Type E
DietQ Type E dieting is also known as “elimination” or “elimination dieting,” and it involves an obsession with getting rid of calories that one feels are excessive. Elimination behavior varies, but common methods include burning calories through excessive exercise, purging by vomiting, or using laxatives to eliminate digestive contents before calories can be absorbed. This can develop into Bulimia.
Calorie elimination may or may not be accompanied by binging behavior but is generally initiated by a feeling of guilt or panic in the individual. For example, a person with type E might eat a large meal at a restaurant and then feel guilty for overeating. They may then go home and run on a treadmill for several hours to immediately burn off the “offending calories” and feel better. This can be the beginning of Exercise Bulimia.
This type can develop a cycle of overeating and getting rid of the food that can be very hard to get out of. For this type, it’s important to learn new skills that can help one to eat normally and abstain from the eliminating behavior in question. The recovery process requires patience with oneself and focuses on things like correcting negative self-talk and reviewing weekly progress rather than dialing in on daily results.
Overview
In today’s world of diet culture and Hollywood perfection, the social pressure to have the “perfect” body or fit a certain ideal of beauty can have damaging effects on a person’s self-esteem. For some people, this pressure can lead them to take extreme measures like over-exercising or purging in an effort to eliminate calories. When this kind of behavior happens repeatedly, it becomes Type E disordered eating.
Such extreme calorie elimination methods naturally come with serious risks. Physically, a person with DietQ Type E may face a number of repercussions, depending on their elimination methods of choice. Those who become focused on burning calories through physical activity may begin over-exercising through constant workouts, dancing, bicycling, sports, etc. This constant physical motion can lead to painful overuse injuries or even irreversible joint damage or even Exercise Bulimia.
Some individuals attempt to purge calories by using laxatives to force the food to pass through quickly, preventing full absorption of calories. This method of elimination puts incredible stress on a person’s digestive system, potentially damaging one’s gastrointestinal tract and increasing the risk of life-threatening issues like tears and bleeding. If a person purges by vomiting previously eaten food before it is fully digested, the constant expulsion of stomach acid can lead to serious esophageal damage, dental decay, and loss of teeth. Electrolite imbalances caused by the eliminating behaviors can result in heart failure or even death if this progresses to Bulimia Nervosa.
Mentally, the rollercoaster of guilt and calorie-counting can become an exhausting obsession, resulting in depression, anxiety, and other serious conditions. In some individuals, counting calories and finding ways to eliminate them can be such a huge part of daily life that it becomes a legitimate form of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) or Bulimia Nervosa. At this stage, specialized therapy may be needed to break the control of the anxiety and stop the excessive exercising, purging, and other compulsions that have taken over.
You may know how much and what to eat, but can you put that into practice? By combining your personality attributes with your eating attitudes and answers to type-specific questions, we’ll develop a solid plan to help you effectively change your eating behaviors. You will be led through a series of structured steps designed specifically for the DietQ Type E to create healthy dietary habits and get back to living a life that’s not controlled by calorie elimination.
Solution
People with DietQ Type E often start somewhat innocently, only eliminating calories when it seems necessary—like after eating so much, it makes them feel sick. For some, it might start with a panicked realization that they over-ate (or ate the “wrong” things) and end with making themselves sick, exercising, playing extreme sports, dancing, or abusing laxatives and diuretics to purge the extra calories.
Though they may ease anxiety in the short term, these solutions aren’t sustainable. Healthy, moderate exercise, on the other hand, does not involve constant thoughts of getting food and getting rid of what you ate. You may be of normal weight and appear healthy on the outside, but your eating behaviors are causing conflict and stress on the inside. Usually, you will try to hide the behavior (sometimes even from yourself) until it becomes a habit that seems impossible to break.
In your DietQ Plan, we’ll identify and work directly on the issues that make it difficult for you to eat and exercise normally so you can achieve proper fitness in a healthy and sustainable way. Because we look at the entire picture of your physical and emotional health rather than simply tracking calories-in vs. calories-out, your individual plan will help you make valuable life changes and address head-on the issues that have kept you stuck in a cycle of impulsive eating and panicked elimination.
Of course, individuals vary even within DietQ types. To help you understand exactly how your unique attributes play into your categorization as Type E, you were presented after your quiz with a personalized DietQ Results Report. This report gives you a detailed breakdown of your attributes and provides a visual representation of how your personality, lifestyle, eating attitudes, and triggers affect your eating habits. With this information in mind, your DietQ Plan will help you discover the reasons you eat when you’re not truly hungry and give you a path to solutions that can last for a lifetime.
