What is an eating disorder?
An eating disorder recovery plan can be implemented if we, first of all, know the definition and types of the eating disorder, and then we access the need for medical help and experts to get back to the road to recovery.
Eating disorder is a mental health condition that is related to irregular and damaging eating habits. These mental health conditions let patients either eat insufficient to maintain body weight and shape. Or do binge eating that leads to severe health issues for your body. As a result, they fail to maintain a healthy balance of life and ultimately suffer serious health issues. But the good news is eating disorder recovery is not impossible. It is achievable within a few months.
Types of eating disorder
To cope with eating disorders, first, we need to know the major types of eating disorders and then we will see what are the possible ways of eating disorder recovery. The rehabilitation process may not be as displeasing as it seems to be. Hopefully, after this eating disorder recovery, you can go back to the normal routine of life.
Let’s move forward to know the most common types of eating discovery.
The three most common types of eating disorders are
- Anorexia nervosa
- Bulimia nervosa
- Binge eating disorder
Let’s discuss these three major types of eating disorders!
1- Anorexia Nervosa
Anorexia nervosa is a mental health condition that makes you feel conscious about weight gain. In this eating disorder, a person despite being skinny considers himself overweight. Therefore, restricts his diet and constantly remains in fear of weight gain.
People that are suffering from this mental illness have the following issues
- perceive them as overweight
- Conscious about weight gain
- Unrealistic perception of body weight and shape
- Limit the quantity of food they eat
- do excessive workout
As a result, they put their lives at risk due to invalid judgment about weight and body shape.
2- Bulimia Nervosa
Bulimia nervosa is a severe mental illness condition in which a person lost control over what to eat and how to maintain body shape. People with bulimia consume larger portions of food in one sitting. After that, they use unhealthy ways to get rid of excess weight. It is because of the shame and guilt they feel due to excess eating. Moreover, they are also obsessed with specific body shapes at the same time. In the first place, they eat a lot, and then they use the instant method to shed off extra calories. Bulimia patient exhibit the following behaviors
- Uncontrolled eating (larger portions)
- An urge to get rid of extra weight by unhealthy ways like fasting, excessive exercise, self-induced vomiting, use of medicine (laxatives) for increase bowel movements, enemas, etc.
This condition is common in females and early teenagers. They feel disgusted about their weight and body shapes. This series of binge eating and the urge to get rid of consumed food is unhealthy and risky for health. This is an example of severe or harsh self-perception about body weight and body shape.
3- Binge eating disorder
Binge eating disorder is a serious eating disorder in which a person consumes large portions of food and feels the difficulty is to stop eating. You feel obsessed with food. As a result, this overeating becomes second nature and certainly causes to cross the line of the eating disorder. You can experience the following problems during suffering from a binge eating disorder.
- Occurrence and re-occurrence of binge eating episodes
- Eating till stomach feels uncomfortable
- Secret eating at odd times
- Feeling of stress due to bad eating habits
- Unable to resume balanced eating without medical help
Difference between symptoms of Binge and bulimia eating disorder
Why Do We Suffer from Eating Disorders?
There may be many underlying diseases that cause eating disorders. But one of the major reasons is hormonal imbalance. Leading to stress and anxiety, hormonal imbalance affects your body in many ways. Therefore, you must know about hormonal imbalance and how to balance your hormones? Or you might consider taking supplements to naturally balance your hormones.
Reasons for Eating Disorder
The other reasons for eating disorder and emotional eating are
1- Genetics reasons
2- Biological factors
3- Psychological problems
4- Emotional problems
Above all, these disorders are an outcome of our environment. Our brain may trigger emotional hunger due to work stress or relationship stress. In this scenario, we start binge eating or emotional eating. However, we don’t need food to fuel our emotional health rather we need a comprehensive plan to deal with stress and anxiety in our life.
In addition to this, body shape, slim figure, fashion thinness also affects our eating habits. Sometimes the urge to remain slim hits us so hard that we avoid taking sufficient calories for the body and develop anorexia. Both approaches are wrong and misguiding our minds.
Whatever the factors may be one can always lead to the path of eating disorder recovery. So close your eyes and tell yourself that you are ready to rejuvenation your mind and body!
GO AWAY EATING DISORDER, I AM CHOOSING RECOVERY
You can look for the silver lining in this journey of rehabilitation too. For positive reinforcement, you can read beautiful quotations related to recovery from an eating disorder. Hence the eating disorder is related to emotional health. Therefore, a peaceful brain and healthy body can fight best with mental illness.
Eating Disorder Recovery Plan
Eating disorder recovery can be meaningful and happy if we choose to be open about our mental health issues. Often, we got lots of social pressure on the way we look. Mostly bodyweight is related to self-image and self-esteem. As we all know that being in good shape and balanced weight is also related to our happiness and success too. Nonetheless, we need to understand that things change gradually. Weight loss is a slow and gradual process like weight gain. So, we need to give us time and be consistent with our plan. For this purpose, we must console our body and soul first. In addition, we have to access our medical health status to know the root cause of emotional eating and discover the eating disorder recovery plan.
1- Call for a full Medical Checkup
First, go for a full medical checkup. It is a perfect starting point for your body that you access its health status. It will bring out the underlying health issues that otherwise trigger brain stress hormones. This is an effective strategy against an emotional eating problem. In this way, the treatment will just not be accessing the general symptoms, but it will investigate the root cause of all problems.
Let’s see the steps of recovery…
2- Eating disorder recovery stage 1
It is the stage of realization. Once you have realized your disorder then you must convince yourself that healing is your natural right. You are in dire need of treatment. It can be the start of your fitness journey and overall fitness goals also. But it is best if seek help from experts. The experts will help you to find the reason for developing eating disorders and ensure a speedy recovery. The reasons may be stress due to work or family issues or any other demanding issue which you need to address for so long but can’t take time out for that. Finally, you are ready to go to stage 2.
3- Eating disorder recovery stage 2
After the realization of the problem, the second stage is of making change easy for the patient. You must be open about your problem and seek medical help from a qualified specialist. You must be open about your issues to the family and friends to draw attention to your problem and seek emotional support. For instance, you need to access the type of disorder and plan accordingly. Either it is an anorexia recovery plan or bulimia. A binge eating recovery plan needs other arrangements than anorexia. Therefore, you need to focus on the following points:-
At this stage, your relationship with food needs to be reviewed.
Don’t hesitate to show your love or fear of eating food.
Ask the family to help you to adopt new ways of eating.
Access the emotional needs that let you eat more and less.
Express your ideas about food, health, body shape, and self-esteem.
Attach yourself with a group of people having the same goals
Also mention how you feel comfortable about the new eating instructions and where you need family help. For instance, find community help if you are single and living alone.
After doing all this you are now going to implement the new lifestyle changes to your life. I am focusing on lifestyle changes to effectively implement a recovery meal plan.
4- Eating disorder recovery stage 3
Let’s start
Stay positive
Stay healthy
Stay close to the support team
Be easy on yourself
Now when you start implementing this new action plan and start forming new ways of living then many hurdles and obstacles may find you. For instance, a bad mood is the worst. So during these days don’t try to be part of anything that makes you feel depressed.
Take it as a new job and don’t let any negative feelings take your mood or passion. You must know and address your emotional needs. Furthermore, you can tell your therapist which is the toughest part for you?. And what are your fears? Together with your team, you can progress well towards goals. The biggest obstacle comes from your mind. The negativity about change, fear of failure, and how others perceive this change in your life.
For this reason, you can discuss your preferences. Remember beauty comes in all shapes and sizes. So be easy on yourself. You must stop your mind from triggering emotional hunger and let it be peaceful.
5- Eating disorder recovery stage 4
Now you have started working on an eating disorder recovery treatment plan: then do the following:
Enjoy the new diet and routine
Share your issues with the therapist and family
Don’t care about body shape, weight, or scales of measurement
6- Eating disorder recovery stage 5
This stage comes after about 6 or more months. When you feel adjusted to the new routine. Remember that change is still going on. Although you have developed new habits even then, backsliding can occur. The best advice is no overthinking. Enjoy the positive energy and discoveries of life. You have embarked on the road to recovery. But this can only be possible when you feel peaceful and relaxed at heart. One of the best relaxation and focus therapy is practicing mindfulness meditation. Meditation is indeed helpful in changing eating habits and avoid binging too.
7- Eating disorder recovery stage 6
This is the final termination stage. At this stage your concerns are
Is it ok to end the recovery plan?
Am I ready to carry on my life?
What if I return to the old behavior?
Do I need more medical help?
Conclusion
In conclusion, you can always get help for any disease and start the road to recovery at any stage in life. The whole journey of learning and adopting change will refresh your soul. Your family and friend if properly involved will be more compassionate and loving for you. Healing is healing and even if it is hard to leave old habits but some of the new habits might let you feel good. So never fear asking for help and helping others when they need it.
