This week I had the pleasure of speaking with Natalie Rose, an eating order therapist.

In the past, she herself struggled with eating disorders and forms of disordered eating but recovered and healed herself and set out on a journey to help others do the same.

For those of you who don’t know, eating disorders and disordered eating are not the same thing. While they are very similar in nature, they have a few distinct differences which we will discuss later in this post.

I’ve summarized my conversation with Natalie below. If you prefer to listen, scroll to the bottom of this post to listen to the podcast episode.

Binge Eating vs. Overeating: What is The Difference?

Overeating is subjective because everyone has different rules and needs for food.

One of the major signs is eating past fullness. While this is generally considered to be a bad thing, its not necessarily bad ALL the time. It’s normal overeat from time to time, especially during special occasions (holidays, celebrations, etc.).

Another common sign is emotional eating (whether it be negative or positive) to soothe emotions. We usually view this as a bad thing as well, but it doesn’t have to be. For example, eating birthday cake or wedding cake to celebrate an occasion is happy eating opposed to sad or bored eating.

On the other hand, binge eating is more so a loss of control. You are not eating for enjoyment anymore, or eating when you feel hunger but rather just eating because an intense energy is moving through your body leading you to eat. It can also be characterized as eating a lot in a very short period of time, so much that it feels abnormal.

Many people often confuse an eating disorder for food addiction when it really can be more serious than food addiction. They can also go hand in hand though.

Disordered Eating vs. Eating Disorders: What is the Difference?

Disordered eating is an unhealthy mindset and/or behaviors around food. It can be:

• Having rigid rules about how and when to eat
• An intense shame guilt over eating
• Mild forms of binge eating
• Poor body image
• All consuming thoughts about food,
• Forcing yourself on liquid diets or laxatives
• Over exercising to make up for food you ate

Eating disorders are all of the above but in such a severe form that it becomes life threatening. It can be:

• Inability to stop regardless of the known fact that it is bad or unhealthy
• Using food to regulate emotions/cope with emotion, etc. to a degree that creates impairment in your daily function
• Negatively impacting areas of your life

Eating disorders are not always physical. Someone with a normal appearance can have a very severe eating disorder and vice versa. They are more mental than anything.

Both can impact your life negatively and cause physical/internal issues outside of appearance.

Who diagnoses an eating disorder?

It is very difficult to diagnose an eating disorder. Doctors, therapists etc. can very easily miss the signs that someone has an eating disorder so it is best to see someone who specializes in eating disorders like an eating order therapist or clinician (hello Natalie!).

Doctors will run blood work, or assess your physical appearance and say you’re fine or tell you to go on a diet if you are overweight when you could potentially already be struggling with an eating disorder and going on a diet would make it even worse.

In these situations, like many, it is best to seek out a specalist in the field opposed to general assistance. If your knee was broken, you would probably would go to a knee doctor to get knee surgery opposed to going to your normal family doctor (unless he/she specializes in that).

Genetic/character traits that make people more prone to eating disorders or disordered eating

Eating disorders and disordered eating are a complex interplay of genetics, personality traits/temperament, experiences & lifestyle habits.

There is a large correlation between both autism and ADHD and eating disorders.

People with sensory sensitivities also are more prone to an eating disorder or disordered eating because they experience everything, including food and emotions differently.

People with the following personality traits that would be more likely to fall into an eating disorder or disordered eating:

• Perfectionist
• Impulse
• Rigid
• Sensitive to emotions

People with the following lifestyle traits would be more likely to fall into an eating disorder or disordered eating:

• Malnutrition (dieting/restrictive eating) is the most common thing that causes eating disorders. It can cause you to be fearful of food and weight gain

People with the following environmental traits would be more likely to fall into an eating disorder or disordered eating:

• Being raised in a diet centric household
• Following diet culture accounts (social media)
• Being bullied or excluded
• Not having food readily available

Most common treatment paths for eating disorders

Impatient treatments are rare since beds in hospitals are limited. This can cause even more issues when a patient is turned away from impatient because it causes them to believe they aren’t sick enough to be treated.

Only 6% of people with eating disorders actually look malnourished (extremely underweight) and generally those are the types of cases that would be accepted for impatient. This leaves the majority of people with eating disorders untreated.

If you have insurance or can afford it out of pocket, the best treatment path is to see both a dietitian and therapist who specialize in eating disorders as well as your family doctor so that they can regularly monitor your bloodwork and vitals.

You can check out affordable treatment options here:

Project HEAL

NEDA

If don’t have insurance or you can’t afford the treatment plans above, here are some things you can do on your own:

• Educate yourself on eating disorders
• Follow eating disorder coaches on social media
• Unfollow diet promoting accounts
• Self help tools/workbooks online – CCI
• Free support groups online or in person (think Facebook groups)

Coping with body dysmorphia

The more we check our appearance, or check out bodies/weight, the more we reinforce that body changes are bad and the worse our body dysmorphia gets.

We need to understand that it is normal for our bodies to change, and that having body fat is not necessarily a bad thing (in healthy amounts).

We should redirect our attention to other things that make us feel worthy and fulfilled to balance out that self perception we have when we feel our body dysmorphia coming on strong.

Body dysmorphia can be really mild or severe. It depends on where you are on the spectrum, but tune into what you are feeling when you start to feel it flare up. It can be a matter of you wearing clothes that don’t fit, you bloating, you feeling shame etc.

Tune into feelings to help yourself better navigate the reasoning behind this sensation.

A good thing to try is redirecting your mindset to positive thinking always instead of negative. A positive headspace is key to being happy in life.

Something didn’t go your way? There must be a positive reason it didn’t.

There’s something positive that comes out of EVERY situation, even the one’s you think are the absolute worst. Even if there is only 1 positive and 20 negatives about your situation, really hone in on that 1 positive thing.

Our brains have a tendency to focus on the negatives only and forget that positives even exist.

Final thoughts

Both Natalie and I are sending extra love to anyone who is resonating with any of the information here in this blog post today!

We suggest being open minded to treatment options or ways of gaining more understanding on the topic.

Be open to support from others.

Eating disorders and disordered eating are very common so you’re not alone in this.

The worst thing that you can do is isolate yourself and try to navigate this on your own.

You may not find direct support from your family or friends unfortunately, but there IS support out there. You just need to find it.

There is NOTHING to be ashamed about in all of this. You need to take care of yourself first.

Until next time,

Coach Emily