Life After Diets

In this episode of the "Life After Diets" podcast, we explore the journey of coping with depression in eating disorder recovery. Join us as we discuss personal stories, coping strategies, and nervous system theory with our hosts, Sarah Dosanjh, psychotherapist and author of I Can't Stop Eating, and Stefanie Michele, Certified Intuitive Eating Coach and Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, both recovered from binge eating.

Episode Highlights include:

• Anxiety and Depression: are they linked? How?
• What depression feels like
• Polyvagal Theory as it applies to the stigma of mental health
• Who is the "real you?"
• Parts Theory (IFS, Internal Family Systems) as applicable to ED and depression
• How food can be used as a depression buffer and/or coping mechanism

If you find this episode helpful, please subscribe to the Life After Diets podcast, leave us a review, and share your thoughts with us on Instagram and YouTube (@lifeafterdietspodcast). Your feedback helps us create content that matters to you.

Join our growing support community. This community is for you if you want a safe space to work through your daily struggles with food and body image. Community membership includes livestream episode recordings (online), monthly Zoom support meetings, a private Facebook group and member-only Q&A episodes. For more information go to: https://www.patreon.com/lifeafterdiets

Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/lifeafterdietspodcast

Email – [email protected]

Connect with Stefanie Michele, ED Recovery Coach, Somatic Therapist IT

Work with Stefanie - www.iamstefaniemichele.com/application

Website – www.iamstefaniemichele.com

Instagram – www.instagram.com/iamstefaniemichele

Connect with Sarah Dosanjh, Author & Psychotherapist

Website – www.thebingeeatingtherapist.com

Instagram – www.instagram.com/the_binge_eating_therapist

YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/c/TheBingeEatingTherapist

Sarah's book I Can't Stop Eating is available on Amazon

You know what's hard in a life after diets? When people comment on your body or your food choices. How are we supposed to respond? It is a tough balance between setting boundaries, managing conflict, and not feeling triggered.

The conversation starts out with a reflection of Stef's conversation the previous day with her Mom, but moves through different scenarios that we might run up against in our non-diet culture driven life. Some scenarios include: what if someone asks me if I'm pregnant? What if someone is just ignorant or making a non-critical observation? What if their comment triggers my own self doubt?

Tune in now!

Join our growing support community. This community is for you if you want a safe space to work through your daily struggles with food and body image. Community membership includes livestream episode recordings (online), monthly Zoom support meetings, a private Facebook group and member-only Q&A episodes. For more information go to: https://www.patreon.com/lifeafterdiets

Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/lifeafterdietspodcast

Email – [email protected]

Connect with Stefanie Michele, ED Recovery Coach, Somatic Therapist IT

Work with Stefanie - www.iamstefaniemichele.com/application

Website – www.iamstefaniemichele.com

Instagram – www.instagram.com/iamstefaniemichele

Connect with Sarah Dosanjh, Author & Psychotherapist

Website – www.thebingeeatingtherapist.com

Instagram – www.instagram.com/the_binge_eating_therapist

YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/c/TheBingeEatingTherapist

Sarah's book I Can't Stop Eating is available on Amazon

If we're not dieting, won't we just be completely out of control with food? That's the risk when we feel like we can't trust ourselves.

In this episode, we talk about what self-trust is -- including how we thought about it before recovery and how we think about it now. And maybe most importantly, how we developed more of it!

This episode was livestreamed to our private community so we also answer some listener questions about personal experiences with self-trust.

We discuss:

• trusting yourself not to binge
• self-alliance and self-abandonment
• the role of self-sabotage
• being mad that versus being mad at
• what needs to be in place before we keep promises to ourselves?
• the stories we tell ourselves

Join our growing support community. This community is for you if you want a safe space to work through your daily struggles with food and body image. Community membership includes livestream episode recordings (online), monthly Zoom support meetings, a private Facebook group and member-only Q&A episodes. For more information go to: https://www.patreon.com/lifeafterdiets

Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/lifeafterdietspodcast

Email – [email protected]

Connect with Stefanie Michele, ED Recovery Coach, Somatic Therapist IT

Website – www.iamstefaniemichele.com

Instagram – www.instagram.com/iamstefaniemichele

Work with Stefanie - www.iamstefaniemichele.com/application

Connect with Sarah Dosanjh, Author & Psychotherapist

Website – www.thebingeeatingtherapist.com

Instagram – www.instagram.com/the_binge_eating_therapist

YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/c/TheBingeEatingTherapist

Sarah's book I Can't Stop Eating is available on Amazon

How do other people make decisions about what to eat? Have you ever been interested in understanding what makes a person choose the breakfast or lunch or snack that they choose? Sarah and Stef offer their personal decision making processes of the meals they ate the day of recording this podcast. From there, the conversation branches off into topics like practical hunger, interoception (a principle of Intuitive Eating), cravings, habits, and preferences.

We also ask ourselves the question: what do you do when nothing sounds good?

Finally, we talk about what strategies you might use to make decisions about food if you're still in the middle of disordered thoughts and behaviors around food.

Join our growing support community. This community is for you if you want a safe space to work through your daily struggles with food and body image. Community membership includes livestream episode recordings (online), monthly Zoom support meetings, a private Facebook group and member-only Q&A episodes. For more information go to: https://www.patreon.com/lifeafterdiets

Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/lifeafterdietspodcast

Email – [email protected]

Connect with Stefanie Michele, Food & Body Image Coach, Somatic Therapist IT

Website – www.iamstefaniemichele.com

Instagram – www.instagram.com/iamstefaniemichele

Work with Stefanie - www.iamstefaniemichele.com/application

Stef's body image workshop – https://www.iamstefaniemichele.com/bodyimageworkshop2024

Connect with Sarah Dosanjh, Author & Psychotherapist

Website – www.thebingeeatingtherapist.com

Instagram – www.instagram.com/the_binge_eating_therapist

YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/c/TheBingeEatingTherapist

Sarah's book I Can't Stop Eating is available on Amazon

This week we are talking to Sam Abbott, RD about PCOS! Many of our listeners have been diagnosed with PCOS (polycystic ovarian sydrome) and medical recommendations to manage symptoms are usually geared towards weight loss and food restrictions. How does someone with PCOS balance this condition within a nondiet value system? We'll look at:

• What exactly is PCOS?
• What can be mistaken for PCOS?
• How does PCOS get diagnosed?
• Is eating low-carb important for symptom management?
• Can intermittent fasting help?
• What non-food related strategies can help?
• Mental health, sleep, fatigue, community support, and more!

Resource: Ferriman-Gallwey Score for Hirutism

Contact Sam:

• Sam's website and membership links
• Sam on Instagram: @pcos.nutritionist

Join our growing support community. This community is for you if you want a safe space to work through your daily struggles with food and body image. Community membership includes livestream episode recordings (online), monthly Zoom support meetings, a private Facebook group and member-only Q&A episodes. For more information go to: https://www.patreon.com/lifeafterdiets

Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/lifeafterdietspodcast

Email – [email protected]

Connect with Stefanie Michele, Food & Body Image Coach, Somatic Therapist IT

Website – www.iamstefaniemichele.com

Instagram – www.instagram.com/iamstefaniemichele

Work with Stefanie - www.iamstefaniemichele.com/application

Stef's body image workshop – https://www.iamstefaniemichele.com/bodyimageworkshop2024

Connect with Sarah Dosanjh, Author & Psychotherapist

Website – www.thebingeeatingtherapist.com

Instagram – www.instagram.com/the_binge_eating_therapist

YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/c/TheBingeEatingTherapist

Sarah's book I Can't Stop Eating is available on Amazon

Sarah's Connect and Recover groups: https://thebingeeatingtherapist.com/connect-recover-groups/

This episode is all about relapse in the context of eating disorder recovery. We cover topics such as shame, self-awareness, boundaries, dopamine regulation, catastrophization, and the impact of life circumstances on relapse.

Relapses can be very distressing; it's tempting to think we've failed or that we'll "never really get better." In the second half of this episode, we talk about the idea of "remembering and forgetting" as a muscle that actually builds resilience over time in eating disorder recovery -- even if the "forgetting" is relapsing.

Join our growing support community. This community is for you if you want a safe space to work through your daily struggles with food and body image. Community membership includes livestream episode recordings (online), monthly Zoom support meetings, a private Facebook group and member-only Q&A episodes. For more information go to: https://www.patreon.com/lifeafterdiets

Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/lifeafterdietspodcast

Email – [email protected]

Connect with Stefanie Michele, Food & Body Image Coach, Somatic Therapist IT

Website – www.iamstefaniemichele.com

Instagram – www.instagram.com/iamstefaniemichele

Work with Stefanie - www.iamstefaniemichele.com/application

Stef's body image workshop – https://www.iamstefaniemichele.com/bodyimageworkshop2024

Connect with Sarah Dosanjh, Author & Psychotherapist

Website – www.thebingeeatingtherapist.com

Instagram – www.instagram.com/the_binge_eating_therapist

YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/c/TheBingeEatingTherapist

Sarah's book I Can't Stop Eating is available on Amazon

Sarah's Connect and Recover groups: https://thebingeeatingtherapist.com/connect-recover-groups/

This week we are talking about attachment styles.

The psychological concepts of anxious attachment, avoidant attachment, and disorganized attachment have been used to understand our relationship dynamics with other people, but can it also be used to understand our relationship dynamics with food?

For example, anxious attachment in relationships looks like constantly seeking validation and having porous boundaries with ourselves and others for fear of losing connection. Might this also translate to having porous boundaries with food? Would we consistently seek out and overeat because we have scarcity around that, too?

Tune in to see how an understanding of attachment theory might help you understand why Intuitive Eating feels difficult and binge eating, compulsive eating, and/or restricting feels so primal...

x Stef & Sarah

Join our growing support community. This community is for you if you want a safe space to work through your daily struggles with food and body image. Community membership includes livestream episode recordings (online), monthly Zoom support meetings, a private Facebook group and member-only Q&A episodes. For more information go to: https://www.patreon.com/lifeafterdiets

Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/lifeafterdietspodcast

Email – [email protected]

Connect with Stefanie Michele, Food & Body Image Coach, Somatic Therapist IT

Website – www.iamstefaniemichele.com

Instagram – www.instagram.com/iamstefaniemichele

Work with Stefanie - www.iamstefaniemichele.com/application

Stef's body image workshop – https://www.iamstefaniemichele.com/bodyimageworkshop2024

Connect with Sarah Dosanjh, Author & Psychotherapist

Website – www.thebingeeatingtherapist.com

Instagram – www.instagram.com/the_binge_eating_therapist

YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/c/TheBingeEatingTherapist

Sarah's book I Can't Stop Eating is available on Amazon

Sarah's Connect and Recover groups: https://thebingeeatingtherapist.com/connect-recover-groups/

The world talks a lot about self-care, but many people in this community feel selfish taking care of themselves. It can be seen as indulgent to take the time to tend to our own needs, especially as mothers -- check out the second half of the podcast where Stef addresses this from her perspective as a parent (her take might surprise you). So what's the difference between self care and self indulgence?

Speaking of indulgence, we also look at the way we talk about food under this lens. Are the connotations of this word inherently problematic? Are we just gluttons or is there a case for the healthy pursuit of food as pleasure, or even as self-care?

Tune in...

Join our growing support community. This community is for you if you want a safe space to work through your daily struggles with food and body image. Community membership includes livestream episode recordings (online), monthly Zoom support meetings, a private Facebook group and member-only Q&A episodes. For more information go to: https://www.patreon.com/lifeafterdiets

Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/lifeafterdietspodcast

Email – [email protected]

Connect with Stefanie Michele, Food & Body Image Coach, Somatic Therapist IT

Website – www.iamstefaniemichele.com

Instagram – www.instagram.com/iamstefaniemichele

Work with Stefanie - www.iamstefaniemichele.com/application

Stef's body image workshop – https://www.iamstefaniemichele.com/bodyimageworkshop2024

Connect with Sarah Dosanjh, Author & Psychotherapist

Website – www.thebingeeatingtherapist.com

Instagram – www.instagram.com/the_binge_eating_therapist

YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/c/TheBingeEatingTherapist

Sarah's book I Can't Stop Eating is available on Amazon

Sarah's Connect and Recover groups: https://thebingeeatingtherapist.com/connect-recover-groups/

This episode is a review of "The Hunger Habit" by Judson Brewer, MD, PhD. Is this a book that can help people who struggle with binge eating and disordered eating? Will Sarah and Stef come to the same conclusions about the book? Most importantly, will Stef remember her note-to-self about making her points of contention calmly?

I guess you'll have to tune in to find out!

Sarah's Connect and Recover groups: https://thebingeeatingtherapist.com/connect-recover-groups/

Join our growing support community. This community is for you if you want to improve your relationship with food and become more comfortable in your own skin. Community membership includes invites to live episode recordings (online), support meetings, a private Facebook group and monthly Q&As. For more information go to: https://www.patreon.com/lifeafterdiets

Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/lifeafterdietspodcast

Email – [email protected]

Connect with Stefanie Michele binge eating health coach

Website – www.iamstefaniemichele.com

Instagram – www.instagram.com/iamstefaniemichele

Work with Stefanie - www.iamstefaniemichele.com/application

Stef's body image workshop – https://www.iamstefaniemichele.com/bodyimageworkshop2024

Body Image Webinar + Workbook: https://www.iamstefaniemichele.com/get-started/p/bodyimage

Connect with Sarah Dosanjh psychotherapist

Website – www.thebingeeatingtherapist.com

Instagram – www.instagram.com/the_binge_eating_therapist

YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/c/TheBingeEatingTherapist

Sarah's book I Can't Stop Eating is available on Amazon

We are back with another recovery story -- this time from Louise, a member of our community (which you can join here, by the way!) Louise explains her story of disordered eating and restriction starting in adolescence, eventually leading her to give up dieting to lean into an anti-diet approach. Like so many others in ED recovery, Louise had to deal with weight gain and body image issues in exchange for food freedom -- but came out with this story to tell. Listen to her inspirational message about sex, attraction, and empowerment in this very cool, real-story episode.

Join the LAD Membership

Life After Diets on Instagram

The LAD Website

Email us @ [email protected]

Stefanie's Website

Stefanie on Instagram

Join Stef's Body Image Workshop! (click here)

Sarah's website

Sarah's YouTube Channel

Sarah's book, I Can't Stop Eating, is available on Amazon