Finding your way back to your body’s wisdom
Recovering from an eating disorder can feel like a full-time job on top of everything else you already manage. When you’re juggling school or work, practices, games, family plans, and social life in Apex and around the Triangle, it can all feel like a lot. You can feel impatient about when things will feel back to normal. Even if you’re technically recovered on the outside (eating regularly and consistently, participating in therapy), it can still feel like you’re disconnected from your own body, especially if that body looks and feels different from your body before the eating disorder.
Even if obvious eating disorder symptoms have improved, many people in recovery can still feel like something is off. Your body can feel foreign, scary, or hard to trust. You might still have food noise in your head, or self-criticism about your body, which might contribute to that feeling of unease.
The missing piece in your recovery might be body trust.
At Bloom Psychology Group, we know that body trust is an important part of full recovery, but that it might not come easily. Our women-led, trauma-informed team works with high-achieving women, girls, and families who are used to pushing hard to achieve. They haven’t learned to slow down, to listen to their body or intuition, or to act from the ground-up (instead acting out of fear or rules). At Bloom Psychology, we know that building body trust can be slow, but incredibly worthwhile. In this article, we will share practical, gentle ways to reconnect with your body to build that trust and innate wisdom.
What is body trust in eating disorder recovery?
In the context of eating disorder recovery, a sudden and overwhelming love for your body and appearance is unrealistic. Instead, we work on building body trust – the ability to listen to your body’s signals, respect what these signals are telling you, and respond with compassion instead of control.
As authors Tribole and Resch emphasize in Intuitive Eating, we are all born with an innate “inner wisdom.” But that inner wisdom can get interrupted through ignoring hunger cues, food restriction, sport performance pressures, and intense training schedules. The eating disorder repeatedly tells you that you can’t trust your body, and instead you need to hyper-manage it (through rigid food control, diet tracking, ignoring or suppressing hunger signals, rigorous exercise, or other control behaviors). Our task with building body trust is to find your way back to your body.
Instead of this micromanagement, body trust is:
- Honoring Hunger: Viewing hunger as a normal, biological body signal that deserves to be met (rather than a threat or lapse in willpower)
- Body Neutrality: Recognizing that your body is a vessel for your life, not just an object to be looked at
- Acceptance: Learning to notice difficult thoughts and emotions about your body, without judging those internal sensations as positive or negative, and without letting them drive your actions. For example, you can simultaneously have a negative thought about your body, and choose to nourish your body with food.
Gentle First Steps to Reconnecting with Your Body
For someone in eating disorder recovery in Apex, NC, tuning into your body can feel terrifying.
So we start tiny, the tiniest way you can think of. Think of body connection like dipping your toe in the water, instead of jumping all the way into the deep end. This strategy is very aligned with the concept of titration, the practice of approaching, processing, and integrating uncomfortable sensations in small, safe, and manageable increments instead of all at once. It also requires principles of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), like openness and expansion, which makes room for uncomfortable sensations rather than fighting them.
Small, simple “micro practices” can help, like:
- Taking a short walk and noticing the feeling of your feet on the ground
- Pausing to feel the air on your skin
- Noticing an area of your body that feels good or neutral and focusing on that
- Doing gentle stretching before or after practice and noticing which muscles feel tight
- Taking three slow breaths and paying attention to how the air feels coming in your nostrils and moving out of your mouth
As you get better at the micro-practices, you can move on to more meaningful types of practices, like:
- Grounding through the senses: Replace evaluating/scrutinizing your shape in the mirror with noticing the physical sensation of your feet hitting the ground as you walk.
- Curiosity over judgment: When you feel a sensation (like a racing heart, tight chest, or bloating sensation), try to label it objectively, like “I am noticing a tightness in my chest,” rather than “I’m so anxious, I need to make this tightness go away.”
- Dropping the rope: Imagine your struggle with your body as a game of tug-of-war with a monster. The monster has unlimited energy, so you can’t win by pulling grader. You win by dropping the rope and choosing to spend your energy elsewhere (preferably on things that are meaningful to you).
Honoring Hunger and Movement Cues
Hunger and fullness are sensations that can feel very uncomfortable to someone recovering from an eating disorder. The eating disorder trains you to ignore body sensations and instead only follow rigid rules of eating or intense sport schedules. You might feel skeptical of these cues, like you can’t trust them. You also might unfairly compare yourself to others (e.g., “She can eat with her hunger, but I can’t”). Sometimes, you have ignored these internal signals for so long that they can actually go silent, making recovery that much more difficult.
In eating disorder recovery, you can use permission with structure as a bridge to trust. This means eating consistently not because a rule tells you to, but because you are committed to the value of taking care of your physical body.
Structure to build trust can be:
- Planning regular meals and snacks around school, work, or practice, even if you are not “starving”
- Noticing patterns like headaches, irritability, or trouble focusing, and considering that your body might need fuel
- Treating gentle hunger as a valid reason to eat, not a test of willpower
Movement is another area where body trust can grow. Your body will sometimes ask for rest and sometimes for movement. High-achieving students and athletes are often taught to ignore rest needs. You might worry that if you listen to your body, you will become “lazy” or lose your edge. In over ten years of working with high-achieving women and girls, this rarely happens.
Body-trust in movement can be:
- Respecting soreness and injury instead of pushing harder
- Allowing lighter movement or a day off when your energy is low
- Choosing forms of movement that feel supportive, not punishing
- Seeking out joyful movement, shifting mindset from “burning calories” or “achieving a certain performance level” to “how does my body feel when I move?” (this framing is encouraged by Health at Every Size framework)
Specialized eating disorder treatment in Apex, NC, especially when combined with sport psychology, can help you find a balance that honors training goals and mental health. You can learn to respect your body’s limits without giving up the parts of sport or achievement that matter to you. At Bloom Psychology, we take an individual approach to working with athletes, and work to incorporate movement during recovery for improved well-being.
Healing Your Relationship with Your Appearance
It is a common myth that you have to like your body to treat it well. In reality, acceptance is a cornerstone for change and a healthful body image. Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Bloom Psychology helps you center values-based living, meaning living a life according to what is meaningful to you.
Body neutrality can be a helpful starting point. Instead of trying to like every part of your body (or scrutinizing the parts that don’t feel up to your standards), shift the focus on what your body allows you to do, like hug a friend, excel in a meeting, compete safely in your sport, or enjoy times with friends and family without feeling sick.
In recovery, weight and shape can change, but our commitment to our values remains the same and gives us an anchor to keep going when things feel difficult in recovery and beyond.
Other practical tools:
- Curating a gentler social media feed, muting accounts that trigger comparison or self-criticism
- Choosing clothes based on comfort and function, not just what looks “flattering”
- Limiting mirror checks or body “inspections,” especially when anxiety is high
- Noticing when your mind starts comparing and gently shifting your focus to what you are doing instead
Individual therapy can help you explore the deeper beliefs under these appearance worries. In many high-achieving communities, worth is tied to body size, scores, or results. In recovery, you get to question that and build a sense of value that is not based on numbers or achievements.
Rebuilding Body Trust with Support in Apex and Beyond
Rebuilding body trust is brave, ongoing work. It is not something you are meant to handle all on your own. Most people do best with a coordinated support team, which can include:
- A therapist who understands eating disorders, sport, and anxiety
- A dietitian who can help you structure meals while you relearn your cues
- A medical provider who monitors your physical health
- Coaches, teachers, or family who learn how to support your healing (based on your individual’ needs and preferences)
At Bloom Psychology Group, our women-led practice in Apex supports women, girls, and families who are navigating anxiety, eating disorders, and performance pressures. We meet you where you are and consider the reality of your schedule, your goals, and your responsibilities, whether you are in the Triangle area or in a PSYPACT state.
As you think about your own recovery, it can help to choose just one small next step. Maybe that is trying a short, curious body check-in. Maybe it is talking with a trusted adult or teammate about how hard this feels. Maybe it is bringing up body trust with someone on your care team and asking for more support.
Your body is not the enemy, even if it has felt that way for a long time. With time, care, and the right support, it is possible to feel more at home in yourself again. You are allowed to take it slowly, to ask for help, and to build a relationship with your body that is based on respect and your values.
Take The Next Step Toward Lasting Recovery
If you want to move away from the “rules” of an eating disorder and toward your own nutrition, we at Bloom Psychology Group are here to help support you and your family. Our specialized eating disorder treatment in Apex, NC is grounded in evidence-based approaches that actively involve and empower families. Reach out to contact us so we can talk about what you are experiencing and decide together on the best next steps for your family.