Can You Practice Intuitive Eating in Eating Disorder Recovery?
Trigger Warning: This talks about eating disorder recovery. If you are currently in recovery and aren't ready to read this, that's totally okay and understandable. Everyone is in a different phase of their recovery.
Something I was taught previously is that someone with an eating disorder shouldn’t practice intuitive eating. And it made sense when I was taught that. Intuitive eating involves knowing your body cues and eating with no distractions (i.e., mindfulness), but when your body cues aren’t the norm and are out of order due to a past or current eating disorder, it doesn’t seem healthy to try to give intuitive eating a try. Plus, structured meals are really important to help renourish the body, which goes against intuitive eating which is all about listening for your body cues. I read a blog recently that gives ten principles on intuitive eating and how they can be incorporated into eating disorder recovery and I really wanted to share it, as well as my perspective on each of the principles. I want to apply it to being a college student, and show how any of us in recovery can benefit from these principles. It’s part of Rachael Hartley’s Nutrition blog, and I highly encourage you to check it out!
Reject the Diet Mentality: it may seem hard to reject dieting, especially when someone is in recovery from an eating disorder and has a long history with dieting. But Rachael points out that another part of rejecting the diet mentality is learning about the negative impacts of restriction. For example, someone with binge eating disorder or bulimia may learn how restriction leads to binging and purging. If they see the negative impacts, it may motivate them to want to stop.
Honor Your Hunger: Rachael goes on to describe honoring your hunger as feeding your body at consistent times established by you and your dietician; it’s doing this even when you aren’t hungry. The body cues may be off, but by honoring hunger both when hungry and not, it helps someone get okay with allowing themselves to eat when they’re hungry. It can also be helpful to eat outside of structured eating times if you feel hunger cues; this would help rearrange your body cues. Something I present in my eating disorder presentations around campus involves a study about recovery. In that study, those with the eating expectancy that their food would satisfy their hunger and be useful and pleasurable as a reward to their body (positive eating expectancy), showed to have more successful recovery rates; those who had never had an eating disorder and those who were in full recovery both had these expectancies.
Make Peace With Food: Rachael goes on to add that part of intuitive eating is getting permission to eat foods that were previously restricted and getting exposed to fear foods; this can really help eating disorder recovery and allow people to get comfortable with foods they may not have before. I know that in the MSU Peer Body Project I help run, there have been members that have said they have a trigger food (e.g., ice cream) that sends them into a spiral. By comfortably reintroducing it and thinking of it not as a bad food but as a good one that they’re allowed to eat, it can help a lot!
Challenge the Food Police: This principle is about learning about the nutrition of food in a more flexible way by unlearning inaccurate information about food that can fuel disordered eating thoughts. An example off the top of my head is that all sugar is bad. I know that when I struggled with my disordered eating I would put myself on strict diets and tell myself I could never have any sugar ever again. It helped once I took the time to learn sugar is okay in moderation and that not all sugar is bad.
Respect your Fullness: Those in recovery can slowly learn to feel when they’re full and listen to body cues. This principle is one that is tough for those with anorexia though, as they will often feel full after eating very little. In my personal opinion, I think this principle depends on the person and that someone should only start doing this when they absolutely feel comfortable to.
Discover the Satisfaction Factor: This one also applies to the study I mentioned above. When you start to attribute food to being pleasurable, it can really help. Thinking of food in a more positive way has shown to aid recovery.
Cope With Your Emotions With Kindness: Intuitive eating can help people be kind to themselves and feel their feelings and learn how to cope with distress.
Respect Your Body: This principle is all about respecting and loving your body. Rachael mentions how this step is usually the last part of recovery. Something we do in the Peer Body Project to help with this is we assign exercises such as the Mirror Exercise where we tell each other to look in the mirror and find at least ten things we like about our bodies. Physical things. It really helped me.
Movement - Feel the Difference: It’s possible with intuitive eating for people to slowly integrate exercise into their life if they want. Oftentimes people in recovery from eating disorders are told to restrict exercise. But just like with food, people can get a feel for the difference between exercising to lose weight and exercising to feel good. They can feel their body and find a good plan for them. I know for me I used to run to reduce calories and over time when I started running for fun, I definitely felt a difference in my body.
Honor Your Health With Gentle Nutrition: This principle is all about gentle nutrition and integrating in nutritional foods. This can be very helpful. This personally helped me as well.
All in all, Rachael concludes with making sure her readers know that the principles are tools, not rules. I agree. I think intuitive eating for those in recovery would look different for everyone. Maybe none of the principles feel right and that’s okay. Maybe a few do, and that’s also okay. I really like that Rachael was able to provide these principles for those that feel they would benefit from them. I love how inclusive the blog was. Oftentimes those in recovery may feel left out that they are told not to participate in intuitive eating. I love that this gives people more healthy options and is very flexible.
If you are in a crisis and need help immediately, call 988 or continue to contact Crisis Text Line by texting “NEDA” to 741741 to be connected with a trained volunteer at Crisis Text Line. Crisis Text Line is a separate organization staffed by volunteers who provide free, 24/7 support via text message to individuals who are struggling with mental health, including eating disorders, and are experiencing crisis situations.
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