How to Deal With Bloating in Eating Disorder Recovery | Oatmeal stories

Everyone recovering from an eating disorder deals with digestive issues at some point. Everyone. Whether indigestion, gas, constipation or bloating, the discomfort is inevitable as your body suddenly has to deal with increased intakes after periods of starvation, or more consistent and uncompensated meals after weeks, months or years of binging and purging. And this makes recovery just that bit extra difficult. Not eating makes you feel thin and “good,” whereas eating apparently leads to bloating and discomfort.

Hold on – don’t turn back just yet. There are so many ways to reduce bloating and to help you deal with it, so I hope this video helps x

To genuinely overcome digestive distress

1. stop cutting out foods — your microbiome will only increase in diversity if your diet does, too 
2. eat enough and eat regularly — restriction causes undue stress, which hinders optimal digestion 
3. swap wholegrain for white — overdoing it on the fiber *can* be detrimental (i.e. in the case of eating disorder recovery, when gastric emptying is already slowed and fiber only slows it additionally) 
4. focus on density over volume — as before, adding volume into an already-slowed system causes bloating and preventable discomfort
5. gain weight — if you are currently restricting/underweight, gaining weight may actually be the healthiest way forward! (due to muscle atrophy, additional stress, and so many other variables associated with artificially low weights) 
6. overcome disordered eating — if you follow food rules and limit food groups, now is the time to cut it out