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.

Thoughts on recovering from anorexia

Something that actually annoys me a little is when people talk as if they know exactly how you are feeling or understand exacty what you are going through, as they have no way of actually knowing those things. Even if someone has had the same illness as you, this does not mean that they have necessarily felt exactly what you have felt or experienced exactly what you have experienced.

Because everyones illnesses are slightly different, their recoveries will also be different too. Even though I have had anorexia, I would never say that I know exactly what any others who are suffering from anorexia are going through. Therefore when I share my own experiences of recovery and any advice, please always remember that it will not necessarily be the best thing for you and your recovery.

Even though I will never understand exactly what you may be going through, I do promise to always listen to you and help you as much as I possibly can anyway. Even if that just means just being a person to listen to your thoughts and for you to spill your troubles too. Afterall no matter who you are or what you may be going through, everybody needs somebody to be there for them.

Also, while I may not know exactly what you are going through, something I do truly believe with all my heart is that everybody CAN recover from their eating disorders if they believe it is possible and if they believe in themselves. In my opinion, no one is ever so sick that it is impossible for them to get better. So even though the way that everyone gets better may be different, the end product of being fully recovered is potentionally the same for everyone.

Reading back over this post, I know that it isn't really structured all that well but I just wanted to let yo uall know that I even though I don't know exactly what you are going through, I still want to help you to get better. And even though my experiences of anorexia may not be exactly the same as yours, I hope that you can stilll get something out of atleast some of what I write. Please never feel as though you are in this alone because you aren't. We are all in this together!

Getting Sick

Since about lunch time today, my throat has been really sore so I am obviously starting to get a cold. Luckily I dont get colds very often now that I am looking after myself so much better and when I do get colds, my body fights them off extremely quickly.

It is really strange, but whilst I was at my sickest I never ever seemed to get sick. Even though everyone around me got viruses or other 'bugs' I never seemed to which I found quite strange. I think that the reason that I never seemed sick was not because I didn't have the viruses, but instead because my immune system was not working properly so I therefore did not have the common symptoms associated with viruses.

For example, when a person gets a sore throat or runny nose, these are actually ways that the body tries to defend itself by fighting off the illness. However a person with anorexia who is extremely malnourished has a poor immune system and there body therefore will not produce these types of symptoms. If you think about it this is actually quite dangerous as it means you could be suffering from an illness without even realising it.

This is my understanding of why I never seemed to get sick anyway but I dont actually know if this is the scientific explanation for it or not. I suppose another reason may be because I became so socially withdrawn I didnt actually spend enough time with other people in order to catch there illnesses. I also think that perhaps the reason why I never really noticed being sick is because I was just so miserable and weak all the time anyway, regardless of whether or not I had a cold.

I have heard from others that they didn't seem to show symptoms of being sick or having 'bugs' until after they started eating more and after ther started to recover. What are all of your experieces of this? Did you find you got sick very rarely whilst restricting and that you actually seemed to be sick more once you started to recover?

Obsessive compulsive chewing

Something that I even did before I ever got sick, but has definetely got worse since developing anorexia, is the obsessive way I chew food. I always make sure I eat the exact same amount of food on the left side of my mouth, as I do the right side. For example while eating grapes, I pick out two grapes that are exactely the same size and eat one on the left and then one on the right side of my mouth. If I am left with 1 grape, I will bite it in half and chew half of it on either side of my mouth. I really dont know why I do this but I just feel as though I need to balance things out, so that things can be perfectly even. Perhaps this habit of mine actually has more to do with the fact that I am a perfectionist, rather then my actual anorexia.


I know that it is common for anorexics to develop weird habits whilst they eat but what I think is strange is the fact that I have done this with some foods for as long as I can remember. I have always done it whilst eating rice crackers or chips as well as pieces of breakfast cereal. However it is only since I got sick that I have started doing it with practically every food I eat.




Also, even now I still love eating all food with little forks and teaspoons which is a common anorexic behaviour however I have always done this ever since I was a child, long before I ever got anorexia. I would be really interested to know whether or not any other people suffering from anorexia have the same chewing habit as me or even one similar. Sometimes I wish I could just eat without thinking about it but I have been doing it for so long now that i do it even without thinking about it. Does anyone else have any tips about how to overcome behaviours like these? Do you think it is necessary to try and over come habits like these?

Similarities between sufferers

Something I have always found pretty unbelievable since becoming ill is how similar people with anorexia can be in their personalities as well as there behaviors. I find it amazing that I can have the exact same habits or rituals as other anorexics who live on the other side of the world who I have never met. How is it that we started practicing the exact same rituals? It is almost as if it is somehow 'programmed into our illness.'

I have many Personality traits that are common amongst other anorexia sufferers. My whole life I have been a perfectionist and an over achiever. I  compared myself to other people while I was growing up a lot and would feel disappointed in myself if I thought I wasn't as good as somone else. I have always been a very anxious and sensitive person which made me doubt myself and constantly worry that I was doing something wrong. I cared way too much about what others thought about me and was always paranoid people were judging me.


The following article taken from here explains a bit more about these personality traits;

The Personality traits such as neuroticism (emotional stability), obsessiveness, and perfectionism play a large role in facilitating some eating disorders, particularly anorexia and bulimia. Research suggests that these traits are at least partially driven by genetics. Individuals with these personality features are predisposed to be anxious, depressed, perfectionistic and self-critical; all factors that may contribute to their difficulty managing weight and eating in a healthy manner.

Individuals with anorexia and bulimia tend to be quite competitive, and are quite driven to succeed. They tend to compare their appearance and accomplishments against unrealistic standards and typically find themselves lacking. Most of these judgments involve culturally-derived or peer-sanctioned standards rather than personal expectations. In other words, people with eating disorders are primarily concerned about what others think of them, rather than what they think of themselves. Other people with eating disorders, such as athletes, tend to judge themselves against internally derived standards, and get upset when they fail to live up to their own ideals, expectations and goals.

Regardless of what set of standards they judge themselves against, perfectionists always strive to meet the highest standard of performance possible. They easily find themselves in a self-defeating cycle of fear and dissatisfaction when they fail to meet their expectations and goals, even when such expectations are unrealistic and unhealthy. This sense of fear and dissatisfaction is exactly the fuel and motivation that perpetuates a renewed drive toward thinness, perfection, and control. Hence, the endless cycle of dysfunctional eating behavior that constitutes eating disorders.

A capacity for obsessive thinking tends to accompany perfectionism with regard to eating disorders, particularly with anorexics. Anorexic individuals become hyper-focused or obsessed with food and with the idea of controlling their eating so as to become thin. Other elements of extreme thinking may be observed as well, notably a tendency towards rigid "black and white" (for example, I am either perfect or terrible) thinking. Because of their mental inflexibility, anorexic individuals may be unwilling or unable to acknowledge that their behaviors are out of control and that there are alternative ways to become happy besides weight loss. They perceive any deviation from their self-imposed weight-loss regime as an unacceptable failure. As a result, they may have great difficulty accepting suggestions or advice from others, even from those they know to be well-meaning. People with eating disorders may experience such supportive attempts as evidence that others don’t really understand them.

There are various behaviors and rituals that I adopted whilst suffering from anorexia that I was surprised to read that other anorexics also practiced whilst sick. Meals had to be eaten under perfect conditions. I preffered to be alone and I had to eat at the right time of day. Eating before my normal meal time made me feel weak as it would mean giving into the temptation of hunger. I became very specific when selecting my crockery and cutlery. I would eat everything with a teaspoon, child sized fork and knife so that it would take me longer to finish my meal. Early on in my illness I always cut my food into tiny pieces and ate tiny mouthfuls of food at a time but since starting to eat more, this behavior has subsided. I would choose the smallest bowl or plate that my food could fit into so I felt as though I was eating more than I actually was.

I prepared all my food by myself and was too frightened to leave my food unnattended as I was scared someone would tamper with it. I liked watching tv while I ate my meals and would even stop eating in ad breaks for some bizarre reason. I always needed to have a glass or bottle of water with me while I was eating a meal and my food had to be nice and hot and well prepared. I kept all of my food in my bedroom so no one else would touch it and prepared some meals inside my bedroom. I would instantly become very defensive if anyone ever questioned me about my behavior or my food. I cooked alot for my family but never tried anything I baked for them as I couldnt be sure of the calories it contained. I had to know the exact number of calories in everything I ate so obsessively weighed and measured out everything.

It is important to remember that although there are some similarities between sufferers, no two cases of anorexia are identicle and that there will always be some differences. You should never feel as though you are expected to act a certain way because you are anorexic. Dont feel as though something is wrong with you or that you arent really sick because you dont have a specific anorexic behavior or because you have a symptom that is not very common. Everyones illnesses will vary and recovery journeys will also be very different for everyone.

While it is common for anorexics to leave food in the bottom of food containers or on your plate I have never done this. In fact, I have always eaten the entirety of what I had told myself I was allowed to eat before starting a meal. It is a habit of mine to scrape bowls and plates until they are completely clean and it doesnt matter how full I am, I will always finish every single meal. I also never skip meals which I know other anorexics commonly do. I think that this is because I love food so much and therefore once I decide what I am going to eat I have in a way given my self permission to eat that meal. As long as my meal fitted into my daily calorie allowance at that time, while I ate it I felt reasonabely comfortable and didnt feel the need to leave any as I knew I wasnt eating too much. Has anyone else felt this way about food throughout their illness?

Another weird Anorexic behaviour of mine that I am not sure if anyone else has experienced is to do with how I chew. I have always chewed the exact same amount of food on the left and right sides of my mouth. For example if I was eating cereal, I would get a cereal flake and chew it on the left side of my mouth before picking a flake the same shape and size and chewing it on the right side. Or while eating something like vegetables I would chew 1 piece of carrot on the left for every one piece of carrot the right. If I was left with only one piece of something, for example one grape, I would bite it in half so I can chew half of it on my left side and then half on my right.

I know it sounds crazy but I cant explain why I do his. It has gotten a lot worse since having anorexia but I even remember doing it before I had anorexia with specific foods like rice crackers as well as colorful foods like fruit loops. I think that it is possibely OCD? Has anyone else ever done anything like this?