The human body is incredibly resilient. It can take extended periods of neglect or overwork and still continue to function as if everything is fine.

However, there’s a downside to this resiliency, and one of the biggest issues it creates is confusion. And this confusion involves misunderstanding cause and effect for health problems.

Let me use an example to illustrate.

There’s a female in her mid-twenties. She’s always been active and sporty, so much so that it’s become part of her identity.

As her twenties march on, her exercise gradually increases. It used to be three days a week but over time it’s jumped up to five or six. Some days there are even double sessions.

She discovers CrossFit, obstacle racing, triathlons, or trail running. No longer is her training just about having fun or improving health, it’s now about preparing to compete in events.

Over these same years in her twenties, her eating “improves”. In her younger years, there wasn’t so much thought that went into eating. Her diet included plenty of variety, with some days being a chicken and vegetable stir fry and others it being a takeaway pizza.

But as her training increased, so did the importance of putting better “fuel in the tank”. It started out as having more vegetables or fewer nights out drinking, but over time morphed into something much stricter.

Sugar is out, dairy is cut, and certain carbs avoided. She starts monitoring calories, pulling her intake down. Being “lean” in her chosen sport is seen as important and lower calories and more “clean” eating is the way to get this.

As her twenties close out, she feels like she’s in the best shape of her life. All the exercise and healthy eating is clearly working because she’s feeling great, getting compliments from friends, and doing well in her races.  

But then things start to change.

Work becomes more stressful and the hours are now longer. It’s nothing major, but she notices that she doesn’t cope so well with this added pressure.   

Her training takes a knock. She’s finding it harder to recover from sessions and when she’s in the gym, she has more trouble making it through the class. She’s now lifting lighter than before and changing some of the classes, as she just can’t keep up with the boot camps like before.

Her eating is also impacted. She’s more tired and has less time, so she starts buying more of her food rather than preparing everything from scratch. Overall it’s not a significant change, but she’s finding she is more hungry and craving dessert after meals that would have previously satisfied her.

As time progresses, this pattern continues. The five days of training is now down to four, then three days. Then there are weeks that she struggles to make it once.

The eating also gets “worse”. She’s having more “treats” and “junk food” and it feels like her hunger is more intense than before, despite training less.

It’s often around this time that someone like this will get in contact with me.

They’re sleeping badly, they’re having intermittent anxiety, and their periods are more painful than they used to be (or may have even stopped). They feel like they’re in a fog with their energy and their thinking.

When they reflect on the situation, the point at which it went “wrong” in their mind was when they started exercising less and they stopped eating so “clean”. They believe that if they can just get the motivation back and prioritise exercise and better eating, that everything will return to the glory days.

But when I hear their story, I notice a very different unravelling point.

When they were training five and six days a week and eating “clean,” they weren’t giving their body the nourishment and rest that it needed. It wasn’t getting enough calories. It wasn’t doing the repair work.

Despite feeling great and being able to get away with this pattern of living, underneath it all, it was creating a problem.

Our health is like a bank balance.

We can do things that add to that balance and we can do things that take away from the balance.

Part of our ability to be resilient is that our body has the equivalent of an overdraft. It can spend money it doesn’t have. It does this based on the assumption that in the not too distant future, there will be a time when spending is reduced and reinvestment will happen.

If you go to an ATM and take out money, there’s no difference whether you are in credit or in overdraft, the money comes out as usual.

But the difference between these two comes in the form of charges. When you’re in overdraft, you pay extra charges to be allowed to use that money.

The same thing happens with the body. It allows you to spend energy on exercise, but this means a “charge” or less energy for something else. So less is spent on repair, digestion, reproduction, and the rest of the systems within the body.

In the early days, things aren’t so bad. Charges are so minimal that they are barely noticeable. But as time goes on, you are getting further away from being in credit and the body charges start to rack up.

Just like a bank overdraft is only so big, the same is true with the body.

You start knocking up against your overdraft limit. Whereas before you could take out money with impunity, not paying attention to the debt; now transactions are being declined.

While the client sees the problem as being a more recent occurrence, the issue is actually down to overspending while being oblivious to the fees that were being incurred.

One big difference between a bank account and the body is there isn’t an explicit monthly statement. Each month your bank sends a statement that clearly shows what is going on. It’s in black and white and there’s no mistaking it.

The feedback that we get from our body during this time is less clear. People can actually feel better while overspending is occurring.

There are some feedback signs that things might not be going so well. But these are subtle and can be easily misunderstood.

Our bodies evolved over millions of years, where this kind of strain on the body wasn’t because of choice. When people were running themselves into the ground, it was because there was no other option and this was what was needed to survive.

So rather than the body nagging someone who is just trying to survive, it makes do with keeping up the things that are important for short-term survival and allows them to soldier on.

The thought process is that as soon as the person finishes migration or makes it through the dry season or whatever evolutionary adversity the body assumes they are in, they are then going to completely rest, re-feed, and replenish.

The body allows for the temporary overstretch because of the belief that it is temporary; that there will be an equal period of recovery as soon as the time is right.

But in our modern lives, this period of recuperation never happens.

What makes this worse is our skewed perception of what’s “healthy” and what’s “unhealthy”. Exercise, eating whole foods, watching our portion sizes, persistence and dedication, challenging ourselves; all of these things are seen as healthy. Not healthy in some context and unhealthy in other contexts, but healthy all the time.

So it becomes baffling to think that the time in which you felt great and you were spending your life doing “healthy” endeavours, that this was the point that your health really started to deteriorate. But despite being baffling, it is true. 

There is good news. Just like the body is resilient to the assaults heaped upon it, it is equally capable at bouncing back when it is has been knocked down. And this is what I help clients with.

Working Together

For many of my clients, their health issues ironically occur because of a pursuit of health. And now they find themselves confused about what to do next.

I’m a leading expert and advocate for full recovery. I’ve been working with clients for over 15 years and understand what needs to happen to recover.

I truly believe that you can reach a place where the eating disorder is a thing of the past and I want to help you get there. If you want to fully recover and drastically increase the quality of your life, I’d love to help.

Want to get a FREE online course created specifically for those wanting full recovery? Discover the first 5 steps to take in your eating disorder recovery. This course shows you how to take action and the exact step-by-step process. To get instant access, click the button below.