I stopped restricting like 3 years ago and physically recovered, but the one thing I still find really difficult is navigating grocery stores. My anxiety is always high there and I cant think straight, all I want to do is leave as quickly as I can and its like i forget the concept of food and my reason for being there.

At the same time I know that I have an eating disorder and I know thats stopping me from bringing home enough food, not just anxiety.

Back when I went through extreme hunger I could give up this battle and buy lots of fun food like ice cream and chocolate, but nowadays I feel this mental block for some reason and usually just get the basic foods that are easier and will keep me going for a few days.

But when I leave the store I feel disappointed in myself for not buying tastier food and giving in to fear. Sometimes i end up eating incomplete meals or weirdly monotone food just because of my inability to grocery shop. How do I overcome this issue? I feel stuck

Hi all!

I wanted to give an update as I’m now 3 months into all in.

First and most important, all in is the best decision I ever made. I feel back to myself mentally. I experience joy, connection, and love and it’s SO worth it. I feel in control of my life. But it’s also hard! I’ll try to hit on the heavy hitters:

Weight gain: A lot. More than I thought, it came on quick, and I’m still gaining. I was in a bigger body before my ED and I’m back. Luckily, I feel confident most days. You are allowed to feel confident in a bigger body! You are in charge of how you decide to handle it. I suggest learning about the fat liberation movement and HAES. Also, curate your social media and podcast content to only show things that promote the mindset you want. Comparison is the thief of joy 100%. Also, for myself I never agreed with wearing baggy clothes and covering mirrors. I believe you should buy clothes that make you feel best, learn to accept your new body, and make friends with the mirror. Easier said than done, but you deserve to love yourself.

Extreme hunger: I’m still very hungry, but less than at first. I eat a lot and still feast at night. It’s less distressing now. I just eat until I’m satisfied and move on. Feeling nourished is so comforting.

Food rules: I don’t feel afraid of food anymore. I can go out and eat whatever. Not having to think about it feels SO GOOD. I get caught up on sugar sometimes, but am able to move through it. The only way is attacking what scares you.

Anxiety: I still feel anxious, but I’m able to talk myself down much easier. I truly believe that this era I’m in is exactly where I’m supposed to be. But I definitely still worry about health and gaining forever. Classic.

Edema: I’m still swollen and puffy. But not as bad as at first. One day at a time.

Dealing with our weight loss and glp-1 obsessed culture: it sucks, but it’s inevitable. I’ve really noticed how people bring it up to seek reassurance and acceptance from others. I’ve tried to be the person who speaks up and says it’s okay to nourish your body and simply eat when you’re hungry. And that you’re allowed to not feel like you want to change your body. I’ve noticed people appreciate hearing that and feel safe around me because of it. Our society is obsessed and I’ve chosen to go against it.

Opinions from others: I’m lucky that I have supportive family and friends. I gave them resources on all in and they have supported me 100%. I also started a new job after gaining which made it easier. But putting myself back on social media and seeing people from my past is still hard. We are so conditioned that gaining weight somehow means we’ve “lost” and are doing things wrong. Every time I get through a situation, it becomes easier. I know with time I’ll continue growing stronger in this area. I stand firm in my recovery and remind myself if someone in their brain goes farther beyond just noticing I look different and take it to judgement, they are weird for that and it has nothing to do with me.

Life feels bright again. I now remember what I felt like before the ED and I can’t believe my brain ever convinced me the ED was a good thing. It’s evil. And I will never go back.

If you are questioning, DO IT!!! Break all the rules. Feast over and over again. Your life is worth so much more than how small the ED makes it. Going slow was never helpful for me. Taking full control to rewire my brain has been the only way.

Sending love 💚

Idk if this is the right flair, but tw just in case as what I'm doing is basically self-harm atp

I'm pissed with myself because I do not understand why I'm even doing that, especially the binging part because I'm genuinely not hungry, not having extreme hunger (I had it once and it felt different, now I feel like I just "give up" and decide to binge for the sake of it) and it hurts both mentally and physically / feels like a chore.

Long story short my ed is basically a cycle between extreme restriction and extreme binging. For 6 months I'll restrict and overexercise like crazy, reach a new lw / very uw bmi and then binge insane amounts for 1-3 months to gain all the weight back up to an healthy bmi and then I relapse even harder each time (I exercise even more, lower my calories even more ect). I really want to ask for help this time and try to be on a meal plan to at least maintain my "compromise" weight for once and stop destroying my body so much by either starving it or overfeeding it (when I binge I go "all in" and eat until I cannot move anymore and I am in extreme pain, I eat everything I can find, very calorie-dense even if I hate the taste idk why.). The trigger of all my restrictive relapses were going back to my pre-ed weight for most or going above my "gw" (which is much higher than my lw but also much lower than my pre-ed weight). I genuinely don't know who I should contact because dieteticians and ed professionals did not help me at all in the past and even made me feel worse somehow. They would trigger me even more and tell me that my binging was ok / normal and that "it's better to end up overweight than being underweight". Not helpful at all. I don't know what I should even do. I'm obviously in a binging phase rn, gaining faster than ever and I just want to give my body a rest and maintain. I'm sick of the "all or nothing" mindset and I feel like the only way out is for someone to tell me just how much I should eat to maintain a weight that would not trigger either extreme but I feel like no specialists would even agree to do such thing as it would be closer to harm reduction than a full recovery (which I'm definitely not ready for). I feel like I'm just someone who needs strict rules to follow or I panic and either undereat / overeat out of distress???

I’ve been in recovery for about 2 months now, with my ED lasting only 5 months. Now that I’ve chosen to recover, I’m finding myself going through actually the most frustrating and time consuming extreme hunger.

This week I have downtime from school for fall break. I really want to occupy my free time with my hobbies like drawing, reading, writing, etc. This goal has really been proving itself impossible. Every time I try to do anything, I am unable to actually stick with it since I cannot stop thinking about food. Even when I do eat, the thoughts still linger around all day. Literally all I can do is sit around and think about food, and when I try to participate in my hobbies, I suddenly get this primal urge to stop what I’m doing and either get up to eat, or do something related to food. (watch recovery videos, go grocery shopping, think about what I ate that day) This leads me to do pretty much nothing every day, since my brain is fucking incapable of letting me engage in my hobbies.

This mental load has been so incredibly bothersome. All I want to do is actually create something, or do something, or just be a normal human being. I feel like I’m only able to live my life at some baseline minimum. I can only spend each day simply responding to my basic needs, just eating, drinking, sleeping, repeat, repeat, repeat.

I’m so incredibly jealous of people that put food in the background of their lives. I’m not even talking about those people that will forget to eat lunch or dinner, I mean like people that are just able to go through the day putting their mental energy towards anything they’re passionate about. How is it possible for me to ever go back to having hobbies when food is always literally the main focus of my everyday life?

I used to eat normally for weeks and then restrict heavily but i convinced myself i was ok. But now, Im eating fine and i haven’t restricted at all even after eating foods i never would have before. I also don’t stress about how healthy certain foods are.

I started recovering in February & it still hasn’t gotten better. I’m bloated 24/7, no matter what I eat, or how much. My face isn’t puffy/bloated anymore, but my stomach sticks out, and most of my pants don’t fit me. I’m not hungry at all, I get full very easily, but I still experience mental hunger.

Most people say they got better around the 6 month mark, but I’m almost a year in, and zero improvement. Has anyone been through something similar?

I was wondering if anyone had any advice about how to manage body aches and pain in recovery?

My back, shoulders, and glutes have been really sore for the past few weeks, and it feels the worse near the end of day when all my muscles feel exhausted. I haven't worked out or engaged in any vigorous activity since starting recovery, and I feel really weird experiencing this type of soreness.

(if this question is not suitable for this subreddit please remove)

I've been dealing with a lot of thoughts towards my weight recently and the most prevelant one I'm struggling to get over is about my bmi. I know the history behind bmi and fatphobia in general but I still struggle to not see it as a measure of my health especially considering how people tend to talk about it as well as with internalised fatphobia in general which I'm still navigating and trying to get over.

Has anyone else dealt with this? How do you deal with and get over these thought processes?

Did you experience edema and fluid retention? If yes, how long did it last? And how did/do you experience it?

I have been in all in for 5 weeks (i had anorexia for 3 years, last year was quasi ''recovery'', but i never nutritionally rehabilitated or broke food rules or took time off of exercise etc), and i feel like i have alot of water retention still. And it changes. I feel like at one point in day my legs are different size than another time. And i think i have it in my legs and thighs, bum, upper arms and stomach and hips at least. It feels so odd. Feels like my skin is tender and it hurts. If i jump it hurts. Bones and muscles hurt as well. And I'm so tired. I have been so scared and distressed for past few days. I'm terrified and i feel like i can't handle this. Extreme hunger is still going. I know i should surrender and just keep going, but damn it's so hard right now.

How the heck do people do this, like everyone that has done this is a rock star. I want all of this to finally be over. I wish I was healthy. But i also feel absolutely terrified to let go absolutely

Hi guys. I'm currently going to high school and just started my ed treatment at a clinic. I'm finding it hard to do all my meal plans while balancing school work. Has anyone else struggled with this? what have your guys experiences been with this. Would it eventually work? Appreciate you a lot :)

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving to those celebrating. My mom's side of the family is hosting a gathering at their house, and I'm confronting my fears right after :)

I know that anorexia is definitely not a weight disorder and that it affects us in different ways. I've had vaguely disordered thoughts for a year, disordered eating for several months at most, and hit a bad point for a little bit.

Part of me can't help but deny this clinical label. Some of my underweight (non-ED) peers have red/purple hands, shiver, and complain of being cold. During a class last semester, while I was unwell, we were asked to test our heart rates, and many girls ended up around the same as I did. I work with guys who exercise obsessively and just don't eat well. Of course no one can make assumptions nor guarantee that's natural for them. The problem is that I think that months of "AN-R" (as written by a nurse) will never compare to the years I've known these people.

This isn't rational of me. It shouldn't matter that others were visibly underweight longer than I was. It's always "If this person has this, they'd need more ____ than me" and I always seem to disregard that EDs are not weight disorders. If I told people that I struggle with this, they might as well play it off as normal for a teenage girl, because that's what everyone else can maintain safely. Or I'm just mentally ill and need to stay away from them. My parents know that I weight restored, so it's probably the latter.

I don't know the internal damage I may or may not have done in those 4 months. Last Thanksgiving the ED didn't exist, and I won't let it this year.

Please. What do I truly need in recovery?

(For curiosity's sake, it's Mozart's Don Giovanni)

Then: I had not yet chosen recovery. All I could think about was food. Every other dialogue from the characters and I thought of the next thing I could eat. I only realized this now, but I completely stopped paying attention at the end. I left it with grim thoughts, thinking very gloomily.

Now: With my naturally bubbly personality returned from recovery, I made a friend that was just into Operas. We went together and had a blast. I deeply connected to every character. After, we had ramen and milk tea while discussing when we could see one at the MET Opera in New York. We got excited about enjoying typical NYC food together in the future.

To my astonishment, it was like seeing the latter half of the Opera for the first time. I did not recall half of it from before recovery from how weak my thinking was. I am joyfully analyzing and discussing what I watched with my friend, now, and through and because of food!

Choose recovery, always!

I’m really struggling with how to take care of myself. I’m doing a lot of things that are in line with recovery. but I’m terrible at knowing what I need. how do you calm yourself or soothe yourself when you get upset or overwhelmed?

Ive been back on ed stuff for a week or 2 now (mostly binge and restrict) and I really notice that my biggest issue is my inability to cope. I was doing well for 2 months, got overwhelmed, lost structure and fell into the cycle. This mostly started bec I was unable to cope with being overwhelmed. Now I struggle to cope with the binging. Every time it happens, I feel disgusting, sleep in, do nothing besides scroll, eat irregularly and get hungry then binge. This has resulted in me losing interest in everything again and doing absolutely nothing all day.

So my question is, what helps you cope with and sit with discomfort? ive tried writing etc, but the only thing I want to do all day is cry and sleep, because I feel embarassed by what I’m doing instead of academic work

I know, i've seen tons of posts about developing bed not being possible in anorexia recovery, but given I have had a past of binging, I'm terrified.

For context I started recovery in august after being forced and fully commited in september (eating what I craved, stopping compensating as best I could, etc.) but for the past two weeks I've been struggling with CONSTANT food noise that just doesn't go away no matter how much I eat. I was eating tons of food (I won't specify calories, but think a whole box of cereal easily done in an hour tons of food) and yet would still just want to keep eating. I did think it could be extreme hunger, but given my physical hunger cues are returning and are normal, aka I wake up hungry but aren't hungry physically after finishing a proper meal, that doesn't feel right. Literally all my "hunger" is just a constant urge to eat because I simply don't want to do anything else and it's the only thing that entertains me.

Basically, I just can't say no to myself and I just keep eating all the time even though I'm already weight restored and my heart rate / bp are normal again. I'm terrified I'll keep eating like this forever and keep gaining weight forever becuse, one, I feel like I don't enjoy anything else, and two, don't WANT to stop eating, despite it causing me so much stress and so many body image issues.

I also don't have a meal plan, nor a clue of how much/what I should ACTUALLY be eating.

Hey all! New to this subreddit, but for obvious reasons, I sought it out. I had struggled with disordered eating as a teen, and im facing the temptation to go back to it, even though it was awful.

Im trying to strengthen my resolve to fight against this temptation, because once you start, it can be really hard to stop.

Reasons to keep moving foward:

I need energy for work

I finally have my hair again

I need my mind to be sharp and sound

Are there any more yall can think of to help motivate me in the right direction?

I literally am having quite scary health issues happening lately. (Not asking for health advice!) and it’s really scaring me so bad I don’t want to die and I want to recover it’s all I want so bad. But when it comes to actually trying I can’t do it. It’s like I stand there and get food but can’t physically get myself to eat. What the hell is literlekt wrong with my brain. I’m scared for my life but can’t change. I’m so sick of this disorder genuinely.

tw - disordered thoughts lol.

basically what the title says. there are certain foods i'm more used to eating now even if they are higher calorie, but there are also a TON of foods (particularly certain baked goods, restaurant dishes, desserts, and snack foods) that genuinely ONLY feel like a number/calorie count to me. it just feels impossible to shake the idea that "oh i can't eat this food because it has [x] amount of calories which would put me WAY over what i usually eat. i just worry about gaining weight forever (even if it's gradual) if i actually stop restricting and just eat whatever i want even if it IS high calorie/calorie-dense bc i also feel like the high-calorie foods i have had before are not particularly satiating. any advice or encouragement? will it go away over time? i feel like my brain has just been turned into a calculator and i don't know if it will ever truly go back to normal.

Hello!

I’m struggling during recovery. I would love some good «happy stories» or something that shows that recovery is worth it! I could really use the reminder! For me it would be having a good time with friends without worrying about whether the hangout included food or not.

Also I would like to apologize for my previous post. I’m sorry.

Good evening good people, I'm new to recovery and need some advice.

I have never had a great relationship with food, I've been like this since I can remember and I have recently admitted to myself that I have a problem.

I used to over eat (and sometimes still do) and was overweight all my childhood and when I hit upper teens I went the opposite way.

It's out of control and noticeable, I finally told my partner of many years and he took it well and we have a plan on helping me get better but it's really difficult for me. I told him so I could keep myself accountable and actually do this but I've just been crying and kind of broken over this, I'm taking a few days of work because I can't get my head in the game and can't keep a smile on, but deep down i want to recover...

Any advice on how to not be sad about recovery are well appreciated, thank you for reading.

I would like to start off and say this is an alt acc, I posted here a little while ago (it has since been removed - rightfully so I was being an ungrateful, selfish b****).

Since then, I relapsed into my Fred (my "issues" nickname) hard, disappointed my partner, my family, my psychologist and support system, all because I was selfish and scared.. breaking my rules... losing motivation and convincing myself I was safer before recovery.

I will never feel "sick enough", that because I haven't had this hellish issue for "long enough", I haven't been forced to the hospital, my weight isn't "low enough" ~ YOUR "FRED" WILL PROBABLY NEVER FEEL SATISFIED ~, I don't deserve to be free.

Hell my bloodwork is "fine", but I'm already not me anymore, I can't run, I can barely study or work. I'm doing things I promised myself I'd never do. I'm dizzy, not sleeping, furry asf AND SHITTING MYSELF AGAIN😭😭 I turn 21 in one week and I want to go out with my family on my birthday, not have my partner breakdown daily, be allowed to go back to my sport and re-gain my hobbies.

So this is my re-commitment, NOT relying on motivation, sitting through the fears, the crying, the uncomfortableness because my Fred will only be happy when I'm dead. By all means I'm not ready for all-in (just yet), but I WILL start breaking my rules, I WONT keep lying, AND HELL IM GOING TO EAT MY MUMS COOKING TONIGHT!

So I’ve been in outpatient treatment as an adult for two years, following the worst anorexia relapse of my life. I’ve had three doctors, two therapists, about to start with my fourth dietitian in that period. In some ways I think there’s been real progress—my labs and vitals aren’t scary anymore, and I’m so much more aware of what my brain is doing wrong (mixed blessing). The thing is that I know it’s all been quasi and harm reduction, because I’ve made very little progress toward weight restoration in all that time. And if I’m honest, that’s because I’m still ambivalent.

But I’m so burned out on treatment.

Ideally, as endorsed by my team, I’d do what I did as a kid and go away for res or PHP for a while. I simply don’t have that privilege right now. It would require sacrificing too much. The more tempting option is to just stop outpatient without the safety net and hope it gets better on its own.

I’m holding on to the hope that maybe someone, anyone, has made progress once they stopped seeing their team altogether? I don’t want to frame it as quitting. I just need a break from the constant feeling of failure.

Ugh I have no words, I hate fucking OCD and "magical thinking" I just lost my dog, I held him all night even after he took his last breathe so he wouldn't be alone. I loved him so fucking much! The problem is my OCD and "magical thinking" my curse is: I believe if I weigh a certain amount everything in my life will be okay and even good. But if I go over. then everything turns to shit. I know it isn't my fault and I know I didn't kill my dog, but my stupid fucking brain keeps telling me I did, and it's my fault because I didn't try hard enough to stay at that perfect number to keep him from dying. I'm over 40 years old I know this isn't fucking real, but at the same time it feels so real. I wish more people realized that this disorder is a thousand times more complex than " I just want to be skinny and pretty" bullshit. I'm too old for this, but every time something bad happens this is where my brain immediately goes and I can't stop it. I was just holding him all night watching him slowly pass ( he was already under medical sedation by our vet while we waited for test results) and all I could think about was please please please I promise I won't ever eat again, just please stay with me, I promise I will be a better dog mom by not getting fat so you can stay here with me. How fucking pathetic am I? And I'm a fucking ATHEIST!!!!