Food shopping with my therapist...

[sleep]

Hey :)
I see an occupational therapist, and next week I have to go food shopping with her, with the objective of cooking a meal, then we'll go back to my house and cook a meal. She's made it clear that I'm not expected to eat the meal (I'm going to put it in portion-sized containers in the freezer for my mum to have).
I don't really see the point of this exercise but I know my mum's going to ask me how this is meant to help me or what it's meant to be getting at, so does anyone have any ideas? I thought maybe someone else has done this as part of their treatment?
Thanks x

[JEANNE]

I had to do something similar when I was in-patient. had to go out to lunch with my nutritionist. Mexican restaur4ant, no less! I hate Meican food for the pure reason of high cal food, spicy, etc. Anyway, I think the purpose was to take the fear out of eating in sight of others, to make the process of eating out just a "normal" thing and to just get me out of my safe zone. It was awful, but i survived. She also made me make a grocery list for when I went home...... none of which I purchased later at home! I'm stubborn.

Anyway, I think the point is just to normalize food shopping, cooking and eventually eating? good luck!!

[SeaFeel]

How did the shopping/cooking go?

The interesting part for me in this task is that you won't have to eat it. It makes such a difference! If you're cooking for your mum, you'll probably won't worry so much about the calories, will spend less time checking the nutrition facts at shopping, then the cooking part might actually be FUN. Like for "normal" people, a source of enjoyment.

I had to eat an entire Twix bar at the beginning of a therapy session once. My therapist said she wanted to show me i wont die doing it and i probably wont gain instantly. Also this way i could absolutely not purge it, the session was 60min. To my surprise, it wasn't as bad as i thought. It was like something your doctor tells you to do, and you just do it even if its unpleasant b/c you trust him and know its part of treatment. Still it would be totally different doing it on my own.

What other things did you have to do during therapy? Would be interesting to hear different approaches & how useful you think they are?

[sleep]

Thanks for your replies. I haven't done it yet - it's happening a week tuesday, but I'll let you know how it goes x

[sleep]

hey :)
the shopping was fine. we just bought stuff and then went back to my house and made a pasta bake. My therapist left within minutes of me taking it out of the oven. I still have no idea what the benefit was meant to be...
In a superficial way I was really glad and relieved that I wasn't made to eat any of it, but at the same time I do want to recover and I know that won't happen if no one pushes me to do the stuff I'm afraid of.

[JEANNE]

oh, good for you. maybe the point is that the more normal things you do around food, the more normal you can feel around food & maybe it takes some of the fear out of food? I don't know, I have alot alot of rules that keep me safe with foood... and if I were pushed "challenged" to confront those rules it would be so hard but ultimately good. more normality, I suppose. Anyway, good for you. you let me borrow hope from you regarding recovery!