It was 2023, and I had been recovered for over a decade; I had just obtained the Carolyn Costin Institute (CCI) certification. I felt very proud as it took a lot of energy and effort from me to earn that certification, and I also felt more equipped to support people recover from eating disorders. I was supposed to be eager to use my certificate and keep working as a coach… but for some reason, I felt a strong drive to go back to creating educational presentations like I used to do as a consultant back in 2015. I felt confused: I studied to become an ED Recovery coach, but I had this desire to go back to putting cohesive presentations again.

Being a mom and having recovered from an eating disorder makes me extremely passionate about the dos and don’ts around preventing eating disorders in kids. I can’t say I know it all and I won’t say I know best (don’t like that attitude in parenting), but I can say that I know certain things that happened in my childhood and teenage years that greatly impacted my self-worth, my body image and my relationship with food, which contributed to developing an eating disorder. I knew I had relevant information that could help prevent eating disorders, but I also knew my personal experience wasn’t going to be enough to convince people to act differently around children. I started organizing information that I had learned at the CCI certification program, which was supported by research studies, and after months of work… the first webinar about ED prevention was created (in Spanish!) 

Obsessing over creating a webinar lead me to realize that my research approach to life (googling everything all the time, reading research studies often, and reading multiple newspapers to get to the bottom of things) had been one of my ASSETS in my ED recovery journey. Wanting to know the truth and wanting to understand why it was so hard to recover helped me get out of the eating disorder because it helped me challenge and question all the beliefs that kept me inside the eating disorder, as well as the beliefs that made me doubt my capacity to recover e.g., Can I recover? What will happen if I gain weight? Is it true that fat is bad? Why do I keep binging? Why do I need to be liked by others? Etc.

If you are someone who wants to recover from an eating disorder I have tons of research information that will help you challenge your eating disorder beliefs, BUT you will also need to get your research hat on to get to know yourself and get to know the beliefs behind the eating disorder, your fears, your needs, your desires, etc. I always tell my clients: curiosity and compassion, those are your two tools to help yourself change behaviors.

You can recover from an ED because you are alive, and nothing stops you from learning new skills and challenging your behaviors. We are all researchers if we want to be, and you need to become one to get yourself out of your ED. You are stronger than you think. You can change. You can recover from an eating disorder!