Answering Your Questions on Recovery, Food Addiction and Calorie Restricted Diets

By: Kelsey Pukala, dietitian at Nourishing Minds Nutrition

I really enjoy being a practitioner in this day and age when social media is exploding, even though I definitely don’t love everything about social media.  But, something I do love is connecting with people so easily. It’s also great receiving questions from you all! I wanted to answer a few more questions that we received through the Nourishing Minds Nutrition Instagram account.  My guess is that more than one of you have had any one of these questions! So, I hope you fine this helpful.

Does eating fear foods in recovery feel easier to some than others?  I feel stuck.

First of all, eating fear foods is so incredibly difficult and brave.  Please don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise! This is tough to answer because it’s impossible for me to quantify everyone’s experience throughout recovery, but I think this looks different for everyone.  Eating disorders and disordered eating morph, change, manipulate and appear differently in every person who experiences them. For some, eating fear foods may be less anxiety-producing then other parts of recovery like pulling back on exercise or adding supplements to a meal plan.  For others, eating fear foods may be the most difficult and anxiety-producing part of the process. Wherever you find yourself, that’s okay. Recovery isn’t easy. Period.

Feeling stuck can be so frustrating!  And I hope I’m not the first person to remind you that recovery isn’t linear.  I would recommend getting curious about your “stuck-ness.” Recognizing you feel stuck is AWESOME.  Can you take another step forward and get curious about the “why” behind the stuck feeling? What feels scary about eating a fear food?  Do you have one fear food that is less scary than another? You can always start with something a little less scary before moving to your most feared food.  The longer you avoid something, the bigger and scarier it will become! Repeated exposure (while intimidating) is SO helpful for desensitization around certain foods.

Food Science makes processed food more addictive.  How can you be an intuitive eater with that?

To be completely honest, I was a little stumped by this question at first because “processed food” can mean a lot of different things!  That’s probably an important place to start… everything we eat has some degree of processing. From a box of cereal to a raw almond. Unless you live on a farm and/or eat things you have grown, pretty much all of our food goes through processing.  That’s for a lot of reasons, but mostly for food safety. Something else that’s important to note is that food addiction is not an evidence-based theory. As far as we know, it’s not possible to be addicted to food. Marci Evans is a fabulous Dietitian who has done a LOT of research into this topic, so if you‘re curious about reading more, you can here: https://marcird.com/food-addiction-what-does-the-research-say/

To answer your question, I’m going to assume that by “processed food” you mean things like packaged foods.  In order to keep food shelf stable, normally certain ingredients are added to help retain the integrity of the product, so the quality doesn’t decline in a short amount of time.  This is not a good or bad thing… just the reality. If certain processed foods feel addictive to you, I would encourage you to think about what feels addicting? Is it the flavor?  Texture? Sweetness? What about them do you enjoy? And THEN I would ask if there is any possibility that you restrict those types of foods? Anytime food is restricted, it can lead to huge cravings that can absolutely make someone feel addicted to it.  Intuitive Eating doesn’t necessarily mean “moderation” and Intuitive Eating doesn’t dictate the types of foods that are or are not eaten. If you’re struggling with feeling addicted to certain foods, I would recommend stepping back and asking yourself what your relationship with those foods is like.  Remember, there is no morality around food!

Any situations in which you would put someone on a calorie restriction i.e. “obese?”

I have to start by saying that the original question did not have quotation marks around the word “obese” and that was added by me.

I’m so glad this question was asked!  The short answer to this question is no, there is no circumstance where I would ever put a client, regardless of their body size, on a diet that restricted calories.  Calorie restriction (aka withholding vital nutrients and energy from your body) has the same potential negative side effects in EVERY body size. I’ve seen clients in larger bodies who are severely restricting their calories and I’ve also seen clients in smaller bodies who experience frequent bingeing episodes.  So, the stereotypes really need to disappear. I love this question because we need to recognize that we live in a fat-phobic society. The reality is that we cannot determine health based on someone’s weight. There is SO MUCH research supporting this and the entire Health at Every Size® paradigm.  

Since weight does not equal health, putting someone on a calorie restricted diet to “help” them lose weight is unhelpful and counterproductive.  What is helpful and supported by research, is helping people make positive behavior changes that align with their values. Weight is an outcome and something that we don’t have as much control over as our society leads us to believe.  If you’re curious about this and would like to read more about HAES® I would recommend visiting their website: https://haescommunity.com/

Thank you Kelsey for this incredible helpful blog post! You can learn more about Kelsey and work with her here.