[Kindred]

I'm going to say yes. Any destructive urges related to food shouts eating disorder to me, and the attempted purging cements that.

I think you do need to be alert, especially based on your past. I, personally, would advise against dieting with your past. Some people (and you) may disagree with me here, but I think it's way too easy to slip back into old habits. Everyone underestimates the urges to return to something that was once familiar, and mindsets and switch back in a second. The only way I'd ever attempt anything near a diet in the future (after my history) would be eating more vegetables and healthier food. Not cutting out anything. Just introducing healthier foods, and if I end up not wanting chocolate one day because I've already eaten an apple, so be it. Cutting things out is a slippery path (as you've seen) and can lead to a lot of anxiety when you deviate from self inflicted goals. No expectations leads to no pressure. No pressure generally actually leads to results.

Exercising with a friend to prevent overexercising and eating with that friend afterwards to make sure you're replenishing your energy levels is something I'd recommend if you do want to aim for a "diet" type approach centered on weight loss. It's always nice to have someone to work out with anyway and having someone to keep an eye on you and notice how strange it is you're not eating more than you're burning is often incentive to stick to the path.

Your tendency towards anxiety and "purging" calories (you previously used exercising as a purge mechanism) means you need to be careful of how much exercise you're doing and is why I recommend against a strict plan and instead a more loosely focused healthy eating regime. If you do want to go the diet route I recommend doing it with someone who is not inclined towards destructive behaviors at all, or the help of a nutritionist. However I am worried a plan will simply cause you more anxiety if you deviate it from it- and everyone deviates from plans, we're human after all and no day is the same. One day you might crave a chocolate biscuit, if you eat it you might not crave one tomorrow...but if you deny yourself you're going to keep thinking about it and crave it forever

Listen to your body, and examine your thoughts. You know how to identify anything detrimental to your mental health, so focus on doing that and raise internal alarm bells at the first sign of anything going wrong.

Good luck