The road to recovery is usually long and hard. There are many slips, trips, and lapses. Those who eventually do recover learn to pick themselves up when they fall, brush off the dust, and keep going. By doing so, they keep temporary lapses from turning into full-blown relapses.
There are many techniques designed to make these thought process more readily adopted, some of which are identified below:
• Nourish yourself physically, emotionally and spiritually. Accept that everyone has needs and you don't need to be ashamed of yours. Learn how to meet your needs in healthy, responsible ways. If you make yourself feel needy, you will be tempted to look for comfort in diet books or the refrigerator.
• Every day spend time doing things you are good at, things you can take pride in, things that demonstrate your competency and abilities. Allow yourself to enjoy your accomplishments and refuse to listen to the nagging inner voice that insists you could do better if only you tried harder.
• Plan something pleasurable or fun to look forward to every day. Watch a funny film, listen to music, play a board game, make something or practice a music instrument. If you can, go outside. Enjoy the fresh air and take time to notice nature. Make time for yourself.
• Be aware of your feelings. Several times during the day, especially in the first stages of recovery, take time out and ask yourself how you feel. If you notice rising stress, anger, anxiety, fear, sadness or even extreme elation recognise the possibility that you may try to dull these strong emotions using food as a coping mechanism. Find a better way of dealing with your feelings such as talking them over with a trusted friend.
• Do something meaningful every day, something that gives you a sense of having made the world a better place, if only in some small way. If you do this consistently, you will build a sense of your dignity, value and ability to make a difference in your world.
• When you feel on the verge of falling into old behaviours think HALT. Ask if you are too
Hungry
Angry
Lonely
Tired
All of those states are strong binge triggers. Additional triggers for people with eating disorders seem to be Boredom and Unstructured time. If you find yourself stressed by any of these feelings, figure out a healthier and more effective way of dealing with them than binge eating or starving.
Below is some more specific advice for individual eating
disorders:
Anorexia Nervosa
• Avoid dieting
Instead of dieting, design a meal plan that gives your body all the nutrition it needs for normal growth and health. Eat lots of whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and enough dairy and protein foods to maintain strong bones and healthy muscles and organs. Try to limit (but not completely eliminate) very sugary or fatty foods and excessive consumption of refined carbohydrates. Also try to get 30 to 60 minutes of exercise or physical activity three to five days a week, anything above this, except in special circumstances, could be considered excessive.
• Don’t dwell on appearance
When you start to get overwhelmed by "feeling fat," instead of dwelling on your appearance, ask yourself how your life would be better if you were thinner. Being clinically underweight will not lead to more friends, self-confidence, love or control. It will not bring you the acceptance or admiration of others, nor status or success. Being unhealthily thin lends only a fragile illusion of success that has to be constantly reinforced with even more weight loss.
• Accept that your body shape is determined in part by
genetics.
Accept that you may never have a totally flat stomach. Even if you are very thin, your internal organs will give your belly certain roundedness, especially after you eat.
• Ask for help
If you feel yourself slipping back into unhealthy habits, call your therapist and schedule an appointment. Returning to counselling in no way means you have failed, it means only that it's time to re-evaluate and fine-tune your recovery plan.
Bulimia Nervosa and Binge Eating Disorder
• Eat regularly
Never ever let yourself get so hungry that the urge to binge is overwhelming. People who recover from bulimia say that because they eat regularly they are never ravenous and therefore they have no physical reason to binge eat. Hunger is the most powerful binge trigger there is.
• Don’t deprive yourself
Try not to avoid all good-tasting food, even if it has more fat and calories than "safe" diet foods. Eaten in moderation no food is bad for you. If you refuse to eat appealing foods that you really want, you will feel deprived and crave them, making you vulnerable to bingeing.
• Avoid temptation
Until you have achieved some balance and perspective, stay away from temptation. Try to stay away from all you can eat restaurants if you know that this will make it difficult not to binge eat. If ice cream is a binge trigger, don't keep it in your freezer. If you want to indulge yourself try going to a restaurant and ordering a single portion of, for example, ice cream, ideally as part of a balanced meal. By doing so, you accomplish three things; you avoid depriving yourself, you avoid the urges to binge created by deprivation, and you also learn how to integrate normal food into a reasonable and healthy meal plan.
• Distract yourself
When you do feel powerful urges to binge, postpone the act for thirty minutes. During that time think about what is going on in your life. Consider what stresses you are facing, what might be missing from your life that you need in order to be happy and avoid the looming binge. Try making a list of things you could you do instead of binge eating to deal with your situation. If you are truly committed to recovery, at least some of the time you will choose one of these healthier behaviours instead of binge food.
• Take charge of your life.
Try to stop using words like, "I wish," "I want," "I hope," and "I can't." They are passive words which imply you are a victim of the disorder. Say instead things like, "I choose," and "I will". These words express responsibility, power, and control. In order to recover you need to recognise that taking control means nourishing yourself sensibly and rejecting disordered thoughts.
• Ask for help
Similarly to the advice given for recovering sufferers of anorexia, if you feel yourself slipping back into unhealthy habits, call your therapist. Returning to counselling in no way means you have failed, it means only that it's time to re-evaluate and fine-tune your recovery plan.
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