00:00:00

Intro

00:03:11

Why Sam got in contact with me

00:04:41

The symptoms she was experiencing

00:07:17

What she liked about my approach

00:09:32

Her experience + results after working with me

00:14:00

What Sam’s relationship with food is like now

00:16:30

How her relationship with her body has changed

00:22:33

Sam’s advice for others in a similar situation

00:00:00

Intro

Chris Sandel: Welcome to Episode 276 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/276.

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Real Health Radio. I’m your host, Chris Sandel. I’m a nutritionist and a coach, and I help clients to fully recover.

Today on the show, I’m chatting with a past client called Sam. I always get tons of lovely feedback from these episodes, and I know this one is going to be no exception. Sam had an eating disorder in high school and had gotten to a better place, but now, a decade or so on, the eating disorder had come back, and as she describes, it was a bleak and dark time. As bad as it was, it was hard for Sam to recognise just how bad things had gotten. As you’ll hear her talk about, it was through her getting better that she was able to notice even more how she was being impacted.

Sam and I worked together for just under a year, and it really is incredible the changes that occurred at this time. It wasn’t straight forward; Sam is an ER doctor, and she continued working all through this time, so we had to figure out ways to have recovery feed into her life and the variables that she didn’t have control over. I have to say that it was incredible to see the changes in Sam’s personality while working together. She was a shell of her real self when we started, and through our time together, she shared her eating disorder self and the real Sam emerged, and it was just so obvious to see this as things improved.

I always get lots of great feedback and kind words about these kind of episodes, that it’s nice to hear from real people that I’ve worked with, to hear the stories of others who have struggled with an eating disorder and their road back to health and a better place and what this has looked like. The reason I’m releasing these kinds of episodes now is that this week, I’ve reopened my practice to new clients again. This is for a limited time, and at the time of recording this intro, I have six spots available. If you hear yourself in Sam’s story and you’d like to see a transformation in your own life, like she’s seen in hers, then I’d love to 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 recovery strategy call. Or you can send an email to info@seven-health.com with the subject line of ‘Coaching’ and I’ll then be in contact with more information. The address, again, is www.seven-health.com/help, or you can email info@seven-health.com. I’ll put links to both of those in the show notes.

With the intro out of the way, let’s get on with the show. Here is my conversation with Sam.

Chris Sandel: Hey, Sam. Thanks for joining me today to have a chat.

Sam: Hey, thanks for having me.

00:03:11

Why Sam got in contact with me

Chris Sandel: I want you to share with the listeners about your experience of us working together. There’s lots of questions and stuff that I want to go through. I guess as a starting place, what was life like before you got in contact with me? What was your reason or what were you trying to solve by reaching out?

Sam: The best word I could describe it is ‘hectic’. I just remember living in Chicago; at the time I was an ER Resident, and I started to fall back – I had experienced a restrictive eating disorder back in high school, and I’d started to notice that I was doing that same pattern, but I wasn’t ready to admit it. Started working with a nutritionist out there, and then we ended up moving to California. I tried to get better on my own but it just wasn’t working. I was isolated. I guess the best way to say it is dark.

I was at my wit’s end and on the border of going inpatient, but I really didn’t want to do that because of my job. I’d been listening to the podcast, and I thought, “Hey, let me try this, because I really resonate with what he’s saying.” So that’s how I started to think about meeting with you. And then I was just trying to solve, basically, my restrictive eating disorder and get my life back. I just remember it as a dark, hectic, confusing, bleak time.

00:04:41

The symptoms she was experiencing

Chris Sandel: What was going on from a symptoms perspective? What were you experiencing?

Sam: Now, in retrospect, I realise a lot more symptoms than I thought at the time. But there were a couple things. One was just lack of energy. I just remember not even being able to walk two blocks to Walgreens without getting tired, and my friend asking, “Hey, do you want to go to the store to go shopping?”, and I remember thinking, “Okay, rally, let’s go. Take deep breaths, let’s make it.” And now I’m walking to the store like no big deal.

I had a lot of constipation, slow GI system. My hair was falling out. I had a lot of – I think the word is lanugo, where you have the hair on your face and your back. Brittle nails. But mostly I was so irritable. My boyfriend would say one thing and I would just bite his head off.

The weirdest symptom that I was realising now, in retrospect, was I could not leave the house because the kitchen was here and there was access to food, but then I would also want to leave the house to do something so I couldn’t sit on the couch.

And the worst symptom was not being able to sleep. Just up all night, and at one point just lying in bed thinking, “Well, this could be it. This could be my last breath” because I was so malnutritioned and I was just not me.

Chris Sandel: When you reached out, you said there’d been this relapse. How long had that been going on? How long had you been in that bleak, dark place you described?

Sam: About two and a half years at that point when I reached out to you. And progressively worse. I’d say the really dark, bleak place was about a year before I reached out to you.

Chris Sandel: When you reached out, did it feel like a big deal to reach out? How was it getting in contact?

Sam: For me personally, it felt like a big deal because I thought, “Oh my gosh, this guy is never going to respond. He’s a famous podcaster, why the hell would he respond to me?” [laughs] I just thought, “Okay, let me give it a shot.” I thought your approach was really unique and it wasn’t something I had tried before. So I reached out, and then I think within a day, given that we’re on other sides of the world, you responded and we had a meeting within a week, and then we started working together. So it was real fast and easy. Way easier than I thought it was going to be.

00:07:17

What she liked about my approach

Chris Sandel: You said it was listening to the podcast and hearing about my approach, which was different. What was it about my approach or what made me stand out or think for you, “This could be the thing that I need”?

Sam: You really take a scientific approach, and this neural rewiring. It wasn’t just about – I did a partial inpatient in high school, and there was some therapy involved, but it was mostly a force-feeding meal plan. There wasn’t a meal plan with you; it was more scientific and more like, “These are the changes going on in your body. This is how we’re going to rewire your brain. This is how we’re going to fit recovery into your life.”

And the tailoring that you do for each client is huge, because for me – and I’m probably not unique in this, but I couldn’t take time off of work, or I didn’t want to take time off work, I guess I should say. I guess I could’ve made it work, but it wouldn’t have been the best thing for me. Working with you, you were able to make me fit recovery into my life, but also give me the autonomy to do recovery, because you guided me without making it ‘you have to do this’. So now I feel like, hey, it’s my choice. I chose to recover. And that support was incredible.

Chris Sandel: Just for context, for people listening, you work in the ER, so it wasn’t straight forward in terms of okay, cool, you have a regular lunch break and the rest of the time you’re sitting at a desk and it’s very easy to have a snack. We had to get a little bit creative with ways of being able to make this work, given that you were in a very high-demand job.

Sam: Yeah, exactly. Also, you were very understanding about when I couldn’t do things. Like I would say, “I can’t get a lunch in.” My job is very physically taxing, so you were able to help me compensate for that without making it a scary concept. It was a very safe space to discuss things with you.

00:09:32

Her experience + results after working with me

Chris Sandel: Talk a little more about what it was like working together. What stands out for you? What aspects did you really like that stand out for you?

Sam: Speaking with you, I always felt really comfortable. We talked not only about food, but it never felt like food was the main component we were discussing. We talked a lot about things that cause my coping mechanism to be restriction. You also brought in a lot of different – I’m not going to use the right terms here, but like abilities to cope and then brain patterns that I’ve realised I had that we were able to change. I was able to see I was living in a lot of sympathetic – what’s it called?

Chris Sandel: Fight or flight.

Sam: Yeah, fight or flight. I was able to bring myself down. You gave tons of recommendations on books and supplemental things that in between our sessions, I was able to do. So more than anything, I didn’t even feel like we were focusing on the restrictive eating. That was almost like a byproduct of it, which was kind of funny in retrospect that that got better through working on my mental health.

Chris Sandel: And just so people know, we were definitely working on the eating side of things. [laughs]

Sam: Oh yeah.

Chris Sandel: As we were going along, especially at the beginning, every time things were getting better, I was coming back to “This is because you’re eating more” and fundamentally that is the thing that made a huge difference for you – and it’s just interesting to hear you say it didn’t feel like that was where we were putting a lot of the focus.

Sam: Yeah. The way I meant that is it’s less scary. When someone puts a big plate of food in front of you and says ‘eat it’, you get scared when you’re in that restrictive state. But with working with you, it wasn’t as scary because I think I was working on other things, and then I was able to also challenge the food, and then both of them supplemented each other and it ended up culminating into success. I feel a thousand times better.

Chris Sandel: Nice. Talk about that part of it, in terms of what are some of the results that have happened? What are the best things that have happened because of this?

Sam: So many things. As you know, my life changed so much in the time we were working together. Basically, I got my life back. Big things were with my job, I’m now working 12-hour shifts like nothing. I barely notice the time. Before it was consistently, like every minute, “Oh my gosh, I can’t get up out of this chair anymore.” Now I run around and it’s great. I have no fear in grabbing a snack when I’m hungry. I’m able to eat and do things spontaneously.

A good example for me that I would’ve never done – my mom was visiting and she really wanted to eat noodles. We were walking down the street and she said, “Oh, there’s a noodle place, but I know that’s scary for you.” I said, “No, let’s go” and we had noodles. And I would’ve never done that. So the spontaneity in my life is back.

My hair has grown back. My GI system is functioning. My energy is back. I don’t remember the last fight I had with my now fiancé because of this. I am infinitely happier, and the bottom line is just happiness. I got my happiness back, and that’s huge.

Chris Sandel: Which is really interesting. I obviously didn’t know you beforehand, so it was always like, let’s see what the real Sam is like when she’s not in this, as you said, dark or bleak place. You were like, “I used to be fun-loving and bubbly and that’s who I am at the core” and that was taken away from you. So it’s nice to see that this is you being back in that place.

Sam: Oh yeah, it feels incredible. And people have noticed. Just a side note, but no-one ever comments on your weight; they comment on your happiness. So many of my friends who I haven’t seen in a while, when I went back and visited home, were like, “Oh my gosh, you just seem so happy.” I was like, “Yeah. Yeah, I do.” [laughs]

00:14:00

What Sam’s relationship with food is like now

Chris Sandel: Talk about your relationship with food now and what that’s like.

Sam: There are still some times when it’s a struggle. Like if I’m stressed, I might have some of the thoughts. But you definitely taught me how to do fact checking and talk to myself and see why I’m worried about it. So it never seems to be about the food, and I’m now able to say, is it the food in this situation or is it the environment? Where is my headspace, what kind of stress am I at?

When I’m out to eat, I’m able to choose things that look good. The other day I ordered something and the portion was way smaller than what I knew I needed, and I was able to get up and go back to the ordering line and order more food without embarrassment. I eat when I’m hungry now, which is huge for me to eat not on a schedule. The food isn’t the main thing anymore, and it’s kind of funny because I realised the other day that I don’t even look at menus anymore. I don’t go to restaurants and stress over what’s going to be there. I just go to the restaurant with whoever I’m with, and it feels much more free.

It’s almost like a different mindset with food now where I’m like, oh, I need this because this makes me be the happy and energetic person that I want to be. So it’s really done a 180, and that’s so freeing.

Chris Sandel: I remember during our time together, there were lots of times where you had to visit family or friends, and you were going from where you were to Chicago or going to visit people, and in the beginning how much of a struggle that would be. It would be three weeks out and there was already the panic of “What’s it going to be like, how’s the trip going to go”, and then as time went on, just noticing that that wasn’t there anymore. And that even there were times when it’s like “I’m really excited we’re going to be doing this dinner”, or where it had been replaced from a place of fear to “There are things I’m looking forward to in this trip connected to food.”

Sam: Yeah, which is so cool. I realise I’m no longer the one trying to control the food situation, like “Hey, I’m going to go to this restaurant” or “We’re going to do this, this, this.” My sister said, “Hey, you’re staying with me; what foods do you want?” I said, “I don’t know, whatever is in your fridge.” And I have not said that in three years.

00:16:30

How her relationship with her body has changed

Chris Sandel: What about in terms of your body and body image? We haven’t really talked about this so far. How much was that affected during your eating disorder, and what is that looking like now?

Sam: I never actually really liked my body very much during the eating disorder, either. I felt like I needed to hide it because it showed something that I was hiding in my life. But then the weight gain was subtle and I didn’t really notice I was gaining weight, I don’t think. But then I started feeling so good that I started to be like, wow, I have gained weight – and I was actually kind of proud of it for a while because it was like, hey, this is the work I’ve done.

I used to be a soccer player back in high school and some of college, and I was really proud of my ability to play and my athleticism. So now I’m starting to feel that way again. Like I can go on hikes and I feel strong in my body. So I’m trying to focus on that a lot. Of course I had to throw out most of my wardrobe, and there are times – of course, not every day is a beautiful body image day, but I don’t think anyone has that.

Chris Sandel: True.

Sam: I’m more thankful – and this was one thing we talked about, and you had a worksheet on, and I review that worksheet pretty often. It’s like, what are you thankful for about your body? I’m very thankful for everything my body functions because not even eight months ago, nine months ago, my body didn’t function like this and I couldn’t do certain things. So now I’m just really focusing on that. I’m really lucky, though, to also have people around me who are very supportive of whatever I look like, so that’s great too.

Chris Sandel: It’s good to recognise that. And even with that, that doesn’t always help. So much of the body image piece still is an internal job. I remember there were a couple of times during our time together where you were weighed – and I can’t remember why.

Sam: I was at the doctor and they didn’t not tell me the weight, which was weird, but sure. [laughs]

Chris Sandel: Yeah, something like you weren’t meant to find out the weight and then you did. But I at least remember on one occurrence me saying, “What was that experience like for you?”, and yeah, there was a little ambivalence, but there was still this “I feel really proud. I feel really good about this, and it’s showing that I’m moving in the right direction, and I can notice that I have all of these benefits that have been happening.”

And just for listeners to know, you were also working with a dietitian throughout this as well, and we were in contact over that time. You were getting weighed by them but you didn’t know what the weight was, so I was then getting that information, and it was so obvious when things were getting better, weight was going on, and when things weren’t, either weight had plateaued or you were going back the other way. That was why earlier I said it was really, fundamentally about you having more energy coming in. The trends of you getting better and weight going on were hand in hand.

Sam: Oh yeah. I think that’s funny because I didn’t recognise that at the time, because obviously I didn’t know the numbers. But it really does feel now like just a number, because the weight on my body feels good. And there’s other side effects you get with weight, like the bags in my eyes aren’t sunken and my skin is more pink and flushed. It kind of masks the weight gain, and it doesn’t matter now what my weight is because I feel so good that I wouldn’t trade that for anything.

Chris Sandel: The work we did – was it what you expected? Was it different?

Sam: It was 100% different. I have never done work like this before. Like I said, my past experiences were inpatient, and then I worked with a dietitian in Chicago, but it was just so focused on the food and the concept of intuitive eating without getting at the core. No matter how much I was drilling into my brain intuitive eating principles or just sitting there shoving food in my face to try to gain weight, it didn’t matter because it wasn’t getting at the principle of what was going on.

I think you were able to hit both of those things. That neural rewiring and the scientific concepts you were bringing in, and the explanations, and then you had me do worksheets that really made me do critical thinking – that was something I had never done, and that to me led to more permanent change than something that was just a temporary measure.

For the listeners, I like to backpack and hike, and that was one thing I was not willing to give up for exercise restriction, because that was a big thing I did with my friends. I remember at the beginning, we would be like, “Okay, let’s just eat to go on this hike”, but after working with you, I realised I don’t even think like that anymore because of the mental shift that I’ve had. So now it’s not about getting through something; it’s actually about having autonomy to correct my restrictive eating. I didn’t even know that was possible, really. I didn’t know this kind of treatment was possible.

00:22:33

Sam’s advice for others in a similar situation

Chris Sandel: What advice would you have for someone who is struggling with food and their body in the way that you were?

Sam: Admit to yourself early on that you have a problem. That would be my first thing. I wouldn’t admit it for a long time – and it doesn’t matter what you look like, because at first I didn’t look like I had a problem. And then there’s also multiple routes of treatment. It’s not just inpatient, it’s not just partial outpatient. I mean, I’m a doctor and I’m speaking against regular treatment. I want everyone to know that there are alternatives, and working with someone who fits your vibe is going to be the best thing.

My best advice is that life is great, and it doesn’t matter about food, and the people around you don’t care about the food. They care about you. It took me a while to realise that the people in my life were sad because they lost the true Sam, and when I became my true self again, I was really happy. I had better relationships, I had an overall better happiness. Go out and find someone who will help you the best that you need to be helped.

Chris Sandel: Is there anything else that you want to add that I didn’t ask?

Sam: You should probably just work with Chris, because he literally changed my life. If you ask my fiancé now, he’ll say “Working with Chris was the best thing you ever did.” He literally says, “That’s the best money you’ve ever spent. It’s the best thing you ever did, and he saved your life.” We kind of joke about it now because we’ll be like, “Chris was my angel.” We’ll joke and say things, but it really was. This was the only thing that changed my trajectory on my restrictive eating disorder, and that was huge for us. I’m a new person, and that was really cool.

Chris Sandel: It’s so lovely to hear that. I really take that on board, and I’m so grateful that I got to work with you, because it’s so nice to see the difference in you and to get to see the real you now. I’m glad that you reached out and you trusted in me and we’ve done this work together.

Sam: Yeah, thank you so much for everything.

Chris Sandel: That’s all right. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing this with the listeners.

Sam: Of course.

Chris Sandel: I hope you found that conversation useful and it inspired you to see what’s possible. Sam isn’t a unicorn; this kind of transformation is available to you, too.

As I mentioned at the top of the show, I’m now taking on clients, and at the time of recording this, I have only six spots available. If you’re interested in working together or finding out more, you can head over to www.seven-health.com/help, or you can send an email to info@seven-health.com.

That’s it for this week’s show. I’ll be back next week with another client episode, so if you want to hear another recovery story, I will catch you then.