Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Dietician


For the first time ever, I saw a dietician. She had recently graduated from school, and she was young, pretty, and skinny. She had sort of a lazy eye or something going on.
I told her that I had an ED and that I wanted more structure to my eating habits. She said that that sounded good and we wrote out a meal plan that I was excited about. I asked about calories just so I would know that I wasn’t going to gain weight on the plan, and she balked.
“I don’t think I should give this to you because I think you’ll become too obsessed with calories.”
“No, I only asked because I wanted to know I wasn’t going to get fat on this!”
“I think it would be wise for me to just give you some general guidelines.”
I was miffed, but I didn’t argue.
Her main advice was that I needed to stop eating so many sugary foods. I mean, duh. But for some reason her saying that out loud to me helped me stop eating them. I guess I’d been giving myself license to binge on desserts more because I’m in the stage where I know that eating some desserts won’t make me fat. The problem is I eat too many of them.
The other thing she told me was to get three different food groups in at each meal, and to have protein at every single meal. I’m supposed to get a fruit in at lunch and several vegetables in at dinner, but I’ll have to vary it because the school meal plan I’m on doesn’t allow for me to get much fresh food. Eating different food groups at each meal will allow me to get much-needed nutrients and the protein will help keep me full. The idea is that the more variety I eat and the fuller I keep myself, the less inclined I’ll be to have cravings for sugar.
It’s a solid theory, and so far it’s been working. Today at dinner I had no desire to eat desserts. I’ve only been following her plan for three days, though. We’ll see where I am in a week.

Challenge yourself to eat three different food groups at each meal! See if it helps stave off cravings. 

5 comments:

  1. I think that's great Emily that you saw a dietitian
    I think we could all benefit from seeing one
    Even though we know a lot about food and nutrition it's good to hear it from someone else

    I eat the same safe foods over and over again
    I rarely try new foods but I will have to in treatment

    Good luck with you meal plan x

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  2. My trainer gave me am testing plan and with school starting I've really fallen off it, with the exception of breakfast. It's expensive to buy your own food when the dorm provides it. He had me eating five meals a day but the calories always ended up being 1200-1500 form the day. In terms of protein he always made it 3 ounces of chicken/tuna/lean beef and then 4 ounces of rice with the first protein and then 2 ounces of rice with the second. That's the guideline I had anyway. I'm exited you took that extra step. Seriously, if you eat often enough and clean you can avoid weight gain and instead get your metabolism going.

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  3. This is what happened to me too sort of... As soon as I told her about the binge eating and the history of MIA she didn't want to give me a proper meal plan, but only guidelines.

    You asked once about the big breakfast, medium lunch and small dinner thingi I posted - The idea behind it as she explained to (Specially for someone like me who tends to postpond meals and then binge big time) is this:

    Lets say you eat breakfast around 9, this meal should be large loaded with complex carbs and protein, and it is supposed to have your body going until 2PM.. /She told me to have an omlette or oatmeal, and yogurt, fruit and coffee or tea for this meal) - You might not be hungry, but around 12 am you supposed to fill up with lunch where the general idea is to have something with loads of fiber and protein like a salad or soup. This is supposed to keep you going until like 6PM, but for you to not go starving and on binge mode by dinner time you are to have a snack around 3PM, and she said a fruit is not enough.. So if you are having fruit you need to have some sort of protein on the side, like eggwhites or greek yogurt ect.
    And then you are to have dinner around 6-7 PM but no later than that, and for dinner she said to use a small plate, fill one third with veg/salad, one third with good protein, and one third with complex carb.

    She said if I was hungry after this meal, I shouldn't eat. It was OK to have tea, or coffee but no "real" food.

    GL with your plan Emily, looking forward to hear more about how it works for you.

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  4. It sounds like she was really helpful. As you know, I'm a huge fan of dieticians, mine's been invaluable. Sometimes guidelines are better than full meal plans; it allows for more variation, y'know? That said, I'm awful at variety. I eat the same meals day-in, day-out.

    Keep us updated on how it works for you! xx

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  5. I'm also the fan of guidelines, meal plans are in some situations so damn hard to follow and specially when people have usually also better things to do than stare at the paper what they should eat next. Or at least for me it gets really frustrating that way and I take such a huge stress about it that following is practically impossible.

    Good luck!

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