13. From Restriction To Compassionate Nutrition: Spotting Disordered Eating And Finding Balance

The pursuit of “clean” can quietly morph into pressure, guilt, and a shrinking life. We unpack how well-intentioned habits slide into orthorexia, why restriction reliably backfires, and what it looks like to choose nourishment over perfection without losing your sense of care. Drawing from research on the diet–binge cycle and the brain’s hardwired response to scarcity, we make sense of rebound eating, the shame that often follows, and the cultural messages that praise control while overlooking mental strain. You’ll hear clear red flags to watch for, stories from my own experience, and a practical path to bring food back to its purpose: energy, connection, and joy.

I guide you through simple reflection prompts to check your mindset: what healthy eating means for you right now, whether your definition is flexible or rigid, how your choices affect peace and relationships, and what nourishment would look like today. Along the way, I offer real-world swaps for moral food language, ideas for flexible structure, and strategies to plan for cravings without fear. Think both-and instead of either-or: both greens and dessert, both training and rest. The goal isn’t purity; it’s a steady rhythm you can live with.

If you’ve wondered whether discipline has crossed into obsession, this conversation helps you reset. Expect practical takeaways you can use today and a compassionate frame that makes change feel possible. If this resonated, tap follow, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review to help more people build a kinder relationship with food.

I am happy we can share this journey of levelling up, together. See you next week!

- Alita <3

https://vitawithalita.buzzsprout.com

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Today’s Focus
• 0:34 Clean Eating Versus Disordered Patterns
• 1:10 Orthorexia In The Wellness Culture
• 3:06 When Healthy Habits Turn Harmful
• 5:46 Reflection: Peace Or Pressure
• 6:46 Why Restriction Backfires
• 8:12 The Diet–Binge Cycle Explained
• 11:26 Biology, Scarcity, And Rebound
• 13:10 Red Flags To Watch For
• 15:39 Guided Journaling Prompts

Transcript

Alita: 0:23

Hey friends, welcome back to Vita with Alita. This is the podcast where today we're going to talk about nourishment that feeds your body and your mind. I'm your host, Alita, and today we're diving into a topic that walks a really fine line. Clean, or I should air quote this, clean, versus disordered eating. We'll unpack what happens when healthy habits cross over into obsession and why restriction often backfires and how to check in with yourself to make sure that your wellness is truly well. So, grab a drink, a nice cup of coffee, a tea, whatever you like, settle in, and let's get into it. I'd like to start with a word that's been showing up a lot all over the wellness space. Um, you probably heard of this word. It's orthorexia. Now, orthorexia is not officially classified as an eating disorder in the DSM, but it describes something many people experience. And it's this sort of obsession with eating food, foods that one considers healthy or or pure. And I know I know this is not the only type of disordered eating. You have obviously things like bulimia or anorexia, but I decided to kind of touch upon or focus mainly on orthorexia because I feel like it might be the hidden one, the one that maybe is does not seem as obvious, or the one that maybe we're not sure if if this is what we're dealing with. And I also wanted to talk about it because in today's sort of social media culture around the wellness space, there is a lot about discipline and self-control and eating clean and detoxing. And yes, it's great, but under that, underlying that messaging, it might be promoting this disordered sort of eating or orthorexia. So at first, uh it might look like mindfulness. So I'm here now speaking about orthorexia specifically. And things that you should strive to do if you are able, and it's something that you think will make you feel better. But when those choices start to control your thoughts, your emotions, your social life, like they are literally taking over, that's when this sort of clean eating or wellness or whatever you label it as can turn into something harmful. And people who struggle with orthorexia may often feel like an intense anxiety if they eat something that's we can call it like off plan. So, you know, you might find yourself where avoid, where you avoid going out with friends, or you feel guilty even after every single um, we'll call it imperfect meal. So something that maybe didn't fit the rules that you had set for yourself. Even if that meal isn't inherently, I don't want to say unhealthy, but you know, isn't inherently unhealthy, but it doesn't fit what you had defined as within your plan, you may feel guilty afterwards. And what's tricky here is that this this kind of behavior is often praised. And I I kind of mentioned this, so we're kind of circling back to this idea where society may call this type of behavior discipline, dedication, or even self-control. And I've even used these words, like especially when it like the word discipline, when I say you should be relying on discipline rather than motivation. And this is where things can get a little bit like a gray area, it's not always black or white. So with that, or with this in mind, the way that society is praising this behavior may seem okay on the surface, but inside there's there's this fear and rigidity that's kind of wearing this disguise of wellness. So here's the first reflection that I I kind of want you to ponder on for today. When does your focus on health start to feel like pressure rather than peace? If the answer to this question is often, all the time, every day, then that's probably worth exploring. Not not with judgment or anything, but with some sort of curiosity to try and understand all these messages that have been sent to our brains and and the way that we are interpreting them and dealing with them, right? So now I kind of want to talk about why restriction is probably not the best plan. So to understand why restriction doesn't work long term, we're obviously gonna look at the research. So there are multiple studies that look at restriction and kind of its effects, and what happens when people probably go on strict diets. And time and time again, there's this kind of word, it's not gonna be the first time you hear it, known as the diet binge cycle. So this is kind of how it goes, you're probably familiar with it. You restrict or label certain foods as bad, which is step one. Step two, eventually you eat that food, so maybe you're tired, you're stressed, or you're just human and you gave into the craving. Three, you feel guilt or shame afterwards. Four, that guilt drives you to restrict again because you feel like you need to go back to being clean, and this cycle kind of repeats itself. And this kind of doesn't just doesn't just play with your the way you look at food, but even your own self-worth, self-confidence. You start questioning if you're disciplined enough, if you're if you're good enough. And I want to assure you, this is not a lack of willpower, this is a predictable response. Predictable, which means we're not expecting anything else. If something else is happening, that's sort of the deviation of the from the norm. So this is a predictable response. Your body and mind are trying to protect you from deprivation. So when you restrict too tightly, your natural instincts rebound, and that rebound can feel like a like a loss of control. Let's just think about this. We have kind of the same um biological mechanisms that that our ancestors had way back when, back in a time where there was not an abundance of food, where there was it was normal to have periods of deprivation. And when we are putting ourselves in that sort of environment today by by completely cutting out foods and being very restrictive, we're sort of placing our mind back in that place, back in the time where food was very hard to come by. So now when your body would have access to that food again, it's gonna do everything it can to just like signal, like, okay, I want to eat it. Let's go, let's go. Kind of leading into that binging. Back then, you would eat as much as possible because you don't know when is the next time you're gonna eat. Fortunately for many of us, um, that's not the case today. But your brain doesn't know that. So that's something to kind of think about. So when clean eating, again, all of this, these words clean eating, whatever, are in air quotes. I don't always like using the word clean, healthy, unhealthy, but just for the sake of clarity in the discussion, I will be, I'll be con I'll continue using that term. So so when clean eating starts cutting out things like joy, flexibility, nourishment, this is often the start of this very this very cycle, the diet bench cycle, the one where food becomes like a battleground instead of a source of energy and connection. It becomes a source of stress rather than a way to uh rather than a way to fuel yourself and your body and to give it the nutrients that it needs. Okay, so now we're going to shift gears a little bit and make it a little bit personal. I'm going to highlight a few red flags that your wellness routine might be slipping into some sort of obsession. And I want to assure you that you are not alone. I am making this episode because this is something that I struggled with, still sometimes struggle with, especially with the restriction, and and I'm someone who likes to be more in a cutting phase, I guess you can say. So restriction is naturally in that. But try to still keep a balance of it's okay, I can still eat. I don't want to say everything, but everything in moderation. I'll get into that in a little bit, but yeah. So you're not alone here, but these are just things to maybe look out for because I feel like once you know about them and you're sort of aware, you can maybe pick up on them and maybe divert yourself before you get a little in, a little too deep. Alright, so here they are. Do you feel anxious or guilty after eating something quote unquote unhealthy? You spend more time planning the meals than actually enjoying them. You might avoid social events because of food. You don't know what food's gonna be there, or you know the food that's gonna be there and you don't want to participate and eat it. So you avoid social events. You equate how clean you eat with your self-worth. And you may feel a sense of moral failure when you eat off the plan that you had set for yourself. So if any of these feel familiar, just take a moment to pause and breathe. Okay, awareness is the doorway to change. We're not we're not here to punish or to shame, just to notice. I urge you to, if you have access to it, maybe grab something you can write with, or after this, maybe open the voice note app on your on your phone, or come back to this when you do have access to those items, but I think it's in my opinion helpful to write things down. So I want to take you through some sort of a guided journaling reflection. So, as I mentioned, if you're able to write or voice note your responses, I'm gonna read out a few prompts. So, one what does healthy eating mean to me right now? I'm highlighting the me because something as simple as people having different intolerances to food can can change how you would answer this question. So, someone who might be lactose intolerant, maybe dairy is not included in that healthy eating plan. I don't even want to call it a plan. Healthy eating idea, healthy eating bubble, you know, something more flexible. So again, what does healthy eating mean to me right now? Take some time to think about it, write it down, even pause if if you have to. Second prompt Is my definition flexible or rigid? So is your definition flexible like a nice Twizzler or rigid like like a block of brick? Third prompt How do my food choices affect my peace of mind and my relationships? We're getting a little bit deeper here, trying to understand how it's impacting us, not just at a surface level and in terms of the plan and if we're off the plan, but even just our emotions, and this is a good way to see if it's if if food is having some sort of control over your life. So again, how do my food choices affect my peace of mind and my relationships? You can start by thinking about positive, negative, or neutral if you don't know where to start. And now the last prompt I want you to think about what might nourishment rather than perfection look like? You can make this question a bit easier to answer by looking at or by ending the question with what does it look like today? What does it look like this week? Or even this month. And again, the word or the main important word here is nourishment. Not just food and macros, but the way that you're going to give your body what it needs to function. Your body is showing up for you every single day. How are you gonna give back to it? And think about it, your body also includes your your heart, your mind, your cravings. Sometimes, you know, you have you ever heard of the expression you just need to eat for your soul? Maybe you just want a nice bowl of pasta. It's maybe it's not the most nutritious, quote unquote, healthy meal in the entire world. But if you have one bowl of pasta, but the rest of your day you fill it with other sources of fiber and fats and protein in the grand scheme of your whole day. That bowl of pasta nourished your soul and your body. So when looking at these prompts, please keep in mind there are no wrong answers, and these answers are for you and you only, unless you choose to share them. But just be be honest. We just have some gentle honesty here. So that was a lot, a lot to unpack. But here's the truth real wellness is not about how pure or how clean you're eating, it's about balance. And this is a theme that's going to come back again and again and again. Like honestly, if I had to rename the podcast, it'd probably be something related to balance because I probably talk about it every other every other episode. But balance is always key. I think you'll start to notice once you once you move to extremes, things don't work out. They never do. Not just with food, but with almost everything in life. Balance is always key. Food is meant to support your life, not to take over it. So when you when you allow yourself to separate or to release the obsession, you're creating more space for joy, for connection, for actual health, for actual wellness. So if today's episode resonated with you in any way, I hope that you can share it. Please re-listen to it if you want the prompts again. I didn't get into too much detail about different types of disordered eatings. We did focus a little bit on orthorexia and this obsession of like what ingredients are in the food and if it's pure or not pure and the restriction. And maybe you do not have this, maybe it's not as extreme where you can label it orthorexia, but maybe this emotional toll of restriction is starting to creep in. This is your gentle reminder to just take a breath, take a break. Food is not the enemy. Food is on your side, and food is there to fuel you. I thank you all so much for your attention. Again, if you love this episode, share it with a friend. You can leave a quick review, it'll help more people find the show and build a gentler relationship with food. Until next time, take care, be kind to yourself, and remember, you deserve nourishment, not obsession. Thank you for listening to Vito the Lita. Take care.