Intuitive Eating in Quarantine: ED recovery while staying home
TW: eating disorders, compensatory behaviour, bulimia
Hello. First of all: the biggest thank you to all our hard-working frontline healthcare workers as well as those currently working to keep our essential businesses up and running. (Personal shoutout to Bulk Barn employees for being very thorough with their in store sanitation and personal shopping policies. You’re doing amazing.)
Like many of you, I’ve been holed up in my home for over a month now. Of course, there’s been lots of getting used to since moving back home. Especially for someone still in recovery, there’s been a couple notable challenges. Let’s dive in:
Not having access to a gym/cancelled in-person practices:
During the school year, I worked out about 7-8 times a week (3 weight training, 1-2 paddle ergometer sessions, 3 practices for dragon boat). Note: I didn’t work out this much for the purpose of weight loss or as compensatory behaviour for what I eat. (Although I’ve been there, and sometimes still go back there. Especially now — more on this in a sec.) This level of activity was mostly to increase athletic performance, namely to improve strength and technique. Additionally, practices were also an opportunity to spend time with my friends/teammates and do an activity together.
➡️ Transition to quarantine time. No gym, no practices. Technically, “lots of free time” and a bunch of social pressure to emerge from quarantine looking like a VS model. I’ve tried getting back into running a couple times, but due to chronic tightness in my hip flexors and quads from an old injury, I can’t get farther than a kilometer before having to stop and stretch because of the pain. It often leads me feeling defeated and helpless, feelings triggered from July/August 2018.
Some background: I used to run to compensate for binges, going on 10K runs on days scheduled for rest or shorter runs in order to burn off the calories from whatever I had eaten myself sick with. Guess what happens when you abuse your body and put it through undue stress and is begging for rest? You guessed it — I got injured. But I kept running on my injured hips (surprise, she’s still trying to compensate for her food) and ended up not being able to walk without limping, let alone complete marathon in the fall that I had been training for. Lesson learned, the hard way.
Working out less has changed my appetite
I’ve been doing bodyweight workouts to stay active. It’s been a mix of Chloe Ting workouts, my own routines, and lots of burpees and air squats. I’ve settled into it now, but the beginning was difficult. It took time to come to terms with the fact that being less active will decrease my appetite. When I worked out lots, I ate lots. Now that I work out less (both in # times per week and in length/intensity of each workout), I also am less hungry.
With intuitive eating, you’re supposed to listen to your own physical hunger cues to determine when and how much you should be eating. It’s been a struggle to try and listen to that voice and juggle the messages from my mental voice. “I should be eating less because I’m moving less.” “Hold on, am I eating enough? Is this restricting because I’m eating less or am I genuinely less hungry?”
Oftentimes going through ED f**ks up your physical hunger cues, your natural ability to decide when you’re full and should stop eating. (And, on the flip side, when you’re hungry and should start eating.) Personally, I’ve had to unlearn how to not listen to my body. I’ve put my body through 36-hour fasts and 1200 calorie days and have taught myself to ‘be okay with feeling ravenous’. I’ve also put my body through 2000 calorie binges and ate until the food basically came back up on its own because there was no space in my stomach. I’m finding that intuitive eating means you need to take that extra second and reflect on how you’re actually feeling. Are you feeling hungry? Let’s go eat something. Are you getting full? Good job! You fed yourself, and now you’re nourished! Fantastic. Let’s move on with the day.
having an eating schedule that is dependent on other people
But being at home means intuitive eating isn’t so easy sometimes! Hungry at 5:00pm? You can’t just decide to eat dinner at 5:30, because we eat dinner as a family and even if you’re the one cooking tonight it takes much longer to make dinner for three than it does for one. Woke up late and ate breakfast at 11am? Well, lunch is going to be at 1pm regardless because mom and dad woke up at 8.
The first week or two took some adjusting, but here’s how I’ve been coping with this.
Plan + portion your snacks. Having yogurt and crackers? Put a serving in a bowl/plate instead of eating straight from the container or box. During eating, assess: Is this satisfying me? Has my hunger abated enough that I’m comfortable now? If so, put any leftover aside and finish it later. After eating, assess: Am I still quite hungry, or will I be satisfied for the time being? Eat more or carry on accordingly.
Be aware of typical family meal times. This allows you to plan ahead, especially if you’re hungry now.
Meal in <30min: If you’re really hungry, snack on something small and/or not very filling. E.g. some grapes/berries, a couple crackers or almonds work well for me. Drink a glass of water in case you’re thirsty, too.
Meal in 1-2h: Something with a little more substance here. Aim for protein and/or fibre here. It’ll help stave off hunger for a little longer to reduce the chances of over eating later. What works best for me is a bowl of Greek yogurt, possibly with granola or biscotti thins depending how I feel. Sometimes a fruit with higher water content works fine too (e.g. a big orange!) Again, hydrate with water.
Meal in 3-4h: Take a second to think about your last meal, and how you felt immediately after. You might not have eaten enough. (Or your meals are quite spaced apart.) Usually I’ll have a protein (yogurt) and a bigger serving of fruit (orange!). If I get hungry again in an hour or two I’ll probably have some kind of grain-based starch, like bread or crackers.
Losing my concept of time
I suddenly find myself going from a schedule like this:
to having one like this:
Especially now, in this period between final exams and starting work, I find myself stuck in a disconcerting limbo. I have no concrete deadlines or schedule of events. I feel like I’m drowning in free time, yet I also have unfinished tasks and projects that I should be working on that are just hanging over my head (unpublished paper, learning about SEO/Pinterest for the blog, another research project). As a result, my days melt away in a pool of guilty unproductivity, yet I also can’t seem to bring myself to care.
Using ED behaviours as a coping mechanism for transition
In this time where everything seems a little surreal and a lot unstructured, I’ve been finding myself mentally scrambling for something to bring some of that grip and structure back into my life. Without deadlines and strict work/class hours, I sometimes find myself falling into small obsessions with food in order to give my mind something to focus on. I’m not saying this is ideal or okay or sustainable long-term. But I think letting myself fall a teensy bit into small diet culture behaviours (e.g. dipping a pinky toe back into IF, mentally tracking what I ate, body checking but not weighing myself) is keeping me sane. It’s giving my mind something concrete to focus on and hold on to. Work starts soon, so hopefully I can go back to doing this less once I have more real life big kid things to worry about.
Body image struggles: trying to stay body positive
Perhaps it’s the reduced amount of physical activity. Perhaps it’s my mind needing something to focus on. But quarantine has had me body-checking and worrying about getting fat more than usual. Ideally, we’d live in a world where we all love the way we look (#selflove and #bodypositivity baby), but it is hard. It’s easy to tell your friends and loved ones (and the internet) that they’re beautiful and amazing and hot stuff just the way they are. But when it comes to looking at ourselves, suddenly we become the world’s harshest critics that see only our flaws.
It’s hard to love yourself. It’s hard for me to love my body, especially in quarantine when I have little else to worry about. I said it! I could write a whole post about staying body positive (and probably will), but it’s 2AM and I have successfully pumped out all the ideas that were floating in brain into this draft. Bless WordPress for making a phone app so I can draft from bed.
You’re amazing. Wondrous. A blessing to this earth. And don’t let anyone (including yourself!!! I’m watching ùwú) treat you like anything less than the queen/king/androgynous royalty that you are. I love you. xoxo
Small disclaimer: At the time of publication, I am not a Registered Dietitian. If you are currently struggling with your relationship with food, I suggest seeking professional advice. See this page for nutrition and counselling resources. The information in this post is from my own experience only, and may or may not be relevant to your own.
