Apparently, I’m Still Vulnerable. What Buying a Health Tracker Taught Me About Recovery

I have done a lot of work around my relationship with food, exercise, health, and my body.

A lot.

I understand Orthorexia. I understand disordered eating and diet culture. I understand the ways that seemingly “healthy” behaviors can become rigid, compulsive, and anxiety-producing. I have spent years learning how to recognize the difference between caring for my body and trying to control it.

And yet, recently, I bought a health tracker.

Not because I had carefully considered whether tracking would support me. Not because I had a particular health goal that required more information. I bought it because, somewhere along the way, the idea of having more data about my body started sounding appealing.

Steps. Sleep. Heart rate. Activity. Calories. Metrics. All the little numbers that can so easily become a scoreboard. And then, about 16 hours later, I canceled the order. What happened in those 16 hours is actually a pretty important part of my recovery story.

The voice I almost mistook for wellness

The thing about disordered eating is that it doesn't always announce itself by saying, “Hey, I'm your old eating disorder.”

Sometimes it sounds like wellness.

It sounds like:

Wouldn't it be interesting to know how much you're moving?

Wouldn't it be helpful to understand your sleep better?

You could use the information without letting it affect you.

You're recovered now. You can handle it.

And maybe that's the most complicated part. I am not the person I was years ago. I don't want to be.

But healing doesn't mean that the cultural messages that contributed to my disordered behaviors suddenly disappear. We are still surrounded by a constant stream of messages telling us that our bodies need to be optimized, monitored, measured, improved, and controlled.

Sometimes those messages sneak in through something that looks completely innocuous. Like a little device on your wrist.

Enter the tough love

Thankfully, I have people in my life who know me well enough to recognize when something might not be as benign as I want it to be. A family member gave me some tough love:

"You can tell yourself whatever story you need to tell yourself to justify this purchase. I will not judge you. Do your life. And know, this is your eating disorder talking."

No shame. No judgment.

Just the kind of loving honesty that says, essentially, You know where this road can lead. Are you really sure you want to get back on it? And I knew. I didn't need another 16 hours of data to figure it out. I canceled the order. 

And honestly? I felt a little embarrassed. Because I thought I was farther along than this. I thought, Really? After everything I've learned? After everything I've worked through? 

But that reaction made me realize something important: Being vulnerable to old patterns does not erase the work I've done. It doesn't mean I haven't healed. It means I'm human.

Recovery isn't a finish line

I think we sometimes talk about healing from disordered eating as though there is a magical point where you graduate. You've done the work. You've learned the tools. You've made peace with food. You've stopped following rules. Congratulations! You are now permanently immune to diet culture. Wouldn't that be nice? But that's not how it works.

Healing is less like crossing a finish line and more like developing a really good internal alarm system. Sometimes the alarm goes off. Sometimes it goes off loudly.Sometimes you ignore it for a little while. And sometimes someone who loves you notices the smoke before you do.

The goal isn't to never be triggered again. The goal is to recognize what is happening, get curious, ask for support, and make a different choice when you can. That's exactly what happened with the health tracker.

We are all still susceptible to diet culture

I think this is especially important to talk about because disordered eating behaviors don't exist in a vacuum. We live in a culture that rewards restriction and calls it discipline. A culture that celebrates tracking. A culture that turns movement into something we need to earn or quantify or optimize. A culture that tells us more data is always better. A culture that has found endless ways to package body surveillance as self-care.

Even people who know all of this intellectually can still get pulled in. Knowing the language of diet culture doesn't make us immune to it. Being a healthcare provider doesn't make us immune. Being an Intuitive Eating counselor doesn't make us immune. Having years of recovery under your belt doesn't make you immune. Sometimes we still buy the tracker. Sometimes we still find ourselves thinking about calories. Sometimes we still look in the mirror and have a hard day. Sometimes an old thought slips in through the back door. That doesn't mean we've failed.

What I want to remember

I'm actually grateful I bought the tracker. Not because I needed it, but because it reminded me that recovery isn't about becoming someone who never struggles. It's about becoming someone who can recognize when something isn't serving them. Sixteen hours was enough. I noticed the pull. Someone I trust challenged me. I listened and I changed course. That's recovery, too.

And maybe there is something comforting about realizing that I don't have to be perfectly healed to be healing. I don't have to prove that I've recovered by never having another vulnerable moment. I don't have to be above the influence of diet culture. I just have to keep practicing noticing. I have to keep practicing questioning and choosing something different. And, occasionally, listen when someone who loves me says, Hey. I think you're heading somewhere you've already decided you don't want to go.

So, yes, I bought the health tracker. And 16 hours later, I canceled it. I'm not disappointed in myself, I am proud. Because recovery isn't never wanting the old thing again. Sometimes recovery is wanting it, recognizing it, and deciding not to participate in it anyway.