When you started down the path to eating disorder recovery, you were probably excited, but maybe also a little bit scared and nervous about all the changes in your future. You probably read about some different treatment options, maybe even found a few blogs or books. You confided in your loved ones and took that brave, bold step of reaching out for help.

You knew what you had been doing for so long was no longer working for you. You acknowledged that it was HURTING you, but you but might not have realized just how HARD recovery would actually be.

As you’ve probably now realized, there are so many changes that happen within yourself when you start to recover and actively challenge the disordered thoughts and behaviors that have been a part of you for so long. These changes can leave you feeling raw and bring up painful, hard-to-feel feelings. That doesn’t mean that it’s not 100% possible to achieve full recovery.  It does mean that giving some dedicated thought to planning for the rough spots, and how you will keep motivated, can be an incredibly important part of recovery.

By developing this plan, you’ll feel more able to take on these challenges to your motivation when they come up. Whether this is your first attempt at recovery, or you’ve been working at this for a while, new tests are always on the horizon as you move through the different elements that have kept you stuck in your eating disorder. These challenges can include addressing trauma, difficult family dynamics, tackling body acceptance, or a myriad of other underlying themes you might be struggling with.

If you’ve committed to recovery, you likely feel a sense of excitement about what life will be like with your newfound freedom from the misery of an eating disorder. Perhaps you haven’t spent a lot of time considering how you might be feeling when you start treatment and things get tough. Or perhaps you’ve been through this many times and continue to get tripped up when it comes to staying motivated in recovery.

Unfortunately, by not planning for how you’ll work through these challenges, you’re more likely to feel overwhelmed and have an easier time slipping back into old destructive behaviors. You might start to feel like something is wrong with you for not being able to stay on your path moving forward.

It’s so important to know that recovery is difficult. Recovery is inot a linear process, and it’s normal to feel challenged to stay the course through the rough spots of eating disorder recovery.

It’s true that you feel anxious about how you’ll keep up your recovery drive, but sometimes the anxiety can keep you from putting in place the right pieces to get closer to freedom from your eating disorder. No, you can never plan for every possible situation and flexibility in recovery is also key. However, there are some important aspects of recovery that you can integrate to help keep you on track. Keep reading for the top ten ways that you can stay keep motivated in recovery from an eating disorder.

Top 10 Keys to Keep Motivated in Recovery from an Eating Disorder

Yes, you may be feeling pretty anxious about how you’ll keep motivated when you feel challenged to move forward in eating disorder recovery. The key to moving through these spots is by expanding upon the contents in your recovery toolbox.

Take a look at these 10 tips to see how you can move through the challenges to your motivation in eating disorder recovery.

10. Find Your Healthy Voice

One of my favorite recovery tools comes from eating disorder treatment pioneer Carolyn Costin. She teaches about the importance of being able to distinguish between which thoughts are coming from your “eating disorder self” and which are coming from your “healthy self.”

For example, when you have an urge to binge, it can be powerful to identify that this urge is coming from your eating disorder self rather than you healthy, core self. It’s often easier to respond to those urges once they are externalized and you know that they are not apart of who you truly are. 

9. Cultivate Identity Outside of the Eating Disorder

For a lot of people who have been struggling with an eating disorder, they’ve been struggling for so long that they have no idea who they are, apart of from their diagnosis. This also ties in with what I just discussed regarding the “eating disorder self.” The “healthy self” has been in the wings for so long (or was possibly never truly present at all), that it’s hard to know who you are without the eating disorder.

You can start this process by taking a look at all of the things that make you who you are that have nothing to do with your eating disorder. Perhaps you’re a good friend, make others laugh, or have a talent for singing or writing. It might take some exploration to get in touch with these qualities or time spent trying different hobbies or volunteer projects.

Find the things that make you unique and that you enjoy. The stronger your new identity becomes, the harder it will be to return to the eating disorder.

8. Take Stock of Your True Values

One therapeutic modality I really like to use with clients – called ACT – stresses the importance of learning about your true values in life. With this knowledge, you are then able to acknowledge which decisions or behaviors move you closer to, or further from these values.

The identity piece we talked about in #9 really speaks to this. Try to identify what your true values are in life – whether they be relationships, love, career, or something else. Each time you have a chance to make a decision about which path to go down, ask yourself if that decision is in the service of your true values.

7. Remember What You Give Up if the Eating Disorder Takes Over

Calling on the methods we just talked about, use this knowledge to remind you what is at stake with each challenge to recovery. As you start to put together the pieces of your life in the absence of your eating disorder, life becomes fuller, richer, and hopefully guided by the people and things you truly value. Make yourself a list of all the things that you stand to miss out on by moving backward. This list will come in handy when you need a boost in motivation.

6. Sharpen Your Sense of Resilience

As you’ve probably experienced, the road to recovery is full of ups and down, slips and dips, and highs and lows. Allow yourself to make mistakes without judgment and try to move away from “all or nothing” or black-and-white thinking. This is hard, but each time you find yourself feeling triggered to engage or are actually engaging in disordered behaviors, you have a valuable opportunity to learn more about what happened. Take a full accounting of what you think went wrong that time and how you might try things differently next time.

Remember that each day is a new opportunity to face your recovery in a different way.

5. Truly Allow for Self-Compassion

Building on #6, truly allow self-compassion for your journey and where you currently find yourself. Your eating disorder was likely serving an important purpose for you. For some, it allowed you to survive despite painful trauma, for others it allowed you to be with yourself in spite of difficult emotions. Whatever its unique purpose, understand and have compassion for that. It’s going to take time to learn how to live a different way, but recovery is truly worth it.

4. Surround Yourself With Support

If you are going through eating disorder recovery, it’s a given that you are going to need support. Determine the people who can best support you through this process and whom you really trust. Try to be as honest as possible with those people about exactly what you are going through and how they can best support you. This might be a process of trial and error. Perhaps you could really use accountability around meal-time or during another time of day when you struggle with disordered behaviors. Make a plan to check in with your supports and allow yourself you lean on those who have shown that they want to be there for you, especially when you most need it.

3. Act “As If”

Some people refer to this as “feeling the fear and doing it anyway” or “fake it ’till you make it.” What we are talking about here is how to conquer the fear and discomfort that comes up when you challenge yourself in a new area of recovery. Perhaps it’s adding a new food that you haven’t allowed yourself to eat in a long time, or cutting your daily run in half. It’s going to be uncomfortable in the beginning (and maybe for a long time) and no one can take that away from you.

Lean into the discomfort and do the action anyways. Only then will you show yourself what you are truly capable of.

2. Get Creative

There is no one path to eating disorder recovery and something different will work for everyone. I often help clients come up with new and different ways to support their recoveries.  These sometimes include a support group, a mindfulness exercise, meal support, or a myriad of other ideas. Yes, many of the practices I have spoken about already take time to truly feel like they are making a difference. However, eating disorder recovery is not a one size fits all.  If something isn’t working or moving you in the right direction, don’t be afraid to make a change and try something else.

1. Find the Right Professional Support

In order to truly recover from an eating disorder, you deserve the support of a team of specialists who can guide and support you throughout this difficult process. This typically means connecting with a therapist and dietitian who specialize in treating eating disorders. You’ll also need the expertise of a medical doctor who is eating disorder informed, and even a psychiatrist if its needed. Unfortunately, meeting with providers who aren’t specialists can often times inadvertently lengthen your treatment or affect you negatively in other ways.   As an eating disorder therapist, its an important part of my job to help my clients connect with the right providers to add to their team.

Recovering from an eating disorder can be such a mix of excitement, hope, and fear. Yet, the more you are able to integrate these 10 tips, you can better equip yourself to handle what comes up along the way and enhance your motivation when things get tough.  As an eating disorder and body image therapist for nearly a decade, I work with clients in my Agoura Hills practice and online with clients in New York and California. Give me a call now or click on the button below to schedule your free 15-minute consultation and find out how I can help you recover.