Two-time Survivor alum Savannah Louie is opening up about her struggles with binge eating following her exit from season 50.
Louie, 31, revealed during the Wednesday, April 8, episode of Victoria Garrick Browne’s “Real Pod” podcast that her relationship with food changed drastically after she was voted off the current season of the reality show.
“So, you know, I’ll preface this kind of by explaining, I’ve never had an eating disorder,” the TV personality, who won Survivor season 49 before joining the show’s all-star 50th season, began. “I’ve always been an athlete. And, you know, there have been times in my life where I thought, ‘OK, I could lose a few pounds,’ but I’ve always generally appreciated my body and the strength, more importantly, that my body has provided for me.”
Louie explained that contestants on Survivor don’t get to eat much, as they have to fend for themselves on the island. However, there are “reward challenges” that give participants a chance to “win anything from a steak dinner to tacos, to a grilled cheese sandwich.”
“And you know, as the season goes on, the rewards get progressively bigger and greater and more delicious,” she continued. “And so, when I won some of those rewards, I would go from basically not eating anything to gorging and trying to eat as much as humanly possible.”
Louie added that these meals were often accompanied by fun conversations and strategizing for the show, which “warped” her “mindset” when it came to eating.
“It’s the craziest thing because for that period of time, I was so used to, whenever I had a big plate of food or any opportunity of food, to just consuming as much as I humanly could,” she noted.
Louie said she developed a “weird, awkward relationship with food” that followed her out of Survivor 50. (The former news reporter was voted out on day 6 of the competition, which is currently airing on CBS.)
“And so, it starts off, maybe, ‘OK, I’ll have some cake.’ And instead of having, like, maybe one slice of cake, I’ll have, and I kid you not, five very large slices of cake. And this would be after like a full day of eating,” Louie continued. “And when I would eat, I wouldn’t just stop when I was full. I would eat until I was in physical pain. And even when I hit that point to where I felt like I was going to be sick, I would still feel the need to consume.”
Louie said she initially lost 10 pounds during Survivor 49 but then gained 30 pounds within two months after Survivor 50.
“My body was also so inflamed, it hurt to work out,” she recalled. “I used to be very into the boot camp classes. I’m like, I cannot do that anymore. But even just the long walks that I would do around my neighborhood, that would actually be painful for my joints at times, just because my inflammation was so bad. I was losing hair, like my body, just like, it was in this state of confusion.”
Louie said her relationship with food “got even worse at times,” adding that she once had a “full-blown panic attack” in a grocery store because she feared she would enter another binge eating phase.
“As someone who typically loves to have control over every aspect of their lives, I felt like I had zero control over what I was consuming. And it felt like a worst nightmare kind of thing, but it’s really, honestly, the first time I’ve talked publicly about this,” she explained. “And it was really hard to go through. My hope in sharing this is that maybe it can help someone.”
Louie said CBS connected her with a therapist who specialized in eating disorders, and her condition got more stable.
“But dude, it was a very hard summer,” she concluded.
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