Our relationships with food and our bodies can be shaped by a number of life experiences. Whether we learned to manipulate our food and/or our bodies as means of feeling more of a sense of control about life situations, or we pressured ourselves to fit certain molds of "ideal" body size/shape based on cultural messaging; many find that they have strayed from healthy and sustainable relationships with food and their bodies and would benefit from the support of a therapist to reconnect and heal their food and exercise patterns.
If you answer "yes" to any of the following questions, and you would like to seek freedom from the grips of these patterns and behaviors, Counseling for Disordered Eating may be a good fit for you:
- Do you feel a loss of control when you're around food?
- Do you skip meals, or do you rigidly restrict your food intake?
- Are you consumed with thoughts about your body shape or your weight?
- Are you completing a treatment program and looking for some additional support to continue healing your relationship with food and your body?
While disordered eating may not result in the extreme symptoms seen in a diagnosable eating disorder, it has the potential to significantly impact a person's life. For example, someone with disordered eating may not be able to be fully present at work, school, or personal events because of anxiety or discomfort around food, because of a preoccupation with their appearance. Their obsession with food and body image may also affect their ability to focus or concentrate, impacting their performance at work or school. Additionally, an individual struggling with disordered eating and exercise compulsions may incur injuries and refuse to allow them to heal for fear that taking a break from their exercise routine might interfere with them meeting their goals.
Disordered eating can also take a mental and physical toll on a person. Negative self-thinking can impact their mental health and self-image, and their poor eating habits can affect them physically; such as their neurological functioning, and their cardiovascular and intestinal health. Additionally, the often-intense fluctuations in rigid behaviors can increase cortisol levels that are known to contribute to a myriad of other diseases and ailments. Lastly, disordered eating also puts the individual at high risk of developing an eating disorder.
If you find yourself struggling with:
- Frequent dieting or obsessive calorie counting
- Rigid food restriction or skipping meals
- Feeling anxiety, guilt, or shame about certain foods or food in general
- Obsessive exercising, or exercise to "punish" or "make up for" for overeating
- Binging and/or purging
- Self-worth or self-esteem because of your weight or body shape and weight
- Avoiding certain activities because of your body image
- Feeling out of control around food
… then you may be suffering from disordered eating.
What causes people to engage in harmful eating habits can be complex, and vary per the individual. At The Carlile Therapy Group, we use a myriad of treatment models to support our clients in healing from unhealthy patterns around food/body image/exercise. These approaches include Eating Disorder Intuitive Therapy (EDIT™), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), the NeuroAffective Relational Model (NARM®), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Motivational Interviewing, and Experiential work. It is our philosophy to support our clients in exploring these patterns in a non-judgmental environment to gain insight and understanding around what has led to these behaviors in the first place. Through this process, we will support you in learning to accept and love yourself as you are and clarify and achieve the type of relationship you want to have with food and your body.
At The Carlile Therapy Group, we will work with your goals and desires to ensure you can make the life changes you want to make.
Our clinicians offer virtual Individual Therapy sessions in Colorado, Florida and New York and provide a free 15-minute consultation call prior to scheduling an initial session in order to ensure that we are the right fit for you and your therapeutic goals.
Please reach out today for an assessment for Counseling for Disordered Eating or to schedule your first appointment.