Real Health Radio

A common tactic employed with an upcoming event (like a meal with friends or Christmas lunch) is to restrict in advance. I look at the intention behind this, what happens when you follow this tactic and a suggestion for what to do instead.

This week on Real Health Radio I chat with Betsy Brenner all about her memoir The Longest Match: Rallying to Defeat an Eating Disorder in Midlife. We chat about her childhood, emotional trauma, profound grief, anxiety, depression, the development of an eating disorder in her 40s and everything she did to recover.

It's common for people to credit the eating disorder for doing many things for them. But typically, when we examine this closer, what the eating disorder provides is very different. In this episode, I share ideas based on two recent client conversations.

My guest this week on the show is Julia Trehane. Julia fully recovered after living with an eating disorder for 40+ years. We talk about Julia's difficult upbringing, the many phases of her eating disorder, what did and didn't help in her recovery and many of the things she now works on with clients as a recovery coach.

One common mistake that occurs with an eating disorder is attempting to appease it. And typically, this is born out of the fear of what the eating disorder might do, so it's a form of anticipatory obedience. During the episode, I explain why this doesn't work and a different way of framing things to help you take action in your recovery.

Fear of weight gain is typically the biggest fear getting in the way of recovery. In this episode, I examine the connection between this fear and the concept of loss aversion, referencing a fantastic study to demonstrate the high price paid to avoid this loss.

One common fear that regularly comes up is the belief that after doing recovery for some length of time, you'll need to start restricting again. In this episode, I go through some of the misconceptions with this and why you never have to restrict again.

On this episode of Real Health Radio, it is a solo show and it is all about eating disorder recovery. I cover the many aspects that make up recovery when we truly want to get at all the ways that an eating disorder infiltrates one’s life.

On this week's episode of the podcast I chat with Jamie Magdic about her book Food & Body Image Freedom Workbook & Journal: Find body love and food freedom without diets, food obsession, or weight shame!

This week we have a returning guest with Emily Troscianko making her second appearance on the show. As part of this episode we talk about the research Emily did to test if her memoir would create harm and whether it should be published. We also talk about cognitive impairment with eating disorders, the power of anticipated regret and using eating speed with recovery.

As humans, we are not very good at predicting the future or how a future event will leave us feeling and how long that feeling will last. And this is especially the case when living with an eating disorder. Today on the show, I look at an idea called affective forecasting and some of the biases or reasons we predict incorrectly.

We have a returning guest to the show this week, with Dr Jennifer Gaudiani returning for her second time. This episode is a deep dive into Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) and eating disorders.

It's easy to get hooked by our thoughts, even when they are unhelpful and pull us away from the kind of life we want to lead. This episode gives you five practical tools to help remind you that thoughts are just thoughts.

On this episode of Real Health Radio, my guest is Dr. Colleen Reichmann. We chat about Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT), person-focused therapy, eating disorder recovery, motivation, harm reduction versus full recovery, the pros and cons of different levels of care, motivation and her book The Inside Scoop On Eating Disorder Recovery.

This week on the show I speak with Dr. Brad Smith, the chief medical officer for Rogers Behavioural Health. We talk about the co-occurence of many conditions with eating disorders: OCD, anxiety, depression, and addiction. We also cover ERP (Exposure and Response Prevention) - what it is, how it works and how it can be used for different aspects of recovery.

One of the most common mistakes I see people making is to go slow in recovery. As part of this episode I look at the common reason why people take this approach and why it doesn't help.

Do you know how to cope without using eating disorder behaviours? For many (or most) the eating disorder becomes their only means of coping. This means that part of recovery is about learning other ways of coping, and that's what this episode is about.

This week I the show I speak with Talia Cecchele. We talk about overcoming compulsive movement, digestive issues in recovery, the RAVES framework and how it can be used when making choices about food changes in recovery as well as some nutrition myth busting.

On this episode of Real Health Radio, I'm chatting with Summer Innanen. For many of you, Summer doesn’t need an introduction. This is her third appearance on the show and someone I have been a fan of for nearly a decade. This episode is all about body image, with Summer and I talking about how we help clients in this area. We cover: What body image is and how it’s connected to self-worth Confidenc...

The eating disorder always makes out how hard recovery is. But the reality is, that living with an eating disorder is harder than recovery.

In this episode I speak with Sheri Segal Glick, author of The Skinny: My messy, hopeful fight for full recovery from anorexia. We cover calorie counting, compulsive exercise, shame and secrecy, quasi recovery versus full recovery, commitment in recovery and sitting with discomfort.