An Update from a Long Way Down the Road
— Natalie Lawrence
When I jumped into HDRM many years ago, I was driven by an overwhelming sense that if I didn’t do something, I would lose parts of my life in ways I would forever regret. I was terrified, of course, but I was almost at a point where it no longer felt like a choice: I couldn’t live a rigid half-life any longer.
This conviction didn’t stop me from scouring the forums here, for accounts of those on the ‘other side’. I was desperate for assurance that I would emerge from it in a way I would be happy with, both physically and mentally.
So, nearly 15 years on, I want to give you a picture of what my ‘out the other side’ looks like and how it transpired. As difficult as HDRM was, it was also a vital catalyst that helped me avoid a kind of twilight recovery. I hope it will reassure you: it was a slow and challenging journey - but it was to a place I am now very glad to be.
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I spent several years after I departed from ‘recovery proper’ ensuring that I ate above a minimum amount, exercising quite a lot and feeling ambivalent about where my body as it re-settled itself. Over the following years, I went through quite manic periods where I might lose weight, while other times I might chill out. I went through a big breakup and then a divorce, the grief stripping weight from me. With a new partner, I began to embrace foods I had previously eschewed: pizza, pasta, ice cream – none of which had the effects I had so dreaded in the past. These were all the kinds of ups and downs that make up a normal life, nothing extreme: just ordinary kinds of fluctuations.
Over time, I gradually lost focus on the stream of numbers that had been second nature to me for so long. I started to forget to count calories, I stopped weighing myself or measuring my bodily dimensions. This wasn’t some Utopia where I was permanently svelte and never thought about my body and diet again. But overall, I got to a place where I was happy with how I was and genuinely couldn’t be bothered to think about it most of the time. I still absolutely loved exercising intensely, but the appeal became the activity itself, not what it might achieve.
I now feel incapable of restricting again. Even if I were to try, I wouldn’t stick to it. Food has little emotional weight, because it’s so rare that I don’t give my body what it wants. I trust its wants are reasonable. I’ve been almost shocked at how I can let go of all conscious control – even eating in a way that feels quite recreational – and nothing ‘bad’ ever happens. This hasn’t entailed any hard-won acceptance of bodily changes on my part, I mean it quite literally. Being in touch with these signals and having that trust in my body again has been an incredible blessing and is not something I ever want to lose again.
My past of restriction feels now like a terrible waste - of time, energy, and happiness. I regret all the missed pizza eating opportunities, the dampened social experiences, the years of weightlifting that could have been more effectively anabolic with enough food. It taught me a lot, but perhaps not about things that I much care about knowing. In contrast, the emotional resilience, the creativity and the acuity of experience that have grown in the space it left have been more valuable than it’s possible to imagine.
I’m now 38 weeks pregnant with my first child - a (rather chunky) baby boy. Given that I was amenorrhoeic for 5 years in my early 20’s, getting pregnant so easily was a great relief. All the work that I have done on my mind and body has gained its greatest value: I will be a far better mother. And it has given me the ability to surrender to pregnancy in a relaxed way (fully justified and prolific complaints aside).
Ironically, after all that, I have had to deal with gestational diabetes and the inevitable dietary control. Growing a whole human while being told you can’t eat bread or mango feels almost laughably cruel. But, at the same time, it’s also just a temporary inconvenience for the benefit of my baby’s health.
As Gwyneth has explained here, eating disorders are never really cured, they only go into remission. I’m inclined to agree, but I also can’t deny that I now feel cured, in quite a robust way. It was a gradual process, neither linear nor perfect. But that is what made it robust: the fault lines, the winding journey through other parts of my development, the organic shifts and changes.
I hope anyone reading this, wondering whether they should embark on their own process, will find it comforting. My takeaway is: recovery might feel terrifying and impossibly difficult, but it is truly a small price to pay to live an unfettered life as the fullest version of yourself.
Editor Note: Natalie gave birth to a healthy beautiful boy on Monday May 11, 2026.
We wish her and her new family member continued health and wellbeing.
