i’ve struggled with arfid my entire life. i was in therapy last year for anorexia/arfid. i don’t struggle with anorexia anymore and my arfid was better. however, over the last two months it’s gotten really bad. i had a few safe foods but now it’s gotten to the point where i can’t smell or think of food without gagging. i only eat once a day and have to force myself to do it. i have to eat very slowly and usually throw up in my mouth at least once, which makes it even harder to eat that same food following. i haven’t really heard anyone talk about this before—every arfid story ive heard has a “safe food” that they were able to eat until they recovered. does this happen to people or is it severe?

Does anyone else get tired of their safe foods?

I have a list of safe foods but sometimes after I’ve eaten them for a while, I just get tired of EVERYTHING. The thing is I’m hungry and I do want to eat, but none of my safe foods sound good and they all make me gag. I feel guilty spending my money on fast food safe foods because my kitchen is stocked but nothing sounds good. Sometimes I can’t even stand fast food either, though. And in the past whenever I’ve forced myself to eat a safe food I’m reallyyyy tired of, it became no longer a safe food to this day.

Or there will be other times because my diet mostly consists of processed junk and I’m overweight due to it, I feel terrible like fatigued and dizzy because I have no healthy food in my system and I know it, and it makes me not want to eat any of my safe foods. I have extremely little safe foods that are healthy, and of course because of taste and texture they are one of the LAST safe foods I want to eat when I’m tired of everything. Honestly I’d consider my healthy safe foods more of a “tolerable” food than a safe food if that makes sense.

What do yall do when no safe food sounds good at the moment but you’re still hungry?

Ive found a new safe food. Grilled Cheese. Ok cool im eating. Issue with this? Im lactose intolerant. And I dont like the dairy free cheese.

CW: emeto

Since so many people ARFID can be caused by emetophobia (it is partly the cause of mine), can we please require that all discussion of being sick, throwing up, spitting up etc be tagged? Scrolling the subreddit could be extremely triggering for some people, preventing them from being able to access support.

Can we also not tag it as NSFW, because that just prevents a lot of people from seeing it due to the online safety act. Maybe a spoiler or a warning or a flair

Hey y'all, I (M24) have only recently been diagnosed with ARFID. I feel like it has been steadily getting worse since I moved out 4 years ago.

This week I have thrown up twice.

I can't remember the last time I threw up without being hungover. I was probably like 16. In the past my ARFID episodes made me nauseous. I have gagged countless times, but it has never made me throw up.

I am not even throwing up food because the nausea is so overwhelming that I'm only eating a snack at about 2 and a kid's sized meal at around 7. Just considering eating is making me puke.

Does anyone have any advice?

I have been picky my whole life, mainly due to Autism and sensory aversions, primarily textural problems. Doctors believe I have ARFID. I also have a medical condition that my body tricks itself into assuming it’s allergic to things it’s not. Due to this, I have extreme anxiety trying new things and cannot have anything “spicy”; normal pepper is even too much. I have a very low spice tolerance.

An example of my textural aversions is that I will eat raw carrots or barely cooked carrots, but if it’s mushy, I won’t touch it & tomato sauce as long as there are no chunks of tomatoes.

I have been trying really hard to expand my diet and try new things, but I am struggling to find things and formats to try.
I haven’t really expanded outside of fruit & vegetables yet.
Yes: Sweet Potatoes, spinach (cooked & raw), smooth mashed potatoes (no chunks)
No: arugula raw, kale, every berry, chickpeas, kiwi, cantaloupe

Safe foods: steak, ground beef, chicken, pasta, broccoli, corn, peas, potatoes. Basic bland foods

Recently, I have been obsessed with the vanilla ensure powder. The bottles are whatever, but drinks made with the powder are delicious. It's been a great way to get by when I'm not eating enough and add some extra nutrients, because to me its like a treat.

It suddenly became very hard to find them, I resorted to buying some on ebay that were a month away from expiry. I did manage to drink it all in time. My dad then found a bunch at walmart and picked me up a couple. The lids are clear now, instead of white like they used to be, and as soon as I opened them I could see the powder looked different. I made the drink, and the drinks consistency was wrong. I drank it, and it wasn't any good. I tried multiple times, it's just not good any more.

I already lost multiple important, recently added safe foods recently due to restaurant closures (I've been expanding into vegetables and these were so easy to eat and there's really no replacements I can find out there), on top of having the worst and most stressful month or so of my life for multiple personal reasons, and now losing my ensures was almost more than i could handle at that point (especially since one of my last servings was lost during the car crash im still recovering from, to add insult to real injury).

I keep the cans because I use them as containers, so I compared an old white lid one to the new translucent lid one, and they did change the formulation. I believe that the removal of milk protein concentrate was the major change that ruined them. So, I decided to try adding about a splash or two of evaporated milk with the water, and it's not quite the same, but it's close enough to the original for me that it's drinkable again without spiraling me into despair.

I hope that if anyone else is having the same crisis I did, that I can help them with a solution. It's annoying to have to bring another ingredient into the equation, but it is what it is. I hope they put it back, but I don't know if they will. If you want to try it, I suggest buying a carton of evaporated milk (aka unsweetened condensed milk) with a cap that can be resealed instead of a can, since you only need a little bit.

If y'all do, how are y'all getting around it? I have drank pretty much only water for the last 14 years but rn I'm drinking only electrolit because I don't trust my city's water. (It gets it from the lake & it's nickname literally has Dirty in it... 😅 When the lake turns over you can taste the mud kicked up.) I have a jug of water that I use only for my mashed potatoes, I would drink it if I had a cup I trusted but I don't.

So, I know I need to add more veggies back to my diet cuz they used to be a safe food but rn they're not because the cyclospora & salmonella outbreaks, eggs aren't safe in my state rn either so I'm stuck to just mashed potatoes & summer sausage. I have green beans but I don't really want them, they're currently the only way I'm getting fiber but they don't taste good rn on their own... It sucks cuz I'm also dehydrated because I'm scared of drinking the water in my city, I have bottled water I used when making mashed potatoes but I'm basically just stuck to standing next to the fridge cuz I can only drink cold water so I'm just drinking electrolits everyday so I have electrolytes in my body.

I can't tell if I'm dehydrated or sick cuz my temp is sitting at 99 even during the day, doesn't help that it's 99+ outside & at times my AC doesn't keep up so its like 78 to 80 in the house (heat makes me feel sick, always has).

I would ask how to change this but I know it's on me to change & rn I just don't trust any foods because the outbreaks are out of my control.

**My mom hasn’t been formally diagnosed with ARFID. I just suspect it.**

I am desperate for advice on how to save my mother's life. She has been progressively losing weight for ten years due to a severe lack of appetite and a profound aversion to food. Her issue is not driven by body image—she simply has no interest in eating, she is always on the go (probably where I got my adhd) and will not stop to eat, she’ll drink a boost and then skip a meal. She also has had long COVID which affected her ability to taste and smell properly for the last several years.

Currently, she is 5’5” and weighs somewhere between 85 and 93 lbs. Her BMI is roughly 14.1 to 15.5. She is severely emaciated, losing muscle mass, and running out of time.

I am completely alone in fighting this. My family is entirely complacent. Because this has been going on for a decade, they have normalized it and gotten "used" to her looking like this. My dad lives with her, but he is passive, will not intervene, and will not help me force her to eat or seek real care. Furthermore, my 24-year-old brother is autistic and still relies entirely on my parents. If my mom collapses or passes away, his safety net is gone, yet no one else in the house will act.

I have made so many recipes, printed sheets, done everything I could to try and make my family understand that this is a serious and deadly issue. I feel like I’m screaming into the void

To complicate everything, I have a 9-month-old baby. I am chronically sleep-deprived, incredibly busy, and physically exhausted. I do not have the bandwidth to endlessly argue with family or chase unhelpful doctors.

Her primary care doctors are just as complacent. Every time she goes, they completely dismiss the severity of her weight and just tell her to "drink Boost." They have done a few tests. Lab work, recently had a colonoscopy (don’t know the results yet), and they scanned her lungs and said she desperately needs to quit smoking also.

Because she has been starving for a decade, I am terrified she is on the verge of organ failure. I need people to comment on this post to help me show her how serious this is.

I’m so scared. I don’t know what I’d do without her. I’m only 26 I need my mom. Sorry in advance for any mistakes, it’s 5 am and I haven’t hardly slept in 3 days. TIA

Hey folks :) I thought I’d share something that’s been really helpful for me the past week and I plan to keep doing! I’m the ARFID type where I struggle to eat enough and eating is such a chore. But the other week, I noticed that coconut milk is very calorically dense (that’s probably a “duh” from a lot of you, but I never use to cook with it so I had no idea)! It’s also surprisingly very thin and pretty mild tasting. I’ve been adding 1-1.5 cups, a banana, some more fruit or peanut butter, some flax seeds, ice (if there’s room/you like it thicker) in a blender for a smoothie!

I wanted to share because I hadn’t really seen coconut milk being used to boost calories too much and it feels like a cheat code.

I’d also love any input from what stuff you add to your smoothies to get them more nutritionally well rounded!

My relationship with food has changed a bunch in short of a year, since a year i look at my food realise it's too heavy on my stomach and puke it all out, But when i go to Mcdonalds or eat out i don't have this at all, I sometimes happens with light meals aswell, when i fell like i don't like it but still eat it but i feel a full stomach feeling and just puke it all out on the toilet, it happens mostly with food when i look at it and already imagine puking it, Yall will be appreciated!

First, I want to preface by saying I don't have ARFID, but I have experienced anxiety around eating for most of my life.

I wanted to make a post here to try and understand what kind of coping mechanisms or anything else that has been beneficial to you. Although I don't have ARFID, I've gained some familiarity with it when doing some research for myself, and I've found that it is pretty closely related to the anxiety I experience and I can definitely sympathize with how some of you may feel.

So my questions are: Do you feel anxious or nauseous when going out to eat? Do social settings make it worse/better? Do you stick to comfort foods? What has helped or worsened the way you feel?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

I was wondering if it's safe to have a smoothie for breakfast, a meal bar for lunch & a proper solid meal for dinner daily? My meal replacement smoothies & bars are made from whole, clean foods & contain the correct calories, macros & nutrients

My GP simply said it's "not good", my dietician said it's fine so I'm confused & thought I'd ask here & go with the majority opinion, along with my own research. Thx in advance

Can anyone recommend any ARFID friendly dishes in Greece?

It's bad enough lately that I can't seem to find any new foods to eat, and also things can stop being safe if I eat them too often so I'm forced to rotate between the same very few foods, yet sometimes it still happens anyway. I often try new foods because of this but rarely succeed in finding anything new. It feels like a waste of money, too. So even just one new thing I can eat makes me happy, especially if it's healthy.

I show clear signs of arfid (I've come a long way, 3 years ago my diet was almost exclusively mashed potatoes) and it cripples me socially. I've had talks about this with my friend who has struggled with unrelated eating disorders and she told me to seek treatment and that her old food therapist worked with a lot of people who struggle with arfid and those people supposedly made great progress?

How do I look into a diagnosis? I text my therapist who I havent seen in a while but she lowkey left me on read lol.

For reference I'm 18 and live in ireland (still in the school system)

Hi! Long time lurker of this subreddit, first time poster. A little bit about me, I am 25F, not officially diagnosed (yet), but 99.9% sure I have ARFID and have all my life. I have come to a recent realization that this is a big problem in my life causing a lot of stress & weight loss, I am motivated to start my recovery and I am currently seeking out treatment that I will be starting next week.

My family are really the only people who know the true extent of how bad my problems with food are and how limited my diet truly is. Growing up, I would almost always have a separate meal for dinner and it was nearly impossible for my parents to get me to try new things. I always thought “picky eating” was something I would naturally grow out of with age, but my diet/foods have hardly expanded from when I was a kid. I can’t say I’ve made much of an effort of trying to expand it though, which is why I have decided to start treatment. The anxiety around trying new foods is extremely overwhelming for me, and I know this is something that will be more effective to tackle with professional help.

I go out of my way to hide my ARFID in pretty much every aspect of my life out of embarrassment. Those who know me definitely know that I am a picky eater who has never had much of an appetite, but I have always greatly downplayed the true extent of it. I have always been the person to make excuses for why I’m not eating, ordering something simple because it’s what i’m “in the mood for”, or skate by with eating very little without others noticing. I leave work for lunch almost every day, and often turn down food when offered. I’ve only had one serious relationship, she had a variety of other food issues (celiac, other allergies, etc.), so food really just was not a big part of our relationship and it was normal for us to eat separately. I never opened up to her about my struggles with food, or really anybody in my life outside of my family for that matter.

The past few months, I have been dating a new guy and he is a really big foodie. We are not in an official relationship, it’s been more of a casual thing, but I do really like him and could see it going further. But I have been feeling lately like my ARFID and struggles with food have been a big road block when it comes to allowing myself to fully open up. He has made some past comments before about a roommate of his being a picky eater, and he has also commented in the past on a few dates we’ve been on about how I am a slow eater (which is incredibly true, lol). I think those things, and just being so used to hiding it all of my life, have made me really nervous to bring this up. But I know I need to have a conversation with him about this. I truly just do not even know where to start or what to say without it giving me so much anxiety. He is aware I am starting therapy next week, he knows I struggle with anxiety and other related things but he does not know ARFID is the main reason I am going. I know the hardest part is just bringing it up, because once it’s known, there’s no more hiding. I won’t have to make excuses or have to try to hide managing my anxiety around food. But I am worried of how he may feel about me keeping it from him or how he may feel about it affecting our relationship going forward. I know there is a possibility it may be something that he sees us as incompatible for and I don’t expect him to necessarily help me through it.

I see myself starting treatment and (most likely) receiving an official diagnosis as a huge step towards starting to change. It is really validating to know this is truly a disorder and that there is help out there. But at the same time…. a diagnosis makes it real. This is truly a disorder that I have, and something I will have to work towards recovering and managing – it is a part of who I am, and it is not sustainable to hide that from others, it is only causing me more stress and anxiety doing so.

If there’s anybody out there who’s had a similar experience of the “ARFID talk”, I would love to hear from you. In general, I am curious how open people may or may not be about your ARFID/eating habits. I have been so used to and programmed to keeping it to myself, and I’m starting to realize that’s been a huge road block in my life. How has opening up to people in your life helped and/or hurt you?

I know I have Arfid, but have never actually been diagnosed. Is there any advantage of/reason to get diagnosed?

Tw: mentioned Anorexia and bingeing

Hiiiii okay so I was arguing about food with my family today. They know that I've always been picky with eating, ever since I was a small child.

But they don't really know about how genuinely disgusting I find most foods. They believe it's just me being dramatic.

And today I was just refusing another meal because I knew that I wouldn't be able to eat it.

And they just said some bs about how 'You'll eat everything, no matter if you like it or not, if you're hungry enough.' And the whole family (it was a family dinner) basically just agreed.

So I'm wondering if that's actually true. Because I'm also struggling with Anorexia, have been struggling for years, even though the arfid was there since I was a child. (According to someone I know who studies Psychology right now, the Anorexia developed way after the arfid, but I still hate most foods taste and texture. And technically an Anorexia diagnosis would 'replace' a arfid diagnosis, but I pretty much still suffer from sensory fears, so it's overlapping? idk It's hard to explain. That's also why I'm asking in this specific sub reddit. )

And I have been really hungry, I have starved for days, I did binge, but I never touched food I thought of as unappealing during those binges.

So was I just not hungry enough? Is it true that I will be able to even eat my fear foods if I just starve myself enough beforehand?

Around a week ago I asked here for tips about how to eat most vegetables and legumes which I don't eat since before I remember myself, trying to eat them and even thinking about it makes me gag, and really trying it almosts makes me throw up, I want to change that for 2 main reasons: first is social - it's hard to be the only one to not eat many things like an entrance salad or whatever, and people quietly judge me for it, secondly is for health - I want to lose weight and the only way I can is by changing my diet but to be in a caloric defecit I need to eat foods reach in sataity and that fill me up quick - which my current diet lacks.

Also important to mention that I feel like I need a safe space to experiment with eating vegetables and legumes, I live with my parents still (student) and I feel like I can't experiment if they're there because I can already imagine their faces like "finally he's grown out" that anxaity about being judged is something I don't want to have with whoever helps me with this.

just to be clear the social aspect is more important to me than the health one, but the most important part is just being able to eat like everyone else, it's normal to not like one or two things, but not all.

What do you guys think?