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Dietitian Advice, Eating Disorders, Nutrition Education

Eating Disorders: Prevention is better than cure

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Eating disorders are a mean, cruel illness. Once seen to be a disease of affluence, there are now so many reasons an eating disorder can begin. The roots can be due to trauma, family issues, relationship problems, low self esteem, bullying, loneliness and wanting to fit in, a desire to be healthy, a need to achieve. Often there seems to be this air of mystery surrounding them and they can even be seen as a status. However, once you are in the cycle of truly trying to recover you will wish you had never become drawn into the disorder in the first place. 

Healthy eating taken to the extreme can seem like a good idea, but for some it can rapidly become an obsession. Counting calories, measuring portions, having the right balance of food groups can be positive. But when it lead to these measures being down to the nth degree, becoming obsessed with what your next meal will be and anxious if you have to eat something out of your plan, then there is a problem. 

When I meet someone who is low weight and wants to weight restore I always emphasis that it will not be easy. Not because I want to put them off, but I always find it is important to be honest and forewarn them. Recovery from an eating disorder is a cruel business. Why do I say that? Well if you have an eating disorder you have issues around food, often you are restricting your intake and eating high calorie foods causes anxiety. You don’t like feeling full, bloated or heavy and putting on weight around your tummy is not something you want to happen. Guess what? When you weight restore all these things happen. It is like everything you are scared of you have to go through, a bit like one of those awful challenges where they put you in a box full of spiders to get you past your fear of them (yes I’m scared of spiders). Someone weight restoring will have to:

  1. Eat more.
  2. Eat more calorie dense foods. 
  3. Increase the variety of foods they eat.
  4. Eat more carbohydrates, fats and sugars.
  5. Will feel bloated after a meal.
  6. Will have to continue eating when full, pushing past that feeling of wanting to stop.
  7. Will have anxiety around mealtimes.
  8. Will gain weight and this may initially go to their tummy but will then redistribute.

So you can see some reasons why it is so hard. All the things you fear are the things you have to go through. I wish I had a magic wand or an easy solution. However recovery is definitely possible and so so worth it. 

What I do know is:

Dietitian UK: Prevention is better than cure

 

AND

 

stories

 

Here is a quote from a  client talking about weight restoration to inspire you:

It seems like forever ago now and I can’t lie – I hated it at the time. I really struggled. I did the ISP after an admission and it was tough. I hated it at the time. I remember going through a folder of portion sizes with you and lying through my teeth. I couldn’t accept the help.  But I’ve been out of hospital for 3 years now. I’m small but not underweight. I had a lot of help and eventually knew how to use it. From there to now – I don’t think I could have got from there to where I am now without the support I received.

It hasn’t gone. It’s still there but I’ve got a lot to lose now (life, friends, family and definitely not weight) and I won’t give that up for anything. I never said thank you at the time because I couldn’t see that you were helping me. So I wanted to say thank you now. 

It is so good to be living again 😊

Eating Disorders, Nutrition Education

Boosting your nutritional intake – the healthy way to weight gain.

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I work in the topsy turvy world that is eating disorders. Most of the media focus, food manufacturers, shops and nutrition business is on how to lose weight…. whilst I work with people on how to gain or maintain their weight. Gaining weight may sound like it is easy to do… but it often isn’t. You need to increase your dietary intake by 350-500kcals per day to start gaining weight. Now if you don’t have an eating disorder that may seem like no hard thing. A latte and slice of cake will easily hit the mark. However often the clients I work with are keen to increase the energy density of their diet in healthy ways. Now I’m all for eating plenty of veggies but you will have to eat a whopping amount if you are going to gain weight on extra veggies alone As I had to explain to one client recently – 350kcals extra in salad alone would mean you would be eating salad all day long. However there are options, if you can keep an open mind. 

Foods like nuts, seeds, avocado, dried fruit, nut butters, hummus, yoghurt, cheese, eggs, olive or rapeseed oils and fruit juices, will provide a nutrient dense way to increase the calories of your diet.

Dietitian UK: Why almonds are so good for you

 

Some of these foods may be on the scary side but they all provide nutrients that the body needs.

Dietitian UK: Gaining weight the healthy way for eating disorders

Here are some of my top suggestions of ways to boost up your intake by around 350kcals:
 
Add 1 tbsp seeds and 1 tbsp dried fruit to your normal cereal then top with your usual milk plus 2 tbsp yoghurt and add a glass of fruit juice.
Make your own snack boxes with nuts, dried fruit and small crackers (e.g: 15 almonds, 5 dried apricots, 7 rice crackers).
Homemade smoothies with yoghurt, chia seeds and fruit (e.g. 1 banana, 100g yoghurt, 100ml milk, 1 tbsp chia seeds and 1 handful blueberries).
1 serving Granola with 1 serving of Greek yoghurt.
1/2 avocado on 1 slice toast with a glass of fruit juice.
2 tbsp almond butter on 3 oatcakes with 1 banana sliced on top.
3 peanut butter cookies with a portion of fruit.
 
To read my healthy eating tips for Eating Disorders go here.

 

Eating Disorders, Nutrition Education

Visualisation leads to better dietary change

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An interesting piece of research caught my eye this week. A team of psychology researchers in Montreal looked into how using mental imagery techniques may increase the likelihood of people eating more fruit and vegetables. They asked 177 students to aim to eat more fruit over the next 7 days. Those who planned, wrote it down and visualised how they were going to do it (e.g. where and when they would buy, prepare and eat the fruit) were twice as likely to increase their consumption.

 Plant-Based-Foods

This was based on sports psychology. “Athletes do lots of work mentally rehearsing their performances before competing and it’s often very successful. So we thought having people mentally rehearse how they were going to buy and eat their fruit should make it more likely that they would actually do it. And this is exactly what happened,” says Bärbel Knäuper.

 

As a dietitian part of my job is helping people plan how they will manage to alter their eating habits so this research is further evidence that planning really is key. Talking through with someone what your long term goals are, how you can put them into place and having a short term goal to achieve are vital components of achieving dietary change.

 

 

Reference:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21337259