ARFID Recovery

Mental battles with food turn into smaller fights, then scuffles then simple conversations with yourself.

After a conversation where you take a risk to try a fear food, it takes a few more tries. And then more conversations to push yourself further.

At some point your body is like, yes we like this. Let’s continue. Your pallet changes. It gets accustomed to things and your body recognizes the benefit in continuing.

Hey I wanted to make a post for people further along in the recovery journey. So if you haven’t done significant exposure therapy with food/mealtime sessions, I’d recommend skipping this for now.

Now, I’ve been out of treatment for like 3 years so I’m still working and doing more “maintenance” recovery work to keep myself eating well and balanced and even trying to heal from past damage. If you find yourself in this boat, this post is for you!

So anyways, if you’ve done the work to eat a much more varied meals, have graduated from an ED recovery program, etc., and you’re looking for ways to improve but still feeling like arfid brain is holding you back, but you still eat MUCH more foods than when you started… read on!

I found a podcast that makes me encouraged to eat more plants. And her tagline is “take the HELL out of HEALTHY eating.” The podcast is called Party in My Plants! And there’s even an ED recovery episode!

My main takeaways:

1. I am paying attention even more to how I feel after a meal. “Food makes us feel stuff, pay attention”. And I feel really good after I eat more balanced meals.

2. She is a plant-based chef but isn’t promoting a diet, just encouraging people to eat more plants! Anyone who can hype up plants can motivate me to keep eating better

3. The host is really fun and enjoyable

4. She has on guests that say the benefits of what eating more plants can have on the body, mind, exercise, all health benefits without getting obsessive.

5. I feel a lot less weird. Now that I’m really just trying to keep up the fruits and veggies intake, I feel like a lot of people are in the same boat. “”Normal”” People struggle with this too. After feeling like an anomaly for years it’s just relieving

6. She encourages less stress about eating and makes points like “it’s better to eat Cheetos with a smile than eat brussel sprouts with a bitch face”. Because all that stress is counterproductive.

7. When I’m adjusting my palette to something, I like to keep in mind all the benefits of what I’m eating.

This COULD motivate you to eat more plants if you’re early in recovery, but I just want to encourage as many people as possible to get professional exposure therapy sessions to help heal arfid first! Then work on “at-home” solutions once you are further along. Like if you have a broken leg, go to the hospital, don’t take an ibuprofen! Same thing. This won’t help you if you haven’t taken steps to try more foods.

Sorry for the inactivity! I have still been making ARFID recovery progress! I’ve been inactive because I’ve been working full time in person with the pandemic as well as going to school full time as well...so I’ve been busy! 😅

But I have upped my intake of fresh fruits and veggies in my diet and that is a big WIN for me!

Something before treatment that scared me was that a whole carton of berries was only one serving. (And I’m thinking “5 fruits/veggies servings are recommended a day?! How can I do this? This is so much”)

Pre-recovery process, that seemed like SO much. 1 serving was too much. How am I supposed to eat 5 servings of plants a day?

Baby steps. That’s how.

So I started with maybe 1/4 a serving. Then 1/2. Then 1.

1 serving is better than 0. 2 is a win! 3? amazing! The more the better as long as we keep our eyes on the main goal of 5! Because you’re worth it.

Just a reminder that this is something you can heal from.

I have some brags!! And I want to read yours!! Brag about anything you’re proud of in your recovery!! Share as long as it’s pro recovery big or small ! I’ve had 2 years recovery under my belt so if your list isn’t as long YOULL GET THERE!

My turn first I guess:

IM NOT COLD 24/7 EVEN IN WINTER!!!!

MY SKIN ISNT DRY AF

MY SKIN LOOKS HEALTHY (not perfect but healthy and a good color!)

MY HAIRLINE IS SO FILLED IN I ACTUALLY LOOK YOUNGER NOW

No longer iron deficient anemic!!

I work a physical job and I’m still not tired all the time like I used to be! Even with working long hours!

I feel less nervous about food! I’m still anxious but it’s not taking over my life

Good lord acne is not as much of a problem anymore!!!

Giving props to a food that fueled my recovery- scrambled eggs with cheese. (Now I like eggs in various forms and recipes too!) I didn’t like the smell originally but now I know it tastes different than it smells, have tried and liked it. (Honestly if a non ARFID person is reading this they’re probably like ???????? but I hope you all can understand.)

Cooking to get desensitized to foods! Cook for someone else you trust! And even better, someone who you can ask questions.

If you live with your parents, that could be them? Even if ARFID makes things tense, they would see that you are trying to get better.

So my family is not really into cooking. I didn’t really learn how to cook. I helped my mom bake treats and so forth (and some occasional random cooking things,) but not much variety. And a lot of this was on me! I didn’t want to engage or learn because it disgusted me! Like a specific meal would make me retreat into my room it smelt so bad. (It’s not as severe any more, why? I’m Not sure)

I’m in my mid twenties now and if I could go back in time I would tell myself to help my mom in the kitchen! Even if I didn’t eat anything they made I could at least learn a life skill for the future. It would’ve better prepared me and not make me sink further into my disorder.

And if you live on your own, YouTube is amazing! I had to look up how to cut a bell pepper the other day because my family never ate them and I didn’t know how! And I’ll be honest! I don’t like the way bell peppers smell but when they’re cooked with the right sauce I like them!

I’m extremely hesitant to do this because it literally feels like broadcasting my deepest darkest secret... I’d be so nervous to have my face online with WEIRD EATING DISORDER attached to my face forever and then have “WOW LOOK AT THIS WEIRDO” articles follow me around forever.

But I know how alone it feels to have ARFID, so severely and it consumes so much of your life. If I could reach more people, people with ARFID, parents of those with ARFID not sure how to help, showing that you CAN get better.

And surely if I was actively improving my life in wouldn’t get pegged as a complete freak forever?

I wanted to be more straightforward with my progress. I’m a really bubbly and positive person offline, I also act similarly online. I really like to focus on the highlights of my journey. On the other hand, I don’t want to paint a picture like everything is just awesome and my ARFID is cured.

I still struggle. But I’m so happy I’m at this point where I am now - actively trying to get better than when I felt stuck and didn’t know how to change my eating habits.

Also, I my arfid was on the really severe end of the spectrum. My progress might be one of your baseline starting points. Wherever you are, I hope your journey to eating better is going well.

On the other hand, I have completely transformed my eating habits! Just not as much as I would have liked. But I’m so excited I made it this far. But I still need to try harder to get more fruits and veggies in my diet. I still go to restaurants and want to get the same thing every time. (But better than not wanting to go at all/only having an appetizer!)

It takes awhile to relearn years of disordered eating. I’m still actively trying to make choices that support that. They aren’t easy choices. It wasn’t just like I just had to try foods and then I liked it! It’s a learning curve with many foods.

I’m eating more veggies than I have in my entire life!

And veggies have been SO hard for me because of texture, noise when eating, smell, everything bugged me about it. Just the biggest pain because I knew how badly my body needed them but also how my body wanted to reject it sensory wise.

It’s getting a lot less stressful but there are still stressors. I know what veggies I personally cannot tolerate the smell. (So far only 2, and one of those I can tolerate when it’s raw just not cooked. I have tried many times lol.)

Something that really, really helped me is getting an instant pot/pressure cooker. I got one on sale and a friend was raving about it.

My partner made chicken soup last night filled will all kinds of (former) fear foods and this wasn’t challenging for me.

-whole chicken! Including bones for broth, but he cleaned it, as I am still a beginner cook. Also Cauliflower, bell peppers, carrots, like 3-4 herbs.

Just the taste was uniform, so was the texture, didn’t taste individual veggies or anything which I have a hard time with still. it was really great to have a healthy, full of veggies meal without gagging and struggling through it. I even drank the broth. I still fight an instinct to gag but I breathe and don’t force anything.

ALSO, I had some friends make some homemade pho (another new food,) for me using an instant pot too and it was the same thing. Fear foods but it was really tasty.

Definitely recommend getting an instant pot and looking up some recipes if you’re ready to take the next step in recovery. Any any step is admirable and worthy of trying.

1. Eating in front of people (my partners family, so a little nervous,) Because I have A Thing about trying new foods in front of people because what if I gag and throw up or they Say Something is a huge fear always in my mind. (I don’t get it either. I know it’s not rational. But my brain won’t let it go. )

2. I tried a tiny bite of smoked salmon. It was okay. It definitely took a minute to feel the texture of that little bite. It wasn’t what I thought it would be like. My brain just processed it as like it would be like eating raw fish (obviously incorrect fear.) Just couldn’t get the thought out after years. So anyways just a tiny bite was a Big Deal for me.

3. Tried and really liked crab. My partner had to help me crack the shell and all that but it was a very nice texture and a not very flavorful taste. It was kind of bland but in a good way! And it was soft. Trying something and instantly liking it was also A Very Big Deal.