How do you approach a meal?

Title says it all,

How do you approach a meal?

Do you have a particular mindset?e.g-I need to gain or I am not going to act with ed behaviours?. I said this to my parents and they said they dont have any conscious mindset, they just eat. I tried this and I end up either making a meal thats not enough to gain, acting with ED behaviours (e.g-being very indecisive) or getting very anxious.

Is a conscious "mindset "good or bad for a weight gainer and ed recoverer?

This is just my opinion not from experience but I'd imagine that at first a paticular mindset would be necessary. Like if you maybe have a series of little goals throughout the day. "For breakfast I'm going to eat X calories " "For my next snack I am going to eat X amount of an 'unsafe food' " or whatever. To keep you focused.

Sorry I can't be much help! Good luck :)

I know in one of my ip we had to do food and feelings. We had to write our feeling pre,mid,and after the meal. I guess for me I enter the day with self talk reminding myself that the goal is to gain. To do that I must make appropriate food choices. That there is no waiting till tomorrow. I must do everything I can today to be well. I think though your parents mean well eating as they due which is called intuitive is near impossible in the start of recovery. It can be a long term goal but right now to gain you have to often eat past hunger/full and your body is confused along with your mind makes an ed choice often. I do think preplanning is helpful. Are you able to see a nutritionist? Being anxious etc is going to be. People who fully recover sit with this feeling and eventially it becomes easier to cope with. Maybe think of healthy things to do when you get anxious like arts and crafts,go to a book store.

During the day with the kids... I do more snacking every hour than meal eating because I don't have time to sit down so I approach it with "I need to eat this to be a good mom and to keep my blood sugar up"

When its a night when I can eat with my husband... I approach the meal like this:

My mouth is totally open and I have napkins around because its gonna get messy;-)

How do I approach dessert?

LIKE A RABID BEAST!:-D

I have a hard time with meals, but no problem eating tons of fruit and yogurt and things by mysef. During meals if I really have to I think about how the foods compare. For example, "These beans are really scary, but it's only one cup. That's like four cups of fruit, which is easy. But four cups of fruit has tons of sugar, and beans have fiber and protein. So why should this be any harder?" That's helped me a lot. Some things I discovered: cottage cheese and ice cream are about equal (so why be afraid of half a cup of ice cream when three cups of cottage cheese is no problem? I eat tons of ice cream now) and a big cookie is about the same as two apples (I used to go so overboard on apples). It works pretty well.

If you want to know how 'normal' people approach a meal... that could help.  I'd say people who haven't had disordered eating problems are thinking principally about the flavour & aroma of the dish they're about to cook and eat .  They're absolutely not thinking about the calorie content or the nutrients in the dish, merely about whether it's going to taste good and fill their tummy up.

Unlike those people you have to be conscious of the energy value because you need to gain.  But, once you're happy with that element, I would say focus on the enjoyment value of the dish in front of you... the pleasure of how it tastes and how it looks.  

 

blueberry - I have used similar techniques in the past (i.e. cottage cheese & ice cream and how they compare) but had forgotten about them - thanks for reminding me! I think this will help me a bit too.

As I try and gain 20 lbs I have realized you just need to eat clean and eat til your full!

 

If that is 2000 clean calories eat til your fill.....forget the numbers!

 

Good clean calories will build a happy healthey body!

When I was recovering I approached my meals with the calorie target...I would say okay this meal needs to be X amount of calories in order for me to meet my calorie goal...when I'd count up the calories if I was under then I'd view it as an opportunity to fill that void with something yummy.

I thought, well heck...I have 2500 calories to spend and I really love this food and its going to taste good, if I'm going to eat the calories anyway I might as wellk spend em on something I'm going to enjoy rather than one of my safe ED foods that weren't particularly palatable. I just saw it as a waste to eat for the sake of calories and not taste when I knew that in the end the calories were going to be the same.

For weight gainers I think it is often important to think about the caloric value of the food during preparation in order to eat enough to gain.

But once you're eating it, think about the food and not the calories. Think about how good it tastes and how healing it is for your body. It really helped me to think about the benefits in every food (eg, fat = good for skin, hair, bones etc, icecream = lots of calcium) so that I could see something good about everything I was eating.

at the moment i just eat it like its something i have to do like a chore , although i want to , im hoping the better i will become ill be less focused on whats in everything im eating and begin to enjoy food a bit more guilt free and get a taste. i find it very hard to see if its what i want or if its the ed tricking me to thinking its what i want h x

well all i know is that to lose weight I've had to very consciously change how i see food.. and make changes to my daily routines.. I'm going to need to make more changes soon to keep losing weight..

so i suppose that to gain weight.. you'll need to do the same.. make small changes first, gaining weight slowly and then making more changes to gain more weight when the effect of those first small changes stop having as much effect..

all the best with it x

For those with EDs.

If I am really struggling with eating a meal or snack, I sometimes pretend I am in inpatient so I have to eat it and don't have a choice. That also helps me deal with the guilt too, because it makes me feel like it's not my choice to eat.