The Truth About Overshooting: Why Extra Weight Gain Can Be Part of Healing

In eating disorder recovery, especially from anorexia nervosa, it’s not uncommon for the body to restore beyond the individual’s pre-illness weight. This phenomenon, often labelled by clients or clinicians as “overshooting,” is frequently misunderstood as an error or excess, but in truth, it may be an essential part of biological healing.

1. Undershooting: The Trap of Partial Recovery

Many people exit formal treatment still significantly below their body’s natural set point weight. This state, often celebrated by external observers for being "healthy enough", is where relapse risk is highest. Gaudiani (2018) describes this as quasi-recovery: the eating disorder symptoms may be reduced, but the body and brain remain nutritionally and psychologically starved. Menstrual cycles may not return, digestion remains fragile, anxiety continues, and obsessive thoughts persist.

Without full metabolic and hormonal restoration, the body operates in a kind of survival limbo. This means clients might be out of medical crisis but not truly well.

“Weight restoration is not the same as full recovery. And even weight restoration is often incomplete.” — Dr Jennifer Gaudiani, Sick Enough (2018)

2. Overshooting as Protection: The Biology of Safety

Overshooting is not pathological; it’s physiological. After prolonged restriction, the body’s endocrine and metabolic systems shift into defence mode. It does not trust that starvation is over. This leads to:

• Increased fat deposition
• Fat accumulation in protective areas (e.g. central body fat)
• Hyperphagia (persistent hunger)
• Delayed satiety

These are all normal and adaptive responses to prolonged caloric deficit. Leptin levels, sex hormones, cortisol, thyroid function, and resting metabolic rate all require time and energy to reset (Mayer et al., 2020). In fact, studies show that post-starvation weight gain may temporarily exceed an individual’s long-term set point before gradually redistributing (Dulloo et al., 2015).

“Post-restriction overshoot may be a necessary phase to re-establish energy balance and rebuild reserves.” — Dulloo, Jacquet & Montani (2015)

3. Fear of Fatness: When Weight Bias Drives Treatment

One of the reasons many clients, and even clinicians, resist overshooting is because of internalised weight stigma. Our cultural obsession with thinness doesn’t just affect people with eating disorders; it shapes how we treat them. A fear of fatness, often couched in terms of “health” or “discipline,” can lead to:

• Artificial weight goals that stall recovery
• Misinterpretation of overshooting as "bingeing" or loss of control
• Premature treatment discharge

It’s vital to reframe these concerns not as pathology, but as part of recovery. Dietitian Tabitha Farrar often emphasises that trusting the body to find its optimal weight is essential, and that the distress surrounding weight gain is part of the disorder, not evidence that something has gone wrong.

“Full recovery includes full weight restoration. And that means giving the body the freedom to find its weight, not our idea of what that weight should be.” — Tabitha Farrar, 2021

4. Redistribution Takes Time

Another reason overshooting is feared is because of how the weight looks and feels at first. Clients may notice puffiness, bloating, or rapid fat gain, especially in the midsection. But with time, this often evens out. Studies of refeeding after famine (Keys et al., 1950) and modern eating disorder recovery both show that weight redistributes over 6–12 months as metabolism stabilises.

That means the appearance of “overshooting” is often temporary, especially when accompanied by strength training, adequate rest, and nutrition.

5. Recovery Is Not Just a Weight — It’s a State

Full recovery involves physical, psychological, social, and functional restoration. An individual who remains food-avoidant, movement-obsessed, or unable to tolerate uncertainty around weight is not recovered, even if they are at a socially acceptable BMI.

Overshooting should not be feared; it is a sign of life returning. It reflects the body’s intelligent, adaptive capacity to restore after years of famine. Clients must be supported to tolerate this uncertainty, not pushed to stabilise prematurely.

References

• Dulloo, A. G., Jacquet, J., & Montani, J. P. (2015). How dieting makes the lean fatter: From a perspective of body composition autoregulation through adipostats and proteinstats. Obesity Reviews, 16(Suppl 1), 25–35.
• Gaudiani, J. (2018). Sick Enough: A Guide to the Medical Complications of Eating Disorders. Routledge.
• Keys, A., Brozek, J., Henschel, A., Mickelsen, O., & Taylor, H. L. (1950). The Biology of Human Starvation. University of Minnesota Press.
• Mayer, L. E. S., Roberto, C. A., & Glasofer, D. R. (2020). Eating Disorders: A Comprehensive Guide to Medical Care and Complications (2nd ed.). American Psychiatric Publishing.
• Farrar, T. (2021). Rehabilitate, Rewire, Recover! Self-published.