Eating the Same Meal each day

I can eat fish and rice seven nights a week and am just wondering if this is an autism thing? 

Is it comfort through repetition maybe?  ......(seems unlikely).

Do others here have similarly bad dietry habits?

Ben

  • Ann, thank you for your post, I clearly am not alone in my dietary habits; there are now about ten of us on this thread.

    I’m sorry to read what a time you’ve had with digestive issues, and I’m glad to see that you’re making good progress. ‘Routine makes me feel safe’, you say. Well, I think all of us here understand you there.

    I don’t think I actually have a problem, my meals are usually healthy, just rather similar.  

    I note your warning regarding the eating disorder services.

    Ben

  • Yep - it’s an autism thing And comfort through repetition - i have gone through phases like that too- only rice and fish, cucumber and strawberries for a year. Then I had a pizza and tiramisu phase . I spent 6 months eating same meals in same order each day (toast with prawns and crackers) and the most recent phase was only eggs 1 brand of whole meal rolls, apples and carrots… i was misdiagnosed with anorexia nervosa despite being desperate to gain weight. It was quite damaging and things only started to make sense when i got the autism diagnosis. I have IBS and lots of digestive issues, made worse by stress, routine makes me feel safe, changes are scary so before I know it I get more and more stuck on same food pattern. Being bad at distinguishing hunger nausea and overfullness doesn’t help.

    But thanks to now knowing I am autistic and my dietitian I have quite a varied diet now and am in much much better health.

    You could also look into ARFID though at least in my area there is no support for people with ARFID and I personally would recommend staying away from eating disorder services when it comes to autism related eating challenges- i had very bad experiences- it cost me years.

  • hahahaha that was my problem = too expensive to buy individually, so I bought the multipacks and it seems a waste to just have 3 in a packet...they'll get lonely missing one of their friends = reunite them in my tummy!

  • Ah ha!... the truth is coming out now.

    Ben

  • Oh Bimmer Lady,  I'm with you on the mint aeros... ooh yes..... they come in four packs! 

    How can one only eat one?

    Ben

  • Having said this now I think about it I went through a period of a couple of months when I was basically living off pasta with a tomato and chilli sauce (or maybe it was Thai red curry paste but same idea) I’m back to a more varied diet now -   I only have pasta once a day instead of two or more times a day.

  • So i have certain foods that literally make me want to scream or projectile on sight - extreme response i know. i too go through phases and can normally say "its too much to work out WHAT to cook...easier to skip the meal". then i turn to my food of the moment and just indulge in that - at the moment its jam tarts. previously lists of my faves = cheese and tuna toasted sandwiches, cold meatballs, beligan buns, mint aero...i could go on...mine tends to be in cycles and once i dont like it, i almost go off it completely and find something new and stick to that, until im 'bored' of it again. 

  • I found three meals that don't give me stomach ache and now I eat them every day. I don't think it's a bad dietary habit, I think it's an efficient and sensible way of fueling myself.

  • I have just like the same 3/4 set meals which I just repeat over and then suddenly that’s it, I will go off something and never want it again. 
    I got obsessed by asparagus and would have it like five times a week at least, and now the thought of asparagus gives me the heeby jeebys! 

  • Yes, depending on which restaurants you used they often use various colourings / additives which you won’t use at home.

  • I daily eat food from restaurants which caused stomach problem, but now i eat only home made food and i am fine now.

  • I think it is an autism thing. Personally I eat the same things for 2 reasons. Nobody ever gives me cooking lessons, so the things I can cook are limited, so I eat the same thing for a while and then when I get fed up with that I move onto something else. Otherwise I get fed up with everything all at the same time and I don't know what to eat. And because it saves time choosing when I buy food if I just buy the same food the majority of the time.

    As far as I know I have a balanced, reasonably healthy diet. It's just not a varied diet.

  • I like food! Any chance of you making something for me?

  • Sensitive topic for me.

    Since I got an air fryer as a present last Christmas, I've had chicken wings around 5 days a week.  A very bad habit and restricted diet.  Disappointed relieved

  • I have a really broad spectrum of foods I can and will eat, but I get stuck in a hyper fixation for a period usually of weeks or months. The most recent one was chicken pie with gravy and also tuna pate on toast. So I'd just eat those things for days/weeks, etc. 

    Prior to that was wraps, so i'd eat maybe halloumi or chicken and salad in a wrap, but everything was in a wrap. Where I live there is no fast food or take aways, but I think if I had that near by I would probably never cook. 

  • I tend to go that way just from anxiety. If I feel like I can eat cheese on toast and be okay, that part of me in the back of my head says that maybe if I have peanut butter on toast it could be a disaster. 

    I try pretty hard to mix things up at least a little because the more you get in the habit of doing the same thing, the harder it gets to break out. And the harder it is to deal if you suddenly can't have what you always do. 

  • I make and bake, don't worry! Joy

    Usually not for myself though..

  • Now Pegg, I'd got the impression from the forum that you were an all round keen cook and baker of  a scrumptiously large number of exceptionaly fine cakes.

    Please don't shatter that image.

    Ben

  • I eat the same things a lot of the time. My whole dietary repertoire is quite limited. 

    I've always been the same! 

    I'm quite interested in food - it's just a fairly narrow interest! Slight smile

  • Or is it that you are so deeply interested in other things that you don’t have the time or the room to think about food and just eat something for the sake of eating something?

    Hmmm, you may be right there, I don't find cooking interesting.

    I do vary my diet a little sometimes, especially in the depths of winter when  I  make a reasonble nutroast which feeds me for three days, but the preparation is indeed onerous.

    Ben

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