I forgot how to eat

Hi everybody,

So I'm just gonna quickly give you all the facts and basics..
I have been trying to recover from Anorexia and I've been trying to tell myself that it's okay to eat foods that are high in calories (I need to gain weight, I'm severely underweight)..
But recently, I've been having such massive binges.. I would eat so much food and not have any control of how much I eat.. I would eat until it's hard to breath.. I would then throw up (Not on purpose, but because I would stuff my face so bad!!)..

I honestly feel a bit lost now and confused as to how much I should eat, when I should eat and what I am allowed to eat..

-My last binge consisted of a quarter of a Caramel Swiss roll Trifle.. That's around 400 calories for 100g!
Does anybody have tips on how I could teach myself to eat and live a healthy lifestyle? I don't want to go into hating foods again and restrict myself to 500 calories or less a day, and I also don't want to go and eat 1000 calories above my daily limit.

Please help me.. I really do feel confused with what foods are the enemy and friends..

"Trying to recover" you say? And you still NEED to gain weight cos you are SEVERELY underweight? And you are here at this forum to try to limit your food intake... Please don't.

Baby steps. Get your anorexia in order first before you try to limit your food intake. You don't need to to worry about being in big calorie surplus now cos, like you said, you are very much underweight. And you are recovering from illness. You should not even be here at MFP until you can clearly say that you are fully recovered and while your doctor can approve that.

Like I said - baby steps. Get your problem first sorted out and that when you have you can worry about healthy eating, exercising and that kind of stuff. Ok? Please! ^^

Also, you have been strawing for long time. It's only natural that your body wants to binge. You should talk about this with your psychologist (I assume you have one?) not ask this on forum. Advices from random people who does not know what is safe and what isn't in your condition might do your more harm than good.

This is a tough situation - especially without a therapist. Maybe try planning out your food for the entire day, making sure you add calorie dense foods and making sure that you are above your TDEE. And eat small, frequent meals. You need to re-train yourself to enjoy food and eat healthy amounts. You have a long road ahead of you, but it can be done. Best of luck.

Listen, you really know what is appropriate, right? When you were logging your food, you learned all that. And you learned that you could be in control of your intake.

Now you want to figure out how to find that self control, when you're not logging. That's what you're asking about.

And that is hard for most of us here on MFP, which is why we are all here. When I'm not logging, I easily lose control and overeat. On the days that I don't sit on MFP and log and check myself and obsess, and I just try to enjoy eating, I often get so into the moment (into the pleasure of food) and just keep on eating until I'm stuffed to puking. My husband will eat a large portion, and I'll eat three portions. He'll say, "No dessert for me, I'm stuffed." And I'll eat two desserts, maybe even three!

So, you are not alone. And if you don't have that self-control yet, then just realize it, accept yourself, and get back logging your food. Stay in control that way. It's nothing to be ashamed about, having to log your food. It's a step. Maybe some people will always need this tool in their life in order to stay in control. It's a great tool! Beats puking, that's for sure.

Hi there. Just to say, I agree with other people that you probably need professional help with your anorexia. But I wanted to make a suggestion about your behaviour rather than what you eat. You seem to be asking how to eat as well as what to eat.

I suggest a reasonable way to eat is to eat three meals a day. Serve just one plate per meal. Sit down while you are eating (rather than bingeing standing up in front of the fridge in your pyjamas). Eat a variety of stuff. Enjoy what you are eating.

Before I started trying to lose weight I worked on getting my head round my behavioural issues around food. I found Judith Beck's behavioural approach useful.Her book The Beck Diet Solution talks about sitting down when you eat, and other behaviours. I don't follow all her advice as she is quite prescriptive (and a bit boring). Fat is a Feminist issue by Susie Orbach is also very insightful, and more psychological than behavioural.

I also follow the principles of the "No S Diet" by Reinhard Engels, who is just an ordinary guy who lost weight by eating sensibly. A lot of the people on his No S forum, also use it as an approach to out-of-control eating. I don't follow everything that Beck and Engels suggest, but I do now get what sensible eating is and what it isn't. If I drink lots of tequila and eat cold pizza out of the box, I am now aware that it's not good!

The No S approach is No Snacks (three meals a day), no Seconds (just one plate per meal) and no Sweets (which includes puddings, cakes, cookies, anything with sugar, including sodas).. Some people call it the '1970s diet. It's what we considered to be 'normal' back in the day.

I know lots of people say 'eat six times a day' but I suspect the snack manufacturers have gulled us into thinking that hunger is the worst thing that can happen to us, which it isn't. If you get too hungry between meals, then : firstly, so what, being hungry is not a medical emergency and secondly, learn to eat a little more at each meal. A little hunger adds to the satisfaction when you do finally eat. Although I imagine if you have had anorexia you will find it hard to be in touch with your hunger, so you may need to plan your meals to have suffiencient calories in them,as other people have suggested.

If you are not sure what to eat, I suggest you try going and eating at cafes (not fast food places, or 'all you can eat buffet' places but places that cook food from scratch) . Just have one dish from the menu. That will give you an idea of what a portion size is like. This is an expensive approach, I know, but it might be informative a couple of times.

Best of luck with your work on gaining weight and learning about food and eating issues. It is possible to enjoy eating, and cooking and sharing food with friends and family, without all the associated anxiety, so it is worth it.

You need to eat a balanced diet really planning out what you will have for breakfast and dinner will help.Dont restrict as it may cause you to end up binging.Have what you like in small amounts and enjoy it.Also take your time eating and try eating things you would have previously avoided.

I just want to let you know that I went through the exact same thing as you. In early recovery, I was eating everything in sight. Every two hours. And I felt awful because it wasn't healthy foods like you see on recovery blogs/articles, it wasn't healthy portions either like those neat pictures of people celebrating their plates. It was pure sugary indulgences and salty junk foods raked from boxes and compulsively bought from store to store. But you know what? After I got it all out of my system, I stabilized my weight, and the urge to cram those scary foods down my mouth went away, and I could start focusing on retraining my eating habits and figuring out how to listen to my body. I'm not saying what I went through was optimal. In all honesty, I needed professional help too, and I'm not saying my method is anything you should strive for. But like you, I couldn't afford a professional to help me through meal plans or counting calories, and I didn't have the resources at college to get support. So I embarked on the hectic path of self-recovery. I made a lot of mistakes, but they were all necessary mistakes to figure out how to make the right choices in the future.

Let yourself make mistakes.

Don't get too hung up on the consequences. Just stay mindful and try to keep track of your actions. Even after my binges I'd write down everything I ate (or at least what I could recall since sometimes it was so fast and so hazy I can't be sure I recorded everything) and more importantly how I felt about it all. Physically, mentally, emotionally. When I first started it, I cringed at what I wrote. But keeping record of your emotions is the most important thing you can do because this is an intensely emotional journey and by keeping track of your reactions you can not only utilize your diary as an emotional outlet, but you can begin to find patterns that will aid you in recovery. Youreatopia is a fantastic resource that helped me pull through and reassured me that once this was all over, I wasn't going to have a destroyed body, but a healing one that will take time to nourish. I was going through a series of motions that weren't just excusable, they were normal, expected too. Just like Gwen mentions in her articles, craving sugary "bad" foods is one of the first steps, because it's fast easy energy that's digestible for your body. Once you realize this and learn how to accept it and move on from it, you'll be able to reach for healthier options without a second thought. Before you know it, eating won't be a frightening experience, it won't be a diet. It'll just be as simple as it is: eating.

And don't take every rule in the book to heart. Some of it simply might not work for you, and that's okay. Find what works for you and learn to find joy in nourishing yourself. Make eating an event by jazzing meals up, and if it's not too anxiety-inducing, share them with a friend or family member. Choose what portion sizes feel right for you, and try to eat a variety of foods in every meal to get the most satisfaction out of your meal. You'll feel less likely to binge if you experience an array of flavors and food groups in one sitting in a reasonable manner. Proteins really helped me. Avocado and oatmeal were two particular foods that I loved to eat in recovery because they were packed with nutrients and filling. I'm vegetarian, so I didn't eat any lean meats. But there's a lot of success with people in recovery who eat salmon as well. Eggs are always perfect for necessary B Vitamins, which are something you should always be ingesting for a healthy lifestyle. Good Luck and I wish you all the best in your brave steps toward recovery!

Irina, what you are experiencing is common in recovering AN. There are two principle reasons behind this struggle.

First, your hormones and neurotransmitters responsible for hunger cues and energy balance are at suboptimal concentration levels and function. The only way for them to recover is by chronically eating a sufficient amount of calories for a very long period of time. Eventually, they will return to levels that are not significantly different than healthy persons.

Second, functional MRI scans of the anorexic brain reveal that the areas responsible for reward perception, self-control as well as assessing and gauging fullness and hunger are dysfunctional and remain so even after recovery is complete. You can read a great study detailing all of this here:

Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels: the neurobiology of anorexia nervosa

http://www.cell.com/trends/neurosciences//retrieve/pii/S0166223613000064?_returnURL=http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0166223613000064?showall=true#Summary

Summary

Individuals with anorexia nervosa (AN) engage in relentless restrictive eating and often become severely emaciated. Because there are no proven treatments, AN has high rates of relapse, chronicity, and death. Those with AN tend to have childhood temperament and personality traits, such as anxiety, obsessions, and perfectionism, which may reflect neurobiological risk factors for developing AN. Restricted eating may be a means of reducing negative mood caused by skewed interactions between serotonin aversive or inhibitory and dopamine reward systems. Brain imaging studies suggest that altered eating is a consequence of dysregulated reward and/or awareness of homeostatic needs, perhaps related to enhanced executive ability to inhibit incentive motivational drives. An understanding of the neurobiology of this disorder is likely to be important for developing more effective treatments.

Because of the above, you cannot eat when hungry because it will result in you undereating again. Thus, you will need to set and meet either calorie or portion goals to ensure you are compliant in successfully increasing calories.

Additionally, anorexics are resistant to weight gain and experience a hypercaloric state whereby eating well above their adjusted TDEE is required to illicit weight recovery. In many treatments, it is common for recovering anorexics to be fed upwards of 3000 to 4000 calories simply to remain in a state that permits weight gain. This hypercaloric state can last for several weeks or months depending on how quickly you recover weight.

In summary, most of your issues are hormonal and neurobiological in nature. The hormones will eventually recover; but the adaptations that occurred in your brain will persist and require diligent efforts in overcoming this mental disease.

Important notes*
-Do not rely on hunger and fullness cues to determine whether you've eaten enough since it results in relapse of undereating.
-Change your perception about food so that you no longer classify foods as either good or bad and healthy or unhealthy.
-Set either calorie or portion-sized goals on foods and make an effort in meeting these goals, daily. Increase over time.
-Understand that you'll require significant calories to recover weight until you've gained enough to fall within healthy ranges.