Troubleshooting Recovery

If I were to open this blog by telling you that you are doing an absolutely magnificent job in your recovery and that the solution to your healing is to be patient, I wonder, how does it make you feel?

For some, it may be relief. It may be validation. It may be pride.

But for many, I know that external reassurance of “You’re doing great! Keep it up! You just haven’t given it enough time” lands with more than a flicker of unease. And thus, I've come to use it as a rather fascinating litmus test.

Being told that we are doing a great job in recovery — and that we simply need to keep on doing exactly what we are doing and await the results — often activates the healthy and honest self within us.

And that self tends to respond in one of two ways. Either it exhales, softens, and says, “Yes. This feels right. I can just keep chipping away.” Or it tightens, hesitates, and sorrowfully whispers, “Something about this doesn’t feel true.”

That second response isn’t resistance, nor is it lack of gratitude for the well intentioned encouragement. More often, it’s discernment. For, when reassurance lands as discomfort, it’s often pointing to a deeper knowing: that what we are doing may be okay, but our effort is not complete. Our output is certainly not bringing us into alignment with what we know will result in freedom.

This brings to light something we must view with compassion. Recovery doesn’t merely ask us to blindly persist. It asks us to listen. To apply intention. To notice when “keep going” feels grounding or when it feels like a dismissal of something inside us that is asking for more.

In this way, we must recognise that sometimes the most self-compassionate move isn’t to be patient. It is to be reflective on, and then prepared to act on, the gap which remains between where we are and where we ultimately want to be.

And that frank analysis — not reassurance — is where real healing can commence.

A Recovery Blessing: Cognitive Dissonance

Leon Festinger’s foundational work on cognitive dissonance outlines how the discomfort of praise frequently has its roots in our human propensity to reject information that contradicts our self-assessment. In recovery, rejection of recovery praise could, of course, be due to the self-critique or perfectionism that is so often part of our make-up. But, more frequently, I notice that it is related to the high degree of personal integrity and significant perseptive self-awareness that those with eating disorders seem to have.

On some level, many of us do know that we aren’t doing a fantastic job yet. We know that time alone won’t change things. More of the same is not the answer. Whilst this can be a heavy acknowledgement, it's far better than a lighter-feeling disillusion of okayness.

In the following blog, I am writing to those of you who know, deep down, that progress in your recovery requires more than just time. There are, of course, a plethora of explanations, so here I will just outline some of the most common factors that I see delay advancing to the freedom that lies beyond recovery.

Without further ado, if it isn’t just about time and patience, what is holding you back from experiencing progress?

Overall Intake Inadequacy

The most important truth of restrictive eating disorder recovery  — that many of us try to sidestep — is that if our brain isn’t getting enough energy in, it cannot regulate our mood, thoughts, or emotions.

Without an adequate caloric intake, it is very likely that you will experience:

• heightened anxiety

• intrusive eating disorder thoughts

• irritability

• low mood and motivation

• obsessive food thinking

• brain fog

The eating disorder thrives in a low energy state and thus, adequate nourishment is the unequivocal prerequisite for lessening its grip.

So before you read on, hear this clearly: if you are in any doubt that you are intaking enough food (to put this bluntly, enough calories), this is your first solution. I urge you to focus every ounce of spare attention here. Fiddling elsewhere while this remains unaddressed is akin to fixing your tie while your shirt is on backwards.

I would also gently suggest that even if you do think that you are eating enough, it is well worth staying open to the high possibility that your version of ‘enough’ may not align with what I mean by ‘enough’, nor what your brain and body require.

Many of us (my past-self included) begin eating “more” and swiftly assume we are eating plenty. This is especially the case when weight gain is observed or presumed unnecessary.

But as I am sure you would assure another individual, intake sufficiency has nothing to do with body size. It is felt via mental state, not visually represented by achievement of a specific weight. I have little hesitancy to say that if your response to being invited to eat more is an instant rebuttal about your body size and why that this can't possibly be necessary, it is very strong indicator that you are not eating enough.

The truth we must accept is that what our brain constitutes as enough and requires for deep safety is not up for debate. Tough though it is, this admittance is no more frightening than the prospect of an enduring battle with your own biology.

Solution:

• Calories trump everything.

• Increase intake.

• Increase portions.

Intake Irregularity

In recovery, I most commonly see how intake irregularity show up in two ways: within a single day, and across a week.

Within a day, this might look subtle — such as avoiding snacks — or more obvious, like heavily restricting during the day and backlogging intake into ceremonial evening hours.

Across a week, irregularity tends to show up as inconsistent recovery effort. Perhaps Monday working from home is boldly abundant, but Wednesday in the office is noticeably insufficient.

In both instances, we must consider that the singular most important message our brains need during recovery: don’t worry, you are no longer in a famine.

Irregular intake — whether daily or weekly — keeps this message unclear and doubtful. As a result, the scarcity mindset persists.

When intake fluctuates, in good days, under-eating days, skipped snacks, “I’ll make it up later” attitudes, our brains cannot reliably predict when they will next receive energy. That unpredictability alone keeps us in survival mode, and survival mode = continued mental distress.

If you identify with this, please trust that recovery consistency is more important than recovery perfection. Your brain’s sense of safety depends on nourishment arriving at regular, predictable intervals. You do not need to wait until you feel capable of a “perfect recovery day” before you start giving your 100% effort towards regularity, adequacy and variety. Even if disguised as a recovery-minded thought, any suggestion to delay is being peddled by the eating disorder.

Solution:

• Recovery prioritisation to ensure consistency.

• Food regularity throughout the day.

• Regular recovery check-ins to ensure progression.

Compulsive Movement Not Being Addressed

When we continue to compulsively move in recovery, we are placing a tax on the already depleted physical systems of the body. Almost every compulsive exerciser I have come across has a high awareness of these truths: compulsive exercise is elevating their stress hormones, increasing unnecessary energy expenditure and maintaining their energy deficit. I’m yet to interact with anybody who is obdurately stuck believing that their compulsive movement is wholeheartedly good for their recovery or would advise anybody in the world to follow their regime. Even if the disordered perspective does linger, it is never entirely impervious. Whether we are willing to act on this is a different matter, but somewhere, deep down, I do think we all hold the knowledge that getting serious about our recovery means giving our body a sincere physical break.

But far beyond this physical tax, every compulsive exercise urge that is responded to mentally affirms the disorders grip. If each time the eating disorder makes a demand it is bowed to, there is an association in the brain of: thoughts=truth. I timelessly see how this has a significant ripple effect (far beyond exercise suggestions) on one's fear of the eating disorder's wrath and thereby results in all other prompts from the eating disorder being regarded as law.

Thus, not only does the low energy state upheld by movement biologically signal to the brain that scarcity is still present, but the disorder itself is inflated by its prompts being met with such respect. The truth many of us try so desperately to avoid is that we cannot mentally or physically heal by carrying out behaviours that keep our mind and body in flight.

Lower-level movement (+ joy avoidance) is another extremely sub-category important to mention here. When we do the work of stopping observably disordered movement, but neglect to weed out forms of movement that keep our body busy all day, we are also significantly compromising our progress physically and mentally. This constant low-level activity not only drains energy but also informs our brains that it remains in threat mode: unsafe safe to stop, to play, to be curious, to relax.

Lower-level movement is heinous, because it can be so easily disguised and excused. Things such as

• cleaning the kitchen prior to breakfast

• popping to the shops when it's not really necessary

• avoiding sitting down on the bus

• popping upstairs to grab something

• taking the longer route around the kitchen island

can all go entirely unnoticed, unchallenged and even appear diligent.

But as is the same for 'formal' movement, any activity engaged in that is weight-gain avoidant or aims to exert control over the body’s size leaves it impossible to rewire fear of weight gain. I see this as one of the most perpetual barriers to neural rewiring: everyday behaviours strongly reinforcing that weight gain is necessary to avoid, undesirable and a sincere threat.

Overall, forced and unintuitive movement (formal or lower-level) keeps our nervous system wired — when, how, and where it can be performed is a perpetually running tape. Since the aim behind these ED–OCD compulsions is so frequently to suppress weight or avoid hunger, the brain is left incapable of seeing the very necessary recovery processes with kind eyes.

Solution: 

• Prioritisation of and commitment to sincere and deep rest.

• Setting up accountability around rest.

• Delegation of tasks, where possible.

• Exploration and addition of passive, joyful activities.

Meal Plan As A Ceiling

One of the most common things I see when somebody is feeling stuck in recovery is when the structures that they are using are not really recovery-aligned at all. Far from mechanisms of support, they have turned into a weapons of control, restriction and excuse.

I personally believe that a supportive recovery meal plan is awesome. When it is designed as minimum floor that should be exceeded, it can usher us towards challenge and acts as a high baseline safety net for the hardest of days.

A non-supportive recovery meal plan on the other hand is one that has become a ceiling. It ends up limiting adequacy, ensures not ‘too much’, dictates maximum regularity and is comprised of ED approved foods.

There are 2 fairly obvious reasons why we will not experience mental progress when using frameworks in our recovery that  — from the start  — are not really recovery-aligned at all. Firstly, even if we do fulfil the plan in its entirety, it won't be sufficient or nourishing. Second, when the suggested trajectory has involved the eating disorder from its inception, it is the eating disorder almost always continues to be involved. This means that even the disordered plan is further meddled with.

Solution: 

• Ensure any plans that are supporting recovery are genuinely recovery-aligned.

• Upgrading plans week by week.

• Allow a recovery buddy into your plans.

• Ensure any plans or structures are being used as minimum baseline.

Ignoring Mental Hunger

In recovery, mental hunger is our brain’s way of communicating what when and how much to eat. If this mental hunger is constant, yes, that means your need to eat is constant. I've already written a blog on mental hunger, and multiple posts expressing its importance, so I'll keep this section very concise.

Mental hunger is hunger. And responding to it is essential for restoring our bodies sense of safety. Ignoring it will keep our brain stuck in deprivation mode. Full stop.

If I am certain of one thing by now, it is that people who do not honour mental hunger as part of their recovery do not fully heal. They may get better comparably, but not comprehensively.

Solution: 

• View mental hunger with deep reverence. Act on it as if your recovery depends on it, because it does.

  
  

Avoiding Certain Foods

This final point often becomes most relevant in the later stages of recovery. At this stage, we are invited to turn over every last stone, ensuring that no ED embers remain quietly alight. It is the leave no doubt mindset, one that gently but firmly asks: how far are you willing to go to truly let this go?

Maybe it’s choosing regular Coke.

Maybe it’s avoidance of real dairy milk.

Maybe it's the caution with olive oil whilst cooking.

I promise, it is so much more meaningful than you think.

The necessity of this level of challenge actually has very little to do with the food itself, and everything to do with the reason behind the avoidance. An attitude of “why would I have regular Coke when I could have calorie-free Coke?” suggests that fewer calories are better. “Why would I have regular milk when I could choose one with less fat?” implies that fat is bad. “Why would I use olive oil when Frylight exists?” subtly communicates a belief that your body is not worthy of the care, nourishment or preference

Avoidance — even of seemingly insignificant foods — most certainly reinforces scarcity and maintains eating disorder cognitions. It keeps our brains learning that foods are limited, controlled and dangerous. As well as this maintenance of the deprivation mindset, our nervous system simply cannot relax under these conditions.

Solution: 

• Get honest about full food permission.

• Apply direct opposite actions against orthorexia urges.

• Intentionally challenge norms to prod the ED and ensure flexibility (e.g., specific brands)

• Embrace the same foods as other's around you who have a great relationship with food, or, that your childhood self enjoyed.

• Shelve ED approved foods.

• Challenge foods you consider not to be a preference.

• Adopt the 'leave no stone unturned' mentality.

Conclusion

It goes without saying, one very valid reason you may not be noticing mental improvements in your recovery yet is, indeed, impatience. If you are doing a genuinely great job of providing your body with abundant food and restorative rest — but simply haven’t been doing so for long enough — superb! Give yourself grace, body reverence and be reassured that building sincere metabolic trust (such as hormone recalibration), shifting ingrained nervous system patterns, and rewiring long-standing neural pathways takes time. Even when you’re doing everything right, relief often arrives gradually — and quite unpredictably. It is not on a schedule, and certainly not on a linear timeline that more desperate research (ahem Mr ChatGPT...) could uncover.

But since you have persisted through this blog, I imagine that patience might not be the answer that resonates with your core-self. If you feel the sting of cognitive dissonance when somebody praises your recovery, please take the solutions in purple outlined in this blog seriously and begin acting on them with immediacy.

As you will probably have noticed, there seem to be two main messages that your brain is receiving that explain why you aren’t experiencing mental relief yet:

1)   the famine is not over

2)   less food = better

Both are essential to stop communicating — via your actions.

If you are feeling discouraged because recovery hasn’t worked out yet, I promise that I have been exactly here facing this acknowledgment, wincing at undue external praise, feeling misunderstood and fearing abandonment. And still, it really can get better.

Many people are not doing enough for their recovery and are floating through their lives trying to ignore that knowledge. You are here — reading this, exploring how to deepen yours. Even if tentative, that is an immense sign that your healthy-self is simmering away.

I know this closing sentiment something I return to in almost every blog, but it’s so fundamental to healing that I’ll happily keep repeating it: Being suspended by fear is not something to abuse yourself over. That only propagates the eating disorder’s agenda by enveloping you in shame. The response required here is to meet recognition of your shortcomings with compassion, understanding, and action.

Fear is a mighty obstruction — but, with the right approach, it is not an immovable barrier.