In recent years, there has been a growing trend of people adopting healthy eating lifestyles. This is a positive development, as healthy eating can help to improve overall health and well-being. However, for some people, a healthy eating lifestyle can become an eating disorder.
Eating disorders are serious mental illnesses that can have devastating physical and psychological consequences. They are characterized by an intense fear of gaining weight, an unhealthy obsession with food, and disordered eating behaviours.
Though eating disorders are most common in adolescents and young adults and more in women than in men, they can affect people of all ages. In fact, the last years shows that versions of eating disorder appear across the board. Pre-menopausal women and post-menopausal women and man in their midlife hormonal changes puts them in the risk of developing eating disorder.
When we change our eating habits, which is very healthy and good, we need to make sure we don’t cross over to the eating disorder section. It is not what you eat or how much you weigh that determines if you are eating healthy or you fall into the eating disorder category but how you react to situations when you can’t eat what you want to eat.
Your “healthy” eating is no longer healthy when people become too focused on eating “healthy” foods and become overly restrictive about their diet. They may start to avoid certain foods altogether, or they may start to count calories and macros obsessively, they look at food as the enemy rather than nutrition. This can lead to a cycle of guilt, shame, and anxiety, which can eventually spiral into an eating disorder.
When we are in that mode, the food doesn’t give us what we need but “take” away from us joy and happiness.
There are a few signs that can indicate that a healthy eating lifestyle is turning into an eating disorder. These include:
Obsession with food: If you find yourself thinking about food all the time, or if you are constantly planning your meals and snacks, taking about your food constantly, treating some food with “ fear”ת this could be a sign that your healthy eating habits have become obsessive.
Eating healthy and changing the way you see food, requires adjustment. It is reasonable that at the beginning of this journey, you do think about food, and plan your meal and talk about it a lot. It is even Ok at first to categories food as healthy and not healthy for me, but it is not a good idea to treat the not healthy food as “dangerous”. I can tell you as a life coach that there is more danger in the belief that it is dangerous than the food itself. Our body is amazing, and it will get rid of one day of eating junk, but it won’t easily get rid of a belief that is not healthy for us.
Restrictive eating: If you are starting to restrict your food intake too much, or if you are engaging in unhealthy behaviours such as purging or excessive exercise, this is a red flag that your healthy eating habits have become disordered.
When adopting a fasting lifestyle, there is a fine line between fasting and an eating disorder. We cross the line when we adopt the “eat less, move more” philosophy and are obsessed about it or when we consider fast as a weight loss treatment, rather than a health quest. It is better to schedule your fasts ahead of time, and not be reactive to the scale.
Impact on life: If your healthy eating habits are starting to interfere with your social life, your work, or your school, this is a sign that you need to take a step back and re-evaluate your relationship with food.
Adopting a lifestyle of eating healthy will change many things in your life but if you no longer enjoy eating out and it effects your life or If you become judgmental towards others eating differently or when try to convince everyone to eat like you, you are obsessed and obsessed is a good sign you have crossed over.
Not enough energy is a way to check if your healthy eating is depleting you or charging you. Most people when transitioning to a healthy eating, will have a serge of energy. It will impact their sleep, their mood, their health, their bowl movement, their energy level. If you feel tired and exhausted from thinking, doing, working on your health, then what you are doing is taking energy and not giving you energy. I know people that are in fact even more sick from adopting this low carb healthy eating lifestyle and lacking energy. It is usually because they are not aware of how their obsession and stress level are depleting them from energy. Being stressed about a diet is usually a sign it is not healthy anymore.
It is important to note that the traditional eating disorders are not related to food at all. They are an attempt to gain control over a feeling that is uncontrollable. Living in a very strict, controlling environment can bring people to being obsessed about their food, cleaning, words that are used, patterns, sequences of behaviour ( must check if the door is closed 3 times).
The problem with developing an eating disorder is that the person himself, can’t notice when he/she crossed over. If you ask them about it, they won’t see anything wrong with what they are doing, and it is necessary to acknowledge the issue if we wean to heal from it.
Every diet or a new eating habit is at risk of crossing over to the eating disorder zone and no one is immune to it. The best way is to notice it yourself and slowly and gradually bring yourself back with grace to the “health” zone.
You can tell you have crossed over when you react in fear when you ate something that was not in your food regime, when you have gained weight, when you “failed” to stick to your plan, when you couldn’t fast as long as you wished, when you just can’t stand people who don’t follow your eating lifestyle.
It is Ok to be disappointed but the longer you move on from it, the more time you spend in the healthy zone. In simple word, the kinder you are towards yourself ( and others who don’t eat like you) the greater are you chances of living in the “health zone”.
I became aware of crossing over to the eating disorder zone when we changed our eating habits 33 years ago. Our daughter was just 1.5 years old and when she was 4, we have made the choice to “let go” a bit and not be obsessed about it. About 15 years ago, I had a gathering in my house with about 10 families that most of them were healthy conscious and the theme of the day was “ junk food”. Every family brought the ultimate junk food to eat together. We did it to send a message to our children that nothing bad will happen to us if we eat chips, cakes, cream, white flour, sugar… I say it is food for the soul. Sometimes we just need to feed the soul.
Remember, the present of “stress” “ fear” “shame” “guilt” is a sign you have crossed over.
Don’t be too restrictive: It is important to find a balance between eating healthy and enjoying your food. Don’t be too restrictive with your diet, as this can lead to unhealthy behaviours. We need breaks. Our body needs breaks. Give yourself breaks and even better, schedule them.
Listen to your body: Pay attention to your hunger and fullness cues. Don’t eat when you’re not hungry, and don’t restrict yourself when you are hungry. If you are eating healthy food, eat to feel satisfied. It helps you establish good relationship with your food.
Don’t beat yourself up: If you “fail”, don’t beat yourself up about it. Just pick yourself up and start again. Remember, we don’t really fail. Because when we are down, we have learned a good lesson and we are smarter than we were before. Fall seven, get up eight! Should be your motto.
Focus on the positive: Instead of focusing on what you can’t eat, focus on the healthy foods that you can eat. People who think about the ice cream they have missed feel deprived, those who think of “ice cream made of real cream is absolutely fantastic” change their chemistry just by thinking it. Research shows that the body react to what we think we eat and not what we actually eat. A group of people were given a shake ( the same shake) one group was told that their shake is a healthy shake the other group was told their shake is full of junk. Those who ate the “healthy” shake showed that their Ghrelin ( the hormone that says “I’m hungry” was present much earlier to those who were given the “junk” shake. Which means that those people thought that “healthy” is not as satisfying as “junk” . I remind you it was absolutely the same shake, which proves that what we think about our food affects our chemistry more than what we actually eat.
If you think you have crossed over, get support. Hang around people that are similar to you. That you are experiencing similar challenges and can help each other stay on the “healthy” side.
Wishing you to always stay in the healthy zone.
Happy day
Ronit
Whole food Revolution’s Happiness coach
https://www.behappyinlife.com/
https://www.ronitbaras.com/
