Things No One Told Me About Disordered Eating Recovery [Part II]

Things No One Told Me About Disordered Eating Recovery [Part II]

by | Apr 13, 2020 | Blog, Life, Wellness

This post is a follow up to my Review of The Balanced Blonde’s Plant-Based Recipe Book & 22 Day Detox.

Each time I feel I’m recovering and I take a step forward, something else causes me to take a step back. 

For a long time, the challenge I had to overcome was admitting that my disordered eating habits were real.  I was in denial that I had a problem, which only kept me looping in my restrictive eating cycle.

Unfortunately, things weren’t all sunshine and rainbows after I admitted to myself, and my close circle, that my disordered eating behaviors existed either because the bigger challenge seems to reside in all of the moments that followed.

We live in a culture of “dieting” and with that comes a dogma of food rules.

Many of us hold a belief system that perpetuates ideas such as:

Skinny is better than fat

Fat is bad

Eating less is better

Low-carb, low-fat, low-calorie ideal

We should make healthy choices

Healthy = vegetables and fruit

Healthy involves working out (daily)

And so much more…

This is just scratching the surface on some of the major ideas that we get casually thrown every day in language, both intentionally and unintentionally.  The latter is really troublesome because that means we aren’t even aware that we hold such deep-seated beliefs.  

disordered eating recovery part 2

If it isn’t clear by now: recovering from disordered eating is a roller coaster.  

You do the self-work.  Sifting through all of the beliefs influencing your disordered eating behaviors.  Asking yourself why and parting ways with belief baggage. Even re-framing some thoughts into beliefs that can serve you.

By this point, you have slowly crawled upwards and finally you think you’ve reached a high where you are all recovered (fingers crossed!).  You feel good about yourself but then this tempting little nugget comes across your path to test you.  Sometimes it might be easy to walk past it but there are times where you want to try it.  

So I did. 

For me, the tempting little nugget was this blogger’s recipe book which ended up putting me on two weeks of salt-free, oil-free, sugar-free meals.  Admittedly, I was eating lots of fruit and vegetables, no refined starches or sugars, all plant-based…so I thought I was doing something healthy for my body.

The recipe book involved a plant-based, SOS-free (salt, oil, and sugar-free), food combining way of eating with an initial 3 week challenge period.  I purchased it (and just wrote a review on it here) from someone I respect and admire and thought she had found the way!  I know, I know…now I look at this like: what was I thinking?

For a while now, I’ve held the self-improvement mentality.  I’m always on the hunt for ways to improve certain aspects of myself.  I thought that as long as I wasn’t going into a diet/lifestyle with the intention to change my body or weight, I was good.  The justification I had was, “I’m doing this for my health!”  (BTW: That’s a really messed up thought in and of itself but we’ll get to that.)  

The author of the recipe book I purchased even explains that this way of eating is what helped her get rid of a whole host of symptoms so I wanted to feel as good as she seemed to feel.  I don’t think she was being misleading in any way, and probably many others could find use in the recipes but I was looking outside of myself for guidance on what to eat. The realization that something was wrong came when I started having MAJOR salt cravings 13 days into the challenge.  Typically, the adjustment period for something new is hardest in the first 3 days. But 13 days in?? That seemed odd to me.

There is a Facebook group where everyone participating could chat and share tips, so I turned there for guidance.  After two days of basically feeling dehydrated and dying for some salt, I was ready to crack and get back to some of my old foods!  But, before doing that, I checked in with the Facebook group to see what constructive tips anyone might have.

disordered eating recovery melmakesithappen

If I saw someone else ask the questions I posted, I would’ve said to them: Yo, listen to your body and just add a little bit of salt to your foods–you’re body is expressing a need, here.  Instead, this is what I got:

disordered eating recovery melmakesithappen

Over 100 views from the group members and all I got was a recommendation for salt-free chips and a salt alternative (BioSalt).  Part of me was seeking licensing to stop this nonsense and eat something with salt and not a single person gave that to me.  

Trust yourself.

That’s all I wanted to hear. 

Who was going to tell me this?  If I was waiting for that, who knows where I’d be right now.  Thank God I am really in tune with my body and was able to give myself the licensing because I didn’t feel right.  I can gauge when something I eat feels good inside of me or not.  I can tell when my body craves movement or stillness, and when I just need to drink some water. 

I keep thinking I need more information and get tempted by someone else who seems to have discovered the secret to ultimate health.

“Health” is a word I used to use in every other sentence that came out of my mouth.  Now, I realize everyone has a different idea of health and every dietary theory that is promoted comes from the intention of increasing health in some way.  Yet, what someone in recovery needs (and everyone, in my opinion) is to listen to their own body.

disordered eating recovery

Over the years, I have obsessed over every little thing that goes into my mouth.  I’ve placed so much value on my health but now that is what makes it troubling for me to discern whether I’m having true healing moments or still actively perpetuating diet culture.  This reality has slapped me in the face over and over again in the past months but most recently after trying the plant-based detox, which for me was a restrictive diet. It was a reminder that I’ve made many strides but temptations to go back to my old disordered ways are all around me.  

If freedom is what I want, then following a restrictive meal plan wasn’t what I needed or need.  I can’t keep looking at the same troubled places for answers. This takes re-framing my methods and not obsessively trying to live based on someone else’s rulebook.  I have to stop looking outside of myself for solutions and remind and trust myself that I already have them.

 

S2E7 Melanie Moreno on the Make It Happen Podcast

S2E7 Melanie Moreno on the Make It Happen Podcast

by | Feb 12, 2020 | Podcast

Releasing Labels, Rules, the Idea of a “Right” Path with Melanie

This episode of the Make It Happen Podcast is part one of a collection of three episodes Melanie felt called to share with the audience.  She’s solo on the mic today and opening up about her experience labeling herself and the pressure that creates to live by the confines of the label.  She’s opting for a life filled with less self-imposed rules and offering what has worked for her in terms of shedding the expectations that you or your life need to look a certain way.

Listen:

 

Mentions: 

CBD Oil

Miss Americana on Netflix

 

Follow Melanie:

https://instagram.com/melaniemakesithappen

https://twitter.com/melmakeithappen

https://facebook.com/makeithappenpodcast

 

Labels, Fitting in, and Being True to Yourself

Labels, Fitting in, and Being True to Yourself

by | Sep 16, 2017 | Health, Home, Wellness

I was listening to an episode of The Balance Blonde’s Soul on Fire Podcast with Mary Beth LaRue (ep 23) and they made an interesting point about labels.  They brought up this Instagram post by Sophe Jaffe which conveys the message that we should be living for ourselves, not for others.  If we are doing what feels right, yet, we have to explain our thoughts and behaviors to those around us, there is something wrong in that situation.  The insecurity we feel over what others will think weighs too heavily on our opinion of ourselves.  Consequently, when we try to explain ourselves to others, we use labels to justify our way of thinking.  Pre-set normative stereotypes might be a little part of what we are but they aren’t all that we are. 

In my experience, when we use labels to fit in, we restrict ourselves from being our truest selves. 

I have a history of trying to meet the expectations of who others want me to be.  I like to think that I’ve always been a little more thoughtful and mature for my age but as a teen in school, that didn’t make me “fun”.  So, I would look to what friends were doing to “fit in”.  It feels good to fit in…momentarily.  Though, it doesn’t take long to realize that trying to be who others want you to be isn’t fulfilling.  Cue Best Coast.  Even now as an “adult”, the peer pressure is still there. 

Oftentimes, I feel the need to do exactly as Jordan (The Balanced Blonde) and Mary Beth discussed on the podcast: explain myself.  I feel the need to explain why my interests are different.  I justify why I don’t fit the construct of a “typical” college graduate, fit person, single female, or young adult.  Yet, to embrace even more specific labels like anxious, introverted, creative, or even vegan involves a tie to a community.  They help describe some of what I feel to others but there are expectations with any label.  In some ways, I desire to be part of the typical case of one of the labels because then I’ll have a fellow community.  Still, even if I’m some of those labels, I know I’m also more than those labels. 

I’d like to think that our truest selves are so individual that labels don’t do us justice.  We all have interests, talents, and abilities that make us unique.  In an ideal world, we would admire ourselves for the spectrum of things we have to offer and be appreciated for the individuals that each of us are. 

Admittedly, when you ditch labels and try to just be yourself, that doesn’t mean everything else will fall into place.  People won’t automatically accept you for simply being “individual” and not “fitting the norm”.  In fact, it might even be harder. 

As a recent example, a friend of mine was getting on my case because I casually said to her that I couldn’t remember the last time I had a drink.  She asked if I was totally against drinking.  I’m not, I just don’t desire it.  So, she insisted we needed to meet up with some other girlfriends and go to the clubs.  I politely turned her down; saying club dancing wasn’t really my idea of fun.  She then said, well, it isn’t fun until you get a few drinks in to loosen up.  I shrugged at her to show my disinterest and said, I just don’t really like drinking.

Then, she pounced: HAVE YOU EVER BEEN DRUNK?!  I said no, to which she rambled on about how I needed to; so we should go to the clubs and it will be so much fun!  I mean…I can respect that that all might be her or someone else’s idea of fun but it isn’t mine.  So I wish for my thoughts to be respected in return.  I said to her that clubbing wasn’t my thing and she tilted her head and told me to think about it.  Though, from the look on her face, she pitied me for not yet understanding what real fun can be. 

labels, fitting in, and being true to yourself

Part of me wants to succumb to the ideas others have so that I can be accepted.  If I follow what others, whom I respect, have in mind then, surely that would make me happy, right?  Unfortunately, I would sacrifice the genuine qualities of myself if I try to just “fit the mold” of what someone else laid out.  I owe it to myself to recognize that I have gut instincts and desires that are real.  It is a shame to cover that up to satisfy someone else. 

It certainly sucks when someone else doesn’t see what is real but I’m not living for anyone else—just me.  I’m still learning to trust myself to make decisions after relying on others opinions for so long.  For now, I take comfort in knowing when my thoughts and behavior are my own and I am being true to myself.