Why I walked away from Orangetheory, a workout I genuinely loved.
A quick note before you read: This isn’t a story about a workout program. It’s a story about recovery, discernment, and learning to protect the freedom recovery has given me.
I have been sitting on this blog for a bit, unsure if it was even useful to share. But I kept feeling nudged to write it.
If you’ve ever wondered what a healthy relationship with exercise looks like after eating disorder recovery, or whether something that seems healthy can slowly begin stealing your freedom, this story is for you.
My hope is that it encourages you to fiercely protect the recovery you’ve worked so hard to build or inspires you to keep fighting for the freedom that’s possible.
Twenty Years of Recovery
This year marks 20 years of eating disorder recovery for me.
It was July 2006, after about a year of intense therapy and intentionally working toward recovery, that I remember thinking, I haven’t had any urges or behaviors in a while.
The truth is that recovery is rarely one magical moment. It’s more like a slow fade. Then one day you look back and realize you’ve been set free.
Now, I still had quite a bit of work to do. Learning to accept my natural, healthy body took longer. So did learning how to cope with emotions now that my eating disorder was no longer managing them for me.
But bulimia was behind me.
No more restricting. No more bingeing or purging. No more counting calories. No more weighing myself. No more of a lot of stuff!
Over time, I discovered something so much greater than freedom from eating disorder behaviors. I discovered freedom to actually live.
Rediscovering Movement
Growing up, I wasn’t involved in athletics. I leaned much more toward drama and theater, and I started working as soon as I could.
My eating disorder developed in my early 20s.
Exercise was never part of my eating disorder behaviors, but I honestly think that was only because I was a young mom, immersed in the early years of my career, with very little free time. I would occasionally go to the gym, but I absolutely hated everything about it, even the smell when I walked through the doors.
As recovery became my normal, I slowly found a sustainable balance with movement that I genuinely enjoyed. I naturally gravitated toward yoga, walking, and hiking, all forms of exercise my eating disorder once deemed completely pointless because they didn’t burn enough calories.
My critical voice used to tell me, “If you’re going to carve out time to exercise, you had better burn a lot of calories.”
Thankfully, that voice lost its influence.
Instead, movement became something I did because it made me feel good, not because it changed my body. I had developed a healthy relationship with exercise. Movement wasn’t punishment or compensation. It was part of caring for the body God had entrusted to me.
I’ve even thrown in a few 5K Turkey Trots over the years because they’re fun and such a wonderful way to celebrate gratitude for my body on a holiday centered around thankfulness.
A New Season
Now let’s fast forward to the present: 2026.
At 48 years old, and for the past few years I found myself navigating an entirely new season of life: perimenopause. Honestly, it caught me by surprise.
My mom and the women of previous generations didn’t openly talk about what happens to our bodies during this stage of life. Part of that was probably a lack of knowledge, but I also think part of it was the stigma attached to getting older as a feamle and everything society tells us comes with it.
Although I know if my mom was still alive today she would have gladly and vulnerably told me everything!
As I began learning more about this season, I noticed something unexpected. For the first time, I found myself wanting to strength train.
Not because I disliked my body. My goals felt incredibly healthy.
I wanted to build muscle, protect my bones, support my mood, increase my energy, and care well for my body as I head toward my fifties.
Several people in my life, a cousin, a few friends, and even a former client, had talked about Orangetheory. While it was completely outside of anything I had ever done, I thought, Why not? I’ll take a free class and see what I think.
Little did I know, I was about to learn something that had nothing to do with exercise, and everything to do with recovery.
My Orangetheory Experience
Walking into my first Orangetheory class, I truly didn’t know what to expect. Actually, that’s not entirely true. I expected it to be hard! I knew I wasn’t walking into one of my slower yoga classes, and I figured I’d probably spend the hour wondering what I had gotten myself into.
Instead, I absolutely loved it.
Coach Ginney was leading that afternoon, and from the very beginning I was drawn to her energy, enthusiasm, and genuine care for everyone in the room. Her music was right up my alley with old school hip hop, and somehow, while managing three workout stations and a full class, she had a way of making me feel seen.
She thoroughly explained every exercise, encouraged us throughout the workout, and even celebrated my very first class. I walked out thinking, Okay…I get it. I completely understood why people loved Orangetheory, and I couldn’t wait to go back.
The Appeal of the Numbers
One of the things I learned that day was all about splat points.
If you’ve never been to Orangetheory, splat points are how they measure the amount of time you spend exercising at a high intensity. They are based on your heart rate, and every minute you spend in the Orange or Red zone earns a point.
I have to admit…my brain locked in.
Splats gave me a goal to work toward during class that had nothing directly to do with calories or the number on a scale. I remember thinking, This is brilliant.
Here’s the interesting part about me: my brain still loves numbers. I love spreadsheets, data, statistics, and tracking things. It is no wonder I had an almost two decade career in banking!
Recovery didn’t change that part of my personality. What recovery changed was where those numbers belong.
I no longer count calories. I don’t weigh myself. I don’t track my food. Recovery taught me that my healthiest life is built on trusting my body, not constantly measuring it. Or, as I often tell my clients, recovery looks like feeling and trusting, not counting and tracking.
At the time, splat points felt completely different. They felt safe.
A Subtle Shift
Over the next eleven weeks, I went to Orangetheory two or three times each week, except for one week when I had a pretty miserable sinus infection and simply rested so my body could heal. I genuinely looked forward to every class.
I enjoyed challenging myself, loved watching my heart rate recover a little faster over time, and found myself cheering on the people around me. It was fun. It was energizing. I honestly understood why people become such big fans. And, I loved splats!
Looking back, though, I can now see that something was slowly beginning to change. Not overnight. Not dramatically. In fact, it happened so gradually that I didn’t recognize it while it was happening.
Learning to Fuel Differently
Because Orangetheory is a HIIT workout (high-intensity interval training), I naturally started learning more about fueling my body for that type of exercise.
HIIT relies heavily on glycogen, which means eating enough carbohydrates helps replenish those energy stores so your body can perform well, recover well, and adapt to the training.
So, I started making some changes. Because my workouts were more demanding, I found myself paying more attention to how I fueled my body before and after class. I intentionally added more carbohydrates and made sure I was getting enough protein to support recovery.
My mind knew glycogen equaled my ability to earn more splats. The timing was important and I also noticed my hunger naturally increasing, which made sense given the intensity of the exercise.
All of these changes felt healthy because they were. I was simply trying to fuel for a different type of exercise.
The problem was where my attention slowly began to drift.
Without realizing it, my focus moved away from simply listening to my body and toward optimizing my performance. My original intention had been to nourish my body well. Somewhere along the way, though, I found myself becoming more interested in how to have the “best” workout.
In addition, when I’ve worked with athletes or people who genuinely enjoy a very active lifestyle, learning to fuel their bodies so they can train, perform, and recover has often been an important part of their eating disorder recovery journey.
Conversation in My Mind
Then something happened that caught my attention.
I noticed my clothes were fitting a little tighter. When you’re recovered, those things don’t define you or ruin your day. They certainly don’t determine your worth. So, I simply noticed it and moved on.
A few weeks later, I went to my annual well-woman exam, and my weight was up compared to the previous year. The number on the scale means nothing to me. I don’t even avoid being weighed at doctor’s appointments because it no longer holds power over me. It was simply information.
What caught my attention was the conversation that immediately started in my mind.
I thought, first my clothes are tighter and now this. It’s interesting considering how hard I’ve been working at Orangetheory. It’s probably just perimenopause.
That seemed like a perfectly reasonable explanation.
Then, a couple of days later, another thought surfaced.
Maybe my carbohydrate timing isn’t quite right. Or maybe it is too much.
That was the moment everything slowed down for me.
Not because I thought I was relapsing; I wasn’t. Not because I was hating my body; I wasn’t. Not because I was suddenly afraid of food; I wasn’t.
It was because I realized that, somewhere along the way, food had quietly started becoming part of an equation again.
Instead of asking myself, What sounds good? or What does my body need today? I found myself asking, Will this help tomorrow’s workout? What exactly do I eat and when?
Those are very different questions.
And for the first time, I realized I might be starting to lose a little of the freedom my recovery had given me.
The Moment I Knew
That last thought lingered a little longer than I expected. Is timing right? Is it too much?
As I sat with it over the next few days, I knew I wasn’t concerned with my body. My concern was much subtler than that. I had begun thinking about food through the lens of performance rather than simply trusting my body’s cues.
That distinction mattered to me.
The problem was that I no longer liked the direction my thinking was beginning to drift.
What Recovery Really Gave Me
One of the greatest gifts recovery has given me is discernment.
I know that not every thought deserves my attention, and certainly not every thought deserves my action. Recovery has taught me to pause and ask, Where is this thought coming from?
I’ve often said recovery isn’t about perfection. It’s about awareness. It’s about recognizing when something begins pulling you away from the life you want or even the life you’ve worked so hard to build.
This was one of those moments.
I kept coming back to the same question: Is this taking away from my food freedom and feeling intuitive with my body?
Once I answered that question honestly, I decided to cancel my membership.
Not because Orangetheory is bad.
Not because there’s anything wrong with HIIT training.
And certainly not because I believe everyone in recovery should avoid it.
I canceled because I know myself. I don’t want to think about food through the lens of optimization and performance. That isn’t Sarah. And it isn’t me living recovered.
Recovery gave me the wisdom to recognize when something was beginning to steal my freedom, and I wasn’t willing to ignore it.
Twenty years ago, I fought hard for that freedom.
Today, I choose to protect it.
