Pathway to Normal Eating: Overview

Welcome! I’m introducing a new series describing the path a person takes to create a permanent recovery from an eating disorder to normal or intuitive eating. Over the next several posts, I will describe each marker in more detail, highlighting the most important elements of each item.

1. Recognize that life can be different. Interrupt your current state long enough to see that your life is more than just diets or an eating disorder.
2. Learn from others how to start changing. There are 3 types of changes: Rational, Physical and Emotional.
   • Rational changes include coaching, therapy, discussion groups, or nutrition education
   • Physical changes are diets, surgery or exercise
   • Emotional changes include willpower, religious, body and self acceptance, emotion  management, self-esteem, self-confidence
3. Start making changes. Learn to ignore what is not useful to your situation. Most people choose just one type, like only dieting, and soon find out that one path is not enough. Additionally, they find that the paths often have competing desires, yet few programs really treat all three types of change.
4. Choose to do whatever it takes to recover. Real recovery starts when you choose to make changes in yourself, according to your own learnings and wisdom. Learn and accept that you will have to build your own recovery, one choice at a time. 
5. Study and practice new habits in all areas. Action is more important than theory here. Often it’s about making imperfect decisions. Understand that making choices means balancing your needs and fulfilling all as well as you can.  Acknowledge that you are making changes that will be permanent. Prove to yourself that all habits, in all areas, must be practiced to be improved. Generally the most important habit you develop is replacing your negative self-talk with positive.
6. Define what you want your final state to be. Be specific. Motivate yourself by creating a strong picture of your future state.
7. Start setting and achieving realistic goals. Use your future state description to choose new habits to develop, and set small goals to learn those habits. Reward yourself for reaching those goals. Celebrate all successes, regardless of size or importance.
8. Reach your own happy medium. You define your own happy medium, ignoring what the rest of the world says you should do. Accept that no habit will be perfect, and that you can compensate by balancing the competing desires.
9. Continue the journey, spreading your learnings to other areas of your life. Learn to stop striving for goals that you’ve already reached. Enjoy who you have become. One day you will notice that your former eating issues have taken a normal place in your life.