What Happens After Eating Disorder Recovery?

More than two years into recovery, so many things have changed in ways I never could have imagined!

Hi, I’m Sally, and I’m now 21 years old. Almost three years ago, I was struggling with a restrictive eating disorder. Although I never received a formal medical diagnosis, I experienced all the symptoms of anorexia.

I then began my recovery journey, with the first stage lasting around 10 months. I also have a YouTube interview where I talk about this stage of my recovery in detail.

I thought recovery ended there…

But…

Of course, my recovery journey didn’t end after those first 10 months. My body had restored its weight and the disordered thoughts in my mind had quietened, but diet thoughts—and the impact of what I had been through because of the eating disorder—were still there.

My appetite decreased after about 10 months of recovery, and I was no longer thinking about food day and night. But I continued to allow myself all foods, despite the diet thoughts that were still coming up. In fact, because my relationship with food had improved so much, part of me thought that maybe dieting could be “structured and healthy” this time.

But I was aware that these were just thoughts—thoughts that could understandably continue for years after an eating disorder.

Most importantly, I didn’t act on them. Quite the opposite: I continued breaking all my old food rules. I regularly added more butter to my toast, ate ice cream first thing in the morning, chose fried food instead of grilled food, used white sugar in my drinks, and ate carbohydrates with every meal and snack!

Physical Changes After Eating Disorder Recovery

The first thing I noticed was that my body was still tired from the years of my eating disorder. I needed more food and more rest. Eventually, giving my body what it needed brought back my desire to exercise and move—despite the fact that I had hated exercise during recovery.

I realised that much of that hatred had come from having so little energy because I wasn’t eating enough, as well as my old understanding of exercise, which had always connected movement with weight loss.

My hair loss decreased significantly, my nails stopped breaking, the hair growth on my body decreased, my skin looked healthier, and the noticeable dryness improved.

During the earlier stages of recovery, I also noticed some changes in how fat was distributed around my body. For example, I carried more fat around my stomach, and my body needed time to recover from several hormonal issues.

But many more changes happened over the following two years. My body lost some fat without any effort or intention on my part, and my hunger and fullness cues became much more stable than before.

Exercise also became so much easier and more enjoyable because I had completely separated movement from weight. In fact, I reached a point where I actually wanted to gain more muscle—and see the number on the scale go up!

That really surprised me…

I had assumed my body would settle into one place within a few months of recovery, but it continued to change significantly after that.

The Psychological Changes After Recovery

My eating disorder had been a way for me to escape from my psychological struggles. Once food and exercise were no longer at the centre of everything, many of those struggles came to the surface—and I could no longer escape from them.

I realised how little awareness I had around my emotions and how far behind I felt compared with others when it came to dealing with my feelings without taking them out on my body.

I discovered many different ways of working with my emotions, some of which I found in Arwa’s articles, as well as books such as:

The Gift: 12 Lessons to Save Your Life
The Happiness Trap
أبي الذي أكره

I also learned a great deal from specialised eating disorder content, which helped me understand the deeper roots of my struggles and, most importantly, how to work with them.

I truly believe that without working on my mental health, I could have returned to eating disorder behaviours during those years.

I Realised It Really Was an Illness

It really was an illness.

There were so many biological, emotional, and psychological changes that I can’t possibly share all of them here. But together, they showed me how many years of my life the eating disorder had taken from me.

In return for distracting me from a painful reality, it left me with a long list of psychological struggles and significant nutritional deficiencies.

If you’re reading this while struggling with an eating disorder, I hope you choose to begin recovery today.

Start by changing just one thought… perhaps the way you think about recovery itself.

I was terrified of recovery. But here I am, more than two years later, saying that it is still the best decision I have ever made in my life.