In-person therapy in Midtown Manhattan. Virtual therapy throughout New York and New Jersey.
Compulsive Exercise Therapy in Midtown Manhattan
SOUND LIKE YOU?
You want to take a day off. But you can’t stop thinking about the workout you’re missing.
You’re tired. Your schedule is full. Maybe something hurts. But skipping your workout feels harder than making yourself do it.
If you miss a class, you spend the day feeling guilty. If dinner runs late, you’re thinking about how you’ll still get your steps in. You might exercise more after eating something you feel you shouldn’t have, or feel like you need to work out before you can let yourself eat.
Other people may see you as disciplined or dedicated. They don’t see how anxious you feel when your plans change, or how much of your day goes into making sure you’ve done enough.
Maybe you used to enjoy exercise. Now, even when you don’t want to do it, resting doesn’t feel like an option.
Does This Sound Familiar?
You're constantly thinking about food
You feel out of control around eating
You use food to cope with stress, anxiety, loneliness, or difficult emotions
You find yourself stuck in a binge/restrict cycle
You feel guilt or shame after eating
You hide parts of your eating from others
You feel disconnected from your body's cues
You're successful in most areas of your life, but food feels different
You might:
Feel out of control around food
Think about food constantly
Eat to cope with stress, anxiety, loneliness, or difficult emotions
Feel intense guilt or shame after eating
Swing between restriction and bingeing
Hide food or eat in secret
Feel disconnected from your hunger and fullness cues
Struggle with all-or-nothing thinking around food and eating
You might:
Feel guilty, anxious, or restless when you miss a workout.
Exercise to “earn” a meal or make up for something you ate.
Keep going when you’re exhausted, sick, or injured.
Feel like a workout doesn’t count unless you meet a certain goal.
Struggle to change your routine, even when you know you need a break.
Signs Exercise May Be Taking Over More of Your Life Than You Want
You don’t have to spend every day in the gym for your relationship with exercise to feel difficult. We’ll look at what drives you to move, how flexible your routine feels, and what happens when you try to rest.
You can care about movement and still want relief from the pressure you feel around it.
You might also:
Sacrifice sleep or cancel plans to fit in exercise.
Keep checking your steps and feel unable to stop until you reach your number.
Spend time at work thinking about when you’ll exercise next.
Rely on movement as the only way to handle a difficult feeling.
Tell yourself you’re just being healthy, while privately feeling trapped by the routine.
How Does Exercise Start to Feel Like an Obligation?
Exercise may have become a way to manage anxiety, deal with stress, or feel in control when other parts of life felt uncertain. Maybe it gave your day structure or helped you feel better about yourself.
For some people, it also becomes tied to food and body image. You start making rules about how much you need to move before you can eat, or what you need to do after a meal to feel okay.
When exercise brings relief, it makes sense that you would keep turning to it. But over time, the rules can get harder to step away from. The thing you were using to feel in control starts to feel like it’s controlling you.
It can be hard to recognize when everyone calls it dedication.
In NYC, exercise can be woven into your friendships, commute, and social plans. There are boutique fitness classes before work, running clubs on the weekends, and conversations about who’s training for what.
You might enjoy being part of that. You might also feel pressure to keep up, even when you need something different.
Walking can become part of the same pattern. You may take a longer route because you feel you need to make up for lunch, or keep walking after you’re tired because you haven’t reached your step goal.
We can talk about the parts you enjoy and the parts that have started to feel difficult.
You are not broken, and recovery is possible.
How Therapy Can Help
Recovery involves more than changing eating habits. Together, we’ll work to understand the emotional and behavioral patterns beneath the binge-compensate cycle while building practical tools that support lasting change.
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Before we focus only on stopping behaviors, we’ll explore:
The situations, emotions, and triggers connected to bingeing and compensatory behaviors
How stress, anxiety, perfectionism, and body-image distress may keep the cycle going
The beliefs you have developed about food, your body, control, and self-worth
What the behaviors help you soothe, avoid, express, or manage
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Sessions may focus on helping you:
Improve emotion regulation and tolerate distress
Identify triggers and respond to them with greater awareness
Challenge rigid rules and unhelpful beliefs about food and your body
Develop healthier ways to cope with stress and overwhelming emotions
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We’ll work toward changes that support your life—not another standard of perfection. The goal is to help you:
Find relief from the cycle of bingeing and compensatory behaviors
Feel less guilt, shame, and anxiety around food and eating
Build a more peaceful and trusting relationship with food and your body
Spend less time thinking about food, weight, and appearance so you can focus on what matters to you
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Because every person’s experience is unique, I tailor therapy to your individual needs, goals, and stage of recovery. I draw from evidence-based frameworks including Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), psychodynamic therapy, and Intuitive Eating principles.
My style is warm, supportive, and free of judgment. I am compassionate yet direct: I’ll validate your experiences while also helping you challenge the patterns that may be keeping you stuck.
Bulimia Recovery Is Possible
Many people come to therapy believing they should be able to stop through discipline or willpower.
What they often discover is that recovery begins with understanding what the behaviors are doing for them and then building safer ways to meet those needs.
You don’t have to wait until your symptoms become more severe or until you have everything figured out before starting therapy.
We’ll move at a pace that feels supportive to you while working towards meaningful change in your world.
Benefits of Bulimia Therapy
Clients may begin to notice things like:
Experiencing fewer urges to binge, purge, restrict, or overexercise
Feeling less shame and anxiety around food
Recognizing triggers earlier and responding with new coping skills
Developing greater flexibility and trust around eating
Feeling more present in relationships, work, and daily life
Building self-worth that is not defined by weight, appearance, or eating habits
FAQs
Have Questions? We’ve got answers…
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Yes. Recovery from bulimia is possible. Treatment can help you interrupt the binge-compensate cycle, understand the emotional and behavioral patterns beneath it, build new coping skills, and develop a more peaceful relationship with food and your body.
Reach out to start therapy in Midtown Manhattan today!
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No. You don't need a formal diagnosis to begin therapy.
If you are bingeing, purging, restricting, overexercising, or feeling consumed by food and body thoughts, you deserve support.
Our work together starts with understanding your experiences, not fitting you into a diagnosis. If a diagnosis is appropriate, we'll discuss it together and use that information to guide treatment.
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No. Compensatory behaviors can include self-induced vomiting, restriction, excessive exercise, or other attempts to undo eating or prevent weight gain. The pattern can look different from person to person, which is one reason it may remain hidden for a long time.
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I use an integrative approach tailored to each client. Our work may draw from Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), psychodynamic therapy, and Intuitive Eating principles.
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Bulimia can affect physical health, so some clients benefit from coordinated care with a physician, dietitian, or eating-disorder treatment team. If outpatient individual therapy is not the safest level of support, I can help you explore appropriate resources and a higher level of care.
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Yes. I provide in-person bulimia therapy from my office in Midtown Manhattan, making it convenient for adults who live or work in New York City.
If you're looking for compassionate, evidence-based therapy for bulimia in Midtown Manhattan, I'd be happy to talk with you about whether we're a good fit.
Work with Kendall
You don’t have to wait until things get worse—or until you feel completely ready—to reach out. Whether you have been hiding these patterns for years or are only beginning to wonder whether your relationship with food has become something more, you’re welcome here.
Are you ready to understand the binge-compensate cycle, develop healthier ways to cope, and rebuild trust with food and your body?
I provide in-person bulimia therapy from my Midtown Manhattan office, conveniently located for adults living or working in Midtown, Chelsea, Flatiron, Murray Hill, the Upper East Side, and surrounding New York City neighborhoods. Virtual therapy is available throughout New York and New Jersey.