recovered-ish with chloe cox

travel in ED recovery — my honest survival guide | the recovered-ish podcast ep. 23

• Chloe Cox • Season 1 • Episode 23

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Episode Description

Travel is one of the hardest things you can do in eating disorder recovery. New foods, broken routines, different meal times, swimsuits, pictures — it's a lot. And nobody really talks about how to actually get through it.

In this episode I'm sharing my honest survival guide for traveling in ED recovery — from what it looked like when I was deep in my disorder on a family trip to Hawaii, to what it looked like this past month traveling to New York and Maryland fully recovered. The difference is everything.

Whether you're in early recovery, somewhere in the messy middle, or further along and still noticing the eating disorder show up on trips — this one's for you.

In This Episode:

  • Why travel is one of the biggest pressure cookers for an eating disorder
  • The Hawaii trip that showed me how much my eating disorder was already stealing from my life
  • Why nothing reveals an eating disorder faster than being pulled from your routine
  • How to handle the airport, time zones, and meal timing on travel days
  • What my travel day actually looks like now — 11 years into recovery
  • The "eating disorder is not invited" mindset trick — and how to use it
  • How to find safe foods and guardrails for early recovery travel
  • When to use travel as a recovery challenge — and how to approach it strategically
  • Body image on vacation — swimsuits, less clothing, and how to prepare
  • Why your body is not going to change as much as your eating disorder says it will
  • How to flip the script from body-focused to experience-focused

Timestamps:

0:00 Intro + business updates 2:00 Recovery Skills Training summer workshops announcement 3:00 Quasi-Recovery Exit group program update 4:00 Today's topic — travel in ED recovery 7:00 Why travel is so hard when you have an eating disorder 8:00 The Hawaii trip — what early disordered eating on vacation looked like 13:00 Missing ice cream with my family — how the ED steals moments 15:00 Why nothing reveals an eating disorder faster than leaving your routine 17:00 How uncertainty triggers the eating disorder nervous system 18:00 The airport — where travel anxiety starts 19:00 Time zones, meal timing, and the meal plan confusion 20:00 What my travel day actually looks like now 24:00 How to navigate travel days in early recovery 26:00 The "eating disorder is not invited" mindset trick 29:00 Preparation is everything — practical tips for packing and planning 31:00 Safe foods, guardrails, and when to challenge yourself 33:00 Using travel as a strategic recovery challenge 35:00 Finding a model person to eat alongside 36:00 Body image on vacation — swimsuits and less clothing 38:00 How to find a swimsuit that feels tolerable 40:00 Avoiding the mirror and packing for sensory comfort 41:00 Your body is not going to change as much as your ED says 43:00 Flipping the script — experience first, body last 45:00 Closing thoughts + summer workshop promo

Practical Tips From This Episode:

  • Talk to your dietician before you go — walk through your itinerary and plan meal timing together
  • Stay on your home body clock on travel days until you adjust
  • Pack familiar snacks so you always have a safe option available
  • Use the "eating disorder is not invited" reframe — mentally leave it behind before you board
  • Find a model person with a healthy relationship with food and follow their lead
  • Practice wearing your swimsuit at home before the trip as a small exposure
  • Pack clothes that feel comfortable and don't draw sensory attention to your body
  • Avoid the mirror as much as possible on vacation
  • Schedule a therapy session before you leave and when you return
  • Use difficult moments on the trip as information to bring back to recovery — not as evidence you failed

Quotes from This Episode:

"Nothing reveals an eating disorder quicker than when a person is plucked from their routine."

"Eating disorder, you are not invited. You will be staying home. I'll attend to you when I return."

"Your body is not checking the time. Your body just knows — I need nourishment and I need it consistently."

"The eating disorder makes your world so small. Travel is a reminder that the world is so much bigger than your eating disorder."

Resources + Connect with Me:

Keywords/Tags: travel in ED recovery, eating disorder and vacation, summer travel eating disorder recovery, how to travel with an eating disorder, eating disorder routine disruption, vacation body image, recovered-ish podcast, chloe cox, ED recovery podcast, eating disorder therapist, quasi-recovery, food freedom travel, eating disorder summer, airport eating disorder recovery



Resources + Connect with Me:

SPEAKER_00

Hey, I'm going on vacation. Eating disorder. You are not invited. I know you have opinions. I know you have thoughts. I will attend to you when I return. I remember one dinner my dad made a food that I really liked and that I felt safe eating. And he was excited to see me enjoying it. And he made a comment about it, and then I threw a fit and left the table. This is again a recovered-ish thought. Your body is okay if it changes. Our bodies are supposed to change, but I want you to know that your eating disorder bringing that thought in is fear-mongering and is not true. You're listening to the Recovered-Isch podcast. I'm your host, Chloe Cox, and yeah, I know a thing or two about eating disorder recovery. Between my own very complicated history with disordered eating and the work I do now, I've seen this thing from pretty much every angle. This podcast is where we talk about the messier parts of recovery that don't really make it online. No platitudes, no inspirational quotes, just the real, raw, sometimes frustrating, sometimes surprisingly liberating process of building a life beyond your eating disorder. Let's get into it. Hello and welcome back to the Recovered Ish Podcast. My name's Chloe. I'm your host here. And I feel like it's been a minute, but probably doesn't feel like that to you, because it's only been a week since my last episode, as usual. I have been in this month of May just crazy all over the place. I honestly feel like I haven't been able to sit still. And one is because of the amount of travel that I've been doing, two is there's a lot going on in my business. So if you are unaware, which you're probably aware, I had a Memorial Day sale for my course, which I absolutely love, the recovery skills training, my 12-week course, it's my signature course. You can always check it out. The link is in the show notes. And in addition to that, this summer, anyone that signs up, whether it's in the Memorial Day sale or whether it's in the month of June, you automatically get access to these three summer workshops that I'm doing that I'm so excited about. We're talking body image in the summertime, food guilt, and the way that creeps up during the summer in particular, and letting go of the fear of weight gain in a period of time, aka summer, where that's very much on the mind. We're in shorts and swimsuits and traveling. And it's just a hard time to be in recovery. So I wanted to offer something a little extra to anyone that enrolls in my courses. And then the second thing I'm so excited about is my group program, the Quasi-Recovery Exit, that I'm running for people that are in their 30s or above our mothers in a very specific life stage where you feel like you've done a lot of work in recovery already, but you're just not quite free yet. It's still impacting you mentally. You're able to function, but just not really reaping the full rewards of recovery. I've run this group before. You've heard me talk about this. It's one of my favorite things I've ever done. And so I'm really excited to be doing that again. But I've been going through applications, I've been scheduling discovery calls with potential group members. The group is going to be really small. I really don't want it to be more than eight members. So if you're still interested, applications are still open. But for a very short time, we're starting at the end of June. But, anyways, wow, I feel all over the place and excited and energized, just happy to be back. But last week I was in Annapolis, Maryland, with my amazing business coach who I've been working with for a couple of years, who's really helped me to develop these programs that I have and helped me to take this passion that I have for helping people in the midst of an eating disorder and expanding my reach. As a therapist, you can work with only so many clients a week. And part of my mission as a person in recovery and a person in this line of work is to help really as many people as possible. And there's a cap when you're a therapist. I really can only handle seeing 20 clients a week when I'm full-time and not doing anything else, not coaching or podcasting, etc. And you can make a really good impact on someone's life that way. But I always felt like I just wanted to speak more on this, work with more people, and expand my reach beyond just California, which has been what is been so amazing about starting Instagram and podcasting and these group programs where I'm really like, y'all are all over the world. It's so cool. So, anyways, I was with my business coach who's really helped me with this. And we were, I did a retreat for a couple of days. And man, I really needed that time to just focus on me for the first time in the last couple of years, really since having a baby. And it was relaxing, it was energizing, it was clarifying. But one thing that I kept thinking about was traveling and what it has meant for me throughout my recovery in my eating disorder. I know that traveling for many of us is supposed to be fun. It's supposed to be whether you're going on vacation or going to a new place or visiting family or visiting old friends. Traveling is meant to be something that you look forward to, that you enjoy. And for those of us that struggle with eating disorders, it is so complicated. And I vividly remember this. There's so much stress that comes with the idea of, first of all, just being outside of your safe, normal, controlled environment, but also so many factors that just are different, and so many that involve food or a focus on body. And as I was traveling this past month, as I went to New York to see my sister, I went on this retreat to Maryland, I felt for the first time in a really long time that food was just a non-issue and even something I really was looking forward to. I think in the course of my recovery, I've, of course, been on several trips since and have been able to manage it and enjoy it, enjoy food, enjoy the experience. But I think if you've been in recovery for any length of time, you'll know that eating disorder voice sometimes still pops up in triggering environments, and travel happens to be one of them. So I can look back at all these trips that I've been on and know I still had fun, I still survived it, I was still okay. But there was maybe a part of me that still held on to some anxiety around it. This time around, it so didn't feel that way. I was able to be in New York City and enjoy multiple bagels and pizza, and I was able to go to Annapolis and get dessert with the other therapists every night. And it was something that added to the experience rather than something that pulled me out and gave me fear and pause, which is exactly what it used to do. So I felt like this would be a timely episode. As we enter the summer months, I imagine you might have some trips planned or a family vacation to attend, or maybe just days that are looking different. If you have kids, they're out of school now. If you're in school, you're out of school now, and things just are shifting in the summertime. It's three months of the year where life is kind of supposed to be light and fun, but it doesn't always feel that way when you are somebody that appreciates routine and has a mind that's wired for rigidity and pattern repetition and safety, especially around food. Summer presents a lot of issues, and one of them is travel. So today we are tackling what it means to travel an eating disorder recovery, how to survive it at the various stages, and maybe even how to leave your eating disorder behind and actually enjoy yourself. Because that's really my hope for all of you is to get to a point where you can shake it off and move through it and be present in your life. That's the whole goal of recovery, and traveling is a part of that. So to begin, I kind of want to level with you on why it might be so hard to go on trips and travel when you have an eating disorder living in your brain. If you're a support person listening or someone just trying to learn more, like this might be helpful for you to understand. And if you are somebody that identifies with it, I imagine you will be nodding your head. Nothing reveals an eating disorder quicker than when a person is plucked from their routine. We usually have a very specific system in place for how we manage through the day, whether that's repeating safe foods or behaviors or exercise that feels like a must. We tend to have the eating disorder well integrated into our lives. So when you are off and away for any amount of time and you no longer have access to that routine, you might no longer have access to that food, you no longer have access to your regular gym or even just your normal route of walking around. Those things are already scary. I remember when I was in that space between disordered eating and full eating disorder. My family went on a trip to Hawaii, and we love going to Hawaii. It's my parents' favorite place, and in California, it's not terribly far from us. So we were going to Hawaii, we're gonna have a wonderful time. We, as a family, like tend to rent a house and just literally, my family's kind of vacation is let's do nothing. That's the best thing ever because we're all pretty busy people. And I was really looking forward to this trip. But when I arrived, what I didn't anticipate was the amount of anxiety I would have around food. And that was new to me as I was in that in-between space of my food and exercise was disordered. Maybe not a full-blown, like clinically recognized eating disorder yet. But this is where I started to realize that it maybe was that. I remember feeling frantic on the way there because I didn't know what I was gonna have for breakfast. I was not comfortable eating really anything that was offered to me at the airport or on the plane. I remember my dad gets really excited about the what is it? I think they call it POG E-O-G, something guava, like pineapple-orange guava juice. It's a mix of different fruits and a juice, and they give it to you on the plane on the way to Hawaii, and my dad gets very excited about it. I remember feeling anxious about the juice. I did not want it. I remember feeling anxious sitting for long hours on the plane and then getting off of the plane and feeling like I just needed to get out all of this energy that I had built up. And then I remember day after day, we'd have special breakfasts, or someone would prepare the Hawaii-esque meal, or we'd go out to dinner. And I was just sitting in almost a paralysis of what can I find that's safe? What can I find that's safe? And that's not the language I was using at the time. I think I was still trying to tell myself that um I was just trying to eat healthy. So I was looking for what's the quote-unquote healthiest option. And if nothing felt safe enough to me, or if I didn't feel certain around nutrition facts, it was just I wasn't thinking about being there. I was just thinking about the food. And then on top of that, we would go to the beach every day and I would be putting on a bathing suit, and that would make me even more conscious of what I was eating and whether or not I had exercised enough. I felt like there were moments where I could find joy and click off. And then there were other moments where I was just really body checking a lot. I was analyzing and reanalyzing pictures that we had taken. I was trying so hard to enjoy myself, but there was such a part of my brain that was focused on what's gonna happen to my body? What is this gonna do to my body one week, one single week outside of my routine, and the anxiety level was exorbitant. And this is the first time I think that I really realized that I really realized, oh shoot, I don't think that is healthy, right? To be this freaked out. I remember my family going out and getting ice cream, and I would I refuse to get it with them. And it made me cry, actually, seeing my sisters having ice cream without me. And there's a picture that I still look at of my sisters and my nana sitting next to each other eating ice cream on that trip, and I wasn't in the picture. And there were just moments I was already missing out on before my eating disorder even got to a life-altering place. Granted, this is probably one of the first experiences that was actually life-altering for me, where I realized that it was an issue. I remember one dinner, my dad made a food that I really liked and that I felt safe eating, and he was excited to see me enjoying it, and he made a comment about it, and then I threw a fit and left the table because I felt exposed or something, just triggered. It was tough for me. At another point in the trip, we went on a kayaking expedition and the waves were choppy, and I just remember feeling so exhausted, I was gonna faint because I don't think that I was feeling myself properly on that trip. I couldn't really enjoy it. It was just a really stressful, strenuous experience because my body was not in a good place to be exerting itself to that level. I'm there are just so many moments I look back on on that trip and think, dang, if things were different, if I had been in a different headspace, I would have been able to have better memories there. And this is a good example of just the way that maybe nobody else even really noticed this. I bet they did. My mom for sure did. But on that trip, I just wasn't really myself. And even before the eating disorder had fully taken over my life, it was already stealing bits and pieces. And I think this still comes up if you are at the beginning of your recovery journey, if you're still in your eating disorder, if you are somewhere along the way, even if you feel like you're in that space of quasi-recovery where you're almost there, going on a trip can reveal the ways that your eating disorder is still impacting you like crazy. You start to realize what are the pillars around me? What are the daily habits and routines that I cling to that make me feel safe when you don't have those and it makes you freak out? It's okay, wow, this is the eating disorder revealing itself again. One thing I know to be certain about eating disorders is they tend to love predictability and repetition. Travel throws all of that out the window. You're doing different activities every day, you're trying new foods, you're going to different restaurants, you're drinking maybe, you are in places that are unfamiliar. Maybe you're even a place where they speak a different language and you can't really read the nutrition label. There's a lot of factors that just become different. And we know that when there is uncertainty and your brain is wired with an eating disorder, uncertainty registers as danger and the alarm bells go off. This is not a response that's based in logic. Not a whole lot of our eating disorders are based in logic. We can manipulate logic to make it seem logical when you're in a state of an eating disorder brain. But really, what this comes down to is a nervous system wiring. Our zone of safety becomes so small and so specific food, specific habits, specific routines, specific exercises, specific numbers, all of that becomes safe, but that definition of safety is very narrow. And then when you go on a trip or a vacation, you are so outside of that zone of safety that it doesn't matter whether you're an inch outside of it or two miles outside of that zone of safety, your body registers it the same way: panic, anxiety, fear. You have different foods, different mealtimes, different levels of activity, different clothing, attire, pictures are being taken. There's just a lot of triggers all the time. And without the safe, narrow circle of behaviors and habits and routines, it's very hard to tolerate if you don't have the skills. This begins as early as the airport for many of us. Arriving at an airport, it's six in the morning, you don't have your safe breakfast, and all that's open is Starbucks or McDonald's. If you are in a place of trying to recover, you know that you need breakfast. And you know that you're gonna need to eat something that is outside of your zone of comfort, typically. Figuring out how to plan this is very hard. Then we add on the confusion of getting on a plane and traveling to a place that's in a different time zone. Maybe when you arrive, it is technically lunchtime at home, but there it's randomly 4 p.m. Or maybe it's lunchtime at home, but there it's the middle of the night. It just throws you off. So then the question is how am I supposed to follow my meal plan if I have to have X amount of snacks, X amount of meals, they look this way, but it's but my body thinks it's noon, but the clock says it's four. What am I supposed to have now? And how do I make that transition? That is so confusing. We are usually rule followers, the blanket statement, not all of us, but it helps to have when you're in recovery a meal plan to follow that has times, like I'm supposed to eat, that has a recommendation of timing, recommendation of what you're meant to eat. And when we have that playbook at home, that tends to feel pretty safe. But then we're introducing all of this variation, and it's oh my gosh, who do I trust? What do I trust? Do I look at the clock? But that means I just skipped lunch and snack, and I'm just gonna go straight to dinner. That's confusing. It honestly is such a battle, especially in this space, because your eating disorder is gonna have opinions about it. Your body's gonna be asking for something, but you want to just do the right thing, but you also want to do what feels safe and comfortable. I'm probably preaching to the choir. You all are like nodding your heads thinking, yes, this is what it feels like. How do I get out of it? Let me walk you through my airborne routine as it looks today, and I will also rewind and show you how it looked in my early recovery. I know I mentioned a couple weeks ago on the podcast that my relationship with food now is really quite intuitive. I do find myself still eating three meals, three snacks a day. Not because I'm on a meal plan, but that's because my body tends to ask for those things six times a day. So when I am traveling, I do my best to just respond to my own cues and adjust as we go. For example, I had to get to the airport crazy early to go to Maryland. I literally had to wake up in the morning, drive to LAX. I was sitting and waiting for my plane by 4:45. My plane took off at 6. When I got to the airport and I was finally settled in at 4:45, first of all, I needed coffee like crazy. But I also started getting hungry. And there's a part of me that in the past I know would have said, This is too early to eat. You're normally asleep at 4:45. You shouldn't be eating, you should be asleep. However, I had already been awake for over an hour at that point, almost two hours. And my body was saying, Girl, you need some food. It's time for breakfast. It is not always simple to just listen to that, and it's not always easy to even hear that. For many of us, we don't have those types of cues coming through clearly. But here in this space in my 11-year recovery, I do have that information. So, what I did, I went to Einstein's bagels, I got myself a bagel sandwich. It was a delight, and I had an earlier breakfast than usual. This is another place where practical hunger has to come into play. I knew myself and I knew my pattern. So I knew probably in a couple hours, two to three hours. I would be hungry again. So, what did I need for the airplane? The plane was going to be a five-hour flight. I knew that very likely I needed a snack. And I was maybe going to need a lunch because by the time I arrived, it was about 2 p.m. there. It would have been around 11 a.m. where I am from. I tried to do the math a little bit. I figured by the time I got to the hotel, I would be ravenous. So I needed at least a couple of snacks to have on the plane to keep me going. And so that's exactly what I did. I didn't really want to spend the money on a full lunch to bring with me on the airplane. So what I did was I went to those wonderful little airport shops and I got myself a selection of snacks. Couple protein bars, some crunchy snacks. Just wanted to make sure that I had prepared myself so that I could plan to make it to the hotel and then get a lunch when I was there. And that's exactly what I did. Got on the plane. I actually fell asleep for a couple hours, woke up, I was hungry, had my snacks, read a book for a couple hours. I was hungry again. I had another snack. And this is outside of the norm of what my usual pattern is. My pattern is normally breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, snack. But here I was having breakfast snack. And so I think back in the day of my eating disorder or even in early recovery, that would have really freaked me out because it was outside of the norm. But I was trying to do number one, what worked planning-wise, what worked convenience-wise, and number two, what was going to just sustain my body. So I had those snacks, got off the plane, started to get hungry as I was getting off the plane, and I knew I was going to need food when I got to the hotel. By the time I arrived at the hotel, it was about 3:30, 4 p.m. And I had to have lunch. I just did. And so I ordered room service. It was delightful, but it was to my former eating disorder brain, probably a really weird thing to do to have lunch at 4 p.m. Back home, it was one o'clock. That's a reasonable time to have lunch. And I knew that I needed it. I also knew I was going to have dinner with the people from the retreat at 6:30. And so I just had that in mind. But I knew that it would have been very disordered for me to not give myself a meal if my body was asking for it, just because I knew that I would be eating in a couple hours. I had my meal, lo and behold, 6:30 rolls around. I'm hungry again. So it all really worked out because I trust myself and I trust my body. If hearing the way that this day went strikes fear into your heart, I get it. It would have done the same for me. It was a day that was weird with food. And I think that's one of the things that we just kind of have to accept on transition days with travel, is it might be a little weird with food. It's not going to make sense, but it doesn't have to make sense. Your body is not checking the time. Your body is not looking at the clock. Your body just knows I need nourishment and I need it consistently. And that's really the top intention for any sort of travel day nourishment consistently. Transition be weird. We just have to accept it might be a little weird. Now, in early recovery, this kind of a day would have felt almost impossible for me to just improv, like off the cuff, figure it out. That would not have worked for me. I know that in the early days, if I just shrugged my shoulders and was like, I'm gonna trust my body, it'll happen, whatever, it wouldn't have happened. I would have probably had the intention to have my breakfast, have my snack, have my lunch, etc., but been so overwhelmed by the options and so overwhelmed by trying to do the right thing at the right time that I might have just shut down and restricted. So if that is where you are at in your recovery, here's my advice to you. First of all, talk about it with your dietitian if you have one. That's always what I did before I went on a trip. I would show my dietitian, here's the itinerary for the day, here's what my travel day is going to look like. Please, for the love of God, help me figure out when I'm supposed to eat and what and how. And she would really walk me through it, looking at when's breakfast, when is lunch, follow your body's clock that it's currently on. That's what I was given as a reference point was your body still thinks it's noon. So give your body food like it is noon, even if it's 3 p.m. where you're going. As your sleep schedule adjusts, your body clock will adjust, your food will adjust, and it will all work out. So I really just had to look at, all right, I'm staying on California time today, and that's what I had to do. So the recommendation would be really plan it and stick to that plan. If it means packing your breakfast and bringing it with you to the airport because that's what's going to keep you safe in recovery right now, do that. If you're at the point where you feel like you can push yourself to have a little bit more variation and flexibility, maybe look at what's available in the terminal before you go and think I could grab a Starbucks, I could grab a bagel, I could grab whatever. Kind of plan it out in your mind. This is what would meet my meal plan. Pack snacks ahead of time, snacks that are familiar to you, snacks that you're comfortable with. And no matter what time it says on the clock, that every two to three hour window, depending on if that's your meal plan, depending on what the recommendations for you are specifically from your dietitian or your treatment team, make sure that you're getting that consistent nourishment and you're preparing yourself before by packing ahead. When you arrive, same goes. We're gonna eat like you're eating on the clock back home. And with all of this said, we just have to sit in acceptance that it's gonna be weird, that it's gonna be hard, but that your body is not keeping track of that. And it's one day. One day, two for when you return, but the variation that you experience on this airport day is not going to make or break your life. You just want to take care of yourself and your body. Travel can be a lot on the body. Sleep schedule gets thrown off, it's really stressful. So do your best to support yourself and support your body by giving it consistent nourishment. Of course, it's a whole other can of worms when you arrive wherever it is that you're going. The hard thing about vacation and about traveling is that so much of it is actually really centered around food. When we go to a new place or experience a new culture, food is such an inextricable part of that. And that's something that an eating disorder can really steal. But I want you to remember that this is one of the reasons you're recovering in the first place, is so that you can live a fuller life and you can experience everything that the world has to offer. That eating disorder makes your world so small. Can you think of travel as a reminder that the world is so much bigger than your eating disorder, that your life is so much bigger than your eating disorder? And this is why we practice flexibility and recovery, is so that you can go on these trips and experience things that are different and outside of your norm, and you can learn and you can expand yourself. That's what it's all about. So when you arrive wherever it is that you're going, keeping that mindset at the forefront is going to be so important. The other thing that I like to do personally, and I would use this sort of mindset trick a lot before I would go on trips in early recovery. I would sit myself down and say, Hey, I'm going on vacation, eating disorder, you are not invited. I know you have opinions, I know you have thoughts. I will attend to you when I return. We will reconvene when I get back, but you are not allowed to come on this trip. So you're gonna stay back in California. I'm gonna go off and do my thing, but you are not invited. And I would mentally try to imagine taking the eating disorder out of my body, keeping it in my room, shutting the door. And as I got on that airplane, I was leaving it behind in the dust. And then every time that I started to have an urge or it would come up, I would do my best to say to myself, hey, you are not allowed to be here. You belong back at home. What how did you get here? What did you did you hop a plane after me? Go away. I'll get to you later. And that's a kind of a well-known tactic in recovery is delaying the urge. It's like putting it off. We don't have to do it right now. We don't have to restrict right now. We don't have to compensate right now. Get out of here. I'll attend to that later. And sometimes, ideally, what happens is you don't attend to it later. The urge dissipates and you move on. But that can just be a helpful reframe when you are navigating through the trip and you do notice those urges coming up. Mindfully set them aside. Mindfully identify the eating disorder as something outside of yourself that is not invited and is not going to steal joy away from you. Shoo it away. Bye. I really do believe practically that preparation is everything when you're going on a trip, that preparation is everything, especially if you're in early or middle recovery and things don't feel intuitive, and this type of variation brings up so much anxiety. Giving yourself some fail-safe options. If you are at the stage where going on a vacation would throw you just right back into an eating disorder, do what you can to bring some safe foods along with you. And I know that's not ideal, but it's practical. It's what's going to help you to stay in a zone of safety so that your recovery is not derailed by this vacation. I would bring non-perishable snacks that felt safe with me, or even I remember bringing like packets of oatmeal that I knew that I would eat if all else failed. Just things that, like, if you are in the moment and you're gonna you try to do a challenge, you try to do something outside of your zone, you freak out, that you're not just gonna backpedal, that there's something that you can turn to to still get nutrition and to still support yourself. You can even look for are there grocery stores in the area that you can pop into? Are there restaurants that you're familiar with, chains that you know like you could order this and feel safe? It is nothing to be ashamed of if you need to have those guardrails in place at this point. That's you protecting your recovery. However, if you are at a place where you want to challenge yourself, where you're ready to challenge yourself, vacation is a really great time to do it. There were moments in my recovery where we would have a trip coming up, and I would strategically say, all right, this is the time that I'm gonna tackle that fear food, or I'm gonna do this specific challenge on this specific day that I've been worried about, I've been nervous about, but I know I need to do head on. I would try to plan the trip strategically a bit to say, all right, you know what? Instead of this thing being something that provokes anxiety unnecessarily, let's make this anxiety useful. Let's use this anxiety and face it rather than back away from it. This could be something that is triggering and makes me retreat back into the disorder, or it could be something that I mentally prepare for and tackle head on that can actually propel my recovery forward. And so I would try to approach trips with that sort of mindset. It really helps if you're doing that to have someone with you on the trip that you can use as a support and accountability person and just let them know I'm worried about the trip for X, Y, and Z reasons. This is what I really want to accomplish while we're there with food, and this is what I need from you. Whether it's can you eat it with me? Or can you remind me before the meal that this is totally normal and okay? Or could you afterwards just step outside with me if I need to, or just squeeze my hand, put a hand on my shoulder. Bring that person in as an ally and let them know what your plans are, what your needs are. That honestly can make all the difference. Rely on support heavily. So that might mean texting friends back home that you feel safe with when difficult things come up. That might mean scheduling a therapy session the day before you leave and the day that you come home. If you're working with a recovery coach, that is a perfect time to have them on call to text or message for moments that get really hard or questions that you have that come up. It is so not the time to white knuckle your recovery. This is really the time to bring in all of the support that you can access and all the tools that you've learned along the way in your recovery. Another practice that I would use, not just on vacations, but in my recovery in general, when I was unsure about what I was supposed to eat or what I should eat or when, is to pick a model person. And when they eat, you eat. If you don't know what to eat, what they're eating, if you don't know how much eat how much they're eating. And I want to emphasize this needs to be somebody that has a really good relationship with food. Don't model it after your like weird aunt that is always dieting. For me, it was my older sister. She has a great relationship with food. I know I've mentioned her a million times. But if she was having something, then I would have something. If she was having something for dinner, then I would have that. Or I would sometimes even ask her, like, hey, Tessa, is this enough? Or if I order this, how much do you think I should eat? And she would help me navigate that. It's not a perfect system, but it helped me to survive and feel a little bit more safe and certain because I really trusted her. Okay, the body image conversation. Vacations sometimes require us to wear summer apparel. And summer apparel tends to look like less clothing. Less clothing tends to be really hard for many of us in recovery, as it is a bit more exposing of what our bodies look like. I know as early as when I was a child, I was actually talking to my family about that this week, that I did not feel comfortable wearing bathing suits. I would wear a rash guard and board shorts because I didn't like being exposed in my body, even as young as five or six. So if that is how you feel on vacation, no wonder you are stressed about it. It is really hard for us. Whether you're thinking about how other people might be seeing your body, if you've had body changes in recovery, if you're just having a hard time coping with encountering your body in general, going on a vacation and wearing a swimsuit every day or wearing shorts and tank tops can feel like a crisis in the mirror at all times. I have two thoughts about this. One is try to practice before you go. So if you are going to be on a beach vacation and you really want to enjoy it, first of all, take a little time to find a swimsuit that actually feels comfortable for you. Order some to try on at home. You really only need one swimsuit that feels good or that feels tolerable to survive a vacation. Practice wearing it, and I know this is gonna sound weird, but practice wearing it around the house before you go. This will be a small exposure just between you and you before you're out in public wearing that swimsuit. This goes for other items of clothing as well, if you're feeling rather exposed in them. Find a cute cover-up that makes you feel like a little more confident. There's nothing wrong with wearing that at the beach. If you're really not at the place where you can sit comfortably in your body in a swimsuit, that's totally fine to do too. You really have to just meet yourself where you're at. But do again the work on the front end. Don't leave this to the last minute because you're avoiding it. To find a swimsuit that you feel at least a little more comfortable in. Something that you can wear over it if that feels important, and practice wearing it around the house. Do not spend a ton of time in the mirror. Once you know that this is something that you can survive wearing, I want you to pack it in your suitcase. I do not want you to look at yourself in the mirror when you put it on that day to go to the beach. Totally unnecessary. In fact, while you're on vacation, I would recommend that you avoid the mirror as much as possible. Pack clothes that feel comfortable first, and clothes that will, to the best of their ability, not call sensory attention to your body. I find for myself, my body image is worse when I'm wearing clothes that are a little bit tighter fitting or hugging, and I can feel them around my belly, or they just bring an awareness to a part of my body that feels triggering. If you can find clothes that have a waistband that feels more comfortable, maybe a little bit more free-flowing, just so it doesn't call sensory awareness to the body, that is super, super helpful. I know that my sensory awareness is on high alert when it comes to clothes on my body, just as a person in general. But when I'm on a trip, it can feel even worse. Knowing that there are people that might be looking at me or pictures that might be pictures that might be taken. It's just so hard. So really know where you're at and do what you can to support yourself before and prepare. That's the message of this whole episode is how do we survive? We prepare, we're strategic, we're intentional. Yes, trips are meant to be fun, but usually if you're in the process of recovering, it is not something you can just wing quite yet and expect it to be lighthearted and fun. We really want to do all of the work ahead of time, mentally preparing ourselves, practically preparing ourselves, getting support that we need. All of that needs to be done weeks ahead of when you go out on this trip to really set yourself up for success and know that it might still be difficult, which is okay. Like I said, vacations and trips are pressure cookers for an eating disorder. Things that used to feel easy or feel easy at home are not gonna feel quite the same when you're somewhere else. That's normal and okay. But it also might give you an opportunity to see all right, my eating disorder is still got a grip on me here. I'm gonna take that bit of information, I'm gonna bring it back to therapy when I return. Instead of getting hard on yourself for the things that are hard, just take it as new information that might actually help to push you forward in your recovery when you get back. You can survive this and maybe even have a little bit of fun. And the more that you immerse yourself in these experiences that are you just living your life, the easier they get, the bigger your life gets, and the less important it is that the eating disorder remains a centerpiece in your life. I think a big thought that gave me a lot of anxiety when I was in recovery and going on a trip, or in my eating disorder and going on a trip was if I eat differently for this week or I do things differently for this week, I'm gonna gain all of this weight. My body is gonna change, it's gonna be horrible. I'm gonna have to go back and do all of this compensatory work to bring my body back to where it's supposed to be. I want you to know that this is scientifically impossible that your body's gonna change that much in a week. So even if that's the thought that you cling to while you're away, this is again a recovered-ish thought. Your body is okay if it changes. Our bodies are supposed to change, but I want you to know that your eating disorder bringing that thought in is fear-mongering and is not true. The problem never was, never has been your body. The anxiety isn't really about your body actually changing because, in all likelihood, it won't. The anxiety centers around uncertainty and just not knowing whether or not that's going to happen, not knowing if you're gonna be okay doing things out of the norm, eating different kinds of food, moving in different ways. When we don't have certainty, we don't have concrete information, your brain's gonna fill in the blanks and your eating disorder is gonna fill in the blanks. That doesn't mean it's true. That doesn't mean it's right. It does mean it's something we have to be aware of. So the preparation work that you can do to protect your experience is going to be everything. And even just being aware that thought is coming from your eating disorder and is coming from an untruthful, fear-mongering place can be a bit relieving. So, my challenge for you: if you are going on a trip this summer, if you have a vacation planned, instead of thinking about going into this trip, preparing by trying to manipulate your body or your weight or your shape or size ahead of time to make the experience more enjoyable. Can we flip the script on that? How can you protect your experience first rather than placing your body at the forefront? It doesn't need to be. Life is about experiences. Life is not about your body. You deserve to have fun, you deserve to enjoy everything that this place has to offer. You would deserve to be present with your friends or your family with the experience. Do your best to center that and think, how can I make that what is most valued to me? The eating disorder is going to try to bring the attention to your body, bring the attention to food. I know that's not what's most important to your life. So try to remind yourself of that. What can I do to protect my experience first so that you can actually find some enjoyment and live your life a little bit more freely? Okay. I feel like I just threw a lot at you. I hope that some of this felt practical, felt helpful, felt connective. If you were sitting here, oh my gosh, summer is going to be a nightmare. And I am hearing what you're saying, Chloe, but all of that isn't quite possible for me yet. I hear it. I feel you. This is exactly why I am creating these summer workshops because summer is a really hard time. And it's exactly why I'm doing these summer workshops in tandem with my recovery skills training. That skills training has literally, you guys, like 12 weeks of every practical skill I have ever used in my own recovery to actually do things differently and make changes. And there's even a workbook that's, I'm serious, over a hundred pages long that can help you to do a little bit of the deeper integration work. That is why that is available, plus the added workshops that are live with me, where you can ask me questions where we can go a little bit deeper on what is it actually going to take to survive the summer and maybe even make progress this summer in your eating disorder recovery. So I'm really hopeful about those. If you haven't signed up yet, you can still sign up and use the podcast link to get $57 off. The code is podcast57, I think. But I'd love to have you if that feels like it would be helpful. At the end of the day, the goal is to enjoy our lives and working hard at recovery is hard work, but it is worthy work. And one of the most obvious places that I see the worth is when I'm able to travel and actually just enjoy myself now after 11 years. Thanks for listening. And as always, appreciate you being here, appreciate your voices. Feel free to DM me your thoughts in the episode, comments down below if you're on YouTube. Again, if you could subscribe on YouTube, even if you listen on Podcast or Spotify, I would so appreciate a YouTube subscribe. I'm really trying to get my subscriber count to a thousand by the end of the year, and we're getting close-ish. Just a personal goal of mine. It would be a personal favor to me if you went over and subscribed to my YouTube. But thanks again for watching. Leave a review if you enjoyed the episode, and I will talk to you next week. Eat your food, enjoy your life, have a fun vacation. Bye, I'm not.