I believe you are the expert on your experience. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to recovery. Coaching is a partnership, and you hold valuable expertise on yourself. I believe we must seek to understand each person’s unique experience with an eating disorder—asking questions and listening rather than making assumptions.

I believe in harm reduction which includes minimizing the negative consequences of eating disorders, reducing suffering, and increasing someone’s quality of life no matter where they are in an eating disorder or recovery.

I believe an eating disorder has served a purpose that makes sense in someone’s life. I validate the ways an eating disorder makes sense and has been a survival strategy—an attempt at a solution by a part of us to cope with pain, emotional learnings, oppression/internalized oppression, and trauma. Healing asks us to honor our eating disorder’s attempts to meet our needs and help us survive while also acknowledging the harm it has caused in our life. I believe we must compassionately hold space for both of these truths without judgement.

I believe we must factor in the social and systemic inequities that contribute to eating disorders and add barriers to recovery. Each person faces a unique combination of factors contributing to their eating disorder and challenges in their life influenced by the systems we exist within. I believe we must speak about the interconnection between identity, oppression, social justice, and eating disorders.

I believe full recovery from an eating disorder is a possibility while also acknowledging and respecting that we are complex humans living in a complex world. Not everyone is in a place where recovery is their priority and not everyone wants to recover. The idea that we are obligated to recover creates a sense of morality which perpetuates feelings of shame and disempowerment. I believe someone is always worthy of care, support, and building a life that feels safer for them regardless if that is with an eating disorder or trying to recover from one. I believe full recovery is a possibility—and in many ways it is a privilege because in order to recover we need to feel safe enough to do so.

I believe in state not weight. I believe in set weight point theory: only our body can decide what it needs to weigh in order to fully heal from an ED—what weight range it is happy and healthy at. Like height, our weight is largely predetermined; there are consequences to trying force our body to a lower weight then is right for it. For those with the genetic predisposition for an eating disorder, the consequence is far greater because being in an energy deficit is a major contributing factor to developing and sustaining an eating disorder.

I believe your internal experience is more important than any external measurement of well-being. Even if everything appears fine on the outside, what truly matters is your internal experience—how you are experiencing food, exercise, your body, and being with yourself. Your struggles are valid even if they are not visible. Restriction can be insidious and normalized in our disordered society. Sadly this happens too often in healing from an eating disorder as well. If we wanted seconds but we didn’t have it because our meal plan didn’t require it—that is still restriction. If we are approved by our team to exercise, but are doing it from a place of fear and would feel anxious if we didn’t—that isn’t serving our healing. To be fully free asks us to let go of all eating disorder rules, compulsions, and conditions around eating, movement, and weight—even the ones others cannot see. And we need supports who prompt us to explore our internal experience rather than simply define our well-being and needs by external markers.