When I thought about how to start this blog, I realised that the most obvious place is with the two questions I most often get asked:

• What is normal eating?

• What’s the difference between disordered eating and an eating disorder?

At first, these questions might seem simple, but the truth is that there isn’t a clear-cut answer. Eating behaviours exist on a continuum, and they can shift over time—sometimes gradually, sometimes more noticeably. It’s possible for someone to move from what might be considered ‘normal eating’ to disordered eating, and sometimes, unfortunately, to a diagnosed eating disorder. Equally, someone who has experienced an eating disorder can, with the right support, move toward a balanced and fulfilling relationship with food.

When recovering from an eating disorder, abstinence isn’t a solution. The very thing that is causing distress in one way or another — food — needs to be consumed in order to recover. There’s something so very obvious about this, yet it is still not fully appreciated by those who have never experienced an eating disorder.

Unlike many other conditions, recovery cannot be achieved by removing the trigger. We cannot step away from food, avoid it indefinitely, or “cut it out” while we heal. Food is essential for life. And so the very place where the eating disorder lives is also the place where recovery must happen.

I believe that finding a way through difficulties with food is both one of the deepest conflicts of eating disorder recovery and also its greatest gift. We have to eat to be well. And so, in order to recover — and to truly be well — we need to engage with the very thing that has felt unsafe, overwhelming, or unbearable. People do recover from eating disorders, and go on to have a healthy, relaxed, enjoyable relationship with food that causes them no distress whatsoever. So it is possible.

Within sport and fitness I’ve experienced eating disorders from multiple positions. I’ve been a coached athlete with an active eating disorder, from which I have subsequently fully recovered. I’ve been a coach and personal trainer with clients who’ve confided about having an eating disorder, and now I’m an eating disorder therapist supporting athletes and fitness professionals.

I also provide CPD on eating disorders to coaches and have gotten to know their worries and concerns alongside their desire to understand and know how to best support their athletes.

I’ve been reflecting recently on what I’ve learned from this multi-layered perspective that I couldn’t necessarily have seen from one role alone.

Here are my reflections…..