#And I’m scared I’ll fall back into unhealthy disordered eating habits

[cockroachmotherfucker10]

do you think it’s possible to lose weight while in recovery? i don’t want to fall back into unhealthy eating habits but i do wanna lose a bit of weight just for my health and i’m scared that if i put too much restriction on myself i’ll end up relapsing

Mod lia typed up a really good response to this kind of question a while back- here is that link!

In short, if you struggle with with eating disorders, avoiding restriction is like avoiding alcohol as an alcoholic.

Additionally, weight loss in and of itself is unlikely to benefit your heath. Instead of emphasizing weight loss, I recommend emphasizing adding things into your life that do directly benefit your health. For instance, finding exercise you enjoy, adding in a variety of foods and food groups so you are getting all of the nutrients you need, taking a water bottle with you so that you are more likely to be hydrated throughout the day. Seek therapy to deal with the underlying issues that have caused the eating disorder. Look into intuitive eating, and into Health at Every Size.

And something my therapists have recommended me in the past is to work with a nutritionist that emphasizes intuitive eating. I’ve never done that personally because I can’t afford it- and because I doubt I could find one that wouldn’t trigger my ED. But I think it would be better to step into that territory while being monitored by a professional hand- and again- with the emphasis not being on weightloss, but incorporating things into your life that will benefit your health.

I work a manual labor job, I eat salads everyday for lunch. I drink water everyday because of work! In my opinion- I have a healthy lifestyle. Yet- I am still fat. But my cholesterol levels are good, my blood work is fine. And most importantly, I’ve been able to avoid falling back into my restrictive eating disorder.

I’m going to link a few posts below- please check them out! The first one is Mod Lias response to a similar question, and then my experience of falling back into an eating disorder when I tried to microdose dieting.

[potatopossums]

Insecurity and Boundaries: A Necessary Coexistence

Content Warning:

This post includes discussions / mentions of:

bodily insecurities, explicitly including dysmorphia, dysphoria, and implicitly including but not limited to eating disorders, weight

childhood trauma including shame, humiliation, fear

coping mechanisms, both healthy and unhealthy, including anxious avoidance, projection, masking, reflection

mentioned references to all of the above through lenses of morality, cis white feminism and sexualized body positivity

adhd

—

Author's Note:

Written through the lens of adhd, anxiety, depression, queerness, transness, nonbinaryness, aromanticism, alterous attraction, and as always, questioning.

—

Ngl I've had the opportunity to date/"be with" (in whatever capacity) several quite attractive ppl, and the last couple have been great examples of something that actually kind of triggers me / turns me off.

I didn't really know what to make of it then, and I felt bad about it then too because I thought I was just being judgy. Not saying some of that isn't potentially still there, but i think i understand better now.

It honestly kind of scares me when I have the opportunity to have close relationships with people with bodily dysphoria/dysmorphia or strong insecurities. My brain has a really bad habit of being reflective when I'm feeling vulnerable. I just match people. It's a way of masking while relating to people. It's a defense mechanism. But it feels quite real in the moment and i often don't realize it's happening until it has already happened.

But as a nonbinary person who gets misgendered a lot at work, I've spent a lot of time now very acutely aware of my own body (as if i wasn't already). I don't tend to hate my body in a vacuum. I actually enjoy my body. I like how it looks in certain clothes; I like how I can trick the eye and make it look another way with other clothes, and then surprise, it's a different body underneath! I like how my body feels when i masturbate, i like how my body feels in the warm sun, i like how my body feels when i self-soothe. Even when I'm in pain, in some of those moment, i like that my body exists because I know something is happening inside me, something systematic and programmed, something beyond me that does it's evolutionary purpose, no matter how flawed. I've always had a curiosity about bodies in general (gender and sex completely aside). So when i say i love my body, i mean that.

Does it mean i don't struggle with dysphoria? Of course i struggle. And it makes me feel like shit.

Sure, I've got that Cis White Feminist Self-Loathing Intervention Voice in my head that says "all bodies are beautiful" (and she really means all women are beautiful but I'll co-opt her lines to fit my agenda). That voice is problematic because like. I like being beautiful, but why do I want to be beautiful, and what happens when I'm not beautiful? How do I guage whether I'm beautiful at any given moment? Isn't that largely subjective even with an overarching cultural & social standard? When I feel "ugly" — my cowlicks sticking up, teeth unbrushed, i feel too short, i feel i look too childish, I'm afraid my boobs are showing in a way i don't want to be seen, etc. — who's to say that someone else doesn't find some of those things attractive? So attractiveness is a poor method of confidence, despite how influential it still is on my brain and personality. That influence is fear based.

All that in mind, when I hear other people struggling with their bodies, especially in a Trans/Non-Binary/Dysphoric way, it really scares me. I mean, any bodily struggles scare me because I have my own insecurities to deal with. And when I'm in that state of really wanting to keep a connection because abandonment trauma + adhd, my vulnerable brain says that in order to impress someone, I must reflect relatably. So that has me digging back into my bodily insecurities. And I explore them as if I should be feeling them.

Let me unpack that. I'm avoidant with my anxieties. I don't talk about them, and I don't think about them much if I can help it, because when I think about them, that result can be largely painful, dramatic, and too emotionally volatile for me to handle. I always want to look put together, I want to feel secure enough to not need to ask for help, because those few times it went badly when I asked for help still stick with me (regardless of how long ago those moments were, and regardless of how many good times I've had where received actual help since). I remember the embarrassment and humiliation, the shame, the fear, the guilt. I remember wanting to make myself smaller, and how crushing that felt to do. I remember how little I understood of these wild and complex emotions, and all I knew was that I felt violated and disgusting. And I turned that inward. Because I had no external support.

So me saying that I explore my anxieties "as if I should be feeling them" is multi-pronged. It's Cis White Feminist Body Positivity, it's all those family members who modeled and normalized self-hatred for me from a young age, it's bodily dysphoria/dysmorphia at being misgendered, it's me trying to convince myself that my body truly is okay and that my negative inner voice doesn't know what it's talking about due to it's poor influences, and it's me ultimately not being able to reconcile all that on my own (or fast enough, thanks adhd) and resorting to anxious avoidance of my insecurities as if that solves them.

And then, when I hear someone I might kind of want to be intimate with start to talk about their insecurities, my brain panics. It says, "If you go in there, you will lose it. You will fall into the same hole they're in. You will have to suffer just as much for them, and for yourself. You will lose all your energy and you will start to hate yourself. They will treat your body the way they treat their body. You will be made to hate yourself."

And even though I know plenty of people with dysphoria/dysmorphia and other bodily struggles absolutely won't do those sorts of things, I also know that projection is a thing. And considering how poor I am at boundaries and how I tend to adopt unhealthy relationship dynamics due to my avoidance, I know that it would just start a bad cycle for me. Even with all the empathy and understanding in the world, I simply cannot root myself in a situation that would cause me to loathe myself.

And again, in case this wasn't clear: this is absolutely not a statement about people with bodily confidence issues as a whole. I am not trying to villainize or demonize or moralize their experiences. That is markedly the opposite of what I intend here.

But it took a long time for me to get to this point in my self-awareness. And i wanted to share it because i want other people to be able to reach an understanding of themselves too, whatever that understanding might entail. Yeah, it's a little cliche, but our projections and fears about others can have a lot to do with our fears about ourselves. It's important to be self-aware, even if that doesn't immediately solve the problem(s).

I tend to really like confident people because of this. That attraction has it's own roots in confidence issues, and its own potential flaws. And until I can change my own avoidant anxiety, I'm going to find new ways to project my avoidance and shame onto others, regardless of whether they are confident or unconfident, dysphoric or not.

But, just because I'm projecting doesn't mean that I'm unworthy of boundaries. Even if my behaviors are unhealthy, even if I do need to work to change those things (and even though I actively want to change those things), it is still healthy for me to know my limits. It's healthy to know what triggers me. It's good for me to realize these things and step back, even if the relationship I'm leaving/not starting is arguably "good." (And that assumption is a whole other topic for another post.)

So, along with whatever other epiphanies you might have received from this read, here's my major takeaway that I want to leave you with:

Your boundaries are okay. Even if they're based in anxiety, even if they're based in unhealthy coping mechanisms, even if you want to change your unhealthy behaviors/mindset. Your boundaries do not need to pass any social justice or morality tests in order to be valid. Your boundaries do not have to "make you grow." Your boundaries are not bad, even if you feel like they keep you from being the best version of yourself.

The only way you can actually grow is if you respect yourself enough to respect and enforce your boundaries. The only way you can feel comfortable and happy and healthy is if you respect your boundaries.

So please do that for yourself. Please respect your boundaries. I know it's very hard, especially for people-pleasers. I know it's hard for you avoidant types. I know it's hard for those of us who mask and reflect.

But please, just a little bit at a time, respect yourself. Even if that means disappointing or hurting others with a "no."

And please, please, please surround yourself with people who respect your boundaries and stand up for you. Of all the work I've tried to do alone, nothing compares to the effectiveness and growth I've experienced when I've been around radically affirming people — people who fought for my right to say no; people who defended my boundaries no matter what they entailed; people who stood up for my pronouns at work; people who validated my life experiences, labels, queerness, and questioning. It can be difficult to find people like that in real life, but please stay in the company of people who do that for you. Even if they're online. Stay near people who model self-respect for you. They will help you practice how to treat yourself.

—

[almightyalicia]

The lies and truth we tell ourselves (Part II)

This is a more Nathaniel centric piece with an exploration into his unhealthy eating habits.

The unfortunate fate of Rebecca and Nathaniel and the supply closet of MountainTop.

Post 4x05. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Rebecca x Nathaniel

He checks his body to make sure he hasn’t stepped through a time machine. 

“I came up to steal some markers,” Rebecca offers, shifting awkwardly in the small space. 

He closes and opens the door to the supply closet to make sure anyway. And steps in when he is certain that he was not in a dream. He eyes Rebecca trying to put the markers back where they belong. Her hair is longer, in a softer shade than before. She doesn’t have much makeup on, he figured she didn’t have any clients to impress in particular with her pretzel stand. Still, she resembles something akin to the gentle morning glow. 

“Hi,” he starts. 

It has been a few weeks since he heard her voice. He would give anything to hear it again.

She keeps her eyes downcast and her lips tight.

“I’ll leave you to it. Feel free to take anything.”

He licks his lips and leaves the closet, closing the door behind him. He leans against the door in defeat. He felt the doorknob make a sound and before he knows it, it clanks on the floor. 

He tries to fix it back before Rebecca could find out, but the loud noise already beat him to the punch.

“Nathaniel, what happened?” she fruitlessly tries to open the door. The doorknob on her side falls apart in her hand. She gasps at the mishap. Of all the times they could fall apart, she would have least expected the time to be now. 

“I’m sorry. It was an accident. I’ll fix it, I promise,” his voice trails off and Rebecca sinks to the floor. She can see the corridor through the doorknob gap. This is what she deserves for stealing - being stuck in a small space by her ex, that makes sense. 

Nathaniel returns quickly, but nearly the whole building is out for lunch. It’s another hour before he could reach anyone. Rebecca takes the count to her fate. 

“Fine, let me know when they are back,” she says as she makes herself comfortable. She stares at the stationaries and contemplates on which to count first.

“I can wait with you.”

His offer takes her by surprise. “Isn’t it lunchtime?”

“I had a smoothie.” Both of them know what that is code for.

“Nathaniel, that’s not food.”

He swallows a lump in his throat. They had this conversation before. He knew the next line.

“Nathaniel, why don’t you eat?”

He used to be able to make a pass at her to distract from answering the question. They don’t have that relationship anymore.

So he pivots. “I thought we weren’t speaking.”

Rebecca falls silent at this. She picks at the scab on her knee from trying to rollerblade with Tucker almost a month ago. They have spoken twice since a month ago. She used to think she could not go by a day without his voice.

She hears nothing from beyond the door, and she assumes he has left. Which is why she lets out a small yelp when his voice felt nearer than before.

“Hey, I- Sorry, did I scare you?” he juts away when he hears the yelp. 

“No, it’s fine. You’re still there?”

He hums. 

“You were saying?”

“Nothing.”

“Really?” she challenges.

“Fine. I... I don’t eat because... Truth is I feel so bad sometimes, that I think I don't deserve the bare necessities to live like a human.” He lets his words slide bit by bit, each forming a dagger from the throat. 

“Nathaniel, I-”

“I know it is stupid. Please don’t tell anyone.”

She quits picking at her scab. “It’s not stupid, but you should get help.”

Her voice feels like honey as he tries his best not to fall apart. He remembers when he rejects food when he was twelve and overhearing his parents argue over whether he needed help for his broken diet. His mother was pushy but his father did not believe in disorders pertaining to diet. Their argument led nowhere, only a soft caress from his mother late at night when she thought he was asleep. After that night, he just pretended he ate dinner in school and bribed his friends to attest to it. He never heard anyone spoke about it again, so he followed suit.

“I ate when I was around you.”

She narrows her eyes. “Nathaniel you need professional help. You have an eating disorder.”

“So does everyone in LA. I’m fine, Rebecca.” He rests his head on his hand as he gathers his knees to himself. 

“You don’t have to feel-”

“Look, I told you why. Could we just leave at that? I can’t just get help. I’m not like you,” he snaps. 

“Like me?”

He is aware he is trying to draw blood. He rubs his face, regretting his words. He scoffs at his tantrum before explaining, “When my dad found out, he told my mum that he doesn’t have a wimp for a son. I’ve seen what you’ve been through, and frankly, I don't have the guts to pull off what you had in the past year. I’ve seen the people around you let themselves get so affected by you. I don’t have people like Paula who is willing to stick through my shit. So, I just... Just stay out of it, Rebecca, you don’t have to care.”

“Nathaniel...” Rebecca starts, but he jumped to his feet before she could finish.

“I’ll go check on getting you out.”

Just like that, he is gone. Rebecca checks her watch, it’s only been 10 minutes.

When Rebecca is broken out by the handyman 5 minutes later, she could tell that he was taken mid-lunch. She takes a detour to find Nathaniel, but he is not in his office.

She picks the post-it from his desk and scribbles something before making her way back to Rebetzel’s Pretzels.

The note lies strikingly atop the black file he knew she recognised as his “to do” pile. He brings it up and read, “One free pretzel of choice from Rebetzel’s Pretzels! - Rebecca”

He lets out a sad smile before tossing the note away.

If he doesn’t deserve food, he doesn’t deserve her kindness.

[randombitchsince1996]

Me & My Body

Trigger Warning: This is my story and I have never had an eating disorder but there are some mentions of things that may trigger someone who has or had an eating disorder to get greatly upset or to relapse. I want you to read ahead with caution.

Also another warning for mention of bullying/fat shaming/skinny shaming & abuse.

I am going to be completely honest. 

I have NEVER had a good body image. My family has a history of producing pudgy babies and I was the pudgiest of my siblings so of course when I got older and went to kindergarten and elementary school, of course, my baby fat wasn’t gone.

I had also managed to piss a girl off by unceremoniously mentioning that she had a mustache (I was a dick child). She was one of the more popular girls though and as a result, took to mocking me for my weight as a rebuttal. This fat shaming and mocking of my body and my form went on essentially till I got older and some of that baby fat went away as I grew. She and her friends would bully me for different reasons now: to isolate me or to say I looked like a man.

So it wasn’t just her saying things about my weight either, I had an abusive guy friend growing up too and anytime I would hang out with him he would have snacks and things that I wasn’t allowed to have at my home so I would snack a lot at his place. His mom seemed to love me as well so she would kind of spoil me a bit too for some reason.

As a result, he would always comment on me eating and eating too much and how I was a pig. My dad also had the tendency to comment on how I’m a pig too and my mom didn’t really make it any better by getting upset by how much I ate as well. So basically growing up when I had baby fat that I couldn’t really help...I was mocked for having that baby fat and eating as a growing child. 

My eating really wasn’t out of control now that I look back on it. It was basically just everyone commenting on every little thing I would do and commenting on my body constantly and commenting on how much I ate constantly as a growing child. 

Of course, when I grew up I was actually thin but I had it in my head that I wasn’t and anytime I would look at myself I would see fat. No matter what, I was actually UNDER weight for a long time and they wanted me to eat more. However, the damage had already been done and I was nervous about eating too much and also nervous or scared of having people see me eat. So what I would do was I wouldn’t eat lunch at school, I wouldn’t go out with my family to eat.

I would always eat at home and never in public. I would even get uncomfortable sitting at our table to eat because I was nervous about what would be said. At this point, I was also making new friends and one of those friends wasn’t the kindest about my figure or my lack of eating during lunches. He resorted to basically saying that I was anorexic and it was just bad. 

Because at this point I wasn’t necessarily too skinny but I wasn’t exactly healthy either and yet I was having a very serious eating disorder tossed my way as an insult. Like I know people say being fat-shamed sucks and it does but being a weight that isn’t even bad and having people say you are too skinny, that you are anorexic, it honestly hurt me worse than the fat comments. It’s like you got to societies standard and are being SHAMED for that...like that is like being what you should be and then having people attack you for that.

The fat shaming comments actually had the strange tendency to motivate me-at that time though nothing really motivated me. I at some point in high school though began to ACTUALLY gain weight and get to an unhealthy size and I’ll say the weight I was and I know people will say it wasn’t that bad. 

I was 169 at my heaviest and I know that doesn’t seem that bad but for someone of my stature and size that was actually considered almost obese. So I, of course, had my doctor say I should begin trying to lose weight. I at first didn’t really know how to go about it but I knew one thing, I hated my body-I loathed it.

I had stretch marks everywhere and I felt gross and disgusting most days. My depressive episodes and everything was a mess and I just hated myself. So I of course began with unhealthy ways of going about taking care of it. I tried starving myself, then at some point when I couldn't follow through with that I began trying to force myself to puke. 

I wasn’t successful with that either, I have a horrid gag reflex and rarely even puke when I’m legitimately sick so you can imagine how hard it was to FORCE that-I’m not saying this to make it seem like Eating Disorders are fun little ways of losing weight. They aren’t. I was fucking stupid for attempting to do either and I don’t think an Eating Disorder is just something you try but I will say I had the mindset at the time that you could just do that.

But my mother changed her life through weight loss and taking care of herself so I began looking to her for inspiration and doing my own research. I wound up cutting soda & juice out of my diet and only drinking water. I stopped eating anything that was considered fast food and I would try to avoid sweets and sugary things. 

I began working out and moving more. I realized that I liked dancing so I took to dancing to Kpop and to random music as well and then I would do random exercises as well. I slowly began to lose weight. It wasn’t a sudden thing, it took time and after I had graduated from school I had managed to lose over 30 pounds of weight. 

Now sometime in 2016 is when some issues happened. That summer I believe I had begun to have extremely bad stomach pains and burping fits that would go on the whole entire day. I mean it was bad, to the point that I woudl sometimes have a hard time breathing because I just could not stop burping and I know that sounds silly but it honestly wasn’t funny.

It would effect everything. I was constantly uncomfortable. I would sometimes just not eat hoping that would sate it and then I would even lose sleep because it would happen throughout the night. So it took a while for my mom to actually take this seriously and when she did we went to my doctor and talked through things with her.

We had some tests run and I was sent to a professional to also get some exploratory procedures done. By the end of 2016 (it might’ve been 2015 my timeline is a bit messy) I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease. Now if you don’t know what that is it is basically an autoimmune disease where if you ingest anything containing gluten or anything that has touched gluten your body thinks it is under attack and starts attacking itself. For me my GI track was basically being assaulted constantly and also one of the side effects is excessive gas. 

We didn’t know that though for some reason but anyway I began having to change my eating habits again. Not too much, I mean it was still alot to learn and change and I have some anxiety issues. So I get nervous and scared to ask waiters & waitresses about gluten free options and even then nothing at restaurants is ACTUALLY gluten free so I’m still risking my health by eating out PERIOD.

This is a lesson for anyone and everyone-NO RESTAURANT IS REALLY GLUTEN FREE UNLESS THE FACILITY OVERALL HAS NO GLUTEN PERIOD. Some facilities will WARN you of this but not all, read THEIR menu carefully and TELL THEM that you have an ALLERGY and it’s not just a fucking preference. Yes, I’m highkey annoyed by people who are gluten free by choice.

Anywas that isn’t the point. So I wound up starting this diet but still had some pretty bad burping fits and pain. So throughout 2017 I tried to like work on eating better for a gluten free diet. However, we were still worried by the fact that the burping and discomfort and bloating wasn’t going down so we decided to try something else.

We went to a place to get me tested for more allergies or things my body is reactive to, I got some more blood tests done and this was mainly because when you start a GF diet for celiac typically other food problems begin to arise. Not for everyone, but for me it did. During my Christmas break in 2017 we got a list of things I shouldn’t be eating.

It was a long list, and most of the list was healthy foods that I loved. You can kind of imagine how that caused problems for me and alot of the things were substitutes for gluten-the biggest one being corn. I was and am not supposed to have corn. I was also told to cut a bunch of other things out of my diet and start fresh to see what might be causing other reactions because naturally the test they did doesn’t test for EVERY single food.

I was basically starting from scratch after still trying to adjust to another massive dietary change. The shift was extremly hard and I reached a point where I honestly didn’t care...2018 was a horrible year for me. I tried sticking to this diet and everything but they didn’t HELP ME. I know it’ll sound silly but I honestly believe I began to be depressed.

I would wind up crying at night either from the pain I was feeling, from the bloating or the fact that I wasn’t enjoying eating. I don’t think you even get how hard that was for me. It was so distressing because like I had lost all this weight, I had been healthy and I had enjoyed eating even with my dietary change and then basically...I was eatin flavorless things with no variety and I was wrecked in a sense.

I know this is a first world problem, trust me I know. But honestly they should’ve helped me transition instead of having me suddenly cut out all of this shit and send me on my way. I had gotten healthy and then like everything I had worked for was ruined becuase my genetics were suddenly like-lets fuck her over. 

I wound up not giving a fuck anymore, I would go out and get things I was reactive to and eat it. I would binge on 80+ grams of sugar in one night or more. I wouldn’t move as much. I wouldn’t actively try to work out. I was basically making myself sick and I still am. I would even fall back into old habits of skipping meals entirely because I felt I wouldn’t find anything I could have...and its so fucking hard when you have to have a meal plan on a campus that really isn’t that careful with how they make food.

Then I would fall back into examining my body, CONSTANTLY any chance I got I would stare at it. Nitpick. Get mad at myself and try starving again or throwing up. And today with the new year beginning...I’ve decided to start over. 

I’m going to start ACTUALLY paying attention to my allergies/reactions. I’m going to actually begin working out again. I’m going to actually start loving myself enough to worry about what I put in me. I know people are probably going to look at this and get mad at me. 

But hear me out, I know everyone’s journey to self love and a healthier you is different. This was just mine and it was riddled with challenges and set backs and a lot of horrible & toxic people. But I want to get better and I want to be a healthier me again so I’m going to work on that again.

I don’t know if this story has a meaning or purpose but I know I’m not the only one who has had issues with my body. Who has had a twisted view of my body and figure. I know I’m not the only one who has experimented with a bad & harmful mindset. I know I’m not the only one who suddenly had changes sprung on me with no real help. 

I’m still of the mindset that I have a very manly body and I am entirely jealous of girls who have feminine figures. Who are more petite in general, I know I can never be that because it’s just not my body-but I can at least work to get my best body. 

[sarahburness]

How to Escape the Emotional Eating Cycle and Stop Feeling Lonely

“When you no longer believe that eating will save your life when you feel exhausted or overwhelmed or lonely, you will stop. When you believe in yourself more than you believe in food, you will stop using food as if it were your only chance at not falling apart.” ~Geneen Roth

I used to eat because I was lonely.

Lunch hour at school would last nine billion years. I'd have no one to sit with—I was spotty and mega bossy, and my hobby was copying pages from anthropology books.

Everyone would put a sweater on the chair next to them, so I'd have to sit further away. Then, just as I'd pick up my fork, they'd up and leave anyway! “Oh well,” I'd think, “If I eat slowly I can make my fries last till the bell goes.”

I switched to packed lunches to avoid the dining hall. But I didn't want to be spotted alone on a windowsill, so I'd eat my sandwiches in a toilet cubicle.

After, I'd feel full, but unsatisfied. And still have time to kill! So I'd go to the dinner hall and buy a meat pie. I felt sad and gross.

The truth was, I didn't know how to be a friend, let alone make one. I was full of resentment toward other kids.

I acted superior but felt inferior. I was needy, or tried to impress them.

I didn't think friendship was something people learned—I thought there was something wrong with me. That I'd be this way forever.

I also hated that I couldn't resist overeating. Since my family was big on brown rice and organic vegetables, I felt guilty for buying junk food.

When I hit my teens, I became body-conscious. I panicked that comfort food would make me fat. I wasn't! But I thought my thighs were big, and clenched my stomach in all day. All day!

I felt too embarrassed to ask anyone—especially my parents—or help. I thought they'd say I was greedy. Or lecture me about eating crap. Or take me to a doctor—humiliating!

I didn't know it was called “emotional eating,” but I was pretty sure it was bad. So I kept quiet.

I thought: “I can fix this myself. I just need the self-discipline to eat less!”

Going on improvised diets made things a whole new level of worse: binge eating, bulimia, and feeling utterly obsessed and depressed about food.

It took seven years before I found a way to recover.

I wish I'd known how to deal with lonely emotional eating in the first place, instead of going off on an eating disorder tangent!

So if you're dealing with a double-whammy of eating and loneliness yourself, here are eight simple steps. They will guide you through solving your emotional eating, and your loneliness, from the inside out.

1. Imagine your life without emotional eating, and shift focus away from guilt and shame.

You're not greedy. You're not gross. You're not ill. You're just trying to cope with a fear: abandonment.

It's the emotional fear we're born with. Outside the tribal circle, a baby would die. The primitive part of your brain thinks, “I'm alone—I'll starve!”

It's how you're wired, so give yourself a break.

If you waste your energy wrestling with guilt and shame over eating, you'll never tackle the real emotional challenge—loneliness.

So when guilt and shame come up, shift your focus.

Imagine a peaceful relationship with food. Imagine eating when you're actually hungry. Visualize slowly nourishing yourself.

2. Loneliness is a self-worth issue, so become willing to work on your self-worth.

It's like this: You're by yourself. That's not loneliness, that's solitude.

Sometimes it's nice, but sometimes you don't have a choice. Uh-oh!

Mind games start: you imagine it's because you're unlovable.

That's loneliness. Low self-worth, in disguise.

If you're lonely, it's easy to think you could earn your self-worth back by changing something external.

You think, “If I found a great partner, then I'd know I was lovable.”

Or you think, “I'll be worth loving once I get a grip on my emotional eating and lose weight.”

But that's not how it works! Self-worth isn't something you earn. Or that drops in your lap either.

You choose to create it.

So ask yourself: How can I work on my self-worth?

(Don't worry if you don't know yet. Some ideas are coming up…)

3. Spend some quality time with yourself.

Are you enjoying your time by yourself? Or just watching TV?

Imagine you treated a child the way you treat yourself on a too-tired evening.

Browsing Facebook when they say, “Play with me.” Sending them to the fridge to scavenge instead of cooking dinner. Binge-watching Netflix instead of putting them to bed when they're tired.

They'd feel hurt, and start believing they weren't worth spending time with. They'd also start misbehaving wildly to get your attention!

The same is true for how you feel about yourself. When we ignore our inner selves, start to believe we are worthless, and an emotional eating crisis is a great way for our heart and soul to grab our attention.

Spend some quality time with yourself.

Take yourself on a date, just you and you.

Play (build a go-cart, paint your room), be in your body (move, bathe, meditate), or relax (read, whistle, sit in nature).

Self-worth grows as you self-connect, so every little counts.

4. Create thoughts that give an inkling of self-worth.

When I was rock bottom with food and loneliness, my thoughts were dominated by failure, being a victim, and believing change was impossible.

Stuff like “I'm gonna be lonely forever,” and “I hate my body, I hate myself for eating, and I'm too pathetic to stop.”

Three positive thoughts in particular helped me out of my pit.

They didn't tell me directly I was worthy or fabulous—saying anything saccharine about my life would have felt like gloss painting a turd.

They just implied a basic level of self-worth.

They were: “I'm part of life unfolding.” (I'm not in a vacuum. Even though I feel totally dissociated and alone, I'm still participating in life on the planet.)

“I really care about my body.” (I'm upset I overate again. But I couldn't get upset if I were indifferent… So on some level, I must care!)

And: “Things are already changing.” (Repeating this phrase is a positive action… So maybe I won't always be like this).

Find one thought that implies you aren't your worst fears. That makes you feel worthy-ish. Then repeat it like you're being paid a piece rate to do so.

5. Explore how you've created loneliness.

Try this: It's funny!

Imagine someone wants to master the art of loneliness. Lucky for them, you've honed the perfect system!

Write down what you'd teach them.

My own Perfect System for Staying Lonely says: “Don't have a calendar for friends' birthdays. Tell yourself that you're too broke to buy gifts, cards, or book a babysitter.”

And: “Get hired for shift work, and rehearse theatre shows every weekend.” I disconnected from my relationship like that that for the first five years of my marriage! (Thankfully, the guy's a legend.)

The point is, I thought loneliness happened to me.

But I make myself lonely, when I don't need to be. Years after my schooldays are behind me, I lead myself back to that painful-yet-familiar place. It's called a comfort zone.

It doesn't mean it's your fault you're lonely—this isn't about blame. This is actually good news: If you're doing it, you can undo it.

6. List everything that your loneliness buys you.

An excuse not to face trust issues?

A reason to avoid intimacy?

A cover for social anxiety?

I know it's not obvious that loneliness has advantages, but sometimes it's a way to avoid something even more scary or painful.

Me? Loneliness excuses me from owning my introvert personality. Intimacy makes me feel vulnerable, and rejection scares the crap outta me.

These hidden benefits to your loneliness are called “payoffs.” It pays off to explore them!

Because they're the reason you're creating loneliness, even though it hurts.

7. Explore the ripple effect of loneliness in your life.

You'd expect loneliness to make you shy at parties, or reluctant to date.

But has it changed you in other ways?

Unhealthy self-reliance has made me a nightmare to cook with. And low self-worth has taken its toll on my financial outlook.

Clean out your worldview.

Defy your loneliness-inspired beliefs about what you can and can't do (like, ask someone to chop the mushrooms while you stir the risotto, or ask your boss for a raise).

It's a great way to un-victim yourself.

8. Finally, when you've done all that inner work, break up your emotional eating habit.

Habits weld to each other! Drinking and smoking. Driving and talking to yourself in a variety of accents. Lonely emotional eating and—?

Break the links.

Don't just say to yourself “Stop eating toast.” Don't make any rules about what you eat.

Instead, change how you eat. If you don't know how you eat, slow down.

Notice what you do at each stage of your emotional eating habit—beforehand, during, after, where, when, with what planning.

Do any part of your habit differently.

Say you eat ten slices of buttered toast and jam in front of the TV each evening. Buy different butter that you don't like so much. Put the TV (or the toaster) in the cellar. Create an eating area, keep the sofa for relaxing. Shop differently. Go out.

Keep disrupting your habit, and it will eventually dissipate.

Habit change takes patience, and sometimes repeated attempts too.

But break up your habit from enough angles, and you'll eventually find you've replaced it with a way to enjoy food again.

—

The way I think of it, addressing loneliness is 88 percent of the solution for emotional eating from loneliness.

When I solved my eating struggles, I spent a couple of years of journaling and becoming aware of my beliefs, thoughts, and feelings. Then, only a month or two of habit change.

I know a couple of years sounds really long! Perhaps it will take less time for you. The point is, this isn't a quick fix. Quick fixes rarely address the underlying issues.

It's tempting to rush. To try to skip straight to solving the eating—out-of-control eating feels unbearable and you want it to stop, like, yesterday—but if that hasn't been working for you, or you've even ended up binge eating like I did, give yourself permission and time to go deeper.

Trust me, changing an emotional eating habit is much easier when it's just eating, and the compulsion part has had your loving attention.

So good luck, and don't rush.

About Laura Lloyd

Laura Lloyd is a food sanity coach, as well as an illustrator. You can grab a FREE copy of her book, “How to Ditch Dieting, Love Your Body and Be Your Best Weight Always,” here!

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The post How to Escape the Emotional Eating Cycle and Stop Feeling Lonely appeared first on Tiny Buddha.

from Tiny Buddha https://tinybuddha.com/blog/escape-emotional-eating-stop-feeling-lonely/