A tale as old as time. People with eating disorders tend to compare themselves at every turn to the people around them as they walk through the world, but it’s actually more complicated than that. People struggling with eating disorders often discuss comparison as though it happens all the time, and they compare themselves to EVERYONE. I can definitely validate this as a FEELING, but what actually happens in the brain is pretty complex, as it searches for JUST the right person, action etc. to focus on. The other piece of the puzzle is this idea of not allowing people to be, well, in existence. 

But first let’s talk about the way we CHOOSE our victims in comparison. 

Again, whenever I have asked my patients who they compare themselves to, I seem to always get the reply, “EVERYONE!” So, being me, I ask my little white female patient if she compares herself to, let’s say, an NFL player in a wheelchair. After the eye roll, like, “obviously not…” reality sets in that she does have a specific method to her madness. The people she chooses to compare herself, “…must be female and around my age,” to which I challenge even farther, asking whether she compares herself to pregnant women her age. After another eye roll, she now has to think about this idea in a much more internal and personal way. The answers really come out now. 

The criteria usually come out:

• Similar age
• Similar race
• Similar abilities
• Similar phase of life
• Same gender
• etc.

But then it gets interesting. My patient starts talking about the fact that the next criteria is how the person looks like she must be thinner, happier, more successful, and just generally better than her. Due to this being just based on looks, I ask her how the looks make her feel, if all of her assumptions were true. I usually get the general idea that my patient ends up choosing people who make her feel inadequate on multiple levels. How interesting that we would choose ONLY people who made us feel inadequate?

This question and general idea of looking furiously for people who make you feel inadequate is fascinating to me, but if we take a closer look, it makes complete sense.  In the patients I see, there is often deep pain that is really difficult to identify, either because it consists of so many unresolved issues, or an issue too painful to address, or usually a combination of these two things. So if you think about it, these sweet folks would constantly be on a furious quest to find ANYTHING to explain the pain. Finding insecurity in the stories we make up about other people seems easier to tolerate than exploring deeper or unidentified pain that might be worse.  So what’s the answer?

For the answer, we follow the lobster. Just go with me on this one… 

As shelter, lobsters often take shelter in moray eel caves. The caves that these eels make their homes are usually long and narrow… the perfect size for a lobster. The lobster takes shelter in the mouth of these caves. This way they are not crowding the eel, and they can “fish” for food in protection of getting eaten by outside predators. The eel makes this deal and doesn’t eat the lobster because the eel gets free protection from the lobster. The lobster has a pretty intricate method of staying safe. With two antenna, and the protection of the mouth of the cave, it could easily use both antenna to look for food, but they don’t. One antenna points toward the external environment looking for food, and predators that could be  lurking, and one antenna is ferociously pointed back at that eel.  At any point the lobster needs to be aware of what’s happening within.

I’d tell you to never stop comparing, the same way I’d never tell the lobster (when I talk to lobsters) to point both antenna back at the eel. Think about it, they’d starve to death if they can’t look out at their environment.  But if both are pointed out, the internal is ignored and can become more dangerous. 

If we can take a lesson from these crustaceans, we can understand that it’s ok to have an antenna out toward the external and compare, but we should be pointing another antenna toward the internal, in order to explore the pain not identified. Remember the pain you feel in comparing to others can be explored, but of it stops at, “I’m sad because other people are better than me,” you’re wasting a fabulous opportunity to learn more about your pain.

The more you can practice taking a comparison all the way through to the real pain, you can start becoming aware the awareness of how often you’re feeling this way. The conversation then changes to, 

“Man! I’m feeling so (lonely, scared, inadequate, in pain, etc.) today. I’m picking only people to compare myself to that help me feel this way.”

And eventually, maybe….

“I’m grateful to this person for helping me go beyond the story I’m making up that they’re better than me, to my real pain points. So I can allow her be thinner than me, because I know that’s not what this is about.

Please let me know what insights you find for yourself, and your own recovery journey. *If you need support NOW, BOOK a phone session with me!*

Email me at:
SRO@ScarlettRameyOfficial.com
Or text me at:
(206) 910-8690

If you are looking for more support in your journey to Recovery and Life, I would be honored if you became a
Ramey Nutrition Insider

You’ll find fun fun support tools and freebies in my first email!

YES! I Want In!

If you’re into it, feel free to share this with any other people in your support circle that you KNOW need to hear these words!

Yours in love and support,

Scarlett Ramey, MS, RDN, CD

P.S. Hope to see you in the comments. Let’s rally together during this time and stay connected in supporting YOUR Recovery journey.  The world deserves the BEST of you.♥️

When food is like drug withdrawal.

Sometimes the panic of visiting a restaurant can start with just the idea or suggestion of going. I get it. People not familiar with the journey of eating disorder recovery don’t seem to understand. It’s just a restaurant, right? Not necessarily…

I like to explain the “idea of eating out,” to people trying to understand the plight of their loved ones, the way I’d explain a drug addict getting to the last pill in a bottle. Hang in there with me now…

Just as you panic before you even decide whether to go to a restaurant, your brain goes right to the chemical effect food will have on your sense of safety. When you starve to the point you stop feeling hunger pangs, your brain releases brain soothing chemicals to keep you from feeling the hunger signals anymore. Endorphins, serotonin, and other fabulous feeling chemicals can make people without anxiety issues feel euphoric, but for the anxiety prone, it can bring a feeling of general relief from anxiety about the world around them. Just relief, not happiness, or euphoria. Once a person starts to eat after this time period, the way the science works is that the stretch receptors in the stomach start sending signals to the brain to discontinue the pain relieving chemicals from saturating the brain’s receptors. To the normal person, this looks like coming down from euphoria to a normal state. To the anxiety prone, this looks like going from a feeling of safety and relief to a possible panic attack.

Just the way a drug addict fears getting down to their last pill, the person struggling with a restrictive eating disorder starts panicking long before eating at a restaurant. The monkey thoughts, as I like to call those racing thoughts that come from the simple proposition of taking away those endorphins, go crazy! 

• Where are we going?
• Will they have something that will keep me safe?
• Who will be there?
• Do they have a menu online?
• What happens if I eat too much?
• How do I get away with eating enough for the people around me, but not enough to make me scared?
• What if they put things in my food to make me fat?
• What if they get my order wrong?
• How can I make it look like I’m eating
• Etc.

The panic rips right through those safe and cozy chemicals designed to calm the central nervous system.  THAT’S how frightening it can be. The goal with all of this is to remember, or just reread the following bullet points when that panic comes on:

• We are not there right now
• I am ALWAYS at choice
• Not that I will, but I could eat something safe before and order nothing if it got too overwhelming
• I don’t owe anything to anyone but myself
• My recovery journey is MINE, and so is this restaurant experience
• It’s ok if I need to prepare by looking at the menu before hand
• I am where I am in my recovery journey because I fought hard to get here
• I owe it to myself to be gentle through this situation no one has to struggle through but me

Do a free write before hand (10 minutes only please) and one after.
Keep up your magic, and reach out to me if you need support navigating these waters.
*If you need support NOW, BOOK a phone session with me!*

Email me at:
SRO@ScarlettRameyOfficial.com
Or text me at:
(206) 910-8690

If you are looking for more support in your journey to Recovery and Life, I would be honored if you became a
Ramey Nutrition Insider

You’ll find fun fun support tools and freebies in my first email!

YES! I Want In!

If you’re into it, feel free to share this with any other people in your support circle that you KNOW need to hear these words!

Yours in love and support,

Scarlett Ramey, MS, RDN, CD

P.S. Hope to see you in the comments. Let’s rally together during this time and stay connected in supporting YOUR Recovery journey.  The world deserves the BEST of you.♥️

My dietitian is driving me crazy!😫

Girl/Boy….I get it.
As a registered dietitian, and an eating disorder specialist for 15+ years, I’ve seen some pretty horrific situations with patients and dietitians trying to get along. Please understand that these well-meaning people are truly trying to use their knowledge to help, but sometimes, MAN…. It seems like their help goes nowhere quickly. Just to help put it all in context we are TRAINED to educate. This is sometimes helpful, however, with the invention of Google, it seems pretty fruitless.

Even with medically new diagnosed patients with diabetes, cardiovascular disease, etc., the old school training has been to “educate” them on what they could find on the internet. Not only does this take 1,000 years, as we have to cover everything we know, but it has nothing to do with what the patient might actually be going through.

For instance, as a dietitian I was asked to educate and actually provide materials to an Orthodox Jewish patient on avoiding pork products. I felt like an ass, but that box had to be checked. Another time, I had to discuss changing dietary habits with a patient in a coma…. What?!

Super traditional dietitians get into this arena in order to be a super-hero for patients truly needing education they cannot get anywhere else. We are trained to become experts in the field of nutrition, however, my entire graduate degree education can all be obtained with a simple Google search. So if education is not necessary, why do they keep insisting on doing it? Part of this is training to cover our butts legally. We checked the box saying we did everything we were told to etc. 

When we approach a patient struggling with an eating disorder, the conversation ends up looking like a Mexican standoff. The idea of educating someone with and eating disorder about nutrition is laughable, to say the least. They spend 95%+ of their thought capacity learning, thinking about, and meditating on this subject. They are “know it alls,” because they KNOW IT ALL. Whenever a dietitian attempts to educate one of these geniuses, they end up getting the Chloe Side Eye, and losing trust.

As a dietitian, I was never really interested in nutrition, and looked for shortcuts as often as I could. This became crazy advantageous to most of my patients, and included cuts like:

• Asking cardiovascular patients what they thought gave them a heart attack
• Asking if there might be a better time to talk, or if they felt comfortable talking now
• Asking how they thought I could help them the most
• Asking what they wanted to attack first
• Asking what they liked to eat, and what was off the table
• The list goes on, but are you sensing a pattern?

I asked THEM about THEM. Not hard, but it made them trust me immediately, and it cut my work load down to a fraction of what my cohorts took on.
I was consistent in asking even my unsure patients, “How would YOU like to handle this?”

The truth is that you really do know what you want, even if you have to do some internal digging. As providers, we are educated ONLY to suggest options for treatment, when, in all honesty, it is so much easier to describe the situation ahead of us, and let the patient make the right decision for their own journey.

When I got word that one of my patients had been traumatized by breakfast sausage at an early age, and was given this as an option to increase protein… I just about cried…. 
Again with the shortcuts, I simply would have presented the situation in medical form:
Me:  We need to increase the protein you’re consuming by 21 grams each day.  I’d like you to spend the next week thinking about how you’d like to handle this so we can maintain it for at least a week.

My patient goes furiously looking for the type of protein he/she feels safest with increasing this amount, and… 

*SHOCKER*

… comes back with the perfect answer….

Sometimes they don’t trust that I truly want it to be their choice, so they’ll push the boundaries that are literally not there.

Patient: How about Fat-free cottage cheese?

Me: Sounds awful, but cool. How much do you have to eat to meet 21 grams of protein?

Patient: 3/4 cup.

Me: Are you cool with doing this every day?

Patient: Of course, it’s Fat-free, is that ok?

Me:  I’m only going to tackle one thing at a time, and give you at least a week to think about it. I only needed the protein increase at this point, so however you can make this doable, I’m in full support. The fat free thing might be a disorder, but it also may not be. We can tackle that when we cross that bridge, but one thing at a time, so let’s try the cottage cheese for the next week and see if it goes ok.

Patient: Wow, ok, thanks….

Think about it, my patient did ALL the work, AND trusts me more. Win-Win? I think so.

Here’s the REAL REAL though. You’re ALWAYS the center and top of your treatment team. If you’re given options, ask for time to think about it. Make decisions after you’ve taken a week to really consider your own internal truth, and the way you want to handle your next recovery step.  Asking for what you want is *not* selfish, and it will make your road to recovery easier on all involved. Remember, you’re actually taking strides for the eating disorder community when you advocate for your own decisions at each turn, especially with your dietitian.

Keep up your magic, and reach out to me if you need support navigating these waters.

*If you need support NOW, BOOK a phone session with me!*

Email me at:
SRO@ScarlettRameyOfficial.com
Or text me at:
(206) 910-8690

If you are looking for more support in your journey to Recovery and Life, I would be honored if you became a
Ramey Nutrition Insider

You’ll find fun fun support tools and freebies in my first email!

YES! I Want In!

If you’re into it, feel free to share this with any other people in your support circle that you KNOW need to hear these words!

Yours in love and support,

Scarlett Ramey, MS, RDN, CD

P.S. Hope to see you in the comments. Let’s rally together during this time and stay connected in supporting YOUR Recovery journey.  The world deserves the BEST of you.♥️

I’ve been seeing this a lot lately. This idea of “recovered, but.” 
I needed to write this to truly take the stigma and expectation off of what recovery truly means. It’s important to me to show you all that it’s OK to be where you are right now in your recovery journey. In fact it’s imperative to be truthful, mostly with yourself, about where you are on your recovery journey to achieve the actual end of an eating disorder. 

It seems important to so many I talk to to convince me they are recovered or have been in recovery for a certain time period, as though they are synonymizing recovery with sobriety. Recovering from an eating disorder is much more complex than maintaining sobriety. Not harder, in any way, but more complex. Sobriety from alcohol or drugs requires one thing. Avoiding those substances. I wish with all my heart that recovery from an eating disorder was this simple (again, not easy, but simple).  The questions that come up for sobriety usually are reduced to

• Should I drink now/today?
  • Yes? Not sober
  • No? Sober

When recovering from an eating disorder, you’re required to eat 3-6 times per day.  This includes making the following decisions on almost a non-stop rotating thought wheel: 

• What to eat
• When to eat
• Where to eat
• How much to eat
• What you ate last
  • Was it enough?
  • Do you need to make up nutrition?
  • Did you eat too much?
  • Should you restrict?
    • Would THAT be disordered?
• What your goals are for:
  • Long term recovery
  • This meal
  • Your next session with your treatment team
  • Relationships with food/friends/family
• Who to eat with
  • If no one is around, can I restrict?
• What you did today
  • Does it require extra nutrition?

3-6 times each DAY!

With the process being THAT much more complex, with SO many more decisions to make on a rotation that never stops, the idea of “full eating disorder recovery,” needs to be given the honor it deserves. For instance, “Being recovered for 5 years, but hating my body,” is the same as “Being sober 5 years but drinking in moderation.” It’s not real. Patients of mine who have recovered don’t even use the “R” word. They just say that was a part of their life they’re done with now.  With eating disorder recovery being THAT difficult, why would we EVER expect ourselves to just get there?

The road is damned long, because it requires so many things to heal. Recovery is not just ending eating disorder behaviors, or restoring weight. It requires healing of the thoughts that run rampant in your mind, your body image, your relationships, your expectations. It requires passion for life that makes the eating disorder naturally become boring. It requires your healing of obsessive weight thoughts, counting habits, nutrition label reading, exercise addictions, the list goes on.

My point here is that once you can make it crystal clear about where you are on your recovery journey, you’ll move more efficiently toward being done. If you are in the process of healing ANY of the above examples, you are NOT recovered. You’re still on your journey, and that’s AWESOME! It’s almost more  honorable to be in a place where you can boldly state you’re working on accepting your body image right now, or you’re trying to have an easier relationship with food. That’s fucking brave. If you’ve healed all of your issues around your eating disorder, you’re done. You’re not in recovery, you’re recovered. Working toward full recovery is going to seem fruitless. You’ll work so hard without feeling like you’ve moved an inch, but I promise, if you can keep working and being truthful about where you are on your journey, all of a sudden, it will naturally become boring. Yes, boring, get excited!

*If you need support NOW, BOOK a phone session with me!*

Email me at:
SRO@ScarlettRameyOfficial.com
Or text me at:
(206) 910-8690

If you are looking for more support in your journey to Recovery and Life, I would be honored if you became a
Ramey Nutrition Insider

You’ll find fun fun support tools and freebies in my first email!

YES! I Want In!

If you’re into it, feel free to share this with any other people in your support circle that you KNOW need to hear these words!

Yours in love and support,

Scarlett Ramey, MS, RDN, CD

P.S. Hope to see you in the comments. Let’s rally together during this time and stay connected in supporting YOUR Recovery journey.  The world deserves the BEST of you.♥️

Exercise addiction includes a link between compulsive exercise and disordered eating, as they often go hand in hand. In fact, the link is so strong that some industry professionals say they cannot exist without each other.

While the spectrum on obsessive compulsive exercise is broad, being able to identify signs early may help stop the cycle before it reaches the level of addiction. Many of my patients have claimed that they “love running. I can’t just give up the only thing I love!” I also hear? “It really helps me eat when I don’t want to.” 

My response usually includes challenging them to avoid it for a week, the way you might with drugs and alcohol, and notice the affects on the mind. The ones who “love running” usually end up changing that word to “need.” The ones who running “helps” have the same response as other addicts, when the drug is removed. They either stop, or restrict eating all together, or have a very hard time with depression and anxiety symptoms. The “passion” for exercise can only be authenticity determined when it stops being used to offset eating or other healthy coping mechanisms. This means recovery must happen before exercise is slowly reintroduced, and for the right reasons. 

Here are 7 signs your workout could be addictive:

1. You exercise to make up for meals or poor body image.

The biggest sign that exercise habits are unhealthy is if you’re exercising too often and intensely in order to compensate or punish yourself for daily food intake, or your body image per eat any given time.

2. You’re always at the gym/trail/place of exercise.

 While “gym rats” might spend a few hours a week at the gym, such as an hour a day, those who are obsessed with the gym and exercising might spend three or four hours there each day, or frequent the gym a few times a day. This is where the gym, or your exercise regime becomes a false safe space for your unhealthy thoughts to thrive.

3. You feel tired most of the time.

Unhealthy exercise habits often lead to fatigue or exhaustion from spending too much time working out and not enough time taking care of your body. Too much energy expended without caloric refuel can lead to metabolism depression, which can put stress on the body’s systems, leading you to become sick or injured.

4.  You change plans to accommodate your exercise schedule.

 Do you cancel plans at the last minute or make adjustments in your schedule to accommodate your workouts? 

People with exercise addictions frequently find themselves changing their plans or planning activities and social engagements around the time they usually would spend in the exercising. Sometimes they go as far as exercising to AVOID social gatherings that might be anxiety provoking.

5. Your feelings about exercise include words like mandatory, guilt, anxiety, and rigid.

When it comes to exercise, the goal is to feel better. The following signs indicate that a healthy relationship with physical activity might be transitioning to an unhealthy habit, obsession, or dangerous compulsion: 
You maintain a rigid exercise regimen despite dangerous weather conditions or threats to physical health, mental health, or both.
Your main goal is to burn calories or lose weight.
You experience persistent fear, anxiety, or stress regarding negative body changes if you can’t exercise.
The thought of not exercising makes you feel anxious.
You feel guilty if you miss or don’t complete an exercise session.

6. Your results are diminishing.

Too much time exercising often equates to diminished results. 

For example, if you find yourself constantly skipping rest days to fit in workouts seven days a week, you’re in an overtraining zone.  You may become irritable, lose sleep and your appetite. Too much of a good thing can go wrong very quickly in this case.

7. You have a negative body image.

Countless hours working out won’t fix your body image. In fact, there’s a good chance it might make it worse. I find that my gym-obsessed patients find that they have a poor body image, and see an unrealistic version of themselves. They strive to perfect it, even if it’s not healthy.

An unrealistic body image can lead to eating disorders as well as overexercising, and the combination is dangerous.
The quest to find balance between healthy and obsessive exercise is difficult to do on your own.  Seeking professional help via your doctor or a mental health professional who specializes in exercise addiction or eating disorders might be the best place to start. 

They can help you identify the patterns and behaviors that contribute to your unhealthy relationship with exercise? So you can work toward finding ways to make fitness a balanced part of your life. 
*f you need support NOW, BOOK a phone session with me!*

Email me at:
SRO@ScarlettRameyOfficial.com
Or text me at:
(206) 910-8690

If you are looking for more support in Recovery and Life, I would be honored if you became a
Ramey Nutrition Insider

You’ll find fun fun support tools and freebies in my first email!

YES! I Want In!

If you’re into it, feel free to share this with any other people in your support circle that you KNOW need to hear these words!

Yours in love and support,

Scarlett Ramey, MS, RDN, CD

P.S. Hope to see you in the comments. Let’s rally together during this time and stay connected in supporting YOUR Recovery journey.  The world deserves the BEST of you.♥️

It’s true. The longer you struggle with an eating disorder, the harder it is to recover, period. There is hope, though. In my 10+ years as a registered dietitian in the eating disorder industry, I’ve seen similar recovery trends that lead patients to thriving lives, and their disease to a mere memory. As my mission remains to remind people of the power they possess to recover their way, and expose every trick in the book to make recovery less painful, it is my duty to release what I’ve seen really work. 

Why do we become stuck in the pattern of disordered eating? It’s a quest worthy of exploration. From what I’ve seen, my patients seem to synonomize familiar thoughts and habits with the feeling of safety or temporary pain/anxiety relief. This is a very human behavior we call “harm avoidance.” This is where, for millennia, we have evolved by avoiding harmful situations. Being ever vigilant and hyper aware of ANYTHING that represents a threat to our safety has kept us alive. So that’s just normal and has allowed us to evolve without becoming an extinct species.

The problem of harm avoidance has also evolved naturally as well, so that instead of our adrenalin raising with a tiger chasing us down, it now raises the same or more with losing a smart phone, or what I like to call “iPanick.” This is in our general population, though, not specific to eating disorder patients. As we get into the eating disorder population, harm avoidance becomes even MORE intense to attain even a general feeling of safety.

With my experience and research in treating eating disorders, I’ve witnessed the genetic response to stimuli as instinctually sensitive. My patients have all shared a genetic level of hypersensitivity, making their level of intuition almost psychic. The hypersensitive nature of these magical folks allows them to read a room from their gut, and see right through any, and most bullshit. This is a big reason they can manipulate eating disorder professionals without even blinking.

They know when they’re being lied to, and trust must be earned through 1,000% authenticity. If you’re not real as a professional, they’re only going to take your sessions as time they need to log to convince their friends and family of their successful road to recovery. They know what their providers need to hear, and they’ll tell them exactly what is needed to have their chart show undying progress. A provider’s self awareness and genuineness is, and in my professional opinion, will always be, the only skill needed to treat these intuitive geniuses.

Let go of the knowledge you THINK you have, and be real. They’ve got the rest without your help. I consistently reiterated to my team in Seattle that the only thing our patients needed was for them to care, genuinely. Their schooling did not matter, as our patients knew way more about nutrition than we ever could. They spend the majority of their time researching nutrition if they’re not obsessing about it. 

So their sense of harm avoidance is on point to the tune of being anxious about 99.5% of the time, consistently looking for those with agendas to disrupt their sense of what they believe to be safe. They are pros. Suffice it to say, they only have about 0.5% thoughts to entertain anything other than obsessive harm avoidance. My treatment with my own patients, therefore, focused the majority of our time together on building enough trust, through expressing authenticity and genuineness, to entertain that 0.5% of their thoughts. This is where their dreams and hopes live. 

I remember thinking, “Yeah, yeah. We have to talk about progressive food improvement, but they know what they need to do, and I’m not going to spend my time talking about what they obsess over the majority of their lives.” My goal was ALWAYS to grow that 0.5% by being the safe person to let their guard down around. My authenticity led me to tell them everything I was thinking.

I told them at the start of a session that we would be increasing their food next week, so they had some time to think about what they wanted to do. They appreciated the notice, and because I gave them the control, they could think about how THEY wanted to increase. Less work for me anyway, let’s be honest. Once I got this out of the way, they could relax knowing we got the worst out of the way, and they didn’t have to sit on pins and needles waiting for the surprise other providers would spring on them. 

Love it or hate it, they knew I was up front with them from the very beginning. I would even tell them if I wanted them to think about “thinking about” a food increase. As long as I honestly exposed all I was thinking, they felt easier about growing the 0.5% to start including more dreams and hopes. By default , and I exposed this too, they had to choose to let go of the minuscule fractions of their obsession to grow this area, but because I focused on the growth of their hopes and dreams, THEY got to decide what part they’d sacrifice, when to do it and how much to give up. 

So how hard is it to shake an obsession you focus on 99.5% of the time? Fucking hard. The only way I’ve been able to help permanently eradicate this obsession is to grow the time they spend thinking about their dreams. When you give a person, who is scared most of their lives, the control to decide the what, when, why, and where of their recovery, and just be cheerleaders of their hopes and dreams, guaranteed, they’ll do it. Infantile steps at first, I’ve witnessed so many patients CHOOSE to let go of obsessive thoughts in lew of ones giving them hope for their future. They enjoyed seeing me because for even a session they got a break from anxiety and got to talk about life, their life. 

In conclusion, my method is not to take the obsession away, but to get people excited about life, little by little, until the obsession starts to get boring in comparison. 
*If you need support NOW, BOOK a phone session with me!

Email me at:
SRO@ScarlettRameyOfficial.com
Or text me at:
(206) 910-8690

If you are looking for more support in eating disorder Recovery and Life, I would be honored if you became a
Ramey Nutrition Insider

You’ll find fun fun support tools and freebies in my first email!

YES! I Want In!

If you’re into it, feel free to share this with any other people in your support circle that you KNOW need to hear these words!

Yours in love and support,

Scarlett Ramey, MS, RDN, CD

P.S. Hope to see you in the comments. Let’s rally together during this time and stay connected in supporting YOUR Recovery journey.  The world deserves the BEST of you.♥️

If the simple idea of grocery shopping gives you anxiety, you are not alone. There are plenty of anxiety producing stimuli, so it’s not uncommon that you’d try to avoid the experience all together. Grocery stores actually plan their layout to “stimulate” us to purchase more products. The halogen lighting is meant to up our awareness of color, making products feel brighter, and more obtrusive to the anxious individual. Giant carts make people seem MUCH closer than they are, making crowd anxiety heightened.

The thousands of different types of products creates existential angst about choices that much worse, and paralyzes the person just trying to buy a loaf of bread (high fiber, gluten-free, thin, nutty, local, organic, Texas Style, wheat, sourdough, multi seed, this list is endless!), and that goes for every other food category that is on your list. Apples, vegetables, butter, milk, etc. it can seem impossible to just get to the checkout counter with this many choices. 

During these times of unrest, it’s probably best to online order anyway, however, if the time comes where you must don the mask and brave the wilderness of the mega grocery store, there are hacks you can use to make it less stressful.  

Now the stimulating environment will remain consistent, however, if you can lower the time it takes to get in and out, your anxiety will be less intense. Here are some suggestions that have worked for my patients throughout the years.

1.  Make a detailed grocery list on paper.

This is possibly the best strategy to cut time off your in store experience. Look at the food you already purchase (if it’s on your recovery plan) and how much you’d need to purchase for the next week IF you are what was on your plan. Just because you might have an eating disorder doesn’t mean you get to have a shopping disorder. There is no consequence to purchasing what you need (even if you don’t follow through), so let’s at least give you a good foundation to recover. If it’s your first time shopping for a new meal plan of things your dietitian has recommended, make him/her do the heavy lifting. Have them send pictures of the actual product to your phone. Tell them you want suggestions that fit the nutrition facts, so you don’t have to look at every product in the yogurt section, for example. If you end up hating it, you can ask for another recommendation next week with the same nutrition facts. Make them work if you’re paying them.

2.  Don’t go alone.

Bring someone with you who knows your main goal of getting in and out ASAP. Tell them your detailed list, and let them know they have free reign to hold you accountable for only purchasing what’s on your list.

3.  Treat it like a grocery scavenger hunt.

See how fast you can get the right number of products and the right kind the fastest. Once you enter the store, the game is on! 

4.  Out boundaries around deliberation.

You can have as much emotion and upset BEFORE you get to the store, the crying, anxiety and deliberation can all happen while the list is being created. You know what you’re supposed to eat, how much, and when you need to challenge yourself, and with which foods. Wrote the list the way you would for someone else, but do NOT deliberate on any different types of products AT the grocery store. If you’re interested, simply take a picture and investigate later. Remember, get on and out of the store ASAP to save your sanity.

5.  Free write for 10-minutes.

After you put everything away, pull out a notebook, journal or piece of paper and write all the thoughts in your head for 10 mini without stopping. This is an important step as you’ve just carried home a ton of possibly unfelt anxiety along with your groceries. These thoughts should be released from your mind so that you can go on with the rest of your day in peace.

Remember, grocery shopping can be awful. Don’t expect yourself to love it, you don’t have to. Just make sure you’re gentle where you can be, and brave where you know you need to be. The rest is just a series of hacks to avoid as much anxiety as you can.

*If you need support NOW, BOOK a phone session with me!*

Email me at:

SRO@ScarlettRameyOfficial.com 

Or text me at:

(206) 910-8690

If you are looking for more support in Recovery and Life, I would be honored if you became a

Ramey Nutrition Insider

You’ll find fun fun support tools and freebies in my first email!

YES! I Want In!

If you’re into it, feel free to share this with any other people in your support circle that you KNOW need to hear these words!

Yours in love and support,

Scarlett Ramey, MS, RDN, CD

P.S. Hope to see you in the comments. Let’s rally together during this time and stay connected in supporting YOUR Recovery journey.  The world deserves the BEST of you.♥️

What is true recovery? When do I KNOW I’m done with all of this? I cannot tell you how many times I’ve had to answer this question. From everyone, including parents, patients, concerned friends, you get the picture. The only people who have not asked me this questions are my Stage 9 fully recovered patients. It’s going to be a horrible way to answer this question, so I will definitely elaborate with some of the different stages of recovery I have seen in my 15 years of treating eating disorders. The ugly truth is this:

If you’re asking, it hasn’t happened yet.

God I feel awful saying this, because it makes people feel so disheartened, however, I can promise it’s the truth. The reason people are asking is because there is a discomfort with the process. Either the length of the process, the intensity, or the way it’s affecting their lives, relationships or environment. So the first step is honestly to just admit you’re having a case of the “F&$! Its” Let me explain: the process of getting to and through recovery is impossible. There I said it. People normally don’t make it. Alone, that is. If people are not treated, getting less treatment than is needed, or are, for a lack of a better term, giving their providers the “runaround,” the eating disorder lasts until there is a medical complication, or death. You know what I mean by the runaround… Leading an eating disorder provider to believe you are consistently too scared to (insert recovery fear step here). But rest assured, being ANYWHERE in the recovery process, even if you feel stuck in the case of the “F*&! Its,” is going to be intolerable. Prep for the worst, and you’ll expect ALL that it has to offer. So the following are MY stages you can jump to, as I’m finding people either believe they are entrenched in the thick of an eating disorder, or fully recovered, and there are at least 7 steps between these.

Stage 1: I’m Entrenched.

It’s pretty self explanatory. This stage involves not being able see the forest for the trees. Everything is the eating disorder. 99% of every thought has something to do with how to take the next step in disorder, either the next weight loss step, body checking, restricting, or planning the next eating disorder behavior, planning on how to get out of that next talk about going to or seeking treatment from friends or family. Obsession with the scale or how you can get your next behavior planned is front of mind.

Stage 2: I’m Recovery Curious.

This is the stage where you still feel in control and still maintain all of your behaviors and thoughts, except one has been replaced with the idea of recovery curiosity. Not QUITE ready to take that step, but doing your research online about what life COULD be like without the monkey thoughts that infiltrate your psyche on the daily. NOT that you’re ready, but you do want to know if there’s some truth to the rumors you’ve heard about the magic people who have recovered, and what their lives must be like. You’re not looking at treatment options at this point, however, you are wanting more info.

Stage 3:  I’m Willing to Be Willing to Consider treatment.

Yep. This is a stage, I promise. You’ve either heard so much about how concerned everyone is for your health and wellbeing, that you’re ahead of the curve, doing mad research about treatment options, what the least is that they expect for you to be there, how sick you must be to be acknowledged as a “sick enough” patient, and the easiest treatment facilities to appease your loved ones. This involves furious research, joining online groups that review treatment facilities, and finding out the worst possibilities you can endure.

Stage 4:  I’ll Do the Bare Minimum.

So this is where it BEGINS to get scary. You’re not in full inpatient treatment, but you have “enough” treatment providers to make it seem like you are taking steps toward recovery. You go to these appointments, pull the wool over their eyes, and stay right where you need to be. You might be listening, and you might even care, but you know you are running the show, not telling the truth and getting away with it.

Stage 5:  I’m Stuck.

Ok, now you’re invested. You’ve been seeing your providers enough to know they genuinely care about you, you’ve gained enough weight to make everyone feel as though you’re not needing inpatient treatment, but they keep telling you it’s not enough. You still have eating disorder thoughts, and you’d rather do ANYTHING than what it actually takes to gain recovery weight. You’ll go to dinner with friends, get a pet, eat fear foods (as long as they fit into the exchanges that keep you at the weight you’re at), keep busy with work, etc. Your providers have no option but to be proud of you, because it is something you’ve not done before, and it seems like the direction is recovery. You want to recover, and feel like the path forward is too scary, but when you’re honest with yourself, you’re scared, or just as uncomfortable where you’re at in each moment because the voices of the eating disorder are the loudest they’ll honestly ever be. This is the point where it’s absolutely the hardest. You are upset and not happy where you’re at, and there’s no way you could tolerate a higher weight, as you’d do absolutely anything to avoid it. You can’t lose any weight, as your providers would give up on you. You’re scared to lose providers that have given you all the slack you’ve needed to stay stuck for as long as you’ve needed to. Any other provider would NEVER allow you to get away with what you know is a recovery crime. but you cannot take that next step without the push you KNOW she’ll never give you. Your pain is the worst here. You are in the worst pain of your life, and recovery feels like it would be unbearable. This stage SUCKS!

Stage 6: It’s Too Painful to Stay Stuck.

This is only less painful than the most painful stage by a very thin hair. This is the tipping point. this is where it all gets real, where you’d do ANYTHING to not feel this way, even gain weight. Yep, that’s right. Willing. To. Gain. Weight. It’s AWFUL. The pain has now become that intolerable. This is where recovery desperation sets in. You’re willing to surrender to the idea that nothing you’ve done has worked, that the monkeys of anxiety have only gotten louder regardless of your attempt to lose the weight for with which they’ve asked. The only relief you’ve received is the 5 minutes when your weight is where the monkeys want it, before they get louder than they were before, demanding a lower weight to quiet again. This is where real change begins. This is where the pain of staying stuck becomes too much not to break free. I discuss this as how baby chicks are born. The egg they hang in is so warm and comfy, but in order to live they must bust out of what’s comfortable. It’s the ugliest part of the process, you can trust me. The pain of being in the egg, as comfortable as it’s been, becomes too much, and the only way out is destroying the egg. It’s slimy and nasty, as that little chicken’s foot busts through that shell into the coldest, scariest place that chicken has ever been. I now I say this a lot, but it’s the worst. That sweet chicken CANNOT go back to the safety of his egg. It’s over. He must hatch, there’s no looking back. The interesting fact is that if someone cracks open a chicken egg before they create the strength to hatch themselves, they actually die. Survival TAKES the strength of the chick to bust through their shell with their own strength. The strength only comes from being in so much pain from feeling stuck. Don’t worry, you’ll get there, and I’m sorry too, but also so proud of the slimy and ugly little chick that will slither out of your eating disorder egg shell.

Stage 7: I’ve Got This.

This is the stage where you start understanding that you’d rather do the painful work of gaining weight, feel your damned feelings, hate the world, but would RATHER have this pain than the pain of feeling stuck. You just F*cking DO IT.  You eat every part of your damn meal plan, don’t manipulate and let your providers know when you’ve had enough and want to flipping quit. You discuss the cases of the “F*ck its” instead of dealing with them on your own. You snap back at providers, telling them when they don’t get it, and what you need for support. You went shopping for the most fab sweat/yoga pants, as you know you’re in this refeeding bloating process for a minute (at least a year). You’re finally taking on the role of the head of your treatment plan, as ugly as it might look.

Stage 8:  I’m Writing My Own Recovery Story.

This is where you start to think beyond ALL the crap you have to do to recover. You start thinking about your own dreams and desires in this world. You start to develop your own taste regarding food, informing your team that you ACTUALLY love this food, you may have hated in your eating disorder egg, and you HATE this food, you used to binge on. Your little feet start to stand on their own, and a wobbly as your little chicken legs might be. Your peep is a little damn louder. You start demanding food challenges without your dietitian coming up with them, because you KNOW where your challenges really are. You went shopping for really cute clothes that you can go into the world and look halfway adorbs without having anything tight around your sweet belly, because we have just gotten used to the food show; and for the monkeys to calm the F down, you’re fine dealing with it, plus it’s not as bad as it was a month ago, because you know you’re being consistent with the food you KNOW you need to eat. You lead your own sessions with your providers and let them know the challenges they don’t and are pretty up front about them, as you’re not scared of them the way you were before. You set your own goals based on what’s JUST beyond safe, and feel confident in yourself to accomplish them. You got it, but now you get it.

Stage 9:  I’m Bored.

This is the point where “Recovered” starts. I hear it all the damned time. Scarlett, I’m so done with treatment. I know what I need to do, and I’m not even thinking about my eating disorder anymore. I (insert dream here). I’m not thinking about my eating disorder anymore! It’s boring! Why do I even have to come to these appointments?! You know I’ll do anything you want me to do, and I don’t even have a problem with it anymore. I just want to live my life. Uggghhhhhhhh!!!!!!!  This, my friends is where I get CRAZY excited.  This is the natural flip into recovery that happens over 8 stages of recovery….. it’s where I jump on my couch like Tom Cruise, and say, “You’ve MADE it to boredom!” I can’t tell you how hard it is to remind people that they struggled for so long before all this, because, honestly, they forget!!!!! It makes me crazy! I’ve worked with them through 8 stages of the worst pain, and now they’re bored and don’t remember? Ugghhhhh! Just kidding, it’s my favorite, because this is the natural turning point in real and permanent recovery. Bored = Recovery? Yep. Until you get there, I cannot explain it ANY other way.

Stage 9:  See You When I See You!

This is the stage where I actually call you recovered. Donezo. Kaputz. Fenito. This is when I feel like I will miss you, as I know your life has so much meaning, that it will demand you be 1,000% IN. The world has always needed EVERYTHING you’re passionate about, and now that the eating disorder shell is out of the way, you can fully participate in life, which means you have little time for your treatment providers (AKA: me). It’s definitely a waterworks moment, as you should never be in “Treatment” longer than you should, but it doesn’t stop me from codependently missing you. This is where you’ll always be in my heart, and you’ll always know I’m a call away to celebrate your victories, cry with your losses, and be there without you ever needing to be in touch with me. You’re mine, in the world, wild, doing what you were born to do each and every day, knowing that that may change every single day, and that I support it all, because I am, and have been your biggest fan since we met. Not because you recovered, but because you let me join your journey toward the most YOU there has ever been.

These stages are all 100% beautiful in their own right, and I appreciate them all equally. I feel proud at each stage, as I know it took all you are to make it to the stage you’re at. I also know that the stage you are at now used to be impossible. but you’re here, just the way I know you’ll make it to the next stage when it naturally happens for you. The goal is to make it to the NEXT Stage, not the last. Find the one that explains you the most, and the next one is the one we need to strive for. That’s all. You’ve got this, and I’m here for you 1,000%. That there’s no pressure, because this is your journey that I am non-religiously blessed to be on with you. I will never be frustrated with where you are, or however long you need to stay in any one stage, as I know permanent recovery means you do these steps yourself. It doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings as you go through each stage. When you feel pain, I want to fix it, but know I can’t. When you don’t need treatment anymore, I cry tears of happiness and missing you. When you’re in precontemplation, I want to strangle you. That’s who I am. I tend to truly fall in love with all my patients, and understand the world needs them. But mostly my feeling throughout any recovery cycle is that of gratitude. The gratitude of being fortunate to be included in the darkest part of your life, that creates the spark that is the dynomite of your existence. Few get to be in that darkness, get to know the worst part of the journey, but I do. And it’s the only reason I want to wake up in the morning. I already KNOW your recovery, let’s do this.

*If you need support NOW, BOOK a phone session with me!*

Email me at:

SRO@ScarlettRameyOfficial.com 

Or text me at:

(206) 910-8690

If you are looking for more support in Recovery and Life, I would be honored if you became a

Ramey Nutrition Insider

You’ll find fun fun support tools and freebies in my first email!

YES! I Want In!

If you’re into it, feel free to share this with any other people in your support circle that you KNOW need to hear these words!

Yours in love and support,

Scarlett Ramey, MS, RDN, CD

P.S. Hope to see you in the comments. Let’s rally together during this time and stay connected in supporting YOUR Recovery journey.  The world deserves the BEST of you.♥️

Inpatient treatment as a first step in recovery is a difficult choice to make, but can be a life-saving decision.

When Amy Winehouse passed away five years ago this today, it was immediately assumed that alcohol and drugs were the only cause. It wasn’t until her loved ones came forward to shed some light on another disease that plagued her. We discovered Amy had also been suffering from the eating disorder Bulimia Nervosa. Like all eating disorders, bulimia nervosa is a secret, painful disorder. When combined with a substance use disorder, it can be a fatal recipe. What were the signs? In Amy’s case, troubling signs began at a young age. Her mother recalls Amy believing that binging and purging was simply a dieting technique, and, for the most part, did not understand it was a problem. Amy later married a man who introduced her to drugs. As she was thrust into the limelight, Amy used alcohol as a crutch to help her perform. 

It seems the binging and purging did not stop while Amy struggled with her chemical dependency. Bulimia, drugs, and alcohol broke down her bodily functions and her spirit. Even once it became evident there was a serious addiction and eating disorder, she always refused treatment.  The type of treatment that needs to be administered at this dangerous point is most likely full inpatient treatment.

The only issue I personally have with inpatient eating disorder treatment is that it is almost ALWAYS not long enough to get to the root causes of disordered eating. But this is ok! When dangerous disorders get mixed up with drug and/or alcohol addiction, the most merciful thing you can do is give up all control and responsibility to people who KNOW how to deal with it. This is merciful, because at a certain point in a painful disorder/addiction, if you attempt to do ALL the work of recovery yourself, it becomes a futile cycle of attempt, failure, disappointment, and exacerbation of the addiction/disorder. 

I like to refer to inpatient treatment as an all inclusive vacation from having to do it all yourself. Hand the welcome team you luggage, get cozy in your new digs, and leave all the work of cooking, exchange counting, and therapy to them. You literally just show up on purpose to get the most out of each portion of the program, taking home the best parts of what you learned.

THEN, being a patient of Ramey Nutrition can actually BEGIN. You will not be cured or recovered by the end of ANY inpatient treatment program, but you will have gotten a jump start on the basics. Then, and only then starts your personal journey, the one YOU write, toward your own recovery. Use what inpatient can give you, leave the rest behind, and imagine starting your journey AFTER inpatient. Let them take over until you can become stable, THEN and only then, will you be able to cognitively write your own recovery story and begin your journey.

*If you need support NOW, BOOK a phone session with me!*

Email me at:

SRO@ScarlettRameyOfficial.com  

Or text me at:

(206) 910-8690

If you are looking for more support in Recovery and Life, I would be honored if you became a Ramey Nutrition Insider

You’ll find fun fun support tools and freebies in my first email!

YES! I Want In!

If you’re into it, feel free to share this with any other people in your support circle that you KNOW need to hear these words!

Yours in love and support,

Scarlett Ramey, MS, RDN, CD

P.S. Hope to see you in the comments. Let’s rally together during this time and stay connected in supporting YOUR Recovery journey.  The world deserves the BEST of you.♥️

There is a science to recovery, and also a ton of things we do to manipulate and sabotage our recovery efforts because it’s scary. You know what I mean, taking just a little off the top of each exchange in your meal plan (reason #1 why I refuse to use meal plans), eating exactly enough just to maintain a weight that is not necessarily progressing forward, but at least not going down (right?).

We like to call this stuck but safe. You already know weight gain is the “bush” your beating around, and sometimes we become willing to do almost anything to avoid this part. You’ve varied your diet to include fear foods (only to fit it into your exchanges, never to add), eat in front of people, etc. These activities can all seem pointed in the direction of recovery, however, you know you’re stuck in the safety zone because you will NOT allow your weight to budge toward its recovery weight.

Do we have to accept our bodies in order to gain weight? Oh, I sure hope not, otherwise NO ONE, like zero of my patients would gain an ounce.

Consider this for a minute though…

1.  Are you scared to gain weight? Probably if you’re on of my peeps

2.  Are you comfortable at the weight you are currently? Probably not if we are being honest.

3.  When you dropped to this weight, were you supposed to be happy and comfortable? Anorexia says, “Yep!”  Until you actually achieve the weight loss, then back to #2.

Weight loss in an eating disorder is such a lie in the end. It promises you won’t feel as anxious with your body image and you’ll finally be able to accept yourself. None of these things actually happen with any amount of weight loss. What DOES happen is that the anxiety and panic you generally feel lifts for 5-10 minutes, giving you ONLY a sense of relief before it comes rushing back in droves.

You ask yourself, quite logically, “What did I do wrong?”

The answer ends up being the re-evaluation of the 3 options above. So #1 is obviously not the answer because if you feel this bad now, gaining would only make it worse, and #2 can’t be an option, as it simply didn’t last. The obvious answer ends up being #3.  I actually totally understand that even a brief moment of relief is better than the Hell you’re living with now, but I invite you to consider another path you haven’t tried, or have and given up on due to it being intolerable.

The thing about you folks is that you’re WILDLY strong, and can tolerate some of the worst feelings out there, so I don’t want to minimize the pain weight gain can be. Professionals in this industry like to say that weight gain, “Can be uncomfortable.” Are you KIDDING?! In my personal opinion, gaining weight is like wanting to throw yourself off a bridge every time you eat what it takes to gain weight, every time you look in the mirror, and a billion other times throughout the day. Uncomfortable, it is NOT. Unbearable would be a more acceptable term, and yet STILL remain an understatement.

So what I’m saying is I get it, even if I have never had to go through your journey. The pain is just too big to have to go through for such a long period of time. The shorter bout of losing again to gain even a little relief is somehow easier. This is the cycle of weight loss in eating disorders, and this is WHY you can’t JUST eat and gain weight. Because you’re having to make the choice of the best of three evils, you must chose the one that doesn’t make you feel like death, I get it, but hear me out for a minute.

We are NOT happy at our current weight, and the relief DOES tend to get less and less the more we lose, right? So, pretty much we can admit we are miserable MOST of the time, so maybe we CAN withstand the worst that weight gain has to offer. Maybe we CAN withstand the stomach distention that never seems to go away. Maybe we CAN withstand the anxiety we already feel, as we furiously maintain a sense of anxiety to keep our weight the same. Maybe it doesn’t get worse. Maybe it’s just is a different flavor of anxiety. Maybe we ARE strong enough to hang in there for our bodies to recover. Maybe we are JUST strong enough to get to a point where we have the option to use behaviors or not. Maybe you CAN gain the weight, and stop the monkeys from making you feel crazy all day long. Maybe you were made to help people, and change the world instead of counting calories, and hoping for relief that never lasts. Maybe you’re better than your eating disorder wants you to be.

*If you need support NOW, BOOK a phone session with me!

Email me at: SRO@ScarlettRameyOfficial.com  
Or text me at:
(206) 910-8690

If you are looking for more support in Recovery and Life, I would be honored if you became a Ramey Nutrition Insider.

You’ll find fun fun support tools and freebies in my first email!

YES! I WANT IN!

If you’re into it, feel free to share this with any other people in your support circle that you KNOW need to hear these words!

Yours in love and support,

Scarlett Ramey, MS, RDN, CD

P.S. Hope to see you in the comments. Let’s rally together during this time and stay connected in supporting YOUR Recovery journey.  The world deserves the BEST of you.♥️