Life After Diets

Latest Episodes:

87. But What If I'm a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP)? Mar 15, 2023

Show notes

Psychologist Elaine Aron coined the term "Highly Sensitive Person" to refer to a subset of the population (estimated to be about 15-20%) who seem to have more sensitive nervous systems than the rest of the population. HSPs may be more easily overwhelmed and activated by stimuli in their internal and external environments, which may intersect with using food to help regulate the system. In this episode, we talk about:

What does it mean to be a HSP?
Stef's score vs Sarah's score (on the HSP test)
Stef tickles her own arm in her sleep
Sensitivity impact on motherhood
The organizational aspect of food to regulate the impact of external chaos
Do HSPs feel more sensitive to lack of control?
What do we do to manage sensitivity?
Food as a way to de-stimulate
How to help someone who is highly sensitive

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MEET US IN NYC THIS MAY!

Connect with the show:

Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/lifeafterdietspodcast/

Email – lifeafterdietspodcast@gmail.com

Website – www.lifeafterdietspodcast.com

Connect with Sarah Dosanjh:

Website – www.thebingeeatingtherapist.com

YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/c/TheBingeEatingTherapist

Sarah's book I Can't Stop Eating is available on Amazon

Connect with Stefanie Michele:

Website – www.iamstefaniemichele.com

Binge Eating Recovery Course: www.iamstefaniemichele.com/iamstefaniemichelecourse

86. But I Know What I Should Be Doing -- So Why Don't I Do It? Mar 11, 2023

Show notes

The voice of the "should" -- the things we know we should be doing but can't seem to do. Maybe we consume so much self-help information and don't feel like we can apply any of it. Why does this happen? What can we do about it?

Shift of language: "I'd like to" or "I can" instead of "I should" or "I need to"
Stef's experience of the should voice in yoga
Permission to do things inconsistently
Do we feel better about doing things that are non-negotiable?
How do we deal with the disappointment in ourselves?
The somatics of "shoulds" and overwhelm
The vague-ness of our shoulds - can we make the goal more specifi?
The diet culture associations of certain goals
What do Stef & Sarah feel like they "should" do today?

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Connect with the show!

Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/lifeafterdietspodcast/

Email – lifeafterdietspodcast@gmail.com

Website – www.lifeafterdietspodcast.com

Connect with Sarah Dosanjh

Website – www.thebingeeatingtherapist.com

YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/c/TheBingeEatingTherapist

Sarah's book I Can't Stop Eating is available on Amazon

Food For Thought Emails: https://thebingeeatingtherapist.com/newsletter/

Connect with Stefanie Michele

Website – www.iamstefaniemichele.com

Binge Eating Recovery Course: www.iamstefaniemichele.com/iamstefaniemichelecourse

Stef's Wednesday Weekly Email: www.iamstefaniemichele.com/wednesdays

JOIN US IN NYC on MAY 6 2023!

85. But I Feel Shocked When I See Photos of Myself Mar 01, 2023

Show notes

Have you ever looked at a photograph of yourself (or passed by your reflection in a mirror) and felt a surge of shock or body image distress run through your whole body? This is what Stef calls a "flood," and in this episode we dive a little deeper into why this happens and what we can do about it.

We're coming to NYC!
Fatphobia is implicit in feeling disgust or disapproval of our image
Disorientation of an image versus our mental self image
Do body image coaches have floods?
How our perspective of our image can change within short periods of time
Stef's flood in London
So What?
How do we handle emotional reactions like this?
What about the younger generations who have body image pressures?
PHYSIS

Join the LAD Membership

Connect with the show!

Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/lifeafterdietspodcast/

Email – lifeafterdietspodcast@gmail.com

Website – www.lifeafterdietspodcast.com

Connect with Sarah Dosanjh

Website – www.thebingeeatingtherapist.com

YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/c/TheBingeEatingTherapist

Sarah's book I Can't Stop Eating is available on Amazon

Connect with Stefanie Michele

Website – www.iamstefaniemichele.com

Binge Eating Recovery Course: www.iamstefaniemichele.com/iamstefaniemichelecourse

84. Transition Eating and Autopilot Eating Feb 22, 2023

Show notes

Have you noticed difficulty or discomfort in the small transitions of life, like coming home from work or preparing to wind-down for the night? Why are transitions a time we turn to food for help? In this episode, we talk about:

What is transition eating
Sarah's afternoon walk
Stef's nighttime transition and home/work transition
When the kids go to bed
Transitioning back to work after lunch
Eating while traveling
Eating after a nap
Eating on autopilot after bingeing
Autopilot can be a form of dissociation
Tools: naming, slowing down, speeding up, rituals

Join the LAD Membership

Connect with the show!

Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/lifeafterdietspodcast/

Email – lifeafterdietspodcast@gmail.com

Website – www.lifeafterdietspodcast.com

Connect with Sarah Dosanjh

Website – www.thebingeeatingtherapist.com

YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/c/TheBingeEatingTherapist

Sarah's book I Can't Stop Eating is available on Amazon

Connect with Stefanie Michele

Website – www.iamstefaniemichele.com

Binge Eating Recovery Course: www.iamstefaniemichele.com/iamstefaniemichelecourse

83. But Can Abstaining from Sugar & Carbs Help? Feb 15, 2023

Show notes

Many of us have tried to reduce or eliminate white sugar, flour, carbohydrates, and/or processed foods in order to improve our relationship with food, reduce overeating, and lose weight. Does this approach make sense? Does it help? Is it a problem with the approach or a problem with us? In this episode, we explore:

Stef's experience of feeling good on keto, and it's unraveling
Is it a psychological or a physiological issue?
Bright Line Eating and the science of insulin and leptin
Stef's "close-to-the-bathroom" analogy
How community impacts this process
The rebel spirit
Can we separate abstinence from morality? Does anyone?
Personal responsibility when consuming content around these concepts

Join the LAD Membership

Connect with the show!

Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/lifeafterdietspodcast/

Email – lifeafterdietspodcast@gmail.com

Website – www.lifeafterdietspodcast.com

Connect with Sarah Dosanjh

Website – www.thebingeeatingtherapist.com

YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/c/TheBingeEatingTherapist

Sarah's book I Can't Stop Eating is available on Amazon

Connect with Stefanie Michele

Website – www.iamstefaniemichele.com

Binge Eating Recovery Course: www.iamstefaniemichele.com/iamstefaniemichelecourse

82. But How Do I Dress This Body? Feat. Dacy of Mindful Closet Feb 08, 2023

Show notes

Has your body changed in recovery, or as a result of your disordered eating patterns? This can be hard enough in our fatphobic society, but there is often an added layer of "clothing grief." Fashion can be part of a creative expression that feels like part of our identity; and its not secret that fashion culture caters to smaller bodies.

In this episode, we talk to Dacy of Mindful Closet. Dacy empowers women "to be their authentic selves through their clothes" even when body image feels like a barrier to that expression. We discuss:

Clothing as a gateway to identifying what we really like and want
Creating a Pinterest board
How Dacy helps people deal with clothing that looks one way on the model/mannequin and completely different on our own body
How Dacy ended up working with women with fashion and body image issues
Sarah's aphantasia (not having a mind's eye) and copying outfits as a strategy
The "frumpy" insecurity
How support in this area creates conditions for self acceptance we may not have access to alone
What about people who can't accept the size of their body and don't want to spend money and energy on shopping for clothes?
Dressing for special occasions

Dacy's website: https://www.mindfulcloset.com

Dacy's Instagram handle: @mindfulcloset

Join the LAD Membership

Connect with the show!

Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/lifeafterdietspodcast/

Email – lifeafterdietspodcast@gmail.com

Website – www.lifeafterdietspodcast.com

Connect with Sarah Dosanjh

Website – www.thebingeeatingtherapist.com

YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/c/TheBingeEatingTherapist

Sarah's book I Can't Stop Eating is available on Amazon

Connect with Stefanie Michele

Website – www.iamstefaniemichele.com

Binge Eating Recovery Course: www.iamstefaniemichele.com/iamstefaniemichelecourse

81. A Conversation About Brain Over Binge Feb 01, 2023

Show notes

Many people who've struggled with binge eating for a long time have come across the book "Brain Over Binge" by Kathryn Hansen. Sarah and Stef, co-hosts, both read the book as they tried to recover and are discussing how the method landed for them. The episode looks into:

Stef's history and experience with reading BOB and taking the official BOB course
Sarah's experience of "looking forward to" the next binge urge to learn a new response.
Dismissal of urges as irresponsible – what if those messages from the primal brain are valid, asks Stef
Weight and eating as pathological
Minimization (demonization?) of conventional therapy
Do some personality types find this approach easier than others?
Sarah's use of RALIC to ride out binge urges - but not with the goal of not bingeing itself.
What if giving yourself permission to binge does NOT feel okay?
Does it work to delay a binge?
What can we take from BOB, in S&S's perspective?

Join the LAD Membership

Connect with the show!

Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/lifeafterdietspodcast/

Email – lifeafterdietspodcast@gmail.com

Website – www.lifeafterdietspodcast.com

Connect with Sarah Dosanjh

Website – www.thebingeeatingtherapist.com

YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/c/TheBingeEatingTherapist

Sarah's book I Can't Stop Eating is available on Amazon

Connect with Stefanie Michele

Website – www.iamstefaniemichele.com

Binge Eating Recovery Course - www.iamstefaniemichele.com/iamstefaniemichelecourse

80. But I Eat to Numb Jan 25, 2023

Show notes

Restricting and bingeing (and the spectrum of these behaviors) can be attempts to numb our emotional experience. This episode looks at different ways of numbing and how Sarah & Stef experienced using food as an escape. We cover:

Numbing via eating and numbing via restriction
Do binges make us "not feel" or feel more?
Stef's recollection of numbing in London circa 2000
The feeling that tomorrow it will be different.
Connection to break the numbing cycle
Somatic practices, embodiment, checking in with the body
Difficulty with empty time, in the gaps of life
Numbing doesn't exist in a vacuum; food can numb AND do other things like provide comfort, soothe boredom, etc
Low level existential blah
How did Sarah and Stef stop needing to numb so much?

Join the LAD Membership

Connect with the show!

Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/lifeafterdietspodcast/

Email – lifeafterdietspodcast@gmail.com

Website – www.lifeafterdietspodcast.com

Connect with Sarah Dosanjh

Website – www.thebingeeatingtherapist.com

YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/c/TheBingeEatingTherapist

Sarah's book I Can't Stop Eating is available on Amazon

Connect with Stefanie Michele

Website – www.iamstefaniemichele.com

Binge Eating Course - www.iamstefaniemichele.com/iamstefaniemichelecourse

79. But I Just Want Some Control Jan 18, 2023

Show notes

Control is an unavoidable theme in the subject of eating disorder recovery. What is your relationship to control and how do you define it? The hosts explore their own experience of the concept and also highlight its important (and at times, healthy) role in navigating recovery. Sarah & Stef discuss:

Light podcast banter. What podcasts do we listen to?
The thrill of control/restriction
Stef feels like control is safety; Sarah feels like control is dominance.
The role of control in bulimia and/or restriction
The illusion of control; if we see that it's an illusion, does it break the spell?
Is control always at the root of EDs? Not true for Sarah!
Control as related to sense of self or emotional magnitude
Control and rebellion. We need to know we have agency & choice.
Surrender: higher power and the inner compass
We can't control what's hard
How much control is healthy? How else can we make it productive?

Join the LAD Membership

Connect with the show!

Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/lifeafterdietspodcast/

Email – lifeafterdietspodcast@gmail.com

Website – www.lifeafterdietspodcast.com

Connect with Stefanie Michele

Website – www.iamstefaniemichele.com

Binge Eating Recovery Course - www.iamstefaniemichele.com/iamstefaniemichelecourse

Connect with Sarah Dosanjh

Website – www.thebingeeatingtherapist.com

YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/c/TheBingeEatingTherapist

Sarah's book I Can't Stop Eating is available on Amazon

78. Grief, Break-Ups, & Food Jan 11, 2023

Show notes

What role does food play in grief (around death, breakups, or existential itchiness)? In this episode Sarah & Stef share some personal stories, including a little cry!