Love This Food Thing

“I always said I’m recovering from eating difficulties and eating disorders. When I realised it’s much less about recovering, but about uncovering I started to call my journey the uncovering journey.”  Flurina is an osteopath, dancer and creator of The Breathing Body Podcast. When Flurina was eleven she had an idea that being thin would make her happier. This random thought caused years of di...

“I sometimes feel that the eating disorder has tried to trick me. To feel that we’re getting somewhere and then that door shuts. I feel it morphs itself into something different.” I have wanted to interview a mother with a child who has an eating disorder ever since I started this podcast. Lorraine’s daughter is now in her early 30’s. Her eating disorder behaviour began when she was 15. It’s been...

It was lovely to reconnect with Liv from the Liv Label Free Podcast for our autistic and neurodiversity chat. Liv has a unique and illuminating perspective and is very much about the lived experience helping others find their way without judgement or shame.  This is a slightly random episode away from our normal fare. I was trialling new contact lenses to correct an astigmatism and they reall...

Sabrina’s pivotal moment around her disordered eating and orthorexia happened when she became an aunt for the first time. “It should've been the happiest day of my life and all I remember is the food. I spent the entire day around the buffet table because my Mom had caterers and we had all this food I didn’t allow myself to eat. I kept filling my plate up and then going back for more to a point th...

“It’s not uncommon for people to try out their own DIY cosmetic surgery by cutting their faces or stomachs to squeeze out fat or super glue their ears or deliberately break their own noses so they can do their own rhinoplasty. When people become desperate and have BDD the only vehicle -  in their minds  - for any chance of future happiness is some form of physical change in their appeara...

“Within my first few weeks of practicing people were coming in to see me who wanted a restrictive diet. It didn't make sense. I was concerned about people’s relationship with food… I decided what I wanted to do from the beginning was speak above that noise. I didn’t see it working for people all I saw was it making people more unwell and feeling anxious and fearful around food and that troubled me...

This episode is kindly sponsored by Nell+Lola (delicious) Natural Dog Treats. Nell+Lola offer 100% natural treats and are supplied direct to you in a sustainable, plastic-free packaging – they’re good for your pet, and the planet! Use the code: LTFT15 to get 15% off your purchase.  This is our festive gift to you all as we know how much (like us) you love your dogs!   Laura Doherty...

Welcome to Season Seven. Our first guest, Livia Sara, is an autism advocate, writer and creator of the Liv Label Free Podcast.  Liv says:  “I like to compare the autism spectrum to the Electromagnetic Spectrum (EMS) We have all these different rays, x-rays, gamma rays… what I love about the EMS there are so many rays we cannot perceive with the human eye but that doesn’t make these rays...

“The human condition seems to bob along pretty well in the same place…. Trust is such an issue… I’ve seen very young babies who are already cut off, who’ve already decided that it ain’t going to happen so I might as well cope myself. That coping stance can become belligerent but it can also simply be a desperate sense of being absolutely adrift, cut off from your spaceship and just out there and t...

Trigger Warning: This episode has mentions of understanding calories in regards to units of energy. “The body doesn’t know the difference between chemical, physical and emotional stress.” Patrick is a top level Muscle Activation Techniques RX practitioner and trainer with over 20 years experience across the globe. He is also the author of Health and Fitness Perspective.  MAT is relatively new...

Trigger Warning: This episode has mentions of sexual assault.  “V-Land is an all inclusive platform. Everybody and every body is welcome at V-Land. It doesn’t matter where you’re from, we will accept you for who you are. .. We say on V-Land you don’t need a passport…. We try to make veganism accessible for as many people as possible.  This week I am joined by founder Will and CEO El, fro...

Esther Cohen is an intuitive wisdom keeper, eating psychologist and guide for embodied wellbeing. Her work delves into the root cause of illness... "I think we can trace our disordered eating back to our ancestry and the past few 100 years where women in particular were put in the role that the thinner you were the more godlike or angelic you were. Numerous religious organisations had young women...

“The therapists are identifying themselves as male, choosing  this career as a second career, and they want to create spaces for other males to say, let’s talk about what’s going on with your relationship with food, your body, how you embody yourself in this world. Let’s talk about vulnerability and how fragile you feel when you see this “perfect” male body.” Practitioner and educator Maria r...

“The things that we do (and the behaviours that we take on) to cover our wound and our shadow can be complete masks. Sometimes when you ask someone how are you they will say, I’m fine. I have to go by their colour, sound, odour, emotion and pulses to understand what’s going on.” Sarah takes great pleasure in food, although in the past IBS caused her enough stress to render daily living unbearable....

Sarah Roberts and Phoebe Dale are trainee clinical psychologists completing their Doctorate of Clinical Psychology at Lancaster University. Sarah and Phoebe's area of research is around the “eating disorder voice” - that critical inner voice particular to eating disorders and often missed by eating disorder support services in favour of traditional ‘weight restoring’ methods. It has only recently,...

“Thinking of a comparison between psychological profiles of athletes and those with eating disorders... perfectionism, black and white thinking, high levels of self control, self expectations, competitiveness, compulsiveness, repetitive exercise routines...” There are so many parallels. “I don’t think you can be excellent at something without an element of obsessiveness.” Ex-athlete Allie Outram m...

“I was a little girl really struggling. I would ring home in tears, I would end every phone call with my mother saying, Mum I love you. And I couldn’t end the phone call until she’d said it back.” Prue was sent to boarding school at age 10 and she was lonely, sad and desperate to return home. Age 12 she became anorexic and was diagnosed as a Type 1 diabetic. “In my mind I thought this is it. This...

“One day I had to go to the trading floor. I walked down... I was like a size 6, as I was walking down the spiral staircase half the trading floor looked up and checked me out. At that moment I felt attractive but... my body was exhausted, I was barely eating anything, when I wasn’t working I was hitting the gym really hard, I wasn’t sleeping, but...I was like yep, this is it.” Athena grew up in H...

Jeannette Maw is a Master Certified Coach, founder of Good Vibe Coaching and the Good Vibe University and is a self described “manifesting geek.” “I didn’t turn this power (on) to myself until last, and that feels really irresponsible, I didn’t understand the importance of self-love, I thought I’d just manifest some cool stuff. The key to all of this (conscious manifestation) is a return to love,...

“No one is saying if you take some psilocybin mushrooms or some LSD then you’re healed, no, it’s more like these substances help you go into your internal gold mine, where everything of importance is being and you get to see what’s inside and then after the experience in the days, weeks, months and years that follow you get to examine the nuggets of gold that you took out of that mine and shine th...

“I think eating disorders are one of the most powerful forms of nonverbal communication…” Allie is a former world-class athlete. At thirteen she won at the English School Championships. Motivated by talent, and the desire to make her Dad proud, Allie's athletic career blossomed, alongside a life threatening eating disorder. "I guess in running it’s not surprising that traits of great athletes and...

Danielle is a ‘root cause’ enthusiast. As a practitioner, Belief Coding® has been the missing link with regard to getting to the root cause of why someone has the discomfort they do… During her 20-year career in the wellbeing industry, Danielle has reached a point of clarity that pain management, be it physical, emotional or spiritual, will only get you so far unless the root cause of the pain is...

Our finale to Season Five introduces Luzolo Ntima, founder of The Heavenly Cake Company and finalist in the 2022 Free From Awards. Luzolo creates, bakes and then sends plant based cakes and cookies in the post like a “hug in a box.” She says, “I have always believed that everybody deserves to eat cake, regardless of dietary preferences, whether it’s necessary or not, or if you’re diabetic, nobody...

Chrissy Sundt is an ex ballerina, movement expert and founder of Silver Linings Well Being. Brought up as a strict vegetarian by her father. At home they were, “a weird Norwegian family living in this mad old house” who became “some of the forerunners of the organic farming movement ” in the UK. At ballet school Chrissy learnt to internalise her emotional and physical struggles in the name and pur...

Lisa Marley is a plant-based chef, presenter and Chef Trainer for Pro Veg. At school she, “Felt the odd one out. I didn’t have a good time at school and I wasn’t a happy child. Food was my friend but also the cause of quite a lot of unhappiness.” And at home her parents could be judgmental, “Oh, you’ve lost weight or you've put on weight. That was their theme and became my theme as well.” During h...