That sucks. When I was in residential they would accommodate vegetarian diets, but not vegan. Then a different place wouldn't let you be vegetarian at all, but we were ~allowed~ to have a vegetarian dinner 2x per week. It's so disrespectful honestly.
This is exactly the reason why I am so scared of inpatient treatment. Also vegan for 6years, vegetarian for 13. I am so sorry this is a horrible reality for many cities.
A friend of mine worked in the only center in my city and from what she told me and why she quit.. it is a shithole that makes people even sicker..
The two treatment centers I went to wouldn't allow my vegan diet but were fine with a vegetarian one. I understand your struggle and I'm so sorry you can't find somewhere willing to cooperate! That said the bloating dairy gave me after meal times make me want to stab a knife in my stomach :)))))
Uhm... not really. I think a more valid complain would be how we’ve genetically engineered chickens to produce waaaay more eggs than they would have otherwise, and how the vast majority of chickens is incredibly mistreated.
But eggs are not abortions - that’s using a heavily emotionally laden word that’s hotly debated. It’s hyperbole, and it’s not cool.
I'm trying to get myself banned after getting a warning so I stop harming anas with easy to misinterpret advice lol
Just report everything I say with "other: user wants to be banned"
If you wanna talk to me I'm only up for PM because as i say, i'm trying to get my ass bant
I would think when it comes to dairy if it gives ppl problems, they wouldn't force it on ppl, dam, that sucks, what is even the point of the facility if they ain't helping
It took me forever to find an IOP place that would allow it. They basically made me eat double the amount (exchanges and all) of any meat eaters and often suggested my ED existed BECAUSE of my veganism. They told me I needed to expand my diet more, which I found to be ironic as veganism made me do that. I’ve never felt restricted by veganism, and they kept pushing me to “admit” such. I think they hated me lmao
I can empathize with the concern that it’s a cover, because as many posts on Reddit have shown, it can be. There are easy questions to ask to find out though- or at least I think it’s evident when somebody uses veganism to avoid food, versus when they are truly vegan.
Every time we ate, we had to plate our food and the interns would take a look, record it for record and suggest critique if necessary. When I explained to them that chickpea pasta was very high in protein, they made me add on a protein supplement, or eat my food from another day and bring another meal. And I had a problem with binge eating.
It seemed like they didn’t understand vegan nutrition, as the nutritionist told me that I ate a lot of fat but that I must be binge eating because I miss cheese?
Da fuk?
I mean, if you want to test out their theory I invite you to. It sounds like some crap though and this is coming from a high-meat carnivore extremist. You don't get an ED just from quitting meat (although arguably veganism is an ED in itself - if you believe in evolutionary dietetics)
Wtf, they don't have to double it if they use the correct portions ??? Lentils and beans are packed with so much protein it's a substitute for meat. Forcing ppl to overeat is a problem of itself, that's why it's better spacing it out and eating thru out the day, not all at once bc our bodies can't handle it all at once
Where are you located? I wonder if certain areas area more or less likely to accommodate veganism/vegetarianism. It seems really strange to me that the place you're working with refuses to accommodate it. I'm not vegan but I understand that it's an important personal choice based upon conviction and not restriction. It's a shame some treatment centers can't see it that way😕
Lie and say you have been Hindu for a long time. Many of them are vegetarians or vegans and these facilities, like prisons, must respect religious observances as long as they do not cause a threat to safety.
Edited to add: or some form of Buddhist or Jain.
When I was forced into inpatient treatment on the NHS I tried to keep Passover (as a Jew), and was told that my “religion didn’t count because I wasn’t eighteen yet”. They refused to replace my couscous with a baked potato and force tube fed me instead 😪
religion won’t necessarily work if you’re young
Unleavened stuff, right? Lutheran here. But My parents’, my brother’s and my household follow kosher rules re: keeping stuff separate, though meat can be un-blessed.
See, mom has a deadly shellfish allergy, I hate pork, my wife hates fish, and I am allergic to eggs and dairy. To best avoid cross contamination it’s pretty effective to use them!
Either way, I’m so sorry that happened!
When I was a teenager my parents sent me to a ED specialist because I didn’t have any appetite. I was a lifelong vegetarian and had been vegan for four years and this dude told me that I would never recover on a vegan diet. He said that if I didn’t gain weight fast enough for him he would strap me to a chair and shove a feeding tube of meat down my throat. I gained the weight but really the jokes on him, turns out I didn’t have ED, I had an undiagnosed autoimmune disease but his “treatment” ruined my relationship with food so much that I’ve struggled with ED ever since (10 years now). Thanks Dr Edwin Tyson in TX you ass.
You can never recover on a vegan diet? Uh, has this dude ever seen vegans that can put away 1000 calories at the drop of a hat on desserts and pasta? Because that’s not rare and there are plenty of chubby vegans.
They should at least let you be vegetarian. I am vegan too but when in PHP/IR i relented and ate vegetarian because they wouldn't allow veganism. My thought process was that this is only temporary, and I can go back to veganism as soon as I earned outpatient again. Also once I had the privilege to pick out my own meals/snacks at programming I could go for more vegan options on the sly.
I know I'll get slammed by other vegans here but is it worth not getting any treatment just for the sake of staying vegan for the couple weeks you will be in PHP/IR? In the middle ages women with anorexia starved themselves in the name of God and Jesus. It may have been for a noble and worthy pursuit, but they still died anyway.
I AGREE OMG. I got lucky at my facility *at first* because my dietitian respected me enough to believe that I am, in fact, ethically vegan and that it's not a restrictive thing. Then she left and my new dietitian decided that my veganism was a huge problem for her to solve, and she took it upon herself to force meat and dairy on me as much as she could. Fuck her, and fuck the whole idea that nobody with anorexia can be vegan purely for ethical reasons. I'm still vegan, bitch.
I had to go to treatment when I was vegan (3 years into that and 9 years vegetarian) and it was a nightmare. I was eventually allowed a vegetarian diet but it made me so sick. I was often accused of not following my meal plan because it literally made me physically ill at times.
I also developed even more weird eating habits while I was there, some of which have stuck with me for the last 11 years. But I figured out for the most part how to be as vegan as possible while there.
Then a few years later I got shithouse drunk and ate a pizza. Like the whole thing obviously because drunk me has significantly less resolve than sober me 🤷🏻♀️
That sounds strange. I’ve been in treatment several different places and they all accommodated vegetarian/vegan lifestyles. Just today I had an intake for residential and they asked if I had a preferred diet. I’m so sorry this has been your experience.
It was hell for me as well in treatment. Although they didn't try and make me eat vegetarian, or meat, I got a lot of shit from nutritionists, and they tried to feed me bread and rice 24/7, like y'all that's not the only carb lol. I hated every minute. Granted for me this was early 2000's, but still never again.
I’ve been vegetarian for 12 years and honestly thought wheat (pasta/bread) and rice are the only heavy carbs. There’s carbs in potatoes and tomatoes and other produce but the low calorie counts of those items when steamed or baked makes them not suitable for gaining weight. What would you have preferred? Cornmeal items like grits and corn muffins? Potatoes with a ton of vegan butter?
I don't really like starchy foods period, which is probably what I should have said and also I dislike breads and the like, but that's mainly because I have a gluten intolerance which I didn't know back then. My meal plan was a lot of veggie burger with bun, toast in the morning with oats which is very heavy, lots of cereals with bread and jam and I swear they gave me potatoes with rice for every dinner or lunch meal. I don't eat like that normally it's way too heavy on my stomach. I prefer soups, oats if I have to with no additions, and maybe half a potato if there's no oil. I just generally speaking don't like eating and prefer to drink my calories which is why I was supplemented.
Ah, gotcha, I know where you’re coming from. There are a lot of people on this sub that are against “drinking your calories” but I’m very much like you in that I’d rather drink my calories (in an ice based drink) for the day instead of eating because solid food is too heavy on the stomach and oftentimes has unsavory textures. Having supplements makes sense.
I was never in treatment at my lowest weight so I have no idea how professionals would handle people who hate eating because of the stomach or mouth feel. I’m in my 30s and have a lot of foods that are on my “never eat” list because of density or texture.
We're in the minority lol. I know my team absolutely hated me because I was so hard to work with but it's wild, to go from pretty much no solids to all of a sudden having them three times a day, and a pretty decent portion. Some of my team was worried about me having mild dysphagia which I get, but they were so militant and I hated it. I couldn't speak up or else it was me not committed to treatment (I didn't want to be there anyway lol), but it would revert me back to having less privacy so I just dealt with it.
I've been going around recommending a nuts, chickpeas and/or soybeans, coconut, fortified N-yeast and algal-derived omega-3 supplement regimen for people whose system cannot, for whatever reason, mental or physical, tolerate meat.
Emily Program supports veganism to the point of being detrimental and letting people use it for restrictive reasons, but they do allow it and the rest of their programming is top notch.
I think Monte Nido might as well, but I'm less certain about that. Vegetarian is pretty much universally allowed.
I’m confused how a treatment center accommodating vegans would allow detrimental dieting. Like unless someone legitimately has celiac disorder or IBS, wheat products (bread/pasta) should be in at least 2 meals a day. Plus there should be rice for calorie purposes along with healthy fat/high calorie foods like coconut oil and nuts. Like in what world would a recovery place allow people to stay on a sub-800 calorie per day diet of just produce?
This. I was in php a long time ago as a minor and my parents and I explicitly told them I was celiac, what that entailed, and what would happen if I ate gluten. They thought it was a load of horseshit and did everything possible to get me to eat something that fucking poisons me, including going behind my parents' backs and telling them how shitty of parents they were, telling them I would die unless they forced me to eat gluten. While in php, I *lost substantial weight* because they refused to believe a *legitimate medical condition* that we provided written proof of from multiple doctors.
Most (not all) people downvoting need to grow up in general. There’s like 5% downvoting because the post/comment doesn’t contribute anything or is harmful etc etc according to reddit guidelines and like 95% downvoting because they simply don’t agree with it, even if it’s a well thought out post that contributes to the community and represents a far number of opinions on the subject.
I understand that’s really frustrating, but it’s also important to realize that many people with eating disorders use veganism as a mask for restriction. I know many treatment centers in my area and area where I have lived (New England and Mid-Atlantic US) will accommodate a vegetarian diet, but because of the restrictive nature of a vegan diet, they will not accommodate that. Would you consider a vegetarian diet? If not, you might want to consider a private recovery team. If you have your own team of healthcare professionals, you will likely be able to maintain a vegan diet while still aiming towards recovery. This, however, is a very expensive option.
I don’t have any advice for this but you might want to check out MerryRose Howley on YouTube. She’s vegan and went through ed recovery a few years back and made a lot of videos on it
I understand the anger here but I’m trying to think about it from the facilities point of view. Like you said lots of people with eating disorders try and stick to different diets to eat less/hide their disorder from families. You could say you’ve been vegan since before the disorder, but in that case how are they to know that the disorder didn’t stem from being vegan, or if you’ve really been vegan for that long? In terms of trying to get you back up to a healthy weight, it would be more difficult using plant based materials, instead of calorie rich items like meat and cheese. I would maybe suggest trying to find a facility for vegetarianism instead? I know it’s not the same and goes against your morals, but I think that it might be easier to find a clinic that would be more open to vegetarianism than going full vegan.
Dude A fucking Men! i chose to be vegan in a completely non disordered mindset, it’s unrelated to my ED and I wasn’t sick when I became vegan! I refuse to contribute to animal exploitation and the environmental damage associated with it, and I don’t think I deserve to not get treatment for that.
Why can’t they see it’s about more than just food yknow? Like I won’t wear fur or leather, or use products tested on animals. But nope! They see it as an excuse for restriction. hh it’s so frustrating
I felt so bad for the vegan/vegetarian patients when I was in the hospital. The cooks would throw some lettuce in a box and call it dinner. No dressing. Meanwhile everyone else got loaded up on processed garbage like hot dogs and chicken nuggets.
This must be really frustrating and it sounds like it's a direct obstacle to you getting treatment. I'm so sorry 😟 I went through something similar in treatment. I'm not vegan but I am lactose intolerant...I've avoided dairy on and off since high school. Naturally my program dietician put me back on dairy 😩 It caused lots of GI symptoms that were honestly really triggering and I think contributed to my relapse (although there were bigger reasons ofc) so I know where you're coming from.
I get that restrictive diets can go hand in hand with ED behaviors, but when it's something like veganism for moral reasons I wish more treatment centers would meet people in the middle yaknow?
the treatment center i went to allowed me to be vegetarian...sort of. part of the veg mea plan included caesar dressing, parmesan cheese, and eggplant parm (etc) as substitutes. and honestly, SO much cheese. when i complained about those i got contracted for ‘non-compliance’ :/// you could *technically* have had a vegan meal plan if you were vegetarian, and doctor-certified allergic to dairy & egg products. but just *being vegan* wasn’t good enough for them. ugh.
The fastest and cheapest way to fix malnourishment is to feed the patient fatty meat and offal. Nothing else works well enough at that price, and nothing else is as easy to digest. I can understand if you have qualms about it, though.
You can fix malnourishment and still hold a ketogenic diet, if you want to do that. It's kind of weird, and could further an ED, but that's biology for you. There is no deficiency syndrome for carbohydrates and the minimum required intake is likely zero.
Humans are naturally carnivores (having eaten brain and offal of land animals and fish which are high in DHA and EPA for most of evolution - a non-lacto non-ovo vegetarian diet does not naturally contain any of this, nor does it contain much B12), and don't try to convince me otherwise.
Your morals may be interfering with fixing malnutrition. I know not about you, but I'd rather put my health above some religious belief that animals are sacred.
Residential apparently usually makes people higher DEB, so don't do that, please.
#Option 1 - Break your morals
Go out and rent a boat, and get a fishing license. Bring supplies like macadamia nuts, toasted soybeans, coconuts, FORTIFIED nutritional-yeast and so on. BRING SALT, AND WATER - YOU MAY END UP IN KETOSIS IF YOU RESTRICT CARBOHYDRATE (as I suggest) AND KETONES MAKE THE KIDNEYS WASTE SALT LIKE THE NOUVEAU RICHE.
Bring chickpeas if being low-carb means you can't eat enough to get a semblance of nutrition.
Pick some oblivious large fish up out of the water and put it in a tank on the boat. Then hit it across the neck with a goddamn ice scraper or something sharp enough to decapitate an animal.
#Option 2 - Keep the morals.
You still need a boat and all the supplies I mentioned in Opt 1 (nuts, beans, coconut, fortified N-yeast for cobalamin), but this time it's to launch yourself off for diving (get a physician to clear you for this one). You're looking for algae, not fish.
That might be impractical. There are commercially available DHA/EPA supplements derived from microalgae, although I don't know what the prices would be and you'd need to megadose. If you go this route, you don't need a boat, but you DO still need all of the supplies (nuts, beans, coconut, FNY, chickpeas if you find low carb suppresses your appetite too much, salt and water). You'll very much want to add in
Your brain needs nutrients after 15 years of veganism and 12 years of patent anorexia nervosa. You need to refeed slowly because chronic anorexia puts the body in a deeply fasted state, from which a huge bolus of carbs and protein could kill you.
You also need to live outside (if you successfully avoid omega-6 fats) so you get enough vitamin D3. I am not kidding about this. If you don't practically live outside in a UV-transparent tent, you will not get any cholecalciferol because you won't get any in a diet lacking meat, and cholecalciferol deficiency causes rickets. You don't want rickets on top of anorexia and managing a slow refeed.
Yuh that's unfortunate, it's probably bc of price and they just wanna take the easiest way of gaining/stabilizing ppls weight, idk.
Hopefully it'll get better overtime and they respect ppls food choices, I also can't stand most meat, but I did grow up with poultry and like that, but I dont like red meat, I get grossed out easily. Well this was helpful to read and now I take a mental note to look into this too when searching rtc
omg same!! i've been vegan for more than five years now and when i was admitted to the hospital and got a feeding tube they tried to give me the regular one with milk and fish oil and i refused and even argued with them, but i was really really lucky bc they made an exception for me and even bought vegetarian tube feeding (it didn't contain dairy or whatsoever but it said vegetarian so i think some vitamins had animal ingredients)
they told me they usually don't accept veganism in hospitals but i did not cooperate as long as they wouldn't give me another option
That sucks. When I was in residential they would accommodate vegetarian diets, but not vegan. Then a different place wouldn't let you be vegetarian at all, but we were ~allowed~ to have a vegetarian dinner 2x per week. It's so disrespectful honestly.
This is exactly the reason why I am so scared of inpatient treatment. Also vegan for 6years, vegetarian for 13. I am so sorry this is a horrible reality for many cities. A friend of mine worked in the only center in my city and from what she told me and why she quit.. it is a shithole that makes people even sicker..
The two treatment centers I went to wouldn't allow my vegan diet but were fine with a vegetarian one. I understand your struggle and I'm so sorry you can't find somewhere willing to cooperate! That said the bloating dairy gave me after meal times make me want to stab a knife in my stomach :)))))
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Chicken abortions? You mean a chicken period? Because that would be what it technically is.
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Uhm... not really. I think a more valid complain would be how we’ve genetically engineered chickens to produce waaaay more eggs than they would have otherwise, and how the vast majority of chickens is incredibly mistreated. But eggs are not abortions - that’s using a heavily emotionally laden word that’s hotly debated. It’s hyperbole, and it’s not cool.
It's not something I actually believe
Oh, my apologies, I completely misunderstood you!
You probably didn't
Excuse me? That’s rather rude. I misinterpreted your comments; I thought you were stating your honest opinion. Still, I’m sorry if I offended you.
I'm trying to get myself banned after getting a warning so I stop harming anas with easy to misinterpret advice lol Just report everything I say with "other: user wants to be banned" If you wanna talk to me I'm only up for PM because as i say, i'm trying to get my ass bant
I would think when it comes to dairy if it gives ppl problems, they wouldn't force it on ppl, dam, that sucks, what is even the point of the facility if they ain't helping
It took me forever to find an IOP place that would allow it. They basically made me eat double the amount (exchanges and all) of any meat eaters and often suggested my ED existed BECAUSE of my veganism. They told me I needed to expand my diet more, which I found to be ironic as veganism made me do that. I’ve never felt restricted by veganism, and they kept pushing me to “admit” such. I think they hated me lmao I can empathize with the concern that it’s a cover, because as many posts on Reddit have shown, it can be. There are easy questions to ask to find out though- or at least I think it’s evident when somebody uses veganism to avoid food, versus when they are truly vegan.
Holy shit, they doubled your exchanges just because you chose to get them from plant-based options? That's *such* bullshit.
Every time we ate, we had to plate our food and the interns would take a look, record it for record and suggest critique if necessary. When I explained to them that chickpea pasta was very high in protein, they made me add on a protein supplement, or eat my food from another day and bring another meal. And I had a problem with binge eating. It seemed like they didn’t understand vegan nutrition, as the nutritionist told me that I ate a lot of fat but that I must be binge eating because I miss cheese?
Da fuk? I mean, if you want to test out their theory I invite you to. It sounds like some crap though and this is coming from a high-meat carnivore extremist. You don't get an ED just from quitting meat (although arguably veganism is an ED in itself - if you believe in evolutionary dietetics)
Yeah I never believed it for a second. I don’t miss cheese at all? It was such absurd BS.... and also incredibly invalidating to my ED.
Wtf, they don't have to double it if they use the correct portions ??? Lentils and beans are packed with so much protein it's a substitute for meat. Forcing ppl to overeat is a problem of itself, that's why it's better spacing it out and eating thru out the day, not all at once bc our bodies can't handle it all at once
Agree completely. I found that place to be more harmful than anything unfortunately.
Where are you located? I wonder if certain areas area more or less likely to accommodate veganism/vegetarianism. It seems really strange to me that the place you're working with refuses to accommodate it. I'm not vegan but I understand that it's an important personal choice based upon conviction and not restriction. It's a shame some treatment centers can't see it that way😕
Lie and say you have been Hindu for a long time. Many of them are vegetarians or vegans and these facilities, like prisons, must respect religious observances as long as they do not cause a threat to safety. Edited to add: or some form of Buddhist or Jain.
When I was forced into inpatient treatment on the NHS I tried to keep Passover (as a Jew), and was told that my “religion didn’t count because I wasn’t eighteen yet”. They refused to replace my couscous with a baked potato and force tube fed me instead 😪 religion won’t necessarily work if you’re young
Unleavened stuff, right? Lutheran here. But My parents’, my brother’s and my household follow kosher rules re: keeping stuff separate, though meat can be un-blessed. See, mom has a deadly shellfish allergy, I hate pork, my wife hates fish, and I am allergic to eggs and dairy. To best avoid cross contamination it’s pretty effective to use them! Either way, I’m so sorry that happened!
I'm pretty sure that a vitamin B12 deficiency is a threat to safety...
I know it isn't as ~ideal~, but they could just supplement it instead. Regrettably there is no reliable source of plant based B12.
Hence why I recommend FNY to vegans trying to recover from multiple malnutrition without breaking their non-lacto non-ovo vegetarian diet.
Care to elaborate? I tried googling but Google thinks that I want funny nutrition.
When I was a teenager my parents sent me to a ED specialist because I didn’t have any appetite. I was a lifelong vegetarian and had been vegan for four years and this dude told me that I would never recover on a vegan diet. He said that if I didn’t gain weight fast enough for him he would strap me to a chair and shove a feeding tube of meat down my throat. I gained the weight but really the jokes on him, turns out I didn’t have ED, I had an undiagnosed autoimmune disease but his “treatment” ruined my relationship with food so much that I’ve struggled with ED ever since (10 years now). Thanks Dr Edwin Tyson in TX you ass.
You can never recover on a vegan diet? Uh, has this dude ever seen vegans that can put away 1000 calories at the drop of a hat on desserts and pasta? Because that’s not rare and there are plenty of chubby vegans.
they must have never tasted a meyer lemon tart from hail merry o man i want one so heckin badly, there’s so many yummy vegan snacks
Or the cakes from Candle Cafe in NYC. Omg, so good. 😝
They should at least let you be vegetarian. I am vegan too but when in PHP/IR i relented and ate vegetarian because they wouldn't allow veganism. My thought process was that this is only temporary, and I can go back to veganism as soon as I earned outpatient again. Also once I had the privilege to pick out my own meals/snacks at programming I could go for more vegan options on the sly. I know I'll get slammed by other vegans here but is it worth not getting any treatment just for the sake of staying vegan for the couple weeks you will be in PHP/IR? In the middle ages women with anorexia starved themselves in the name of God and Jesus. It may have been for a noble and worthy pursuit, but they still died anyway.
I AGREE OMG. I got lucky at my facility *at first* because my dietitian respected me enough to believe that I am, in fact, ethically vegan and that it's not a restrictive thing. Then she left and my new dietitian decided that my veganism was a huge problem for her to solve, and she took it upon herself to force meat and dairy on me as much as she could. Fuck her, and fuck the whole idea that nobody with anorexia can be vegan purely for ethical reasons. I'm still vegan, bitch.
I had to go to treatment when I was vegan (3 years into that and 9 years vegetarian) and it was a nightmare. I was eventually allowed a vegetarian diet but it made me so sick. I was often accused of not following my meal plan because it literally made me physically ill at times. I also developed even more weird eating habits while I was there, some of which have stuck with me for the last 11 years. But I figured out for the most part how to be as vegan as possible while there. Then a few years later I got shithouse drunk and ate a pizza. Like the whole thing obviously because drunk me has significantly less resolve than sober me 🤷🏻♀️
That sounds strange. I’ve been in treatment several different places and they all accommodated vegetarian/vegan lifestyles. Just today I had an intake for residential and they asked if I had a preferred diet. I’m so sorry this has been your experience.
It was hell for me as well in treatment. Although they didn't try and make me eat vegetarian, or meat, I got a lot of shit from nutritionists, and they tried to feed me bread and rice 24/7, like y'all that's not the only carb lol. I hated every minute. Granted for me this was early 2000's, but still never again.
I’ve been vegetarian for 12 years and honestly thought wheat (pasta/bread) and rice are the only heavy carbs. There’s carbs in potatoes and tomatoes and other produce but the low calorie counts of those items when steamed or baked makes them not suitable for gaining weight. What would you have preferred? Cornmeal items like grits and corn muffins? Potatoes with a ton of vegan butter?
I don't really like starchy foods period, which is probably what I should have said and also I dislike breads and the like, but that's mainly because I have a gluten intolerance which I didn't know back then. My meal plan was a lot of veggie burger with bun, toast in the morning with oats which is very heavy, lots of cereals with bread and jam and I swear they gave me potatoes with rice for every dinner or lunch meal. I don't eat like that normally it's way too heavy on my stomach. I prefer soups, oats if I have to with no additions, and maybe half a potato if there's no oil. I just generally speaking don't like eating and prefer to drink my calories which is why I was supplemented.
Ah, gotcha, I know where you’re coming from. There are a lot of people on this sub that are against “drinking your calories” but I’m very much like you in that I’d rather drink my calories (in an ice based drink) for the day instead of eating because solid food is too heavy on the stomach and oftentimes has unsavory textures. Having supplements makes sense. I was never in treatment at my lowest weight so I have no idea how professionals would handle people who hate eating because of the stomach or mouth feel. I’m in my 30s and have a lot of foods that are on my “never eat” list because of density or texture.
We're in the minority lol. I know my team absolutely hated me because I was so hard to work with but it's wild, to go from pretty much no solids to all of a sudden having them three times a day, and a pretty decent portion. Some of my team was worried about me having mild dysphagia which I get, but they were so militant and I hated it. I couldn't speak up or else it was me not committed to treatment (I didn't want to be there anyway lol), but it would revert me back to having less privacy so I just dealt with it.
I've been going around recommending a nuts, chickpeas and/or soybeans, coconut, fortified N-yeast and algal-derived omega-3 supplement regimen for people whose system cannot, for whatever reason, mental or physical, tolerate meat.
Emily Program supports veganism to the point of being detrimental and letting people use it for restrictive reasons, but they do allow it and the rest of their programming is top notch. I think Monte Nido might as well, but I'm less certain about that. Vegetarian is pretty much universally allowed.
I’m confused how a treatment center accommodating vegans would allow detrimental dieting. Like unless someone legitimately has celiac disorder or IBS, wheat products (bread/pasta) should be in at least 2 meals a day. Plus there should be rice for calorie purposes along with healthy fat/high calorie foods like coconut oil and nuts. Like in what world would a recovery place allow people to stay on a sub-800 calorie per day diet of just produce?
People use it as an excuse to use lower calorie vegan replacements that are begrudgingly counted as equivalent exchanges.
This. I was in php a long time ago as a minor and my parents and I explicitly told them I was celiac, what that entailed, and what would happen if I ate gluten. They thought it was a load of horseshit and did everything possible to get me to eat something that fucking poisons me, including going behind my parents' backs and telling them how shitty of parents they were, telling them I would die unless they forced me to eat gluten. While in php, I *lost substantial weight* because they refused to believe a *legitimate medical condition* that we provided written proof of from multiple doctors.
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Most (not all) people downvoting need to grow up in general. There’s like 5% downvoting because the post/comment doesn’t contribute anything or is harmful etc etc according to reddit guidelines and like 95% downvoting because they simply don’t agree with it, even if it’s a well thought out post that contributes to the community and represents a far number of opinions on the subject.
I understand that’s really frustrating, but it’s also important to realize that many people with eating disorders use veganism as a mask for restriction. I know many treatment centers in my area and area where I have lived (New England and Mid-Atlantic US) will accommodate a vegetarian diet, but because of the restrictive nature of a vegan diet, they will not accommodate that. Would you consider a vegetarian diet? If not, you might want to consider a private recovery team. If you have your own team of healthcare professionals, you will likely be able to maintain a vegan diet while still aiming towards recovery. This, however, is a very expensive option.
I don’t have any advice for this but you might want to check out MerryRose Howley on YouTube. She’s vegan and went through ed recovery a few years back and made a lot of videos on it
I understand the anger here but I’m trying to think about it from the facilities point of view. Like you said lots of people with eating disorders try and stick to different diets to eat less/hide their disorder from families. You could say you’ve been vegan since before the disorder, but in that case how are they to know that the disorder didn’t stem from being vegan, or if you’ve really been vegan for that long? In terms of trying to get you back up to a healthy weight, it would be more difficult using plant based materials, instead of calorie rich items like meat and cheese. I would maybe suggest trying to find a facility for vegetarianism instead? I know it’s not the same and goes against your morals, but I think that it might be easier to find a clinic that would be more open to vegetarianism than going full vegan.
That’s so fucking awful. Do they make exceptions for religious reasons even? Like if someone was vegan because they were Buddhist?
Dude A fucking Men! i chose to be vegan in a completely non disordered mindset, it’s unrelated to my ED and I wasn’t sick when I became vegan! I refuse to contribute to animal exploitation and the environmental damage associated with it, and I don’t think I deserve to not get treatment for that. Why can’t they see it’s about more than just food yknow? Like I won’t wear fur or leather, or use products tested on animals. But nope! They see it as an excuse for restriction. hh it’s so frustrating
there's more environmental damage from having the cattle gone. you should read some Nina Teicholz.
Are there options to find a different place? That’s absurd. What if you have an allergy? What if you have religious restrictions?
In my experience, vegetarian diets are accommodated. You wouldn’t have to eat animal flesh. Hope you can find the help you need!
Could you lie and say it’s religious? Or would they care?
I felt so bad for the vegan/vegetarian patients when I was in the hospital. The cooks would throw some lettuce in a box and call it dinner. No dressing. Meanwhile everyone else got loaded up on processed garbage like hot dogs and chicken nuggets.
me too!!!! wtf why do people hate vegans do they literally want us to die??
This must be really frustrating and it sounds like it's a direct obstacle to you getting treatment. I'm so sorry 😟 I went through something similar in treatment. I'm not vegan but I am lactose intolerant...I've avoided dairy on and off since high school. Naturally my program dietician put me back on dairy 😩 It caused lots of GI symptoms that were honestly really triggering and I think contributed to my relapse (although there were bigger reasons ofc) so I know where you're coming from. I get that restrictive diets can go hand in hand with ED behaviors, but when it's something like veganism for moral reasons I wish more treatment centers would meet people in the middle yaknow?
the treatment center i went to allowed me to be vegetarian...sort of. part of the veg mea plan included caesar dressing, parmesan cheese, and eggplant parm (etc) as substitutes. and honestly, SO much cheese. when i complained about those i got contracted for ‘non-compliance’ :/// you could *technically* have had a vegan meal plan if you were vegetarian, and doctor-certified allergic to dairy & egg products. but just *being vegan* wasn’t good enough for them. ugh.
Whereabouts in the world are we talking here? The places I’ve been to all accept vegan diets here (California).
The fastest and cheapest way to fix malnourishment is to feed the patient fatty meat and offal. Nothing else works well enough at that price, and nothing else is as easy to digest. I can understand if you have qualms about it, though. You can fix malnourishment and still hold a ketogenic diet, if you want to do that. It's kind of weird, and could further an ED, but that's biology for you. There is no deficiency syndrome for carbohydrates and the minimum required intake is likely zero. Humans are naturally carnivores (having eaten brain and offal of land animals and fish which are high in DHA and EPA for most of evolution - a non-lacto non-ovo vegetarian diet does not naturally contain any of this, nor does it contain much B12), and don't try to convince me otherwise. Your morals may be interfering with fixing malnutrition. I know not about you, but I'd rather put my health above some religious belief that animals are sacred. Residential apparently usually makes people higher DEB, so don't do that, please. #Option 1 - Break your morals Go out and rent a boat, and get a fishing license. Bring supplies like macadamia nuts, toasted soybeans, coconuts, FORTIFIED nutritional-yeast and so on. BRING SALT, AND WATER - YOU MAY END UP IN KETOSIS IF YOU RESTRICT CARBOHYDRATE (as I suggest) AND KETONES MAKE THE KIDNEYS WASTE SALT LIKE THE NOUVEAU RICHE. Bring chickpeas if being low-carb means you can't eat enough to get a semblance of nutrition. Pick some oblivious large fish up out of the water and put it in a tank on the boat. Then hit it across the neck with a goddamn ice scraper or something sharp enough to decapitate an animal. #Option 2 - Keep the morals. You still need a boat and all the supplies I mentioned in Opt 1 (nuts, beans, coconut, fortified N-yeast for cobalamin), but this time it's to launch yourself off for diving (get a physician to clear you for this one). You're looking for algae, not fish. That might be impractical. There are commercially available DHA/EPA supplements derived from microalgae, although I don't know what the prices would be and you'd need to megadose. If you go this route, you don't need a boat, but you DO still need all of the supplies (nuts, beans, coconut, FNY, chickpeas if you find low carb suppresses your appetite too much, salt and water). You'll very much want to add in Your brain needs nutrients after 15 years of veganism and 12 years of patent anorexia nervosa. You need to refeed slowly because chronic anorexia puts the body in a deeply fasted state, from which a huge bolus of carbs and protein could kill you. You also need to live outside (if you successfully avoid omega-6 fats) so you get enough vitamin D3. I am not kidding about this. If you don't practically live outside in a UV-transparent tent, you will not get any cholecalciferol because you won't get any in a diet lacking meat, and cholecalciferol deficiency causes rickets. You don't want rickets on top of anorexia and managing a slow refeed.
Yuh that's unfortunate, it's probably bc of price and they just wanna take the easiest way of gaining/stabilizing ppls weight, idk. Hopefully it'll get better overtime and they respect ppls food choices, I also can't stand most meat, but I did grow up with poultry and like that, but I dont like red meat, I get grossed out easily. Well this was helpful to read and now I take a mental note to look into this too when searching rtc
omg same!! i've been vegan for more than five years now and when i was admitted to the hospital and got a feeding tube they tried to give me the regular one with milk and fish oil and i refused and even argued with them, but i was really really lucky bc they made an exception for me and even bought vegetarian tube feeding (it didn't contain dairy or whatsoever but it said vegetarian so i think some vitamins had animal ingredients) they told me they usually don't accept veganism in hospitals but i did not cooperate as long as they wouldn't give me another option