Find Your Food Voice

Are your thoughts always on food: what you will eat, why did you eat it, and how to not eat it? Do you want more control yet can't seem to get behind the wheel? Listen to the latest Love Food podcast where we explore the tough parts of eating disorder recovery, the nuance of making it work for you, and how to step into your power. Subscribe and leave a review here in just seconds. This episode is brought to you by my courses: PCOS and Food Peace and Dietitians PCOS and Food Peace. You CAN make peace with food even with PCOS and I want to show you how. I've just discovered the Body Love Box and it looks like a fantastic resource for people who live in large bodies or anyone who wants to improve their body image. It's a monthly subscription box that gets mailed to your home and it includes things like body-positive stickers and pins as well as deeper resources on body acceptance, health at every size and intuitive eating. Each box includes items from fat and marginalized creators, and pays them a living wage for their work. The monthly subscription can be found at www.thebodylovebox.com, and use the code LOVEFOOD for 15% off your first month. This episode's Dear Food letter: Dear food,  I hate you; and I love you. You are all I think about. You dominate my sense of self worth. Sometimes I restrict you, sometimes I overeat you, a few times I have gotten rid of you. I worry that I will never be able to free myself from you. I recently began eating disorder recovery and it is harder than I had ever thought. How are you supposed to recover, when there is still a part of you that enjoys your eating disorder? How are you supposed to change, when disordered eating has been your way of life since middle school? How are you supposed to make peace with yourself, when you look in the mirror and hate what you see? I tell myself that I am faking it; that I only do these things for attention. I eat in secrecy, lie about what I have eaten, and want people to look at me as “the girl with the eating disorder”. I find it hard to eat around other people, for fear or judgment and embarrassment. I tell myself there is no way I can actually have an eating disorder, because people with eating disorders aren’t able to feel normal any time food is involved. But sometimes, for me, I don’t have a problem eating. I’ll give myself “free days” or “free meals”, in which I can eat what I want and not feel guilty about it. Usually these days consist of me eating unhealthy, feeling bad about it afterwards, and then just continuing to do it, saying I will “make up for it tomorrow”. And then there are days where I will eat once, or twice, and that is all I get for the day. I’m allowed one meal, or X in the morning and Y and Z later, often with a workout in between. Sometimes food is around me and I eat it just because it is there, even if I am already full. Sometimes I am so hungry that I can’t focus on anything else. (Omitted sentences followed.) I wonder what it would be like to have a good relationship with you, food; to not spend all of my time thinking about you. I wonder what it would be like to eat three meals a day and not feel guilty afterwards. I wonder what it would be like to wear the types of clothes that everyone else wears, but I am too ashamed to put on my body. I wonder what it would be like to go on a shopping trip alone without having it end with me staring at myself in the dressing room mirror, wondering why I even left the house that day, and vowing never to eat again. I wonder what it would be like for my friends to see me as someone other than a weak, hopeless, mess whom they have to worry about daily. I wonder what it would be like to EAT when I am hungry and STOP when I am full I wonder what it would be like to not have food control my life. I wonder what it would be like to eat well, have desert if I want to, exercise because it’s fun, love my body, and be happy. I wonder what it would be like to be free. Love, Your greatest enemy and your best friend Show Notes: The We're Not Weighting Podcast @WereNotWeighting Instagram page Julie Dillon RD blog Link to subscribe to the Love Food’s Food Peace Syllabus. Eating Disorder Dietitians Do you have a complicated relationship with food? I want to help! Send your Dear Food letter to LoveFoodPodcast@gmail.com.  Click here to leave me a review in iTunes and subscribe. This type of kindness helps the show continue!Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Does food have power over you? Do you find you can't stop eating certain foods? Do you connect with shame every time you soothe with food? Listen to the latest Love Food podcast where we dive deep into what's going. Subscribe and leave a review here in just seconds. This episode is brought to you by my courses: PCOS and Food Peace and Dietitians PCOS and Food Peace. You CAN make peace with food even with PCOS and I want to show you how. I've just discovered the Body Love Box and it looks like a fantastic resource for people who live in large bodies or anyone who wants to improve their body image. It's a monthly subscription box that gets mailed to your home and it includes things like body-positive stickers and pins as well as deeper resources on body acceptance, health at every size and intuitive eating. Each box includes items from fat and marginalized creators, and pays them a living wage for their work.    The monthly subscription can be found at www.thebodylovebox.com, and use the code LOVEFOOD for 15% off your first month. This episode's Dear Food letter: Dear Chocolate Covered Peppermint Oreos, Why do you have so much power over me? Why can't I just eat one or two of you? Why do I wake up in the middle of my sleep and eat you? I know an entire box isn't good for me, but yet I keep going. The same goes for chips or any snack. Why can't I eat an acceptable amount? When I'm tired, stressed, lonely you are always there to comfort me. But after I'm done, I hate myself.  Our relationship has reached a scary place. I'm ready to break up but scared I'm not strong enough. Sincerely, Powerless and Unacceptable Show Notes: The Should Eat Fantasy Compliance blog post When relying on hunger is too scary blog post Marci Evans discusses Food Addiction on the Love Food Podcast Marci Evans research behind Food Addiction blog post Julie Dillon RD blog Link to subscribe to the Love Food’s Food Peace Syllabus. Eating Disorder Dietitians Do you have a complicated relationship with food? I want to help! Send your Dear Food letter to LoveFoodPodcast@gmail.com.  Click here to leave me a review in iTunes and subscribe. This type of kindness helps the show continue!Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Are you trying to unlearn diet culture yet feel out of control on a roller coaster to who-knows-where? Making steps toward Food Peace can be exciting and oh sh*t so scary. Looking for compassionate direction? Listen to the latest Love Food Podcast with guest expert Vincci Tsui author of The Mindful Eating Workbook. Subscribe and leave a review here in just seconds. This episode is brought to you by my courses: PCOS and Food Peace and Dietitians PCOS and Food Peace. You CAN make peace with food even with PCOS and I want to show you how. This episode's Dear Food letter: Dear Food,   Oh my, I just don't even know where to begin.  When I was around 13 years old my mother told me that I needed to watch out because too much more of you would take me from the regular sizes to the misses sizes - which in that day was more like plus size.  If I ate more of you, which was always intensely scrutinized and monitored by her, than she felt happy with, she would give me a look of disappointment and shame around you and my body set in.  I would sometimes whip up a bowl of cookie dough while she was out of the house for a brief time, scarf you down, and then clean up as fast as possible.  You were associated with shame at home and then freedom when I was out in my car alone.  It was then the roots of "thin means worthy, beautiful and acceptable" and "fat was unsightly, made you worth less, and would negatively affect your life in so many ways from getting a man, to getting a job, to embarrassing your teenagers."  What is so crazy now is that pictures of me still living at home show a healthy, not even chubby, girl.  I do not know what my mother was seeing!  Anyway, so from there I restricted and binged you.  I went from diet fad to diet fad.  Of course, I would get so many compliments from people when they observed my eating less of you, even when I was nearly starving myself.  But those never lasted, I'd always come back to you, so much so that you would make me so sick I'd swear never to binge on you again, which I did.  Then floods of shame and embarrassment and failure would overcome me as I regained all my weight plus some.  My ups and downs with you have cost me so much money Food!  Between all the diets, special ingredients and clothing...oh my...I cannot even imagine how much money I've wasted over these years trying to get to that size where I would be acceptable to my mother and therefore, myself and others.  I was once again failing at keeping weight off from my most recent diet and I started searching podcasts for food related subjects.  I came across your podcast three months ago and was introduced to Intuitive Eating, Diet Culture and Peace with Food for the first time - wow - totally new concepts for me.  I love them and I want to incorporate them into my life.  I so want peace with you and with myself!  I want to accept where I am right now, at this moment!  However, I am discouraged and feeling confused.  As I have given myself freedom with all foods and as I've tried to eat only when hungry and stop when full, a skill I have A LOT of work to do to figure out, I have just gotten fatter and that scares me.  I need to know what is the normal process.  I want to set my expectations of how my newfound relationship with you is going to look.  I feel like as I have said no to more dieting and seeing all food as permissible - this way of doing things is back firing!  Is this how it works? Is my body holding on to everything thinking I'll starve it again?  Does it get worse before getting better?  I would love to know as I want my journey towards loving you to be free and peaceful.  Thanks for keeping me alive Food.  We just need to figure out how this relationship is going to pan out!   Love, Time to DTR (define the relationship) Show Notes: This episode's guest Vincci Tsui The Mindful Eating Workbook Meredith Noble's list of Best Body Positive Instagram Accounts Julie Dillon RD blog Link to subscribe to the Love Food’s Food Peace Syllabus. Eating Disorder Dietitians Do you have a complicated relationship with food? I want to help! Send your Dear Food letter to LoveFoodPodcast@gmail.com.  Click here to leave me a review in iTunes and subscribe. This type of kindness helps the show continue!Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Picture this: you are in a restaurant and really craving a burger. Or a salad. You freeze. Will people judge what you choose? Do you judge what other's choose? And how does this get in the way of your Food Peace journey? Listen to this latest episode of Love Food with special guest Jenna Hollenstein RD author of Eat to Love. Subscribe and leave a review here in just seconds. This episode is brought to you by my courses: PCOS and Food Peace and Dietitians PCOS and Food Peace. You CAN make peace with food even with PCOS and I want to show you how. This episode's Dear Food letter: Dear Food,  I have recently been on an uphill battle to try and fix our relationship. After countless years of living a secret life with an unacknowledged eating disorder- consisting largely of restricting and bingeing- I made the change to recognize and treat my disordered eating patterns. I have since been diagnosed with an eating disorder and am currently adventuring through the recovery process with a support system of professionals and loved ones.  Although I can feel and appreciate the changes that I’ve made and the growth that I’ve experienced, there is one recurring thought I cannot let go of. I feel that it is keeping me trapped in my eating disorder world. Currently, I am gradually increasing my food intake and attempting to diversify the types of food that I consume. However, I’m finding this to be a painfully difficult experience because I cannot stop thinking that everyone is constantly judging me for what I eat. Essentially, whenever I eat something, I believe that other people are thinking to themselves, “wow, look at her eating that…she is eating that because she is fat”. This thought is strongest if I were to ever eat food that is constructed as “unhealthy”, but is also present if I were to eat food that is constructed as “healthy” but consume a lot of it. For example, when I eat a restaurant, I fear finishing my plate because I assume that the wait staff will judge me for eating all of the food and will judge my body.  That being said, I understand that this is an illogical believe to have. I have countless pieces of objective evidence (e.g., from doctors, the number on the scale, the size of clothing I wear) that indicate that I am not fat, I am not overweight. Yet, this evidence doesn’t override my internal belief that my body is too big and that others are in agreeance with me. Throughout my recovery process, I have come to understand that I hold a strong core belief that my worth comes from my body and that I should always strive for a smaller body. I know this belief is problematic, but I can’t stop agreeing and believing it.  To add one other layer to this puzzle, this thought- where others judge my body and believe that I shouldn’t be eating because my body hasn’t achieved the thin ideal it has been striving for- is particularly difficult for me to let go of because I hold this judgment on others. I find myself judging others for what they eat and I tend to, in my mind, idealize those with small bodies and not hold them to this same judgment. This has been a difficult piece for me to accept because it makes me feel so sad and ashamed to think that I am doing to others what I fear others are doing to me. This fear has fueled so many problematic behaviors and I know it is so unfair for me to hold this judgment on others.  I am wondering how I can overcome this. How do I remove this judgment that I place on myself and on others? How do I let go of this tiring, inaccurate mind-reading game I am constantly playing? Will I ever accept my body and accept the fact that it deserves to eat food- and a variety of foods?  Sincerely,  A life of judging and judgment  Show Notes: This episode's guest Jenna Hollenstein Jenna's book Eat to Love Appetites by Caroline Knapp(aff) Self compassion by Kristen Neff(aff) self-compassion.org Open Heart Project @ susanpiver.com The Places that Scare You by Pema Chodron (aff) Julie Dillon RD blog Link to subscribe to the Love Food’s Food Peace Syllabus. Eating Disorder Dietitians Julie Dillon RD blog Do you have a complicated relationship with food? I want to help! Send your Dear Food letter to LoveFoodPodcast@gmail.com.  Click here to leave me a review in iTunes and subscribe. This type of kindness helps the show continue!Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Have you decided to ditch diets and rely on hunger yet stuck? Maybe you are like many other people and find yourself so angry, always rebeling, and eating in spite of everything you've been told: diets will fix you and your body is not acceptable. Oooooh the lies you've been told! Pull up a chair and let's discuss what to do next on this latest Love Food Podcast episode. Subscribe and leave a review here in just seconds. This episode is brought to you by my courses: PCOS and Food Peace and Dietitians PCOS and Food Peace. You CAN make peace with food even with PCOS and I want to show you how. This episode's Dear Food letter: Dear Food, I’ve been through ED treatment, which allowed me to have MUCH less stress in my life about food and dieting. But now, I have so much freedom, but I’m not one bit interested in eating intuitively. I’m almost eating in spite of everything I used to believe: I’m bad, I’m too fat, I’m unhealthy, I’m rebellious, I’m holding myself back from so many opportunities by being so large, etc. Eating intuitively is hard when you’re SO angry. Is this “eating whatever I want when I want” ever going to become normal? I just wish i didn’t have to think about this. Sincerely, Training yet Confused Show Notes: Grab the latest Food Peace Syllabus Intuitive Eating by Elyse Resch and Evelyn Tribole (aff) Elyse Resch Evelyn Tribole Ragen Chastain Ivy Felicia Jes Baker Deb Burgard The 6 Keys to Food Peace blog post Eating Disorder Dietitians Julie Dillon RD blog Do you have a complicated relationship with food? I want to help! Send your Dear Food letter to LoveFoodPodcast@gmail.com.  Click here to leave me a review in iTunes and subscribe. This type of kindness helps the show continue!Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

What does your body want to weigh? Have you heard of set point theory and wonder what it means for you and your body? Will it always look the way it does now? Or will it get smaller or larger? Listen to this latest episode of Love Food with special guest Stefani Reinold MD from the It's Not About the Food Podcast. Subscribe and leave a review here in just seconds. This episode is brought to you by my courses: PCOS and Food Peace and Dietitians PCOS and Food Peace. You CAN make peace with food even with PCOS and I want to show you how. This episode's Dear Food letter: Dear Food,   I began my intuitive eating journey recently with a non diet dietician who specializes in treating ED and PCOS. According to her you are not the enemy and once I get my PCOS under control and reject diet culture my body will return to my setpoint. I am oversimplifying but you get the point.   My problem is that for as long as I can remember I have always been fat so I don't know that I trust that knowledge. Could it be that there are people whose set points are in the "morbidly obese" range?   Well I guess I was a normal weight once until about age 5. At 5 I was the tallest girl in class. Taller than all the boys even and yes heavier. I wasn't overweight just much taller than all the rest but adults would comment when they went to pick me up I was too heavy. I was too tall at my 8th birthday for the ball pit my parents had paid so much to reserve for my birthday. I was so "big". They meant tall but I thought they meant fat.   I started gaining weight because my main abuser didn't like fat girls and found them unattractive. Back then you were my friend because you protected me from him and most men and cat calls. Now I see I built my own prison and am left wondering if some people don't have a healthy set point?   Sincerely,   Confused in Cleveland Show Notes: Stefani Reinold MD blog It's Not About the Food Podcast Let Your Heart Out by Stefani Reinold Scars to Your Beautiful video (watch it NOW so amazing) Julie Dillon RD blog Link to subscribe to the Love Food’s Food Peace Syllabus. Eating Disorder Dietitians Julie Dillon RD blog Do you have a complicated relationship with food? I want to help! Send your Dear Food letter to LoveFoodPodcast@gmail.com.  Click here to leave me a review in iTunes and subscribe. This type of kindness helps the show continue!Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

You appreciate that not eating enough can trigger your binges. Does that include your vegetarianism or veganism too? This week's letter writer has connected the desire to eat with friends and later binge eating. Have you? Listen to the latest Love Food Podcast episode with special guest Jennifer Rollin where we discuss eating disorder recovery and veganism and vegetarianism. Subscribe and leave a review here in just seconds. This episode is brought to you by my courses: PCOS and Food Peace and Dietitians PCOS and Food Peace. You CAN make peace with food even with PCOS and I want to show you how. This episode's Dear Food letter: Dear Food, My complicated relationship with you began when I was 13. I had become obsessed with body image and thought all my problems would be solved if I could just be smaller. So I began strict dieting, and was eating less than XYZ calories a day. On this journey my brain became obsessed with food much more than body image. I became anorexic. I wanted to be able to stop restricting but I didn’t know how. I was scared and worried I would lose control. My recovery began when i started seeing a dietitian, who gave me the book “intuitive eating”. If it weren’t for that book, I don’t know where I would be today. I began to eat more normally and gradually gained the weight back, although my mind was still very fixated on food for another year. Once I finally started caring about more things in life than food (about 3 years later) I developed binge eating disorder. Now for a little more than two years I have been struggling to make peace with my body and have spent many nights crying wondering if I will ever be able to eat normally again. I know that binge eating happens when there is a restriction, which makes me afraid that my veganism is getting in the way of me being able to have a healthy relationship with food. I went vegan a few months into my strict dieting phase at 13, after watching a documentary promoting it, but that was mainly for ethical reasons as well as health. Now I know that I’m not doing it for my health or anything body related, but my veganism is a very important part of my belief system, and I don’t feel like I could/want to give it up. It’s been five years since my initial eating disorder, parallel with the amount of time I’ve been Vegan. It doesn’t really feel like I’m restricting myself, since I’m so used to doing it and there are plenty of vegan alternatives that I enjoy. However every now and then I’ll be in a situation where everyone else is eating meat/cheese and part of me just wishes to indulge for that moment. I worry that when those feelings are left ignored it triggers a binge. Love, At a crossroads Show Notes: Jennifer Rollin LCSW today's guest The Eating Disorder Center and their trainings (aff) Intuitive Eating by Tribole and Resch Julie Dillon RD blog Link to subscribe to the Love Food’s Food Peace Syllabus. Eating Disorder Dietitians Julie Dillon RD blog Do you have a complicated relationship with food? I want to help! Send your Dear Food letter to LoveFoodPodcast@gmail.com.  Click here to leave me a review in iTunes and subscribe. This type of kindness helps the show continue!Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Has your relationship with food been through the ringer? Listen as this letter writer describes her initial restricted relationship with food yet now bingeing is a daily part of her life. Have you experienced this too? While there is shame in this for many it is a predictable and vital part of nutritional rehabilitation on your Food Peace journey. It doesn't mean you are weak it means you are a successful human staying alive. Listen now for more and learn from guest Nicole Cruz. Subscribe and leave a review here in just seconds. This episode is brought to you by my courses: PCOS and Food Peace and Dietitians PCOS and Food Peace. You CAN make peace with food even with PCOS and I want to show you how. This episode's Dear Food letter: Dear Food, The high school version of me would have been the last person on this Earth to ever believe that my relationship with you would end up causing me so much heartache and pain. I was fine until college. Backtracking to childhood, I always loved you. I was a foodie, never overthought and wasn't obsessed with the idea of what I would eat next. Food was wonderful, especially "treats" or "junk-food" type items that I didn't get to eat often. I know there were times when my eyes were bigger than my stomach, but maybe this is a thing that many young kids also experience? High school was normal. I was active playing a sport that I loved, busy with school, and spending time with family and friends. Senior year, I found myself with more freedom than ever. A lot of it was spent watching tv or cooking and eating with friends. Then came college. After a particularly sad and confusing breakup with a boy and betrayal by a friend, my college friend group disintegrated. In retrospect, I think I may have retreated into TV and snacks, and there was no one to tell me to do differently. Then, during Thanksgiving break, I realized that I had been too free with you, food, and my "cute little body" was quickly becoming something I was ashamed of and disgusted by. I'd never had anything but a small body and lived in a family of small people. I decided I would pay more attention to what and how much I was eating. I figured this would help get myself under control. And from the moment I became aware of your presence and your power in my life, things really have never been the same since. Fast forward through five months of increasingly difficult and dreadful exercise regimens and an increasingly restricted intake of food, I left school early to move home and enter outpatient treatment. My junior year, I finally transferred into XYZ College. I was ecstatic, but the restriction started almost right away. This time, though, my body was far more resistant to restriction, and it was increasingly difficult to not give in and binge. I returned home after only 3 months, and didn't return to school until the next summer. Now, my 4th year of college is almost over. That means I've been binging for a year now. It's hard to believe that I ever was able to restrict at all, because binging is such an everyday part of my life now. Over these past years, I have had consistent therapy, and have also met with dietitians, but it seems like nothing is able to help me. In fact, the binging seems like it's getting worse and worse – in the past two months alone, I have gained X pounds. I think I've lost hope in ever being normal with food or body image. I feel so abnormal and wrong. In recovery, binging was always my biggest fear, and now it's my constant reality. I have all the tools and resources I should need to help myself and change, but I'm still doing this. How did we get this far?! Love, Secretly Broken Show Notes: Nicole Cruz RD, today's guest (@NicoleCruzRD on Instagram) (aff) Intuitive Eating Workbook by Tribole and Resch (aff) Intuitive Eating Workbook for Teens by Resch (pre-order here!) (aff) Intuitive Eating by Tribole and Resch Julie Dillon RD blog Link to subscribe to the Love Food’s Food Peace Syllabus. Eating Disorder Dietitian Julie Dillon RD blog Do you have a complicated relationship with food? I want to help! Send your Dear Food letter to LoveFoodPodcast@gmail.com.  Click here to leave me a review in iTunes and subscribe. This type of kindness helps the show continue!Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

How long have you been at diet rock bottom? What's keeping you stuck? For many they have tried things like Intuitive Eating yet don't feel successful because they aren't thin. Can you relate? There is a way through this. Listen to this latest Love Food Podcast episode for more. Subscribe and leave a review here in just seconds. This episode is brought to you by my courses: PCOS and Food Peace and Dietitians PCOS and Food Peace. You CAN make peace with food even with PCOS and I want to show you how. This episode's Dear Food letter: Dear Food, I have been trying to make things right with you for a while now. I've been exploring intuitive eating for the last year, and we've had some successful moments together. Remember when I wasn't able to keep ice cream in the house? Now I have multiple containers, which I eat when I'm in the mood and don't think about when I'm not. That's something I feel proud of.   I still make mistakes when it comes to our relationship - I know there are times I eat past fullness, and there are times I eat when I'm not hungry. I am trying to be as compassionate as I can with myself, but then l I see myself in a mirror.   I threw away my scale in October, and haven't been on one since. But it's pretty obvious I have gained weight. Mostt of my old clothes don't fit, and getting ready for work and social events is fraught with anxiety. I have bought things in new sizes,  but  I cannot shake the awful feelings that almost paralyze me when I see myself.   I was not somebody who needed to be weight restored. What I feared would happen, happened. I gained weight. I always thought that if I binged less and practiced intuitive eating that I would somehow magically become thin. That didn't happen for me. I know I can't go back to dieting, but I also can't seem to accept myself this way.   I know about body positivity, HAES, and fat acceptance, but I can't seem to get there. Forget about body love - I'd be happy with body neutrality. It seems impossible for me to love my body at this weight when I know look better thinner.   I don't know what to do about us, Food. I will not diet again, but I second guess my choices a lot. Even when I hear experts talk about intuitive eating, they always say things like, "Don't worry - you won't always want to eat Oreos or pizza" as if those foods truly are bad. I  want to give myself freedom to eat whatever I want, but in exchange, I hate how I look.   Where do we go from here, Food?   Love, Feeling like a failure Show Notes: Virgie Tovar and her latest book (aff) You Have the Right to Remain Fat Ragen Chastain and her blog Dances with Fat Sonya Renee Taylor and her latest books The Body is Not an Apology and Celebrate Your Body (A body image book for girls) Intuitive Eating by Tribole and Resch Love Food Podcast with Amy Pershing Julie Dillon RD blog Link to subscribe to the Love Food’s Food Peace Syllabus. Eating Disorder Dietitian Julie Dillon RD blog Do you have a complicated relationship with food? I want to help! Send your Dear Food letter to LoveFoodPodcast@gmail.com.  Click here to leave me a review in iTunes and subscribe. This type of kindness helps the show continue!Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

How long have you struggled with eating? Do you remember when it first got complicated? What if you have struggled your whole life after years of abuse, shame and fear? Is there a way to heal in our current diet focused and fatphobic world? Listen now for possible tools to promote your Food Peace journey. Subscribe and leave a review here in just seconds. This episode is brought to you by my courses: PCOS and Food Peace and Dietitians PCOS and Food Peace. You CAN make peace with food even with PCOS and I want to show you how. This episode's Dear Food letter: Dear Food, Dear oh dear food, you have been the bane of my existence since I was born. I started with diary allergies that took time to diagnose so from a newborn, my food relationship has been difficult. That difficulty has morphed into many different things, anxiety soothing with food, fear of food, restriction, bulimia, anorexia, binge eating and so on. I’ve struggled to understand you. When I was young, about six years old, my life changed a lot because of an abusive homelife, then at seven, it turned to shear torture due to physical and sexual abuse. I coped by stealing food (at home, other people’s houses, stores and so on), hiding and eating it. I learned to eat until sick, then purge to make myself feel better so I could eat some more. One very traumatizing event, I remember hiding multiple PB&Js behind the trashcan in the cabinet for later and once the event was over, I hid where I thought I belonged, behind the trash and ate them all, at seven years old… The trauma (really torture) went on and on and I ate and ate, and I gained and gained. I was also tortured in school for my weight and lack of social skills. Through all of this, I was caring for my younger sister since no one taking care of either of us and was also caring for my parents who could not care for themselves. As I grew into a teenager my body started to change, but it was changing differently from others. I didn’t know at the time that it was PCOS at the time, but it was. I was growing hair on my face, I started shaving my face at about 12 or 13, my body shape was different, and my weight was going up at what I was told an alarming rate. By 6 th grade, I was “obese”. Once the torture stopped at home (not in my mind), I was 20, I kept on eating, doctors kept telling me to lose weight, my mother kept telling me how terrible I looked, and others would tell me “you would have such a pretty face and eyes, if you’d just lose some weight…” I kept eating and purging. I had two stays in a mental health facility and they tried to work on my relationship with food, but that was not the major reason I was inpatient, there was a much more intense reason I was there. They tried but I was not ready. Eleven years ago, at 28, after trying to conceive for about a year, I was diagnosed with PCOS. It took us three years to conceive the first time which ended as an early loss. I had six more losses and then no other pregnancies. I ate through all the losses and was told, had I not been so fat, I would not have gotten PCOS and would also be able to get and stay pregnant by a doctor. I ate some more until I didn’t. I started restricting about six years ago and lost a very significant amount of weight. I was restricting so much I would pass out due an inability to my keep my blood pressure high enough and could not keep my body temperature stable to the point where I wore winter clothes in the summer. I kept this going for two years then the binging started again. I was never able to get my weight low enough to alert any doctors of an eating disorder, but I would guess that is from the PCOS. I have since been working with a wonderful therapist for seven years and an amazing eating disorder and HAES registered dietician for almost two years. I still struggle to this day with the thoughts that go along with an eating disorder. Dear, oh dear Food, will I ever “get” you? Will I ever “understand” you? I know none of this is about you, but it is just a way to cope and control one small part of my life when I was unable to control anything but morphed to lack of control around you. I want a relationship with you Food, but, it is oh so embarrassingly hard. I do have hope Food, that someday, there will be calmness and no charge between you and I. Someday I can enjoy you… Love, Frustrated but Hopeful Show Notes: Binge Eating Disorder: The Journey to Recovery and Beyond by Amy Pershing and Chevese Turner PCOS and Food Peace Podcast chapter 6 with Chevese Turner Love Food Podcast with Amy Pershing Julie Dillon RD blog Link to subscribe to the Love Food’s Food Peace Syllabus. Eating Disorder Dietitian Julie Dillon RD blog Do you have a complicated relationship with food? I want to help! Send your Dear Food letter to LoveFoodPodcast@gmail.com.  Click here to leave me a review in iTunes and subscribe. This type of kindness helps the show continue! Show Notes: Glossary and references here. Julie Dillon RD blog Link to subscribe to the weekly FREE Food Peace™ Newsletter. By signing up, I will also send you Love Food’s Food Peace™ Syllabus. Eating Disorder Dietitian Julie Dillon RD blog Do you have a complicated relationship with food? I want to help! Send your Dear Food letter to LoveFoodPodcast@gmail.com.  Click here to leave me a review in iTunes and subscribe. This type of kindness helps the show continue!Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy