From Eating Disorder and Exercise Addiction to Recovery

Eating disorders can affect every aspect of a person’s life, including their physical health, relationships, career, studies and sense of self. In this personal recovery story, Sam shares how an eating disorder and exercise addiction gradually took control of his life, and how seeking treatment at Imani helped him find recovery, hope and a healthier future.

When Football Became an Obsession

It is 3 November 2025. The day I had to make the hardest choice of my life. A choice that followed the three toughest years I have ever experienced.

For years, I battled an eating disorder combined with a sports addiction. I starved myself and trained multiple times a day, six to seven days a week.

Football has always played a huge role in my life. I played with great pleasure at SV Deurne throughout my youth and made my debut in the first team at a young age. That felt like a dream come true. Because I wanted to prove myself, I started training harder and harder to perform at that level.

In the beginning, everything seemed to be going well. I was getting minutes in the first team and felt motivated. But I found it difficult to accept that there would also be weaker matches. As a result, I started training even harder and paying increasingly strict attention to my diet.

It started innocently enough: skipping a few snacks at the weekend or eating more consciously. But slowly, the eating disorder took more and more control over my life.I started avoiding more and more foods and trained so intensely that I developed an energy deficit, even during football training. People around me could see that things were not going well and asked what was wrong. Yet I kept going.My performance on the pitch deteriorated, and the joy I once found in football slowly disappeared.

The game that had given me so much satisfaction for years became increasingly secondary.Instead, I became obsessively focused on my body, nutrition and strength training. I spent hours in the gym and also went for many runs. Because I no longer found satisfaction in football, I tried to find it elsewhere: in control over food and exercise.

Living with an Eating Disorder

What started with skipping a few snacks grew into something much bigger.An eating disorder is a silent illness. I skipped meals, and if something was being eaten at home that my eating disorder labelled as “unhealthy”, I ate my own meal separately from the rest of the family. Those around me saw how I was losing more and more weight and how badly I was doing.

I withdrew more and more, met up with friends less often, and hardly spent time with my close group of friends at weekends anymore. The worries at home grew bigger and bigger. My parents, family and friends saw how I was slowly wasting away.The situation at home became unbearable.Eventually, we decided to seek help, and I started several treatment programmes in the Netherlands in August 2024.

Those treatments gave me valuable insights, but unfortunately I continued to struggle with my eating disorder. The worries remained. Several times, friends showed up at my door after receiving a phone call from my parents because things were going completely wrong at home again, often due to heated arguments about food and exercise. I am incredibly grateful to them for always being there for me.

Those around me eventually realised that something drastic had to change. The only option seemed to be moving to the other side of the world, completely away from my familiar surroundings.

After the summer of 2025, I realised that I could not continue living like this and that change was necessary before I lost everything.

Travelling to South Africa for Eating Disorder Treatment

My family went looking for the best help in the world and eventually found Imani. When my parents first suggested it, I immediately rejected the idea. I absolutely did not want to go so far away and leave everything behind.

But in the meantime, nothing changed. The arguments continued every day, I became increasingly isolated, and I felt myself growing more and more depressed.

One day, I realised that this was not the life I wanted to live. I decided to be open to speaking with Imani. I had pleasant conversations with Kirsten and Alison, who explained Imani’s approach to me. After the intake process, I thought about it for a few more weeks until I finally made the best decision of my life: I decided to go to South Africa.

When everything was arranged and the preparations had been made, I flew to South Africa with my parents on 29 October 2025.

Recovery at Imani

We first stayed in Cape Town for a few days to explore the area. Physically, I was in poor shape at the time and barely had the energy to enjoy those days.

On Monday, 3 November, the time had come. My parents dropped me off at Imani, and then the real work began: working on myself and my future.

I received an incredibly warm welcome. The group immediately felt safe and special. I had the feeling right away: this is the place that is going to help me heal.

My time at Imani went well, although there were of course difficult moments too. The group therapies, the individual sessions with my counsellor, the support of the community, and the Recovery Assistants who are there for you day and night helped me recover both physically and mentally.

Imani has something special that is difficult to explain. I will carry the bond I built there with fellow clients and counsellors with me for the rest of my life.

During my stay, I gained more and more insight into myself. I began to better understand why I displayed certain behaviours and learned to accept my self-worth more and more.

I also rebuilt a healthy relationship with food and exercise. I began to better understand what my body needs in order to function properly.

After three months of working incredibly hard on myself, I am imm