ISSUES AROUND EATING
Emotional Eating, Eating Disorders and caring for someone with an Eating Disorder
Emotional Eating
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Do you often find yourself craving comfort foods? Do you often feel you really need fatty or sugary foods and nothing else will do? Do you often find you’ve over eaten mindlessly without paying any attention or really enjoying it? Do you keep eating more and more until you are uncomfortably full and are still not satisfied?
Maybe you find yourself turning to food to cope with emotions such as anger, loneliness, sadness, stress, boredom or exhaustion? You may find yourself trapped in an unhealthy cycle where you never really address the real feeling or problem, but food has become your main coping mechanism.
We all over eat or eat our emotions at times. Some people manage their emotions by turning to food for comfort or escape and then find that their hunger cannot be filled with food. This is because it isn’t a physical hunger but an emotional one. Emotional eating can often trigger feelings of guilt, shame and anxiety, you may feel powerless over your eating and cravings. If this sounds like you, you may be experiencing emotional eating.
At completely you we understand that our relationship with food can, at times, be difficult. We are here to help you develop a more positive relationship and develop coping mechanisms so that it does not dominate your life and you can find ways to manage these emotions and alternative ways of coping.
EATING DISORDERS
Deciding if you have an eating disorder might not be as easy as ticking a box. It isn’t something you have or you don’t have, it’s not like the flu. Many people worry about what they eat or how they look but does that mean they have an eating disorder?
Eating disorders are complicated. Some people have the features of a single eating disorder. Others might have features of several types of disorder. Therefore, it isn’t easy to fit anyone into a single box.
You may have been diagnosed by a doctor with anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder or FEDNEC (Feeding or eating disorder not elsewhere classified) or you may be struggling with issues around your relationship with food and are pre occupied with weight and body image.
Is eating ruling your life? Are you preoccupied with your weight and body image? Is this harming your physical and emotional wellbeing? If you have answered yes to one or more of those questions then you may have an eating disorder.
They are complicated and not all of us fit into a typically defined type. But, we are here to help you understand and work with the issues you face so that you are able to make sure whatever category you may fall into does not rule your life.
How we think, feel and behave around our food and body can help us decide if we have an eating disorder or not:
Maybe you obsess about what you eat or weigh, maybe you negatively compare yourself and weight against other people, maybe you have very strict rules about what and how you should eat, maybe you think badly about yourself because of your eating, maybe you think about food all of the time
Maybe you are terrified of changing the way you eat or eating normally, maybe you feel that you are fat even though other people tell you that you are not, maybe you feel guilty and anxious because of what you eat, maybe you hate yourself because of the way you look and what you are eating, maybe you feel helpless and out of control around food.
Maybe you are always on or off a diet, maybe you binge in secret, maybe you use laxatives, take slimming pills or make yourself vomit, maybe you starve yourself or keep on eating when you have had enough, maybe you constantly get on the scales to weigh yourself or measure yourself, maybe you enjoy cooking for others but ever eat what you make yourself.
Not every one with an eating disorder is very thin or overweight and this can sometimes put people off getting help as they think that they are not ‘bad enough’ to seek help.
At Completely You we don’t worry about the labels, if an eating problem is getting in the way of your life then please contact us
CARING FOR SOMEONE WITH AN EATING DISORDER
At Completely You we recognise that caring for a loved one with an eating disorder can be tough.
It can be hard to know how to support them, their behaviour may be causing you a lot of worry and stress and the eating disorder may start to cause conflict within you relationships.
The eating disorder may be putting a lot of demands on you and you may be finding this hard to cope with and maybe you are feeling guilty around this.
At Completely You we can offer you counselling sessions to help your emotional wellbeing and promoting your self care so that you can care for your loved one.