Can I recovery from my Eating Disorder and still lose weight?
Hi, I’m Catherine, a BACP regisered Eating Disorder Therapist based in Belfast. I offer individual online and in-person therapy / counselling for adults struggling with their relationship with food, whether that binge eating, bulimia or just a feeling that something isn’t right.
So it’s a question I hear a lot but here’s the thing…
Why do we want to pusue weight loss?
Women have been told for decades that their weight and the way they look is one of, if not THE most important thing about them. Even if you didn’t receive these messages explicitly I would place a sizeable bet that they were still there. Because our culture is saturated with messaging that women should look and behave a certain way through the way women are portrayed, and in the way they are applauded or rebuked via the media and in our wider communities. We all live in diet-culture, where the ($225 billion) diet industry is constantly sending a message to us that we should lose weight. Weight loss is the goal and having a thin body is still the ultimate accolade in 2025 (Ozempic, anoyone?).
So I get it, it is totally understandable that you want to lose weight. Why WOULDN’T you when all the messages you are getting says its a worthwhile and desirable thing to pursue. BUT. I also notice that you’re here reading a blog on an eating disorder therapist’s website, so I’m assuming something has gone awry. And that’s not your fault. That right. IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT. Maybe you are struggling with your eating and your weight or you know something isn’t right with your relationship with food and your body.
The impact of the pusuit of weight loss
Let’s just stay really factual for a minute and talk about some of the known adverse outcomes of dieting:
- 95% of diets fail (Freedhoff, 2014).
- Engaging in dieting is associated with psychological distress and eating disorder behaviors such as binge eating, purging, and other eating disorders (Ashna et al., 2023, Fan et al., 2024)
- Repeated dieting can lead to ‘weight cycling’ or ‘yo-yo’ dieting – this is associated with a number of health risks including increased risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, certain cancers and even increased mortality.
That’s not a list which is aligned with eating disorder recovery or health in general!
‘Take 5’ on the pursuit of weight loss
When this issue comes up I find to helpful to discuss the impact of dieting with clients, and in most cases, when we get really honest with ourselves the answer is no, dieting isn’t conducive to eating disorder recovery or even a healthy relationship with food for most.
But I know that that can feel really drastic. After many years dieting to suddenly stop the monitoring, counting, restricting can feel difficult or even impossible. But what if you agree to try to stop for just a while? Allow yourself to go all in on ED or disordered eating recovery for a while by stopping dieting and trying to lose weight. And if you change your mind, you can always go back again. Deal?
So how do I stop dieting?
Good question, it’s not so easy if dieting has just become our normal. So you might need to take some active steps to shift your mentality.
- Find your anti-diet people: Be that a therapist or counsellor or in person or joining an online anti-diet group, taking a stand against diet-culture is easier together than alone
- Educate yourself: Educate yourself on the negative impact of dieting on physical and mental health. And anti-diet is a political issue too -> there is lots written on diet-culture as a tool of the patriarchy to keep women small. Dive as deep as you like!
- Focus on other things: What you focus on gets bigger – thats (very very basic :)) neuroscience, baby! So fill your life with activities not related to weight, body, image or appearance. Your life can be so much bigger when you don’t need to focus on dieting, weight and body all the time.
- Go to therapy: Find an anti-diet therapist or counsellor to talk to. You may have a lifetime of diet-culture messages to unpack and process.
But what about health..?
…I hear you cry.
Well, the diet industry don’t want you to know it but pusuit of weight loss is not the way to maximise your health. Instead pursuit of healthy habits and behaviours are what is linked to improved health in the long run. This article offers a good explanation. Even if you feel you ‘need’ to lose weight, if you pursue healthy habits your body will tend towards it’s own heathy equilibrium – see ‘set point theory’.
Good luck on your anti-diet journey!
Connect with me to let me know how you are doing.
Instagram @foodfreedomtherapy
Or drop me a message or arrange a free consultation at info@foodfreedomtherapy.co.uk
Catherine
Hi, I’m Catherine, a BACP regisered Eating Disorder Therapist based in Belfast. I offer individual online and in-person therapy / counselling for adults struggling with their relationship with food, Whether you have been diagnosed with an eating diorder such as Binge Eating Disorder or Bulimia, or whether you have not been officially diagnosed but you are struggling with food or your body image – I am here to help you.
- Freedhoff, Y. (2014). No, 95 percent of people don’t fail their diets. Retrieved from https://health.usnews.com/health-news/blogs/eat-run/2014/11/17/no-95-percent-of-people-dont-fail-their-diets
- Habib, Ashna; Ali, Tooba; Nazir, Zainab; mahfooz, Arisha1; Inayat, Qurat-ul-Ain2; Haque, Md Ariful3,4,5,*. Unintended consequences of dieting: How restrictive eating habits can harm your health. IJS Open 60():p 100703, November 2023. | DOI: 10.1016/j.ijso.2023.100703
- Fan J, Nagata JM, Cuccolo K, Ganson KT. Associations between dieting practices and eating disorder attitudes and behaviors: Results from the Canadian study of adolescent health behaviors. Eat Behav. 2024 Aug;54:101886. doi: 10.1016/j.eatbeh.2024.101886. Epub 2024 May 18. PMID: 38788552.
