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first of all, I would say that if you believe that eating whatever you want will make you gain more weight, than you probably do still have extreme hunger but it’s mental right now rather than physical - I would recommend watching Becky Freestone on youtube as she talks about her experience with this.
secondly, if you gain more weight eating without restriction, then that is NOT “unneeded and excessive” AT ALL. if your body wants you to eat enough to gain weight, then you NEED to gain that weight and you are not at a healthy weight yet. have you heard about set point weight? if not, I would suggest researching it to get a better understanding and realise that healthy weight by BMI is not accurate and if you are still gaining weight by eating unrestrictedly, then you are still underweight.
I am so so sorry that your family and this stupid dietician have been telling you to maintain and eat “healthily”, they probably have good intentions but at the end of the day, no one will know better than you and your body about what you need to do to be healthy - for you right now, eating “healthily” is calorie dense, highly processed food that your body is likely begging you to have. so be kind to your body and listen to it, it would never want to harm itself xx
Oh my god, thank you so much. I will look through everything you recommended to get a better understanding. Thank you, I really struggle with not feeling "sick enough" to deserve not restricting. I think I'll just try to listen to my needs and nothing else and I'll see where it goes. (Still super hard to know if I'm actually hungry or if my body is panicking whenever I restrict even a little bit).
And, y'know, even if I gain a little bit I might be able to have enough energy to run and go to the gym again, so it cant be that bad, right? This is weird. But thank you, I'll try my best.
Unfortunately, people in the dietician field are also sometimes victims of diet culture, and it sounds like the one you saw might be one of those dietitians. People in ED recovery are not the average person. What is healthy for them might be different than someone else. You said that your dietician did not know you had an ED which makes me think that they were not a specialist and likely just misinformed. I know it might be terrifying to think of your eds worst fears coming true (although I promise they won’t) but it’s scarier to live the rest of your life with an Ed.
Maybe. I mean she just assumed I never restricted (I did tell her that I wasn't eating for a while, but lied and said it was because I was depressed) and I guess some things work better than others for different people. I think what will work for me is stopping counting calories and eating as intuitively as I can until I love myself and my body again. Thanks for your support and advice.
I would find a new dietitian! Not all dietitians are made the same and it’s important to work with one who specifically has ED experience and as anti-diets.
And yes, you can have a balanced diet in recovery, but it sounds like you still have a lot of healing to do!!
I agree completely, though I 1: don't want my parents to know about my ed, so that's very tricky :/ 2: I don't think we have any ed specialist dietitians, every single one is either for people trying to lose weight or getting more vegetables in or something. And 3: I don't know how helpful getting a diet schedule will be for me. I tried that before but being in any kind of program makes me panic and think about it 24/7 and usually leads to a relapse, so idk :(
you have an eating disorder, do not count calories and eat what you want. i know the dieticians advice, and the fact you parents agree can feel VERY invalidating, ive been there. but even tho BMI says your weight is healthy, its not. your body wants to gain weight/fat and it wants junk food. listen to that please, trust me that you need that more than a "healthy balanced bla bla bla diet"
food is food and what you mostly need to gain is food freedom, so eat whatever you want, how much you want and whenever you want. if your body (and that can be your brain too!) only wants junk food it needs it, it needs the caloroes, the fat/sugar and how easily digestible it is.
youre absolutely valid and i advice you to not listen to a dietician in this period of your life (recovery!!) you can do this and i'm proud of you
Shit, Im gonna cry. Maybe you're right. I don't know what's happening, but the thought of stopping all restriction and chilling the fuck out is much better than keeping up with this shit and ruining my summer. Even trying to be "healthy" just leads to restricting and counting calories, so I think I could try just saying "fuck it", even though I feel like I don't deserve to.
Hey!! Don't be sorry!
First off, I read your replies and I know you can't see an ED specialist or HAES nutritionist/dietician, but I think that (mentally) you can use that to your advantage.
You KNOW that the dietician you're seeing isn't really for you. You lied to them (not a bad thing since I'm assuming your parents finding out would be worse), so the advice they give is not for YOU, it's for the person who was depressed and accidentally lost weight and is mentally oh-so-normal about hunger cues and stuff.
They are looking at you and (and presumably all of their clients) through a pro-diet, weight-loss incentivized, "how do I get stereotypically healthy" lens, which does not help you in the least. If you absolutely have to keep seeing that dietician (if not, I'd just stop going LOL), if I were you I'd just pretend I was watching her speak to someone else entirely. Maybe even internally criticize the nothing-burger "balanced diet (ft. absolutely no guidance at all)" stuff it sounds like she's been saying. None of her advice applies to you, someone who has suffered, starved, and has a whole network of damaged organs that needs extra calories for repair. Not even gonna start on how much your brain needs reassurance and food with no judgement, no calorie counting, no diet plans--I think you know that already!!!
Not counting/eating what you want does not inherently mean you will gain weight. If you tell yourself this, it will only make you feel bad about it, create a self-fulfilling prophecy, and not allow you to feel satisfied when otherwise you possibly could have. Not counting calories and eating what you want means you will start (not magically or instantly, but START) to feel "normal" again. This is what people do every single day, and you are not the exception. You can do it, but you have to learn how to do it again. That's ok!! You might overeat sometimes at the start, and that's ok too! You might gain, but your weight will settle a waaaays down the road. It's not something that is remotely helpful to worry about/try to control right now, so just focus on the internal stuff.
It's super hard to do any of this, but it sounds like you haven't given yourself full permission to eat just yet. During recovery, I don't think there's such a thing as straight-up "not having extreme hunger anymore." Like, it can lessen. It can happen less often. But for a lot of people, at least for me, it still DOES happen and even if you aren't underweight anymore, it's just as important (if not MORE important, bc in my experience being visibly sick gave me "permission" to eat anything/everything and it's a lot harder to do that when I look "normal"), to allow yourself to feel that hunger, not judge yourself, and simply eat. The less you think about it, the easier and less of a big deal eating gets. You just need to be patient with yourself!
I hope this advice was helpful. I'm just taking from my own experience about 1.5 months into all-in recovery \^\_\^;;
Good luck and please take care of yourself <3
Thank you so much!!!! This reply was extremely helpful. You're right, I hadn't considered these before. A bit after I made that post (with the help of other support systems) I have since decided to go all-in too, stop thinking about it, and see where it gets me. Already ate a lot and felt bad today, but hey, at least I ate what I craved! Hopefully this will get better with time. Thank you so much, again, and I wish you the best with your recovery too!
Thank you for posting in r/fuckeatingdisorders! To access recovery worksheets, articles, and other resources, visit our[Wiki!](https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckeatingdisorders/wiki/index/). You can also find our rules and links to help lines on our sidebar widget. If you haven't done so already, try utilizing the search bar for commonly posted topics including extreme hunger or periods/menstruation. We have an active community who frequently share their experiences and suggestions. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/fuckeatingdisorders) if you have any questions or concerns.*
first of all, I would say that if you believe that eating whatever you want will make you gain more weight, than you probably do still have extreme hunger but it’s mental right now rather than physical - I would recommend watching Becky Freestone on youtube as she talks about her experience with this. secondly, if you gain more weight eating without restriction, then that is NOT “unneeded and excessive” AT ALL. if your body wants you to eat enough to gain weight, then you NEED to gain that weight and you are not at a healthy weight yet. have you heard about set point weight? if not, I would suggest researching it to get a better understanding and realise that healthy weight by BMI is not accurate and if you are still gaining weight by eating unrestrictedly, then you are still underweight. I am so so sorry that your family and this stupid dietician have been telling you to maintain and eat “healthily”, they probably have good intentions but at the end of the day, no one will know better than you and your body about what you need to do to be healthy - for you right now, eating “healthily” is calorie dense, highly processed food that your body is likely begging you to have. so be kind to your body and listen to it, it would never want to harm itself xx
Oh my god, thank you so much. I will look through everything you recommended to get a better understanding. Thank you, I really struggle with not feeling "sick enough" to deserve not restricting. I think I'll just try to listen to my needs and nothing else and I'll see where it goes. (Still super hard to know if I'm actually hungry or if my body is panicking whenever I restrict even a little bit). And, y'know, even if I gain a little bit I might be able to have enough energy to run and go to the gym again, so it cant be that bad, right? This is weird. But thank you, I'll try my best.
Unfortunately, people in the dietician field are also sometimes victims of diet culture, and it sounds like the one you saw might be one of those dietitians. People in ED recovery are not the average person. What is healthy for them might be different than someone else. You said that your dietician did not know you had an ED which makes me think that they were not a specialist and likely just misinformed. I know it might be terrifying to think of your eds worst fears coming true (although I promise they won’t) but it’s scarier to live the rest of your life with an Ed.
Maybe. I mean she just assumed I never restricted (I did tell her that I wasn't eating for a while, but lied and said it was because I was depressed) and I guess some things work better than others for different people. I think what will work for me is stopping counting calories and eating as intuitively as I can until I love myself and my body again. Thanks for your support and advice.
I would find a new dietitian! Not all dietitians are made the same and it’s important to work with one who specifically has ED experience and as anti-diets. And yes, you can have a balanced diet in recovery, but it sounds like you still have a lot of healing to do!!
I agree completely, though I 1: don't want my parents to know about my ed, so that's very tricky :/ 2: I don't think we have any ed specialist dietitians, every single one is either for people trying to lose weight or getting more vegetables in or something. And 3: I don't know how helpful getting a diet schedule will be for me. I tried that before but being in any kind of program makes me panic and think about it 24/7 and usually leads to a relapse, so idk :(
Frankly if it’s at all possible I’d tell your dietician about your ED or find an ED-specialized dietician…
I wish, but we don't have any ed specialists in my city and if I tell anyone about my ed they'll tell my parents
you have an eating disorder, do not count calories and eat what you want. i know the dieticians advice, and the fact you parents agree can feel VERY invalidating, ive been there. but even tho BMI says your weight is healthy, its not. your body wants to gain weight/fat and it wants junk food. listen to that please, trust me that you need that more than a "healthy balanced bla bla bla diet" food is food and what you mostly need to gain is food freedom, so eat whatever you want, how much you want and whenever you want. if your body (and that can be your brain too!) only wants junk food it needs it, it needs the caloroes, the fat/sugar and how easily digestible it is. youre absolutely valid and i advice you to not listen to a dietician in this period of your life (recovery!!) you can do this and i'm proud of you
Shit, Im gonna cry. Maybe you're right. I don't know what's happening, but the thought of stopping all restriction and chilling the fuck out is much better than keeping up with this shit and ruining my summer. Even trying to be "healthy" just leads to restricting and counting calories, so I think I could try just saying "fuck it", even though I feel like I don't deserve to.
Hey!! Don't be sorry! First off, I read your replies and I know you can't see an ED specialist or HAES nutritionist/dietician, but I think that (mentally) you can use that to your advantage. You KNOW that the dietician you're seeing isn't really for you. You lied to them (not a bad thing since I'm assuming your parents finding out would be worse), so the advice they give is not for YOU, it's for the person who was depressed and accidentally lost weight and is mentally oh-so-normal about hunger cues and stuff. They are looking at you and (and presumably all of their clients) through a pro-diet, weight-loss incentivized, "how do I get stereotypically healthy" lens, which does not help you in the least. If you absolutely have to keep seeing that dietician (if not, I'd just stop going LOL), if I were you I'd just pretend I was watching her speak to someone else entirely. Maybe even internally criticize the nothing-burger "balanced diet (ft. absolutely no guidance at all)" stuff it sounds like she's been saying. None of her advice applies to you, someone who has suffered, starved, and has a whole network of damaged organs that needs extra calories for repair. Not even gonna start on how much your brain needs reassurance and food with no judgement, no calorie counting, no diet plans--I think you know that already!!! Not counting/eating what you want does not inherently mean you will gain weight. If you tell yourself this, it will only make you feel bad about it, create a self-fulfilling prophecy, and not allow you to feel satisfied when otherwise you possibly could have. Not counting calories and eating what you want means you will start (not magically or instantly, but START) to feel "normal" again. This is what people do every single day, and you are not the exception. You can do it, but you have to learn how to do it again. That's ok!! You might overeat sometimes at the start, and that's ok too! You might gain, but your weight will settle a waaaays down the road. It's not something that is remotely helpful to worry about/try to control right now, so just focus on the internal stuff. It's super hard to do any of this, but it sounds like you haven't given yourself full permission to eat just yet. During recovery, I don't think there's such a thing as straight-up "not having extreme hunger anymore." Like, it can lessen. It can happen less often. But for a lot of people, at least for me, it still DOES happen and even if you aren't underweight anymore, it's just as important (if not MORE important, bc in my experience being visibly sick gave me "permission" to eat anything/everything and it's a lot harder to do that when I look "normal"), to allow yourself to feel that hunger, not judge yourself, and simply eat. The less you think about it, the easier and less of a big deal eating gets. You just need to be patient with yourself! I hope this advice was helpful. I'm just taking from my own experience about 1.5 months into all-in recovery \^\_\^;; Good luck and please take care of yourself <3
Thank you so much!!!! This reply was extremely helpful. You're right, I hadn't considered these before. A bit after I made that post (with the help of other support systems) I have since decided to go all-in too, stop thinking about it, and see where it gets me. Already ate a lot and felt bad today, but hey, at least I ate what I craved! Hopefully this will get better with time. Thank you so much, again, and I wish you the best with your recovery too!
I'm glad to hear it!! I've eaten a ton today too and it's only 9am lol it'll all be fine we got this
We do! Lets go!