February Q&A: Food, Fullness, Digestion, and Trust

February Q&A

Hello and welcome to this month’s Q and A.

This month, we cover fear of fullness, digestion and the “delayed fullness” effect, when it’s appropriate to ease pressure around movement and fear foods, grief and regret about years lost to the eating disorder, weight gain fear and comparison, feeling trapped between “thinness hope” and a body that refuses restriction, what “all in” really means, how restriction changes mood and memory, why recovery can feel surprisingly easier than expected, trauma work and relapse fear, the “chocolate-only” phase and moving towards meals, the overnight mindset reset, and why digestion can stay loud for hours after eating.

Let’s begin.

1. “How do I face the fear of feeling full?”

Fullness triggers panic for so many people because restriction made emptiness feel safe. Fullness can register in the nervous system as danger: something has gone wrong, I have to escape, I have to undo this.

The fear isn’t proof that fullness is wrong. The fear is proof your brain learned to associate fullness with threat.

A powerful shift is separating “I feel fat” into what’s actually happening in the body. Often it’s a stack of sensations: tight, stretched, heavy, bloated, uncomfortable, anxious. Naming the real sensations reduces shame and increases clarity.

Recovery teaches fullness through repetition. Fullness becomes less frightening when you experience it again and again without compensating. Each time you stay with the discomfort and keep yourself safe with your words, you teach your body: I can be full and I’m still safe.

Useful self-talk sounds like:
“I’m safe.”
“I don’t need to undo this.”
“This will pass.”
"I can do this"

Fullness passes. Anxiety passes. The learning happens when you stay.

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2. “When can I ease the pressure a little? Dog walking feels different to eating disorder movement. And what about fear foods — some days I crave other things.”

I really loved this question because it shows something important: awareness. You’re not blindly following rules. You’re noticing the difference between recovery-led choices and eating disorder-led ones.

Early recovery often needs clarity and repetition. Structure is protective at that stage because the eating disorder is persuasive and opportunistic. Structure isn’t about control — it creates enough safety for your nervous system to learn that food is coming and rest is allowed.

But recovery isn’t meant to stay highly vigilant forever.

As healing deepens, life starts re-entering the picture. The shift becomes less about following recovery rules and more about integration — living again without quietly handing authority back to the eating disorder.

With movement, the key isn’t “is this allowed?” The more useful question is: what role is this playing?

Dog-led walking that is slow, playful, responsive, and not driven by pace or targets carries a very different nervous system signature than compulsive exercise. Eating disorder-driven movement usually has urgency. It feels like something must happen. It often carries a subtle fear of what will occur if it doesn’t.

So the questions that matter are:

• Does this feel flexible and optional?

• Could I skip it tomorrow without distress?

• Does this feel connected to real life rather than to fear?

That ongoing attunement is what protects recovery.

With fear foods, the same developmental arc applies. Earlier on, deliberate repetition is often important because the brain learns through evidence. Repeated exposure shows your nervous system that nothing catastrophic happens.

As recovery matures, something shifts. Food becomes less charged. You stop choosing foods to prove something. Preference starts replacing performance.

Not eating a fear food on a particular day isn’t avoidance if the choice feels calm and neutral. Avoidance usually carries relief, justification, or tightness. Preference feels steady and unremarkable.

Recovery eventually becomes the foundation you stand on, not something you constantly audit. The pressure eases naturally as safety grows. You don’t force that stage. You grow into it.

And from everything described here, that growth is already happening.

3. “How do I live with grief, guilt, and regret about the years lost — and the impact on my family?”

The ability to feel this sadness often means you’re standing outside the eating disorder with more clarity and care.

Grief comes online when the eating disorder loosens, because the eating disorder numbs. Recovery brings feeling back.

Grief says: this mattered.
Shame says: I’m bad.

Grief can be honoured. Shame keeps you stuck.

Looking back with today’s awareness and judging your past self with hindsight creates a trap. Your past self was surviving with the tools they had. The eating disorder functioned as a coping mechanism when something felt unmanageable.

Relationship repair rarely comes from punishing yourself forever. Repair comes from showing up differently now — presence, honesty, and real-life change. Many loved ones feel relief when recovery takes hold because the future opens up again.

Grief can walk alongside recovery. Over time it softens as life expands around it.

4. “I see what other people eat in recovery and it terrifies me. I feel like I gain weight so easily. Will it ever balance out?”

This fear is usually about what weight represents: safety, worth, control.

Early recovery weight changes often feel messy and unfair because the body is rebuilding safety. Fluid shifts, glycogen restoration, inflammation, hormonal recalibration, and protective holding can all happen. A body that has lived through famine tends to defend itself at first.

People you compare yourself to may be further along in safety and consistency, so their bodies feel less braced.

What prolongs the defensive phase is constant monitoring and adjusting food in response to fear. The body learns safety through consistency.

Stability tends to arrive when the fight ends — not when you manage weight “better,” but when your system no longer feels threatened by eating.

5. “I fear weight gain and I fear staying the same. Restriction isn’t an option anymore. I feel trapped.”

This is a deeply honest place to be.

What often sits underneath is nervous system exhaustion from years of monitoring, bracing, and hoping for a different body. The body can reach a point where it asks for relief: relief from being managed.

Thinness hope can keep the system subtly tense in the background — always waiting for the next attempt to change things. Your body asking to stop the hunger games, scales, and rules often reflects wisdom.

This stage usually isn’t about forcing acceptance. It’s about pausing the war long enough for the body to exhale: eating without promising you’ll “fix it later,” resting without treating it as temporary, letting reality be real for long enough to settle.

Recalibration becomes possible when the war ends.

6. “All in looks extreme online. Huge fear foods, constant eating. I’m challenging daily in a more sustainable way. Am I doing enough?”

All in was never meant to become another rule book.

All in is a mindset: stopping negotiation with the eating disorder and choosing recovery again and again.

Some bodies do genuinely want large amounts of energy-dense foods repeatedly early on, and that can be biological. That experience isn’t universal, and it isn’t a requirement.

The point of recovery isn’t eating the biggest fear foods. The point is fear losing authority.

The real measures are:
Is the eating disorder losing influence?
Are choices more flexible?
Is there less urgency and more trust?
Is life getting bigger?

Sustainability matters because recovery is a way of living, not a performance phase.

7. “Why does restriction make everything harder — noise, people, life? Why do I get irritable or unlike myself? And why is my memory blank?”

Restriction shifts the brain into survival mode. Survival mode is built for staying alive, not for patience, nuance, emotional flexibility, or rich memory.

Higher-level functions require energy. With low energy, the brain downshifts. That can look like irritability, overwhelm, rigidity, anger, numbness, and withdrawal.

Memory issues make sense too. Chronic stress physiology and under-fuelling reduce the brain’s ability to encode experiences, so whole periods can feel missing. Photos can feel blank because dissociation often disconnects emotion as protection.

Nourishment brings access back to yourself — emotion, presence, memory, tolerance — and that return can include both grief and joy.

8. “All in is going well, and part of me worries it feels too easy. Does that mean I’m doing it wrong?”

Recovery doesn’t require suffering as proof.

For many people, underneath the eating disorder, the body has wanted food and rest all along. Permission can feel like relief because it matches truth.

Readiness, insight, life stage, and sheer exhaustion with the disorder all matter. Some people stop fighting recovery because they’ve fought the eating disorder for long enough.

Enjoying nourishment and rest often signals safety returning to the system. Quiet recovery can still be powerful recovery.

9. “My trauma and anorexia feel entwined. My therapist thinks I’m ready for EMDR, and I’m terrified of relapse.”

Your fear makes sense. The part of you that survived trauma learned that numbness and disconnection kept you safe.

Healing begins with safety, choice, and relationship — not force.

Trauma work doesn’t have to be all or nothing. Good therapy prioritises resourcing, grounding, containment, and pacing. You get to slow down, pause, and protect the peace you’ve built.

Peace isn’t something you sacrifice to heal. Peace is the foundation that makes deeper healing possible.

10. “I’m eating mostly chocolate and bars, often in big intakes later in the day. Meals feel terrifying, but my body craves bread and proper food.”

This shows your system waking up.

Chocolate was forbidden for years, so permission can create a strong phase of “yes, yes, yes” — that’s trust rebuilding.

The longing for bread, fibre, warmth, and meals often signals readiness for the next layer of care. Meals can feel scarier than snack foods because meals ask for presence and a different kind of fullness.

The way through often looks like adding rather than removing: chocolate alongside toast, alongside cereal, alongside a warm simple meal. Chocolate doesn’t have to carry everything alone.

11. “I feel determined during the day, then I sleep and wake up like a different person. Why does it reset?”

Those daytime shifts are real. Overnight resets usually reflect how the brain consolidates patterns.

Eating disorder behaviours are deeply learned safety strategies. When the thinking brain quietens overnight, older habit wiring can re-emerge as the default.

Repetition changes the default. Each day you choose nourishment and rest, you lay down new pathways. Over time the reset becomes quieter and less convincing.

Morning care often matters most: eating early, keeping routines simple, guiding yourself rather than negotiating.

12. “Fullness builds 15–30 minutes after eating and can take hours to settle. Is this normal?”

Digestion unfolds over time. A sensitised gut and nervous system can experience that process as loud: contractions, fluid shifts, enzymes, gas, and delayed stomach emptying can all make fullness build after the meal rather than settling straight away.

Spacing matters too. Wider gaps can make digestion feel more intense when food arrives. More frequent eating often supports steadier digestion and less dramatic fullness peaks.

Eating every two to three hours can help many people feel more settled over time, not because you’re forcing, but because you’re giving your body consistent practice and safety.

Closing

Thank you for listening, and thank you for staying with these topics.

Your body is learning. Your nervous system is adapting. Your healing deserves patience and care.

I’m sending you so much love, and I’ll see you next time