What Does Anorexia Nervosa Treatment Look Like?
Living with anorexia is a huge burden to carry alone. It can feel all-consuming. Even if you recognize that you need support to recover, seeking help can be scary for many reasons. This is often related to the fear of the unknown and fear of letting go of the eating disorder.
If you are reading this right now, you have likely suffered a great deal when it comes to food. So, you’re exploring options to find a life beyond the eating disorder. This takes an immense amount of resilience and strength. But, a better understanding of anorexia nervosa treatment can help reduce anxiety. A nutrition therapist can help you find hope in the uncertainty of recovery.
What is Nutrition Therapy?
Nutrition therapy is a primary way clients seek anorexia nervosa treatment in the outpatient setting.* Nutrition therapy is a collaborative process. A dietitian works to discuss the intersection of food and the client’s mental, emotional, and physical health. In this context, conversations revolve around your relationship with food and your body.
Many factors can have negative impacts on your relationship with food and your body. This may include:
Trauma
Mental illness
Disordered eating
And food insecurity
These factors can cause you to experience difficulty around food and body image. The goal of nutrition therapy is for you to cultivate more trust in your body. In the end, we want you to experience more freedom in your relationship with food.
What Does Anorexia Nervosa Treatment in Seattle, WA Look Like and What Can I Expect?
In your initial session of anorexia treatment, you will explore your goals in your recovery. We will work with you to get specific about the things you want to achieve. Setting goals is a way that you can commit to the things that you desire and want most. This also allows your dietitian to know how to best support you. Some common goals in treatment are:
Feeling less anxious around food and have food take up less headspace
Not hating my body so much
To be able to socialize and not have food fears always come up
To have more energy so that I can get a job, finish school, support my kids better, etc.
In anorexia nervosa treatment, you can also expect that you are going to be talking about food often. When working with a dietitian, you will take a deep dive into what you are eating in a day and over a week. Together, you will learn if you are getting enough energy from food and getting enough macronutrients. From there, you will collaborate and come up with a meal plan and/or food structure. You will make a structure that makes sure to address things like the variety, density, and volume of food. Then, you will work with your dietitian to develop a temporary meal plan. This will ensure your nutrition intake is adequate to meet your basic needs. Over time, you will work towards implementing intuitive eating principles as you recover.
While addressing adequate and consistent nourishment, you will also examine your current beliefs. A nutrition therapist can help you with recurring thoughts about food and your body. These conversations aim to spark reflection around your eating patterns. Often, exploration is at the center of the work that you will do in outpatient recovery. Some examples of things that you will explore in nutrition therapy are:
Food experiences as a child
Dieting history
Health diagnoses
Big life transitions
Connection of mental illness to eating disorder (OCD, ADHD, Bipolar, etc)
Media messages about food and “ideal” bodies
Mental health (anxiety, depression, etc.)
Experiences with stigma
Loved ones’ comments about food and/or bodies
Exploring these topics instills a greater sense of awareness around food behaviors. Thus, allowing you to get to the root of your beliefs and learn the “why” of why the eating disorder developed.
Identifying disordered thoughts and behaviors
Another part of anorexia nervosa recovery is identifying how the eating disorder controls food and movement. Some examples of this include identifying restrictive thoughts and behaviors around food. This may include the consumption of a low-calorie diet or eliminating many food groups. This can also include practicing quantitative behaviors like weighing, counting, tracking, and measuring food; and engaging in compulsive exercise.
You will collaborate with your dietitian to challenge the disordered attitudes and behaviors. Taking steps to do this as a way to recover from anorexia nervosa include using skills like:
Journaling
Integrating mind-body practices at mealtimes
Using tools to soothe and calm the nervous system
Trying new foods in a supportive setting
Doing food fear challenges
Unpacking internalized beliefs about your body.
Tips to Help You Through Anorexia Nervosa Treatment in Seattle, WA
While working with a registered dietitian, it can be helpful to think about how you will best be supported in your recovery journey. Some of the tools below can be helpful, and sometimes necessary. They are a great place to start, and are worth considering adding in to support your recovery:
Making sure you have a mental health therapist on your team. This is the best practice in the treatment of eating disorders.
Find a community where you feel supported. This work can feel lonely. So, having a community, such as a support group, can make a big difference in your recovery and in feeling less alone.
Explore meal delivery options. Cooking for yourself might be hard as you recover especially if you live alone. Making sure to research meal kits and meal prep delivery services can be a huge help!
Engage in nervous system regulation tools/techniques. Anorexia nervosa treatment is not "only about eating more food” as many ill-informed people like to say. It’s about so much more! It is about understanding how your eating disorder may have served as a coping strategy in your life. In this way, working to soothe and regulate your nervous system will be supportive. It can help you as you challenge and chip away at eating disorder behaviors.
Cultivate skills to set boundaries and ask for support. This one is often hard and can be explored in both your work with your dietitian and your therapist. Boundary setting and requesting support are essential in recovering from an eating disorder!
Do I need anorexia nervosa treatment?
Odds are that if you are asking this question the likelihood is high that you need support. This is not to say that a diagnosis is possible without knowing more about your specific experience. If you’re questioning if you may have an eating disorder, things may have felt off for a long time. But, you’ve been doubting seeking treatment. People around may be concerned, like family, a partner, or health practitioners. Or, you may feel stuck in endless cycles of food restriction and want to get out, but have no idea how to escape it. Either way, don’t wait until things get worse before you seek anorexia nervosa treatment.
An eating disorder specialist can help you determine if you meet the criteria for anorexia nervosa. If you believe you would benefit from food and body image support meeting with them is the first step in answering this question. Don’t ever let the eating disorder stop you from reaching out! You may never feel “sick enough” for the eating disorder to believe that you deserve help.
Getting help for anorexia nervosa can be challenging. But, it’s worth it and recovery is possible. You deserve to reclaim the life that was stolen from you by the eating disorder.
*Eating disorder recovery looks different for everyone. This can depend on the individual, their history, and their recovery needs. There are varying levels of care. They range from outpatient (the lowest level of care), partial hospital, residential, to inpatient (highest level of care). For this article and given the scope of practice at Bravespace Nutrition, we will be talking about treatment in the context of the outpatient setting.
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Begin Anorexia Nervosa Treatment in Seattle, WA
Anorexia can feel like an endless battle against your own body. You deserve support to develop a love for the food you eat, and the body you have. The caring dietitians from our Seattle, WA-based counseling practice would love to help you recover from the eating disorder. To start anorexia nervosa treatment in Seattle, WA, please follow these simple steps:
Schedule a free 15-minute consultation by clicking the button below.
Meet with a caring dietitian.
Start your recovery journey, and improve your relationship with food!
Other Services Offered at Bravespace Nutrition
Anorexia treatment isn’t the only service offered at our Seattle, WA-based therapy practice. Other services include support for body image, binge eating, intuitive eating, Bulimia treatment, and chronic dieting. We also offer a body image support group, and business coaching as well. For more information, please feel free to visit our blog, FAQ, or resources page
Learn More About Our Body Image Support Group
Here at Bravespace Nutrition, we believe a nourished life begins by stepping into a brave space. This is why we created the Body Image Badass Support Group. This is a body image support group for women ages 18+ that are in recovery from disordered eating, an eating disorder, or chronic dieting. This group can be a wonderful support to 1:1 eating disorder recovery work.
In this supportive group, you will work with other women and create a sense of self-worth that is not based on your body shape or weight. You will learn new tools that will help you appreciate the body you have. But the best part, you will be supported by your peers and a caring therapist along the way!