8 impacts of restrictive eating on body, mind and soul
And undereating isn't something that just skinny people do
I write and podcast about the psychology of eating disorders. I have personally recovered from bulimia and have worked as a therapist for 20 years. I hope to inspire, educate and improve understanding about eating disorders through my writing and audio. Names used are fictional and stories shared are a combined insight of many client experiences. I believe that full recovery is possible for everyone.
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Restrictive eating, under the guise of wellness is very normalised.
As we live in a society that continues to validate thinness on the pedestal of achievement.
The impact of undereating on the body can be profound.
It’s not something that just skinny people do.
If you’re a serial dieter or you struggle with eating disorders or disordered eating, then you probably relate to hunger and food preoccupation as a predictable part of the fabric of daily life.
You might think that this is just your personality, whereas in fact it’s about restriction.
And remember that 85% of people with eating disorders are not underweight. You can still be hungry and depriving yourself, whilst looking healthy.
Restrictive eating isn’t healthy for body, mind or soul for the following reasons: -
1. Emotional rollercoaster
Your mood rises and falls erratically like an unpredictable rollercoaster. One minute, you are high on life and in control. You’re feeling energetic and can take on the world.
Later, your mood dips severely and you’re pretty much counting down the hours till bedtime or your next meal.
Irritability and low mood run close to the surface of all your interactions, as nutrient deficiency can affect the emotional centre of the brain.
You can feel your hairs bristling on end, when someone is breathing loudly, or the rain is blowing against the window. Minor things feel like major roadblocks and rage bubbles in response to any interference or change.
Fundamentally, you are hangry.
2. All in your head
Anxiety and fear run rampant in your mind, as restrictive eating amplifies the fight/flight response.
Lack of food means that you often feel spaced out and disconnected from the world.
You’re not in touch with your feelings. You are ‘all in your head’ and the focus is about maintaining step counts and calorie limits, with little connection to your genuine wants and needs.
Your day is punctuated with strict rules and timings for everything. You’re in a caged prison of over-control.
3. Rituals and food ceremony
You may become extremely ritualistic with food, creating ceremony and order with your eating.
You might eat with child size cutlery.
Or eat foods in a particular order, whilst taking a specific number of bites.
You may feel compelled to watch a food programme or film again and again whilst eating. You might watch a lot of What I Eat in a Day content.
Eating in this way provides safety and control.
And it maximises the joy of the limited food that you are allowing yourself.
You may also hoard quantities of food in your cupboards whilst rarely allowing yourself to eat it.
Or outside of restrictive eating, you may binge eat and wildly lose control, only to begin the deprivation afresh the following day.
4. Loss of life force
You may become withdrawn and isolated, disconnecting from the people you love and the hobbies that you used to enjoy.
Your mind is food obsessed, and you are living in your imagination more than reality.
Dreaming, thinking, calculating, planning and fantasising about food.
You don’t have the energy or enthusiasm to get excited about things.
You lose your libido and sexual feelings. Food feels far more interesting and sex doesn’t seem necessary or relevant.
5. Body dissatisfaction
We know from the Minnesota Starvation Study that the starved men became preoccupied with their body image.
This was in the 1950’s and well before any social media influence.
The men compared themselves to others and ‘felt fat’.
Research indicates that body image perception is absolutely impacted by restrictive eating.
Interestingly, ‘feelings of fatness’ are often projections of deeper unconscious feelings.
Buried anger, sadness, fear – it’s directed at the body, as ‘fatness’.
It feels about the body, when in fact it has little to do with physical size.
Consider your own ‘feelings of fatness’ over a week and imagine plotting a graph indicating the intensity of the feeling.
Now also consider plotting a graph of your genuine body weight alongside.
It’s likely that the body weight graph would be pretty stable, with only minor fluctuations.
Whereas feelings of fatness would fluctuate wildly.
This gives an insight into the understanding of this phenomenon.
6. I can’t stop thinking about food
Undereating can make you feel superior and ‘right’ but this is often fleeting and unsustainable.
Your ability to think clearly is affected by consistently not eating enough, as the brain requires a consistent supply of glucose to function well.
Restriction renders thinking inflexible and rigid.
Although some people will claim that undereating can bring increased focus and concentration. This is short lived and is not sustained with consistent restriction.
Thoughts become extremely distracted towards food.
In fact, the preoccupation can become intense with fantasies of meals out and preparing elaborate feasts. It interferes with the ability to attend to normal life activities.
In the Minnesota starvation experiment, the starved men became fascinated and obsessed with food.
Some of them wanted to train as chefs at the end of the experiment.
If you are restricting, you might wish to work in bakeries or restaurants so you can feel close to food constantly, even if not eating it.
You might cook lavish meals for friends and family, without eating a morsel.
You may become fixated on What I Eat in a Day content online and recipe books.
You might spend hours wandering the supermarket aisles obsessing over foods and scrutinising labels.
A focus on food becomes your personality and focus.
You might engage in chewing gum or drinking copious volumes of Pepsi Max to try and distract from the internal, gnawing, relentless desire to eat.
This means that you lose touch with the deeper meaning of life and what matters to you.
Relationships become superficial and your investment in your work or job is diluted.
You miss out on spontaneous joy and living in the moment.
In some ways, this is protective, if your current circumstances are adverse or stressful.
Ultimately, restriction puts you in survival rather than thriving mode.
7. The inner critic
The greater the intensity of your restriction, then the greater your critical and punishing inner voice.
Some people experience this as the ‘anorexic voice’ and as a separate entity from them.
Others experience it as their own voice which becomes increasingly punitive.
Restrictive eating renders you more irrational and anxious.
Your body is on high alert for danger, as starvation is immensely stressful.
You begin to interpret everyday life events through the lens of fear. You might restrict even more to manage these anxious feelings.
8. Thinner does not always mean healthier
Society equates thinness with health, when the truth is far more complex.
Undereating can have a pronounced impact on physical health.
Skin dries out, hair thins and immunity plummets.
In extreme cases the heart muscle is impacted and becomes weaker.
Blood pressure falls and your pulse slows.
Poor circulation can lead to feelings of extreme cold and leg ulcers. Your heart may beat irregularly.
Sex hormones and fertility are impacted. Libido decreases and menstruation can be lost in females.
Bone health can be disrupted due to hormonal and nutritional changes.
Particularly up to the age of 30 years old, this is when bone density is laid down.
Restrictive eating during this time can create osteoporosis later in life, stooping and high risk of fracture.
Digestion slows with undereating and there is a heightened sensitivity to feelings of fullness and bloating.
Many people experience irritable bowel syndrome symptoms as a result of restriction.
You may find it hard to sleep and will often wake early.
When you undereat, your human survival instinct is to increase physical activity, to seek out food, as was needed back in hunter gatherer days.
This can mean that you have a strong drive to exercise, and you experience intense restlessness.
To take away
The impact of undereating on the body can be profound.
If you’ve been restricting your eating for a while, these effects may have become normalised.
Many of these effects can be reversed through nourishing your body and with regular, self-caring eating.
Which of the above do you relate to?
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