Episode 236: This week I'm speaking with Jo, a client I've recently finished working with. We cover her recovery journey from the depths of anorexia and now back to health.
Jo was diagnosed with anorexia a number of years ago. As part of this conversation, she explains how her eating disorder developed, the point at which she finally recognised she had anorexia, the recovering she’d done before we started together and then the work we did and how different things are now.
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Chris Sandel: Welcome to Episode 236 of Real Health Radio. You can find the show notes and the links talked about as part of this episode at www.seven-health.com/236.
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Real Health Radio. Iâm your host, Chris Sandel. Iâm a nutritionist that specialises in recovery from disordered eating and eating disorders or really just helping anyone who has a messy relationship with food and body and exercise.
Today on the show, Iâm chatting with Jo. Jo is a client Iâve recently finished working with. For the last handful of episodes, Iâve been starting the show mentioning that Iâm taking on clients, and conversations like this can be a great way for you to hear the stories of other people who have struggled with an eating disorder and what their road back from this place has looked like.
I started working with Jo in March of this year, and as youâll hear her describe, sheâd been diagnosed with anorexia a number of years ago. She explains about how her eating disorder developed, the point at which she recognised she actually had anorexia before she started working with me and the work she did as part of that, and then the work that we did together and how different things are now.
As a trigger warning, Jo does talk about a time when she contemplated and came close to suicide, so if you are sensitive to mentions of this, this is your advance warning. But it is a fantastic conversation, and itâs great to hear Jo be able to talk about how much sheâs been able to achieve this year with her recovery.
I had asked Jo to put aside an hour to chat, and the time just flew by. There were some aspects of her eating disorder that we didnât get a chance to cover, like many of the physical symptoms that she was dealing with, but she does such a great job talking about the psychological side of things and how this has shifted for her.
Iâm currently taking on new clients, and at the time of recording this intro, I have just one spot left. If you hear yourself in Joâs words and her experiences, then Iâd love to have a chat and see if I could help. You can head over to www.seven-health.com/help, and there you can read about how I work with clients and apply for a free initial chat. The address, again, is www.seven-health.com/help, and Iâll put that in the show notes.
So with the intro out of the way, letâs get on with todayâs show. Here is my conversation with Jo.
Hey, Jo. Welcome to Real Health Radio. Thanks for doing this with me today.
Jo: Youâre more than welcome. Lovely to speak to you again.
00:02:37
Chris Sandel: Do you want to give listeners a bit of backstory on you and what had been going on with you before you got in touch with me?
Jo: Yeah, no worries. I started my slide into an eating disorder a few years ago. Iâm not sure if everyone is aware, but you donât just get big flags saying, âHey! Youâve got an eating disorder.â It just kind of creeps up on you, and you find yourself in quite a sticky situation. And even when I was at my illest, worst, I was still convinced I was being very healthy. I was buying sizes smaller and it was great and that was an achievement, but looking in the mirror I still saw a big person, and that was not the reality at all.
I was really fortunate to be diagnosed with anaemia versus anorexia, so I set about fixing the anaemia, and that obviously put on weight. So I became weight restored in the traditional sense of no longer being underweight, but I definitely still wasnât well, and I was referred to a charity that looked after eating disorder people. At the time I wasnât convinced I needed them because I wasnât ill; I was weight restored, I no longer had anaemia, and I went along and discovered on the third or fourth session with a counsellor that actually, I did have anorexia, and I was anorexic at the time, very much so underweight, but I was actually still suffering with anorexia.
After a few sessions, I got my head round it, felt comfortable enough that that was what had been wrong with me, and I wasnât going to go back down that road. So, whoop-de-doo, off I go into the world.
That was a few years ago. I thought I was doing alright. I thought I was doing okay. Everything seemed to be ticking along. I was still weight restored. I was starting to exercise for joy rather than exercise for weight loss. And then Covid happened, and I was at home. Being a fairly anxious person, that rocked my world. I didnât have to go in to the office, I didnât have to see anyone. I could wear leggings all the time. [laughs] I could wear nice comfy clothing.
It got to the beginning of the year and everyone was starting to open up and talking about needing to lose the Covid weight. There was a lot of conversation around needing to be on diets, needing to change the way you were, had you been a healthy Covid-19 person or had you been an unhealthy Covid-19 person? It just started to play on my mind.
Iâve listened to your podcast forever, pretty much since I realised that I had an eating disorder, I stumbled across you. One day I was listening and it was like, âHey, Iâve opened up my booksâ and I was like, âI think I need someone to steady the ship.â I wasnât acting on it, but I was starting to think that things werenât as normal as they should be, whatever normal looks like. So I reached out and started our conversation.
Chris Sandel: Nice. I want to go back to something you said about you were diagnosed with anaemia, not anorexia. If you had been diagnosed with anorexia at that time, what do you think your response wouldâve been?
Jo: You know, because Iâve told you. [laughs] It wouldâve been to laugh at them and tell them not to be so stupid. I was being perfectly healthy. I was eating healthily. I was eating, did you not know, and I was following the 5:2 diet and therefore everything was normal because that was on TV. So yes, I wouldâve completely ignored it and probably ended up in a much worse situation.
Chris Sandel: So itâs nice in a way you got anaemia. And you were not the first client where something like that has happened, where some other illness has been diagnosed and thatâs got under the radar and has led to changes starting to occur. I think that was very lucky.
And just so listeners know, how old are you?
Jo: Iâm 49 now.
Chris Sandel: Youâre 49, okay.
00:06:55
And in terms of the eating disorder, you said this is the last handful of years. What was your eating like in your earlier years?
Jo: My mum has always been on a diet. We had a clean plate club, so you had to clean your main course before you could have pudding. Pudding was considered a treat. Certain foods were considered a treat. Mum wasnât eating certain foods, so sheâd feed us but then thereâd be a lot of chat around âIâm not eating that becauseâŠâ or âIâve had that, therefore I canât have dinner.â So I think myself and eating wasnât necessarily an issue, but I think the surrounding language was definitely there. And itâs still there, interestingly enough.
So yeah, Iâve had bits and starts of being âhealthierâ, and hat is very much in inverted commas, versus not paying attention. I remember when my husband and I were in our flat and we were settled and married and everything was hunky-dory, and weâd nip over to the newsagentsâ and buy lots of âjunkâ food, in inverted commas again. We would not actually care. We were living above takeaway, so we had a lot of takeaways. Obviously, your life changes. But then I never really paid a huge amount of attention.
Then I went on a bit of a health kick with regard to getting exercise in, because I didnât really exercise since being in school, and that was the beginning of that fun path that I ended up on. [laughs]
Chris Sandel: So it was really your first main go at being âhealthyâ and getting into exercise in a serious way, and then as part of that, having dietary recommendations made off the back of it, and it being a diet. Really, your first go at the merry-go-round was what slid you into that place.
Jo: Yeah, and it took a good few years of the exercising, but Iâd been the person that would go to exercise class and do three or four in a row. Iâd go on a Saturday morning and I wouldnât leave until lunchtime, or Iâd go to the gym and be in there for hours because thatâs what I thought you did. No-one was pulling me up and saying, âDo you know you only need to do one class? Itâs okay to just do one class.â
And yeah, then it spiralled. The numbers became a huge thing. I had to do a number of steps before breakfast. I had to do a number of exercise classes. There were so many âshouldsâ and rules that I had to abide by that, looking back, it was just like, based on what? Who wrote this down? Who told me that that was what was needed, that thatâs exactly what I should be doing? I was just one of the unfortunate ones who got the anorexia stick.
Chris Sandel: At what point were people pulling you aside or your husband mentioning, âI think this is an issueâ?
Jo: Oddly, it was my mum who actually started the whole thing by saying I looked pregnant when I wasnât. She was like, âI think youâre too skinny now.â But of course Iâm not going to listen to you, because you said the other side of the coin. [laughs] I donât think my husband noticed particularly. We were dieting together, so therefore we were both achieving. But he didnât slide down; he was just losing weight in a âhealthyâ way. Again, lots of healthy references with inverted commas.
But no-one really started to comment. Everyone held me up as this really committed, determined, healthy person. It was only after that people said, âYour smile didnât reach your eyes and we were worried about you.â It really came to a head on a holiday with the girls, if you want me to explain that fun time.
Chris Sandel: Yeah.
Jo: Just to let you know, this isnât easy listening, for anyone out there. But when you are in control of your life to such an extent that everything has to be done in a certain order, has to be done in a certain place, has to be done to rules, these rules that were in my head â unknown to me why I agreed to this, I went on holiday with some friends to Las Vegas. Very different place, very different culture. Iâd only been to America with work before.
I was up at 5 oâclock in the morning going to the gym, making sure I got my gym sessions in, and then I would walk up and down the strip before my friends would wake up. My eating was as crazy as it always had been. Going to restaurants, taking everything I could off the plate and modifying it so it was the bare minimum, and then stealing the leftover food from anyone elseâs who hadnât eaten it, which was just bizarre. It spiralled more and more and more.
I suppose my eating disorder voice was just shouting louder and louder and louder as the control wasnât possible to maintain because I wasnât in my normal place, and I found myself sat on a five-story balcony, thinking about jumping off. That terrified me so much. I had no idea where that voice had come from. I didnât understand what the hell was going on. It pulled me round.
Now, I was being treated for anaemia at the time, so I think I wasnât as bad as I had been from a health perspective, and something in my mind said, âNo. No, no, no, stop. Just stop.â Pulled myself back and sat and cried for hours.
The holiday was a complete disaster, as you can very well imagine. [laughs] I was having a full-on mental breakdown. I couldnât communicate. I was still trying to keep up with all the rules and the walking and the eating. When I came back, I was a shell. Fortunately, my husband was able to chat to me on Facetime. As soon as the UK woke up, he was on the phone just to reassure me that everything was okay. I just didnât understand what the hell was going on.
So yeah, looking back, again, itâs one of those turning points. The anaemia was one; this bizarre voice in my head telling me that I wasnât worth it, just end it, was another. Iâm very, very lucky to be here.
Chris Sandel: Yeah. How shortly after that episode was the anorexia diagnosis?
Jo: About three months. I came back â I still held on to it for a while. I still carried on my normal behaviours. âNormalâ. [laughs]
Chris Sandel: [laughs] Normal at the time.
Jo: Normal at the time behaviours. It takes some doing. Iâm really lucky that I went to the doctor, who just said âYou need to talk to someone. Hereâs someone to talk to.â He actually referred me to a dietitian at the hospital as well as the charity, which was an interesting combination because I was trying to talk to the dietitian for âhealthyâ ideas and talk to the counsellor â we hadnât come to the conclusion that I was anorexic at the time, and it was quite a conflict.
And in the end I said to the dietitian, âIâm just so scared of going backâ, when Iâd figured out where I was and what it was. I said, âIâm just so scared of going back.â I think thatâs the conversation we had at the beginning as well: âIâm eating okay; Iâm just really scared of going back.â You might want to pick up the story and the fact I wasnât eating okay at the time. [laughs]
Chris Sandel: Yeah. I can pick that up, but I guess the thing I would ask before that, before I chime in, is:
00:15:13
Youâd mentioned about Covid and all the chat about Covid gain weight and âHave you been a healthy person during Covid or an unhealthy person?â and that that started to turn the gears in your mind around different thoughts starting to come up. So when you reached out to have the initial chat and think about working together, at that stage from your perspective, what was it that you were wanting to get out of it? What were you thinking âHey, this aspect isnât right or these aspects arenât where I would like them to beâ? What was your hope?
Jo: I think as I pictured it, Iâd done a lot of the work, and it felt like there were just bits left over. I described it to you and people were like, âThatâs horrible, thinking of your brain like this!â, but it was like my brain was a bottle that had been washed out but hadnât been cleaned thoroughly with a bottle brush into all the nooks and crannies.
So it felt like there were still bits that needed addressing. And I didnât know what they were; I just didnât feel â itâs got to be the word ârecoveredâ. I didnât feel recovered. I felt like there was still this doubt in my mind that I was ânormalâ. [laughs] I keep using the word ânormalâ and I laugh every time because there is no such thing as normal, but it just felt like actually, with all this chatter, there was a worry that one of these little bits that hadnât been cleaned up could hook onto it and I could somehow find myself in a situation on the spectrum of eating disorder. I didnât think Iâd end up being anorexic again, but Iâm obviously susceptible to having an eating disorder, and therefore I was like, âI could just do something a bit more or I could try and do something a bit differentâ, and it was like, no, I need to really stop. Stop and assess what is right and whatâs wrong for me.
So when we had the chat, I think I described it as that. It was like âI just need my brain cleaned out a bit more. I feel like thereâs bits that are still a bit mucky in there.â And whilst the voice is definitely not there, there was a fear that it could come back. It was just such an alien concept that this voice controls you. It was like, âHang on a minute.â And Iâd avoided a lot of the news. Iâd avoided a lot of the conversation. But it was just so prevalent at that point. I was like, âI donât like this. How can I protect myself against it?â
Chris Sandel: The thing that I remember most about that initial chat was just the point of confusion, where you were like, âI just donât know what I need to do next. I donât know what I donât know. Iâm just unsure as to where I really am as part of this recovery. Is this it, and this is what itâs going to be like forever? Or is there a better place from where Iâm currently at?â
When we started working together, at least from my perspective, it became quite clear that yes, there wasnât enough food coming in to actually support you. There was a lot going on that would indicate you were still not completely healed from a physical perspective, and that was also having an impact on your mental and emotional perspective. So yeah, I would think about you in terms of you were in a place of quasi-recovery. Youâd done a lot of good work by the time we started working together, but there was still more to be done.
Jo: For sure. Thatâs such a weird thing, because I think Iâd never heard of this quasi-recovery before. I think it was on your podcast you were talking about it, and I was like, âYeah, that makes perfect sense.â [laughs] Itâs really weird listening back to some of the other podcasts that youâve shared after. Iâd listened to them before meeting you, and then listening to them after our conversations, it really had a different angle as well. I could understand it a bit more in the context of myself versus just this generic conversation that you had.
00:19:29
Chris Sandel: Do you want to describe from your own perspective what the work we did together looked like? What stood out for you? How was it? Just for listeners, so they can get a bit of a sense of what it is.
Jo: It was a rollercoaster, I can say that. [laughs] I didnât cry throughout it all, which I was very impressed with. I think I was quite proud after each session when I was like âYes! Didnât cry.â
Itâs like taking a can opener and opening up your brain, I think is the easiest way of describing it. Youâd ask questions that I would never have thought about in the context of my eating disorder or my future eating. It was a real holistic view of me, which youâve obviously built over many years of working with clients and understanding. That first session, you sent me the introduction paper â to say that takes a long time and takes a lot of probing â yeah, thatâs the can-opening session. Itâs like, âOh my gosh, I donât know. What do I think about that? How am I about that?â
So I finished that and sent it back to you to say, âHey, this is myâ â I donât know how many pages it is, but itâs multiple pages of information, and I sent it over to you. Itâs like, wow, this is going to be all-encompassing. This isnât just going to look at my food and my sleep and my mental state. This is everything all together.
I did tell you off for calling it âfood logsâ. You said, âHow do you feel about doing food logs?â and I absolutely freaked, because I was an expert at food logs, Iâll have you know. So we rephrased it to awareness logs, which is just keeping an eye on what Iâm eating, when Iâm eating it, how Iâm feeling, how hungry I was, how satisfied I was, how much sleep I was having, and general like âAm I exercising every day, and how often, and what does that look like?â
I think people should be aware that this is not a âChris fixes everythingâ and you just sit there nicely absorbing. This is very much an âin it togetherâ team effort, and thereâs homework. [laughs] A number of times you sent me a link saying, âThis is your homework between now and the next sessionâ and Iâd be like, âWhy is he sending me this? This is the weirdest writing effort I have to do. I have no idea what this is relating to.â Then the next session youâd say, âRight, letâs go through itâ and Iâd say, âOh yes, thatâs what heâs getting at!â So yeah, it was a rollercoaster, but it didnât tear me apart.
I think I was really lucky because I was already weight restored. I was eating, but I wasnât eating enough. Iâd got into a âpress repeatâ stage, which was basically having the same thing every day, for breakfast, for lunch. Occasionally dinners were different, but over a period of two or three weeks, they were exactly the same. Had I checked out? Iâd kind of checked out from the emotional side of things and fixing that.
So yeah, a lot of self-compassion, âHow do I feel about myself? How do I feel about other things?â It makes you think. It makes you think and it makes you take a deep breath and accept that you werenât 100% there. I was pretty sure there was going to be this tiny little thing you needed to fix, and that was me, good to go, off I went. And it wasnât that easy. [laughs]
Chris Sandel: [laughs] Yeah. I would say the way I think about recovery is thereâs two parts to it. There is the physical part of recovery and the nutritional rehabilitation and the neural rewiring and all the components that are directly connected to food and how food has an impact on the body, and exercise and those kind of things.
But itâs then the second part, which is largely where we were focusing because so much of the first part had been done, which is really the nuts and bolts of how you cement recovery so it doesnât come back â by learning various coping skills, by learning about mindfulness and all of these different things that have a real impact on you being a human in this world and being able to cope with that.
And I actually think a lot of what I focus on would be relevant for any human being. They donât actually have to be going through recovery; itâs just Iâm looking at it through that lens with the people that Iâm working with because thatâs why theyâre coming. But I mean, Iâve never had an eating disorder and never had issues around food, but so many of the books I read and recommend and focus on with clients are stuff that is really helpful for me. For me, itâs often using it in terms of my relationship with my wife or my relationship with my son or whatever it is. But I do think of this as more life skills, but life skills that then mean that when you can really do this and understand this, it means the need for an eating disorder disappears because youâre able to do this in other ways.
Jo: Thatâs a much better explanation than mine. [laughs]
Chris Sandel: [laughs] Definitely not, no.
00:25:10
So tell the listeners where you are in terms of your relationship with food now. How would you describe your relationship with food? How do you think about it now?
Jo: Thatâs such a weird question because I just donât think about it. Which may sound really bizarre, but actually itâs a real positive. Iâm mindful of it, so I know when I havenât eaten enough during the day. I am wary of long gaps, and Iâm also wary of my hunger â what I feel about feeling hunger. Obviously, when you have an eating disorder, being hungry is amazing. Itâs the best feeling in the world. Youâve achieved blah, blah, blah. And itâs not. [laughs] Itâs not the best feeling in the world. Itâs actually horrible.
So when Iâve gone too long between food â I work at a desk all day, every day; I work with a global team, so my hours are extended between European time and US time. So I can literally be sat on the phone all day, trying to grab lunch. Obviously breakfast and dinner is easy, but grabbing lunch on the go. So I have a drawer of snack bars, which I know youâre going to smile at because you told me that youâd like me to put snack bars in a drawer near me and I freaked out and said, âNo, Iâm going to eat them all! They wonât be there! Theyâll be too much temptation.â Theyâre there, and I grab them if I need them.
I have a huge variety of food now. There were certain things I was still avoiding without realising, and I donât anymore. I was overeating certain things because I didnât have pasta before. I had so much pasta because I was proving that I could eat pasta. I was eating cheese every day because I couldnât have cheese before, and then I was eating cheese every day. Now I eat whateverâs around. Itâs not a biggie, itâs nothing to worry about. Thereâs just no â this sounds so stupid â there is no thinking about food.
Iâm organised with food, I make sure I have food around, I make sure Iâm eating, but thatâs kind of it. I donât stress about it. I go out for a meal and instead of looking down the menu and finding the lowest calorie thing and then modifying it even further so it can go even lower calorie, I just pick what I want. Which is really difficult. Itâs really difficult to go into a restaurant and actually be able to eat anything off the menu because thatâs challenging. Thatâs what you think when youâve gone in and picked the one thing that you know you can have â for me it was steak and salad with no dressing. Thinking about it now, itâs dull as dishwater. But yeah, itâs weird. Now I can go and have anything, and thatâs fine.
Sleep-wise, Iâm aware of my sleep. I wear a Fitbit, and itâs purely more for my sleep than anything. If itâs dipping between low quality, then I just need to check and see what I had the day before and the last couple of days and how much exercise Iâve done and whether Iâm properly at an energy deficit and I need to up my food. And itâs not about calories. There isnât a single brain cell that is used for calculating calories. I used to be a mathematician; everything and anything I did was adding, taking away, calculating. That brain capacity is freed up. Which is worrying, because then you have to actually use it for something else.
But yeah, I just feel okay. And my body size is just my body size. I think when we met, I was having a bit of an issue with it â not looking at it, not dressing it to my size, which is really uncomfortable. And now itâs like, itâll be what itâll be. Itâs like, whatever. At 49, Iâm menopausal, perimenopausal, whatever I am. So my bodyâs going to be doing all sorts of stuff over the next few years, and so be it. You can see me struggling a lot. [laughs] Itâs like, whatever. Itâs not an issue. Itâs not a concern. I donât care. I do care, but I donât care. I donât care like I used to.
Chris Sandel: The thing is, with the âI donât think about foodâ, thatâs a symptom of lots of other things that have allowed you to get to a place where you donât think about food. It hasnât been forced into the corner where you canât think about food. Thatâs typically what people try and do and it just doesnât work.
Jo: Oh no, God no. Your brain would explode if you were trying not to think about it. Itâs just the same as breathing. I get up and breathe; I donât think about breathing. I get up and eat; I donât think about eating. It just happens. Itâs natural. If I feel like eating half a tub of ice cream, I eat half a tub of ice cream. Thereâs obviously a reason somewhere thatâs making me want to do that, so I do it. Itâs not that âI shouldnât haveâ and âI couldnâtâ. I just eat. I exercise. I exercise for joy and the fact I want to get up in the morning â though sometimes after sessions I donât feel like I want to get up in the morning. And I avoid classes I used to do. I donât do the same classes I used to do because I donât want to do them, because I donât enjoy them. [laughs]
Itâs actually giving myself permission to just be and be okay. Stop being horrible to myself, stop trying to dictate things that I shouldnât be dictating. Just live a life. Weâre not on this planet for that long. I wasted a few years in my forties. âThe forties are going to be the best years of your lifeâ â I was trying to shrink away and not be present. Iâm hopefully going into my fifties in a much better position.
And I know Iâm still at risk. I know that I have the propensity to be a person with an eating disorder. Itâs almost like those checks and balances, but not obsessively, just to make sure that everythingâs ticking along. Itâs like a car. Keep your car serviced and topped up and keep an eye on all the levels, but you donât panic every time you get into the car that itâs going to break down.
Chris Sandel: Yeah. But again, itâs because youâre doing all of these things that it becomes so normalised that you donât even think of them that means things can run smoothly. When you say you donât think about food, someone could hear that and easily think, âOh, she barely ever eats.â Itâs like, no, you donât think about food because youâre eating at very regular intervals, you have food in the house, when you go shopping, thereâs planning. You told me just before we started this call that you started doing HelloFresh.
You donât think about it because youâve done all the things that mean that structurally, that is taken care of.
Jo: Itâs just normal. Itâs just part of my everyday life. I eat. I eat a lot. I am very aware if I donât. Iâm much more in tune with actually what hunger should feel like versus the forced hunger of not eating. I donât think I realised that there was a difference. It was like, surely hunger is hunger. No. Hunger when youâre eating is very different to hunger when youâre not.
So yeah, Iâm aware. I think there was a couple of times when I came back and was like, âI got really hungry.â You were like, âHow did you eat?â âI ate a lot.â âFine. Okay, great.â [laughs] Again, no judgment. I think that was one of the things that I really enjoyed working with you. I could say anything, absolutely anything. We laughed about some of the stupid things and the situations just because they are so ridiculous when you actually voice them. When you have them in your head, itâs like, âOh my God, thatâs completely normal.â When you voice, people are like, âNo, thatâs so not normal. Thatâs so not the way to think about things.â
There was just no judgment. In my awareness logs I would send to you, thereâd be days when the old me would look at them and go, âYou canât share that! Thatâs awful.â And youâd go, âOkay, so that was a day. Oh, look at the next day. You were completely different.â You didnât carry on in that vein. You just readjusted. You changed your levels. You recognised, actually that was just a day. Itâs just a day, and weâre on this planet for a lot of days. If you eat a day where you were just eating what would be classed as junk food, then the next day youâre probably not. And if you donât eat a vegetable for a day, the next day youâre probably going to want a salad or want something that has vegetables in it because thatâs what your body does naturally on its own. Who knew? [laughs]
Chris Sandel: And for you, that happened a lot quicker in terms of âI didnât have some vegetables yesterday, and now the next day thereâs more of a cravingâ, whereas for someone else, if theyâd been in restriction for a really long time and all theyâd been eating, or largely all theyâd been eating, is vegetables, youâre then going to have a much longer stretch where âI donât have any craving for that.â But with time, it does come back.
Jo: It does.
Chris Sandel: The body has that intelligence and intuition to point you towards what it really needs.
Jo: We chatted about what we thought my sessions wouldâve looked like pre â well, I wouldnât have seen you because I didnât have an eating disorder, obviously. But if Iâd come at the early stage, how different it would be. And I think thatâs okay, too. I think the challenge is â the biggest step is to actually say, âDo you know what? I think I need someone to just be my guardrail, no matter what stage.â I had the charity when I first started, and they were my guardrail. I had the dietitian, and she was kind of my guardrail as well.
Then I was on my own, and then I didnât have a guardrail, and I donât think I was ready to completely let go of everything. But I did okay for a couple of years. It was like âYeah, Iâm good.â But then itâs like, actually, no, I just need that support again, just to say âItâs alright. Donât worry. No judgment. No guilt, no judgment. Itâs okay. Whatever youâre doing, itâs okay. Get up each day and keep putting one foot in front of the other, and thatâs all you can ask for.â
Chris Sandel: Definitely. I remember there was a point â it was early on or even around the midpoint â where your work got busy again. You were going for a promotion, and things started to regress. You werenât eating as much as you were before, and this felt a lot more unintentional as opposed to anything intentional there. Your sleep started to really regress. It was actually a really helpful thing to see, where you were able to have this experience where for a couple of months, things had been feeling better, you were getting better quality sleep, you were feeling more at ease, etc., and then there was this change.
And then off the back of that, there was another time where it was really busy, but this time things did not regress, and you were like, âCool, I now know how to handle this. I know how important it is to make sure the snacks happen or to make sure Iâm doing X, Y and Z.â It was a really good difference that could be seen between when that happened earlier on and when that happened later on.
Jo: Completely. Like I said, I work with a global team, so thereâs periods of time when itâs flat-out all day. I do try and get out the house at least once. [laughs] I go for the dog walk first thing in the morning. But sometimes thatâs just not possible. Itâs literally run downstairs, grab, come back. So I make sure I have stuff that I can grab, even if itâs not actually what I want. And thatâs the difference as well â the fact that sometimes itâs just about getting fuel in, and donât stress about it. [laughs] Just get food in. When itâs calmer, when itâs quieter, in the evening, you can then think what you actually want. But yeah, Iâve got the snack bars still in the drawer.
And thatâs okay. It’s giving yourself complete permission that thatâs okay and thatâs what your body needs, and youâre just honouring keeping those levels balanced. Youâre topping up the oil, youâre making sure the waterâs level, youâre checking the tyres. Thatâs all youâre doing, just making sure that everythingâs okay.
Yeah, sleep is definitely my indicator, and at the moment itâs not fun. [laughs] But thatâs because of menopause. Iâm awaking up in the middle of the night, reading the book that weâve chatted before. But actually, when I am asleep, itâs good quality of sleep. Itâs just the nighttime, wake up in the middle of the night â but not to urinate, which is an interesting conversation that we had. A lot of wee talk as well. [laughs] But yeah, it just feels much more structured without being controlled, which is a weird sentence.
Chris Sandel: No, but I also think in a way, people are typically searching for control, and you get control of these one or two things and if you narrow your focus, you feel like youâve got control while all of these other aspects of your life are crumbling and are clearly not within your control. And actually, what happens by relinquishing control of these handful of things, your life genuinely comes back into control and itâs this weird counterintuitive thing.
00:39:08
Jo: Should we talk about the hoarding?
Chris Sandel: Yeah, sure.
Jo: [laughs] The one aspect that became clear that I did as part of my eating disorder is hoard. I would buy seven shampoos because they were on offer, and then I wouldnât use them, and they would just sit in the cupboard and not be used, because why would you use something that youâve bought for yourself? I would buy t-shirts by the bucketload, or dresses, or shoes, or â gosh, the list is endless. Sheets for the bed. All sorts of weird and wonderful things, I would just collect and not use. Makeup. Just this weekend I opened up a drawer and itâs like, how many eyeliners does one person need? Apparently, twelve. And I donât wear much makeup. [laughs]
Just these rules, like âI should have that, I need to have that.â Iâve got unopened makeup, unopened toiletries all over the place. You sent me a couple of podcasts to listen to that were around hoarding. It was still associated with that needing to be in control and not feeling worthwhile to use it or not feeling special enough. A weird and wonderful thing. So yeah, thatâs something that Iâm addressing and trying to get rid of some of the stuff.
Iâve got rid of some wool. I went through a phase of crocheting, and of course, you canât just buy the bit of crocheting that youâre doing; you end up buying 20 balls of wool just in case you run out, for some reason. And I hadnât used them. So Iâve given them to a school to use for their activities, and thatâs okay. Nothing happened. My world didnât collapse. I didnât feel out of control. I didnât miss it. Itâs fine. So now the challenge is to try and apply that throughout my life.
I had 12 pairs of jeans, all the same. They were a smaller size, which Iâm never going to wear again because thatâs not my natural size. My mumâs given them to charity. But she kept going, âI found another pair!â Iâm like, âYeah, thatâs fine.â She just couldnât understand why I would have 12 identical pairs of jeans. But yeah, when you start to explore and peel back the layers of what this eating disorder life looked like, thereâs all sorts of weird and wonderful things. Yeah, itâs interesting. [laughs]
Chris Sandel: Basically every session, one of the goals would always be âIâm going to clear out this thingâ or âIâm going to focus on this other thingâ, and it was typically stuff around the house, stuff in the closet, all of these things that then, over the course of the time we worked together â Iâve never been to your house, but I imagine itâs looking a lot cleaner now.
Jo: Itâs clearer. Letâs go âclearerâ. [laughs]
Chris Sandel: Yeah, clearer.
Jo: Yeah, some of the different aspects we touched on as we worked together â including cleanliness. Iâd forgotten about the cleanliness. I wasnât showering. I just got out of the routine of showering. It wasnât because I didnât want to look at myself. Just it wasnât important. I didnât feel it was important to look after myself â which, looking back now as a person that has a shower pretty much every day, is just really weird.
We started with I think one a week. Literally one a week. Well, one between sessions, which was two weeks, but I think I managed one a week. And then we went to âMaybe you can do double that?â It was like, âOh God, Iâm not sure about that.â I gradually did, and yeah, it became okay. Itâs a weird thing, the psychological effect it has on every aspect of your life. Itâs not just the food. Itâs everything. Slight diversion, sorry.
Chris Sandel: No, thatâs fine.
00:42:59
What about comments by other people and being triggered? I think thatâs a really big one for a lot of people. Where are you at with that now?
Jo: Very recently, I was at a class and someone said, âI hear this is great for fat burning.â I said, âThatâs really interesting. Iâm a recovered anorexic. I really donât want to be discussing weight loss with exercise.â She was like, âOh my gosh, so sorry. Didnât realiseâ and we got on with the class. We didnât address it again. Iâm very upfront. I will walk away if people are being particularly calorie-focused and a bit intense, and thatâs their conversation, itâs not mine. I think thatâs my biggest thing: itâs their conversation, itâs not mine.
My mum is still on a diet. Would always be on a diet. She has a cream tea and then sends a message, âIâm not having anything for tea because Iâve had a cream tea.â All right, you do whatever. You just do you. If youâre still thinking that way at your age, I just â yeah. And I tried to be the non-smoker. âYouâve got to changeâ, blah, blah, blah. Actually, itâs up to them to find their own space, because I know damn well that if itâd be me and someone had said it to me, I would be like, âOh, that was so silly. Thatâs not me. Iâve not got a problem.â
So I think itâs stepping away, takin ga deep breath. Itâs remembering everything that you have worked on and your self-compassion and your new structure and recognising you donât need to go back.
One of the girls that I knew when she was very poorly reached out and we were having a chat, and I was telling her that Iâd also ended up in an eating disorder. She was like, âAre you allowed to go to the gym?â I was like, âYeah, I can go to the gym.â She was like, âIâm not allowed to go to the gym.â Iâm like, okay, so sheâs obviously not recovered. People are really worried about her and the way that she behaves when she goes to the gym. I just changed the subject. I was like, âIâm not going down that rabbit hole with you. Iâm not getting involved in your way of thinking and your obvious desire to still be where you are.â
It was fine. I didnât come out going, âOh my gosh, I should do this. Iâm in the wrong because I donât think that way anymore.â It was like, thatâs their conversation. And Iâm a female, and I have female friends, and therefore the diet talk is always, always going to be there to some extent. You just pick it. Iâm very open, and Iâm like, âIâve had an eating disorder. I would really rather not talk about that.â People will carry on talking about it, but Iâve told them, and thatâs all I can do.
Itâs a challenge, but itâs the society we live in. Itâs not going away, and Iâve just had to learn to put my muffs over my ears when I donât want to hear it, or walk away, or change the voice when it lands in my brain. Itâs hard. Itâs really hard. I would love to turn that volume down on a regular basis, but I canât.
Chris Sandel: I think a lot of the work we did, especially early on, was looking at your values. I think sometimes that can be useful as well. Youâre like, âOkay, these are meant to be my values. If theyâre my values, this is the choice Iâm going to make in this situation.â
Jo: Exactly. But it is really challenging, because youâre going against the normal. Youâre going against what everyone else is supposedly â itâs like Iâm picking a different path, and itâs really hard. None of this is easy. [laughs]
00:46:48
Chris Sandel: No, no. And thatâs something â I canât remember if I was very explicit about that with you at the start, but I am with really everyone, like, âThis is really challenging, what youâre doing. For the vast majority of people who are in the depths of it, this will be the most difficult thing that you ever do.â
I say that because I think expectation matters. If your expectation is that this is going to be easy, itâs not. Or if the expectation that itâs going to be easy when itâs not, thereâs a thought of âI must be doing something wrong. I still need to find some other alternative way to do this, because if Iâm doing it right, if Iâve embraced recovery, if I said Iâm going to recover, then everything just gets better from here.â And thatâs just not the case. It is really a real challenge.
And as you say, those thoughts still come up. I would imagine that with time, they will come up less and less, but the more important thing, and the skill that youâve learnt, is actually not about âHow do I stop the thoughts?â We donât think our own thoughts; the thoughts think themselves. They appear in our consciousness. Whatâs more important is âHow do I not get attached to those thoughts? How do I not take the action that those thoughts are suggesting?â Because if you can do that, that takes the power away from the thoughts and makes them just a thought.
Jo: Yeah, and I think the work â youâve done a recent podcast on the polyvagal as well, and accepting that actually, you transition between states of mind, you transition between thoughts, you transition all the time, and not getting hooked at certain points of that transition. So if I was thinking of eating something and it became â itâs not at all, but if it became a bit obsessive in my mind, it would be okay. Thatâs absolutely okay. Doesnât mean itâs always going to be there. Doesnât mean Iâm failing. It doesnât mean Iâm going back to being anorexic. Itâs just a thought, and thatâs okay.
And to just breathe and accept that youâve got the guardrails, youâve got the structure, youâve got the information, youâve got the strategies, and youâve got the desire to get better and to stay better. I think reaching out to you, that was definitely like âI need to do this. I want to do this. This isnât something thatâs being done unto me.â Itâs not like youâve been sectioned and put into a room and you had to do this work. âThis is something that Iâve signed up for, and therefore Iâm going to do it to the best of my abilities.â
Sometimes the homework was coming in last minute because it was so challenging and I really couldnât do it. [laughs] But Iâd made that commitment to you. But I know that if I hadnât managed to do it, that wouldâve been okay, and we wouldâve explored why, and actually that in itself wouldâve been more information.
You asked me for feedback and I said youâre just such an easy person to work with because the judgment â I donât feel judged. I donât feel like I should be doing something different. Itâs just fact. âWhat are you at the moment and how do we move you to being in a different state if you need to be, or appreciate that this particular moment in time is great? How do we embrace that and use that?â So yeah, it was definitely not easy, and itâs very messy, and you go backwards and forwards. Like you said, halfway through I suddenly found that I was really busy and I didnât have that structure that I could hold on to. But we got over it. It didnât become permanent. It was fine, because we could see it.
So yeah, this journey is not straight lined at all. [laughs] You donât start and say, âRight, Iâm anorexic, Iâm going to get betterâ and then you carry on in a nice straight line and suddenly youâre into the sunlight. Itâs really hard.
00:50:43
Chris Sandel: The final thing I want to ask is, what advice would you have for someone who is struggling with food or body or whoâs listening to this and hearing themselves in the kinds of things that youâve been talking about? And this doesnât have to be like âYou need to work with Chris.â Thatâs not what Iâm asking for; itâs not meant to be gushing praise. Itâs like, what would you like to have heard back then yourself, or what advice do you think would be pertinent to someone in your situation back then?
Jo: That youâre not alone. That actually, itâs much more common than any of us know. Everyone keeps it as a secret, and it shouldnât be a secret. If you broke your leg, you couldnât hide it. Youâd be very much on show. This is simply something thatâs a bit broken, that can easily be fixed with the right help.
Itâs the desire. You need to want to change. You need to accept that youâve got an issue. Like I said, if someone had said to me before I got anaemia that I was anorexic, I know damn well that the stubborn me would be like, âNo, donât be stupid. This is ridiculous. Thereâs nothing wrong with me.â My favourite line would beâ Youâre jealous that I can do this and you canât.â I mean, how ridiculous is that now, to be jealous of someone with an eating disorder?
And talk to someone you trust. Talk to someone you trust and see if you can just voice it, because actually, half the problem is getting it out of your head. I did a lot of unconscious writing as part of my therapy because I found it worked to get stuff out. And then you read it back and realise how ridiculous some of it seems, like that conversation we were having, which is like âWhat is this going on? What is it?â
I think itâs just that you can be okay. Itâs not going to be easy, but this doesnât have to define you for the rest of your life. Itâs not uncommon. Itâs so common, and the more I know about it and the more I hear other peopleâs conversations, the more I know that they have an eating disorder or theyâre on their way to an eating disorder or theyâve had an eating disorder and are struggling.
But yeah, just be kind to yourself. That I think is the biggest thing. Just be kind to yourself. Donât beat yourself up. But remember if you carry on down this, your life is just going to be so hard. So hard. I look back now and what I thought was a âcooking on gasâ life was so not. There was no joy. There was just constant noise and constant voices that werenât mine, and they werenât genuine.
And work with Chris, because heâs alright.
Chris Sandel: [laughs] Awesome. Jo, Iâm so glad that we got to work together, and Iâm so glad that youâve agreed to do this today and share your story, because I think thereâs a lot of people who will benefit from it and undoubtedly will have a lot of similarities that you have. I 100% agree that this is way more common than most people make out, and the weird and wonderful or crazy things that you think youâre doing that no-one else is doing, actually most people are doing because thereâs a lot of commonalities in terms of the kinds of behaviours that start to crop up with someone with an eating disorder.
I know it feels incredibly isolating, and thatâs often the real big trap with an eating disorder â it then pushes so much of the things that used to bring you joy and used to be part of your life to the side, and they start to fall away, whether that be hobbies or friendships, etc. It becomes isolating in a true sense of the word, and it becomes isolating in a sense of âI feel like Iâm the only person that has this as an issue.â But it is something that is common, and it is something that is very treatable.
Jo: It is indeed.
Chris Sandel: Yeah. Thank you so much for your time and for doing this with me today. I really appreciate it.
Jo: Youâre more than welcome, Chris. I shall speak to you soon.
Chris Sandel: Yes, definitely.
So that was my conversation with Jo. She did such a fantastic job talking about her experience with anorexia, and Iâm so pleased that sheâs now in the place that sheâs in.
As I mentioned at the top, I have just one client spot left. If you heard yourself in Joâs story, then please get in contact. You can head over to www.seven-health.com/help, and there you can find more information.
That is it for todayâs show. I will be back next week with another episode. Stay safe, and Iâll catch you then.
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