Since ARFID1 and ASD are pretty common together, I’d figure there would many of us in here that share similar issues with eating. Those of you that relate to ARFID, what are some strategies you use to maintain a healthy diet?
1: Avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID) is a feeding or eating disorder in which people avoid eating certain foods, or restrict their diets to the point it ultimately results in nutritional deficiencies. This can be due to the sensory characteristics of food, such as its appearance, smell, texture, or taste; due to fear of negative consequences such as choking or vomiting; having little interest in eating or food, or a combination of these factors. People with ARFID may also be afraid of trying new foods, a fear known as food neophobia. Wiki
The way I experience this is that I don’t enjoy eating. Chewing seems like a chore, especially when I could be doing something else. On a few occasions when the food is extremely delicious or I’m actually hungry from exercising, I actually enjoy eating because it finally taste delicious an rewarding. Otherwise, what.a.drag! Another issue I experience is the rest and digest autonomic nervous system response after eating where I get almost food drunk. I become dumb and tired. Noises and interruptions become extra annoying. The last issue, and the most difficult one for me, is that I don’t like the feeling of food in my stomach. I feel bloated, heavy, and uncomfortable.
I figured out a few tricks. One, eat in small amounts throughout the day. That way, I’m not spending too much time eating, I don’t get that heavy bloated feeling, and I don’t feel food drunk. Two, which is a bit more difficult is to do some exercise that really makes me hungry. That way, I create a desire to eat. Three, eat my heaviest meal right before going to bed, that way I can use the food drunk to fall asleep and feeling heavy and annoyed wont matter because I’ll be laying down and sleeping. I don’t know if this last one is healthy, so I might need to change it up.
Fascinating, I’ve ended up doing much the same. For a while it wasn’t the healthiest as I got too used to replacing every meal of the day with milk. It was just too much milk. Now I manage a sandwich or porridge or some snacks during the day, limit the milk to a smaller amount, then have a larger meal in the evening, and I mostly enjoy that meal as we tend to have extra good local and homegrown ingredients every day.
I’ll be outdoors tending to the farm during a most of the day and that’s how I manage to get hungry enough to get some snacks in. It’s a strange way to eat but works well for me. It took a while to develop naturally. I still get it wrong on some days and end up chewing on something I definitely shouldn’t have bothered to prepare and don’t really want to eat, and just force some of it down for the sake of it.
I used to buy those expensive liquid meals in the past but ultimately they are just oatmeal with a few additional nutrients. When I really can’t get down solid stuff I soak oatmeal in water for a day or half a day, shake it well, pour it through a sieve and drink that. Could mix in fruit, but I prefer really plain.
Now I don’t know if I have yet another mental disorder or if I just hate vegetables a normal amount.
I don’t know how helpful it is, but for me I had to logically just pick out the components of a relatively balanced diet and then eat it every day and modify the parts I didn’t like.
It’s not helpful in that it requires experimentation, but once you find the combination that works you can just eat the same thing everyday without thinking about it and you know it’ll hit the nutrition you picked.
To be fair, it took many years to get there and I still have days where I am overloaded and need to just resort to completely safe foods for meals (oats for me as they’re pretty bland/basic).
I don’t relate to ARFID but when I need to eat without wanting to I usually listen to/watch a video or a serie at the same time.
Huh, I never knew of ARFID, but that fits me particularly well, especially as a kid. I will have to dig into this more.
For me, I found a relatively healthy comfort food (yogurt with granola; sometimes with berries) and have that for lunch most days. The granola makes it easy to load up on calories/carbs while it, and the yogurt, also provide a good amount of protein. Berries can add a bit of fiber. It’s always delicious for me. I’ve been eating it consistently for years now and I’ve yet to get sick of it. However if you’re lactose intolerant, this might not be a viable option.
Edit: reading the comments reminded me of another thing: protein shakes. I buy a container of whey protein mix from Walmart/Meijer and mix that with a glass of whole milk when I don’t have the energy to make anything. It is delicious. The strawberry one tastes like strawberry milk and the vanilla one tastes just like vanilla ice cream but in milk form.
Water can be used in place of milk if you don’t have any, or are intolerant, but it’s nowhere near as good; it’s just not the same.It would be nice if I had more healthy comfort foods, but that’s a work in progress.
Otherwise I supplement with a multivitamin to make sure I’m not deficient in anything.Never heard of ARFID, but that describes me. Off to learn more.
see ya in a week!
