I Beg Your Partum?
Whoever said the journey to motherhood was a straight path clearly never had to decipher an expired pregnancy test or navigate the labyrinth of fertility treatments. Join us, Jade and Katie, as we swap tales from the trenches of pregnancy symptoms and trying to conceive. We're here to provide dubious advice, hot and lukewarm takes, and a feminist perspective on pregnancy and parenting. Whether you're in the throes of your own pregnancy odyssey, cheering from the sidelines, or just here for a good story and a laugh, pull up a chair. We're glad to have you along for the ride!
(Please be lovingly advised that WE ARE NOT MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS and are not providing any medical or legal advice of any kind. We are just a couple of women talking about our experiences as honestly as possible.)
I Beg Your Partum?
Episode 3: Eating Disorder Horror Stories Part 1, Jade's Story
This episode comes with a BIG FAT TRIGGER WARNING: Jade and Katie are sharing their experiences with body dysmorphia and eating disorders. That content begins at the 21 minute mark. We also discuss pregnancy loss and PCOS.
In very obvious but still a HUGE bummer news, eating disorders don't take a break during pregnancy. This episode, Jade describes her WAY TOO EARLY descent into food restriction and mommy-daughter diet buddy behaviors. She also talks about her weird blood sugar stuff and the cruel ignorance of doctors and other medical professionals. We have a brutally honest discussion about how even though both of us are proud of the progress we've made, trying to get pregnant and the body changes that come with pregnancy are rife with potential regressions. Katie describes why she prefers the phrase "in recovery" to "recovered from" an eating disorder.
The non-ED content includes more discussion of food cravings, current symptoms and feelings, and the incredible joy that 18-week baby kicks bring. (The feet are the size of QUARTERS! SO. CUTE!)
Thanks for going on this harrowing journey with us - we'd love to hear your story or experiences with body issues during pregnancy via email at hello@ibegyourpartumpod.com. We want to read your letters in a follow-up episode soon!
For resources on eating disorder recovery, please DO NOT visit NEDA - instead, we recommend looking into working with amazing dieticians like Dietician Anna: https://www.wholeliferd.com/meetanna and looking through the resources from the Association of Size Diversity and Health: https://asdah.org/
The following episode of a Beg your Partum contains personal stories of struggles and recovery from eating disorders, which should come with a trigger warning for those of you sensitive to honest recountings of such stories 21 minute mark is where the discussion starts.
Speaker 3:Hey, hi, jade, welcome back. Welcome back to Beg your Partum. Yeah, this is where we talk about our pregnancies.
Speaker 4:I'm Jade and I'm Katie, and today we're talking about our eating disorders Wow. Also known as eating stuff. Eating or not?
Speaker 3:Or, and mostly, not eating stuff. Or eating stuff and then doing real bad stuff afterwards.
Speaker 4:And then taking other actions.
Speaker 3:Other actions that undo the eating.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yes, very bad. Do not recommend eating disorders.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:This is what she wrote out of every star.
Speaker 4:And Katie and I originally bonded over. Yeah, was that we've both recovered from eating disorders and a big part of those recoveries were breakfast cereal.
Speaker 3:Breakfast cereal was the most important conversation. Yes, yeah.
Speaker 1:Wasn't it only the only food that you.
Speaker 3:I can currently eat.
Speaker 1:Unquestionably tolerate.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah, so there is like that. So Jade and I wanted to bring this up right Because it's being pregnant in a larger body and then I wouldn't call myself recovered. I'm using my own language. This is not like the current language that therapists and psychologists and psychiatrists use, but I actually use like the substance abuse disorder term of like I am in recovery, because I don't think of it as like I'm not recovered, like yeah, I'm not doing like a hundred percent best job at being like done with that stupid nonsense in my head. So I think it's much more fair to myself I think it's like a gentler way to say it to be like I'm in recovery.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, right. Did I say moments ago that we were in? You said recovered, recovered. That's so interesting.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:Well, okay, so we'll get to this because we want to kind of each do our own stories. I have a couple of questions I can ask you about yours, and then I'll just try to basically take the same beats that you did for your story that sounds good.
Speaker 4:Do you want to tell me how you're doing?
Speaker 3:Yeah, let's do like a little progress update. What do you think? Also, guys, the boys are here.
Speaker 4:The boys are here, the money is, the boys are joining us.
Speaker 3:We've decided that they were funny enough to rejoin us, to rejoin us Be invited back. They can be, and then they were very well behaved. Yeah, flash. Well, we can ask Pat if he wants to do Purr Warner again.
Speaker 4:I think the Purr Burt Corner will decide if it is going to happen on its own.
Speaker 3:I think it's natural. Pat is not a Natural for him.
Speaker 1:I have a dunce cap, but instead of dunce it says horny.
Speaker 4:Oh God, and that was.
Speaker 3:That's Patrick, that's my name. Is Katie, that's my husband, pat.
Speaker 4:And yeah, walkers here.
Speaker 2:Hello, hello.
Speaker 4:And Lofa's here too, he might say something later or right now.
Speaker 3:Lofa's hurting all of us, even though we're stationary. Yes, all right. Yeah, so where are you, jade in your pregnancy progress?
Speaker 4:I'm 18 weeks today the baby is starting to kick just a little bit. Can actually? I can actually feel it. Yeah, very excited. I was like desperate to feel it. I was like, and also angry, because I have an interior placenta, so there was like a chance I wouldn't feel it for another like month or so. And I kept like trying to Google like what does it feel like? And people are like oh, it feels like little flutters or like Little old fish Bubbles popping. And then one person was like it feels like a tiny foot is kicking you from the inside and I was like that's a really great description of it. That was very literal, and so I Googled how big the feet are of an 18 week old fetus and they're the size of little quarters. So I was trying to imagine like a little quarter like hitting me from the inside, and that's what it feels like. I love that.
Speaker 2:So it's like someone throwing loose changes.
Speaker 4:From the inside and I only feel it on like the right side. So I'm guessing my placenta is like over here somewhere. But whenever I eat something there's just like little Food.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like winning a thought machine, school thought.
Speaker 4:Exactly like Winning a thought machine. So many quarters, exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is crazy because when we gave the little booties to my parents to like let them know, I was like I cannot imagine feet being this small.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, that he is much smaller feet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, ways yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I really struggled with that, like logically, when people would give us baby clothes and I'm like he's way too small for this, like he's the size of an avocado, but by the time he needs clothes he doesn't. Yes, that's what will fit, he'll grow into it.
Speaker 1:Yes, he will. I'm telling you, your baby is naked right now. Yeah, and you refuse to close it.
Speaker 4:Yeah that's basically what's going on. It's the winter, Jade. It is the winter. I'm a terrible mother.
Speaker 3:You're a man Already with the mom guilt which I just automatically refuse.
Speaker 4:We also have a photo of his little butt on our refrigerator. I love that and that's normal.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we have all the pictures we're going to have like a giant pin board of it. Oh hell yeah, from tiny, tiny little kidney bean with a brain hole, yeah.
Speaker 4:To yeah, as far as we got Toll all the way up Whoa Until he's on the outside or she will find out. Maybe tomorrow we literally will find out.
Speaker 3:Sorry, I keep interrupting.
Speaker 4:Yes.
Speaker 3:And then what kind of symptoms these are you having, other than dog sounds? Yeah, I think loaf life he's a bit taken away. Are you having any newer symptoms since? Because I think like a month and a half ago we were recorded.
Speaker 4:I know it's been a while.
Speaker 3:So what's new? It's new, what's gone away.
Speaker 4:Little kickies. My energy level is just like totally different every day. So some days it's like I feel totally fine and I like don't forget I'm pregnant, but I'm like in denial that I'm pregnant. And then other days, like today, I'm like how do people function? I think I worked from like noon to like a solid 130 today and was like I'm done An hour and a half. Yes, solid work. Also, I'm not allowed this is the worst part, I'm not allowed to lay on my back or my stomach anymore.
Speaker 3:For sleeping.
Speaker 2:For sleeping yeah.
Speaker 4:But also I do most of my work, like laying on my stomach in bed.
Speaker 2:So you have to like sit up.
Speaker 4:just horrible, especially at this time in my life. You don't have a back hump, I have a yoga bow and laptop.
Speaker 3:Got it Many strangely shaped pillows are currently in the house and will be in our future.
Speaker 1:This is the Montessori profession.
Speaker 3:Oh, stop, we'll get to that. I've started reading the Montessori baby and so everything is Montessori right now. Oh, yes, exactly.
Speaker 4:But yeah, I have a big snuggle. It's like a pregnancy pillow, but like I'll wake up in the middle of the night and it's like my hip hurts and my side hurts and I need to like roll over. But you have to take the whole thing with you to roll over and then every time I wake up I have to pee. So last night I peed five times, night before that was six times.
Speaker 3:It's like literally every hour, like wearing the snuggle around you, like a boa to like go to the toilet.
Speaker 4:I have worn it around the house just for travel. You can travel with the snuggle, but no, it doesn't come with me. But then I have to like get back into it and it's like really comfortable until it isn't. But I love to like toss and turn and I just can't anymore. I keep being this is me being a bad mother. I did sleep on my stomach for like a 30 minutes last night because I just fucking had to.
Speaker 3:Seriously there's no. It's too hard.
Speaker 4:It's too hard to do the thousand things you shouldn't do Like Emily officers all like you can sleep on your back. It's really like there's maybe a slight risk if you are one of the people that it's going to like cut off circulation to you.
Speaker 3:Right, and especially if you're moving around, if, like, the circulation is going to circulate.
Speaker 4:But also it's like you would know if your circulation is cut off, like I hope.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm not sure. That's what I'm not sure.
Speaker 4:But I'm sure someone who listens to this eventually will be like that is untrue.
Speaker 3:We're going to get like emails on email. We're going to, we're doing our best and we're going to be authentic as possible. But yeah, I think we're going to get, if pregnancy life, if pregnancy, being pregnant, like solicits, the amount of unsolicited advice that we're getting. Yeah, it doesn't end, it's fine. It's fine. Strangers come at us, right?
Speaker 4:How are you doing? What's going on with you?
Speaker 3:Oh wait, I would love to answer that. I'm fine-ish. But what are the foods? What's on rotation? Cantaloupe, cantaloupe.
Speaker 4:I ate it like you can get In the winter. Again it's winter. It's like a watermelon and cantaloupe and grapes in there, heck yeah.
Speaker 2:It's cantaloupe out of season.
Speaker 4:I'm slowly, I'm sure it is, but it's good.
Speaker 3:Listen, it's a magical thing to be able to eat those out of season fruits right now. We don't recognize season fruits out of season fruits.
Speaker 4:Season fruits Right Okay.
Speaker 1:Like most white families. Jesus.
Speaker 4:That's not me right. So you can get like a half gallon of like pre-cut cantaloupe for $7 at Whole Foods. I know like it's too expensive and I've been eating like one a day. It's so delicious that's really good.
Speaker 3:Thank you, I think that's really good. There's so many good vitamins and nutrients, biological availability of like, especially vitamin C and stuff and fruit Girl yeah.
Speaker 4:On time Right.
Speaker 3:Fiber, whatever Big time fiber.
Speaker 4:Big time hydration. I know I was just eating Christmas candy all day, every day. This has vitamins in it as well. I'm like mostly like worried about the financial burden I'm putting on the family.
Speaker 3:Like this is already with the cantaloupe Line item is just way too high.
Speaker 4:I guess I'm drinking the fruit is too damn high. I guess I'm drinking less coffee, so like, maybe it's balancing out.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:But $7 for like an hour of joy for me.
Speaker 3:I paid almost nine for the cut fruit at Publix with pineapple and strawberries, because that's only that's all I want, and I don't want to cut it myself, no. Yeah.
Speaker 4:I was busting it open on the way home from Whole Foods. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:For two years I worked in a produce department.
Speaker 3:And you could actually eat.
Speaker 1:And we have good knives at home, like I can just like.
Speaker 3:Don't put this on your list, man, it's going to go on your list.
Speaker 1:No, it's so easy.
Speaker 3:It's just All right, it's so easy. Jade's looking at you like.
Speaker 4:Yeah, saving our house over to our house.
Speaker 3:You hear some cantaloupe for you. I bought it.
Speaker 2:Should we do a slop for a while? Just some good cantaloupe.
Speaker 4:What are we going to do? Come hang out All right, we'll just come over to your house and drink all of your filtered water. Come on.
Speaker 3:Come on, we'll just we're drinking all your seltzer tonight. Come over, drink our seltzer and paddle Cut you some fruit. Hell, yeah, I'm in. I love it. Okay. Yeah, so I feel I feel better. I am weak. 13 and four days Okay, so I'm in the 14th week. She sounds wild.
Speaker 4:That's a big week.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so like after 12, when does the second trimester start exactly? The bump says I've been in the second. No one knows. The book says that we've been in the second trimester since completion of week 12. Correct. And then, like the bump, and then another book says the week 14. When you're in, you know when your second trimester starts. So I'm like what is happening?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I thought it was like, cause people are like oh, it's the beginning of week 13 or it's the end. I took it as like 14 weeks was the beginning and that's when, like my symptoms shut off, like the nausea shut off, so that's like a good that's a good week.
Speaker 3:Might hasn't shut off you, jerk. Sorry, it's okay, it's still there. And I have reverse morning sickness. I don't know if I mentioned that before, but it's like the mornings are good, slash fine, and then, by like three or four o'clock, touch and go so by in the evenings. Usually I'm not good, but I waited to take my B6 and unisom right before I came over here, so I'm doing okay.
Speaker 3:So right now, yeah, less less weird stomach herty stuff, which is a huge energy, is definitely a little better. I'm still sleeping really nicely, which is bomb. That's really rude of you, sorry. Food is weird, but I'm actually like wanting things, whereas like a month or so ago it was. Everything is terrible and nothing tastes good or sounds good. Caesar salad is still on heavy rotation. I've never been a fruit girl Like I mean, I like some or whatever, but it's not something that I would eat, even weekly. Like let me get some fruit. And now it's like 14 different fruits a day. That's amazing. Prunes I'm the only person on earth that will electively eat prunes.
Speaker 2:I don't even know what a prune looks like.
Speaker 3:I like it. It looks like a weird sticky date that hasn't been dried yet. Oh yeah, they're about like that big around.
Speaker 2:Like a gigantic crea-raised fruit.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but like softer. They're soft. Yeah, I love them. Most people think that they are disgusting. I'm a huge fan, and I have been forever, but I stopped taking the Zofran because that was making me constipate it and bloat it and like three days without pooping is wildly strange and like just this very weird mental place, and so I was like, fuck that, I'm not doing that anymore. Stop taking the Zofran. Just back to B6 and Unisom. Basically the same for me. Okay, this doesn't do that much. Yeah, we're back on schedule, so feeling great about that. Nice Congratulations, thank you. Thank you so much, thank you. Oh, I've been going to the freaking gym. Yeah, that's amazing, good job. What is happening? I don't know. I just feel like it actually takes the edge off the nut. Like I found that the exercise helps and all the books say this. But I was like, yeah, right, books.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's like the women who like work out so they don't have bad period cramps. It's just like can't relate, Can't relate Just lay down it's not me. I have found that being a little bit like physically active makes my brain work better, which I mean obviously makes sense. But like when I'm like officially just like wiped for the day after an hour of work, I'll like go do something physical, like build a little baby bed and then like I'm back to being slightly functioning.
Speaker 3:I'll just go for a walk for almost an hour in the cold air and I'm like cold air. Look, I love you.
Speaker 1:That'll do it too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and then the peloton at the gym. I don't know what's wrong with me, but it's good. It's good, it's a good thing. So that's where we're at. I think we're doing pretty good, we're doing great. So the nice segue that I had was that like we all actually want to talk about the eating disorder journey, which I keep calling the ED journey, and then when I say that Patrick is like I have, men have ED too.
Speaker 4:Men do have eating disorders too, and we don't talk about that enough.
Speaker 3:He's talking about a rectile dysfunction, I know, which is much better studied than eating disorder.
Speaker 4:And isn't it covered by insurance? Fully covered by insurance.
Speaker 3:So rude.
Speaker 1:For us when we were on our fertility journey we, we should stop using the word journey.
Speaker 3:I kind of want to curl.
Speaker 1:We got the basically the talk because I have good insurance in my company but, like most insurance in the United States, they draw a line between what is infertility and what is fertility what?
Speaker 4:is out fertility yeah.
Speaker 1:So basically, infertility is like ED and they're like oh yeah, we'll cover your viagra, it's basically free, but like your gonal F, which is $1,000 a pen and you need four of them for a single cycle of IUI, yeah, that's fertility, and we only cover a lifetime maximum of like two grand for that.
Speaker 3:Truly think about the audacity of these people. Oh God, what are they called the?
Speaker 1:HMOs.
Speaker 3:No, the A word actuaries. They're the people who determine all of the algebra and calculus that goes into like how much stuff costs and what they're going to pay for and what they're not going to pay for, and it's this like giant statistical mess. That's about ROI and whatever. But that's wildly fucked up that they just made up a term and said this is our definition of this term and this term and this is what we will and will not pay for. Like that's not a real definition. They just made it up and now we have to pay money.
Speaker 4:Did you hear that they just changed the definition of infertility Like in the last few months? What no? So it now includes basically like so many other reasons why you might not be able to conceive, like if you're in like a same-sex couple or above a certain age or whatever, and they did it for insurance purposes. So like you can get like much better care now, even if it's like you're a man married to a man, so obviously you're going to need like different services to have a baby.
Speaker 3:That's cool. Yeah, we have awesome timing.
Speaker 4:Yeah, would have been cool. What a year ago yeah yeah, I'm glad you learned that, yeah, fun, it's fun.
Speaker 3:But yeah, like, I just feel like this has been coming.
Speaker 3:The eating disorder stuff has been coming up for us so much because being pregnant in a larger body has a bunch of sticky wicket stuff, and then it's also being laughing at sticky wicket, thank you. Then we also have like certain things about this being not being able to eat or being able to eat, whereas before we wouldn't eat things. I think both of us had this experience, like wouldn't eat things because they're bad foods, right, or foods that are restricted or not allowed, but now it's like, no, I just can't eat those things. And then the joy that we found in the recovery process is like, oh, I enjoy this food.
Speaker 3:Eating this food is like a joyful experience and I don't feel guilty about it and doesn't bring all these worthiness things up. And so it's like you do all this work to get here just to have that joy of eating taken away from you, right. And then I think there's like a lot more little landmines that I didn't expect. There's some like little bright spots too, but a lot of like landmines that I was not expecting to come up that was like a very succinct like explanation of this whole thing.
Speaker 4:Thank you, that's like your like Barbie movie mom.
Speaker 3:Right, my America of Ferrera like a lot of it.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah, it's a lot. So I just wanted I thought it would be nice if, like, we would talk like, talk through, like, your experience versus my experience. So this is definitely trigger warning space, right, like we need to probably make a note of the time so we can. So anybody who's still dealing with this doesn't want to hear actual stories because we'll probably say some stuff that is triggering. Yeah, probably, yeah, just in case. So, my like, do you want to give like, a little like, give us a tour of your eating disorder experience Chronologically? How would you? That was my question I found on the internet. How would you describe, like, the start of diet culture, eating your brain, or like, where did the body dysmorphia begin?
Speaker 4:Oh God, that's a great question. It's also like Katie and I have been friends for a few years now and we talk about this all the time and we do not talk about it in like a super like. I want to say PC, but it's not like a PC thing. It's just like there's there's kind of the way that you, you speak to kind of like protect people who are at different phases of, yeah, recovery. Yeah, I'm like already catching myself thinking I cannot make those jokes. I need to stop myself. Oh, I don't know.
Speaker 3:I kind of think that we should like. I think there's something very cathartic in being able to process this in a way that's almost shocking. Yeah, okay, so if we want to listen, back, or if you all you know what the boys can be our nice guardrails, if you're like, wow, that's disturbing, maybe we should not do that, okay.
Speaker 2:Sure, I don't know that either one of us is easily disturbed, though, so I'm not sure that we're going to be very in referees for this.
Speaker 4:He should not yeah. It is not like good guardian.
Speaker 1:And the numb to the horrors of this, not numb but like, like, like, like receptive. So right.
Speaker 3:You are held, you're part of our processing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh sorry, I'm sorry. When you talk about it like frankly, in ways that might trigger somebody else, it's like it, like, like it doesn't. It doesn't like I'm Irvius, yeah, it's it's. I'm like, yes, like that, that makes sense because you've explained your own purple psychology like surrounding it. Yeah, it's just sort of like. Yeah, like it's, it is how you think it's, like me being bipolar, you know it's just sort of like hey, it's your praise fucked up. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was just going to say like, like there's years of recovery here and we're both married to y'all. You know, like I'm, it's nothing's going to shock me in this conversation, whereas you know somebody who may have no understanding of this world or this experience. You know, I have no idea what will be shocking or not. I guess it's all in all I'm getting at. But yeah, I mean all four of us have had our own recovery, whatever in like very different ways, so I don't know.
Speaker 3:I like that. Yeah, let's just go.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I was about to say too, cause, like y'all have your own recovery things as well and like I'm so comfortable around being people who are in like recovery from different things that I will like say really like things. That probably like if you're in the club you would say to someone but like I'm like sitting there, with a cost real, being like, oh you're gonna fucking Martian or something.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Anyway, sorry, yeah, so like.
Speaker 2:I still fuck it and I've marked down when this conversation starts. If we want to like record, like a little thing to go before the podcast starts, like yeah.
Speaker 4:Like, let's do it. So, basically, like my story begins, I feel like the moment I was conscious and like I think I was honestly like predisposed to having an eating disorder, but it's so hard to tell. Like I grew up in diet culture, grew up in the nineties, my mom was always dieting. All the women in my life were dieting, and that's what you talked about. As a woman was like, oh, I could never eat. That it's so sinful or like whatever, like that's just like.
Speaker 3:You have that fun sinful element.
Speaker 4:Oh yes, yeah, we brought God into it. It's like a fun layer than.
Speaker 3:I.
Speaker 2:Not even like this food is bad.
Speaker 4:This food is sinful, sinful, but what's all like? Stare at it and you know whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you bake a cake, just to look at it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a whole eating disorder thing. They make food and then give it to people. They make fattening food and then you give it away.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'm certainly guilty of that. That's a thing, that's a huge thing. Yeah, so that's a really thing, yeah sorry. Time's up. But yeah, I know like my first experience restricting food is that I decided I was a vegetarian for no reason in elementary school.
Speaker 3:So it was like elementary school.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and like it was just kind of like I wanted to control my food in a way, like I had no reason to like. And then the moment my mom was like that's a bad idea. I was like okay, like I just I wasn't that like adamant on these things, but it was like something. I feel like it was something to like set me apart and then also like some way to like feel like I had control over my life. But of course that's me saying it now is like a 30 something year old. How were you For third grade?
Speaker 2:How did you know what vegetarianism was?
Speaker 4:That's a great question.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a very good question. I have no idea. Culture, yeah, I mean like it's early man this was like 2002 in South Georgia and you were 10. I know you didn't know a single vegetarian. That's true In real life.
Speaker 4:And I did I don't know a lot. Certainly not I have to take a parent's though I did, I like, would just choose different ways to restrict food. Growing up as well, even after I was like full on doing diets but like I was like vegan for a year and it was all just like.
Speaker 3:You lasted a year.
Speaker 4:Yeah, in Albany In like I would eat, like Like what did you eat? Burritos for Moes, and like we didn't have any like tofu, just like wasn't there, we didn't have that. Yeah, that's not.
Speaker 2:I'm a pre-sliced skinned.
Speaker 3:They stop you at the border of Georgia and they're like get that out of your grocery truck, you can't have tofu here.
Speaker 4:They're like sitting in Atlanta. They're like, no, no, you don't have that down here. But yeah, I started dieting in the seventh grade and I don't want to throw anyone under the bus but, like my mom and I were diet partners and I had the like extra incentive of like I'm making my mom proud and like I was so good at Nutrisystem in the sixth, seventh grade and like that would keep her accountable and it was like neither of us needed to be doing this stuff. I was not like not that any child needs to be doing this.
Speaker 3:No one needs to be doing this.
Speaker 4:There was no like doctors being like oh, you need to diet. As a seven year old, or whatever, you know, it was just like I just did this to myself and then I hit puberty and I am a curvy person and I like overnight, became a very curvy person. There are bra sizes I skipped and like it was really traumatic this was not a gradual process.
Speaker 3:This was like we're going from two by four to like melon.
Speaker 4:Yes, yeah, I was like that was good candle. Yeah, I remember like changing it for, like Jim, and someone being like that broad does not fit you. It fit yesterday. It was so dramatic, but I just thought I had gotten fat overnight or something.
Speaker 3:Right, because any size increase equals fat.
Speaker 4:Yes, yeah, and I just panicked.
Speaker 2:And like Is this also like the evangelical? Like we can't tell you if you really is, sort of thing, or is that not?
Speaker 4:It's like I knew what a period was, but no one was like oh yeah, your entire body shape is going to change. And I also Like it's funny because it's coming up with the baby too, because we're like what's he going to look like?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Because like I'm eight inches taller than my mom and like that happened when I was in the eighth grade. I just like shot up, yeah, and so I was like way taller than Like I'm the same height as, like, my dad, and then like very like curvaceous out of nowhere and my mom was always like quite small and like just I was like where did my body come from? Oh, my god.
Speaker 2:Just for the listener Jade's dad is short.
Speaker 1:Short king.
Speaker 4:Short king. Oh my god, I'm going to throw up. Anyway, I was just really confused and I thought like I could just not eat and like this would work. And then like I think it just like became like a thing over time. I also was praised whenever I would lose weight. Oh yeah, by like not just family, but like community, yeah, like people in the church and like whatever they would want to know my secrets and like, oh my gosh, you're like so.
Speaker 3:That element of like there's. You're this very knowledgeable person that, like, people want to come to for a diet, like because I was sorry. I just had this realization Because it's like I didn't get as much of that body changed up, but I got, like I was the diet friend. So I had this huge thing in my recovery, probably like 2015 or so, where I was like, will my friends still like me if I'm not the diet friend? Like, anyway, yeah, sorry.
Speaker 3:So that's tough to have every single outside influence, not only wider diet culture, not only your family, but also your peer group and your community yeah Right, those are all reinforcing these extremely unhealthy behaviors, right At this adolescent brain phase where, like, that's where this little mechanism comes in, where it's like if I don't eat food, I control what I eat, I make my body smaller, I can control my life, I can control anxiety. So it creates this fun, sarcastic little dopamine loop in your head where it's like cool, that's what I'm going to do in order to feel good about myself. Yeah, instead of all of these other things that you could do to feel better healthy, that you could do to feel good about yourself, yeah, and so it's just. It just feeds you that when you're in that adolescent phase it just sticks and so it's so hard to unwire later in life. And I think that's yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:So, yeah, I got crazed for my willpower. I would do the absolute craziest diets with my mom and I will not like go into them. But I think we kind of realized in hindsight like she didn't stick to them as well as I did. But I was like I'm doing this to make like my mom proud of me and so like nothing is going to stop me from doing anything Right, which was hard.
Speaker 4:But then, like I went to college and I like met Walker and I met like a big recovery community because of Walker and I kind of was in this idea of like, oh, maybe I used to have an eating disorder, like in the past, maybe this was.
Speaker 3:How old are?
Speaker 4:you 22. 22. And you're like, maybe I used to have, yeah, and like I was eating, what I was eating was, like all over the place, kind of questionable, like looking back. But, like I thought I was normal and like consuming food and whatever. But someone recommended this body positivity book to me and I read it. What was it?
Speaker 3:Body positivity power by Megan Jane Crabb and she used to be body posi panda on Instagram.
Speaker 4:Okay, she's so cute.
Speaker 3:She's so cute yeah.
Speaker 4:And she breaks down all of diet culture and how it affects everyone and the history of dieting and how it has trends and body types have trends and all this crazy stuff that to me now feels obvious. It's like the water where she wants to get you see it all the time now, but I had never seen any of this stuff before.
Speaker 4:And my main thing, growing up, I'm skipping, skipping a part, but I'll make it fast. I've always had really low blood sugar. All the time. I just thought that this was Because of no calories, because I wasn't eating anything.
Speaker 3:Because she thought it was so hungry.
Speaker 4:To the doctor thinking I had diabetes or something when I was 18. And she told me that if I lost weight, that I would stop having my blood sugar. And it's just one of those things like they weigh you, they measure you. It's like my BMI might be in the overweight category. That's just something I've had to accept at this point. I can look ill and look too thin and I'm still gonna not have the perfect BMI.
Speaker 3:I guess just Can we just get a big fucking. Fuck the BMI, fuck the BMI. It's very silly, this is so dangerous. Everybody listen to maintenance phase.
Speaker 4:Yes, but it was like they don't ask you what you're eating. And if she'd asked me what I was eating, she would have found out I was eating less than a thousand calories a day, naturally, not even trying to die. It was just a part of myself, right, but then she told me to lose weight and I was like, okay, I can lose weight, and so then it like Done that before, yeah. I feel, like that was nails in the coffin, so that was when I was like 18. Fuck, was just like.
Speaker 2:I guess so sorry.
Speaker 4:Just consistently horrified and like trying to lose weight for the rest of my life. I felt like then I got to college I kind of like lacked stuff on. It Wasn't that big of a deal, yeah, whatever Other thing Thought maybe I had like recovered or whatever. Then I read body posy panda. I learned about atypical anorexia, which is actually just like anorexia. Like it's it's just anorexia. It's not actually atypical, it's the most typical Right, which is where you have all the symptoms of anorexia, like you can't fucking eat and you're not eating.
Speaker 3:You're restricting giant groups of food and, yeah, there's unhealthy relationships with it. Yeah.
Speaker 4:But you just don't look like a skeleton, like you don't have like the BMI of someone who's like a five year old or something, I don't know.
Speaker 3:Right, you don't need to be on a feeding tube.
Speaker 4:Yes, so you don't look visibly ill and so people don't notice Correct, and that led me to realize that I had a new disorder. But it also like it got me really excited about intuitive eating and I was like, oh my God, I'm gonna try this, I'm gonna eat whatever I want. I worked at like my first big girl startup job. I had been there two entire weeks and they had like tons of snacks and so I was like I'm gonna eat Lucky Charms and like all these different things that I haven't eaten in forever. And there was like a few like days of like euphoria, of like I'm eating food, I have energy, I don't feel like shit. Your brain is like, finally, yes, and then I like hit this wall of like disassociation and I'm a pro disassociator and this was like next, well, I fell out of my body.
Speaker 4:And I started having panic attacks like multiple times a day, and it was like my brain is like oh, we aren't. We're not like controlling food anymore. What else Something's dad's gonna have. We're like out of control.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 4:It was horrifying. I remember like the food insecurity kind of kicked in where I would be sitting at a meeting and my metabolism is speeding up. So I'm like burning up. I have like a fever because my metabolism is speeding up so high. Because it's been so low for so long. Your body's just having a party and I'm like I'm gonna starve to death in this meeting, as if I couldn't have exited the meeting and like gone somewhere else.
Speaker 3:So this is like a symptom of long-term anorexia or restrictive eating that, like I bypassed. Like this is so this food security or insecurity situation is, I'm like, fascinated.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we went on a trip to Chattanooga. We have been in Atlanta, so we're talking an hour in the car and I made Walker stop multiple times for food, just in case I got hungry. I had not felt hunger signals, probably since I was in middle school, because they just cut off when your metabolism's so low, because your body's like oh, there's no food. I'm gonna quit reminding this person.
Speaker 2:It was really strange. I mean, I didn't know any of this really was going on like at all.
Speaker 3:And then you just came up, you cut to two. She wasn't like. I read this book and it's.
Speaker 2:No, no, she told me. My recollection is you went to see Nutritionist or something and you were like, hey, I got diagnosed with a V-disorder and it felt very out of nowhere. I mean, looking back it's like okay.
Speaker 4:It's a lot clearer in hindsight.
Speaker 2:It was, I think, probably also because you didn't have insight around it. It was very much just like you know, almost like you weren't trying to hide it from me because you didn't know it existed. Yeah, Is that right? It wasn't shady. It was just sort of like like every one time you went through a phase like you wouldn't cook with oil and I was like it's gonna be dry, like what Like.
Speaker 3:Why would you do that, but it?
Speaker 2:never occurred to me that like I just I didn't know, you know, yeah, yeah, it was interesting because it was just like you went from being like you know, I'm only gonna drink soylents, and like food insecurity was like the complete opposite of what, and then, like overnight, it was just like you're worried about starving, despite the fact that we, like, lived in America near like yeah, restaurants and groceries, like it was like you couldn't have had more access, and I know it's not like a rational thing but like for me to like witness that.
Speaker 2:I was like what is going on.
Speaker 3:Right, that's like this big old whiplash moment for you.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and like an average day of like consuming food was like skip breakfast. I would ride my bike to work. I would drink a soylent for lunch, which is like a protein shake. It's like the tech bro protein shake.
Speaker 2:Yes and.
Speaker 4:I was really into like startup culture at the time, oh yeah girl.
Speaker 3:So I'm like, and you get blood transfusions too Over.
Speaker 4:Just like over caffeinated had not taken like a decent shit.
Speaker 3:Like airs how you avoided cigarettes. I'm very impressed.
Speaker 4:That is impressive, isn't it?
Speaker 4:Tons of coffee, like tons of caffeine, okay. But then I would like walk on the Beltline, which is like a big sidewalk in Atlanta, for my entire lunch break, and then I'd go to Pure Bar after work and then I'd ride my bike home and then Walker would have made like spaghetti or something. I would eat like a fourth of the plate of spaghetti and be like I'm full because I felt full, like I wasn't lying to myself, and then that was it, so like and I was not thin and so I was like I, so no one's going to be concerned about you Including myself.
Speaker 4:I was like, oh, if I wasn't eating enough, I would be like super thin, like that's just not how it works.
Speaker 3:Did you have the super fucked up thing of like this is really fucked up? Of like, if someone said that they were worried about me, that I'm you're so thin, I'm getting worried about you, I was like, fuck yeah, Willpower Queen, like I am doing it right. Like this is the most incredible compliment that another human being could get, like give me Like that was early days for me, but whoa buddy.
Speaker 4:Oh, I love that. I absolutely love it, my mom was like you look too thin and the thing is like I got too thin a few times and it's really disturbing to think back on, but I was even in like too thin where my mother is like something is not okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 4:I was still in like I could have lost another 30 pounds.
Speaker 3:We were. Neither of us were ever underweight Right, right, right and like still been like oh, you're in the perfect BMI. I have my hip bones protruding by about two inches each. Yeah, you know and like, but I still look. I don't look unless you see the bones. Don't think I look skeletal.
Speaker 4:That was one of the things that really disturbed me was I was waking up at night because my hip bones hurt and then I still wasn't thin enough. It's like, oh well, I got this far, while I went to go for another 30.
Speaker 3:You know Right, it's wild. What's motivating? No-transcript. No, thanks you avoided some really critical like this is good, great, I know. Yeah, like we did not need the extra cliffs.
Speaker 4:I would have run that tumblr if I had known about it. Oh my God.
Speaker 2:I would have with your like, high achievers.
Speaker 4:Right, I've been moderating that shit.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 4:You don't deserve to be here.
Speaker 3:And you were full on on the internet. Yeah, absolutely, oh my gosh.
Speaker 4:Anyway, I entered recovery. I feel like I'm going way too way too long, Should I?
Speaker 3:No, this is. I feel like this is illuminating Right Like anyway, well not only that, like the story gets better from here.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I guess it's the story. We have to do the story, the up part, yeah Right. So I saw a dietitian who was like a eating disorder, informed, body positive dietitian Because I thought that's what I needed.
Speaker 3:I didn't insist you guys, we didn't. We would recommend not going to normal dietitians. Only if you have any issues with eating restrictive food, any of this stuff. Don't go to a normal dietitian. They'll give you some. The chances are they will give you some wildly bad advice. So go to one of these.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah. So yeah, there was like a picture of a birthday cake on her homepage of her website and I was like so, yeah, but like she would talk to me about like this is what you should be eating during the day. Like she walked me through, like, hey, if you're riding your bike to work, eat before that, yeah, and then you eat again when you get to work two hours later. And so she like really helped me through the like she would call, like I could call her and she would like walk me through meals. But somehow I managed to keep my job because I was literally sitting there and my entire focus was like eat the biscuit. Like for an hour when I got to work is just like I'm going to eat this and, weirdly, eating.
Speaker 3:That's what's happening now, though. Sort of Right. It's like I have to concentrate on eating the sandwich. Yes. I got to eat the whole thing, which is like triggering us.
Speaker 4:Yeah, sorry, I don't.
Speaker 1:Yeah, get my head, there's so much information.
Speaker 4:But I did have this like revelation. One day we went to Chipotle like with a few coworkers. I said something that did not land with someone else and they kind of gave me like an oh okay, like awkward or something. Like they it was a weird thing, like they said awkward or something, yeah, yeah, I know.
Speaker 4:It wasn't great, but I went from starving to like I can't eat anymore, like I ate one bite of my burrito bowl, and I went to therapy later that day and made a joke about how it's like the other ED, because it's like I just lost the ability to perform. Yeah, and, and she was like it sounds like this is like very connected to social anxiety and you need to not eat lunch with that girl anymore, which felt like the most basic advice to give someone. I think I was like 25 at the time and she's like telling me who to eat lunch with.
Speaker 3:But it was. You can't sit with her anymore. Yeah, but, but we need okay, we denied ourselves basic human instincts for so long. You do need to be coached through. Yes, hey, this is tied to this thing. Don't be around that person anymore. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean the dietitian connected me to a therapist who was giving me this insight. She was really cool. She's one of those therapists I like look back and I'm like I hate her and she and she like knows that like we could, because she would like challenge me constantly.
Speaker 3:Oh, like you were like fuck you, you're making me do this, but this is good for me. Yes, okay, yeah.
Speaker 4:I was like I don't know she. She did not hold back, she was not like gentle with me and I needed that. I kind of think people who have any?
Speaker 3:I don't. I think there's gentle ways to speak to yourself yes, right or like and you have to have someone basically yell at you to tell you and very harshly say be nicer to yourself, and then you'll be nicer to yourself.
Speaker 4:It's wildly strange. It was one thing she said at one point. I can't remember what the story was, but I was like I just I'm really struggling with this and she's like, yeah, you fucking eating disorder. You know, like you didn't eat for like 10 years. Of course, this is difficult. Really frank therapists like top tier it was great Top tier, but anyway, oh yeah, I feel like I've I've lost my story.
Speaker 2:We're a big pro therapy group You're just talking about the dietitian.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Who to eat with the therapist.
Speaker 3:Don't eat with her the essential anxiety.
Speaker 2:It's really connected to that Don't eat with whoever she was. Yeah.
Speaker 4:Anyway, I just realized I was like loaded down with trauma and like every direction. My therapist was also Jewish, which was really cool because I have like a lot of trauma in like the fundamental Baptist region. So she had no idea what I was talking about and so she had no background to be like I don't know. She didn't have her own opinions and so I could just like talk to her about it and that was oh yeah, like freeing this, like open, yeah, yeah, that's nice.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and also like I often had to offer clarity, like she would ask me what something was and like that kind of helped me, like break it down a little bit more too.
Speaker 3:But right, like noticing what's not normal, like. But what is the disordered thinking? Or what is kind of that program thinking versus what's maybe not as per.
Speaker 4:Right, yeah, culturally yeah, and I think like the last like piece of the puzzle I asked one day I was like are there any like gyms that I could go to, where there's not going to be like weird shit written on the walls and like they're not going to ask me to bring in a picture of my goal body? Yeah, yeah. And they were like yes, actually one is opening. It was the first body positive gym in Georgia and probably the universe and probably of all time.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and it was like opened by a woman who was my age, who had an eating disorder as well, and like was in recovery. Oh, let's start one. And like it was so wonderful and like so nice during that time to first like make a friend in her, because I didn't know anyone else who had an eating disorder.
Speaker 3:Oh, but you did, you just didn't know. Oh, I'm sure I had, or they didn't know Right, yeah, yeah. And there was like a giant wall of broken scales. Yeah, smash them.
Speaker 4:Smash this and they had like personal trainers who would like actually just like help you do shit, and that was like a magical time. And then COVID hit and the world ended and it was very sad they're still around.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we should shout them out by name. Oh yeah, there's any Atlantans listening? Oh yeah.
Speaker 4:Go to Clarity Fitness and say hi to Abby. They're great. Clarity, clarity Fitness.
Speaker 2:This is great.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but anyway that's so reinforcing Right. Atlanta was a really great place to recover. There was like lots of great resources, yeah.
Speaker 3:It was fantastic. Better than here.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, that's what I've learned. I bootstrapped it, yeah, basically I think it was like six or seven months in, I like became a different person or something like became the person you guys know and love now.
Speaker 1:I love you.
Speaker 4:Yeah, who talks, you know and like, has a personality. You're just too tired to have a personality when you can't meet, and it was like amazing working and realizing like how much more I was capable of. I'm such a workaholic. This is just me being excited about it, it's okay, it's just a phase. It's just a phase, but, like my career took off and like every like, all these things that I did not think were possible were suddenly like in my hands, like I had friends, and like all these things that I just didn't have before.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it takes up so much space, yeah.
Speaker 4:And I think one of the most pivotal moments was I got on the elevator with my therapist after our session. Like we just ran into each other, like one of us had gone to the bathroom, whatever.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we didn't need to get on the elevator together and I wouldn't talk to her and she was trying to talk to me and she was like this is weird and I was finally like I don't know if I'm allowed to talk to you and like my husband was like in school to be a therapist at the time. So I think I had some like preconceived ideas of like client, yeah.
Speaker 3:Patient privilege, whatever yeah.
Speaker 4:And I was like I'm talking about that next week. I was like okay, and basically she called me out on like I just enter every situation with the other person's boundaries in mind, Like I'm trying to like figure out what they want me to be in that situation.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:And she's like why don't you just go into a situation with your own boundaries and see what happens? A wild idea and that like blew my mind. I was like shocked that you could do that.
Speaker 3:It is truly.
Speaker 4:I made it into a thing but, like truly, it is kind of a revolutionary concept, yeah, and that even goes into like us meeting and like immediately like talking about eating disorders with cereal.
Speaker 3:But you were still very like. If you want, may I ask?
Speaker 4:this might be like a sensitive question and you're super kind and thoughtful about it, but also like getting your number and like texting and being like oh my God, like we have to like right.
Speaker 3:Then we got coffee and then we hung out for like six hours and I was like what Holy shit?
Speaker 4:Yeah, but like that would not have happened, like I wouldn't have like allowed that to happen.
Speaker 3:Like reach out and like open up a little.
Speaker 2:Yeah, legitimately the most introverted person I knew. And now she's like an extreme extra.
Speaker 3:I was like, yeah, that made a sound boring. I did not mean that at all.
Speaker 2:I just mean she's like very friendly and nice and well.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I'm not actually a theater kid.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 4:So I was a theater kid.
Speaker 3:That's why she sounds like this and not like you know oh, and not lack a little like situation All right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:I used to write a number of syllables in words, but I loved theater because I knew what I was supposed to say. You know, and I knew what their action would be Very controlled human interactions. Improv could not.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, improv, go, fucking, get out of here, if we go off book by a word.
Speaker 4:I'm like, oh God, what are we doing?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that makes sense. I've actually even seen like a chain, like since I first met you till the past, let's say, eight months oh thanks, there's. You definitely like speak up more and like group conversations Like you're still very you're like a great listener. You still kind of like wait until somebody else is finished, which I don't know how to do that, but like you, you like you speak up more, like you share longer, that sort of thing Like, and you're louder, like volume wise, you know, just rad yeah.
Speaker 4:I do struggle in like groups of people talking, because there's no such thing as waiting for people to be done.
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 4:Like you just have to start talking, you do. And I'm really bad at that, so I will just like sit and listen way too long sometimes, but it's fine.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I try to make space for you sometimes in conversation, but sometimes I forget. I think I actually think that's like a quick aside, I think it's like a cultural thing, like if you, if you grew up in an interrupting family versus a like trade off family, right, and my family is just like just you kind of talk over each other, like if you were like hey, no, let me finish, like they'd let you fit. It's not super rude, but yeah.
Speaker 4:Oh, yeah, yeah, walker, uh, word me a note. Do I want to talk about ED during pregnancy?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I think maybe we talk. I think that's just going to come up. Maybe this is just like the background for people. Yeah, like I don't know, this is like the deep dive.
Speaker 4:Right, so okay, if I can speak for like five more seconds. Oh yeah, this is a long ass story, so I don't know if I mentioned this or not yet we tried to get pregnant last year got pregnant immediately and had an ectopic pregnancy.
Speaker 2:That was really terrible, it was scary yeah.
Speaker 4:I also in gaining weight from eating disorder recovery. Yeah, also okay. So I went into recovery six months before the pandemic, so I was like gaining weight and then like didn't leave the house for two years. Yeah, so like a lot of weight gain happened. My cycle's got fucked up.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, we were finally like let's start trying because we know it's going to take a long time, cause, like I had not, I like, started tracking like ovulation in January and did not ovulate once for like an entire year, we discovered some supplements that we wanted to try out. But I mean, everyone has opinions on supplements, but I obviously work.
Speaker 4:They work. We evaluated the first like month that we tried them. Oh yeah, we fucked, we got pregnant. Yeah, being ectopic for whatever reason, whether that was like equality or just luck or whatever- Reproductive health is a boo-doo. It's shit, but I learned through that process that I have insulin resistance and that's another reason why my blood trigger was fucked up my whole life. Yeah, and I've learned since then that my mom had gestational diabetes. The moment they cut my the cord when I was born, my blood sugar went to zero.
Speaker 4:So this is long term and it's like this has been going on forever, but there were Tidying, yes, but like there were dietary things that I needed to start doing. Yeah, to like so tricky Healthier. So we decided to like take a year off from trying, which was really really fucking hard, because I wanted to start trying again, like immediately, so like after that was the whole year.
Speaker 4:Yeah, like the loss, it was like nothing makes you, I think, want to have a child more than like something like that, but at least for me, yeah. But anyway, that was incredibly difficult because it was also so directly linked to this loss and like this grief I was feeling Suddenly I need to be like cutting out gluten and like sugar and like all these different things.
Speaker 3:Like this is could be like a going back into eating disorder.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Like situation and like literally like people will be like oh, why are you eating differently? And I would like start crying. And it was like people I did not know, because it was so connected to like I want a baby so bad, and like I basically felt like I was having to like relapse to do it Fuck. It was so fucking hard that's deep, but I saw a really cool hypnotherapist Right yes, who like snapped me out of it.
Speaker 3:It was like it is wild that you guys have seen this guy and it worked so well.
Speaker 4:But like Walker and I were like talking about it, literally I could not talk about cutting dairy out without weeping, without being like inconsolable, and it was that weird. It wasn't like I love milk so much or something. It was like so sad I can't have yogurt. It was like that is.
Speaker 3:I was going to say I think now you might you know how much you can't have yogurt.
Speaker 4:But like am I? Am I describing this correctly? Like it was no, yeah.
Speaker 2:It was a very, very, very difficult time and I mean essentially, like I know a lot of people are going to hear like hypnotist or hypnot therapist and think it's like very woo woo, but it's actually not. But the way he explained it was basically just like all of these things like eating disorders, substance use disorders, whatever are like anxiety disorders, so like you need to like treat the anxiety, and so all of the hypnosis for Jade was around like these specific anxieties that you know she's basically been talking about this whole time and you know it's not perfect, but like the shift from, like you know, crying about like what we're going to eat to like how she is now is like really profound.
Speaker 3:That's huge yeah.
Speaker 2:It's really cool and you are very I don't know. I don't know. It's just like not something like I don't worry about you in regards to food anymore, which I've only been inside my own head, I don't know like exactly. You know what's going on with you, but it seems like you're doing really well with it and, yeah, I mean for me to not worry about it. It feels like it would be good.
Speaker 4:That's huge, that's so sweet and I don't like worry about it either, which is interesting.
Speaker 2:It doesn't seem like it would do.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but that was. It was really challenging and like my body changed a lot this year, which was like triggering because people would make comments about it and they're like thinking that like who are these people? Who are these people?
Speaker 2:I fucking agree, you say all sorts of shit all the time. You know what I mean, and it's just like please don't you know yeah.
Speaker 3:I think I'm in such a bubble right now, like where I've cut out a lot of people, that I like I haven't had an experience where somebody said something terrible to me and like a really old time it's really nice. No, no, no, but that's. I know that's not realistic it was just, it was never terrible.
Speaker 4:But it's like I'm so used to being in like the body positive bubble and like the eating disorder recovery bubble. Yeah, and suddenly people are like you've lost weight, you look great, what are you doing? And I'm like I lost a baby and like.
Speaker 2:That's what my fucking brain is. I want to have another baby.
Speaker 4:So bad and like oh man, I haven't thought about this in a while too, but I remember one time like we didn't have chicken for meal prep and I like broke down Cause I was like, if we don't have chicken for meal prep, then I won't get to have a baby, and that's when I was like eating disorders back a little bit and you know all this one back in, oh God.
Speaker 2:I would say, though it seems like now, at least from what you like, I don't know. Let's say we're at some sort of social gathering and somebody says something. It's not like existential crisis, it's just like we're gonna talk shit about that person on the mark, fuck, fuck, like it's fine. You know what I mean. So much healthier, yeah, yeah. It's not like this fault, like there's no, like crying.
Speaker 3:Dude, you don't like take it in, You're not like, it's not like being processed as like. This is true.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just like fuck so and so.
Speaker 4:And I'm like, yeah, fuck them. And then we're just doing it, yeah yeah, and I guess, looking back on it like it's it was, it was not as like cut and dry as I. It was a process of, I guess, practicing, I don't know like, easing myself back into it, like, and I guess anything's difficult, like I'm totally rambling.
Speaker 3:Like You're not, though it's like it's super hard to explain huge mindset shifts like that. Yeah, so like it's like you kind of remember vividly disordered heart because you've had time to reflect on it and think about it, but like when I was in one of the multiple phases of my eating disorder, you would, I wasn't processing it like that. So we're just in this phase right now where it's a different mindset than we've been in for our entire fucking lives, and so it's really hard to articulate that until we're past it. Right, we just do this again in like six years and like then we'll have a great answer.
Speaker 2:What kind of site? Yeah, also, like I've told you this before, but like you've been through so many things in recovery that other people like who are trying to recover, or maybe we'll want to in the future, are also gonna have to deal with.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so I don't know. I mean, this is very useful out of adjunct for people to just know like, hey, when this certain crisis comes up, like there's actually a solution for this you know, yeah, and you recognize it faster.
Speaker 3:So I think, like that's the thing that we I can always like put as like the foundation of being healed-ish or foundation of healing. Let's make it more active. Is you catch the bad behaviors and the bad thought patterns so much earlier and earlier and earlier and earlier. So that self-awareness muscle is just like huge and veiny and like and throbbing, right, so it's like right, yeah, no, but like you know, you just really get that muscle that, so it's almost reflexive. You're like, immediately, that's a bad thought. Let me talk to Walker about it, let me talk to my therapist about it, let me journal about this, let me distract myself until I don't. Let me make sure I eat this whole bowl of cereal. Right, yeah, let me put whole milk in it and eat the whole milk.
Speaker 4:Yes, yeah, that is when I was like early on in recovery and I would like hit some sort of crisis or like be kind of like dysregulated. I would forget every single person that I could call or like text about something like that.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I need to like make a list. So I made a list and that was so incredibly helpful. They teach you to do that if you go to the hospital or like a psychic break, like make you do these more sheets.
Speaker 4:It's a good little trick. I think I heard it on a recovery podcast.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, that's rad.
Speaker 4:But like if I ever have a thoughts like I can go to Walker, who has a master's, and whatever you have a master's in.
Speaker 2:No health care.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I was like clinical psychology.
Speaker 2:I was like that's not it Clinical mental health care? Oh, okay, great.
Speaker 4:And then I also have Katie, and like Text me all the time, anytime Other people who are? In recovery and like also not like not the recovery where it's like if you don't follow these kind of like culty rules and like you know, mantras there's no, there's no.
Speaker 3:What is the alcoholics anonymous? There's overeaters anonymous, which is stupid.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Sorry, I'm sure it's helpful. I'm sorry. Oh, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 4:Progress, not perfect Progress.
Speaker 3:Oh God, we'll tell that to second floor. It doesn't happen. The yes, yeah, sorry, it's not this rigid set of steps.
Speaker 4:Right. So the process of I guess, like the last year, has been kind of like not taking the route of avoiding everything, which is like me protecting myself is I'm going to eat whatever I want. Never look at a single like nutrition fact on anything. Yeah, never weigh myself, never like think about what my body looks like. Like I wouldn't look at myself in the mirror. Yeah, I went the same. And so, like the last year has been very much like learning how to not avoid these things but also not let them like control my life. But, of course, like that's the hard, it's hard, that's what's really hard, it's really really hard. And like, I guess, putting yourself in situations where, like I was at your Vanderpump Rules party and there was candy everywhere, oh yeah, and I was hungry, and I remember I went out to my office and ate pistachios by myself and I was like this is a red flag moment.
Speaker 3:This is not good. Did you immediately come downstairs and immediately come eat some M&Ms?
Speaker 4:I don't know if I ate M&Ms, but I was like I'm not isolating myself from my friends To eat your secret food To eat my secret food in my office.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what was the kind of a long like was this, while you're still like very concerned about being pregnant, Like when was it?
Speaker 3:Y'all were starting to try again. This was like Cause.
Speaker 2:Like you know, that was the summer. We like we eat candy sometimes. Now we do Like we're not in that place.
Speaker 4:Right, it was around June that I was like this I'm like I'm being too strict and I do not feel good anymore, and we started easing off.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but it's also probably the social anxiety aspect. There's a lot of strangers, a lot of girly girl vibes, so like for me, that's super activating for me, like, oh, I can't eat too much food in front of thin women and there were like all types of body types there. We're definitely in like a far that we're talking about an event at our feminist co-working space. Amazing, we love it so much. But it still happens if you're in a large group of women, especially women, you don't know. Yeah, like it's, that's like immediate danger.
Speaker 4:Right, there was always this weird like mental push to like know the body that I inhabit and then like eat certain foods around people or even be like oh, I love Twizzler.
Speaker 4:Like when you were in the disordered space, in the disordered and then even like in recovery, and I remember I told you the other day that, like when I would share that I was in recovery, I would always specify that it was anorexia Cause I was still so worried that people would think that I had a binge eating disorder or something else, which they're all restrictive disorders by the way, no one assumes that you are.
Speaker 3:If you are fat at all, that they're like. Obviously you eat too much. Couldn't have had anorexia.
Speaker 4:Which is like, which is more disordered thinking on top of it, but it's like the shit is not linear and like clean in any way. No, it's a messy healing. It's real messy, but yeah. So now I'm fucking pregnant and I've been talking about this for a really long time.
Speaker 3:I'm probably this is like super vulnerable Thanks, Thank you for sharing Thanks.
Speaker 4:Thanks, pat, that's nodding, but yeah.
Speaker 2:Sorry, I didn't even cut you off.
Speaker 4:No, what are you gonna say?
Speaker 2:I was just gonna say like all of your health stuff ended up getting resolved Like.
Speaker 3:You doing pretty good right now, yeah we got pregnant the second time.
Speaker 2:Well, actually both times pretty damn quick.
Speaker 4:Real fast and like.
Speaker 2:Lucky. You know what I mean.
Speaker 4:Very, very lucky.
Speaker 2:I don't know Like you're in a good place with kind of all the stuff, it seems.
Speaker 4:Yes, and also I, like, did an early glucose test because I was worried about the insulin resistance. Oh, that's right, you slammed and I see it slammed it. That's just fucking great. And like I don't know Everything's been.
Speaker 2:Do you wanna tell people the supplements? Not because not to be weird, but just like it's?
Speaker 3:We are not medical professionals and we are not providing you with infertility medical advice.
Speaker 4:No, and I also learned all this shit off TikTok.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's not true. We did like hours of research.
Speaker 4:Did we? I missed it.
Speaker 2:Like this shit is not easy to find. That's why I was saying like do we wanna tell people what? You took Because it's like very easy to find but the information that leads you to it.
Speaker 4:That's true.
Speaker 2:Actually frustratingly difficult.
Speaker 4:Yes, there was like a period where I was like I can't even look into some of this shit about the insulin side because it's so triggering, and so Walker did research for me and I forgot about that and I appreciate it. But up until I was pregnant, I took Burberin every day Burberin, burberin, which you can just you can get it on Amazon and it's so helpful. Will you have a normal shit? No, but it like would. I would wake up every morning already with low blood sugar, just like already like starving and like feeling really ill.
Speaker 4:And then when I started taking it a few times a day, like as directed, like I could skip breakfast if I wanted to, or like not be in starvation mode the moment I like wake up, sure, sure. And then Enosatol, which I still take. It helps with ovulation.
Speaker 4:Real good if I'm not ovulating at all, at all To pregnant in like a week or however long it was, but it also helps with like egg quality over time and like all different kinds of stuff. So I don't know if it's doing anything anymore, but I still take it every day.
Speaker 2:But, as Katie said, obviously not medical advice. This is just what we did.
Speaker 4:I also know that, like in the PCOS community, women are obsessed with supplements. Like it's just like a weird thing people get into.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Because there's a huge mistrust of the medical community right. Because women have exactly. Because women have been coming and talking about PCOS and the insane pain that happens with it and, like doctors just tell us to take an ibuprofen and go home, and so it's wildly fucked up. The like amount of ignoring of women's pain that happens, that's totally true.
Speaker 2:But then there's also like a grifter response to that.
Speaker 4:Yes, yes.
Speaker 2:Oh, you don't trust the medical community. Take this bullshit powder that I have made in my fucking basement and like put like cool, like minimalist packaging around.
Speaker 3:Right right.
Speaker 2:And it's like all over Instagram, like it is actually kind of a nightmare to figure out, like what you should do.
Speaker 3:And what has actually been studied at all.
Speaker 2:Totally, because, like, you can go to a doctor and it's exactly what you're saying and you're just like are you even listening to what I'm saying?
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:And then you like, try to do your own research.
Speaker 3:And it's the natural path and you're presented with tons of bullshit. Garbage? Yeah, no, I think. So, like, where is that middle? And I think we have to talk to each other about it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think it feels like the main treatment for PCOS is to put women on birth control. But then it's like, okay, so what if I was just on birth control until I wanted to have a child? And then it's like we're just starting from scratch two years later with the exact same issues that we had before.
Speaker 3:No we expanded them.
Speaker 4:I was immediately like off of that one. I also, as a nice Christian girl, somehow have never been on birth control, and so I was like I'm not going to start it Ever.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I was like I'm not going to start it the year I'm trying to get pregnant. It feels really lame now, that feels stupid, but it was cool, like if I ever like I ran out of Anosatol this time last year when we were on a trip to DC and I like didn't ovulate in January of last year, like it was like it's so black and white, wow, so how it works. And so like I tracked even though we weren't trying to have a kid, I was like tracking my ovulation and like seeing my cycles get like more and more normal for the entire year, which was really cool to see, and just like know what we were dealing with, instead of being like, okay, time to have a baby, I have no idea what my cycles are like.
Speaker 3:So for clarification, you're not really recommending this for like fertility stuff. It's more like this is PCO, like let's regulate it, only my cycle situation.
Speaker 4:It only like boosts ovulation and then I like heard later that it can help with egg quality. But maybe those are connected. Does that make sense?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I'm also a little skeptical just cause the research, but I like, I'm interested and I'm going to look it up. No, yeah, like it works, let's link it. Let's link it in there. Let's link it in the show.
Speaker 4:Now Sub-brand have shown us I can help with that. Yeah, yeah, that's so rad, so I think that's all. That was a lot.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 4:And then I guess in pregnancy, sometimes I feel nauseous and it's the exact same feeling of having lip blood sugar for me, like they feel the same, and so I'm like, oh my God, I'm not eating enough. And then I'm like, wait, I'm just nauseous. Like my like emotions and feelings get really confused, like am I stressed out or am I nauseous or am I having lip blood sugar? Like what's going on? Right, all the signals are crossed, they're like way crossed to this day, and I do get hella triggered when I like can't eat a meal. It happens every once in a while and it sucks because I get anxious about not being able to eat, which makes me like less able to eat. And those are just things to be aware of now. Like I might be that way my entire life. I have no idea, but it's kind of fine if you just like know what you're dealing with.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, like I can't eat the not eat.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and it's like also like I have like a lovely husband who will make us like an incredible Molly Bosmule, and then I'll be like I can't eat that, I'm gonna eat cold carrots. And he's like okay, that's fine, I'm not gonna like take offense to this, but yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh for me Big shout out.
Speaker 3:Big shout out to the husbands who, but Patrick, has been very good about two things, which is eating my leftovers, because I can't eat the same thing two days in a row other than cereal and yogurt, and then also being totally okay. So far I'm very impressed with, can be a change my mind. A lot person and I'm at an 11 at changing my mind within 15 minutes. Like as Patrick said on the way over here, I'm unforecastable.
Speaker 4:That's a really nice way to say it.
Speaker 3:I think it's very kind way of saying that I cannot figure out what the fuck I want until about right before I'm about to do it.
Speaker 4:Man, if there was like a good buffet in town.
Speaker 3:That would be that I wasn't scared of getting salmonella from yeah 100% I keep thinking about. Let's go to the Indian. Actually, there's a couple really good Indian food buffets.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 3:Yeah, let's go.
Speaker 4:There is the taken chick. It's really good. I mean, it's like a meat and three buffet. I love the meat and three With banana pudding just as much as you can eat.
Speaker 3:People who aren't in the South might not know what a meat and three is, but it's exactly what it sounds like. Yeah.
Speaker 4:It's a meat and three quotation vegetables Vegetables.
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, thank you for sharing. That was, like my opinion, super powerful. It's the deep, dark things that we've been through, but also like coming out of it and then being strong enough to like ask for help. Yeah, it gives huge.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and then you make really great friends Right Gosh. So nice Thanks for listening, thanks for listening.
Speaker 3:Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe to. I beg your pardon.
Speaker 1:Thank you yeah.