Last summer, while working with LA to start breaking down my food rules and start expanding my preferences, I mentioned I wanted to become a vegetarian.
LA glanced up at me from the meal plan she was carefully developing, stared at me for a moment, and replied:
"Let's just work on expanding your diet a little right now, okay?" And she returned to writing.
I frowned. At the time, I did not understand her response at all. If I wanted to be a vegetarian, why couldn't we just omit meat from my meal plan? If my whole diet had to be rebuilt anyhow, couldn't I do it the way I wanted to?
One year later, I've made the connection.
Given that I was only eating about five things (most of which were just variations of raw vegetables) at that point in time, cutting out a food group while moving forward was probably not her preferred strategy.
I actually was a vegetarian at one point in my life. As a teenager with a brother and dad who hunted and ate pretty much anything with a heartbeat (er, a terminated heartbeat, I guess?), an uncle who raised cattle and hogs for my relatives to "buy", and a house with various unidentifiable meats stored in the deep freezer (usually from hunting trips and/or a recently slaughtered "pet"), I steered clear of meat until I went to college.
Sometimes, I would eat meat if prodded, teased by my family or relatives, or just to be accomodating. However, when given the choice, I would generally choose a plate full of greens or pasta over Bambi or Spunky or Brownie any day.
In college, I ate meat because: 1. choices were limited on campus, and 2. I was not constantly reminded that the end product was derived from a bullet in my brother's gun or the animal to which I had just fed grass the week prior.
Currently, however, I am about two months into my return to vegetarianism. While noshing on my veggie, feta, and hummus pita recently, I reflected on this choice and whether or not it is something I want to stick with...or even should stick with given my recent history with food restriction and disordered eating.
In a variety of situations (many now personal and not at all eating-related), LA has challenged me to focus not on a particular action or decision, but on what is actually driving my choice. The choice itself, as she points out, is not necessarily "healthy" or "unhealthy", but sometimes the motivation leading me to the action can be.
For example, when I still wanted to run the Little Rock Marathon despite a multitude of stress fractures, she did not automatically support this decision until I reflected upon and could explain my motivation for doing so. Once she could see evidence that I had truly sat with the decision and thought it through, she supported my decision wholeheartedly and stepped in yet again as my biggest cheerleader.
This I love about her.
Through my close bond with LA, I have learned to process through a lot of life's decisions in this way. So while pondering whether or not cutting out a major food group is a smart choice for someone with a past restrictive eating disorder, I naturally started by examining my motivation for doing so.
What I decided is that LA's efforts to keep me focused on eating a variety of foods was absolutely the correct approach. I had established a history of eliminating major food groups, one by one, until I was essentially eating nothing (and still purging the "nothing"). My motivation for wanting to return to a vegetarian diet last summer was, without a doubt, in an effort to maintain control of my diet and resist LA's efforts to rebuild my nutrition. It was a last resort, last ditch effort to keep my obsessive focus on food.
I had to learn to eat again without the obsession before I could truly make any sound decisions about my diet. LA (and now JN) have helped me approach food without judgment, eat driven by hunger cues, and let go of any preconceived notions about "right" or "wrong" choices. I learned to eat freely again, and because of that, I am now in a place where I can decide what I want to eat based on true preference, not restriction.
Currently, I am about two months into eating an almost entirely vegetarian diet. I can honestly say I enjoy eating this way for several reasons, none of which are driven by obsession, weight loss, or control.
Having gone through some fairly intensive nutrition therapy, I now understand food and nourishment better than I ever have. For this reason, I am actually better equipped to eliminate meat from my diet and still meet my nutrition and energy needs. I approach meal planning with a natural awareness that has taken time to develop, but it is that awareness that helps guide my choices and ensures balance with regards to ingredients, nutrients, and energy sources. I've acquired enough knowledge in this process that I can now listen to my body, determine what is lacking, and make choices based on that intuition.
I have always enjoyed the process of cooking (it was the eating part that became a problem) as a creative outlet, and eating a primarily vegetarian diet over the last few months has once again sparked my love of food and natural ingredients. When in the depths of my eating disorder (and even for a few months while learning to eat normally again) I stuck to "routine" or "safe" foods, and was only eating about a dozen individual ingredients and foods. As LA helped me break down my restrictions, I started to expand the list more and more each day until very few foods provoked guilt, anxiety, or purging. Ironically, while eating as a vegetarian (and therefore elimintating a group of foods), I've been forced to create new strategies for recipes, seek out ingredients I would normally not eat, and expand my food list.
I am now truly enjoying the process of selecting foods I enjoy, cooking, and eating. This is a therapy team's dream for a eating disorder client, I'm sure; a major success that is not measured by weight gained or loss but by lifestyle and happiness and intuition and all that other intangible stuff that just makes my team melt.
My fear in posting this is that someone else with a tendency towards restriction may use eliminating a food group (or following a dietary "lifestyle") as an outlet for control or to mask disordered eating under a more socially acceptable label.
If that is the case for you, I challenge you to examine the motivation behind your choices, just as LA has challenged me to do many times before. For the choice itself is not necessarily indicative of an unhealthy lifestyle or pattern; rather the thought process behind it has the potential to be.
Had I refused to eat meat last summer while under LA's guidance, that decision would have been for all the wrong reasons. Now, that same choice reflects growth, awareness, and a newfound ability to listen to my body and make healthy choices that are right for me and preference-driven...not based in a need to control, achieve perfection, or lose weight.
Most of us can justify nearly any choice we make in life. The hard part is telling ourselves the truth behind the "why".
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