Honest opinion: Is this disordered eating?
 

So, I knew I was getting takeout tonight with friends a few days ago. I kept my calories around 700 for the day today, with very little fat. I also did a ton of extra exercise (biked to do errands, walked about 6 miles, and took 2 gym classes) to try and offset/balance it. Plus the weather was amazing and I didn't even want to come indoors!

The friends came....we ate... and I stopped halfway through my dinner because I noticed I was the only one still eating. I waited until they went home to finish. This is odd to me.

As I was cleaning up, I noticed one friend did not even open a container of her side dish (which was sooo good).. and it was about a one cup serving.. and I still had room, and hate to waste food, and found it delicious, so I ate it. The second friend ate only half of her dinner, and left another side dish container untouched as well. I took 2 bites or so, and then threw it away because I was full.

Is that weird? I feel like I was just partaking in secret eating, or something. I just feel like since I planned for this, and worked hard for it, that I had the room for the calories and the room in my belly.

Now, I feel really full and kind of weird about my behavior.

What do you think?

That's not disordered eating. That's not wanting to look gluttonous + hating to see food go to waste, both of which are normal in American culture. A lot of people do things like that but would never admit publicly to doing so. I have, and I don't consider it "disordered" so much as "a little embarrassing."

Haha, yes .. "a little embarrassing," for sure. Sometimes I wish I had been born European....

Ah, well. Tomorrow's another day :) Thanks for sharing your outlook!

hey, even in Europe we do that that so don't worry :D

That kind of eationg is what caused many of us to become overweight.

IMO, it's really hard to tell from a behavior if something is disordered. I tend to think the important thing is where your head is at.

For example, when you restricted your cals to 700 for the day, was is just a planned restriction that was somewhat easy to stick to, or were you obsessing over restricting your cals/increasing your exercise all day?

Similarly, when you were eating with your friends, were you more focused on the food than on the conversation and time spent with them? When you decided to stop eating, was it because it would have been genuinely awkward to keep being the only one eating (people wanted to leave the table), or was it because you didn't want people to see you keep eating, so you just thought, "I'll finish this after everyone leaves?"

That being said, my former pattern of eating would have ensured that there would have been NO leftovers. :) I would have eaten everything, after everyone had left, as quickly as possible - probably shoving it in my mouth without enjoying it and long past the point of fullness. The fact that you didn't do that says something positive about your behavior, for sure.

Only you can know the headspace you were in when you did these things. What do you think? Have you been a "secret eater" before? If so, does this behavior fit that pattern?

This part not at all.

This part a little bit. You're feeling shame about eating when you shouldn't. If you're hungry eat! You shouldn't need to hide that.

If you were hungry then no. If you weren't hungry, then you were just overeating because it was good. If there was some emotion attached to it, well then that's a whole other ball of wax.

Moral of the story, I wouldn't over analyze it too much. I think *sometimes* we give ourselves "disorders" by over thinking it. For example, when have you not looked at WebMD and thought OMG - I have that symptom! I must have ______ fill in the blank. Sure that's an extreme example, but seriously if this isn't a habit for you don't worry about it.

If I read your post right, you A) planned a caloric splurge by keeping calories low and exercise high; B) stopped eating when others at the table did; and C) were still hungry after your friends left, so you ate some more.

I'm no expert, but I don't think there's any evidence of an eating disorder in that. It stands out to me that you did throw food away once you were full and that you stopped eating when your friends did, but put food out of your mind in between dinner's ending and your friends' leaving. You'd planned a bit of a splurge, and splurging is exactly what you did.

One meal or solitary "I'll just eat this so it doesn't go to waste" episode does not an eating disorder make. :) If you did it every week, then yeah, you might want to examine some things, but occasionally? Nah. I wouldn't worry.

Secret eating... I know what you mean. On several occasions when I bring home food from Taco Bell (I live with my boyfriend who is skinny and can eat whatever he wants..), I tend to order extra cheese roll ups and chow them down in my car before I get home to eat with him. I haven't even told him that and am quite embarrassed I do so...

I don't know how to tell I'm full until it's too late and I've over stuffed and I don't know when I'm hungry until my hands are shaking so bad. I don't think it's an eating disorder, but I don't know what it is. I'm with you though, I've done it too.

Thank you so much for your thoughts and opinions. I just felt so weird and kind of ashamed of myself, so I figured I'd throw it out there and see where I was on the spectrum.

JenMusic: Those are some really important, thought provoking questions, and the answer to some of them is yes. I've got to journal about and think through them, for sure.

Another question for the OP and everyone...even if you do come to the conclusion that a behavior or thought is "disordered," what does that mean to you?

I do think I'm not "normal" about food sometimes. Then I think about it, and most of my friends are the same way. We all think "darn, it's hard not to eat junk food sometimes" and "I feel better about having that big meal because I went for a run." There are times when we overeat or even binge eat. Yet we are all functional in our lives - even with our messed up thoughts and occasional messed up behaviors, we are still healthy as far as our body functions go. We have jobs, hobbies, social lives, etc.

I'm pretty awful at expressing my thoughts on this, but I really liked ncuneo's comparison of self-analysis of eating habits with WebMD hypochondria. I am definitely not trying to belittle anyone's suffering; I know the frustration and hopelessness associated with binging and food well. But I think it is easy for me, at least, to partially relinquish my own power when I think I am doing/thinking "disordered" things.

I think the definition of "disordered" depends a lot on how much it interferes with life, how much time and energy and effort it takes.

I don't like my foods to touch each other on my plate. My husband laughs at me for this and once got me a divided cafeteria tray as a gag gift (the joke was on him--I loved that thing and used it often). For someone else, the minor compulsion I have to keep my foods from touching could feel like a budding obsessive-compulsive disorder and become really bothersome.

We need to leave ourselves room for some quirks--non-touching foods, eating sweets only on one side of the mouth, feeling guilty for a planned splurge, feeling a little weird about taking pleasure in eating alone--that don't fall into the category of straight-up disordered eating. I think that it's easy to become hyper-vigilant because everyone here is so conscious of her (or his) eating habits, food choices, and exercise behaviors that anything different pings our ED-dar.

Vigilance is good, but sometimes it's okay to have a few quirks. It's fine to want to keep my foods from orgiastically coupling on my plate, but it would not be fine to toss the food out and go hungry because a pea brushed against my steak. :D

NolaCeleste & Krampus-- You make a good point.... there's a huge difference between a quirk and a straight up disorder. I think I kind of need to cool it with the self analysis, and just keep moving forward. I am spending WAY too much time in my own head! hahaha

Thanks again for your perspectives!

Just throwing it out there - I think it's possible to have occasional "disordered eating" without having an eating disorder.

I don't know that I'll ever have a normal relationship with food. Heck, I don't even know what that is! :) But I can address my occasional overeating/emotional eating/food-related quirks with behavioral tools, without delving too far into the psychology of why I'm like this. I'm ok with that, I really am. I don't know that it matters anyway.

Disordered eating? Pretty hefty label. However, I never in a million years would eat someone else's leftovers during post-eating clean up. Not only because I get full very easily, but it's a germ thing for me. Saliva starts to break down food on contact and the parts of the food left behind that were touched by the fork have begun to digest, so to say, so I view it as eating someone else's partially digested food. Ew.