Em and Mom Podcast

Episode 29 - Becoming Friends with your Body, featuring Kara Riggleman

Em and Mom are so honored to have Kara Riggeman on the podcast as our special guest. We met Kara while serving together on an Eating Disorder Awareness panel at Taylor University.

Kara is truly one of the most lovely people we have ever met. She is a wife and a mom to three children. She has a Masters Degree in Social Work and is currently a Community Development Program Manager at Ball State University and has also taught Social Work and Taylor University and spent several years working in Youth Ministry. Through her work, she has organically mentored so many students and young adults.

She has a personal history with an eating disorder.

We talked about her past history with an eating disorder, disordered eating. We also talked about how these life experiences have shaped her and have helped her learn to become friends with her body even as it ages and changes, and we discussed how her past experiences have impacted the way she parents.

This was an absolutely lovely conversation. We hope you enjoy it.

Episode 28 - WE’RE BACK!! It’s true. We are back, hopefully better than ever! :)

Episode 28 is now available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Links in our bio.

This episode provides a life update as it’s been a hot minute.

We also discuss current struggles talking a bit about perfectionism and body image and a little of this and a little of that.

It’s basically just a venerable and real conversation between a daughter and mom which made us realize how much we have missed podcasting together. Which makes the title of this episode telling.

We’re really back baby!

Episode 27 - Dance and Eating Disorders with Special Guest Kylie Roggie

Since we have started sharing our story, so many people have shared their experiences with us but we’ve never found someone who had story so in line with Emily’s.

We used this time together to discuss dance and how it can be many things - joyful, toxic, healthy, full of comparison, peaceful, and anxiety provoking.

Both Emily and Kylie had some dance experiences which became personally toxic and caused them to do dangerous things to try to fit into the industry expectations and then later found dance experiences that have become healthy and joyful.

We discussed Homebody - a film of six dances that Emily choreographed for her senior visual arts show to match her six visual art pieces. The show was about her journey from hating and harming her body to learning to appreciate and accept it.

Click this link to view the Homebody film:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mYy4Ug3VAKw

We also encourage every dance studio, dance teacher, dance mom, and dancer to follow @tothepointenutrition on Instagram. It’s a page filled with lovely content on the importance of nourishing yourself properly for dance.

Episode 26 - Pictures

Em has already discussed her distain for seeing herself in pictures. I bet we all have seen ourselves in photos and have not liked what we saw. However, most of us can have that initial “yuck” feeling and move on. For Em, and for potentially some others experiencing an eating disorder, it becomes an actual trigger. There have been times that Em restricted after seeing herself in photos. She also has refused to post photos or hang photos or look at photos with herself in them. She has even deleted photos forever that represented lovely memories. We discuss all of this and more in this episode. Em had declared that she is sick feeling shame over her body and is making it her goal in 2025 trying to love herself the way God and others love her. We challenge you too! Post a picture you’re not too thrilled with and tag us! We will repost how beautiful we think you are. Post the pictures. Cherish the memories. Love yourself!

Episode 25 - Exercise struggles and healing.

It’s been awhile and we actually recorded this episode weeks ago. It’s kind of like episode 25 wasn’t meant to be. First we spoke for 42 minutes and realized we didn’t hit record. And then we recorded again and someone came to our house to pick something up. So we had to stop recording and start back up again. So hopefully the third try (and now edited together version) is the charm. Whew!

This episode focuses on compulsive exercise. Even in the depths of the eating disorder when compulsive exercise was at its worst, diet and gym culture made Emily think that everything she was doing was okay - no pain no gain right? Uuuggghhh.

Emily also talks about how five years later, there are still types of exercises that are not safe for her to participate in. When she does certain things that she used to do when she was a compulsive exerciser, like go to the gym or do high intensity type workouts it results in her either being triggered or getting that feeling of not being able to stop.

She has found ways to safely move though and it has been very freeing. Dance is the one thing that was once toxic and is now a safe form of movement. Nature hikes and yoga have also been great for her.

If you feel out of control when exercising, you cannot take rest days, you are moving to change the way you look or out of guilt over what you ate or so you can have permission to eat later, you might not be in a safe or healthy mindset.

Reach out if you need help.

Episode 23 - Eating Disorders and College

Going away to college for the first time is a big deal but it’s also a lot to deal with - being away from home, a huge life transition, loneliness, figuring out a new level of independence. Add an eating disorder to the mix and it gets a little tricky. Em and Mom share their experiences and discuss what they did to prepare for the new life adventure, provide some examples of triggers, and give some tips on how to maintain recovery while at college.

Episode 22 - Dad! Episode 22 is special as we had our 2nd guest join us on the podcast. Em and Mom have been talking about our experiences together for 21 episodes. We thought it was time to bring Dad in for a visit. We talk about his experiences around food as a kid, about his role as a Dad to someone with an eating disorder and how that experience has changed him. We even talk a bit about Josh and how eating disorders impact every member of the family including siblings. It was an emotional and vulnerable episode for all three of us.

After having a very lonely day, Emily talks about her struggles being back at college for her last semester. This episode had a lot of emotions and a lot of vulnerability, but Em believes this episode can help more people feel less alone.

We hope you know that it’s okay to struggle. Keep moving forward. You did not come this far to only come this far.