Having An Eating Disorder During A Pandemic

There are different kinds of eating disorders and disordered eating in general. Different things can trigger an eating disorder. I used to think I didn’t have an eating disorder and just disordered eating. I never stopped eating or purged food to lose weight. Because of that, I didn’t think I could categorize myself as having an eating disorder. I recently learned about Orthorexia which is an eating disorder where you become obsessed with eating only healthy food.

I have grown up in homes with people who were above the average person when it came to knowing and dictating what foods were healthy or not. This caused me a lot of the time to not eat if I didn’t know where the food came from or was unhealthy. I began skipping more and more meals. This led me to not eat when anxious, especially when around other people. I recently learned this when I was around people for the first time after being in quarantine and I didn’t eat food because of being anxious. I think it is a way for me to control something when I am full of anxiety, especially with my social anxiety.

The control and obsession with healthy food have caused me to be a binge eater as well. I have a huge problem with binge eating, especially when I eat higher-calorie foods. I don’t always have self-control when it comes to portions. I have never been good at portions even before any disorders came to play. Then a lot of the time when I try to portion, I count calories which can lead me into a dark spot. I can eat whole 9×12 pans of things in less than twenty-four hours. I can and will eat a whole crockpot of something in a twenty-four hour period. Because of this, I will not eat for the rest of the day. Or if I know I am going to eat something with a lot of calories (though it can just be a simple meal) I won’t eat until that meal or snack. I do this a lot when I go through my cookie dough eating phases. Or any kind of dessert items.

I have been working on not being as obsessed with the healthiest options, whether that be organic foods or other healthy items. Some of it is that some of those options are expensive and I don’t have the money for that so life has forced me to let go a little. The hardest for me when it comes to letting go of this obsession with healthy food is eating at other people’s houses. There is no problem with me liking anything they are giving me but it is the unknown of what ingredients they are using. The one thing that was embedded in me so deeply is knowing the ingredients of everything. What ingredients you should never eat yet everything has those ingredients. For example, most types of condiments usually have some of those forbidden ingredients. Then the more expensive versions are the ones with fewer ingredients aka the better for you. Most of the time.

Though I never stopped eating to lose weight I still struggled with not being thin enough. Whether that was being told I was a pig when I ate food or asking why I was eating again. When I was younger I didn’t understand why I was so much bigger than my cousins and thought the only reason was that I was so fat. Where a lot of it was and is genetics but I didn’t have anyone telling me that.

I had all of these thoughts in my head but I still refused to not eat. I was also told as a child that if you don’t eat your body is going to hold onto what food you do eat leading you to gain weight. That’s what has kept me from choosing to stop eating completely. That and I get super sick after a day or two if I barely eat let alone not eating entirely.

Before March I would go into the grocery store at least once a day if not more. I would individually buy whatever I was craving at the time. Or buy a few ingredients to make something. Usually, never enough food to last me more than a few days if that. So when everyone was going crazy and the stores were clearing out, I had to for the first time stock up on food. Even with this I just grabbed a few things each day, slowly seeing things disappear. In the beginning, I was anxious about eating everything, because like I said earlier I have no self-control when it comes to portions.

The stress of what was going to happen in the world and the stores emptying quicker and more extreme than I had ever seen affected my eating in the beginning. The anxiety of the unknown gave me the want and need to control my eating which meant me eating less than a thousand calories a day. Until Easter, I barely ate. So for about a month, I was eating way below what my body needed.

When I eat less or portion my food my head begins to tell me I should be thin. So at the beginning of quarantine, I looked at my body hourly if not more critiquing parts of it. I was already gaining weight from transitioning from a decently active lifestyle to an office job. Then being stuck in the house added for more weight gain. Realistically not a drastic amount but enough to put me in a negative place. This was also the first time I was gaining weight after being small. I had always been the overweight kid so I didn’t know how it felt to gain pant sizes.

I wanted to stay home as much as possible to self isolate myself from people, so I tried Instacart for the first time. With this, you get to pick out your groceries, and then someone will deliver it to you. My area has a few stores that it covers, not sure if there are more in bigger cities. I usually shop at Aldi when using the app. This way of shopping helped force me to somewhat meal prep. I make the same five or so things. So, most of the time my cart includes roughly the same things each time. With this new way of getting food, I eat more meals and binge less.

There are still times, especially when I am close to running out of food that I begin to fall into some of my disordered eating habits. Also, during the times I have to go into the office (which isn’t much during this time), I have gone to the store for individual meals.

Each day is different from whether or not my stomach is going to tell me I am hungry. There are times where I have to force myself to eat because I feel like my body needs something but I am not hungry. Then there are times where my body is always hungry, which usually happens when I am eating somewhat normal and living a pretty healthy lifestyle.

Though none of my eating habits have particularly been to lose weight, I still have those words people have said in my head. Also, like most people I struggle with being happy with certain parts of my body that I wish were different. I am thankful as I get older I continue to learn to accept my body. Also, just realizing that I am built “bigger” than some people. I realized and accepted that some bodies I would never have no matter if I didn’t eat a single thing and worked out seven days a week. My frame is wide. Similar to my mom, but I didn’t have my mom around to understand and know that when I was younger. Also, I can love my body one minute and not even fifteen minutes later find something to hate about it and the cycle repeats itself. So it gets exhausting caring so much about my body when it isn’t looking the way I would like it.

There is also called a thing called bloating. Something that will make you look or feel “fat” but it’s okay you’re not. Once I realized this it helped me not hate my body so much. I bloat after I eat or drink just about anything, and always thought I needed to eat less. Nope. Also, I just learned that you can bloat more if you don’t eat enough food.

Whether it is an eating disorder, ones like mine, or one more severe it’s going to be a constant battle. Also, if you have body dysmorphia that is going to be a continuous battle. Loving yourself completely is a constant battle. You are always going to be harder on yourself than anyone else.

You are worth more than what you look like on the outside.