Love This Food Thing

Hanane says, “What I love about Sophrology is that you learn to be in the present moment, to feel, reconnect and accept without judgement or analysis. And that has been a game changer, for me.” Hanane describes herself as an “emotional eater”, until her early twenties, when she lost her brother and underwent major surgery. Overnight, her relationship with food and her body changed dramatically. At...

Azélie says, “During lockdown I was most of the time alone with my mother who was sick. It was stressful. Many people used social media to communicate and to share and there were many messages around diet culture. Although my mother’s cancer was unpredictable, my eating disorder wasn’t predictable either, but it was a way of controlling my body; choosing to be sick, even though you don’t choose bu...

Welcome back to our mini menopause series with nutritionist and health coach, Lisa G where we chat about some individual aspects of the menopause, or as we’re calling it ‘Four Short Dives from Two Short Divas’. In this fourth and final episode, we chat about sex, because it’s important, and no one needs to suffer in silence - plenty do - around libido/sex drive, vaginal dryness, ways to feel more...

Happy 2026! One of the reasons I created Love This Food Thing was to help people find their way to good health and well being which is why we’re excited to bring you this new year episode with amateur expert mycologist Anna Middleton. “ The core reason I love mushrooms is to do with the health properties - physically, mentally and emotionally they are incredible - but they’re also great connectors...

Welcome back to our mini menopause series with nutritionist and health coach Lisa G, where we chat about some individual aspects of the menopause. In episode three of our four-part menopause mini-series, Jemma is joined again by Lisa to talk about one topic that comes up again and again for women in midlife: protein. If you’ve ever felt more fatigued, foggy, hungry, or noticed your body responding...

Welcome back to our mini menopause series with nutritionist and health coach, Lisa G where we chat about some individual aspects of the menopause, or as we’re calling it ‘Four Short Dives from Two Short Divas’. In this episode we chat about the impact of declining estrogen on neurotransmitters like serotonin, dopamine, and adrenaline, and how this affects mood and stress. Lisa explains the importa...

Welcome to our mini menopause series with nutritionist and health coach Lisa G where we chat about some individual aspects of the menopause.  Or as we’re calling it Four Short Dives from Two Short Divas. First up: Body Image and Perimenopause. We discuss the mind**** nature of our bodies changing, when there’s nothing you can do about it.  Hormonal fluctuations. Embracing the change. Way...

Laura Casey is the Director of Services at the Lois Treatment Centre for Eating Disorders in Dublin. Laura says: “For the person to realise WHY… always helps their recovery because although they can’t change what happened, they can know why this happened. And then what their triggers are, which gets them to a point where they’re more resilient because they’ve done the work.” Laura is passionate ab...

Lisa believes in using food as medicine. “The starting point for me with clients, if appropriate, is to balance out stress levels. I like to work holistically, it’s never ever just about the food you eat it’s all about small sustainable changes.” I met Lisa on a retreat. She hosted my welcome interview and instinctively knew I was on the edge of burn out. I was so comforted by her warmth and exper...

“I found I wanted to stop time. If I could stay the same size as when my Mum was alive I could be closer to her. So I ended up restricting my food intake not because I wanted to be skinny but because I wanted to feel small and safe.” Mallary developed anorexia after the loss of her Mum. Some misguided nutritional education at school helped fuel her symptoms and OCD; a time consuming jumping habit....

Sean says, “I always remember, one time, getting off the bike and just shivering, I think I’d even stopped sweating.  I remember falling onto my bed. I have this memory of a long tunnel and there’s two silhouettes at the end of it. I don’t know where it came from. I blacked out. I went in to my wife and I said I need help. I think I’ve got a problem with food. I’d get up at 5am every morning...

“Katie Beecher is… eerily accurate. Her readings… have a heavy dose of spiritual insight, too, which goes straight to what’s going on in your emotional life.” Katie Beecher, MS, LPC is a Licensed Professional Counselor and Medical and Emotional Intuitive with over thirty five years of experience. Katie is featured in over 200 media outlets including Goop, Kourtney Kardashian’s website Poosh and Mi...

“I completely understand the pull (of weight loss drugs) why many people see it as a solution but I’m concerned about the fact that we don't have long term data or studies re the health effects and for people with eating disorders it can be a disaster and potentially create/contribute to disordered eating.” Our first podcast guest for 2025 is Marcelle Rose, an Emotional and Disordered Eating Speci...

Season 8 concludes with Lisa Marie who recently returned to day treatment for anorexia. “I’ll be trying to get a meal deal in my half hour lunch break and half an hour will go by because I’m stood there, staring at everyone else watching them pick out the first sandwich they see. I’m like, should I have this one, should I have that one, what’s got less in, what’s got more in, should I get somethin...

“I can really remember that the relationship with self was difficult. If I trace back to that growing, lovely young girl at 7/8/9 there was a little shift in body shape. I could see she wasn’t happy with herself…. I noticed a lot of self loathing creeping in. I used to really worry. I remember going into her room once and she was hitting her stomach.” Emma didn’t notice her daughter had developed...

“Initially it didn’t look like a relapse. My frame of mind was, I exercise a lot, I’m in a place where I’m eating well. I feel a lot stronger, physically and mentally. I felt in such a good place I thought I would really like to lose some weight. I just wanted to feel I had some control over my body and the way it looked!” Welcome back to Prue Part 2, for another intimate and candid chat. Prue wis...

“We’re not just a product of our parents, but all our ancestors who came before us and what happened to them. We get an inheritance when we’re born into a family, the difficulties, events and patterns of how these people felt. What doesn’t get resolved in a family in the generation it happens is then passed onto the next generation that comes into the family." Jonny is an Inherited Trauma Release...

Amanda never imagined that she’d ever recover after 25 years of eating disorders and exercise bulimia. “The final turning point was when I had a huge binge one day and was extremely underweight. I went to exercise for four hours. My son was in daycare. I felt so much shame and guilt for eating so much I thought I’m going to make myself throw up. I’d tried before, but thankfully it never worked, bu...

Alix was punished with starvation and isolation by some of the nuns at her Catholic Boarding School. “I remember being locked in the attic looking out the window and one of the girls said, there’s Alix. I shouted down, I’ve had no food and these girls who weren’t normally nice to me - they used to call me orphan - opened up their lunch boxes and threw their food up trying to get it through the win...

“It was just a sense of not being good enough. Not good enough because I’m a girl and boys are better. At school I wasn’t good enough. I had everything I needed but my house wasn’t good enough. I lived in quite a messy house. A bit dirty really… I remember watching a film about a little girl doing ballet, and I did ballet and she ended up with an eating disorder. I remember thinking, wouldn’t it b...

Kerrie is a leading Psychotherapist in the treatment of eating disorders and the founder and CEO of Orri, the Eating Disorder Treatment Clinic. “I think I knew from the age of twelve or thirteen that I would do something to help people. It felt really, really important to me and I know it’s a bit of a cliché but I always felt like I was somebody people would come and talk to and I liked being that...

Victoria is an award-winning Certified Reiki Master Teacher & Practitioner, Coach, Mindfulness Meditation Teacher, Guide & Moonologer.  “I would stop at the garage on the way back from work and buy sandwiches and crisps and chocolate and eat those in the car on my way home. I was in a very destructive relationship at the time. I got bigger and bigger and bigger.”  Victoria opted...

Dr Fiona Vera-Gray is one of the UK’S leading feminist academics working on violence against women and girls. She is also the author of Women On Porn, her first book for a mainstream audience.  “There’s research that’s been done about how girls' bodily capacity starts to change at around twelve, it’s not to do with puberty, they start to learn to restrict themselves…  … a fantastic paper...

Eating Disorders are a broad church. We all have our stories to tell and unique perspectives to share. I believe that eating disorders are physical symptoms of internal distress with notable exceptions - sufferers with ARFID, varying shades of autism and ADHD, there are probably more - but mostly from my own experience and what I hear from others, it’s about manifesting stuff, “out there” because...

Steve is a nutritionist and owner of the Mind Muscle Clinic. “Trying to educate people that it isn’t as difficult as it may seem, a lot of people who have come to me as a client dread it … but once they see the benefits it becomes a new habit. A new way of life." On one level, the “it” Steve talks about is health and fitness but on another, he’s alluding to the courage and motivation it takes to c...