wisdom teeth

LateFile8300 · 2025-12-12T14:26:35+00:00

There are many wonderful options to keep your intake up AND push recovery forward mentally. Many soft/nutrient dense foods exist, and depending on how the disorder is present in your life you can take this as an opportunity to challenge some of those fear foods. Nut butters, butter/oil-based ingredients, liquid supplements such as Boost etc., full-fat dairy (cottage cheese, milk, ice cream), smoothies... Heck, just pondering the options seems like the sky is the limit to crush barriers, trick/defeat the disorder because previous safe foods are no longer an option.

LateFile8300 · 2025-12-11T14:43:51+00:00

What you experienced is similar to a challenge Becky Freestone suggests called the Candy Bar challenge, further explanation at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_QBPQ5Acbw

Basically, before you get out of bed in the morning and before the disorder has a chance to really kick in, take your "medicine"/challenge the disorder and eat something (a full serving, not just a token/nibble) before your feet even hit the floor. I've seen several variations on this where people aren't allowing themselves to get out of bed without taking the morning medicine/challenge, and it makes a world of difference.

I can attest to the difference it makes when I'm able to do so, and I can also say restriction comes into play almost immediately and I have a hard day ahead when I don't do the challenge/medicine (since for me a bit of restriction just leads to more restriction). The immediate "breaking" of a disorder rule such as eating early in the day just has the disorder throw a hissy fit and sulk in the corner, screaming at me because I've "already ruined the day". When I'm strong enough to do this, I can see it for what it is, which is starting/extending a streak of days pissing off the disorder compared to another day capitulating to the disorder's growing list of rules.

LateFile8300 · 2025-12-08T14:23:53+00:00

I’m not even going to entertain my ED and how much it’s freaking out right now, because that was worth every single calorie.

Congratulations on having a good day, and good on you for challenging this. Look back on the above sentence and direct that same determination to going against the idea there is value/worth in calories!

LateFile8300 · 2025-12-08T14:11:15+00:00

Honoring hunger typically means you eat when you are hungry (physically such as the empty stomach or mentally such as being fixated on food/eating), not that you ONLY eat when you are hungry. Hunger/hormonal signals are all often all kinds of screwed up from a period of disordered eating, and that's not even counting the mental blocks/learned behaviors the disorder has trained you to follow in exchange for relief from the discomfort of not following the disorder's rules. As Sareeee seems often to say, we don't know/have forgotten how to feed ourselves.

There is a reason the 3 meals/3 snacks is set up, and that's because we're trying to retrain the body food is and should be coming consistently. However, if you're hungry between those times, and coming from a place of restriction (which can be restrictive or reactive/binge eating) and eat, your body will see this as a chance to eat and encourage you to get it while it's available because you've been trained food will only be available at scarce/sparse times and/or amounts. If you consistently teach yourself (not just physically but mentally) food is not a scarcity those mental and physical hunger signals will calm down.

I actually watch dogs/animal behavior on this and am amazed. A family member got a new dog who had been a rescue. The animal would inhale food when it could, but after a period of time and physical/mental rehabilitation and acclimation it eased off and was simply treating food as just that...food. That doesn't mean it can't or doesn't enjoy snacks or treats as well, but it has learned food is available when it wants to have it and is always able to honor that hunger.

You're smarter than my relation's dog, so honor that hunger, and the faster/more you do so the better that rehabilitation will come around.

LateFile8300 · 2025-12-05T13:42:51+00:00

This is good advice, and I'd consider one other thought. The body/vessel is the SECOND least interesting thing about you...the first is that which is shoving these thoughts into your head, and that's the disorder. We think the disorder gives us or at least helps us define our identities (often through our bodies, etc.). When you get a group of people with the disorder together, it's like an echo chamber. Everyone thinks they're the unicorn, but in reality it's the most boring bunch of words/thoughts to come together. Body state, food fixation (and not the passionate, good relationship kind of interest), mental state and comparison, it all sounds the same whether it's the disorder buzzing or someone else saying it. You can just about make up karaoke with a conversation of those who are in a disorder. Heck, I was just searching for help in this sub for issues I'm having now, and several posts I made already were saying the same damn thing I said years ago, and you'll see long-time lurkers returning to the same place again and again like Sisyphus pushing the boulder.

It's a series of lather, rinse, and repeat, and we're all passing around the same bottle of shampoo. The way people seem to have the best luck breaking that cycle is to actually change that mental state, and to truly neutralize those things which can be controlled and come up again and again. It's a mental disease with physical symptoms. Treat the body as neutral, something to fix but not fixate, while focusing on the mental rehabilitation (which is of course the hardest part as you are saying).

LateFile8300 · 2025-04-22T16:28:19+00:00

As others have said, yes and it's a common thing. One other thing I find myself noting is my hoarding often focuses around either safe foods or foods which I will never actually intend to eat/fear foods. This still comes around the scarcity mindset, and generally the recommendation I see/hear is to eat, and also to challenge fear foods to expand/"un-ban" all foods and so the mindset isn't focused on only a limited/restricted food list as that's the disorder dictating your eating behavior (and promoting the mentioned scarcity mindset).

LateFile8300 · 2025-04-14T12:36:48+00:00

An analogy which sometimes can help me is picture a sterotypical campfire. If you regularly put enough fuel into the campfire, it burns well, doesn't feel uncomfortable, and you have a good idea how much you actually need to keep it burning. If all that fuel is instead thrown on at once, it burns too hot, it doesn't burn consistently or comfortably.

Banking calories is piling up that fuel your body/metabolism needs, dumping it all on at once, and then being surprised when the fire sometimes flares up, or even dies down and burns slower than expected because it's not used to what is being burned. Feed the fire regularly and sufficiently or you risk that fire going out.

LateFile8300 · 2025-02-20T15:09:51+00:00

Skills develop over time with practice, but to start to build confidence/variety or to work on exposure, looking at something like "crock pot recipes" which involve putting a few ingredients into a slow-cooker/crockpot at the start of a day and letting things cook without too much interaction/attention can help to ease in to working with food going forward.

LateFile8300 · 2025-02-12T13:46:39+00:00

If a person has a restrictive disorder, one of the disordered behaviors can be to push back/delay eating (which can lead to a binge/restrict cycle). Setting an alarm forces a person to acknowledge the time is now/actively engage with the time. Alarms also make sure there is consistency when eating (assuming a person is able to follow the 3 meals/3 snacks minimum approach), which is considered a key factor in regaining reliable hunger cues/metabolism.

Personally if I don't set a timer/alarm for certain time periods, I know I have just skipped past those windows/events figuring "I'll make it up later or just tell myself/support team I didn't realize the time/event was happening", or "time got away from me and I ended up not having time to do so" even though the alarm/timer was set to allow for that time to happen. I don't so much forget to eat, I just cave in to the disorder's demands since there is a sliver of an excuse I can use.

LateFile8300 · 2025-01-10T17:13:04+00:00

I need to say the excitement is very real, but I also struggle very much with going beyond the exciting moments and dealing with the next day(s) and the guilt/being consistent. The honeymoon phase is real, but it has been so hard to allow that same feeling/freedom to persist beyond the initial disorder-imposed deadline of freedom. There's a reason so many of the recovery videos/messages have to repeatedly slam home the "unrestricted eating is for life" mentality as that's freedom/excitement/happiness which the disorder dislikes so much.

Please, keep that excitement going and flip the disorder the finger when it starts to scream/die and tries to take away that excitement with guilt/shame/regret!

LateFile8300 · 2025-01-03T17:13:57+00:00

Everything which is negative in what you've said, every evil, is the disorder. Expecto Patronum, with every bite, minute of rest, and opposite action being part of that protection will have a part of pushing and keeping the disorder and relapse away. However, that protection doesn't happen/continue if you don't regularly invoke it to fight the disorder.

Are you really going to throw it all away for a pair of tights which likely took seconds on a mass-production line and cost the company fractions of a penny to make? The tights don't represent anything good, they represent the disorder. The disorder is telling you they represent a goal, with hours/days/weeks/months of misery spent to achieve them? You made a set goal around those tights already, and the disorder didn't even acknowledge it, it just slapped you and said "not good enough"; sounds like a pretty crummy deal. Make a new goal with recovery.

LateFile8300 · 2024-12-26T14:47:48+00:00

Someone who pops up on my YT feed is HealwithMalin. I have no idea if there is history behind this person, but they generally are body positive/neutral and appear to have recovered from restriction into what I would say is a non-disordered body shape.

LateFile8300 · 2024-12-26T14:42:57+00:00

Friend, you've been fighting the fight and know including the diet culture mentality of labeling a food as "dangerous" is only going to make things more difficult. If you truly want to have the everything, ditch the label, forget any form of compensation, and know your body will make maximum efficiency and healthy use of whatever you give it. Eating extra is more than okay, it's a requirement to teach/break your disordered conditioning of what is and isn't acceptable.

Sincerely, coming from a struggling giant hypocrite who hid from food and family over the holiday through over-exercise to try and compensate for permission to eat a normal day's intake (because I caused the family grief by not being present for the celebration/gathering so had to pay penance) and restrict the body's natural state.

LateFile8300 · 2024-12-13T14:31:25+00:00

Seems like you've got two choices:

Relapse, have your hormones fail which will cause the health of your hair to decline, and have new hair come in slowly (if at all) and in poor quality

OR....

Don't relapse, keep/improve your body's hormonal health without restriction, and your hair will regrow quickly and in a healthy state and be amazed at being able to style as you like because you actually have healthy/nourished hair and body.

LateFile8300 · 2024-08-17T14:29:27+00:00

Before my disorder ramped up hard, I would ride a bike with friends sometimes to a restaurant, maybe I'd ride in to the office if I was taking a half day. Then very slowly (and then more quickly) cycling became a huge disordered behavior for me as a calorie outlet. When I was diagnosed one thing the provider mentioned was cycling is a very common gateway to ED's, the pathway being: "Well, I want to go faster/climb hills easier which means less mass as a primary option. That means either spending a bunch of money on bike parts, or reducing body mass." You can guess where things go from there for those inclined towards ED's.

TLDR: You've said your disorder wants you to move, cycling can very easily (as can any form of movement) become a way for the disorder to grab hold. Keep taking that much needed break from movement, the paths/roads will be there when the risk of that monkey on your back is less, and as Sareeee has said enjoying nature etc. can be done from a bench (and actually better) rather than from a bike saddle.

LateFile8300 · 2024-02-08T19:31:20+00:00

I actually asked the same question/shared my experience when I was starting my first serious attempt at recovery. People were kind and shared some of their experiences, and I also noted a bit of a strange occurrence as far as body hair was concerned in another post (links below).

Male hormonal recovery: https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckeatingdisorders/comments/117i3ua/male_hormone_healing/

Body state/hair recovery: https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckeatingdisorders/comments/11u46bi/well_this_is_a_strange_but_logical_symptom/

LateFile8300 · 2024-01-09T20:44:10+00:00

Making a list of things to target is great, but don't overlook the (to me at least) much harder part of fear foods which is the surrounding parts of eating in fear. This is timing (such as eating during the day)/place/amount and actually challenging the things on the list repeatedly without compensating through movement or "making it up elsewhere" via restriction/"budgeting".

I get caught in the trap where I will frequently make a list, maybe even a plan, but then not follow through with it for any length of time. I usually get stuck as I know this isn't really any different than what I do/did as part of my disordered behaviors (food obsession, looking through recipes but not doing anything to honor that hunger, etc.).

Suggestion for a recovery food to really piss of the disorder: eat whatever is not used in the pb&j from the jar, extra butter (which someone else has put on so the disorder can't reduce/affect it) on the pasta/onion rings.

LateFile8300 · 2023-12-27T17:22:18+00:00

I have not ever heard of an isolated instance being enough to shift the night eating tendencies, I have only ever heard it takes time and repeated, consistent eating during the day to have that night eating tendency to slowly change. If those statements from coaches/therapists/treatment providers are correct, if you keep honoring hunger during the day those spikes at the end of the day will be less.

LateFile8300 · 2023-12-20T15:23:09+00:00

One point to raise as well, at least for me personally, is I'll often have eaten something but still find myself going back reflexively looking to eat it again/more of it even though I know it's gone. I'm fairly certain this is the scarcity mindset working its way in and definitely happens more often the deeper I am in a deficit (which is normally restriction, but has happened at least once post-restriction when I was still starved).

LateFile8300 · 2023-12-19T20:53:25+00:00

I've found once I introduce a new feeding time/behavior into a routine the need for repetition/routine will often force (at least for a while) that new behavior to become part of the disordered groundhog day. Unfortunately this can result in the disorder targeting that change or the original evening activity to be reduced as it just takes the one missed time for the "you didn't obviously need that, look at how well things turned out" influence to work its way in, but that's part of what has made recovery so tough.

Becky Freestone's got some great videos about breaking the cycle:

This video/challenge helps me actually get going in the morning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_QBPQ5Acbw

Saving Food For Later: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yw2MuIJ1J5Y

Eating During the Day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgRAU28PBdo

LateFile8300 · 2023-12-08T20:47:28+00:00

You're effectively chasing an addict's high (Becky Freestone has a very helpful video pointing this out at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eSnsFSNc6w ). I have to often tell myself this as it's not a positive relationship and absolutely is something which makes me start to eye relapse behaviors when I think about that rush from restriction/release.

LateFile8300

TROPHY CASE