How clean eating was a trap to my healthy eating mental disorder – ORTHOREXIA
Are you on a healthy eating quest, a track that promises to bring you all the energy that you need, and that promises a better leaner fitter body?
Back in 2000 I started on an extremely healthy food path, and it became an obsession, as I became judgmental about food more so than I had ever been, believing what I ate was the best way and the only way everyone should eat. I was a right pain in the ass I’m sure. It was a long phase that I went into willingly… but now I know I went in so deeply for all the wrong reasons.
I understand now that this amount of obsession can be described as an eating disorder and which then indicates that it could lead to or has already come from some mental health issues. My quest for perfection with my energy, and my body has brought me full circle in my journey to recognize what it is that I was missing and what I needed rather than looking at food to be the cure for the feeling of lack of control I had.
Being a painfully shy girl, and finding it difficult to freely express myself without the fear and dread of the ‘fall out’ It would cause if I did say what I thought, and having lost all my ease to be playful, I sought out a way to control something. That ended up being my food. I found that being healthy and raw brought with it a tribe of similar thinking women, and my need to belong was fulfilled. I had a tribe of woman who thought and talked like I did. I mattered for the first time in my life on what felt like a big scale.
I followed the Perfect God Given Pure Food Good Mood Raw Detox Diet for years. I even taught about raw organic, vegan food and the gut, the bacteria, the enzymes, the electrolytes, the probiotics, the body pH, the water quality, IT sucked the fun right out of my life and mirrored what I was really trying to control in my life. The fun had been sucked away from me I was practical, serious, efficient, hard working, and put in a lot I mean a lot of effort to lake things right and I never saw the link, not until I was metabolically at an all time low. My body gave up I was exhausted, I got skin t-rashes, back problems, ovarian cysts my body was screaming for me to stop.
It was not what I was eating so much as what was eating me?
I was fucked off bored and not in a relationship that I fantasized about. But I was looking to sort all that out with restricting and being elitist extreme about food. I was having no fun and I was dead inside.
This was what ORTHOREXIA did for me, a trap and obsession of eating only the healthiest food can be described as a mental disorder, but it showed me that it was just a mirror of what was happening in my everyday life.
I strongly believe that ‘as you are with one thing, so you are with everything’, so this taught me and I saw that I had to change, and let go of all the beliefs I had been taught about food, let go of my perspective of healthy because I was far from healthy even if I was eating the 90{6a14cc849908c46212f3d2c8a81eada984febec31535ea1cc7f55de4f8a4ba8e} best foods on the planet.
It was hard to switch off the habit and beliefs but I found a way and I now help and support women to come home to their bodies and learn to eat and enjoy food again. Be healthier than ever and enjoy a strong lean flexible body that feels energized, ALIVE and fun to be in again.
A woman who feels confident in her body and in her own skin, is far more vibrant and attractive than a women seeking physical perfection at all cost, using food to control her body and how she feels, who’s energy is one that comes from judgment and restriction.
I was still overeating on healthy food, I was still seeking fulfillment and using food to fill the gaps, be that junk or healthy food there was still a huge chunk missing. Finding this missing nutrient saved my life. Being able to feel ALIVE in my body and enjoy my life is far, far better than creating the perfect meal that gives me the exact number of nutrients needed in my day. That’s a life-killing recipe for sure.
That’s why I am dedicated to support women come home to their bodies, and find their missing nutrients. I offer a Total Body Reset that is a complete MBS program that turned my attitude to my body and food around 180°. – thankfully !
This is how I support women who are confused about their body, want to learn how to eat again, discover that food can be fun, and that ether is no diet in the world that can ever wash away the emotions and belief that trigger us to use food when we need more love and affection.
Total Body Reset a 3 month group program that re-educates you about food, how to come home and reconnect with your body and find that feeling of peace, strength and trust in your self again.
I don’t know anyone who does not emotionally eat and could do with a spring clean around food either on a retreat or on a program to unravel the mess we have got into about food, eating and our bodies.
Fiona X
Body Renewer
Inspired to write this after the BBC produced this short documentary. http://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-england-43033042/orthorexia-my-healthy-food-eating-disorder
