January Q&A 

Welcome to another monthly Q&A. 

We start with nervous system regulation in eating disorder recovery, then we move into hunger cues and fullness, identity and personality traits, and the push-pull cycle of food and exercise — when one improves and the other flares. These questions hold so much honesty, and I want you to feel supported as you listen.

Let’s begin.

1. “What are the most effective ways to regulate the nervous system during eating disorder recovery?”

Such a brilliant question. Nervous system regulation in recovery goes way beyond breathing exercises and cold water on the wrists.

Recovery asks you to step into a life that no longer relies on control, suppression, punishment, or avoidance to feel safe. That shift can feel terrifying. Your nervous system makes complete sense.

A dysregulated nervous system can look like racing thoughts, a pounding heart, a knotted stomach, and a mind flipping between “I want this” and “I can’t do this.” That doesn’t mean anything is wrong with you. It means your body is doing what bodies do: scanning for safety.

Your nervous system is designed to detect threat and respond fast. Recovery can feel like threat because it’s unfamiliar. Unfamiliarity lights up alarm bells. Your job isn’t to wait for those bells to stop before you keep going.

Regulation isn’t about silencing the alarm. Regulation is about staying with yourself while the alarm is going off.

It’s the moment you say:
“This feels awful. This feels hard. I’m here with myself anyway.”

This is where so many of us struggle, because the habit for years has been emotional self-abandonment. We judge our feelings. We minimise them. We criticise ourselves for struggling. We repeat the voice of the inner critic instead of the voice of compassion.

Your nervous system responds to a different language. It responds to what a loving parent gives a frightened child: comfort, understanding, reassurance, and a calm presence that says, “I’m here. I’ve got you.”

That is what regulation looks like.

Calm isn’t the goal every moment. Kindness in the storm is the goal.

When everything feels loud and tight and overwhelming, try this:

• Pause.

• Name it: “This is a hard moment.”

• Remind yourself: “I don’t need to fix this second. I need to stay with myself.”

• Choose your response: “I’m here. I’m staying.”

That “staying” rewires your nervous system. Your fear softens over time because your body begins to trust your presence. Healing begins when fear shows up and love shows up too.

2. “I never feel hungry. I feel full really fast. I take a few bites and feel like I’ve had enough. Everyone talks about extreme hunger — why don’t I feel it?”

Thank you for asking this out loud, because so many people think it quietly and feel confused or worried.

Hunger doesn’t always show up as a growling stomach or a strong physical drive to eat, especially after an eating disorder. Hunger cues can feel blunted for very understandable reasons.

Anxiety is a big one. Stress and fear change digestion. Your body diverts energy away from the gut when it senses threat, even emotional threat, even background stress you’ve learned to live with. That can leave you feeling full quickly, or feeling disconnected from appetite.

Disconnection from your body also plays a role. Eating disorders train you to override signals again and again. Your body learns that cues aren’t safe to feel, so it turns the volume down. That’s protective biology.

Fullness can also carry emotion. You’re digesting food, and you’re digesting fear, beliefs, shame, guilt, memories — all the things that can come up when nourishment returns. That can make a couple of bites feel like “too much” even when your body still needs more.

Extreme hunger shows up differently for different people:

• Some feel it loudly early on.

• Some feel it later, once the body senses consistency.

• Some feel it as mental hunger: constant food thoughts, images, cravings, preoccupation, or a sense of something missing.

Every version counts. Every version is communication.

You get to feed yourself generously without waiting for hunger to shout. Your body deserves consistent nourishment even when appetite feels quiet.

So here’s what matters most:

• Regular eating, even when hunger cues feel muted.

• Gentle self-talk, especially when anxiety rises.

• Curiosity about quieter signals: food thoughts, tiredness, mood swings, agitation, restlessness, a longing for calm.

Your body learns safety through consistency. Trust grows through repetition.

3. “How do I figure out whether my traits are the eating disorder or just me? I’ve had eating disorder patterns or weight issues for most of my life. I don’t know where I end and the ED begins. Age and perimenopause make it feel even harder.”

I felt genuinely excited reading this question, because it shows a part of you waking up. Curiosity is a sign of healing. Awareness is a sign of healing.

When an eating disorder has been present for a long time, it can shape everything: how you think, how you feel, how you relate, how you interpret yourself, how you speak to yourself, how you manage your day. It can feel woven into your identity.

In my own recovery, I felt stunned by how far it had reached. It had coloured my internal dialogue. It had shaped my sense of “good enough.” It had influenced how I moved through the world.

Here’s the key thing: the eating disorder didn’t create you.

It grew out of parts of you that were trying to feel safe, loved, acceptable, worthy. Perfectionism, sensitivity to criticism, fear of being too much or not enough, constant worry, self-imposed pressure — these are adaptations. They’re coping strategies. They often begin long before food behaviours become obvious.

People aren’t born fearing mess, mistakes, disapproval, or imperfection. Those fears are learned. They usually come from repeated experiences that taught you love and belonging had conditions.

So when you ask, “Is this just me?”, I want to offer a kinder and more useful question:

“Is this serving me?”

You might be naturally detail-oriented. You might like order. You might like structure. Those qualities can exist without running your life through fear.

The issue isn’t the trait. The issue is the driver.

• Fear-driven traits create pressure, anxiety, and self-surveillance.

• Values-driven traits can bring steadiness, creativity, and peace.

Perimenopause can intensify anxiety and emotional sensitivity. Hormones matter. Your nervous system matters. Your load matters. That means your system needs more compassion, more rest, more softness — not tighter rules.

So when those traits flare, try meeting them like this:

“Ah. A scared part of me is here.”
“This is the part that learned I must be perfect to feel safe.”
“I see you. I’m here with you.”

That is self-parenting. That is healing.

Identity isn’t something you figure out in one big moment. Identity is something you discover gently through unlearning and choosing differently. You get to try, mess up, learn, and grow. Your identity gets to be fluid, shaped by love rather than fear.

You are allowed to hold structure and softness. You are allowed to want to do things well without letting it define your worth.

A question to sit with:

• Who taught me that I had to earn my place?

• What would it look like to lay some of that down?

Recovery changes more than food. Recovery rewrites the whole story.

4. “Do you have strategies for going all in with both food and exercise at the same time? I keep challenging food, then compensating with exercise — or I rest, then restriction increases. I feel stuck in a loop. It’s been 23 years. I want progress, and my nervous system feels like it can only handle so much.”

This question is so relatable — and it’s so important.

That back-and-forth loop is exhausting. When one behaviour loosens, the other tightens. Food improves and exercise ramps up. Exercise reduces and restriction sneaks back in, often disguised as “safe choices.”

Your experience makes sense. Your nervous system is trying to protect you.

Food and exercise can operate as a paired coping system. When one coping tool is challenged, your system reaches for the other. That pattern doesn’t mean failure. It means your body hasn’t learned safety without those tools yet.

So I want to reframe “all in” here.

All in is a mindset. All in is commitment — again and again — even when your system feels stretched. All in means choosing recovery as fully as you can today, within your capacity, while still moving forward.

All in doesn’t have to mean doing everything perfectly from day one. All in can mean:

• Consistent nourishment as your anchor

• Rest as a deliberate recovery action

• Compassionate self-talk while discomfort rises

• Repairing the relationship with yourself as you eat

• Tracking wins so your brain learns safety

• Asking for support when the loop tightens

Safety creates sustainable progress. Your nervous system doesn’t speed up because you push harder. Your nervous system softens when it feels held.

So instead of asking, “How do I stop both at once?” try:

“How do I create enough safety that I don’t need to keep switching between them?”

A practical approach that helps many people:

1. Make food the primary anchor.
   Consistent nourishment reduces overall threat in the system.

2. Pair nourishment with kindness.
   Food plus shame still feels dangerous to the brain. Food plus compassion builds trust.

3. Reduce compensatory behaviours with clarity.
   Each compensatory choice teaches your body, “Threat still exists.” Each pause teaches, “Safety is here.”

4. Work with capacity.
   Your nervous system has limits. Wisdom includes respecting them while still choosing forward motion.

And I want to speak to pace, because you mentioned it so clearly. Wanting faster progress makes complete sense after 23 years. Relief arrives sooner when you stop fighting yourself and start staying with yourself. The inner war drains you. Compassion changes the whole experience.

Ask yourself:

• What would help me feel safer with the very next step?

• How can I stay with myself through discomfort instead of trying to outrun it?

Progress is happening every time you choose differently and stay present.

Closing

Thank you for these questions. Thank you for the honesty underneath them. Thank you for showing up even when it feels messy and hard.

Support exists inside the Circle for exactly this kind of work — the real, lived, day-by-day process of recovery. Keep using the space. Keep letting yourself be supported. Keep choosing yourself again and again.