What I'd say to the ME who had EXTREME HUNGER // Reassurance & Encouragement // ED Recovery 

Emily I could listen to you all day - your voice is remarkable and you are so gentle with your explanations. thank you - I am 5 months into AN treatment and I am so happy to have found your platform xx

Great content as usual. If you want suggestions for topics about stuff I as a viewer struggeling with, it is: 1. How to handle real severe weightgain from recovery, not going to normal, but to unhealthy overweight. I really had that problem as younger, causing me to repeated and rather quick relapses with weight fluctuations of 100 punds up or down in record time (if I did not weigh myself I wouldn't believe one could gain or lose so fast). What would others like me need to hear? I believe people that are like that may need some eating training to not go from one extreme to another. This is meant for those who just do not onlly have some extreme temporary hunger, but just keep on gainging and eating like common obese persons. 2. How to handle the reactions from people that "phew, she gained some weight, now she feels better" or when you cant see a therapist or doctor anymore since "now you gained weight, bye bye, not prioritezed since there are people that weigh less". I really feel the worst during that time. The more free I get from a relapse, the more depression and su1c1de thought I get, and I wont get any help for that, since "you weigh more, and the ana ed was the main problem, bye bye, there are people having real depressions, you had ana". I am 53 years old, and have experienced this over and over again for 40 years, so its not just one thing that happened once. I feel like common ana recovery people, really struggle during recovery, and that many have a hard time with comments like "phew, now your fine" and rather many is like me, they have underlying problems that never gets handled or adressed, and which are solved by the ED person by using ED as comfort/drug. To let the ED go is then very hard. Mentally one feel much worse without it, and if one cant handle that by oneself, it may be impossible to really get free. For myself, I will not get any more help, that is clear. Especially after I got high functioning autism diagnosis. Then all other things are "due to AST" and untreatable. They try to make me believe that AST people just have to accept dysthymia, relapseding severe depression, BDD, ED (and OCD and PTSD for thos who have that) as something untreatable amongst us. Of course I live in an EU country with collapsing health care system (Sweden) and this bad treatment is partly due to that. Only the ones near death will get any sort of help. This makes many ED persons get even sicker, since they know they "arent sick enough". I feel so sad for these younger ED persons. When I was young, the care did not function this way, and now I am to old anyway to get any benefits from contacting health care. I really believe I would do better on my own, skipping illness benefit suduction.

I’ve been in quasi (for various reasons) for 4 years, and this is the furthest I’ve ever gotten through my extreme hunger over the last 2 months. These videos are soooo helpful, so happy to see you just posted this 🙏🏻 Extreme hunger when you are 90lbs up is HELL, but seeing the benefits of giving into the hunger is 100% worth it. But man is it hard

Nodding in agreement to all of this! Facing a medical issue, my current mantra is 'a healthy me is all that matters.' I have to eat and rest to be strong for surgery and recovery. Thank you, as always, Emily, for gently and confidently encouraging me to stay the course.❤

This is exactly what I need! Today I’ve eaten more yet again ! My first pint of Ice Cream as one of my afternoon snacks ! I’ve carried on eating after that dinner and more snacks and I’ve not had food for about 45 minutes and I’m considering getting yet more food ! Thank you Emily !

Thank you Emily for this video, it increases selflove and compassion instead of the selfhate from the ED voice, and I think this is crucial in recovery.

this video truly feels like a warm, relieving hug 🥺💗

Grateful for this as I get back to being intentional with recovery steps after having my baby boy and my hunger feels sky high! The only way forward is forward without judgment. I’ll be a better mum if I choose to eat and keep pushing for more freedom :)

I have a question! Is it confusing to your mind when you start to come out of extreme hunger? I’m so used to being in this, I’m actually feel anxious when think of it changing, and I’m afraid I won’t recognize that it’s changing and that I’ll just keep eating.

Heya Emily. Thank you for all your videos, they really help! I'm new in to the all-in and extreme hunger, and I have a whole lot of mental hunger, and I was wondering if you have any tips on how to deal with the discomfort when I am actually physically full, but mentally very hungry? Because I at the moment do just keep eating if I'm mentally hungry, but I just feel so sick, so maybe that's the wrong thing? Anyways, thank you ❤

Hey Emily, hope you had a great holiday and thank you very much for yet another brilliant video. I'm so sorry and I feel so guilty as I watch your videos and make promises to myself that I will actually take the leap of faith out from this quasi I'm currently stuck in embrace actual recovery for everything, but I just get so scared that if I listen to my hunger and my body that I will spiral out of control and become unhealthy and develop a food addiction, like I'm not sure if I'm at that stage now. I've been eating A LOT more than before over the past month or so now and haven't gained any notable weight but I think this is due to forms of restriction and compensation which sneak in. It's like I feel ravenous lol and my mind is ALWAYS on food, but physically I'm not sure if I'm even hungry but I think that could be because I fill myself up on water to try suppress any physical hunger as I'm so scared of myself and my control. I just get so scared all the time, I'm literally sat here trying to do uni work but I just can't focus on anything but damn food lol, normally I would just exercise to get my mind off it and "discipline" myself but my body and legs just ache too much at the moment, I also get so scared of exercise too, I hate the pain and I hate the perfectionism I have around it. I wish I was just me a few years back, who would've just bought a big bag of toffee popcorn or something and eaten the entire thing, damn I can't remember the last time I actually had flavoured popcorn now. "Screw it, I'm gonna go to the shop right now and buy some toffee popcorn", is what I would love to say, but i'm so scared. Srry for long comment lol, I guess I was just trying to ask if you felt similar ways to food/exercise as well, like they genuinely give me so much anxiety and wish they weren't on my mind 24/7.

Hi Emily, thanks again so much for your wonderful helpful advice, I was just enquiring what you would say to yourself or to someone else concerning the doubt and fear of not being able to cope with a life in the future in which you don't have to rely on the eating disorder as way to cope with external stresses and fears of life? Thanks again Emily and thanks for the hope you give. (It is no problem if you don't have the time to answer this question, I appreciate all the help you give regardless:) )

I love your strengh and détermination against eating desorders. You remind me of Joan of Arc ( exept you are English and I am French so I should look more like her ). This combativity seems so important to me.

I am now in recovery from anorexia for 9 months now. My EH is decreasing, it comes and go. It's way less important than I could experience before. Even thought, somes weeks I can have a day of EH. The day after, I wake up starving again. 2 days before also so I eat. During those days I can't stop eating and if I want to stop I has to take a pause and the days after it dissapears. Then 1 week and half after it comes back, etc... What does it mean ?

Very greatfull for your content! ❤️ Did you try to 'manage' your EH in any way? I've heard a lot of advice, for example: try to eat more protein during the day, eat in a more balanced way, eat more during the day and your EH won't be as extreme during the evening, ask yourself 'how do you feel with this amount of food/what emotion do you feel?', tell yourself that tomorrow food will also be available, etc. Did you try any of those strategies? Or do you recommend something similar? Xx ❤❤❤

Thanks for the video. I’ve been in recovery for over a year and a half, eating brownies, fudge cake, chocolate multiple times a day & still craving them in huge quantities. I have put on noticeable weight & I’m bigger than my pre Ed weight but still craving them and eating them in vast quantities. After 1.5yrs shouldn’t this have calmed down?🤷🏼‍♀️

I’m scared that if I honour my hunger I’ll gain a bunch of weight in a short period of time. I’ve seen people gain 10kg in a month. Mentally I won’t be able to cope with that big of an increase in weight. Do you have some reassuring words or tips for dealing with this? Thanks in advance ❤️

Ive been leaning into my mental hunger trying to recover for weeks now but I just recently let myself eat to the amount I want and ive been binging so much to the point where I can’t breathe and I still think of food or feel extreme guilt because of the binging and end up restricting during meal times, should I continue to eat dinner with my family during meal times or wait until I’m hungry to eat? If I hold off eating I just end up looking forward to dinner and my entire day is revolved food. Do I just eat all the time? I feel so overwhelmed and stressed over food all the time

I have EH for past 2 months. This time i dont have any specific cravings or anything.But when i starterd eating i eat a huge amount.i think my EH series are gone. But suddenly i thinking about food for no reason. And i ask my self i want that or am i hungry like that. This time i cant understand my hunger. I don't know what i do. Is this normal. Should i keep eating? 😢