free advice from a dietician/nutritionist?please help us !

whizzkid_3

my girlfriend is desperate to lose weight but has an unusual and worrying phobia which complicates matters.

A fear of choking related to a fear of dying means that she eats very little and what she does eat has to involve very minimal chewing so her diet mainly consists of milk,weetabix,mashed potatoes,tomato sauce,liquidised soup and mince (not all together obviously).Anything larger than a small piece of mince in her mouth would normally trigger a panic attack so she will not try anything larger than that unless it can be mashed up first.The quantity of food eaten is very small compared to most people but her weight is above average and she puts this down to her metabolism being messed up by the many years of surviving on mainly liquidised soup.

we have tried hypnotists and psychologists to help tackle the phobia problem with little success as the phobia has been allowed to continue for over twenty years without being properly dealt with

initially i would like help to help my partner lose weight then from there it would be great to find someone with the patience and expertise to help cure the phobia which is spoiling her life and making eating a chore and not a pleasure

any nutritional advice would be greatly appreciated so if anyone knows any dieticians or nutritionists or even psychologists seeking a challenge i would be very grateful !

thanks

Welshlassie

I think you are trying to tactal the issues in the wrong order. In order for her loose weight she needs to be eating a balanced healthy diet, if she can't eat a normal diet then she won't loose weight. I think you really need to get the phobia issues resolved first. She would also need to increase the exercise she does to assist with improving her metabolism.

Also by improving her diet this would automatically have a knock on effect of helping her loose weight.

Has she spoken to her GP, he should be able to assist with finding somoeone who can help her. This is a serious problem that needs resolving in order for her to progress with her weight loss goals.

Good luck.

RedBern

agree with Welshlassie - the GP should be able to refer your girlfriend for proper help.

You say that she's had help over the past years - what about something like NLP? May be worth a try. I saw something on tv a while ago where, by using NLP (neurolinguistic programming) a girl who was overweight because she ate loads of chocolate and couldn't stop herself was 'NLP'd' and was put off eating chocolate - the taste of it repulsed her following her treatment. I have no experience of this myself but hopefully someone else may have.?

Such a phobia for your girlfriend must have very wide reaching consequences on quality of life generally for you both. Hopefully you'll be able to find the proper 'key' to help her.

Oldernotwiser

whizzkid wrote: »

The quantity of food eaten is very small compared to most people but her weight is above average and she puts this down to her metabolism being messed up by the many years of surviving on mainly liquidised soup.

Has she been told this by her doctor or is it something she just assumes? Have you ever looked at the calorific content of the food she actually eats?How much exercise does she get and does she enjoy it? Just trying to get a fuller picture.

Tinsle

Whizzkid, sorry to read such a distressing post.
Your GF should clearly get to her GP and get some care. If she's worrying about weight it's a distraction from any real problems.

I don't see how she can be expected to take any general advice from fellow dieters if liquid soap is a staple in her diet. Please try to encourage her to get some support, I personally think it's out of the scope of this board to help with this one as it's not a general diet problem.
BW xx

Welshlassie

Tinsle wrote: »

if liquid soap is a staple in her diet.

:rotfl: I hope it isn't soap she is eating and you meant soup

NessyNoo_3

I am a registered dietitian. However, I do agree with some of the other posts. She needs to establish better eating behaviours and in order to do that the phobia will really need to be sorted.

In any case, the support you need for this you will not get from a chat room. I would suggest visiting your GP and getting a proper referral.

whizzkid_3

thanks for your advice and help !

unfortunately my girlfriend has been referred by her gp and has been visiting the psychologist who she was referred to but with little success as all that she has been doing is talking without actually creating a plan of action which might actually have some effect

we seem to be going nowhere fast! sigh !

chevalier

HI there
I don't mean to be funny, but having had babies recently, you can pretty much liquidise much more than just the list of foods mentioned. I am not a nutritionist, but surely if you liquidise a 3 course meal it still has a 3 course meals worth of calories.

What worries me is that with such a restricted diet, she may be not getting all the vitamins and minerals that she needs. This will have a knock on effect on how tired she feels, and affect her mood etc. Neither of which would help her tackle this problem.

So as a starter for 10 could you make a smoothie say out of strawberrys and bananas? A bit of vitamin c, plus potassium from the banana, good for getting your energy up. If you can manage to introduce more varieties of food into her diet, then at least it will ensure that she is getting the vitamins.

If she is really fixated on just these foods, then how about a childs liquid vitamin supplement, again to make sure she gets all the trace elements she needs?

Ref the psychologist give it a chance. You say your OH has had this problem for 20 years, and if your lucky you might get progress in 20 weeks. That would be outstanding. If after a few months there seems to be no progress then go back to the GP and ask for more help.

The psychology sessions may well bring out some extremely painful issues for your OH to deal with, is she ready for that, REALLY. I am not saying this is the case here, but sometimes people unconsciously sabatoge the help given to them to avoid confronting painful things, even if they know at a logical level that they will have a better life afterwards.

best of luck
chev

nzmegs

I know of someone who had a similar choking phobia which was related to her Mum constantly fretting about her choking as a baby and child - we all tell our kids not to put things in their mouths and we avoid small toys etc but her mum had taken it to an extreme and got incredibly panicky about her being near anything small.
I am not saying your girlfriends Mum was the same but it might help to know that this girl did eventually get over it by eating increasingly larger mouthfuls. She still won't suck on a sweet or anything hard but is now ok with soft chewable food.
Good luck

elle_gee

There was a programme on BBC3 called Fussy Eaters (title makes it sound more trivial than the actual issues addressed in it) which covered several people with issues like your OHs. Maybe they have a website which has some tips..