Orthorexia - are you obsessed with healthy eating?

Orthorexia - are you obsessed with healthy eating?

Body confidence

A few months ago I attended an online course on Body Trust at Be Nourished. It has an enormous influence on my thinking about my body, my weight, nutrition and movement. I had gained a lot of weight in my early 40s and no matter what I did, nothing would stir. I learned a lot about nutrition and movement.

I was very ashamed of my weight and appearance and it impaired my ability to be and be seen in the world. My thoughts a day were busy and I took as many steps as possible. I had a Fitbit and the fit bit scales and always thought about food, movement and how I can reduce my weight. I hated to look in the mirror and I felt that I didn't do enough to lower my weight.

With me, hyperthyroidism was diagnosed in 2016, and I had to carry out blood tests for my thyroid and liver for 6 weeks. Two of the tests for my liver showed that my enzymes were increased.

When I took part in the Body Trust course, I found that my relationship with my body was really controlling. One of the memes you have on your website is "We cannot hate ourselves in a version of ourselves that we can love." The shame I felt was that we live in a fat, phobic society and we think we can eat our way to losing weight and size that we want and at the same time have a loving relationship with our body. We can't.

fat shaming

We are not the problem, our society has dysfunctional values ​​and lets us believe that we can control our weight if we only apply properly.

I wanted to fit so that I couldn't be ashamed. I wanted to be invisible and not stand out, and when I was overweight, I felt as if I was too noticeable. I thought I had attracted too much negative attention.

healthy food

I knew so much about food. I had tried many diets that all seemed to concentrate on healthy eating. The wheat belly diet, paleo, plant paradox, eat it properly for your blood group. I tried them all. Nothing made a difference, but I said to myself that I have a healthy eating, so I have to have a slow metabolism, or it is my thyroid that influences my weight or its high cortisol due to the stress through the earthquakes.

I had very good self -control. I couldn't take any sugar, no wheat, no gluten, and I always tried to eat a new way, to import food from overseas or to track down ingredients across the country. I had tons and tons of vitamins and nutritional supplements. My body was like an obsession, wanted to change it, check what I ate and how I moved.

Orthorexia

Orthorexia is the other end of the spectrum of eating disorders. It is an obsession with healthy eating. It can be virtuous and elitist and shake everyone who does not eat healthy. It is very hidden because it looks as if they really take care of themselves. I said to myself that I would only keep pace with the trends, the different chefs who wrote healthy cookbooks. I optimized my health. I put a lot of pressure on myself to eat perfectly. My best friend had died of pancreatic cancer and that frightened me into pieces. I gave the food a lot of strength to hurt myself and I was very rigid about what I ate.

In fact, I think that the way I eaten has contributed to my thyroid disease. Since then I have read that a low carbohydrate content can bring your thyroid out of balance.

control

I learned everything on the course about how to get the shame out of the food, from my obsession about my size and weight. I realized that I was also obsessed with movement in an unhealthy way. I sold my fit and scale. I was very afraid of no longer thinking about movement and food. I feared that I would be a fat guy, I would eat everything in sight, I would not have self -control.

But actually self -control was the problem. Everything was feared and very rigid. If you restrict your food intake and that can even be a healthy diet, your body merges into survival mode. Part of it is that your brain will make you possessed by food, and all these foods you long for. It ensures that they survive and have more than just a limited diet.

intuitive food

When eating intuitive, you trust that your body leads you to what you eat. All foods have the same value, you can eat everything you want when you want. And you can eat for emotional reasons. You guessed, I ate all the things that I had refused myself, it was great. And I was so satisfied. So full. In fact, I ate a lot less because I was satisfied because I ate what I wanted. I didn't try to fill something that I didn't want, but thought I should eat.

The pendulum so swung in the opposite direction. Then it slowly began to return to the middle. I noticed that I didn't eat ice cream, I felt sluggish and slimy. That I didn't eat that much sugar that it didn't have the same attraction for me. That I wanted to train more naturally instead of sneaking around on an apparatus.

freedom

I did a blood test and lo and behold, my liver enzymes were within reach. I started to concentrate on other things because my thoughts were not busy thinking about food and movement and controlling my body. I got a new haircut and got reading glasses, all things I was too scared for because I didn't want to think about my body and how I looked.

I feel much more comfortable now when I talk to people and do not feel confident about my weight. I used to be obsessed with how big my stomach was, but now I don't even think about it. I don't know how much I weigh and I'm not ashamed.

An important thing that really affected my relationship with the food was to learn that we take up more nutrients when we enjoy eating. Everything that kept the nose to eat beans made no difference.

The intelligence of our body is much more wise than we do, so it's time to listen to our body and trust it.