The Eating Disorder Recovery Blog

The festive season is here, which can bring a whirlwind of emotions for those in recovery. If you’re navigating food and body image issues, you might be feeling worried about how you’re going to navigate the festivities. Her are 10 top tips to support you through.

Your body is incredibly intelligent, constantly communicating through hunger and fullness signals to indicate the need for fuel. Ignoring these cues can lead to poor nourishment, energy depletion and disordered eating patterns. In this blog post, we’ll delve into the significance of honouring your body’s needs and the power of embracing nourishment.

Your relationship with food begins to develop in childhood and encompasses your thoughts, emotions, and behaviours surrounding food. It’s influenced by various factors such as your upbringing, home environment, school, culture, and religion, as well as the meanings and associations attached to food. Here are six signs that you’re improving your relationship with food.

Sensory overload occurs when our sensory systems (sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell) get bombarded by too much stimulation from the environment. It’s like your brain goes, “Hold on, I can’t handle all of this input at once!”

Here are some common signs and symptoms of sensory overload and its link to eating disorders.

The truth is that there is no fixed timeline when it comes to recovery. For some, it can take months and for others, it can be years. Either way, the healing journey is an incredible journey of self-discovery that supports a happier and healthier future.

Here are some of the factors that can affect the length of your recovery process.

Are you struggling with an eating disorder and feel like you’ve tried everything without success? It can be disheartening to feel like you’ve exhausted all your options, especially when you haven’t found the type of support that has really helped.

Our approach to eating disorder treatment is different, and here’s why.

Are you struggling with an eating disorder and need support tailored to your unique needs and goals? We offer personalised recovery days that take place in the comfort of your own home with an eating disorder specialist by your side.

Here are five reasons to book a recovery day.

Approaches to nutrition for eating disorder recovery can vary depending on the type and stage of the eating disorder.

We believe in a gentle approach to nutrition that meets you where you are today. Our ethos involves empathy, education and empowerment.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) defines atypical anorexia as meeting all of the criteria for anorexia nervosa except for the criterion of low body weight.

In this blog post we explore what atypical anorexia is, why the term can be unhelpful, and our approach to treatment.

As Covid restrictions lifted, we were shocked that 100% of clients made the choice to continue with our new online format rather than going back to in-person support.

This is how it all began!

The month of February means Valentine’s Day, bringing our focus to the topic of love. Love can be a difficult topic when you are struggling with your relationship with food and body image.

Here we explore how recovery supports love and helps to create healthier and more meaningful relationships for years to come.

Dieting can lead to a preoccupation with food and weight that, for some, can become obsessive and harmful.

Here we explore some of the problem with diets, before highlighting 5 reasons that dieting may lead to eating disorders.

Christmas can be a challenging time for those in eating disorder recovery. However, keeping aligned with your recovery goals and a little planning ahead can support a positive outcome.

Here are 5 top tips to support you or a loved one through this time.

Hazel’s experience of continuing her eating disorder recovery journey through our support group – The Community.

“Whilst we all have different stories to tell, we are united in our goals. To be truly free of this illness, to make peace with food and our bodies.”

Eating disorders are complex mental illnesses that can leave sufferers feeling incredibly lost. The question ‘who am I without my eating disorder’ is one that many ask themselves as they work through recovery.

In this article are some powerful reflective questions to support you with this aspect of your journey.

This month’s recovery focus is intuitive movement and body image, and our podcast is Train Happy by Tally Rye.

Tally is a personal trainer who helps people to create a healthy relationship with movement. In this post we share some highly recommended episodes and resources.

In recent years there has been a large increase in the popularity of bodybuilding, and studies are now exploring the link between bodybuilding and eating disorders.

“I lost my personality, my partner, and my purpose in life. It was just gym, eat, repeat. There was literally no time or energy for anything else.”

Using affirmations can be incredibly supportive of eating disorder recovery.

We asked our recovery group to share the affirmations that have supported them most through eating disorder recovery. Here are the top 20 they found most useful. We hope they inspire you too.

Lily shares her experience of navigating a lapse and stopping it from turning into a relapse. A powerful step in her bulimia recovery journey.

“I now realise that what could have been the start of a relapse was actually an important part of my recovery journey.”

An insight into client Tara’s journey towards intuitive movement.

“My relationship with exercise hasn’t always been easy. I used to view exercise as a type of punishment during my eating disorder, but it has also been a huge source of joy in my life too, especially during my recovery.”

Body image issues affect around 1 in 3 adults in the UK, and studies suggest this number is growing. An important part of building a healthy relationship with food is looking beyond the exterior, including when we compliment one another.

Overwhelm for someone suffering from an eating disorder can be a distressing experience, often triggering increased eating disorder thoughts and leading to unhealthy behaviours, in an effort to cope.

Today, Ashley shares her birthday experience and how she was able to move from overwhelm to embracing her special day.

In this article we discuss weight stigma and what health really is.

“Your healthy weight is whatever weight you reach when you are nourishing your body intuitively. When you are not restricting food in any way or compensating for food eaten. When you are neither strictly controlling food nor feeling out of control with food.”

In this post, recovery client Katie shares her experience of the powerful recovery tool– visualisation.

“I genuinely believe that visualisation has been one of the most helpful tools during my recovery. It improved my relationship with myself today and has also helped me see that my goals are not too far out of reach.”

Restaurants, cafes and takeaways with more than 250 staff are now permitted to display calories on menus, websites, and delivery platforms.

In this post we share our thoughts on this new legislation, as well as tips on how to navigate this change.

NLP stands for Neuro-Linguistic Programming and is one of the forms of coaching we have incorporated into our eating disorder recovery programme. It is based on a powerful methodology that is full of practical tools and techniques. Our coaches use NLP tools in a unique way, adapting them to be highly supportive and safe for eating disorder recovery.

At Natural Food Therapy, we support each individual with the recovery tools needed to make lasting change. Your learning styles, strengths, passions and character traits can all be used to support your recovery journey. And something we champion for those who respond well to reflective tools is letter writing.

Have you ever listened to the little voice inside you that reminds you of your younger self? Regardless of how much we grow, we carry our younger selves with us through each day. Perhaps it’s the unheard 10-year-old self that shows up when we feel someone isn’t listening to us, or maybe it’s the heartbroken teen who shows up when we feel a lack of attention or care.

This week we stand with Beat the UK’s eating disorder charity, in their campaign to introduce proper training for medical schools on eating disorders. We discuss the current statistics with GPs receiving less than 2 hours of training in this area. And we hear from our recovery client Lucy, who shares her personal experience of accessing support.

A question we are often asked is ‘when should I start working with an eating disorder recovery coach?’ At Natural Food Therapy, our coaches are essentially eating disorder specialists. Having trained in multiple disciplines from nutrition to counselling to eating disorders, and with a wealth of experience– our coaches are able to support you through several stages of your recovery.

Today we hear from Abby, who recovered with us here at Natural Food Therapy. Abby shares her inspirational story through eating disorder recovery. A journey of inner strength and self-discovery.

“At 29 years old, I found the strength to get help for my eating disorder. And I believe it has been the best thing I have possibly ever done.”

Most people will experience a grieving process on their journey towards body acceptance. A powerful and necessary step that allows you to let go and grieve unrealistic expectations of what your body ‘should’ look like. Here are the five stages of body grief and some thoughts on how to navigate them.

Today we hear from Sophie who recovered from her eating disorder with the support of our team and her family. Looking back on her journey, she shares her thoughts on how to be there for someone through recovery. A valuable and insightful article full of helpful tips from someone who’s been there.

If you think you could be suffering from an eating disorder, reaching out for help can be full of worries and anxieties. With this in mind, we take care to promptly respond to each client query and offer a free informal assessment to those who we believe could be suited to our recovery programme. Here’s how we get to know you.

At Natural Food Therapy, the natural progression from private support is to join our recovery group. And at the right time, we believe this can become a valuable part of your recovery journey. Today we hear from Amber, who shares her transition from private support into group therapy.

Setting intentions is an important part of eating disorder recovery. By moving into each week, month and year with clarity around what you are working on, you create a powerful path. Here we share four crucial steps to setting intentions successfully through recovery.

January is possibly the most challenging month for anyone suffering from an eating disorder. It can not only reinforce behaviours that you’ve been working so hard to change but can drive a depriving and punishing mentality with regards to food and exercise.

The festivities may seem like an enjoyable time, but they can be filled with anxiety for someone in recovery from an eating disorder. The time spent eating, drinking, socialising with family and friends can cause stress and uncertainty. Our lead clinician Sasha Paul shares her top tips to support you with navigating the festive period.

Eating disorders are mental illnesses that involve complex relationships with food, exercise and body image. They cause significant harm and are by no means a lifestyle choice or phase. Anyone can develop an eating disorder regardless of age, gender, cultural or racial background. 

Christmas can be a difficult time of year for those suffering with an eating disorder. The festivities are often centred around food with celebratory meals, changes to eating patterns, and social gatherings. All of which present their own challenges. In this post we hear from a sufferer who shares her experience of Christmas day.

Through her passion for painting, a young adult in recovery from an eating disorder shares an inspiring piece of artwork. She talks about how she is re-connecting with her passions and using them to fuel her recovery. She also discusses her inspiration for the painting, and why we all deserve to flourish and blossom into the best versions of ourselves.

Instead of coming to an abrupt end in your programme, we believe that there must be a step in between. This way, you can continue to move forward by reducing the amount of hands-on treatment you receive, while still allowing you to feel supported. This is why we created The Natural Food Therapy Community.