Curious About Recovery - Diving Into Eating Disorders

In honour of Eating Disorder Awareness Week this year, and in alignment with BEAT’s desire to spread awareness around men in the recovery world, I spoke to Alex Rodriguez, an accredited practicing dietitian and recovery mentor at River Oak Health in Brisbane, Australia. It is not often that we see men in the recovery space and so it was really great to get his perspective and hear about the journe...

If you have ever struggled with poor body image, low self-esteem, disordered eating behaviors, or feelings of being powerless and out of control, there is a strong possibility that you may unknowingly pass these same struggles on to your children. In today’s episode I chat to Dr Christina Stai, Psy. D. about how to navigate yourself and your child through every stage of childhood development – sta...

Good therapy goes beyond simply teaching skills or delivering a cookie-cutter intervention. Halina Brooke is a licensed associate c ounselor and marriage and family therapist in Arizona who works with those who have felt like “outsiders” or who conventional therapy hasn’t quite gelled for, and with those who are often pushed aside from healthcare because of the complexity of their recovery pr...

After this year's festive season (2022) I found myself in quite a slump. I was really struggling emotionally and could feel eating disordered elements start to creep their way back into my life as a way to try avoid or cope with things that I was suppressing. I know that every person with an eating disorder will, at some point face the same struggles. So, my aim for this episode is firstly to help...

Dr Heather Finley is a Registered Dietician and Gut Health Specialist who has helped hundreds of women find relief from digestive issues whilst moving away from restrictive dieting and toward long-lasting relief and balance. In this episode she talks to us about gut health and we look at it from the lens of recovery from disordered eating. She explains a bit about the science behind why restrictiv...

In this episode I speak with Holly Farrar, MS,LPC - owner of Dedicated Recovery, a unique health and mental wellness organization that specializes in helping athletes with many health and mental issues. We explore what it means to create a life for yourself after exercise addiction and how to challenge your relationship to movement and exercise. Holly has her bachelor’s of science in kinesiology (...

In this episode I speak with eating disorder therapist and coach, Cherie Miller, owner of Food Freedom Therapy™. Cherie loves to speak on topics related to food and body freedom, which we explore at different levels in our chat. We take a look at different modalities such as CBT, DBT, ACT, and taking a gentle approach to recovery from an eating disorder. We look at what “food freedom” looks like f...

Spirituality may be a really hard thing to navigate and explore in recovery from an eating disorder or any other addiction. Trust me, it wasn't always easy for me. I had very set views of the idea of a non-existent "God". After all - why would God put me through such pain? Fortunately, I was blessed to have started my recovery journey in a 12 Step Program, which allowed me to explore what God may...

In this episode I speak with Dr Joy Zelikovsky, clinical psychologist and National Health Service Psychologist in New Haven, CT. She is also the founder of Nourish The Heart Counseling in New Haven, Connecticut. I thoroughly enjoyed this discussion on the importance of having representation in the treatment process. So often we are riddled with the stigma around disordered eating - that it is a wh...

Dreams may seem like a random string of symbols and situations that make no sense, but they are a way to connect with the deeper self. Our dreams are messengers that help us see ourselves clearer, process emotions or understand our fears or obstacles. They can be seen as a tool to access that which our waking mind struggles to connect with. In this episode I take you through my personal experience...

In this episode I speak with Tracy Brown, RD, LD/N who is a somatic nutrition therapist, registered dietitian, attuned eating coach, and embodiment teacher.  We explore the topic of attuned eating, taking a special look at the significance of trauma responses in eating disorders. Tracy also shares some of her personal story around disordered eating and how she came to be a dietician. Since 20...

Being a dietician for eating disorders comes along with a load of challenges. How do you best help clients? What challenges do you face on a daily basis? What are some dieticians getting wrong? How do you promote health in an anti-diet way? How do you manage your own mental and physical health? How do you handle crushing diet culture while not feeling like the food police? In this episode I talk t...

This episode forms part one of a two-part series with Dr Susan Perkins who earned her Master’s Degree in Marriage and Family Therapy from Hardin-Simmons University (2003) and her Ph. D. in Marriage and Family Therapy from Virginia Tech (2010). She worked at Carolina House, a residential treatment facility for 17-year-olds and older, in a gender inclusive space for a year and a half doing family th...

Music has always been a huge part of my life and undoubtedly has played an important role in my recovery from disordered eating. In this episode I take you through a little story about my personal history with music and why it has been so significant for me, and then I get curious about some of the science behind why music is so healing. I look at the different brain states and how binaural beats...

Dr Kari Anderson has been an eating disorder therapist for over 30 years and has a history of binge eating disorder as a teen/young adult. Her career has been driven by her own recovery and research into what causes binge eating disorder and how can we best treat it. She has written two books on Binge Eating Disorder, her latest book is a memoir, “Food, Body, and Love, but the greatest of these is...

Change is an uncomfortable thing for most people, but it is ever so more in a person who struggles with mental illness such as an eating disorder. In this short episode, I get curious about why we might perceive change (in general) as far more terrifying than your average person, and that creating safety around changes in your life can really help you with facing this very real fear.  Have a...

Plant medicine is becoming an interesting topic in mental health treatment, and so I decided to get curious about how it might fit in with someone's eating disorder recovery. So I got chatting with the beautiful Francesca Rose from Cape Town, South Africa who, after navigating over 14 years of her own eating disorder recovery, found plant medicine to be an incredible support to her process. ...

Relapse prevention is a part of the recovery process in eating disorders, which means there are certain things we need to manage to not fall back into old behaviour. However, eating disorders are non-linear and can feel quite challenging from time to time. You may even experience relapse. This can be a scary place, especially if you feel like it came out of nowhere. It may be the first and only ti...

Merrit Elizabeth is a Carolyn Costin Institute Certified Eating Disorder Recovery Coach based in Dallas, Texas. I had the honour of speaking with her in this episode about her lived experience with disordered eating and how she helps adolescents and young adult women through their recovery. We chat about the fact that there can often be a lot of pressure for young girls at school and college, and...

In this solo episode (just me!) I share a personal account of some of the different areas, levels or "phases" of awareness I have felt in my journey with bulimia.  When I first started noticing things (like my choices, feelings, thoughts etc.) I was thrown into deep self-blame, shame and even fear. However, through practising stillness, getting intimate with myself on a deeply explorative, in...

Lori Haas is a 500 hour Certified Healing Emphasis Yoga Therapist who helps people create nurturing, kind and loving relationships with their body as well as calming their nervous system.  In this episode she takes us through how we can tap into the body as a resource for cultivating calm and guides us through a practical grounding exercise.  We touch on Dr. Stephen Porges "Polyvaga...

In today's solo episode, I chat about the three C's of recovery.  These are Connection - to the self, Community - with others and Creative Expression - as a necessity.  While they are not the be all and end all of recovery, I have definitely noticed (in my own journey) how balancing these areas (and nourishing them) have deeply contributed to my level of sanity and the decline of immense...

Registered dietician, owner of Not Your Average Nutritionist, and author of International Best-seller, "Permission to Eat" takes us through some diet myths and perspectives from her personal and professional background with nutrition and eating disorders. Libby Parker helps people learn how to eat intuitively and to nourish their bodies for "normal life" and for theatre.  If you are a perform...

Carolyn is a therapist and CEDS who has specialized in eating disorders and trauma for over 12 years. She entered the area of eating disorders after the experience of having a daughter who struggled with AN for many years. She is trained in Family-Based Treatment for AN and BN, Embodied Recovery for Eating Disorders, and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy.  She currently offers therapy primarily to a...

Often, when we think of "freedom" in recovery, we think a lot about the external stuff. Our food behaviors, our body image and such. In this episode I talk to you about the importance of cultivating INTERNAL freedom in your eating disorder recovery journey. I explore what internal freedom means, what I have found hinders my ability to find that freedom, and how to start taking steps toward this fr...