Five Nutrition-Related Tips to Remember When in Recovery from Anorexia

Having a hard time in anorexia recovery? It’s so challenging to have an eating disorder like anorexia. When you’re in eating disorder treatment and moving away from restricting, you’re changing the way your brain and body function, and that can be exhausting! I have five tips to help. Amazing San Diego eating disorder dietitian Christina Gaunce, RDN, has outlined five nutrition-related suggestions to help you stay on track. I recommend that you print out this list and post it in a prominent place so you can remind yourself of these tips when you feel overwhelmed.

1.     Your Meal Plan and Meal Planning is Your Ticket to Freedom

When experiencing an eating disorder, disordered thoughts about when to eat, what to eat, and how much to eat have made it impossible to make nutrition choices that fully nourish the body and mind. While trying to pursue recovery, it can be hard to identify a disordered thought or idea from a healthy thought or idea.  And of course, sometimes thoughts can be a combination of disordered and healthy thinking patterns. 

Over time, your treatment team can help you tease these apart and learn to identify helpful thoughts vs. unhelpful thoughts in your recovery. When your thoughts are jumbled or mostly coming from a disordered place, having a structured meal plan from an eating disorder Registered Dietitian (RD) can give you a clear direction and a course of action.  Turning over food decisions and control of your meal plan takes courage, but it also leads to the freedom of a nourished and recovered life.

“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”-Albert Einstein   

2.     Digestive Discomfort is Normal

It is normal to experience digestive discomfort in recovery (gas, bloating, diarrhea, constipation, feeling full quickly, feeling full for a very long time after eating). Believe it or not, continuing to eat regularly will make it better! The reason, your body’s digestion is not functioning optimally is because it is malnourished. The best thing you can do to make it get better is to keep nourishing yourself—easier said than done, of course!  Take your day one step at a time.

Eating only high fiber foods can make digestive discomfort worse in early recovery. For many seeking recovery from Anorexia Nervosa high fiber foods are ‘safer’ food because they are often labeled as a ‘healthy’ food choice. Challenging your food fears early by incorporating more low fiber options can decrease the digestive discomfort you experience and therefore make eating and following your meal plan feel a little more tolerable.  

3.     Intuitive Eating is a Long-Term Goal

Many of you may feel motivated to become an Intuitive Eater, which is awesome! But pump the breaks a little—or maybe a lot. Intuitive Eating is a long-term treatment goal, not a short-term goal. Full Intuitive Eating at the beginning of recovery from Anorexia Nervosa is impossible. The body and mind need time to heal, and you need time to figure out how to approach eating differently than before. 

After you have weight restored, it can feel tempting to just be done already—done with a meal plan, done with planning, done with all the mental and emotional effort that recovery has taken. You just want to feel ‘normal’ with eating. That experience is common and expected. Let your treatment team and supporters know that you are feeling this way. But stay the course, and work with your Registered Dietitian toward Intuitive Eating gradually. Trying to be ‘normal’ with eating or switch to Intuitive Eating too early can lead to relapse. A complete and lasting recovery is worth the continued effort. 

4.     Ask for Support

Asking and receiving help is profoundly healing and comforting, and it can make recovery more fulfilling and fun! Your family, friends and team can help. They may be able to plan a meal for you, plate a meal/snack for you, eat with you, eat a challenge food with you, distract you before or after eating, etc.

If you are feeling emotionally flooded, exhausted with recovery, or overwhelmed balancing recovery and life, asking for and receiving help from your supporters can add to the wind beneath your wings that will keep you going. It’s common to feel guilty when asking for support, but humans like to feel useful and needed, so you may actually be helping your supporter have a more fulfilling life by letting them be there for you. 

5.     Be Honest with Your Eating Disorder Dietitian

Registered Dietitians in ED Treatment like me don’t expect you to be perfect at your meal plan or recovery.  It can be easy for many reasons to leave out details about your current thoughts, behaviors, or challenges. Be honest with us, let us support you where you truly are with what is really happening for you. We won’t judge you. We really get the struggle, so let us help you get over any speedbumps you may encounter.

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Hey everyone, I really appreciate you reading my blog!  Have a wonderful day. :)  

Marianne 

If you are struggling to find online eating disorder treatment with help with anorexia or other eating disorders in San Diego, schedule a free, 15-minute phone consultation using the online scheduler (just click on the orange button), and I will help you get where you need to be! 

You can find more information about me on Instagram @drmariannemiller or on my Facebook page.