Breaking Free from Pseudo Recovery: A Heartfelt Discussion on Navigating the Complexities of Eating Disorders and Body Image Issues

Have you ever felt like you're constantly on the cusp of recovery from eating disorders or body image issues, yet somehow held back? It's confusing, isn't it? That's what we're unpacking in this frank and enlightening conversation. As your host, Jamie, a dietitian and body image specialist, I want to share my journey and expose the insidious cycle of 'pseudo recovery' - a state where you believe you're recovering yet still ensnared in the web of diets and body shame.

Through my personal struggle and working with hundreds of clients in pseudo recovery, I've learned that it's crucial to identify this deceptive state and navigate our way out of it. This is a journey to genuine recovery - one that involves understanding the root causes, developing healthy coping mechanisms, and building a harmonious relationship with food and our bodies. It certainly isn't an easy path, but I promise, what lies on the other side is an unwavering, grounded relationship with your body and food. So, let me guide you through this challenging phase and let's step forward towards real freedom with food and body image.

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@jamierd_

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to Bites in Body Love. I'm Jamie, a dietitian and body image specialist. Join me to liberate yourself from diets and body shame, embracing true freedom and confidence with food and body. Take your place at the table on this transformative journey towards a life of freedom and confidence. If you have not heard of this phrase, pseudo recovery which could be very likely it's something I say all the time, but I'm not sure if people are familiar with it.

Speaker 1: 0:37

I call pseudo recovery this place of maybe a false sense of recovery or not, a place in recovery where we're quite where we can be. It might be this place where we feel like we are in recovery in some ways, but we're not totally free. We're still very much plagued by a distressing relationship with food and our body. We just don't feel there yet. We feel like there's more work to be done and we feel like we're missing something. We feel like full food and freedom, full body image, acceptance and a harmonious relationship with us. That's not here, but I don't know where that is. I don't know how to get there and I've never been there, so this must be it right. And then you get trapped in this place of pseudo recovery from an eating disorder, from body image, from chronic dieting, from binge eating. It's really a deceptive place to be and it's not your fault and it's someplace I was stuck in for a long time, which has led me to be so passionate about talking about pseudo recovery and really getting people to that final cross, the finish line. Because it's very hard, because people are not aware that they're there, or they may be aware, but not they don't know how to move forward and get to complete recovery from these things. And also it's because of our world is so disordered, so it's very confusing, because you can feel like, well, I'm doing better, but I'm still plagued by thoughts, but I'm not using certain behaviors and I'm just dieting and I'm just distressing my body and I'm just shaming it. But that's normal in our world, right, and so it keeps us really stuck. But the wonderful thing is that when you have to look at your relationship with food and body because of struggling hard with it, you can go to places that a lot of people can't go. You know maybe some people who are just in and out of diet culture and it's really affecting them, but they've never hit this kind of rock bottom place or this really hard place where they really dive into their relationship with food and body to bring it to a place that is so, so, so, so wonderful. So, yes, it's, it's suit of recovery. So let's get back to that Now.

Speaker 1: 3:06

How do you know you're in suit of recovery? You may be experiencing suit of recovery if you have given up and feel like you've moved past and understood and said goodbye to certain behaviors for the most part and you have a bit more understanding and maybe you have a little bit more acceptance with your body and it and you feel like you've gotten to a better place. But you still feel like you're. You have to be constantly on alert with your body, whether it's planning out your meals, making sure you're eating the quote unquote right thing, making sure you don't break a certain rule that you still feel you need. Jumping on the scale. You are constantly checking yourself in the mirror. You're constantly looking through different diets. You may be trying to find what is quote unquote healthy and trying to pursue health and tying that in with your weight and it. Coming from a fear based place, place. So you might be experiencing those things. You're still experiencing some of the behaviors and the struggles that come around with it and still food and body take up way too much in your mind. You also may not have you may not truly have explored the struggle and where it comes from and some of the underlying issues and really dove into your relationship with food and body and why. That is something that feels oh, so important when it comes to making, when it comes to like, oh, I can't give up my diet, I can't accept my body, I can't let my body go to where it needs to with weight and size. It could be some a lot of underlying issues and many times people are in pseudo recovery too, because they they work their relationship with, they worked through their relationship with food a lot, but they have not explored body image at all, which is where I see a lot of people getting stuck in pseudo recovery Situated.

Speaker 1: 5:04

For me, pseudo recovery was a place of trying to find health, and I say that quote unquote, right. It was this obsessive way of thinking of what's the best, the healthiest way of doing things. How do I still manipulate my body? How do I find out the foods I can trust and can't trust? Still researching, trying to look externally and still having a lot of fear when it came to my being able to trust food and being able to trust body, and I felt better, but I was still plagued with it. It still took up 99% of my energy in the day and it was still very, very rough and I was still searching. Right, when you have found food, freedom and and a body image healing, you're not searching anymore, you're living in it and it opens up your life to more. So if you're still searching, that means you could very well still be in in pseudo recovery, and my heart goes out to you.

Speaker 1: 6:00

I want to send a lot of compassion and also a lot of hope. If you have awareness that you're in pseudo recovery, that's amazing, because that means you can be open to you, have this awareness that there's still more places to go, there's still stones to unturn and there's still much more out there for you. So let's talk about how pseudo recovery and staying here can be dangerous and really trap you. Again, a lot of compassion goes out to you and I want to be really mindful of how this might hit, because it's really hard to consistently struggle and to feel like the last thing I want is for you to feel like I'm not doing well enough. I thought I was doing better and now Jamie's calling me in and saying that there's still work that needs to be done. I am, but you're still doing great, you're still moving forward, you're still listening to this podcast, you're still in a much better place than you have been, and this is part of the journey. This is part of the journey. No one can skip this part. I did not skip this part. I was stuck in this for a long time and I want to celebrate that. You're raising awareness around it.

Speaker 1: 7:14

And I want to say staying here is dangerous. It can aid in backsliding back into old behaviors, back into more disordered eating, back into these crazy diets, back into more body shame, because it can feel like a false sense of improvement or a false sense of being in full recovery, fully untangled from diet culture, fully untangled from body shame and those messages swaying us. It really delays full healing and so it's dangerous because it's like being stuck in an okay relationship where you're still closing the door on an amazing relationship you can have. Because you're stuck with the current partner that feels better than the last partner but still fills you with anxiety, still doesn't feel trusting, but since it was better than before and because we have not had a relationship that has felt truly wonderful and free. We may have closed the door on that being an option and I don't want you to close that door. Okay, it's dangerous to stay here because it can aid in backlighting, it can aid in just not getting exactly what you deserve, which is full freedom with body image and food.

Speaker 1: 8:32

Okay, true freedom from these things, true recovery not being stuck in pseudo recovery requires addressing all like no stones in some terms, addressing root causes, addressing all of the many, many aspects of body image, going through the uncomfy steps of true trust with food, where you can eat all foods, where you feel like you can say out loud I have a wonderful relationship with food in my body, I can check in, I know what to do, I trust it, it trusts me, we have a harmonious relationship, okay, and it involves true recovery, involves developing healthy coping mechanisms, raising awareness, understanding for yourself how to be your own best friend when it comes to your relationship with food and body in yourself and really just continuing to move forward where you feel like you are in this place of unwavering, grounded relationship with food in your body. If you heard a diet culture message or if someone said something triggering you would let. It might hurt, it could still hurt, but it would bounce off and you'd be like mm-hmm, I'm in this wonderful place and nothing can, nothing can push me out of it. That, I feel, is true recovery. But I want you to ask yourself. I want you to ask yourself and this is a question, this is one of the few questions I ask right away from my clients is what does it mean for you?

Speaker 1: 10:05

What does being completely in recovery from disordered eating, negative body image, diet, culture, binge eating, whatever it might be what does it look like for you? Ask yourselves, ask yourself, what would a day in life look like if I was exactly where I wanted to be with my relationship with food and body? What would it look like? And then ask yourself am I here yet? Am I there yet? Am I truly there? What's missing? Is that important to me to achieve? Why is it important that I get out of pseudo recovery? Why do I want that? Am I telling myself I can't have that? Why? What fears are coming up for me and what barriers are coming up for me that are telling me I can't get there, I shouldn't get there, I shouldn't keep going? Raise awareness so important because I don't want you to close those doors and I want you to get that support and I wish I would have that support and those tools and that idea there for me when I was in pseudo recovery A lot sooner. I wish I would have had it, so I want you to know it's there, okay.

Speaker 1: 11:27

Thank you for tuning in to Bites and Body Love. Ready for true food and body freedom? Apply to join my program True Body Image Freedom for Everybody, where we will guide you every step of the way. Dm me at jmrd underscore on Instagram or Facebook for a no pressure conversation so we can learn more about you and your fit for the program. Remember every step toward loving your body is a victory. Subscribe and leave a review to support our message of body liberation. Stay awesome and see you next time You've got this.