For a long time, I thought healing would look like shrinking.
Less weight. Less softness. Less space taken up. I believed that if my body was truly getting healthier, the scale would move down and my clothes would loosen.
But what I’m learning — and living — is this:
Healing doesn’t always look like weight loss.
Sometimes, it looks like the opposite first.
And that can be really hard to sit with.
When the Body Comes Out of Survival Mode
If you’ve spent years in stress, illness, restriction, or simply “pushing through,” your body adapts to survive. It runs on adrenaline and cortisol. It learns how to function without enough fuel, without enough rest, without enough safety.
That survival mode can look productive from the outside — sometimes it even looks like weight loss.
But survival is not the same thing as health.
When the body finally starts to feel safer — when food becomes more consistent, digestion improves, stress softens even a little — the body often does something unexpected:
It holds.
It holds water.
It restores glycogen.
It rebuilds tissue.
It protects.
That holding phase is not failure. It’s replenishment.
Why Weight Can Change Before Things Stabilize
One thing that doesn’t get talked about enough is that bodies don’t heal in straight lines.
When you increase food after long periods of restriction or stress, your body may:
- Retain more water
- Feel puffier or heavier
- Fluctuate more quickly on the scale
This doesn’t mean fat gain happened overnight. It usually means your body is refilling energy stores and learning that nourishment is available again.
Especially when carbs return after long avoidance, the body stores glycogen — and glycogen holds water. That alone can change how clothes fit and how you feel in your body.
It’s temporary. But emotionally, it can feel scary.
The Emotional Side No One Warns You About
Watching your body change while you’re trying to heal is vulnerable.
You can intellectually understand what’s happening and still feel uncomfortable in your skin. You can be grateful for progress and still grieve the body you thought healing would give you.
Both things can exist at the same time.
Healing asks for trust — and trust is hard when you’ve spent years trying to control symptoms, food, or outcomes just to get through the day.
Health Is More Than a Number
Right now, I’m choosing to look at health through different markers:
- Can I eat foods that once caused reactions?
- Is my digestion calmer?
- Is my nervous system less reactive?
- Do I recover better than I used to?
For me, being able to tolerate foods like dairy and chocolate again — without histamine reactions — is a bigger sign of healing than any number on a scale.
That doesn’t mean weight doesn’t matter emotionally. It means it isn’t the leading indicator of health right now.
If This Is You Too
If your body is changing while you’re healing, you’re not broken.
You’re not doing it wrong.
And you’re definitely not alone.
Sometimes the body needs to feel safe before it can let go. And sometimes healing looks like learning to sit in the in-between — trusting that regulation comes before release.