Question about LCHF for a recovering anorexic
Leanbean65
Posts: 176 Member
My best friend is struggling to recover from anorexia. I was talking to her yesterday and she was telling me about the meal plan she is following. It has a lot of carbs in it and she told me that she is afraid to eat more because she is constantly hungry and is afraid she will binge.
I talked to her about increasing her fat intake to feel more satiated. I told her I had changed my WOE and my appetite is well controlled. I'm just not sure if this is a good idea for her. Can a LCHF diet help someone gain weight? She is committed to getting healthy and I want to help her. She is getting outpatient treatment from an eating disorders clinic but will not go for intensive treatment.
I don't know a lot about helping her recover and I want to make sure I'm giving her the right kind of support. any advice is welcome.
I talked to her about increasing her fat intake to feel more satiated. I told her I had changed my WOE and my appetite is well controlled. I'm just not sure if this is a good idea for her. Can a LCHF diet help someone gain weight? She is committed to getting healthy and I want to help her. She is getting outpatient treatment from an eating disorders clinic but will not go for intensive treatment.
I don't know a lot about helping her recover and I want to make sure I'm giving her the right kind of support. any advice is welcome.
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I'm not anorexic, but my cousin married a girl who (I think) is anorexic. IMHO, your friend probably just needs you to be a friend to her, listen to her, and offer an empathetic ear. "Oh, you're hungry and afraid you'll binge? Same here, I'm on a diet and sometimes I feel like bingeing, too. It's hard, I get it." She's getting treatment, even though it's just outpatient. So they're advising her. I'd recommend letting the experts do their job and you can just be her friend.
Many people with eating disorders experience isolation, so your presence is soothing, just by being around her. Perhaps let her choose activities, however, when food is involved, so she doesn't feel uncomfortable if others will be eating.
So while your heart is in the right place, perhaps redirect your thoughts from helping her recover, to letting her feel comfortable with you while she is recovering, with regard to activities that include food.
JMHO.2 -
Having lost a cousin (technically a second cousin, but one we saw as often as our first cousins) in part to anorexia, I agree with @blacktie347 on being an ear, but only partly on not giving some advice. The "experts" are told to eat a lot of insulin inducing high carb stuff. One of the things anorexia does is it damages the organs. I don't believe a diet like that will help them heal. My cousin died of organ failure. I wonder if he had followed a more ketogenic diet with nutrients and healthy fats to heal his organs and heart muscles if we wouldn't have lost him.
HOWEVER (capitalized bc important), I do understand it must be approached with caution. I think just having explained to her is a good start and definitely let her see how good you feel and your lack of hunger and excess of energy, but by no means push. First and foremost it's important to encourage her to love herself. And as was said, make her feel comfortable enough to be around you.3 -
My daughter put on 30 pounds in the first 4 months of Keto. She was very unwell when she started as a poorly controlled T1D. She ate when she was hungry which wasn't actually very much and her body put the weight on she needed even with significantly reduced insulin. I don't even understand how. At first it was water weight due to a condition she had, but as the water tightness went away over time, the weight didn't. It's really weird.
But anyway, I believe as long as we eat when hungry the body will settle into a natural healthy size. That might be smaller for some people and larger for others, but either way I believe it will eventually be very close to our healthy BMI range.
The issue for your friend is that she might think she needs to feel hungry to know she hasn't over eaten. As if being a little hungry all day is the only way to not be fat. I mean, isn't that what the mainstream mostly thinks?
The challenge with her may be to convince her that she doesn't have to go hungry to avoid becoming overweight at any time.3 -
My daughter used to suffer from anorexia. We already ate a Paleo diet at the time, much lower carb than a typical SAD diet. So as a family , we had stopped eating bread and grains, sugar and milk, and most starchy foods. So when the doctor wanted to send her into hospital for treatment, we were both opposed to the horrible foods she would be expected to eat, like breads and cereals, processed foods and junk foods far removed from foods found in nature, chips and pop etc. She also does not eat cheese and mainly eats meat, eggs and vegetables, along with butter and HWC.
Our solution was to keep her at home and increase her portions of foods that she finds acceptable.... We ordered more eggs from our farmers etc. She would have restricted her diet even more and possibly would have lost more weight had she been forced to go into hospital and eat around all the processed carbs. They wouldn't let me bring in food from home and told us that the way we eat is akin to an eating disorder in itself. So they felt that paying attention to the quality of the food we eat, and avoiding processed food is an indication of disordered eating.
My daughter has been able to gain weight and maintain her weight for a couple of years now and her health in general has improved greatly. I eat mostly Keto, but she does allow herself more carbs yet she is still low carb. She eats primarily eggs, butter and seaweed for breakfast, puts whipped cream in her coffee, and eats some variation of meat and veggies for supper. She also likes to bake lower carb grain free sugar free baking, so there is quite often some sort of coconut flour treat in the fridge, to be eaten with either plain or chocolate whipped cream..... Detrimental to my weight, but helpful to her. The last treat was a coconut flour brownie, next will be zucchini cake.
The most important thing is that she made this decision to eat this way and get better on her own. She identifies strongly with the way she eats and gets enjoyment from eating. And her body has responded by working as it should. Her period has returned, her hair is growing and getting healthier and her skin tone is better. She is also happier and self confidence has improved.
It is possible for my daughter to gain weight while I can lose weight eating this way, just by feeding ourselves healthy whole foods that are good for our bodies, and paying attention to what we eat.10 -
Thanks for the helpful advice. I know her recovery depends on more than just changing the way she eats. She is working on the self acceptance and dealing with the deeper issues. I am being there for her as are her other friends, she has a loving husband who is also trying to help.
I just thought if she felt less hungry she would be less afraid of eating.
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I have no experience with anorexia recovery, so take my thoughts for what they're worth.
I'm on the side of increasing fat, even if it doesn't necessarily mean decreasing carbohydrates. I hate the idea that focusing on arguably objectively healthy, nutrient dense foods (meat, fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, maybe dairy) is considered "disordered," but I do know that for someone already suffering from an ED, that it could be a slippery slope.
That said, perhaps suggest eating things like avocado, coconut, etc. and mentioning the role of fats in feeling more full, providing a good bit of energy, and helping the body work (including the production and use of hormones and nutrients)? It's often found that just increasing good sources of fat spontaneously reduces the amount of carbohydrates taken in and can help her find the balance of eating enough food, without feeling hungry all the time.
Also, as a person who struggled with nearly insatiable hunger, it may very well be that it's not about some need to feel hungry in order to not get fat, but a legit physical response to the high carb diet and eating what should be "enough" food, but still feeling not just hungry, but starving.2 -
Organ failure often occurs as a result of complications of anorexia, not a diet that causes more insulin production, for most people who are diagnosed with anorexia, to my understanding - a body fat percentage that is below 10% to 13% (in females) can cause the body to eat protective fat around the organs, leading to organ failure as those organs aren't protected as much. A person with anorexia commonly has a body fat percentage that is too low to sustain good organ health. Also, anorexia is characterized by a fear of food. I'd stay away from advising a person who is afraid of gaining weight to eat high-fat food that is commonly thought to be the cause of fat gain. The experts are not perfect, but they have a greater amount of experience with this than a person who doesn't have specialized knowledge of how to treat this mental disorder. It's akin to saying to a person with a broken leg: "Get some bed rest and drink plenty of fluids." I'd rather just refer that person to a specialist who is trained to treat broken legs and, instead, I'd limit my involvement to providing moral support. Apparently I'm in the minority here, so I won't press this issue further, but it seems quizzical to me to provide advice in an area where there are potential life-threatening consequences and I'm not an expert in that particular area.3
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I am pro LCHF but in this instance... my knee-jerk reaction is to say no. LCHF is a restrictive diet by its nature. I would be worried about putting someone who has an eating disorder on a diet with strict guidelines. That's just my honest, gut feeling.4
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@blacktie347 the idea of eating a higher fat diet has more to do with promoting healing of the organs. If you keep out the stuff that heals and keep giving the stuff that harms, it isn't going to improve their situation. The body won't be getting the nutrients needed to heal itself from the damage done to the organs from anorexia. By continuing a highly processed, high sugar, high carb diet, you are continuing to starve the body of what it needs and doing more damage. And I disagree with trusting the experts. Society is this way because of them. Reports telling the truth are hidden and locked away at the fears of disrupting the food industry. As someone who works in healthcare and has had to deal with hospitals and treatment centers for multiple close loved ones, you really have to advocate for your own healthcare and do your own research, because those are the majority of people I see getting better. Not the ones who blindly trust the so called experts.1
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@karebear5891 I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this seems akin to using homeopathic remedies instead of Western medicine. I've read the DSM-V on anorexia. The remedy you're suggesting seems like it would increase their level of fear and exacerbate the disorder. But whatever. Although I appreciate the ideas I've learned in this forum with the LCHF WOE, I think I'm not prepared to delve into this discussion here further. Thanks all for the interesting and useful ideas, overall.2
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I think it's wonderful that you want to support your friend. I've been in recovery from substances(clean and sober 14 years woot woot) and have had many dually diagnosed friends ED&Addiction. The thing is someone on the outside will never know the mind of someone with a mental illness. You can try to educate yourself on the disease if you want to understand better but it's important to let the professionals handle the actual disease. Perhaps you can ask your friend what you can do to make her feel supported in her recovery and then do that. Good luck!1
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I was anorexic 45 years ago. I have to say that back in those days fat was the ultimate enemy. That was what I avoided. I could cope with eating lean protein in small amounts and I could cope with eating salad as long as there was no dressing. I had fruit sometimes. I counted calories ruthlessly. But fat? No way. The suggestion of more fat would have freaked me out royally and set me off on a starvation bender just to prove I could.
At the root of the disease is a feeling of being out of control AND of being unworthy, unattractive, and invisible. Starving is the means to control the other, less tangible things. There is no way anyone could have talked me into eating more because starvation was how I got attention. My tiny size made me visible again. And it made me feel I was better than all those other people (read: everybody else) who had to struggle with their weight and couldn't do what I could do.
What helped me the most was being shown that there was more to life than my weight. A trip. A hike. A boat ride. Distraction from the obsession, in other words. Other people talking about my weight, or about food, was not good for me because it fed the obsession.
Just me two cents.2
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