A question I’ve been asked more times than I can count is this: is it truly possible to fully recover from an eating disorder?

For a long time, I believed recovery meant management. That it was something I would always have to cope with, keep at bay, and carry quietly in the background of my life. I couldn’t have been further from the truth.

What no one can neatly explain or hand to you in a step-by-step process, is your own lived experience of recovery. It isn’t something you can fully understand from the outside. But as someone who has walked that path, I can tell you this: there is a way to reach total freedom.

I experienced severe anorexia in a world that often disguised it as discipline. I was told, both directly and indirectly, that it would always be a part of me. And after being unwell for so long, that belief became hard to question. It felt like a fact.

But it isn’t.

An eating disorder is NOT your identity. And it is NOT a life sentence.

What I’ve come to understand is that recovery is not a single moment, it’s a process. And within that process, there are layers which is the way to truly get to know yourself, your real self.

In my first few years of recovery, it was very structured. I followed a plan. I was eating consistently and beginning to participate in life again. At the time, I thought this was recovery and in many ways, it was. It was the foundation. It was necessary. But it wasn’t the full picture.

Between years three to five, something began to shift. Flexibility started to enter. I moved beyond the plan and began learning what it actually meant to listen to my body. Not in theory, but in real life. It looked like having popcorn at the movies simply because it was fun. Eating Easter chocolate at breakfast because it was a celebration, not something to compensate for. Food started to feel less like a set of rules, and more like a part of living and I started to love the energy it gave me and the quality of life.

And then, over time, around the five-year mark and beyond, there was another shift. I knew what I genuinely liked to eat. I had a healthy, grounded relationship with my body. I could hear it when it whispered, instead of waiting until it screamed. I understood when I needed rest, when I needed space, when I needed nourishment. Food became just one part of my life, it was no longer ruled my whole life.

Today, I don’t live “in recovery.” I live my life as a Clinical Nutritionist, a mum, a yogi, a runner, but more than anything, I live as myself. And that version of me is always evolving. When you choose a growth-minded life, you’re not fixed. You’re not something to be defined or boxed in by a past version of you, or by anyone else’s perception.. And it is totally freeing!

One of the most unexpected and beautiful parts of my recovery has been rediscovering playfulness. The ability to be silly. It took me years to get here, but it’s become one of my favourite parts of who I am. And being light, joyful, and playful doesn’t take away from your intelligence or depth, it complements it.

So, can you fully recover?

The short answer is yes. Absolutely YES.

Recovery, for me, is not something that takes up space in my daily life anymore. It doesn’t have a voice, a presence, or a role. If anything, I think of it the same way you might think about a past relationship.

At one point, you may have believed that relationship was your future; that it would shape your life, your identity, your plans. Then comes the breakup. It’s uncomfortable, sometimes painful, and often disorienting. You have to learn who you are without it.

In the early days, thoughts of that person can feel intense and ever-present. But over time, something shifts. You grow. You change. You build a life that no longer revolves around that relationship.

And one day, you realise it no longer defines you at all.

That’s what full recovery from an eating disorder can look like.

Not managing and controlling or constantly coping. But living fully, freely, and as someone entirely separate from the illness you once had.

And if you’re in it right now, wondering if that kind of freedom is possible for you, it is. It takes some really hard work but like most things in life what you put into something you will get out even more.

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Big love Lex ❤️