Oh wow. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. It's not the fact that she's gained weight which baffles me. It's how she's suddenly not "real" and "raw" about her journey now that it's not going in the direction of physical self-improvement anymore. It's completely normal for people to fluctuate in body composition because your body is the vessel that moves you through life and since life changes and has its ups an downs, why should your body be any different? Her of all people would know that. She also knows what kind of people her audience is made up of so it's dissapointing that she's not being open about her eating habits and weight. I understand that she must be very insecure about what’s happening but I don’t believe it's helpful to anyone, not herself or her audience, to keep her situation a secret. Her physical health journey might have improved her mental health as well because the health of mind and body are intertwined, but she never got to the mental roots of her unhealthy eating habits and now they've most likely grown and affected her body once again. I'm curious to see where this goes. I wonder how many people know already?

 

Oh wow, I never realised she literally vanished for a while. I was really worried about some of the points she was making in her videos about BED, claiming it's not a mental illness, and also how hard she was on herself. I always feared she either was or would become very (or even more) eating disordered with her critical she was of herself. In essence the whole "glow up" business seems like a good idea, who doesn't want to improve themselves? But with everyone waiting and watching and the amount of pressure and everything always going back to her weight, weight, weight, looks, looks, looks, did she gain? did she lose?" It's was really only a matter of time for her to crack under that pressure honestly. The strict regime she put herself under in the video she lost is all always seemed like something that you can't maintain forever too. The rules she tries to set up for herself seemed so inflexible, and that just leads into the cycle and yoyo-ing.

I don't care that she's gained weight. She is and was beautiful. I just hope she can become healthier mentally, because I don't think her looks were ever the real problem here. Her ambition and pressure, and negative self-view, seem like more probable culprits to me. I hope she can get help if she needs it, and that she can accept it even with her past views regarding BED.

 

This unfortunately doesn't surprise me. I remember watching her glow up diaries thinking that I'd personally never be able sustain what she was doing long term and wondered if she would be able to. Looks like the answer is she couldn't either :/ I feel sorry for her, I know how it feels when BED is destroying your life

 

this
the way she was exercising like 3 times a day and basically having no actual information about real nutrition and just talking herself down is never going to work long term

 

She thinks it's a habit that can be broken with willpower. I guess her constant yo-yoing can also be seen as a cautionary tale in a way. What happens when you lose the weight but didn't work on the mental reasons for your binge eating in the first place.

Thank you for writing this. I needed to hear this. I've been binge-free for 2 months, and I think part of that is dealing with the emotional reasons I binge, finding healthier habits or binge-replacements, and learning how to dig deeper and meet my needs without food. But recently I've definitely been relying slightly too much on just straight-up control, without dealing with the underlying issues. I'll just tell myself "successful people don't binge, control yourself, get yourself together, hunger is only for fat people." like a very meanspo approach which is effective but noootttttt not not sustainable. not sustainable at all. so thanks for the reminder to focus again on the deeper stuff

also in case it's helpful to anyone, I think a lot of my relationship with binging comes from scarcity problems and feeling like I don't have enough. so I've been trying to work on my eating habits more and slow the whole process of having a meal down. it makes every thing go so much further, so I feel like I have enough, and also it lets my body catch up with the fullness so I actually feel satiated.

 

Thank you for writing this. I needed to hear this. I've been binge-free for 2 months, and I think part of that is dealing with the emotional reasons I binge, finding healthier habits or binge-replacements, and learning how to dig deeper and meet my needs without food. But recently I've definitely been relying slightly too much on just straight-up control, without dealing with the underlying issues. I'll just tell myself "successful people don't binge, control yourself, get yourself together, hunger is only for fat people." like a very meanspo approach which is effective but noootttttt not not sustainable. not sustainable at all. so thanks for the reminder to focus again on the deeper stuff

also in case it's helpful to anyone, I think a lot of my relationship with binging comes from scarcity problems and feeling like I don't have enough. so I've been trying to work on my eating habits more and slow the whole process of having a meal down. it makes every thing go so much further, so I feel like I have enough, and also it lets my body catch up with the fullness so I actually feel satiated.

I binge when I am sad because than i think fuck it all I will eat. When I am happy I do not binge

 

Definitely second everyone saying she got caught up in the whole business and image side of things, and got lost under the pressure. Her diet and eating regime were too strict and imo she made this change way too quickly for it to actually stick long term. My BED got triggered by my loved ones telling me I would be safer outside if I were to gain weight bcs I was very frail looking/ people abusing me for my underweight body when I was younger = My subconscious belief became that I am safe and out of danger when I am heavier/ I am less likely to be abused when I don't look "thin and pretty". This is simply my deeper cause for my BED which I am slowly but surely working on, and I think she also has a deeper reasoning for her BED being this severe and long-lasting, be it depression or other causes in her life.

It's sad really, she's still so young and going through mental health disorders like ED's is hard on its own, but also having to face the attention and criticism of an entire public audience on the internet, expecting her to uphold her rawness and also succeed, is certainly not helping at all. I hope she went offline from her YouTube channel to really heal, instead of silently creating more content for a future YT comeback, without actually recovering at all mentally and only for the sake of her youtube career.

 

She's very toxic. Because she thinks she can 'heal herself' and tells other people (suffering from mental illnesses) that they can do the same when actual, real THERAPY would be the best course of action for most.

 

I agree that she is toxic and I don't think its right for her to continue to make money off something that is essentially fake, don't fake it for the views. And it also makes it seem like people with BED just need self control which isn't helpful either.

Everyone is different. The mental health illness theory works as a powerful excuse to indulge again and again for me personally. Also I could never afford therapy; while simple, practical techniques and a pragmatic approach have been effective - not always, and it's still a daily struggle, but the binge cycles seems to become shorter and the weight fluctuations haven't been massive (so far 🤞🤞🤞).

 

Sad. Her mindset about her ED is also sad. She must pretty much blame herself.

 

I agree that she is toxic and I don't think its right for her to continue to make money off something that is essentially fake, don't fake it for the views. And it also makes it seem like people with BED just need self control which isn't helpful either.

 

Honestly, from what I've seen of her glowup diaries videos, it seemed that she was tackling her problems in what she thought was the best possible way. It also seems to me that her parents weren't supportive in a healthy way ('Are you even gonna try to eat healthy after this weekend?' - mom apparently said something like that once), and the fitness instructor she talked to also focused largely on the fitness aspect in ways that were not necessarily helpful if you ask me (Steve Zim, I think it was?). Seems like she herself therefore also mainly focused on the fitness/diet part of BED, and I just can't blame her for that. I've only recently been learning about the mental aspects myself, and I also thought I just had a willpower problem.

As for whether she should stop making videos or not, I don't know, maybe. I don't know about the contents of her podcast so I don't think I should say anything about whether she should stop or continue with that.

As I kind of understand where she's been over the years, I feel it's a little unfair to judge her too harshly. I mean, she started when she was what? 17, 18? At that age I sure as hell wasn't aware of half the things I know now. Seems to me like she got stuck in the mindset she developed back then, which was further enforced by her environment. And at this point, maybe she doesn't want to admit that she gained the weight back, maybe there are other reasons she hasn't posted any photos or videos of herself in a while. I honestly just hope she's alright.

 

Oh noo!!! That's sad. I just watched her glow up diaries and really related to a lot of her struggles with binge eating.

I'm happy that she was able to put herself out there online and share some of her raw emotional moments, but the self criticsim and pressure she puts herself under were very intense and the workouts etc seemed quite unsustainable. Kiana Docherty made a good video about this, which i also watched.

I hope she can help to address her issues with BED perhaps with some therapy, and perhaps be more open to the idea that this is not due to her own personal failings.

 

Oh noo!!! That's sad. I just watched her glow up diaries and really related to a lot of her struggles with binge eating.

I'm happy that she was able to put herself out there online and share some of her raw emotional moments, but the self criticsim and pressure she puts herself under were very intense and the workouts etc seemed quite unsustainable. Kiana Docherty made a good video about this, which i also watched.

I hope she can help to address her issues with BED perhaps with some therapy, and perhaps be more open to the idea that this is not due to her own personal failings.

I never watched her YT series, so can't comment on it. But I applaud all the kind, compassionate folks here who deal with the same struggles of yoyo dieting. I've been a binger/restricter for decades. It is a very hard habit to break. My goal now is to honor my commitment to healthful eating, exercising, sleeping, thinking and LIFE habits.

F the scale and the mirror! We are who we ARE. Our weight and appearance are the tiniest sliver of who we are.

Finally, I accept that weighing and measuring my body doesn't help, only hurts, since my ultimate goals are not reasonable or sustainable.

I hope this young lady learns to love her self AS SHE IS, at whatever weight and level of success, however she defines success; and that she learns to eat the foods that love her back, in the amounts that make her feel good all the time. I hope the same for us all.

She is totally understood by the MPA Community. She is one of us. When she is ready to tell her story, she will not be rejected, but loved all the more!

 

I only watched the videos where she went theough describing her bingeing till when she had stopped bingeing & lost alot. I got the feeling through it all that it was very disordered both in bingeing but also her "recovery" approach, ir just felt disordered in a diff way. Also it came across to me even when she said it wasn't that it surrounded appearance alot for her recovery wise. She lost so much & looked to be a weight I imagine would take disordered eating or over exercise to maintain since she didn't seem to naturally be that small. I imagine the pressure to maintain the recovered from bingeing image is immense. I feel sad thinking about how awful the time must have been since her last video. She seemed to have a serious bingeing issue which clearly distressed her & consumed her life. It feels like she needs to stop aiming to have the perfect body & accept her natural size. She probably needs to work on her self esteem also, she's talented to pit together such a complex youtube series

 

I remember the big fuss when she posted this series and basically refused to call her binge eating a disorder. A lot of people were very upset because she was invalidating the struggle of those who couldn't just "get it under control." It felt like watching someone punching themselves in the face over and over again in order to attain their goal and it wasn't inspiring to me, it just felt sad. Her weight loss clearly was out of self-hate and hearing all her life that she's just lazy. Been there, done that but nobody had to witness it. It didn't seem like what she was doing was sustainable and turns out that was right. I don't shame her but I wish she would get help, her mindset seems really toxic.

 

I’m not surprised. There was a lot of controversy surrounding her weight loss regime when it came out. Think she was sponsored by the trainer who helped her lose weight because the caption of that video was very similar to another youtuber’s video. (And said YouTuber hired that personal trainer to help them lose weight).

As many others have said - she clearly has BED.

 

Usually I secretly rejoice when I learn of skinny girls gaining tons of weight (not justifying it...), but Alivia's case just makes me so sad. I know how it feels to be only slightly overweight and be surrounded by boney skinny girls all the time. Alivia was never "fat" and she definitely isn't fat in that photo, but sitting next to those ultra-thin women, it must hurt. Regaining any sort of weight after losing is devastating, and I really hope she's getting the help she needs.

 

This is going to sound weird, but I have something to add to this. I went from anorexia -> recovery -> BED -> anorexia. It was all MENTAL the anorexia is due to my parents having been super strict on food since I was little and then the recovery that got forced on me made me super depressed about weight gain, and made me eat my feelings, because in recovery they didn't deal with the root issue either they just forced me to eat. Then I pushed it out of my mind and became anorexic again. Which is all stress related and 'punishment' as well. But it's all a cycle until you deal with it mentally.

I think she won't be "healthy" or her definition of it until she deals with what is hindering her mentally, which goes for most eating disorders. That's my opinion anyway.

 

Is it just me or...does she not look like she gained weight? At least not all of it, it's probably just that those other girls are skinnier. I saw her in a more recent tagged post with zoeunlimited and she still looked thin? I'd imagine the reason she's been gone so long is because of all the hate she's been getting.

 

I thought so too, maybe the other one is an old photograph? She doesn’t look fat, she looks a little bit bigger, but not much…

 

Oh wow. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. It's not the fact that she's gained weight which baffles me. It's how she's suddenly not "real" and "raw" about her journey now that it's not going in the direction of physical self-improvement anymore. It's completely normal for people to fluctuate in body composition because your body is the vessel that moves you through life and since life changes and has its ups an downs, why should your body be any different? Her of all people would know that. She also knows what kind of people her audience is made up of so it's dissapointing that she's not being open about her eating habits and weight. I understand that she must be very insecure about what’s happening but I don’t believe it's helpful to anyone, not herself or her audience, to keep her situation a secret. Her physical health journey might have improved her mental health as well because the health of mind and body are intertwined, but she never got to the mental roots of her unhealthy eating habits and now they've most likely grown and affected her body once again. I'm curious to see where this goes. I wonder how many people know already?

so well said, thank you for writing/ posting

 

This makes me so sad, I think Alivia is genuinely such a lovely girl and is clearly really struggling with her eating disorder. When she left her account for so long I thought it was just because she’s really inconsistent with posting but it makes sense that she gained the weight back. I think unfortunately she was too strict with her diet and is too much of a perfectionist. As a follower I do find it a bit annoying that she’s trying to hide it from us all when her whole channel was about being real and raw. I didn’t know she had another channel but if it’s true she posts ads for diet foods then that’s really messed up that she’s trying to profit off of her followers when she’s not being truthful about the situation. I really hope she goes to therapy and works on her issues and recovers and realises that she’s more than her weight.

 

I think we all parasocially care about her and genuinely hope she's doing well. And I'm sure she's fitspo/thinspo for a lot of us too. But don't you think this would be extremely triggering for her if she saw this thread? She is still a person. Targeting people like this and weighing in on their ED journey is pretty messed up. I don't think this is something we should try to participate in.

 

ahhh. i know this thread hasn't been responded to in awhile, but i was looking up alivia today, as a previous huge fan of season one, and i actually thought to myself that i had a theory she had gained the weight back. struggling with binge eating is real but i wish she would be more honest instead of stringing her viewers along pretending she hasn't gained the weight back and is intent on making season 2. thanks op for posting this!

 

yeah i saw her on insta live a couple months ago and definitely noticed she gained a significant amount back, not everything tho.
can't say i was surprised

 

Ahh, I Just think she should be honest that she might be doing some of her BED behaviors again and acknowledge her setbacks. I mean I've been here time after time binge, restrict, binge, restrict.... and being honest is definitely the first way to accepting what you're doing.

 

I just tried to watch a video of hers a few weeks ago but I just couldn’t really get into the motivational speech and stuff, so I just ended up clicking out of it. I did notice that she wasn’t uploading tho and was wondering where she went. Now I know I guess lol. Can’t blame her either tho, maybe she had a hard time and that’s totally okay. I did too


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Just looked up Alivia again on YouTube and two weeks ago she posted her last podcast episode saying that she's ending the podcast (for now, might go back to it in the future) and is reopening a new YouTube chapter. So, I guess we can expect to see a new video from her soon.