Speaker 1 (00:01.656)
Thank you.

And are you feeling a bit apprehensive about being here? And I did reach out to Karen for the listeners and asked if she would come on and share her story as little or as much as she would feel comfortable doing so because she’s in my group coaching and you’ve had massive transformations and I just want you to share. Yeah, so let’s start off with a few, I’m gonna pick five fun questions at the top of my head to get us like feeling a bit more relaxed and so they can get to know you. So.

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:30.798)
The first question is, and why I’m looking around my garden to find the question, what’s your favourite food?

I like macaroni, cheese and chips. Yeah.

Yum. Are you a beach person, a forest person or something else?

I like both but beach, I love the sea. I want to live by the sea. I’m not quite near enough at the moment. Where are So I’m in Edinburgh in Scotland, so it is on the coast but I live sort of in the city so I can’t see the sea and I can’t walk to the sea from where I am and I would like to be able to do

Whereabouts are you?

Speaker 2 (01:06.499)
Nice and this isn’t a quick question because it’s partly from what you’ve shared I went to Edinburgh once and that was the first place I tried deep-fried Mars bar

no way! I’ve never even tried it! No, I’m not very keen on deep fried anything really.

I actually quite liked it, it was nice.

Speaker 2 (01:22.454)
Well, maybe give it a go if your taste buds fancy it when you walk past the chippy next. Because it’s Edinburgh thing, I think. That’s what I was told anyway.

Well a Scottish thing yeah I’m not quite sure where who it might be Edinburgh that somebody first. I it was. Made it up yeah decided let’s deep fry this. why not.

it was.

Speaker 2 (01:39.758)
Do you frame up or? Third question. If you could go anywhere in the world for one month and you could never go back there again, where would you go?

gosh, probably New Zealand. It’s far away and yeah that would definitely make the flight worth it. Yeah, long If you were going through a month and it’s a really varied landscape as well.

yeah

Speaker 2 (02:06.798)
Apparently it’s like similar to the UK in places, I think.

Yeah, very valuable.

I want to ask you an obvious question but we can leave you behind, I was going to say you’re a dog or a cat person.

See you.

Definitely cat person. I like dogs but yeah I have cats and yeah I’m just more I think I kind of relate to them as well I like the independence and yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:31.278)
So if a cat appears on the screen, it’s all welcome, they can do their thing.

Yeah, hopefully they won’t fight. They’re both in the room at the moment, which normally when I’m speaking to somebody they clear out, they’re not here, so I don’t know why they let cure voice.

I want to be involved in the episode. There may be like light energy, who knows? I’ve got a fly, that’s a friend and I’m not that keen on that, but whatever, you do you. And maybe that was, was that three or four?

Cool.

The last question.

Speaker 2 (03:03.599)
describe yourself in three words.

Hmm physically or just me?

Just you.

Cains Friendly Independent

Okay, thank you for sharing those quickfire questions, well, answers to the questions. And I would like to go to, because I’m learning about you as well, I don’t know you like that well. So what is your story? within, we don’t have to time you, but within five, 10 minutes, or as long or as little as you want to take within 10 minutes, when did you first start?

Speaker 2 (03:48.332)
noticing like your relationship with food was off or your relationship with body, like how does it begin for you up to the point where maybe you’ve got help before or when you reached out to the group?

So I think…

It probably began in terms with my body as a teenager. Feeling too big. I had a friend who was very focused on appearance and she was quite slim and she was always talking about being, you know, I’m so fat and everything. I was saying, gosh, if you’re fat, then I must be huge. you know, all of that. So my body image, I think, as a teenager was never good and my self-esteem wasn’t very good.

And I just wasn’t, sort of grew up in, my family were lovely, but just sort of emotionally not that available. kept a lot to myself. I was very used to just kind of dealing with things on my own. So a lot of that kind of…

I think came before, but then came later. So wasn’t until I was at university when I was 19 and I just split up with a boyfriend. And I still had a friend at the time, the same friend actually, who was sharing this and she had bulimia and she was quite depressed. But she, I always used to feel like I had to eat to make her feel better and kind of just everything was about making her feel better.

Speaker 1 (05:17.624)
When I split up with a boyfriend and I was still living with her, I had just had this really strong sort of feeling of, this is my body and I get to decide what I eat and what I do with it. And I just wanted to lose some weight. I didn’t intend to lose lots of weight, but I did. I just kind of kept going. So until I was officially diagnosed with anorexia and I felt I didn’t like the way my body looked then. I didn’t feel like I was too fat or anything like that. I just…

I felt like I was too thin, I kind of wanted to put on weight but I also couldn’t, I just felt stuck where it was. I did get some help from a psychiatrist and a dietitian but just found it really difficult to put the weight back on and that was like maybe a couple of years and then the binging just started sort of almost out of the blue and so it was like my body kind of recovered without me. I kind of felt like…

You know that my story is very similar to yours.

It’s one of the reasons I was drawn to you because you had been through different eating disorders as well, whereas some people kind of stay in the same sort of thing. And yeah, I just felt, and I felt so out of control. And the first sort of binges were quite far apart initially and like

I would try and make myself sick but I wasn’t very good at doing it and then I would like fast the next day to make up for it and that kind of thing. But then they just got closer and closer together to the point where I was like binging every day and several times a day and had managed to make myself sick as well. So I was binging and vomiting several times a day. And that kind of, that was probably quite intense for another sort of couple of years or something before it gradually, I kind of…

Speaker 1 (07:04.526)
I I did get more help, I still didn’t find it all that helpful.

What route did you go down when you got more help?

So again, that was, just went to the NHS, saw a psychiatrist, saw a dietician at the time. So this was about 30 years ago now. So I don’t think the eating disorder waiting lists were as long as they are now. And, you know, so yeah, I was able to get some help from people then, but.

I’m curious in, because I’ve heard a lot and you’ve probably heard it in the group as well. I don’t know what it was like then, I assume it was similar. Professionals who were supporting people that have been diagnosed or recognise themselves with binge eating disorder. There’s actually a lot of, here’s a meal plan so therefore you won’t binge. Binging is like the bad thing and that’s actually the disorder and the problem. Did you experience that in treatment?

Yes.

Speaker 1 (08:00.394)
Yes, yeah, it was kind of like the binging was the issue, yeah. And they would give me a meal plan to help. And then there was something that sort of weirdly helped, even though I don’t really know why it did now. But the psychiatrist I was seeing, I didn’t like her, but she had this suggestion. She was like, if you could only binge, like, say three times a week, and then you had to give me a reason for why you binged four or five instead.

then like would that make a difference? And I actually managed to get myself down to binging three times a week because I didn’t want to explain why I did it more. But I think it just was, I sort of as well was figuring out my own head. Like I would binge sometimes out of routine, out of habit, sometimes out of hunger, sometimes because I was stressed. And I kind of like managed to get myself to start thinking, well, which of those can I start to target first? You know, if it’s just a habit, then I need to be able to get out of that.

Knowing what I do now, just wish I’d met somebody like you then.

I through the exact same thing. And so how long was you in that cycle until you found the group then?

Kind of, not as bad, but yes, so it was…

Speaker 1 (09:18.646)
Yeah, I kind went through phases of restriction and binging less. Maybe purging never really went away. was sort of this self-induced vomiting was kind of there. Not always and all the time, but it just was a regular thing if I was uncomfortable or felt like I’d eaten too much for whatever reason. So I kind of went through years of sometimes it being better, sometimes it being worse.

Speaker 1 (09:50.99)
with it sort of coming back, I used to kind of almost go by it well if I actually fit the, you know, the sort of diagnosis, if I actually fit the diagnosis for bulimia then I was doing badly. But if I didn’t fit the diagnosis, even if I was still doing eating disorder behaviours, I kind of felt like I was alright. And again, years ago, at one point I got diagnosed with, which they don’t even have now, I don’t think the eating disorder not otherwise specified.

yeah, I’ve read or something like that.

Might be something, yeah, because I didn’t fit, I wasn’t binging enough to be bulimic and I wasn’t low enough, weight enough to be anorexic. So it was just like, OK, it’s not normal, but it’s.

Isn’t that crazy? Like how did that make you feel a certain way that even within your illness, you didn’t really fit into a thing or didn’t that bother you?

didn’t really bother me to be honest. was just, I think I just wanted some kind of help and acknowledgement that I was struggling. I struggled with depression for a long time as well, which I think actually was partly, partly the eating disorder made it worse.

Speaker 2 (10:59.47)
And then how did you find me? I actually can’t remember or have never maybe asked you, how did you come across my work and then what led you to sign up to the group?

It was a podcast. Yeah. And I think there was a podcast you did with, is it Sabrina? Yeah, and I think you were both just talking about, I think you, I don’t know if you’re doing a Q &A or something, but you were doing, it just really related and I’d kind of.

Sabrina Mckinnon. Sabrina.

Speaker 1 (11:27.534)
I was just starting to explore things like intuitive eating and that kind of thing. I can’t quite remember how I came across yours, but you also had a podcast about comparing yourself to your younger self. And that just really resonated at the time too. And then I was just like, I just sort of started listening to more and more of your podcasts. And then I saw you had a free support group. I joined that. And yeah, that was.

yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:50.508)
got the vibe you got my vibe and then you were like maybe this person actually knows what she’s talking about and can help you.

Yeah, and I think because you’ve been through, you’ve been through anorexia and bulimia and kind of binging and all the rest of it and managed to come out the other end, that was just really inspiring. thank you. Yeah, that really, really helped. It was like, well, there’s somebody who’s actually done it and recovered. Yeah.

You know what’s very shocking to me when you said that you started to learn about intuitive eating and that’s kind of how you found me through that avenue. But why are professionals not talking about that when someone comes to them with binge eating disorder or bulimia or whatever it is? Like, why are they not talking about the connection to yourself and the stuff underneath and binge eating isn’t the problem. It’s the stuff that I talk about, which you know, which we’re going to go into. Did anyone ever mention anything to you about…

listening to your body and tuning in and eating intuitively in that recovery.

No, not before. Not before. This was what actually was, I think for a while, just made me like, I felt really sad for my younger self and I just felt so kind of, don’t know if, I don’t think angry is quite the right word, but it was just like, why did I not know this at the time? I just needed to know that what my body was doing was actually just a response to the fact that I’d been starving it for so long. Like, why did none of the professionals

Speaker 1 (13:18.616)
tell me that at the time and you know like why did they not see your body just trying to make up for all this time and yes yeah

right to be angry and I still ask that question, Karen. Like, in a judgy way, but why don’t professionals know this?

It’s very dangerous. Like I’ve had so many young girls actually come to me who have been an inpatient then an outpatient and they’re on a meal plan. I’m not saying a meal plan is a devil because it can help a lot of people. But then the, you know, the professionals are saying every time you eat a lot of sugar, write down why you’re eating it and what emotions you’re feeling. And I’m like, she’s in fucking recovery from anorexia. Like of course she’s going to eat like four cheesecakes. Like leave her to do that without moralizing it because you’re going to keep her in eating disorder forever.

you give full permission, which is obviously what I’m all about, to then be free and then make a choice and you won’t want to eat four cheesecakes in a row. So share with us, like, what was your journey like? So you found my work, you found the free support group, you came into the paid program. Was there anything that surprised you? Anything that stood out as you were going through the program that you want to share?

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (14:32.43)
I just found it, I think just a really reassuring thing for me and the thing I needed to keep going back to was that I wasn’t giving my body enough food to eat. Because I felt for a long time that I was giving it enough.

I didn’t understand that I was still restricting and that’s why the binges were happening. And so I think that was one thing that was very clear when I came into the programme that you need to eat enough.

What was you comparing it to? Did you know? So when you were like, maybe I’m not eating enough. Before you realized that, was you just kind of following what used to be a meal plan? Was you tuning in or was you like copying something? Like where was you getting your intake from?

Speaker 1 (15:29.806)
I’m not sure actually. It was just…

Speaker 1 (15:35.95)
I always had a structure and I always kept eating kind of pretty much the same things. Yeah. I avoided the stuff that was binge triggers and I was always kind of wanting to, I was either trying not to put on weight or I was trying to lose weight so I was always trying to eat a bit less and not eat things that were fattening in any way.

A lot of mental and physical restriction that was going on. No wonder the binges were happening.

Yes, yeah, yeah, and that just was, that was the big thing and actually once that, once I’d realised that and I just let myself eat what I wanted to eat, the binges stopped really quickly.

Interesting. did you go from realising, okay, wow, I know that I’m not actually eating enough or what I want? Obviously you had fear there in order to allow yourself to eat what you wanted. For the listeners, how did you face the fear to eat what you want when you want, knowing perhaps that you would gain weight? Like what was going on in your head to help you just face it and just do it?

so I guess like my motivation’s well…

Speaker 1 (16:59.862)
Yeah, I wanted to recover because getting older, feeling like…

Speaker 1 (17:08.91)
Speaker 1 (17:13.504)
I don’t know, just wanting to be as healthy as I could be getting older. So this is nearly 30 years into having an eating disorder. I’d already put on some weight, even though I was trying to restrict and I’d gone over a weight that I had in my head that I couldn’t go over. And I tried to lose weight again and I’d had kind of panicked about it and I, my God, I’m over this weight and what do I do now? And then I think that was where I was just like, you know what?

I’ve done this for 30 years. Now it’s time to try something different. even if I gain weight, I want to be free of this. I’d like to be healthy going into… So my dad was unwell at the time as well and with heart problems and things. And I’m just sort of feeling, and I’m coming up with perimenopause and such, like, and just sort of thinking, do I really want to be going into the rest of my life, binging and purging and restricting?

And no, I don’t. And it’s not the way to be healthy. I guess just somehow the balance had tipped for me.

You just had enough and you also knew that nothing would change because obviously I talk about this a lot. Nothing changes if nothing changes. And I think I also have my website somewhere. Do you want to be like 60 weighing peanut butter and like counting almonds?

No, no, no. And this is, I was just like, no, I’m not doing, I’m not doing myself any favors. And I’ve spent so, so much, all my adult life really, with an eating disorder, like I’m going to try something different. So when it actually came to standing there, like just wanting to eat whatever I wanted, it was just, this is, this is what I’m doing to stop me from bingeing and to have a healthier life. think, know, I must just have.

Speaker 1 (19:05.43)
I just kind of.

It’s hard to describe, isn’t it? Because when you just do the thing, even though it’s fearful, there’s just, for me anyway, it’s just like an inner part of me that wants what’s on the other side of the fear and the discomfort and the fear of weight gain, especially. You wanted that more than you wanted the same familiarity with what you’ve been doing for the last few years.

wasn’t working anyway. So yeah, was just keeping going. You know, it’s just like, just doing the same things over and over, hoping that maybe I’ll have a different outcome. But it’s not. And I think I was even like once, one of the other things that really made sense to me was the genetic theory of kind of, yeah, yeah. And how that because that really made sense to like, when that first started for me, like how

response of the eating.

Speaker 1 (19:55.502)
kind of easy it was and how that just kept going until my body decided it had enough. But then I even at the start of recovery, I still had thoughts where I was like, maybe if I just ate little enough, then that would set that off again. And I could just lose lots of weight again. And then that would be, I had that up until, but I was like, Karen, you’ve tried this, you’ve tried this so many times. And even if you didn’t know this theory before, you’ve tried to restrict and it’s never, it never ends well.

So.

It never leads to a happy life and actually doesn’t work anymore. So that’s a blessing in disguise. Yeah. And I would argue as well that will not argue, but I would know that when you start to eat what you wanted, whenever you wanted, there was a part of you that was like, oh, thank God, I want this so much. It wasn’t like you only just wanted the freedom. was you actually wanted the food.

Yeah, and just to be able to eat to my hunger, because that was, I think I was just felt hungry all the time and to actually just be able to be, I’m still hungry. going to have some. I didn’t have extreme hunger, but I very high levels of hunger, much higher than I’d, you know, previously had. I probably had extreme hunger after the anorexia, but that got messy with bulimia as well. But this was kind of just

I think very high levels of hunger. So I’d be like, I’d eat a bowl of cereal and I’d be like, I want another one. So I just have another one. And I’d be like, I’m still hungry. Maybe I’ll just have another. And then, but I’d maybe just have a smaller one. And then it’d be like, actually, you know what? I’ve had enough now. And then that just was like a really novel feeling as well. was like, I don’t need to go on and binge. Yeah. Because I’ve had enough. And I kept saying to myself that I was just allowed to eat however much I wanted. I kind of had to keep repeating that to myself.

Speaker 1 (21:39.234)
so that I didn’t panic, you know, like if you sort of standing there thinking I could panic and just binge. Yes. then go and be sick because that’s kind of the normal thing to kind of do that. But I was like, just try to stay calm, just have what I needed. And then I was like, now I’m able to stop. And like that was really novel. it just.

That condition, isn’t it? It’s that your nervous system felt safer that this wasn’t going to be taken away tomorrow or tonight. It’s like you can literally have thousand boxes of cereal if you want. How many do you want? Yes. Other than tonight, you’ve got to get as much in as possible because tomorrow we’re not having any.

Exactly, it’s just that in that suit that’s the mindset because otherwise it’s just like your body and your mind just takes over because it’s like well I’m never getting this again so I’m just going to eat as much as I can now.

and namespiral, did you ever at any point during recovery feel that old urge to purge? And if so, how did you sit with that and not act on it? Because in my opinion, the binges are easier to stop because you just allow all foods all the time whenever you want. But then the feeling after to purge, like I had with the laxatives and the over exercise, that was harder for me to stop.

than simply allowing more food. So I’m curious what your experience was around letting go of that.

Speaker 1 (23:01.846)
Yeah, and I think actually it’s one of the things that I find that people don’t speak about very much and it’s really difficult to find when I was like looking in podcasts and things like how do you stop purging? Like how do you do this? And for me, well I had a couple of things because one of the things because I’ve done it so often I kind of automatically like bring food back up when I was uncomfortable and that almost happened just

Yeah, sometimes after certain foods, sometimes if I was just too full. So that was actually really difficult because it was like, well, I can’t really help it.

you’ll be probably not surprised or maybe surprised how common that is actually.

Yeah, heard people say, but yeah, I didn’t know how common it was actually. It’s just, you feel like it’s only you that this happens to, you know. But I actually randomly came across a podcast where somebody was talking about that and said, actually directed to a website in a paper where people were talking, they actually have a breathing technique. Cause what happens is that I think your, your sphincter muscle at the top of your stomach kind of.

it goes the wrong way. it’s sort of like it feels and sometimes it can happen to people even if they’ve just been sick for other reasons or whatever and it’s to do with your stomach sort of feeling fuller and releasing when it shouldn’t. So there’s actually just a really simple breathing technique you can do to stop it.

Speaker 2 (24:30.76)
Do you mind sharing that with us if you can?

It’s just so now you just breathe in and inflate your stomach and then breathe out through your mouth. inflating a balloon and then like blow out like you were blowing into a I think I’m not sure if that’s the actual thing now because I came across it last year and I was doing it so I would do it before I had something to eat sometimes in the middle of having something to eat and it’s like it’s just retraining everything. So now that

it doesn’t happen, or very rarely will I get that just happening.

That’s awesome. You were working on yourself by doing the breathing technique. So you were helping yourself by doing those exercises. helps a lot. What about the mental and the emotional discomfort?

Yes, so that initially I did and this might not work for people who have a big exercise thing, but I was really uncomfortable after a meal, I’d go for a walk. Yeah. So it just allowed me so I actually ended up probably walking a lot more just in that first three or four weeks. I was really making an effort and doing this breathing as I was going as well. And it just gave enough time for the fullness to come down and it come back and then

Speaker 1 (25:47.234)
because was only, it was quite a short time for all, and then things that I sort of thought that I couldn’t digest, I’d say that these things are just really difficult for me to digest, they just sit in my stomach, and then I did find those things much harder to begin with, as I feel so full after just say one bowl of muesli or something, because it just seemed to sit there. And after maybe,

I think it wasn’t very long, was three or four weeks that went, like my digestion really improved and then I wasn’t needing to like go out for walks after meals and things, it just was much easier.

Amazing, isn’t it, really? When you give it the chance and the space to just act normally, when it feels safe to act normally, it adapts so quickly.

Yeah, Yeah. Creamy things I find much more difficult. So occasionally they’ve been like ice cream. I find really difficult. So a couple of times I’ve had ice cream in recovery. One of the times I’ve perched and the other times I’ve managed to to sit with it and just be almost that as well, knowing that I’m going to be really proud of myself the next day if I manage it. And there is just that I know now as well that what I’m feeling is probably less to do with my stomach and it’s more to do with me panicking.

Yeah, it’s always the…

Speaker 1 (27:08.823)
I have to get rid of it and I say no you don’t.

So what I’m hearing you say is you were reassuring yourself, through your self-talk, because when I talk to people about, you know, I had this, like the overwhelming panic of feeling full, it’s actually 20 % physical discomfort and like 80 % emotional panic. So you use self-talk to soothe yourself and reassure yourself through that, panic that was trying to come through.

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:38.296)
Yes, yeah.

And then quickly it starts to shift for you. That’s what I’m hearing you say.

Yeah, that’s awesome. Yeah, just the, think some of it’s, there’s a reassurance about everything, you know, how much you’re eating about.

It’s in quite, not a lot, but you weren’t actually that active, but a few of the messages you did send, I remember responding to, it was asking for permission really, and just reassurance of like, it’s really okay, you keep needing to follow your mental and emotional hunger, it’s okay. And you just followed that, and you took action with someone you trust like me, and then here you are.

Yeah, yeah, and it’s that consistency and trust that you’ll get there. And again, you know, people like you give you hope and other people in the group who’d recovered, you know, or were on their way, that really helped as well. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:32.462)
because I remember you, for people who were wondering about the group and how it worked, I remember you weren’t there for, you were there for a few live calls, but you weren’t being coached all the time.

No, no, partly because I don’t like being on screen. Yeah.

And here you are. Did you take a lot of value from watching the recordings back and that type of thing?

Yes, I did. I still do. actually, think so, yeah, I would, if I had something specific myself that I really was kind of wanting coached or felt I needed help with, then I was like, right, I’m going to join a call. I’ll do it. And then, yeah, the rest of it has really been useful hearing other people being coached and yeah, just, yeah, I still find that quite.

I do too. I have a coach and I listened and watched her and within her group, her coach people because we can always learn things because even if the person’s being coached on something like not the specific question that we had, there’s always something we recognise within the person and like, that makes sense for me in this area. And yeah, so you showed up, you did the work, you listened to the calls, you asked for help when you really needed it. How did you find the inner child stuff? any of that like

Speaker 2 (29:51.364)
a shock to you, a surprise to you, would you do any of that deeper work before? Says…

It kind of reaffirmed some of what I’d already looked at and what issues I have because I’ve been depressed and had eating disorders for a long time. done quite a lot of therapy and counselling that’s really eating disorder related but kind of going through other things. So I feel like I’d already done some of the work before which meant I was probably the other reason that the food stuff

came quite quick, you know, it was quite easy. didn’t, wasn’t, you know, I couldn’t have said it at the time really, but looking back now, you know, lot of the binges are, I think pretty much all my binges in the sort of, just before I recovered were pretty much because I was hungry. And not very many of them were to do with emotional reasons, whereas at a different point in my life, it was emotions as well, whereas I think I kind of done enough that I wasn’t.

Yeah. For that reason so much. Yes. Maybe the purging still a bit. Yeah.

the release and the being able to sit with discomfort. And how… Go on.

Speaker 1 (31:03.766)
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (31:08.142)
I was going to say the under child stuff is still validating as to what the issues were and yet I know that this is part of the reason that this is all here. And also, you know, it’s all a work in progress. not, I’ve recovered from my 18th, sort of, there’s still issues.

but we want to know what’s true. If I meet someone who says, I’m completely there, whatever that means, I would be suspicious because I’m like you. I’ve fully recovered from my eating disorder, but in motherhood now, I’m uncovering stuff that I wouldn’t have uncovered if I hadn’t been a mother. I’m like, that’s still something that’s linked to the past. Let me look at that. And so life happens.

triggers happen and then you get to dive deeper into the stuff that’s underneath. I think. And so did you gain weight during this recovery in the group or did you like what happened with your body size and how did you navigate that?

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (32:07.022)
So body size is still something I struggle with a little bit. I think I’ve still got a bit of body dysmorphia. Because I find it difficult to know exactly what my size is. yes, so initially I put on weight and I put on a lot of weight around my middle, initially. But that it kind of settled after about

four or five months, something like that. And then I would say more recently it’s gone down a little bit again maybe, just because I can fit some things a bit easier. I find it really difficult, putting on weight, not fitting things, and wondering how people are looking at you and are they noticing, which they might not be.

How did you navigate that? I mean, obviously you had the group and things, but what came through from maybe watching calls or asking me, like, for people that are worried about weight gain, because 95 % of people are worried about weight gain and recovery, what’s your two cents, if you like, on how you navigated it? Because of course you felt uncomfortable. You didn’t have the magic answer to just not feel uncomfortable.

with it? I guess I just, part of it was just this is what I’m doing and if I gain weight then that’s what I’m doing and it doesn’t, I mean I’ve got, my sister was very supportive, she said you know we don’t care what you’re, what we, it’s just you that we love and that sort of thing helped. Thinking about how I think of other people, I don’t.

care what weight they are and I don’t like them more or less if they gain weight or lose weight or anything. doesn’t use, so thinking about how I felt about my friends and other people, I’m like, well, if they put on weight, just wouldn’t care. And in fact, if they want to eat more than good. It’s just that sort of reframing it.

Speaker 1 (34:23.469)
from what it actually means. I think this is, because it’s difficult, isn’t it? Because that’s kind of what you spend your whole life hearing and then it happens and you’ve got to deal with it somehow. That’s the whole point of your eating disorder. So it gets really, really loud and it’s like…

It feels like, was it the same for you? Like when it happens, when it happened for me, I’ve just kicked my screen.

It was the worst thing that happened to me, but then very quickly it wasn’t. So like this fear I’ve had my entire life, like, free of weight gain, free of weight gain, free of weight gain. When it first happened, I was like, oh my God, this is worse than I ever thought it was. Like, no wonder I was trying to avoid this for my entire life. And then like you, when I was like, well, I can’t restrict anyway. So I’m just like, the finish line is like just freedom and acceptance. Somehow I kept going quite quickly because I didn’t allow myself to like go back to try to get smaller.

It actually wasn’t bad at all. So how did you experience like the weight gain that you have in recovery?

Yeah, I think, I think fairly similar that, yeah, it sort of was really hard to begin with and then it sort of got a bit easier. And I think also, I do think there’s part of you that sees it as much bigger than it is or that notices it much more than anybody around you does. And then when it starts to settle, it feels like, maybe, maybe that wasn’t as bad. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (35:54.402)
And I remember looking in the mirror, I know if you relate, think like, obviously I gained weight so I was bigger, but the monster in my head was telling me stories like, not literally, but my emotions would back this story up. Like if you gain weight, your entire shape’s gonna change, gonna be this big blobby thing, whereas actually I was just the same, just the same shape, just bigger. So it wasn’t like.

everything went disproportionate to what I was used to when I looked in the mirror I was the same just bigger. Yes.

Yeah, yeah and it also, it made me think actually as well that how much your thoughts in your head, so this was another thing for me that actually made quite a big difference because at one point I realised I was feeling really, I’d been feeling okay and then I’d looked at myself in mirror and I was like, I just started feeling really upset because I so big or whatever it was and thinking you know I can’t cope with this and then there was something in my head I was just thinking.

But this is my thoughts that are making me unhappy. I can, but that’s almost like I can choose not to think those thoughts. And it’s nobody else who’s putting, who’s telling me I look horrible or that my life’s terrible because I’ve gained weight or anything or that I look awful. It’s my thought. And I was really clear in my head that actually there’s so many things that happen in life that you can’t help that do make you sad, that make you unhappy.

and you can’t do anything about them, to let your own thoughts do it to you. just seems like… Yeah, so I think I really made an effort from then to try and put those thoughts out of my head when I realised I was having them as well, just to kind of like, no, they’re unhelpful thoughts. I’m not engaging in them.

Speaker 2 (37:44.812)
That’s so powerful because I bang on about this all the time like we are not our thoughts We are the thinker of our thoughts. Yes, and yes thoughts come automatically We can’t control our thoughts else We would never have a negative thought that made us feel bad But we do get to decide where what we focus on so if we’re ruminating on the thought, “My God, I look so big. I look horrible.” Okay, that’s just gonna multiply But if like you you recognize that wait this thought is not serving me

It’s actually making me feel shit.

Speaker 2 (38:20.322)
Yeah, what helped me as well, obviously, because I’m thinking of the listeners listening and it’s going back to my recovery. When I would look in the mirror and just be like, my God, like I want to crawl out of my own skin because I just feel so disgusting. I would then practice just being and not abandoning myself. So that would just mean being with the disgusting feelings and looking in the mirror without running away or saying I’ll die or trying to fix it somehow. I just stayed with the feeling of disgust. And then I would go to like, well,

If nothing means anything, like we just create meaning because we’ve been taught to and conditioned to, then the fact is I have gained weight full stop. That’s a fact. It’s only because my thoughts are saying, and this means you’re ugly, undesirable, disgusting, unlovable. But actually what if I were to think something different and focus on that, even if it was more neutral, like I’ve gained weight and I’ve gained food freedom. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

And the more you go down that road, the more thoughts come in that area and the better you feel. And then it spirals in a positive way, right?

Yes, yeah, it starts to get easier and it was a book you recommended to me that helped with that as well, The Untethered Soul. Yeah, yeah, and that was, I think that was one of the things that started me and obviously you talk about it a lot as well, but just that kind of like, actually yeah, these thoughts are just not helping, part of what’s making me unhappy and I can…

Speaker 2 (39:34.453)
yeah, by Michael Singer.

Speaker 1 (39:51.212)
choose not to, like you say, can’t choose them not to come up at all, but you can choose not to dwell on them and then make stories in them and then feel horrible because of them. There’s so many other things in life that make you feel horrible, just leave your thoughts out of it.

And I remember the first time, I think it would have been one of my coaches that asked me this, or maybe asked a group coaching person this and I listened back. And she said, if you wasn’t thinking, would have heard me say this before. If you weren’t thinking about food in your body, what would you be thinking about right now? And I remember asking, so when I was in my head, spiraling, spiraling, I would feel the disgust. I would ask about my meaning, what meaning I’m making it, choose a different thought. And then I’ll be like, what would I actually, and then I didn’t really have an answer. Like most of time it was like, I have,

no idea what I’d be thinking about. But actually just asking that question created space for something else other than my body and food to be thought about and focused on. That helped as well. Yeah. So how’s your relationship with food now?

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (40:52.736)
so much better. I I think I was thinking the other day as well, like a lot of recovery for me, it’s been a lot of it’s in the small things rather than the big things. I’ve not like made any big changes or anything like that, but just everything. I’ve got so many foods in the house now that I did not had in before because they would all trigger me to binge and they don’t anymore. Some of them I forget about. I…

I’ve started… like I used to avoid making meals, I only made certain meals that I knew were an okay quantity and I could not overeat on them. then so there were certain things that I just wouldn’t cook or bake or whatever. So now I’ve been able to experiment a bit more with making things and that’s just a bit more interesting. I’ve got more space in my head for stuff. It’s just…

And I can feel, I feel if I go out for a meal, I’m not having to worry about, maybe I’m to overeat, maybe I’m going to have to purge. Where am I going to do that? I don’t need to be thinking about any of that. It’s just, yeah, I’m not having to second guess myself all the time and try and plan for… Vengeance. I can just eat and not think about it. And if I’m hungry, I just have something to eat and I’m not thinking, but I already had that earlier or I’m going to have this later. It’s just, well, I’m hungry. I’m just going to have it.

Yeah.

Yeah, that’s amazing. What about your connection with your body? Because I assume you’ve developed a much better relationship with yourself and with your physical body. So how has that changed?

Speaker 1 (42:32.99)
I think that’s still a work in progress as well. I’m certainly, like I used again back to thoughts and the things you say to yourself, you know, I used to hate, hate my body, hate myself and just be constantly telling myself how fat I was and how awful I looked and always thinking about how I looked when I was sitting or out or whatever I was doing, whereas now I’m just a bit more freer to just let my body…

be how it is. And I think I also have more, and this has probably only come recently really, but just that sort of feeling my body’s here to help me live life and I’m just living in it. It’s not, you know, and it’s a gift and it’s not something to hate or try and manipulate. It’s just here to help. And I think a lot of that’s listening to.

people like you as well. You gradually get the message that it starts to filter through at some point.

you need to listen, like, on repetition.

Reputation is a mother of all learning so you need to hear the same thing like a hundred times in different ways from different people and then one time like it for me with the whole meaning thing I mean not a lot of people talk about this actually but when I truly grasp that nothing means anything only the story we decide to focus on that to me was freedom because I know and knew at any point that I feel a feeling I don’t want to feel I mean obviously if someone dies and like life happens that’s different but if I’m

Speaker 2 (44:04.72)
creating thoughts and feelings that I don’t want to think and feel, then I just get to, I have the freedom to change that by simply being aware of what story I’m telling myself and then just choosing to think a different story. It doesn’t matter if you believe it or not because you only believe the old story because you’ve told it yourself or, you know, the consensus of society have told it and conditioned you, but it’s just a story. So what would create freedom and just focus on that? And it kind of…

It’s quite simple really, it’s not easy but it’s How it feels to do that.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Okay, so is there anything that I’ve not asked you that you want to share? So if you imagine if you were speaking to the old version of you when you first found me or even before then, is there anything that you would need to hear that we’ve not perhaps spoke about?

I think just to keep going that is difficult to start off with and I see this with everybody in the group as well is that you decide you want to recover then the eating sort of gets really really loud and you put on weight and it all gets really really hard but as time goes on that all gets easier it all gets better and it’s so much

Speaker 1 (45:26.754)
better on the other side. And it doesn’t even have to be anything, I say it’s not, it’s not like anything big and major. It’s just like all the little things in my life that are better because of changing this. And I’m so glad I kept going. And I think, yeah, I think maybe people get stuck at that middle stage and just because it is difficult and it feels difficult, but it’s just really worth it. Yeah. And it does all get better.

I love you brought that up because a lot of people do get so far and they restrict less but they’re not actually truly free and they’re scared to push past that extra barrier that is leading to total freedom but that might mean more weight gain and letting go of control and like you’re saying as I’m saying as other people out there are saying you’ve never met a single person who’s recovered who regrets

No, no, this is it. And it seems to because the other thing I sort of noticed with, you know, like people like you or others that I follow that have recovered, they often sort of you see that they they’ve recovered after that year or whatever. But then even in the sort of two or three years after that, they sort of it solidifies. They kind of, know, and they seem to get they get even more confident in their body and they get even happier with it. And I’ve even found that just in the last few months that

without even necessarily doing anything specific. It’s just that you’re going further. And one of the things I felt for a while as well was that recovery, when you first recover, it’s a bit like when you’ve learned to drive and then you have, you take off your L plates, but you put the P plates on. You’re not quite confident yet. So it’s that sort of like, you go through that phase of, I’m not, I don’t have an eating disorder anymore, but I’m not very confident. But then as you like,

Yes.

Speaker 1 (47:17.866)
navigate all the other situations that are after that, get more more confident and you have more experiences and you enjoy freedom and you know it just is

I love that. It’s true. remember being recovered and then like being at a buffet and then kind of being like, I don’t restrict anymore. So kind of like, I can just kind of have what I want. And it was, it wasn’t like I needed to give myself permission in recovery because I had permission. didn’t feel any anxiety, but it was a bit like, how do I, how do I do this thing now? How do I do it?

Yeah, you just get the more you do it, the more confident you feel. And obviously with me having had a baby not that long ago, my body has changed, but I’m so glad that I did all the work I have done. And people, like you said, Karen

people don’t see the changes that you necessarily see. Like people look at me and think, you know, I just look the same. Because I believe I was at my set point weight like way before I was pregnant. So my body just got pregnant, had the baby and then just kind of settled back to where it was. But things have changed because I know my body well, but no one even notices, no one even cares. And I don’t either because how cool that I’ve like had a baby and my body’s been able to do that.

When you realise how amazing your body is as well. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (48:38.552)
gratitude and gratitude, freedom and like, let’s finish with what you said about you understand now that your body’s with you for life and these aren’t yours, but my was like, it’s just a vessel to experience life in. And that’s all it get, that’s all it has to be. Let’s stop putting it on a pedestal and comparing and just, I know it’s practice in the world we live in, but just practice living in the bodies we have. Cause this is the body we have like,

We can’t change it unless we want to live with an eating disorder for the rest of our lives. No, thank you. So we may as just enjoy it and appreciate it and then actually not even focus on the body.

Yeah. So thank you, Karen, for sharing your story. How do you feel about having shared it? I know you were a bit like, God, like to share, if you don’t mind sharing, it does it still feel like weird or does it feel liberating somehow?

It feels like a relief, yes. Yeah, and it was easier than I thought, I think. Good. Thank you. We’ve asked the right questions. yeah.

And if anyone, you don’t have to say yes, but if anyone does want to like ask you a question, if they really relate to something you’ve shared, there some, did you want them to like reach out to me to then ask you?

Speaker 2 (50:06.252)
I think so. So someone wants to ask Karen a question, email me, victoria at victoriatkynesman.com, and then I’ll make sure Karen gets it, then Karen can choose if she wants to reply to the person directly or whatever.

Yeah, mean, yeah, probably be happy to apply directly, but yeah, just I’m not giving out my email on.

No, of course, that’s a big platform for loads of random people to have your email. I totally get that. And it’s just another story that thank you for sharing your story because I’m here sharing my story, but someone will really relate to what you’ve shared and then it will give them hope and inspiration that, I can also do it too. So I really appreciate you coming in, sharing your story and also for sharing about the group because, you know, a lot of people hear transformations in one-to-one coaching, but I wanted, that’s why I asked you to come and share like.

it’s also so possible to not have to have thousands to invest in yourself and actually join a group at a lower cost and still completely transform and heal.

Yes, yeah. I mean you can do it all your own as well but you did or almost.

Speaker 2 (51:09.91)
coaches but not a coach like me to be fair.

Yeah, yeah. So I mean, this is it. You can do it on your own, but it’s not easy. I think this is a difficult thing and to get you through those difficult bits, that’s where you need a coach or other people. And I’ve definitely found the group really helpful. You’ve been really helpful. other people’s stories have helped me as well. So yeah, I did want to come on.

Thank you. And now yours is out here helping people. So thank you. And thank you to our listeners. If you have any questions, as I say for Karen, let me know. And I’ll see you next time. Much love.