r/Amenorrhearecovery

I’ve had 6 cycles so far but I still feel so bloated all the time, uncomfortable, and i feel like my body isn’t done changing. When does it get better? It feels impossible. I thought life after recovery was meant to be better but I just feel insecure all the time and thought it’s been 6 periods things would be better and yes I’m so happy and blessed to have them back but my gut is still a mess and I just feel so insecure.

TW: NEGATIVE TALK/ CALORIES/ BODY IMAGE

I know eating a lot is the norm in recovery. I know a lot of women and girls experiencing EH often eat more than 3k, maybe more than 5-7k calories. I know it is completely normal after starving ourselves, restricting, overexercising etc for a long amount of time to get the urge to eat everything in sight. I KNOW, IM NOT HERE TO JUDGE OR INVALIDATE OR SUGGEST ANYTHING.

However, I also think some of us simply experience binge eating episodes and not actual extreme hunger, and I think we should be careful b4 encouraging "all-in" as it isn't always what we actually need, but maybe it's going from one extreme (starving) to the other (BED).

All this yapping just because I need to vent. I need to tell this to someone who's not my therapist (being a professional doesn't mean he understands shit, and good for him actually cz I don't wish this on anyone), who provides practical advice but little to no emotional support; or my family, who didn't understand why I was starving just months ago and are definitely not gonna put themselves in my shoes now that I'm eating like a wild beast some days.

I just feel so miserable. I try to hide it, try to act like the disgusting amounts of food that I consumed today at an attempt to feel comforted and safe, even if just for a fleeting moment, don't affect at all. I feel like a pig, eating more than any grown man in my family (I'm 16 btw) and then barely moving throughout the day. I feel so, so guilty and so inferior compared to other girls my age, who are all suddenly going on diets and to the gym and/or simply have good relationships with food.

I also feel so jealous of anyone who can skip meals, eat small portions or not have any snacks/dessert, and not feel like shit and have crazy food noise.

I'm definitely not comfortable in my skin anymore. Not like I was at my worst during my ED, but at least I saw myself as disciplined, as an example. I was "an almond daughter". Hell I even erased meat from my diet for a while with no issue.

The food noise was terrible, but I was somehow at peace with myself, unlike now.

Cause tell me why the fuck can't I no longer do something as simple as not overeating to the point of feeling nauseous? Why the fuck did I eat like four bowls of granola and an entire tub of fage yogurt as an afternoon SNACK today (on top everything else prior) and still had room for more? Why? And why do some people encourage this?

IM NOT HUNGRY, IM OUT OF CONTROL. I need help, not more food and encouragement, and I know I'm not the only one in this situation.

I barely feel physically hungry ,never have in my life tbh, but the food noise is insane. The only difference is that now I give into it some days instead of ignoring it and starving (which I know was terrible please don't misunderstand me) and I'm paying the consequences by gaining weight and feeling bloated and nauseous and so disgusted and disappointed in myself whenever this happens.

It's not like I have these episodes everyday, but when I do, maybe once per week, I feel so helpless and ashamed.

I also know it's making me gain weight faster than I'd like. And I still haven't had signs of my period, so basically all this is for nothing.

I don't feel good about myself, I still don't have my period, and my parents have to spend more money on groceries because every once in a while I feel like ravaging the kitchen and can't do much about it.

Please can anyone help. Any actual advice, anything to feel a bit better about myself? I just can't do this. I don't wanna wait another week for my therapist's appointment just to feel him be disappointed or smth nor do I wanna make my parents worry more about me.

I'm so fucking scared of developing BED and the possibility of binging like every day if I don't receive actual help. I barely can look at myself in the mirror anymore

I don’t know what I should do anymore. I pushed myself too hard for months, and because of that I lost my period. I was barely eating, running constantly, and restricting everything a lot. My hair has started falling out, I crave sweets all the time, and then I feel ashamed for wanting them. I’m 1.78 tall and weigh 58 kilos, so I don’t think I’m extremely underweight, but I dropped over 20 kilos in only a few months. My dad keeps pressuring me even though he sees I’m struggling, telling me to exercise or bike when I already feel exhausted mentally and physically.

I went to a restaurant and actually ate everything even though I had eaten earlier in the day and I even had dessert. I probably ate a little too much but thats OK.

Idk this is a big accomplishment for me, I used to get so guilty eating and feeling full I would never have been able to eat that many times or that quantity but I did it.​

I can’t believe this is happening, I honestly was so scared but now that it’s back it feels surreal. It’s super light but it’s definitely there!

Just for some context, I had my last period in late december last year and didnt get it again due to overtraining and under-fuelling.

I got it back today after recovering for around 7-8 weeks. I noticed I had cramps all week and a lot of mood swings.

Throughout recovery I ate around roughly 2000-2300 cals and stopped working out in the last two weeks ( I think that helped a lot). I also really started prioritising healthy fats in the end which really made a difference.

I really think this community has helped me so much and remember not to stress too much about not having your period because if you put the work in, it will find its way back to you ❤️

I’m happy to answer any questions :)

I feel so out of control today, I ate half a packet of lotus seeds, half a tub of bulla frozen yogurt, half a bag of cobb popcorn, bowl of rice, chicken, veggies, 2 bowls of soup, 1 mango, 1 Chinese pear, half a container of Chinese crackers, 1 lindor, 1 packet Jacob’s veggie biscuit, 2 mochi, 1 kitkat, 1 panda biscuit packet and more ☹️☹️☹️ I don’t feel full or satisfied and I still feel like I want more

So I haven’t gotten a period since December 2024 and to start off, I’m 17 and a distance runner going into college this fall. (Will be running for my college too) my Sophmore year I was 5’4 and maybe like 100-105 lbs then got my first period and go to like 120 lbs. I didn’t feel happy in my body so I slowly started counting calories then took a break during cross country season. By junior year, January 2025, I missed my period. I started losing more weight and got to around 113 then 110 by the summer. My mom found out and we saw a nutritionist but I lied and said I got it back so she would stop bugging me. I’m now around 108 lbs and 5’5. I still want to lose more weight because I feel big but I also kinda want my period back? Idk I want it back because I don’t want to get injured running like a stress fracture but I also am terrified of gaining weight. So I just feel trapped and I obviously can’t stop exercising so does anyone have advice on if it is possible to get it back without gaining weight? Idk if that’s possible.

hi! i lost my period in jan 26 because of a combination of over exercising and under eating. Since April i’ve been super intentional about eating more (at least 2400 a day) and i’ve decreased my activity a bit but im still pretty active (weightlifting and riding 2-4 horses a day)

i was doing pretty good for a while eating a lot like aprox 2600 every day. but then i gained some weight so i kind of went back into old habits and eating a little less. i think i may want to try intuitive eating instead to take off the pressure of tracking but im scared. i feel like whenever i intuitively eat i undereat in fear of “overeating”. which is silly because there’s no overeating in recovery. so if anyone has any tips or could just relate and lmk what helped them transition to intuitive eating that would be amazing !! thank you

I’m feeling like an idiot - I was trying to be super sensible/clever with my eating and exercise.

I usually have regular 22 day cycles, but the last few months I’ve had an anovulatory cycle that lasted 40 days and now I’m on day 30 of a cycle after knowing I ovulated on 1 May.

I was trying very hard to be sensible with my exercise and eating, I had slowly increased to eating 2,800kcal a day to match my output and prevent losing any more weight.

For context I am 5’7, 155lbs with 24% body fat, I walk around 18,000 steps, do 3 weight training sessions a week, 3 spin classes and a yoga class. I had started swapping walks for cycles too.

However I had listened to a few too many podcasts about the benefits of time restricted eating, which said you can exercise before breakfast and that would overall be better for your health as it allowed your digestion to take a break, lower inflammation and reduce the probability of weight regain.

It’s only now that I’ve started looking into it that I realised it can also be a major cause of women to lose their periods through low energy availability.

I only started doing it in January, and I’ve only had 2/3 irregular cycles - does anyone else have a similar experience?

I spoke to a nutritionist on Wednesday who has now got me eating 4 meals a day, a first breakfast before exercise and a second breakfast afterwards. And she’s asked me to increase my carbs to 45-50% of meals.

I’m hoping as I was never too restrictive with calories, just eating in a stupid pattern, that I haven’t don’t too much damage and it won’t take too long to fix - is that naive?

Before Jan I had lost 130lbs over the 18 months before but never had any issues with my period over that time.

I only did all of this exercise and healthy eating to get my body ready to try and get pregnant - feeling like an idiot now!

okay i meant to write about this a few days ago but many people on tiktok who have had anorexia say they’ve dealt with BED afterwards. i’ve seen multiple creators say this (for example nessa barrett on tiktok) and is it fair to call it bed if they’ve been starving themselves? because i’m in a similar situation recovering from anorexia and i don’t see it as bed. i see it as ur body trying to recover from extreme restriction and its basically just extreme hunger. so idk ?! this is probably a dumb take but im just curious. i guess i just see bed as something more emotional and maybe for them it was, but there’s times in my own recovery where im like am i just binging? ive gained like 20lbs in a month and am now considered overweight (according to my bmi) and whenever i do have these thoughts im just reminded that i was literally malnourished and my body is trying to recover. so if im eating a lot and bloating a LOT im just reminded that my body needs this. even if my stomach is full my brain is still starving. some days are better than others (usually days when im busy with work etc im not extremely hungry)

Hi everyone,

Sorry in advance because this is a really long post/rant/vent, but being in this community has made me realize I’m not the only one going through this, and I wanted to share my story.

I’m 4’11, and I started my weight loss journey at the beginning of February 2025 at around >!54.4kg/120 lbs!<. I was just slightly overweight, and at first I wasn’t accurately tracking calories at all because I honestly barely knew what calories even were. I just started learning about nutrition and weight loss.

At the beginning, I was doing cardio workouts from YouTube for around 45 min–1 hr every single day, and I lost weight pretty quickly.

Then things slowly became more extreme.

I started making my own meals and during weekdays I was basically only eating boiled vegetables, sometimes an egg, or some chicken from the salad bar. That lasted for a few weeks because of my school schedule and food limitations.

Once I started tracking more accurately, I was eating around >!1200!< calories a day, maybe slightly more sometimes if tracking wasn’t perfect, but mentally I was extremely attached to that number. If I went over it, I would become super anxious.

Then in August 2025, I got a coach for about a month because I wanted to look more “toned” and lose body fat, and she putted me on >!1158!< calories. Looking back now, I think my actual problem was that I had already lost too much muscle and should’ve focused on building muscle instead of continuing to lose weight.

During that period, I dropped down to around >!98 lbs/44.5kg!<.

I lost my period around >!104 lbs/47kg!<.

At the start of November, I tried to “bulk” and gained around >!4lbs!< back. But during winter break in December, I discovered how much walking/steps could increase calories burned, so I got a walking pad and started hitting a minimum of 10k steps every day while still eating around the same calories as before.

By the end of January 2026, I reached my lowest weight and leanest physique ever at around >!95 lbs/43kg!<(Lost a total of >!25lbs/11.4kg!<) I had visible abs and looked “toned,” which was something I thought I wanted so badly.

People constantly praised me for my “discipline” and physique. At first I loved hearing it, but mentally I felt horrible. Even when I was at my leanest, I still never felt lean enough or like I achieved the physique I actually wanted. I wanted to look “bodybuilder shredded” and somehow maintain that forever.

I also struggle a lot with body dysmorphia. Sometimes when I look in the mirror, I still see the version of myself from before I lost weight.

Eventually I realized it wasn’t worth sacrificing my actual health for.

That’s when I started “recovery.”

I increased my intake to around >!1800–2000 calories!< depending on activity, but honestly I was still mentally stuck. Even when I experienced extreme hunger, I often wouldn’t fully honor it because I was scared of overeating. I also never really reduced my exercise volume/intensity at first, so I was trying to “recover” while still mentally trapped in the same mindset.

I became extremely mentally unwell, and by the end of April, especially around April 28th, I realized that if I didn’t seriously change things, I could end up with real long-term consequences like stress fractures or osteoporosis.

That’s when I finally stopped tracking calories/macros completely, started therapy, and got hormone labs done.

Seeing that my estradiol level was only 14 honestly scared me a lot, especially because I genuinely love powerlifting and strength training. I want to feel strong, build muscle, and build bone density long-term. Even though I was surprisingly strong at my lowest weight, looking back now, I feel like my body was just surviving and pushing through.

I’m still in recovery right now and trying to seek more support. I’m thinking about working with a dietitian or recovery coach to help support both recovery and training.

One thing I’m struggling with is that my endocrinologist wants me to gain more weight, but mentally I still feel extremely stuck. In my head, I almost have this “maximum” weight I’m willing to let myself reach, which is around >!105 lbs/47.5kg!<.

I also really miss the old version of myself.

When I was younger, I genuinely loved food and didn’t overthink everything. But because of my disordered eating, food slowly took over my life.

Whenever I had to eat out with people, I would eat beforehand and just sit there while everyone else ate. I would constantly estimate calories, use AI to guess calories, and mentally calculate everything instead of actually being present.

I started avoiding hanging out with friends if it involved restaurants or eating out. Instead, I would invite them to my house so I could cook and control everything.

Whenever I cooked for other people, I would make a completely separate portion for myself with every ingredient individually measured out. If someone wanted a bite of my food after I had weighed everything, I would get genuinely upset. Even something as small as someone messing up my weighed food or changing the portion would make me extremely anxious and upset.

I think what hurts the most is realizing how much of my life and happiness slowly became controlled by food, numbers, body image, and fear.

I still haven’t gotten my period back yet, but I’m trying. I’m honestly scared, confused, and mentally struggling a lot, but I also know I don’t want to keep living the way I was before.

If anyone relates to any part of this or has gone through something similar, I’d really appreciate hearing your experiences.

Thank you for reading :)

Hi everyone,

I recently got my lab results back and my estradiol level came back at 14, which honestly scared me a lot because I’m only 16.

I know nobody here can give medical advice, but I was wondering:

• Around what estradiol level did you get your period back?
• Did anyone else have levels this low during recovery?

One of the things I’m most anxious about is bone health. I’m really scared of developing osteoporosis/osteopenia or getting stress fractures because I know estrogen is important for bone density.

The confusing part is that I genuinely love strength training and powerlifting, and part of the reason I train is because I want to be strong and build bone density long term. But now I’m scared that instead of helping my body, I might actually be harming it or backfiring because of the missing period/low estrogen.

I’ve lost my period for about 10 months now, and it initially started because of rapid weight loss (I lost about >!25 lbs!<). I also wanted to ask how much weight people had to gain compared to the weight they were at when they lost their period before it came back.

I’d really appreciate hearing other people’s experiences, especially:

• if you had very low estradiol
• whether your bone health improved during recovery
• and if anyone was able to continue strength training while recovering successfully

Thank you :)

A bit of a rant - TW weight

I feel like food is controlling my life. Im about 2 months into recovery but by recovery I mean eating more calories, and reducing my exercise to walking. What I really feel like I need to recover first is my relationship with food and my control obsession. I am 15, 160cm and went from 42.5 to 45 kg during my recovery period. I told me self that I would let go of tracking and controlling what I eat because this is the best opportunity but I just cant seem to stop. Its not even that im restricting myself, I just need to have the control and knowledge of what im eating, you know?
I also feel like im hitting some sort of emotional wall. At the start of me eating more I definitely had a mood improvement, but now I feel just unmotivated, and literally down. I just want to be normal again.
I also feel like I dont even count for recovery from an ED because it didnt get “bad enough”? I know thats a really bad way to think but I just never got confirmation from anyone that I actually had an ED because I have never told ANYONE (I have no idea why I feel the need for a label).

Honestly just feel like a terrible person for letting this get the better of me.
Today was the last straw when a whole scene happened with my family due to a decision I made which I made with what I was eating and when in mind. Literally my mom cried for the first time in months so I just felt HORRIBLE and my sibling and mom had a big argument.

I feel so alone in my body. I miss my old self.

I won't go into depth on my long and complicated history with food, disordered eating, sports, athleticism, etc. But just know it goes way, way back to when I was 10 and has followed me up until now at 33. I'm sure many of you can relate, even if perhaps you are someone who doesn't identify with having anything "disordered" around your relationship to food or exercise or training.

I will just say that when I lost my period in August I was in the midst of my downward spiral without realizing it. By December I was diagnosed with HA, was losing clumps of hair, was at the lowest weight I had ever been at (I thought I was even more of an athlete BECAUSE I was skinny...nope, those were mostly bones...not muscle), was obsessively calorie counting on my phone app. I didn't think I had a problem because I was eating 2,000 calories, the most I had ever eaten in my life. I was also running like 60 mpw along with weightlifting. Yep, not enough food.

Anyway. Recovery started promptly after getting diagnosed with HA back in December. It was a very messy journey, but I have fully recovered 4 cycles now. I have gained over 25 pounds (stopped weighing after that point), ditched calorie counting but definitely consume like AT LEAST 3,000 calories a day and am my strongest I have ever been. I've been triathlon training since recovering 3 cycles and I am STRONG! And I look GOOD! And I am hitting running PRs I never could hit before. My skin looks amazing. I actually have a butt now. My boobs came back. I'm in a better mood. I sleep like a rock through the night. My digestion is movin'. Sure, do I look the way a part of me has always desired to look, which is tiny and dainty and small? No. But that version was never meant for me, my body, my frame. My brain has been rewiring every single time I look in the mirror, every single time I buy clothes in my new size, every single time I notice "fluff" on my body...and that brain rewiring is important, because there's a lot of societal factors for why my brain was experiencing a jumpscare every time I saw myself no longer at my leanest.

Before recovering I was OBSESSED with every detail of food. What my next meal was going to be, dreaming up a cheat day, figuring out ways to calorie bank or overexercise to earn my food. I would go to bed early and hungry and then watch so many Tik Tok videos of people eating. I was in denial about how hungry I was and I was in denial about all of this honestly. In my head I just had discipline and was an athlete and was just "taking care of my body" -- what a joke, because my body was starving.

Being fully recovered now, for the first time in my life I genuinely do not think about food anymore. At all. The only times I think about food are honestly when I'm training and I realize HOW AMAZING IT IS to be properly fueled (and oh my god, it's amazing).

This is awful to admit, but I used to judge people who would talk about recovery like this. I would think that they lost their way, subconsciously, because of weight gain. And as unhinged as that sounds to my now recovered brain, I know I'm not the only one who had that voice in my head.

There's so much to unpack with how so many of us think about bodies, food, restriction...but man, I feel FREE. Free to eat, free to fill my head with other things besides food and weight, free to not be the leanest green bean, free to be strong and embrace my strength rather than try to shrink it down for fear of being "puffy" or "masculine". Free to not constantly be doing mental gymnastics in my head around my food intake, free to rest, free to actually eat at social functions and it's NOT my first or last meal of the day, free to let my body tell me what it's needing even when there's an almond mom voice trying to shame it in my head, free to just BE.

If you're reading this and this sounds terrible or like your worst nightmare because of weight gain, I just want to let you know that there's a version of you that can exist where you no longer care and the not caring isn't you "letting yourself go" it's you setting yourself free. And there's a version of you that reads a post like this one day and doesn't hyper focus on the numbers listed, too.

Okay yalls… here’s my tip.

Start baking sourdough. LOL

But hear me out. First it’s a hobby that does not involve exercise and restriction. Second, all you do is then eat your successful loaves with lots of butter!!! So homemade with love and the carbs and fats will fuel that recovery!!

Anyone else on their sourdough journey?? Is there a thing such as eating too much sourdough LOL! I’ve made like 3 loaves already and I cleared them all.

25 days into FHA recovery, cutting back exercise but certainly not cutting back food. Been eating like a lot of food, 2.6k to 3k calories daily. Definitely not all in tho been going gym once a week with 3 days of soccer, but just noticed increased libido and EWCM! Is this showing my eating and my cut back of cardio is working?

I joined this community a little over a month ago, when I first started my recovery journey after almost 1.5 years of HA.

It has been a great source of support and I want to share my experience of what worked for me in case it’s able to help anyone else!

A few weeks ago someone posted about her success with TCM and I’m happy to share mine too!! I visited a TCM doctor and started drinking prescribed herbs thrice a day, and here she was, just 25 days later 😭 in between I definitely felt positive differences in my body like warmer hands, loooots of discharge (which I had not seen for ages), better mood and libido, so I was assured that even if my period didn’t end up coming, TCM was definitely helping me in some ways. Other things I did:

- having breakfast everyday (still not the heaviest meal of my day for sure, maybe ard ~500-600 cals?)

- generally having warmer foods and reducing cold food esp at night

- increasing food intake (I simply counted calories for a day to know what ~2300cals was roughly like, and tried sticking to it everyday)

- eating more fats, carbs. Sparked my obsession with cheese lol

- less high intensity exercises (my goal was j to reduce sweating) I think I sweat heavily once every 3 days on avg, compared to almost daily prior

I believe TCM did 80-90% of the heavy lifting here, and I’m proceeding with caution because I know maintaining my lifestyle changes are still necessary. But my flow for this first recovery cycle has surprisingly been as normal as it was pre-HA, compared to the meager amount induced by provera. Makes sense since I experienced the full cycle (building up of lining etc) naturally instead of an ‘artificial’ drop in progesterone with provera.

Anyways, all these to say that i think TCM is worth a shot for those looking for natural support. I did try off the shelf TCM meds before but only experienced very light spotting, so probably getting a stronger ‘dose’ customised to my needs from a doctor was crucial for me. Well hopefully this lasts and the next cycle comes but until then I am celebrating the fact that my body still works!!!

I’m 17 and 1,63 m and i was around 50 kg when i developed an eating disorder last year in april and my period completely stopped after 1 month into it, i started recovering this october after dropping to 39 kg, and i’m now 47 kg and stopped doing any type of physical exercise, but my period still hasn’t come back, i only had spotting 3 or 4 times in the last 3 months and i’m starting to get really worried.

idk if this is the right place to post this, but basically I had my ed from 14-16, and I'm now 17 and fully recovered, but during those two years I had no period and my hormones were super messed up. I'm about 5'6, but my family are really tall.. my mum is 5'9/5'10, my grandpa and uncle are both like 6'3, and my auntie is like 5'11, so I'm wondering whether having an ed while I should've still been growing could've affected my height?? also could I still grow now that I'm fully healthy again?? I just wanna be taller lmao