Hello! Hoping I can get a little bit of help with morning nutrition.
I struggled with bulimia from ages 8 to 22 and I am now 30 years old. I have been trying to heal my body, hunger, signaling, and try to reduce some of these loud physiological symptoms that I’m left with after ED recovery.
After tracking my food and feelings for a while, I’ve found that my days go much better when I have a big full breakfast with protein, complex, carbs, and fats. However, I have an absolutely terrible time eating in the morning. When I wake up at about three or four in the morning to use the restroom, I usually notice hunger pains and go back to sleep. By the time that I wake up around five or six to get started with my day, I am jittery, not feeling good, and absolutely not feeling like eating. I end up chasing this feeling all day by having snacks and trying to feel better, but I just feel like I end up snacking all day and not getting any real sustenance. By the time that I get home for dinner, I either eat something that is high calorie and easy or I just don’t eat at all.
I’m looking for some creative ways to get a full breakfast in for someone who doesn’t really have a morning appetite. Even when I try to eat a banana and a protein shake in the morning, I am literally choking it down.
I know that I have some reasonable sacrifices to make, and I am totally fine with being uncomfortable eating in the morning to support my body moving forward, however, I also recognize that in order for me to be the most successful I need to have good tools that make it easy for me to achieve my goals.
Have any women specifically struggled with the same thing? Or have any advice for a morning routine? I’m basically hoping that I can fuel my body good enough during the day to last me some chunks of time, instead of feeling like I constantly have to be eating all day, but then never feeling topped off and always a bit hangry. I’m sick of feeling crazy!
(FYI I have been to my doctor about this and we did run blood tests, which are all currently normal)