

Liv Label Free | Neurodivergent Eating Disorder Recovery
Livia Sara
Want to understand the link between neurodivergence and eating disorders? The Liv Label Free Podcast provides you with insights and strategies for recovery through meaningful conversations and stories of lived experience. Your host, Livia Sara, is an autistic ED warrior that now guides other neurodivergent individuals and their loved ones to a life of freedom. Learn more about Livia on her website livlabelfree.com and follow her on Instagram @livlabelfree!
Episodes
Mentioned books
Aug 18, 2025 • 7min
Does an eating disorder ever go away?
I know you’re tired – tired of going back and forth between the ED and “trying recovery again.”
Tired of believing it’s possible for you to achieve freedom, only to be submerged back into belief that you’ll just have to “manage” an eating disorder forever.
Tired of having your entire life REVOLVE around rigid eating schedules and strict exercise routines.
There’s no sugarcoating it: being “in recovery” is f*cking EXHAUSTING. But more importantly, it’s no way to live. And I know you know that, which is precisely WHY you keep “trying recovery again”!
Let me be brutally honest with you: every time you try to recover the “normal” way, you’re fighting your autistic brain. You’re being asked to abandon the very traits that make you the unique human that you are.
No wonder you keep falling back into old patterns.
Your neurodivergent nervous system is trying to protect you in the only way it knows how.
Most recovery advice tells you to “go all in,” smash the scales, delete the calorie counting apps...but for you, going down this path just feels wrong.
Because the typical approach is consistently unsuccessful, you start believing you’re broken. Unfixable. You believe that you’ll just have to “manage” the eating disorder forever.
Meanwhile, life is passing you by. You’re watching everyone else move forward while you feel more and more behind – and you know you’re missing out on becoming who you’re truly meant to be.
But here’s what I want you to know: the problem isn’t you, and it never was. The real problem is that no one has taught you how to create your unique version of freedom while honoring what your autistic soul truly needs.
That’s exactly why I created the Autistically ED-Free Academy: https://www.livlabelfree.com/group
This isn’t another recovery program asking you to choose between honoring your neurodivergence and healing your relationship with food.
Instead, the Academy turns the tables (pun intended) – it shows you that honoring your neurodivergence is precisely what allows you to heal your relationship with food and movement!
Over the course of 8 weeks, you will:
✅ Finally reclaim your autonomy from the eating disorder that’s been stealing your life✅ Stop feeling behind everyone else and start building the life you’re meant to live✅ Learn how to channel your autistic traits into meaning and purpose rather than fear-based ED behaviors✅ Create your own “freedom routines” that will serve you for life✅ Connect with other autistic individuals who truly understand your experience
…and MUCH more!
Here’s what previous Academy participants have to say:
“This program was brilliant! It helped me shift my mindset to understanding how eating disorders function as adaptive responses when experienced by neurodivergent people. The Academy shone a light on a way forward – to decode what is serving vs not serving our authentic selves, and therefore a way out of the false safety of an eating disorder.”– Eve, Australia
“I learned so much that I never knew about autism and eating disorders even after years of being in both communities online. Explanations as to why I struggle with certain behaviours and situations, how our brains and bodies work, and techniques to help move away from needing an eating disorder to handle the world. I struggle to justify spending money on myself but I’m so glad I spent this money. Thank you Livia!”– Nico, UK
🌈 Want to join these success stories? Join us in the Autistically ED-Free Academy today! https://www.livlabelfree.com/group
Your freedom is waiting,
XO Liv
💗 Want more emails like this? Join my weekly newsletter: https://www.livlabelfree.com/join
Aug 11, 2025 • 50min
The REAL Reasons Autistic People Fear Weight Gain
🎉 The Autistically ED-Free Academy is OPEN! Save your seat: https://www.livlabelfree.com/group
For most neurodivergent people, the fear of weight gain isn’t about body image or the infamous “wanting to be thin so I can look like the models on the magazines!”
In today’s episode, Livia Sara chats with Harriet Parsons and Jenny Langley about the real reasons autistic people fear weight gain beyond the stereotypical “fear of fatness” or distorted body image.
Whether you’re an autistic person who feels misunderstood in eating disorder treatment or are a caregiver seeking to understand the connection between autism and anorexia, this episode is guaranteed to give you new insights.
Aug 4, 2025 • 13min
Feeling Behind in Life After an Eating Disorder
🎉 The Autistically ED-Free Academy is OPEN! Secure your spot: https://www.livlabelfree.com/group
Do you feel behind in life due to your eating disorder? That’s how I felt for many years. While my peers were progressing through school, getting jobs, and forming relationships, my whole life was on pause. In today’s episode, I explain why ED recovery actually gives you a jumpstart on a meaningful life & and how you can reframe your own sense of delay as perfect timing.
Jul 28, 2025 • 1h 16min
“I Feel Betrayed by My Body!” Autism, Eating Disorders, and LGBTQ+ Identity w/ Nico
💫 Join the Existential Autistic Membership: https://www.livlabelfree.com/membership🌈 Autistically ED-Free Academy: https://www.livlabelfree.com/group
The connection between neurodivergence, eating disorders, and LGTBQ+ is undeniable – yet it isn’t talked about enough.
As someone who’s incredibly passionate about inviting curiosity and compassion to underserved topics, I’m very excited for you to listen to this podcast episode with Nico!
Nico, who uses they/them pronouns, shares their journey of navigating an eating disorder that began at 14, getting diagnosed as autistic at 18, and exploring their non-binary identity.
From struggling with unwanted changes during puberty to finding trans-affirming healthcare providers, Nico’s story sheds light on the complex web of neurodivergence, gender, and recovery (or rather, discovery).
This conversation highlights the importance of community for neurodivergent individuals, the challenges of accessing trans healthcare, and the courage it takes to experiment with identity in safe online spaces.
Nico and I also discuss our personal experiences with feeling “wrong” in a body, exploring the nuanced difference between “body betrayal” and “existential claustrophobia” – it’s fascinating!
So whether you’re questioning your own gender identity, supporting someone who is, or are simply seeking authentic conversations about the messy & map-less process of discovering who you are, this episode offers both validation and practical insights for your journey.
TLDR: This conversation explores the intersection of autism, eating disorders, and LGBTQ+ identity, finding specialized healthcare providers, the role of online communities for neurodivergent people, ED recovery approaches that honor both neurodivergence and gender identity, and the patience required for authentic self-discovery.
Jul 21, 2025 • 1h 5min
How do I handle being in a body? (Kenyan is back!)
📚 How to Get Out of Quasi Recovery: https://livlabelfreebooks.com🌈 Existential Autistic Membership: https://www.livlabelfree.com/membership
I’m simplifying the shownotes! 😊 In today’s episode, Kenyan is back to chat with me about how we handle being in bodies – specifically female bodies.
Jul 15, 2025 • 58min
I’m a Girl, Not a Woman! A Neurodivergent Conversation About Body, Burnout, and Everything in Between (w/ Kenyan)
🌈 JOIN THE MEMBERSHIP! https://www.livlabelfree.com/membership📚 AUTISM & ED RECOVERY BOOKS: https://livlabelfreebooks.com✨ 1-1 COACHING W/ LIVIA: https://www.livlabelfree.com/1-on-1-coaching
Are you afraid of growing up and being healthy in a female body? Livia and Kenyan both resonate with feeling like a girl but CRINGE when they’re called a “woman.” This episode explores the connection between autism, eating disorders, masking, burnout, and feeling like an alien in your own body!
MENTIONED EPISODES:I Feel Trapped in a BodyAutistic Burnout & InjuryWatch my episode on Divergent Conversations here
Jul 4, 2025 • 6min
The terrifying truth about quasi recovery
How to Get Out of Quasi Recovery: https://livlabelfree.com/quasirecoverybookThe Discovery Workbook: https://livlabelfree.com/discoveryworkbookBundle & save on all my books: https://livlabelfreebooks.com/
Franz Kafka once wrote “I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we’re reading doesn’t wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? We need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply…like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.”
Most eating disorder recovery books are written to make you feel better, to give you hope, to reassure you that “everything will be okay if you just follow these steps.”
But real transformation doesn’t come from comfort – it comes from books that disturb your comfortable illusions.
The truth is, I didn’t write How to Get Out of Quasi Recovery to make you feel better. I wrote it to be the axe for the frozen sea of fear within you.
That frozen sea is the illusory safety of hiding behind the recovery identity. It’s the comfort of endlessly watching other people’s “What I Eat in a Day” videos, looking for permission to do the hard work instead of actually doing it.
Fear makes you believe that if you just find the right map, the right approach, the right influencer to follow, you won’t have to face the terrifying truth: that your path to freedom can only be discovered by you.
How to Get Out of Quasi Recovery is designed to wake you up with that “blow to the head” Kafka wrote about…but in service of your freedom.
Let me be clear here: this isn’t about destroying you. It’s about destroying the illusions that have kept you small.
And the Discovery Workbook? That’s your own axe. It helps you take these uncomfortable truths and use them to chip away at the stories that are no longer serving you.
Jul 1, 2025 • 9min
Feel like you're doing recovery WRONG?
How to Get Out of Quasi Recovery: https://livlabelfree.com/quasirecoverybookThe Discovery Workbook: https://livlabelfree.com/discoveryworkbookBundle & save on all my books: https://livlabelfreebooks.com/
Are you constantly second-guessing yourself in eating disorder recovery? With the amount of contradictory messaging in our society – from both diet culture and "ED recovery influencers" – no wonder you're constantly comparing yourself to others! This comparison can lead you to believe you're "doing recovery wrong" and traps you in quasi recovery. In today's episode, I share my personal doubts around recovery and how I stopped living in fear.
Jun 27, 2025 • 8min
Is ED recovery just an illusion?
How to Get Out of Quasi Recovery: https://livlabelfree.com/quasirecoverybookThe Discovery Workbook: https://livlabelfree.com/discoveryworkbookBundle & save on all my books: https://livlabelfreebooks.com/
If you’re overwhelmed by all the contradictory messages in the ED recovery space, this episode is for you. I explain why you feel stuck in the “recovery trap” and how to break free from quasi recovery.
Jun 24, 2025 • 17min
Stuck in Quasi Recovery? Practical Tools to Finally Break Free
How to Get Out of Quasi Recovery: https://livlabelfree.com/quasirecoverybookThe Discovery Workbook: https://livlabelfree.com/discoveryworkbookBundle & save on all my books: https://livlabelfreebooks.com/
Are you stuck in quasi recovery? I know how it feels to be trapped in that frustrating middle ground between your eating disorder and true freedom.
You’re “recovered” to an extent, but you’re still constantly thinking about food, exercise, and whether or not you’re doing recovery “right.”
The relentless self-doubt and mental questioning is f*cking EXHAUSTING…and it’s no way to live! This is why I wrote How to Get Out of Quasi Recovery and created the accompanying Discovery Workbook.
With chapters exploring existentialism, perfectionism, conformity, and being “good enough,” both books guide you to transform your relationship not just with food and your body, but with your entire existence.


