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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
CBT-E Personalized Formulation
Fairburn's map of the disorder — built collaboratively in session
The centerpiece of enhanced CBT for eating disorders. A one-page diagram of the core over-evaluation of shape/weight, the downstream behaviors (dieting, restriction, binge, purge, checking), the feedback loops that keep it alive, and the broad-CBT-E maintainers (perfectionism, low self-esteem, mood intolerance, interpersonal). Refer back to it whenever treatment loses direction.
FBT Family Meal Plan (Phase 1)
The Maudsley phase-1 refeeding frame parents actually use
A one-page weekly meal frame for Phase-1 Family-Based Treatment (Lock & Le Grange): parents choose, plate, and supervise every meal and snack; adolescent eats. Includes principles, meal-support scripts for resistance / bargaining / completion, and medical red flags. Not a standalone — for use with an FBT-trained clinician.
Purge Delay & Alternative-Behaviors Ladder
Six rungs that ride the wave — harm reduction, then extinction
A six-rung delay ladder (1 → 5 → 10 → 20 → 45 → 90+ minutes) with alternative behaviors, support-person scripts, and a start/peak/end SUDS log. Every delay is a small vote for a body that can tolerate discomfort — and the neurobiological wave almost always breaks by minute 45.
ARFID Subtype Identifier
Sensory · low interest · fear of aversive consequences
A one-page identifier that separates the three ARFID drivers so treatment can start in the right place — food chaining for sensory, structured schedule and appetite-independent eating for low interest, CBT-AR / exposure for fear-based. Includes signs, impact checklist, and per-subtype starting points.
Meal Plan Exchange Tracker
Prescribed vs completed exchanges — the number that predicts recovery
A one-page daily tracker matching the exchange system (grain / protein / fat / dairy / fruit / vegetable) that PHP, IOP, and residential programs prescribe. Records prescribed vs completed per meal, running deficit, and end-of-day summary — the completion number the clinical team reviews daily.
Post-Meal Distress & Urge Log
Ride the 60-minute wave — record it, don't act on it
Tracks distress at 0, 20, 45, and 60 minutes after eating alongside the specific urges that peak in that hour — purge, compensate, restrict the next meal, body check, isolate. Includes skill-used and support-person fields. The tool programs use to time bathroom locks, post-meal groups, and skills coaching.
Overvaluation of Shape & Weight — Pie Chart
The CBT-E core intervention on one page
Fairburn's pie chart: what percentage of self-worth currently comes from shape / weight / eating control versus relationships, work, values, and play — plus the ideal pie a year from now. The gap becomes the treatment plan. Recovery isn't shrinking the ED slice; it's growing the others.
Body Checking & Avoidance Hierarchy
Both sides of the loop — reduce checking, approach what's avoided
Two graded ladders in one page: reduce checking behaviors (mirror, pinch, weigh, compare, ask) and approach what's avoided (mirrors, photos, fitted clothes, pools, intimacy). Both keep shape/weight central to identity, and both drop together — checking is avoidance of not knowing.
Appearance Comparison Log
Count it for a week — the invisible maintainer becomes visible
A one-week log of appearance comparisons — trigger, direction (up / down), mood after — plus environment audit (accounts, apps, places) and a single environment change for the week. Clients almost always underestimate the frequency until they count.
Chewing/Spitting & Rumination Tracker
The behaviors clients rarely bring up unasked
Tracks chewing-and-spitting and rumination (regurgitating and re-swallowing or re-spitting) — food, duration, trigger, unmet need — plus the function the behavior serves and a delay/replacement plan. Includes a medical prompt because both behaviors carry dental, esophageal, and electrolyte risk.
Night Eating Log
Seven days that separate NES from delayed binge from under-eating
Seven-day circadian log: first food time, percent of intake before 6pm, night awakenings with intake, morning vs evening appetite, sleep window, and evening substances. Helps distinguish Night Eating Syndrome from delayed BED-pattern from daytime under-eating that reliably rebounds at night.
Athlete RED-S — Psychoeducation & Return-to-Training
Under-fueling is a performance ceiling, not a competitive edge
Teaches Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (RED-S) — the endocrine, bone, immune, and performance costs of eating too little for the training load — with a signs checklist and a graded week-by-week return-to-training plan built with the medical team and dietitian.
Diabulimia — Insulin & Behaviors Log
Joint endocrine + ED tracking with DKA warning signs
For Type 1 diabetes clients restricting or omitting insulin for weight control. Tracks glucose, insulin, intake, omissions, and symptoms in one place — with a DKA warning-sign panel and a team-honesty agreement. For use WITH an endocrinology + ED team, never alone.
FBT Phase 2 Handover Ladder
Graded return of eating autonomy — after Phase 1 has held
A seven-step ladder for handing eating responsibility back from parents to the adolescent — only after weight is largely restored and behaviors are quiet. Includes step-down criteria if weight drops and language for handing back control without shaming.
Bathroom & Movement Contract
Program-level structure translated into an outpatient agreement
A one-page contract client, family, and clinician sign together — 60-minute post-meal bathroom rule, movement plan approved by the treatment team, no compensatory or hidden movement, and a plan for when the urge is unmanageable. Structure is care, not control.
Snack Schedule Builder
The architecture that keeps hunger from swinging
A weekly builder for the two-to-three snacks regular eating requires — meal times, snack slots, portable options, workplace and school plans, and a text-a-support-person accountability line. Snacks are where under-eaters lose ground and binge-eaters over-eat later.
Blind Weights — Psychoed & Contract
Not knowing the number is a skill, not a deprivation
Explains why programs weigh clients backward — the number gets used against recovery regardless of direction — and formalizes the agreement: clinician-only weights, no home scales, no indirect asking, and a plan for when unblinding becomes clinically appropriate.
Feared Consequences — Decatastrophizing
Name the prediction, test the prediction
Every ED rule is defended by a specific prediction ('if I eat this, I'll gain 10 lbs by morning'). This page names the prediction, rates likelihood and severity, weighs evidence for and against, and plans a behavioral test with pre / post SUDS. The disorder is a bad forecaster; every completed test weakens the next prediction.
Letter To My Eating Disorder
The externalizing letter — with the ED's reply and your response
A three-part externalizing exercise: a letter to the ED (what it gave, what it took), a letter the ED writes back (its promises, threats, bargains), and the client's out-loud response. Moves the disorder from 'who I am' to 'something I'm in relationship with' — and captures cost-benefit in the client's own voice.
Emotion → ED Behavior Chain Analysis
DBT chain, specialized for the day a behavior happens
A DBT-style chain analysis specific to ED behaviors: vulnerability factors, prompting event, the emotion the behavior actually regulates, the chain of links, short-term and long-term consequences, the earliest link a skill could have broken, and repair. Do this the day the behavior happens, not a week later.
Opposite Action for ED Urges
DBT's skill, translated for restrict / purge / binge / check
A one-page urge → opposite-action table covering restriction, purging, binging, over-exercise, body-checking, and post-meal isolation — plus a fits-the-facts check and a today's-urge plan. Opposite action only works at full commitment; halfway is negotiation.
Eating With Others — Exposure Ladder
Rebuilding social eating, one graded step at a time
For clients whose disorder has collapsed social eating — a graded exposure ladder from 'eat in front of one safe person' to 'restaurant with a menu I don't preview,' with a support-script for the person eating with them ('please don't comment on my plate') and a post-meal urge plan.
Higher Level of Care — Decision Criteria
Medical and behavioral triggers for stepping up — data, not shame
Lays out the criteria most ED programs use for stepping up to PHP, IOP, residential, or medical hospitalization — heart rate, BP, electrolytes, weight, uncontrolled behaviors, meal support at home, co-occurring risk — plus barriers-to-step-up and what stepping up would make possible.
Letter From My Recovered Self
The future-self letter to read on the hard days
A letter written from the client's recovered self — a specific age, life, and body — to the client sitting in the middle of treatment. Prompts anchor it in real life (relationships, work, food, body). Used at discharge, plateaus, or any moment the disorder is louder than the reasons to keep going.
Thin-Ideal Internalization & Media Audit
Cut the daily dose that keeps comparison automatic
A one-week audit of the accounts, shows, and channels feeding the thin/muscular ideal — with a specific unfollow / mute / block list and body-diverse replacements. Internalization is dose-dependent; cut the dose and automatic comparisons drop within a week.
ED Stages of Change Ruler
Per-behavior readiness — because motivation isn't all-or-nothing
Rates readiness on each ED behavior separately (restriction, binge, purge, over-exercise, checking, weighing) plus overall importance and confidence rulers. Meets each behavior where it actually is instead of demanding uniform motivation.
ACT Hexaflex for Eating Disorders
Acceptance, defusion, presence, self-as-context, values, committed action
The six ACT processes translated for ED work, with a client-language prompt and workspace for each. Builds the psychological flexibility to eat the fear food and go to the party with the anxiety still turned on — which it never turns off first.
Radical Acceptance of the Body
Not liking it — stopping the fight with it
DBT radical acceptance applied to the body: the reality being fought, the cost of fighting it, turning-the-mind steps, and a specific list of what acceptance IS and IS NOT (it is not giving up, loving the body, or agreeing with the culture).
Trauma & ED — Function Map
What the behavior does — before you take it away
Maps each ED behavior to the function it serves (regulation, control, dissociation, invisibility, punishment, structure) so treatment can build a real replacement instead of demanding cessation without one. Includes trauma-sequencing prompts.
Substance Use + Eating Disorder — Dual-Dx Map
Treat both, or treat neither
Maps the trade-off pattern between substance use and ED behaviors, tracks a week of use alongside ED behaviors, and plans integrated (not sequential) care. Includes prompts about substance use in service of restriction, purging, or tolerating a meal.
OCD ↔ ED Overlap Map
Untangle 'ED thinking' from 'OCD around food'
Sorts specific behaviors into ED logic (shape / weight / control) vs OCD logic (contamination / harm / just-right), because the treatment protocol differs (CBT-E vs ERP with an ED overlay). Includes contamination, just-right eating rituals, scrupulous 'clean eating,' and compulsive checking.
Family Meal Debrief
The 5-minute structured after-meal review
A one-page debrief for families in FBT or supporting an adult in recovery: what went well, where it got stuck, what helped, what to try next meal, what to raise with the RD / clinician. Blame-free, structured, quick — for use after every supported meal.
ED Support Person — What To Say & Not Say
The do's, don'ts, and specific phrases that actually help
A one-page script written FOR the support person: what to say at the table, what never to say (any body comment, any diet talk, any quantifying of intake), signals to watch for after a meal, the agreed plan if a behavior shows up, and self-care while supporting.
Post-Discharge Meal Support Plan (30 / 60 / 90)
The first 90 days — planned before the first hard week
A concrete 90-day plan for the first three months after residential or PHP discharge: meal support at home, weigh-ins, therapy / RD cadence, movement plan, and specific step-back-up criteria (weight, behaviors, mood) so a return to higher care isn't waited on until crisis.
Grocery Shopping Exposure Plan
Aisles skipped, labels flipped, brands defended — the store IS the exposure
Turns grocery shopping into a graded exposure with response prevention: identify current rules (label-reading, skipped aisles, safe brands), climb a ladder of small breaks, and plan what NOT to do after (return, purge, restrict).
Restaurant & Menu Exposure
Unknown portions, unknown ingredients, an audience — the point IS the uncertainty
A one-page ordering ladder from 'previewed menu, safe item' up to 'someone else orders for me' — with response prevention after (no compensating meal or exercise) and a support-script for the person eating with the client.
Weekly Meal Planning Template
Structure that prevents restriction — with fear foods on purpose
A one-week meal + snack template with variety and flexibility built in: 1–2 fear foods worked in on purpose, one meal out, one meal someone else cooks, and a backup meal for the day the plan falls apart. A plan is not a cage — swap, don't skip.
CBT-E Perfectionism Module
Broad-CBT-E maintainer — treated directly when it drives the disorder
The Fairburn broad-CBT-E perfectionism module: where perfectionism shows up beyond food (work, appearance, relationships, exercise, the recovery process itself), the behaviors that maintain it, a 'good enough' behavioral experiment, and broadening the domains self-worth is based on.
CBT-E Mood Intolerance Module
The emotion → ED behavior loop — and a replacement repertoire that isn't a symptom
Maps which emotions the client can't stay with (including positive ones), the mood → behavior chain, and a menu of replacement moves (name it, TIPP, ride the wave, gentle movement, reach out, hands-busy activity). Builds emotion tolerance directly.
CBT-E Interpersonal Module
When the ED is doing relational work, food alone won't shift it
Names which of the four interpersonal maintainers is alive (chronic conflict, role transition, interpersonal deficits, grief), what the ED is doing relationally, the conversation not being had, and one concrete interpersonal move this week.
Cognitive Flexibility (CRT-Inspired)
Set-shifting and big-picture drills — the substrate every other intervention needs
CRT-inspired daily drills (bird's-eye vs detail, alternate uses, route changes, routine flips, summary switching) plus a map of where rigidity shows up in the client's life and one small flex per area. Not a puzzle for its own sake — builds the flexibility the ED work depends on.
Body Functionality Appreciation
The middle path when 'love your body' is impossible and hate is the default
A week-long log noticing what the body does (senses, movement, communication, health, creativity, connection) rather than how it looks. Research-backed intervention that reliably lowers body dissatisfaction without demanding positive body evaluation.
Refeeding Syndrome — Medical Psychoeducation
Why weight restoration is a medical process, not just a nutritional one
Teaches the mechanism of refeeding syndrome (phosphate / mag / K / thiamine depletion, insulin surge with carbohydrate re-introduction), risk factors (BMI < 16, prolonged undereating, rapid loss, purging), and monitoring (daily labs first 5–7 days, cardiac monitoring, gradual caloric increase, thiamine supplementation).
Return-to-School / Work Plan
Step-up in demand + step-down in structure — planned before the first Monday
A one-page re-entry plan: accommodations requested, protected meal times and locations during the day, movement plan approved by the team, what the client won't take on in the first 4 weeks, weekly clinician check-in, and step-back-up criteria if the return destabilizes.
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.