" people that know you are having a hard time, let them know everything about your e-d therefore they will know when you have a hard time, for example if you tend to overeat or undereat durring certain occasion tell them and they will help you understand why and may even make it easier when that same situation comes along
  
• believe always that you are worth living well, you don't deserve any of the pain tthat the eating-disorder will cause you
  
• think of the bad sides, make a list and look at it every chance you get
  
• when the eating disorder is less present try not to convince yourself that you need it and look at all the positive that has come of getting rid of it
  
• be strong- it is not easy to beat this but we all can, just believe in yourself
  
• have someone that you can talk to present with you as much as possible
  
• get the most support you can get to have a sure recovery

yours trully ashley-kate

 

[Diana]

I like your post Ashley-Kate. And congrats on continuing through your recovery. I thought of a couple more.

• how about exercise? I don't mean over-exercising or with the sole intention of burning calories. Exercise increases your appetite and helps you to appreciate what food does for your body. I find it helps me to eat more regularly. I think it's important for total health. If you're still very underweight, you can do something light that you enjoy.
  
  
• take control over a situation in which you very much don't feel comfortable eating something in particular. For example, if there's a planned dinner with family or friends, suggest that you would like to make something as an addition to the meal that you know you'll feel comfortable eating. Maybe your ultimate goal is to feel comfortable eating anything, but this is a process. It's better than not eating at all and might prevent a binge or guilty feelings.
  
  
• don't be afraid to say "No, thank you." If you've been eating well and you're not hungry and you really don't want to eat something that's offered to you, don't worry about what others will think. People without eating disorders also turn down food when they're full
  
  
• deal with your guilt in a constructive way. After eating you might feel guilty about eating a certain kind of food or a certain amount. Instead of keeping this guilt inside and dwelling on it, sit and think, or make a list of what you know logically vs how you feel emotionally. Maybe talk about this with a trusted person. For example - Emotional "Why did I have a piece of cake for desert? I didn't need it, now I feel fat and gross and like a gained 5 pounds" - Logical "One piece of cake isn't going to make me fat or gain 5 pounds, and besides I enjoyed it"

 

[Ashley-Kate]

thank you both for your contribution and your comments about the post i really like the thing you have added diana and i hope that this post will help people see that there is so many ways to over come this disorder although they are not easy they are possible and to believe in yourself an eating disorder is not a way to live it is a way to dye , no body can say iot brings long term happyness i mean really not after losing 1 lbs and thejn another i mean when does one lbs help you be happy the euphorie that the disorder brings will always stay temporay never will it last although when you lern to enjoye eating and not fear it you will feel so much happier to be able to say that something tastes good and smells good without fearing the amount of calories that are in it.. durring my hole disease and although i still battle with it every day i can't say i ever felt a long temr feeling of being proud feeling good about some thing and now as i search for an escape to this disorder i search for the feeling of being proud acomplishing something and everyday that i go against the little voice that tell me i can't eat is a step closer to being proud.
yours trully
ashley

 

[Thelostchild]

Now that I have been diagnosed with an eating disorder. It is so hard for me to just shove food in my mouth. I don't know what to do. I drink these nasty ensure's for old people and I can' not stand the tast. I have mixed emotions about it all. I hate it. I under the percent of what im supposed to weight. Im just babbling sorry.

 

[Misha]

I know that the taste of ensure is bad, but it's all that's keeping me alive; i've had nothing but ensure for the last few months. so no they are not for old people, but people like us too. and i'd rather drink them than have the tube down my nose.
At the same time they can be a cop-out and in that sense it's good to not like them. motivation to one day eat like a normal person (yikes that's a big mountain to climb)
i found it interesting that you said that "now that" you've been diagnosed, it's hard to eat. Do you think your diagnosis changed what you expect from yourself in terms of eating behaviours?
I personally use my diagnosis (and not just of my eating disorder) as an excuse sometimes, a justification. Instead of questioning my behaviours absolutely, I use the reasoning that it's "part of my diagnosis"
This gets unhealthy for me.
I hope that you can use the ensure as a tool to give your brain the energy to tackle this. Without something feeding your mind, you can not think rationally enough to overcome the rest.
www.ensure.com has some "recipe" ideas if you're interested. another idea is to get the vanilla ensure and buy some chai tea and make a chai latte with it... it covers the taste better. or the chocolate ensure can be heated to make hot chocolate. ask your pharmacist about ordering you different flavours, as there are flavours that are often not on shelves (wild berry, orange cream (makes great creamsicles), egg nog, butter pecan, coffee, banana (not yet available in canada i don't think), etc.)
hope some of this helps.

 

[ThatLady]

There's also another choice available now. Boost Breeze. The best flavor is Mixed Berry. It's not thick like Ensure or regular Boost. It's more like a fruit juice. It's sweet, but can be cut with something like 7-Up, or even water, to make it less sweet. Lotsa ice helps, too. It's good tasting and goes down a lot easier than Ensure.

It's difficult to find, but can be ordered online through Walgreens.

 

[Thelostchild]

I went and saw my doctor and she said that I need to be taken off the mythlin eat 3 meals a day and in between drink an ensure. Thats alot of food. oh and I have to write down everything I eat and make a food journal. Plus I have to come into the clinic and get weighed every Monday and If I don't gain weight then I will have to go to some treatment center. Thats scarry as well as not eating. I have to thinking sides one is I know its wrong and that what is happening or what Im letting happen Is not good, buy at the same time I realy don't care because I like the way I look. But then I don't because my boobs are shrinking my butt is no longer there and sitting in the bath tub hurts all the boney areas on my body. so I go back and forth. I don't exactly know why but, maybe one day I will figure it out. About the ensure thing, I just drink I down really fast. and then drink water after wards.

 

[Misha]

I hope you can listen to the advice of your doctor, lostchild. I'm not one to talk becuase I'm in the middle of it too but I do know that better is the only way out. The other options are not too appealing.

 

[Misha]

My specialist said to me the other day that she has never seen a person recover from an eating disorder for health reasons. It really makes me wonder what reasons I DO have????
I was reading a book the other day that said that there is a reason we stay in our "insane" behaviours: they serve a purpose. There is something better to us about having an eating disorder than being "better."
Sure gives a person a lot to think about.

 

[David Baxter PhD]

My specialist said to me the other day that she has never seen a person recover from an eating disorder for health reasons. It really makes me wonder what reasons I DO have????

Possibly true. How many people give up smoking purely for health reasons? It may be that there needs to be something else that you see either negative about the status quo or positive about changing the status quo that, added to the health issue, provides sufficient incentive to make the change.

I was reading a book the other day that said that there is a reason we stay in our "insane" behaviours: they serve a purpose. There is something better to us about having an eating disorder than being "better."

Often, that reason has something to do with "control" over an unpredictable, uncertain, or dangerous world. In that respect, it has something in common with OCD.

 

[Cat Dancer]

Often, that reason has something to do with "control" over an unpredictable, uncertain, or dangerous world. In that respect, it has something in common with OCD.

I was going to ask something like this about a connection between eating disorders and OCD. I'm beginning to wonder if some of the things I'm doing, self-injury, starving, are all related to OCD.

I believe in recovery and I've struggled with anorexia and bulimia for about 24 years or so. I think I've just now begun to really believe I can get better. It is going to take a long time though.

 

[Misha]

Janet, what is it that makes you believe you can get better? Right now this seems like such a huge mountain for me. I believe very strongly in recovery and in all my soap-box rants about pro-ana and all that jazz... yet here I am starving to death. I just need a reason, but I feel like I'm grasping in the dark.

 

[Cat Dancer]

Misha, I guess it's believing what my therapist says, that I'm fixable, even with all the problems I have. He seems to believe in me and that just hasn't happened in my real life before. I was told long ago I'd be better off dead than the way I am, but my therapist doesn't think that. I don't know. I guess I'm holding on to that little bit of hope he seems to believe in.

I'm sick of it, the eating disorder. I know you are too. It IS very hard. I just look back and feel so sad that everything I've ever done has been tainted with worry and fear due to the eating disorders and other things. I resent it and I want a life without it. Maybe there's an anger or something rising up in me giving me strength and courage to fight. Plus, I have a little girl who depends on me to protect her and be strong for her so she won't go through the things I went through that led me down the hard paths in life I've taken.

:hug: I guess it sounds simplistic, but I believe I can get better.

 

[Misha]

Janet, it doesn't sound simplistic. It sounds real... and I'm hoping to get to the point where I can be real. I saw my ed specialist this morning she is very concerned about how fast I'm losing weight, and my ability to think when I'm in this state. But she doesn't know what to do with me, because my issues are so diverse and nothing seems to stem from what the textbooks say things stem from, or what either of our experience says.... so we're both clueless and we know it. But she is wonderful at what she does and we keep on working together and grasping at straws even if we are grasping in the dark. It was pretty depressing this morning, though. I am running out of time.

 

[Ashley-Kate]

when i look back onto this post a very important tips was left out and i felt the need to share it with al of you cause if you don't follow it well than your recovery would have been pointless and relapse will be highly likely . first i thought of this tip the other day in psychology class and how we were learning about internal and external motivation and that most of the time external motivation doesn't work unless you can associate it with an internal motivation so all that to say

• When you decide that you are ready to recover don't let anybody tell you to do so don't do it for everyone else do it for what you want cause if you don't really really want it you will just fall back into it.
  
• Remember that it is not easy far from it so don't get discouraged when you have a set back. relapse is part of recovery (my psychologist in my last hospitalization told me that ) you learn how to do better.
  
• Every day when you feel that you are going to go back to the old habits remind yourself of your motivations , and also ask yourself .. DO I want to die? cause ultimately it leads to that (and i know some of you are thinking maybe that is what i want but that is the e-d that is talking trying to convince you that you don't have a chance
  
• Be honest to the people around you cause dishonesty will only stall your recovery they need to know things to be able to be there for you if you tell them everything is great and you are having a hard time you will lose hope and feel alone .. if they know they will surround you and help you
  
• you may believe no one cares no one can help you no one understands but the truth is they don't understand but not because they don't want to but you don't give them the chance to . the thing is they can't understand what you are going through but they are going through hard times too it's not easy watching you fade away so understand they are acting the best they can in the circumstances..
  
• most of all let them help you cause you can't do it on your own you can try you can really believe it but it will drain you of all your energy let them in.

yours truly
ashley

 

[Ashley-Kate]

finding a good psychologist that you are comfortable with and you feel okay talking to them. someone that you can laugh with as well as be emotional with finding someone that you feel an understand you and not judge you is probably the thing to do because getting out of an eating disorder is almost impossible on your own.

 

[Ashley-Kate]

• trusting someone other than yourself because when you are in the mindset of the eating disorder your head is the last thing you should trust (it plays tricks on you)
• When your head is telling you to give up and that you can't make it tell it to shut up!
• When you feel like it's worthless and that the fight can't be won, hang in there.
• When you feel like you can't do it anymore and that your losing it and you feel like you need more help sometimes the thing you want less is probably the best thing, hospitalization could be a very good option don't forget that ever.
• If you ever feel unsafe go to the emergency room closest to your place or call 911.

 

[Ashley-Kate]

I think i forgot one very important thing, eating disorders are disorders of the mind we must always remember no matter how strong the grip of the eating disorder is we are still in there we are still the ones that make the final move. it's hard to fight something we can't see something that we can'T look at and say i'm gonna beat you . With physical disorders they have an enemy to fight ours is in our head but it doesn'T make it less real we have to remember we know us more than it does we have been in our bodies in our lives more than she has so we need to look deep in ourselve to find what makes us passionate what is worth fighting for. Example. I 'm fighting for a family my wedding my eventual kids I'm fighting cause more than anything i want that.