My Experience with a Dietitian During Recovery

After I quit modeling, I moved back home to Connecticut to focus completely on recovery. I remember that my parents sent me to therapy, with a woman who specialized in eating disorders. I had never gone to therapy before. I remember sitting in the small, sunny room, with a clear intention on getting better. I spoke to my therapist once per week, and I remember just letting her into my world, which felt really good.

However, after some time, she invited me to to see a nutritionist/dietitian that also worked in the building. Perhaps they had a referral system set up. All I remember is, while I was SO ready to heal, my mind was not ready to work with a dietitian.

I remember in the first session, the dietitian asked me to write down what I ate every day. I remember struggling with this idea because I hadn't hit normalcy yet. Some days I would eat 1,000 calories/day and others I would binge an endless number of calories. When she started talking about nutrition, I was not ready to care about that and could care less.

I remember she insisted I start eating oatmeal and coffee with whole milk. She explained that whole milk calcium molecules were large and would coat my stomach somehow, and I would feel full more easily. She also suggested an entire diet plan for me. I remember being so put-off by everything this women suggested. Thinking back, an NLP practitioner would say that this dietitian was not "in rapport" with me or my eating disorder. For instance, she didn't know that heavy dairy was my main trigger for bulimia, and here she was telling me to eat this every day. An NLP practitioner would also say that she did not understand my recovery "map of the world." At that point, I did not give a flying hoot about nutrition or the quality of food I was eating, I just wanted to regain control of my relationship with food, eating and my body by reigning in binge-eating and returning to normalcy.

Needless to say, I cancelled my second session with the dietitian and never worked with one again. I would be curious to know how helpful other people found working with a dietitian to be during recovery. My experience led me to feel mainly misunderstood, like there was a quick-fix diet that would cure my eating disorder. What are you thoughts?

Building a team of people to support your recovery process is crucial. If a dietitian works for you, this may be exactly what you need. Has anyone ever had a positive experience with a dietitian during recovery? In what ways did this person help?

xox Meg