My favorite eating disorder recovery quotes and mantras

Apr 14

If you or a loved one are recovering from an eating disorder, you know how emotionally draining and exhausting it can be. Of course, I’m here to tell you that recovering from an eating disorder is one million percent worth it! I also know it can be hard to keep moving forward every single day when you’re tired and scared.

To help me stay motivated in recovery, I surrounded myself (quite literally) with quotes and mantras and all the reasons why I wanted to recover. Constant reminders of why I wanted recovery helped me when I was faced with a fear food, or struggling with body changes. I needed reminders of why it was so important to make the hard decisions. Reminders of why going through something so painful would be worth it.

And to help me in these specific moments (like at the table), I had lists and notes and quotes in calligraphy to read while I ate. It gave me hope (and visual reminders) that one day, I would be thankful I continued to make the hard decisions. It helped me make choices that were in line with the person I wanted to become, not the person I was in that moment. So if you’re looking for some quotes or mantras to help in your recovery, here are some of my favorites!

And I said to my body, softly: “I want to be your friend”. It took a long breath, and replied, “I have been waiting my whole life for this.” - Nayyirah Waheed
An elder was talking to his grandson about how he felt about a past tragedy. The elder said, ‘I feel as if I have two wolves fighting in my heart. One wolf is a vengeful, angry, violent one; the other wolf is a loving, compassionate one.’ And the grandson asked, ‘Which one will win the fight in your heart?’ And the elder answered, ‘The one which I feed.’
A woman is beautiful when her passions define her more than her appearance.
In any given moment, we have two options: to step forward into growth or to step back into safety. - Abraham Maslow
If only our eyes saw souls instead of bodies, how very different our ideals of beauty would be. - Lauren Jauregui
The words “I am” are potent words; be careful what you hitch them to. The thing you’re claiming has a way of reaching back and claiming you. - A.L. Kitselman
I will feed myself and fight this illness, not feed this illness and fight myself.
I am more than the shell for my soul that is my body and every day I fight to remind myself of that - Demi Lovato
We get so worried about being pretty. Let’s be pretty kind, pretty funny, pretty smart, pretty strong. - Britt Nicole
I am beginning to measure myself in strength, not pounds. Sometimes in smiles. - Laurie Halse Anderson
Losing weight is not your life’s work, and counting calories is not the call of your soul. You surely are destined for something much greater. - Lisa Turner
She was beautiful, but not like those girls in magazines. She was beautiful for the way she thought. She was beautiful, for the sparkle in her eyes when she talked about something she loved. She was beautiful, for her ability to make other people smile, even if she was sad. No, she wasn’t beautiful for something as temporary as her looks. She was beautiful, deep down to her soul. She is beautiful. - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Promise me you’ll always remember - you’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. - Winnie the Pooh
Get off the scale! I have yet to see a scale that can tell you how enchanting your eyes are. I have yet to see a scale that can show you how wonderful your hair looks when the sun shines its glorious rays on it. I have yet to see a scale that can thank you for your compassion, sense of humor, and contagious smile. Get off the scale because I have yet to see one that can admire you for your perseverance when challenged in life. - Steve Maraboli
At this very moment, you may be saying to yourself that you have any number of admirable qualities. You are a loyal friend, a caring person, someone who is smart, dependable, fun to be around. That’s wonderful, and I’m happy for you, but let me ask you this: are you being any of those things to yourself?
I’m not telling you it will be easy, I am telling you it is worth it.
Let your hopes, not your hurts shape your future.
Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.
Hating your body will never get you as far as loving it will.
Stop hating yourself for everything you aren’t. Start loving yourself for everything you are.
Eating disorder recovery becomes possible when you keep making the next right decision over and over. With time, these decisions become automatic.
Recovery is remembering who you are and using your strengths to become all that you were meant to be.
We are souls who happen to have bodies. Spend time nurturing your soul instead of destroying your body.
Oftentimes, especially during my recovery, I didn’t need to think about everything I was doing wrong; instead, I needed to focus more on what I was doing right - and then do more of the right stuff. I needed to live more in the solution.
One woman filled with self-love and self-acceptance is a model more super than any cover girl.
If you talked to your friends the way you talk to your body, you’d have no friends at all.
Gotta nourish to flourish.
Feeling guilty for eating when you’re hungry is like feeling guilty for breathing when your lungs need oxygen. We’ve literally been taught to be ashamed of our basic human needs. Refuse to feel the shame. You are allowed to eat.
Count the memories, not the calories.
Beauty starts in your head, not in your mirror.
Your eating disorder will always create a “reason” for you to keep the disorder and, sadly, that will often be “you’re not sick enough”. Don’t buy it.
Mirrors are just glass, and you are more than that.
If all girls were taught how to love each other fiercely instead of how to compete with each other and hate their own bodies, what a different and beautiful would we would live in.
Difficult roads lead to beautiful destinations.
I am in charge of how I feel, and right now I choose peace.
Hold yourself back, or heal yourself back together. You decide.
Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.
Just because something is familiar, doesn’t mean it’s safe. And just because something feels safe, doesn’t mean it’s good for you.
Don’t give up, one day you will look back and be glad you didn’t.
When you stop trying to control food, it stops controlling you.
The scale can only give you a numerical reflection of your relationship with gravity. That’s it. It cannot measure character, beauty, talent, purpose, possibility, strength, or love.
The numbers start getting smaller on the scale but so does the number of friends you have and the number of years you are going to live and the number of smiles you will have and the number of dogs you are going to pet and the number of songs you are going to listen to and the number of books you are going to read and the number of people you are going to meet and the number of times you are going to be able to draw and the number of times you are actually going to feel like you are alive.
Imagine if we obsessed about the things we loved about ourselves.
Health is not just about what you’re eating. It’s also about what you’re thinking and saying.
Dark times lie ahead of us and there will be a time when we must choose between what is easy and what is right. - Dumbledore, Harry Potter
You know what’s healthier than kale? Having a good relationship with food.
To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
You cannot trust something that wants to kill you.
Your body is just a vessel through which you experience this plane of existence. Don’t agonize so much over how your body looks or what others think of it that you miss out on living a happy, passionate life. You have so much more to offer the world than your appearance- your shell. You’re starstuff. Act like it.
What you spend your life controlling is often what is controlling you.
Nothing good will ever come out of hating yourself.
She overcame everything that was meant to destroy her.
Life doesn’t have to be perfect to be beautiful.
Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity. This is one reason why meaningful change does not require radical change. Small habits can make a meaningful difference by providing evidence of a new identity. And if a change is meaningful, it is actually big. That's the paradox of making small improvements. - James Clear
We’ve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That’s who we really are. - Sirius Black, Harry Potter
The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places. - Ernest Hemingway
Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. - Viktor Frankl

I hope at least one of these quotes resonated with you. And remember, everyone’s journey is different. If these don’t work for you, leave them here and find some quotes or sayings that will work for you. Take what matters and leave the rest.

And in case you needed any reminders today: treat yourself with kindness. You deserve it. As always, keep fighting for your beautifully recovered life.