An eating disorder/being at risk is different for everyone. 

Things that are good:

Things that are disordered or potentially disordered:

I don’t know much about where you’re at, but from what you said, you’re at a place where I have been before and it’s a slippery slope. I highly recommend that you ditch the calorie counting. It’s inaccurate, counterintuitive, and destroys a person’s literal brain ability to eat based on physical need. Once you know what foods generally contain, there is absolutely no reason not to “ballpark” it. If you want to count something, try counting whatever “thing” you’ve decided is most important in your diet. I would suggest counting protein if you REALLY HAVE TO count something.

A really big thing to consider here is that someone close to you has expressed concern. Nutrition and food counting is EXTREMELY addictive and can very easily destroy mental wellness. Even if you do not have a full-on “Eating Disorder”, the fact that someone has noticed some potentially disordered habits starting to surface is a big red flag. Just some things to consider.

See, the thing about marketing is that it’s designed to appeal to in the element of pathos, or someone’s emotional reasoning. This is that to the extreme. “Perfect nutrition”, “cheat clean”, and all that pseudomotivational garbage I can’t even stand to look at is designed specifically to assign emotional and moral value to food. Food didn’t have such an “ingrained” moral value until the diet industry started playing on the concept of “sinful” and “guilt-free” to make hella cash off our insecurities with their contrived nonsense. However upset you are about this post, you are unable to claim that diet culture is not at play here.

The other thing about marketing is that people respond to it. Quest Bar’s marketing is motivational to some but highly toxic to others who struggle with disordered eating, perfectionism, obsession with control, etc etc. What I posted (their actual advertisements straight from their actual products) reads like a how-to manual for orthorexia nervosa and anorexia athletica. Eating disorders destroy lives and it is already hard enough to defeat them without the “health” industry trying to instill them anew in people trying in earnest to live a balanced lifestyle, not to mention beating it deeper into all of us working hard to beat the obsession with perfection and achievement. I understand if that is obviously not how Quest’s marketing affected you, but the 100+ people who have liked and reblogged my post seem to agree with my thoughts. Their feelings (and mine) are not invalid just because you think we are wrong.

Speaking of unfollows, you’re certainly encouraged to unfollow any blog that doesn’t offer content that you like. I’m therefore glad that you have removed my content from your timeline if you do not like seeing it.

…. oh, and I clicked way over 5k followers last night BECAUSE of this post. I certainly hope they are here because they like the content. :)

I honestly think orthorexia is one of the scariest ED’s because it’s completely invisible, even to some health professionals who know what to look for. To the general American public, a person with orthorexia just looks like someone who is extremely conscious of healthy eating. Orthorexic habits are even reinforced in the medical and fitness industries, which makes it an extremely hard mindset to break. Doctors, nutritionists, and fitness professionals (and like 95% of “fitblrs” tbh) frequently urge people to “eat clean” to achieve a healthier body and mind, which makes it almost impossible for a struggling orthorexic to receive medical recovery advice. From preschool age we’re admonished that “you are what you eat” so do you want to be made out of Twinkies and Cheetos? This constant, sneaky barrage of illogical morality can easily cause a skewed, fear-based relationship with food and eating especially in individuals who are predisposed to anxiety and perfectionism. Orthorexia is what happens when an individual’s desire to consume “healthy”, “clean” or “pure” foods becomes an obsession, characterized by intense fear or loathing of “unclean” foods, stringent guidelines for what foods are acceptable, and a developed intolerance to foods deemed unacceptable (sometimes psychosomatic, sometimes not). Currently there is very little viable research on orthorexia, but it shares many characteristics with other restrictive eating disorders and can be just as harmful as some of the more well-known ED’s.

The reality is that no food is inherently good or bad. Foods should be chosen and consumed with your particular lifestyle in mind, not anyone else’s. Eating “unclean” foods won’t make or break you. Your body is an adaptable hybrid machine that in all practicality can run on Skippy peanut butter about the same as it would run on 100% organic unsweetened reduced-fat almond butter. Your body will be totally A-OK if you eat pretty ”healthy” most of the time but also eat kinda ”unhealthy” some of the time. It’s about moderation, and easing up on yourself. If your sense of self-worth is determined by the “cleanliness” of your diet, the first step to take is to discover different, positive, constructive things that actually boost your feeling of self worth. Again, no food is inherently good or bad, nor does it have the power to affect your worth as a person.

You can also try eating a bit of one of your fear foods, whatever they may be for you. The only way to defeat orthorexia is to face the fear a little bit at a time and realize that the food is just food. It’s not making you dirty or unhealthy or erasing your worth. I’m not saying it isn’t going to feel awful at first. You’re not wrong for feeling awful - whatever you are feeling is always 100% valid - but try to understand that the awful feeling isn’t really in your body, it’s in your emotions. Learn to handle and process the emotions as they come. Uncross the wires and feel the things that you’ve been avoiding. And this can be a slow process. But to recover, you have to try.

There are also resources available in most places - if you just want some feedback and conversation with other people who may share your struggle, see if you can find a NEDA discussion group (always free and anonymous). Best wishes to you.

Unfortunately there really isn’t a “just stop”. 

My advice is to find a way to talk about it. Sometimes the “concepts” of food and eating become much bigger in our minds than what they actually are. In the way that “a brownie” becomes failure, indulgence, unhealth, weight gain, lack of willpower, judgment upon self worth, “sinful”, “binge trigger” etc. Realize that a brownie is none of those things. It is just a brownie. Anything else it makes you feel is something you have assigned to it for whatever reason.

To disengage from those concepts that are making you obsessive, try finding a way to discuss your feelings. Sometimes, talking about something makes it more real and more manageable, instead of a giant scary undefined “something” that you don’t know where to start. Think of friends you could discuss it with (friends that won’t dismiss you or encourage your habits) or find a local NEDA support group (free and anonymous).

Eating disorder notwithstanding, no one has the right to comment on your eating, what you’re eating, or how you’re eating it. It’s unfortunately not as easy as telling your parents not to comment on your eating though. Those comments are something that should never have happened in the first place, but of course then an entirely unsupervised meal time often leads to meal skipping in the case of eating disorders, so you may have to find a compromise with your parents.

Many people don’t understand that eating disorders and disordered eating patterns are not about the food, but about an underlying emotional process that one is coping with by using disordered behaviors. Your dad might think that if he can make you eat “normally” then that will fix whatever he thinks the problem is. Obviously that’s the furthest thing from the truth - being forced to do anything at all is often extremely triggering and just makes the ED thoughts stronger - but the main priority here seems to be to simply alleviate some of the meal time stress, not necessarily making your parents understand WHY it is stressful. Maybe that can come later, but for now, do what you can.

I feel like the best thing to do would be for you to approach them in a friendly neutral way, and ask them kindly if they would stop making those comments? You don’t have to tell them about the eating disorder, but you could try to make them understand that those comments are very stressful and uncomfortable for you, and that it makes it very difficult for you to enjoy your meal time with them. However, I strongly encourage you to stay extra mindful of your own behavior. If they agree to stop making comments but you begin to eat less, that will make the comments more frequent and stressful. If both you and they can coexist in this way, hopefully the stress will continue to dissipate and you can focus on other areas of your recovery. This is a major step though.

I’m very proud of you for eating at meal times. Keep up the good work.

Well, you can probably believe her about not being hungry. One of the biggest side effects of starvation is loss of appetite. I’m not trying to make light of the situation at all, but rather advising you not to say she’s lying or be like “Oh come on, don’t you like pizza??” or whatever.

I’m really sensitive to this stuff and might possibly be overreacting to a vague description. But from what you are saying, and from my own experience with women of school age/as one myself, these sound like clearly disordered eating habits. (I can’t say she has “an eating disorder” because that’s not a diagnosis for me to make.) If that is the case, the best thing to do is to be there for her, but not overbearingly so. If you know there is some stuff happening in her life, make sure she knows you’re there to talk. Don’t comment on her eating habits or her appearance. These comments can be very uncomfortable and triggering. If you feel it is advisable, you can try privately asking her if there is anything she would like to discuss, as you have noticed she has been acting differently and as a friend you are worried.

Because an eating disorder is really not about the actual food, or even really about her body image, unfortunately you can’t fix the problem by just getting her to eat. See if you can try to comprehend the underlying emotional issue and keep that in primary perspective - for example, if she has a deep internal phobia of failure and is coping with it by restrictively controlling her eating, making her eat a giant breakfast isn’t going to make that fear go away (although it will help her function physically, yes). If she herself expresses concern that she may be suffering an eating disorder or similar, you can certainly support her in many ways. You can encourage her to eat, not for looks but to help her body be healthy. Compliment her small victories (if she agrees to eat an apple and a spoonful of soup when she would otherwise have had nothing, compliment her on eating even that little amount). You can compliment her in ways that have nothing to do with her appearance. You can encourage her to reach out for other support (parents, other family, medical assistance). Be there for her. But understand that you probably can’t solve the issue on your own, and be prepared for that.

I really hope she finds herself in a better place. If other people on here have additional/better input, please feel free to reblog or reply!

If you force your body into making “fitness goals” while actively restricting, you are not going to see the results you want. You are only going to get sicker. Fitness is a physical, mental, and emotional thing. It involves striving for complete, overall health. If you are refusing to try restoring your body to physical health, you cannot improve your fitness. I’m sorry if I am sounding harsh, but I really hope you realize how disordered this thought process is. Picking up a new fitness routine while underweight, especially if it’s underweight due to ED, can easily kill you.

Trying to make fitness improvements while actively restricting is like saying “I’m going to learn to play the piano but I’m also deliberately going to cut my hands off.” I do strongly encourage you to make positive fitness goals! But, I recommend that you use your fitness goals as a way to cope with the scale weight you will gain during recovery. (or even better, maybe a goal to work towards is to not weigh yourself/weigh yourself less as you work on fitness and recovery?

I know it sounds like the most terrifying thing, but intense fear of weight gain is literally a mental, physiological side effect of physical starvation. If you gain weight, over time you will be less terrified of gaining weight because your body will no longer be panicking and your hormones will start to go back to normal.

It sounds like you may benefit from a little support (if you don’t have some already) so I will encourage you to check out the NEDA site and perhaps find a discussion group near you. These are open groups that are in a neutral, non-medical environment and are not overseen by medical professionals. If you need more resources, these groups are a good way to find them in your area.

Any recovery blogs that want to contribute to this response would be appreciated. And anon, we are here for you.

No meal-logging site would be such a terrible idea if it was ONLY nutritional analysis. But every site I’ve been to, tends to contain these insidious little extras.

Most calorie counting sites WILL initially recommend that you eat 1200-1400 calories a day to lose weight, if you are female. This is horrifying. That level of calorie restriction is viewed by the body as starvation (unless you are a 4’10”, sedentary, 80-year-old woman). Eating in this manner to lose weight is a short-term, blind weight loss method. I say “blind weight loss” because you will, in fact, lose weight. However, your body will be in such a deficit that instead of a steady fat burn/promotion of energy levels to get you moving and preserve your beneficial lean tissue, it will indiscriminately offload body mass that it can no longer sustain - fat, water, muscle tissue (that includes your heart), bone tissue, and organ tissue (that includes your brain). After a relatively short period of time on this type of intake, the body starts cutting down on “unnecessary” calorie expenditure so you don’t die during “the famine”, so your energy levels drop, your resting calorie burn drops. Literally the amount of calories you burn doing nothing at all, starts to decrease quickly simply because you aren’t eating enough for your body to be willing to actually use calories. And the kicker? That kind of weight loss (thankfully) is not maintainable. Restriction does nothing for your fitness, health, or long-term sustainable weight loss. The reality is that even a person “at a healthy weight” can not maintain their basic health and fitness on 1200-1400 calories. But all logging sites will probably recommend exactly this to you.  Before you enter any logging site at all, please be prepared to mentally combat that awful, dangerous part of “weight loss science”.

The other shitty thing about logging sites is that they tend to assign a “grade” to your food. It’s bullshit. Any site that grades Diet Coke an A (because it’s low in fat and sugar, hooray!!) but grades fresh avocado a C- (because it’s SO high in EVIL EVIL FAT, boooo) is just ridiculous. What a great and imaginative way to give people orthorexia and food fear.

However, meal logging can be very educational for someone who has no real perspective on what they eat, how they eat, what nutritional planning looks like, and how to get the nutrition they need. My main advice to you is to consider it at a short-term educational experience. It’s a scary road when you allow yourself to get dependent on food logging to “keep you on track”. Consider the idea of using food logging to learn portions, and then learn to eyeball the portions instead of weighing or measuring every single thing that goes into your mouth. Food logging can be a helpful, positive experience. It can also be a bottomless pit that takes all the joy out of eating and turns an “iffy” relationship with food into a straight-up eating disorder.

Don’t let your food become numbers.

Reminder that “weight restored” isn’t the same as “health restored”. If you are eating the minimum amount to gain to a “healthy weight”, you are still not eating enough for your brain and internal organs to recover. You could be sitting “healthy” at BMI 20 or whatever, but still have weakened heart tissue struggling to regain its strength. Your skin is rushing to regenerate, your digestive system is working overtime to send wonderful vitamins and nutrients to the recovering cells, your muscles are trying to firm and tighten, your brain is restoring synaptic paths… all of those things require unbelievable amounts of energy, which you must give to your body, by way of food.

Please eat, beautiful. That arbitrary scale number has no idea what frantic healing processes are happening inside your body right now.