Recovery is not a formula.  I repeat.  ‘It’s not a formula.’  You don’t have to eat burgers to validate the fact that you’re in recovery.  If whole milk yogurt or peanut butter makes your stomach hurt, you don’t need to make yourself miserable in order to prove that you’re recovering by eating them.  Since I’ve been on Instagram for about 3 years now, I’ve seen one trend that can be helpful or unhelpful in the recovery community.  Often if someone is in recovery, we kind of think that we all need to be overcoming the same fears by eating that exact same food, but what if you have allergies to it?   What if your stomach needs some healing before it can endure all of that kind of food?   That’s why I wanted to do this podcast with my dear friend Jamie about being sensitive to other’s food allergies without instantly assuming these are forms of restriction.  

Recovery can be reduced to a formula, but that doesn’t make it fun. You could tell everyone to just eat all kinds of food.   That doesn’t make it individual.  That makes it hard and stressful.  Just because someone does or doesn’t eat a certain food in recovery doesn’t mean that they are for sure recovered.   

Recovery for me looks different from you.  Recovery starts in our mentality.  It starts in the way that you and I view food.  Do we view food as an enemy or a friend?  Do we make up allergies to cover up restriction and our bodies are starving?  Or do we have legitimate allergies?  

That’s why I’m sharing Jamie’s story with you.  Jamie is a HARD core recovery warrior, but this girl has had so many hard times with allergies and stomach issues in recovery that she isn’t able to always eat food that she wants to eat.   

Recovery for me means that I don’t make myself eat salads every day.

Recovery for some people means that they don’t feel bad about not wanting to eat fast foods or icecream because they’d rather have a giant bowl of salad with all the nuts and dressing made with oils and cheese on top.  

Recovery for others means that they walk.  

Recovery for others means that they run a bit during recovery.  

But at the base what does recovery mean?  It means less obsession with food and exercise.  That’s why I wanted to bring Jamie, my dear friend, recovery warrior INSPIRATION, and a woman who has walked her own individual recovery journey with such grace.  

You see.  Jamie is talking about walking recovery with food intolerances, real intolerances, finding those foods that many might eat in recovery, but they genuinely make her body unhappy.  

And that’s what recovery is not about.  It’s not about making your body unhappy.  For me I had to get over fears of certain foods, and Jamie did too, but as she’s worked through those things she’s realized that some of the popular recovery foods that are often advocated for and are very delicious aren’t ones that her body can handle like:

Peanut butter

Bananas

Whole Milk Yogurt

So Jamie and I talked from this perspective:

Why It’s Important to Find Out What Makes your Body Happy in Recovery

Not Getting Sucked into Just Following the Trends With Recovery

Working on Your Mindset around Food (Maybe you don’t fear whole milk yogurt or peanut butter, but your body doesn’t love it so you do dairy free yogurt or almond butter)  

Why Recovery is about MORE than Being Able to Eat Certain Foods 

Discerning between Genuine Food Allergies, Digestive Issues from Restriction, and Food Fears 

Not Being Judgmental about Other’s Recovery Journeys But Asking Genuine Kind Questions About It 

These are most definitely tricky waters, and I don’t want to say that we have it all figured out, but Jamie reminded me that we need to be sensitive and understanding towards others in recovery.  Just because someone can’t eat dairy doesn’t mean that they’re restricting it; you could ask them about it gently if you want, but don’t jump to the conclusion that they are.  

One thing that Jamie said that really stood out to me in the whole podcast is that we need to start in on our own recovery first and deal with our own ‘logs in the eyes’ and be so slow to race to a conclusion about someone else.   

I’m not here to claim that I know how to do recovery perfectly, or that I’m going to tell you how to do it, because I can’t!  

But I’m thankful that Jamie was willing to share her journey with recovery, food allergies, and learning to find freedom in the midst of it all.   

The biggest lesson I took away?  We should be doing recovery for Jesus, and not to please other people, and that will keep us on the right track! 

Have you had food allergies and intolerances you’ve had to deal with in recovery?  How do you do that and keep pursuing food freedom?