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Eating disorder recovery podcast
Episodes
Sunday Nov 06, 2016
Sunday Nov 06, 2016
Learn the dangers associated with restricting carbohydrates and other food groups for everyone but especially people in recovery from an eating disorder.
In this podcast we discuss:
- The importance of carbohydrates as brain fuel
- The importance of carbohydrates as mood boosters
- Combating the thin ideal
- The influence of society and the normalisation of disordered eating.
- Why restricting can lead to binging
- Recovered sufferers in the field of eating disorder therapy
- The problems with lack of regulation
About Caitlin
Caitlin Croteau is an expert in helping her clients find body f
reedom. She comes with a decade of experience working in the fitness industry, nutrition field, and in health coaching. She is the founder of Finding Body Freedom, an online holistic wellness practice that provides health and nutrition coaching, intuitive eating and lifestyle programs, and retreats. She has her B.S in Health Science: Nutrition, is an RD, CPT, and RYT-200 Hour. Cait is currently attending Plymouth State University for her Master’s in Health Education and Eating Disorders. Her goal is to rid the world of dieting, help her clients quit the dieting mentality and welcome in freedom to live guilt free, and to decrease the prevalence of eating disorders worldwide.
This episode was based on the Huffington Post Article by Jennifer Rolin on reasons that you do not need to restrict carbohydrates. Read it here.
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Sunday Oct 30, 2016
Sunday Oct 30, 2016
In this podcast you will hear my conversation with Eva Musby. We talk about her experience with family-based therapy (or family-based treatment) as a mother. We also go into the key points that Eva addresses in her book and give you Getting a Person with an Eating Disorder to Eat:
- Understand the fear mechanism that is active when a person has an eating disorder. Logic and lectures will not work in this place, and Eva explains what you can use therefore.
- Compassion. Understanding how the sufferer is feeling will help you not blame them for their actions and will help you push through with family-based treatment (FBT).
- Creating an impression of utter confidence. This helps the sufferer trust that you as the parent know what you are doing and will reduce the panic and insecurity the sufferer feels. Watch: Stuck not Eating on You Tube
- Meal supporters must be on the same page. This is a key predictor of recovery — down to all decisions, not just the broad strokes.
- Become a great body language reader!
- Have a thick skin! Understand with compassion that the abuse the sufferer is dishing out is not personal.
- Self care and compassion for the caregiver. FBT is relentless! You have to be on your A game!
About Eva Musby
Eva Musby is a pen name. Eva’s otherwise healthy daughter spiralled into anorexia. Eleven months in hospital restored her health, but once she was home, Eva and her family learned a lot and made fast progress.
Eva now takes the principles that she learned in helping her daughter to recover and uses them to help other parents. She has a book on helping a child recover from an eating disorder which is a fantastic resource for any parent.
Where to find more information:
Sunday Oct 23, 2016
Sunday Oct 23, 2016
This podcast continues to discuss Family-Based Therapy for eating disorders.
In this podcast I talk to Amy Cunningham — mother of last week’s guest, Emma Cunningham. Last week we heard Emma’s story of family-based therapy from the perspective of a child who had recently been through the process. If you didn’t listen to last week’s episode you can do so here.
Amy tells us about the process of putting a child through family-based therapy. From diagnosis to close to full recovery.
In this podcast, we discuss:
- Genetics of eating disorders and how they run through families.
- Amy’s own experience with Anorexia and Bulimia.
- How Amy recognized her daughter’s eating disorder.
- Managing family-based therapy with school, work, and travel.
- Working with other family members to administer family-based therapy.
- Eating disorder advocacy and what needs to be done in order to make these illnesses better treated.
Amy now works as an advocate for family-based therapy and other aspects of eating disorder treatment and understanding. You can find out more about the advocacy part of our conversation via the following links.
International Eating Disorder Action
@IEDAction
Sunday Oct 16, 2016
Sunday Oct 16, 2016
In this podcast I talk to Emma Cunningham about how family-based therapy saved her life. This is a very enlightening perspective from a survivor — an important listen for parents who are currently administering FBT, or contemplating it.
Emma has suffered from Anorexia, and explains how her parents worked with professionals versed in family-based therapy practices to put her in an environment where her eating disorder could not survive. In fact, not only did Emma move into a firm place of recovery from her Anorexia, but she is now an advocate for family-based therapy as an effective form of treatment. What an incredible young woman!
If you are at all on the fence about family-based therapy, don’t take it from me. You don’t even have to take it from the professionals who use it to treat eating disorder patients. Listen to this 15-year-old survivor and see what she has to say about it.
In this podcast we discuss:
- How family based therapy is difficult, but it will strengthen relationships in the long run
- Why parents should not hesitate to go into family-based therapy
- How survivors respect and are thankful to parents who help them recover
- How FBT allows sufferers to recover the fastest way, and this lets them continue with their lives without an eating disorder.
- How families can work together even when they are not all living together
- The influence of school and how to manage school during treatment.
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Sunday Oct 09, 2016
Sunday Oct 09, 2016
Eating Disorders and starting college is an important topic for many students who are in recovery from Anorexia, bulimia, or other types of eating disorders.
In this episode I talk to Florida-based eating disorder specialist Dr Sarah Ravin about eating disorders in students who are either due to go away to college, or who are already there.
About Dr. Ravin
Dr Ravin specializes in treating children, teenagers, and young adults for eating disorders such as Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa, Binge Eating Disorder and other non-specified eating disorders. Dr Ravin also treats these populations for other psychological disorders such as anxiety and depression. She offers individual therapy as well as Family-Based Therapy (FBT) which is also known as The Maudsley Method.
Dr Ravin believes that parents are a sufferers greatest chance in recovery and works with parents to help their child reach a full recovery. She believes that a solid support system is crucial to the recovery process from an eating disorder.
In this podcast we discuss:
- How to know if it is safe to go to college or allow your child to go when an eating disorder is active.
- Leverage parents can use to make an “adult” child conform to treatment or continue recovery.
- The importance of a signed eating disorder recovery plan.
- The importance of a third party on campus to act as a verification source for the parent.
- Understanding that eating disorders make sufferers lie about their progress.
- The importance of health over education, and when to know it is time to pull a child out of school.
We want your feedback!
Please take a second to fill out this survey with feedback so we can make these podcasts even better:
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Cheers!
Sunday Sep 18, 2016
Sunday Sep 18, 2016
In this episode I talk to Florida-based eating disorder specialist Dr Sarah Ravin about the importance of finding a therapist who uses evidence-based treatments for treating eating disorders.
About Dr. Ravin
Dr Ravin specializes in treating children, teenagers, and young adults for eating disorders such as Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa, Binge Eating Disorder and other non-specified eating disorders. Dr Ravin also treats these populations for other psychological disorders such as anxiety and depression. She offers individual therapy as well as Family-Based Therapy (FBT) which is also known as The Maudsley Method.
Dr Ravin believes that parents are a sufferers greatest chance in recovery and works with parents to help their child reach a full recovery. She believes that a solid support system is crucial to the recovery process from an eating disorder.
In this podcast on how to find an eating disorder therapist, we discuss:
- What is evidence- based treatment?
- Why is evidence-based treatment is important for eating disorder therapy?
- Why some therapists do not use evidence-based treatment.
- Why non-evidence based treatment approaches can be harmful.
- Questions to ask a treatment provider before you commit.
- The importance of treating the most dangerous aspects of an eating disorder aggressively.
- The problems associated with non-evidence based methods in both the long and short term.
You can find out more about Dr. Sarah Ravin via her webiste: http://www.drsarahravin.com
Sunday Sep 11, 2016
Sunday Sep 11, 2016
In this podcast I interview Tara Deliberto. Tara is the director of the new Eating Disorders Partial Hospitalization Program at New York-Presbyterian Hospital.
You’ll be able to hear Tara describe the dynamics of the new program in detail and explain how it came about. We also discuss why this sort of partial-hospitalization program is an essential addition to the treatment of eating disorders in adults.
As an adult with Anorexia, I personally am thrilled about this program because the state of treatment for adult sufferers of eating disorders is currently far from being up to scratch. Most of the time, the sufferer doesn’t actually recover at all in a 2 week inpatient stay. Yes, they may gain some weight, but that’s a superficial sign of recovery from an eating disorder. Full recovery means a lot more than gaining a couple of pounds.
This short of program addresses the ongoing support that is needed for people who are recovering from entrenched eating disorders.
Sunday Sep 04, 2016
Sunday Sep 04, 2016
In this podcast I talk to Karen Korn.
Karen is the mother of a sufferer of Anorexia, and has spent the last couple of years helping her daughter battle this deadly disease. Karen is also an anthropologist, and has some ideas about veganism and eating disorders that I think are interesting.
She’s got more of a tactful and thoughtful message than I have I think, as I just tend to bulldoze in with my “nobody who has had an eating disorder can be a vegan” approach, so her ideas might go over better for those of you who bristle at my own.
Anthropology is the study of humans. It’s also the study of human culture, and food is often a large part of our culture, isn’t it?. Regardless of religion or race, there is always a food-orientated holiday somewhere on the calendar. We go through phases as a culture over time too, not so long ago the main phase in Western culture was low fat. You all know how I feel about that one, I only dedicated my book’s title to it “Love Fat.”
While we seem to be making positive shifts towards understanding once again that fat is an important nutrient, we’ve moved on to a new phase or trend in food. All this “Clean eating” and speciality diets. Yes, veganism.
It’s an interesting discussion, we begin by talking about Karens own daughter’s experience of Anorexia and how she went about noticing the problem, to making the first steps around getting treatment.
I asked Karen to shoot me some resources to do with ethical eating, vegainsim etc. Well there is a whole huge long list from her — don’t miss the “solutions” at the bottom— enjoy!
Links
http://www.beyondveg.com/index.shtml
http://naturalhygienesociety.org/diet3.html#4
http://tabithafarrar.com/2016/06/back-veganism-eating-disorders-conversation/ = LOL You’ve been in my Bookmarks for a while now
http://www.livescience.com/26278-risks-raw-vegan-diet.html
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/04/17/is-veganism-good-for-everyone/meat-is-brain-food
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/04/17/is-veganism-good-for-everyone
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/04/17/is-veganism-good-for-everyone/a-choice-with-definite-risks
http://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/4/2/127
Which diet is best? Vegan, Vegetarian, Paleo, WAPF, Low-Carb….?
http://www.onegreenplanet.org/lifestyle/understanding-neocarnism/
http://www.science20.com/news_articles/vegetarians_found_to_have_more_cancer_allergies_and_mental_health_disorders-133332
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evolutionary-psychiatry/201211/youre-vegetarian-have-you-lost-your-mind
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/real-healing/201211/vegetarianism-and-eating-disorders
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3466124/
https://ijbnpa.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1479-5868-9-67
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195666311006271
Study: Vegetarians Less Healthy, Lower Quality Of Life Than Meat-Eaters
http://www.naturalhealthprotocol.com/vegetarianism-and-body-chemistry.html
than-meat-lovers/#sthash.25dQeQQH.jnh7BGCi.dpbs
http://www.scientific-alliance.org/scientific-alliance-newsletter/can-vegetarians-save-world
http://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9781137554888#reviews
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/vegetarian-or-omnivore-the-environmental-implications-of-diet/2014/03/10/648fdbe8-a495-11e3-a5fa-55f0c77bf39c_story.html
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2010/07/is-vegetarian-diet-green
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/foodanddrinknews/8012205/Eat-meat-and-save-the-planet-says-eco-warrior-and-former-vegetarian.html
Solutions:
Sunday Aug 28, 2016
Sunday Aug 28, 2016
This podcast is the second part from my conversation with inspiring Eating Disorder Advocate JD Ouellette on resources available and lessons leant from parenting a child through an eating disorder.
JD’s daughter became ill with Anorexia at age 17, and Family Based Therapy was a crucial part of her recovery. In this episode, we delve more into the dangers and complications that speciality diets pose to the recovering sufferer, the role of the entire family and the importance in getting Dads involved in treatment, and so much more … including chickens!
Follow @JugglingJenn on Twitter.
Topics discussed in this podcast:
- FBT (Family Based Therapy) resources and methods
- Online help for parents and where to go to learn more
- Understanding eating disorder behaviour in your child
- How parents can prepare mentally to treat a child with an Eating Disorder.
- The role of families in Eating Disorder Treatment.
- What to look out for if you suspect your child is suffering from an eating disorder
- Vegan diets and Eating Disorders
- Dangers associated with recovered sufferers acting as Eating Disorder Therapists
- The importance of Eating Disorder Advocacy and Storytelling
Links to resources mentioned in this podcast:
USCD Eating Disorder Center for Treatment and Research
Laura Hill’s TED Talk
The Venus Fly Trap and the Land Mine: Novel Tools for Eating Disorder Treatment
Brave Girl Eating by Harriet Brown
Sunday Aug 21, 2016
Sunday Aug 21, 2016
This podcast features inspiring Eating Disorder Advocate JD Ouellette on parenting a child through an eating disorder.
We discuss resources available and lessons leant from parenting a child through an eating disorder. JD’s daughter became ill with Anorexia at age 17, and Family Based Therapy was a crucial part of her recovery.
Topics discussed in this podcast:
- FBT (Family Based Therapy) resources and methods
- Online help for parents
- Understanding eating disorder behavour
- UCSD Eating Disorder Resources
Follow @JugglingJenn on Twitter.
Links to resources mentioned in this podcast:
USCD Eating Disorder Center for Treatment and Research
Laura Hill’s TED Talk
The Venus Fly Trap and the Land Mine: Novel Tools for Eating Disorder Treatment
Brave Girl Eating by Harriet Brown
Sunday Aug 14, 2016
Sunday Aug 14, 2016
I explained in the last podcast how I used information from the FEAST website on Family-Based Therapy to kick start my own inner mealtime matron. That was probably the single biggest initiative for me in my recovery — establishing that my eating disorder was not “me”, which let to being able to foster a healthy hate of Anorexia, and develop an inner voice ordering me to eat.
But that is not the whole story. Eating disorders are dreadfully multi-faceted, so recovery tools and approaches have to be so also.
In this post, I’m going to explain how I used knowledge about the parts of my brain that control fear, to overcome the fight-flight response to eating.
I explain how I used research into phobias, fear, stress, and techniques to overcome the stress fight-or-flight response to understand what was going on in my brain to cause me to have such a fear response to food.
Remember, you can subscribe to this podcast in iTunes and Google Play so that you get each episode automatically. If you have an idea for a topic you would like me to discuss, then email me or reach out on twitter. @Love_Fat_
Sunday Aug 07, 2016
Sunday Aug 07, 2016
Last week I recorded a podcast with Dr. Lauren Muhlheim on the subject of adults with eating disorders. We touch on Family -Based Therapy there. You can listen to the podcast here, and in this post I will be referencing it.
PSA: This episode contains a swear word! Listen at your own risk 
About halfway through the conversation we get to talking about Family-Based Therapy (FBT) and the role that this evidence-based form of treatment that is usually used with children has in treating adult sufferers of eating disorders. Lauren asked me about my own story about using FBT to recover, and I tell a little, but I wanted to elaborate on that here.
Before I say anything more, I need to make it clear that treating ones own self for a serious mental illness is not optimal. I was desperate and I had no other resources. The whole point of advocacy in the eating disorders world is to push for resources to be available for people with eating disorders so they don’t have to self treat. That said, the principles that I applied to my own recovery can help you even if you are receiving professional treatment elsewhere — at least that my opinion. Remember, I am not a professional, I am just someone who worked out on my own how to treat my own Anorexia.
So here’s my story:
I’d been suffering Anorexia for almost ten years, but I had only just began to understand that I had an eating disorder. Anorexia is particularly nefarious in they way that it disguises itself as the sufferers own thoughts and will. The nature of the disease is to not allow the sufferer to know there is a problem, but that’s another story in itself.
So, at this point I understand I have an ED, and I am starting to look for help, and all I can find are psychoanalytical approaches that tell me I must have been abused as a child, or I must absolutely hate myself, or for whatever underlying and hidden reason I am actually doing this to myself in order to gain control on my life of whatever. Bull Shit.
I knew even then that I wasn’t doing anything to myself, and I had begun to mistrust the thoughts in my head telling me not to eat and to exercise more. I had also begun to distrust the fight-or-flight response I had been having towards food for so many years. Long story short, I knew that something was up with my brain, and that whatever it was was not my doing — consciously or subconsciously.
So I start Googling eating disorders. And I come across this FEAST website that is a resource for parents of children with EDs. On that website is a forum, and I create a username and start reading. Fuck. I mean. Fuck. The stuff on that site. You’ve got parents who are terrified and watching their own children starve to death. You’ve got parents who have lost children to ED. You have parents who have successfully used Family-Based Therapy to treat a child with an ED, and you have everything in between. The anonymous nature of the forum means that this is a place where parents don’t need to hold back. They can openly grieve, rage, and unleash their frustration at their child’s illness. It’s raw.
I read a lot. Initially when I read about FBT and the process of practically force feeding children who are at risk of starving to death my own eating disorder had a fit. It told me that was cruel. But a part of me knew it wasn’t. A part of me knew it was the only thing that was going to help these children in the long run. As I continued to read about the horrific mealtime tantrums that these parents were dealing with six times a day every day I could see both sides: I was the child, but I was also the adult wanting the child to get better.
Those days reading FEAST taught me the following:
-
I understood that a parent could love their child but simultaneously hate their child’s eating disorder. This planted the seed for me that the two things were separate.
Much of the parent-to-parent support for parents new to Family-Based Therapy was teaching that parent that the tantrums that were directed at them every mealtime was not thier child — the tantrums were the disease. In order to not allow those tantrums to rip them apart and make them think that their own child hated them, it was crucial that they understood it was the disease talking and not the child.
TL;DR: It is okay to hate the eating disorder. The ED is not your child. You can hate the ED and still love your child.
-
You can hate your eating disorder and still love yourself.
Huge. This single realisation was the biggest turning point for me. As I read the hate-rage towards EDs that the parents on this FEAST forum had I absorbed it. I recognised all those ED behaviours in my own self and I was able to HATE them. Because the forum had taught me that my ED was not me, I as at full license to hate it.
I cannot stress this enough: I had to allow myself to hate my eating disorder in order to find the energy and motivation to get rid of it.
-
Learning about how Family-Based Therapy is used to treat children I was able to take the framework and apply it to my own self.
– Life stops until you eat. I would make myself sit at the table and tell myself you are not leaving until you have eaten it all. Even if it takes hours. No matter what else you had planned to do today, you don’t get to do any of it until you have eaten this meal.
Was it easy? Fuck no.
Many a time I slammed my chair back and left that table with food still on my plate, but I only got a couple of feet out of the kitchen before the “FBT voice” said: If you leave that food Anorexia has won. I hate Anorexia right, so that thought of letting it win would send me straight back to the table to eat the rest.
-
Food is medicine.
FEAST drummed this into me. I think that it’s tattooed onto some part of my brain somewhere. I still think it every day for good measure. I made that my moto. I made it my mantra. I repeated it over and over to drown out the ED voice telling me to obsess over calories or exercise.
After some time, I turned that into “Fat is Medicine” in an attempt to help myself redefine my more feared nutrient in my head — and that is what lead me to the book that I wrote: Love Fat.
Not ideal. Sometimes I wonder how on earth I did that. How the fuck did I fight my own mental disorder?
But I did. Treatment from an ED professional who knows the score is optimal for recovery, as nobody should have to do it they way that I did. But my story can be used for adults who want to continue their own treatment once the initial help has been given. Know that your ED is not you. Find a healthy hate for your ED and a passion to get rid of it. Know that every single mouthful of food is a win for you. Equally know that every plate that you walk away from is a win for your ED. Be brutal with yourself if you have to do that in order not to let your ED win. Ever.
Your ED is not you.
Food is medicine.
Please make sure that you subscribe to The Eating Disorder Recovery podcast in iTunes to make sure that you never miss an episode.
Sunday Jul 31, 2016
Sunday Jul 31, 2016
I had the pleasure of talking to the fabulous Dr. Lauren Muhlheim over Skype today about adults with eating disorders.
Below are some of the issues that Dr. Muhlheim and I discussed. This is just the bare bones of the conversation and I recommend that you listen to the whole podcast as Dr. Muhlheim gives some incredibly valuable insight and decorates these points fantastically.
Dr. Lauren Muhlheim
Dr. Lauren Mulhleim is a clinical psychologist at Eating Disorder Therapy LA who specializes in providing evidence-based cognitive behavioral psychotherapy for a variety of problems experienced by adults including eating disorders. Dr. Muhlheim regularly volunteers her time for several organizations including the Academy for Eating Disorders, the Los Angeles County Psychological Association, and Best Friends LA. She is my go-to professional and a highly valued member of the eating disorder advocacy community.
In short: Dr. Muhlheim gets eating disorders. Check out her website for more information and resources and follow her on twitter @drmuhlheim
In this podcast you will find information on:
Outlining the biggest obstacles for adult sufferers when it comes to accessing treatment options.
Adult and post-menopausal onset of eating disorders.
Dynamics of family and relationships for adults with eating disorders and financial implications.
The role and potential of Family-Based Therapy.
Post inpatient treatment plans and relapse avoidance plans
Links to resources mentioned in the podcast:
F.E.A.S.T – Families Empowered and Supporting Treatment of Eating Disorders — this is the website that helped me save my own life. Literally.
And here are those Dr. Muhlhiem mentioned at the end of the podcast:
ASPIRE – Adults Supporting Peers in Recovery from Eating Disorders
Thursday Jul 28, 2016
Thursday Jul 28, 2016
Hey there,
One thing that I really did not anticipate when I started this blog was how I would feel when readers got in touch with me. Honestly when I started I didn’t think I would have any readers, so interacting with readers couldn’t have been further from my mind.
A couple years on, I interact with readers more than I write blog posts — a lot more — and it is fabulous.
I started podcasting for work, and now that I have all the setup I want to podcast here too. I hope that you will subscribe and let me know what you think. As I say in this intro, I cannot promise how often I will publish a podcast, but I hope to do one a week. iTunes takes a couple of days to update, but before Friday you should be able to find me in the Podcast app on your phone.
This weekend I plan to record some thoughts on adult sufferers as I have been writing about that a bit recently and I have also been emailing with a number of adult sufferers. As I was an adult onset of Anorexia myself, it is a subject very close to my heart.
Thanks to all of you who have supported, inspired, and motivated me.
Stay tuned!
Podcast host: Tabitha Farrar
@Love_Fat_
Cover art with thanks to Bethany Alderson
Music credit with thanks to Accelerated Ideas