Meal Plans, Food Rituals & Other Tid-Bits

A reader asked me this question in an email recently, and I thought it might be helpful to many of you who are struggling with similar issues.

She asked:

"I am a weight restored anorexic (for 11months now) but occasionally struggle with self-harm, and more recently purging.


1. My psychologist who I see once a month (and cannot see any more frequently) is trying to help me expand my food repertoire as I've been stuck on a dietitian's meal plan for 2 years now. However, I have no idea what 'normal' meals are. There a million recipes on the internet but how do I know which one to choose? I do live with my mum, but I work in the evening and she works during the day so we miss each other at dinner. We never have a family meal together so I have no one to look to for ideas about what they eat.


2. I've been at a healthy weight for so long, but I still dislike the look of my body. Every day I look in the mirror to see if I've grown over weight overnight or not (as ridiculous as it seems). Do you personally like your body appearance or do you simply accept it as it is? (I've seen your 'comparison' video and that really helped me a lot to challenge the comparisons and I no longer compare myself to others).


3. I know your did a video on food rituals. I'm honest and say I still have some (food not touching on plate, order in which I eat my food, how I eat my sandwich, weighing most foods before eating them). However, I just wanted to ask whether it is OK to keep them? After all, they are not so bad that I cannot eat out with others (I regularly do) and I personally like them as they make me feel safe. They don't impact on my health, and I don't care if people will laugh at me.


4. I'm going to university next year. I believe you have got a degree/have studied in higher education and want to ask you whether you can give me advise on staying safe if you have a history of an ED? Obviously there are many changes: living away from home, being more independent, being with so many new faces etc. Any tips?"

My responses:

1 - Expanding meal options is always difficult. You're not alone. It might take some time to get adjusted and feel comfortable. Don't give up if you feel uncomfortable with the expansion the first few times (or even the first several). Is your dietitian able to help you with expanding? If you no longer see the dietitian and have simply been following a meal plan for a while, I would suggest making a few more appointments with the intent to healthfully and comfortably expand what you have already been doing. A dietitian will be able to tailor some meals for you and with you that are not part of a strict plan. He or she can hopefully give you some sample ideas you can try to incorporate.

Don't get stuck on the word "normal." There is no "normal" meal. Normal is something different to everyone and we all have different needs and likes. Try to list 5 foods you enjoy and see what's out there recipe wise for them. Forgetting about portion/calories/nutrition for a moment, print a few that look good to you and bring them to your psychologist (or dietician) and discuss. Getting their opinions can help you see if they look sufficient meal wise and may help validate your opinion of whether or not they are good meals for you.

2 - Yes, I do in fact like my body. At first, years ago when I first was putting on weight, I was just accepting it. But in time, I grew to like it and even love it. I know this might sound unbelievable - the women in my group often shake their heads at me in disbelief - but it's true. There was a time I could never imagine weighing what I do, because I thought it 1) impossible 2) thought I wouldn't be "me" and 3) thought it was too much. I stand corrected. :) I'm very happy with myself but it does take time, so be patient. You will get there.

3 - As for food rituals. I don't know that I'm qualified to say whether it's okay to keep them or not. My personal opinion is that they hold a person back, as they are still technically a piece of their disorder. Try to examine WHY you are keeping them or want to keep them. WANTING to keep them indicates that they make you feel safe or comfortable and that is not necessarily a good thing, but ideally (to be truly recovered) you should be able to get more and more out of your comfort zone until you can eating "normally." If the food rituals are like a security blanket for you, eventually it will be time to let go and move beyond them. That time may not be now if you have other things to focus on first. It is all about progress, Diana. If your intent is to progress in recovery, do not intend to hold on to your food rituals. Realize that they are just coping mechanisms for feeling comfortable in situations. That said, don't get hung up on this issue - you are clearly doing well in your recovery and this does not seem like a priority at the moment.

4 - I did a video a long time ago about going away to university (college here): Coping with College

It's quite an old video (when my video camera still gave me a lisp and I was fairly new to the YouTube community). I think you'll find that it will answer what you are asking. I know there are differences between the school systems here and where you are, but the concepts I talk about are the same. I started college/university in 2002 and definitely understand where you are coming from. I graduated with a degree in 2006 so it's a bit in my past, but I well remember what it was like. :)

Surrounding Yourself with Good

Okay, so I still can't figure out why my videos make me sound like I have a lisp in certain parts, and my hair looks like Kramer's from Seinfeld (lots o' curls and some of 'em pulled back in a clip makes for interesting-ness), I have no makeup on, and I'm wearing my glasses instead of my contacts---but that's how comfortable I am with myself and with all of you dear people. ;) Ignore the crazy hair, listen to the words, and have a happy, healthy week!

Out of the Woods

Sometimes, remembering the hell of anorexia is frightening in the same way a nightmare is still frightening after you wake up. You know it's not real anymore, but you can't help feeling uneasy about it.

When I think of the girl I used to be, the pain I used to feel, the hole in which I used to live, I seem to stop breathing for a mere millisecond. Because I am consumed with the old feeling of desperation and fear and loathing. Then the instant passes--and quickly--because I am enveloped with the wonderful relief that I'm all right now. I've gotten out. I've made it through. And life is good. Actually good. I love life.

And I breathe that heavy sigh, letting air back into me, letting the memories flood back in a fashion I can handle now that my brain is completely aware that it's all in the past.

I can use my old pain to create new things--important things--and help other people. It wasn't all for nothing. It wasn't a struggle that I erased from my mind like it never happened. I can do something beneficial with the whole experience. Now.

I like to use this analogy when talking about my eating disorder, my recovery from it, and my recovered state: I'm out of the woods now. But I live in a house a mile down the road.

I think it symbolizes what being recovered is like. You're successfully out of danger. You're away from it. And you're happily living somewhere else. But you'll never forget it. And it's always there, at a distance, because it used to be a part of you even though it isn't any longer.

And something can come knocking on your door because you're not too far away. But you don't have to let it in.

People often ask me if writing about eating disorders and moderating a recovery site are difficult tasks for a recovered individual. I don't think so. They help me keep things in perspective. And since I'm not "in recovery" any longer, but consider myself "recovered" I'm in a good place where things can't touch me the way they could have in the past. I'm not triggered. I'm not apt to sink into a setback. I'm just living and wanting to help because I know what it feels like and because I was there once too. Helping other people always has the potential to be a bit draining, but it doesn't haunt me or make me think things I'd rather not think. I like have the purpose in my life--to share and help and advise and comfort and understand.

I'll never go back. I'm only going forward. And I want to take a lot of people with me.

Remembering the Realization

This blog has a point and a purpose. Not only that, it has a message. I have a goal. It's here to give people hope. My goal is to be an example—to cause people to say, "If that's what recovery looks like, sign me up!"

That's it, plain and simple. From the beginning—from the start of my descent into an eating disordered life—I've always known I wanted to stop. I didn't want to have an eating disorder any more than one wants to have any other disease. I knew it was unhealthy and I knew I needed help. Before I told anyone about my struggles, before I was confronted, and before I had even come to terms with my issues, I went to see a counselor. I remember making the appointment; it all seemed so surreal.

I was your average girl who watched TV and saw anorexic girls on talk shows, skin and bones, crying their eyes out in front of the camera. I never thought I would relate to the girls on those couches, talking about their fears of food and their distressing disease. But suddenly, almost before I knew what was happening, I was on my way to anorexia myself…and it wasn't long before I was diagnosed with the very same disorder I had often heard about on television.

At my consultation appointment at my college campus's counseling center, I recall explaining my daily habits, my calorie counting obsession, and my way of fasting for days. I could hear myself saying the words, knowing full well I had a serious problem or at least the beginnings of one. From that point, even though I sought help, was confronted by my best friend, and told my parents, I ended up getting worse before I got better. Sometimes I even got better only to get worse again.

Things weren't clicking in my head. The constant struggle became so normal to me and so strangely comforting. I used anorexia to cope with stress, to deal with change, to help me feel special. All the while, I still hated it. I'd get angry every time I went to see a doctor who told me I should be weighing about xxx pounds. Not only did the very thought seem ridiculous to me, it also agitated me—because I always wondered how I'd look at a higher weight, always somehow knew deep down that a grown woman should be weighing much more than I did…and well, should look more like a woman.

Even when I got better and better and I managed to eat enough to be considered "okay," I was still constantly struggling with mental aspects of anorexia. Sometimes I was even annoyed because I thought everyone around me assumed I was fine again simply because I weighed xxx pounds. It was so untrue and so hard to explain. At times, I was the furthest thing from fine.

I have always been one of those people who can put on a happy face—who can smile even when they are hurting and joke around, consistently concealing the emotions at battle inside. In a way, it sometimes helped not to talk about it. I liked trying to forget, be able to have a good time with friends, if only for a few fleeting hours.

It was sad, because something always seemed to fall. I always seemed to fall. I wanted to enjoy myself, to be happy with my friends, to let my mind free itself of numbers and perfection, but I could never enjoy myself completely.

It was like I was at a party, having a blast with a big smile on my face, but there was someone in the corner, wearing dark clothes and looking at me with a scary expression. My eating disorder, my inside pain and dissatisfaction, was that dark, scary someone in the corner. I could still have a great time, could still make great memories, but I was always being watched by something that wanted to take it all away.

When I think of times like this, I am reminded particularly of a few nights out with my college friends when we'd drink and have a good time dancing and laughing…and on the way home, when the alcohol had loosened the strings around my turbulent emotions, I'd start to cry relentlessly. It's kind of embarrassing even now, but I was much more of a mess than I let myself or anyone else believe. Tears typically accompany a mess.

Whether I cried walking home from a bar—feeling as though I was completely ruining the carefree mood—or later in the night back at my old apartment to my best friend, everything seemed to come crashing down after having fun. It took me a while to learn that I'd never really be able to be happy again unless I fixed myself first. Until I took care of what was making me hurt, any fun or happiness was temporary.

I knew I didn't want to live like that. After all, who does?

Looking back, nights like that feel like a turning point, or several of them. I knew my entire life was going to be like that if I didn't change something. If I hadn't had the friends I do, I would have fallen into a sad little hole and lied there 'til something drastic finally pulled me out…if anything pulled me out at all.

This realization came after years of unhappiness and what can only be described as shit. This realization came after a freshman year of college that makes me cringe to this day. After days and nights of worrying my friends, of sleeping in the daytime for hours at a time, of letting my past of a being a straight A student fall into the trash as I used all my effort to even make it to—and through—classes. After tedious meals in the dining hall, whole Biology classes spent incessantly tallying my food intake, and one distinctly frightening night when I attempted to measure my dwindling waist by fastening a belt around it—then trying to measure the belt with a ruler—only to be stopped by my freshman room mate and my best friend, who both had to hold me down on my bed while I thrashed around and essentially freaked out. After counseling and eating again only to make my sophomore year a near repeat of my freshman year. After group therapy and fainting spells. After screaming matches with my parents. After actually seeing the number 89 on the scale at one point and hating the sick euphoria that attended it. After obsessive term papers on eating disorders in an attempt to teach myself to stop what I was doing.

After all this came those fun college nights that ended in tears.

And after that came the realization.

That. I. Didn't. And. Couldn't. Do. It. Anymore.

So I set out to learn myself and discovered a lot. It has to start with you.

It has to start with YOU.

But most of all, it has to start.

Getting Rid of the Bad By Bringing in Some Good

I used to do this when I was feeling particularly low.

What are 10 things that make you feel good or happy? List them. Here are some of mine for inspiration to get your thoughts moving in the right direction.

1) Watching a Shirley Temple movie.

2) Baking something.

3) Painting or drawing.

4) Turning on some classic rock LOUD and dancing around.

5) Taking a bath (actually, reading a good book in the bath).

Try it. List 10. Then when you’re feeling horrible and can’t seem to pick yourself up, choose one of your things and DO IT. Think of it as a way to take care of yourself. Think of creative ways to keep this list ready and easily accessible. For example:

Get a little corkboard, cut your 10 things into strips, and tack them up in a random fashion on the board. Display the board somewhere near your desk or a place you frequent. Let your eyes dart from idea to idea when you’re feeling depressed and when something looks comforting to you, go with it.

Or

Write each of your 10 things on 10 separate colorful pieces of paper (maybe even post-its if you’d like). Then, put each thing in a place you tend to stray to when you’re having a bad day or a hard time, i.e. near the toilet so you’re less apt to purge (if this is a habit of yours), on the fridge so you’re less apt to binge (if this is a habit of yours), where you keep your alcohol if you’d be likely to turn there for comfort, even near your bed so you’re less apt to just lie there and/or cry and let your low mood take hold.

Everyone is different. We all have different problems and different preferences. But there are simple ways we can comfort ourselves if we just bother to take note of what works for us. I have noticed that watching an old Shirley Temple movie, maybe with a cup of tea, always puts me in a better mood, makes me smile, and gives me a little comfort. Recognizing this allowed me to create something to do when I was feeling desperate and wretched. You’d be surprised how little things like this incorporated into your week (and more importantly, your life) can make a big difference. Because you’re taking care of YOU when you do them. You’re not fighting yourself. You’re not giving in to bad habits or destructive ways. You’re not wallowing in self-hate, depression, or whatever else might be plaguing you. You are giving yourself something good.

And a little good can go a long way.