Disordered eating

[goodasitgets]

This may seem like a stupid question but if I post what I have eaten today, could you tell me if it seems a lot?
I have been low carb for a long ish time but am eating carbs for a few days - today was not a good food day
Have a history of disordered eating and feeling like I should punish myself for eating too much

Ok, I am training as a mind-body nutritionist and the biggest thing I have learnt in terms of how our mind and body works together is that stress is our metabolism's biggest enemy. There can be all sorts of sources of stress - emotional, environmental, stress due to money, a job we hate, relationship issues, unresolved emotional issues in our past, a fear of food and getting fat..... but the one that many, many people inadvertently cause themselves is through fast eating. Just the act of rushing through meals puts our body in a mild fight or flight, 'ready to run from a lion' response. In this state, digestion, assimilation and metabolism is not a priority for our body, having sharp wits and limbs ready to act fast is. If we regularly exist/eat in a low level stress response our digestive system and metabolism never works at its best and we end up overweight and/or with digestive problems.

If you were my client the very first 'homework' task I would be giving you, before adjusting anything about your diet at all, would be to practice slowing down with meals. Try and have no distractions (like work or tv), take ten deep breaths before you start to eat - saying 'grace' can help hugely with his, even if you aren't at all religious - and then try and spend as long as you can over the meal. I don't mean chewing loads of times but just really relaxing and tasting. It's a skill not many people have and it can take a long time - weeks or months or more - to really master because by habit we tend to rush food, but you will be doing you body a huge favour. Among other benefits it really helps you get back in touch with your appetite, your mind really knows you are eating and you will feel more nourished and satisfied (as opposed to barely noticing something you've thrown down in about 3 minutes flat) and you give you tummy the chance to send full signals when you've had enough, so you can stop before you overeat.

Try it for 2-3 weeks and see what difference it makes, if any, to appetite, bingeing and GERD?

THank you.
I have had a hugely stressful few months...lost my beloved dad in July then my mum had a heart attack, then I have been ill.
It's been rough.
In fact this whole year has been a nightmare.
What you say makes a lot of sense!

badvoc and goodas, it sounds like you have been through some horrible times lately. Definitely time to start caring and looking after yourself in the way you would if it was a child or close friend that had been through such traumas, when you stop and think about how we treat our bodies it's crazy, we would never treat other people that way!

goodas, I know you are doing lots of tough exercise. Do you enjoy it? If all exercise/movement (whether walking, yoga, dancing, karate, boot camp, boxing) burned the same amount of calories, what would you choose to do?

I love exercise!
If money/time was no object I would ride (I have a horse so that's not optional!), boot camp and then probably pole fitness 90 million times a week
Hate yoga, can manage Pilates occasionally. Also adore spinning. I do like pushing to the limits and find pole/spin reduces my stress

Cool, you sound like me goodas- except for the horse disastrous . Lots of people do intense exercise purely as a means to losing weight/atonement/punishment for over eating or hating their body, and they hate the exercise. The result then, particularly longer term, is more stress and it can actually start causing weight retention or even gain. If you fell into that camp I was going to suggest you do the exercise you enjoy regularly and see if that has an effect.

Noo I just love the feeling of dripping with sweat and waking up sore (and covered in pole bruises)
I do push myself a LOT

Hmm - sounds like your sources of stress lie elsewhere goodas

Badvoc - give the slower eating a go and let me know how you feel about it after Christmas - pm me either to let me know or to tell me you've posted here (in case it falls off threads I'm on). I'd be interested to know and then if you'd like, maybe give you some other tips....

Thanks sleep, will do x

Work stress probably. General life stress! Work is v v up and down, it's emergency services so constant adrenaline I guess

Obviously work stress is hard to avoid goodas . But it sounds to me like you probably have a lot of stress around food itself and that is what I would look at trying to change first for you. I would try and get you off a 'diet' altogether as a first step - bury the scales in the garden and try listening to what your body tells you it wants and just eating it - just for a few weeks. Scary huh? (by the way, if your response to that is 'yes', then I am probably bang on )

The other, emotional upheavals are also probably contributing of course...but I would look at those later.

Yes that's terrifying
I adore toast with proper butter but haven't eaten it for years. And if probably eat nothing but carbs if left to my own devices

at a life devoid of toast and real butter !

With respect asgood, if you've been off carbs and exercising hard for years and you still aren't happy with your body, or enjoying food, I'd suggest that your approach, the one we all blindly accept as the recipe for a 'perfect' (whatever that means) body..isn't working for you and maybe you should try something else?

The off carbs is since jan along with exercising. Had to have a break in April/may due to termination and wasn't able to exercise until sept due to back problem
So I've done the eating right previously and I've done the exercise but I need to get both in place without something cropping up
It has been working as I've lost over 2.5 stone

Fair enough, but for me, your OP is a bit worrying in how it suggests a level of control that isn't healthy and a loss of a sense of what is normal or what your body really needs. Whatever way of eating you feel is most suitable for you is fine by me (low carb, vegetarian, vegan, raw, as a nutritionist I don't really care if you feel genuinely healthy and happy and not like food rules your life), but it also needs to be sustainable and you need to enjoy the food you choose, it's not just a matter of nutrients and calories, feeling pleasure in what we eat is as important

Having read more of your posts op I once again urge you to seek counselling-your problem is not eating but with all things going on in your life which are manifesting themselves in your eating and unhappiness with it.

Sleep...may I PM about my ds2 please?
He is 5 and his eating habits are starting to worry me...

Of course badvoc.

I definitely feel low carb works but it's when I go off it I lose the power to control (not binge)
Am cleaning - this is my stress reaction is to clean!

goodas when you use the term carbs in the sense of being a trigger food for you for binges, do you mean White, starchy carbs or any carbs, say a portion of brown rice? What else might trigger a binge?

Things that trigger (or ones I have noticed!)
Crisps, sweet yoghurt, toast, any form of bread, oat cakes, anything crunchy in a pack like biscuits/veg crisps, stuff like Jaffa cakes, sweets

Don't trigger - chips (because I don't cook them at home, cake (weirdly), corn cakes

I don't actually like rice, pasta I used to like, and I rarely are potatoes (except on top of cottage pie)

When I say binge, I mean I can't eat just one and put it away, I eat the whole bloody thing

Hi goodas, would you say you dont get the urge to binge at all when low carbing then? As in, is it solely those foods you mention that trigger a binge and not anything else (non food)? And when low carbing, how low do you go? Do you eat fruit like bananas, do you eat carbs like lentils, pulses, sweet potato?

Pretty much. I crave stuff like toast though! I eat sweet potato maybe once every few weeks and yes I eat bananas

So i guess what I am getting at is that if you crave carbs like toast, do you eventually binge? How often/When was the last time? I'm aware all this has nothing to do with your original OP by the way - tell me to get lost if you like! I can see how if you have trigger foods then they may be best avoided but I don't think that going on a diet is the best thing for a person with disordered eating...and when you are eating low carb you may actually be consuming plenty of food, but the days off you detail certainly sound like too little . Your weight loss may have stalled simply because you aren't eating enough.

No it's ok! Toast I haven't eaten for 10 months or so. It's really hard to describe - sometimes I just don't eat, sometimes it's the wrong thing

Typical low carb day
B - Greek yog/berries or egg/bacon
L - soup usually and cashew nuts as snack or piece of cheese
T - something like chicken stew (onions/sweetcorn/tomatoes/peppers)
I'm crap at eating veg so I make stews to kind of cram it it
Today would be a bad day - costa coffee and glass whey protein

If that's a typical day then you definitely need to eat more. The idea of low carbing is just that, its not low calorie, but the food you list would qualify as low calorie, particularly for someone of your height and activity levels. How is your hair, skin and digestion?