It’s Not What Happens, It’s What Happens Next: What to Do After an Eating Disorder Slip

If you have just engaged in an eating disorder behaviour and you are sitting in that awful, heavy aftermath, I want you to take a deep breath. This post is for you.

Maybe it was a binge or a purge. Maybe you slid back into restriction. Maybe you pushed through a compulsive exercise session you promised yourself you would skip. Whatever it looked like, the moment afterward can feel unbearable. While part of you may experience that deep sense of relief and control you’ve been longing for, I would imagine there’s also a part of you that feels guilty for letting the eating disorder gain back a foothold, especially if you’ve been working so hard to put space between you and your eating disorder. It might feel like the eating disorder is right there, ready to tell you that you have ruined everything, that you are back to square one, that you were never really recovering at all.

I want to gently offer you a different story. Something that I find myself working through with clients so often. Because what happens next matters so much more than what just happened. Let’s walk through it together.

What’s the difference between a slip, a slide, and a relapse?

As a dietitian working in eating disorders, I believe language is powerful. And this is a place where the words we choose can either fuel the eating disorder or loosen its grip.

Eating disorders are characterized by very strong all-or-nothing thinking. The tricky part is how easily that same all-or-nothing mentality gets applied to recovery itself. One hard moment becomes “I’ve completely relapsed.” One difficult day becomes “I’ve failed.”

For a lot of people, the word relapse feels far too strong for something that happened in one moment, one day, or even one week. So when we zoom the lens out and look at the recovery-focused behaviours you are engaging in day to day, many people find it more accurate, and more compassionate, to use the language of a slip or a slide.

That distinction matters because it helps normalize the truth that eating disorder treatment is full of ups and downs. There will be days that go “better” according to your treatment plan, and days that feel so much harder. That is not you doing recovery wrong. That IS recovery! And your ability to respond to the hard days with kindness is one of the biggest differentiators for how you move forward.

Recovery isn’t about never struggling again. It’s about learning what to do when you do.

What should I do first after slipping into an eating disorder behaviour?

Here is a phrase I come back to again and again with my clients: it’s not what happens, it’s what happens next.

You have already engaged in the behaviour. That part has happened, and you cannot undo it. But you still have a choice about what comes next, and that choice is entirely yours.

You can fall into the all-or-nothing thinking of the eating disorder and keep going. Or you can pause, realign with your values and your reasons for pursuing recovery, and take the next right step. Not the perfect step. Just the next kind, recovery-focused one.

Everything below is about making that next step a little easier to reach for.

What actually helps in the hours after a slip?

1. Respond to yourself with compassion.

I know this can feel almost impossible in the moment, especially when the shame is loud. If speaking kindly to yourself feels out of reach, try this: imagine a dear friend or someone you love deeply was sitting where you are, having just had this exact hard moment. What would you say to them? Offer those same words to yourself. I love Kristin Neff’s guided self-compassion practices as a support for building this muscle.

2. Reach out for support.

Connect with your dietitian, your therapist, or the people in your life who you trust and who support your recovery. Eating disorders thrive in isolation. When we bring these behaviours into the light, we so often find ourselves greeted with support rather than the shame we were bracing for. You do not have to carry this by yourself.

3. Return to mechanical eating as soon as you can.

From a nutrition perspective, this is one of the most powerful things you can do. Go back to your recovery basics. These are the building blocks that keep you moving forward in your renourishment journey. Mechanical eating simply means eating by structure and plan, at set times, rather than waiting on hunger and fullness cues that the eating disorder has scrambled.

• If there was a binge or a purge, we want to get back to mechanically eating your next planned meal or snack, at the volume and variety you have worked out with your dietitian, rather than compensating by restricting further.
• If you have been restricting, mechanical eating helps you steadily build your nourishment back up to what your body actually needs.
• If you have been over-exercising, the challenge might be taking one or more rest days while continuing to eat mechanically throughout.

The through-line is the same: gently return to the plan, rather than trying to “make up for” what happened.

4. Get curious about it.

Often, with the support of a dietitian or therapist, it helps to walk back through what happened in the hours and moments leading up to the behaviour. We call this a behaviour chain analysis, and we make sure to bring in a lot of curiosity rather than judgment.

We can view these moments with so much compassion. Eating disorder behaviours are what we call maladaptive coping mechanisms, but they are coping mechanisms nonetheless. They do offer your brain a very real form of relief in the moment. That is exactly why they are so hard to challenge! When we look closely at the events, emotions, and situations that built up to the point where your brain reached for that behaviour as its only source of relief, we learn something valuable. We can proactively build in skills and supports for the next time a moment like that arrives, so you walk in more equipped, more aware, and more able to surf the urge instead of acting on it.

What should I try not to do?

More than anything, we do not want to let the all-or-nothing thinking win.

It is so easy for the eating disorder to whisper, “Well, I’ve already messed up, so I might as well let go of the rest of the day,” or the rest of the week, or the rest of the plan. That single thought is often the very thing that turns a slip into a slide. And the more frequently and deeply a behaviour gets practiced, the harder it can be to climb back from.

So this is your gentle reminder to notice that voice, name it as the eating disorder, and choose not to hand it the rest of your day. Try not to compensate, restrict to “even things out,” punish yourself with exercise, or disappear into isolation. Those responses feel like control, but they only tighten the eating disorder’s hold.

How do I know if it’s more than a slip?

Sometimes a slip is just a slip, and you are able to reach for your skills and get back on your plan. Other times, it is a sign you could use more support, and that is nothing to be ashamed of.

It may be time to loop in your care team more closely if the behaviours are becoming more frequent, if you are finding it really hard to return to your plan no matter how you try, if you are noticing medical warning signs, or if you feel like you are slipping further away from the life you want. Reaching out earlier rather than later is a brave, wise move, not a sign of failure or weakness.

And if you are ever feeling unsafe or having thoughts of harming yourself, please reach out to a crisis line right away. In Canada, a resource like the National Eating Disorder Information Centre (NEDIC) can also help you find support. You deserve to be supported through this!

If you’ve slipped, please hear this

If you have been working on your recovery, showing up for treatment, and then you have a hard moment or a hard day, maybe even after a long stretch without any behaviours at all, I want you to know something.

You are not broken. There is nothing wrong with you. There is still so much hope for your recovery. And this hard moment is not proof that you are failing. It is, in fact, part of the process.

We need to have slips and slides. We need to build the skills to bring ourselves back to our recovery plan. If we are ever going to have a real hope of lasting recovery, this is part of how we get there. You are doing the best you can through an incredibly challenging process, and that counts for so much.

You don’t have to navigate this alone

If you are working through eating disorder recovery and want a compassionate co-pilot for the hard moments and the “what do I do next” ones, I would love to support you. As a non-diet, weight-inclusive Registered Dietitian, I help clients heal their relationship with food and body and build the skills to move through slips with self-compassion instead of shame. I work virtually with clients across Alberta and British Columbia, with in-person sessions here in Calgary.

You can book a free Connection Call with me anytime. Think of it as a no-pressure conversation about where you are and where you would like to go, and whether working together feels right.

Whenever you are ready, I would be honoured to support you.

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