Indeed you must Amanda: onwards and upwards, one bold now at a time. And I am really pleased to know that my sharing here is supporting you in your recovery journey xx

Absolutely: so SO worth it xx

@@emilyspence2961 🙌🙌🙌

You may be still hungry and the eating prior to brushing your teeth only stimulated your appetite. Stay strong and carry on, you got this.

I get this too! I wonder if it’s a mental fear of scarcity of food (i.e. the brain thinking that brushing our teeth means that we’re done eating and it’s not going to get food for a while so it panics and spirals about the food). I’m trying to overcome it by eating during that time to show my brain and body that food is available at all times💛

I hope it’s ok to jump in and say that even though you say you’ve gained a lot of weight, you may still not be within your set point range. If you are still undereating or restricting in any way, you’ll still have physical and mental hunger. I think it takes different lengths of time for different people. I’m also about a year into recovery, but I’m a binge/purge subtype, so that adds extra complications. I still get mental hunger a lot. It means my body still needs more food, and I have to honour that if I want that to change.

@@cazlovescakes thank u. I gained 50 pounds and almost back to my pre Ed weight which was just almost the obese bmi range. I don’t look like any of the other people whom I see recovering, which they all recover staying thin. I on the other hand am not, so I feel totally alone.

@@whoopssorry Please don’t feel you have to answer me, but have you gained weight by eating completely without restriction? I’m a b/p subtype, so the advice to eat all the food just doesn’t work for me. I’m also older, and so cannot relate to a lot of younger people who’ve not been unwell for over half their life, or still have the metabolism and bounce back ability of youth. I’m trying to recover, and have gained a fair bit from b/p, so I haven’t been giving myself the chance to do all the neural rewriting. I’m working on it, but if we don’t change how we think, we will still have all the ED thoughts regardless of weight x

@@cazlovescakes well, I say a year into recovery but it’s been on off. sometimes I purge or compensate somehow, Then I recommit and respond by eating till full mental and physical hunger. Been a constant loop but I feel like Now that I gained the weight and still struggling I’m more depressed with my current body than before.

@@whoopssorry I’m no expert, but it sounds as though you haven’t been in the fully committed and eating to physical and mental hunger stage for long enough. If you can maintain it, and not fall back into the ED behaviours, I do believe that it will settle down, and your body will find the weight range within which it is happiest.

Thank you so much :) x

your body will tell you and you can't misunderstand. you will just not want food anymore. you probably can't even imagine how this feels but there will come a point where you just don't want food anymore (until you, like every other human, need food again). apart from that, try to eat as much as you can physically tolerate. don't make your stomach pop, but at least for me, especially the first 3 weeks were challenging because i was soooooo (painfully) full, soooooo stuffed all the time. but it does get easier if you just try to listen to your physical and MENTAL hunger as much as possible. you can do it, now!

@@minalovis thank you for answering, i never get that not wanting food feeling. I could always eat, even when i dont really want to. I dont care about my weight, i just want to eat nornally

You need to get really curious about pushing into that feeling of 'never feeling like you don't want food'. If you are in recovery from an RED then it is normal to be REALLY hungry and to feel like a bottomless pit... after a period of restriction/starvation the pendulum has to swing in the opposite direction before going back to your 'normal', something that cannot be forced but instead happens naturally with continued unrestricted eating. It may take far far more food that you perceive to be 'ok' or 'normal', and WAY more food than your ED deems appropriate to reach a place of satisfaction (and that place may only last for 15 minutes before you are hungry again) but that is not a sign that you are broken, its a sign that you are HUNGRY. So get curious. Allow yourself to eat without any restriction. Honour all your mental and physical hunger. Drop the judgement around if its too much/excessive/wrong etc... there is no 'too much' in RED recovery. Embrace abundance with food- big portions and eating from the packet/tub etc. Prioritise rest and stop any compulsive movement (if that is a factor of your ED). And commit to each of these things every single day- consistency KEY! Let your body do the eating it wants to do and that is how you will be bale to move towards your 'normal' xx