A Day in My Life (Anorexia Recovery Meal Plan)

As many of you know, I've written a novel called JUST PERFECT -- a fictional memoir that deals with topics including anorexia, bullying, depression, self-harm, and a fight for recovery. Now that its sequel is well on its way (I'm over 30,000 words in), I want to say that recovery is possible. Five years ago I did not imagine I'd be where I am today, so I decided that today I'd cast you a quick glance into my life!

As mentioned in the video, the sampled diet did not help me gain weight, but merely stabilized it. Therefore, different action needed to be taken: I let myself be taken up into inpatient treatment in a Slovak hospital for 14 days. The first two days, I was given the ‘regular person’ diet, which is supposed to also help people gain weight if they are not used to eating regularly/sufficiently (they decided to give this to me because of my low weight, thinking it automatically meant I was 'underfeeding').

However, I was already used to large portions at home, and in the first two days I lost half a kilo.  They therefore upped my snacks quickly (see sample meal plans below).

Anyway, life in hospital wasn't always fun, especially as nobody spoke English. (Yes, the first week I had the luck of having two English-speaking roommates, but after they left I had to make myself understood in sign language... speaking Slovak was quite out of the question.)

Anyway, I decided to capture my different moods by taking a photo a day, capturing me at my worst and at my best. As you can see in the photos, halfway through I needed to change rooms (wall goes from green to pink) and change from the ED ward to the 'general' Psychiatry ward as more and more people left and more and more of the staff ditched to go on holidays.

A Photo A Day

My Hospital Meal Plans

Here are just two samples of what I'd eat in a day in the hospital (and two photos that I managed to take even though both photography and phones were forbidden). Of course, I have no idea about the exact portion sizes of the main hot meals (unlike at home), but I hope it does give a basic idea. (I can say, however, that generally main meals fell below the 400 g I eat at home, which is not too unusual seeing as what I eat at home is more than the average teenage girl would be able to finish.)

June 18, 2015:

Breakfast (8:00):
- 2 slices of bread with butter and 5 slices of ham and 1 spring onion
- 1 cup of white coffee with milk and sugar

Snack (10:00):
- 1 large banana
- 1 medium-large chocolate croissant
- 1 bread roll with Flora butter (20 g)

Lunch (12:30):
- Garlic bouillon soup
- 3 Slovak 'dumplings' (tastes and looks somewhat like white bread slices) with tomato sauce and mystery meat

Snack (14:00, 15:00):
- ½ Fortimel
- 1 slice of bread with butter and ham
- 1 bread roll with 1 packet of Flora butter (20 g)

(Part of) hospital versus home snack

Dinner (17:30):
- Omelette
- Bowl of canned peach
- Mashed potatoes

Dessert (18:00, 19:00):
- ½ Fortimel
- 1 large apple


June 27, 2015

Breakfast (8:00):
- 2 slices of bread with cream cheese spread
- 1 cup of white coffee with milk and sugar
- ½ Fortimel

Snack (9:00, 10:00):
- 1 apple
- 1 Delissa Orion chocolate cookie
- 1 hotdog bun with 1 pack Bambino cream cheese

Lunch (12:00):
- Broccoli soup
- Slovak rice with mystery meat and sauce
- 1 tomato

Snack (14:00, 15:00):
- 1 slice of bread with butter, 1 boiled egg and 2 slices of paprika (see image)
- 1 hotdog bun with hazelnut spread

Dinner (17:00):
- Disgusting hospital pizza (very thick mushy crust topped with oil and ham and too-little corn)

Dessert (19:00):
- 1 medium apple
- 1 banana (not part of the meal plan, but I was still hungry, so... ;-))
- ½ Fortimel

Hospital dinner versus home dinners

My New Home Meal Plan

After those crazy two weeks in the hospital, with a weight that more or less stabilized, went down dramatically, and then climbed back up a bit, I'm now back home. I wasn't getting anywhere anymore in hospital (and I actually had the biggest food package available), so I decided to go back home, return to my own meal plan, and add some of the things I'd learned in hospital to so establish *the best way.*

So... my meal plan is now slightly different from what it was in the video above, as well as how it was in hospital. For example, my plan for today was as follows:

July 1, 2015

Breakfast (7:00, 8:00):
- ½ Fortimel
- Greek yoghurt with fruit (2 plums and handful of blueberries)
- 3 piszoky cookies

Snack (9:00, 10:00):
- 1 Round sandwich with pear marmalade and cream cheese
- 1 Round sandwich with ham and butter

Lunch (11:30, 13:00):
- Vegetable soup (large bowl (three hospital servings) and thick, with pasta (unlike hospital watery-garlicky-nontasty soup))
- 400 g mashed potatoes with leek and bacon and creamy curry sauce

Snack (15:00):
- 3 chocolate truffles (prepared by my kitchen-princess sister)
- ½ Fortimel

Dinner (18:30):
- 400 g potatoes with minced meat, zucchini, mascarpone and tomato soup sauce

Dessert (21:00):
- Piece of almond-apple pie with toffee Fortimel ice cream


I'll need to try it out for several days to see if it works of course, but if not I'll just top it again with several more snacks, or maybe some more Fortimel (my favorite flavors: banana, chocolate and apricot).

I hope this casts you a bit of a glance into my recovery meal plans, and I'm interested in hearing your thoughts/tips/etc. in the comment boxes below! You are also more than welcome to contact me at hanne-arts@hotmail.com. Any of your insights are very welcome and encouraged!


** To read my actual story (not just my recovery meal plans), visit my website here or check out my story on the ADAA website. Also, make sure to grab yourself a copy of my fictional memoir, JUST PERFECT here ** 

[Update (Aug 13): I've gone for another hospitalization after my home meal plan stopped working and my weight again stabilized. This time I'm in Belgium, to see how it compares to the Slovak system. The meal plan is bigger (and much sweeter). More details here.]