Do I have disordered eating? Find out what type of eater you are and what to do about it.
Disordered eating is used to describe a range of irregular eating behaviours that may or may not warrant a diagnosis of a specific eating disorder.
Eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa are diagnosed according to specific and narrow criteria which can only be diagnosed by an NHS eating disorder psychiatrist. Many of you may not necessarily fit into the limited eating disorder bandwidth of symptoms that are set out by the NHS.
Even if your disordered eating patterns fall short of a diagnosis, it still deserves attention and treatment as it may turn into something far more problematic, especially if it starts affecting your health. What distinguishes disordered eating from a full-blown eating disorder? It is all about the degree.
An individual with disordered eating is often engaged in some of the same behaviour as those with eating disorders but at a lesser frequency or lower level of severity. So how do you know you have either? Disordered eating or an eating disorder. And what should I do?
Disordered eating looks like this….
Self-worth based highly, or even exclusively, on body shape and weight. A disturbance in the way one experiences their body, i.e., a person who falls in a healthy weight range but continues to feel that they are overweight.
An excessive or rigid exercise routine, Obsessive calorie counting. Anxiety about certain foods or food groups. A strict approach to eating, such as only eating certain foods, inflexible meal times, refusal to eat in restaurants or outside of one's own home. An eating disorder looks like this;
Spending a lot of time worrying about your weight and body shape, avoiding socializing when you think food will be involved.
Eating very little food, deliberately making yourself sick or taking laxatives after you eat. Exercising too much, having stringent habits or routines around food, changes in your mood.
You may also notice physical signs, including feeling cold, tired or dizzy, problems with your digestion, your weight being very high or very low for someone of your age and height, not getting your period for women and girls.
Signs and symptoms of anorexia include: If you're under 18, your weight and height being lower than expected for your age, if you're an adult, having an unusually low body mass index (BMI).
Missing meals, eating very little or avoiding eating any foods you see as fattening. Believing you are fat when you are a healthy weight or underweight, taking medicine to reduce your hunger (appetite suppressants) slimming teas or similar.
Your periods stopping (in women who have not reached menopause) or not starting (in younger women and girls). Physical problems, such as feeling lightheaded or dizzy, hair loss or dry skin. Some people with anorexia may also make themselves sick, do an extreme amount of exercise, or take laxatives or to make them pee (diuretics) to try to stop themselves from gaining weight from any food they do eat. For more information on Anorexia visit this site.
Signs of bulimia Nervosa
The main signs of bulimia are eating a large amount of food over a very short time (binge eating) and then ridding your body of the extra food (purging) by making yourself vomit, taking laxatives or exercising excessively, or a combination of these.
Other signs of bulimia include fear of putting on weight, being very critical about your weight and body shape, mood changes – feeling very tense or anxious, for example. You may be thinking about food a lot and feeling guilty and ashamed, behaving secretively around food. You may avoid social activities that involve food and feel like you have no control over your eating. You may also notice physical signs like feeling tired, a sore throat from being sick, bloating or tummy pain, a puffy face, self-harming. My advice is if you think you have either eating disorder to make an appointment with your GP and they will refer you to a specialist.
Anorexia and bulimia are severe illnesses and can be fatal if not treated. I certainly know if I had been left to my own devices, I would have starved to death, thank god my mother intervened. This needs to be treated by an NHS eating disorder specialist and a dietician. This is essential for treatment and recovery. I act as support alongside treatment, using EFT is very beneficial for treating unhealed emotions and any anxiety that may come up during treatment. For more information on bulimia, click here.
Am I an emotional eater?
Emotional eating is when people use food to deal with feelings instead of satisfying hunger. We've all been there, finishing a whole bag of chips out of boredom or downing cookie after cookie while cramming for a big test. But when done a lot especially without realizing it emotional eating can affect weight, health, and overall well-being.
Not many of us make the connection between eating and our feelings. But understanding what drives disordered emotional eating can help people take steps to change it. It means you are hungry for something else besides food and paying attention to those things will be your best way to stop using food as a crutch or lose weight if that is one of your goals.
One important thing is not going on a diet. Your pathway isn't deprivation; it's to find satisfaction in things other than eating. It's not easy to "unlearn" patterns of emotional eating. But it is possible. And it starts with an awareness of what's going on.
What are the signs of emotional eating? Do you eat when your depressed or lonely? When your feeling unattractive, when your feeling anxious or worried? Or having negative thoughts about your body, under stress, want to be comforted? Next time you reach for a snack, check in and see which type of hunger is driving it.
Is it Physical hunger: Comes on gradually and can be postponed, can be satisfied with any number of foods, means you're likely to stop eating when full, doesn't cause feelings of guilt. Emotional hunger: Feels sudden and urgent, causes particular cravings (e.g., for pizza or ice cream), you tend to eat more than you usually would, and it can provoke guilt afterwards. I've written an article about emotional eating that could help you click here to read.
Am I eating mindlessly?
Mindless eating often causes us to eat too quickly and typically overeat because we are unaware of what we are eating, how much we are eating and if we are actually still hungry as we are finishing our plate. This type of consumption is often described as "shovelling".
Mindless eating is just how it sounds — you're eating without actively thinking about it. It can look like an extra-large tub of popcorn at the movies, crisps in front of the TV, sugary snacks while driving in the car, or bites of food while cooking.
It could also be grabbing a snack even though you recently finished lunch simply because you're bored or feeling lonely. If you're eating when you're not hungry and not planned, it's mindless eating.
Unfortunately, a lot of us spend the majority of our time here. We eat on the run, hardly tasting our food, and before we know it, we've eaten what we could feed a small Indian village with. We finish our plates out of habit even though we were full partway through. It involves eating foods without concentrating on what we're eating or how much we're eating.
It is important to learn hunger signals and identify other times you are eating when you are not hungry. As soon as you recognize you're eating mindlessly, stop! To minimize mindless eating, try pre-portioning out your servings.
For example, don't eat out of the bag while watching TV and instead portion out an individual serving into a bowl before sitting down. Before going to events where mindless eating is likely, don't arrive hungry!
Have a healthy snack before you go, so you'll be less likely to hang out at the buffet table munching away. Logging your food habits is also a great way to become aware of the type and timing of food intake and will help cut down on mindless eating. For more tips on how to banish mindless eating, read this blog article. A great book recommendation would be by Brian Wansinkn.
Am I a binge eater?
.Do you have episodes of eating a large amount of food in a short period of time while experiencing a sense of loss of control over eating more than once a week? Do you feel like you do not have control over your eating?
Do you feel shame, guilt, or regret after overeating? Do you often eat when you're not hungry? Do you often eat alone because you're embarrassed about how much you eat? Unlike mindless eating, binge eating is intentional.
You know that you're doing it, and you don't care, or you feel unable to stop even though you want to. Binge eating has a couple of different causes. The first is that you deprive yourself of your favourite foods until you give in or are skipping meals. You then feel guilt for blowing your good intentions and then decide you've blown it, so you might as well enjoy it and stuff your face. The other reason people binge eat is because of emotional hunger.
It's important to remember that you are in control of what you eat. A binge is actually an excellent opportunity to learn something about yourself. Anytime you eat for an emotional reason, you should take a closer look at your life and see if you can identify the trigger that led to the binge. If you track your binge eating episodes, a pattern will begin to emerge.
Once you know your triggers, you can come up with ways to avoid them or handle them when they occur. Please read my blog article for more information on how to ease binge eating. If you would like to delve even deeper into the hidden meaning behind your eating, read my blog article here for more information.
What should I do next?
I can personally tell you that you can heal this battle, from someone who had all of these disorders at some point in my life. If your eating is hindering these areas in your life, you need to take action.
Concentration and ability to focus — Do thoughts about food, body, and exercise prevent concentration or impede performance at work or school?
Social life — Is socializing restricted because it might require eating in a restaurant, consumption of foods that are scary or uncomfortable, or disruption of exercise routine?
Coping skills — Is food consumption and/or restriction used to manage life's problems or cope with stressors?
Discomfort or anxiety — How much distress do thoughts of food and body cause? Are these thoughts hard to shake and anxiety-provoking?
What healed me was finding out why I ate the way I did, and the underlying reason I was using food as a substitute. I was craving for things that couldn't be found in food and had to 'deal' and process those emotions and wounds through eating psychology.
I also saw an eating disorder specialist as a teenager. I have amassed hours of my own research later on in my journey about nutrition, and I also did EFT therapy in which I'm now a practitioner.
Those of you that have read my story of how I healed this was a game-changer. I really hope that I have been able to offer you some glimpse of hope and that what you have read was helpful. Please drop me an email or contact me via my social media platforms if you wish to chat about any of the issues in this article.
There really is light at the end of your struggle. I spent over 20 years struggling with eating disorders and disordered eating, its time you released the battle and started to live your life fully without being at war with your body and food.
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