Savannah Louie Developed an Eating Disorder After Back-to-Back Survivor Seasons: ‘I Felt Like I Had No Control’ (Exclusive)

Savannah Louie is opening up about her difficult adjustment following her run on Survivor.

Speaking with PEOPLE, the 32-year-old from Atlanta, Georgia got candid about developing an eating disorder after leaving the reality competition series. The former broadcast journalist was crowned the winner of Survivor season 49, and immediately returned for the milestone all-star season, Survivor 50: In the Hands of the Fans, where she was voted out on Day 6.

“It was a crazy journey and I’m so happy I did it,” she tells PEOPLE. “But, of course, with all the good stuff, there’s some challenges too.”

Before playing Survivor, Louie says her relationship with food was “normal.”

“I eat pretty healthy,” she says. “I was raised to just be really health conscious. Like, there have been times in my life where I’ve thought, ‘Okay, I could lose maybe five pounds or so,’ but I’ve never been super in my head or anxious about what I eat. And I’ve always been really proud of my body too, just from a strength perspective.”

During the game, Louie explains that she actually got used to not eating. She says she felt more fatigued from challenges than hunger, and she often didn’t even think about food because it simply wasn’t available.

However, a few times during the show, Louie had the opportunity to eat after winning reward challenges. Because she didn’t know how long it would be until her next meal, she would often eat as much as possible in those moments.

That habit is, in part, what contributed to her struggling with food in early summer 2025 after being voted off. She ultimately started binge eating and had difficulty adjusting to having access to food again.

“I felt like I had no control over what I was eating. I physically felt like I couldn’t stop,” she recalls. “My brain was telling me, okay, I’m eating way more than I’ve normally ever eaten and I’m eating a lot of food that is not necessarily healthy for me, but my body felt like it needed it.”

“I would eat until I was physically in pain. My stomach would be killing me, but I felt like I still needed to consume, so I did consume,” she continues. “I would feel so much anxiety over just starting to eat because my mindset was, what if I start eating and I feel like I can’t stop? Like, I worried that if I were to go eat one cookie, that would be something that would lead me to an unstoppable binge.”

Louie admits she also “felt a lot of shame and embarrassment” while grocery shopping because she was no longer craving the healthy foods that her diet normally included.

“I wanted all the chips,  all the sweets, all the cake. I would go into the grocery store and I felt so ashamed because I felt like I looked like I had gained a lot of weight, which I had,” she says. “And I was just so embarrassed about what everybody else was thinking when they saw me with a huge basket full of snacks. I was so in my head.”

Louie explains that she then started going through “binge and restrict cycles” where she would eat a meal and “punish” herself by skipping meals afterwards due to her overconsumption.

That’s when she realized that she was dealing with an eating disorder.

From that point, Louie turned to her fellow Survivor contestants for support, calling the community “the biggest blessing.”

“I was able to lean on every single person, whether they experienced it directly themselves or they knew other people who had had a hard time,” she shares. “It was a hard period for me but because I had those other former players to lean on, that was huge in my mental space.”

Additionally, Louie says she had even greater support from CBS, who provided therapy services for Survivor contestants. She started working with a therapist a couple of weeks after returning home to help her general adjustment from the game. But when her eating disorder became more prevalent, she knew she needed more specialized help.

“I realized I was being so mean to myself. I was calling myself names that I would never, ever even think to call another human being. I would cry when I looked in the mirror because I saw so much weight gain in my face. I just had so much hate toward the way that my body looked.”

“So they set me up with an eating disorder therapist,” she recalls. “I worked with her every week, sometimes a couple times a week. She pointed me to resources I needed and I worked with her all summer. I’m so grateful for her and the help that CBS gave me to heal.”

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Louie struggled for about three or four months before feeling like she had improved her relationship with food. She admits that there are still days where she gets in her head or feels anxious about eating, but she’s learned ways to cope and manage those thoughts in a healthy way.

“The whole summer was tough, I had a hard time,” she says. “But it’s wild, almost around the time when our season started airing in September, that was when I started to feel mentally better as well.”

“There are still some days where I struggle, but for the most part — like nine out of 10 days — I’m usually really good,” she adds. “I’m really proud of all the growth that I’ve had both physically and mentally through this process.”

Louie tells PEOPLE that although management of her health is ongoing, she wanted to be transparent about her eating disorder in hopes of helping people who may be going through the same experience. She’s also used her social media platforms to share her story and connect with others.

“The toughest emotion I experienced was loneliness, just because I felt like there was no way anyone could understand how I was feeling. Even with the people who were there for me, I still felt like I was so alone,” she says. “So my hope in sharing this is if there’s anyone else out there who’s experiencing anything like this, I just want them to know that they are not alone and that there’s always help available.”

“Even in our toughest and our darkest days, there’s the light at the end of the tunnel,” she continues. “You’re gonna get through it. Everything’s always temporary and there’s a lot of hope in healing.”