Humans of Eating Disorders

Just Having an Eating Disorder Makes You Sick Enough With Dr. Jennifer Gaudiani

We are finally back with another episode, and this one is such a meaningful conversation with Dr. Jennifer Gaudiani, founder of the Gaudiani Clinic and author of Sick Enough. Dr. G brings so much compassion, clarity, and nuance to understanding eating disorders, undernourishment, and the medical realities through a weight-inclusive lens. This conversation is full of reminders that eating disorders make sense, bodies are not broken, and healing requires support, nourishment, attunement, and deep respect for someone’s lived experience. What we talk about with Dr. G: * The connection between weight stigma and eating disorders * The cave person brain and how the body and mind respond to food restriction * Why feeling “out of control” around food isn’t a lack of willpower or a sugar addiction * How someone’s ability to sustain restriction can change over time  * Fears about letting go of eating rules and post-restriction primal eating  * How weight stigma reinforces restriction  * The different genetic variations in how someone’s body responds to under-eating * The different layers of the concept of Sick Enough * Developmental needs and how they connect to EDs * How an ED makes sense and we need to honor someone’s lived experience * The importance of attunement and learning how to self-attune and self-regulate in recovery * Menopause, ageism, body changes throughout life, and the common ED fear that someone needs less food when recovering later in life  * How the metabolism actually works * The normalization of under-eating in our culture Buy the book: Sick Enough 2nd Ed. https://www.amazon.com/Sick-Enough-Jennifer-L-Gaudiani/dp/1041036485 Link to The Gaudiani Clinic's website: https://www.gaudianiclinic.com/ Get in Touch With Us Kate Ely * IG: @recoverwithkate * Email: kate@recoverwithkate.com * Coaching Website: ⁠⁠⁠recoverwithkate.com⁠⁠⁠ [https://www.recoverwithkate.com/] * Therapy Website: ⁠⁠rachelmillnertherapy.com/kate-ely⁠⁠ [https://rachelmillnertherapy.com/kate-ely/] Pamela St. Clair * IG: @pamelaevarecovery * Email: hello@pamelaevarecovery.com * Website: ⁠⁠⁠pamelaevarecovery.com⁠ [https://www.pamelaevarecovery.com/] Disclaimer: The content in this podcast reflects our own experiences and opinions and our guests and should not be taken as mental health or medical advice.

What If I Don't Have A Why?

This episode is for anyone who has ever believed they don’t have a reason to recover or they don’t have anything to recover to or for. It’s for those who can be overlooked in the conversations about reasons for recovery. We offer a different perspective on this question and share how our versions of a WHY looked different than the reasons we tend to hear about.  In this episode we discuss: * The misperception of needing a big, grand why in order to recover * The reasons we often hear intended to inspire recovery  * Who tends to get left out of the conversation * Why these reasons didn’t capture our experience  * Why someone might not have a why yet  * How believing we need a big, grand why can keep us stuck * What to do when you don’t believe you have a why * Why identifying a why can make a difference * The paradox: Whys grow with change  * Life can be hard: we are still grateful everyday to not be dealing with an ED even during the hardest moments  Reflection Questions * What is happening to me and my life when I live it with an eating disorder? * What don’t I want anymore? * When I think about my life 1 year from now, how do I want to feel? What do I want to be different? * What would be worth doing something hard and uncomfortable for? * How do you want to feel when you look back on your life? How does your current life align or not align with that?  * What worries a part of me about living without an ED? What does this part need from me right now to feel a little less worried? Get in Touch With Us Kate Ely * IG: @recoverwithkate * Email: kate@recoverwithkate.com * Coaching Website: ⁠⁠recoverwithkate.com⁠⁠ [https://www.recoverwithkate.com/] * Therapy Website: ⁠rachelmillnertherapy.com/kate-ely⁠ [https://rachelmillnertherapy.com/kate-ely/] Pamela St. Clair * IG: @pamelaevarecovery * Email: hello@pamelaevarecovery.com * Website: ⁠⁠pamelaevarecovery.com [https://www.pamelaevarecovery.com/] ⁠⁠Join our Facebook Peer Support Group⁠⁠ [https://www.facebook.com/groups/eatingdisorderecovery] Disclaimer: The content in this podcast reflects our own experiences and opinions and our guests and should not be taken as mental health or medical advice.

You Can't Hack Recovery

Join us as we explore what it means to try to hack eating disorder recovery. We look at the subtle and not-so-subltle ways we try to bypass the healing process and how this is a part of the grief process of losing an eating disorder. We share common examples of what hacking recovery can look like, including the ways we tried to hack our own recoveries. We talk in depth about why hacking attempts leads to stuckness. Most importantly, we discuss what meaningful recovery requires and why surrender is often the turning point bringing our path out of an eating disorder into focus. In this episode we discuss: * What does it mean to try to hack recovery  * Hacking as a part of the bargaining stage of grief  * Common examples of trying to hack recovery  * How we tried to hack recovery  * Why hacking fails every time  * The hidden costs of hacking  * What actually helps you move forward Disclaimer: The content in this podcast reflects our own experiences and opinions and our guests and should not be taken as mental health or medical advice. ⁠Join our Facebook Peer Support Group⁠ [https://www.facebook.com/groups/eatingdisorderecovery] Get in Touch With Us Kate Ely * IG: @recoverwithkate * Email: kate@recoverwithkate.com * Coaching Website: ⁠⁠recoverwithkate.com⁠⁠ [https://www.recoverwithkate.com/] * Therapy Website: ⁠rachelmillnertherapy.com/kate-ely⁠ [https://rachelmillnertherapy.com/kate-ely/] Pamela St. Clair * IG: @pamelaevarecovery * Email: hello@pamelaevarecovery.com * Website: ⁠⁠pamelaevarecovery.com [https://www.pamelaevarecovery.com/]

Part 2: Recovering in a Disordered Culture

Join us for the second part to this series where we talk about what it’s like to recover from an ED in a disordered culture. In this episode we explore - How recovering in a disordered culture is like trying to deprogram from a cult while still living in it - Why we question our reality in recovery and how an ED uses the culture to fuel that confusion - The challenges we face when recovering in a culture that is in many ways at odds with recovery - How fatphobia and disordered messages show up in ED treatment and recovery spaces - How shame and the disordered culture reared their head in our recoveries  - Why a recovery rooted in shame isn’t sustainable  - A guide to generate your recovery bubble, your force field, to shield and protect against the disordered culture  Guidebook To Create Your Recovery Force Field - Getting clear on what truly matters to you and the person you want to be  - Remember none of this is personal  - Embrace the subculture of the anti-diet, weight-inclusive, Health At Every Size spaces - Curate your environment and social media  - Find allies  - Know your context and stay away from comparisons  - Set boundaries  - Request not to be weighed: ⁠Don’t Weigh Me Cards for Doctor’s Visits ⁠ [https://weightandhealthcare.substack.com/p/what-to-say-at-the-doctors-office] - Stay home and insulate when you need to  - Seek out role models  - Aim to be a role model yourself and an ally  - Know you can’t control anyone else’s relationship with food and their body  - Use humor :)  - Get angry at the culture - Build a sense of safety inside your force field; make it a nice place to be When in Doubt, Aim Higher: What I Wish I’d Known About Target Weights in Recovery by Emily Boring [https://feast-ed.org/when-in-doubt-aim-higher-what-i-wish-id-known-about-target-weights-in-recovery/]

Part 1: Living in a Disordered Culture

Come along with us as we dive into what it means to live in a culture that is, in many ways, deeply disordered. We explore the broader sociocultural context of eating disorders—looking beyond individual behaviors to examine the systems, values, and narratives that shape how we relate to our bodies, our health, and our worth. Join us for the second part of this series in our next episode: Recovering in a Disordered Culture In this episode we discuss: - What diet culture really is - Diet culture’s modern disguise—wellness culture  - Healthism and why health is far more complex than the oversimplified messages we’re sold - Our cultural obsession with youth and the impact this has on us as we age - Hustle/grind culture and the cultural fixation on productivity  - What these forces have in common—and how they reinforce shame and disconnection from our authentic selves. - Who this disordered culture benefits, who it harms, and why so many of us feel stuck inside it - Eating disorders as signals of a disordered culture - The cultural role of why some eating disorder symptoms are more difficult to see as a problem vs. others - Reclaiming our power and questioning disordered narratives to find a more authentic way of living  ______________ Resources Mentioned in the Episode: Maintenance Phase Podcast Body Mass Index [https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-body-mass-index/id1535408667?i=1000530850955]  Is Being Fat Bad for You? [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/is-being-fat-bad-for-you/id1535408667?i=1000542081632] “Excess Deaths Associated With Underweight, Overweight, and Obesity [https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/200731]”  Katherine M. Flegal The Obesity Myth by Paul Campos Fearing the Black Body by Sabrina Strings  Journaling Reflection Questions:  What kind of person do you want to be in the world? What truly matters to you?  How might what matters to you differ from what the culture places importance on?  How might you have been impacted by the disordered culture we exist within? What societal beliefs, messages, and norms may have shaped your ED voice?  What messages have you received about what it means to be worthy and have value? Additional Resources: Books What We Don’t Talk about When We Talk about Fat by Aubrey Gordon You Just Need to Lose Weight and 19 other Myths about Fat People by Aubrey Gordon Anti-Diet by Christy Harrison The Wellness Trap by Christy Harrison  Reclaiming Body Trust: A Path to Healing & Liberation by Hilary Kinavey & Dana Sturtevant Fat Talk: Parenting in the Age of Diet Culture by Virginia Sole-Smith Laziness Doesn’t Exist by Devon Price The Body is Not an Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor  It’s Always Been Ours by Jessica Wilson  The Body Liberation Project by Chrissy King  Podcasts Maintenance Phase  The Full Plate Podcast The Body Trust Podcast  Body Justice  Real Health Radio  Body Grievers Club Food Pysch  Seems like Diet Culture   Men Unscripted Presentations Weight Inclusivity & Rejection of Diet Culture [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2isludJPnM] Presentation by Dr. Gaudiani   Websites Association of Size Diversity and Health [https://asdah.org/] HAES Health Sheets [https://haeshealthsheets.com/the-health-sheet-library/] HAES Printable Self Advocacy Cards for Medical Visits [https://haeshealthsheets.com/resources/] Weight Stigma Awareness Week (has lots of resources listed) [https://weightstigmaawarenessweek.org/]