Eating regularly when you don’t feel hungry

Let’s start this post with a conversation about why regular eating is so important when recovering from a restrictive ED. It is likely that you have spent a significant amount of time - sometimes decades - overriding your body’s hunger cues. It might therefore be a very big ask to reconnect to that true hunger from Day 1 of recovery. This is not universal and remember that there is an entire spectrum of experiences when it comes to recovery and hunger in recovery. But regardless, establishing physical stability and an ability to recognise hunger cues is the first step in recovery.

If we consider that an ED puts your body into a state of starvation and that your body has, not unreasonably, interpreted this to mean that you are in a place of food scarcity and experiencing famine, then regular eating is going to be a crucial element in providing signals of safety to your body. A regular, predictable eating pattern is the fundamental way that your body will recognise the famine is over. That food is available. That it can finally trust that food will be coming in regularly. This is the foundation for building body trust. Further to this, the regular intake of food, even in the absence of hunger cues, has important effects on the physical functioning of the body. Regular eating begins the process of metabolic recovery, it improves gut motility (meaning that the digestive system can start to work properly again) and maintains blood sugar levels for sustained energy throughout the day. Some of these things might feel a little worse to start with as the body adjusts - I’m looking at you, bloating and gas - but regular eating provides an opportunity for these things to improve in the medium term. Simply put, the digestive system will never improve without consistent energy over the long term. 

These are just some of the physical reasons that regular eating is key, regardless of hunger cues. It’s also important to mention that a body coming out of starvation is very sensitive to any energy deficits, even within a day. This means that it will notice if there are long periods throughout the day where food isn’t coming in. This will be interpreted by the body as a threat that the famine is not yet over and therefore keep the body in a state of starvation. 

It is through a regular intake that genuine hunger signals are able to emerge. Once the body trusts that food will be coming in regularly, it feels safe enough to start sending, in particular physical, hunger cues. This is why there can be a somewhat distressing experience of noticing significantly more hunger once mechanical, regular eating has been introduced. This is the goal - we want to be able to feel and respond to normal hunger cues in an appropriate and unemotional way (eventually), so the first step will be allowing those cues to surface through regular eating.

But I appreciate that implementing regular eating might feel particularly challenging when hunger cues are absent. It’s likely that the ED logic will dictate that “you’ll be uncomfortably full if you eat when you’re not hungry - you really don’t need it”. Nice try, ED. What a double standard! Okay so you might initially feel both physical and mental discomfort when mechanically eating to a regular schedule. But chances are that you’ve experienced a huge amount of discomfort in alignment with the ED’s suggestions. So the ED is okay with discomfort one direction but not the other - funny that. Call out that flaw in the logic. At the very least, this discomfort will be in the pursuit of a life worth living.

Similarly, I often hear the ED state “you can eat if you have hunger cues” but then when hunger does inevitably show up, the ED exclaims that it is “unreasonable” to have those hunger cues. Again, recognise that double standard and notice that it’s always a hard No from the ED when it comes to eating.

There can be a whole host of reasons that you don’t feel hungry when recovering from a restrictive ED. In early recovery this might be due to a total disconnect between mind and body. There may truly be difficulty in accessing hunger cues when they have been ignored and overridden for a long time. This is often also coupled with an inability to recognise the hunger cues that are there - especially when they are showing up as mental hunger rather than physical hunger. In my own experience, and what I have observed with many others in my privileged role as a recovery coach, is that most people have learned to live with incessant food noise and normalised the experience. It is so constant that it becomes background noise that one doesn’t really recognise for what it really is - hunger. It’s not that hunger is absent, it’s just not being recognised.

Anxiety also plays a big role in hunger cues. For those in recovery anxiety is a common emotional and mental state that can often blunt hunger cues. I distinctly remember being in such a state of overwhelm and anxiety that I couldn’t feel any hunger and even the thought of food was repellant. It was crucial for me to override this emotional response and focus on mechanical eating. In the long run this regular intake reduced the anxiety and allowed the hunger cues to emerge more naturally.

For some who have been in recovery for a while, leptin levels may normalise before full nutritional rehabilitation or neural rewiring is complete. Because of this, hunger cues can become less reliable, but does not diminish the need for regular eating. Again, the body will be sensitive to any perceived threat of famine and therefore it is still important to continue eating at regular intervals even if hunger is unreliable.

There may also be other illnesses or emotional states (eg, grief) that make hunger cues less accessible. As I have already outlined, regular eating is the basis for recovery and therefore must be prioritised regardless of hunger.

Once we accept the premise that regular eating is of utmost importance, the next question then becomes: how to eat when hunger cues aren’t accessible? As I have already mentioned, this is a time to implement mechanical eating - we aren’t going to rely on those hunger cues right now. Just because you don’t feel hunger doesn’t mean that food is not required. In fact, it is quite the opposite. 

In this state, I recommend clients to set regular alarms throughout the day. Regular eating means ensuring that food is coming in every 2-3 hours. If you feel that you might not eat without obvious hunger cues then set yourself up to win by setting alarms and sticking to a regular eating schedule. Once this pattern is established we can move towards ensuring that the amount is appropriate for full recovery but that is a whole other post.

When hunger cues are absent consider choosing foods that are:

• Easy to digest

• Accessible within your means

• Food you can sip on

• Provide a degree of comfort (perhaps childhood favourites)

• ED disapproved if you’re wanting to turbo charge recovery

If you resonate with this post then I would encourage you to recognise that this state isn’t permanent, but establishing mechanical regular eating is the foundation upon which all recovery builds. Without regular eating it will be difficult (if not impossible!) to build the body trust that is fundamental to full recovery.