My relationship with food post anorexia

Although I no longer consider myself to suffer from full blown anorexia, I know I still do not have a completely normal relationship with food either. I dont really worry about the fact that my relationship with food is a little different to others around me as it is not particularly harmful. I find it quite interesting as I have noticed other people who have also recovered eat quite similarly to me.

Firstly, I prefer to eat larger quantities of low calorie density foods. So the size of my meals is the same as others calories wise most of the time, however my meals just contain a lot more food. This probably started for me when I had anorexia and tried to eat as much as possible while consuming the fewest amount of calories possible. So while I dont try and limit my calories anymore, I still enjoy the same types of foods so need to eat a lot of them to ensure I am getting enough energy.

Because I really enjoy lots of vegetables and salads, I add heaps of these to my meals which makes them very large in volume. 

It sounds silly but I think I also like to eat large quantities of food because I just really enjoy eating and love food. I eat 6 meals a day and hate skipping meals. It is actually a fear of mine to skip meals and being hungry makes me really anxious and upset. I would much prefer to eat 6 small meals than 5 larger ones each day, even if it means I have to get up early so that I can do so.

Even though my meals are large, I eat them really fast which people often notice and are astonished by. I dont know why I eat so fast, but I have always the first to finish a meal ever since I started my recovery. I remember when I was really sick I used to eat my meals incredibely slowly, at an attemp to savour of morsal of food. But I suppose I just dont feel the need to do this anymore as I give my body all of the food it needs and am less obsessed with food.

Unlike most people, I still keep a basic count of the number of calories I eat each day to ensure I am getting enough energy. Some people may say that this is an unhealthy behaviour for me to have and I can see where they are coming from. However I have found this to be necessary in order for me to maintain my weight. If i dont do this and just try to listen to my hunger cues, I often find my self accidently eating too little.

I always eat absolutely everything on my plate. I know that this is probably a really weird trait for a post anorexic to have but I always finish all of my meals. I think I started doing this so strictly in recovery so that my anorexia could not try and tempt me to leave food. (Because I always ate everything on my plate no matter how full I felt, my anorexic voice didnt even try to get me to leave any behind.) So I guess I have kind of been conditioned to not associate feeling full with stopping eating.