Eating disorders - Tips

Map your eating habits, for example through a food journal.

This can be very confronting and thus difficult to do. Try to be as honest as possible with yourself. It gives you a lot of insight in your eating habits and a possible unhealthy pattern.

Treating the emotional problems behind an eating disorder goes hand in hand with fixing and improving your (unhealthy) eating habits.

STOP!

The following situations are in general a risk situation for destructive behavior like an unhealthy eating pattern:

• Hungry (Feeling hungry, don't eat often enough or not enough. Can also be figuratively: want something very bad)
• Angry (feeling frustrated or angry, build up tension or longing for revenge) 
• Lonely (lonely, withdrawn or closed off to people)
• Tired (Fatigue because you asked too much of yourself, slept too little or a disharmony in your daily routine)

Make sure that your basic self-care is ok, so that you avoid these situations to happen.

When you need to have a lot of control over your eating habits, it can be that the subject actually is: control.

Sometimes there are things in life we don't have so much control over. (there is a reorganization at work, will I keep my job or will I lose it?)

Losing control can feel so shitty, that we compensate by getting a lot of control in another area of our life. That way we don't feel the unpleasant feeling of the loss of control anymore. For example in the area of eating.

So it could be interesting to consider:

a) the situations you feel you cannot control anymore and think about what you could do in that situation.

b) no harm done in realizing that you cannot control everything in life, but that you can develop enough confidence so that you know "whatever happens, I will be fine".

For many people it helps to write down and share their story with others. You can share your story on the eating-disorders-peer-support-forum on this website.

This is for people who would like to have a different diet, but keep falling into old habits.
Keep doing what you always did, eat chocolate, cake, desserts, chips, whatever you like when you feel like it.

Make it the goal to enjoy every bite as much as possible. At the same time, put effort in becoming aware of how you feel. How do you feel before you start to eat, are you really enjoying eating, and how do you feel afterwards? Become more conscious of that.

If you truly enjoy it, great, then there is no problem to solve. But if you feel you don't enjoy it, you will feel motivated to change your diet and it will be easier to succeed.