What I did differently about food this time

Started 10 April 2025 · 22 replies · 235 hearts · read 3.9k times

NikolaiSofia, BG · 10 April 2025

1.3 years ago

What I did differently about food this time Writing it down partly to work out what I actually think.

Long one, sorry. I have been chewing on this for a fortnight.

What I am trying to work out is whether this is a phase with an end to it or the shape of things now, and I do not think I can tell that from inside it.

What I would find most useful is not advice. It is somebody describing what their version of this stage was, and how long it went on for before it changed.

My experience of this stage has not matched any account I have read, which I assume means the accounts are tidier than the reality rather than that something is wrong.

Anyway. Thank you for reading this far. Any experience of this stage gratefully received, and I will come back and say what happened.

MableBolton, UK

What worked was making the restart small and boring. One conversation, one step, one week at a time, no plan beyond the next fortnight.

BobbieRochdale, UK

The gap between deciding to restart and actually doing it was four months for me, almost entirely because I was embarrassed to ask. Please do not lose four months to that.

BenediktFacilitatorVienna, Austria

A note for whoever opened this, whether you are still reading or come back to it in a year: there is no obligation on you to update us, and equally you are always welcome to.

OttilieCheshire, UK

My honest experience is that the restart was better than the original in every respect except that I had lost some ground I would rather have kept.

InêsPorto, PT

Recognition rather than advice, if that is any use at all.

AurelBucharest, RO

Nobody in this circle has ever asked me why I stopped in a tone that required an answer. That is the whole reason I was able to come back and say I had.

NerysRhyl, UK

I found the first fortnight of the restart emotionally heavier than the first fortnight of the original start, which I had not anticipated at all.

7me too 2

ZoraSarajevo, BA

Reading Nerys, I recognised more of that than I expected to.

My second time round I set up a buddy from week one instead of week thirty, and it is the single change that made the most difference.

NikolaiSofia, BG

Building on what Zora wrote rather than answering the original question.

I have restarted twice. The second break was shorter and the second restart was easier, and I think that is because I had stopped treating either one as a verdict.

MableBolton, UK

#10

What surprised me was how quickly the routine came back. Muscle memory for where things go, when I do it, what the week looks like. Three days and I was back in it.

BobbieRochdale, UK

#11

I came back to the same circle I had left and three people remembered me. That mattered more than I would ever have predicted.

Gwen DAberystwyth, UK

#12

A break does not undo what you learned. That was the thing I most needed to hear and the thing I least believed at the time.

OttilieCheshire, UK

#13

Bobbie — yes, and the bit that took me longest to accept was the next part.

I restarted at a lower step than I stopped at, on purpose, and stayed there for six months. Slowly was the correct speed for a second attempt in my case.

InêsPorto, PT

#14

The conversation I dreaded took under five minutes and contained no judgement of any kind. I had spent a month rehearsing for it.

7me too 1

AurelBucharest, RO

#15

Practical: I had a proper conversation about starting dose before restarting rather than assuming, and it turned out the assumption I would have made was wrong.

NerysRhyl, UK

#16

I have nothing to add and I did not want to leave it unanswered.

ZoraSarajevo, BA

#17

The most useful thing anybody said to me was to treat the restart as a new start rather than a resumption, because my body had had a year of its own in between.

13me too 6

NikolaiSofia, BG

#18

I want to name that my break happened because life got very hard for a while, and going back happened because it got less hard. That is the entire mechanism.

MableBolton, UK

#19

Nikolai, thank you for that. It gives me somewhere to start from.

Coming back a year into my restart to say it held, it was ordinary, and the break in the middle is now just a gap in my notes rather than a fault line.

BobbieRochdale, UK

#20

I restarted after fourteen months and the hardest part was entirely in my head. The practical side took one appointment and a fortnight.

10me too 4

BenediktFacilitatorVienna, Austria

#21

Facilitator note: this circle is deliberately quiet about numbers and a couple of replies have started to drift that way. Nothing wrong intended and I am steering us back.

OttilieCheshire, UK

#22

Restarting is an ordinary shape. I did not believe that when I was doing it and I believe it completely now, having watched about thirty people here do the same.