I have/had a special penchant for Reese's peanut butter cups, FYI. I had one last night and I want one right now, actually.
Believe me, there were times when I was chowing down on something chocolate when I thought "who in the world would believe I'm anorexic?" I ate three times a day and I had candy for dinner a few times a week. Who, sick, me, no? Not, of course, acknowledging that I at the time I had a near-lethal BMI, bruises from sitting in chairs, heart palps, failing kidneys, hair falling out in clumps, and various other perks that come along with an ED.
Just a little public service announcement here: people with legit eating disorders can and do indeed eat more than lettuce and coffee. Be gone and be damned, ye olde stereotypes!
Anyway, that's the backstory. Feel free to chime in with your own anecdotes so I don't feel self-conscious about my confession?
So, the point: So I have noticed something strange over the past few weeks. Suddenly some things that I used to eat/enjoy have seemed Way.Too.Sweet. I never understood the term "sickly sweet" until now. What gives, people? Is it age, hormones, BMI, what is influencing this? I had a Pop-Tart yesterday and nearly gagged, even though I used to eat those things all the time and never had an aversion to them.
Basically, what I'm wondering is has anyone else noticed a significant changing of their taste in recovery, especially when it comes to sweetness? I'm not necessarily upset about this, as I know less sugar won't hurt me (given that I'm filling meal plan energetic requirements, please don't be triggered!), but my scientific curiosity has been piqued.
13 comments:
hey :)
i can't give you scientific reasons just my experience. Usually large amts of refined sugar makes me quite unwell (damn cfs)... I have a pretty quick aversion to it. BUT when i'm not eating enough or completely exhausted and in desperate need of energy (ie useful calories), i CRAVE sugar and it doesn't make me sick.
So my guess is that with eating better to meet yr nutritional needs overall, yr body doesnt need, and therfore doesnt like or want, too much additional refined sugar and thus doesn't taste so good. I suspect it would taste very good in times of extreme stress or higher energy needs.
I also know that a lot of ppl w ed's end up covering their food in sweetners etc and that is in part bc taste IS affected by LBW.
As for eating sweet/confectionary/desert foods... Ooh yes! It was w great relief the day i discovered the number of ppl w ed's that loved ice cream!! Like yrself i've typically been moe about restricting the calories and bulk of food rather than focussing on nutritional content!!
Love Telly (who can't login for some reason) Xox
Dude, can I ever relate to this! I was very much the same way (and still sort of am) where if it was the same calorically, then why not "treat myself" and go for the "junk food?" I've actually eaten ice cream almost everyday for the last 7 or so years, no joke. I used to think, "well, if I'm eating ice cream, then there's no way I'm actually anorexic." Yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess I'm just saying that I know what ya mean, and I'm kind of relieved that someone else understands.
I've experienced the same thing. I used to love desserts pre-ED- possibly because I was denied sugary foods as a child so when I was eating (mostly) normally in college I went sugar crazy- but since I've been in recovery I can't stand them. Kefir and berries are the sweetest things I can handle, and even then only in small quantities. I have no idea why this is though.
I know what you're talking about. I've always had a mad sweet tooth and in the darkest days of my ED I would still budget in sweets. When I first started out on my meal plan, I was jonesing for something sweet. But it wasn't in my meal plan. Even though I still have a sweet tooth and like to finish my meal with something sweet, it's not as bad as it used to be. And when I DO eat something sweet, I can't eat much or I choke and the sugar burns my throat.
I like not being able to eat sweets like I used to. I'm much healthier for it.
Oh yes. Very much so. I used to think I was a failure of an anorexic for eating so many sweets. I didn't usually have a specific calorie number, but my goal was to eat as little as possible, it didn't matter what it was. To me, one bite of apple or one bite of pudding was the same: one bite. I figured that if I were eating so little, the calorie difference between an apple and pudding wasn't going to matter. When I got in treatment and everyone was calorie obsessed, I felt a bit of a failure.
The first time I had to restore weight, with the most weight to restore, I suddenly had a capacity to eat sweets that would have made me sick before and make me sick now. I think it was the mirtazapine, actually. I wasn't in an ED program, so they were all glad I was gaining weight even though I wasn't actually eating much more, on account of the side effects. It also apparently makes you crave sweets, which I suspect was why I was able to handle sweets I can't otherwise (whipped cream, custards, cream pie fillings).
Still, I crave sweets and find this hugely shameful. I have a genuine limited capacity for sweets, but I do have a capacity. Because it is limited, and because of the ED, I often feel like I shouldn't want sweets at all, so the desire feels awful. When people offer sweets to me, I get so conflicted, I want it but I don't want to want it or to be seen wanting it. When I give in too much, I don't record that day in my food diaries for my dietitian. And talking about this has been fodder for my "shame practice" with my psychologist. When I've had to gain weight, I've gone sweets crazy, figuring I had to gain anyway, so why not. But then the "why not" stayed with me and I would overshoot the weight I needed to gain.
You could say I have some mixed feelings about this. It does feel good to commiserate about being a "bad" ED person, though.
I'm glad you talked about this because it really irks me when people think anorexia = eating lettuce. Um, no. It's all about calories, rules, restrictions, etc.
As for sweet foods, I can't handle super sweet stuff anymore. I thought it was something to do with my age. But, maybe it has to do with being farther along in recovery. When you were drastically underweight and sick, your body was probably begging you for quick calories (in the form of concentrated sugars/carbs). Now, you probably don't have as much need for those. That's my guess. I have no idea how I used to eat some of the candy I used to eat. I can do chocolate in certain doses, but I don't really have a sweet tooth anymore. I can't stand cake frosting, for example.
I was the same way--I never even considered myself to have an ED for a long time because I thought I ate too many "normal" foods like snickers bars. And I really liked sweet things too. But I've actually found that being weight-restored and eating enough has made me not crave sweet things so much. So I wonder if when my body wants the sugar it's because it's so starved and needs the quick energy. That's my theory anyway :)
My tastes have changed but I think that's just because I'll allow myself to try new things. I still like most of the old stuff, but an totally triggered by it. When I eat it it will start a binge to I avoid it.
I have found so many new and tasty foods though that it's ok. Fish? Who knew?
Re. the back story... WOW, ARE YOU ME? :-) Yeah, even when I was most sick, I gave myself pretty much an unlimited run on candy and coffee (when usually I wasn't really eating anything else), especially when I was at work. I think partly it was a sweet tooth, but partly it gave me - and other people - the opportunity to deny/enable what I was doing :-(
In terms of stuff I can't eat now... I don't think my tastes themselves have changed. However, there are a few foods that I ate pretty much daily (as 'safe foods') during the height of my anorexia, and which I can't touch even now, because I'm soooo sick of them, and they remind me of restricting and hating food. For e.g. peas quite literallly TASTE LIKE MISERY to me, lol.
Interesting topic :-)
I think it was on a video on the F.E.A.S.T. website that studies had shown that anorexic patients often had a very sweet tooth and craved sugary foods.
I too adore sweet foods, craved them and ate them desperately when I was majorly underweight, and then began to crave them less when I became weight restored.
My own sense of the situation is that when my weight was low I needed the sugar rush just to get through the day. In fact I used to sip sugar water just to keep from feeling dizzy all the time. Now that I give my body what it needs it doesn't need that blood sugar rush since it gets it from normal foods. As a result I do not crave as much sugar and don't even seem to enjoy it as much.
That's my thoughts at least.
I never ate sweets when I was actively anorexic. I just ate LOTS of apples and salads without dressing and coffee and Tums and pretty much nothing else. Somehow I thought this was normal. I guess that's why they call it "disordered thinking."
Anyway, my taste buds have changed since my recovery began. I think I am a lot more in touch with how foods make me feel since I started from scratch and slowly added food in, paying a lot of attention to how they made me feel and how they REALLY tasted. As I've gone through that process, lot of sweets have been kicked to the curb b/c they're either too sweet or just don't make me feel good. I also eat a lot of new foods that I didn't know about before, and some old favorites that I've tried in this process taste even better than I remember (like pizza Hot Pockets...I totally enjoy them once in a while now even though I hadn't eaten them since like 5th grade!)
I can relate to the changing tastes. I did restrict sweets when I was very sick, and never allowed myself to just eat them, but I binged/purged on sweet things, and I craved sweet things.
And now that I'm eating enough (I'm at a healthy weight & have been for several months), I'm sort of eh on sweets - sure, they're fine, but I don't want them all the time, and I don't want things that are too sweet. And when I find myself desperately craving something really sweet/rich, it usually means I didn't eat enough that day and my body needs more calories.
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