“How do I know if I have an eating disorder?”
The other day a friend of mine asked me this question…
She had been seeing my posts on facebook and started realizing her relationship with food wasn’t ideal.
But now what?
It’s a great first step to identify you have a problem like an eating disorder.
But now you have to do something about it!
And that’s scary.
So I asked Wendy Wright, an eating disorder expert with over 20 years of experience in the field. She has a free counseling session you can access on her website, and she’s located in Colorado.
Wendy is awesome. I highly recommend you take her up on her free counseling session. She’s starting a private practice and would love to help you!
Her website is wendywrightcounseling.com.
And OH My God!!! I loved our conversation!!!
Here’s what I liked most about our conversation:
- Wendy used to struggled with an eating disorder for many years and she has been through the trenches! So her advice is proven.
- Wendy likes skiing and so do I! Just a random tidbit that made me smile 🙂
- She gives a TON of actionable advice on eating disorders from recognizing them to starting the process of healing.
How do I know if I have an eating disorder?
Here are a few practical techniques and action steps:
To identify if you have a food struggle:
- Notice how much distress food causes you when you “break” a rule or do something “bad”. Ideally, food emotional reactions should be neutral. So if you are having strong emotional reactions to food this could be a warning sign you have an eating disorder
- How many thoughts throughout the day are about food? If you constantly think and worry and fret and panic about food, then that’s a sign you might have an eating disorder.
To start the process of Intuitive Eating:
- Shift away from judgment and into curiosity. For one week just notice what comes up around food. If you are able to catch yourself eating a bag of chips, in response to a feeling of anger, you’ve already made a lot of progress bringing awareness to your automatic tendencies!
To understand and release the fear of eating “unhealthy”:
- It can be scary to start to eat foods you previously forbid yourself. You might think “I’ll be eating donuts 10 years from now”! But let’s test that hypothesis. You probably will start tiring of donuts much quicker than that!!! Wendy said the process of eating foods you forbid and normalizing them, in longer situations, takes a few months. In my experience, most people see a dramatic relief almost right away.
Finally, I want to wrap up this article by sharing a story that Wendy shared …
She was having a hard time in life, to say the least. Divorce, housing problems, two kids, career change, etc, etc. She’d been struggling with an eating disorder for years …
And she decided to call one of the founders of Intuitive Eating, Elyse.
Elyse just said “You’re OK.”
Lastly, if you haven’t seen my article on Weight Watchers, where I dive into the ‘science’ Weight Watcher’s uses to support their weight loss claims, I highly suggest you do so!
Basically Weight Watcher’s uses ‘science’ that only lasts up to 12 months and they conveniently forget to mention all the negative side effects of dieting! And this is on their own website too! Click here to read more.
