On this week’s episode of Inner Growth Podcast, I chatted with Irene Maculé — a health coach + content creator who focuses on helping women heal their relationship with food. We talked about her experience with orthorexia — which is defined as “an obsession with eating foods that one considers ‘healthy’”. As someone who has also previously struggled with orthorexia, I understand how hard it can be to try to achieve a perfect notion of ‘health’.
The tricky thing about orthorexia is that those around you might not even realize that it’s something you’re struggling with.
People often think that orthorexia patterns are normal or even ‘aspirational’....“She’s so healthy”… “She doesn’t eat out”, they might say.
From an external POV, others might think there’s nothing wrong with your pursuit of extreme health - they might even think it’s just “discipline”, when for you it’s just a means of control.
But behind this illusion is the fact that orthorexia is extremely imbued with guilt, anxiety and stress.
what is Orthorexia?
If you’ve never heard of orthorexia, here are some of the most common signposts of it:
Fear of unhealthy food
Obsession with ingredients / menus
Critical view of other people’s eating choices
Avoiding eating socially
Anxiety over food preparation
Avoiding eating food that was prepared by someone else
The podcast episode was filled with so much wisdom that both myself + Irene have gathered as we’ve healed from orthorexia, so let’s do a recap of the biggest learnings we shared.
It starts with your beliefs + strengthening your Self trust
In the podcast, Irene shares that throughout her journey, she sought control through logging every single food she ate in the MyFitness Pal app. She didn’t trust herself and her own body — she needed something — in this case an app (sometimes it can also be a person) — that told her how much she “should” eat.
If you find you’re falling down to these patterns, it all comes down to the fact that you are not fully trusting yourself - maybe you don’t value yourself enough, or think you don’t have enough knowledge or enough experience, or maybe you think that if you listen to what your body says, you’re going to go to an extreme and completely lose control.
All of those things came from your imagination and what you believe about yourself.
Therefore, it’s important to start exploring and changing what you think about yourself, your behavior, and your relationship with food. As Irene points out in our conversation, ask: “How do you see yourself? How do you understand food, and ways of eating, and what it means to be “healthy”? “
what does ‘healthy’ mean to you?
Most of us simply have a wrong definition of ‘healthy’. These wrong notions of health might come from social media, what our parents told us, or something we saw growing up - it could be many things and these beliefs have simply been internalized.
When we base our notions of health on what we hear from other people or see on social media - THAT causes us to feel even more out of control because it disconnects us from our true self.
The first step is figuring out what health means to you and what BALANCE means to YOU.
Also, it’s important to remind yourself that what health means to you will likely be different than what it means to other people.
begin to navigate the pressure you put on yourself to be perfect
Patterns of control also often goes hand in hand with the need to do things perfectly. However: perfection doesn’t exist and we cannot do things ‘perfectly’. I’m sorry to break it to ya.
When it comes to food and learning how to listen to your body, there will be days you might feel more full, and other days you might feel hungry after you ate. Continue listening to your body and learning from those experiences so you can do things differently next time.
Every day is different and our body is different every day and has different needs every day. One day you might want cake and another day you might want fruit. Especially as women, we have different needs based on our cycle, hormones, energy, sleep etc. so it doesn’t make sense to expect ourselves to do things the exact same way each day.
focus on one thing at a time
For many people, exercise is also a tool for achieving control.
Irene shared that even after deleting MyFitness Pal...
“I still relied on exercise and exercise was the most important thing I had to accomplish. I remember being at work and being so focused on leaving early to have enough time to go to the gym. I was wearing a watch that tracks your steps… and if I didn’t walk 10,000 steps a day I felt guilty. I had to walk around my living room in order to reach that amount of steps”.
Unlearning these old toxic patterns about how much you ‘should’ eat or move takes time.
There are phases of healing and you have to manage one at a time. For Irene it was food first, then exercise. The more you learn to manage one, the easier it gets, the stronger you become and the more resilience you develop.
Self compassion is important and taking one thing at a time is key. Focus on what feels the most damaging to your mental health and feeling of ease, and then go to the next thing tou can address and focus on.
redefine your priorities
For many people struggling with orthorexia, it can be quite common to find yourself cancelling plans with friends to eat food you can prepare yourself or to find yourself avoiding your family’s food. However, this is likely getting in the way of in your life.
Social connection is so important and when we’re so focused on controlling our food and exercise, our priorities might be skewed and it can get in the way of our presence in relationships with others.
So take some time to reflect on how far you’re letting your need for control go… iI it getting in the way of your social life? Are you limiting the joy and experiences you could be having with those you love only to achieve more ‘control’?
work on your self worth
The more you work on your own self love, self acceptance, your inner self… the more you recognize that you deserve more. You deserve to eat more, to rest more, to exercise when you want and how much you want - not because you have to. You deserve a life that you enjoy every day, not a life made of punishment or compensations for what you did or are.
One way to strengthen your self worth is through identifying 1-3 expanders in your life. Expanders are people that already have what you want to have or that are already doing what you want to be doing. Use them as motivation and inspiration — look up to them but don’t try to copy them! Allow them to mirror back to you what you can implement and achieve in your own life. Find your own way of being healthy - add in what feels alignment and figure out what works for you!
Lastly, start changing your identity — it starts with simply stating that you no longer want to be the kind of person that feels controlled by an app or by a fitness tracker. Tell yourself “I am not this person anymore”. Then, define the best version of yourself - the more details you can add, the better — and start behaving as her a little bit more each day.
a final reminder
Remember you have the knowledge within you. Start depending less on external things and focus more on internal guidance. You already have the intuitive knowledge of what you want and need, you just have to start tuning out the noise and trusting yourself.
If you’re currently working on healing your relationship with food and your body, know that you are stronger than you realize. You are not alone and you are worthy of seeking out help and support as you navigate this — whether that looks like vulnerably sharing your truth with your parents or friends, getting a therapist or finding books and podcasts to listen to .
Your simple decision to get better is already helping you change timelines.
Healing is non-linear, and it’s full of triggers and ups and downs, but it’s always worth it! I’m rooting for you.
With love,
xx Carolina
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