How REDs Recovery Quietly Prepared Me for Motherhood
Everyone warns you how much motherhood will stretch you, soften you, break you, and make you all at once. People happily offer advice about feeding, sleeping, prams, and pacifiers, but the emotional, physical, and psychological shift of becoming a mother? No one can brief you for that.
Though it did dawn on me recently that the years I spent recovering from REDs - a chapter I once wished I could erase - quietly trained me for this one.
I didn’t know it at the time, of course. Back then, I was totally focused on repairing a broken relationship with my body, food and exercise. But looking back, recovery from REDs handed me a subtle set of tools I’ve been able to use in pregnancy, postpartum, and early motherhood. And I’m genuinely grateful for that.
Here’s what I mean.
Learning to listen to my nody
In my athlete days, my body felt like a system to control. When it whispered, I ignored it and when it screamed, I tried to silence it.
REDs recovery, however, forces you to tune back in; notice signals, honour hunger, rest when needed, and do what it takes to reverse the habit of pushing through at all costs.
Motherhood demands the same.
You can’t “push through” pregnancy or exhaustion the way you push through reps. When you're growing or raising a human, listening to your body becomes a survival skill. Needs change by the hour. Rest (physical and emotional) stops being optional and becomes the foundation everything else hinges on.
Nourishment as non-negotiable
Recovering from REDs (the disordered eating element of it, at least) requires unlearning the deeply ingrained belief that food is a threat. I had to relearn how to eat enough, eat often, eat without guilt…to see food as fuel, care, and connection.
Motherhood is the ultimate test of that.
You simply cannot grow a human on salad leaves and self-discipline. The stakes are too high. Later, postpartum, with the night feeds and exhaustion and the hormones, you learn to feed yourself with the same care you’d want for your child. (My standard lunch now resembles my Year 10 lunchbox: a fat sandwich, crisps, and a Penguin bar. Not Instagrammable, not impressive - but eaten. And that’s the win.)
You look after you, so you can look after them.
Letting go of control
REDs and control often sit side by side. Food, training plans, metrics, routines. Recovery is a slow surrender of that control. A trusting of the unknown and a ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’ experience.
Then motherhood arrives and takes whatever illusion of control remains and laughs in its face.
Birth plans change. Babies don’t nap “on schedule.” Meals get interrupted. Nothing goes how you imagine. You learn to adapt rather than resist. Recovery taught me how taught me that flexibility isn’t failure, it’s freedom - and that makes motherhood far more fun.
A body that changes and a mind can handle it
Pregnancy changes your body. Postpartum changes it again. Society comments on it always.
During this time your body transforms in ways you can’t anticipate, and if you’ve recovered from REDs, you’ve already lived through a version of this. You’ve likely already practised detaching your worth from your size, shape, or physical output. You’ve learned that your body is more than what it looks like; it’s what it does for you.
That prepares you more than you realise at the time. Miraculously, pregnancy and motherhood has never felt like a betrayal of my body. It felt like a continuation of a relationship I had already re-built and a celebration of what allowed me to achieve (birthing babies).
Playing the long game
Both recovery and motherhood involve a huge amount of effort with absolutely zero immediate payoff.
In REDs recovery, you can eat all the extra snacks and still wait months for your period to return.
In motherhood, you can spend an hour loving making veg-packed falafels, only to watch your toddler toss them down to the dog. No applause. No gold star. But in both cases, the magic shows up later. Nourish the body (or nourish the child) and the results come, just not on your timeline. And yes, it’s still worth it IMO. Every snack. Every falafel. Every messy, unglamorous bit of it.
Redefining Identity Beyond Achievement
As an athlete my self-worth hinged upon my splits, my self-discipline, and how “in control” I was over my nutrition and training. Recovery blew that identity wide open, and thought me how identity isn’t fixed through achievement, so I didn’t spiral about “losing myself” when a tiny human arrived. I’d already practised the art of self-compassion and other such important things that weren’t in my orbit as an athlete. So when it came to motherhood, I was prepared.
Sometimes I think if I hadn’t already dismantled my old beliefs about productivity and achievement, motherhood would have flattened me.
Asking for help
REDs recovery is rarely a solo journey. At some point, you have to admit you need support. Recovery taught me to reach out (eventually) and drop the shame around struggling. That practice made postpartum kinder and more connected with others.
In contrast to how I lived my life as an athlete, REDs recovery taught me that who I am isn’t defined by PRs and medals. Since I’d already had to learn how to expand my identity beyond sport, I didn’t panic so much about “losing myself” when a tiny human arrived.
Final thoughts…
I won't romanticise my journey with REDs. It stole things from me that I can never get back. But the recovery process taught me things I never expected to need: perspective, flexibility, compassion, patience, the ability to rest, nourish, ask for help. These aren’t just tools for sport; they are tools for life. And motherhood called every single one of them forward.
If you’re somewhere in RED-S recovery now - whether or not parenthood is even on your radar - please know this: The work you’re doing isn’t just for sport. It’s building foundations for chapters you haven’t met yet. You’re not just becoming a stronger athlete - you’re becoming a stronger human, friend, partner, and maybe, one day, parent.