I’ve been working with clients for over a decade now. 

One of the things that has become abundantly clear over this time is how insidious eating issues are. 

We live in a culture where a disordered relationship with food has not just been normalised, but is sold as the goal that people should be working towards. 

Living in this space means it is difficult to notice how problematic thoughts and behaviours have become. When clients come to me for help, they are aware that things aren’t right. But it’s when we start doing the work that they see how much deeper these issues run.  

Thankfully, these problems are fixable. 

This year I worked with a client called Alice. Below she details some of what she was going through and the place she is at now. She made massive changes in her physical and mental health and her beliefs about her body.

“I started working with Chris at the beginning of this year [2019], and our work together has transformed my relationship with my body and how I feel about myself.

I first reached out to Chris because I had a lot of anxiety around my health, and I started to feel that I could only eat things that were very healthy for my body, otherwise, I would be putting myself at risk of all kinds of diseases. I had completely lost the connection that allowed me to listen to my body and what it needed.

I mainly ate things that I had categorised as ‘good’, regardless of how these things made me feel. I tried to cut out many different food groups, but nothing properly stuck as it just felt unrealistic. I also had periods of intense sugar cravings that were impossible to shake off unless I indulged them. I became a vegetarian about 6 months before starting our work together, which made me even more anxious about getting what I needed from my diet. It felt like a no-win situation.

I have suffered from disordered eating and exercising in the past, however, when I started working with Chris I felt that I had arrived at a place where I was more accepting of my body and had a relatively good relationship with my weight. As we started exploring how I felt about these areas it became clear that this was not the case. Even though my relationship with my body and exercise had improved, I still had latent feelings of low self-worth around the way I looked. Our work together also made me realise I was having some digestive issues, which previously I had thought was normal.

I was at a stage where I felt lost. I found it difficult to make any decisions about what I ate, which increased my anxiety and led to me eating a very repetitive diet that wasn’t nourishing my body at all, I still felt uneasy about my weight and I would sometimes freak out before attending a wedding or another event because I felt that I didn’t look good enough.

I knew I wanted to change the way I treated myself and my body, and when I started working with Chris I very quickly felt relieved. I didn’t have to do it all on my own and I had someone that I trusted who could guide me through the journey.

I always really looked forward to our conversations, Chris is interesting and funny, and he always had a great podcast or documentary recommendation for me. One of the most important things is that Chris doesn’t just tell you what to do to get better (although I desperately wanted him to at the start!), he helps you to make changes yourself, so you have the tools you need for the rest of your life. I now feel confident in experimenting with new things and listening to how my body feels.

For me, the writing exercises were transformative. I realised that I needed to properly listen to my body and look after it and that the most important thing for me was how I felt rather than what I looked like. I needed to have the energy to be able to live my life the way I wanted, and I wouldn’t have this if I was constantly worried about what I was eating and being skinny. It also made me reflect on how I have felt in the past when I weighed less, and these were always the times when I was hardest on myself.

I now feel so differently about how I look, it’s not like the critical thoughts never cross my mind, but I am able to see them for what they are and let them go more easily, and realise that how I look isn’t what is most important to me, it’s how I feel.

I started to introduce different foods back into my diet so that I was getting the nutrients I needed. We discussed introducing meat and fish back into my diet a few times a week. I didn’t feel great about this to begin with, but the more we spoke about it the more it became clear that I wasn’t putting my health first. I thought about it and decided to start eating fish rather than meat, and this has made a big difference.

I’m not constantly worrying that my body isn’t getting what it needs and it adds some much-needed variety. I also started to try and eat more satisfying meals, as it turned out I was eating quite ’empty’ food and that unconsciously under fueling might be contributing to my sugar cravings. This also had a really positive effect, and I’m much less inclined to reach for the Lindt after a meal now!

My digestion improved a lot as well. Chris helped me to understand that whatever I’m eating will have very little effect if I’m not properly digesting my food. We spoke a lot about foods that are easier to digest and how to incorporate these into my diet. There has been a massive improvement in my digestion by doing these things. I also now understand that food isn’t the only thing that impacts digestion, stress also has a lot to do with it, and that during a slightly unstable period in my life it was more likely that I was going to have some digestion issues.

Working with Chris also had a really positive impact on other areas of my life. When we started working together I was unemployed and was having massive issues with deciding where to go next. As time went on I started to find it easier to make what previously seemed like very daunting decisions. I am now about to train to be a yoga teacher before starting a new job in the public sector. I feel like I can trust my own decisions and have so much more clarity on how I want to live my life. A huge part of this is down to the support and guidance I received from Chris, and I can’t thank him enough!”

Getting Help On Your Recovery Journey

I’m a leading expert and advocate for full recovery. I’ve been working with clients for over 15 years and understand what needs to happen to recover.

I truly believe that you can reach a place where the eating disorder is a thing of the past and I want to help you get there. If you want to fully recover and drastically increase the quality of your life, I’d love to help.

Want to get a FREE online course created specifically for those wanting full recovery? Discover the first 5 steps to take in your eating disorder recovery. This course shows you how to take action and the exact step-by-step process. To get instant access, click the button below.