Episode 12: When eating disordered behaviours begin to negatively impact your relationships with friends and family.

In this week’s episode, Jessica is discussing the question: “When eating disordered behaviours negatively impact your relationships with friends and family” with Deidre. This can be a very difficult topic to navigate as you begin your journey of food freedom, but Jessica will walk you through ways to have this conversation with your loved ones. 

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Connect with Jessica on Instagram: @shiftnutritioncounselling

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Teaser

Eating disorder thoughts or what not and that's a whole other step cuz once you figure out your pros and cons you're like okay I'm going to give them up

Intro

welcome to the Art and Science of eating I'm Jessica Begg, registered dietitian and clinical counsellor I worked for fifteen years in programs for the treatment of eating disorders I now help those that struggle with emotional eating and their relationship with their body this podcast is where I answer questions to help people along this bumpy journey to creating peace with both food and their body. 

Podcast

“Thanks Deirdre for coming onto my podcast. I really appreciate you asking your question, so yeah, go ahead.”

“So my question is: what do you do when you feel like your disordered eating habits are starting to negatively impact your relationships with friends and family?

For me, the way this comes into my life is that I will actively avoid eating around other people. And that’s due to shame around the amount of food I might eat, or not wanting to eat at all, or friends or family eating foods that I don’t want to eat.”

“Yeah, yeah. So your question is: what do you do when these disordered eating thoughts and behaviours start impacting your relationships?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, yeah.

The first thing we talk about is figuring out the pros and cons, right? Because in order to make any kind of change, you have to think about how much these social interactions mean to you in contrast to maintaining some of the behaviours you currently have.

And that’s a hard one because it’s really difficult to give these things up. Sometimes we also forget what we’re losing.

So I guess the question I have for you is: which of these things are important to you, and how do they align with your values?

In more tangible ways, I often get people to literally do a pros and cons list. What are the pros and cons of continuing these behaviours, and what are the pros and cons of letting them go?

That’s the first piece.

The second piece you might be asking is: how do you actually do that? Because it’s hard.

How do you become comfortable eating around people? How do you become comfortable giving up some of these eating disorder thoughts and behaviours?

That’s a whole other step because once you’ve figured out your pros and cons and decided, ‘Okay, I want to give these things up,’ then the next question becomes: now what?”

“Right?”

“Okay, so can you tell me again what your examples were?”

“Okay, so this isn’t something I really do anymore, but in the past — when my disordered eating was much worse — I would come home from school while still living at my parents’ place, and I would stop at the grocery store on the way home.

I didn’t want my parents to know how much I was eating, so I would sit in the car after getting home from school instead of going into the house, and I would eat food in the car so people wouldn’t know how much I was eating.”

“What do you understand were the drivers behind that? Like, what do you think was happening for you at that time?”

“Well, I think there was a lot of shame.

For one, I didn’t want people to know about my disordered eating patterns. And also, if my parents knew how much food I was eating, I thought they would say something like, ‘You’re going to get fatter,’ or something like that.

Which in reality probably wouldn’t have happened, but in my head that’s how it was going to play out.”

“Yeah, yeah.

So you were worried people would say you shouldn’t be eating that food, but at the same time you really wanted it.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“What do you think was driving the eating at that time?”

“You mean eating a lot of food when I came home?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, something I used to do back when my eating disorder was worse was that I wouldn’t want to eat during the day.

If I was working or at school, I wouldn’t eat because if I did eat during the day, I would then feel like I needed to purge. And purging would take up so much time and energy that it would negatively impact my schooling or work.

So I just wouldn’t eat during the day at all. Then I would come home starving, eat a ton of food, and purge. But at least then it wasn’t interfering with my work or school day.”

“Yeah, that’s what was happening there.

I imagine it would feel really scary and out of control. And even beyond that, there was probably the fear of somebody seeing you while you were trying so hard not to eat during the day.

It sounds like you were trying to protect that moment of finally eating. Like, ‘When am I going to eat? I’m not eating all day.’

So then how do you move past that?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“I think you actually pinpointed it right there: being really hungry because you weren’t eating enough during the day.

So we can walk this backwards and ask: how do we get you more comfortable in your body so that you feel okay feeding yourself throughout the day?

Because feeding your body serves really important purposes.

What I’m hearing is that eating during the day felt incredibly stressful because you were worried about the consequences afterward. And I think that speaks to learning how to care for yourself and be okay with nourishing yourself regularly.

Then ideally, you don’t get to that point later in the day where you feel like you need to eat huge amounts of food.”

“In theory, right?”

“Yeah.”

“But I think in a more general sense, when answering your question, it really comes back to the pros and cons and eventually reaching a point where you become frustrated enough with what’s happening that you say:

‘Okay, I want more from my life. I want to connect with my friends. I want freedom. I want to eat out, meet new people, and enjoy myself instead of constantly thinking: What are the calories in this? Can I eat this? Should I eat this?’

Because it’s really distracting to live that way.

So eventually you reach this turning point where you want to actually be present with your friends.”

“Yeah, and that’s something I would want.

Like if friends were going out for dinner, I would want to join. Or if a boyfriend wanted to go out for dinner, I would think of alternative dates instead because I didn’t want to go.

And if I did go, I would order something like a salad with nothing on it and barely eat it, which honestly also looks strange to other people.”

“So then it kind of shines a spotlight on you because now you’re eating very differently from everyone else.”

“Yeah.”

“This is tough. But yeah.”

“No, I really appreciate that. I appreciate you.”

“Thanks Deirdre.”

“Thank you!”

Disclaimer

This podcast is for education and information purposes only. Please consult your own healthcare team for what is right for you and your care.