[Closed] Freddy Flintoff and bulimia

Heard it was excellent, and will try and catch it. My relationship with good isn't the best, though not bulimic.

It badly affect a girl I dated in my late teens, but we'd split up before I was mature and aware enough to join the clues to put it together and realise what was going on.

I’ve tried to deal with these before and have some idea of the roots, but I guess I need to give myself a kick up the arse and re-assess and not live with this for the next few decades too.

Tried therapy? My wife has similar issues and sees someone who specialises in Eating disorders - does help. I think the best you achieve is learning to live with the issue, I don't think it ever goes (I only live with it second hand so can't offer any first hand advice).

We'll be watching the episde as soon as I download it...

I've battled with food as long as I can remember, and the only time I've opened up about it was on here a few years ago. Someone pointed me to someone who could help and I did an online course that did make a bit of a difference, but I'm still far from normal. I've pretty much got to the point where I am resigned to living with this but it limits socialising, travel (when we could!) and I have an underlying concern if I ever need any sort of care.

I missed the first part of Flintoff's show but the latter part was very engaging for me - my problems are so different to his, but a lot of the thinking/justification from him and that binge eating lad echoed quite deeply.

On the exercise side, if you get serious about training it can provide a lot of structure that helps you avoid this wild yo-yoing you're talking about, helps you understand your body (ie the difference between fatigued and being ill) and teaches you how to go easy. XC legend Gunn-Rita Dhale did something like 80% of her annual riding in zone 1/2 - not that any of us can train like pros but it does illustrate that it's definitely not about going out and riding your balloches off all the time.

Doesn't work for everyone, some people find the numbers just make things worse and are their own type of prison.

I caught the last half of it and it’s worth watching.
My food problems relate to food texture, which is now largely resolved, but fortunately it’s not caused me major problems

Yeh it has come up in previous therapy I had, but it was a side line thing, and possibly deliberately played down by me in favour of other issues, to be fair the issues that are at the root. I do think I need to look at a specific eating disorder therapy, but living where I am (remote Scottish Island), regardless of covid, the local options seem non-existant for that specialism. I've looked at lots of self-help stuff too including Russell Brand's 'Recovery' which is actually pretty useful in lots of parts.

WRT to the exercise I've tried tracking it with PCM type tools and strava, but that brings it other issues in that it and the figures always on my mind obsessing. I actually want to enjoy biking, hiking, swimming as a thing I like doing and enjoy, and to do it sensibly without the need to fire up the hrm and tracking apps. I do try to manage activity though and not go all out, with mostly zone 2 and tempo stuff. I tried to take a couple of weeks off recently and still ended up doing more incidental activity than most of the average people I know, but I did feel a hell of a lot better for it.
I'm trying to use the 100 days to Xmas as a way to temper things with only 30min a day rather than walking and cycling pretty much every day, plus bigger stuff at the weekends etc. It just leaves me knackered and grumpy.

Any how I'm going to look for some help on this. Cheers

I watched this GCN video today, which is specifically about cycling, body image and eating disorders. I thought it was really interesting and well done.

Went through this myself in my late teens, ever increasing restriction on calorie intake and compulsive exercising 7 days a week, 2+ hours a time.
I was fortunate enough to get a successful wake up call from my parents and the shock of realising that the person in the photos they were showing me that I didn't recognise was actually me.
Some sessions with a nutritionist helped me straighten out my head for what I could eat and although my wife would disagree over the years my obsession with exercise has mellowed. A day with no activity still feels wrong though.
I've even managed recently to switch to an ebike for more of the fun bits and less of the grinding up heart attack inducing climbs. That has now created it's own desire for KOM hunting on ebike climb segments 🙂
I'll be watching this on IPlayer later.

Bitten the bullet and seeing someone next week...

Bitten the bullet and seeing someone next week…

Great start.

@P20 interesting re texture - my lad seems to have a bit of a phobic reaction to the texture of some foods, mainly fruit and veg. It's proper panic/fear on his face, not just a fussy eating thing. Would love to try and help him deal with it better before he goes to uni (hopefully) next year.

@MoreCashThanDash

The simplest way of explaining it:

Piece of steak, I’m not interested too chewy, the thing most likely to make me gag. Batter the thing into a burger and I’ll enjoy it, the texture has completely changed.

Veg in my family was always on the soft side and I couldn’t do it. My wife cooks veg that is still crunchy and though I’m not a huge fan, I can eat it.

its been a long battle that for a large part of my life I gave up on. Food was something I had to do, rather than enjoy, which effected the social aspect of things. It’s taken the last decade working with @ahsat to work it out. Small changes and take time over it. Never apply pressure, there’s a pizza in the freezer if it doesn’t work! I’m not perfect, but from where i was, it’s so much better!

Bitten the bullet and seeing someone next week…

Good man! I should have done this, but binge & purge became so normalised for me I just saw it as part of who I am.

I think the best you achieve is learning to live with the issue, I don’t think it ever goes

My approach to learning to live with it was totally worng...

For some reason, after >20 years (some of them really severe), it's just seems to have fizzled out.
Doesn't mean it won't be back, but it feels like it's no longer with me.

Piece of steak, I’m not interested too chewy, the thing most likely to make me gag. Batter the thing into a burger and I’ll enjoy it, the texture has completely changed.

That's him bang on - as if he's too anxious to chew. And with vegetables - would freak out if you gave him carrots, raw or cooked, but grate it up into a bolognese and he'll eat it. Only veg he will eat normally are baked beans, and peas smothered in ketchup. We don't make a fuss as it just annoys him, but I'd just like him to conquer whatever it is.

Appreciate your reply, really helpful and set my mind at rest a bit.

@MCTD are you sure it's a texture thing with your lad. My issue is that I see some (well, a lot) food as "unsafe" and it might as well be a plate of razor blades laced with cyanide, cos that's how much chance there is of me trying it. I cannot bring myself to even taste it, no matter what my rational adult brain is telling me. I think it stems from the normal picky phase that kids go through, but for me that turned into hours of stand offs with me refusing to eat something and my dad refusing to let me move until I'd tried it. I "won" back then but think that the winning just reinforced the "thou shall not eat XYZ" message in my head. I think it's a form of "selective eating disorder" but as I'm not an extreme case who only eats one brand of oven chips or whatever I've never had it labelled, but a quick Google of that term will bring up an online therapist who got apples and mushrooms onto my "safe" list. Salads still right out though.

EDIT
Ah you replied while I was typing that, but I'll just leave it there as it helps to let it out now and again.

@morecashthandash

The last 13 years with @p20 means I can certainly encourage you to set your mind at rest. It has been a very slow and careful journey but food is no longer an ‘issue’ and at times even enjoyable 🙂 There is no doubt @p20 had anxiety associated with it (and it took time to work out it was texture) but with him being receptive to it, we just changed one variable at a time to find out what worked. Always done in the safety of home - eating out isn’t the place to try new stuff if you are anxious about food - too much pressure.

MCTD - have a read of this (or other pages on same!)

https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk/types/arfid

MrsDoris suffers from something incredibly similar to what ThePurist has described (right down to the childhood standoffs and starving rather than eat something she didn't want to, aversion to salad, etc). It seems as much like a phobia as anything. We think it probably comes down to certain childhood issues and was a control thing (like many food disorders?)

She is slowly getting better, and finds she makes the most progress when she's happy / relaxed about life (ie not stressed at work etc). If it's not made into A Big Thing, and she doesn't feel cornered, or watched or judged, she might try a tiny piece of (e.g.) olive off my plate. And sometimes she might even quite like it.

But it's a difficult one because it's not just fear, it's also embarrassment, of being like a picky kid, and loads of other emotions besides. The sufferer will readily acknowledge that it's not rational - just like being terrified of a 5mm house spider isn't rational, but it still happens - but just acknowledging that won't make the black feelings of dread go away! So you have to approach it very very carefully.

Don't we all go through this at some stage? Maybe it's a normal healthy thing to be a fussy eater for a while and helps define ourselves.

I think problems occur when external influences pressure the person whilst they're going through this stage and the automatic response is to push back and dig your heels in.

For example, I don't eat fish since I was about 5 years old, I don't like the texture, taste or smell. I strongly believe that the real reason that I've never got over this is that my dad's girlfriend tried to force me to eat fish when I was a kid and she failed, even after making me sit at the table for hours (even got a slap as extra punishment). Now if I did eat fish I feel that I would be giving into her and betraying my 5 year old self (my dad's girlfriend wasn't and still is a very unpleasant person).

Maybe other people also have traumatic memories associated with food.

It seems as much like a phobia as anything.

I remember @thepurist's thread at the time and our afflictions are very similar. and MrsDoris also. I'm absolutely convinced that it's a phobia.

singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/fixing-a-weird-relationship-with-food/#post-9277445

I love cooking, I'm the primary chefist in the house and have been so through successive partners. I hate eating. Go figure.

it’s also embarrassment... The sufferer will readily acknowledge that it’s not rational

I don't have words, I could kiss you. So let us both be thankful for social distancing.

It is mortifying. And it is also bloody stupid.

See my post halfway down the page on the link above. I'd bought soup and was really enjoying it, right up until something in my brain went "nope!" and I ended up having to throw half of it away because if I'd eaten any more I'd have vommed. I said to my partner at the time, "this is bloody ridiculous, it's really nice!"

Remembered an interesting paper I read a while back - might help some of you I guess.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4545503/

A Preliminary Study of Self-Reported Food Selectivity in Adolescents and Young Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Although I don't know loads about the topic.

IIRC someone suggested a potential link on that previous thread and at the time it hadn't occurred to me that that might be a thing.

Thanks for the article, I'll have a mosey.