New favourite foods? Coping skills?

Hi everyone,

I was curious for those who are in recovery for an E.D what are your favourite new foods? I am really enjoying a dessert I made up for myself, it consists of a muffin (usually chocolate) topped with pudding and then I bake the hell out of it. I either top it with some icecream or I have been adding oatmeal and baking it with that.

I have also decided to set myself challenges. I think one of my difficulties with increasing calories is that the E.D. voice was yelling that having these indulgent desserts and making up crazy high cal recipies would become a life long pattern and that I wouldn't be able to stop/ control myself when I reach a healthy weight. Now I'm trying to see the foods I denied myself as challenges and that I need to have these to be healthy (hope that makes some sense?) Also I keep telling myself that when I am at a healthy weight I a) won't be thinking of food 24hours, b)that I am intelligent enough and have gained enough knowledge to make healthy choices with food and lastly if I do want to have a dessert I flipping well deserve to have one! I am also thinking of asking friends and family to set challenges for me.....any thoughts on this? I'm curious to find out what other people's coping skills are. Oh and I also made a list of things I would like to eat (my challenges) and I'm working my way through the list.

Hope everyone is doing well..........keep going!

Haha, oh my god, I could have just written that whole thing. I'm the exact same, on everything. I think the worry about enjoying eating high cal, indulgent stuff and getting too "used to it" is a common worry. I also set myself challenges to eat things which I have been depriving myself of for so long. Usually its certain chunky chocolate bars or pastries which have been too scary or high cal. But I'm working my way through them.

Although, I'm finding that most of them aren't as amazing as I remember. Oh well.

Anyway, to answer your question, my new favourite food is peanut butter. I was scared of it for so long but everyone on CC seems to love it so much that I thought, I'll face my fear and buy some. Now I can't go a day without it. My new favourite creation:

Toasted high-fibre multiseed pitta stuffed with peanut butter and warm sliced banana. Or melted dark chocolate and banana. Comfort food

Hey

I'm also the same here! Haha. I'm constantly worrying that when I do recover, I'd be too used to these foods and my body will always be craving for them. But I know that that's an irrational ED thought and I should just ask it to go away. 

I really like nuts and dried fruit now. I used to be incredibly scared of them because they are pretty high in cals, but I like how they're healthy and easy to snack on ^^

I do try and conquer my fears by eating challenge foods (such as a small piece of chocolate, or chips etc) but I always get guilty feelings after that =( I still have yet to overcome that obstacle.

But that's a tremendous effort that you can enjoy dessert and eat it! Keep on going and well done!

Kudos to you!! That is really tough, and I am also trying to work on fear stuff. Some of mine are:

mayonaisse, ranch dressing, pb (used to be, now I am addicted), putting butter on bread, eggs, full-fat cheese, sour cream, hamburgers, fried chicken, desserts in general, doughnuts, waffles, pancakes...many others. I have eaten almost everything I was once afraid of, and guess what?! I didn't gain 20 lbs or binge, and I actually enjoyed what I ate! I hope you continue to find similar enjoyment in truly healthy eating!

hey! that's a great thing to do in recovery! My thinking has been that if i'm going to eat a ton of food, or a lot more than I was obviously, i might as well enjoy it. I started recovery by having ice cream sundaes every night. I'd make up a different concoction of ice cream, fruit, pudding and whatever else I could think of eat it in bed. It was kind of weird that I still restricted so many other things at the time but I HAD to have my ice cream every night. I'd also make french toast for breakfast a lot.

I've also admitted my love pb and all nut butters. I'd say these are my favorite weight gain/ recovery foods. I'm totally addicted and have had some pretty big bingeing experiences with those. I still need to get over more dessert type things and pastries though. i can eat anything I bake myself but am terried of other people's baking. I really need to challenge myself with those. Fried foods and cheese also really scare me but hurt my stomach so i don't really feel the need to work on them. I've eaten most of my fear foods at least once but many things still scare me so I think it just takes a lot of practice to finally not feel guilty for eating these things.

I do worry that I won't be able to stop eating this way and I"ll gain uncontrollably, but you're very right that it's an irrational ED fear. It's very easy to switch out the high cal things for other things, or smaller portions. I'm sure most of us on here have learned so much about nutrition that eating healthy isn't a big deal, and personally, my weight gain has taken so much effort and still gone really slowly, i'd have plenty of time to take notice if I did start becoming overweight, not to mention that it's never been my body type.

Hope you're doing well too, and keep crossing things off that list!

I'm starting to recover after finding out my bmi was at like 14 :/
I wish I had the courage to eat all these foods, I haven't had chocolate in months and months, but I'm terrified of the stuff! Eeeek D:
But it all sounds so yummy and I can't wait till I'm ready to start eating all that stuff again :]

Guess I'm still pretty paranoid and worried about gaining, spose that's the ED though =/

Original Post by gi-jane:

I think setting yourself goals to hit by certain times isn't a bad strategy.  It gives you something to work towards and can give you a sense of accomplishment.    As well as chipping away at your list one at a time, you could create a complete menu, for example, that included several of the foods that you've previously avoided.  Then set a date with your family and friends to sit down and share everything together.  Eating with other people is one of life's basic pleasures (although it's a common situation ED sufferers try to avoid) and if you can manage that successfully with the encouragement of those close to you you'd probably feel even better about yourself. 

 Quoted from duplicate thread.

Ah peanut butter, yes I too love the stuff, especially with bananas! Gibbit I also need to work on pastries, I have added carrot cake and cinnamon bun to my list! And my pudding mixture sounds a lot like your icecream concoction, it doesn't matter about what I have eaten during the day, I always factor this dessert in and I too eat it in bed. Do you still make your icecream dessert or was this a phase for you?

I also need to work on condiments, I guess I have seen them as wateful calories, for exaple jam or butter, I think to myself well jam is x amount of calories and for that amont I could eat x,y and z. Last night I had toast and honey with butter so that was a big step, I just need to keep telling myself food should be enjoyable and if I am still hungry it is ok to eat!  Dollymxtures I just wanted to say that yup its definately the E.D. voice but you will get there, I too have a BMI of 14 but the more I eat the stronger the positive voice is!

You guys are so wonderfully supportive, keep going and keep enjoying the food!

hey gilly! great job on the butter! Now that I allow myself to eat things like margarine, or oil, they've really helped me on days where my intake is too low, it's so easy to just add an extra spoonful of oil to your food or some butter on toast and increase by 100 or more calories. I'll eat any pastry or cake or cookie that I make so I have those all the time. I'm just afraid of things other people have made since I don't know the ingredients.

I do still eat ice cream sundaes! in fact I had one last night because I was also low on cals so I mixed vanilla ice cream with several spoonfuls of pb, dried apricots and topped it all with a bunch of granola. SOO good! I don't have them every day anymore though. I've brancehd out and have different dessert foods too, or i'll have toast and pb, any baked good i've made recently and ahve that usually with pb too, a dense oatmeal. Diversity is good :)