Exercise addiction is especially challenging because it hides behind public praise. Society celebrates discipline and fitness, making it hard to notice when exercise turns isolating or compulsive. If social withdrawal or anxiety about missing workouts sound familiar, you’re not alone—exercise can quietly become your world. Eating disorder recovery coaching in England can provide guidance, support, and accountability, helping you recognize these patterns and take the crucial first step toward true healing and connection.
Understanding Exercise Addiction in Eating Disorders
Exercise is constantly lauded for its positive impacts—boosting mood and energy, building resilience, and enhancing overall health. Undoubtedly, movement can be a key component of wellbeing, but just like almost everything in life, context and nuance are key. For exercise to be truly beneficial, the body needs to be healthy, nourished, and given time to rest. For many people with eating disorders, this balance is lost, and movement morphs into a harmful compulsion that sabotages both physical and emotional health.
Research shows that up to 39–48% of individuals with eating disorders struggle with compulsive exercise (Dittmer et al., 2018). It often starts innocently—a love of sports or a desire to get fitter. But it can quickly spiral into a compulsive cycle. People may move to compensate for food, manage anxiety, or seek control. The compulsion comes with an overwhelming urge to move. This might show up as structured workouts, pacing, or constant fidgeting. Intense anxiety or guilt often follows if movement isn’t possible.
The resistance to changing exercise habits is real and complex. Many people fear weight gain, losing fitness, or losing their identity as the “sporty one.” Others worry about being judged as lazy or undisciplined, or losing their only source of self-esteem. Often, exercise fills a space that nothing else does—a way to manage anxiety, distress, or simply fill time.
Do You Need Help With Compulsive Exercise?
If you’re concerned that you, or someone you care about, may be struggling with compulsive exercise, here are some signs to look for:
- Rigid exercise schedules that allow for no flexibility
- Exercising despite injury, illness, exhaustion, or bad weather
- Feeling guilt, distress, anxiety, or irritability when unable to exercise
- Prioritizing exercise over work, school, relationships, or self-care
- Exercising as a way to compensate for food or to earn permission to eat
- Restlessness or discomfort during periods of rest
- Exercising in secret or hiding the extent of activity
- Overtraining, feeling never good enough or fast enough
- Constant low-grade movement: pacing, fidgeting, standing instead of sitting
The Physical and Emotional Toll of Compulsive Exercise
Exercise addiction takes a major physical and emotional toll. It can cause bone density loss, hormonal changes, pain, stalled progress, injuries, and frequent illness—signs often ignored. Emotionally, rigid routines push out relationships and joy, leading to skipped family time and isolation, which breeds anxiety and depression.
How Does Eating Disorder Recovery Coaching Help Build a Healthy Relationship With Movement?
Addressing exercise addiction in eating disorder recovery is uniquely challenging because our culture prizes exercise as inherently good. But true health isn’t just about movement—it’s about balance, trust, and self-kindness. As a recovery coach, my aim is to provide a safe, judgment-free space to talk openly about compulsive exercise—often for the first time. For many, healing starts with taking a break from movement. This isn’t easy, and resistance is part of the process. But pressing pause is often the gateway to redefining your relationship with your body and movement.
Understanding the Impact of Compulsive Exercise
Eating disorder recovery coaching helps you see how compulsive exercise affects more than your body. It can impact your relationships and emotional well-being, too. We challenge the beliefs that tie exercise to self-worth or food. Together, we identify your core values and use them to guide change. Goal setting is collaborative and realistic: it might mean shortening a run by a few minutes or delaying exercise by an hour. These steps, however small, build confidence and help you reclaim agency from the eating disorder.
As you progress, we’ll explore other ways to fill your time and nurture your identity beyond fitness. Coping with anxiety or distress in new ways is key, as is learning to trust your body—believing that it can cope with food and rest without spiraling out of control. Mindful movement practices, such as gentle yoga or meditation, support this reconnection. Eventually, movement can return to your life not as punishment or penance, but as something that brings genuine joy, regardless of appearance or food choices.
Building a Compassionate Relationship With Your Body
My role as an eating disorder recovery coach is to support you in looking at your relationship with exercise, food, and your body. I help you rediscover body trust and the value of balance and rest in real health. Recovery is more than giving up compulsive behaviors. It is about building a compassionate, resilient, and flexible relationship with movement.
If you recognize yourself in these words or feel ready to take the first step toward a healthier, more balanced relationship with movement, I invite you to reach out to me at Healthy Self Recovery. Whether you’re seeking guidance for yourself or someone you care about, support is available. Let’s start a conversation and work together toward healing and freedom.
Find Balance and Reclaim Your Life with Eating Disorder Recovery Coaching in England
If compulsive exercise is taking over your life, eating disorder recovery coaching in England can help you regain control and confidence. At Healthy Self Recovery, we guide you in rebuilding a compassionate and balanced relationship with your body. Take the first step today toward freedom, connection, and real health. Follow these three simple steps to get started:
- Reach out to book a free discovery call.
- Begin working with compassionate British eating disorder recovery coach, Marianna.
- Start finding balance and reclaiming your life from compulsive exercise!
Additional Services Offered at Healthy Self Recovery
At Healthy Self Recovery, I offer eating disorder recovery coaching online in England, Scotland, Ireland, and globally, helping clients address compulsive exercise and rebuild a balanced relationship with their bodies. Together, we take steady, meaningful steps toward lasting healing, restoring trust in your body, nurturing balance around food and movement, and strengthening your sense of self.
Sessions focus on understanding the thoughts, feelings, and patterns that keep disordered eating and exercise compulsions in place. You’ll also gain practical strategies to manage urges, respond to hunger cues, and practice self-compassion. Between sessions, I provide text-based support and guided eating when extra guidance or structure is needed.
Alongside general eating disorder support, I offer specialised coaching for anorexia nervosa, providing compassionate guidance to rebuild both physical health and emotional well-being. Wherever you are in your recovery journey, I offer flexible, personalised coaching to help you find peace with food, movement, and your body.
About the Author
Marianna Miles, CCIEDC, Certified Eating Disorder Recovery Coach | Registered Nutritionist (Dip ION), is a Certified Eating Disorder Recovery Coach in England and a Registered Nutritionist. She helps clients rebuild a balanced relationship with food, movement, and body image. Trained through the Carolyn Costin Institute, Marianna blends professional knowledge with personal insight to offer compassionate, evidence-based support. Working with clients across the UK and internationally, she provides personalised coaching designed to foster lasting recovery, resilience, and self-compassion, including support for those navigating compulsive exercise and related challenges.
