Anorexic Diet - Learn How To Eat Healthy Again

The Anorexic diet leads to muscle atrophy and possibly heart failure. During eating disorder recovery, part of the treatment is conquering anorexia demons, re-learning how to eat healthy and building muscle mass.

This is basic, grade-school nutrition, but I will say it anyway...

Every orgran in the body - including the brain - requires nourishment and "fuel" to keep it functioning properly.

If someone on an anorexic diet severely restricts their calorie intake to well under 1,000 calories per day for extended periods of time, then their entire health is in jeopardy.

One of the anorexia symptoms is muscle atrophy. This refers to the deterioration of the muscles within the body.

Most people don't really stop to think about this, but the heart is a muscle. If muscle deterioration gets to a certain point, the heart will stop functioning.

All of these heartaches (literally!) can be helped with the assistance of a Dietitian or Nutritionist who has had experience with eating disorders. This is key!

Coming Off Of An Anorexic Diet - The Refeeding Process

When an individual has been on an anorexic diet and starving themselves for quite some time, it's possible that they may no longer able to process or digest food. This is a result of the digestive system completely shutting down.

I had this happen to me. Don't let it happen to you!

Once I was finally admitted into Remuda Ranch, I began a refeeding process.

I started out on a liquids-only meal plan. This consisted of a whole lot of soups, along with several Ensure vitamin drinks spread out throughout the day. Thankfully, Ensure doesn't taste all that bad - especially the chocolate!

From there, I graduated to a soft food diet, which meant that the items in my meal plan were easy to chew, swallow and digest - such as scrambled eggs, yogurt or mashed potatoes.

The entire refeeding process took me several weeks, but I'm guessing that the time frame could be different for everyone, depending on the severity of the health issues.

Learning How To Keep Eat Healthy After The Anorexic Diet

One of the first things that was drilled into my head while undergoing anorexia treatment was the obvious fact that calorie-counting is not a useful way to spend my time.

Being overly cautious and focused on the amount of calories in food only fosters obsession with weight and numbers. It also enforces the concept of "good and bad" foods, which is a perfect example of the cognitive distortions (black or white thinking) present in an eating disorder patient.

The anorexic diet is very strict, not to mention incredibly unhealthy.

In my treatment program, the Dietitians tried to enforce the concept that all foods can be eaten, within moderation.

During restaurant and snack outings, we were never told that any foods were off limits - even if they were fatty or high in calories.

In fact, ordering dessert was encouraged because it was considered a challenge to those who were calorie-counters and also for those who used such foods during episodes of binge eating.

The focus of my meal plan was to incorporate a high amount of protein and relatively low amounts of fat. The high protien helps in building muscle mass and hopefully reversing some of the damage that's been done to the body.

It's worth mentioning that this was a closely monitored food plan. Calorie intake, weight, and how my diet was balanced (with grains, fruits, veggies, etc.) was always supervised, while at the same time, allowing for choice and an "everything-in-modertation" philosophy.

Before you can be discharged from Remuda Ranch, you work with your Dietitian to put together a 2-week meal plan for use when you get home. The challenge comes in sticking to it!

However, if you have an outpatient team of professionals to help with your treatment of anorexia, then this provides the required support and accountability needed to break the cycle of the anorexic diet.

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