Episode 301: This week I the show I speak with Talia Cecchele. We talk about overcoming compulsive movement, digestive issues in recovery, the RAVES framework and how it can be used when making choices about food changes in recovery as well as some nutrition myth busting.
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Chris Sandel: Hey! If you want access to the transcripts, the show notes, and the links talked about as part of this episode, you can head to www.seven-health.com/301.
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 an eating disorder expert, and I help people to fully recover.
I’m currently taking on new clients. I fundamentally believe that people can change and that you can change, and that you can fully recover despite what thoughts your eating disorder may be telling you. And after working with clients for over 15 years, I’m very good at helping people to achieve this.
Where we focus is helping you to physically repair your body so your body can repair and recover, being able to develop resilience and constructive coping skills, and starting to live a life rather than just marking time. This helps to create authenticity and connection and the ability to have spontaneity and freedom, and to be invited out to a dinner and to be able to be excited about that, as opposed to having panic ensue and thinking of ways to be able to get out of doing this or how to be able to compensate for this; to have the energy and the mental capacity for experiencing life and doing things that truly matter to you and that you want to do rather than being at the mercy of the eating disorder thoughts and what they’re asking you to do.
So if you are tired and fed up with living with an eating disorder and you’re ready to do what it takes to reach a place of full recovery, then I would love to help. You can send an email to info@seven-health.com and just include the word ‘coaching’ in the subject line, and then I can send over the further details of how to apply for a free recovery strategy call. So info@seven-health.com, include the word ‘coaching’, and I can get the details over.
Today on the show, it is a guest interview, and today I’m chatting with Talia Cecchele. Talia has spent over 11 years supporting people as a registered dietitian for them to improve their health. It was by chance that she fell into this specialist area of eating disorders. She has worked with hundreds of women and men to help them reverse the negative influence that diet culture and nutrition misconceptions and fad diets has had on their relationship with food.
Talia has worked in eating disorder inpatient and day patient units for the last 9 years, in both the public and private settings in the UK and in Australia. She has experience supporting people across the spectrum of inpatient through to outpatient settings, which gives her a board knowledge and skillset to be able to adapt her treatment approach to meet the demands of people she’s working with. Talia offers a compassionate, empathetic, and realistic approach to nutrition, and she doesn’t believe in restrictive diets and lives by the mantra that change doesn’t happen in your comfort zone.
I’ve been aware of Talia for a few years now. I can remember there were times where I would be googling a term or a topic connected to recovery and on many occasions, it was her site that would come up for the term that I searched for. I remember thinking, one, she’s doing a really good job on the SEO front because this website keeps popping up for all these different terms, but two, she’s obviously writing about really great topics that people are interested in in terms of recovery.
But then more recently, I asked Julie, who’s one of the people who helps out at Seven Health, to compile a list of potential podcast guests and people for us to be able to reach out to, and Talia was someone who was added to that list. So I was reminded of her once again, and I checked out more of her posts and her Instagram and decided to invite her on the show.
During the intro, when I’m chatting with Talia, I mention what we’re going to cover or what I intended to cover, and we actually stick to it, so I won’t repeat it here. You’ll hear it in a moment. I really enjoyed this conversation. I like Talia’s considered responses and how she’s level-headed in her approach with recovery. This is definitely one where there’s some good actionable advice. So without further ado, let’s get on with the show. Here is my conversation with Talia Cecchele.
Hey, Talia. Welcome to the show. Glad to be chatting with you today.
Talia Cecchele: Thank you so much for having me.
Chris Sandel: You are a dietitian and you work primarily with eating disorders and doing that in terms of helping people reach a place of full recovery. There’s quite a few areas that I want to talk about today. I know you’ve talked about overcoming compulsive exercise, there’s stuff around digestive issues in recovery. I definitely want to go through RAVES because I know this is something you’ve written about, and it’s not something I’ve really covered on the podcast before.
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But I guess just as a starting place, do you want to give listeners a bit of background on yourself? Who you are, what you do, what training you’ve done, that kind of thing?
Talia Cecchele: Yeah, absolutely. As you said, I’m a specialist dietitian, and I’ve been working in eating disorders and disordered eating for about 8 years. I’ve been practising for just over 11 or 12 years now. I studied in Australia, completed a Bachelor of Nutrition and Dietetics through Wollongong University and worked in Sydney for a number of years before moving across to the UK.
I currently work part-time freelance. I’m the founder of TCN Clinic – Talia Cecchele Nutrition Clinic – and that’s an online clinic, and we have a team of specialist eating disorder dietitians working with people through the range of spectrum of disordered eating all the way through to different clinical eating disorders, and also supporting people who might have a history of disordered eating or an eating disorder and want support with other medical or clinical issues, but from a non-restrictive or least restrictive approach.
And then I work part-time as a therapy lead and dietitian at a private psychiatric hospital in London on the eating disorders unit.
In regard to my training, I think like with any dietitian, you continue to develop skills as you progress through your career. So that’s always been centred around eating disorders, mostly from different psychological approaches, CBT, motivational interviewing, FBT. I do have special interest in digestive issues in eating disorders and also just supporting people with broken food rules and overcoming food fears.
Chris Sandel: Nice. What prompted you to move to the UK? I think that was in 2019 that that happened? You picked a bad year to move, if I’m thinking about things. [laughs]
Talia Cecchele: Yeah, it was mid 2018. A combination of career opportunities. At the time, I was trying to decide whether to specialise as a paediatric dietitian or jump into eating disorders. I wanted to move somewhere that had more opportunities in both areas, and as most Aussies move over here, the ability to travel and explore Europe.
Chris Sandel: How did you find the shift?
Talia Cecchele: Not too bad, actually. I think clinically, the UK is set up very similarly to Australia. After the initial learning of different processes and things like that, I found it okay. I think it takes such a long time to learn the UK food system and brands of food and trying to learn how to say courgette instead of zucchini and remembering to say yoghurt instead of yogurt. That was probably more of a challenge than anything else.
Chris Sandel: Does it feel like there’s some differences in the system between the UK and Australia? Anything that stands out to you?
Talia Cecchele: Yeah, I guess from a national health service perspective, especially with eating disorders, in Australia they have Medicare, which is the national health service, and within that now, just after I left, they introduced the 20 rebated sessions for dietitians for eating disorder support and the 40 sessions for psychologists. I think that is a huge differences comparing Australia eating disorder support to the UK.
And I think the main difference is also just the number of inpatient and day patient services, Australia versus the UK. Working in Sydney, there was only a small number of publicly funded beds. I mean, the whole of New South Wales, versus in the UK. And London comparative to Sydney, there are more options. There are significantly longer waiting lists here in the UK, to my knowledge, compared to Australia.
Chris Sandel: Yeah. I was never a nutritionist when I lived back in Australia; that’s going back a very, very long time, so I don’t really know what the systems are like. From your perspective, does it feel like people are getting a better quality service over in Australia than here, or no?
Talia Cecchele: Yes. Just from a few people I’ve spoken to that have either moved from Australia to the UK or UK to Australia – I’m talking about clients or patients that I’ve supported in the past – I do think Australia is coming out on top.
Chris Sandel: Do you feel like you’ll be here for a while?
Talia Cecchele: I think a few more years.
Chris Sandel: It’ll be a nice stint, getting to enjoy some good time. When I went to your Instagram, it looks like you’ve done some decent travelling outside of the pandemic. Definitely lots of places in Europe.
Talia Cecchele: Yeah, absolutely, and took advantage of UK travel during the pandemic when it was possible. So it’ll definitely be a good stint. I’m missing the Australian lifestyle and sun.
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Chris Sandel: If we go back to you as a kid, what was your relationship with food like? What was food like in your household growing up?
Talia Cecchele: I come from an Italian background. My grandparents migrated from Italy to Australia after World War II. I think I’ve grown up in a household where food was really central to celebrations and a lot more I guess traditional cooking. So my relationship with food was really good as a child. I absolutely loved cooking. It’s always surprising when I tell people I used to pack my own lunch from about eight years of age. So I always had that interest in it. Bake for the whole family, make muffins, we’d all take them to school, myself and my sisters, and my parents.
My real interest in nutrition started when I was about 15. I played representative netball for the regional area, and we had a sports dietitian come and provide a sports dietetic session. That’s when I thought that being a dietitian would be a really cool career based off the one talk where a person got to talk about food for an hour. So that sparked my interest in dietetics.
I would say that my relationship with food throughout the majority of my life has been a healthy one. There was just a few months in the 15 to 16 years of age that I describe that I dabbled in disordered eating in the way of looking at food labels – not really being aware of exactly what I was looking for, but I do remember there were a few months where I remember engaging in that behaviour. It didn’t develop into anything else.
Now I say I have a very healthy relationship with food, and that’s something that – I don’t have the lived experience of an eating disorder, like some clinicians working in the eating disorder field do, but on the flipside, what I can bring to support my clients and patients is to be aware that having a normal relationship with food exists, and it can be something that people can work towards and create.
Chris Sandel: Nice. I’m the same; I don’t have a lived experience with an eating disorder. I always talk about I think there’s pros and cons to that. The con is that I haven’t walked a mile in your shoes; I don’t know what it’s like to live with an eating disorder. So I can’t say that I’ve been there. And this is stuff that people have actually told me, like clients saying, “I don’t have to wonder if you’re fully recovered. I don’t have to wonder if something is really going on behind closed doors, if you’re relapsing or if you aren’t fully recovered. I feel very comfortable and confident in the fact that you have a healthy relationship with food” and I can talk about that and be a role model of sorts with people.
I also think the fact that I haven’t had an eating disorder means that I don’t have my own bias of what my recovery journey was like and what I should do because of that. Not everyone who goes through recovery has this very biased view about everyone having to do what they did, but it comes up enough that people will totally disregard something because it wasn’t important or relevant for them, and I think from my perspective, I’m much more open to “Let’s look into all of these different things.”
Talia Cecchele: Yeah, definitely.
Chris Sandel: Going back to your Italian family, I went to school with a guy who was Lebanese, and his whole family lived within two streets of one another. Every Sunday there would be people round, it’d be all the women in the kitchen making these incredible meals, and just this real family, very close-knit family. Is that the same kind of thing that you had?
Talia Cecchele: I wish it was. Not my immediate family, but some of my extended cousins would have the Tomato Day every year and do those sorts of very cultural things. We didn’t to that degree, which I wish we had. But I’m very aware of those traditions happening. So it wasn’t to as large a degree as that, but still making those traditional foods on a much smaller scale.
Chris Sandel: Sure. There’d be a lot of times where there’d be a lot of people at his house. A lot of cooking that would be going on for many, many hours.
Talia Cecchele: Yeah, I think that’s amazing.
Chris Sandel: Amazing. But I look back now, and typical 18-year-old, that could be on offer and we’d be like, “Let’s go and get KFC” or “Let’s go get McDonald’s instead.” And now I would just love that food. Any time I go back, I always try and visit and eat that stuff. But yeah, typical 18-year-old.
Talia Cecchele: I think for me, the difference was that I wasn’t really exposed to other cuisines until I really left school. Asian stir-fries and Lebanese food and Turkish food, Chinese, I didn’t really have that growing up. It was very much just a lot of pasta, pizza every Saturday. Very Italian cuisine.
Chris Sandel: And you said that there was that incident of a few months where you got more into looking at labels and more of the disordered eating. Was that post this presentation that you’d seen by this sports dietitian?
Talia Cecchele: It was, yeah. After that we had a coach who provided more nutrition education, and she spoke about performance. She gave us a very simplified – and you see this all the time – giving simplified do’s and don’ts of what to eat, what not to eat on a couple of handouts. “This is what you need to do.” I think at that time, I just took it quite seriously, and that’s why I was checking labels and making sure things had XYZ. So that was post the dietitian.
The reason I moved away from that is I experienced stomach pains for the first time in my life going through this period, and my mum one day was like, “That’s enough. We’re ordering pizza tonight.” And that’s what I remember of it. That was my experience. She said I never looked at a label again. I’m fully aware that that could’ve grown into something a lot more serious, but I was lucky to not have it impact me.
Chris Sandel: Totally. You could’ve very easily gone to a dietitian who then recommended “Let’s remove all of these different things”, looked at what you were eating and said, “We think there could be a wheat intolerance. No more pasta, no more pizza” or all this kind of stuff. So for you to have the experience of your mom saying “We’re getting pizza” and that was the thing that resolved it is a really nice story, because that’s not often how it goes.
Talia Cecchele: No, it’s not.
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Chris Sandel: When it then further progressed in terms of you starting to study as a dietitian, what was the goal in terms of “I want to work with a particular type of area”? Or you just went in saying “I really like dietetics as a general thing and I’ll figure it out”?
Talia Cecchele: When I started dietetics, I definitely had the thought that I would later specialise in sports nutrition because sport, netball in particular, was very much part of my life at the time. But then when I graduated after having done the clinical placements, I definitely wanted to work in a clinical role. And then that became the goal. Didn’t know which exact clinical area, but just to work in a hospital.
Chris Sandel: Then how did eating disorders come about in terms of that being a specialty and being this area of interest for you?
Talia Cecchele: I worked at one of Sydney’s children’s hospitals in my third year out of graduating, and it started as a three-month contract. On my very first day, I met with the manager and she was giving me the ward allocations, and one of them was the adolescent eating disorders unit. Prior to that, I had no interest in working in eating disorders. That was an area that, I think like with many people, provokes a bit of anxiety for myself. And I know many dietitians, you don’t really learn about how to support people with an eating disorder or disordered eating throughout university, so it’s an area that a lot of people might shy away from until they learn more about it.
So I started working on the adolescent eating disorders unit and I absolutely loved it. I ended up staying – that contract got extended a couple of times, and I stayed in that role for two years. The team on the unit said that I was the only dietitian to not rotate out of that role because I had developed such an interest in it. So that was the start of it. That was working with children and adolescents.
And then when those two years were up, I looked for work in eating disorders to continue along the pathway. I ended up getting a few different part-time roles. One was an adult inpatient unit in a private hospital in Sydney. One was just some contract work for the Butterfly Foundation, which is Australia’s eating disorder charity, and then another was working in the public system in community outpatients for adults as well.
Chris Sandel: Nice. What was it that grabbed you on that ward where you said “I really loved working with these people”? What is it about that side of nutrition, or what is it about that population that you really enjoy?
Talia Cecchele: I think initially it started out that as a dietitian, I felt really valued working on that team. I think that’s one of the things that initially got me quite hooked.
And then as my knowledge of eating disorders and disordered eating started to expand, what I really resonated with was the non-diet approach to nutrition and stepping more into that counselling and behaviour change model. I think that just aligned with my values and how I preferred to work more than working in other clinical areas where maybe it was a bit more prescriptive, less counselling included. I really liked that I got to know the patients that I was working with and built rapport, potentially for being able to work with them for many months or years as well and see that change.
In eating disorders it’s so diverse because, yes, you’re talking about nutrition and health, but then because it’s a mental health role, you have to have a knowledge of the physical health stuff as well. It’s great that you can keep your toes in other areas while specialising in eating disorders.
Chris Sandel: It was interesting when you were saying earlier, “When I was studying, initially maybe I thought I was going to go into sports nutrition” because this was also my background. At the time of me studying nutrition, I was doing, just for fun, marathons and triathlons and cycling and was into sport in a way that I’m not into it anymore. And yeah, a lot of people were like, “You should go into sports nutrition.”
The reality was, for me, “This is just so dry. There isn’t something that really grabs me here” versus when I started working more with people who were wanting to stop dieting and then disordered eating and then went down that road, I liked the messiness. I liked the messiness of how to have this all together. And as you say, the counselling piece – to be having conversations that, yeah, were connected to food, but there’s lots of other things that are going on here. That really excited me and is what I like doing.
And also, you genuinely are making a difference in someone’s life. To have someone be living with something for 20 years or 30 years and now no longer is suffering with this thing, it’s a huge, huge thing. It feels very, very meaningful. And for you, if you’re working with kids who’ve been suffering with this, even if it has been a very short amount of time, to see how devastating that’s going to be to their family and how scary that’s going to be, and to then be really making a difference – I can see how you got hooked.
Talia Cecchele: Thanks, yeah. Definitely. And I think, too, when you support people through to recovery, then it’s also the shift that you see within how, if they have a family, they arise their children, and conversations that they have with their friends and family. It’s almost like a bit of a ripple effect, in a way, that the work that you do with one person can also have an impact on other people.
Chris Sandel: Yeah, massively. I agree with that, because you’re not just helping that one person. It is like, this then helps their kids, this helps the other people in their community. I do think it has that huge ripple effect, and you recognise, “What we were focusing on when we started to what we’re chatting about now, there’s just so much difference here in terms of both the kinds of conversations we can have, but also just I can see the quality of life has completely changed from where you were to start with.”
Talia Cecchele: Yeah.
Chris Sandel: I want to go through some of the different areas that I talked about, just pulling up some notes here to figure out where it best to start.
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Let’s talk about compulsive exercise and overcoming compulsive exercise. With you and the population you’re seeing, how often is compulsive movement part of the people you’re working with?
Talia Cecchele: A very high percentage. I would say maybe around half if not more would be using exercise or physical activity as a behaviour that they’re engaging in to control their weight or body shape, and it’s not currently something they’ve engaged in the past.
Chris Sandel: Are there any patterns you see with this? I’m thinking when I think about this, often people’s eating disorder starts and the exercise component isn’t there. For some people it’s there from the get-go, but often it’s not there, and then at some point it starts to enter in. And then once it enters in, it feels like “This is so permanent; I don’t know how I could be without this thing here.”
Talia Cecchele: Yeah, absolutely. I’ll tell you one trend that I have definitely noticed is that for anyone – and this is a lot of people that I’m supporting whose eating disorder developed during the pandemic – exercise is a huge part of their eating disorder presentation, because it was the main coping mechanism for a lot of people to fill in time, to help manage anxiety, to help manage isolation. So a lot of people at the moment are presenting with compulsive exercise as a result of developing the eating disorder through those difficult times.
Chris Sandel: Yeah, I actually see a lot of people where they’ve been in this state of quasi-recovery for however long, whether it’s a couple years or it’s been a couple of decades, but it was then the pandemic that tipped that over, and that’s when everything started to ramp back up. As you said, it was often the exercise piece that then started that. I know there was so much stuff going online of “You can do these exercise classes for free” or talk about not putting on weight over the isolation period. It’s just this perfect storm for everything getting worse, or starting for the first time.
Talia Cecchele: Yeah.
Chris Sandel: What are some of the fears that people have when talking about exercise or talking about making changes to exercise, and how are you dealing with some of this stuff?
Talia Cecchele: I think one of the biggest ones is the fear of weight gain or weight changes when reducing physical activity. Another fear is then maybe developing other coping mechanisms that are unhealthy. Sometimes, for some people it may be that they’re trying to avoid engaging in purging through vomiting, for example, so exercise becomes one of their main forms of coping with difficult emotions or numbing emotions. So sometimes it can be a way to avoid an alternate unhealthy coping mechanism.
I think the weight changes are one of the biggest fears, and within that is the change in body composition – this fear of losing muscle mass or that leaner appearance. The way that I would support my clients through that is through education, firstly, but then on a more practical level, through graded exposure and more of a CBT approach to mini experiments, so “Let’s see what happens. What is your hypothesis if we do reduce exercise by XYZ? Let’s test it out. Let’s see what actually happens.” That’s the approach that I use for a lot of people I’m supporting.
Chris Sandel: Nice. One of the other ones that comes up a lot for clients – and this is probably an indication of just how exhausted they are – there’s this fear of “If I stop, I will never start ever again. If I stop doing the walking or fill in the blank exercise, I will never want to start exercising ever again, and I can’t have that happen.” Again, I think there’s an education piece connected to this, but I think talking through the fact of like “You’re feeling this way because currently you’re doing things that either you don’t want to do, or you do enjoy doing but you’re in a state that is so depleted that it makes it unenjoyable for you to do it.”
Talia Cecchele: Certainly. And I think, having this conversation, the other one that comes to mind is the fear of the loss of identity, of being someone who is ‘fit’. Because that builds up to being such a large part of a person’s life, the fitness and activity component. So I think a lot of conversations I also have are around what life looks like when hours of the day aren’t spend engaging in physical activity.
Chris Sandel: And again, another one piggy-backing off that, “How do I fill the void? If I’m spending so much of this time, there’s the worry of how do I even know how to spend that time? What’s going to happen in terms of the thoughts that will come up?” So there’s the anxiety of all the ‘what ifs’ that arise.
Talia Cecchele: Yeah. I think also that sense of “If I’m not moving my body, then I perceive myself to be lazy.” Or they experience a lot of those negative emotions of guilt and shame around stopping something that they ‘worked so hard’ to get to.
Chris Sandel: The fitness piece is one that comes up a lot, and then having a conversation around “What does it actually mean to be ‘fit’?” Because again, for so many people, they’re like “I feel really fit” or “If I stop doing this, I won’t be fit.” But it’s like, outside of the window where you’re actually in the gym or doing the exercise, maybe there’s an hour or two-hour honeymoon period after that, but you’re clearly exhausted. You’re telling me you’re exhausted.
“You’re not having fitness for all of the other aspects of life” is a great quote from Scott Abel. He defines fitness – and look, I’m not on board with everything Scott Abel has to say; I think he’s gone down a path over these many, many years where I’m definitely not in alignment. But he talks about true fitness is the ability to handle all the changes and demands of your everyday life with a relative ease. So fitness isn’t just “how well can I swim a lap or run around a track or lift weights?”; it’s “how well am I able to cope with all the demands of life?”
Talia Cecchele: It’s that functional component. And I have conversations as well around fitness is not just cardiovascular and strength. It’s balance, mobility, flexibility, which if we think about it from that functional standpoint, are equally as important, if not more in some aspects as well, in a person’s life. So it’s getting people to be able to take a step back and look at that bigger picture.
Chris Sandel: Totally. In the same way we talk about physical health and then mental health and emotional health, you can do the same thing with fitness. I think a lot of the litmus test is, where are you in terms of your psychological flexibility? Again, you might be very ‘fit’ when you’re running, but in terms of your capacity to be able to have fitness to deal with all of these other challenges, where are you currently at with that?
Talia Cecchele: Definitely. There’s definitely such an important conversation around identifying what fitness and what health mean for a person and what is a more balanced or nuanced view of that.
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Chris Sandel: In terms of the identity piece, how are you working on that with someone? Because again, it comes up a lot.
Talia Cecchele: One of the activities I’ll ask a person to do is really to look at how much of their life is being taken up by their eating disorder thoughts and cognitions, thoughts about their body, and then doing some values work around, outside of the eating disorder, what is important? What values does a person want to live their life by? And then looking at how we can start to incorporate that and make their recovery more aligned with the life that they want to live.
Slowly, slowly, it’s starting to incorporate some of that back into their life so we can push out, displace, how much importance is being put on activity and body image, shape, weight, and size. That’s around building new connections and community. It’s about trying new things. It’s about supporting someone to get to a place that they can start to re-engage in things like travel and social eating. I’m sure you and I both see it all the time; when people start to do that and what’s important shifts, it almost happens very intuitively and very beautifully that a person will place less emphasis on activity and body image and disordered behaviours.
Chris Sandel: Yeah. If you’ve got not much else going on in your life apart from the exercise that you do and the restriction that you do, it’s hard to give those things up because it is then truly like, “What else do I have?”, versus if there are all of these other things that are staring to come into someone’s life, it’s demonstrating to them, “This isn’t the only thing that I have.”
There’s a quote from Tim Ferriss, who again, I don’t necessarily agree with everything he says, but he talks about identity diversification and the importance of that. If you have your identity connected to just one thing or just two things and one of those goes south, that’s not great, versus if you’ve got it connected to many, many, many different things, it really ensures you.
I think so often there’s this feeling of “I’ve got to figure a thing out first and then I’ll go out and start creating this new identity” and really it’s the other way around. Through doing all of these other activities, you start to build that new identity. And I’m the same as you; I do a lot of values work, because it’s so obvious then when you get that distance. When you start to do some writing down of values or some reflection of values of “I know I say this is my identity and I know I say I don’t want to lose this, but actually when I look at it, this isn’t how I want to be living my life. This does not align with the values of what I truly think are important.”
Talia Cecchele: I think it’s important to note that this is not a quick fix at all, and this takes months and years to really overcome and to build that new identity. It’s definitely not something that will happen quickly, and you wouldn’t want it to because there are so many important skills to build along the way.
And I think as well, outside of the identity component is that emotional regulation part of why and how physical activity is being used from the emotional regulation perspective. Again, that skill building on how to manage your emotions in a healthy way – it takes time to develop that. So it’s also just taking the pressure off on the timeline of how we would see that progress.
Chris Sandel: Do you have any recommendations with clients of like “Hey, typically I’m removing exercise slowly” or “I typically do it all at once” or “It depends on the person”?
Talia Cecchele: It depends. Always, the answer is it depends on the person. I’ve had people that I’ve supported that we have gone cold turkey with physical activity, and then others a more graded approach. I think for most people, a more graded approach has been the way that we’ve gone.
Chris Sandel: I would say the same with me. I also know that when someone does go cold turkey, the ability to be okay with that is much more rapid than people ever possibly imagine. That’s always the message I want to get out: you can do this, but I also want you to know this, because I think the fear for most people is the exercise piece is going to be the most challenging thing to deal with. And actually, it’s one of the quickest when people genuinely do just stop exercising.
Talia Cecchele: Yeah. I had an event earlier this year, and one of the lovely ladies that I helped support all the way through to full recovery, I invited her to speak at the event, and she was someone that we did the cold turkey approach to activity. I remember it was such a difficult time, but we’d agreed it was the period over Christmas and New Year’s, because her children were at home, and it aligned with “There’s lots of social events, so there’s maybe not as much time as what you’d normally be able to put aside for activity.”
Chris Sandel: And built-in distraction as well.
Talia Cecchele: Yeah. She shared about that experience at the event and she said it was one of the best decisions she’d ever made. And the following session we had after New Year’s, she managed it. There was no urge, very minimal urge, for her to re-engage in that. And then over time, we built in more healthy levels and enjoyable levels of physical activity.
Chris Sandel: Definitely. This is my experience, and I always want to be very upfront about it because I think it is counterintuitive to what people imagine it will be.
Talia Cecchele: I think also there’s this fear of – a lot of people say to me, “But Talia, physical activity is part of being a human” – and undoubtedly it is. But sometimes we need to pull things back before we can add them back in again. It’s always the intention behind that I speak about, and just reinforcing that I’m not going to ever say to someone that for the rest of their life, they’re going to have to avoid XYZ in terms of physical activity. As a dietitian, I want people to enjoy movement. I want them to move their bodies. Again, just busting that fear. If I reduce my activity levels now, it does not mean that that is for life.
Chris Sandel: Yeah, the goal is, how can we get you to a physical state where you’re genuinely benefitting from this exercise? Because at the place that you’re in, you’re actually not benefitting. Your body is not able to do the proper repairs and adaptions so that you truly get the health benefits from this. And then two, we want it to be in a place where it is you in the driver’s seat, choosing when you exercise, and doing that from a place of genuine enjoyment as opposed to “I have to do this, it’s compulsive, I’m doing this because I need to change my body or because of the fear of it changing or that’s the thing I need to allow myself to eat food” – all of these rules that are connected to it.
It’s like, how do we get to a different place with that? And I guess the analogy, like you said, having a break – if someone has broken their leg, you have a break. You have a break so that it heals, at least in theory. I know there are people who don’t. If you were recommending what is the best thing to do if you’ve just broken your leg, it would be to have a break so that things can heal. It’s the same thing with recovery. It’s not a permanent thing; this is for an allotted amount of time so that healing can occur.
Talia Cecchele: Yeah, I’ve used that before.
00:38:29
Chris Sandel: Talking about digestive issues, from your perspective, what are some of the more common things that you’re seeing from this perspective?
Talia Cecchele: I think the most common symptoms would be bloating, abdominal pain, constipation being the biggest. And slowed digestion. That sense of feeling full very early from a smaller portion of food and feeling full absolutely all day, and for days on end – they still need to eat and challenge that fullness.
Chris Sandel: For you, how often are you seeing people where digestive issues really predate the eating disorder? I think this is something that’s pretty common as well.
Talia Cecchele: It is common. I can’t give a percentage. There is definitely a mix of people that I support that do have pre-existing digestive issues. Now, whether that be from a medical perspective with something like Celiac disease or even IBS before the eating disorder developed – and we know that in terms of developing digestive issues in disordered eating, having a pre-existing digestive issue can actually be one of those factors that lead into the disordered eating developing. So yes, definitely see both.
Chris Sandel: What are the approaches? How are you helping people with digestive issues? I know there could be many possible things, but what comes to mind?
Talia Cecchele: It depends on what the symptom is, but for example, with constipation, from one side of it, it’s having those conversations, and similar to the exercise, providing that education around why the constipation might be occurring. For the majority of people that I’m supporting, it’s due to malnutrition, the body not receiving enough nutrition for the gut to function as it should.
One of the best things that I can support people that I’m working with to do is actually to eat an adequate intake. And then looking at it from more of a practical level, looking at fluids, looking at being able to trial things like prunes or kiwis to help with constipation. Sometimes it might be short term, a laxative that’s going to soften the stool. Try to avoid stimulative laxatives, but sometimes it might be short term just to help the bowels to open so that we can reduce the discomfort that a person is experiencing. Then we’re looking at things like heat packs, not wearing tight clothes, distraction. That’s more so for bloating and abdominal pain than constipation.
Other things with bloating, for example, it might be, again, doing a short course of peppermint oil, looking at different meditation and breathing techniques, sometimes even just a hot drink or a weighted blanket can help while the symptoms rise, and then we know they’re going to fall with time. So that’s where distraction activities can come in really helpful.
I think one of the hardest, one of the biggest challenges that I see is a person eating enough while they’re experiencing such distressing gastrointestinal symptoms.
Chris Sandel: Yeah, and it becomes this catch-22 because so often, the foods that they are eating are also connected to why they’re having so many of these troubles as well. One, they’re not particularly calorie dense, but two, they’re often quite difficult to digest. So you’re getting this double whammy of “We’re not getting a huge amount of energy and then you’re asking me to digest something that is quite difficult.” And then because there is this increased digestive discomfort, the natural feeling is “I need to reduce what I’m having even more” and it then becomes this really vicious cycle.
So often, when dealing with this, it is starting to look at, what are some of the things that you’re eating? We really need to be getting in things that are more calorie-dense, but also are going to be easier on your digestive system. And often they are going to be foods that are scarier to people or are more off-limits.
Talia Cecchele: Yeah, definitely. I agree with the catch-22. I have that conversation all the time, and I say, “The one thing that I need to get you to do is, short term, going to cause you a lot of pain, which is eating.” A lot of people are often surprised when I say to them to remove or reduce significantly the amount of vegetables and fruit in their diet from a fibre perspective and volume perspective. So I definitely agree, and definitely work in the same way in opting for more nutrient-dense foods during those times that people are experiencing such significant GI symptoms.
Chris Sandel: It can be a hard sell to start with, but I do find that actually, when people start to make that change, again, if they genuinely follow through on it, they do notice an improvement fairly quickly. Again, it can be different from person to person, but once that volume has been decreased a little bit and once we’re bringing in more energy, the digestive system does start to upregulate, even if it can be slower than someone may ideally want in terms of “I want it done today.”
Talia Cecchele: And I think that’s the other thing to spend a moment just to reinforce and remind people: your bowels do not have to open every single day. It can be healthy and normal for some people for their bowels to open once every two days. Sometimes people get very fixated on their bowels opening every single day at the same time, and then they’ll engage in behaviours that worsen that, and then again you get stuck into that vicious cycle where they’re constipated, they’re engaging in behaviours that aren’t helping their bowels to open more naturally. That’s when laxative abuse starts to creep in for some people. It reduces the anxiety and the feeling of discomfort to open their bowels every day.
Chris Sandel: Totally. I think it can be laxatives, but I’ve had a number of clients where it’s water. They’re trying to drink a ton of water to try and help that situation. And even if it does, at the same time it does not help the situation because there’s a lot of collateral damage that is then occurring because you’re drinking this very high quantity of water, whether that is having a negative effect on your appetite, it could be that they really struggle to be able to eat before this has happened – so as you say, there’s all this pressure that is then placed on having this bowel movement. It becomes this much bigger thing than it really needs to be. There are easier ways to help this thing to occur.
Talia Cecchele: Definitely. When someone is eating so little or engaging in significant levels of compensatory behaviours such as vomiting, very common to see that a person might not open their bowels for up to two weeks. Which is very distressing. So it’s supporting the person to understand why that might be, and then putting in a lot of the strategies that we’ve just spoken about.
Chris Sandel: Yeah, because again, if that’s the case, someone’s then getting to the point where it’s like “I don’t want to put more food in because then it’s going to get even more uncomfortable.” But not doing that just makes this a hell of a lot worse.
Is there anything else on the digestion stuff that you would either suggest or things that are coming up for people?
00:46:02
Talia Cecchele: Yeah, I think one of the red flags to talk about is the low-FODMAP diet, which I see all the time. I’ve supported so many people who had previously been recommended a low-FODMAP diet for IBS. Now, whether that was a true diagnosis of IBS or it was just symptoms that had developed as a result of disordered eating disguised under a label of IBS symptoms, that needs unpacking.
Definitely just to talk about low-FODMAP diet or restricting your diet and how that can worsen your symptoms, further reduces your good gut bacteria – with something like the low-FODMAP diet, if listeners aren’t aware of it, it’s an elimination type diet where different categories of carbohydrates, sugars, are reduced/eliminated for a period of six to eight weeks and then reintroduced one by one over about a six-week period.
I’ve seen a lot of people who’ve been recommended the low-FODMAP diet and instead of staying on it just for six or so weeks, stay on it for months or even a couple of years, which really is so harmful for their digestive health. I think again, it’s that vicious circle of “I’m going to restrict things because temporarily it makes me feel better, but then in the long term it’s actually going to make me feel so much worse.” When we think about digestive issues, what we can add and adding variety is actually going to be better for the gut than restricting the number of foods that a person’s eating.
Chris Sandel: Thank you for bringing that up. I agree. I don’t know if it’s still as big as it was, but there was a period where the low-FODMAP diet felt like it was everywhere and everyone was being recommended it, and it was the thing that if you got any bloating, “you should try this thing.” You’re right, I think there are a lot of people who start it and then just never stop doing it.
If I’m thinking about digestion and supporting digestion, especially if I’m thinking about it from eating disorders – but it’s still the same where anyone who’s dieting or disordered eating – you need energy to run all of your various systems and organs. If you’re not getting in enough energy, that has to be the number one thing that you focus on so that you can give it the best possible chance to be able to digest your food properly. I think that’s where I recommend people start.
And I guess the tricky thing with that is the response is, “Oh, but I am eating a lot. I am eating X number of calories, and that should be enough” or “I plugged it into MyFitnessPal and this is what it said for me.” But when I look at what someone’s eating, I’m like, you’re not eating enough food to adequately support all of your systems, including your digestive system.
Talia Cecchele: Definitely. In addition to that, I very commonly see dietary restrictions like gluten-free or dairy-free, and I wanted to touch on when we talk about digestive issues, due to the gut being in a malnourished state, some people do develop intolerances because their gut isn’t breaking down / digesting / absorbing nutrients properly. That is something that, short term, people might experience. But again, it’s a short-term (fingers crossed) phase where, yes, we might provide recommendations to slightly tweak the diet. For example, lactose-free dairy just to make it a bit more gentle on the gut. But it’s not something, hopefully, that people will have to follow longer term.
Chris Sandel: Yeah. If you’re not getting enough for your digestion to work properly, it’s not producing enough of the hydrochloric acid or the stomach enzymes, the digestive enzymes, there’s lots of ways that it can then appear that I’m sensitive to this thing. And it might be that you are actually sensitive in this state. The state that your body’s in means are you sensitive, but it’s not because you are inherently sensitive to that thing. It’s just because of how your body is currently functioning.
Adding in the power of the nocebo effect as well, there can be a lot of belief around the fact that “this thing is bad, and I believe that I’m intolerant to it or I believe that it has an impact on me” and that then creating an impact. So the nocebo effect is the opposite of the placebo effect. There’s been a lot of studies done on both of those things. You take someone who has a really bad knee who needs surgery and you open up the knee and you do a sham surgery where you basically open it up, do nothing, stitch it back up, and people report that this has made a really massive difference and this surgery has been life-changing.
It just really demonstrates the power of the mind, and if we’re living in a society where all of the news outlets and all of the media you’re consuming is about the dangers of gluten or the dangers of dairy or whatever it is, it’s very easy to internalise that. Especially if you’re living with an eating disorder. So I think it’s often a combination of many things for why there is this added digestive distress and this added sensitivity.
Talia Cecchele: Definitely. That can connect really well to the gut-brain axis and remembering that a lot of people that we’re supporting are constantly in a heightened state of anxiety, and the impact that alone has on their experience of different digestive symptoms. You said that you’re not seeing as much of the low-FODMAP being recommended, and I think that’s because now there is more guidance around first line evidence of even trialling things like yoga and gut-directed hypnotherapy, meditation, instead of the low-FODMAP diet is just as effective. We know how important the gut-brain axis is in supporting digestive health.
Chris Sandel: Yeah. I like your thinking that maybe it’s because these other things are being recommended. I think there’s just as many people on the internet who will say anything, and it’s just the FODMAP is no longer its time in the sun. The fact that carnivore is a thing proves that it’s not about “we found something that’s better and more evidence-based.” It’s just like there’s something else that is the flavour of the month.
Talia Cecchele: Yeah, there definitely is. I try to remain optimistic that people who know what they’re talking about, qualified, won’t be recommending it. [laughs]
Chris Sandel: Totally. And I do focus a lot in terms of polyvagal theory and the nervous system, and if you’re proverbially running away from a lion because that’s the state your nervous system is in, then it’s not prioritising digestion. Again, the catch-22 with this is the way that you then support your nervous system is to be bringing in more food, and there is going to be this lag time between that happening and your digestion improving. But if you’re constantly in a state where your nervous system is in this fight-or-flight or is in more of a shutdown state, yeah, of course it’s going to have an impact on digestion.
Talia Cecchele: It can even be a person’s experience of, for example, they’re challenging a specific food and they’re extremely anxious before it, and then after they have it, they experience bloating and abdominal pain. Their mind says “It’s because of the food that you just ate” but actually it’s because of the anxiety that the person’s just experienced. Really important to tease that out.
Chris Sandel: Or “I’ve had this food and this has caused it, but actually I didn’t eat something in the earlier part of the day. I then skipped a snack because of this upcoming event.” So where the focus gets placed is on this particularly bad food versus actually, there were all of these other things going on that are more likely to be driving this thing.
Talia Cecchele: Yeah.
00:53:58
Chris Sandel: Let’s talk about RAVES. As I said at the start, this is something I’m aware of, but I don’t think I’ve talked about on the podcast before. I’d love to hear you share. I think it is an Australian thing.
Talia Cecchele: Yes. Full credit to Shane Jeffrey; he’s an accredited practising dietitian in Australia. He lives in Queensland, and he created the RAVES model. I think that’s why a lot of Australian dietitians and nutritionists are more aware of it, because it came out of Australia first. But I’m definitely hearing more people across the globe learning about it, and I think Shane is doing workshops now especially in Australia on the RAVES Model.
RAVES is a framework that he developed to really capture the phased approach to normalising a person’s relationship with food. He breaks it down into three phases. The first phase is where the ‘R’ and the ‘A’ of RAVES come in. That’s regularity and adequacy. Regularity is establishing a regular pattern of eating, so your three meals, three snacks every day, and then your adequacy is building on up to an amount of food that’s going to meet your nutritional needs and goals.
Phase 2 is when we look at the V-E-S of RAVES. ‘V’ is for variety – adding foods back into the diet, expanding within food groups as well as adding in fear foods and overcoming food rules. And then we have ‘E’ is eating socially – being able to join in on social occasions, cook the food that you’re making for others, also eat it, being comfortable to eat in different environments – workplace, home, friend’s house, cousin’s house, being able to eat out and not be influenced by the calories on the menu, for example. Lots of different components to that. And then your ‘S’ is for spontaneity or flexibility, so moving away from a prescriptive way of eating, being able to say yes to things without having it being planned.
Moving on from there, you have phase 3, which is intuitive eating. The framework is something that I think a lot of nutrition professionals do automatically, but it just provides a nice framework. And when I talk to people that I’m supporting about it and I talk through each of the phases, it really helps them to identify where they’re at. I bring it to a lot of the discussions that I have, especially when someone wants to run before they can walk and wants to eat intuitively – which is fantastic, but look at this approach; we need to actually go back to just eating regularly first.
So I think it’s really helpful in supporting people to understand what needs to happen. Not to say – you might establish regularity and you might be adding some variety at the same time, but it’s really where the focus or the spotlight is on.
Chris Sandel: Totally. As I said, I talk about this loads with clients; I just don’t use this acronym. But when I think about the stages, I really like the way that they’re described, because I think what can often be a trap with people is that they will try and bring in the variety piece way sooner than they necessarily need to.
And I’m always like, calories trumps everything else. If you’re not eating enough food, all we’re doing is moving deck chairs on the Titanic. It’s not helping to be bringing in these different things because you need more energy. And often, when more variety comes in, the amount of food can take a little bit of a hit because it’s like “I’m doing this meal and it feels so big”, so there’s often an overestimating of how much is in that food. Or “I had this as my morning snack and because it felt bigger, I didn’t have my afternoon snack.” It means that the amount of intake someone has can take a hit.
You can then look at the last week or the last two weeks and it’s like, great, more foods have come in – and actually your intake’s gone down, and that’s not where it needs to be right now.
Talia Cecchele: Yeah. When a person moves through to that phase 2 when they aren’t ready – it happens all the time that people are so focused on adding in variety and food challenges that they end up compensating. They’re not at a stage where they have the skills to be able to manage the variety and the higher energy foods without compensatory behaviours creeping in.
Chris Sandel: And look, for anyone listening, if you are able to bring in more of the foods while increasing, great. I’m not dissuading you from doing that. And there’s times where it has to happen because of the foods that someone’s eating; it’s just not viable to get you to the amount of energy that you need. Because they’re so high-volume, low-energy, we’re going to have to bring in some more energy-dense foods. But I don’t even necessarily think about that as variety. I’m just thinking about that as, how do we bring in the right kinds of foods that are going to support you in this moment?
Talia Cecchele: I think where you touch on it – and I completely agree, and I’m glad you brought this up – is that it’s so individualised, and some people do well on what is coined ‘all-in’, where if you have hunger signals that are present and that you can respond to and you’re able to eat enough, and eating different food isn’t going to impact how much you have, then that is absolutely one way to go as well.
Chris Sandel: Totally. I’m on board with that. Again, it’s just not for the majority of people.
I think it often then becomes a little bit of a trap, because it then means “I’m not going to plan. I’m just going to get to the meal and I’m going to be able to do it”, and then it doesn’t happen, and then it’s like, “Tonight I’m definitely going to be able to it” and then it doesn’t happen. When I look at the two letters in terms of the first part of this, that regularity and adequacy, typically there is going to be some planning for that to happen.
I’m not against planning. I’m not even necessarily against a meal plan. Trying to make a decision in the moment, for most people in the depths of an eating disorder, is just not a thing that’s going to be dependable enough. Maybe you can do it some of the time, but not dependably so. So in the beginning, it is like, how do we get enough regularity and enough energy coming in? And then we can move on to these other pieces.
Where there is real decision in advance of “This is what it’s going to look like, so I can pre-plan the shopping, I can have things in advance, I can do it” – because yes, we want to get to the place of spontaneity, but as you say, you don’t try and run before you can walk. Let’s be able to get enough food in first.
Talia Cecchele: Yeah. I find that each of the phases aligns with how prescriptive the eating needs to be, more often than not. Phase 1, the ‘R’ and the ‘A’ is when a high number of people will be on meal plans, and all meals and snacks are planned in advance and you know exactly where and when you’re going to be. That’s absolutely fine. That’s what’s needed for that phase.
Phase 2 is when, because you’re adding in variety and bits and pieces, I find that that template of how much a person needs to eat is there, but there’s a bit more flexibility in the moment of what foods a person might eat in that phase. And then you’re moving on to intuitive eating and really moving away from any from of prescription.
Chris Sandel: The thing I would add – and I don’t know how the person who invented it talks about it in terms of adequacy – when I’m working with someone, it’s always like, these are the minimums. That can often be a trap of like “I can’t go over this. This is what I have to stick to.” I’m like, this is a minimum. If you want to eat more, if you want to have more snacks, if you want to have more meals, you have my 100% encouragement and permission to do this. Very much framing it in that way as opposed to maximums.
Talia Cecchele: Yes, absolutely. I very much have those conversations, too, especially when we’re thinking about how we can build a meal that’s got fats, carbs, protein, and a bit of fibre in it. Again, just reinforcing, when someone’s so confused about what ‘normal’ looks like, you really have to have that conversation around – I frame it as this is a starting point. It’s the minimum. This is just some guidance on where we start, but then as we move away from so much structure, you’re going to be in the driving seat. You’re going to start to learn what portion is going to satisfy you.
Chris Sandel: I think also when we’re thinking about what is ‘normal’, it’s what is normal for eating disorder recovery, because I think so often that can be the “Oh, I went out and no-one was eating that much, so I couldn’t do it” or “My partner doesn’t eat that much.” I’m always like, yeah, your partner’s not in recovery from an eating disorder. And even if you are fully recovered, you may still eat more than your partner or eat more than anyone else who’s at dinner with you, and that is completely okay and normal. If you need more food, you need more food. There’s nothing bad about that unless you start to create a meaning connected to that thing.
Talia Cecchele: Definitely. It’s what is normal for you as an individual.
Chris Sandel: The only one I would also mention – and I know that this is meant to be just a suggestion of where these come in terms of phase 1 or phase 2 or phase 3 – I’ve had this happen a number of times recently, and this is why I’m bringing it up. We think very often with eating disorders, eating socially is this really stressful thing – and it often is. And for some people, eating socially is where they’re doing their best eating.
So for many clients, it’s like, I notice when you’re going out with your friends or I notice when you’re having this weekend away, you actually do better. Really leaning into that, like, how can you eat more with people? Can you be going out for lunches with your work colleagues because that actually really helps you? Can you be meeting up with friends after work? I think there can be this real stereotype, and I want to say that if anyone notices actually they do better eating in the company of others, go do that.
Talia Cecchele: Yeah, definitely. This is where a person’s experience is so different, because I’ve worked with people before where I was having the conversation around “Let’s not add too much variety because we’re focusing on the regularity and adequacy” and part of their eating disorder presentation was actually that they had rules that – I’m going to get this the wrong way around. We were reducing the variety. They had rules around repeating meals. So then when we were focusing on reducing variety, that was actually working with their eating disorder, and it actually was not the most challenging option.
So within all of that framework, there’s going to be things that resonate with people and are helpful, but then that’s where that individualisation comes in as well.
Chris Sandel: Definitely. I agree that there are times where the variety piece actually is the thing that unlocks a lot of other things. It’s like, cool, I’m noticing that this is so helpful for you, or we’re having conversations around it and it feels like there’s something really important here.
I think you said this earlier in the conversation, and it’s something I say a lot: let’s run the experiment. So many people within the eating disorder, it’s like “I’ve got to get this right. I’ve got to figure this thing out.” I’m like, that doesn’t lead to a lot of curiosity. It doesn’t lead to a lot of openness. It leads to a lot of fear and rigidity. So how can we have this thing become a lot more – run the experiment. Let’s see what happens. You don’t have to get it right. Whatever happens, we’re going to learn something from this thing. So if it feels like variety is important, let’s focus on that for the next week, see what happens.
01:06:16
The final thing I want to ask is around common myths when it comes to nutrition and eating disorder recovery. When we’re thinking about this from a food perspective – and I’m asking a very, very big question here, but what are some of the more common things? And maybe that are common now. In 2024, what are some of the things people are coming to you talking about?
Talia Cecchele: The hot topic is definitely ultra-processed foods. I’m seeing a number of people avoiding foods like bread, for example, that used to be avoided for more carbohydrate perspective, but now the conversation is “I’m avoiding them because they have additives. Bread has additives and unhealthy ingredients in it.” The food remains the same, but the purpose behind it I’ve seen has shifted slightly. So instead of the sugar being demonised, it’s now that it contains more than four ingredients in the food product.
Chris Sandel: I think that’s so true with so many things. It would’ve been bread because it’s carbs, then bread because it’s wheat and gluten, and then bread because it’s ultra-processed. As you say, it’s the same food. “Okay, we got past that one, but now there’s this other reason or other objection of why this thing’s a bad thing to be eating.”
Talia Cecchele: Yeah, ultra-processed food is the new hot topic. But as I mentioned before, carbohydrate is still one of the foods that are most often feared. High sugar, high fat foods as well, still at the top of the list for a lot of people having a misconception around what happens if that food is eaten.
I think something that more recently feeds into this is the calories being included on UK menus, messages around the pandemic and obesity and weight changes during the pandemic. I think a lot of that, we’re still seeing the aftereffect of that.
Chris Sandel: For sure. And from around the same time, people being able to wear glucose monitors – things that were originally aimed very much at people with diabetes now becoming this thing that everyone should be wearing and monitoring all the time and that really feeding into the fear around carbohydrates generally, but sugars more narrowly. Just increasing the level of worry and panic connected to it.
Talia Cecchele: Yeah, and such common foods – I was going to say very normal foods as well – fruit, for example, a food that grows from the land that we’ve been eating for such a long time, has now gained an added level of fear and misconceptions.
Chris Sandel: Yes, for sure. I think it always pays a huge amount of benefit to go and look at what other people used to eat across the years. There are definitely cultures and places where at certain points of the year, they’re having 50%, 60%, 70% of their calories be honey because that was what was available. I think we have this real fear around sugar. Just reminding people of that, like there are people who are eating a ton of this stuff who are in very good health.
Talia Cecchele: Yeah. I say that often with rice as an example. I ask a person, “Can you have a think and name all the countries or cultures where rice is an ingredient that you might eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner?” Again, just expanding that view. Just because we live in one culture or society and are receiving these messages, a different culture and society can be receiving a completely different message.
Chris Sandel: Is there anything that we haven’t gone through that you wanted me to ask?
Talia Cecchele: In regard to myths?
Chris Sandel: It could be in regard to myths, it could be in regard to really anything.
Talia Cecchele: I think we’ve covered a number of things.
Chris Sandel: Then the final question is where can people be going if they want to find out more about you?
Talia Cecchele: You can head to my Instagram page, which is @tcnutrition. And then what I say to people is to head to the link in my bio to connect through to my website, because my website is my name and it can be tricky to spell: www.taliacecchele.com.
Chris Sandel: Cool. I will put all the links in the show notes and people can click through from your bio. But yeah, all the links will be there and people can find out more about you there. Thank you so much for coming on.
Talia Cecchele: Thanks for having me.
Chris Sandel: So that was my conversation with Talia Cecchele. Her site is full of great blog posts. She’s done a really good job on Instagram, so if you want more of what we covered in this show, then please check it out.
As I said at the top, I’m taking on new clients. If you want to not be in the grips of an eating disorder, if you would like to have your life back, to have the freedom to go on trips, to have the freedom to take a rest day, to have all of these things naturally and easily occur in your life, that is what full recovery can provide for you, and I would love to help you get there. So if you are interested in this, then send an email to info@seven-health.com, and in the subject line, include the word ‘coaching’.
That is it for this week’s show. I will be back with another new episode next week. Until then, take care of yourself, and I will see you soon.
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