Body image, eating & intuitive eating

Body image, eating disorders, and the slow work back to peace with food.

A clinician-built library for the full arc — from the structured early-recovery work of CBT-E and exposure-based ED treatment, through body image stabilization, into Intuitive Eating's longer-term reconnection with hunger, fullness, satisfaction, and a body you can live in.

18 worksheets Print-ready · US Letter Free · no signup
Interoception
1p · PDF

Hunger & Fullness Scale

Re-learn the body's signals on a 0–10 scale

A printable hunger/fullness ruler with a daily check-in grid. Builds shared language between client and clinician — and rebuilds the interoceptive cues eating disorders erase.

CBT-E early phase, intuitive eating work, post-meal-plan transition, any client disconnected from hunger and fullness.
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Meal Planning
1p · PDF

Regular Eating Plan

CBT-E — three meals, two-to-three snacks, every day, on time

The foundational CBT-E intervention. A 7-day grid for six eating slots a day, with reflection prompts on what helped and where the pattern broke. Mechanical eating now, intuitive eating later.

First weeks of CBT-E, recovery from restriction or binge cycles, any client whose eating is chaotic or skipped.
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Behavior Chain
1p · PDF

Binge Episode Chain Analysis

Map one binge link by link to find the earliest changeable step

Adapts DBT chain analysis to binge eating. Walks the client from vulnerability factors through prompting event, thoughts, feelings, urges, the binge itself, and consequences — ending with the earliest link they could change next time.

Binge eating disorder, bulimia, after any binge or loss-of-control eating episode.
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Body Image
1p · PDF

Body Image Mirror Exposure

Neutral, factual mirror work to reduce body-image distress

A structured mirror-exposure log. SUDS ratings before, peak, and after; a guided neutral description; a check on avoidance and checking behaviors; and a function-not-appearance reflection.

Body image distress in anorexia, bulimia, BED, BDD. Done with clinician guidance; not for active self-harm or purging episodes.
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Cognitive
1p · PDF

Challenging Food Rules

List the rules, predict the catastrophe, run the experiment

A worksheet for surfacing eating-disorder rules ('no carbs after 6pm', 'only eat if I've exercised'), what each rule promises, what it actually costs, and a specific small experiment to test it this week.

CBT-E middle phase, recovery from restriction, perfectionism around food, orthorexia patterns.
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Exposure
1p · PDF

Fear Food Hierarchy

A 12-rung ladder for reintroducing avoided foods

Structured exposure for ED-related food avoidance. Rate fear 0–10, climb the ladder in order, repeat each food until fear drops by half. Includes a post-exposure log with SUDS at first bite and 30 minutes later.

Anorexia recovery, ARFID, bulimia, any client whose 'safe food' list has narrowed.
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Intuitive Eating
2p · PDF

Intuitive Eating — Ten Principles Self-Assessment

Score where you are across Tribole & Resch's ten principles

Rate yourself 0–10 on each of the ten Intuitive Eating principles (reject the diet mentality, honor your hunger, make peace with food, challenge the food police, satisfaction factor, feel your fullness, cope with emotions, respect your body, movement, gentle nutrition). The lowest-scoring principle is usually where the next piece of work lives.

Intake or progress check-in for clients working an Intuitive Eating framework, recovering from chronic dieting, or transitioning out of structured meal planning.
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Body Image
1p · PDF

Body Neutrality Practice

The middle path between body hatred and forced body love

A reflective worksheet that shifts focus from how the body looks to what it does and what it's been through. Includes a 'what I would say to someone I love' standard, a daily mental-energy rating, and a neutral-language reframe of one common judgment thought.

Clients for whom 'body positivity' feels hollow or impossible — chronic body-image distress, eating disorder recovery, post-pregnancy, chronic illness, aging, disability.
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Body Image
1p · PDF

Body Checking & Avoidance Log

Make the behavior visible — then pick one to change

A 7-day log for body checking (weighing, pinching, mirror scans, comparing, reassurance seeking) and body avoidance (baggy clothes, no mirrors, no photos). Tracks count, type, trigger, and post-behavior distress, then identifies one check to drop and one avoidance to break.

CBT-E middle phase, BDD, eating disorder recovery, any client whose body-image distress is maintained by ritualized checking or avoidance.
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Intuitive Eating
1p · PDF

Make Peace With Food

Unconditional permission, one food at a time

Structured around Intuitive Eating Principle 3. A 6-step food-permission ladder for one currently 'forbidden' or 'scary' food, plus a non-judgmental after-meal reflection that tracks taste, hunger-fullness change, and the food-police voice.

Binge-restrict cycles, chronic dieting, orthorexia patterns, post-restriction phase of eating disorder recovery.
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Body Image
1p · PDF

Body Dysmorphia (BDD) Workbook

Name the feature, map the rituals, drop one safety behavior

A CBT-for-BDD worksheet: name the preoccupying feature, quantify time spent, list safety behaviors (mirror checks, camouflage, reassurance) and avoided situations, then pick one ritual to drop and one avoided situation to re-enter this week.

Body Dysmorphic Disorder, muscle dysmorphia, appearance-focused OCD overlap, eating disorders where appearance fixation outlives the food behaviors.
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Behavior Chain
1p · PDF

Urge Surfing for Binges & Purges

Ride the 30-minute wave without obeying the urge

Tracks an ED urge across 45 minutes — the trigger, vulnerability factors, the rise and fall of intensity — alongside delay tactics and recovery-aligned alternative actions. Built for binge, purge, restriction, compulsive exercise, and weighing urges.

Bulimia, binge eating disorder, anorexia recovery, between-session urge spikes, any ED behavior with a clear urge phase.
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Behavior Chain
1p · PDF

Compulsive Exercise Check

Is this movement, or is it the eating disorder wearing trainers?

An honest audit of exercise quantity, intensity, and function — with a checklist of compulsive markers, a rest-day exposure plan, and a clear split between punishment / atonement movement and joyful, attuned movement.

Anorexia, atypical anorexia, bulimia, orthorexia, BED in remission, athletes in recovery, anyone using movement to compensate.
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Relapse Prevention
2p · PDF

Eating Disorder Relapse Prevention Plan

Yellow lights, non-negotiables, support team, slip script

A full ED relapse prevention plan written while well: vision of recovery, early warning signs, high-risk situations, recovery non-negotiables, named support team (initials only), and a specific script for what to do after a slip.

Late-stage ED treatment, step-down from PHP/IOP, post-discharge planning, anniversary or seasonal high-risk windows.
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Exposure
1p · PDF

ARFID Food Expansion Ladder

Sensory-neighbor exposures, not fear-of-fat exposures

Built specifically for ARFID rather than restriction-based EDs. Maps safe foods, the sensory profile that makes them safe, and an 8-rung ladder of food neighbors with graded steps (look / smell / lick / bite / chew / swallow) and predicted-vs-actual fear ratings.

ARFID (sensory, fear-based, or low-interest subtypes), pediatric carryover into adulthood, post-medical-trauma food avoidance.
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Intuitive Eating
1p · PDF

Diet Mentality & Food Police Thought Record

Catch the food-police voice — and rehearse the other three

Adapts the CBT thought record to diet-culture cognition. Identifies common diet-mentality thoughts, captures one eating moment in detail, and walks through Tribole & Resch's four voices — Food Police, Food Anthropologist, Nurturer, and Intuitive Eater — to rewrite the original thought.

Chronic dieting, orthorexia, post-restriction recovery, clients whose ED voice is verbal and shaming around every meal.
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Body Image
1p · PDF

Weight Set-Point & Body Respect

Weight-neutral psychoeducation plus a values clarification

Psychoeducation on the set-point range and the symptoms of weight suppression, paired with a values clarification: what a respected body would actually get (food, rest, fitting clothes, weight-neutral medical care) and the fear underneath letting the body settle.

Weight-suppressed clients of any size, post-weight-loss-surgery distress, HAES-aligned work, clients whose providers keep recommending weight loss for non-weight problems.
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Self-Compassion
1p · PDF

Self-Compassion for Eating Disorder Recovery

Neff's three components for the moment shame wants to take over

Applies Kristin Neff's mindfulness / common humanity / self-kindness model to the specific moments ED recovery is hardest — a binge, a purge, a missed meal, a body comment, a mirror, a slip. Includes a before/after self-criticism rating and a self-compassionate response written in the client's own voice.

Shame-driven ED maintenance, post-slip work, clients for whom every intervention turns into another reason to self-attack.
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Three overlapping bodies of work

Eating disorder treatment, body image work, and Intuitive Eating share a goal — a person who can feed themselves, occupy their body, and stop spending most of their cognitive bandwidth on either — but they enter from different doors. CBT-E and exposure-based ED protocols start with structure: regular eating, fear-food hierarchies, mirror exposure, and dismantling the rules. Body image work targets the specific distortions, the checking and avoidance loops, and the relationship to a body the client has often spent years at war with. Intuitive Eating, in the longer arc, is the rebuild — interoception, satisfaction, unconditional permission, and gentle nutrition.

Most clients need pieces of all three at different points in treatment. The worksheets here are sequenced to match: early-recovery structure first, body image stabilization in the middle, Intuitive Eating principles as the work gets less acute.

A typical sequence

Early in treatment, use the Regular Eating Plan and Hunger & Fullness Scale to rebuild the basic rhythm and interoception. Layer in the Fear Food Hierarchy and Challenging Food Rules to start dismantling restriction. For body image, the Body Checking & Avoidance Log makes the ritualized behaviors visible before the Body Image Mirror Exposure (clinician-guided) targets the avoidance directly. As the acute phase resolves, the Intuitive Eating Ten Principles Self-Assessment and the Make Peace With Food permission ladder take over — and the Body Neutrality Practice gives clients a livable middle path between body hatred and the impossible demand to 'love your body'.

Pair this category with the Self-Esteem worksheets (core beliefs, self-compassion, shame resilience) when shame is the primary maintaining factor, and with the Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents worksheet when the eating disorder grew up alongside a parent who managed the client's body, food, or appearance.

A note on Intuitive Eating

Intuitive Eating (Tribole & Resch, 1995) is not a weight-loss method, an 'eat what you want' license, or a stage one intervention for someone in acute restriction. It's a long-arc framework for re-establishing an attuned, non-adversarial relationship with food and the body — and it works best after the basics of regular eating and adequacy are in place. Used at the right moment, it's one of the more durable interventions for the binge/restrict cycle and chronic dieting.

Free for clinicians

Every worksheet here is free to download, print, and send to clients via secure link. No watermarks. Built for therapists, dietitians, and clinical teams who want the printable to feel like real clinical material — not a Pinterest infographic.