"You Are Not You When You're Hungry": Mood, Affect & Eating Disorders
How restriction turns you into a bit of a twat, according to science.
One of my favourite advertisement series is from Snickers. In these adverts, a person is acting visibly āhangryā (hungry-angry), until an unsung everyday hero emerges to hand the grump a Snickers bar as an āhangrinessā-antidote. āEat a snickers - youāre not you when youāre hungryā. In contrary to most advertisements, this is very truthful marketing. You truly are not your best, truest self when hungry.
During my eating disorder, my mood and affect changed drastically. The best way to describe it is that it went āflatā. I was rather apathetic and indifferent to everything - except food. When objectively sad things happened, there was very little emotional response, but if someone touched the carrots I had planner to eat later I would throw a tantrum. Other people became nothing but hinderances for me to engage in whatever eating disorder behaviour I had planned, hence my ability and desire to genuinely connect with others (beyond superficial politeness) was minimal. You could have a conversation with me, and Iād be there but not really there. The lights were on, but nobody was home.
Iāve heard many similar lived experiences from people with eating disorders, and it is heartbreaking. Iāve heard from people attending the funeral of loved ones, yet admitting that all they could focus on was what kind of food would be served. Iāve heard from people spending their entire wedding stressed because of the wedding cake. Iāve heard from people who start resenting or avoiding spending time with their own children, partner, pets, parents and friends, because it would clash with their safe meals or gym trips. This is no way to live, and the thought of looking back at a life spent like this was one of my biggest reasons to recover.
So - what is actually going on here psychologically, mood- and affect wise?
(Recover, and be a good egg.)
Food is a basic human need for survival. If we look at Maslowās hierarchy of needs, food is at the bottom (here meaning it is the foundation of life). Maslowās idea is that without the fundamental physiological needs fulfilled (food, air, water, shelter etc.) you cannot really progress to the top and focus on āluxuriesā such as connection and self-actualisation. In comparison: if youāre being chased by a bear, you donāt really have time to stop chatting and connecting with the neighbour, do you? A starved body and brain is a body and brain in acute survival mode, where the focus is and has to be food. Your brain is detecting that food is currently a scarce resource, thus it turns up the food-focus (and in many cases, urges to move and āmigrateā to a more food-abundant landscape, as discussed in this episode).
I recently read a study that shows that being in an energetic deficit actually hinders pro-social behaviour (link for those interested). Pro-social behaviour basically refers to Being A Nice Personā¢ļø; taking other peopleās feelings and wellbeing into consideration, and being kind, patient and helpful. Interestingly, this is the case in both humans and animals. Evolutionary, this makes sense to me - negative energy balance signals āhey, thereās a famine going onā, which suggests āhey, we need to think of ourselves here for survivalā. To use the chased-by-bear example again, if youāre being chased by a bear youāre probably not going to be too concerned about tripping over your neighbour, either. Your number one focus will be survival; getting the F away from that bear!
The Minnesota Starvation Study is another great example of a study that (accidentally) illustrated the serious mood changes food deprivation triggers. The men in this study (Iād recommend checking out my podcast episode on this if you are not familiar) ended up irritable, withdrawn, food-obsessed and rigid. They lost interest in their partners, and conversations would centre food, cooking and eating. Some even developed full-blown psychosis. Prolonged restriction is powerful stuff.
As someone who works with people with eating disorders, I do tend to find this particular group of people to be very polite and kind. Nevertheless, this politeness and kindness can co-exist with apathy and emotional disconnect, and it is often those closest ones (family or partners) who get the brunt of any potential tantrums or emotional disconnect. I am sure my former Psychologist would at the time describe me as a pleasant patient. I am also sure my family members would at the time describe me as irritable, rejecting and withdrawn. In an odd way, I also feel that my kindness now is more genuine (āDoing good to you and seeing you happy makes me feel nice and warm insideā), whilst back then it was more performative (āI need to act polite and like a good personā).
For example, we had a dog at the time. Of course I did care about the dog and made sure she was fed, entertained and walked, but she was kind of just⦠there. With my dog now, I genuinely feel the love flowing in my veins from spending time with her and seeing her happy (ah, cheesy I know, but it is true!). It is like the emotional equivalent of seeing in black-and-white versus seeing in colour. This goes with my human relationships, too.
Then comes the guilt for feeling a certain way, or for not feeling; for not feeling warmth when cuddling your dog; for not desiring touch from your partner; for constantly checking the time to go home and eat when with a friend; for not acting in congruence with your values; for hoping your ageing parents leave early so you can have a binge-purge session, or go for that walk before it gets dark. These are moments you can not get back. Recovery can involve a lot of grief of what could have been, and a lot of shame for what was.
There is something so sinister about a condition that shrinks what truly matters - health, personal fulfilment, relationships - and instead focuses what does not matter at all.
One of the saddest thing I see in regards to eating disorders is people confusing their starvation side-effects with their true-self personality- and desires. For example, someone may start to genuinely believe that they simply are not interested in emotional and physical intimacy (not to be confused with genuine asexuality or aromanticism), when actually it is just their brain shutting down sexual- and social function. This means potentially missing out on a beautiful life, family and connections that would have been in alignment with that hypothetical persons ātrue selfā values.
An other example is people pursuing a social-, academic- or professional field that is chosen based on the brainās extreme food- and movement focus rather than genuine interest, such as becoming a nutritionist or body builder (not to say that every nutritionist or body builder has an eating disorder, of course!). It is therefore important to take hunger out of the equation before making drastic decisions about who you are, and who you want to be. The person you are when you are hungry is not the same person who are when you are fed, and the only way to find out is by re-feeding.
It is also important to be aware that an eating disorder has a tendency to strengthen certain already pre-existing traits and tendencies. You were kind of rigid and perfectionistic prior? Letās put that on steroids. You had a tendency towards introversion? Complete social isolation it is!
(How an eating disorder feels like)
The ānumbingā of mood and emotions that an energetic deficit can bring can be alluring for some. āThe eating disorder prevents me from dealing with (insert event or emotion)ā is something I often hear from clients. But hereās the thing: emotional constipation is pretty shitty. It is going to build up, and it will get heavy. When it comes to difficult emotions or events, you eventually have to digest them and let shit go. You have to go through it, not around it.
You cannot selectively numb your emotions. By numbing the bad, you also numb the good. You were put on this earth to feel the full spectrum of human emotions: the good, the bad, and the ugly. We often put so much emphasis on the good, but thereās no light without darkness - the good is good because of the bad. As human beings, what is shown to bring us genuine happiness and fulfilment is to have a sense of purpose and belonging, and this comes with a range of emotions, pleasant and unpleasant. Personally, my downs have taught me more than my ups, and in retrospect Iād not want to be without those downs and the wisdom earned. Purpose and belonging is something that is created rather than found, and the eating disorder seriously hijacks it. (Trust me, your purpose is not to hunt down low-calorie jello at the grocery store, and your belonging is not that fitness forum online). Donāt confuse your eating disorderās hits of reward with true purpose and fulfilment. The eating disorder will make you miserable long-term.
When working with clients, I often explain the concept of āwanting to wantā rather than āwantingā. Right now, in an undernourished state, you may not want to spend time with your family, but your healthy-self (which is in there!) may want to want to spend time with your family. What you want when undernourished may not be the same as what you want when youāre nourished. What do you want to want?
For example:
āI want to want to be intimate with my partner.ā
āI want to want to see my friends more.ā
āI want to want to engage with my actual hobbies.ā
You may not always know what you want or even want to want, and that is OK, too. Part of recovery is self-discovery, but as mentioned above, you have to ensure basic physiological needs are met in order to fully do so. In other words, you have to eat. Because you are not you when you are hungry.
I came across your publication after listening to your podcast after coming across a search result somewhere on Google, but that was after I had read 100 reasons to recover somehow posted on Reddit (I'm on Reddit diet, and had deleted various social media accounts -- that's the only fasting/diet I'm doing these days for better recovery).
I came from a finance background, so your explanation of energy debt was finally that made everything clicked.
Theoretically, I knew something was wrong with my brain. I knew my body was shutting down (although it's probably on life-support from various nutritional food and I'm quite discipline for my sleep). My parents, upon rare chance I visited my hometown, quickly noticed my ED and pointed it out, but I ended up fighting with them, defending the "nobility" of this "perfect and clean diet" while "taking no feedback from those with metabolic diseases" while having a very different metabolic disease yet still a disease myself!
I couldn't comprehend how ED could cause irregular heart rhythm, blood sugar swing, and I kept blaming my hormones for not restarting even though "I gave my body food, exercise, and sleep, why am I still sick?"
But then you said about energy "debt", probably in your podcast or some other posts. Bam.
Debt is debt. Debt must be repaid. And then it felt like a revelation. My mind quickly conjured up images/animation such as my action to keep cardio and even ran 5K in winter 2023 (!!! Ikr...) was like sportsbetting and losing, but kept doing it until I had the bare minimum to survive.
The final straw was the keto-pescatarian (!!! Ikr) and everything was accelerated after.
You're doing a noble work, I pray that your writing and podcast spread further and you enjoy doing this work and this sustains you. I can't publish my recovery journey on my Substack at the moment as I want to deal with this privately. I want to keep my "sick" posts and not delete them because they're the artefacts of my thoughts when I was still "in addiction" --> addicted to lose weight, like in adapted to flee from famine hypothesis.
But happy to know you and your writing.