What Is Unrestricted Eating?

A Post Originally Written For Instagram Towards The Start Of My Recovery:

After a really good day of eating yesterday with much less interference from the eating disorder side of my brain, today has been tougher. I’ve still done ok but it’s not been as easy and the anxiety and restrictive thoughts have been stronger.

I’m also a calorie counter (a compulsion I hate) and the counting and number fixation has been worse today.

Therefore I’m aiming for complete unrestricted eating in recovery and wrote out for myself as a reminder what this means…

UNRESTRICTED EATING IS:
– eating to all physical hunger
– eating to all mental hunger
– not delaying eating – not questioning or judging what I want to eat or when I want to eat it!
– not counting or having upper ‘limits’
– not allowing fear of weight gain to stop myself eating unrestrictedly.
– finding, following and nurturing my true inner voice and heartfelt desires.
– trusting my body to guide the way to recovery – both physical and mental healing as it knows what it needs and wants!
– remembering that my interference with ignoring hunger and manipulating body weight left me physically, mentally and socially very sick.
– eating to the occasion and being spontaneous…. not restricting before or after.

Overall going with the motto that there’s no such thing as too much food!
I need to rewire my brain fully and to fully heal unrestricted eating while resting is not only a good idea but essential!