Trigger Warning // mental health, disordered eating, near-death experiences.
A few months back, I remember seeing some concerning discourse minimizing the impact eating disorders have on someone’s life. I wanted to say something at the time, but wasn’t in a place where I could. For years, I’ve struggled with an eating disorder that I didn’t know was there. It’s claimed months of time from my work over the years, and has sent me to the emergency room on more than one occasion. Today, I share the many other ways a pervasive eating disorder impacts my life on an ongoing basis.
In 2023, I was diagnosed with Bulimia Nervosa by my psychologist, and more specifically classified with Orthorexia Nervosa in 2024 by my nutritionist. The way this manifests in my life is with a hyper focus on restricting the number of “unhealthy” foods, over-exercising by spending too much time at the gym or on the ice, and then going through periods of binges and purges during nutrient deficits. In those moments, many wrongfully assume that we have full control over our actions. The truth is far more complicated.
What’s in a meal?
The first big thing I needed to address was my notion of what a proper meal was. I grew up in the 90’s when we were being force-fed the food pyramid and never felt like I got proper education when it came to what “nutrition” looked like. When I first started seeing my therapist and nutritionist, they had me describe what I would eat on a given day. At the time, my daily routine was something like this:
- A cup of coffee in the morning.
- A small lunch, usually a soup, salad, or a sandwich.
- A cup of coffee in the afternoon.
- Dinner, usually a protein or carb and vegetable.
- Small desert, IF I worked out that day.
After going through this list with them, they both looked at me and said, “what if I told you that you’re malnourished?” I was a bit dumbfounded because this was largely how I fed myself since high school. Looking at this today, I can see just how much I was missing.
She introduced me to the plate-by-plate approach and helped me understand what should be included in snacks and meals at the very minimum. Given my involvement in athletics, she helped me assemble a menu of options for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, along with a comprehensive list of snacks and the high level breakdown of their nutrient balance. She helped me understand my floor (i.e. my minimum intake) and what I should be aiming for after hockey games and intense workouts.
Eating a meal is not an easy task for me. It takes active planning, thought, and scheduling to make sure I’m getting a balance of things. Eventually, this will become second nature for me like it is for so many.
Stop assigning morality to food
Whether it’s “good” or “bad”, “healthy” or “unhealthy”, “natural” or “synthetic”, “processed” or “unprocessed”, these words are thrown around in everyday conversations with others. And with these assigned moralities, bring bias and judgment. It’s hard to scroll through Instagram these days without having some nutrition “influencer” come across your feed spewing some nonsense about the latest fad diet or trend (including the Ozempic craze).
Instead of assigning morality to food, try thinking about them instead as nutrient dense or nutrient sparse. Nutrient dense foods have lots of vitamins, nutrients, and minerals. When foods are dense with nutrients, you need to consume less for your body to get what it needs from them. Conversely, when foods are sparse with nutrients, you need to eat more to get your fill. Nutrient sparse foods also tend to contain more fat, added sugars, and sodium, elements we don’t need as much on a daily basis. I’m not saying to sit down and read the ingredient list, but a quick glance at the nutrition information on the side of the package can help you quickly understand if you’re working with a nutrient dense or sparse food.
By understanding the density of nutrients in food, I’m also able to better select snack items that I need to bring out into the field on missions. We’re often away from command for several hours and having foods that are nutrient dense, packed with protein and carbs, is great to keep your body moving.
Relearning hunger queues
My eating disorder started when I was very young and it started with behaviors that many parents probably don’t bat an eye at. For example, my parents kept a tight schedule around when we were allowed to get food from the kitchen. If we didn’t finish dinner, we weren’t allowed to get any snacks or dessert even if the food they made was inedible. I know they were just doing what they thought was best, but those practices taught me to ignore my body’s signs of hunger. It was so bad, other people would hear my stomach before I would notice that I was hungry at all.
I’m better today about knowing when I’m hungry and when I need to get food, but my body is still learning to regulate itself and the “I’m full” signal is still something that I’m actively relearning.
From fall-risk to recovery
Back in June, I was talking to my nutritionist about how I often get light-headed to the point of collapsing. It’s happened to me frequently since my childhood, and those close to me can tell when it hits me. When I described what was going on with my nutritionist, she explained that it was likely something I was experiencing due to my eating disorder. She asked that the next time I see my primary care taker, to have her take an orthostatic test and send the results her way. To my surprise, this very simple test was finally able to track why I get so lightheaded all the time.
I spent some time during my next nutrition appointment going over the results with my nutritionist. I wanted to understand the purpose of each stage, how to perform the test myself, and report on the results. With this little bit of information, I was able to pull together a quick application I could install on my Garmin that would take this test using built-in sensors on my watch.
Source: https://github.com/mjpitz/orthostatic
But sure enough, she was right. As my nutrition improved, moments where I find myself light-headed have significantly decreased as my orthostatic tests returned to a healthy range. I’m by no means out of the fall-risk realm yet, but I am doing much better than I was.
Rebuilding trust in the medical system
Before my therapist and nutritionist, no medical professional could tell me what was wrong during these episodes. I went to primary care, where my doctor gave me a shot for nausea, ran countless tests, only to throw another pill at me and tell me my estrogen was the problem (🙄). I’ve been rushed to the ER countless times, only to have them pump me full of an IV and then send me on my way. No follow up, no concern, even when I was there multiple times in one week. When I described these events to my nutritionist, she said that most medical professionals cannot diagnose an eating disorder even when it’s sitting right in front of them. We talked about how if I saw a nutrition-aware doctor, I would have likely been put onto a crash cart given the conditions I described.
Arguably, I still have a long way to go in this regard. Rebuilding trust isn’t something that happens overnight. It requires consistency in practice. My current support team has certainly done their fair share of helping me get me to a place where I can trust that system again.
So. Eating disorders are no laughing matter. The damage they do have lingering effects that last years and years to come. They should be treated as serious as many other life-threatening conditions (because they are). Just because someone’s experience with them is very shallow, doesn’t mean it has life-altering consequences for others.
Remember, all food is guilt-free. Until next time. ~ Ciao bella!