If you eat less than 700 calories a day (except binge calories) I suggest you start with 300 calorie meals 3 times a day. After a week you can have 330 calorie meals. The week after that again you can have 360 calorie meals, then 390 and so on till you eat 500 calorie meals. Then add calories in a slower manner, like adding just a snack of 50 calories a day that gets more calorie dense each week by 50 calories. You may choose to add just 30 when you are close to your TDEE. Here is a calculator:https://tdeecalculator.net/
To sum it up it may look like this:
300 300 300 (Start here if you were very low restricting).
330 330 330
360 360 360 ( Start here if you ate 1000 a day)
390 390 390
410 410 410
440 440 440
470 470 470
500 500 500
500 500 500 50
500 500 500 100
500 500 500 150
500 500 500 200
500 500 500 250
500 500 500 300
500 500 500 350
500 500 500 400
500 500 500 450
500 500 500 500
(continue adding 50 if your body needs more)
You will most likely experience weight loss while reverse dieting all the way from just 900 calories a day. When you have been reverse dieting for several weeks and start gaining (not food, water absorbed by carbs or salt, muscle or poop weight, but fat) you can consider if you want to maintain on the amount you ate the week before or if you are still hungry for more allow yourself a bit of weight gain, remove some fats from your diet, (vegetable oils except olive oil and coconut oil slows down metabolism according to Ray Peat) burn it off with exercise or build muscles with it through strength training.
To be able to do this you need a food scale and a calorie counting app. I use diet.no and are reverse dieting now myself. I am up to 1850 calories a day now and have not gained anything yet. My BMI is 17,7 and I may allow a little weight gain because I strength train and may gain muscles instead of fat.
Obstacles you may experience:
Emotions: If you don't know how to deal with emotions when you get upset I found a solution to that too so I never rushed out to buy fast food ever again to binge and purge. Just find a quiet place for yourself and lie down and feel your emotions, cry out loud, feel the frustration, anger or what ever you feel. Feel it until you are calm. One can not run away from emotions and pain. The only way to get rid of them is to feel them. The same goes for thoughts. The same ones may show up again and again. To push it aside won't help if you don't give it attention first and think it through. Try to accept everything that comes to you on the inside and outside by giving it the needed attention. That way you are free. You are not free when you run away from or try to fight things you don't like.
Fear of weight gain: If you weigh yourself from day 1 you may freak out by the first sign of weight gain that is just water and food. You may want to wait with weighing your body till later on, give it away or keep it and stick a note to it saying it is just water weight. If you are a woman you may experience several kilos of water weight coming on and off every month related to hormone levels. This can be felt under the skin and be confused with fat. So try to be rational to avoid the sabotaging fear. You can not gain fat when you are just eating 1300 calories a day. Remind yourself of that or get more knowledge about it if you need more convincing. Fear is your response to a challenge. Try to overcome the fear with bravery believing you do the right thing.
Too much weight loss: If you are the type who never were always lean because you have a high metabolism and a tendency to lose weight rapidly it is important to add more than the suggested calories the first weeks. My suggestions above is not for your body type. If you low restrict I suggest you follow this plan or increase calories even quicker. Instead of increasing every week you can do it every five days:
300 300 300 (This low in calories to avoid refeeding syndrom)
400 400 400 200
500 500 500 100
500 500 500 200
500 500 500 300
500 500 500 400
500 500 500 500
500 500 500 500 100
500 500 500 500 200
500 500 500 500 300
500 500 500 500 400
500 500 500 500 500
When you have reached this point I hope you have already found food freedom and no longer see the need to measure your food nor your body. You listen to the signals given to you by the body, trust it and take care of its needs.
While doing reverse dieting as someone with an eating disorder I recommend finding support from someone around you and/or by watching helpful youtube videos about recovery from an ED. I have a list:
Kayla Rose (she used the all in method, not reverse dieting, but is helpful anyway), Follow your intuition (had bulimia), Tabitha Farrar (had anorexia and exercise addiction), Ro Mitchell (anorexia), Lilykoi Hawaii.
