If you suffer from an eating disorder or obesity and are searching for a solution, it’s important to know that not all help is equal. Eating disorder treatment is extremely expensive ($1,000 a day) and so is on-going therapy. And how can you be sure that the treatment you are seeking will work?

Having been helping people with eating disorders, weight loss and addictions for 20 years, and having overcome an eating disorder myself, I have identified 5 key points that I believe are crucial for successful treatment. When researching your options, have this checklist available. The closer your options come to meeting these criteria, the better your chance of success.

1. Be cautious of "cures". Despite having lived free from the food problem for 20 years I don’t consider myself cured. "Cured" is a tricky term so I suggest that before you buy anyone’s claim to "cure" you of your eating disorder you do a little detective work. An anorexic who gains weight and a bulimic stop stops purging may be considered "cured". So may an obese person who loses significant weight.

My experience with all eating disorders is that eliminating the immediate symptom does not end the more persistent compulsion and obsession with food and weight – another significant component of the problem. A life time of obsession and dependence on the eating disorder as a life coping tool cannot be cured in 30 days. This doesn’t mean someone has to struggle with food the rest of their lives either. But recovery requires vigilance in self-awareness and self improvement. Don’t be tempted by a "quick fix". Seek a real solution based on ongoing inner and outer change and you will come to appreciate the life lessons the eating disorder is here to teach you.

2. Seek help from those who have "been there". We have been used to being told by well meaning therapists, doctors, dieticians and coaches to just "eat less, exercise more, moderate your portions, etc." It’s sound advice but close to impossible to follow at times if you’re a real emotional eater. There is a "disconnect" when you are trying to get help from someone who doesn’t truly know how you feel. Somebody who has not lived the hell you are living (the self-hatred, the insanity of the food obsession and the powerlessness to control oneself, etc.) will have trouble reaching you because in the back of your mind you are thinking: "they don’t really understand". It’s too easy to tune them out – feeling even more isolated and alone with our problems than ever.

The bottom line is that getting help from those who have actually "been there" and overcome it (that’s important) is the only way to receive help in the deepest way. Not only will the information make sense because it’s based on personal experience and not book knowledge (which has never worked for us) but it will penetrate into our hearts. Our hearts open when we believe that those who are helping us truly understand what we are going through.

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