In ED recovery, mealtimes can feel overwhelming, bringing up a lot of discomfort and stress. During recovery, you’ll often encounter strict rules, which can initially feel excessive, frustrating, and even unfair.
As unfair as these rules seem, they are there to push all the ED’s buttons. Challenging it and guiding us toward recovery.
1) No packaging
One of the hardest parts of being an inpatient is the constant exposure to others who share the same illness. Everyone expresses it in different ways, and sometimes, that means picking up on new behaviours.
And that’s exactly what happened to me.
I remember thinking, Why give us something we’re not even allowed to have?
Because everything we were given came in packaging.
It seemed pointless, but the reason behind it made sense.
The packaging was often misused to hide food, encourage smearing behaviors, or support other unhelpful behaviors.
2) No smearing
Smearing was one of the most common behaviours at the table — and a big no-go.
Eating disorders thrive on control, and they’ll fight hard to keep it. Smearing became a way for the illness to hold onto that control without making too much noise.
The choice to listen — or not — is always yours.
But in all honesty, there’s no point in even trying. The staff sees everything, and you’re not helping yourself by doing it. It only strengthens the ED instead of helping you whoop its ass.
After every meal, our plates, hands, and the area around us were inspected. It sounds strict, but it was 100% necessary.
3) Clean plates and empty mugs
In ED recovery, it can be hard to tell what’s “normal” and what the eating disorder’s doing.
Sometimes, you might be asked to scrape and, if needed, even lick your plate clean again.
Even leftover juice or oil from foods was expected to be eaten. It felt extreme at times, but the goal was to block any sneaky behaviours.
4) No separating food components
The way the food was served was exactly how it had to be eaten. Separating the individual components wasn’t allowed — each mouthful had to include a bit of everything.
I found this rule helpful because it allowed me to mix in my fear foods. This way, I didn’t have to face them alone right away. It gave me time to get used to the taste and texture.
Only then did I start to feel ready to challenge that food on its own.
This rule helped me, and maybe it can help you too.
5) Eating fruit
Fruit was a bit of a funny yet annoying topic.
Each staff member seemed to have their own ideas about what was allowed and what wasn’t.
Fruit was either served already cut or given to us whole. We were encouraged to eat it without cutting it first, but honestly, no one ever did.
I’ve always felt fruit tastes better when it’s cut—don’t ask me why. But how we cut the fruit had its own set of rules.
For example, when slicing a pear, you weren’t allowed to cut out the core like you normally might. Instead, you were only to remove the small part of the core that was completely inedible.
The goal was to avoid wasting any edible portion, even if that meant eating around seeds or tougher bits.
Trusting the process in ED recovery
While these rules seem intense, they were never meant to make recovery harder. They were there to help and to guide us, especially in moments when our minds couldn’t.
I’m not saying it’s easy, but I strongly encourage you not to fight the rules. Try leaning into them, even if it’s just for now. You don’t have to love them — you just have to let them help.
Sometimes the things that feel unfair at first turn out to be the ones that help us grow the most.
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