Hi guys. Welcome to another episode of
Recovery Talk. This is your host, Amali Lee
speaking. And in this week's episode we
are going to talk about chewing and spitting.
I'm going to talk a bit about what this is, why it happens,
the consequences, and also just some strategies for recovery.
So chew and spit or chewing and spitting is sometimes
abbreviated CHSP, and it means that someone is, as the term may
suggest, chewing food and spitting it out without
swallowing it. It is seen as a eating disorder
or disordered eating symptom, rather than being a separate
eating disorder or a separate diagnosable condition.
The way that I view it personally, I view it a little
bit similar to purging. I kind of see spitting as a
purging behaviour. Now I understand that with chew
and spit there often is a certain ritualistic behaviour to
it that it can feel quite soothing and calming in a way
that purging may or may not be. But I die.
I personally define purging as attempts to get rid of food, get
rid of calories. So I see that could be self
induced vomiting, it could be laxative abuse, it could be
spitting up the food. So that's at least how I in my
brain conceptualise chew and spit.
So chew and spit comes with so many misconceptions and a sense
of trivialisation, I would say, where people don't realise that
it actually has very real, not just mental consequences, but
also physical consequences. And it also often comes with so
much shame and secrecy. And I want to let you know that
chewing spit in people with eating disorders is actually a
relatively common behaviour, it's just not spoken about that
often. They're also very different
severity levels of chewing spit. So some people may dabble a bit
in the behaviour, they do it occasionally and other people
may have rituals where they do it for hours and hours a day.
And this is similar to what we see with for example binge purge
cycles. While some people may have an
occasional binge purge session whilst other people their entire
day morning to night is a binge purge.
As a coach I have seen it all. You have nothing to be ashamed
about, but it absolutely is something it is essential that
you work on because chewing spit is not a healthy or harmless
behaviour that you can engage in long term without any
consequences in terms of your mental health, physical health
and social health. So when it comes to the attitude
a lot of people have towards chewing spit, I see an
interesting parallel to early stage purging.
So this is of course not the case for every person who
purges, but a lot of times what I hear from people is that when
they started to purge, they felt like they'd almost discovered a
life hack, that they had discovered a way to enjoy the
food without the consequences, that they had a built in delete
button. And then of course as the
purging goes on, you start realising, Oh well this wasn't
the case. And I think a lot of people
would chew and spit, are a bit stuck in that early stage
purging mindset where they don't really see how harmful it is.
And look, I'm not going to use this entire episode to try and
scare you out of the behaviour, but I want you to at least make
an informed decision if this is something you want to continue
doing or something you feel ready to actually work on.
Because of course, it's not a choice, but it is something you
can choose to work on. And it absolutely is possible to
stop the habit, break that loop. And I'll talk a bit more about
how to do that later in episode. But first, I want to talk a bit
about these consequences that I've been hinting towards for
this episode. So why is chewing and spitting
so harmful for your health? Well, first of all, when we talk
about health, I like to talk about mental health, physical
health, and social health. And these, of course, all
overlap. They're not necessarily three
very separate categories, but it is an important thing to keep in
mind because I think a lot of times when people talk about
health, they only talk about physical health.
But social and mental health is very important.
That being said, let's start with the physical health
consequences of chewing spits. Because oh boy, there are many.
And like I said earlier, people don't tend to realise because
they're like, what's the harm? I'm just chewing on some food
and spitting it out. Well, here's the thing.
Our mouth is part of our digestive system.
It's part of our whole metabolic system.
When you are putting food in your mouth and you start chewing
it, your body is getting signals that woo Hoo food is coming in.
So it starts acting accordingly. Your stomach starts preparing
for food to come in. There are changes in things like
your insulin levels, your blood sugar.
Everything prepares for food to come in.
And then what happens? Nothing.
There's no food. Where's the food?
And your body has essentially pushed all of these buttons
preparing for the food to come in, and then nothing is
happening. And now what?
Your body can't just undo all of these processes in a split
second. So for example, your insulin
levels will go up in preparation for food.
I know I've mentioned this before, but there's so much fear
mongering and misinformation right now out there about blood
sugar, insulin, glucose. And the cool thing about our
bodies is that our bodies are really, really good at handling
these things. Unless of course you have a
condition like, let's say diabetes.
Your body knows what to do to regulate your blood sugar.
Your body knows how to send out insulin.
Your cells know how to respond to that.
But when you're starving yourself or when you're engaging
in behaviours that are confusing the the body, then this whole
system is going to go a bit out of whack.
So here's what happens when you start chewing on a food.
Your body releases insulin in preparation for the food to
come. And then if nothing comes, you
may experience that your blood sugar drops, which then makes
you more hungry and then makes you crave more food.
And think about this in the context of chewing spit.
So you may be restricting your intake, which is typical for
chewing spit. You crave a specific food.
Let's say you crave A doughnut. You start chewing on that
doughnut and then you think, oh if I just get a taste of it I
will feel satisfied. But what actually happens is the
complete opposite. You're triggering an increased
hunger and craving response in the body.
And then for people with chew and spit, this then may lead
them to towards more urges to chew and spit and your body just
never gets satisfied. It's like you're turning your
hunger and craving hormones onto the highest volume.
Whilst if you just had the doughnut, you would eat the
doughnut, your body would process the food as it should
and you would feel more satiated.
Of course, yes, there are things like extreme hunger situations
in recovery where people may feel like they never get
satisfied, but that is a temporary response that you're
going to have to go through when you've been experiencing
restriction. It's not a permanent system
error, but with you and spit, there is no end point unless you
stop the behaviour. With extreme hunger, yeah, you
may eat the doughnut and not feel completely satiated, but
then if you have another doughnut and life keeps going on
for some time and eventually it starts calming down and you get
that satiation, but chew and spit doesn't give you that.
So This is why chew and spit often can be so addictive,
because the behaviour itself makes you want to do the
behaviour more. Also, being on this constant
insulin glucose roller coaster typically doesn't make people
feel good. It can make you feel kind of
groggy, quite tired, just quite off in general.
And ironically, it's associated with weight gain.
Why is that? Well, typically it's associated
with restriction, which is then associated with bingeing.
People may not only chew in spit, there might be one of the
many behaviours that they're engaging in, but I would also
theorise that having this perpetual dysregulation of the
hormones that controls satiety, cravings, and also these
hormones play a role in weight regulation as well.
I would make a wild guess that that also is a bit of a 'cause.
This is not to say that chew and spit automatically cause weight
gain. We know this because we see it a
lot in people who are quite underweight.
But if we were to take a group of people and prescribe weight
management strategies, chew and spit, it would not be listed as
a very efficient one because of these metabolic shifts it tends
to cause. And this is slightly similar to
purging as well. We see a similar thing with that
insulin, glucose response, increased cravings, blood sugar
drop. And the good news is that you
can actually get these things back on track with recovery.
Of course, sometimes in recovery may feel like things can get
worse before better. You may feel like your blood
sugar is all over the place for a period of time.
But you at least are giving your body a chance to heal these
systems that have been put out of whack by repeated restriction
and by repeatedly confusing the body.
So we also typically see disturbances and things like
Grilan and lactin. So Grilan is the hunger hormone
of the body. Again, similar thing like I
spoke about with insulin and blood sugar levels.
The hormones spikes, your body expects food but nothing
happens. And then leptin, which is your
satiety hormone, it's not triggered.
Leptin gets triggered usually when you eat so that you feel
more satiated but nothing is happening, no food is coming in.
So there is none of that satiation feeling.
So to summarise it very quickly and easily, chew and spit
confuses your metabolism, confuses your body, confuses
your hunger signals, it makes you perpetually hungry.
Again, not everyone experiences this, but this is a very common
side effect which then makes the behaviour more tempting.
And This is why some people can go hours and hours and hours and
just chew and spit, chew and spit, chew and spit.
Whilst even in the most extreme of extreme hunger, it typically
is one point where someone kind of just lays down and it's like,
I'm done now, at least I'm done for a little bit and then I'm on
again. You are so much better off just
swallowing the food. Yes, even if the food is
so-called quote unquote unhealthy, your body knows what
to do with the doughnut. It does not know what to do when
it thinks it's getting a doughnut and nothing is coming
in. You are not tricking your body,
doing something mad, some magical life hack to undo
eating. You are just putting yourself in
a very unpleasant situation, even though there is that
instant reward of the behaviour. And that takes me to the next
point of why it's harmful. Well, it becomes a habit.
It becomes something that gives you a sense of reward.
And people often confused us with food addiction.
They think that because they're in this chew and spit cycle and
they can't seem to stop, it's the food's fault.
They're just addicted to food. They can't control themselves.
Or maybe it is that they're addicted to sugar because they
may tend to grab rotate towards sugary foods or very processed
foods. And I always say this, people
with eating disorders tend to blame what is caused by the
absence of food by the presence of food.
The good news is that the main reason why you crave the
behaviour so much is wait for it because you're hungry.
Yes, there is that addictive element to the behaviour, but
this is what I also see with binge and purge for example.
Once you let go of the restriction driving the
behaviour, your urges lessen significantly to the point where
you may try to do the behaviour because you're craving a little
dopamine hit, but it's just not hitting the same anymore.
I've seen this so many times working with clients where
someone may be having a really bad day and they're like, oh, I
want to do something that gives me joy and comfort.
So then they try to binge and purge.
Or they may try to chew and spit and it's like, oh, it's not
hitting the same anymore. And that's why learning other
soothing behaviours that are healthier and more sustainable.
It's such an important part of recovery.
But you absolutely have to target the underlying
restriction that drives the behaviour.
It is very rare to hear someone just randomly start chewing and
spitting with 00 restrictive elements.
And considering you're listening to a podcast about restrictive
eating disorders, I really doubt that's you.
And even if that is you, you still are going to have to let
go of the restriction. Allow yourself to swallow the
food. So I've already spoken a bit
about the metabolic consequences of chewing spit and how it
essentially prepares your body for food to come.
But then no food is happening and then your body gets quite
confused metabolically and how this can ironically Dr more
hunger and cravings, thus driving more chewing spit
behaviours. But there is also the digestive
part, and this is very, very important.
So there is something called the cephalic phase of digestion, and
this is the anticipatory stage of digestion.
So in a way, our stomach is kind of part of our mouth because
digestion begins in the mouth. So what happens here is that
you're producing spits, digestive enzymes in the mouth
and stomach are then released and then the stomach acid begins
to secrete. Same thing.
Like I said, your body is preparing for the food to come.
So your stomach is like, OK, we are ready, we're prepared.
We've got the stomach acid flowing and then nothing.
And having a stomach full of stomach acid, that's like
anticipatory waiting for food to come, but with no food to like
dig its hands into, it's going to be very uncomfortable.
And add on top of that, if you have a restrictive eating
disorder, there's a very high chance you have digestive
symptoms already. Not everyone, but a majority.
So the consequences of this cephalic face confusion, AKA
stomach ready for food, no food coming in can be, for example,
stomach pain, discomfort, cramps.
You may feel more bloated, more gassy, you may feel quite
nauseous. And then there also is acid
reflux because your stomach is producing more stomach acid to
break down the food, but there is no food coming.
And then what are we going to do with all of this stomach acid?
And then some people with restrictive eating disorders,
they may already have weakness in essentially the the muscles
that control stomach acid and prevents it from coming back up
your mouth. This can be due to purging.
It can be due to just loss of body tissue, loss of muscle,
loss of, you know, eating disorders, restricted eating
disorders. You're going through severe
restriction, everything breaks down.
You're not just losing body fat, you're also losing organ tissue.
So they can be damaged to essentially the part of your
body that prevents your stomach acid from flowing up your mouth
all the time. And this is of course not the
case for every person who choose and spits.
Coming to the point of organ tissue loss is of course more
associated with severe and prolonged restriction.
But in the context of restrictive eating disorder,
that is a very real possibility because you are at some point
going to lose more than quote unquote just body fat.
It's going to start taking a hit on your muscles and organs.
And if the muscles in your oesophagus is weak, that's that
can cause some issues, can also cause a sensation of
regurgitating food involuntarily, not very nice.
And if you're someone who can quote unquote purge on command,
that is not a flex. That is a big red flag.
Something is not OK anyhow. So chew and spit increase the
stomach acid, which can then increase acid reflux for some
people, which is very, very uncomfortable and also very
harmful for the teeth because you're getting this acid that
erodes the teeth. And this takes me to the next
physical consequence of chew and spit, cavities, eating all day
long, chewing and spitting. Chewing and spitting is not good
for your teeth. And some people may listen to
this and be like, Oh yeah, but what about recovery?
What about extreme hunger? Yes, but this is a shorter
period. And also your body is actually
getting the nutrients. It's getting the energy from
that food which helps your teeth because when you are
significantly restricting, your body may eventually start trying
to get get energy, get nutrients from your teeth and your bone.
So even if you have amazing dental health, just the act of
restriction itself can harm your teeth.
So if you're someone in recovery, yeah, even though you
may be on a little bit of a sugar binge at the moment,
you're not going to eat that way forever and you're actually
giving your body energy to rebuild itself.
Might be some calcium in that chocolate as well.
But this is what I said with chewing spit, there's not
necessary an endpoint unless you stop the behaviour.
So then you have constant food on the teeth that can trigger
cavities and then you have potentially acid reflux acid
coming up eroding the teeth. I mean if you think recovery
treatment is expensive, wait until you see dental treatments.
People tend to think that purging through self induced
vomiting is the only thing that harms teeth and eating
disorders, but that's not the case.
Being depleted of nutrients, acid reflux or chew and spit
behaviours can also be very, very harmful.
The good news is that dentists are often very kind and mindful
about this. They see these things a lot,
they're not there to judge you and they have seen worse than
you. But you do not want your teeth
to be broken prematurely and get a very expensive dental bill.
So take that also as a reason to stop chew and spit behaviours or
self induced vomiting for that sake.
Then there also is just a completely obvious physical
consequence of chewing food but not swallowing the food.
If that then leads you to not getting in enough food and
nutrients, then of course we're looking at the classical side
effects of restriction under eating, weight suppression,
nutritional depletion. But that's not necessarily
exclusive to chew and spit. So I'm not going to go too much
in depth on that in this episode.
So to summarise, chew and spit. Very bad for your metabolic
health, very bad for hunger and appetite regulation.
Not an efficient way to actually deal with your cravings, tends
to just make you crave it more, gets quite addictive and is
insanely expensive. So this also goes to binge purge
behaviours. Buying a bunch of food and not
actually eating it is very expensive.
I'm not going to make too big of a point on that because I know
that a lot of people would chew and spit.
They're very ashamed for this reason.
They're angry at themselves for spending that money.
They may have some rigidity around money to begin with, but
it is something that has to be said.
Think about all the money that you have spent on spitting.
And then lastly, like I mentioned, the digestive side
effects. When you are deprived in terms
of being in an energetic deficit, in terms of having a
restrictive eating disorder, your stomach is already
struggling and adding this on top of that is going to be
really bad. Constipation, bloating, pain,
nausea, reflux, cramps. Recovery is your best chance at
reversing as much as possible. Of that, some things are
completely reversible. Other things may not be 100%
reversible, such as dental health, for example, But you can
stop the damage from progressing.
And with many of these things, you can partly or fully reverse
the harm. And now there also is the mental
and the social consequences of the behaviour.
And I think when we're talking about health, we have to include
that as well. Because even if you were someone
who had zero health consequences from shoe and spit, you felt
great, everything was good. You didn't notice any, for
example, shifts in your cravings and hunger.
You found that you felt like you have the behaviour under
control, which by the way probably not the case.
Your stomach was great, teeth all good.
You were also multi millionaires.
You didn't really care about spending that much money on
chewing food and spitting it out.
There still is the mental and social health impacts.
So mentally, anything that you're doing, because it feeds
into your eating disorder, it is going to keep you more stuck in
the eating disorder. And you're going to have to ask
yourself, is that how I want to spend the rest of my life?
And This is why when I work with clients, we also often focus on
behaviours that may seem quite minor and benign.
By the way, true and spit is not minor and benign, but I'm just
explaining this so you can understand where I'm coming
from. For example, we may work on
things like breaking perfectionism around food and
eating. So having a meal that's kind of
imperfect, eating a chocolate bar in a busy crowd instead of
in a ritualistic way at home, Allowing yourself to use like a
random spoon rather than the holy spoon that you have to use
at every meal and freak out if someone takes.
And this is not necessarily a nutritional rehabilitation.
Like I mean, if you eat your chocolate bar ritualistically at
home alone and disturbed in a perfect manner versus if you eat
it in the busy train station, your body still gets the same
calories. But one of them helped really
rewire your fears and take you closer to where you want to be.
So even if chewing spits were not anyway harmful, it still
would be one of those sneaky eating disorder behaviours
that's really worth targeting. Now it is harmful, which is just
another reason to target it. But even if it weren't, you get
what I'm saying? Because I think this is actually
where a lot of people are stuck in.
The eating disorder is doing seemingly small harmless things,
not knowing that there's those small things that together are
like little bricks that build the person that you're in which
you and spit. They're also often there's a lot
of shame because let's face it, it's not necessarily like a
behaviour that you're proud of. Anything disorder in general can
come with shame, but with the restriction there tends to be a
bit more of a, what can I say, people tend to be more
comfortable admitting that they're engaging in restrictive
behaviours than that they're engaging in things like chew and
spit or even things like purging as well, binge purge sessions.
And I don't think there is anything more shameful with chew
and spit than restriction. But let's just face it, people
don't tend to feel that way and walking around with that level
of shame, doing something that just feels quite like it doesn't
align with your values. I often see this in people who,
like I mentioned the money part, people who may be quite frugal,
people who don't like to waste resources, maybe people who are
quite conscious of things like economy, the environment, which
then reinforces that guilt and shame of quote unquote, wasting
food. I also sometimes see people who
normally eat one way, so for example, vegetarian, vegan, or
following a very specific eating style will let go of those rules
only when they're chewing and spitting or bingeing and
purging, which then creates even more shame.
So it just feels like a clash in how you want to be perceived and
perceive yourself versus what you're actually doing.
It also takes a lot of time, and it's not a time, It's not a
usage of time that people tend to be very grateful that they
did. I am so happy that I spent hours
upon hours chewing and spitting. Said no one ever.
And look, everyone have different ways of regulating
their emotions, but chew and spit is not an efficient
behaviour because it actually doesn't really regulate your
emotions per SE. You kind of just trade one
emotion with another and you trade it with something that is
actually harming you. The feeling you get after
spending a day chewing and spitting versus the feeling you
get spending a day maybe reading, puzzling, doing some
cleaning, those are two very different feelings.
And you know, I probably don't even have to tell you this
because you probably feel this already.
And for some people, the chewing and spitting can come, can go so
out of control that it starts to really take a hit on their
social life. They may lose interest in being
with friends or going out or getting a job, studying, seeking
a romantic partner because chewing and spitting is what
their brain is so wired towards doing.
You may, for example, have friends over and you're just
waiting for them to leave so that you can engage in your chew
and spit rituals. Or you may be at uni or at work
and all you can think about is coming home and go chew and
spitting instead of maybe doing something after work or school
that you are passionate about. Because a malnourished brain, it
is going to be gravitating towards food.
It's a survival instinct and it's like pouring water into a
strainer. You're just not going to fill
up. And when talking with people who
have managed to stop the behaviour, they very rarely look
back at the time they're chewing and spitting as like the the
prime season of their life. Like woo Hoo highlights.
I really would recommend the 10 out of 10 you should try too.
And this is despite the fact that it can feel soothing, can
give you a dopamine release. Many things can be soothing and
give you a dopamine release. That doesn't mean that they're
good, sustainable, healthy things to do.
And recovery is not about not getting any of those nice,
soothing, rewarding feelings. It's more about getting them in
a healthier way and getting them in a more sustainable way.
Because do you want to only get that from food?
Isn't it better to get it from a hug?
From a fun video game? From having a crush?
Being so hyper focused on a hobby that you can't really
think of anything else? From having those beautiful
moments of calm and presence with someone you care about,
even if you're just doing something really small, like a
small everyday thing. The eating disorder takes away
the joy in those small moments and it instead just wires your
brain to find food as the most rewarding thing.
Of course, food will be the most rewarding thing when you're
starved, but that's not what life is about.
So you decided that you want to save your gut, your teeth, your
metabolism, your social life, your money, your mental health,
and actually start to work on this chew and spit trap that
you're in. Where do you start?
Well, first of all, share it with your treatment team.
If they're not super familiar with the behaviour, you can of
course explain it a bit. If they are familiar with
similar behaviours such as binge purge, that can be a helpful
comparison. If you feel that it is a good
comparison for you, of course. And you may be surprised to hear
that they probably have heard of it before.
They probably have worked with someone who've had that
behaviour before. And if they say they haven't,
that's probably because the people haven't opened up to them
about the behaviour yet. So that's an important step one,
open up so that you can receive help and support, and also so
that you can alleviate some of that shame and secrecy, because
shame drives secrecy and secrecy drives shame.
Remember that you're experiencing a pretty common
behavioural response to restriction, which takes me to
the next point. You are going to have to focus
on regular consistent meals and try to also implement some of
those foods that you tend to chew and spit on.
Again, there's parallels here to bingeing and purging because
that's typically the advice for binge purge is to implement
regular consistent meals and to also implement those quote
unquote forbidden foods that you gravitate towards in a binge.
You want to show your brain that all foods fit, that there's not
one type of foods that you can only have in your mouth and then
spit out, that you can swallow all types of food.
If you're eating is erratic, If you wake up and you're like, I
don't know if I'll have breakfast or not, I'll see how I
feel. Oh, I don't know if I'll have
lunch or not. I'll just go with the flow.
Oh, I'm not really feeling hungry.
Oh, now in the evening I'm super hungry.
If that is your eating cycle, it's going to be very hard to
stop chewing spit behaviours. Meal regularity is essential.
Have your meals, snacks in between.
Don't go too long between meals, Don't skip any meals.
You're going to have to work on proper refeeding because if
you're not refed, how are you going to stop chewing spits?
And yeah, you may say I'll just use my willpower and stop.
Well, doesn't really work that way because if you're still
restricting, is that really willpower?
Isn't real willpower doing what feels scary and leaning into
recovery? So in terms of stopping the
behaviour, some people manage to go cold Turkey, especially if
they combine it with proper refeeding.
Of course, this is the best. If you can do that, that's
awesome. But if you find that that's just
not happening, it's just not realistic for you, then you can
at least work on gradually reducing the behaviour.
That can be reducing the amount of times you're doing it,
reducing the amount of time you're spending doing it, when
you're doing it. Or it could be something like,
OK, I'm going to swallow at least half of the food and then
only spit out half. But what's important here is
that you're gradually reducing with the goal to actually stop
the behaviour. And as with a lot of things in
recovery, I tend to find that there can sometimes be two types
of people here. Person one is the person who has
a bit of a black and white mindset with recovery, where if
they can't do perfectly from day one, there's no point eating.
The sort of loves this mindset because it gives you such a
quick, easy excuse to go backwards.
Of course, it often comes camouflage as being about
wanting to do recovery right when it's not really about that.
Usually it's one thing wanting to do it well and wanting to go
all in and just really go for it.
That's awesome. Do that if you can.
But if you find that it comes from a place of black and white,
thinking of if I can't do perfect, I won't do that.
All something to work, something worth being a bit mindful of.
And in that case, being a bit more nuanced, being a bit more
like, OK, I'll give it a try to stop.
But if I can't do that, I'll gradually reduce and then maybe
down the line I'll try and stop again.
But then there is another type of person who may have bit more
of a tendency towards endlessly dragging things out and reducing
your behaviour slightly and thinking that, oh, I'm all good
Now. If that's you, you're probably
going to need to push yourself a bit harder.
You're probably going to need in treatment to be a bit more
upfront, like, hey, OK, we need to work on this, you know?
So don't let the slow and steady and gradual be a reason for your
eating disorder, to slow it down so much that you're barely
moving. So when it comes to specific
foods, people may wonder, well, should I keep the foods that I
chew and spit on in the house? And I would say ideally yes, but
if you know that it's just not happening, you're 100% going to
chew and spit on them, then it is OK to gradually implement
them more in smaller quality quantities.
So for example, buying one smaller chocolate bar, eating it
without spitting it out versus buying like a multi pack, but
then with the goal of later down the line being able to have the
multi pack in the house without chewing and spitting on it.
But I would definitely encourage to implement as much food as you
can, including so-called trigger foods, because we know that food
restraint is not going to be your friend in this process.
Restraint is probably what got you here to begin with.
So you're going to have to lessen the control.
And if you get a bit of reactive hunger, that's fine.
That's normal. Your body has been so used to
you eating or chewing on certain foods without actually
swallowing them. And once you actually do
swallow, yeah, that's probably going to feel quite nice and
rewarding because let's face it, just chewing the food, it
doesn't hit the spot the same way way.
And it's so important not to see the goal as not putting any food
in your mouth. The goal is not to spit out the
food. So eating more is not a sign of
failure. And if you're undernourished,
coming from out of place of eating disorder recovery, it's a
normal part of the process. Just make sure that you have
those regular consistent meals, that you're not avoiding sitting
down and having like a proper meal, and that you're not saving
up calories for later, which then of course can worsen the
urges to chew and spit because you get very hungry.
Then you don't always notice that until you start eating.
Working with the dietitian that knows eating disorders, very
important point needs to know about eating disorders, needs to
be eating disorders specialised can be very helpful here, as can
working with a therapist, a coach, someone who knows the
behaviour and someone who can be there and support you
practically going through recovery.
And you're going to have to lean into trust here.
I know I spoke about this in the last episode I did together with
coach Louisa where we spoke about body image as a recovered
person. And one of the points that I
made that was a little bit of from body image was that
oftentimes what makes recovery hard is that you don't yet have
that trust with your body because that trust takes time
and experience to build and you kind of have to go into it blind
a bit. You may have all of these worst
case scenarios of what would happen if you didn't spit the
food out, if you instead swallowed it, if you actually
listen more to your hunger, if you stop suppressing your
weight, etcetera, etcetera. But you're going to have to feel
the fear and do it anyways. So if you can't trust that your
body will figure it out, try to instead think, how would a
version of me that did have that trust behave?
A few other things that can be helpful aside from the things
I've already spoken about can be write down the pros and cons
left of The Chew and spit behaviour.
That can be quite helpful to put it in perspective of how
inconvenient the behaviour is. Because when you're in the
behaviour and maybe you're getting the reward and comfort,
you may be like, oh, this is great, what's the issue?
Then when you actually can sit down in a clear moment and be
like, OK, what are the consequences?
And think about your mental, physical and social consequences
of the behaviour. If you can't think of a specific
consequence of that exact behaviour of chewing and
spitting, think about consequences of your eating
disorder in general. And can you really fully recover
from an eating disorder when you're still chewing and
spitting? It's a bit like, can you still
be drinking when you stop drinking?
What? No you can't fully recover while
still doing eating disorder stuff.
So remember that for full recovery it's a non negotiable
to target the behaviour because typically what drives the
behaviour? I mean it's several things but a
big driver tends to be the fear of what would happen if you
swallow the food, the fear of weight gain, the fear of
trusting your body, the fear of leaning into your hunger.
It absolutely is the behaviour we're targeting and recovery is
100% possible. All right, guys, I hope you
enjoy this episode. If you're enjoying this podcast,
make sure that you leave a rating, give the podcast a
follow, share with a friend and you can also follow me on
Instagram at Amali Lee and my website for coaching and other
enquiries is letsrecover.co.uk. See you guys in the next
episode.