Speaker 1: I won't lend my body out be Outweigh everything that
Speaker 1: I'm made do. Won't spend my life trying to change.
Speaker 1: I'm learning to love who I am. I get I'm strong,
Speaker 1: I feel free, I know who every part of me.
Speaker 1: It's beautiful and I will always out way if you
Speaker 1: feel it with your hays in the air, She'll some
Speaker 1: love to the mow by there. Let's say good one
Speaker 1: day and time did you and die out? Welcome back
Speaker 1: to Outweigh. I'm so excited because we've got Jennifer Roland
Speaker 1: back on today. It's just me Amy had to step out,
Speaker 1: but we're doing a part two to our original episode
Speaker 1: with Jennifer where we learn all about her new amazing
Speaker 1: book which is called The Inside Scoop on Eating Disorder Recovery,
Speaker 1: written by herself and a colleague, Colleen Reichman. And this
Speaker 1: is an awesome book. If you miss our first episode,
Speaker 1: we go into depth as to why these two amazing
Speaker 1: eating disorder therapists chose to write it, why they share
Speaker 1: their personal stories in it, and the amazing tools within it.
Speaker 1: So we're going to dive a little bit deeper into
Speaker 1: that today. Thanks for being back, Jennifer. Thank you for
Speaker 1: having me. So we we left off with Amy asking
Speaker 1: how to give this book to somebody without offending them,
Speaker 1: And I love what you said. You said that a
Speaker 1: person doesn't have to have an eating disorder to benefit
Speaker 1: from this book. Yeah. No, absolutely, they definitely don't. And
Speaker 1: one of the reasons I feel like that's so powerful
Speaker 1: is because you are not just speaking to specific things
Speaker 1: that people with eating disorders or disordered eating go through,
Speaker 1: but you're covering some pretty heavy, hard topics like fat
Speaker 1: phobia in general. Yeah, we've talked about it on the podcast,
Speaker 1: but we never know who's listened to what episode. So
Speaker 1: what is fat phobia and why is that something that
Speaker 1: you and Colleen decided to tackle in this book specifically. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So we talked about fat phobia also called wait stigma
Speaker 1: in the book because basically, fat phobia or wheat stigma
Speaker 1: is attitudes of prejudice, stereotypes, or bias towards people in
Speaker 1: larger bodies, and often it's not even recognized as like
Speaker 1: a form of discrimination in our society, and it's incredibly pervasive.
Speaker 1: We thought it was important because it's one of the
Speaker 1: environmental factors that can contribute to eating disorders and like
Speaker 1: we talked about in the other episode, there's a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of factors. So it's not that fat phobia alone
Speaker 1: can cause it. However, it can be the environmental trigger
Speaker 1: for some people who have that underlying genetic and temperamental component.
Speaker 1: I've personally really started to understand fat phobia only in
Speaker 1: the last year or two. I'd say that wasn't a
Speaker 1: phrase I knew. Um. You know, obviously I live in
Speaker 1: a smaller body, so I've never experienced fat phobia, although
Speaker 1: I have experienced fat phobia with my own beliefs because
Speaker 1: so much of what we have been told about bigger bodies,
Speaker 1: we just believe as true unless we break that down,
Speaker 1: especially in the healthcare point of view, where we really
Speaker 1: need to actually go back and look at the research
Speaker 1: about b m I about health conditions and recognize that
Speaker 1: every individual is entitled to the same level of care
Speaker 1: and should not be discriminated on based on our own
Speaker 1: stigmas about weight. So I think that was so awesome
Speaker 1: for you guys to tackle, because it's still the elephant
Speaker 1: in the room, I think, and I have found with
Speaker 1: my own clients by kind of beginning to talk about
Speaker 1: fat phobia, they're able to also reckon a bit more
Speaker 1: with their own body changes. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean we
Speaker 1: won't get into everything that can lead to body image
Speaker 1: distress because there's a whole bunch of factors. But one
Speaker 1: thing is fat phobia, right, societal fat phobia. So, for instance,
Speaker 1: if we're conditioned to believe that fatness is bad or
Speaker 1: weighting is bad, then we might start to see things like, oh,
Speaker 1: it looks like where I do have a double chin
Speaker 1: in that photo. Well that is bad because being fat
Speaker 1: is bad. You know, gaining weight in certain places is
Speaker 1: seen as bad. So in unpacking fat phob yet helps everyone,
Speaker 1: but the people who are the most harmed by it
Speaker 1: are people in larger bodies. As you mentioned, one of
Speaker 1: the topics in your book is about partial recovery. We've
Speaker 1: recently had on a woman who's studying to get her PhD.
Speaker 1: Her name is Tara Kemp, come on and speak about
Speaker 1: her own partial recovery. And I've actually never heard this phrase,
Speaker 1: or I've never had a word to describe it, and
Speaker 1: then I saw it in your book and I thought, Wow,
Speaker 1: this must be a lot more common than I've ever realized.
Speaker 1: So what is partial recovery? Partial recovery is the middle
Speaker 1: stages of recovery. It's where some people will actually stop
Speaker 1: in their recovery and some people move forward. But basically
Speaker 1: it's where you've let go of a lot of the
Speaker 1: eating diswitter behaviors, but you're still kind of holding on
Speaker 1: to some of them. So it looks different for everyone,
Speaker 1: but basically it means you're not fully free from the
Speaker 1: thoughts and from the behaviors, but you are better than
Speaker 1: you were in early recovery. When you're in partial recovery,
Speaker 1: do you know you're in partial recovery or do are
Speaker 1: a lot of people in a stage of denial? I
Speaker 1: would say it's a little bit of both. Some people
Speaker 1: definitely know that they're in it, but I know for myself.
Speaker 1: For instance, in my own recovery journey, mine started out
Speaker 1: as being in denial where I was like, I'm good,
Speaker 1: I feel like I don't have a problem anymore, and
Speaker 1: instead I was very obsessed with exercise and like eating
Speaker 1: clean foods. Right, So I was better than what I
Speaker 1: was in the depths of the interrexia, but I was
Speaker 1: still having a socially acceptable eating disorder. And what about
Speaker 1: the people who have made peace with some things, but
Speaker 1: they are continuously gaining weight. So I hear from a
Speaker 1: lot of people is I've started to eat intuitively and
Speaker 1: I'm gaining weight. When will it stop? And then they'll
Speaker 1: often beat this. We often be on Instagram, so they'll
Speaker 1: send the emoji that's kind of like gasping. But even
Speaker 1: though it's a silly emoji, it really is showing the
Speaker 1: level of despair and fear and that place where it's
Speaker 1: like you're eating disorders on the left and then freedoms
Speaker 1: on the right, and the person so badly wants to
Speaker 1: run to freedom, but they're really being pulled towards the left.
Speaker 1: How can we encourage them to keep going. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: that's such a common place to be because recovery, again,
Speaker 1: you're going to come upon some common speed bumps for
Speaker 1: most people, especially like weight gain can be tough for
Speaker 1: a lot of people in our society. So ultimately I
Speaker 1: think it's about like reminding them what motivated them to
Speaker 1: start recovery in the first place, like trying to build
Speaker 1: on their hope of motivation. And then I also like
Speaker 1: to play out the tape with people, which is similar
Speaker 1: to what people do in addiction recovery, where it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: so you're having yoururages to go back to your eating disorders.
Speaker 1: Let's play out the tapes. Let's say you decided to
Speaker 1: go on that diet that you're eating disorders telling you
Speaker 1: to do, Like where would that eventually end up? Because
Speaker 1: eating disorders promise these like short term highs, but they
Speaker 1: lead to like long term destruction. So that's just like
Speaker 1: two short strategies I might use with somebody who's feeling
Speaker 1: kind of stuck and wanting to go back, And those
Speaker 1: are strateg gs in your book as well, that people
Speaker 1: can begin to kind of digest, even if they're not
Speaker 1: working with you one on one. I think even just
Speaker 1: talking about it, you know, even just saying there's this
Speaker 1: murky place that is yes, you've come so far, but
Speaker 1: there's a little level of stuckness and a choice point
Speaker 1: here that you need to make. Which way are you
Speaker 1: going to go? I've read a lot of eating disorder books,
Speaker 1: and I don't know if I've ever seen it called
Speaker 1: out or a reference. So I think really recognizing the
Speaker 1: struggle that happens after somebody makes progress, recognizing that it's
Speaker 1: not linear, that they might go back a bit before
Speaker 1: they go forward is really great. I think just to
Speaker 1: hear from a therapist that, hey, we see this all
Speaker 1: the time, you're not broken from being stuck at this
Speaker 1: hard point. You know, freedom is not just eating a
Speaker 1: certain food that you didn't need before. There's so many
Speaker 1: thoughts and behaviors that need to be broken down. So again,
Speaker 1: it's just like to therapists sharing such interesting advice from
Speaker 1: the people who hear about it the most. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I think you're right that even just having the awareness
Speaker 1: would have helped me so much when I was stuck
Speaker 1: in that trap. And I think that's like the first
Speaker 1: step here. Well, I feel like I I've met a
Speaker 1: lot of people online that have made Instagram accounts, They've
Speaker 1: become influencer by way of sharing their own recovery, and
Speaker 1: I think I see it chopped up a lot as
Speaker 1: like good days and bad days, And I don't believe
Speaker 1: in that in general when it comes to anything, I
Speaker 1: think everything is kind of can be gray. But I
Speaker 1: think to recognize for anybody when you do have a
Speaker 1: setback doesn't mean that you're all the way back to
Speaker 1: square one, you know, is just a helpful understanding. Like
Speaker 1: there's this thing called partial recovery, that is where I'm
Speaker 1: at right now. Can help us really say this is
Speaker 1: where I am right now And it doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: just because I feel scared and shaken and thinking about
Speaker 1: going back, that I will go back. I feel like
Speaker 1: that's just super helpful to really expand the thinking and
Speaker 1: help people not feel like failures when that eating disorder
Speaker 1: voices get in loud already as it is, Yeah, a
Speaker 1: hundred percent, And like Olive recovery, it's finding that gray
Speaker 1: and that middle path of both acknowledging Wow, like I
Speaker 1: have come far. I'm not doing those things I used
Speaker 1: to do. I'm not back to square one, and like
Speaker 1: there's still room for me to grow in my recovery
Speaker 1: to be truly free. And your book is so not typical,
Speaker 1: from the cover photo to the colors, to all of it,
Speaker 1: to the tone which is super inviting and relatable and
Speaker 1: almost humorous. You also include the top five regrets of
Speaker 1: people who are dying towards the end of your book,
Speaker 1: and I found that interesting in a lighthearted book, yet
Speaker 1: at the same time I found it grounding. Can you
Speaker 1: share what the top five regrets are and why you
Speaker 1: decided to include something a little bit darker in a
Speaker 1: book that is supposed to be about life. So the
Speaker 1: top five regrets are, I wish I had the courage
Speaker 1: to live a life true to myself, not the life
Speaker 1: others expected of me. I wish I had it work
Speaker 1: so hard. I wish I'd had the courage to express
Speaker 1: my feelings. I wish I had stayed in touch with
Speaker 1: my friends. And I wish I'd let myself be happier.
Speaker 1: And we put out in the book. Nowhere does it
Speaker 1: say I wish I had six pack abs and I
Speaker 1: wish I had eaten super clean. Right. The reason why
Speaker 1: I included it is because I think one important element
Speaker 1: of recovery is trying to find a meaning or purpose
Speaker 1: that's greater than the eating disorder. And I think this
Speaker 1: just helps people to get back to what are my
Speaker 1: values versus what are the eating disorders values? If that
Speaker 1: makes sense, because this is just more of a reflection
Speaker 1: of somebody is like authentic like self values and what
Speaker 1: actually is going to matter at the end of life?
Speaker 1: And you're eating disorder is going to tell you that,
Speaker 1: you know, what is the most important thing is the
Speaker 1: donut you ate this afternoon, right, But that's not an
Speaker 1: alignment with like your true values. Again, it's so helpful
Speaker 1: to get that zoomed out perspective of this is what
Speaker 1: really matters. Thinking back to my own disorder days too,
Speaker 1: when I ate the doughnut, like you said, like my
Speaker 1: mind became the donut, Like there was nothing else of importance.
Speaker 1: You could not stop me from, you know, exercising it
Speaker 1: off or finding a way to compensate the next day.
Speaker 1: And if somebody would have just like shaken me and
Speaker 1: been like are you going to care about this in
Speaker 1: a week, let alone when you're dying, I think could
Speaker 1: have just been so helpful. So it's almost like it is.
Speaker 1: It's not dark because we're talking about dying. I don't
Speaker 1: think dying is necessarily dark, but when we are talking
Speaker 1: about regrets and stuff, it really is. It stops you
Speaker 1: in your tracks and can get you out of that
Speaker 1: fear brain that the eating disorder takes you to and
Speaker 1: into your real life. What do you want in this life?
Speaker 1: What matters in this moment, even though my body is
Speaker 1: shaken with fear and my mind is clouded with how
Speaker 1: real this and scary this all feels? So I thought
Speaker 1: that was just super interesting to see it in parallel
Speaker 1: to really anything, right, Like I mean, as a therapist,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you help people really work through little things
Speaker 1: all day that feel so big all the time. To
Speaker 1: really put it in perspective of life helps us gain
Speaker 1: some clarity and not feel so scared. Yeah, a hundred percent.
Speaker 1: And you know this is something I even used today, Right,
Speaker 1: if I'm stressed about some minor wedding detail or something,
Speaker 1: I think to myself, you know, is this going to
Speaker 1: matter at the end of my life? And it's just
Speaker 1: a way to circle back to like my true values
Speaker 1: and helping people live their most authentic life at the
Speaker 1: end of the day. I love that you're bringing it
Speaker 1: to that too, because I was there and everything just
Speaker 1: feel so important in that moment. So in your book,
Speaker 1: you break down a lot of myths. I really love
Speaker 1: to see that, and I thought it would be helpful
Speaker 1: if we could just finish off with you sharing what
Speaker 1: your favorite myth to break down is with your clients
Speaker 1: and how that impacts them. Yeah. So I really like
Speaker 1: the not sick enough myth, but we act about that
Speaker 1: a little bit before. I think. Another myth that I
Speaker 1: love to break down is this idea that you can't
Speaker 1: look at somebody and know what their relationship to food
Speaker 1: is like, or even what kind of eating disorder they
Speaker 1: struggle with, and that you can be actually quite ill
Speaker 1: and in eating disorder and not be considered like quote
Speaker 1: unquote underweight by b M I because the vast majority
Speaker 1: of people with eating disorders do not appear like physically
Speaker 1: emaciated or gaunt. But I think the media has this
Speaker 1: glorification withinness and showing people with intorexia who look like
Speaker 1: they're on desk store, and so people think I can't
Speaker 1: have an eating disorder. I don't look like that. My
Speaker 1: problem is not that serious. So helping people to realize
Speaker 1: that it is a serious, life threatening mental illness, and
Speaker 1: you don't have to have gone to the hospital, you
Speaker 1: don't have to have gone to a higher level of care,
Speaker 1: you don't have to be severely emaciated, and you can
Speaker 1: still be really unwell and really deserving of treatment. I
Speaker 1: love that. And when you're you're science like, when you
Speaker 1: work through that myth, I assume they already know because
Speaker 1: they're at your door, or I would think they know.
Speaker 1: Maybe their family put them in. What's the first myth
Speaker 1: for somebody who's super resistant to working with you, but
Speaker 1: they're there anyway. Yeah, so that's a great question. I
Speaker 1: think for people who are super resistant, honestly, I would
Speaker 1: say I start more by building that relationship and gradually
Speaker 1: like not even hitting them with like, hey you have
Speaker 1: this problem, like it's a super resistant team, but building
Speaker 1: that relationship to where they trust me, and then they're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: so I feel a little anxious around food. But I
Speaker 1: think I will debunk the myth I just talked about
Speaker 1: with people who are brought in by loved ones or
Speaker 1: people who show up at my door but are like,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't really know that my problem is
Speaker 1: that serious, because that's an eating disorder. Trick to keep
Speaker 1: you sick, right is to continually tell you, actually, you're
Speaker 1: not that bad, you don't need to recover, you can diet,
Speaker 1: everything's fine. I feel like they're just some people that
Speaker 1: that struggle forever because they can never break free from
Speaker 1: that idea of this is fine, this is how I
Speaker 1: like to eat, this is how I like to live.
Speaker 1: What is the most powerful wake up call for somebody
Speaker 1: listening that thinks I like the foods I eat. I
Speaker 1: like working out, however much I work out. At many
Speaker 1: points I think I look good even though other people
Speaker 1: tell me I don't. What would you tell somebody who
Speaker 1: just there's signs all around them that something's not right,
Speaker 1: but they really don't believe it themselves. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: first off, I want to ask about the quality of
Speaker 1: their life, like, just because your life appears great on
Speaker 1: the outside, like how are you feeling? Like? Are you happy?
Speaker 1: Like do you enjoy the way your life is going?
Speaker 1: And secondly, if they have a child, or if they
Speaker 1: have a niece or nephew or someone they really love,
Speaker 1: like if that person was doing these behaviors, what would
Speaker 1: you say to them and how would you feel? And
Speaker 1: why is it okay for you but not okay for
Speaker 1: your niece or nephew that you love to be doing this? Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think when you bring that into perspective, it kind
Speaker 1: of always shifts and shatters you a little bit. It
Speaker 1: shakes you really to think about things differently. And then
Speaker 1: once you see it that way, you can't unsee your
Speaker 1: own behavior. And then you have to start thinking, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: where can I budge because this isn't the life that
Speaker 1: I truly want And something's got to give because I'm
Speaker 1: I'm missing out on something here. Well, thank you for
Speaker 1: joining us for two episodes. If you missed their first one,
Speaker 1: you want to check that out. Amy hit you with
Speaker 1: some really good questions all about how eating disorders are formed,
Speaker 1: what it means to act as if, which I think
Speaker 1: is probably the most helpful tool for somebody who's trying
Speaker 1: to recover, but it just feels too scared. And we're
Speaker 1: going to link your new book below and all of
Speaker 1: your information as always, and thank you for being an
Speaker 1: amazing guest and amazing resource on Instagram. We'll put your
Speaker 1: instant below and we just adore you. Thank you, Jennifer awesome.
Speaker 1: Thank you guys so much for having me