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I have been off and on a road to disordered eating recovery, and have been doing the online Christian program called Setting Captives Free, and it's been wonderful! But I started to get discouraged with the slow progress and fell back into not eating again for a short time. And now once again Im trying to be healthy. I was looking at some things online to help with recovery. I found some Youtube videos by eating disorder specialists who strongly encourage the person in recovery to eat whatever they want and however much they want without worrying about weight gain. Their theory (and what they said they've seen works) is that after the initial weight gain, which could even cause the person to become obese, they will level out and not binge or crave junk anymore, but they will start to crave healthy foods and lose the weight and become a normal weight. They admit that this isn't always the case and that some people remain obese. They said it is so so important to not restrict yourself at all or else you will relapse and hinder the process. Something about this doesn't sit well with me. First of all, Im already ten pounds into the overweight BMI, despite starving myself before, so why would I want to gain even more weight? Why not just eat healthy most of the time and exercise? Second of all, wouldn't allowing the patient to become obese put them at risk for diabetes,heart disease, depression, etc? And my final point, and this is what raised reg flags; this goes against what the bible has to say about eating. The bible talks about having self restraint with our appetites. I agree, our bodies have a certain wisdom, for example if we are lacking certain minerals or vitamins we will crave certain foods and thing like that, but we don't need to follow every craving our body has. Our flesh desires to satisfy itself. So I just get confused about the two competing worldviews. On one hand you have the world using "science" to say to follow our flesh because it knows how to keep itself healthy, it will eventually crave healthy foods and eventually reach an optimal weight (setpoint theory). On the other hand you have to Bible, which has more logical advice...the more you eat, the more you want to eat. Overeating is called gluttony and becomes an idol. Laziness is called being slothful. So there is certain personal accountability. The world says eating problems are a disease and takes away much of the accountability. The Bible says it's a choice. Amd the choice turns into a habit that feels extremely hard to stop and can feel like an addiction. I think I will start listening to the bible and not the world. I have been gaining the weight I lost back, it's terrifying. But I have to force myself not to starve. I think if I try to just be healthy i don't have to get stuck in the cycle of overeating and then restricting to compensate. Any thoughts? Can anyone else relate? Thank you