Orthorexia Anyone? Part 2

The second thing I found myself doing that helped quieten the obsessive good/bad food thoughts in my head was actively not listening to them. I told my long story of finding my way into eating disorder support groups first because I don’t know if I could’ve done this second step if I wasn’t going to those meetings. What I noticed about going to the support groups was that it didn’t stop the thoughts, but it did make them quieter and less powerful. And that made all the difference. For the first time I actually felt as though I could, if I wanted to, just ignore them, like a radio in the background. And then little by little they became fainter and fainter. As long as I kept going to meetings though! Lol. Unfortunately if I stopped going or stopped being in touch with my friends there, at least in the first year or two (yes, this process took years!) the thoughts became loud and demanding again. Quiet or loud they never disappeared completely. They were, and still are, always there if I want to listen and they get louder and stronger the more I engage with them. And they’re deceiving things. They sound so convincing and rational. They throw facts at me, and they provide references! They KNOW what’s right, they tell me. What I found, however, was that when I stopped listening to them I got HEALTHIER. A lot healthier. That had them stumped. I did put on a bit of weight for a while because when I stopped restricting then there was still my overeating to address. But I felt SO much better, and it was like I had to go through a period of allowing myself to not restrict or control my food at all as a way of disconnecting from being so identified with those thoughts that had been so dominant in my head for so long so I could then move beyond them.

More to come. Do you relate? Would love to hear from you.

https://www.facebook.com/myfoodmymedicine

Orthorexia Anyone?

So, I'm at the end of trimester 1 already and I've barely posted on this blog at all! Lol! I have however been very active and posting often blog-sized posts on my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/myfoodmymedicine . If you are interested in what I'm discovering as I study that's the place to go, at least for now.

And what has been the biggest lesson I've learnt so far? Is it that gluten is the devil? Is it that fermented foods and bone broths are awesome? Is it that saturated fats are good and polyunsaturated fats are bad? Is it that the human microbiome is one of the most amazing things in the universe?

Maybe that last one, but no, I think there's one even more important discovery that I'm revisiting after many years.

I have a tendency for orthorexia, ie an obsession with being healthy that can lead to ill-health. It totally got me in my 20s and once I began to recover for a long time things like walking into the health food aisle at the supermarket felt equivalent to walking into a bar had I'd been an alcoholic, I just had to avoid it or my head would go crazy.

But I remember what it was like before I recovered. It was awful! Constant preoccupation with food; what I'd eaten, what it was doing to me, what I'd done wrong from the last meal, yesterday's meals, a lifetime of meals, what I had to do to fix it. Except I could never fix it enough. And I knew that because I never felt ok. If I felt unwell in some way (and I became HYPER-sensitive to every little twinge in my body) it must have been what I'd eaten, or not eaten.

Last week on my Facebook page I wrote a post about listening to one's body, as opposed to one's head, when it comes to food, exercise, anything. Someone messaged me to ask if I had any pointers for how to get out of one's head and into one's gut feelings in relation to food. In replying I realised, unfortunately, that I had relatively little recent experience of doing this. I did however have years of experience of how I came to be able to do that in the past, to share. And what perfect timing for me to be reminded by what I had to say:

"How did I stop my head?

I think the first thing that helped was support groups. I actually ended up there quite by chance. I didn't think I had an eating disorder (it was a relatively mild eating disorder as far as eating disorders go, but it was disorderly enough to have me constantly preoccupied with food and having trouble breathing when I ate ie panic attacks at some meals and binging at others). I was studying music therapy at uni at the time and I had learnt about community support groups and 12-step groups and how effective they were. I had also read that the only way to really understand why they're so effective was to join one. So I learnt about of all the different groups and wondered where I might be able to fit. I didn't drink or smoke or do drugs or have a sex problem so they were all out. Then I saw OA, overeaters anonymous and I thought "well thoughts of food do interrupt my meditation, maybe I'll go there". I didn't think I had any problem at all with food. I thought I was the only one who knew how to eat properly, I just couldn't do it perfectly enough.

So I went and it blew me away. They all talked like the thoughts in my head sounded (more or less)! I thought I'd go and be surrounded by fat people but they were mostly normal sized, just all obsessed with food, either using it for comfort (binging) or for control (restricting, health obsession/orthorexia, bulimia, anorexia). And what was cool about being there was that they recognised it for what it was, and went to the meetings as a way of staying aware and lessening the power food had over them, just by talking about what they were experiencing and being heard by other people who related and accepted them just as they were, and then by listening to other people's experiences. Going there helped me to be aware of patterns I just had never seen before. The hugest one I think was how much of my 'food problem' was actually a thinking/obsessing problem.

It became clear that for me food was about control. I felt like if I could just get my food right then everything would perfect. But I just couldn't get my food right. The more I learnt (it was mid 90s I was into macrobiotics and food combining and candida diets) the harder it became to feel ok when I ate, and the crazier/more out of control I felt, which to me obviously meant I hadn't got my food right so I obviously just had to try harder, to research more.

When I started going to OA I felt such relief at being around people who talked like I thought and who had behaviours like mine that I was able to relax for the first time in ages. I wasn't alone struggling with food any more (this was pre-internet, it was a lot easier to feel alone! Lol). I didn't realise just how much energy I had caught up in 'trying to eat right' and because my brain didn't think I was doing it right, it thought the best way to remedy that was by thinking about food, constantly. Lol. Trying to figure out what I'd done right, what I'd done wrong, why I was feeling this, why I was feeling that.

Where I'm getting to with this is that the relief and support I felt by going to OA made me feel like it was finally safe to let go of the thoughts in my head. I didn't feel like I had to be in control because I felt supported and safe enough in that environment that I felt quite sure I wouldn't die if I ate something 'wrong'.

So that was the first step that helped quieten my head."

Then I wrote more! But I'll leave that for another time. Very grateful to the lass who inspired me to write about this! It's really had me rethinking my current relationship with food and just in the nick of time I think!