Sticking to your meal plan

A great friend of mine has asked me to give some advice about how to stick to a meal plan in recovery and I thought that I could write a post about it, so that I can hopefully help her as well as anyone else struggling with the same thing. Firstly I want to start by saying how wonderful I think meal plans are while you are recovering. If you would like to hear about the reasons I think following a meal plan is helpful, you can read this post I wrote in April.

To be perfectly honest, sticking to my meal plan is something I am really good at. No matter how terrible I am feeling, I always eat everything in my meal plan and this is because I do not look at my meal plan as something I can choose to follow, I just see it as something I follow because I do not have an option. Because I have never skipped anything on my meal plan, I never even feel tempted to skip anything as my anorexia knows that it is something I simply never do. I still feel really guilty for eating sometimes, both before and after my meals but the thought to not eat practically never even pops into my mind because I have never done it before.

I can imagine that once you skip a part of your meal plan once, it becomes so easy for you to continue doing so. Once your anorexia knows it has won once, it will think that it can keep winning so will keep trying to convince you to skip meals. I can understand that it would also become easier to skip parts of your meal plan after you have done it before because after giving in once, you probably dont have the faith in yourself that you are strong enough not to give in.

I highly reccommend that you try and take on this mindset that I have as it really does let you stick to your meal plan without fail. I honestly think that the only way you will be able to develop this new mind set is if you make a completely new start. I wrote this little letter that you can use (or you can make one similar) which tells your anorexia exactely how it is going to be from this moment on.



DEAR ANOREXIA,

I know you have been able to convince me to skip parts of my meal plan in the past, but I want you to know that this is never going to happen again. Following my meal plan is no longer a choice I am allowed to make. It is something that I will do every single day no matter what you say to me. You can keep trying to get me to skip parts of my meal plan if you want, but I promise you that you will be wasting your time, I will eat everything on my meal plan no matter what you say.


Signed _____________ Date ______________


So upon agreeing to this letter, you are making the decision to never miss anything on your meal plan again. Everytime you get the tempatation to miss something, simply tell yourself that it is not an option, you have no choice but to eat every part of every single meal. Hopefully if you are able to do this, eventually the temptation to skip meals or restrict will not even arise at all. Please give this a try, I am living proof that having this mindset works really well.

My friend also mentioned that she finds choosing which snack to have with her hot drink for afternoon tea really difficult and when she is unable to decide, she sometimes ends up eating nothing at all. I highly reccommend having a more specific meal plan so that you dont have a chance to be indecisive. For example, make your afternoon snack a hot chocolate and a muffin. If you would prefer to have a bit more variety perhaps you could alternate your afternoon snack each day i.e have cookies one day with your hot chocolate and a muffin the next.

Another option is to fill in the specific details of your meal plan each morning so that you know exactly what you need to eat, once your meal time comes around. For example for morning tea I always have an up and go meal supplement drink, a small piece of fruit and a baked treat and for lunch I have a sandwich, dairy dessert and a large piece if fruit. Writing out the specific details of each meal would look like this;

Morning tea: 1 Banana up and go, 1 choc chip muffin and 1 kiwi fruit
Lunch: 1 cheese and tomato relish sandwich, 1 vanilla rice cream and 1 cup of grapes

So when its morning tea time I dont feel anxious about whether to have a jam donut or a muffin as the decision has already been made. It is written clearly on my meal plan and since I have no choice but to follow my meal plan, I know exactly what to eat.

I would highly reccommend Trying to stick to regular meal times but if this is ever not possible, you still need to eat the entire contents of your meal plan over your entire day. sometimes it may be necessary to eat some of your afternoon tea at lunch time and the rest just before tea if it is not possible to stop and have a proper afternoon tea. Being busy or forgetting to eat is not a good enough reason not to stick to your meal plan properly.

I do not let myself go to bed of a night unless I have eaten absalutely everything on my meal plan that day. For example last week I fell asleep while watching tv before drinking my hot chocolate. When I woke up at about midnight I realised I hadnt had my hot chocolate so made myself drink it then, before going to bed. I could have just got up and gone straight to bed but I knew that this was t an option for me and I knew that not sticking to my meal plan once would probably make me tempted to do it again.

I also highly reccommend never leaving anything at all on your plate or in food containers as by doing this you are failing to stick to your meal plan. If your meal plan has 1 strawberry yoghurt written on it, it is not acceptable to eat only 3 quarters of the tub as this is failing to follow your meal plan. It is the same as what I said about skipping entire items off of your meal plan, if you do it once, your anorexia will try to make you do it every time. Ever since getting out of hospital 2 and a half years ago, I have never left anything in my bowl or on my plate so I never even feel tempted to leave any food. I even scrape out all tins or containers incredibely well (which my family assures me is very annoying😉) so I can be sure I am eating my entire meal plan.

I really hope that this post has been helpful and if you have any more questions, please feel free to ask. :)