While I’m based in Asia, I offer virtual eating disorder recovery coaching to clients in the UK, Ireland, and worldwide. I pride myself on transparency and trust—so you’ll always know what to expect and how our sessions work, no matter where you are. Rest assured, my location doesn’t limit the quality or depth of support you’ll receive—my commitment to your recovery remains the same, wherever you’re reaching out from.
If you are in recovery from an eating disorder, you may find that eating more food is challenging, but often it is the emotional aftermath that feels most overwhelming. Many people experience intense shame, agitation, or guilt after a meal, and these feelings can be incredibly difficult to sit with. Whether you are struggling with disordered eating or an eating disorder, it is very common for the moments after eating to bring both physical discomfort and a flood of distressing thoughts, feelings, and urges. This can feel like the hardest part of recovery. It is important to recognise that this distress is a normal part of the process, and there are gentle, compassionate ways to support yourself through, including eating disorder recovery coaching in England.
Why Eating Feels Unsafe and Triggers Feelings of Shame and Guilt
1. Your Brain, Habits, and Recovery
The first thing to recognise is that this guilt, shame, and distress after eating is how your eating disorder has kept you in your restrictive habits and eating patterns.
At its core, an eating disorder is made up of deeply ingrained habits and patterns that your brain has learned over time. Restriction, sameness, and familiar routines can come to feel like the only way to feel safe. When you start to do something different, such as eating a new food or having a full meal, it is completely understandable that your brain might sound the alarm and tell you that this is unsafe.
It can feel as though you are doing something wrong, but in reality, this is your brain’s way of trying to protect you from change. The reassuring news is that, with time and repeated practice, your brain is able to adapt. Each time you choose to eat in a way that supports your recovery, you are helping to build new, more supportive pathways, and those intense feelings of guilt and lack of safety will gradually begin to ease.
Remember, guilt or anxiety after eating something new is your brain signalling change, not danger. With repeated practice, your brain’s alarm will settle, new patterns will become familiar, and the distress will ease.
Reframing: The Restriction Was Excessive, Not the Food
One helpful step in recovery is to gently reframe the way you think about eating. If you notice feelings of guilt or the sense that you have eaten ‘too much,’ it can help to remind yourself that it is not the food now that is excessive, but rather the restriction and behaviours before that were too much. Your body’s needs are real and valid, and you deserve to honour them. Nourishing yourself is not the problem; it is an essential part of your healing. When guilt arises after eating, try to remind yourself with compassion that meeting your body’s needs is not only okay, but a basic human right and a vital part of recovery.
2. Valid Physical Reasons for Post-Meal Distress
While we often focus on the emotional side of post-meal distress, it is just as important to recognise that physical symptoms are also very common in recovery. Many people who have experienced an eating disorder will notice some level of digestive discomfort—such as bloating, nausea, feeling full quickly, constipation, or diarrhea—when they begin to reintroduce more food or foods that have not been eaten in a long time. These symptoms are not caused by the food you are eating now, but are a result of the eating disorder behaviours and restriction that happened before. Restriction, bingeing, and purging can all have a significant impact on the digestive system: the digestive tract can lose muscle, digestive enzymes, and stomach acid can be reduced, the system slows down, and the gut microbiome is disrupted.
As you start to eat more, your gut needs time to adjust, and it is normal for GI symptoms to increase or appear for the first time. This might show up as delayed digestion, abdominal discomfort, or unreliable fullness cues. It is completely normal to notice things like bloating, early fullness, constipation, diarrhea, or reflux as your gut and brain relearn how to work together. These physical responses can be uncomfortable and may even trigger guilt or the urge to restrict, but it is important to remember that these symptoms are a normal and temporary part of the healing process. With time, as your body receives the energy it needs to repair, these symptoms will subside.
*Remind yourself: Feeling bloated, full, or physically uncomfortable after eating in recovery is common and temporary. These sensations do not mean you’ve done something wrong. They are your body’s healing.*
3. The Eating Disorder Voice
A major reason for post-meal distress is the eating disorder voice, which often becomes much louder after eating. This voice may insist that eating was a mistake or that you have done something wrong. It might tell you that you are a failure or lack willpower, especially if you have broken a food rule, and can bring a flood of other negative thoughts. This can trigger feelings of guilt, anger, fear, shame, or a sense of losing control. It is important to remember that this voice is not telling the truth; it is simply feeling threatened by change. Your thoughts are just thoughts, not facts.
**Emotional Overwhelm:** There is a saying in recovery: “When food goes down, emotions come up.” Eating disorders often serve as maladaptive coping tools to numb feelings, so as you nourish yourself, emotions that were suppressed may flood in all at once.
- Body image can also feel more challenging during recovery, especially as you begin to eat regular meals and snacks. Sometimes, negative emotions get projected onto your body. This can be even more difficult if you have a history of trauma. It’s understandable if it feels hard to feel safe in your body after eating.
- Shame and perfectionism can also play a big role. Shame may show up after eating and make you feel bad about yourself, while perfectionism often relies on strict rules. When things don’t go exactly as planned, guilt can follow. Recovery is about learning flexibility and self-kindness, not about being perfect.
How to Eat to Overcome Guilt
During eating disorder recovery, it is very common to feel disconnected from hunger and fullness cues after years of overriding them. By committing to regular eating times, you are teaching yourself to eat even when you do not feel hungry, or when anxiety and guilt are present. This repeated practice helps to retrain your brain, gradually reducing the emotional intensity around eating and helping food to feel safer over time.
One of the most effective ways to reduce guilt and shame after eating in recovery is through gentle exposure: consistently facing the foods, eating habits, and situations that bring up these feelings. Structured, regular eating—such as eating by the clock with three meals and two to three snacks each day—can feel repetitive, overwhelming, or uncomfortable at first. However, this approach is one of the most supportive ways to directly challenge the eating disorder’s rules and fears.
Regular Eating
Regular eating also helps to prevent the physical and emotional risks that come with becoming overly hungry, such as feeling out of control or experiencing stronger urges to restrict or binge. By taking away the ongoing debate about whether or not to eat, you create a stable routine where eating becomes a consistent act of self-care, rather than something to negotiate with yourself about.
Most importantly, every time you eat regularly—especially when you include foods that trigger guilt or shame—you are giving your brain the chance to build new, more supportive pathways. This process is a form of exposure, and over time, the more you face feared foods and situations, the more neutral they become. Including balanced meals with all three macronutrients, dairy or alternatives, and a mix of both nourishing and enjoyable foods is one of the best ways to challenge the eating disorder’s rules. It may take time to approach your biggest fear foods, but working towards including all foods and situations is how you learn to eat without judgment. With repetition, all foods can become neutral, and the guilt and shame that once felt overwhelming will gradually fade.
How to Cope With Guilt
Before Eating
After eating is when guilt and shame kick in. But before eating is when anxiety tends to run high, and this is often the time when someone will try to talk themselves down from eating a food that they know will cause a lot of eating disorder noise. It can be helpful to
1. Permission Slips
The idea behind a permission slip is that often, what we believe comes from things we repeatedly tell ourselves. If you say that X food is bad, fattening, or off-limits, you begin to believe it, and your nervous system and brain become alert. On the other hand, if you tell yourself you are worthy of food and that all foods fit—even if you don’t believe it at first—the more you repeat it, the more likely you are to accept it. Your permission slip can say anything, but should start, “I’m allowed to…” For example, “I’m allowed to eat without guilt or shame.” Keep your permission slip somewhere easy to access and read it often, especially before eating.
2. Mantras:
In a similar vein, it can be useful to have some mantras that resonate and that you can repeat to yourself before a meal. For example, “there are no good or bad foods, just food.” Or “food is not the enemy, I am worth nourishing.”
3. Visualisation:
Visualisation is a powerful tool to use before eating. When you use your imagination to create a vivid, realistic mental scene, you’re actually firing up the same neural pathways in your brain as you would if you were doing it for real. So spending some time visualising in as much detail as possible yourself calmly eating and enjoying your fear food or meal is real training for your brain and body, so that when you come to actually eat the food, it feels familiar and less anxiety-provoking to your brain.
After Eating
It is completely normal to have difficult moments after eating during recovery. But there are gentle strategies you can use to help make these times feel a little more manageable. Here are some approaches that I have found helpful, both in my own recovery and in supporting others.
Getting space from your ED thoughts and voice
The ED voice is always so loud after food, and there will be a cascade. You can choose to get caught up in those thoughts, or you can choose to try to get some space from them. Defusion skills from ACT are really helpful for creating some distance from unpleasant thoughts. One thing I find helpful is naming your story. I’m having the thought that, or singing the thought out loud.
Grounding exercises
I particularly like Dropping Anchor from ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy): it’s an exercise that allows you to not try to get rid of the emotions but simply ground yourself until they pass.ass/. Another way to do this is the 5,4,3,2,1 exercise – naming 5 things you can see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, 1 thing you can taste.
Anxiety spiralling
Try extended exhale breaths. Other strategies which may sound strange but are research-backed and which have been helpful for both my clients and me are:
Find an outlet to express your feelings
This could be talking to someone you feel safe and trust (a supportive eating disorder recovery coach is often a good initial person to do this with). Alternatively, journaling can also be a great way to release emotions.
Every Meal Is a Step Forward
By taking things one meal at a time and using these tools, you are supporting your brain and body in creating new, more helpful patterns. With time, eating—and the moments afterwards—will feel less overwhelming, and you will be able to move forward with your day feeling more at ease. If you would like support on your recovery journey, please remember that you do not have to do this alone; eating disorder recovery coaching help at Healthy Self Recovery is always available.
Find Support for Food Guilt and Emotional Healing Through Eating Disorder Recovery Coaching in England
If you’re struggling with guilt after eating, working with eating disorder recovery coaching in England can help you understand these feelings without judgment and build a healthier relationship with food. At Healthy Self Recovery, support is centered on compassion, emotional awareness, and practical tools to help you move forward at your own pace. You don’t have to navigate food guilt alone—support is available to help you feel more at peace with eating and your body. Follow these three simple steps to get started:
- Reach out to book a free discovery call.
- Begin receiving support with a compassionate eating disorder recovery coach.
- Start finding support for food guilt and begin healing!
Additional Services Offered at Healthy Self Recovery
At Healthy Self Recovery, I provide anorexia recovery support and eating disorder recovery coaching for individuals who feel disconnected from their identity or are unsure how to trust themselves in recovery. Our work focuses on reducing the influence of the eating disorder voice, strengthening self-awareness, and developing practical tools to respond to challenges as they arise.
Support is compassionate, collaborative, and paced to meet you where you are, with space for emotional processing and gentle accountability. I offer online eating disorder recovery coaching to clients across England, the UK, and internationally, making support accessible wherever you’re based.
About The Author
Marianna Miles, CCIEDC 2061, is a Registered Nutritionist (Dip ION) and certified eating disorder recovery coach who combines professional expertise with personal insight. She works with clients throughout the UK and internationally, offering steady, empathetic support tailored to each stage of recovery. Her approach emphasises rebuilding trust with the body, establishing sustainable nourishment, and cultivating a grounded, compassionate relationship with food and overall wellbeing.
