Anxiety, food and mood

Image courtesy Feedage.com

Coming from an eating disordered background, sometimes I get anxious about food. No, make that MOST of the time I'm anxious about food. Food, weight, my body image, the way others perceive me, how I measure up in my looks, personal life and work. I'm constantly feeling inadequate, weak-willed and inferior.

Interestingly, I recently did a diagram of the way I was feeling and contributing factors. I was feeling sad and unworthy and the reasons that came out of my head had a lot to do with how I feel other people rated my looks. For some reason I equate being 'thin and attractive' with being 'successful, popular, accepted and worthy of friendship'.

This is NOT a normal conclusion. In my childhood when Mum was in one of her 'happy and high' cycles (she suffered from bi-polar disorder) she would buy lots of clothes rapidly lose weight and entertain lots of friends in a whirlwind of social activity. She was mad and happy, popular and exciting. When she plummeted to incredible lows, she would gain weight, stay in bed for weeks or months, see no one and tell me she wanted to die. That was a big factor that helped shape my views about myself and how I feel about the way I look. Another factor could have been the social circles I was in as a teen and young adult. At least three of my friends openly discussed their eating disorders and dieting habits and tips. Then there was the 'popular' girls. Older than me, trendier and much, much skinnier. They were the 'cool' ideal that I was usually excluded from that I constantly wished to be. If only I could be thinner, they would like me more. If I was thinner they might want to talk to me or tell me about their new boyfriends.

For reasons unknown to me, I have carried these unreasonable ideals around like old suitcases my whole life. When my husband says "You really like Such-and-such, she's a big girl, do you think you wouldn't be friends with her if she got any fatter? Do you think if she lost weight you'd like her more?" I can see weight has nothing to do with it. I KNOW that my friends couldn't care less if I was 10kgs lighter or heavier!

That being said, my diet over the last six months has done wonders for my mood. When I don't eat I get anxious, moody, paranoid, I sink back into my comfortable quagmire of depression. Not-eating feeds my anxiety, my body needs food to regulate my hormones which in turn, regulate my moods. It's like a vicious cycle of self destruction. So I've been eating three meals a day plus some snacks and I feel so much better. More able to cope with day to day stresses and problems. I've cut out sugar and alcohol altogether (except for the occasional party or anniversary) and cut coffee down to one or less a day.

Here's a sample of my daily menu:
Breakfast - 2 free range eggs scrambled with parsley and a grilled tomato or eggplant
Snack – handful of almonds or a piece of cheese
Lunch – fish and salad
Snack – handful of almonds or a piece of cheese
Dinner - protein and steamed or stir-fried veggies or salad (protein will usually be eggs or tempeh)
Dessert - a baked apple with cream or natural Greek yoghurt (my one fruit and only sugar fix! mmm)

It is helping me so much to feel stable and NORMAL again. On advice from my Naturopath, I'm also supplementing with cod liver oil, B2, magnesium and Coenzyme Q10. Has anyone else discovered better moods through regular meals and lower carbohydrate intake? I'd love to hear what worked for you.