Making Decisions in ED Recovery- Cookie Cup Girls Package!

hello welcome back for another video andtoday I want to talk about decisionmaking and recovery from an eatingdisorder particularly decision-makingaround food obviously because it can beextremely difficult to choose what toeat when we’re in recovery I also findthat general decision-making is reallydifficult as welldeciding what do I want to do today whatgood qualities next while I watch onNetflix it seems like life is constantlymade up of decisions and with an eatingdisorder you feel like you always haveto make the perfect decision otherwiseeverything is ruined so yeah I’m gonnafocus on food because natural andrecovery and I think it’s reallydifficult and only becoming increasinglydifficult in today’s society where wehave so many options I mean you go tothe supermarket you go into the yogurtaisle or the crisps aisle and you’re metwith hundreds of different products andcertainly I find when I’m in thatsituation is very hard to connect towhat I genuinely want I have that kindof conversation with the eating disorderin my head and yeah it can be reallydifficult so I just wanted to share someways that I have worked on getting lessstress around making decisions regardingfood for the first one actually issomething which my psychologist talksabout a lot and those preparing food inadvance because I often find that whenI’m faced with food the eating disorderbecomes extremely alive in my headwhereas in advance I’m a bit more clearminded and I’m a bit more Hanulbasically so one thing I do because Ireally love overnight oats is that Imake overnight oats of an evening and Ileave them in the fridge overnight socombining time I just have to go intothe fridge get the up though and I’vealready left out what I’m going to topthem with so that’s actually something Idid last night and I’ve just eaten themnow so I’ll take you back to last nightpreparing them and then I’ll bring youback to this morning just before nowwhile I eat themcontinue talking about why that’shelpful and about other ways that I findI can help combat inability to makedecisions in my recovery[Music][Music]because so many options and it can bereally really overwhelming so what Ialways like to do is to have a roughlist written out and I think rough for areason because when I started thisinitially I decided that the best courseof action was to write a really specificlist which included the exact productswhich I was going to buy the exact brandyada yada all that stuff and of coursewhat didn’t come into my brainwas the fact that supermarkets don’talways stop everything and certainly forme if I turned up and I had decided inmy head that I was going to get thisspecific brand of bread and they didn’thave it then my mind would go intooverdrive and I could almost convincedmyself that this was some kind of famethat I wasn’t to get the product at allso what I then realized was that Ineeded to be a little bit more flexiblein my list so I tend to write down theproducts for example if there’ssomething specific about it which I mustremember I write that next to it so forexample if I write down yogurt Ispecifically write in brackets notfat-free or low-fat just proper atnormal tasty yogurt and so that canreally help because you’re writing thelist when you’re not feast with all theoptions and all that choice and so itcan kind of help catch you at a momentwhere your brain is less consumed by theeating disorder of course I I so Isuggested with caution because I thinkit’s also important if you see somethingin a supermarket that you think I wouldreally like that that you don’t thinkwell it’s not on my list – I can’t sothe list is more kind of fallback optionand detailing the things you definitelyneed to getbut then of course you see something onspecial offer at the end of an aisle andit catches your eye you buy that tooit’s not they’re not mutually exclusiveyou know also just coming back to thepreparing of food in advance so I stillmake breakfast in advance sometimes ifI’m going to have already notes forexample because they need to be madeovernight but otherwise I don’t feel theneed to prepare everything so much inadvance little sir perhaps earlier on inthe process when I initially startedrecovery something that my psychologistreally got me to do was to prepare allmy food in the morning in advance sothat it was ready for the day or eventhe night before sometimes and I wouldliterally have my morning snack laid outmy afternoon snack they don’t my lunchmeat and ready in the fridge mybreakfast ready in the fridge and thenthe evening my mom was home and so thatkind of wasn’t included and it felt veryvery rigid and structured yesbut at that time it was what I needed inorder to stick to my plan and in orderto eat what I was supposed to be eatingnow if I were to do that I think itwould be very healthy thing to dobecause I like where I can’t try andlisten to my body and what it wants butI obviously intrude to stick to astructure still you know for example Iwant to have a tuna sandwich ready inthe fridge and it gets to lunchtime thenI actually really want to cheesesandwich you know and I think I onlygradually moved away from having all thefood laid out as I felt more comfortableand confident in the routine that I wasin and that I knew I wasn’t going to berestricting as a result of not preparingin advance and the other thing whichkind of relates to the supermarket isthe act of choosing food when you’re notfaced with a food that can really reallyhelp so if you’re going to a cafe or arestaurant for example and you alreadyknow maybe not the exact dish that youwant but the kind of thing you wantwhoever you’re going with you couldmaybe tell them so you could say oh I’mreally fancying a muffin so when you goto the cafe they can kind of hold youaccountable to that and when youfaced with the muffins and in your headthe last thing you want is the lemonmuffin you you’ve already kind ofcommitted to it and I’m certainlycommitting in advance two things hasbeen invaluable in my recovery like it’sgotten me through so much and as Imentioned in a previous videocommitting to other people but alsocommitting to myself I’m writing it downso for example something which I’veactually recently done is I’ve ordered abox of bait streets from a companycalled the cute cup girls and theydeliver various different baked itemsthroughout the United Kingdom and yeahwe’re really excited when I saw it andso I have ordered from them and itshould come in the next couple of daysI’ll probably answer a clip here so Igot a delivery from the cookie Cup girlswhich is the most amazing company whichthen bakes goods and yeah I just want toshow you I got in here and also talkedabout why I find doing things like thishelpful in terms of decision making inrecovery – Oh without further ado let’ssee what’s in the ballcrow here we have it so we have tofamily Dodger blondie pop a cream eggbrownie pop two salted caramel desserttop and a base golf cake any jarhow cool was that so yeah to order thesethings from this company in a moment forI was feeling really quite positivebecause I thought larger online when I’mfeeling positive then it arrives andthen I’ve committed to it and and I alsothink that choosing things online can beeasier in terms of decision making thanwhen I’m in a supermarket or in a bakeryfor example feast with all the differentproducts laid out and I feel under somekind of time pressure whereas online youcan take your time you could have abrand and you can try and connect withwhat you really want and what yougenuinely want know what your eatingdisorder wants and so yeah I find thingslike this are really really helpful alsothis golf cake in a jar can you go wrongI don’t think sosee I would recommend things like thisas well and particularly actually at themoment and we’re going through thecorona virus pandemic and I think it’sso important to support theseindependent small businesses yeah alsoyou don’t have to leave your house toget cake you can have it delivered toyou so that’s always get – um so yeahthat’s the delivery that came from thecookie cut girls and what if I’m reallygreat what if I went into a supermarketand was feast with all their products Iwould probably have a very difficulttime choosing because I’d want to takethe perfect item or I might just runaway completelynot bother at all whereas I could chooseto order online when I felt that I wasin a good headspace and then I’vealready committed because I paid thedeliveries on its way to me and onceI’ve got the items I’m definitely gonnaeat them because I hate to see things goto wasteI also just want to add another way thatreally helped me in getting over thedecision making in recovery which Iforgot when I fell yesterday and thatwas handing over control yes perhaps nota long-term solution because ultimatelyyou do eventually have to make thedecisions yourself regarding what you’regoing to eat but I think that certainlyin the initial stages it can feelimpossible to choose and so if you dohave somebody who you can give thatcontrol over to then it can be reallyhelpful so for example in a previousrecovery I gave all control over to mymom so my mom would choose what I wasgoing to eat she would prepare my foodshe would plate it up and she would giveit to me and yes it was quite a lot ofpressure on her and I wouldn’t have doneit for a long period of time but it didhelp reduce my anxiety levels because Ididn’t have to have that internal debatein my head over what I should eat andkind of have that argument between theeating disorder that was trying to getaway with the least possible and me whoreally wanted to recover so I think thatgiving over control can really reallyhelp and then I think a good way to moveaway from that is to gradually take backcontrol yourself I think I begun bychoosing my morning snack it still hadto be approved by my mum thought I wasaccountable in making sure that what Ihad was suitable but the decision wasdown to me and then gradually we didthat for each meal and each snackthroughout the day and yeah it reallyreally helped it’s not something thatI’ve done this time around because I’mnot in that kind of situation where it’spossible I spend a lot of time in thehouse on my own so it is up to me todecide why I do I have guidelines my Isee a dietitian has helped my therapistand just generally as I progressedthrough recovery I have felt able tomake more decisions myself somethingelse which I actually did because Istruggled so much with dinners and thatI just couldn’t make a decision so Iended up having the same two meals onrotation for a very very long time andit was quite boring to be fair and so mypsychologist actually suggested that Isubscribe to a delivery service wherethey kind of deliver your meals or theydeliver ingredients and then you couldwith those ingredients so it helped mealso get back into the kitchen but theingredients are pre-portioned so it madesure that anorexia didn’t slip in andunder portion any ingredients so thatreally helped and it also really helpedme expand the different types of foodthat I had tried because I’ve been illfor so long there were so many thingsthat I hadn’t discovered that I reallyliked and some things I didn’t like toto be fair and so yeah that reallyhelped and it’s something that I stilldo from time to time now but not so muchto give up control more just because Ilike discovering different recipes andstuff so yeah on that you you couldchoose the things that they were sendingyou but there was a limited list and inthe initial stages my mum selected themeals which we were going to cook fromthat and then slowly but surely Istarted to choose them and then once Ibecame more confident in the kitchen westopped ordering from then and I stillmean some of the recipes but I was ableto portion ingredients myself and meetthose decisions so yeah I just wanted toadd that in as a little aside because Ithink it can also be really helpful andit’s maybe something that people don’tthink of immediately when they think ofways to combat difficulty in makingdecisions about food so yes these aresome ideas I have in terms of helping usmake decisions in eating surgeryrecovery and there are many manydifferent ways and I think differentthings work for different people andthere’s certainly a fine line inbalancing betweenplanning so that decision-making is lessdifficult and managing to be flexibleenough so that you can you know live thelife that you want to live I thinkdepending on your stage of recoveryplanning in early stages can be reallyreally beneficial whereas as you movealong I think naturally you graduallybecome more flexible withoutintentionally trying to it just happensand I genuinely think that’s due to thefact that both your body and your mindare much healthier and they’re much morenourished and able to think rationallyso yeah if you have any other ideas ofways to help combat difficulty indecision-making in recovery or just ingeneral life you know and then downbelow and then pop any comments downbelow and thank you very much