Are Eating Disorders Physiological or Psychological?

Are Eating Disorders Physiological or Psychological? Are Eating Disorders Physiological or Psychological? The Answer Changes Everything This is a solo

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Victoria Kleinsman

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Are Eating Disorders Physiological or Psychological?

Are Eating Disorders Physiological or Psychological? The Answer Changes Everything

This is a solo episode that shifts how you understand your eating disorder entirely.

I’m diving deep into Tabitha Farrar’s work on the migration response and exploring the question that everyone asks: is it biological or is it psychological? The honest answer is it’s both. And understanding why changes how you recover.

This episode is for you if:
• You’ve wondered if your eating disorder is “real” because you don’t have anorexia
• You thought restriction should be easier and it wasn’t (or it was, and then suddenly it wasn’t)
• You’ve struggled with the binge eating that came after restriction
• You’re stuck in restriction but your body won’t cooperate anymore
• You’ve done all the therapy and still can’t stop the behaviours
• You want to know why willpower doesn’t work and what actually does
• You’re trying to understand if you just need to eat more or if you need psychological work too

What I Cover in This Episode:

✨ The migration response — why some people’s bodies make restriction feel easy
✨ The hibernation response — a different genetic physiological response to restriction
✨ Why your metabolism might speed up or slow down when you restrict (it’s genetic)
✨ How the same person can find restriction easy, then nearly impossible (my personal story)
✨ Why some people achieve extreme weight loss easily and others don’t, even with severe restriction
✨ The vicious feedback loop between biology and psychology in eating disorders
✨ What eating disorders are really about beneath the desire to be thin
✨ Why you restrict: acceptance, safety, validation, control, identity (it’s always deeper)
✨ Why therapy alone won’t fix an eating disorder (and why food restriction alone won’t either)
✨ Weight restoration isn’t recovery — it’s just the beginning
✨ How your nervous system learns to treat weight gain as danger
✨ Why you can’t think your way out of what your body is experiencing
✨ The neuro pathways that need to be rewired
✨ Meeting the actual psychological needs your eating disorder was serving
✨ Why somatic work (body work) is absolutely essential for recovery
✨ The whole-picture approach: biology + psychology + nervous system + history

Powerful quotes from the episode

💬 “Restriction wasn’t hard, it felt right. It was nothing to do with willpower. It was genetics.”

💬 “You can have all the insights in the world about why you developed your eating disorder and still be stuck in the behaviours.”

💬 “Your nervous system has learned that weight gain equates to danger. Your brain has built neuro pathways that treat food as a threat.”

💬 “Eating disorders are both physiological and psychological. They’re never one or the other.”

💬 “You deserve recovery that honours the full truth of your experience, not the simplified version that fits into a diagnosis box.”

If you’re confused about why eating more isn’t enough, why willpower fails, why you can’t just think your way out — this episode will make sense of all of it. Recovery works when you address the whole picture.

Links and resources

💙 Join my FREE support group

💙 Free trial group coaching

💙 Work with me 1:1

💙 Follow me on Instagram @victoriakleinsmanofficial

💙 Become a coach

Transcript

Victoria Kleinsman (00:01.506)
Hello, my loves, welcome to another episode. goodness me, I swear to God, I have been having to use my tools the last few weeks. And what I mean by that is we’re having our entire downstairs renovated, walls knocked down, there’s no kitchen, there’s no floor, the lot. And we decided to still live here, but that’s proving to be a bad idea. Kind of living upstairs, going out all the time.

Obviously those of you that know, I have a one year old who still naps in the day. So I come back home so she can nap. She does sleep through the noise, fuck knows how, but I have to be with her more. And the reason I’m sharing this is I am a recovering slash recovered perfectionist and I used to have OCD around cleanliness and order. my God, there is none. There is dust.

everywhere, like no word of a lie, I washed my hair this morning, May as well not have bothered, I can just feel dust on me, I’ve sneezed about a thousand times today and there’s like black dust coming out of my nose, TMI, there’s just dust everywhere. So, and the other day, not yesterday, the day before we started to like move all the kitchen cupboards upstairs because they ripped the kitchen out yesterday, and I just stood there, my daughter Koa,

is also teething so she’s got a bit of a fever and she’s all over the place so I was up and down the stairs with her because she was in bed supposed to be asleep and I just stood there and I looked around the kitchen well it’s not even the kitchen anymore and I was like said to my husband I’m overwhelmed I don’t know what to do I’m in freeze mode right now which actually was really nice that I just was able to just state it out loud other than keeping it in and trying to manage I was just like

I’m overwhelmed. I haven’t got a fucking clue what I’m meant to do. I don’t think I can do what I’m meant to do and I’m just in freeze. And then he gave me a hug and we just, I faffed around a bit and just spent the night with Koa. And then the other tools I’ve had to use is like, when I feel in that buildup of like frustration, anger and like, oh my God, everything’s everywhere. Like there’s dust everywhere. There’s like all the things, which is true, but the way my brain was delivering and offering it to me was not helpful. I’ve had to be like, just stop.

Victoria Kleinsman (02:22.03)
It’s okay and breathe and then I had to go down the row of, which really helps. Okay, the worst case scenario, there’s dust everywhere and then what? Well, there’s dust in the bed. And then what? Well, I don’t want a dusty bed and why? Because it doesn’t feel nice. Okay, so the worst thing is it doesn’t feel nice. Yeah, right? Or, you know, there’s no order to things and everything’s a shit show. Why does that matter? Because I like everything in order with everything has a place. And if it doesn’t have a place, if everything’s not in order, then what?

then I’ll feel stressy. So the worst thing is that you’ll feel stressy. Yeah, do you have to feel stressy or can you look at it from a different perspective? Like we are having construction done so everything’s gonna be everywhere, dust is everywhere. It is what it is. So I’m using my tools and it’s a lot better to live in that peaceful fuck it place around the cleanliness and like everything being everywhere with my daughter and the dog and.

trying to eat and there’s no kitchen anymore and all the things. So yeah, I just thought I’d go on a bit of a tangent for three minutes, clearly, and just share that with you. So I’m in the work too. Someone thought I was in recovery the other day on my email list. I was like, no, I’ve fully recovered from the eating disorder for years now. And what she might have been referring to is when I share personal things like this, like I’m not perfect and I’m still per-

re-parenting my inner child sometimes around other stuff, but not around eating and food and self-worth and all of that. So just wanted to make that very clear. I am fully recovered from the eating disorder and I just share my personal stuff with you because I’m real and I’m imperfect and yeah, I want to be authentic and share that. So before we get into the episode, I’m going to answer a question and I’m going to bring her question up. This question is from…

She’s happy for me to say her name. I was just checking before I said it. I think you pronounce it crone. It’s K-R-O-H-N. No, that’s the last name. my goodness. Can you tell it’s been a long day? This is from a lovely Kristen. Sorry, Kristen. Honest to God. Okay, so she’s saying, how to come out of night eating. I gained weight and I’m eating more during the day. All kinds of food, but after…

Victoria Kleinsman (04:47.69)
eating dinner I eat the whole night. Okay, so just to clarify, she wants to stop night eating, she’s gained weight, she’s eating more during the day, all different kinds of food, but after eating dinner she eats the whole night, okay? The context is she’s had over 20 years of restricted eating disorder, being underweight, she gained 10 kilos, she doesn’t weigh herself a lot. I advise my love Christina, Kristen, my God, now I’m making your name up, Kristen.

Do not weigh yourself ever, you do not need to. There’s no need to ever know how much you weigh, apart from a doctor, if they’re submitting medication or anesthesia, and you don’t have to know what the doctors know either. So you never have to know your weight ever again. So stop weighing yourself. She says she also does everyday biking. Vartis phone’s ringing, I hope you can’t hear that, hope this like mutes it out, but who knows. She does biking and.

twice walking. maybe it sounds like there’s a little bit of compulsive exercise and movement in there. What has she tried to address this already? She’s tried to eat more during the day with more structure, but structure is often like eating disorder. Okay, so let me conquer this question. Conquer this question? Where did that word come from? Let me dive in. So first of all, like I said, from your question, Kristin, I do feel like there’s a little bit of…

Now my phone’s ringing. I do feel like there’s a little bit of ED energy still going on. And the reason I say that is because you’re biking every day and you’re twice walking every day. And I’m not saying biking and walking every day is an ED behaviour, but I just, I coach very much with my intuition and I can feel that there’s something there. Let me ask you this, if you didn’t bike or couldn’t bike and walk twice a day, would you be fine with it?

Would you be like, that’s a shame, I enjoy biking and walking twice a day, but nevermind. Or would you be like having a bit of an anxiety moment if you couldn’t bike and couldn’t walk twice a day? That’s gonna show you if it’s eating disorder, anxiety stuff, or whether it’s just something that you prefer to do when it’s from a place of love and general health and care. So that’s the first thing I’ll say. With the night eating, I’m gonna ask a question that might seem a bit ridiculous, but what’s the problem with night eating?

Victoria Kleinsman (07:12.76)
So I assume you mean in the night, not in the middle of the night, but either way my answer’s gonna be the same because a lot of people think like midnight in the middle of the night eating is a problem. It’s a problem in the sense like it stops your sleep, it disrupts your sleep, it must be annoying, all those things, but actually the only way to overcome night eating or midnight eating, whatever it is.

is to allow all foods and I know this sounds irresponsible and ridiculous but knowing what you’ve said about your background, Krista and this is the right way for you and also the right way for 99.9 % of other people is always allowing everything even if you’ve got that 0.001 % that I spoke about in a couple of podcasts ago about having a genetic disorder where you’ll never ever fall which you don’t because you’ve come from a restrictive past.

It’s still allowance, but it’s more emotional stuff. that’s, anyway, that’s a different route. So let me bring it back to the answer for this question, Victoria, just to remind you to myself. You need to allow all foods, which it sounds like you’re doing, but there’s also a restrictive mindset behind this because you’re making night eating a problem. You say after eating dinner, you eat the whole night. Why is that a problem? First and foremost, you said having structuring.

structure in the day feels like a bit of an eating disorder trait and yeah I get that. My answer, my question to you, Kristin, is are you eating completely unrestrictedly following your mental hunger and your physical hunger from the moment you wake up to the moment, well 24 hours a day 24-7, are you doing that? Because there’s an energy behind the, the, um,

the energy of the question that you’re not actually allowing yourself fully. So there’s nothing wrong with night eating. Allow whatever your body wants. Are you eating what you’re eating in the night, also throughout the day? Let’s say you’re not eating chocolate, ice cream, popcorn. Are you eating those things in the day as well? Are you mentally restricting? Are you saying that you shouldn’t be eating this and it’s bad and wrong to eat this?

Victoria Kleinsman (09:22.082)
The structure in the day can be helpful, but the most important thing is you’re eating unrestrictedly. And I kind of need you on a coaching call to ask you those questions to dig deeper, but to round the answer to this up, you also mentioned that you’ve gained weight. That’s a good thing because you obviously needed to gain weight if you were under your natural set point. Is the root fear here, fear of gaining more weight? If so, what’s…

what would be so bad and wrong if your body needed to gain more weight by allowing all the foods. So it’s something perhaps to dive into around that. So what I would say is allow everything, unconditional permission to eat completely unrestrictedly following your mental and physical hunger 24 seven, not just at night. I’m not saying you’re doing that, but maybe part of you is.

Ask yourself the question, what if you didn’t bike and walk twice a day, would that bring up anxiety? If so, start to explore purposely not doing those things and then so you can change your relationship with exercise. There’s a lot here. If you can join my hot seat coaching and I can get you on a hot seat, that’d be brilliant. We can dive in a bit deeper, but let me know if you have any follow-up questions from this. I’m just looking again at your question to see if there’s anything else I want to add. Eat unrestrictedly.

mental and physical hunger, follow it unrestrictedly, 24-7, allow night eating and also explore why if you are fully allowing everything 24-7, which I don’t think you are, but if you are and the night eating is happening, just allow it. Know that it’s part of the process of healing, part of the process of your body wanting to gain more stability, more safety in the fact that there’s gonna be enough food.

and just get curious and gentle with yourself and start checking in with your body like have you had enough? Do you want more? Not having any more is not positive and having more is not negative. Just get curious. There’s something behind this that I need to coach you on. So anyway, I’m going to stop rambling on to try and answer the question I don’t know everything about. And thank you for being here since the beginning of my podcast that you’ve put on the form and let me know if that’s helped and let me know if you have any follow up questions.

Victoria Kleinsman (11:41.11)
Alright my love, so let me see myself again. I’m now going to go into the episode. I am so excited to record this. I know I say that a lot, but honestly I think this is going to be one of my best podcasts to date. You already know the title. Are eating disorders physiological or psychological? Because people have different opinions on this. The Amazing Tabitha Farrar thinks that only

physiological, so biological, genetic, I’m gonna go into all of that today. So grab a cup of hot chocolate, cup of coffee, cup of tea, or nothing at all, like whatever it is you’re doing. A lot of my listeners I’m sure are just walking on a dog walk, maybe at the gym, ideally from a non-ED compulsive exercise place. And you’re listening to this, whatever you’re doing, get ready because it’s gonna be a juicy one. So.

Let’s start with the migration versus hibernation response. And I’ve got my notes in front of me if you see me looking at something else other than you. So I want to start by talking about this migration response. It’s completely transformed how I understood eating disorders when I first started my coaching and all these things. From Tabitha Farrar’s work on the migration response, I reached out to her actually directly about this episode as I was getting the notes together to create it.

because I needed to understand, can someone develop an eating disorder without the genetic disposition for this migration response? I, at my core intuitive level, thought, yes, they absolutely can, because I know people who have never had anorexia, but who have had and have an eating disorder. So to get clarity on the migration response first and foremost, here’s what the migration response is.

When someone with this genetic predisposition enters an energy deficit, their body doesn’t just slow down like you’d expect that most people’s bodies and metabolism slow down when they restrict food. When people have the migration response genetic, the metabolism revs up. So suddenly restriction feels easy, movement becomes completely compulsive.

Victoria Kleinsman (13:57.858)
And there’s this irrational, unexplainable drive to keep restricting that goes way beyond willpower or body image concerns. So a lot of people I’ve had who have never had anorexia have kind of said in passing comments that they kind of wish they’d had anorexia. You fucking do not wish you’d had anorexia. Or they wish that they were able to restrict like XYZ who’s had anorexia. No, you don’t. It’s nothing to do with willpower.

It’s actually to do with your ancient genetics kicking in, preparing you to migrate to better feeding grounds. Right, so back in the day when we were living on the land and there was no food left or maybe it was getting to winter and there was like lack of food, someone with or people with these genetics, that migration response switches on when you’ve gone below your set point weight, when you’re underweight for you.

The body’s like, right, we need to move a shitload and eat as little as possible to get to a place with abundant food to continue our survival, right? When I was deep in anorexia, I had this. Restriction wasn’t hard, it felt right, it was easy. My body was screaming at me to move, to restrict, to keep going, and it was nothing to do with willpower. Initially it was to like lose weight enough that I was under my set point. I didn’t know any of this consciously.

but then it just like a switch flicked, which actually happens genetically. It was just easy. But here’s what happened when the migration response finally switched off through weight gain, when I gained weight in recovery. And this is crucial. This is critical to share. I found it extremely difficult to restrict. Like suddenly the thing that I felt so natural, so easy became almost impossible to me. The binging started, the bulimia kicked in.

And eventually I literally felt like I’d lost the ability to restrict completely. So think about it, the same person, I’m talking about myself from personal experience, the same brain, but once my body got out of that energy deficit state and the migration response turned off, the whole game changed for me. That’s when I had to deal with a brain that was still wired for an eating disorder and a nervous system that was

Victoria Kleinsman (16:17.646)
terrified of weight gain, but without my biology cooperating with the restriction anymore. I know so many of you can relate to this. This is one of the clearest examples I can give to you of how eating disorders are both, they are physiological and they are psychological. When my genetics were driving the migration response, restriction was easy. And when they weren’t, my psychology was still fully eating disordered, but my body wasn’t playing along anymore.

Hell, welcome to hell. Although, to be fair, it was hell in anorexia for numerous reasons, but at least I didn’t feel like I was fighting with my biology. Whereas when I was trying to restrict and I’d lost the ability to do so, and then the bulimia and the binge eating kind of morphed from the anorexia, that was like, oh my God, honestly living hell. I was fighting with myself every damn day. But here’s where it gets even more interesting. I’ve worked with plenty of clients who never had that experience.

They never found restriction easy is what I’m saying. They struggled from day one and many of them developed bulimia or binge eating disorder usually after periods of restriction, but they never hit that anorexic state where their bodies seem to be cooperating with the starvation. So I asked Tabitha, like I said to you, can someone, in your opinion, can someone develop an eating disorder without having the genetics for anorexia? And her answer was brilliant. She said yes, which…

I was thinking the answer was yes for myself anyway, but she thinks it’s still a different metabolic response. instead of the migration response, these people have what she calls a hibernation response. So when they restrict, their metabolism does slow down. They don’t achieve the same extreme weight loss, even with significant restriction. Some of her clients, she said, have even restricted more than she ever did.

during her anorexia and never dropped below a normal BMI. Their bodies went into conservation mode. But, and this is crucial, it’s still a genetic physiological response to energy deficit, just a different one. Now I’m not saying that those who haven’t got the genetics for anorexia for the migration response cannot and haven’t lost a lot of weight. They can and they have.

Victoria Kleinsman (18:43.918)
But what I’m saying is it’s so much harder because it’s not that switch that gets your biology on board, if that makes sense. And I can think of one client off the top of my head that I know for a fact she was eating considerably less than me when I was in full active anorexia. And her BMI didn’t go below, her BMI wasn’t even in the healthy range. So this is proof from my experience working with this client in particular.

So the deeper truth is it’s always both. Now here’s where my work comes in because yes, there are these genetic physiological responses happening. Your body does respond to restriction in ways that are hardwired into your biology, but that’s not the whole story. Nobody just wakes up one day and decides to starve themselves for no reason, right? The restriction always starts somewhere.

And here’s something important, a lot of my clients do start restricting because they want to lose weight. I’m not going to pretend that that’s not real, it’s very real in the diet, beauty obsessed society that we currently live in. But here’s the thing we need to understand, nobody wants to lose weight in a vacuum. When you dig deeper, and I mean really dig, and this is part of my coaching, it’s never just about the number on the scale or the size of your jeans.

It’s about what you think losing weight will get you. What you believe thinness will give you that you don’t have now. Some people restrict for acceptance. They believe that if they’re thin enough, they’ll finally be accepted, included and loved. Some restrict for safety. Thinness feels like protection. Like taking up less space makes them less of a target. That’s a thing as well. Some restrict for validation. External proof that they have worth.

that they’re disciplined, that they matter. And some restrict for power in a life where they feel completely powerless. Some restrict because thinness has become their identity and they don’t know who they are without it. So yes, the desire to be thin is real, but it’s always serving a deeper purpose. It’s always about what thinness represents, what thinness promises, what psychological need it’s trying to meet, always. I mean, I say always.

Victoria Kleinsman (21:05.88)
Tabitha Farrar very openly shares that she had nothing psychological going on when she started to restrict, to lose weight. She simply wanted to be light enough to ride a specific racehorse that she was in training with. And I’ve actually rode racehorses before, you do have to be under a certain weight, especially when they’re so young and they’re in training. So that’s the only person actually I’ve ever met and known.

that started their weight loss that had nothing to do with like deeper psychological reasons, the things I’ve just mentioned. So going back again, some people restrict that because they, if they believe they’re thin enough, they’ll finally be accepted, included and loved. Some restrict for safety, thinness feels like a protection, like taking up less space makes them less of a target. Maybe they’ve been abused or bullied. Some restrict for validation, external proof that they have worth, that they’re disciplined, they’re good enough.

that they matter and some restrict for power like I said it in a life where they feel powerless and some restrict because thinness has become their identity and they don’t know who they are without it and like I said again I kind of repeating myself but Tabitha Farrar didn’t restrict for any of those things but that is very very rare in my opinion and I guess someone can accidentally lose weight through medication or stress or whatever it may be so I’m not saying everyone apart from Tabitha Farrar

has to have psychological reasons for starting to lose weight or starting to restrict in the first place. But my work is all about the why and the behaviors as well as the deeper reasons. That’s why I’m talking about both here. So the desire to be thin is real, like I said, in the society we live in, but it’s always serving a deeper purpose. It’s always about what thinness represents, what it promises. I think I’m repeating myself again. But the point is, apart from a very small percentage,

restriction starts with a psychological purpose. So whether it’s I want to be thin so I can finally be loved, or I need to control and restriction gives me that, there’s a reason. I need that the eating disorder is trying to meet. So here’s the thing, the truth that the, is it psychological or is it physiological? The question misses entirely that the eating disorder is always both, it’s never, it’s not.

Victoria Kleinsman (23:23.102)
never but in my opinion it’s always both and it’s not as simple as black or white it’s not as nuanced as that so you start restricting let’s say for the majority of people for psychological reasons whether that’s wanting the acceptance you think thinness will bring or needing control or trying to cope with trauma or desperately attempting to manage something in your life but once you’re in energy deficit your body then responds if you have the migration response

And if you have certain genetic predispositions, aka the migration response to anorexia, your body responds in ways that makes the eating disorder feel, not just necessary to survive psychologically and emotionally, but it feels right. The migration response kicks in, all the hibernation response, which makes it harder to restrict, but now you’ve got your biology reinforcing the psychology and the psychology reinforcing the biology.

in this vicious feedback loop. So why does this matter? Why does all of this that I’ve shared so far matter for recovery? This isn’t just theoretical. Said that wrong. This isn’t just theory. This changes everything about how we approach recovery. If eating disorders were purely psychological, then therapy alone would heal them. Just work through your trauma, learn better coping skills, develop self-compassion, challenge your beliefs about thinness, and voila.

eating disorder gone, although that is a lot of deep necessary work. But that’s not how it works. You can have all the insights in the world about why you develop your eating disorder and still be stuck in the behaviours of restriction. If eating disorders were purely physiological, then just eating more and just weight restoring would fix them. That’s what happened to me in anorexia recovery. say weight restoring quotes.

I gained weight, it wasn’t to my natural health is at point weight, I ate more, I wasn’t in the restriction as much as anorexia before, but I still very much had an eating disorder in my head. So they say only focusing on physical and biology, yeah, weight restoration, get out of energy deficit and the eating disorder disappears. But that’s also not how it works. I’ve seen plenty of people.

Victoria Kleinsman (25:45.024)
achieve weight restoration and still be absolutely terrified of food, still using exercise compulsively, still trapped in eating disorder thinking and living. The truth is you need all of it. You need to address the physiological piece. You need to eat enough. need to ensure weight. need to restore weight if you’re underweight. You need to stop the restrict binge cycle if that’s your pattern.

You need to give your body what it actually needs so it can stop screaming at you through metabolic responses and compulsions because binging is never the problem. The restriction always is. And you need to rewire the brain and the nervous system that has become terrified of weight gain. This is huge. Your nervous system has learned that weight gain equates to danger. Your brain has built noro pathways that treat food as a threat.

and restriction as safety. This wiring doesn’t just disappear when you start eating more. It has to be actively, consciously rewired through repeated exercises of safety at higher weights, through nervous system regulation, through building new neuro pathways that say, am safe in this body. Food is safe. It is safe to gain weight. And that’s fucking hard. And you can do it. And…

You also need to address the psychological piece. You need to figure out what purpose the eating disorder has been serving and meet those needs differently. If you’ve been restricting because you believe thinness will bring you acceptance, you need to build actual belonging and self-acceptance within yourself and your relationships. If you’ve been restricting for control, you need to develop real agency in your life and your boundaries.

If you’ve been restricted to numb feelings, you need to actually learn how to allow your body to regulate and complete its emotional cycle and be with those big emotions that you’re so afraid to feel because you’ve never been taught how to. So when someone asks me, eating disorders physiological or psychological? I want to ask them back, what are you really asking?

Victoria Kleinsman (28:04.478)
Are you asking if you’re just weak-willed or if there’s something biologically happening? Because there is something biologically happening and you’re not weak. Are you asking if you just need to eat more or if you just need therapy? Or are you asking that you need therapy before you can eat more? You need both, plus the nervous system work to rewire the fear of weight gain. Are you asking if your eating disorder is real or serious?

because you don’t fit the anorexia picture, because it is real and it is serious, regardless of which metabolic response your body has. Are you asking if it’s valid to have developed an eating disorder, even though you just wanted to lose weight? Because the fact that weight loss was the vehicle to the eating disorder doesn’t make the underlying needs any less real or any less deserving of attention and care. Here’s what I want you to understand. Your eating disorder developed for

Reasons like I said, we don’t just wake up one day and think I’m just gonna restrict and starve myself and beat myself up and all these things The reasons live in psychology your history your nervous system your attempts to cope with an overwhelming world Your childhood your search for acceptance or safety or validation or control But your eating disorder also hijacks your biology

It changed how your body responds to food, to restriction, to weight. It created neuro pathways that turned behaviors into compulsions. It trained your nervous system to fear weight gain as if it were a mortal threat. All of these things are true, all of them, and all of them need to be addressed. So the path forward for this is recovery means addressing the whole picture. It means feeding your body enough

to get out of energy deficit and to let those genetic responses calm down. And rewiring your brain and nervous system from the absolute terror of weight gain that the eating disorder has created. And building real solutions for the purposes your eating disorder was serving. Restoring your metabolism and your body’s trust in food availability. And there’s a lot of ands here.

Victoria Kleinsman (30:28.174)
Creating new neuro pathways that experience safety in your body at whatever weight your body wants and needs to be and doing the psychological work to understand what you really need and how to get it without the harmful coping mechanism of the eating disorder. It’s addressing the biological responses that have kept you trapped and regulating the nervous system that learn to treat weight as dangerous.

and meeting the deep human needs that drove you to restriction in the first place. This is why I’m so passionate about making eating disorders obsolete rather than trying to overcome them through willpower. The eating disorder exists at the intersection of your biology and of your psychology, your genetics and your environment, your body’s responses and your brain’s wiring.

your nervous system’s fear responses and your deep human needs and all the ways you try to meet them. You can’t just think your way out because your body is involved. You can’t just eat your way out because your psychology and nervous system wiring are involved. You need the whole approach. And like I said, just but in a different way to say it, you cannot think yourself out of a trauma response.

You can’t mindset your way out of a trauma response. You have to come back to the body. So in closing here, eating disorders, the question, are they physiological? Are they psychological? I’ll tell you what they are. They’re human. They’re complex. They’re both and neither and every fucking thing in between. They’re biological and they’re psychological and neurological and metabolic and emotional and social and deeply, deeply personal.

And recovery works when you stop trying to fit yourself into simple categories and start addressing all of what’s actually happening in your body, in your brain, in your history, in your nervous system. In your nervous system, especially from childhood, it’s all starting from babyhood and childhood. And a lot of it is pre-verbal before you even knew how to speak. That’s why we need to come to the body. In therapy, we can talk it out.

Victoria Kleinsman (32:51.512)
but we need to do somatic work if your trauma and the reasons for coping with an eating disorder was created pre-verbal before you even understood language. It’s stored in the body. So, as I was saying, where was I on my notes? Yeah, it’s in your history, it’s your nervous system that’s screaming at you that weight gain is dangerous. It’s in your metabolism, it’s in your relationships, it’s in your life. It’s in the needs you’ve been trying to meet through changing your body.

That’s where real recovery is, is in all these things. You deserve recovery that honours the full truth of your experience, not the simplified version that fits into a diagnosis box, but the messy, complicated, beautifully human truth of who you are and what you’ve been through and what you’ve been seeking and what your body and brain have been trying to protect you from. That’s the work and you’re absolutely fucking worth it and more.

Okay, so that’s my take on our eating disorders, physiological or biological. And again, if you have any questions or you want me to follow up or go deeper into any the aspects I’ve spoken about, I’ll be happy to do so. And if you have a question for the podcast, there’s a podcast form you can fill in on my Instagram highlight stories at the bottom of every email I send. Sending you all so much love, I’m gonna go back to my construction height.

site house now because I’m in the office which is in the garden and I love you loads and if you haven’t already rated my podcast please do so I’d be super grateful it helps it be expanded to reach more people and that’s what I’m all about. All right my queens I will see you next time and much love!

 

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