Eating Disorder Recovery When Grieving: A Therapist’s Perspective

A vivid blue morpho butterfly rests open-winged. Can grief and recovery coexist, or does loss have to threaten to unravel the progress you've made? An eating disorder therapist in Los Angeles can help you hold both experiences at once and continue moving forward.

TL; DR Grief is one of the most powerful threats to eating disorder recovery, and one of the least talked about. Written from personal experience, this blog explores how the sudden loss of a mother tested years of hard-won recovery from emotional eating and bulimia. And what it actually took to stay the course through …

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7 Reasons You Should Eat When You’re Not Hungry

Joyful Eating in Los Angeles, California [Image description: drawing of 2 females joyfully eating ice cream] Represents potential eating disorder counseling clients in Los Angeles, California challenging diet rules and eating even when not hungry

TL;DR “Only eat when you’re hungry” is one of diet culture’s most deeply ingrained rules, and one of the most harmful for people recovering from eating disorders. The truth is, there are many valid reasons to eat even when hunger isn’t present, including: Eating disorder recovery: following a structured meal plan helps restore hunger and …

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How We Set Recovery Weights and Why It Matters for Long-Term Healing

Drawing of a doctor weighing a teen patient. Are you wondering how to feed and recovery weights in eating disorder recovery? Learn how Family-based Treatment in Los Angeles, CA, prioritizes health and long-term success for teens and adults.

TL;DR Weight gain is a vital part of recovery from eating disorders for individuals of all sizes, including those with Atypical Anorexia and bulimia. However, there’s a lack of consensus on how to set appropriate recovery weights. Research shows that complete weight restoration is often essential for psychological recovery, as it helps alleviate eating disorder …

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Curate Your Feed with Diverse Body Positive Accounts on Instagram

Curate Your Feed With Diverse Body Positive Accounts on Instagram to Support Eating Disorder Recovery in California [Image description: screenshot of instagram post from resilientfatgoddess; a trans non-binary person smiling with the title, "Curate Your Feed With Diverse Body Positive Accounts on Instagram"]

Diverse Instagram Accounts Can Support Recovery by SJ Thompson Belmonte, Resilient Fat Goddex and Lauren Muhlheim, Eating Disorder Therapy LA It’s time to curate your feed to have a more diverse social media feed. “Body positivity can’t be just about thin, straight, cisgendered, white women who became comfortable with an additional ten pounds on their …

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Can’t Horseback Ride Because of Your Size? That Might Just Be a Load of “Horse Shit.”

Horseback riding when fat [Image description: back of a fat person with long flowing blonde hair and a purple shirt, riding a horse]

  By Carolyn Comas, LCSW, CEDS-S, Clinical Supervisor Can you horseback ride if you are fat? Navigating the world in a fat body can be frustrating and may feel disheartening. There are, unfortunately, some activities and spaces that do not accommodate people in large bodies. When someone in a big body encounters spaces that do …

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Your Body’s Setpoint Weight

Accepting your body's setpoint [Image description: red hammer on a bathroom scale] represents the rejection of diet culture by a person in eating disorder recovery in Los Angeles, California

What is Setpoint? Setpoint refers to the weight at which your body functions optimally. Think of it like the weight at which your body wants to be—and if your body falls below this weight, your body gets messages to return you to a higher weight. This weight range is primarily genetically determined and will be …

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CBT-WI: Weight-Inclusive CBT for Eating Disorders

CBT plus HAES for Eating Disorders [Image description: large bodied gender neutral person seated and facing a therapist whose back is to the camera] represents a potential client with an eating disorder receiving CBT plus HAES in Los Angeles, California

“What is Weight-Inclusive Cognitive Behavioral Therapy CBT-WI? Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy is the most effective approach for treating adults with eating disorders, including bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder. The most recent, commonly taught, and implemented version is an “enhanced” protocol, CBT-E (Fairburn, Christopher G., 2008). Unfortunately, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for eating disorders is not always …

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How Diet Culture Can Harm Your Recovery from ARFID

ARFID and Diet Culture in Los Angeles, California [Image desciption: photo of a woman buying bread] Represents a potential eating disorder client in Los Angeles, California standing up to diet culture

by Carolyn Comas, LCSW, CEDS-S, Clinical Supervisor People diagnosed with Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID) struggle with consuming adequate nutritional intake due to either 1) fear of aversive consequences (i.e choking), 2) low interest in food altogether, or 3) sensory sensitivity to food textures, smells, or appearance. Usually, people with ARFID do not report …

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How a Health at Every Size(R) (HAES) Approach Can Help With Eating Disorder Recovery

Health at Every Size and Eating Disorder [Image description: black larger bodied woman eating a donut] represents a potential client receiving Health at Every Size Counseling at Eating Disorder Therapy in Los Angeles, California

Eating disorders are not only about body image. Nor have they only recently arisen in response to societal pressures to be thin. In fact, eating disorders date back to at least the 13th and 14th centuries, when it was observed that women were fasting to demonstrate religious devotion. However, today eating disorders do occur in …

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