TW: PURGING. My 14 year old sister has over the past few months lost a considerable amount of weight. At first my parents didn’t see anything too wrong with it because my sister used to be bullied for her weight and they thought she just decided to start working on herself. I quickly noticed within just 3 weeks of her starting to workout she would weigh herself multiple times a day. So I took the scale away (I’m an adult not just an annoying sister). My parent gave it back to her but only in the mornings she was allowed to weigh herself. I thought it was stupid that they even allowed it. Fast forward to now. She is unrecognizable. She is gaunt. Her doctor even told her that she is done losing weight or else they will have to have a serious talk about counseling or therapy. My sister barely eats and works out for 2 hours every single day and on top of that goes on extremely long walks. Her camera roll is all body checking pictures and pictures of her so called “meals” that aren’t nourishing at all. She hasn’t gotten her period in 4 months and yes I know periods are irregular in the first few years but she was getting it consistently maybe a few weeks late here and there but ever since she lost all her weight she hasn’t gotten a period. Just yesterday my parents caught her making herself throw up her food. She says this is only the second time she’s done it but I don’t believe her. I want to help her and my mom is looking into therapies but this feels like a race against time and I have a feeling we are running out. What is the next best step?

Thats it. That is the post

i’m admitting next week and i have so many questions and im also just really curious on others experiences!🙃

Ozempic and restricton

I have a history of restrictive eating since I was a teenager. I am now in menopause so yeah its been a lifetime. There has been a lot of emotional trauma in the last few years and combined with menopause (and some genetics 😆) I put on weight. I am currently taking Ozempic and am losing weight at a decent pace nothing crazy. The thing is I am eating under what me TDEE recommends. But getting anywhere close to what they recommend I get really uncomfortable. Like I am eating too much. I do have protein drinks and add plenty of berries and spinach. My partner constantly aske if I am hungry because I haven't eaten. I will say "no but I DO need to eat" so I will have a small portion which is still filling. I weigh it out and track it in MyFitnessPal. Food noise has always been an issue and Oz helps with that.

Looking at high protein recipes and seeing the calorie count makes me stop in my tracks. Terrifying. I am not using the Ozempic to look a certain way, but to help me get to a healthy weight. I just don't know if its causing me to slide back into somewhat disordered eating? Is it even disordered eating?

I saw a comment and just wondering what your experiences have been with this. I have severe CPTSD and lifelong revictimizations, contamination and rumination OCD (among other predominant types), medical trauma, and adult abuse and trauma (ongoing), chronic illnesses, and suspected ARFID/anorexia/OSFED presentation. I find therapy really difficult and it took me six therapists to find one suitable for trauma alone. Struggling with eating on top of it all and wondering if this will be another insurmountable mountain I'll have to climb.

I’ve been in recovery for a solid 4 years of good intuitive eating. I expected the intense hunger cues to last for a while and they’ve certainly gotten better but I still don’t feel ‘normal’. I usually sense hunger in my head and it often comes on suddenly after feeling completely full for a couple hours after I’ve eaten. I tend to feel a little light headed, out of it, struggle to think clearly, and the need to eat feels urgent. If I’m exercising at all (including just a walk) when this comes on I also feel sweaty and like I might pass out. If I exercise too soon (within 30 minutes) after eating this also happens. I started taking inositol and it has maybe helped a little bit?

I’m curious if anyone else who has been in recovery for years still has problems like this and any advice in managing it? I’ve looked into insulin resistance and reactive hypoglycemia and the advice all seems to be eat balanced meals with protein and fat, lose weight, exercise. I’m not trying to lose weight but I feel like I do everything else so feeling a little stuck. I’m gonna work with a dietitian and my doctor on this but wanted to hear from the community to see if I wasn’t alone in this. Also I wasn’t acutely restricting for that long, only about a year or so so I’m just surprised that 4 years out I still feel so impacted by these symptoms.

A little bit of context: I am 22 Male, Athlete, and I developed food obsession since 2020, when I discovered calories and nutritional information.

Now, 2026, I cannot afford to eat out without thinking through the entire meal about the calorie count. Friends invited me to an unplanned lunch, and I say yes, of course, because it is nice every once in a while, but that simple derail of eating other thing that was planned (meal prep) torments me for the rest of the day, adding to this my food selection was high-caloric because I wanted to try something new, but know I am just thinking that and I am also almost out of calories for the day. I don’t know how to manage it and it happens even with family food, and with EVERY SINGLE THING THAT I EAT. I have a healthy athletic physique, but it is pain to mantain it with that mentality. I also used to train waaay more than now a couple yesrs ago, like 3 high intensity trainings per day, and I could eat whatever, now it is not like that anymore, and I am not being able to know what to do.

Because on the outside you see my diet and think: “this dude eats clean” or whatever, but on the inside, every day is excessively planned and any change like this drags me insane, literally, I feel sad, and I don’t have nobody of my friends/family that can understand nor give me a solution.

Title. I was in denial that I had an ED for a long time, but after a breakup a few weeks ago I’ve been struggling to eat. I finally ate a full dinner last night but that just sent the hunger pangs flooding back and that quickly made me nauseous. I’m trying to eat lunch right now today and I’m afraid the same thing will happen and don’t know how to break the cycle.

i’ve had my fair share with food problems in the past and had an ed during covid. i’ve healthily gained back the weight throughout the years and learned that fueling yourself is really important. i also love exercising! i’m actually very proud of myself and how far i’ve come because i used to eat out then come home and just eat even if i was stuffed because i had the all or nothing mindset. i’ve now fully thrown away the all or nothing because it did more harm than good.. and right now i don’t have food noise BUT there’s just some days where the food noise comes back and stays for the whole day. i saw someone on tiktok saying once you have an ed then recovered, the food noise never really goes away. and i just need advice on if anyone else has had or has a similar situation.

Hey guys. I’m (21F) been having some trouble with my eating habits and being underweight for the past six years. I’ve never been diagnosed with any eating disorder or any mental health issues, but my appetite and eating habits have created a lot of challenges for me to gain more weight. I weigh less than I did when I was 14, and I haven’t weighed more than that since then. I struggle a lot with eating three meals a day, and when I do, I get full very very fast and I feel like throwing up. I lack interest in eating until I’m very hungry and I absolutely need to, I’ve never done this and starved myself on purpose, I always just lack an appetite. I don’t do any sports and I haven’t been working out recently, but I’ve tried doing an exercise schedule and I feel like still that didn’t work for me. I’m very insecure and I hate the way I look whenever I look in the mirror or see pics of myself. I don’t wanna just jump to the conclusion that “there’s smth wrong with me and i have a disorder” but there’s a possibility. I feel like I can get some tips by figuring out my position w/ my eating a little more and create steps to get out of this. Idk, Im just asking for advice on how to get through this and what this problem may be because it’s been difficult for me to get through on my own. Where should I start with figuring this out?

edit: I want to clarify, whenever I lack an appetite is because I’m very anxious or it can be for no reason at all.

Possible gross tw??

I’m two months into recovery and when I pass gas it smells… deadly. Like this isn’t moral, it’s not okay 😭

Before, I most literally never passed gas. Or I did it very rarely and when I did there wasn’t a smell and it was SMALL and silent.

Will it ever go back to that because I’m not being funny im sick of this 💀

I grew up without enough food which has affected me into adulthood. Even now in my early 20s I can’t eat more than a little bit at a time even if I want to. It’s not a body image issue, it’s strictly a development and mental health issue.

I have always been skinny and grew up around girls who said they wished they had my body. My response was always to say “no you don’t” or “I wish I had your body”. This was never received well. The amount of times I was called rude or inconsiderate to say such things because I didn’t know how lucky I was to not be bullied for being overweight.

So many of these girls saying it had what should be considered healthy bodies. And even if they weren’t, it still hurt bad it and still wasn’t right. I know where that shame comes from and I hate our society so much.
No amount of explaining that I didn’t get enough food to eat at home, that school was my only real meal of the day and even that I couldn’t always finish cause I think my stomach is just perpetually small or unused to regular amounts of food.
It didn’t matter to any of these girls. They wanted to look like me.

Even today in my early 20s, sweet girls that I work with who have healthy bodies look at mine and will comment about how they wish they were as skinny as me. I’ve gotten over explaining myself or my past or my current struggles even now that I can afford food I still can’t eat much of it.

Not knowing the struggles of the specific kind of bullying and dehumanization associated with being overweight does not mean I don’t have a right to feel upset that my body has always been a point of discussion and envy when I had so little energy to move from lack of nutrients and no actual care about my situation when I explained I was starving.

It was never a cause of concern. It was something to be envious of. I know it’s not girls and women’s faults that they feel this way. But when I eat my small portions I sit and wonder if I will ever be able to stomach a normal sized meal. I wonder if my stomach will always be too small.

This struggle with food is not something isolated to just poor kids. Your eating disorder could legitimately live with you for the rest of your life. The moment your body lacks what it needs consistently, it will never go back to what it once was. You will struggle to eat for the rest of your life and sit and wish you had just loved yourself more when it mattered most.

We need to do all we can to help ourselves in our relationships with food and combat these mentalities without the minds of the youths. No matter what the body you’re in, the body you grew up in, the way your body was centered in conversations amongst your peers; it was never okay.

A person with a body you’d give anything for, may be a person who’d give anything for yours.

I have been through a lot of pain and hardship in my life, and unfortunately, I have been deeply affected by my childhood. I developed an eating disorder at a time when I needed something to control, and I have struggled with it for many years since. I have finally come to understand that life does not become any less miserable by having an eating disorder to hold on to, and that I am the only one who can fight my way back to recovery and the possibility of a better life.
My eating disorder has taken so much from me. A friend who took her own life, my relationship with my best friend, who has had to distance herself a little because I have become so “dark and empty,” and now I have become so unwell that I can no longer manage to work — something that has been the most important anchor in my life. I have lost all my routines, structure, and the few beautiful things in my life — and now everything just feels empty, dark, and cold. I am a shell of myself. I have no energy for anything. I can’t manage anything. I don’t recognize myself anymore. I am destroying all of my relationships.
It feels completely unbearable to write this and admit to myself and to others that being sick is the only thing I feel capable of succeeding at. And yet, life is so brutally painful and difficult with this illness that I have to dare to allow myself to let go and see whether there is something more out there for me. A better life. A life where I can give myself what I never received as a child. A life I can bear to live, without counting down the hours until I can go to bed for the night. A life I actually want to engage with, and to be the main character in.
When I am already at rock bottom, even with my eating disorder to hold on to, it can’t possibly get that much worse by choosing recovery.

My therapist once said to me: “Having an eating disorder is hell, and choosing recovery and going through it is hell too. Choose the hell that gives you something on the other side.”

And that is what I am going to try to live by. 😭❤️‍🩹

I’m soon to be 18 and have struggled with weight and developed an eating disorder when I was 11/12.

Firstly will give a bit of a backstory on my eating disorder.

Pretty much immediately after joining secondary school I developed an eating disorder, I was never big to start off with, but just had baby fat. Looking back I don’t know what started it, whether it was being around a mum that talked a lot about diets, being insecure or just trying to have something consistent in my life.
So I would say 2020-2024 was the “worst part” of it for me, as over those years most days I’d be eating either one meal or none, but with a few binge eating episodes in between that, so I did get very skinny, it wasn’t healthy but luckily it wasn’t life threatening due to the binge eating adding weight back on.

Unfortunately my household wasn’t a nice place, so I feel I should’ve seen doctors etc during this time but my parents never noticed/cared enough to “look out for me”.

2024-now has been a lot smoother I guess you could say, I actually wanted to recover and went into therapy (without my parents knowing) to help with it.
I was sick of being sick basically, constant headaches, the bloating which made me feel even more insecure, it made my mental health awful alongside living in my home, my school work was progressively getting worse, and I was just an easily irritated teenager and I’m still happy I helped myself.

2025 I was an ideal weight, healthy but also still had a flat stomach and definition, had a bigger butt and boobs than I had ever had, my confidence was definitely a lot better also, as I stopped wearing baggy clothes everywhere, and would wear just sports bras and shorts to dance which I would’ve never done before. Despite me being bigger than I ever was.

But ever since starting college in late 2025-now I am constantly gaining weight and can’t seem to get rid of it. I’m studying musical theatre and I thought due to the amount of dance I’d be doing I’d loose weight, but I actually keep on getting fatter and I seem to not do anything about it.

I have very bad ADHD and if I don’t have college or dance I will lay in bed and that’s it.
I’m not exaggerating.
I don’t see friends unless I have a party or have been asked to go out, which is rare as if there are plans it’s me making them.
So due to my ADHD I never work out ever. It’s so frustrating to try and explain ADHD to people because I literally cannot get up and do anything.
Or if I do go to the gym it’s because I’ve had a mental breakdown about getting fatter and gone to the gym once and then never again after.
And similar with the diet, I can’t keep consistent to a diet and every time I try to, I always fall back into Eating disorder habits and can’t seem to have a diet without not eating enough or restricting too much.

And unfortunately during recovery I never seemed to get rid of the binge eating habit, I binge eat all the time and I think that may have been one of the may reasons I’ve gained so much weight.

Don’t get me wrong most days I’m happy I’ve gained weight. I still have a slight hour glass figure and have even bigger boobs and a butt lol and also it’s helped me become stronger in dance. (Being insecure with my weight at dance is a whole other story)
It’s weird how much more confident I am despite the fact I’m a lot bigger, I wear whatever I want to wear and eat whatever I want (to a certain extent). I think it’s because my college friends are amazing, and always compliment me and they’ve really brought me out of a dark place. (It’s also a huge fake it till you make it situation when it comes to confidence)
But I do believe if old me woke up the weight I am now she wouldn’t have even left the house.

I have such a fear I will never be able to loss weight without going full blown anorexic again because of my
-messed up metabolism
-messed up brain
-unmedicated adhd
-and straight up laziness and bad mental health

I’m sorry that this ended up turning into a big trauma dump and mental breakdown
I’m still feel so young sometimes and it sucks growing up without proper support so please help a girl out.
Any tips and slapping sense into me is much appreciated.

Also one more thing, I also have no clue whether it’s body dysmorphia because if I tell myself that I have body dysmorphia then do I even have it because I’m aware???

I don’t have much else to say other than that I feel like I (20F) either have to never lose weight or never recover. I’m normal in all regards, never have been diagnosed anorexic or bulimic, but have struggled with terrible thoughts about my weight and body for as long as I can remember. I often develop bad habits when losing weight, like constantly weighing myself, measuring myself, over-restricting, body checking, and shaming old photos where I’m heavier. However, when I’m not trying to lose weight, I feel like I can’t even moderate without this terrible shameful feeling that I’m not trying hard enough. Or I find myself feeling like I’m giving into bad habits. I guess I just feel like I can’t win? When I lose weight I feel bad and when I don’t I feel worse. Some days I feel like I can’t ever lose weight without going way too far and making myself miserable, but my current size makes me miserable. How do I even start to fix this? Is it fixable? Please give me any advice you can think of, and please be kind because I’m new to discussing this. I hope everyone is having a great day!

Hey everyone! Throwaway account hence no karma yet lol.

I’m a twin (both girls) and my sister struggled with anorexia in the past.. I want to say 20-22 years old, we are now both 31. She is currently pregnant and I can’t help but be concerned especially with her history you know.. like is she going to suffer while her belly grows? She’s been doing really great since recovering but I’m still concerned at the back of my mind, I understand how much of a slippery slope this could be.

i just dont know what to do anymore. i just want to feel confident in my body. every single day its just constant noise about food and exercising since i was 12. and this entire time, i havent even really lost weight. i starve for days and i binge and every single time i think its going to be different but it never is. i tried doing things the healthy, sustainable way and i would still overeat every single day. I have adhd and it makes it really hard to ignore cravings and once i start i just cant stop. my body is all that i think about. i am constantly comparing myself and i always feel so disgusting. and i know i would feel so beautiful if i could just be skinnier. even just a little bit. but i dont know what to do anymore because i know this will never work and everything i try ends up the same so i just go back to starving because it feels safer for some reason. i feel like im reaching a breaking point. i just want to feel good about myself but when i try to lose weight or body recomp in a healthy way i end up relapsing.

Hello, i’m 5’5 and 25 years old. Two years ago, I was at my worst and weighed in extremely under weight, but a lot of therapy, food exposure, and even small life changes like getting into a relationship has helped me heal into becoming a healthier person. I have Crohn’s on top of all of it, so it took quite a while to finally get myself in order. The bloating Crohn’s caused me gave me a lot of dysphoria early on that I have slowly had to accept.

However, despite denying it- I still have a crippling obsession with weight gain. I’m sitting at around the “average”, but the heaviest I have been in my entire life. I have an obsession with that number continuing to climb and weigh myself every morning out of paranoia, and I find myself crawling back to older habits as a result. Do people share this anxiety? How do you control it?

Hi everyone. I was recommended inpatient treatment for my ED because I am at a critically low BMI . However, my ED is not due to the fear of gaining weight rather it is due to the gastrointestinal issues that I face when I eat something out of the ordinary. I am not able to eat protein at all, and rely mostly on a large volume of bananas , bread and rice to get me through the day. This is because if I eat anything that has protein, I immediately feel very heavy , bloated and full for hours and also have uncomfortable bowel symptoms. I’ve tried all types of gastrointestinal doctors, tests etc. and everything came out OK, so I had no way to treat myself with medicines. I’ve been trying very hard to gain weight but I cannot as I am always under much distress due to my GI issues .

I’m hopeful of going IP but I am also very scared since they might feed me a lot more than I can currently handle which could lead me to falling sick. If someone falls sick repeatedly in IP settings, do they trust you or think you’re making excuses to not eat? I just hope they don’t give up on me because I know it’ll be difficult for me to eat everything they give.

Can anyone who’s gone through anything similar please share how did they deal with GI issues during inpatient ED recovery.

Hey all. Incoming rant/advice

if i’m just posting here bc i have no one to talk to irl who understands. i’ve been rly struggling lately with AAN and i’m at an impasse bc like i wanna get better and have food freedom and be able to not constantly stress, but like i cannot.

fall/autumn is my favorite season because of all the pumpkin spice foods, but i can’t even buy them bc im so scared of them. like last year, when my ed was turning into an ed and not just disordered eating, i had no fear foods. sweets were my safe food. candy corn. candy. cookies. okay but like candy corn was rly so safe. and now, im so scared of gaining weight i can’t even buy them and im scared that ill binge on them. if its not in the house i can’t binge on it type thing.

and i dont have any sort of treatment team. i broke up with my therapist bc she just wasn’t helping and we weren’t ever working on anything. i’ve had crap luck with dietitians. i’m scared to make an appointment with my pcp at school bc i’m afraid they’ll step me up. and ik i probably need to step up, but idk where to go. i’ve made professional relationships with every single place near me/online. i’m in the local eating disorder specialist group as a student. like i’ve limited my options. i’m just at such an impasse. ik i can do virtual op, and i’ve been looking into it.

it’s just that my ed is maintained by my autism related sensory issues and i fear sensory overloads like someone with panic disorder fears panic attacks. for me, being smaller means having more space in my clothes which means no sensory overloads which means i can leave my apartment, go to my classes, go to the research lab, and do all my responsibilities. and the whole “eating disorders aren’t logical” thing doesn’t feel like it applies here bc i’ve had severe sensory issues my entire life. so i just dk what to do.

if you’ve made it this far, thanks.

Hey,

I'm starting my recovery journey, but I can't do it alone and I don't have the support network around I need to succeed!

I have my GP, Therapy etc but I don't know anyone else who has been through or is going through this.

Does anyone have any good recommendations for online support groups in Aus?

Butterfly foundation only holds them at a time I can't attend. And all the others seem to have a cost or be in person?

Any reccos would be great!

Thanks.

Hi all.

I've never really thought of myself having an eating 'disorder' so much as an eating problem. I'm not sure if I'm in the right place, and apologize if I'm making a fool of myself.

For brief context, my wife has had eating disorders all her life, and today barely eats anything. She's a diabetic, and needs to be reminded to take her meds, that she needs to eat 3 times a day to keep her sugar in check. Without reminders, she 'might' eat once a day, and that is a might. That's my experience with eating disorders.

I'm the opposite. I am always hungry. Stomach rumbling hunger where I can't focus on anything else until I eat. I'm easily eating 3 times more than she does, and I am very self conscious about it. I jokingly call myself a bottomless pit to make light of it, but I hate how much I eat. I ate less than an hour ago, and my stomach is already looking for more. I wait as long as I can, but my stomach hurts and I get these headaches if I wait too long, which is when I usually have to give in and get more food.

I've been this way for a while, but never thought of it as a 'disorder' and just blamed myself for eating too much. Now, I'm not sure. I don't know how I'd know the difference. I can't afford a doctor to ask, and not even sure what I would ask if I could. At the moment, I'm just trying to learn. And while I doubt it, see if there's something I can try to get this under control.

Thank you for your time.

I was diagnosed with anorexia at 15. I got treatment at 17 and was able to have a healthy relationship with food again. I am now 21 and I can’t stop crying every time I look in the mirror. I constantly mourn old photos of me at 17/18 years old. I have curves now and although I receive compliments on my appearance I can’t help but feel so insecure still . I stopped wearing usual clothes I would wear and I tear up every time I stare at myself now. I feel so alone and unhappy. I feel like I can’t talk to anyone that I’m close to about this. It just feels so isolating. I just don’t know what to do I’m scared I’m already falling into old patterns…

I’ve been recovering from a restrictive ED and lost period since may not by choice, my body has like gone into forced extreme hunger and I’ve been trying to repress it and doing extreme exercise to compensate but have slowly been gaining weight over these past months well in the last like 3 weeks it’s been so extreme and I haven’t compensated I’ve gained weight EXTREMELY rapidly Im now a healthy BMI and haven’t gotten my period back yet :/ at what point am I just binge eating or eating to eat I’m scared I’m going to become overweight soon if this extreme hunger doesn’t stop. I’ve already gained almost over what I was pre ed and I feel like it will never stop. Advice/ reassurance needed