Letting Go of the Athlete Identity, with Caroline Toshack

In this episode, we're joined by the wonderful Caroline Toshack for a thought provoking conversation about coming home to our bodies after an eating disorder or indeed years of chronic dieting.

Caroline shares how her career evolved from personal training, sports coaching and competitive endurance sport into Pilates, yoga and body-led therapeutic work. We talk about her experience of living with an eating disorder, the pressure and identity that can become wrapped up in athletic performance, and the shift that came when movement became less about punishment and more about connection.

We explore recovery, body image, neurodivergence, slowing down, and what it can look like to return to movement with curiosity rather than striving. This conversation is about permission: permission to change, permission to let go of old identities, move for joy, and choose the path that feels sustainable.

Key takeaways

• Movement can be a way of coming home to our bodies.
• Pilates and slower, more embodied forms of movement can help us tune into breath, sensation and self-trust.
• Athletic identity can be difficult to release when performance, achievement and self-worth have always been interconnected.
• We can return to sport and exercise in a healthier way by loosening/ softening our attachment to pace, goals and external validation.
• Neurodivergence can shape our relationship with movement and routine.
• Goals do not always need to be rigid; sometimes it is enough to have something to explore, rather than something to prove.
• Letting go of who you thought you had to be can make room for who you actually are
• Recovery isn’t about doing everything perfectly. It’s about building trust with yourself, one choice at a time.
• There is an important need for more informed conversations and training around movement and eating-disorder recovery.

Transcript

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Christine Chessman: Hello, hello, hello! So, today on the podcast, we have got the wonderful Caroline Toshak. If you like a voice, so she's got the most amazing Scottish accent.

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Ela Law: I love listening.

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Christine Chessman: tone to her voice, so please just…

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Christine Chessman: The episode for that, if nothing.

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Christine Chessman: So I'm just going to read a little bit from her bio. Caroline's in Edinburgh, that's what it is, it's the Edinburgh, beautiful.

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Ela Law: Isn't it?

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Christine Chessman: Edinburgh-based psychotherapist and movement therapist with over 25 years of experience working with individuals and their bodies. She has particular expertise in eating disorders, which is rooted in her own recovery journey. We… the reason I wanted to talk to her is because

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Christine Chessman: She kind of… what's the word? Bridges that gap between eating disorder recovery and return to movement.

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Ela Law: Hmm.

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Christine Chessman: And kind of talks about the power of movement in recovery, and how important movement can be, and connecting to your body, and that relationship with your body. And, yeah, I just love the episodes.

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Ela Law: Yeah, she… it was just so…

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Ela Law: so interesting to listen to how she does that, that bridging of that gap in the middle that you just mentioned. It's…

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Ela Law: It's that getting into your body, which can be really, really scary for some people, and how to do that with people who are maybe in recovery from an eating disorder, and how important it is to not just think your way out of something, but actually

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Ela Law: tap into your body, feel the feelings and the sensations, so I thought it was fascinating how she.

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Christine Chessman: And if you haven't had an eating disorder as such, it's still really powerful.

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Ela Law: Oh, my gosh.

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Christine Chessman: We're talking about the power of movement quite apart from weight loss, or aesthetics, or body competition, and it is about sort of that slowing down and tuning into your body, and…

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Christine Chessman: Rather than punishing your body. So it's a really, really interesting listen. You will love Caroline. So without further ado, here's the episode!

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Christine Chessman: So, welcome to the podcast, Caroline. How are you?

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Caroline Toshack: Hi, I'm good, thanks. I'm happy to be here and chat with you guys.

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Ela Law: Fabulous! Chatting is what we do very well, Christine, isn't that right?

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Christine Chessman: Yeah, that's what… We do a lot of it, whether we do it very well.

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Ela Law: Well, you know.

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Christine Chessman: So just before we hit record, we were chatting about running, and running in the rain, and running in the sunshine, and movement, and all of that good stuff, so I want to start from the very top, Caroline, with a little bit about you. I want you to take us back…

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Christine Chessman: to how you came to this work. Like, you can be as detailed as you like, just…

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Caroline Toshack: They're asking an autistic person, okay?

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Christine Chessman: Nope.

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Caroline Toshack: Me too.

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Caroline Toshack: I promise I won't. Okay, so… It's been

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Caroline Toshack: I always find it funny to, like, start with where I am here, because it has literally been a 25-year evolution. Like, some people kind of like, but how did you end up doing this? And it's like, well…

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Caroline Toshack: the path, and actually, it is a very, kind of, well, I don't know, you can see the path when you look back. So, I started off

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Caroline Toshack: 25 years ago as a personal trainer, okay? I left a corporate job and went, that is not for me. Became a personal trainer, absolutely loved it.

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Caroline Toshack: It kind of evolved. I then went on to sports coaching.

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Caroline Toshack: And enjoyed that. It was always about the people, I always wanted to do, like, the individual work, and working one-to-one with people, so I became a sports coach. And at the time, I was also, a performance athlete, so I was in triathlon, duathlon, doing…

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Caroline Toshack: reasonably good in duathlon. And so it kind of… this world was all-encompassing with sport.

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Caroline Toshack: I run in biking, and various other kind of sports. It was my job, it was my hobby, it was kind of everything. And…

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Caroline Toshack: during that time, I was living with a kind of quasi-recovery eating disorder.

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Caroline Toshack: So, I just kind of thought that was normal as well, because this was that world of fitness and sport, and particularly back then, sort of 15 years ago, it's kind of the norm, almost, to have this kind of…

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Caroline Toshack: Body image issues, controlling food, etc. But it wasn't the eating disorder it had, so as far as I was concerned, it was kind of not as bad, and it was… this was how it was.

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Caroline Toshack: And then I ended up kind of finding my way into a Pilates class, a kind of chance conversat… it wasn't a class, actually. A chance conversation took me into a Pilates session with somebody.

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Caroline Toshack: And it quite literally blew my mind. Like, I literally had this, like, oh my god, what is this?

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Caroline Toshack: And it was a moment where I was like, I have a body. It feels good doing this.

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Caroline Toshack: this is kind of weird, but I kind of like it. And then just kind of kept going back for more.

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Caroline Toshack: So during that, still working in sport, personal training, and during that time of having these sessions, individual sessions, it was on the equipment, like the Cadillac Reformer and everything like that, it sounds really cheesy, but I found myself. I really did try

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Caroline Toshack: I kind of had this, like, I've got a body, it does things, it's really nice, I like this, why am I punishing myself doing that? And kind of the more I was there, the more I was like, well, that feels a bit of a weird world that I'm navigating in.

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Caroline Toshack: So, kind of professionally, it took me to do more of that kind of work. Trained in Pilates, trained in yoga, kind of mixing it in with individual personal training, rehab movement,

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Caroline Toshack: kind of became more interested in the stories behind the movement, and just because of the type of work I was doing, I was finding people were more, maybe more dealing with chronic things, whether it's chronic pain, fatigue.

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Caroline Toshack: You know, particular pain issues and stuff like that.

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Caroline Toshack: And then I started talking about this amazing thing that's happened, where I had recovered from an eating disorder, and thought that I was already recovered, but actually, turns out I wasn't, because I didn't connect with my body. And then when I started talking about that app, people started coming to me and talking about their

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Caroline Toshack: disorder, or their recovery, or, like… do you know, it just kind of happens. I think people just kind of found me.

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Caroline Toshack: So I found myself, this would probably be about…

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Caroline Toshack: maybe I bet more than 10 years ago.

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Caroline Toshack: Working with a population of people with eating disorders.

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Caroline Toshack: And at one point, going like, oh my god, I don't want to do this, how can I do this? Like, I don't know anything about this. But people were having the conversation with me, and I understood them, and I'm like, yeah, people don't get that, do they? So…

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Caroline Toshack: it just felt like this really kind of natural place to be, and… and at the same time kind of going, I don't know enough, I've not got enough training about this, like, you know, how can I do this work? This isn't the work I'm supposed to be doing, I'm just me, and I teach a bit of Pilates, and stuff like that.

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Caroline Toshack: But, but also, I'm, you know, I was also then learning about it. How can I support these people more? So, I seem to do a lot of other training and sort of therapeutic things, talking therapy, but never really qualifying.

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Caroline Toshack: And then, basically in COVID, I just went, I'm just gonna… am I allowed to swear on this podcast?

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Ela Law: Absolutely, it's encouraged.

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Caroline Toshack: And I just kind of went, fuck it, I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna qualify as a counsellor.

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Caroline Toshack: Which it did, and, and I'm really glad I did.

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Caroline Toshack: But I think, kind of, on the back that I'm now… I had this image of, this is what a counsellor looks like, and this is what we do, and it's all very professional, and we sit, and we, like, sit at a table, and look at each other, and blah blah blah.

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Caroline Toshack: And I've kind of broken away from that and going, well, I'll just be myself and help people and support people, and so, yeah, hopefully that explains that. I now do counselling, and I do work, not exclusively, but I work a lot with eating disorders, probably more than half my

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Caroline Toshack: Half my practice is disordered eating, eating disorders.

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Caroline Toshack: And… And it is a bit of, kind of, everything. Yes, it's talking, but it's embodiment, it's…

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Caroline Toshack: I don't know, just being creative in other ways as well, and…

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Caroline Toshack: Yeah, just kind of finding ways for the person to connect to themselves and their body, and… and I love it. It's great.

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Ela Law: That's amazing. I love that you found yourself, and then other people found you. I think that's really lovely. I saw on your… I've been stalking you on social media a little bit, and I saw that you do something called Movement Meaning. That sounds really interesting. Can you speak to that a little bit?

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Caroline Toshack: Yeah, totally. So, yeah, movement and meaning. It's, it's something that I…

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Caroline Toshack: I don't know, I'd kind of never find my way in groups to really kind of…

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Caroline Toshack: teach movement the way that I really understood it. I mean, I think people tell me in my Pilates classes, we're always… always a bit random, that's what I used to say. It doesn't look like that, hold your cord and do this shape. It would be a bit kind of, like, metaphor shoved in.

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Caroline Toshack: But the part of it is, like, I suppose I maybe communicate it in different ways, because everyone's individual, aren't they?

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Caroline Toshack: What makes sense for one person isn't going to make sense for another person, so my teaching to groups has always been a bit of, kind of, splattering lots of different ways of understanding it in.

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Caroline Toshack: But the bit that kind of, for me, makes sense with movement is that it is a bit of a metaphor for things. Like, if we have stability in our body.

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Caroline Toshack: We're gonna feel stable out with our body. There's a sense of feeling more stable in the world around us.

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Caroline Toshack: And if we feel more stable in the world around us, or in our relationships, or environment, or whatever, we're likely to feel more stable in our body as well. So I can't separate them.

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Caroline Toshack: And I…

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Caroline Toshack: I created Movement and Meaning because I just wanted to bring those themes out, use movement, and then what I do in the sessions is I kind of… I drip feed just a few, kind of, ideas and perspectives, and, like, what… you know, I get… I ask people to kind of stop… I don't get people to do anything, I invite them just to…

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Caroline Toshack: But it's kind of like, you know, maybe when they've found a place of stability.

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Caroline Toshack: Asking them to just stay with that, see what does this feel like, this moment for you?

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Caroline Toshack: And I'll do some reflective points as well, so… so yeah, themes I've done is, like, grounding, like, people are like, oh, we must ground, we'll do this thing, and we'll ground. It's like, well, what does grounding feel like for you? What's going to help you feel grounded? And then now that you feel that, or a sense of that.

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Caroline Toshack: What else do you feel that's outside that physical presence? What else do you notice?

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Christine Chessman: The idea of stability is a really interesting one, in terms… because I've always drawn that…

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Christine Chessman: link in, kettlebells, so I find because kettlebells are this unstable ball of metal, it's a… you know, it's the most unstable bit of equipment you could have if you think about bottoms-up pressing and all of that. And that's why I love them, because you have to create stability in your body to hold, swing, snatch a kettlebell.

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Christine Chessman: So it's very different from…

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Christine Chessman: dumbbells, or things that are just kind of even in weight. It just… and that's why I love it, because I feel it creates that stability, which is mirrored then… there's crossover, isn't there?

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Caroline Toshack: Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah, that makes total sense, yeah, never thought about it like that.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah, so it's… it just… it just struck me when you were talking about the stability.

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Caroline Toshack: It's open.

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Caroline Toshack: kind of use… you've got from that kind of what I got from the poles equipment, because the other thing that I think is, like, resistance. That's another one for me. How do you meet resistance? Do you meet resistance afraid of it, and kind of pulling.

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Caroline Toshack: Do you push it away, or do you kind of find this place where you meet it, and can hold the resistance, and… do you know what I mean? Meet it with the same…

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Christine Chessman: of.

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Caroline Toshack: And when we do it in our body.

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Caroline Toshack: we also do that outside, like, in conversations with people, or, I don't know, in conflict, or there's so many other places that resistance happens, but somehow the…

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Caroline Toshack: Physicality of it.

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Christine Chessman: Hmm.

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Caroline Toshack: Teaches our body, and teaches something unconscious in us as well.

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Ela Law: That's so interesting. I had… I hadn't really…

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Ela Law: Thought about it from that perspective of sort of using it as a metaphor, but that makes complete sense.

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Ela Law: And when you said with the kettle burst, Christine, as well, you have to… there has to be a certain amount of stability to deal with the unstable environment, right? So, that all makes a lot of sense to me right now. My brain is now going, what else can I find where that applies? So, bear with.

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Christine Chessman: And it's also that thing about, you were talking about resistance from the Pilates machines. I find with clients.

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Christine Chessman: When we do, kind of, carries, which is my favourite thing, because they're so… there's nothing… all you're doing is carrying heavy weights.

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Christine Chessman: It's so simple, underrated, but it's just brilliant, because it's all about standing taller, dropping your shoulders down, looking straight ahead, feeling strong in your body, just… and lots of clients have said in life, they find themselves just kind of adopting the stance, do you know what I mean? Because it's all about, don't look down, look ahead, take up space, you know, it is…

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Christine Chessman: And it kind of translates, and that's where movement is so powerful, isn't it?

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Caroline Toshack: Totally, yeah, exactly that.

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Ela Law: So do you have different themes for those movement and meaning sessions? So, do you focus on a particular activity, or a particular aspect?

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Caroline Toshack: Yeah, yeah.

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Ela Law: Okay.

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Caroline Toshack: Yeah, yeah, I've got… I think I… I don't know, how many did I run? Did I run about 6, and then I've taken a break, then they're coming back, purely it was just time and mother stuff. I mean, I've literally got a list this long of things.

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Caroline Toshack: So, yeah, centering, that's another one, kind of…

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Caroline Toshack: center. I just think some of these things are, like, particularly the wellness-y world, it's like, let's all ground and let's all center, and they can be just really arbitrary.

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Ela Law: Nice.

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Caroline Toshack: Some people, but as you feel it, it's like, oh, okay, that's what it means for me. So, yeah.

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Ela Law: Yeah. Yeah, I think that that's right, there's so many words that are being thrown around, and everyone, sort of, who throws them around pretends that they know exactly what they mean, but it's about feeling…

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Ela Law: feeling those things, right? Feeling into your body. In terms of working with people who've got a history with an eating disorder, or are in the throes of one, that can be really scary, feeling their body. How do you approach that?

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Caroline Toshack: Yep.

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Caroline Toshack: Carefully, and with…

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Caroline Toshack: you know, consideration, I guess. Yeah. So, yeah, and it's a funny thing, because when I say.

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Caroline Toshack: I'm a therapist who works with eating disorders, and I work in an embodied somatic way.

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Caroline Toshack: I don't know, I think there's this assumption that we're not gonna… it's not gonna look like this. We're actually…

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Caroline Toshack: Often, the sessions will start very much two people sitting and talking. I might even give homework. It might look a bit CBTE, it might very well be quite cognitive.

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Caroline Toshack: because I'm meeting the person where they're at.

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Caroline Toshack: And… and for me, it's a…

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Caroline Toshack: And I always think people come to me for a reason, right? So if I've… if I've said that's who I am, there's something in them that kind of is gravitating towards that anyway, even if it's…

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Caroline Toshack: not where they currently are. So… I don't know, it just becomes this process of… it might be that sometimes…

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Caroline Toshack: Like, how would it be to take a breath?

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Caroline Toshack: And that… that's the starting point.

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Caroline Toshack: It might be that we do a little bit of a stretch, or we kind of just push… push the screen away and do stuff.

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Caroline Toshack: other sessions can be… I mean, it's not unknown for me to have a dance party with a client. Put some music on and just let it all kind of move. So yeah, I mean, it might be a bit of yoga, but the approach in it is…

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Caroline Toshack: even when people come to me saying, like, I want to work a bit more thematically, it doesn't mean I'm going to jump in and do that with them.

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Caroline Toshack: Getting a sense of.

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Caroline Toshack: Okay, because sometimes you can do that, and it can just unleash a whole load of stuff in somebody that's too…

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Caroline Toshack: So yeah, I don't have a nice, neat answer for that, because it's completely individual, but,

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Caroline Toshack: I don't know, sometimes people are… sometimes people do come to me when it's the right thing. So, an example would be if somebody, maybe where I was when I found, kind of, more mindful movement,

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Caroline Toshack: maybe somebody has come through a certain element of recovery, and they're like, I'm just kind of managing it, and surely there's got to be more to this. That might be when we actually start with movement, and we maybe start

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Caroline Toshack: often I'll start with yoga, just because people are kind of more,

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Caroline Toshack: understand what yoga is, I suppose, yeah? Yeah.

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Caroline Toshack: That might start like that.

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Caroline Toshack: And actually, sometimes what happens then, we end up talking as well, so it might be sometimes we move, sometimes we talk, sometimes we move, sometimes we talk. Because in that same way that I was saying to you about, like, say, for instance, the theme of stability, if we're only doing music and movement and not talking.

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Caroline Toshack: Then we're not, kind of, integrating the two, kind of, world, outside world.

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Caroline Toshack: body, brain, etc. So…

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Caroline Toshack: So yeah, it's… I mean, it's completely different for every person.

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Ela Law: Yeah, and I think it should be, really, because everyone is different. I love that.

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Christine Chessman: I just… we did, we had a podcast chat yesterday with Deb Benfield, who is, she's written a book on unapologetic aging, and, she's also a yoga teacher, but she… very much in the same way, she talks about the relationship we have with our bodies, and…

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Christine Chessman: You know, and the embodiment, and the semantics of… it's just…

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Christine Chessman: It seems to be that that is key to, kind of, that recovery from disordered eating, chronic dieting, eating disorders, because you get so disconnected, don't you?

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Christine Chessman: From talking from experience, you get… you really don't think about what your body needs, or what… you just push it all down, push it down, repress, you know, it's just suppress.

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Christine Chessman: All of your needs, or all of your cravings, or all of your signals.

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Christine Chessman: And it's very hard, and it can be quite vulnerable then to start…

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Christine Chessman: being in your body again, and actually… So yeah, I can imagine it's just very individual, because some people will be at very different stages when they come to you, I'm assuming?

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Caroline Toshack: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, I work with a whole spectrum of people who are… who are very underweight, and then people who binging is their, kind of, main behaviour.

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Caroline Toshack: And in larger bodies, and so there's… and there's… there's physical safety with everybody, as well as kind of mental and emotional safety.

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Caroline Toshack: But yeah, whatever… I mean, you're exactly right, isn't it? It's all just kind of…

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Caroline Toshack: It's all shoved down in some way or another. It's all… an eating disorder's numbing, isn't it? I mean, that's…

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Ela Law: Well.

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Christine Chessman: What I find fascinating is what… sorry, Ella, I'm just taking over…

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Ela Law: No, no, no, go for it.

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Christine Chessman: It's… from sort of first-hand experience of my daughter being in treatment, it is very much, do not move.

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Christine Chessman: Sit still. Do not walk, do not do anything, just sit and eat what we give you, that's it. Don't… if you feel full, you just gotta keep pushing past that, you've got to finish your plate, you've got to do it in this time. It's… to me, it's very disconnecting, and I know it's a…

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Christine Chessman: There's a bit of need there, because if somebody's very ill, or they're very underweight, obviously medically unsafe, they need to get to a point where they're…

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Christine Chessman: not in danger, and I understand that completely, but it is…

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Christine Chessman: It's extreme, and the idea that you could offer a gentle movement or connection to somebody who's…

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Christine Chessman: in the throes of a severe eating disorder of any descript. I just find it so important.

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Christine Chessman: And it's such a… you know, it's still not the mainstream, I would say.

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Ela Law: Hmm.

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Caroline Toshack: Yeah, I mean, I totally agree with you, and I do think it's so difficult, isn't it? Because there is a physical safety in some ways, but… but it's… it is just kind of…

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Caroline Toshack: It's recovery through thinking, as well, thinking and doing, not feeling.

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Caroline Toshack: And, you know, there's places where

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Caroline Toshack: there's elements… ugh, what do I try to say? There's instancy.

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Caroline Toshack: absolutely minimum amount of movement is what's going to help someone at a certain point, but I do think the minute

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Caroline Toshack: Any kind of movement or connection can come in, has to come in as… As soon as safely possible.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah.

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Caroline Toshack: So, because you're right, I don't think you can recover from an eating disorder if you're not connecting with your body, if you're feeling that embodiment. So, in my world, it should be there.

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Caroline Toshack: Through, through it all. From, you know.

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Caroline Toshack: It should be there in hospitals, it should be there in.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah.

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Caroline Toshack: centres, and I think it is in some, so I work.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah.

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Caroline Toshack: recovery clinic for a while, and I was their movement therapist, and…

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Caroline Toshack: I was just like, oh, what a breath of fresh air.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah.

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Caroline Toshack: Allowed to do this with paper.

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Ela Law: You have that, yeah.

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Caroline Toshack: Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah.

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Caroline Toshack: And I know, and I'm really fortunate to know somebody who works in the eating disorder unit that's near me. I don't know, it's about 20-odd miles away. She's a physio, and she's a really specialised physio, so she has that kind of embodiment aim, and will…

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Caroline Toshack: try to bring stuff in when possible, even if it's sort of psych-ed around the body, and bringing the body into conversation in a more connective way, and then bringing in… she'll do things like body scans with people, and…

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Christine Chessman: Hmm.

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Caroline Toshack: stuff like that, which, I mean, it's amazing, but there's… I think there's, like, 5 physios in the country who do that.

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Caroline Toshack: I know.

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Ela Law: That's tragic, isn't it? I mean, that should be part of every recovery program, for sure. It's so important when it just really brought it home when you sort of said about, you know, thinking your way out of something. You just can't, can you? You can't have…

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Ela Law: that in isolation, that's just not going to work if you can't connect to your body. You're never going to get to a place where you feel like you're recovered, or you are feeling stable, or you're feeling like you are…

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Ela Law: you know, making progress, if you're not allowing yourself to feel what's going on, that makes so much sense. It's just…

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Ela Law: Oh, such a sorry state, isn't it, that we haven't got that support for people.

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Caroline Toshack: Scandinavia, if you… because you're both interested, but I know from, like, that movement sort of connection you were talking about, Christine, in Scandinavia, it is threaded through recovery.

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Ela Law: Nice.

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Christine Chessman: Thank you so soon.

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Caroline Toshack: on, some kind of embodiment. They do, like, body awareness, and it's… apparently, I mean, I haven't been there to see this, but their clinics are essentially, well, yes, we'll do the food, and yes, we'll do, like, you know, the psychotherapy, and yes, we'll do the bodywork. I like that just is their kind of model.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah.

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Caroline Toshack: Which is amazing.

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Christine Chessman: M…

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Christine Chessman: Scandinavia is also for things like physiotherapy after childbirth, it's just… you just get, like, months of physiotherapy, pelvic physiotherapy, and we're, like, in this country, it's like, what?

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Christine Chessman: Just get away with a leaflet. There you go. Good luck. But yeah, I was wanting to touch on something that you said quite early on, which was about yourself and your own story, and how it applies to maybe our listeners, or…

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Christine Chessman: You know, many of us, to be honest, being in that messy middle, where you kind of think, I'm fine now.

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Christine Chessman: But actually, you've still got those behaviors and those thought processes going on. You know, you're still maybe compensating in so many ways with movement. I find that's a really common theme, that, you know, you're eating maybe a little bit more, you know.

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Christine Chessman: what's the word, Ella? A bit more intuitively, maybe, or just eating a little bit more normally, in inverted commas, but you're compensating with just upping the exercise. You're suddenly really into running, or really into… Yeah, it's… how do you get… do you work with people who are in that phase quite… yeah.

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Caroline Toshack: Yeah, yeah, and to be honest, I think… I think that is…

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Caroline Toshack: possibly one of the hardest phases.

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Christine Chessman: Hmm.

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Caroline Toshack: Because it seems so functional as well, doesn't it? And so much, so much reward around that, oh my god, you're so dedicated, you're so that…

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Caroline Toshack: Oh, I wish I had that endurance, and so there's… there's a lot of praise comes with it, and to not have that, or to feel like, you know, if you're not doing them out, you're not going to have that, is…

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Caroline Toshack: Skating.

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Caroline Toshack: And… and the weather is that, kind of…

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Caroline Toshack: well, I know if I do this, I can eat, or if I've eaten in, I'll do this. They're so fused in with each other, and it's absolute common language, isn't it? Like, you know…

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Caroline Toshack: I'm not always a member. I happen to be a member of a gym just now, and every so often I go, I don't know if I might be in the gym.

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Caroline Toshack: Is there folk going, oh, I've been… I've done this, so I can go and eat cake, can you just…

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Ela Law: Burn your calories, right? Yeah, that sort of narrative.

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Caroline Toshack: Hopefully. I mean, I think it is…

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Caroline Toshack: I see it better than it used to be. I mean, it's still… maybe it's just all fucked up in a different way, but…

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Caroline Toshack: It's like, they think they know the language they shouldn't use, but there's an undercurrent to something else instead. But, yeah, I do, I think it's so difficult, and actually, for me, that…

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Caroline Toshack: Compulsion exercise was by far the hardest thing to break.

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Caroline Toshack: I was just gonna say, have I broken it? I have broken it, but it'll be the first thing that'll return for me, if I'm, like, feeling really crap about stuff.

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Caroline Toshack: I'm just gonna go and do more exercise this week.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah, yeah.

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Caroline Toshack: or even the pull towards it, even if I don't, the pull towards it is more difficult. It's not now for me with…

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Caroline Toshack: like, oh, I'll do this and I'll look better, or I'll be able to… that that's completely gone, but it still is a kind of…

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Caroline Toshack: impulsion in some way to deal with my feelings, I guess.

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Ela Law: Hmm.

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Christine Chessman: And that's a really hard one to brick, I think, because I'm exactly the same, and I've…

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Christine Chessman: Yeah, I've always got that with running, that weird relationship, because I do love running very much, and I've done marathons and things, but…

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Christine Chessman: I don't know, I kind of go in and out of it, because I do find sometimes my relationship a little bit toxic with running. Even though I do love it, I can get very easily sucked into, okay, I'm gonna do a marathon now, I'm gonna train all the time, I'm gonna go… and it…

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Christine Chessman: I might have to go, why am I doing this? Why? You know, you have to really… because to some degree, it does make you feel good. You get the endorphins from long runs, you… there's nothing wrong with enjoying a run.

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Christine Chessman: So, it's… it's work, isn't it, Carol?

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Christine Chessman: Yeah.

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Caroline Toshack: Yeah, it totally is, and I think it's the, I was just gonna say that, like.

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Caroline Toshack: No, some of it is, like…

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Caroline Toshack: I mean, I would… I would say I'm recovered, not in recovery. That's how I describe it, but I have these shadows of behaviours that, when they spin round again, are kind of like, what's going on here? Like, what

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Caroline Toshack: Right, and I think he…

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Caroline Toshack: And that's, I suppose, what I'm trying to say is that's what I will do with clients. It's like, right, okay, what was going on there, right?

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Caroline Toshack: shame the behaviour, let's understand that there's a lot of different things going on, there's kind of culture going on, and social media, blah blah blah blah blah blah, of course you're going to do that.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah.

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Caroline Toshack: You can be held back to that. What was really going on here?

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Ela Law: Hmm.

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Caroline Toshack: you know, as I'm doing that with clients, I'm doing it with myself at times as well.

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Christine Chessman: Mmm, so fun.

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Caroline Toshack: I might be… I might be a bit further down that journey or something, but it's still, when it circles around, it's like…

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Caroline Toshack: What's going on? Was that really the best thing? Probably not. Is it really that bad in the grand scheme of things? Like, let's not barter myself about, but let's be conscious that maybe next time you want to do something different, and…

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Christine Chessman: Hmm.

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Caroline Toshack: Yeah, I do think, and some of it, I think, probably is just that

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Caroline Toshack: Physicality of it as well,

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Ela Law: Yeah.

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Ela Law: Almost done.

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Caroline Toshack: conscious pill.

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Ela Law: It, it, I think, I think it is…

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Ela Law: because it… because it makes you feel better in the moment, it's really tricky to disentangle that from disordered behaviour, isn't it?

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Christine Chessman: Mmm.

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Ela Law: But I think the key here, what you both said, is being aware of it.

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Christine Chessman: In a warehouse.

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Ela Law: That is where the work really comes to fruition. If you're doing the work.

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Ela Law: yes, you might still engage in those behaviors, or when shit hits the fan, you might think, oh, I'm gonna go on a 12-mile run. But being aware of, oh, okay, that is why I'm going on a 12-mile run, because things are going pretty badly right now. I think that awareness is key, isn't it? You can still go, but don't beat yourself up.

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Ela Law: Over it, right?

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Ela Law: Yeah. Can I… can I move in? I think this is probably kind of related to… to what we were just talking about. I saw a post of yours on ADHD and dopamine.

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Ela Law: And I feel like sometimes these behaviors also are dopamine-seeking behaviors, where we want to have a hit, and we just need that, oh, this feels great. And you said something about,

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Ela Law: Seeking dopamine in and of itself as a reward thing isn't a bad thing, it's just…

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Ela Law: Is there a more nourishing way of doing that? And I absolutely loved that, and you covered lots of different areas, like movement, and novelty, and completion, social, sensory, all of those kind of dopamine-seeking activities that we may engage in. There are some that are more nourishing than others. Would you mind sort of sharing a little bit about that? Because I think that is just amazing.

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Caroline Toshack: Yeah, she says, now trying to pull that post into her head.

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Caroline Toshack: Yeah, so I… there's a couple of things with… with dopamine. That…

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Caroline Toshack: How do I describe this?

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Caroline Toshack: So, in a… let's use… this isn't just about eating disorders, but I'm going to use that as an example, okay? That somebody is in eating disorder behaviors. Yes, they might… are in that kind of compulsive towards exercise.

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Caroline Toshack: Might go out and absolutely pound themselves with a 12-mile run, and afterwards, like, yes, brilliant, they've got that hit from it, right? And…

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Caroline Toshack: And that… that can be… in the conversation we've just had, that can be nourishing in some instances, but it can also not be. And it's about what behaviours are more self-punishing. Like, so, there's so many things that I've been… you know, scrolling through Instagram.

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Caroline Toshack: dopamine, dopamine, dopamine, right? It's like, there's nothing bad with scrolling through Instagram, but is it really the most nourishing, or is this numbing you? Is it taking you away from something?

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Caroline Toshack: equally, I can't think of things, but I suppose it's about the ones that are maybe a bit more on the self-punishing, or.

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Christine Chessman: Mmm, fantastic.

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Caroline Toshack: But at that time, there's a dopamine hit from it.

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Ela Law: Mmm.

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Caroline Toshack: engine's the same, right? And…

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Caroline Toshack: And what's the cost of that afterwards? So you get a high spike, and then feels good, and then you're left with that, whether it's shame that comes after it, or kind of like, God, what's that done to my day, or da-da-da.

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Caroline Toshack: Yeah.

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Caroline Toshack: And then there's the more nourishing ones, where, like, yeah, it's gonna give you a dopamine, it's gonna do some movement, but can this be more nourishing? Can this be…

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Caroline Toshack: I don't know, if we're talking about a 12-mile run, can this be a 6-mile run that has a couple of little intervals? It gives you a little bit of something, and then towards the end, it's much, much slower, and you come out with it, but you get a little bit of something, and actually you go away properly feeling good from it.

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Caroline Toshack: Or you put some music on and have a dance party, and, you know, telling the person that's beating themselves to, like, always flog themselves in the gym to do a dance party is like, no, I'm not going to do that. But essentially, it's like moving them towards those kind of things that are more nourishing and bringing in more nourishing ways of getting dopamine.

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Caroline Toshack: High hits in the self-punishment.

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Caroline Toshack: Those… I think those ones as well is where you get a more sustainability, as opposed to…

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Caroline Toshack: Big spike, big drop, big spike, big drop, and then with that, there's a lot of…

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Caroline Toshack: Shame, guilt, regret, frustration comes in.

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Caroline Toshack: behavior time and time and again, but you're getting the same result, which isn't actually nourishing and sustainable and satisfying.

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Ela Law: That makes so much sense. So it's the… it's the sustainability part of it that… that doesn't have the shame and the guilt and the… you know, when you sit there and you scroll through Instagram for an hour.

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Ela Law: that inevitably makes you feel, oh god, I've just wasted my time, I feel really bad about that, I shouldn't have done that. But choosing something else that might be social, unsociable.

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Ela Law: would be, sort of, lasting you a lot longer, and keeping you, at a certain level of…

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Ela Law: Feeling good.

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Caroline Toshack: Yep.

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Ela Law: Okay, that makes sense.

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Christine Chessman: I had a little…

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Christine Chessman: nice dopamine-seeking experience this weekend, just like what you were saying there, Caroline, is I was… I really felt need to go for a long run. I've not been running longer than, kind of, 3 or 4 miles for a while, and just, there's a lot of stuff going on, and I thought, I just need to get out, and the weather was looking cool and lovely, and I thought, right.

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Christine Chessman: And rather than doing the 12 mile, or the… which would have been silly, because I just hadn't been running that much, I did 3 miles to a really nice cafe.

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Christine Chessman: And had a flat Y, and walked along the beach, and then I did another 3 or 4 miles back home, slow, with a podcast on…

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Christine Chessman: Lovely. And I still got the miles in, more than I'd run. I still felt really good afterwards, but I didn't feel like I'd punished myself.

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Christine Chessman: And, you know, it was like, used to be I couldn't stop if I'm doing a run. You had to keep going, keep going. Whereas now, I have no issue stopping for a coffee, or just, like, taking a little seat for a minute, or just… and I think that's…

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Christine Chessman: That, to me, is where I've grown.

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Christine Chessman: But I still think the…

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Christine Chessman: But I want to go for a long run. So it's… it's… and I want to challenge myself, so I always find I'm questioning all the time, is this…

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Christine Chessman: Healthy? Is this not? Is this…

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Caroline Toshack: Yeah, this is where the sweet spot of challenge.

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Caroline Toshack: As opposed to the full-on flogging it all the time challenge.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah, and it's… Ella, do you feel… so this is… I find this interesting, as somebody who's not from an eating disorder background, why do you think with… with movement just…

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Christine Chessman: Yeah, quite like it. Is it a different experience for you? Because that's… I think I will always slightly think about movement in those terms, just because it is…

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Christine Chessman: Those neural pathways, but do you just move? You don't think anything about…

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Christine Chessman: Oh, I should. There's no kind of…

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Ela Law: No, I wouldn't say that there's none of that thinking, because I live in the same sort of diet culture world as you guys, and I, you know, whether the eating disorder will just amplify all of that, I would imagine. But yeah, still, I mean, it's been a long road for me to come to a place of exercising for other reasons.

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Ela Law: Because I'm not… I'm not a natural… I'm not naturally drawn to exercise from…

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Ela Law: growing up, it wasn't ever something that my family did, that I was particularly bothered by, and initially, whenever I did exercise, it was to, maintain weight, to lose weight, whatever it was. So that was always entangled, those two things.

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Christine Chessman: Oh, wait.

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Ela Law: kind of together. If I exercise, I can have that extra cake, or whatever. I, I, you know, that, that also happened for me. I think now I…

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Ela Law: with a lot of work, and doing the intuitive eating, movement has become something that I do so I feel better, or I feel stronger, but those thoughts still crop up every now and again. They're still, like,

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Ela Law: maybe the other way around now, because when I exercise, I feel hungrier. So, it's that way around, rather than me thinking, oh, I can now eat that cake because I've exercised. It's more like, oh, that's why I want the cake, because I have exercised. Does that make sense? So it's a nuanced difference.

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Ela Law: But that's taken a lot of work, and…

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Ela Law: reflection and being aware of what's going on in my body. So, I would say, for you guys, coming from an eating disorder background, it's probably a lot more amplified, and you must question it a lot more than I might be doing. But yeah, I…

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Ela Law: I think I know what you're talking about, but I don't know to what extent, if that makes sense.

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Caroline Toshack: Yep.

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Caroline Toshack: Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: It's… I mean, it's kind of… you were saying you're in a gym. It is just everywhere, it's the kind of sea we swim in, isn't it? That, you know, your summer bodies are made in winter, and get the Miley Cyrus arms, wear the tank tops in summer if you do this workout, or, you know, the Christmas shred, or the…

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Ela Law: Thanks.

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Christine Chessman: It's just, it literally is equating movement, weight loss. Movement, weight loss is just…

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Christine Chessman: you know, across social media, it's just inextricably linked, and I find that…

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Christine Chessman: That's the hardest thing, certainly, with clients. I don't know if you find that…

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Christine Chessman: is generally, Caroline, it's the hardest thing to go, actually, here's what movement does.

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Christine Chessman: You know, weight loss is over here.

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Caroline Toshack: Yeah, I think, I mean, it depends on the client, but I actually think there's quite a lot of awareness.

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Caroline Toshack: diet culture. When people come to me, there's…

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Caroline Toshack: There's some awareness that diet culture isn't helpful, and it's there, out there all the time.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah.

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Caroline Toshack: I think it's where it's…

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Caroline Toshack: threaded through from an early age to them. Maybe they're not realizing how much of that… even though they might be conscious that this stuff actually isn't good and isn't healthy, they're maybe not aware of…

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Caroline Toshack: Well, for whatever age that person is, it's been there through your whole life, you know?

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Christine Chessman: M.

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Caroline Toshack: You might be aware of it now, but the impact of that, and where you believed that at that age, or where this happened, that's kind of in your psyche and in your behaviour somewhere.

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Caroline Toshack: I think that's more where I experience it, but it's possibly just where people come to me, and at what stage they're coming, or what they're…

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Christine Chessman: I guess that's right, because probably, Ella, if somebody was coming to work with us as well, they're gonna be searching out us for a reason, aren't they?

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Ela Law: Yeah, exactly, exactly, because we… we are slightly different from other providers and, and therapists that… in that, you know, we… we… we work on a different…

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Christine Chessman: They're gonna have an awareness.

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Ela Law: Yeah, they will have sought us out, because we offer something slightly different. Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: And they would have an awareness of diet culture and how it's impacting them, wouldn't they? And it's almost like it's no…

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Ela Law: Yeah.

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Ela Law: I get it.

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Ela Law: a lot of people that contact me who have been practicing intuitive eating, but they got stuck somewhere along the way, or, you know, they're in eating disorder recovery, and that's the sort of thing, the next step for them, that sort of thing, yeah. But there's always… I've never had anyone contact me who said, what's intuitive eating? I've never heard of that.

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Ela Law: That's… yeah.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah, I wanted to ask you, Caroline, what is next for you in terms of… have you got any… so I've got two-pronged questions. It's not the right word, but you know what I mean. So, I'd love to know what movement goals, if any, you have. So, coming from that athletic background…

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Christine Chessman: Have you got any goals in the next year or so, two years, three years, that you really want to accomplish? Are you goal-driven? And, you know, at the moment? Or…

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Caroline Toshack: Welcome, personally, for me?

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Christine Chessman: Absolutely, yeah.

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Caroline Toshack: I'm glad you asked that.

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Caroline Toshack: It's an interesting season, man.

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Caroline Toshack: So, I… so on the outside.

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Caroline Toshack: I've entered a half marathon, and I am possibly going to do a duathlon at the end of the year. Now that I've told you, it's going to be, but anyone who listens.

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Ela Law: We have to do it now.

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Caroline Toshack: The reason for that is I've… I've really not been able to run healthily for a long… for… it's just not been there. Like, I crash… physically. I will go for it and I'll crash and burn, and that has been the…

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Caroline Toshack: that has been my head going, I need to be like this. I need to still be fast. I need to still be like the athlete I was, even though I'm clearly not.

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Caroline Toshack: Much older, but it's… I think it's been sort of an identity I've found really hard to let go of.

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Caroline Toshack: And I didn't run for a long, long time. I mean, we're talking… probably I didn't really run for about…

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Caroline Toshack: 3, 4 years, but feels a long time for me.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah, yeah.

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Caroline Toshack: I… I always have a go, and then I'd just crash and burn, and my body would go like, yup, you're not now doing anything for, like, the next two weeks. So, I… for the past year, I kind of went on this…

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Caroline Toshack: I wonder if I could run healthily.

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Christine Chessman: Wow!

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Caroline Toshack: I've now been running for a year, and I've had my moments where I've suddenly went, I'm gonna go and do the World Champs and Diathlon again.

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Caroline Toshack: And went, what the hell are you doing here?

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Caroline Toshack: again, I've caught it, and I've just been… I've just been really enjoying running, and… and also, I mean, this is a whole conversation, which we don't need to get into, but also discovering I'm autistic and ADHD, and like, there's… I need movement, I need…

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Christine Chessman: Yeah.

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Caroline Toshack: Certain format to… to help me with my overwhelm in the world.

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Christine Chessman: Yes.

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Caroline Toshack: So it's been that, that I've been exploding it, and I have entered a half marathon. I couldn't care less if I start… if I get to the start line, to be honest. It just kind of gives me something there to kind of go, I'm gonna go for a longer run. If I get to the start line, I don't care remotely the time that I say that now, I don't care…

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Caroline Toshack: But I'm not pushing, I'm not striving, I suppose. I'd love to do duathlon again, because

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Caroline Toshack: I just love those sports. I love running, I love cycling, and I love running, and I discovered that what I… my autism really likes being in an event with people, where we're sharing something, I don't have to speak to them.

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Caroline Toshack: Yay!

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Christine Chessman: That's my opinion.

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Caroline Toshack: So… so I'm kind of playing with it, and yeah, I've definitely not set goals as such, I've more.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah.

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Caroline Toshack: There's that thing that I might do.

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Christine Chessman: It's really… I really wish you all the best with that, because I've… I've bored people with that, because I… the last marathon I did, I hated it. I hated every single minute of it, and it's… it was such a strange thing for me, because the other ones, like, you just do it, this is… I'm in the mode, I have to do it, I have to suffer, I have to keep going, I have to, like, put myself through it. Whereas the last one, I think it was almost my body was going, I've had enough of this.

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Christine Chessman: You have gotta stop doing this to us!

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Christine Chessman: And it was like that… I hated it, and I was just, all the photos, it was hilarious. I got sent all the photographs from the marathon, I was just crying. My hand on my head just crying. And people just kept going, why are you upset? Didn't you love it? It was amazing. And I was like, no, it was awful.

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Christine Chessman: And I think I just needed to go, no, I need… I need a proper break from running, I just need to walk away. And I think I'm slowly coming back. I'm thinking maybe I'll do a little, like, a little, little half marathon next year.

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Christine Chessman: Just because I do really enjoy that. There's something so exciting about the start of a race, and just seeing all people from all different walks of life, different bodies, different backgrounds. It's just, there's something really lovely about it.

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Christine Chessman: But it's, yeah, it's a process, isn't it?

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Caroline Toshack: Totally, totally. And I'm open to it. I might… I might do that and go, do you know what? I'm never going to do a running event again. Actually, I might just give up running completely. I don't think I will, but I'm totally open to that, that's like, yeah, it's just not in my life anymore, and if that's part of the process, then that's part of the process.

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Ela Law: Yeah, but you've got to try it one last time, if that is indeed the last time, right? To see if it's still the.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah.

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Ela Law: you enjoy.

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Christine Chessman: Absolutely, and professionally, what goals? Have you got anything coming up next, or…

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Christine Chessman: Anything? Are you writing a book, Carolyn?

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Caroline Toshack: It's always about getting written.

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Caroline Toshack: Never getting written.

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Caroline Toshack: Do you know, I'd probably say at the moment, I mean, I am the queen of ideas, I have had loads of things that I want to do, and I'm just sitting in a place just now of going.

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Caroline Toshack: do you know what? I got here, and, you know, if 10 years ago you'd told me this where I was, I would have been like, my god, no way. So, I'm actually kind of just enjoying not forcing myself to do anything.

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Ela Law: Nice.

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Caroline Toshack: But that said, we had a conversation, Christine, didn't we, about why is nobody doing, like, anything with Pilates and eating disorders? Maybe I should run a training course, maybe I'.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah, yeah.

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Caroline Toshack: There will be… there will be some stuff, but I'm kind of just waiting to see what…

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Caroline Toshack: gee, this is gonna sound… this will not sound weird. I'm saying it and going like, my God, Callie, did you just say that? I'm gonna pick the thing that feels the easiest to implement.

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Ela Law: There's nothing weird about that, I think that's… that's…

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Caroline Toshack: What does it say?

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Ela Law: Perfectly legitimate.

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Caroline Toshack: I mean, like, suddenly the, my god, like, my high expectations and striving, I just went, I'm just gonna pick the easiest.

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Ela Law: Yo!

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Christine Chessman: Honestly, that whole Pilates and eating disorders, because that's when I started to connect with my body, and that's only COVID, the year of COVID, which is 20… that's 6 years ago. You think of how long I've been quasi in recovery, but it was that slowing down, and breathing, and connecting to your breath, and actually tuning in.

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Christine Chessman: changed things for me, and I think it's so important, so… Keep us posted, Caroline.

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Ela Law: Yes.

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Christine Chessman: But thank you so much for coming on the podcast today, and we will put all of your details in the show notes so that people can come and work with you. And, yeah, and we look forward to hearing all about the half marathon.

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Caroline Toshack: I haven't told anybody about it.

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Caroline Toshack: you know.

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Christine Chessman: It's out there now, I'm afraid, but lovely to talk to you, Caroline. Thank you for joining us today.

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Ela Law: Thank you so much.

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Caroline Toshack: Thank you.