Posts Tagged “Physical Health”

**Content warning: This is one person’s story; everyone will have unique experiences in recovery and beyond. Some stories may mention eating disorder thoughts, behaviors, and symptoms. Please use your discretion when reading and speak with your support system as needed.

Kimmy Schuelke (she/her) is a teacher, speaker, and author of the children’s book The Tangle. A survivor of both a long-term eating disorder and colon cancer, Kimmy integrates somatic work and yoga into the classroom to help students regulate their nervous systems for better learning. She is a passionate advocate for ED recovery and systemic change, somatic work, and trauma-informed education, proving that our bodies are the vessels for our stories, not the sum of our worth.

Learn more about Kimmy on her website, or follow her at @teachingkimmy on Instagram and YouTube.

For a long time, I lived in a body I didn’t even recognize. I remember my first session with my therapist. I was sitting there, and I looked down at my own hand resting on my lap. She asked me how an emotion felt in my body. I couldn’t answer her because I couldn’t connect with any part of my body. She told me to start with my hand. I had to stop and really think about the fact that it was mine. I was so disconnected from myself that I couldn’t even process that my hand was a part of me. That was the reality of my life for almost four decades. I was just a passenger in a body I didn’t trust.

Episode description:

Shena Washburn, Senior Director of Clinical Nutrition and Culinary Services at The Emily Program, joins us for a timely conversation about the newly released Food Guide Pyramid—what it says, what it doesn’t, and what it means in the context of eating disorder recovery.

Together, Shena and Jillian explore how public nutrition messaging can reinforce the kind of food hierarchies and moral judgments that make recovery harder, how eating disorder treatment approaches nutrition differently, and what the role of a dietitian in eating disorder care looks like.

Episode description:

March is National Nutrition Month, and this year’s theme is “Discover the Power of Nutrition.” For folks struggling with an eating disorder or navigating recovery, the word “nutrition” can feel powerfully loaded. Eating disorders disrupt your ability to nourish yourself—to eat consistently, to eat enough, to eat with variety and flexibility. Diet culture makes that even harder, reinforcing the idea that food is something to earn or control.

In this episode, Jillian talks about what it looks like to reclaim nutrition in recovery, and how the work of nutritional rehabilitation, as hard as it is, can ultimately move you toward a more peaceful and empowering relationship with food.

What Does Purging Mean?

Purging is a compensatory behavior experienced by many people with eating disorders. It refers to the act of compensating for or expelling food intake to influence body weight or “make up for” consuming calories. Purging is most commonly associated with self-induced vomiting but also includes the misuse of laxatives, diet pills, and diuretics, as well as excessive exercise. This is seen across eating disorder diagnoses, including bulimia, anorexia, and OSFED (Other Specified Feeding or Eating Disorder).

There are many side effects purging can have on the human body. In this blog, we will break down a handful of different physical consequences of purging to explore what eating disorder behavior can do to the body in the long term. We discuss the effects of bulimia purging across your entire body, in addition to the effects that purging disorders can have on your mental and emotional state. We’ll examine how eating disorder purging can exacerbate pre-existing mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety, and how they can trigger new psychological challenges, including severe mood swings and stress-related disorders. Whether you’re struggling with this yourself or know someone who is, understanding the full scope of the impact of purging disorder is the first step toward recovery.

Valentine’s Day may be commercialized and over-hyped. For some it’s an obligatory gift-giving day, for others it’s a reminder of a broken heart or an unclear relationship status. But for those who do choose to celebrate, the holiday is an occasion to recognize love in all its forms.

This Valentine’s week, we’re exploring love in the context of the relationships we have with ourselves. Like other types of love, self-love is an action we practice and develop, one cultivated through self-compassion. And self-compassion bestows physical and mental health benefits worth celebrating in this season of love and beyond.

The holiday season is upon us, and while it often brings joy and celebration, it also presents challenges for individuals with eating disorders. With food-centric gatherings, disrupted eating routines, and a surge in diet conversations, it’s no wonder this time of year can be particularly tough for those struggling with food.

As a provider, you have the power to recognize the symptoms of disordered eating and eating disorders and connect them with the care they need. In this blog, we’ll explore the challenges faced by those with eating disorders during the holidays and discuss ways providers can offer support to those struggling.

The benefits of athletics are well-established. Participating in organized sports can help you build self-esteem, recognize the value of teamwork, set the foundation for a lifelong physical activity practice, improve mental health, promote social connections, open the doorway for scholarships or even a career, and teach important life skills, such as goal-setting and leadership.

However, these positive outcomes come with an important caveat. The pressures of athletic competition and the emphasis many sports place on body weight, shape, and size can contribute to psychological and physical stress. For individuals naturally predisposed to eating disorders, these stressors can be a tipping point into disordered territory.

Athletes frequently experience diminishing returns from disordered habits like restrictive dieting and over-training. Although it can be difficult for an athlete to step away from their sport, pursuing treatment increases their likelihood of safely returning—and can be lifesaving. Coaches, parents, teammates, and providers have a critical role in ensuring athletes are prioritized over the sport. Understanding the risks athletes face is key to providing preventative support.

In our appearance-obsessed culture, exercise is often portrayed as a means to attain the “perfect” body, rather than a practice that can nourish your mind and body in ways unrelated to weight, shape, or size. As a result, societal pressures often distort the true value and potential benefits of physical activity, leading to unhealthy attitudes and behaviors related to exercise. 

When exercise becomes excessive, compulsive, or compensatory, your relationship with it has likely become disordered. In fact, overexercise is a common symptom in those with anorexia, bulimia, and other eating disorders. It can be a challenging process to rebuild a healthy relationship with activity once you’re in recovery. 

Learn how you might shift your mindset toward exercise and begin to embrace mindful movement instead.