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ED Disordered eating

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I had so much panic in going to bed last night. I got out the salad that I had put away and ate it, and I ate a mango as well. The anxiety before going to bed is really high. Improvements I have made is going to bed earlier, taking my medication earlier, and not binge eating anymore, comfort eating yes, but binge eating no. If I can keep within my Weight Watchers points two days per week I will be happy with that. General improvements all round.
 
Big chicken salad which is zero points for breakfast this morning, it was a healthy meal with lots of fresh items for my intestines!

68 kilos is right for my BMI. So currently I just came down to 84.1 kilos, the weight isn't as important, but it does matter. So if over the next year or so I can keep coming down that will add to my overall recovery process. I am not feeling so helpless and hopeless about this anymore. I will learn to emotionally regulate, do Self Compassion, and managing my emotions, and life.

The weight is not really the issue, the health of it all is the issue, so I am improving in both arenas, though, which is great. More important than physical health is learning how to emotionally regulate is probably the main issue, and on top of that Self Compassion and Radical acceptance are two important priority. Distress tolerance is also something else to be mindful of and cultivate.

I just have this gift for giving myself a really hard time all the time. Slowly this is unwinding and stopping. I am noticing it more. I have so many ways to do it. I am letting go a lot about the stuff with my family there was never going to be a way to get it right or even get it less wrong, it was an illusion to think that I could really influence it in any way.
 
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So medically supervised tapering off medication is occurring and also I have been stung by a wasp, so I am physically challenged. The swelling is significant. I am feeling hungry now. I am also feeling anxious. I have been making decisions today, and that is really hard. So this stirs up a lot of stuff for me!

"If outside validation is your only source of nourishment, you will be hungry the rest of your life".

I made an effort to connect with and speak to my partner today, and whilst that was challenging we did understand each other in the end.
 
It's just a reflex to turn to food when the emotions go quite haywire. Slowly but surely, we learn to catch the slips when they happen sooner and eventually will be able to prevent some of them.
Grief today -> more eating because I can't feel my body. It is overwhelming.
Eating in a way that helps regulate my body so that I am in a better position to feel the feelings is the direction I am trying to move in.
Feeling the feelings works.
Hugs @Disco Dancing Queen I am so glad you are learning to go a bit easier on yourself, and to give yourself some room to move about more freely.
 
It is really not easy at the moment. I had an omelette with corn for dinner. I tried to eat Mindfully, but it was hard.
 
I know it is not satisfying when we mindful eating doesn't happen, but then also food is just food and for nourishment. It sounds like you did well with that today. You can do this. You will have more opportunities to eat mindfully since we have to eat a ridiculous three times per day. Sometimes I wish I could take a full break from eating entirely. It is really difficult to face this tricky balance game multiple times everyday. You are doing so well, and you deserve to develop a healthy and natural relationship with food. It's coming. You've made so much progress.
 
And I did need to eat dinner as well, like that is needed! So I could just be being hard on myself again, and being unfair and hammering myself again.

Yes to manage a day, three times per day can be challenging. I am doing okay today. I actually did pretty well, despite the impulses that I have had. That is really hitting it out of the park behaviours today.

And my partner is being so supportive we went to a hardware store with a sausage sizzle, and we had one each, and when we were leaving we were both tossing up about having another one, and my partner said no one is enough. I have explained to him that my serving sizes are way too big, so he is eating a little bit less to assist me, and also because he also wants to be helpful.

How over sized my serving sizes have been for so long is still a shock to me. I usually walk three mornings per week, and I do heaps of activity. I hate to think how overweight I would be (I am overweight for my BMI) if I hadn't been doing so much exercise. So it is a constant learning and relearning. I don't have a set way of how to assess if I am hungry or not and then feed myself. I see all eating activity as abnormal and then I cane myself. So some of that might be going on. However, overall very well today, despite how hard the struggles were at times. It is all progress.

I am still 6 points below my eating range for the day, so I could have a snack or another meal. That is really good though the rest of the week mean I am - 36 from my weekly points which I am not quite sure what it means, but some other days I didn't do as well.
 
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I sometimes get stuck in the "I need to try to eat as little as possible each day" mindset, even if on days I go way way over. I have a lot of anxiety around eating, to break that down I have eventually had to start challenging the restrictive voice, and have done so by occasionally deciding to eat a little bit even when I don't necessarily need to. Usually I have found doing so has given a little bit of reassurance to the part who is concerned I will swing hard back into restriction. On days I am less obsessive about food I sometimes decide to challenge the restrictive voice and eat a little more, on the days when the impulses are high I stick to just what I need. This does not always happen.

Yes you do need to eat food, and never need to feel guilt about it. Learning about hunger cues is challenging and comes with time and experimentation. Things will overall continue to calm down, I think you are doing honest work and then you will start to notice the hunger cues. Sometimes it is a little mental investigation because I think for some people even without trauma or mental health issues being in their body is not particularly natural or comfortable. But we get to know portion sizes for ourselves, times of day we need more food, less food... what foods make us feel better, which foods are unsatisfying, etc. Perhaps part of the drastic serving size difference is because the weight watchers program is designed to help a person lose weight? Perhaps their portion sizes are smaller therefore. I am not sure how it works.

I am glad your partner is supportive. That is so good. :)
 
I did eat another zero points meal last night, as I was so overwhelmed. It is what it is. I was feeling so weird with it all. Sitting and breathing could have been a different way. Playing a musical instrument could of been useful. I did in the end look up some comedy and watched that, so that was good. I had nothing in the house like chocolate or biscuits or I would have eaten them, but given I did not have them in the house I was able to resist those urges, though it was really hard, fiendishly difficult not to drive down to the local store. I was also home alone and in lots of pain and stress from my wasp sting. Though I did find the prednisone, and that brought down the stinging, swelling and pain overnight.

That is something to think about @NinjaWolf, thanks for the insight.

The whole being here in this now thing is really hard. I did it a bit more yesterday though. I was not ready for all those feelings.

I read a bit of Brene Brown yesterday.

The first thing I need to do when I have that impulse for disordered eating I need to write down a list of what I can do instead, or have a list to refer to.

Last night was a success in that I didn't eat a loaf or half a loaf of bread. So small progresses.

The whole serving size thing is a habit. I have a habit of eating more than I need. I also have a habit of denying myself, which brings on a lot of anxiety, and corrosive self doubt, so that is really tricky for me. The whole serving size is still a shock, to see how much I was habitually eating. So yeah it is a weight loss program, but it is also a great way to track what you are eating, exercise, and helps you make sure that you get all the different food groups, so it is about the middle way in my mind, so you don't go too far one way or the other.
 
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