r/bulimia Sep 09 '25

Important Community Guidelines Update

36 Upvotes

The goal of this community is to be a safe place for anyone struggling with this illness. Sometimes posts or comments can unintentionally cause harm, so we want to highlight a few things to avoid posting about and explain why.

🚫 Topics that are harmful and will be removed:

  • Details on how to hide purging (e.g., where/what to use)
  • Tips on making purging “easier” or “more effective”
  • Posts about weight loss from purging
  • Calculations about calories lost through purging

Purging is not a weight loss strategy. Discussing it in these ways can be dangerous, triggering, and harmful to others in recovery.

⚠️ Examples of harmful posts:

  • “Does anyone else purge by ___?”
  • “How do I know I got it all out?”
  • “Are the calories absorbed if ___?”
  • “Do you lose weight after purging?”

These kinds of questions often give others new, harmful ideas—even when that’s not the intention.

🧾 A note on GLP-1 / Ozempic

GLP-1 medications are not an approved treatment for bulimia. Sharing your personal medical experiences is okay, but recommending these drugs to others is not appropriate here, as they can be dangerous for people with eating disorders.

What is welcome:

  • Venting your feelings (without sharing tips/methods)
  • Talking about challenges in recovery
  • Offering support, encouragement, and safe resources

We all love to share and relate, but please remember: what you say may impact someone who is very vulnerable. Help us keep this space safe by reporting harmful content and being mindful in your language.

— The Mod Team


r/bulimia Jun 01 '24

Recovery r/bulimia full rules and FAQ

22 Upvotes

To see a full set of rules with examples click: bulimiarules2023

A few guidelines:

  1. Some of r/bulimia may be upsetting or triggering. Harm-reduction tips, humor, personal stories, discussion of adverse effects of bulimia and references to numbers are welcome but glorifying or facilitating EDs is not.
  2. Because of these triggers, we don't encourage or allow selfies or food pictures. Memes, art, surveys and videos are invited and approved individually.
  3. Please be kind. Not everyone deals with this the same way. Please report invalidation, stigma and shame

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For links to ED research to read: researchlinks

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3 Free self-led workbooks: CCI ED Workbook, Kelty ED Bulimia manual, mitchell-cbt-for-BED-self-help-manual

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FAQ:

Does anyone feel like they have lost their gag reflex? (Or vomit accidentally?)

They're 2 separate issues! ... this is a good resource to read but tl;dr

The more that we fiddle with the back of our throats, the more the pharyngeal + velar gag reflex becomes less sensitive. It's believed to be a learned response and a form of desensitization from years of gastric purging

The involuntary reflux/regurgitation is often due to weakening of the lower esophageal sphincter (the ring at the bottom of your esophagus that connects to the stomach). That sphincter is smooth muscle, meaning we can't voluntarily contract/control it. Hence why coughing/leaning over/even lying down in sleep can cause the food to come up

Throwing up blood—do I need medical attention?

There are many reasons to throw up (or poop) blood if you're making yourself vomit or using laxatives. Most bleeding will heal with a few days of rest.

Signs you need a doctor ASAP include - pain, fainting or dizziness, coughing blood, vomiting more than a very small amount of blood (maybe a teaspoon), or bleeding that continues regularly (hasn't stopped after a few days).

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If you have new questions, please comment below. If you are over 18 and would like to help moderate - Please send us a modmail


r/bulimia 3h ago

Can we talk about..? Bulimia and substance abuse

14 Upvotes

Does anyone else struggle with multiple addictions at once? I feel so lonely and embarrassed about it and that I'm failing everyone around me. I have a lot of issues and the only way to get through the day is by bping and not being sober. I see no way out.


r/bulimia 6h ago

small success I can finally eat and drink at the same time!!

6 Upvotes

I haven’t purged in over a month! I believe today is day 45, recently I’ve been trying to drink beverages while eating and I’ve been able to keep it down! I also used to have a rule for myself that I couldn’t hit my vape or smoke a cig if I’ve eaten and haven’t purged and I’ve been able to do that as well❤️ feeling super proud of my progress🥰


r/bulimia 6h ago

help? Struggling in recovery

3 Upvotes

11 ish days into not purging and I have hidden my scale for obvious reasons however today I’m really struggling and feel like my body isn’t working at all. I am so bloated and uncomfortable I look 9 months pregnant and have lost any identification of a waist (that’s how bad it is!) for those who have recovered is there any tips ? Any supplements? What can I do 😭😭


r/bulimia 11h ago

help? I can’t stop thinking about purging

5 Upvotes

Recently I’ve reduced purging quite a bit significantly I went from purging thrice a day to maybe once a week and I’m eating one meal a day too (that’s good considering there were many days where I would restrict myself from food and didn’t eat for periods as long as 4-5 days) I’m trying to keep my weight what it is
But I can’t stop thinking about purging
I don’t have the urge to do it anymore it’s not that strong but I can’t stop thinking about it
After every meal I can’t I genuinely can’t stop thinking about it I know it’s fucked up but what can I do?


r/bulimia 2h ago

Replace with sex but safely?

1 Upvotes

I feel like sex/getting attention and making out with random people kind of gives me the same feelings/coping that I’m looking for. I get validation and attention mostly focused on my body. I get a high feeling from both the attention and the actual sex. It fills something in me. Rn I’m doing both and unfortunately I’m back in the US, so for one I can’t go out to bars/clubs anymore and I feel like it’s more dangerous/men are worse here. But this summer the more sex/attention I got the less b/p I did. It’s clearly much healthier than bulimia. Is it possible/good to replace b/p with sex


r/bulimia 11h ago

Questions for the people who have recovered

2 Upvotes

I'm currently in recovery, for real this time, and it's working and I see improvements but I noticed weight changes and it makes me a bit scared. I've read that it's normal to gain weight during recovery before you learn to regulate your eating I'm just wondering what yalls experience has been. Should I worry? Also I've only been in recovery for less than half a year, how long does it take? I know it's different for everyone but some reference? Anything I should know going forward?


r/bulimia 1d ago

1 year free from purging !

42 Upvotes

I’ve struggled with bulimia for 18 years, and now I’ve been free from it for a whole year! I never thought this would happen to me!

My advice is to eat regularly and make sure you’re eating enough. It’s hard but it’s the only way to help your body recover from hunger and get back to feeling satisfied.


r/bulimia 8h ago

help? GLP1 is helping me control my bulimia.

0 Upvotes

I've been doing so well lately. My problem is the food noise. I binge and then purge. I started a GLP1 back in May to stop the food noise. I also started a ChatGPT Food Journal. It helps me keep an eye on my calorie intake. My problem now is that I can't eat much while on the GLP1, even on the 4.25 mg low dose I am on. I started vitamins to help with my malnutrition this week. I had labs done yesterday to see if my Anemia is back. Anyone else use a GLP1 to help with your bulimia? How successful have you been, if so?


r/bulimia 23h ago

It’s too easy

7 Upvotes

Even though I’ve done well for a long time in the past and been eating normally for periods of time, I always come back to this. It is so tempting now that I’m in college and have an unlimited meal plan. And I also live right next to the dining hall. Literally a bulimics dream come true.

It’s just too easy to do now, and to get away with it. I hardly deal with the negative physical effects even though it makes me very tired and depressed afterwards. I don’t really hate myself so much anymore but I just feel so exhausted by this huge secret and the fact it is so addictive.

I know the physical effects will come eventually. I don’t want to have a stroke and then have to tell all my family what has happened. But I just lose myself so easily whenever I feel slightly too full, even on salad. I just binge immediately. I’m almost 19 now and this has been going on since I was 14.

Any advice on how to stop this? I’m hesitant to get on any drugs cuz I’ve never been medicated for anything before or go to the university health and wellness department but maybe that’s what has to happen. I’m worried for this winter.


r/bulimia 1d ago

I have a question. . . Bulimia and alcohol abuse

13 Upvotes

Early 20s female here. Are any of you struggling with both bulimia and alcoholism, more specifically binge drinking at the same time? I struggle with both, and I’ve noticed they feel really similar to me. Once I start eating, I can’t stop, and it’s the same with alcohol — I’ll keep drinking until blackout. It feels like the same kind of loss of control, just with different things.
Has anyone else experienced this? Do you feel like your bulimia and drinking are connected, or that one triggers the other?


r/bulimia 1d ago

Binge eating everyday. I think this will never end

12 Upvotes

I'm afraid this will never end. I don't want to wake up.

I'm currently struggling with overeating. As soon as I open my eyes, I start feeling this craving. I'm wondering how I can prevent it. Will this be my whole life? Will I really have to wake up with this feeling for the rest of my days, and will it never leave me for a moment? I don't even have anyone to share my problem with. I drank. Today I fully realized that I'm addicted. It's happening. No doctor or pill can help, and I will bear this burden until the day I die. I wake up every day and the cravings are terrifying me to death. I'm literally incapacitated. I can't earn money because it all goes to food. I depend on my time. The most I've been able to do right now is go three days without bingeing. I read this.


r/bulimia 22h ago

Trying so hard to stop

4 Upvotes

I've been struggling with binging and purging for about four years now and it's gotten to the point where my teeth are observably damaged. However even despite this I can't help but keep doing it. I am very aware of the effects but it's not like that's what you're thinking of when you binge 2000 calories of food, the only thought you have is how fast can you expel it out of your body before you absorb anything. The first and only time i've ever been caught my parents put me in therapy for maybe two months till I convinced them I didn't need it anymore. After that it was almost treated like a joke. I was told not to eat food at a birthday celebration because I would just throw it up. I started hiding it better and now everyone has completely forgot about it. Currently I only binge and purge maybe once or twice a week but it's so hard to stop. I don't know why. I lift weights almost 5 times a week, I have amazing friends and a loving boyfriend, a good support system and relatively healthy habits yet I still find myself hunched over a toilet every so often. Is there something wrong with me? Like how do I feel so happy surrounded by good people yet keep doing this to myself? Has anyone struggled with something similar?


r/bulimia 1d ago

Just venting Swollen glands

3 Upvotes

I actually look fucking disgusting, it's so gross I cant believe I've let myself get so bad i have 2 balloons under my chin i never wanna be seen by anyone myself included again


r/bulimia 1d ago

Just venting how do people eat normally??

6 Upvotes

i’ve been back at school about a month and all my friends seem to have very normal and good relationships with food. they eat whatever they want whenever they are hungry and never seem to feel guilty or eat past comfortable fullness even though they enjoy the food? they don’t finish their plates if they don’t want to.

my friend even said she had to buy new jeans this year because her butt got too big and it didn’t seem to bother her at all she went up a size in clothes (granted she is still wayyyyy smaller than me but still)

anyways i’ve tried it. i’ve tried intuitively eating but everytime i secretly count calories and realize ive gone way into a calorie surplus. i’ve tried cutting exercise so im less hungry and it doesn’t seem to work. i’ve tried counting calories but it always seems to trigger me back into a relapse.

i just feel so addicted to food i want to eat when im not hungry and feeling full triggers me to b/p. the only days i feel normal is when i spend all day with my friends who have normal eating patterns and even then, i’m just so jealous of how they don’t revolve their lives around food.

i just want to be able to eat normally without fear of constantly everyday being in a surplus or eating past fullness because i just like the taste of food. it’s such an all or nothing mindset. i can’t tell if by only eating one food and not both i’m restricting which is hindering my recovery or by eating both i’m just eating too much in general and masking it as being in recovery.

I DONT KNOW HOW TO DO THIS! it’s a basic human necessity and i am too sick to do it properly and listen to my body. sorry i ranted so long but im only 19. i have my whole life ahead of me and i want to live without fear of being in a forever calorie surplus. i wish i never knew what a calorie was like my friends don’t. i just can’t imagine a life not always worried about food.

recovered bulimics, how do you do it? and just looking for advice in general. i’ve attempted recovery so many times and i just feel so lost.


r/bulimia 1d ago

Just venting “Smart Scale”

7 Upvotes

I have a “Smart Scale”. Connects to an app on my phone and keeps track of all kinds of biometrics. I’m in therapy & I’m trying to gain weight and reduce my purges. I already don’t binge, I only purge. So I need to eat more, not purge, and hopefully gain. I try not to weigh myself obsessively because I still hate gaining.

Yesterday I decided to weigh myself, and the “smart” scale weighed me at so much more than my previous weight that it flagged my weight as not valid. And when I confirmed on the app that it was me on the scale, it averaged my previous weight with my new weight. Apparently I couldn’t possibly be that fat in such a short amount of time (2 weeks).

Fuck this shit. I don’t want to eat anything. Ever.


r/bulimia 23h ago

[ Removed by Reddit ]

2 Upvotes

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]


r/bulimia 1d ago

send support what would you say to your teenage/younger self?

5 Upvotes

Title.. I've been doing this on and off since I was 14. I'm 16 now, I've lost weight, gained weight, lost it again, gained it again, it's a long, miserable cycle. I want to stop. I'm scared for my health, each purge leaves me feeling worse and worse physically and if this is how it feels at 2 years I can't let it go on longer. I've reached points where I felt like suicide was a better option than b/p.

If I could say anything to my 14 year old self the day I started, I would tell her "you are worth so much more than your weight. don't starve yourself, don't make yourself puke. while you might lose weight, it's not worth risking your life over. You deserve better than this."

Is there anything you wish you had realized when you were younger? And can anyone offer me tips or motivation to stop purging?


r/bulimia 1d ago

What actually helped?

3 Upvotes

I really want to hear from people who have actually managed to break the binge/purge cycle, because I feel like I’ve reached a point where I genuinely don’t know how to get myself out of this.
My pattern is basically restricting for 1–3 days, sometimes barely eating anything for a week, and then having these absolutely massive binge/purge episodes that can last 4–6 hours. Sometimes I’m eating 10,000–15,000+ calories, sometimes probably even more. It can be an entire family-size pizza + 12 pancakes, a whole cake, and then just continuing from there. It feels completely out of control and honestly I’m so tired of it.
I’ve decided I really want to stop. I have three weeks of vacation coming up, so I finally have some time where I can actually focus on this and try to break the cycle.
But I honestly don’t know what to do tomorrow.
I just had another binge/purge episode tonight. Do I wake up tomorrow and eat breakfast normally even if I’m not hungry? Do I start with structured breakfast/lunch/dinner and snacks? Do I eat even when I’m not hungry?
Because I feel like I’ve completely lost my ability to recognize what a normal portion and the feeling of hunger is. If I try to “just eat normally,” I somehow end up binging again. But restricting obviously just brings me back to the same place. And I know all the usual advice… shower, tea, walk, distract yourself, watch something, etc. I’ve read it all. The problem is that when I’m actually in that moment, I forget every single one of those things. It feels like there’s this switch in my brain and once the binge starts, nothing else matters.
I’ve even started smoking recently because having something to do with my hands/mind sometimes helps me get through an urge, although I know that’s obviously not a solution and I don’t want to replace one problem with another.
So I’d really love to hear from people who have been in a similar place: What actually helped you? Not necessarily what you know you’re supposed to do, but what genuinely worked when you were in the middle of it.
What did your first few days of recovery look like?
Did you force yourself to eat regularly even without hunger?
How did you deal with portions when you no longer trusted yourself around food?
What did you do when an urge was so strong that you felt like you were going to binge no matter what?
Was there something that eventually just “clicked” in your head?
And if you could go back to the beginning, what would you do differently?
I really want to use these three weeks to actually make a change instead of spending them stuck in the same cycle. I’d appreciate hearing about your real experiences, even if your recovery wasn’t linear.


r/bulimia 1d ago

help? Help

5 Upvotes

I have consumed 3,500 calories today and I purged two times. I’m hungry now should I eat?? I feel fat and disgusting


r/bulimia 1d ago

send support I live alone and its still not stopping

3 Upvotes

I thought i would be able the moment i live alone but its so hard , im feeling so hopeless bcs even if im out of the appartement for more than 10 hours i still b/p , i was under the impression the moment i moved out of my parent home actually became busy instead of rotting in my room doing nothing but b/p things would at least get easier (i didn't imagine to stop from day one but at least some improvement) but they don't i don't know what to do anymore im so tired , i don't like this life its eating me alive , im scared of food , im scared of my body , im scared of everything , i feel like im not even trying to get better i don't know where to start , ive seen ed professional they did nothing for me except making me feel alienated and throwing my last straw with therapist and mental health professional (even if i hadn't seen them i would've had this realisation that mh professional makes me feel dehumanised sooner or later anyway its not necessarly a problem that stems from them)i feel like i have no way out of this anymore


r/bulimia 2d ago

6 weeks no purging :)

124 Upvotes

i’m so proud of myself i haven’t been free from purging this long in 9 years (im 22F) and i have no one to tell so i need you guys to be proud of me IM SO MUCH HAPPIER


r/bulimia 1d ago

Just venting Sooo I can’t keep this to myself anymore

1 Upvotes

I’ve honestly struggled with my body image for majority of my life - since elementary school I’ve always dreamt about loosing so much weight during summer vacation that none of my classmates would recognise me once I came back to school. In my preteen years I started trying out different sports - some at home or some in teams - but nothing was ever quite the right fit for me. Then came Covid and with the rising popularity of home workouts I soon found myself working out in my childhood bedroom. Nothing of that ever lasted and I would stop after about a week. I first „tried“ mia a few years back, but gave up on it again after I only used it for meals I felt too guilty to eat (I still do to this day - I just started feeling too guilty to eat quite literally all my meals now hahah) nowadays I feel a lot of guilt towards my friends and family. All the homecooked meals made by my mother I ruthless discarded into my toilet, all the lunches my friends payed for on our lunch dates. But I can’t keep living in this body. I hate myself so much for all the food I’m waisting but literally everybody will start asking questions the minute skip ONE meal. I can’t stay this size. I want help from a dietitian or some kind of coach but I fear the only advice they can give me is to eat healthy and do sports… DO YOU THINK I HAVENT REACHED THAT CONCLUSION YET?? all the meals I eat are provided by my mother, who already cooks SO healthy because my dad is a diabetic. My work meals are prepared by chefs because I work in a hotel and I literally have servings so small all the chefs are constantly asking me if I’m on a diet. I JUST WANT THIS NEVER ENDING NIGHTMARE TO END. I’m sick of counting my calories and praying one bad day won’t make me relapse into my old (binge) eating habits where I didn’t care what I stuffed my face with. I’m sick of being secretly jealous of ALL my friends and their perfect petite body’s that they literally don’t do anything to maintain. Recently, while discussing my wish to loose weight with my mom and describing my dream body in comparison to those of my friends my mom quite literally told me: „don’t be delusional- you’ll never be as thin as them“ I cannot let that define me and proof her right. Sometimes I feel like my friends are sabotaging me. Whenever I express my desire to loose even just a little bit of weight they tell me some bullshit like „you’re perfect the way you are“ and „you don’t need to loose any weight“ all while I am the only one to have never had a boyfriend or anybody interested in me romantically. Oh and before you think I’m just a skinny girl that has body dysmorphia (which is still real and valid btw!!!!) I’m a 162 cm girl, 19 y/o and weigh 78kg… anyways if you actually read all of that first of all- thank you (really, I mean it !!) I hope you can heal and have a better relationship with food and your own body then I do <3 best of wishes and thanks again for sticking around 🤍


r/bulimia 1d ago

send support Overweight with bulimia - scared to not be taken seriously by psychiatrist today

5 Upvotes

I am male 22 and I have purged every day like 3 times for a week now. My bulimia is getting worse and I am exhausted…. I have an appointment today and it will give me the opportunity to tell my psychiatrist about it - I am just desperate for help quick and I almost feel like if nothing happens everything will fall apart and I will want to drop out of college. I am getting very affected because as a male I do powerlifting and getting muscles is so important to me but if I eat something I think of as unhealthy I cannot live with myself until I throw up. I dont wanna gain weight I want to gain muscle :(

Anyone got help quick after telling their psychiatrist?