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Returning to the Roots of Natural Healing

Healing Eating Disorders

The care of a fragile patient such as a young man or woman with an eating disorder is a tenuous journey back to health that needs to be addressed finally with a nutrition program that is non-numerical. This daunting task until now has baffled many caretakers, counselors and doctors as to how to proceed and in what capacity. The anorexic and bulimic patient has suppressed the acknowledgement of their condition and abided for either months or years in secrecy.  Now that the issue is at hand, and they have perhaps agreed to recovery or stabilization, the question is where and how? Even if they have not in essence agreed due to fear of overweight, the process of healing has begun  and in due time they will concur that this method was a successful one in returning them to normalicy.

When your loved one is no bigger than a baby bird, how do you feed them? When your child or friend suffers from an eating disorder do you say anything? When your client or patient refuses to eat, or binges or overeats… what then do you do as a professional? How do we find hope in such a bleak and devastating situation?  Food is the very fabric of our makeup, and its potential to heal our body means that we need it every day in quantity. How to convince someone to eat again, and nurse them back to health when they have forgotten how to consume food appropriately is a complex question. In order to answer this question, we must go deeply into the heart of what creates an eating disorder and relearn what it means to choose life, and the nature of being alive on planet earth. We must debunk some of the myths surrounding eating that cause people to think unhealthy thoughts about their bodies and about food.

Many young girls are flocking to eating disorder treatment centers, with alarmingly low weights and skeletal frames. In order to be successful, the patient and professional must first build a bond of trust. To return a depleted body to health, one that has suffered malnourishment over many months or years, is a strenuous task.  The client must trust the nutritionist’s advice and method. They must trust that it will bring about the desired results without the person becoming overweight, which may be their greatest fear. Especially where a human body has suffered serious hunger and fasting, the body may be resistant to digesting and absorbing food normally and overcompensate.  This is why refeeding must occur with caution, and gently over a longer period of time rather than too quickly, by using undue medication. 

When choosing a psychologist and nutritionist to assist with the journey to health, the question remains: How will the nutritionist know what to do for me? Should I really see a nutritionist or dietitian or would this only further my condition? How much should I as an eating disorder victim eat, and in what order, and combination for best results? How should a counselor proceed if I am suffering from an eating disorder so as to bring me back to health at a gradual pace without a nutritionist available who understands this method?  Let this website be your trusted friend and guide as to how to proceed and you will find among its research and resources a nutritionist who has walked to the brink of this dangerous condition and worked in several successful eating disorder centers to bring others back from the edge.

The contest between being thin and being healthy is a long one that has spanned many decades. These two goals seem to oppose each other, yet you will find through this method, used in highly successful eating disorder clinics in both Canada and the United States, that both can be achieved. An anorexic, bulimic, or compulsively obese person, will be able to carry through this journey to health and be at a normal weight in the end. They will shed their eating disorder like an old skin for a new program that will work for a lifetime. I share with you the means to that journey, the foods to eat are those brightly coloured of this antioxidant-rich program.

A nutritionist is both biologist, biochemist, and botanist: a lifetime student of foods and their properties in maintaining health. They have learned many different ways of using diet and exercise for the benefit of the client, to achieve their individual goals. Each client is different and so for the holistic nutritionist it is important to have a distinct plan for every separate individual, that they can follow without too much care, and which can be amended to suit the patient.  The patient must be accountable to their health professional and try to tell them the truth about their ability or inability to follow nutritional advice or program. They must be willing to do something altogether new, try new foods, and experiment with cooking as they are able.

The client will find with time, they are immensely grateful that this approach was taken. They will resume their normal activities once again, feel joy and happiness and their depression and obsession with food and diet will lift. They will again lead a normal life if they follow this program and protocol.  Many people have experienced this or I would not assuring you that it can be done. I have explained many times to clients and patients why a person must have a high metabolism to ingest the amount of food necessary to maintain health.  This prevents overweight and reassures the client that they will be able to eat all the necessary nutrients. 

With any disease or condition there are many emotions attached to both sickness and wellness. We feel guilt when those we love suffer unnecessarily, and to have that guilt continue for many years erodes the fabric of relationship and health in those around eating disorder sufferers. Some of these children have tragically died from the condition, etching the guilt into lines of grief. When there was nothing that could be done to save a skeletal dying child, the pain is very deep in a parent’s soul. Even if you have waited a long time to hear these words, I would exhort you not to give up right now.

No longer must the eating disorder patient dwell for years on end with no cure in sight and no means for recovery. Food that is energetically sound is the healer, and will nourish every cell as appropriately deserved, now, with your permission.

I ask you to affirm now, as on the day of your birth, when you were born into this world: that food is essential for life, and that you affirm its goodness and nourishment to you each time you eat.  You are assured again and again of its power both to hurt or to heal you. You are now the bearer of a gift of knowledge that will take you beyond this place of fear and disease to wholeness and healing. 

Buy Emily Isaacson's book: Little Bird's Song

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