The Appetite

In this mini episode, host Carter Umhau, LMHCA--therapist, artist, and writer-- explains the story behind naming The Appetite. Citing a revelation from The Minnesota Starvation Experiment around the differences between hunger and appetite, Carter speaks to how tuning into the specificity of one's appetite translates to a greater appetite for other areas of life.  Links and Resources: www.refinery2...

Today's episode features the story of Sarah Taylor--The Appetite's behind-the-scenes magic-maker! Sarah talks with host Carter Umhau, MA, LMHCA, and explores the story of her own recovery from an eating disorder, sharing about her experiences in treatment and the deeper healing that happened after-the-fact. Considering that every recovery story is so different, Sarah gracefully shares the ways tha...

Regular listener Tam O'Donnell joins us to respond to a previous episode, "How to Eat in a Food-Obsessed World." Tam brings questions and wonderings around how to provide both structure and freedom for kids around food, and asks the crucial and vulnerable question of, "Can I really trust my body?" The Opal team, including Julie Church, RDN, CEDS, Kara Bazzi, LMFT, CEDS, and Carter Umhau, LMHCA, re...

Would you engage yourself differently if you assumed that all the emotions you experienced had something to teach you? Today, Opal: Food+Body Wisdom's Lexi Giblin, PhD, CEDS, and Carter Umhau, MA, LMHCA explore the process of "self-inquiry"--a key tool in Radically Open DBT. Self-inquiry is all about seeking growth rather than trying to fix one's shortcomings. In this episode, Lexi will lean into...

It's common to hear messages in the sports world like "More is better!" "No pain, no gain!" or "Keep pushing!" Sports Psychologist Riley Nickols,PhD, Director of The Victory Program at McCallum Place, joins Opal Co-Founder Kara Bazzi, LMFT, CEDS to explore the athletic identity and how widespread ways of thinking about performance as an athlete may also translate into other areas of an athlete's l...

This episode is all about identity. Opal: Food + Body Wisdom Co-Founders, Lexi Giblin PhD, CEDS, and Kara Bazzi, LMFT, CEDS, and Host Carter Umhau, MA, LMHCA discuss topics of identity development and explore how struggles with disordered eating and body image can sometimes point to a crisis of identity. The Appetite crew shares both from their expertise as clinicians and from personal experience,...

In this heartfelt and vulnerable conversation, host Carter Umhau, MA, LMHCA, asks Opal Co-Founders Lexi Giblin PhD, CEDS, Julie Church, RDN, CEDRD, CD, and Kara Bazzi, LMFT, CEDS about who they were when they were younger and how the people that came before them influenced the women and leaders they've become. This episode is released in honor of Mother's Day.  ​ Links: Betty Reid Soskin:  https:/...

Opal co-founders Lexi Giblin PhD, CEDS, Julie Church, RDN, CEDRD, CD, and Kara Bazzi, LMFT, CEDS, join together with host Carter Umhau, LMHCA to reflect and debrief after a transformative experience at the MUSE Conference--a yearly gathering of movers and shakers to kick off Women's History Month. The Founders explore their role as leaders within the eating disorder community and beyond and share...

Today we're talking about the ever-conflicting messages American culture gives us about what and how to eat. We explore the potentially detrimental nuances of fad diets like Whole 30, detoxing, and the idea of "eating clean," highlighting the work of Ellyn Satter as a map to a more nuanced relationship with yourself as an attuned eater and emphasizing new, more flexible ways to think about compete...

What is health and how do we get it? Today we challenge the idea that this question can be answered in a one-size-fits-all way. We explore today's obsession with health, challenging how much of a moral issue health has become, and how we might be able to start looking at it not as an absence of disease, but more holistically as an intersection of well-being in body, mind, and spirit. Links and Res...

Dr. Anita Johnston joins us to talk about how to learn more about your relationship with food by looking through the lenses of myth, storytelling, and metaphor. Author of Eating in the Light of the Moon and Clinical Director of 'Ai Pono eating disorder treatment center in Hawaii, Dr. Anita Johnston speaks to how the matrilineal society in which she grew up shaped her persceptive on food and body s...

In this special bonus episode, our very own host, Carter Umhau, LMHCA, shares her work as a poet, reading five works from her collection. Her writing touches on themes of friendship, birth and grief, being around the table with memorable food, the loss of an old version of life, and passionately enjoying one's self. Opal Co-Founders Lexi Giblin, PhD, CEDS and Kara Bazzi, LMFT, CEDS join the conver...

Radically Open Dialectical Behavioral Therapy has been a big topic on The Appetite...but today RO DBT creator Dr. Thomas Lynch and his wife and colleague Erica Smith Lynch join us for a conversation around its application within eating disorders. Radically Open Dialectical Behavioral Therapy--the newest evidence-based treatment targeting disorders of overcontrol (including anorexia, chronic depres...

In this conversation about the influential position a coach has on an athlete's life and performance, Opal Co-Founder Kara Bazzi LMFT, CEDS and Carter Umhau, LMHCA interview Sally Revere, head Cross Country and Track & Field coach at Lakeside High School in Seattle. Sally offers practical advice on how she addresses food and body concerns on her team, as well as addressing the power of coaching fr...

What are the temperamental factors that make a good athlete? Today, Opal Founders Kara Bazzi, LMFT, CEDS, Julie Church, RDN, CEDRD, CD, and Lexi Giblin PhD, CEDS, and host Carter Umhau, LMHCA talk sport and performance, exploring the topic through the Radically Open Dialectical Behavioral Therapy lens of "overcontrol." The Appetite crew discusses how this overcontrolled temperament in athletes mig...

Erin Harrop is a doctoral student at the University of Washington who uses a Health at Every Size®, anti-oppression, and critical feminist lens to explore the intersection of weight stigma and eating disorders. She joins Julie Church RDN, CEDRD, CD, and Carter Umhau, LMHCA for The Appetite's first interview, in which we talk about fatness, weight stigma, and the necessity of intersectionality when...

Opal's co-founders Julie Church RDN, CD, CEDS, Kara Bazzi, LMFT, CEDS, and Lexi Giblin PhD, CEDS, and host Carter Umhau LMHCA, discuss body image through the lens of both eating disorder treatment and their personal stories. They explore what it means to have a healthy body image, shifting away from seeing one's body as a project to "fix", and use their own stories to highlight the complexity of m...

As a person explores their appetite for life, forgiveness is worth considering. Opal founders Julie Church, RDN, CEDS, CD, Lexi Giblin, PhD, CEDS, and Kara Bazzi, LMFT, CEDS, --along with host and Opal therapist Carter Umhau, LMHCA--discuss what forgiveness looks like within relationships, as well as within a person's relationship to food, to themselves. and to their body. This conversation brings...

In the first of three episodes introducing Opal's core tenets, Dr. Lexi Giblin leads our discussion about the evidence-based treatment Radically Open Dialectical Behavior Therapy (RO DBT). RO DBT is a new therapy approach that was founded and developed by Dr. Thomas Lynch to target those who temperamentally lean toward too much control and emotional inhibition. The Appetite crew talks about how RO...

One of the many things that makes Opal a unique eating disorder treatment center is our incorporation of movement, exercise, and sport into the recovery process. We believe that movement is more than just a means for losing weight or shaping one's body. In this introduction to Opal's final core tenet, therapist and co-founder Kara Bazzi, founder, and developer of Opal's Sport+Exercise program lead...

Opal: Food+Body Wisdom founders talk about Health at Every Size (HAES) in this second of three conversations introducing Opal's core tenets. Nutrition Director and Registered Dietitian Nutritionist, Julie Church, RDN, CEDRD, CD, leads the discussion as we talk about what HAES is, how it is paradigm-shifting within a culture that is obsessed with body size, and why it may inspire a growing appetite...