Francesca was born in California. She was brought up in an affluent part of California in a place called Palo Alto, home to Stanford University and part of Silicon Valley. It was during 8th Grade at school that she starting to get the feelings that she didn’t look how she felt she should. This resulted in the decision to get a treadmill and go on the treadmill for hours after school. This led to a loss of 50lbs over the course of 3 months – which Francesca points out is a very dangerous amount of weight to loose over such a short space of time, especially as a 13 year old.

After graduating from high school early, Francesca moved to Seattle and pursued a degree in the Art of Cooking, which she completed. Francesca has always found food interesting, from eating and cooking, but also its ties to culture and politics amongst over things. 

From the Art of Cooking, Francesca decided to then study International Business studies. 

It was during this time that Francescas eating habits changed from compulsive exercise and restricted eating, to binge eating. At the time, although she felt something was maybe wrong with her eating habits, she was reluctant to accept this as she didn’t feel she was ticking the boxes that would typically be signs of any official eating disorder. This is something she wouldn’t talk to anybody about and hid it from her friends. 

Se completed her studies and begun work in Corporate Finance. After three years of work, she quit her job in consulting – right before the start of the Pandemic. 

At this time Francesca begun working with a dietitian, as she starting working and studying macros. It was when she was working with this dietician, that the dietician started to notice the indicators of an eating problem. At the end of the six weeks of working with this dietician, she was referred to a specialist. 

It was while she was working with this specialist that she started working on something called intuitive eating. This process is what allowed her to heal.

Mentions in the Episode

• KaleidoscopeFM - a podcast by Francesca Meffert
• It's Not About the Food - a podcast by Stefani Reinold
• The Dear Body Podcast - a podcast by Jesse Jean
• Inuyasha

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