Dealing with EXTREME HUNGER in Eating Disorder Recovery

0:00 Introduction & Background
5:28 How I Dealt with Extreme Hunger: 3 Tips
5:39 Tip 1: Understanding Extreme Hunger
7:40 Tip 2: Unconditional Permission to Eat
9:28 Tip 3: Using Nutrition to My Advantage

I experienced EXTREME HUNGER in my eating disorder recovery. I never felt full! Extreme hunger is actually very common for those recovering from a restrictive eating disorder such as anorexia, or those who have been restricting their food intake through strict dieting. I felt extreme hunger even after I started binge eating because I was still heavily restricting in addition to my binges.

For a long time, I didn’t understand what extreme hunger was or how it related to eating disorders and eating disorder recovery. I thought the constant hunger I felt was something everyone experienced! I thought I would have to just deal with my extreme hunger.

But after a lot of research and trial and error, I was able to combat my extreme hunger by understanding it on a rational level, allowing myself full permission to eat whatever and whenever I wanted and to eat to complete satiety, and using my knowledge of nutrition to my advantage. I stopped cutting out foods, I broke my eating disorder food rules, and I began to honor my cravings and feed my body to satiety. Over time, my body began trusting me to feed it and its fear of starvation decreased. I no longer deal with intense extreme hunger. It took a lot of time to get over this aspect of my eating disorder, but I’m so glad I have.

Resources:
The National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) helpline
1-800-931-2237 (they also offer click-to-chat messaging)

#eatingdisorderrecovery #extremehunger

I thought my eating disorder would control my life forever. I didn’t think eating disorder recovery was possible. For years I lacked eating disorder recovery motivation. I struggled with anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating for years. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t find anorexia recovery, bulimia recovery, or binge eating disorder recovery. I had extreme hunger in my eating disorder recovery. I had constant hunger from my anorexia and restrictive eating disorder. I didn’t know what is extreme hunger. I didn’t have extreme hunger tips or know how to deal with extreme hunger. I didn’t understand the difference between extreme hunger vs binge eating. Over time I learned about all in eating disorder recovery. All in ed recovery was a lifesaver. All in eating disorder recovery allowed my to finally fix my extreme hunger from anorexia. I’m not fully recovered from my eating disorder yet. I still struggle with binge eating, bulimia, and anorexia. I still restrict my food sometimes. But I’m well on my journey of eating disorder recovery. If you need eating disorder recovery motivation, here it is! Let’s go! Let’s recover from our eating disorders together.

[MrTroybies]

I work as an Eating disorder Clinical Specialist and really enjoyed your video. I have a lot of factual knowledge, but that means nothing when it comes to real world live experience and really appreciate you sharing your experience. Will help me deliver care to other people suffering from an eating disorder.

[amandasmith]

Thank you for sharing your experience, strength, and hope with those of us going through the extreme hunger part of recovery… feel like I’m completely out of control

[apostoliagkolfinopoulou]

I love this video thank you so much for making it. You are genuinely a wonderful person and I relate to all of your struggles a lot. Your amazing and realistic progress gives me a lot of hope for myself as I am in a similar place right now. I want to strive for the food freedom you describe in this video and Im looking forward to watching more of your videos on this topic. Again thank you so much for this video it helps a lot and I wish you the best on your own journey with this!

[Chester-crbv]

Hey, thanks for this video, can you make a video to extreme hunger, where you talk about how to deal with sickness and anxciety after having an extrem hunger attack? This would be very helpful☺️

[xiaomao]

I just found you and you’re so underrated

[evgenianeyasova]

Thank you for sharing Kristi! you just described everything i am going through right now.

[bellaswalen]

Balance is sit in recovery just another restriction 🤦‍♀️ look tabitha farrar up she gives great advice

[sadieherbert]

Wow thank you for sharing your experience. This is incredibly reassuring & helpful. You are very good at explaining & using your knowledge to convey on this subject. You are a natural on camera.

[elizaderr]

Did u experience extreme bloating during this? I’m currently dealing with that and wondering if it goes away

[ilovemy_hamster]

i keep going back and forth from restricting to trying to honor my extreme hunger (which makes me crazy and freaked out how hungry i get without ever getting full) should i stop over - exercising during extreme hunger? i often find that i try to exercise to get rid of the calories i ate, i just cant help it. do the extra calories go to growing and aiding my organs or does it get turned into fat and result in weight gain straightaway? those are the questions from my ED, but i know i shouldnt worry about that and should focus on recovering

but... if you could answer them that would be cool too especially the exercise one :( im 15 by the way and english isnt my first language im sorry if i dont make sense

[professor]

I 100% agree with ur 3rd tip. Imo u cant just eat "unhealthy" food. Cant let the mindset of oh I'm in recovery i can eat anything i crave. nope u still need to limit. good limitations. Balance and consistency is key.

[tina]

Hii! Your story is literally the same as mine…but I have ti say that extreme hunger makes me really depepressed…i’m experiencing it for like 4 months now and it’s not stopping…how long did it last for you?

[micahjones]

Thank you so much, this helps me a lot

[evaescatepalomino]

Im so afraid to eat through the day but at night I eat a lot of PB and toasts, I feel so sick and sad 😔

[sarahbartlett]

Hey Kristi. Do you think that because you kept going back to restricting that you gained more weight than if you had been consistent. I know you’re back to your set point weight now but how much did you overshoot by and how long did you stay in overshoot for?

[sumeyrakaraca]

Was your extreme Hunger mainly physical or mental?

[Bischa]

Thank you for sharing
any idea how much you had to spend on food during all in and esp. During extreme hunger periods? (it sounds like it could be freaking expensive🤪)
Thanks in advance ❤️

[lindsay]

Pickles are very low calorie—surprising that was a thing.

[Sky-nyzb]

Dose the extreme hunger come out every day

[kamal]

Hy did you gain weight during recovery "overshooot"??