Orthorexia: obsessed with healthy eating?

body confidence

A few months ago I took an online course at Be Nourished, about Body Trust. It greatly affected my thinking about my body, weight, diet, exercise. I had gotten pretty fat in my early 40s and no matter what I did, nothing would get to me. But in the process I learned a lot about nutrition and exercise.

I had a lot of shame about my weight and my appearance, and it really affected my ability to be in the world and be seen. My thoughts in the day were occupied with exercising and walking as many steps as I could. I had a fitbit and the fitbit scale, and was constantly thinking about food, exercise, and how to reduce my weight. I hated looking in the mirror and felt like I wasn’t doing enough to lose weight.

I was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism in 2016 and had to have 6 week blood tests for my thyroid and liver. Two of my liver tests showed that my enzymes were elevated.

When I took the Body Trust course, I came to see how my relationship with my body was really controlling. One of the memes they have on their site is “We can’t hate ourselves on a version of ourselves that we can love.” The shame I felt was because we live in a fat-phobic society, and we think we can diet to lose weight and be the size we want to be, AND at the same time have a loving relationship with our bodies. we can not

fat shame

We are not the problem, our society has dysfunctional values ​​and leads us to believe that we can control our weight, if we apply ourselves in the right way.

I wanted to fit in so I wouldn’t feel ashamed. I wanted to be invisible and not stand out, and being overweight made me feel like I stood out too much. I thought it drew too much negative attention.

Healthy nutrition

He knew a lot about food. I tried many diets, and they all seemed to focus on healthy eating. The Wheat Belly Diet, Paleo, Plant Paradox, Eat Right for Your Blood Type. I tried them all. Nothing made a difference, but I told myself I’m eating healthy so I must have a slow metabolism, or it’s my thyroid affecting my weight, or her high cortisol from the stress of the earthquakes.

I had very good self-control. I could go sugar-free, wheat-free, gluten-free, and I was always trying a new way of eating, or importing food from abroad, or trying to track ingredients across the country. I had tons and tons of vitamins and supplements. My body was like an obsession, wanting to change it, to control it through what I ate and how I moved.

orthorexia

Orthorexia is the other end of the spectrum of eating disorders. It is an obsession with healthy eating. It can be virtuous and elitist and embarrassing for anyone who doesn’t eat healthy. It’s very covert because it seems like you’re taking really good care of yourself. I told myself that I was just keeping up with the trends, the various chefs who wrote healthy cookbooks. I was optimizing my health. I put a LOT of pressure on myself to eat perfectly. My best friend had died of pancreatic cancer and that scared the hell out of me. He gave food a lot of power to hurt me and was very rigid about what he ate.

In fact, I think the way I ate contributed to my thyroid condition, I have since read that cutting carbs can throw your thyroid out of whack.

control

I learned in the course everything about how to get rid of the shame of eating, of my obsession with my size and weight. I realized that I was also obsessed with exercising in an unhealthy way. I sold my adjustment bit and scales. I was very afraid to stop thinking about exercise and diet. I was afraid of becoming a lazy fat man, who would eat anything in sight, who would have no self-control.

But in fact, self-control was the problem. It was all fear based and very rigid. When you restrict your food intake, and that can be even rigidly healthy eating, then your body goes into survival mode, and part of that is your brain starts to obsess over food and all those foods that you start to crave. It’s making sure you survive and start eating more than a restricted diet.

intuitive feeding

Intuitive eating is when you trust your body to guide you towards what you eat. All foods have the same value, you can eat what you want when you want. And it can be eaten for emotional reasons. You guessed it, I ate all the things I had denied myself, it was amazing. And I felt so satisfied. so satisfied. In fact, I ate a lot less food because I was satisfied because I ate what I wanted. I wasn’t trying to fill myself up with something I didn’t want but think I should eat.

So the pendulum swung the other way. Then slowly it started to come back to the middle. I started to see that I didn’t like eating ice cream, it made me feel lazy and runny. That I didn’t like eating so much sugar, that it didn’t appeal to me that much. That I wanted to exercise more naturally, instead of working hard on a machine.

Freedom

I went for a blood test and lo and behold, my liver enzymes were in range. I started to focus on other things because my thoughts weren’t taken up with food and exercise and controlling my body. I got a new haircut and went shopping for reading glasses, all the things I was too afraid to do because I didn’t want to think about my body and how I looked.

I feel much more comfortable talking to people now and don’t feel self-conscious about my weight. Before I was obsessed with how big my belly was, but now I don’t even think about it. I don’t know how much I weigh, and I don’t feel ashamed.

One big thing that really impacted my relationship with food was learning that when we find pleasure in eating, we absorb more nutrients. So all that holding your nose to eat beans, it didn’t make any difference.

The intelligence of our body is much wiser than us, so it’s time to listen to our body and trust it.