Whether or not you have overshot your set point weight in eating disorder recovery or you are just afraid that you might, this post is for you. The fear of weight gain and particularly overshooting and the “unnecessary” weight gain is in the back of the mind of many people who are trying to eat enough, stop exercising or compensating in order to recover their body.
Overshooting does not happen in all cases of recovery but when it does, it is needed. However, this doesn’t mean the weight will never come down to the normal set point.
If you are not familiar with the concept of set point weight and how our body maintains it then you can read more here: Why Diets Do Not Work & How Set Point Weight Works
Yo-yo-ing Between Recovery And Relapse
In my opinion, what interferes THE MOST with this process is not our body’s lack of knowledge or ability to return back to its set point but more the fact that as human beings we tend to interfere this process with your mind too much. We over think, over analyze, panic and then try to control what’s happening. But this is exactly what your body doesn’t need right now! In fact, THIS is why you had an eating disorder in the first place!
Let’s say an animal is starved for a period of time and then they are allowed as much food as they want. They WILL overeat and binge. This is a scientifically proven fact. And they will rapidly gain weight. There is a study done on mice who were starved and then allowed to refeed in an uncontrolled fashion and they binged on food. But, as they didn’t interfere this process with their mind (didn’t panic about the weight gain and didn’t relapse back to restriction) their appetite returned back to normal and they restored their normal weight. (1)
So with this is mind I want to say that for the weight to stabilise at our set point and our appetite to return back to normal it’s crucial that you trust your body and do not go back and relapse over and over again.
What relapsing back to restriction in recovery does to your body is essentially the same what happens with people who try to lose weight by dieting. They will eventually get hungry, understandably because they are starving, then they binge eat (normal reaction), gain the weight back very rapidly (panic sets in) and they go back to dieting once again only to get hungry soon after. This is the start of an endless cycle of yo-yo dieting. And by studies this has shown to be a recipe for gaining back more weight and fat than they originally started with.
“One study, published in the journal “Evolution, Medicine and Public Health”, showed that repeated dieting could be interpreted by the brain as short famines. Due to this, the brain urges the body to store more fat for future “shortages”. This makes repeated dieters gain more weight compared to those who never diet.”(2)
Or let’s take another study done in the University of Geneva (3). It involved three groups of rats, all eating the same quality of food.
- Normal Group: Adult rats eating normally.
- Eat Less Group: Adult rats temporarily losing weight by eating less.
- Naturally Skinny Group: Young rats who naturally weighed about as much as the adult Eat Less Group immediately after the adult rats were starved.
I want to give you a comparison to humans and dieting so it will be clearer to understand:
- Normal Group: People who eat normally without counting calories, listen to their hunger cues, and have a normal and healthy set-point weight.
- Eat Less Group: People who diet and cut calories to lose weight. They were at their normal set-point weight to begin with but wanted to be even skinnier to fit within today’s societal norm of the perfect body type.
- Naturally Skinny Group: People whose set-point weight is naturally lower, but they also eat based on hunger cues and don’t count calories.
For the first ten days of the study, the Eat Less Group ate fifty percent less than usual while the Normal Group ate normally. On the tenth day:
- The Normal Group kept eating normally.
- The Eat Less Group stopped starving themselves and started eating normally.
- The Naturally Skinny Group ate normally.
This continued for twenty-five days. The study ended on day thirty-five.
At the end of the thirty-five-day study, the Normal Group had eaten normally for thirty-five days. The Eat Less Group had eaten less for ten days and then normally for twenty-five days. And the Naturally Skinny Group had eaten normally for twenty-five days. Which group do you think weighed the most and had the highest body fat percentage at the end?
The Naturally Skinny Group seems like an easy “no” since these rats were naturally thinner than the other rats to begin with. Traditional fat-loss theory (calories in, calories out) would say the Eat Less Group is an easy “no” as well since these rats ate fifty percent less for ten days. So the Normal Group weighed the most and had the highest body fat percentage at the end of the study, right?
Surprisingly, no.
The Eat Less Group weighed the most and had the highest percent of body fat. Even though they ate less for ten days, they were significantly heavier than those who ate normally all the way through.
Eating less caused metabolic adjustments that led the rats to gain – not lose – body fat after returning to normal eating. So this is the side-effect of typical crash-dieting: more fat gain. Eating less is actually WORSE for our body than doing nothing at all.
When you relapse over and over again in recovery your metabolism doesn’t even get the chance to speed up. After being through starvation (read: dieting) and then re-feeding (bingeing, overeating or just eating as much as you normally did) your body wants to store more fat and keep the metabolism slower in a case of future famine. But if you allow long enough period to be passed, while continuing to eat enough and not compensating, your body sees that “ok, I’m sure the starvation is over now. Let’s start working normally again. Let’s speed up the metabolism, decrease hunger and go back to our set point. The threat has passed, we are safe!”. But if you continually relapse…then this can’t happen. Instead, what happens is that your body will continue to stay in a suppressed mode. Not trusting and thinking that you will be starving again soon. It’s a protection mechanism. Also known as adaptive thermogenesis (4)
”…body fat distribution seems to normalise after long-term maintenance of complete weight restoration. This finding, if confirmed, indicates that the preferential central distribution of body fat is a transitory phenomenon associated with the acute phase of weight regain.” (5)
Even the men in The Minnesota Starvation Experiment temporarily overshot their weight by 10% and also had increased fat levels, but after allowed to refeed (some men ate up to 11,000 calories a day) over a course of 12-18 months they started to reach their previous weight and fat levels with no restriction or dieting (6)
Not Eating To Full Hunger And Compensating
Another mistake people do in recovery is that they still try to suppress their appetite and do not follow their full hunger. They might increase calories but they keep them low hoping that it will help them to not gain too much. Or they continue to “eat enough” but still compensate their calories through exercise, giving the body no rest and putting it through even more stress. But this interferes with the recovery as well because if your body still feels that the energy demands are not met it will not speed up the metabolism or recover your normal hunger cues.
You may still feel like you are never satisfied with foods, you always obsess about foods and every time you eat a little more you only seem to gain more weight. This, however, makes you feel like you have to restrict even more. You are still in the cycle! This is not recovery!
This is why I recommend following the MinnieMaud Calories Guidelines, or as it is called now – the Homeodynamic Recovery Method (HDRM) (7). Because, if I just say “eat as much as you want” many end up eating too little, consciously or unconsciously restricting their intake. 2000 calories a day is not enough to recover from and eating disorder (8). Yes, you can gain weight on this amount and you can even overshoot your weight because your metabolism stays in a suppressed state and you always feel like still wanting to binge! This is because your body doesn’t get what it needs – an adequate amount of calories to restore itself and relax!
“Furthermore researchers have shown there is a significant increase in trunk adiposity (fat deposits around the mid-section of the body) in recovery and this fat mass is evenly redistributed in the optimization period after weight restoration only if the patient continues to eat in an unrestricted fashion.
In other words, the initial trunk adiposity and disproportionate fat mass ratio in the early period of re-feeding may not resolve unless and until a patient successfully supports the period of hyperphagia [excessive eating, increased hunger] that is part and parcel of the process of reaching a healthy remission. We also know that trunk adiposity in particular is correlated with cardiovascular disease in older men and women which is all the more reason to encourage those in recovery to allow their bodies to complete the re-feeding process fully to allow for a return to optimal fat mass to fat-free mass ratios.
The overshoot in weight during a re-feeding process is not present for all patients, but it is assuredly temporary for those who do experience it.” (9)
In other words, you must eat unrestrictively to let your body heal and reach to a optimal set point weight for your body. Going back and forth with recovery and relapse only further increases your chances of overshooting your weight due to metabolic suppression and other protective mechanisms. Even when you overshoot your weight in time you will go back to your healthy set point weight but this can only happen when you don’t interfere with your body’s recovery processes.
- Hagan And Moss, “An Animal Model of Bulimia Nervosa”
- Nature World News, “ALERT: Repeated Yo-Yo Dieting May Only Lead to More Weight Gain”
- J. Bailor, “A Calorie Myth: How to Eat More and Exercise Less with the Smarter Science of Slim”
- M. Rosenbaum, Rudolph L. Leibel, “Adaptive Thermogenesis In Humans”
- M. El Ghoch, S. Calugihttp et al., “Anorexia Nervosa and Body Fat Distribution: A Systematic Review”
- Follow The Intuition, “Minnesota Starvation Experiment and Eating Disorders”
- Ed Institute, “I Need How Many Calories?”
- Ed Institute, “Gaining Weight Despite Calorie Restriction”
- Ed Institute, “Binges Are Not Binges”
Thank You, for another informative post and video; with references. Keep doing what you are doing; helping people through recovery.
thanks! glad you liked it! 🙂
Elisa, I think you are awesome for devoting your life to such an important and vital health issue. I watch all your videos and read all your posts. Sadly, I have been battling the thoughts of “I have to be thin to be any good” for so so long since that was told to me from such a young age. I hope I can find the courage to eat what I should without restriction someday. Thank you.
Thank you! i really hope you can recover! and know that all those “need to be thin” throughs are just habits from your past. past of repeating them to yourself over and over again until they became subconcious and automatic, just like brainwashing. but the more you recover and repeat new healthy and positive thoughts about yourself the more you can recover from this and also change your inner beliefs.
Thank you so much for replying to me, that was nice!
You’re an inspiration and keep on motivating me to stick to recovering. I’m 6 months in (without restricting eating around 3000 calories a day – in the beginning it was a bit more) and have overshot my natural pre-ED weight by 10kg, which is still a massive downer for me! I hope so much to lose the overshoot weight naturally without restricting soon.
thank you! <3 I wish you all best for your recovery!
Hi Cam, how have you been? I have also overshot my pre-ED weight by 10 kg now, and it seems to have plateaued but I still do not have regular cycles yet.
I’m in recovery since 4 months and I have overshoot my pre ed weight (I think by 5-10kg) but I have a bad feeling that it’ll never go down. I have got my period back. I’m almost 16 years old and when I started restricting I Was almost 15 yo. I read that only adults loss the overshoot weight. It made me very anxious, because I hate my currently weight, nothing fits me and I have a very big stomach.
Is it normal when I look in the mirror, stretch and see my back bones even if my belly is so big? I’m feeling very anxious, I hate myself and have no idea, what should I do… Please, help me 🙁
in teenage years your body will change and you can gain weight naturally anyway, your body develops, becomes more womanly etc. so its very natural to be higher weight now than your pre-ed weight when you were younger, and you are still in the growth phase. and if you have a bigger belly compared to the rest of your body its recovery bloat and a normal reaction, and this will redistribute over time!
Hi! I have been in treatment/recovery for 18 months. My body is 30-40 pounds over my pre-eating disorder weight. It just did this when I started eating again. Have you ever heard of someone overshooting that much and then it going back down naturally? How long did this take? I have been eating good for about a year.
Hi Sara, I am in a similar situation as you. May I please ask how you’ve been? I am also worrying now about my “overshoot” and whether I have the hopes of returning to my pre-ED weight.
Thank you for this, I have overshot my previous weight by quite a bit, and though I would expect my set point to be heavier anyway because I am still growing, but i have gotten very chubby now lol
The hardest thing for me is to eat without restricting, I eat a hell of a lot of food because I’m literally hungry all the time, and the only way I can even feel satisfied is to eat a LOT. Like, more than double what my teenage brother eats, on a daily basis. Sometimes more. It scares the crap out of me but I know I have to do it, and indeed, I feel so much better now, I’m less tired, I can focus, my skin is better, and my hair is thick and lustrous again. It make sit really hard though when my brother calls me a greedy fat pig and my mother suggests that I have binge eating disorder and I ‘stress eat’. God, when I’m stressed I can’t make myself eat anything at all!
Anyway, thanks again, this stuff is really helpful.
yes you need to eat A LOT, its very normal in recovery. you are doing the BEST thing!
Hi I am 15 now and a year ago I started dieting, it only lasted a couple of months but i lost my hair, my period and developed an eating disorder. after i started eating normally my period came back and the hair loss slowed down but mentally i still have not fully recovered. i have overshot my pre- ed weight by 7kg and because i’m a very short girl it is very obvious. i am now overweight and i absolutely hate my body. i can’t cope with it at all and i can’t let go of old clothes even though they are too tight for me. i have heard that after 12-18 months my body will naturally return to its weight before my eating disorder but i find that hard to believe because my weight keeps going up. it’s been more than 6 months since i’ve started eating normally however my weight still hasn’t stabilised and i don’t think it’s ever going to go back to how it used to. i don’t restrict and i try to intuitively eat although i struggle with it sometimes. please give me advice on what to do and tell me if my weight will ever go back to what it used to be before my eating disorder. i hope you can answer me soon, thank you for this post.
at 15 your body is still developing and weight gain might have happened even without dieting as a normal phase of growing from a girl’s body to a woman’s body. dieting will also lead to weight gain because if we suppress our weight then our body thinks we are starving and if given a chance it wants to put on more weight for protection. it’s hard to say what will happen to anybody’s weight after recovery, especially when you were a teenager when it started as your body was not in its adult set point. also, full recovery and physical recovery, weight redistribution can take more time than 6 months, I would say give it more like few years and use this time to heal your relationship with food and your body. fighting your body, self-hate only adds more stress that does not help with recovery as stress directly affects hormones, metabolism, digestion, it causes inflammation that leads to a host of other issues. so mental stress from weight focus is crucial to work on, keeping focusing on losing weight won’t help your body to recover physically. the thing is that our body restores its own best weight without us needing to focus on it, it does it by itself. (we only focus on our part in doing the recovery work, proving the body the best conditions to fully recover) But if we keep focusing on losing weight then we only add stress that could make it worse.
What happens if your gaining (a lot) on very few calories (like 1300-1500) and have already overshot your pre diet weight? I’ve been dieting for 20 years…. have I destroyed my body?
the metabolism is suppressed if you gain weight eating that low amount of calories, its the starvation response. the way to get out of this is to eat enough calories and rest (no exercise) and go through recovery. no more restriction or dieting.
Hi there,
I just found this and just started researching this for myself. I was anorexic from ages 14-18 and am just now realzing that I actually never allowed my metabolsim to fully heal. Because when I gained past what I was comforatble with after recovery, I yo-yo dieted for years and never let go and always tried to control my weight and counted calories. When I got lean again, I was psuedo-recovered, and no one in my life questioned me. Now, I’m 22 and a senior in college and I am finally ready to EAT and STOP dieting/binging once and for all because I never truly got rid of the HUNGER and ate ENOUGH even during recovery. Finally, my desire to find my set weight and never diet again is greater than my need to restrict. But I am scared of weight gain still, past where I am at now. (I am pretty comfortable with my curvy-ier weight now just not where I am mentally and am still depriving myself to “keep” myself this way). I battle a trigger to diet daily, but I am still feeding myself because it feels good. It’s scary, because my body wants like 2500-3000 calories a day, and I’m so scared to gain weight. I just feel deep inside if I finally feed myself whenever I am hungry all day long, my body will heal my metabolism and my weight will settle where it needs to be. It’s just SO scary!! And it feels weird because I was skinny and in “Recovery” so long ago. It feels like there’s no point in doing this now, but I also feel in my body that I never got a chance to heal, and better late than never? Will re-feeding work almost 5 years out?
So I’ve gained about 35 lbs trying to “recover,” only that recovery has still been in somewhat of a restriction (eating about 2000 cals a day with four days a week spent at the gym). But shouldn’t that count for something?? That’s loads more than what I used to eat. And any diet estimator tells me that 2000 cals is far more than what I should be eating for my age and height anyway. So is 2000 cals really still restricting?
But I’m still gaining significant amounts of weight. I think what’s holding me back is my binge eating. My urges to binge aren’t as strong as they used to be for sure, and I know that’s because I’m eating more daily. But they’re still happening. I can’t tell if my urges to binge are now just a habit and addiction that I’ve developed or if it’s because my body is still “hungry.”
Also wondering roughly how long is average for someone in recovery to return to their set point after overshooting weight? I’ve been “recovering” for six months now with nothing but significant fat gain to show for it. I’m going crazy! Please help 🙁
Hi Elisa!
I’ve been doing a lot of research since after recovering from my eating disorder and I recently came across your website. I went through the process of binge eating for a couple months and gained way more weight then I wanted to. However, I am back to eating 3 meals a day and eating a variety of foods like I used to before my disorder. I have been eating pretty clean 5 days a week and allowing myself to enjoy my weekends but I’m wondering when my body will go back to its set point before this all happened. Will it ever? I work out pretty much ever day and am always conscious about what I’m eating. I’m feeling very frustrated because I don’t know how else to lose the weight without restricting. This is the heaviest I have ever been. Do you believe in intermittent fasting? I’ve been at a healthy weight for almost a year now. Please let me know if you have any suggestions.
Thanks so much!
Hi Elisa, Thank you so much for this information. I read your book and am following it carefully under the supervision of an RD. My question is how do we explain to people why we are gaining so much weight – I was never underweight (I had subclinical anorexia merged into orthorexia), I was of a normal weight, and now that my weight has increased so much I’m ashamed and embarrassed to go outside and have people see me this way. I don’t feel like explaining to everyone that I am recovering from an ED but I wish your website and posts would address the social aspects of weight gain: people asking questions, people kind of giving you funny looks, etc. The weight gain is terrifying me and it would be much easier to accept it if I could just move to the moon while it is happening. Having to face the world is keeping me from fully embracing the extreme hunger because I feel housebound and like I can’t live my life. I’m also short and the weight gain is really noticeable on my body. I wear baggy clothes and pray people won’t notice but the hunger is not letting up. Any sugg
Hi Izzi! Yes the social aspect is definitely hard one for anybody in recovery! I have made a video about judgemental people and negative comments, hope it helps! see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMISgksv4C8&t=1s
Hi Elisa! Thank you so much for providing your channel and your website with such useful information. I’ve seen a comment here that is a bit similar to my case. I had an eating disorder at 14, and I got very underweight back then, but, fortunately, I recovered fully soon. A few months after being wieght restored, during summer, I traveled a lot and I gained a few pounds. I was very frustrated and I wanted to lose them as fast as possible(now looking back I realised I was very ok, I didn’t really need to lose weight) and started to restrict calories. I lost weight very fast and much more than I needed, so I ended up a bit underweight again. I was so hungry, tired, etc….a month ago I commited to recovery because I judt couldn’t fight my body anymore. I already gained back almost to my pre-dieting weight, but still am extremely hungry and am pretty sure I will overshoot….this is ok, as my body needs to heal itself, and this is practically the second time I starve myself…..and I understand how much damage I did to my body, especially at this age. So if my body needs to gain past my set point in order to restore my health for the second time, I accept it.
But what concerns me the most is what will happen after, if I overshoot will my body readjust in time? Because I’m still a teenager….is the overshoot process the same for teens as for adults? Have you heard of situations like mine? What was it like?
Any thoughts would be welcome:)
Hi Elisa! I have watched your video and it made so much sense for me. But I have a question: if, in recovery, you overshoot “ unnecessarily” because you don’t commit to fully recover and you don’t eat from the beginning to your full hunger, after being recovered, will you still lose naturally the overshoot weight?
Anyway, thank you for everything you do!
Hi! I do not want to say what will or will not happen exactly because we are all different and at the end of the day only your body knows, but I will say that by committing to full recovery and no restrictions NOW you have the best possible chance to restore the best healthy weight for your body!
Hi Elisa, I was hoping you could answer my questions/help me out here. I’m in a pretty unique situation… I’ve had my ED for 20 years, and only began recovery in late spring of 2019. Back then I was 290 lbs at 5’5″, pretty big. It’s been just short of a full year now, and I’ve gained SO much weight–I’m about 350 lbs now. How can this have happened when I’ve never given up/seriously relapsed in my recovery at all? I seldom engage in disordered behaviors anymore. I’ve been working SO hard and I want to eventually be smaller for improved mobility, so I’m getting extremely impatient for my body to find its natural setpoint weight (and I have no idea what that number is, but I can guarantee it’s less than 350 or 290). Potential medical issues have been ruled out as to causes of this weight gain. Will my body EVER stop gaining weight and go to its setpoint? I’m starting to lose hope.
Hi Denise! many people gain weight in recovery not because they are doing something wrong but because they come from restriction that suppresses the normal body functions. I recommend looking into Health At Every Size (HAES) approach since they will not recommend dieting (that will just not work long term) but rather healing relationship with food and the body and focusing on health-promoting behaviors that are sustainable long term. There are also many HAES coaches/nutritionists who specialize in ED recovery so I would highly recommend working with someone as it can be hard to go through alone and then someone can monitor your recovery process and help with any concerns individually.
Thanks for this post. After 20 years of bulimia I have begun recovery and I have gained a large amount of weight in my mid section, which is really distressing. What I don’t want to do now is stop recovering..your blogs help me continue, and realise that this may just be a part of my body recovering, and won’t last forever.
Hi! yes always see the whole context and the past you come from and what your body has been through, its part of the starvation response after restriction but the way to improve is to go through recovery!
Hi there, so pretty much during Ramadan (a time where a person religiously fasts without food and water all day until sunset) I lost loads of weight as I restricted what I ate when it was time to break my fast. I Am 16 and was 50kg and went all the way down to 44.5kg in a month . I was hospitalised and I regained more weight as I am now 52.5kg. However my set point weight is between 50 and 51kg so will it ever reduce down or are my doctors trying to change my set point weight! I’m really stressed about this, please answer and thank you for the video ?
it is very normal and healthy to gain more weight after restriction, its how our body is trying to protect us after starving (this is what our body thinks is going on if we restrict). The best way is to stop restriction and let your body fully recover and then it can restore its weight the best way possible. As you said you are just 16 so your body is not fully developed which means your set point might change as you grow older anyway, so there is no way to say what is your true set point yet, as your body is still developing. the best way to be healthy and for the weight to balance is to fully recover regardless.
This made me panic a bit …I’m 3 months in recovery and I’ve over shot my weight by binging .. I did gain more fat around my tummy but I started eating healthy and working out a healthy amount for what my weight should be and I asked my doctor but I’m now scared that I won’t be able to lose any weight after reading this and I’m scared I’m going to just keep gaining weight no matter what I do
as I understand you went back to restricting and controlling and trying to lose weight. the only way recovery works and the weight can normalize is if we go all in recovery and don’t go back to control. then over time our eating normalizes, our weight will redistribute, our metabolism gets back to normal and we are able to maintain our weight without any control. you need to do full recovery and not go back to controlling, this is the way to get out of this cycle.
Hey Elisa,
Thank you so much for this post. I have a question for you. Earlier this year, I was hospitalized for my ed day 75 lbs, after TPN and setting healthy eating patterns, I returned to my pre ed weight of 120 lbs. In four months time though, I’ve gained over 40 lbs and weigh over 160 lbs despite dieting and exercise. My nutritionist has never seen this in his 35 years of practice with anorexia. Is this normal, or could I have some kind of metabolic problem? Thank you!
dieting and exercise can suppress your metabolism, you can read this post: https://followtheintuition.com/8-tips-restore-metabolism-eating-disorder/
and also post about why diets don’t work and can make you gain weight: https://followtheintuition.com/why-diets-dont-work/
Hey Elisa,
As a follow up to my last question: When should I expect this severe overshoot to go down? I am I am now almost a year into recovery (in 8 months went from 75 to 165 pounds while eating roughly 1500 calories a day + exercise). Have you ever heard of this much weight gain in a healthy diet? I have found I have sleep apnea which explains some of the metabolic issues and weight gain. Is there a way to reset my metabolism and lose some weight without further restricting? Thank you.
you are undereating. you should be eating to your full hunger (2500+ cal minimum) and resting (no exercise) to restore your metabolism. Read this post about metabolism: https://followtheintuition.com/8-tips-restore-metabolism-eating-disorder/ and this post about calories: https://followtheintuition.com/calories_for_eating_disorder_recovery/
Hi I’m lara and I’m 14, I have been doing research because im quite scared (sounds dumb) but my anorexia started when I was 12 and tried to recovery after loosing a life threatening amount of weight, at the age 13 in summer i decided I couldn’t do it anymore and wanted to recovery (at this time I didn’t even know what was happening to me and thought it was normal) this time was really scary and in about 1 month I had gained 9kg. I weighed myself everyday because I still didn’t know how to recover. I was getting therapy which didn’t help me at all it would make me more stressed but my therapist said it was all mostly water weight. I had relapsed and went back down to my weight before I started eating. I ended up in hospital for only 2weeks so didn’t put on much weight and that didn’t help either so when I got out I returned to my original weight again. I was told I was going to go back into hospital which scared me so I started to “recover” again. I held onto every Ed rule but managed to go around 5-6months eating meals and snacks, i had gained a little less than 20kg in this time which got to me. I relapsed again and went back down but this time a little over. I kept relapsing about 3-5 times after this. I notice when I’m eating my body gains weight FAST. I hate this because on TikTok I see all these girls in recovery and it doesn’t look like their putting on weight despite being in recovery for a longgg time. Why do I put on weight so quick? And how do I accept it. Also I realise when I try to recover my mental hunger hits straight away and it’s a lot more than my belly can handle. Why is this? Also does eating regularly help metabolism and does eating meals rather than snacks keep you more satisfied? Hope I get a reply and thank you 🙂
people gain weight differently in recovery, but if weight gain is very quick in a matter of few days or weeks it can also be water weight. it doesn’t matter how quickly you gain, what matters is you keep eating enough and regularly to recover your body and its functions and not keep on sabotaging and confusing it with relapsing, that is not helpful at all. and TikTok is not a great place to get ED reovery advice and if it triggers you to restrict its a sign its not helpful.