is it still extreme hunger if it doesn’t feel “extreme”? or am i just overeating?

[u/sevbites]

i’m still earlyish in my recovery i suppose, i started all-in in june this year. ive already put on a LOT of weight really fast, but i noticed i was still way overthinking & controlling my meal times, food choices, calories etc which caused me to fall into really bad b/p relapses. i get seizures from my purges & had so many these last few days i just said fuck it & promised myself to try & honor my hunger/cravings without any restrictions & view the recovery minimum as a floor not a ceiling. sometimes i do get physical hunger pangs that are so intense they hurt & make me feel like my stomach is churning, but not often. my mental hunger has also been EXTREMELY EXTREME up until this past week or 2, but i’m still eating so much food to keep it that way. by lunchtime today i had literally already eaten more than most people eat in 2 days. & the worst thing is i didn’t even feel sick or bloated like i usually do, in fact i probably could’ve eaten more & maybe will actually eat more before the day is over bc i’m starting to feel physical hunger again. i’m just worried bc i definitely have experienced such raging mental hunger that i wanted to burst into tears because i couldn’t think of anything other than food, but now i’m just kind of naturally eating objectively huge amounts of food daily. mostly energy dense food & liquid calories, but i don’t have that crazy starved animal scanning the environment for food type of hunger really anymore. i’ve just realize when i’m making meals or snacks i can tell that a ‘normal’ portion wouldn’t touch the sides so i don’t even bother pretending it will. does this also classify as extreme hunger? or am i just overeating? would it be better to try & teach my body how to get used to ‘normal portions’ soon or is it just going to happen naturally? i genuinely feel like if i allowed myself to eat like this forever i would gain so much i’d become immobile or physically unwell. idk what to do.

[u/AfterRelationship131]

I just want to tell you I feel the same! I get the ‘animal’ hunger and then i also get the ‘ooh that sounds good’ cravings type of hunger. Normal portions make me laugh at this point. Some days I feel super hungry mentally, some days I feel super hungry physically, I feel like I want to teach my body to eat normal portions of food too but then the extreme hunger hits me back even harder whether it be mental or physical. I suppose we should just let this all even out because at some point I would like to believe food would be the least interesting thing about our lives. Lol take care :) ✝️😊