disordered eating Archives - Page 2 of 5 - Everyday Chocolate

June 26, 2024June 26, 2024 by Libby

Benefits of Eating Regularly (3 Meals & 3 Snacks)

Today I wanted to do a post on some key reasons why eating regularly is beneficial – both from a nutrition and a relationship with food standpoint.

By “eating regularly,” I’m talking 3 meals and around 3 snacks per day, every 3 hours or so. Some people may prefer/need more like 2 or 4+ snacks, and some people eat a little more often or go a little longer in between meals, depending on hunger cues/personal preferences/schedules each day. BUT, I find these rules of thumb for regular eating rhythms tend to work well for pretty much everyone. (Since they are based on human biology & psychology!)

As an example (everyone is different!) you can see how I might incorporate 3 meals & about 3 snacks in my everyday eating here.

Oftentimes, a client will come to me eating only 2-3 meals per day and no snacks. Snacks might be viewed as “bad,” and the thought of eating more regularly may at first seem anxiety-inducing or counterproductive. However, it’s common that the client is experiencing a range of symptoms that can be vastly improved upon with regular eating rhythms.

These symptoms may include bloating, constipation/diarrhea, obsession/preoccupation with food, binge eating, chaotic eating, difficulty noticing or listening to hunger/fullness cues, lack of hunger cues, slowed metabolism, imbalanced hormones, feeling addicted to food, and more!

Once we begin to understand more what is going on and start to make gentle shifts towards more regular and balanced eating, these concerns start to improve.

Let’s explore some of the main reasons why I recommend eating regularly! (3 meals and ~3 snacks)

Benefits of eating regularly:

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June 19, 2024June 14, 2024 by Libby

Summer Reading List Ideas

We are well into June — how is your summer going so far??

It seems like every year summer seems to fly by. My life has felt all over the place lately, and I keep having these weird moments where I remember that we are already into June! My mind is still frozen in April mode.

SO — reminding myself it is time to enjoy all the summer produce, all the sunshine, and all the outdoor time with friends and family before I miss it all!

That would certainly be sad. We only get so many sunny days each year in Michigan!

Summer can ALSO be a great time to start reading a bit more! Whether it is at the beach, by the pool, in your backyard, or simply all comfy before bed (like I prefer!), reading can be such a nice way to get your mind off stressful things in life, dive into a topic you are interested in, or learn from the experiences and stories of others — whether real life (memoir, biography, etc) or through fiction.

Below I have 10 ideas for books to add to your (actual or hypothetical) summer reading list! Some of these I have read before, and others I am hoping to read in the coming months.

I’ve compiled a mix of books below — food/body image-related, emotional health-related, one fun fiction read, and a couple of memoirs! Maybe 1 or 2 of them will resonate with you as far as something to check out in the months ahead. 🙂

Note: While I do recommend the mental/emotional health-related books below, I don’t agree with 100% of the thoughts in said books! That is probably obvious, as rarely will we find a book that we wholeheartedly agree with 100%. Most things aren’t that black/white. That being said, I still find them to be useful and helpful in many ways and would read them again / recommend them to others. (With my mini caveats) :).

Summer Reading List Ideas:

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June 12, 2024June 11, 2024 by Libby

Ideas for Increasing Food Intake in Anorexia Recovery

One of the most challenging parts of anorexia recovery (specifically the weight restoration phase) is the AMOUNT of food that it takes to physically recover / get to a healthy-body-weight-for-you.

Clients I have worked with are often shocked by how much they have to eat to start gaining weight. It takes a LOT OF FOOD.

Most of the food/caloric intake early on in recovery is going towards normalizing your metabolism and bodily processes. This alone takes quite a bit of food before any weight gain will even be happening.

Eating this much can be quite difficult (to say the least). Your stomach and GI tract aren’t used to handling this quantity of food, so there is often significant discomfort. It can be hard mentally to increase your food intake that much and to be gaining weight as your goal when everyone else around you seems to be striving for the opposite.

What’s more, another challenge can be thinking of ideas to increase your intake when it comes to restoring weight efficiently and effectively. I’m guessing you don’t want to be in the weight restoration phase for forever!

You might be feeling…

Tired of thinking of yet another snack or breakfast idea
Unsure of how to get more “bang for your buck” by focusing on calorically-dense options
Like you don’t even enjoy food right now, so it’s hard to be creative

That’s where my comprehensive list for ideas to increase your food intake comes in!

Bookmark this page and come back to it as you find yourself feeling stuck, in need of a new idea, or in need of a little extra inspiration in your anorexia recovery journey. As someone who has been in your shoes, I am here for YOU!

(Note: If you aren’t already eating my recommended 3 meals and at least 3 snacks, you might want to start with this post first!)

Ideas for Increasing Food Intake in Anorexia Recovery:

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May 29, 2024May 24, 2024 by Libby

Why 1200 Calories a Day is Not Enough

“1200 calories a day” is the number I often hear thrown out there by clients or friends who may be unhappy with their bodies and trying to lose weight.

Today we are having a brief chat about why that number is MUCH too low, and why you should be eating significantly more!!

Before we get started — let’s be clear, I don’t “think” or “talk” in calories pretty much ever. I don’t find that generally useful in my personal life or nutrition counseling work. I suppose I could ballpark guess, but I don’t have any exact idea of how many calories I might eat in an average day.

I also don’t care, besides from the fact that I want to be eating enough for my body and activities! What’s more, calorie labels are estimates and are able to be put on products with the assumption that there is up to a 20% margin of error. (All the more reason to not be paranoid if you count calories and find yourself panicking for eating slightly more than your self-prescribed limit…).

If you find yourself trying to eat 1200 calories (or under), I do know that that is almost certainly NOT enough food for your body.

1200 calories is the general estimate of what it takes to sustain doing nothing all day… basically if you or I were to lie in bed all day and move as absolutely little as possible, our bodies would still need about 1200 calories just to breathe, digest, and sustain normal life.

To be clear, this is what our bodies need to function without any exercise, walking around, going up/down stairs, doing household chores, working / expending mental energy, and all the various other things you might do throughout the day!

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May 1, 2024April 26, 2024 by Libby

Exploring Reactionary Gaps in Compulsive Eating

One concept that I find it can be helpful to explore when it comes to compulsive eating is this idea of a “reactionary gap.”

(Note: this is a term I’ve adopted from the Binge Eating Therapist. Explore her YouTube channel and podcast if you haven’t already!! I love her material.)

A reactionary gap is a bit of emotional/mental space created by any tool, situation, check-in, physical distancing, environmental set-up, or other strategy. Its purpose is to help you take a mindful pause, with the goal of making at least a slightly more present, less compulsive food choice.

It is NOT about whether you say “yes” or “no” to a food, but about making a food decision from a more grounded, more peaceful, less conflicted, and less compulsive place.

You likely already use a variety of “reactionary gaps” without really thinking about it or labeling it as such.

A few everyday examples might be:

Keeping most of your snack-type food in the pantry instead of all out on the table or counter
Pausing after an initial serving of dinner to decide if you want more before automatically going for seconds
Eating seated at the table instead of standing
Not keeping a box of chocolates on your work desk

IMPORTANT NOTE! There is nothing “inherently wrong” with any of my so-called everyday examples. They may or may not resonate with how you prefer to go about eating / what works for you. Maybe you like to keep a box of chocolates on your desk and that works well for you, it doesn’t feel compulsive, and it is something you enjoy. That is perfectly fine! What we are talking about here is managing compulsivity in eating. Feeling compulsive with food looks different for everyone and is going to be triggered by different dynamics and different situations for each of us.

So, before we get to thinking about how you might benefit from thinking about this idea of a reactionary gap to help with any compulsive eating in your own life, let’s first chat about my three main reactionary gap caveats!

My Main Reactionary Gap Caveats: (more…)

April 10, 2024March 22, 2024 by Libby

The Compulsive Eating Triangle

One of the main reasons many of my clients reach out to me is because they are feeling chaotic and out-of-control around food. Feeling like it’s hard or impossible to stop eating at a comfortable level of fullness, feeling like they constantly bounce between not eating enough and eating way too much, binge eating and feeling extreme physical distress…

Maybe you relate on some level?

Whether you resonate with full-blown binge eating or occasionally feel like you spiral “out-of-control” with food, I’m sure most or all of us can relate on some level to this dynamic, myself included!

While feeling calm and centered around food is something healthy to strive for most of the time (and a key goal we might have in client work together), it’s also not realistic to be “perfectly centered” around food all the time.

How does one get to a more calm and centered place with food? What are some of the key factors to consider?

I’m always thinking of ways to conceptualize these ideas, and one tool I have started using in sessions is what I’m calling the “Compulsive Eating Triangle.”

This tool helps us form a big picture outlook as far as what may be driving your chaotic/compulsive eating. While experiencing greater calmness with food is generally a long-term process that takes lots of untangling and healing, having a framework for thinking about this can be helpful.

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February 28, 2024February 27, 2024 by Libby

Some Thoughts on Gut Health (& a new exciting tool for my practice!)

Hi everyone! I hope your week is going well so far. Happy you are here! 🙂

How great has the sunshine / warmer weather been for those of you who live in Michigan?? Such an instant upgrade to the week!

I wanted to do a post today sharing some of my general thoughts on gut health AND share about a tool that I’ve been excited to be incorporating more in my practice over the past few months.

First things first! Some random gut health and candid dietetics processing:

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January 31, 2024January 30, 2024 by Libby

6 Tips for Managing Anorexia Recovery in College

For many people, college can be a time of increased stress and anxiety. If you are a college student who is ALSO walking through anorexia recovery, it can certainly be a lot to manage.

In today’s blog post, I’m sharing 6 tips for managing anorexia recovery in college. College can be a time of GROWTH and HEALING in your anorexia recovery journey. With some additional intentionality and the right support in place, heading away for school doesn’t have to be a setback in your relationship with food and your body.

While a difficult stat to accurately quantify, according to this website, the average age of anorexia onset is 18.9 years — exactly the age of most college freshmen! While the vast majority of college students won’t ever end up meeting the strict diagnostic criteria for anorexia nervosa, it is still a population at increased risk for the development of an eating disorder. And, formal eating disorders aside, many/most college women do wrestle with at least some degree of disordered eating. You can read more about what I mean by an eating disorder versus disordered eating here.

6 Tips for Managing Anorexia Recovery in College:

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December 6, 2023December 6, 2023 by Libby

Navigating Food & Body Image at the Holidays

I can’t believe we are already well into December! As the end of the year draws near, I am looking forward to more time to rest, lots of walks outside, and getting to all the books I want to read that are piling up!

Since the holidays tend to be more challenging for most people when it comes to food and body image, I wanted to do a brief post on some tips and strategies for navigating food and body image this time of year.

First, I will provide some examples of what disordered eating could look like at the holidays. Then we will get to 5 strategies for experiencing a life-giving and truly healthy approach to food and your body during the holiday season.

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November 1, 2023October 31, 2023 by Libby

10 Common Thought Patterns Perpetuating Your Disordered Eating

Our thought patterns have a tremendous impact on our behaviors and our ability to grow and make changes.

Thinking about a non-food example — let’s say I am trying to have a productive work day (intended behavior). BUT, as life would have it, I slept miserably and have a terrible headache. I got out of bed later than I wanted and have barely crossed anything off my to-do list by the time early afternoon rolls around. Some common thought patterns here might be for me to start catastrophizing the day (Now my entire day is ruined! My whole week is going to be thrown off!), viewing the day as overly black-and white (I have gotten NOTHING done that I wanted… this day is an absolute failure) and continually judging myself for struggling to get done wanted I had planned and hoped.

Mentally reacting to my day in this way would likely cause me to continue spiraling throughout the day and week, veering even further from my original intentions.

Instead, a much more helpful response would be to recognize these unhelpful thought patterns, approach my day with flexibility and adjust as needed, show myself understanding and compassion, and live in the reality that I didn’t sleep well / am not feeling well instead of fighting reality by trying to plow ahead.

Like areas of our lives such as time/task management, habit-building, and health routines, many of us may have experience reacting to food with similar unhelpful thought patterns.

How we think about food has a great impact on how we engage with food.

In today’s blog post, I’m going to identify 10 common thought patterns that may be perpetuating any disordered eating you are struggling with.

For each thought pattern, I will provide an example as well as a way to reframe/look at the situation differently. I’ll also provide some additional tips and notes to consider. I hope you find this post helpful and something you can bookmark/come back to repeatedly!