Hiru to Yoru no Oishii Jikan - Vol. 2 Ch. 8

Highly, highly insensitive question, and I'm sorry for asking this, but I've been curious for a while now -- how do people with eating disorders this extreme survive? Like, physically? She seems to subsist on nothing but coffee, and she seems to be drinking it black and not a frappuccino or anything that might give her calories to go on.

It's wonderful to see the slow, subtle healing process she's going through, delivered with a gentle non-judgmental tone by the mangaka, but she's still...not eating.
 
@Kiraidesu They usually don't. From the conversation with her friend, it sounds like she's been doing this for a long time. So unless she DOES eat sometimes, she'd be long dead if this was real life.
 
I have issues with eating. I tend to vomit whenever I eat something not completely solid or liquid(it has to be fully one or the other). I thought I wanted to answer Kiraidesu's question from my perspective, but, after typing it out, I couldn't submit it. Sorry.
 
This is definitely a better place to start than meals, but shouldn't he go the route of things she can already eat (i.e.coffee) –> broth –> soup –> simple grains –> food? (Someone I'm close to was anorexic due to psychological problems (as opposed to self-image and control being an element) and that's the sort of route that it took.)

@icarushector My impression was that it was her mother's reaction to the event that caused it, not the soup. Aside from which, "soup" is a very broad category. All I meant is that liquids can be easier to digest, and if she hasn't eaten in a long time that will be a problem. While your point about associations and memory is indeed a fair one, that just means that she'd need to avoid that particular type of soup, since soup is such a broad category. E.g. if it's miso soup which she associates with the event, then she can just avoid miso soup, and have other soups instead; if she associates bisques with that event, then she can just avoid those, etc.
 
@Sarsak thank you for your response. So I assume her rare meals are off-screen for the most part. Maybe avoidance of any eating in front of others was one of the main issues? It was hinted at with her mother...

@SoloSera absolutely understandable. Thank you.
 
@blackLuna Seeing as soup was the original food that was defiled in her heart, I feel like the order is gonna be different. I also feel like home cooked would be tougher to swallow than convenience store stuff. Either way, it's really sweet watching her slowly let him in, with his food.
 
@kiraidesu could be taking supplements and mainly eating only when necessary. Staying without eating isn't as difficult for the body as without water after it adapts to the change of very little food intake, though it takes a lot of perseverance to do it willingly still. she could mainly drink water, coffee and other drinks to "fill" herself and cover any weakness through medication unless her body really can't take no more and she has no other option than to eat anything

still very unhealthy all around and its a surprise she doesn't looks even worse.
 
@blackLuna it was the incident with the soup that lead to the expression that she hated. Also of note, the scene where she first expresses discomfort caused by the association is in fact soup. Because memory is key, and certain senses like smell and taste are strong memory triggers, something so closely tied to the inciting event is probably never going to be on her "I want to eat this" list ever again.

That said, the progression you listed is a good, safe progression for returning to food. Suddenly going from supplement shakes and a bottle of vitamins to dense home cooked meals is a recipe for serious discomfort as your digestive system relearns how to handle food. I had a phase where I subsisted on primarily protein shakes and "real meals" almost always put my guts in knots.
 
@Kiraidesu

Maybe she uses a kind of nutrition bag (according to wiki it's called a "total parenteral nutrition (TPN) or total nutrient admixture (TNA)" When you have little to no other calorie intake, it bypasses the stomach and digestion track since you quite literally have it injected into your veins. )
 
This kind of consideration... she really is a good caretaker for him, in her own way. And maybe like this she can build up positive associations with eating again.
 

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