Hi beautiful souls!!

Today I am sharing a video from my own daily life of being an intuitive eater, so that I can help you along your path to anorexia recovery, bulimia recovery, binge eating recovery or whatever it is that you are struggling with right now.

Your needs will vary based on if you are working on an anorexia recovery meal plan or bulimia recovery meal plan, but the most important thing is to check with your doctors and treatment team before making any changes to your nutritional intake.  However many women and men don’t have this luxury and so that is exactly why I do what I do and want to share with you my own personal food diary to help you create your own personalized eating disorder recovery meal plan.

The first thing you need to do in recovery is start off with the FOUNDATION.

You wouldn’t build a house without a solid foundation would you?!?

Same thing with recovery.  Our physical healing becomes the FOUNDATION from which you can grow.  It becomes  the framework and guidelines so that you can stop worrying about food and start doing the DEEPER WORK that sustained and full/permanent recovery requires.

When I was in early recovery, one of the MOST IMPORTANT things I did was MAKE A CHOICE on how my relationship with food was going to be.  I didn’t want to have to worry and obsess about it anymore!

I decided that using a recovery meal plan was the best option for me at the time.

I’m not saying that everyone needs a meal plan.

I’m just saying that is what FIT MY NEEDS at the time.

Where women get into trouble is when they take the meal plan and use it in the same way they use the eating disorder: with rigid, strict rules that is based on perfectionism and all or nothing thinking.  This is EXTREMELY limiting and can feel like you are trapped, and then what happens is we just end up saying FUCK IT and getting off the plan.  This leads to major binges, purges, and then brings on feelings of guilt, shame, anxiety, feeling bad about yourself, beating yourself up with major judgment and criticisms.  This is what we want to avoid.

A anorexia recovery meal plan or bulimia recovery meal plan or any eating disorder recovery meal plan can be super helpful ONLY IF:

~You are ready to USE THE PLAN to LEARN HOW TO EAT INTUITIVELY.

~You are ready to return to and maintain your natural set point weight range.  Actively ready and willing to let go of the identity with your body type the way it is NOW (whether overweight or underweight) and simply let go and TRUST that your body knows what to do, and will return to its natural set point weight using an eating disorder meal plan and listening for feedback cues and tweaking/changing as needed.

~You are learning to LIVE IN THE COLOR.  Let me explain– we don’t want the black and white extreme thinking at either poles, and so I would encourage you to live in the in between– which is not the “grey area” but I like to say LIVING IN COLOR!  This includes learning to be easier on yourself, to go with the flow more and to be OPEN to what life brings you, without trying to control and hold on to it having to be a certain way.

~You are willing to go through your fears and anxieties when it comes to food.  This one you might have to get support around– whether it be getting an eating disorder recovery coach, asking someone to sit with you at meal times, or writing down your plan each night and committing to following it the next day.  Eating disorder recovery will be one of the hardest challenges of your life and it will force you to face and move through your deepest darkest fears.  One level we do need to go through is with the food.  It’s not going to change until you decide that you are just going to do it, no matter what happens or how you feel.  Being bold and courageous to live your best life includes having to go through the fears when it comes to food.  Take this one step at a time and at the very minimum, try one new thing a week– whether it is a new food recipe, food group, a new behavior, or restaurant where you want to eat out.  Continuously challenge yourself so that you are constantly growing beyond your comfort zone.  And YES this is going to be uncomfortable so GET USED TO IT!

~You are ready to commit to eating 3 meals and 3 snacks each day, spaced 2.5 to 3 hours apart.  Whether or not you follow this time or food allotment structure or not, the principle behind this is KEY– that whatever eating disorder meal plan or eating approach you use, it is super important that you maintain a steady flow of nourishment and energy to your body throughout the day.  This might vary depending on your lifestyle and career, but a good goal to aim for is eating 6 times a day every 2.5 to 3 hours.

What this will do is kick up your metabolism, help you have consistent energy throughout the day, it’s going to help you to not get overfull or too overly hungry (some major triggers of mine from the past) and it’s also going to help your digestive system to heal and to become extremely efficient at assimilating and digesting food over time.

~You CHOOSE ONE way that you are going to do this.  This might mean deciding that you are going to write down your entire meal plan the night before if that sounds good to you.  Or it might mean simply setting alarms on your phone to go off every 3 hours to remind you to eat, but at those times you are going to choose your food intuitively.  Or it might mean that you choose that you are going to eat breakfast and dinner at home and you pack 2 snacks and a hearty lunch to take with you to work every day.  Whatever you feel would work best for you– DECIDE and COMMIT to doing it a certain way, at least for a week’s time.  If it doesn’t work for you, ask yourself how it could work better for you and then TRY IT the new way the following week.  This is a process of learning WHAT WILL WORK BEST FOR YOU, so allow yourself the wiggle room to simply just EXPERIMENT and find what works the best for you.

Here is a sample of what I eat in one day!! (you can use to get ideas for your anorexia recovery meal plan, bulimia recovery, binge eating recovery meal plan or any eating disorder recovery meal plan) watch eating disorder video to find out:

Recipes and Meal Plan Exchanges from this video:

Breakfast:

1 cup vanilla yogurt

1/2 cup homemade granola

1 banana

1-2 T chia seeds

Snack:

1 grapefruit with organic sugar

Lunch:

2 pieces 100% whole wheat bread

1 veggie burger (at least 10-14 grams protein)

1 slice cheese

lettuce/greens

mayo + mustard

Side of veggie salad (approx 1/2 cup)

2 T dressing

1 cup almond milk

Snack:

Protein Shake

8 oz water or milk or almond milk

1-2 scoop protein powder (at least 14-21 grams protein)

Dinner:

Baked Mahi Mahi Recipe: 

Marinate fillets in olive oil and crushed garlic before cooking.

Sprinkle fish with salt, dill weed or whatever spices you like

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

Grease pan with oil before putting fish in pan

Bake 12-15 minutes or until fish flakes with fork.

Mashed Potatoes (made ahead of time with boiled potatoes, plenty of butter, milk and salt)

Gravy (made ahead of time with chicken stock, butter, milk and flour)

Sautéed Portobello Mushrooms:

Heat 2 T butter + 1 T olive oil in a pan on Medium-Medium High Heat

Add Chopped Portobello Mushrooms

Sprinkle with salt and garlic powder to taste

Cover with lid but open slightly for steam to escape.  Stir frequently when cooking to avoid burning.

Cook until soft, 5-10 minutes depending on how high the heat you cook them on.

Dessert:

3 squares dark chocolate

1 small chocolate donut 🙂

 

Hope you enjoyed this sample meal plans for eating disorder article and video!!  Let me know your comments below — if you want me to make more videos and posts like this, please let me know!!!!

In Love + Light,

Your Best Eating Disorder Recovery Coach!!