Margarita Tartakovsky of Psychcentral always has interesting blogs on the topic of eating disorders. In her post, “The Voice of an Easting Disorder and 7 Ways to Shut It Up,” she offers wonderful techniques for folks with disordered eating to try to quiet the eating disordered voice. To get to her original post, click here. I have excerpted her tips below.

Still, you may be thinking that the ED voice is too strong. So was Shannon’s.

Because her ED voice seemed omnipotent, she started to silence it in subtle but key ways. She developed a system. First, she bought books on the nutritional benefits of food, and would read them every time she ate. After much practice, her thoughts turned to food’s benefits and eating healthfully. When it was time for lunch at work, she also picked a “food model,” a person whose eating habits she would follow. She had two requirements for her model: 1. a person she genuinely admired for her heart and who inspired her to recover and 2. a person Shannon knew didn’t have an eating disorder and whose weight remained stable.

3. Parent your mind.

Shannon used this practice while eating, too. Any time the ED voice told her to starve, binge, purge or to do something else unhealthy, she’d turn to a healthy coping mechanism.

In another section of Beating Ana, she recommends creating a list of five healthy coping behaviors. This is similar to creating an inspiration box. Next time your ED voice tells you to engage in something unhealthy, go straight to your list. Shannon’s mind would then focus on picking out which coping strategy to do first.

4. Name your feelings.

When the ED voice starts ranting and raving about feeling fat, instead of listening and agreeing, think about what you are really feeling. Instead of “feeling fat,” are you angry, frustrated, upset, disappointed, hurt? Identify your feelings. So the next time that ED voice says you’re just feeling fat and disgusting, delve into what’s actually going on.

Exploring your feelings may bring about more pain, but it’s better than bottling them up or not feeling anything, and having them explode with ED behaviors. And, as Therese Borchard said in her interview, “Or, if I can, I just try to put a name and face to the voice (Ed, standing for eating disorder), and tell him to go to hell.”

5. Learn about yourself.

Another way to silence the ED voice is to know the real you, to start building a strong sense of self. Shannon writes: “Creating and maintaining a strong self-identity apart from the eating disorder is a surefire way to set your mind on a firm path toward saving your own life, as you really get to know the new you, who has so much to offer, who has so much potential and promise, and who is so worth saving!”

Shannon includes a list of questions you can ask yourself, from the basic to the thought-provoking. You can start with basics like asking yourself what you like, your favorite music, your hobbies, and work toward more thoughtful questions, like asking yourself about your goals, your dream job, your dream life.

Kate did something similar, too, as she explains in her Q&A. She said:

Something else that helped me was to make two lists: “Who and What I Am” and “People Who Love Me Just the Way I Am.” For the first one, define who you really are, such as “good friend,” “animal lover,” “writer,” “Cubs fan,” etc., instead of labeling yourself as your eating disorder. The other list should be obvious. Think hard and include everyone. The list will be much longer than you think. Add to both lists as new ideas come to you.

6. Ignore it.

I know this is much much easier said than done. But even though you may hear the ED voice, it doesn’t mean you have to listen to it. Kendra Sebelius, eating disorder survivor and tireless advocate, said to me in her Q&A:

I may have stinky-thinking sometimes, but those thoughts do not hold the power they once had over me. In the end it comes back to me being accountable and a driver in my own recovery. I recently went to NY and was at a restaurant where there were caloric postings. This had an extreme reaction in my head. I was actually surprised at my negative reaction to the menu. My first thought was “oh shit I can’t eat anything on here.” I have no control over that first instinctual thought. But I do have the ability to not listen to that voice and know it’s lying, and ridiculous. I was able to move on and enjoy the meal after some initial anxiety.

7. Talk to your ED.

To really hear yourself, have a conversation with the ED voice. This helped Kate. She said:

A few weeks into this semester, I began wearing clothes that I had not worn since last spring, and my pants were on the snug side. The latent eating disorder voice piped up and said, “Oh, no problem–I know how to take care of this,” meaning that I should restrict my food and increase my exercise, and the weight would come off. My voice, however, said, “No, I’m not willing to do that,” and I called my dietitian, whom I hadn’t needed to see in over a year, and set up an appointment. Ultimately, we decided that I didn’t need to do anything–that my body was settling at a new set point, and that I was not willing to “diet” just to make my clothes fit. My dietitian was amazed at the change in attitude from the person she had started counseling two years prior.

A technique that one of my therapists taught me to use when I was being plagued by distressing thoughts was to write dialogues between me and the eating disorder. This can be a tremendously empowering exercise, as it helps you to separate out what you want versus what the eating disorder is trying to make you think you want.

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