How much, when, what etc Normal people dont follow meal plans and they dont follow any rules either. There are no times when you should or shouldnt eat. Thats all up to you to decide. When you listen to your body - eat intuitavely, then every day is different. Somedays i eat loads, other days i eat less. I dont always eat the same amount of the same time each day. Somedays i eat 4 times a day other times i eat 7 times a day.
So what is normal eating? Its so hard to say, because what is normal/healthy for you, might be different for others. Its about listening to your body. One day you might crave loads of something and the other day crave something else.
You might have periods where you barely eat any potatoes, and othertimes where potatoe is the main fopcus of your meal. I cant tell you what normal is....
Doctors or dieticians however might define normal eating as eating every 2-3 hours, and eating about 6 small meals a day. Which is best as it keeps your blood sugar from dropping, but for some they might prefer 4 big meals a day, and i cant say that that is wrong.
And as for WHAT to eat, and the AMOUNT, once again its so hard to say what is normal... I guess the best is to have a proper big breakfast, and then for lunch and dinner to have cooked meals with carbs, protein, healthy fats and vegetables.
As for snacks.... i guess thats up to you. Some people just eat fruit as snacks, but me.... well i eat big snacks. Pancakes/crisp bread/egg/quark/oatmeal/chocolate/nuts/protein fluff/ protein bars/fruit/yoghurt etc etc (not all at once, but you know big snacks anyway!)
If you want to see my diets - and my meal plans while i was gaining weight click HERE
^^The calorie amount was specifically for my bodies needs and for gaining weight, but thats how (maybe a little less!!) a normal day should look... acccording to dieticians anyway!
I think the best while recovering is to follow a meal plan and then slowly begin to listen to your body.... stop measuring food and stop counting calories. Take more if you want, leave food if you are too full. Make a snack which YOU want, not whats on your meal plan etc etc
Small steps towards intuitive eating, but it is a try and fail thing to find the balance and to eat enough.
But to answer the question of what is normal eating, i cant really tell you. Because what is normal for one person isnt the same as someone else!!
Hi! This is so true! Normal eating is different for everybody. When I was healthy I didn`t think about the time when to eat or what to eat. Now still in recovery I tried eating listening to my body and what I wanted for a week. I ended up skipping meals and really under eating once again. It was a wake up for me that I still need to follow some sort of plan with my meals. I hope my hunger signals will wake up at some point and that I will be able to eat "normally" someday soon.
ReplyDeleteThanks Izzy for this post!
Love this! :D
ReplyDeleteThere are some days when I eat, like, six times a day (different portion sized for each meal), and there are other days when I'll only eat two meals and small snacks throughout the day. It all depends on my activity level, how I feel, and what's going on around me. And that's normal! :] Some people who know me think I'm abnormal in how I eat, just because 1) I'm a vegan and 2) of my past ED. And that I need to eat like them because they eat "normal". But they don't know that their normal isn't normal to everyone else, because everybody requires different amounts of kcals to sustain them.
Also, I like how you touched on intuitive eating. More people need to learn about this topic! :D
I'm vegan too!! ❤❤❤
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