Comments on: Confessions of a disordered eater.

By: Update on disordered eating. « Speak first, apologize later.

Update on disordered eating. « Speak first, apologize later. — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 04:46:33 +0000

[...] Update on disordered eating. At a request from commenter randomquorum, here is a little update on my struggle with disordered eating habits. [...]

By: randomquorum

randomquorum — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 05:09:54 +0000

Hi! I know I'm awfully late to the party, but I am feeling very much like this right now! in fact I even wrote about it the other day. I've discovered that blogs are great for venting, even if no-one reads them! I was wondering how you've been doing since you posted this, if it has gotten any easier or if you've found any tips that help?

By: julie

julie — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 04:36:45 +0000

I went through pretty much the same thing, and I have come out the other side, so it’s possible. I’d say mostly what I did was become as objective as I could about the things that I was eating, mostly from watching other people who didn’t seem to be eating disordered. I had to objectively learn what reasonable portions were, learn to judge my fullness (taking into consideration when I would be able to eat again). And yes, I had to consider calories, just to figure out if I was being reasonable. It works both ways, I don’t want to gain weight (actually want to lose it, and am), but nothing will set me to a binge/overeating session than eating too little. And I had to take the moralizing out of it. If I eat a bag of chips, I don’t make myself feel bad, though I may eat less the next day or two. Good luck

By: Julia

Julia — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 13:18:36 +0000

EXACTLY. Sometimes even when my stomach tells me I’m full, my mind says, “but you can eat more. I know you can. Eat this!”

By: alicebody

alicebody — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 05:49:20 +0000

I have nothing useful to say except I feel you, sister. I’ve had a hard time “eating intuitively” when my apparent “intuition” is demanding a plate of nachos after I’ve just eaten — a plate of nachos. The point being, where do those of us stand who’ve systematically destroyed or never discovered their eating intuition?

By: Julia

Julia — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 00:36:22 +0000

Thanks, A, Christie and Living400lbs! I’m taking as much advice as I can and seeing what I can come up with.
(by the way, Living400lbs, I love your blog. )

By: living400lbs

living400lbs — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 23:21:25 +0000

You may want to look at the book Health At Every Size by Linda Bacon. Lots of information on intuitive, unrestricted eating. There’s a review at http://living400lbs.wordpress.com/2008/09/22/linda-bacons-health-at-every-size-the-surprising-truth-about-your-weight/

She also is working on a book specifically on nutrition, but it’s a work in progress…

By: Christie I

Christie I — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 21:15:28 +0000

Just found your blog via tag surfer on wordpress. I am an intuitive eater that struggles with food in the same way you do. I diet, then binge, then diet, then binge. It is a rotten cycle that can only be stopped by making the commitment to never diet again.

A couple of things have helped me along my path. I do still have the occasional binge but we are talking months apart instead of hours. But anyway, I could have never gotten where I am today without my holistic health counselor friend and my therapist. Both take a non dieting approach and have saved me. I am unsure of what area you live in but I would give the holistic health counseling a try before going to a nutitonist, I think you might find that they are going to focus of calories which is just another way of dieting.

Good luck. Feel free to email me anytime.

By: Edensheel

Edensheel — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 21:15:01 +0000

Jools!

I feel almost like the wrong person to even attempt to offer advice in this area… I’d like to say my eating disorder days are far behind me, but the truth is that they really aren’t. I can eat healthy for an entire week and then cave for something sweet and my mind calculates it as this dramatic deficit towards my healthier goals, and then it starts all over again: beating it into my head what I need to do to change things. And the worst thing is I -know- that my body isn’t changing as I used to see it… when you’re anorexic you visibly see every slip-up as if they are distorting your body immediately. And the thing that pisses me off is that I no longer see that on any level, but my mind still tells me that’s what is happening.

I’ve tried the food journal but to no avail… of course I’m not a journal keeper at all (absence of a blog to support that theory). I have seen a nutritionist thought – I pretty much had to after grade 12 when I hit my lowest weight. It helped tremendously… if anything to show that I didn’t want food – I needed it… everything was distorted in my life, my vision of it and those around me included, and she helped me to realize there was no option other than to reincorporate it back into my life.

It’s easier with so many around me that I’ve realized truly don’t give a hot shit about what I look like, they just want to be around ME as I am. It took a long time to realize that. But it’s still there and probably always will be, that little twinge that tells me “Put down that piece of pie or you’ll feel like hell as soon as the sugar rush dissipates.” For me the key isn’t a journal or nutritionist any longer – been down that road – it’s the people that keep me steady and “sober”, so to speak.

By: Julia

Julia — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 19:39:42 +0000

Thanks so much for the advice, both of you! And thanks for commenting; I’m a fan of both of you and it makes me happy to know cool people read my blog.

I think I will experiment with a food diary for the next week or so and see how that goes. I suspect, though, that my personality is going to see it as a challenge to be as “good” as possible. I’ll try hard to just be me and see what it looks like.