how do i eat?!

it's pretty typical that a person who has suffered with an eating disorder loses touch with how to feed himself/herself. this can feel very frustrating and mind-boggling. what are normal portions? how many calories do i need? am i hungry or not?

think back to your childhood if this was pre-ED. you ate intuitively day in and day out. you didn't even think about it; you just reached for the food you wanted when you were hungry, ate, and this was somehow enough to maintain your weight and keep you healthy.

this concept was so bizarre to me in recovery. i sat in front of my dietitian and told him straight up, "i don't know how to eat dinner. what is dinner?"

he helped me by teaching me about exchanges. an exchange stands for a food portion. 1 fruit exchange is 1 apple. 1 starch is 1 slice of bread. 1 protein is 1 ounce of meat, etc.

i was given a meal plan made up of exchanges. i thought they were really stupid for a while and i continued to count calories. i was still a control freak about my food and i did very odd mathematical equations with my exchanges instead of keeping it simple. i mean, i dissected the shit out of exchanges, so i was counting them AND calories. typical anorexic.

i want you to know it is absolutely okay to hang on to calories as long as you need to. i still did it when i was weight restored and feeling better, but as enslaved as ever to my addiction to numbers. i counted EVERYTHING- calories in splenda, gum, cough drops, you name it. the thought of not counting inflicted me with dizzying anxiety.

that was my life for a while- i was in treatment and weight restored, but counting til the cows came home. i worried i could never let go of calories. intuitive eating was a concept completely foreign to me.

but then, gradually, i let go of them. i started eating approximately what the exchanges required, not exactly. i wouldn't count if i wanted another teaspoon of jam. just like my obsession with measuring, my obsession with counting began to lose its hold.

finally, i had a moment in school when i was getting lunch. "fuck counting," i thought. i was so sick of it. i was sick of being enslaved to numbers. i wanted to be free of them, and so i let go.

i'm confident that wherever you are in your recovery, you will have a similar experience. there comes a point when the rigidity of your eating disorder becomes a hindrance, rather than a safeguard. it's limiting, not comforting. and i think a few things have to happen for this to occur.

1.) weight restoration i'm sorry, but you won't get ANYWHERE unless you are at a healthy weight and you're nourished. you can't kid yourself otherwise. many symptoms of eating disorders are actually symptoms of starvation, and once you are no longer starved, you will feel better. your brain will work right. getting healthy takes a long time. i read somewhere that it takes two years for your nerves to recover. an eating disorder specialist once said that it takes seven years for your brain to go back to the way it was. malnutrition alone can take months to be fixed. you have to be patient. your body didn't get sick overnight, and it won't get well overnight. neither will the thoughts and urges that starvation is causing. your treatment is not conspiring to make you fat by emphasizing weight restoration; it's a partial cure.

2.) working on your issues what if you're physically healthy but the thoughts are louder than ever? well, food doesn't fix the fact that your ED is your beloved coping mechanism. you have to address the irrational thinking that drives your behavior. you have to come face to face with your deep self-loathing and challenge it and overcome it. write out your thought patterns and go over it line by line and fight it with logic and reason. your ED mindset becames a very engrained habit, but time is on your side if you continually work at overriding it.

it goes without saying that this is not simple and it's a little crude to sum it up in one paragraph. i could talk about this topic all day and i'll return to it later.

3.) changing your life excuse the dr. phil phrase. a lot of us have had some pretty crappy life experiences. it is unfair to expect yourself to make leaps and bounds in recovery if you are still living in the place and/or with the people that helped to fuel your eating disorder in the first place. not everyone can just move out of their house if they want to, but you can start working on your plans, and that's very empowering. are there assholes in your life? they can fuck off; you deserve better people. do you have EDed friends? you might have to distance yourself from them. you've got to put your recovery first and watch out for yourself 24/7.

if you are going to beat your eating disorder, you have to be your own friend and ally. i think of an ED as like a crazy bitch that lives in your brain and wants to kill you. well, strength in numbers, baby. if you're not dedicated to yourself, then it's her against no one because you are incapable of fighting back. but arm yourself with your loyalty and determination, and with the positive people around you, and that bitch doesn't stand a chance.

learning how to eat is hardly the central focus of recovery, but it is pretty spectacular when it occurs. once you stop refusing to cope with your issues by controlling your weight and your diet, your dependence on calories will fall away. think about that dependency really hard... is it working? does counting calories actually make your life better or fix your problems? is it even relevant to your problems? it's not; it's just a distraction. it's one that works well, but the catch is that it can kill you in the process of numbing you, and because of that, it's definitely not worth it.

there are other ways to lessen anxiety, depression, and self-loathing than using ED behaviors. you need to reach out and try new things, all the while thinking to yourself over and over that you're doing this because it is wrong that you are torturing yourself, and it is not productive, and it will kill you, and you don't want or deserve that, and you need to change. write this on your forehead if you need to; WHATEVER works! and hold on to calories if you need to. it's okay. you won't recover overnight. but you will recover if you stick it out and don't give up. the behaviors are a cover for the feelings and experiences underneath; address those and the behaviors will no longer be needed.