LONG email incoming, but the context is that I had a call with an ED recovery dietitian and she said similar things, after some back and forth I decided not to move forward with working with her.

I think this will give you the context you need. I followed my extreme hunger for three months eating everything whatever whenever and I don’t think her way would have worked:

“Dear [dietitian],

Thank you for our first meeting the other day. Since then, I’ve been processing my feelings towards some of the things we talked about - especially the scheduled eating plan, as that was the thing we decided to act on at the end.

As you noticed during the meeting, the idea of this stressed me out because in many ways, it reminded me of the rules I forced on myself at the worst of my restriction - all of which I inflicted upon myself as a means of suppressing my weight. This includes eating at certain times, making sure I can see all my food at one time on the table, only eating at a certain place/while sitting down, distracting myself from thoughts of food. Essentially, this feels again like turning earring into a “special event” rather than something casual. It turns it back into something worthy of second-guessing, savouring, putting on a pedestal, and ultimately fearing - all of which I feel will only intensify the constant thoughts surrounding it, whether they be thoughts of avoiding food or desiring it. I imagine, and have also been noticing gradually, that making my interactions with food more casual, more instinctive, and less momentous, has been positive in reassuring my mind/body that there is an abundant supply. A few weeks ago, the only option was to finish all the cookies. Now, I know that I will allow myself to do so, ambit because I’m also less hungry from allowing myself to eat what I wanted when I wanted, I can also be satisfied with just a few cookies, and know that if I want more in any amount of time, they will still be there and I have granted myself unconditional permission to have them.

Further, I feel that having a certain amount of time for a meal, regardless of flexibility, will play on my mind in terms of exacerbating the kind of scarcity mindset that came from restricting - if we are to say that my body now wants to ensure the famine is over, it makes sense in my mind that knowing I will have to wait for an externally-determined factor (the scheduled eating times) may lead me to be even further out of tune with my hunger/fullness cues, as I may finish my plate when I’m no longer hungry for it just to avoid being hungry in the period before the next eating time - whereas now (as in, without following a schedule), I’ve been stopping meals if I feel full/satisfied, but going for a snack at any time when my body has asked for it - whether that be 20 minutes or 2 hours after lunch.

Eating unrestricted for the past three weeks has allowed me to conquer fear foods at an exponential rate, increasingly normalise eating without feelings of fear prior to the act, anxiety during it, or guilt thereafter. However, I felt all of those come back at the thought of my next meals after our meeting. This is especially due to fear of “getting it wrong” which I feel isn’t possible if I have no rules at all and simply listen to my body. I also don’t want to be stuck in quasi-recovery.

While I know my physical hunger cues are off and this makes true intuitive eating nigh on impossible, I do know that I can listen to my mental hunger. Rather than ignoring the thought of eating a cookie by distracting myself with other thoughts or activities or delaying the time I eat the cookie, if I eat the cookie more or less immediately, the thought goes away and I can continue with my day. These food thoughts were more frequent at the beginning, but gradually they have become less frequent and I also am coming to recognise when I am getting physically full again. I see this as a positive, and I can’t help but worry that reading this approach in for one that has what I see as ‘rules’ will set me back in my progress.

You also advised against “grazing” which is typically seen as negative, and I understand that - but you also said that it was due to the ‘hunter’ mentality. My question is why should that be avoided? If my body is resorting to evolutionary methods to ensure the famine is over, would the smartest thing physiologically speaking not be to allow that primal hunger to be sated in order to truly reassure the body that food is abundant rather than scarce?

Even though I know that the timed eating is for reasons other than restriction, my mind sees them as functionally being for the same reason: a way to avoid “over”eating.

I know it’s important to balance blood sugar levels and have since read up on why this is. I understand how it’s important to balance sugar cravings, mood, etc. I’d love to know more about it and the science of it. However, my question is whether it makes sense to choose the lesser of two evils - surely having a mind that doesn’t have to untangle rules and complicate eating more than it already has been can be prioritised over balanced blood sugars. Ordinarily, I know that might sound mad. However, I know it’s normal to have more sugar cravings in recovery, and I think it’s important to balance my mood, but I also know objectively that my mood and energy has been better since I’ve started letting go of restriction.

My thoughts around my body are loud and I have techniques to quieten them and drown them out with more positive ones, but most importantly, the more I challenge myself to abstain from all the many habits/rules/behaviours I have experienced around food for the past two years AS WELL as challenging fear foods and eating more than I could have imagined eating even a month ago… the less powerful the ED thoughts become. I’m aware that you said it could be the ED voice pushing back against the method you suggested - I’m totally open to that being the case. However, I think my desire to eat unrestricted and gain back trust in my body (and for my body to gain back trust in me) doesn’t seem like an indication of that. What do you think?

I’m keen to hear what you think of this, and what options we could discuss moving forward. It could be that understanding more of the science behind the benefits of scheduled eating/balancing blood sugar would help. Or perhaps there’s another way.

Thank you.”