Choosing Your Physical or Emotional Focus For Healing Based on Your Stage of Disordered Eating Recovery

Something I've noticed lately in the field of disordered eating recovery is that everyone has their beliefs on what they think is the optimal path you've got to start with to heal. For example, the approach that you need to be able to eat all foods can sometimes push you further away from your body as now you're following a rule that you need to be able to eat all foods instead of listening to what foods ground and regulate you. On this healing adventure, you will need to address physical aspects and emotional aspects.

So today, we're going to go through a few scenarios of where you may be at and what you may need to focus on based on your current healing status.

If you're undereating, eating inconsistently, skipping meals, and cutting out whole food groups based on what you've been told instead of from body feedback then...

You'll want to start focusing on what you're eating and when you're eating. Yes, I believe in neutralizing all food and I also believe in the power of food to support you in feeling regulated and safe. So first, you're going to want to work on what I call Rhythmic Eating and something that those in my Somatic Eating® Program learn all about. You need to be eating about every 4ish hours to keep your blood sugar levels stable. This will also make it much easier to engage in your emotional healing as you will feel more grounded in your body. This is incredibly important as if you're also trying to heal a trauma response in your body, stabilizing your blood sugar levels and eating foods that don't put a strain on your adrenal glands, which produce hormones that help you deal with stress, can be an important factor so that what you're eating is actually supporting you in your trauma recovery journey.

You will also need to make sure you're eating all of your macronutrients at most meals. This includes protein, fat, and carbohydrates. If you've been undereating on any of these macronutrients, that rule that's been created that you can only consume a certain amount of grams of that macronutrient may need to be released for a period of time so your body can experience that it's going to get all of the nutrition it needs and no longer be deprived. Once you're starting to leave meals feeling satiated and secure, that's when you can play with increasing or decreasing certain macronutrients. Your body first needs to trust that it's going to be fed consistently and get what it needs nutritionally before you start playing around with different timings or balances of your meals.

If you've been eating consistently, no longer depriving yourself of food, and you still find yourself binge eating, emotionally eating, and engaging in compensatory behaviors then...

You'll need to address a trauma response in your body and subsequent nervous system dysregulation. Regardless of what you eat, if you're utilizing food as a resource to help you feel safe, your sense of safety in your body and in the world will need attention. You will need to work with someone to support you with processing the events of your past that originally put your body into a fight, flight, or freeze response and where your body may feel stuck in. It can be supportive to get to know how your different nervous system responses feel in your body. When you have perhaps dissociated from your body for decades, it will take time to very slowly come back into connection with your body and get to know how it feels in response to different people, environments, and foods. These food behaviors have been supporting you in trying to find regulation and this is just not something that food can provide long term.

These are all things I will be exploring next Saturday, August 12th in my Somatic Eating® Intensive. This is a three hour experiential class where we will explore the wisdom in your food coping mechanisms and you will receive the Somatic Eating® resources to start cultivating a safe, secure, and satiating relationship with your food and body along with a week of Voxer support, which is a walkie talkie app that you will be able to send me 1-2 messages a day to receive individualized support as you practice what you learned in the class. Check this out and sign up HERE and if you have any questions about this offering, email me at support@stephaniemara.com.

If you've been eating consistently, feeling safe with food, practicing feeling how you feel and regulating your nervous system and still feeling uncomfortable in your body and experiencing bloating or digestive issues then...

You'll need to explore if there are any imbalances occurring in your body. This could include gut microbiome imbalances, hormonal imbalances, thyroid imbalances, or neurotransmitter imbalances. These imbalances can occur from a long held trauma response, disordered eating behaviors, imbalanced nutritional intake, and so many more reasons. You may need to explore eating in a specific way, taking certain supplements, and engaging in specific activities that will support your body in re-finding homeostasis and equilibrium. Sometimes, you're doing all the things, and it's not your fault that an imbalance occurred. This is why healing is multi-layered and will often need to include exploring many angles and working with many different kinds of practitioners to discover your unique answers in what is going to support you and your body.

Last, if you've been doing all the things, working with all of the practitioners, and have been working on accepting your body as it is along the way, yet still struggle with your body's image then…

You may need to explore your relationship with physical movement. What I have often found is that it is much easier to inhabit our bodies when we can experience all that our bodies can do. This can often occur when you're physically moving and moving in new ways that resonate with you. If you're recovering from patterns of over-exercising that were helping you to regulate, you'll want to explore this slowly. Choose movements to play with because they sound or feel invigorating, joyful, and fun in your body. The intention here is to experience how strong and resilient your body is, as it is, as you move in different ways.

As you can see, there is no singular "best" path to take when healing from disordered eating patterns. Sometimes you will need to focus on what, when, how you're eating, and healing the physical body. Other times your attention will need to be guided toward your emotions, nervous system regulation, past trauma, and healing the emotional body. Take some time to assess for yourself where you've been, what you've been focusing on, and where you feel like you're being called to explore next. Only you will know what is best for you.