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.

I got the impression that FPSJ sampled unopened cartons of side dishes, not half-eaten meals--though I could be wrong. That's another one of my food weirdnesses, though, along with no food/food contact; the stuff other people leave on their plates is about as appetizing as cold garbage to me.

An unopened carton of fried rice or an untouched egg roll, on the other hand, would totally be fair game. :D

fitness4life-- NoOoo it wasn't already eaten! Nothing went in my mouth that someone else's mouth touched. It was unopened/un-bitten.

FPSJ - that's not disordered at all, it's good as new. Think of it this way, if someone came over and left some unpeeled fruit at your house, wouldn't you see it as "fair game" or a "bonus?" :)

besides it's normal to think "man don't waste perfectly good food." I remember going to a wedding with my bf that had the best cake we'd ever eaten, and both of us being really angry that the (skinny, naturally) chicks at the table next to us only took a couple bites of their big slices and left the rest.

They left wedding cake!? That's horrible!

I freakin' love wedding cake. I love it so much that I would probably even overcome the "ick" factor of eating someone else's cake off her plate. I would possibly consider eating it after it had been in her mouth, for that matter. :D

Nola this cake was the best cake I've ever encountered in my life. The groom is Dutch and he had a local baker recreate an old family recipe of white chocolate + dark chocolate perfection.

BF and I did sit there fidgeting trying to see if it was possible to eat the leftover cake, but since we already stick out as foreigners in Japan we figured it was unwise to make total hogs of ourselves at a wedding.

I would think "no" since you planned for it..but it seems to go with the not wanting to waste food thing/clean plate that made some of us fat. It's interesting your friends could just leave it and not care if you threw it out or not.

Depending on what the food was, if it's healthy or even if it's not healthy but is something I really, genuinely like I would of probably saved it to make a left over meal for the next day...but I'm weird/frugal like that.

I would re-marry just to eat a cake like that, Krampus. Wedding cake is awesome enough, but a traditional Dutch white/dark chocolate wedding cake? OMG!

Anyone who left that cake on the plate is a philistine.

I agree. XD It's definitely good we held back though, one of the Philistine girls at the wedding has slept with several of the guys who were also there and they all somehow wound up with STIs...

Hahaha, I love that this turned into a cake discussion... I am smiling right now :)

I feel better, too!

:D

So, now that I'm a few days out from the "incident," I went ahead and sat down with my journal and revisited what I was thinking and feeling before, during, and after the eating.

Jenmusic, ncuneo, ringmaster-- You asked/pointed out some really thought provoking questions and observations. I used them to direct my journaling and just let my thoughts flow.

Thinking back, the conversation I was having with the friends revolved primarily around work. This is a stressful topic, and I remember thinking "ugh I don't want to talk about this anymore." My eyes wandered around the room, and I felt a little squirmy. My next thought was, "There's food left on my plate and I want to eat it, but I don't want them to look at me like a freak."

Bingo.

I also recall feeling inadequate when discussing athletics, races/competitions, and thinking I'll never be as good as them. I then felt guilt about the food, and how I can't resist it. I was harping on how my body is not the right shape, is not as long and lean as theirs, and will never be strong, fast, or as thin as theirs.

There was a moment when we were discussing dating, and each of the friends is either in a relationship or dating several men. I have not had any sort of "dating" activity in many, many months. In fact, I often avoid eye contact and attention unless I am out drinking, and I get downright defensive with common "catcalls" and other normal male attention that all females deal with when living in a big city. I know that this likely stems from a lack of confidence in myself. Anyway, I remember feeling like I wanted to change the subject again, and that I felt uneasy.


So, to conclude, I'm pretty sure that I wanted to eat because I wanted to feel comfort. Plain and simple.

Now the question is, what can I do to replace food, that will give me the same sense of mental quiet, comfort, and satisfaction that eating does?

Thank you for your opinions and your observations. They really helped me to start uncovering what's really going on. Time for some self respect and kindness, huh?

-FPSJ

FPSJ- Isn't that awesome when you realize things like that!?!?!? I had a breakthrough like that myself, just yesterday.....it's so empowering, and I am so glad you were able uncover what's going on.

It's so funny, because to a 'normal' person, it must seem so easy (and stupid) that we have to analyze WHY we eat. But, for us, it's HUGE!

Congrats to you!!! :)

mamato2boys, you are so right! I kinda knew this all along, but I have never actively chosen to look at it head on and deal with it. Gotta start somewhere, right?

Thanks, and same to you!

Thanks!!!!!!!! :)