Are you stuck in quasi recovery? Victoria and I both know what it’s like to be “in recovery” but not fully free. In fact, quasi recovery is WORSE than having a full-blown eating disorder! In this episode, we chat about our own experiences with quasi recovery, why the map is a trap, and how to begin trusting your inner wisdom. If you enjoy this episode and want to dive deeper into the topics discussed, you will LOVE my new book How to Get Out of Quasi Recovery! 👉 Grab your copy here.

Victoria: Welcome back, Livia! It's been a year since we did a podcast together – that was when you were on my podcast to talk about your book How to Beat Extreme Hunger.

Livia: Time flies! And now we're talking about my new book How to Get Out of Quasi Recovery.

Victoria: Before I hit record, I told the listeners that Livia's book is fucking phenomenal. There's so much in this book that goes so deep and it's so aligned with the way you and I both are. The book mirrors back that you have the power to drop all the bullshit – everything that's been put on you in terms of labels, and even "recovery," which is a label that can hinder us. So, let me ask you, what's the book called and why did you write it?

Why Livia Wrote “How to Get Out of Quasi Recovery”

Livia: The book is called "How to Get Out of Quasi Recovery" with the subtitle "Live Free from An Eating Disorder." I'm very proud of that construction because, as an author, I love playing with semantics. The reason I wrote this book is because there were so many themes that kept coming up in my work with clients – advice and messaging, almost like propaganda, propagating the eating disorder recovery space. That there's supposedly a "right way" to recover and a "wrong way." You “should” throw out the scales, get rid of calorie counting apps. Basically all these new sets of rules around how to "properly" overcome an eating disorder. I reached this point where the following idea hit my soul so hard: aren't you just creating the next illusion after an eating disorder? That illusion is called quasi recovery.

What is Quasi Recovery?

Livia: The eating disorder creates a false identity – this belief of "I need this in my life to cope, I'm a victim to this illness, I'm powerless, I can't do anything." However, when you get sick and tired of the eating disorder and decide to recover, there's often a catch: You need to recover "right," gain weight “the healthy way," you can't gain weight "too fast" because that's "too risky." So there are all these new rules that come in, and you're trapped again! Then the question is this: Is being “in recovery” really better than having an eating disorder? For me, quasi recovery was worse than having the eating disorder.

Victoria: Same! It's about being committed. Being 100% committed is simple, and being 99% committed is hell.

Livia: Exactly! Quasi recovery is "I'm going to recover, but there's always a catch." As long as there's a catch, we might as well go back to bed.

Victoria: For me, in quasi recovery, I'd gained weight and improved 80% of my ED behaviors, but I was still living 20% in the eating disorder. It was worse because I wasn't fully recovered. I was micromanaging my behaviors and pretending it wasn't control – it was "moderation" with the "health" bracket around it. My life was more tolerable, but it wasn't better. Then I heard a quote that changed everything. There are two questions you can ask yourself. They're the same question, but when I ask you both, you'll see the difference:

1. "Is this bad enough to change?"
2. "Is this good enough to stay?"

The Power of Asking What You Want

Livia: When people decide to let go of their eating disorder, they tend to focus on everything they don't want – "I don't want mental hunger, I don't want to feel miserable, I don't want anxiety." But when I ask them in coaching, "What do you want?" they don’t know. It's like going to the airport and saying "I don't want to go to Africa, I don't want to go to Asia" – okay, but where DO you want to go?

Victoria: Exactly! The difference is the power you have. Looking at it from "is this bad enough to change" comes from low self-worth, struggling, and suffering. But "is this good enough to stay?" – hell no, it's NOT good enough. I choose better for myself.

Livia: In my book, I have two chapters that discuss the importance of gaining clarity on what you want. These chapters are called "What Do You Need?" and "What Do You Want?" We ask what we need because it's easier than asking what we want. If you say "I need proof that mental hunger will go away, I need to know what weight my body will settle at" – well, since I don't know those things yet, I can't do anything. I'm still the victim. But when you ask "What do I want?" and say "I want food freedom" – well, to achieve that desire, you have to take responsibility. And that's scary. That’s why people hide behind the ED recovery identity.

Victoria: People don't want to take responsibility because we're taught to be victims from the get-go. It wasn't until I realized no one's going to come and save me that things changed. When I truly grasped that only I can change, I was lonely, annoyed, sad, and scared. But then I realized: no one's coming to save me, so I get to save myself! Although going deeper, I never needed saving in the first place. I just needed to choose what I wanted and go after it.

Discovery vs. Recovery

Livia: I prefer the term "discovery" over "recovery" because recovering from an eating disorder isn't actually about recovering FROM the eating disorder. The eating disorder came into your life to serve a purpose. If you're just going to recover from it, you're going to get it all over again because you're not addressing the true purpose of being recoverED – discovering and embracing who you are. Here’s a quote from my book (Chapter 39):

Discovery isn’t something that happens while you wait for someone (or something) to come save you. No, discovery happens when you put yourself out there, take risks, and trust that you can learn whatever you don’t yet know. When you replace judgment with curiosity, you start seeing what no one else sees. You encounter unpredictable outcomes, which provides you with fuel to create remarkable art.

The Body as Vessel, Not Possession

Livia: I think the art and contribution and bringing meaning to this world is ultimately why we are on this planet. In the book, I talk about the body not being your possession – about it being a manifestation of energy, the vessel that allows you to contribute. If you're not going to treat that vessel with respect, you're actually disrespecting the planet at large because you didn't come ON to the planet – you literally came OUT of the planet! You are made up of the planet’s matter. Think about it this way: beating up your body is like beating up a beautiful tree and saying "I'm not gonna give you sunlight, I'm not gonna give you water, you don't deserve that." If you wouldn't do it to a tree, a bunny rabbit, or a blade of grass, why would you do it to yourself?

Victoria: We are nature. We've come so far away from that. Trees don't grow perfectly – and perfection is boring anyway, it's never attainable. We don't look at mountain ranges and wish they looked different. Most of us accept the beauty of nature as it is. Part of discovering yourself is fully accepting who and what you are unapologetically. Instead of hoping to see the thin, disciplined body in the mirror, I chose to see myself through the lens of "my body's a goddess" – just look at all the things the body does without me having to ask it to do anything! True surrender is freedom. In every moment we feel we're fighting or resisting what is, we get to choose to be free. Here’s a strategy: Ask "what would freedom do?" and then do that.

The Power of Surrender in ED Recovery

Livia: People often ask me: “What was the number one thing you did to recover from your eating disorder?” My reply: "Actually, I didn't do anything. I stopped trying to do anything. I surrendered to healing." That's a game f*cking changer!

Julia Cameron has a beautiful quote about perfectionism: “Perfectionism is not a quest for the best. It is a pursuit of the worst in ourselves, the part that tells us that nothing we do will ever be good enough – that we should try again.” Essentially, perfectionism is not actually being about trying to be perfect – it’s about looking for failures. When I'm reading my manuscript for the eighth time because I want it to be “perfect,” what am I actually doing? I'm actively looking for mistakes.

Trying to confirm our failures is exactly what we do when we’re in quasi recovery. We get so obsessed with watching other people's journeys, their "what I eat in a day videos," and then feeling like "my extreme hunger is too extreme because they're not eating as much as me." What have you just done? You've sought out a reason why you're doing it wrong. Proof that you can't recover! You're a victim all over again!

There is No "Right" Way to Recover From an Eating Disorder

Victoria: There is no right or wrong because you're the expert of your own experience. Taking things away can hinder recovery for some people, especially neurodivergent folks.

Livia: And this is the trap. We secretly wish there was a right or wrong because if there was, we don't have to make the decision ourselves. We don't have to ask "what do I want?" This ties to existentialism – the idea that we are free beings and we get to choose what our life looks like. The existentialist Søren Kierkegaard described the anxiety we face in response to our ability to choose as “the dizziness of freedom.” When we are free, it can be mentally paralyzing because there's not one or two paths – you can go wherever the fuck you want!

Victoria: You can create a path to go down.

Livia: Exactly! But then comes the knowledge trap: How do I know I'm not supposed to go the other way? "Supposed to" is just another form of should and shouldn't, right and wrong. The real work is being brutally honest with yourself about what you want out of life, what you want to contribute to this planet. After all, purpose isn't found – it's not hiding under your rug. You CREATE your purpose. The coaching work myself and Victoria do wasn't hiding somewhere, waiting for us to find it. We actively chose to turn our MESS into our MESSage.

Operating from Love vs. Fear

Livia: The coaching work we do happens in another dimension. When I asked Victoria what her coaching approach was based on, she said "love." That's how I knew we were kindred spirits. In the end, the only force that guides us to true freedom and abundance is love.

Victoria: The opposite of love is fear, but fear itself is just an illusion. Fear is a story. The only truth is love. Everything we do as humans is either an act of love or a cry for love. Even the eating disorder voice constantly telling us we're not good enough is a story. Underneath that fear, it wants to protect you. It loves you so much and is trying to take care of you in the only way it knows how. In our coaching work, Livia and I don't just fix behaviors or help people recover – we help people return back home to self-love. You don't have to learn how to love yourself because you already know. The sun doesn't learn how to shine, it just IS.

Asking Yourself Freedom Questions to Break Free From Quasi Recovery

Livia: Instead of asking "what's the right way?” or “what's the wrong way?" ask yourself "what would the free me do?" In the chapter on exercise, I talk about how people ask "when should I exercise in recovery?" and I'm like "whenever the fuck you want!" They say "but I don't know when that is!" and I'm like "well, are you asking when you want to?" They say "no, I'm looking for a how-to." Well, if you're looking for a how-to, you're never gonna find your way because YOUR way doesn't come with a how-to. Otherwise, that would mean you existed before, and you obviously didn't.

Victoria: The question is this: Is this thought, this action, born from love or from fear? Only the person asking really knows the answer. Someone could exercise in recovery from a place of love, and that's right for them. Whereas if someone was doing the same thing from fear, that's different.

Livia: What would the me who is living in alignment with their authentic, loving self be doing? If you're going to start exercising because of this conversation, you're doing it based on what someone else said – that's not freedom.

What Does it Take to Recover From Your Eating Disorder?

Victoria: When we keep referring to the "recovering me," we can keep ourselves stuck because we're still acting from a reaction to an eating disorder. When we're truly free, we choose to act as the free version of ourselves.

Livia: I once witnessed a breakthrough in a client session that I will never forget. This specific client had been struggling with anorexia for seven years – the same length that I struggled. In our session, we were talking about the power of deciding to be done fighting, deciding when you're gonna surrender and deciding to live in alignment with your true self. And then she said "I'm recovered, I'm done." And that was it! That marked the end of the eating disorder era, the end of quasi recovery. She decided to cut herself off from anything other than being in alignment with her true self.

Victoria: People don't want to hear this because it's so simple, but all you have to do is decide. When I truly embodied this, part of me was pissed off because I was like "it's been that fucking simple this entire time and I've struggled for 20 years?" Yes, I can literally decide in the moment to be free.

Livia: The word "decide" stems from latin and means "to cut yourself off." When you're aware of what “decide” actually means and intentionally make a decision, it becomes infinitely more powerful. For my client, because she had decided she was recovered, she had no other choice but to act in alignment with herself. There was no pretending the mental hunger wasn't valid because she had decided to stop pretending.

There is No Map in Anorexia Recovery

Livia: I know how tempting it is to submerge yourself in "recovery advice" and to scroll social media to follow someone else's map, but it's a lot more sustainable and fun to commit to creating your own way. When you stop trying to follow instructions and instead trust your innate wisdom, you no longer have to fight a war that cannot be won. Building my confidence through discovery was absent of shortcuts. There was no clear path, no map to navigate. It was just me and fear. Could I handle being alone with fear, without being accompanied by ED or recovery?

Victoria: When you stop following someone else's map, you start creating your own world. The most powerful coaching reflects back to you over and over again: you have the power, you get to choose. Let me show you how, let me support you, but ultimately you need to experience what we're talking about because it's beyond words.

Practical Advice for Those in Quasi Recovery

Victoria: What would you say to someone listening who's like "that's me, I'm in quasi recovery. I've changed so much that my life is tolerable now, I look 'normal' from the outside, but I'm not truly free"?

Livia: Ask yourself what you want. What do you want out of life? What do you want energy and mental clarity for? What would give your life meaning? When thinking about this, it’s important to cut the eating disorder and recovery out of the picture. Envision a life where you’re free. Then ask: are my current actions aligning with that free version of me? If yes, great – but if you're reading this, probably not.

Next question: what actions WILL I take (not do I have to take or should I take) to align my behavior with the person I want to be, with the life I want to live? When you ask yourself those questions and take responsibility for the answers that arise within you – not the answers on YouTube or Instagram, not even the "truths" spoken in this podcast – but the truth that arises within the love that is you, there's no doing it “wrong” because love always leads you exactly where you should be.

Victoria: What if someone says "I don't know who I want to be, I don't know what I want"?

Livia: I'm thrilled for you that you don't know! Because if you knew, then why aren't you already there? If you don't know, you've opened yourself up to learning and discovering. You can't learn anything new unless you admit you don't know yet.

Victoria: Take the very smallest next step. What characteristics of me and Livia do you like? Maybe it's our confidence, our courage, our not giving a shit. That pull is what you want. Follow that. You don't have to know all the answers. Just follow what pulls you and allow it to be messy – because having your life “figured out” is just an illusion.