When people talk about eating disorder recovery, it can sound so neat and tidy, like it’s a box you tick once you’ve eaten a slice of pizza or stopped counting calories. Truth is? Recovery isn’t a straight line, and it definitely isn’t just about food.

For me (and for so many others), recovery has meant learning to unpick years of habits, thoughts, and rules that felt like they defined me. It’s been messy, confusing, sometimes painful… but also freeing in ways I never expected.

This post isn’t here to give you a perfect definition of recovery, because honestly, it looks different for everyone. Instead, I want to share what recovery has actually meant for me, beyond the Instagram version of ‘I ate that meal, I’m cured.’ Spoiler: it’s deeper, harder, and more hopeful than that.

Redefining What Health Even Is

A huge part of recovery means learning what the “new” and “true” definition of health is. Rewriting the rules made up in our head. Scrapping the ideal, but unrealistic, body standards, 10k steps, 800 calories – and all the rest of it. Realising that the version of “health” I’d been chasing wasn’t actually healthy at all.

I thought health meant being the smallest version of myself, eating “clean” 24/7, and never skipping a workout. I thought discipline = strength, and that if I looked “healthy” on the outside, I must be healthy. In truth, I was exhausted, undernourished, and constantly anxious, scared to miss a workout or eat “too much”.

Recovery has forced me to rip up that old definition and start again. Now, health looks a lot more like balance. It’s having energy to actually live my life. It’s eating a mix of foods (yes, that includes pizza and chocolate, and also salads too). It’s resting when I need to, instead of pushing through because my brain says I “should.”

It doesn’t mean I feel amazing every single day, or that I never have those old thoughts creep back in. But it does mean I’m learning that health isn’t about restriction or punishment. It’s about flexibility, joy, and being able to say yes to things I used to say no to.

Of course, I feel like I’m at a point now where I can incorporate exercise into a “healthy” routine, as that’s what I enjoy, and it is still an act of self-care. The difference now is that I don’t use movement as a way to punish myself, but as a way to celebrate what my body can do. Recovery is about learning that you can still run and workout and play your favourite sports, but in order to do so, you must fuel your body, and do those things with the intention of looking after your body, not as a way to hate your body.

Health isn’t about eating salads and being slim because you run so much. It’s about your body being able to function well (which it won’t if you’re eating less than 2000 calories a day, running on empty, and constantly working out), but also about the mental side of it too, as well as the social well-being. Being able to enjoy time with friends, without the thought of “when will I do my next workout?” Being able to feel at least OK on a day to day basis, and if you don’t, you won’t turn to those bad ED habits to try and control those emotions. It’s a whole lot more than simply being “healthy”.

It’s Not Just About Food

Something that I cannot stress enough as that an eating disorder (despite it’s name) and recovery is not just about food. It’s about body image, social interactions, OCD, anxiety, trust, control, relationships… the list goes on. In recovery we have to (slowly) learn how to take back control of our lives. Little by little. Because the ED not only took away our joy for food, but also our joy for life.

For me, yes, food was a huge part of my journey – fear foods, and other habits that took control. But during my darkest times deep into my eating disorder, I wasn’t just fixated on having control of food. It was so much more than that. The ED takes hold of everything in your life, pushing your family and friends away, so that there’s nothing left other than you and that other voice in your head. It’s smart, it’s conniving. it’s vicious. It infiltrates your mind until you can’t hear yourself anymore, and you become nothing more than a shell of a person.

I’ve had to unlearn so much more than just toxic food habits. All of those other lies that my ED told me… that’s what I had to unravel. So, no, recovery isn’t just about food, and to be honest, it’s not the most important part. It’s about taking back the life you lost under the rule of that voice in your head, and learn that it’s ok to want to live your life the way you truly want to.

Grieving the Control You Think You’ve Lost

I think another thing that people avoid talking about is the idea that you’re leaving behind a past version of you in order to become this new one “in recovery” or “post recovery” – how ever we want to phrase it. At any point in life we may grieve a past version of ourselves, much like how we grieve lost loves, friendships and family.

In recovery, it makes it that little bit harder that we have to say goodbye to that old version of ourselves as well as everything else we have to do at the same time. We have to unlearn old habits, and abscond from the version of ourself that did, in some way, make us feel safe. With an ED, we have control. Yes, it’s not necessarily in a good way, but we have control. The ED was born from something going wrong in our lives, when we felt like we didn’t have any sense of control – be it a worldwide pandemic, a loss of a dear loved one, a divorce, or any other life-changing event. It allowed us to have a hold on something, something which we could have power over. As we know, it starts with a diet, or a workout regime. Structure, routine, something well established. So, saying goodbye to all of that is bloody hard.

And honestly? Sometimes recovery can feel like freefall. You’re letting go of the very thing that, for a long time, felt like it was holding you together. There’s this weird in-between space where you’re no longer that old version of yourself, but you don’t fully feel like the new one yet either. That limbo can be scary, because it feels like you’re giving up your armour without knowing if what’s underneath will be “enough.”

But here’s the thing: grieving that control doesn’t mean you’re weak, or failing, or “not ready.” It just means you’re human. Of course it hurts to let go of something that once gave you comfort, even if it was toxic in the end. The grief is part of the process, and it’s proof that you’re moving forward. And while you might feel like you’re losing control, what you’re actually doing is making space for a different kind of stability: one that isn’t rooted in fear, but in freedom.

Identity Beyond the ED

Following on from this concept of grieving a past life, we’re also learning who we are outside of our ED. For something which had so much precedent over our lives, and now suddenly having to let that go? It means taking the time to figure out who we are: what we love, who we love, what our hopes and dreams are… all of it. And without that control? It can feel unbearable at times.

But here’s the thing: we’re now allowed to. We’re allowed to figure that all out. And there’s beauty in that. That’s why people talk about that initial “recovery high”, because it is, actually, fun and freeing and a whirlwind. We get to do the things we haven’t done before, or haven’t done in a long time, like an old hobby, a sport, seeing an old friend, rekindling relationships. We can build back trust with loved ones. Spend more time with friends. All while figuring ourselves out. It doesn’t happen over night, but with the help of a strong support system, and therapy too, we can work it out. And that’s beautiful.

A True Support System Matters

What I’ve learnt – sadly only recently – is that having a strong network of loved ones around you is vital. I say only recently because with that ED voice still so loud in your head at the start of recovery, you don’t (again, I say “sadly”) see that those around you are trying to help you. The ED has a brilliant way of making you push everyone away, to be the sole, controlling voice around. The only person you can trust, especially when you’re so lost you can’t trust yourself. So, that’s what I mean when I say only recently have I learnt this.

And on the note of pushing people away, the recovery process opens up the door for new people in your life, and a new opportunity to work on this. To let go of that control, and let people in. I could write a whole other blog post on this and how it’s so difficult to explain this to those people that have just entered the chat. They don’t know what you’ve been through, and they haven’t seen how your past relationships (romantic or not) have crumbled around you because your ED won’t let you trust them. Being able to rebuild this support system during recovery brings you closer to these people, and there’s magic in this too. You can work on things together, have someone to fall back on, whilst also holding you a little bit accountable when it seems to hard to do so.

Having a strong support system doesn’t mean you’ll fly – it means you can keep going.

There Is No Such Thing As “Fully Recovered”

And finally (some food for thought on this one) a notable point that I don’t think that there is something called “full recovery”. Because having an eating disorder controls so much of your life, it leaves its fingerprints everywhere – in your routines, your relationships, even in the way you see yourself. It shapes you, even if you don’t want it to, and so the idea of ever being completely untouched by it again feels a bit unrealistic.

That’s not to say recovery isn’t possible (because it absolutely is). But maybe instead of chasing “full recovery” like some perfect end destination, we should think of it more like building a life where the eating disorder no longer gets a seat at the table. The thoughts might still whisper from time to time, but they don’t get to call the shots anymore. They don’t get to decide what you eat, whether you go out with friends, or how you feel about your body.

And honestly, there’s something freeing in accepting that. It takes the pressure off this idea of reaching a flawless finish line and instead makes space for a messy, human, ongoing process. Because recovery isn’t about erasing the past version of you, it’s about learning how to live beyond it, and proving to yourself every day that you deserve more than survival mode.

Xo Pepetoe