If you are anorexic or bulimic, your food intake is out of balance. Anorexia nervosa is chronic undereating and obsession with thinness and a fear of weight gain. Bulimia nervosa is a repeated cycle of eating excessively, called binging, and then purging, either by vomiting or through the abuse of laxatives.
Both anorexia and bulimia are more likely to occur in women (about 90 percent), but they do occasionally occur in men. Practicing prayer, meditation, guided visualization, and yoga can all help you become more serene and stable. So can these practices.
HEALING HERBS FOR ANOREXIA AND BULIMIA
Herbs that can be used in connection with anorexia and bulimia are listed below. Since many of them fit into the category of a digestive bitter, they are best used in capsule or tincture form, taken three times daily 10 minutes before a meal.
GOOD TO KNOW!
If you are anorexic or bulimic, it’s important to correct any underlying health problem (such as low thyroid or biochemical imbalance). It can also help to get counseling by a professional trained in eating disorders.
Cures from Grandma’s Kitchen
To soothe the digestive tract, try my Slippery Elm Gruel. Just mix a spoonful of slippery elm powder with a pinch of cinnamon powder and drink in a cup of hot water. Slippery elm provides a soothing protective coating on an irritated digestive tract, reduces inflammation, and is very nourishing and easy to digest.
HERB BENEFITS
Ashwaghanda: Builds stamina and calms stress
Centaury: Stimulates and normalizes appetite; improves digestion; used for anorexia
Chamomile: Restores an exhausted nervous system; improves digestion
Gentian: Stimulates and normalizes appetite
Ginger: Eases nausea and indigestion
Hops: Helps you to gain weight; used for anorexia, anxiety, indigestion, and irritable bowel
Licorice: Soothes a digestive tract irritated from bulimic vomiting
Marshmallow Root: Soothes a digestive irritated tract from bulimic vomiting
Oatstraw: For debility associated with appetite loss; eases anxiety and mild depression
Peppermint: Relieves indigestion, irritable bowel, and stomachache
Saint-John’s wort: Inhibits serotonin breakdown while enhancing its efficiency; used for anxiety and depression
You can also look for a product in your health food store called a “digestive bitter combination,” which stimulates digestive secretions and improves appetite.
VITAMINS THAT IMPROVE APPETITE AND WELL-BEING
Research published in the medical journal Lancet in 1985 showed that anorexics are deficient in zinc. If you can’t taste a solution of zinc sulfate or if it tastes just like water, you may need this nutrient—50 mg of zinc sulfate taken three times daily with meals can help improve your sense of smell and taste.
If you are anorexic, you can also benefit from supplementing with essential fatty acids, according to a study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (1985). Essential fatty acids in fish oil can also help ease depression and stabilize the emotional body by feeding the brain. Take 1 teaspoon (5 ml) of fish oil daily. Taking 500 mg of the amino acid l-tyrosine one to three times daily can reduce depression.
For bulimics, taking 10,000 IU of a beta-carotene supplement daily can help heal mucus membranes irritated from lack of nourishment as well as vomiting and laxative use.
BEST FOODS FOR ANOREXIA AND BULIMIA
Eat foods that calm the spirit, nourish the stomach and spleen, and tonify the heart, such as barley, rice, well-cooked beans, organic chicken, corn, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, and winter squash. Watery-cooked grains with some vegetables cooked into them are ideal.
Thrifty Cures!
Stimulate your appetite by adding cilantro, cinnamon, garlic, and ginger to your food.
Include raw juices and fruits like persimmons and ripe pineapple, which are rich in enzymes that help digestion and reduce inflammation. Consume soothing foods like soaked chia seeds and mashed avocado (which contains the enzyme lipase, which aids in the digestion of fats). Add these foods in gradually to your diet, a little at a time.
Keep a daily food journal to observe mood patterns and what foods are binge triggers and to promote awareness.
Skip This!
Eliminate caffeine, which can aggravate feelings of anxiety and depression and increase the desire to binge eat. Some people with eating disorders may actually have food intolerances such as to gluten, which when consumed can cause damage to the intestinal lining. This makes food abusers more likely to choose foods that require little digestion, such as sugar, white flour products, and alcohol, which are best avoided. Yeast overgrowth, also known as candida, can also be a contributing factor in eating disorders. Sugar feeds unfriendly yeast microorganisms, making them proliferate and you miserable. You can learn more about beating sugar addiction in the book Beat Sugar Addiction Now! (Fairwinds Press 2010).
This Treatment For Anorexia & Bulimia article is taken from :
The Country Almanac of Home Remedies - Brigitte Mars
