Diabetes and eating disorders

[Aoife]

Just wondering if any people have ever had any hassle with their eating patterns/amounts, or actual eating disorders, in addition to and probably stimulated by their diabetes. I used to have a bit of a problem with food, and thankfully have more or less beaten it. However, I say more or less because I think all the anxiety about tighter control is bringing back my issues with food.

For example, I'm nearly afraid to have dinner tonight. My blood sugar readings are ok (7.6 which is amazingly good for me) and I'm scared of getting the balance of food/insulin wrong and upsetting my "good" reading...I'm starving but able to ignore it if I put my mind to it, and tempted to not eat. I've had approx 400-500 calories today, so its really not a good idea to avoid food for the rest of the day.

Nowadays, I eat when I'm hungry and stop when I'm full (okay, sometimes VERY full :wink: ) and I reckon I have a normal enough appetite. I don't have a binge/purge cycle anymore. I pretty much achieved this by forcing myself to stop obsessing about the nutritional value of every morsel I put in my mouth, and now it seems like that level of obsession is necessary to manage diabetes properly. Hopefully a balance can be found between diligence and obsession. Hard to do when you are terrified though.

How has diabetes affected your relationship with food?

 

[Spiral]

Actually, my diabetes seems to have improved my relationship with food :shock: I'm actually eating better than I have done for years :shock: and I'm told I'm looking well on it and I do feel so much better. Right now it feels as if I'm in control of my diet and this hasn't been the case for many, many years.

While I don't actually have an eating disorder I know that my long term eating patterns are not just about keeping my body heathy - that is why I need to be half the woman I was in February :cry: I just hope I can keep this up in the long term :? I'd say most of us have a "complicated" relationship with food.

I comfort and boredom eat. Since I reduced my carb intake I have found I'm not so hungry It has also changed my high carb comfort eating - oatcakes instead of toast, Nairns stem ginger ones if I'm having a major comfort eating session, but I could murder a slice or several of Warburtons Farmhouse White thick sliced still hot and dripping with butter and Marmite this is my fantasy food at the moment :roll:

I do worry about my obsessing over food. I want to eat things that look normal and sit down to eat with my 12-year-old son and both of us have the same meal.

I also want to give him a better role model than my parents gave me around food - my mum has difficulty in accepting that I really do mean "no" when offered cake. It isn't about not being hungry, it is about not having offered the right thing and she will go on to list all the (homemade) cake in the cupboards and the shop bought stuff as well until it becomes easier to say "yes" than to keep on saying no :?

 

[curlyheadfreak]

hi Aoife

I know exactly what you're saying. I was bulimic before I was diagnosed with type 1 and was doing well with recovery up til then. The diabetes made my eating disorder spiral for the reasons you say - the obsessing with numbers, carbs, "right and wrong, good and bad" foods, the guilt when you get a bad reading, the food diaries, the blood sugar diaries encourging perfectionism etc. Thankfully I'm now healthy but yes, I do think that if you are prone to food issues diabetes can majorly exacerbate it.

good luck and feel free to send me a message if you want!