halfsquaretriangles-deactivated:
oh friend, i am definitely also in the only reliably managing one meal a day right now zone. it is not a great place to be for the long-term but it also is what it is, and there is no point berating ourselves for being here temporarily. here are some advices that i have gotten from my acupuncturist and doctor and hard-won experience:
1. literally anything you put in your mouth today is a triumph! also known as the “doesn’t matter, had lunch” principle. in the one meal a day zone, anything is a step up from nothing.
2. if you can, it is a good idea to find ways to sneak more calories, fat, etc. into whatever you are drinking throughout the day. drink plenty of water too. but if you can find a “meal replacement” shake or protein shake that is palatable to you, do it! not to “replace” “meals”, but to supplement them. very heavy cream or full-fat coconut milk are good to stir into coffee or tea.
3. see if there are any low-stress snacks that you can at least somewhat reliably eat, and that won’t require any preparation whatsoever, for the between-meal times when you’re feeling on the edge of dangerously woozy. the current thing i can usually manage is rice crackers. nuts are awesome because they are pretty calorically dense and you don’t have to eat a ton of them. whatever! snacks are great!
4. if you are in the zone where you can only eat a really limited amount of stuff before you become nauseated from being overly full, frontloading a lot of vegetables into your mealtime can backfire, if you end up being stuffed full of salad and still dizzy from hunger and not able to eat any more. i am a big proponent of dressing vegetables in a generous amount of a tasty oil (olive or coconut) and roasting them, partly because roasted vegetables are sometimes easier to eat (do you get worn out from having to move your jaw? i do) and partly because that is a good way to ingest some oil to keep your hair and skin from getting too sad.
5. if it has been a while since the last time you ate and you can tell your stomach will rebel at having anything introduced to it, it sometimes helps to prime the pump with something sugary. a glass of ginger ale and a thirty-minute wait has been the difference between being able to eat and not being able to eat for me a lot of times.
6. for the medium- to long-term, if you have access to a doctor who will order blood tests and keep an eye on where you are deficient, that is a great resource and you should take whatever vitamin and mineral supplements they point you toward. a nutritionist who can help you prepare meal plans with an eye toward fulfilling the needs your doctor has identified is also great if available.
7. if you eat meat, fatty cuts of meat cooked at low temperatures for a long time are amazing (braised whatever, stew, carnitas, etc). this is especially true if the preparation also includes a way to eat the fat that was rendered out of the meat as it cooked (in the form of braising liquid turned into gravy, braised meat fried to a crisp in its own fat, etc.). also i have gotten rid of any “low-fat” version of anything and procured its full-fat equivalent instead, like, if i am only going to be able to have two tablespoons of coconut milk in my coffee it had fucking better not be a reduced-fat simulacrum.
8. are there any situations during which you have noticed you can usually eat? i have a way easier time eating in social situations with other people around, and diner breakfasts/dinner dates are usually times where i can eat more than i would have been able to by myself. who cares why in the teeth of the one-meal-a-day monster, it is not the time for exploring etiology, it is the time for figuring out what works in the present tense and going with it. it also helps me to be brought things to eat and have them plunked in front of me. my partner just went out and bought me a mcrib and i inhaled it. fuck yeah.
9. no pressure, but it is good if you can sort of keep an eye on when it feels good (or at least less bad) to eat, and identify what the common features of feeling-good times are, and exploit them. for me that is diner breakfasts, or coming up with a limited palette of tastes and choosing foods within those parameters to make things mysteriously more appetizing. bitter-smoky-salty-sour is my favourite palette; those are days with rye bread and salted tomatoes and sharp marmalade and lapsang souchong.
this is not comprehensive but i hope it is a little helpful!
wow yes
gpoy
Tags:
#food #disordered eating #things that might have been helpful during the Stomach Bug from Hell last year #but over the course of about two months my appetite gradually improved #I never fully recovered #but I can eat enough to sustain myself now #and even miss out on a time period where my stomach is willing to accept food with no harm done #as long as I’m careful not to let one go by too often #(I do miss having appetite to spare) #(maybe it’s a microbiome thing)
Brinens and Things 