Satiated Podcast

My current perspective on eating disorders is that labeling food behaviors as a disorder has kept the field of food recovery distracted, continuing to focus on that food is the problem. 

Patterns of binge eating, restriction, yo yo dieting, food noise, and body image struggles need to be re-labeled as nervous system dysregulation or a trauma response. 

Food, for many, was never actually the problem, but it was the strategy to support...

I have a saying, Embody first, Examine later.

When you're feeling like you're drowning in body image concerns or food impulses, your prefrontal cortex is shut down. This is the part of your brain where you rationalize and can think through what is going on. 

When that part of your brain is diminished, it can be much harder to try to understand what message your body is trying to send you through food cravings or body image ...

Since my time in graduate school for somatic psychotherapy, I have shared with anyone who would listen about the connection between somatics and nutrition. It has felt absurd to me that food was never talked about in my somatic studies. 

In my PhD interview, I passionately shared that I believe there is a need to bring the field of nutrition into somatics. 

This has been a 20-year journey where I'm seeing that others have also b...

Around 2018, I was living in Denver, Colorado and I was in my ongoing process of combining the fields of somatics, nutrition, nervous system, and trauma. I've wanted to learn as much as I can about all of the possible perspectives of what affects and shapes our food interactions. 

I was a member at the Denver Botanic Gardens and found out they were holding an all day nutrition workshop with Dr. Deanna Minich. I had been followi...

When I first entered into the world of wellness culture, I was swept up in the promise of health, vibrancy, and fixing every symptom I had and could ever have. 

I did the detoxes, the cleanses, the supplements, the colonics, the detox foot baths, the energy work, and the elimination diets. 

Now, if you're thinking, "Wait. I have done some of those things and they were helpful to me." That is great! 

But, what I've ...

The statement, “You are not your body,” needs some somatic updating. This statement, which has been said countless of times to try to decrease body image struggles, actually guides you in detaching from the body, further causing separation from safely inhabiting the body.

René Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am,” reinforced a mind-body split. This contributed to the belief that the body is meant to be transcended and translated to:...

Once I started to connect the dots that the sympathetic nervous system plays a prominent role in food impulses and behaviors, I began teaching everyone I work with how to identify when their sympathetic nervous system is activated. 

This isn't something we're often taught as a kid and would be a game changer to learn earlier on in life. You may just be learning this language of your body and nervous system now though and f...

As I was editing this week's podcast episode, I accidentally deleted half of it and thought it was gone forever. 

At first, my heart sank, I was in shock, the blood drained from my face, and I literally said out loud, "Nooooooo!!!"

I was ready to call it and my brain started quickly going through my options.

As I went through my options, I paused and wanted to connect with my experience of this. I felt the sadness of th...

Something I've noticed in food recovery is that certain foods and meals become associated with dieting. 

Suddenly, you're afraid or feeling resistance to eating certain vegetables or fruits because these foods have been somatically connected to deprivation and restriction. Your body tenses, your breath gets shallow, you feel tight, and you hear an internal, "NO, don't eat that." 

You might find yourself quest...

Diets can be a reminder of what no can feel like. The issue occurs that over time a no somatically gets connected with deprivation and restriction. So when you really don’t want to eat something, a no sends your body into a survival response. It can feel like you’re not allowed to say no because now all you feel is tight, tense, and constricted. 

And then anti diet culture swoops in and tells you that you’re allowed to eat and to ea...

Every Saturday, my husband and I listen to a podcast that reads Reddit stories. 

For a long time, I have wanted to do something similar but with a focus on food and body image behaviors. I even set up a whole form for people to send in questions, but I got very few responses. So I decided to move forward on this anyway and find my own Reddit stories to read and share my thoughts on how I might support that person in their situation....

Over the past few years, I've become more interested in neurodiversity. I've had more people come to work with me navigating being on the ADHD or autism spectrums and telling me that intuitive eating didn't work for them. I saw that many of the bodily changes that can occur as a response to trauma can already be happening in someone's brain when in the spectrum of neurodiversity. 

This can include quicker shifts ...

Digestion and cravings can all start in your nervous system. Food decisions made from a stressed, sympathetic nervous system state will lead you to specific foods for your survival. 

You then struggle to digest those foods, not because there is something “wrong” with the food or your gut, but because your digestion has shut down to prepare you for battle. 

You can start to see that every food behavior you have is trying to do somethi...

Wellness culture teaches you how to NOT feel enough. It is never enough biohacking, protein, red light therapy, organic, sprouted, activated, pure, lectin free food. Feeling like you’re never going to get it “right” does not create wellness. What creates "wellness" are things that cannot be commodified and sold to you as the answer to your fears and worries. 

In this week's Satiated Podcast episode, I chat with Jenn T...

When the focus is always on finding a root cause, it keeps you looking for the next answer and the next answer and the next answer to your food issues. This can keep you stuck in a survival response. This constant searching sends signals of danger to the body that something is wrong, and it has to keep the sympathetic nervous system turned on (where food behaviors intensify).

What if there is no root cause to your binge eating or em...

I wanted to approach the transition into a new year differently. 

For the past couple of years, I felt like it was more somatically aligned to explore a feeling word for the year rather than resolutions. This feeling word could then be a guiding light throughout the year toward actions or food or environments or hobbies that support you in feeling the way you want to feel. 

But, I decided to move away from that this year because I se...

This holiday week might have been really hard. Surrounded by family, arguments, familial patterns, working on staying connected, trying to enact different patterns with food, and feeling overwhelmed and dysregulated. 

And for others, ​this week may have included huge wins. You noticed yourself regulating your nervous system, staying connected, choosing other options besides food to connect with yourself, and you got to witness just ...

One of the aspects of food recovery I wished that I had greater guidance around (and had to learn for myself) was discovering how to listen to my body. 

 Even within different food recovery approaches, there are still all of these rules about what to eat to "prove" recovery or what to do to ensure recovery. 

I've seen more confusion over the years about what will or will not lead toward a decrease in food coping mechan...

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) are traumatic events that occur in childhood and affect your sense of safety. 

ACEs have been found to be higher in prevalence among those who struggle with food and body image. As the experience of safety diminishes, the likelihood of binge eating increases.

This is why you can't shame yourself for your food behaviors. They are not your fault. You’ve been made to believe that your food choice...