By: Kelsey Pukala, dietitian at Nourishing Minds Nutrition

If you’ve ever struggled (or are currently struggling) with an eating disorder, you are likely familiar with the tension between wanting to move towards Intuitive Eating and freedom, yet feeling completely stuck in your eating disorder. Let me just validate you for a second… this is a totally normal feeling! And working in the field of eating disorders taught me that the MOST vulnerable time in anyone’s recovery journey is often the transition from inpatient (or almost constant) care to outpatient care. Basically, this is a transition from having a very hands-on support team to a more hands-off support team in recovery.

Why is this a vulnerable time for people in recovery? Well, honestly, this is where we lose a lot of people in the process. It’s very common for people to leave residential or day-treatment facilities and never seek outpatient treatment (which usually consists of a doctor, dietitian, and therapist).

In my experience, this seems to be because they feel “fine” or “recovered enough.” But, I will tell you, this is the perfect breeding ground for the onset of orthorexia tendencies. Orthorexia is the unhealthy obsession with healthy eating and it’s so so so common today because these behaviors are often praised in our diet culture. So, while it may be easy to feel “recovered enough,” and think you don’t need any more treatment, I want to take some time to encourage you to keep going.

I want to share with you three lies that you may have heard during eating disorder treatment. And I feel these lies contribute to the growing number of orthorexia diagnoses and the high rates of “fallout” between inpatient and outpatient eating disorder treatment. I hope dispelling these myths help propel you forward in your journey towards Intuitive Eating wherever you may find yourself along that journey.

1. Intuitive Eating isn’t for people with eating disorders

I hear this allllllllllll the time. “You’re not ready for Intuitive Eating.” “Intuitive Eating comes later.” I will say, there is some truth here because it would be unwise, in my opinion, to attempt to apply every principle of Intuitive Eating in the early stages of eating disorder recovery. For example, honoring your hunger may not be possible while in eating disorder recovery. That’s normal. But, this doesn’t mean we should ignore every principle of Intuitive Eating and save them for a later time.

Ditching the diet mentality can be done ANYTIME. Seriously. While I would not encourage you to rush to apply every principle, I would encourage you to consider how certain principles can apply to you wherever you’re at on your journey.

2. Body image work comes after Intuitive Eating is “done”

It frustrates me to my core when I hear providers suggesting to clients to put all body image concerns on the “back burner” until xyz time in recovery is reached. Do we want to be preoccupied with body image? No. Do we only want to discuss body image when it’s not appropriate? No. Do we want to ignore under-eating while addressing all body image concerns? Of course not.

But, we should be compassionate when providing care to those in recovery from eating disorders and disordered eating. We need to LISTEN to body image concerns because this is usually a big part of what is holding people back from making progress! The question I like to ask as a provider is, how can I hold space for my client’s body image concerns WHILE assisting them with eating concerns?

Eating disorders don’t happen in a vacuum. Body image struggles don’t happen in a vacuum. We can (and should) allow space for both body image healing and eating disorder healing.

3. Full recovery is not possible

If you hold this belief, I’m so sorry. This was actually shared with me by one of the therapists I saw during my own recovery. She told me that my eating disorder would always be a part of me and I would always struggle with some aspect of it. Now, I’m convinced this is part of what keeps people who are struggling OUT of recovery. Hopelessness.

What is more hopeless than believing you can never heal? What is less motivating than someone telling you, you will never fully recover?

Friends, this is a LIE. Eating disorder recovery is hard. Eating disorder recovery is long. Eating disorder recovery is not fun. But, there is hope for you. I whole-heartedly believe that while we never “arrive” at Intuitive Eating, we can get to a place where we are not controlled by disordered thoughts. Where we can make decisions about our bodies from a place of self-care, rather than self-hatred. Where we can learn to live in a world bursting at the seams with diet culture and not let it significantly impact our lives. Where we don’t have to be sponges and passively absorb everything we see on social media.

There is hope. Don’t give up even if you feel “recovered enough.” There is more to recovery, and it is so worth it!