Groundhog Day Recovery: Why You Keep Ending Up Back Where You Started

How many times have you told yourself that tomorrow will be different?

Tomorrow you’ll eat properly.
Tomorrow you’ll stop compensating.
Tomorrow you’ll stop negotiating with the eating disorder.
Tomorrow you’ll finally do recovery “right.”

And yet somehow… you end up back in the same place.

The same thoughts.
The same rules.
The same exhaustion.

If that feels familiar, this episode of Fly to Freedom is for you.

In this solo episode, I’m talking about one of the most frustrating patterns I see in eating disorder recovery — making progress, only to quietly undo it later.

I call this Groundhog Day recovery.

It’s that exhausting experience of trying so hard to recover while repeatedly finding yourself back in familiar behaviours — restricting, compensating, over-exercising, body checking, tightening rules, or promising yourself that tomorrow will be the day everything changes.

In this episode, I explain why this happens and why it has far less to do with willpower than you may think.

I’ll help you understand how your nervous system becomes attached to familiar patterns, even painful ones, because familiarity feels safe. I also explore why eating disorder behaviours are rarely just about food. More often, they serve a deeper purpose — creating safety, control, certainty, protection, or identity.

Most importantly, I introduce one of the most powerful concepts in recovery:

This is the moment after you do something brave — perhaps eating more, resting, challenging a rule, or allowing discomfort — when anxiety rises and the urge to “fix” everything becomes intense.

That is the moment where the loop either continues… or begins to break.

Recovery doesn’t require perfection.

It asks for something much simpler — and much harder.

To stay with discomfort for just a little longer than you normally would.

That is where change begins.

• Why eating disorder recovery can feel like living the same day on repeat
• How the brain and nervous system become attached to familiar suffering
• Why compensatory behaviours can feel temporarily relieving
• The hidden purpose behind repetitive recovery patterns
• Why the eating disorder loop often protects you from deeper fears
• How to identify your personal reset moment
• Why courage is only needed for the next step, not the entire journey
• How small interruptions create lasting change

If you keep asking yourself:

• Why do I keep ending up back here?
• Why do I keep undoing my progress?
• Why can’t I stay committed to recovery?

I want you to know something important.

You are seeing a pattern.

And patterns can change.

Inside The Eating Disorder Recovery Circle, I teach a deeper workshop called Groundhog Day, where we map out your personal recovery loop, uncover what is driving it, and begin interrupting the cycle with real support.

Inside The Eating Disorder Recovery Circle, you’ll find:

• 24/7 community support
• The Feelings Navigator
• Recovery courses including the Fear of Weight Gain Course
• Monthly live Q&As and coaching support
• Practical tools to help prevent relapse and move beyond quasi-recovery

Join The Eating Disorder Recovery Circle here:
The Eating Disorder Recovery Circle

Explore the Feelings Navigator here:
Feelings Navigator

If this episode resonated, please follow the podcast and leave a review.

One different choice in one difficult moment can begin changing everything.

Recovery can feel deeply uncomfortable, unfamiliar, and at times utterly terrifying. But what if that discomfort is not proof that you are doing recovery wrong… but evidence that your brain and nervous system are learning something new?

In this Q&A episode of Fly to Freedom, I answer real questions from members inside The Eating Disorder Recovery Circle about some of the hardest and most honest parts of eating disorder recovery.

Together, we explore what happens when recovery feels wrong, why fear of weight gain goes far beyond appearance, how trauma can shape restriction and people-pleasing patterns, and what it really takes to keep choosing recovery when everything inside you wants to run back to what feels familiar.

In this episode of Fly to Freedom, I talk about:

✨ How to keep choosing recovery when the unfamiliar feels terrifying
✨ Fear of weight gain, body changes, and the sensory experience of living in a changing body
✨ Autism, sensory processing, clothing struggles, and feeling physically uncomfortable in recovery
✨ Trauma, emotional abuse, people-pleasing, and why boundaries can feel so difficult
✨ Binge eating, extreme hunger, refeeding, and understanding the difference between biology and pathology
✨ Compensating behaviours, exercise, food rules, and how recovery rewires the brain
✨ Why community and nervous system safety matter so deeply in eating disorder recovery

One of the questions explores something I do not think we talk about enough in anorexia recovery and eating disorder recovery: the felt experience of weight gain. Not mirrors. Not scales. The physical sensation of inhabiting a body that feels different — clothes touching differently, movement feeling unfamiliar, heightened body awareness, and the intense sensory experience that can come with body changes, especially for autistic people.

I also answer a powerful question about childhood trauma, emotional responsibility, caregiving, and restriction — and why recovery sometimes involves grieving the love, safety, or acceptance that was never fully received.

We also explore one of the most misunderstood parts of eating disorder recovery: binge eating, extreme hunger, and what happens when a previously undernourished body finally begins asking for what it genuinely needs. I unpack the difference between biological refeeding responses and binge eating disorder, and why context matters so much when understanding hunger in recovery.

And I share parts of my own recovery journey too, including how I challenged compensating behaviours, stopped compulsive exercise, responded to intense hunger, and allowed my body to repair after years of deprivation.

If you are struggling with fear of weight gain, compensating, uncertainty, body discomfort, trauma, binge eating fears, or simply trying to stay committed when recovery feels terrifying, I hope this episode helps you feel seen, understood, and less alone.

I am Julia Trehane, specialist anorexia recovery coach, and after fully recovering from decades of anorexia, orthorexia, and exercise addiction, I now help others navigate the emotions beneath an eating disorder to create lasting freedom. If you would like to find out more about me and my work, please visit https://www.juliatrehane.com/

If you would like more support, deeper conversations like these, live coaching, workshops, courses, and a compassionate community of people who truly understand what recovery is like, you are very welcome inside The Eating Disorder Recovery Circle.

Join The Eating Disorder Recovery Circle here:
https://www.edrecoverycircle.com/join

If you would like more instant support, for free, I recommend my new app - The Eating Disorder Recovery Companion. Click for more info on that.

In this episode of Fly to Freedom, I’m joined by Charlie for a really honest and important conversation about healing our relationship with exercise, stepping away from diet culture, and learning how to reconnect with ourselves in midlife and eating disorder recovery.

Charlie is a body positive fitness coach and menopause specialist, and from the moment I met her at my gym, I knew there was something very different about her approach to movement and wellbeing.

One sentence she said to me completely stopped me in my tracks:

“You don’t need to push yourself to your limits anymore. You are allowed to take the easier option.”

It sounds simple, but honestly, I nearly cried hearing it.

After years of compulsive exercise and believing movement had to involve punishment, exhaustion, or “earning” food, it completely changed how I viewed exercise and what a healthy relationship with movement could actually look like.

Together, Charlie and I talk about:

• Reclaiming exercise after an eating disorder
• Compulsive movement and exercise addiction
• Why movement should feel empowering, not punishing
• Healing body image and self-worth
• The pressure women face to constantly perform
• Diet culture and “good girl” conditioning
• Midlife identity shifts and rediscovering yourself
• Perimenopause, hormones and emotional wellbeing
• Why self-care and nourishment matter so much
• Learning to listen to your body instead of fighting it
• Boundaries around comments about weight and appearance
• Finding joy, playfulness and freedom again

We also talk openly about the reality of midlife as women — the exhaustion, the pressure to hold everything together, and the liberating moment where you realise you are allowed to stop performing and finally become yourself.

This conversation felt deeply personal to me because so much of my eating disorder recovery involved rebuilding my relationship with movement and learning that exercise does not have to come from self-hatred.

It can come from joy.
It can come from empowerment.
It can come from care.

And honestly, that changes everything.

About Charlie

Charlie is a Menopause Coaching Specialist with 12 years in the fitness and wellbeing industry. Qualified in Personal Training, Life Coaching and NLP, she brings a wealth of knowledge on midlife women and a strong understanding of not just the physical but also the emotional and mental challenges of peri/menopause.

You can find Charlie and learn more here:

Menopause Better App

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The ED Recovery Companion App

I’m also incredibly excited to share the ED Recovery Companion app with you.

We created this app to support you in the moments recovery feels hardest — not just when you’re listening to a podcast or in a therapy session, but in real life, while you’re actually living recovery.

Inside the app you’ll find:

• Meal support
• Journaling tools
• Recovery guidance
• Coping support
• An AI version of me you can talk to throughout your day using the same approach I use in my coaching

It’s designed to help you feel supported, understood and gently guided back towards recovery when things feel difficult.

The app is completely free to download and I would absolutely love to welcome you inside.

Download the app here:

ED Recovery Companion App

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If this episode resonated with you, I’d love to welcome you inside The Eating Disorder Recovery Circle, where you’ll find support, understanding, recovery tools, courses, workshops and a community of people who truly understand what eating disorder recovery is like.

You can learn more here:

The Eating Disorder Recovery Circle

You are never alone in this.