This blog is based on my personal experience. We are all individuals, and you should always do what is right for your own body.
When I went through extreme hunger in my recovery from Anorexia, my eating disorder told me that nobody on earth had ever experienced this. Mostly it told me that nobody on earth had eaten as much as I was eating. Ever.
Since working as a recovery coach for lots of adults in the same place I once was, I hear their eating disorders echo those thoughts and fears. One thing that has emerged loud and clear from those with whom I work is that they don’t need censorship from the truth. They don’t need to be told “eating a normal sized portion is good enough.” They need to be told that if they want to eat 20 times the regular portion size in one sitting that they can, and in fact, they must!
This is not something many people write about in detail. But it is the kind of post I wish I could have referenced when I was going through recovery eating. This is a post that you can look at whenever your eating disorder tells you that what you just ate is so much more than is normal or acceptable.
There is no “normal” in restrictive eating disorder recovery.
I know people in active recovery who have gone to their dietician and asked for an increase in food to be told something like “Whoa, take it easy … let’s not go too crazy.” And come away from the appointment with something stupid like one yoghurt added to their daily intake and even worst a feeling like they were being greedy or gluttonous for even wanting to eat more. It feels like some professionals feel the need to protect us from our own hunger in case …
In case what? In case we eat a lot and suddenly freak out about it? I only ever freaked out about eating a lot when I thought it was food I was not supposed to eat. I actually felt a lot more stable when I just set the upper intake limit of “Eat as much as you can and more.”
Freaking out about food is part of life when you are in recovery. I would just have easily freaked out over an extra spoonful of low-fat yoghurt as I would have a whole family-sized pizza. We are going through hell anyway so telling us that eating as much as we really want to is not a good idea is not going to take that away, only prolong the agony. Most of us are begging for permission to actually eat the quantity that we know we need to in order to not be restricting.
If you need permission to eat. Here is your permission. Not only should you eat as much as you want, it is the only correct choice if you are in recovery from a restrictive eating disorder.
Here are just a couple of the things I did in extreme hunger — all of which were instances that happened alongside the large volume of food I was already eating each day at that point.
There is no such thing as too much food in Anorexia recovery
The butter lesson
I wrote about the packet of butter that I ate in one go after not being able to spread it on the bread in a cheese sandwich I was making. This incident taught me I might as well just have some butter on my sandwich.
The cream lesson
I once drank a pint of double (heavy) cream. This taught me that doing so is okay, a good thing even. That my body needed it.
I was making myself a microwave apple crumble and I had bought some cream to put on top of it. The buying a pint of cream alone was a huge victory for me. I really wanted it but was so scared of it. I carefully measured 2 tbsps of cream onto the top of my piping hot crumble. Ate that. But somewhere inside I know I had cheated myself. Sure I had eaten cream. Whoopie. But I has still restricted. I had eaten while playing carefully within the rules of measuring and calculating. Fuck that.
I returned to the fridge and drank the entire pint of cream. Just to prove that I could. Just to show my eating disorder how dare it dictate to me only 2 tbsps. Just to prove I would not be held hostage to measurements.
The cream incident taught me that I might as well just order a whole milk large latte as I would probably drink a pint of cream later in the day if I didn’t. It taught me that if I wanted cream I should have cream. More importantly, it taught me that if I wanted a pint of cream but I only allowed myself to have 2 tbsps, that I was still actively restricting. This is the most important part. It is step one of recovery to allow myself to move from no cream to some cream. However, the bigger step is to move from some cream to unrestricted cream.
I stopped measuring out tbsps of cream and just free poured it on after this incident.
The peanut butter lesson
I was at the stage in recovery where I would allow myself to eat 2 x crumpets with scant spread peanut butter on them. This was a big step above not allowing myself to eat peanut butter. I was proud of myself about this for a little while. Until I realized that I could do much, much better than that.
One day I was putting peanut butter (scantly) onto crumpets. I started to panic because I loaded too much PB onto the knife and then scraped some of it back off the crumpet into the jar. That would have been too much my eating disorder told me.
Too much? I thought to myself. Really? You are underweight, you are hungry, you could eat the whole fucking jar. YOU WANT to eat the whole fucking jar, Yet, you just put some back because you are scared of too much?
I ate the crumpets and then went back to the jar of PB which was 2/3 full and ate the whole jar with the knife ( I know, such bad manners) then when the jar was finished I opened another jar and started on that. I also finished that jar. These were large jars. I did it because I knew I wanted to eat them and I could eat them and therefore doing anything other than eating them was restriction.
This taught me I might as well just spread that PB thick on crumpets. I then actually ate a jar of peanut butter every day — by the spoonful — for the remainder of my weight restoration phase. It was the perfect addition for me as I love it, and it is very nutrient dense. Plus … well: peanut butter yum!
The Snickers lesson
In recovery I allowed myself chocolate. In a very measured manner. I bought small bars of everything. Snack size bars of Snickers. I bought them in the bumper pack bags because it was more cost effective, but only allowed one a day. I bumper pack could last weeks at that rate.
Once day I ate my snack-size Snickers ration. I wanted more. My eating disorder screamed at me. I started to fight back.
I said out loud “Oh, you don’t want me to eat another one? Watch this!” and I unwrapped and ate another.
My eating disorder screamed at me. I answered back “Keep screaming and I’ll keep eating” as I unwrapped and ate another.
I ate the whole bumper bag of snack-sized Snickers within less than 10 minutes.
After that day I started to buy and eat regular, adult-sized Snickers.
The Birthday cake lesson
I was at a birthday gathering. There was chocolate birthday cake. When offered it, I rejected a slice. Of course. It was not in my “plan.”
Driving home, I was furious with myself. I had wanted a slice. Everyone else had a slice. I realized that if I couldn’t have an unplanned slice of cake while in recovery from a restrictive eating disorder then I would never be able to have one. I wanted to go back. Turn around and drive back and knock on the door and say “I will have some cake after all, in fact, give me the biggest slice that you have.” I fantasized about doing this and being able to eat that cake in front of all the people there. But I didn’t. Because that would have been weird.
Instead, in a bout of fury, I pulled over at the mini-Tesco on the way home and went in and bought a family sized Sara Lee Chocolate Gateaux. I took it home, sat on my living room floor and ate the whole thing. The whole thing.
I ate an entire family-size Sara Lee Chocolate gateaux in one sitting. I didn’t even feel nearly full after that. I could have eaten four. I should have eaten four. But I was scared. I stopped because I thought what I had eaten was totally fucked up. Now I know that what I had eaten was totally normal for a person in recovery from a restrictive eating disorder. After that instance, I went on to do this many times in recovery because this is what I learned: Although eating one slice of cake was an 100 percent improvement on not eating any, if I ate one slice and felt like I wanted to eat a lot more —say 10 —, then I was still actively restricting by not allowing myself to eat 10. If 10 slices of cake was what I wanted, anything less than 10 slices of cake was restriction.
I have not refused a slice of cake at a Birthday party since.
The cereal lesson
Because I was so scared of eating “too much” cereal, I used to buy the pre-portioned catering packs so that I could only eat a portion. One day I was carefully eating my 40g pack of crunchy nut corn flakes and it dawned on me how ridiculous this was. I was not eating portion packs for any reason other than to control and restrict how much I could eat at any one time.
And they were never enough! Who the hell can feel full and satisfied on 40g of cereal? An ant maybe, but not me!
After that I just bought regular sized cereal cartons and stopped worrying about counting how many bowls I went though.
Those are just a couple of the lessons I learned about eating without restriction. You will have your own. I had many more on top of these too.
Find and eliminate restriction
A lot of you are going to read this and think, “tut, tut, that is binge eating, and binge eating is not “normal” and therefore should be discouraged in eating disorder recovery.”
I disagree.
There is nothing normal about an eating disorder. There is nothing normal about eating disorder recovery. Recovery is messy.
I ate a lot in the hunger stage of recovery and the worst aspect of this was neither the eating nor the feeling full. The worst aspect was trying to justify it to myself amidst the voices of my eating disorder telling me that it was not okay. Other than that, every inch of my being and soul knew that it was okay, that is was right, and that it was needed.
I hear from a lot of other sufferers who have been in treatment that they still hear the voices of eating disorder “professionals” telling them that it was not okay. Or telling them that the extra drop of milk that they added to their cereal had to be poured back. And they tell me about the pain those comments caused them because they were desperately hungry and all they wanted was permission to eat! But instead they were told that they could only eat what was on the “meal plan” and no more.
It is okay. If you can eat that much it is because you need to eat that much. You do not have binge eating disorder. You just have a very hungry body that need unrestricted food.
Sometimes, due to being dictated to by well-meaning meal plans, pre-learned expectations of what a “portion” is, or when the right time of day to eat a certain type of food is, etc, etc, we don’t even realize that we are being restrictive in our eating. The key to recovery alongside weight restoration, is to find and eliminate all restrictive eating. Only once you have done this will your brain stop obsessing about food.
You can weight restore while still restricting — trust me you do not want to do this!
If you weight restore while still restricting (which most people do) you will reach a higher weight and still have a very active eating disorder in your head. This means there will still be a lot of work for you to do post weight restoration before you reach full recovery.
If however, you focus on eliminating restriction above anything else, you will reduce the food obsession which occurs as a result of restriction, and will be in a healthier mindset when you reach weight restoration/overshoot/recovery weight. There will still be work to do, but much less.
If you are already weight restored but are still struggling with high volumes of food obsession/ED thoughts, this is a sign that you are still restricting food and you will have to address this. No biggie. You can get the rest of the way there, but you do have to find and eliminate the restriction.
If you are working with a resistant sufferer
You have to encourage them to eat. And you have to make it clear to them that there are no upper limits. There is no such thing as too much food. Many of us restrict because we are terrified of the feeling that comes as soon as we stop restricting heavily. We are scared of that bottomless pit hunger that seems to have no limits. We are scared because if you told us to eat a normal sized portion of food it would never actually feel like enough. It is easier and safer not to even try. Not to go there. So we don’t. We restrict.
When I was restricting, the thought of eating a sandwich, the whole two halves of it, was depressing because I knew I would eat it and still be ravenous. The illogical logic of the eating disorder then says What is the point? It is a tease to eat at all, you can never eat as much as you want because as much as you want is so much more than a normal portion size.
I felt like I had failed at eaten even before I had started because I knew that no amount of eating would ever be enough. I was so scared of allowing my hunger to come through. A normal portion size was simultaneously too much and not enough.
So encourage eating with the constant reminder that they are underweight so their is no limit on what they can and should eat. Be confident for us. You’ll get resistance, but beneath the resistance we listen.
Once recovered (fully) food becomes part of the furniture of life
My eating disorder used to tell me that this bottomless hunger would last forever — until I ate myself to death. My eating disorder told me that I would want to eat a jar of peanut butter every day from now until forever and that this was the greedy fat pig I was if I didn’t restrict.
My eating disorder lied.
I currently do not eat a jar of peanut butter a day. Maybe one a week — because I still love it — but I feel no desire to eat one a day anymore. I don’t need to eat an entire chocolate cake either. I don’t think I would be able to even if I tried. My extreme hunger, the bottomless pit, has long gone.
There is a carrot cake in the fridge right now that Matt and I have been eating. I can have a slice and feel happy, content, satisfied. I know that if I want another slice I can have that too. It’s just not a big deal. It’s just part of life.
The peanut butter jar sits on the counter until I want to put some on some crumpets. It doesn’t scream at me like it used to when I was restricting and underweight. It doesn’t burn a hole in my skull and demand to be eaten all in one go. It is just part of the furniture. I don’t think about it any more than I think about the armchair next to me.
With weight restoration and unrestricted eating, food will gradually become part of life. It will stop dancing around in your thoughts and dreams. It will stop beckoning you during every waking moment. It will just be something that you do on a daily basis. Something wonderful, enjoyable, and unremarkable.
Yes, unremarkable.
I think that is one of the most blissful parts of full recovery. Food is wonderful, but unremarkable.
Thank you to Mindy for making me press the “publish” button on this blog post.
I wrote it months ago, but published it today for you.
You’ve done it again, Tabs! Love this.
Funnily enough, after I shared your last blog post (the one about binge eating not being a binge when you have a restrictive ED) with my daughter, she also made the point that you made here about the professionals comments. Specifically, having to stick to a meal plan and no more! That has made it desperately hard for her to attempt to eat more than she thinks she should, from her own meal plan that she devised for herself. Which, as you can imagine, is far too limited and well below what a ‘normal’ person would eat, let alone someone trying to get into recovery. When will the professionals learn NOT to be afraid of the food? When will they learn to be there for their patients, guiding and encouraging them to eat everything they desire?
Your words are so important to people fighting their EDs every day. Thank you SO much for sharing your experiences with us all.
Jen x
Thank you for this, Tabitha. While I’m not quite to the point of feeling able to do what you describe here, it is incredibly helpful to me to read about your experiences. I believe that each day I’m getting closer and challenging the eating disorder that much more with the knowledge that others have gone before me and are now fully recovered and thriving. The hope and confidence it gives me to read things like this is invaluable. I’ll get there yet.
“They don’t need to be told “eating a normal sized portion is good enough.” They need to be told that if they want to eat 20 times the regular portion size in one sitting that they can, and in fact, they must!”
Tabitha, this is probably the most inspiring post i’ve red. Thank you so much. That’s what i needed.
The very first desire after finishing reading – is to print it and pin it on the fridge, near the bed, on my workplace – everywhere.
I am smiling with a joy that has not been available for twenty years. This post is life changing. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. This is the most beautiful piece of writing, from a remarkable human. I am speechless and determined. It’s so nice to be hungry with you.MK
I’ve heard of Ana’s switching to Bulimia and bingeing.If a restrictive Ana began letting themselves go like this,could it throw them into bingeing,and bulimia?
If you read this post, and the ones on extreme hunger, you will see that this binge-purge or binge-restrict cycle of bulimia is due to restriction and if you stop restricting you stop binging.
Some former anorexics (like myself) develop BED with no purging, restricting, or any compensatory behavior. I stopped restricting and I never stopped binging, and it’s been years. How do you explain this?
I would ask what you consider “not restricting” to mean.
Did you get fat right away after doing stuff like that?
“The illogical logic of the eating disorder then says What is the point? It is a tease to eat at all, you can never eat as much as you want because as much as you want is so much more than a normal portion size.”
Yes! I am tortured by this very idea on a daily basis. It feels so much “easier” to not eat (or at least, to wait until the day is all over and there’s nothing left to do, because I’m just so upset that eating “normal sized” meals like others do around me feels so insufficient. It’s very depressing to feel HUNGRIER when you finish eating a snack than you were when you started! It’s so difficult to battle, and I’m still losing a lot of the time. But thanks for writing this; it at least makes me feel less “weird” and alone, even if I’m still afraid.
Seriously, sincerely FLOORED by the truth in this post. I have experienced all you have described here…being admonished for my necessary extreme hunger by family (husband, mother, mother-in-law…even daughter) as well as various ED ‘team’ members with nary a sign of recovery ‘cheerleading’ in the vicinity. In various treatment clinics for anorexia I was literally starving…and was spied on and ridiculed by my own ED psychiatrist with his opening statements at one of our meetings “What’s this I hear about you hanging around the food (self-service/candy/chip) machines?” I stole extra, untouched rolls from patient trays in the hall, I hid fennel, lettuce, broccoli, tuna and granola in my closet and, in one of many routine room ‘searches’…I was caught with the ‘evidence’ of the nutritious food we never received in clinic. We had Saturday and Sunday afternoons for ‘freedom’ in the small French village where I took to purchasing bags of foods (veg/chocolate/cereal…you name it!) and HIDING them under the bushes in the nearby park to be able to finally have enough of food I truly wanted and that my ‘lizard brain’ so intensely craved. The ED ‘credo’ in this part of Europe is “”re-feed…gain…but not TOO much”…as one does NOT want resemble a citizen of obesity-riddled America….forever commented upon when I mention my hailing from the States.
Spot-on…your ‘illumination’ of the various, specific ‘Food Lessons’ we can choose to observe, retain and choose to act upon! For myself…the ‘Cereal Lesson’ rings ever-true…but I would add ‘The Haagen-Daz’…ok…any freaking Ice Cream lesson” and ‘Apèro Cracker’ lesson to the mix!! It takes enormous strength to honour one’s hungers and biological NEEDS in recovery…but one also has to have the incredible fortitude to not be affected by other’s judgements of ‘enough is enough’. I admire yours…deeply. Officially awe-struck by your accurate and inspiring post. Merci from across-the-pond.
Your experience there in treatment centres and being hungry brought tears to my eyes. So cruel. We will change this.
Hi Donna
Thank you for writing. Sorry for what you have to go through. It is even harder to respond to hunger when the environment you are in is not encouraging. You will have to be so incredibly strong and brave. I know that you can do this.
Hi Tabitha, thank you so much for posting this! Your blog has always been the resource I jump to when I’m feeling lost or alone in my recovery. I have a question. I started recovery six months ago, I am already weight restored but I am still having problems with extreme hunger. At this point it is even more terrifying than before because it truly hasn’t gone away when it should have! I have to add I am still exercising, though it isn’t what I would consider overexercising, my body seems to be capable of much less than it used to (even pre ED). I find myself questioning if I should follow this without restriction or if something is wrong with my body and I should just rigidly stick to my meal plan to reteach my appetite. I’m concerned I am doing something wrong.
Thanks for your input!
You should STOP exercising for a while – exercising makes the ED stronger and is basically like a hidden form of restriction.
Stop exercising. Let go of all the rules and routines and conditions that you have around eating. Eat freely. That is what will reteach your appetite, not the meal plan.
I think that you know what to do, but are probably scared a bit. That is okay. Make sure you have a strong support system, rest and get the final part of this recovery process done. 😀
Fabulous post thank you! I am weight restored but still restricting Getting there, probably 70% fully responding to hunger. The fear of letting go fully is so strong, what size would I become?? This post has made me realise the last remaining restriction I must eliminate to stop obsessing about food. Thank you x
Permission!! This post gave me, everyone, permission. Thank you. It feels so good.
I’m running into a stumbling block though, where I am doing the overeat-restrict cycle because of the extreme GI distress I experience after eating a lot. I’ve been working on allowing myself to eat. Accepting that this is what my body needs. Flying through jars of peanut butter, by the spoonful straight out of the jar, getting the idea to drizzle some honey on it and going for it. But what is happening is that after giving myself permission to eat large bouts of food, I am having huge GI distress, huge huge– so bloated and uncomfortable and in pain and full-of-shit literally, that I find myself restricting, needing to restrict, because my GI system cannot process all that food. And if I continue with full permission to eat without restriction for multiple days in a row (which I have tried. I tried because I didn’t want the “GI pain” to be an excuse I was giving myself to restrict, so I tested that not restricting) I fall to intolerable GI pain, feeling so physically unwell that I cannot engage in life and become very badly depressed/exhausted/in-pain with my bloated constipation. I am not a wimpy cry baby with pain or bloat. It is serious. So then, I restrict. To give my body an ability to digest the food and time to poop it out. So then I’ve not eaten or eaten very little, and my body thinks it’s starving again and I give myself permission and the stupid cycle plays out again. And I don’t know how to get out. It has been doing this cycling for a very long time.
Any thoughts you have would be appreciated. I have tried lessening the bouts of food so that GI distress is lessened, but then this is still restriction as you say because I actually did want the whole jar of PB. I read your mention of eating a jar of PB a day in addition to all the rest of your food, and I wonder, how in holy hell did your body process that? My body hasn’t been able to keep up.
Heya,
The stomach pain is something that many of us get. You are doing the right thing as looks like you are really giving yourself permission to eat. It will get better with time if you keep eating as much as you can. In times when it is too painful to eat, I would often resort to drinking chocolate milk in order to not allow that restriction to activate if solid food was too painful
Hi, I had the same problem. When I started my recovery I hadnt got any guilty but when I started eating normally ( not big portions , but it was quiet high in calories) my body swolled I had constipation for a weeks. My preliminary system refused to work at alll. My body was awful bec i wasnt be in normal weight but my body was swallen which made me denid eating. So , none of the doctors saw a problem i was upset not only about my apperiance but also about my mood which was depressed. I couldnt concentrate on my private life or study ( during my anorexia period I was always active and happy, lol)MOREOVER My skin covered with terrible spots and it was the MAIN problem for me(((
With help of my persistence I had been making a lot of experiments to arouse digestive system.
1 I had been starving for 3 days but i didnt work.
2 I tried to back my previous anorexia-diet bit it didnt work.
3 Then I started raw fruit diet and i was so happy because this attempt got some result and my consipations relented (but i was also in bad mood and with acne)
I ate coffee with Dr.corner , beets which stimulated my stomach to work. All in all it had been lasting for 1 year. Now I have qiet normal stomach and no swallen (but once a mounth a have problems with bowel movement). I cant say that my body works normal but not bad as it was previously. My spots wich me now, it is annoying me so much((. I really need to ask you about your experience. How are you now? Have you dealt with it?
I can’t thank you enough for that article. Really, it’s like you read my mind and told me EVERYTHING I needed to hear. It’s crazy, the thought about “a normal portion is sooo much but still not enough for me”
You can’t imagine how relief I feel now. Thank you, thank you so much for that. I’ll save that article and reread it every SINGLE time I feel like I eat too much (but never enough)
I’m still scared that this do not apply to me and will not work for me, but it helps me anyway !!!
Thank you, thank you so much
This is the best article I’ve ever read about restriction. I did have a damn WHOLE cake in recovery before, a complete jar of peanut butter etc. But then I felt miserable and next day I decided to skip all my meals… Now, when I’m back into a deep relapse, and I have to start over my ed recovery (it never happened, so I guess it’s better to say, just “keep going” on my recovery journey), this post is truly empowering!! Thank you Tabitha, this is what we all want to hear from someone who has gone through it and understands, but already in a state that she has an overview on this mental illness. <3 restriction is the enemy not food
Thank you so so much for this. My only issue is that I’ve overshot but still often feel hungry for more. It’s not as bad as my EH days but it’s still there. Is that alright even though I’ve overshot and am no longer underweight?
Hiya, I’ve had really conflicting thoughts. I’ve really liked your post and really followed your way of thinking for the past week… until I went to see my therapist (who’s doing cbt with me) and she started arguing with me practically saying don’t believe everything you read online, don’t overeat because it will turn into a binge and if not you will definitely feel guilty. I feel as though I want to eat a lot more but I’m not allowed to because of her and the thought of her being disappointed at me going “off plan”. She also made a comment about CBT being evidence based here in N.Ireland and proved to work.. saying “I don’t know what they use in America but we surly don’t use it here”- any advice??
Get another therapist would be my advice 😀
Hi,
I’m currently undergoing anorexia recovery and I could really relate to thos article hahah- I’ve been in inpatient treatment and stuck to a ‘meal plan’ for nearly a year now- and looking back I knoW I experienced extreme hunger- even after a 600 calorie breakfast as prescribed I’d still find myself wanting more! Of course at the time I ignored it and even reduced my meal plan when I could, wanting to minimise weight gain as much as possible and only eat what I was forced to. I’m nope weight restored but still have a horrible relationship with food, one minute feeling like a fat pig wanting to completely get my ED back and loose all the weight again, the next minute feeling like extreme hunger again (even though it’s not extreme hunger cause I’m not underweight anymore) and wanting to eat everything- yet still having this fear to do so because of course I don’t want to gain more and if I do eat what I want, surely I won’t be able to stop ??
I’m honestly so confused with my head but I know for sure I’m still restricting in some way or another- but I don’t know how to combat this because I don’t want to full out binge, because that just feels like I’m only responding to emotional hunger since my body is weight restored and therefore not crying out for extra energy (yet my brain is?? WTF?)
Sorry for the ramble but I was wondering for a bit of advice ahah
Drop the “emotional eating” thoughts, if you are in recovery from a state of malnutrition you are eating because your body needs to replenish and repair and gain weight. If you ignored extreme hunger in the past that is probably why is is persistant now.
Your head will not be okay with this. But that is what recovery is. You have to stop worrying about the future and what might happen and let go of any illusion of control.
I loved this article, but it just feels hopeless for me. I have been recovering for 2 months from anorexia, over exercising, and orthorexia (when I ate, it was fruits and steamed veggies only). I started my period again after amenorrhea 3 years and my heart beat is now regular. I have not been restricting. I just finished a carton of ice cream, and the peanut butter jar thing is a regular. However, I feel I am way over doing it. My mom agrees that I now look like a normal woman. But I still have extreme hunger. I am NEVER full. NEVER. I am so scared to keep eating because I already feel so ugly and fat, but, here I am, stuffing my face with chocolate chips. Why do I still have extreme hunger when I am weight restored? Why do I have to gain more? Am I just over thinking and making myself more hungry than I am? Please respond, somebody.
Hi fellow Sarah,
Two months doesn’t sound like a very long time. I hope you’ve been able to keep eating… and enjoying it!
I too am working on recovery from restriction, intense exercise, and resulting amenorrhea. I have found meditation helpful in welcoming changes in my life and body instead of meeting them with resistance and worry. Tara Brach has a gentle, thoughtful approach which I find appealing. https://www.tarabrach.com/guided-meditations/
I hope your recovery has been proceeding well, and much love to you.
Tabitha,
The other day I read this post. My ED started–and remains–a vanity game and a means to control how I am perceived. I would only allow myself to eat at certain times, always ate the same thing–and then I became obsessed with putting on “muscle, NOT fat”.
Ironically, my mother had made chocolate cake.
I left the house after having eaten a healthy, but fat-filled breakfast. My body was full. My body wanted chocolate cake, still. I decided, instead, I’d get a “healthy” chocolate protein bar at the store. And I asked myself what a normal person who wants some chocolate would do. I picked up the chocolate.
Then, I saw a Larabar. I had always wanted to try one. ED told me I was only allowed to have the chocolate, that I should get low-calorie chocolate, or a pint of Halo Top or something “healthy” and a water, or just get some fruit instead, or maybe a KIND bar, because those are guilt free and won’t make a person fat.
And I was so angry that I bought the chocolate, and two Larabars, and a sugary drink, and I scarfed them all down in the car because I was hungry and that’s what I wanted.
I have no desire to do this again, but it was the first day of my recovery, and because of this free, sugar-high, unrestricted, fighting feeling, it will not be the last.
Thank you for this post.
Well done Ash!
I am SO glad that I stumbled across your blog!! It is hands down the most helpful thing I have read in my recovery. I have been struggling the past few weeks with ‘allowing’ myself to eat more food when I feel hungry. I have been following my meal plan “perfectly” and yet every night I find myself lying in bed, unable to sleep because I am hungry. Rather than responding to it I would force myself to ignore it because how could I eat more? I had eaten everything on my meal plan so surely any extra will cause me to become obese (oh hey there ED mindset, catastrophizing as always!!).After reading this, and other posts in your blog, last night for the first time I got up and I ate whatever I felt like. Surprisingly it didn’t feel out of control….and as soon as I went back to bed I fell asleep nearly instantly! I felt a little guilty, but nothing compared to the guilt I have previously felt for eating extra. The idea that there is no such thing as too much food, and that I should view my meal plan as a minimum rather than maximum revolutionised my thinking, it was like a switch had been flicked. It was like I needed permission to eat more, to know that it was ok to eat more and reading your blog gave me that permission last night. I’m hoping that one day I can be in place where I can give myself permission….I’m not there yet but I know that one day I can be. So thank you!! For giving me strength and hope and for being such an inspiration! I can’t wait to read more of your blog and listen to some of your podcasts. It is so refreshing to find such positive, pro recovery writing on the minefield that is ‘recovery’ blogs!!
Youre amazing
Hi, I’m in my late 30’s and in recovery and your blog is great, there isn’t enough support for older sufferers who have been battling for decades. We need to know there is still hope and time and it’s worth it.
How to,deal,with the guilt one feels after eating enough to fill the hole that anorexia creates? That’s is what stops me restricting. I know I will,hate myself if I eat two biscuits instead of my usual allowance of one choc chip,cookie!!
The dreaded word guilt does not appear in your post.
Thank you so, so much for making this post. I’m in my junior year of high school and still trying to recover from an eating disorder that I developed in middle school. While I don’t have any trouble with body image any more, I’ve never really been able to bounce back to a healthy weight. I was doing alright last year, but stress and a depressive episode have made it hard for me to eat recently, and my doctors have been threatening to hospitalize me if I don’t gain weight immediately (is two pounds a week a reasonable thing for her to ask of me?? I’ve always had a fast metabolism so weight gain in general is difficult, even if I am eating regularly). The thing is, I don’t really get hungry anymore, so eating can make me really nauseous. I’ve figured out that if I binge on high-calorie junk food, snack constantly throughout the day, or have food near me that I would want to eat even if I weren’t hungry (junk food, candy, pastries, etc.), it’s a lot easier for me to eat regular meals and I’m more likely to get hungry around breakfast, lunch, and dinnertime, but my primary care physician has told my parents that I shouldn’t be allowed to have any unhealthy food because she thinks it’s “empty calories” and it makes me full so I don’t eat my normal meals. I’ve explained this to her, but she refuses to listen, even as my weight has started to drop again because I haven’t been able to snack. I’m going to show this to my mom as soon as she gets home, because I know she believes me and if I can show her that it’s normal for people in recovery to binge and it doesn’t keep them from eating regular meals too, maybe she’ll be able to change things with my doctor or at least let me eat junk food more regularly. I hope you’re having an amazing day, you absolutely deserve it.
Simply just thank you. You have given me hope, confidence and trust in the voice in my head telling me to recover and go eat a chocolate cake with no regrets. Its time for me to make a change and I think I will carry this article around with me to remind myself I am not the only one to feel like this and that full recovery and happiness after a restrictive eating disorder is possible. Thank you for making me smile and excited to start my recovery from this twisted illness.
Hi Tabitha!
First of; I love your site. I can honestly say it has made me take the leap into recovery.
I just have one question…
I’m not underweight any longer but I’ve been restricting my intake more or less during the last 6 years. I was severely underweight once but gained and then started maintaining on a really low intake.
I recently upped my intake to a “normal meal plan” by a dietitian and that’s when the extreme hunger hit. I feel just like you described like a “bottomless pit”. It’s like I can be physically full but feel a hole inside of me screaming for MORE.
You say in the article to remind the anorexic sufferers that they are underweight and hence need to eat more, as much as possible. But what about those of us who are already within the healthy range BMI. I’m just so scared this is never going to stop if I give in to it and that something is wrong with me since I’m already at a healthy weight…
Thanks a lot,
Emmi
Hey Emmi
I have a post on “energy debt” that I think will answer this question for you.
Eat. More. Food.
Thank you so much for this! I’m really struggling with the ‘permission part’ as a result of having several times in the past having been restored a healthy weight, but not dealt very welll with that nagging litle voice that we all know and love/hate, but this blog just made sense, so much sense and gave me, I hope, the permission I need. Peanut butter, here I come! ?
Thank you so much. This is so helpful. I restricted myself for six months and now I can’t help eat again and again. I knew it was part of the recovery but was still afraid in case it was not normal. Now I know.
(Sorry for my English, I am French 😉 )
Mélanie
Je pense que ton anglais est très bon
Your french is also very good Tabitha! 😉 I think I have already read this article 8 times and I will come back to it as long as I will need to remember that there’s no such thing as too much food in recovery! Thank you, thank you, and thank you!! xx
Holy freaking shit thank you so so so much for this this helps and like a lot thank you so so unbelievable much you have no idea.
Tabitha, Thank you so very very much. My daughter is in the midst of fighting for recovery and we both take on-going heart from the strong messages in your blogs that she is doing the right thing.
This has genuinely been the most helpful thing I’ve heard in my 4+ years of recovery. I wish I found this blog much, much earlier.
Thank you.
Tabitha,
I laughed out loud while reading this. First of all, it surprised me that you listed foods I love and struggle with – butter, cream, peanut butter, Snickers bars. I was vegan for 17 years so I always used margarine,and in my family we grew up in the low-fat/no-fat ’90s so we generally had margarine as an option, one I most often refused in those teen years. I would eat bread/rolls, potatoes, corn, and cooked vegetables without fat. Last year I had a friend helping me out with groceries as I am on a very limited budget. He one day brought me a pound of butter. At this point I had been including small amounts of dairy for about a year. I had probably had butter so few times in my life, I had no idea what to expect. It was something found in a fancy dish on the table at Christmas time at my grandparents house. I tried it and my tastebuds did the dance of joy. I would never go back to eating margarine. Now I alternate between buying (dairy) butter and coconut butter. Wow. Flavour. Who knew. Similar experience with cream when I decided it was okay for me to develop a serious Starbucks frappuccino habit. I was looking online for calorie dense foods that were easy to eat (the impossible search that returns hundreds of articles on low-calorie foods and foods that will fill you up). I kept finding articles about how you are “drinking your calories” and the shocking number of calories found in these beverages etc. Finally – jackpot! If a venti frappuccino is upwards of 600 calories, you better believe I’m taking that challenge! I always include whipped cream, which induce the same tastebud rejoicing. Whole dairy foods are a treat and very healthy. Much healthier than the alternatives, which include questionable oils and additives. I’m so happy I’m not missing out on these foods any more, and I’m eating a better, whole foods diet,
Peanut butter has been a life-long love, and I’m pleased to say I have never skimped on it. My dad was a voracious consumer of peanut butter. PB & my Mom’s homemade strawberry jam, and PB & banana sandwiches were a staple growing up. As a vegan, instead of butter or margarine I put peanut butter on everything from bagels to pancakes to muffins. When I was an inpatient in a recovery facility years ago, a friend and I had an ongoing peanut butter challenge lol How many tablespoons of peanut butter can you get on a sandwich?? I even convinced the on-staff dietitian to let us include it as a spread option for muffins.
Lately I have really been struggling with recovery. It seems like no matter what route I go – lots of fruits and veggies, higher fat foods, “treat” foods, more calorie dense foods, shakes – everything fills me up quickly and/or produces horrible gastrointestinal effects, and usually leaves me guessing. The impossible dream is getting in enough calories from day to day, and I’m often floundering at the end of a meal to make up for something I couldn’t finish without eating something I’ll feel guilty about, and I’m asking myself questions like, “how much mayonnaise is too much?”, and “how much peanut butter is too much?” (!) So when I read your peanut butter paragraph I breathed a sigh of relief. I eat minimum 120g per day, and this week there was a day I had 210g, which is probably something I could manage on a regular basis. For whatever reason, it’s a “safe” food. I love and almost always opt for natural peanut butter, and I often will make my own (THE BEST). I know it’s a healthy choice. I do switch it up for almond and other nut butters from time to time, and even Nutella 🙂
I did some reading about meal replacement products fairly recently after shopping with a friend who has a background that went something like this: average eater > vegetarian > vegan > began body building > raw vegan > disordered eating > vegetarian > paleo > paleo mom 🙂 She constantly encourages me to include whole fat dairy, which I do several times a month. She is still trying to convince me of the nutritional value of meat, especially organ meats and bone broth, but I can’t get past my ethical standards when it comes to animal products (no eggs or meat, and dairy is sourced carefully). She was advising me on the various types of shake powders and weight gainers, and after some research I decided on Vega’s All-in-One nutrition supplement shake powder. I’m a big fan of Brendan Brazier and I trust his nutrition wisdom. I read a couple of articles online questioning the claims of meal replacement and “power” bars, comparing them to glorified candy bars, and followed up with my own research. I determined that Snickers pretty much measured up to the profile of many so-called power bars and started to include a cheaper version (Titan) on days I was struggling to get in enough calories.
I want you to know how helpful your articles have been on days I am struggling to eat or make a decision about food to save my goddamn life. I often post a quote on my Facebook profile because it’s hit so close to home, and made me laugh at myself. I don’t agree with everything you say, but you are a total hardass and I admire that. I embrace and aspire to your level of honesty. Thank-you for inspiring me, and giving me courage. I’m meeting with my aforementioned friend tomorrow to go over some dietary guidelines and I hope she is able to get me back on track.
Blessings.
This is my savior. Every time I think I’m going to relapse or find myself reaching measuring my food again, I always read this article again and am reminded how “there is never too much food. Thank you so much, with this I think I can finally help myself recover.
But what about weight gain? Have you got all fat in your belly? If yes then how it’s distributed evenly in entire body? How fat was redistributed evenly? Please reply this question
What an amazing article. Thank you so so so so so much! You literally saved my day!
This was so encouraging….I struggle so much with restriction and thinking it’s wrong to “overeat”, even when I’m still hungry. But it’s true, like you said! If my body wants more, it’s because it needs more throughout recover! I think I can’t have that chocolate cake, that it’s practically sinful for me to eat it, but during recovery especially, my body needs things like that! Thank you for this.
This was truly the best thing I’ve ever read. I really, really needed this.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart
thank you for your work Tabitha!
i just have this problem that i’m a healthy weight, and when i eati get physically full and yet i crave unhealthy, high cal food. it’s like my body is saying “no more” but my mind is saying “more! “, but another part of my mind is saying “no more, you’ll get fat” and i don’t know what to do. i’ve been bulimic on and off for years, and a month ago i started really restricting and lost a few pounds, but now a week ago the extreme hunger started and i couldn’t keep myself from eating, so i decided to fix my relationship with food once and for all, so i’m very early in recovery, i’m at a healthy bmi, the extreme hunger has gone down already, i have all the hunger cues and my stomach will be bursting but i’ll still want more junk. i still have a restrictive mindset though. i don’t know what to do! am i just binging?
It feels as if only yesterday I was having the same doubts as you.
Don’t worry, you’re not “just binging”. You’re just very hungry.
Listen to your body. It knows what kinds of food it needs and in what quantities. (After a period of restriction it will naturally need high-calorie foods and in huge amounts. It’s normal.) So don’t fear any type of food or the quantities that your body is asking for. Giving in to your cravings and to what you may call “binges” are the right thing to do. You’re doing the right thing.
Your body will eventually start asking for less food and for less “junk”, I promise. But only if you keep eating and get rid of your restrictive mindset.
About the internal fight between your full gut and your hungry body, this happened to me as well and it’s one of the uncomfortable things about recovery. You could try eating smaller, more frequent meals along the day to alleviate your distressed gut, and only if your hungry body allows it. (Mine didn’t. It needed lots of food at THAT moment, so I just had to bear the sensation that I might explode.) But bear that with me, it won’t last forever, and the only real solution is to keep going forward with your recovery.
And lastly, make that voice that says: “I’m gonna fix my relationship with food once and for all” much LOUDER, so you’ll begin to kill the one that says, “I fear food because I’ll get fat”. Trust me, it’s possible. You’re in the right track!
Hi,
First of all, thank you for all of your wonderful writing here. I’ve been in recovery for over a year and a half, and while I’ve made progress (with plenty of fits and starts), I’m still not all the way to weight restoration OR being truly recovered, mentally. So, for the past several days, I’ve decided to go full cold-turkey on exercise (I used to take long walks), and to eat more than I used to. This post has been really helpful in affirming that, yes, that IS the right choice to make, but I sometimes feel really stressed that I’m relatively close to being at a healthy weight, and that there’s no real point in eating a LOT or not going for walks. In other words, that I’m just not sick enough anymore to merit it. So, how can I reaffirm this approach to recovery for myself, even when I’m in a physically healthier place?
Thanks so much,
Miles
I am currently trying to weight restore and have found this post and this blog so helpful. I have been told by two dietitians that I need to follow a strict meal plan and NOT to binge eat. However, I find myself eating entire boxes of cereal and party sized bags of peanut m&ms in single sittings. I am told I need to stop this, and I feel so guilty that I keep doing it. I do worry that I will continue to eat this way for forever, but I am hoping it will go away as my weight restores. This post helps me believe in that!
My biggest struggle has been giving up exercise. Do you really think cold turkey is the best way to go? I miss working out so much and I feel rather disgusted with myself. I feel very out of shape.
This helped me so much. Today I had seconds at dinner and I nearly freaked out, with my ed telling me that if I continued with this behavior, I would become fat. I understand deep down that this is not true, but reading these facts online is truly reassuring and helping me push through! Thank you so much, and whenever I start to hear my ed voices, I will go back to this post.
Dear Tabitha,
Thank you so much for all your posts! Extreme hunger hit me after a few years of dealing with Anorexia, but because I did not know what was happening, I started binging/restricting for some months. Then I began reading your posts and some others, until one day, I completely convinced myself that those binges were due to extreme hunger. So that day, I just let go. I committed myself to recovery. Since then, one part of my starved brain just took control and it dictated the types and amounts of food that I would eat (around 3500 calories per day).
The first weeks were not too bad (although extreme hunger is pretty scary on itself). I had some tummy troubles but nothing too scary. I have already overshot my pre-ED weight (though my period is still absent!), and I am still eating a lot because I am still experiencing extreme hunger. I have decided to keep eating this much (or whatever my body dictates) until the extreme hunger wanes… No matter how big my overshoot must be. (Am I doing the right thing?) But now there is something that is preventing me to eat all that “my body dictates”: The last days I have been experiencing dizziness and an accelerated heart rate after each meal, and it is making me very scared. Now I fear that maybe I am eating too much. Could there be any amount of food that is just too much for my heart/body to handle? Do you know if these symptoms are normal during recovery and why do they happen?
Now I am starting to get scared of eating because of these symptoms, but I would not want them to make me restrict again! Not now that I committed to achieve full remission! If you have some words regarding these symptoms, I would truly appreciate your answers! Thank you so much, Tabitha. Thank you for everything.
hello:) im about a week into recovery and i still have alot of doubts, but im so sick of this mental illness holding me back. ive been feel super hungry too like how you were saying in your post. and the hunger scares me alot! do you think eating SO MUCH is healthy? especially for me since im not classified as “underweight”? although i did loose my period a while ago…
thoughts?
Your videos and blogs really help me! Everytime I feel like restricting I’m watching/ reading one of them and it really encourages me to stand up to my ED en just eat the f%^&* food, so thanks!!
aside from the fact that literally almost all food is fear food fo me, i have like 6 ‘safe; things so even if i could give myself permission id be to scared to eat these things. i recently developed hunger but i cant give myself permission to eat to it, my treatment team don’t say one way or the other between ahealthy meal plan and unestricted even when i asked mytherapist all she said was what do you feel about those ideas and suggested i try to up my intake of one of my safe foods a little. what you say makes sense but then why are professionals suggesting it to me its confusing to be ‘in treatment’ but being left to my own devices. i want to belive Tabitha, because boy do i dream about cake and crisps and chocolate and would love it to be ‘ok’ to eat them, i still feel i should be aiming for a ‘healthy’ diet,my familydont help with this the one time i expessed a desire to just eat loads of junk my mum jumped in with no no you need balance, you should try to eat healthy meals. neither seems attainable right now but one sounds much more appealing.
I am currently trying to eat unrestricted at least in amount, I still have lots of fear food to work through. My promblpis I never, never feel satisfied, the hunger never ends and I get to the point where I’m in ohysphyspain from food volume or I throw up (never deliberately) as my body just can’t take the volume. And I’m still hungry!! What do I do, keep eating and make my body suffer and still feel hungry anyway or stop be hungry and look after my body but is that restriction? I’m very confused. Other people’s extreme hunger seems to be statisfied by a while cake or jar of peanut butter, mine isnti. The only times my head is not screaming with hunger is when I have food in my mother (even then I’m often thinlthi of what I can eat next) or if I don’t eat for hours it kinda turns off. This makes not eating tempting and eating, this setting off the hunger scary, I’m still eating but it’s horrible to never feel full.
But what if I’m not underweight anymore and still crave food. I’m in week two (since I let my extreme hunger do its thing and I followed it) and I started gaining weight before that. I’m scared that I’ll keep eating and eating until I’m overweight
Dear Tabitha!
Thank you so much for this blogpost. I am 16 and am currently in my 4th year of recovery. I read this blog whenever I feel like I “ate too much” and it always makes me feel better.
Quick question. How old were you when your were recovering?
Once again, thank you very much for all that you do!
All I can say is thank you. I could shout it from every rooftop. Beginning full recovery a few days ago, I have spent hours looking for permission. Permission to eat the sleeves of saltine crackers, bowls of rice krispies, seemingly endless snacks that I want to eat. I could find it no where. Your stories have made me come to now accept how I am feeling. I’m on the brink of tears writing to thank you. Thank you so much for permission.
I guess I’m pretty lucky; My team has told me to eat like a trucker until I get some weight back. The only “restriction” on that was my PCP suggesting that, at first, I start out with very small, frequent portions (like half a cup of food every two hours) because my stomach was so small and unused to foods, but told me to increase that amount as I felt ready. Though she didn’t tell me about it being a thing, I realize that this was to avoid refeeding syndrome. Though I wasn’t informed about hypermetabolism by anyone and I’m insanely annoyed about it because I feel so fucking sick. Dietician I last spoke to encouraged me to eat whatever I want, whenever I want, and have as much as I can handle, and to try to at least eat six small meals a day since I already had established GI issues before I lost so much weight.
I’m DYING to eat, all I think about is eating while I’m awake (and last night, every dream I remember from my tiny bouts of sleep were about eating!), but I’m constantly full and just can’t eat anymore. Yesterday, despite having absolutely no physical hunger whatsoever, I forced myself to eat two actual meals, and by the time it was time to take my evening meds, I was way too nauseous and just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t eat anything else, couldn’t take a tiny sip of water, nothing. I’m currently laying in bed (it’s only about 8am-ish atm), not wanting to get up because I STILL feel way too full and sick to try to swallow anything. And it’s frustrating because my meds are to control nausea, plus some B1 to help both my nausea and my appetite. I’m not even a week into hypermetabolism and it’s kinda making me want to die because it feels so bad. I can’t figure out what to do here.
(On a side note, I don’t exactly have an eating disorder. I had a huge stressor about a year ago that has progressively made my GI issues worse due to the stress, which meant I could handle eating less and less food despite WANTING to eat more and more, and it has led to me being diagnosed with clinical anorexia, basically just the physical part without any of the mental part of AN. So I’m having to go through the same recovery as those with restrictive eating disorders.)
I cannot stress enough how much your kind words were needed. Thank you so much, I know I have bumpy road ahead of me. This post made me cry, but in a good way. Thank you so so so much.
If I still don’t have my period back but I think I’m eating too much “bad” foods I crave, and I feel so guilty if I don’t move a bit, what could I do?:(
I really needed this thank you for posting.
Hi Tabitha,
I try to recover from anorexia and bulimia for quite a while now. And as you said, the first steps for me were to allow myself certain little things I restricted on, like to tablespoons cream or a coffee with milk. But in this phase I was still eating to little, still restricting, just telling myself it was okay ‘cause I could eat some of the stuff again.
I’m not that underweight (so still at the point where people compliment me for weight loss) and I don’t feel Extreme Hunger in the meaning of being physically very hungry.
But I just crave food so much. The only thing I really want ist to eat the fuck what I want.
The Problem is, if I told myself now, you are allowed to eat what you want, i would eat the whole day through, maybe until I feel sick and overly full, maybe until I have consumed thousands of calories. I just crave tons of pizzas, pints of Ben and Jerry’s and so many different sweets, I have always limited and restricted to eat.
I just can’t tell myself you are underweight, it’s okay, because, to name numbers, and I hope I don’t trigger anyone, I’m almost at a BMI of 16 and gain weight quite fast.
I try to do so much other stuff, build up a life that isn’t centered around food, but with this restriction and all the cravings it most of the times feels so pointless and as if I were just doing anything to distract me from thinking of food.
Do you have any tips on watch to do?