Eating disorders aren't always what they seem

You won’t know this about me unless you’ve read my book.

For years, I ate in secret. As a young entrepreneur, running a business, appearing confident to the outside world, I carried a hidden battle no one saw.

My favourite ritual was timing a burger-and-chips delivery so that it arrived just as I pulled into the driveway after work. I’d eat quickly, hide the packaging where it couldn’t be found, and then carry on with my evening as though nothing had happened.

Why hide it? Because I felt guilty. My boyfriend at the time believed food was about portion size and willpower. When unknowingly implied I was greedy, I believed it. So I lived into that word, even though deep down I was trying to soothe a pain that had nothing to do with hunger.

The truth is that those meals weren’t about food at all. They were comfort.

I tried every “solution” along the way: soup diets, fruit diets, cabbage diets. Each one promised a miracle cure and each one left me convinced I was failing because I wasn’t disciplined enough.

The message I heard over and over again?

Eat less. Exercise more. Be more disciplined.

But no one ever asked how I was feeling. No one wondered why food had become my only safe place.

So, I restricted, I fought, I started again, and I always ended up in the same place... back in that cycle of craving, guilt, and shame.

Here’s what I know now: Even when I felt like I was falling apart, my body was keeping me alive the only way it knew how, by running cycles of dopamine, cortisol, and blood sugar spikes.

It wasn’t just emotional. It was chemical. Biological. Ancestral.

Over time, as I created small patterns of safety, my body slowly stopped leaning on sugar as its only anchor. It began recognizing safety elsewhere, in my environment, my routines, and in signals I didn’t even notice at first.

Does that mean I never crave sugar now? No. But it does mean I’ve learned to spot the pattern before it locks in, and that’s everything.

The hardest work I ever did wasn’t another diet or challenge. It was finding the strength to face myself, to stop fixing and start listening.

You don’t have to “just love yourself.” You don’t have to earn your way back to worthiness. But you do have to take responsibility... gently, one choice at a time.

Sometimes that looks like standing at the bottom of the mountain and thinking, this is impossible. That’s okay. Just put on the boots. Don’t even tie the laces. You can do that tomorrow.

Your body isn’t asking for punishment. It’s asking for safety. And safety begins with small changes, repeated often enough to remind you: you are okay here.