If you’re curious about what it looks like to stop pursuing weight loss, click here for some fabulous freebies that will help guide you in your journey!

Click here to leave me a review on iTunes and subscribe. This type of kindness helps the show continue!

Find FREE food voice resources here.

Thank you for supporting Find Your Food Voice!

Julie Duffy Dillon (00:00)

Welcome to episode 417 of Find Your Food Voice. Today we’re talking binge eating after betrayal, heartbreak, and big life transitions with guest dietitian, Katy Harvey. Let’s get to it. Hey there, dear voice finder. I am Julie Duffy Dillon, Registered Dietitian and your host of the Find Your Food Voice podcast. I welcome anyone who feels like they have a messy, complicated, and maybe even fucked up relationship with food. This is the place where we help you uncomplicated and really identify what’s pushing you to have this chaotic relationship with food. It’s based on over 20 years working with clients as a Dietitian and I also have a book with the same name, Find Your Food Voice. So if you are looking for more tools, this podcast is it, my book is it. Again, you can get my book anywhere books are sold or in the link below. Today’s episode is very special because not only do we have a guest, we have Katy Harvey, who is a Dietitian that helps people also with a complicated relationship with food, but it’s also a letter episode. So the Find Your Food Voice podcast has been based on listener letters. Listeners just like you who outline their complicated relationship with food and they address food in a letter where they break down all the things that are hard. And me and sometimes a guest, well, we sift through it and that’s what Katy and I are doing today. And if you like this letter format, two things for you. One, my book, every chapter starts with a letter and every chapter ends with a letter back from food, just like this episode will today. And I need more letters for this season of the podcast. So send them my way. I’ll put a link in the show notes for you to be able to do that. It’s really easy and there are really no rules. You can just write whatever you want. And I hope to answer your letter very, very soon. So we are going to hear this episode’s letter after a very quick sponsor break.

All right, let’s hear this episode’s letter. Dear food, the high school version of me would have been the last person on this earth to ever believe that my relationship with you would end up causing me so much heartache and pain. I was fine until college. Backtracking to childhood, I always loved you. I was a foodie, never overthought and wasn’t obsessed with the idea of what I would eat next. Food was wonderful, especially treats or junk food type items that I didn’t get to eat often. I know there were times when my eyes were bigger than my stomach, but maybe this is a thing that many young kids also experience. High school was normal. I was active playing a sport that I loved, busy with school and spending time with family and friends. Senior year, I found myself with more freedom than ever. A lot of it was spent watching TV or cooking and eating with friends. Then came college. After a particularly sad and confusing breakup with a boy and a betrayal by a friend, my college friend group disintegrated. In retrospect, I think I may have retreated into TV and snacks, and there was no one to tell me to do it differently. Then during Thanksgiving break, I realized that I had been too free with you food, and my cute little body was quickly becoming something I was ashamed of and disgusted by. I never had anything but a small body and I lived in a family of small people. I decided I would pay more attention to what and how much I was eating. I figured this would help get myself under control. And from that moment, I became aware of your presence and your power in my life. Things really have never been the same since. Fast forward through five months of increasingly difficult and dreadful exercise regimens and an increasingly restricted food intake. I left school early to move home and enter outpatient treatment. My junior year, I finally transferred into XYZ college. I was ecstatic, but the restrictions started almost right away. This time though, my body was far more resistant to restriction and it was increasingly difficult to not give in and binge. I returned home after only three months and didn’t return to school until the next summer. Now my fourth year of college is almost over. That means I’ve been binging for a year now. It’s hard to believe that I was ever able to restrict at all because binging is such an everyday part of my life now. Over these past years, I have had consistent therapy and have also met with dietitians, but it seems like nothing is able to help me. In fact, the binging seems like it’s getting worse and worse. In the past two months alone, I have gained X pounds. I think I’ve lost hope in ever being normal with food or body image. I feel so abnormal and wrong. In recovery, bingeing was always my biggest fear, and now it’s my constant reality. I have all the tools and resources I should need to help myself and change, but I’m still doing this. How did we get this far? Love secretly broken. All right, we’re gonna get to this interview with Katy Harvey, but be sure to stick around to the end of the episode because

Food is gonna write this letter writer here back. All right, let’s get to this episode with Katy Harvey.

Julie Duffy Dillon (05:22)

hey there, Katy, thanks for coming to the show.

Katy (05:24)

Absolutely, I’m excited to be here.

Julie Duffy Dillon (05:26)

I am so glad that you are coming onto my podcast after me being on yours. are you? Yes, I love doing this. And did you get a chance to read through the letter?

Katy (05:31)

Yes, it’s so fun. I sure did.

Julie Duffy Dillon (05:38)

How familiar was this letter to you? Because it feels so familiar to me.

Katy (05:45)

At first, I was like, did Julie just write this as an example? But then I could tell some of the details. I was like, no, this was a real person writing this. Because I have heard this story, I feel like, so many times. There are so many common struggles that are embedded into it. And I think that that’s something that’s powerful to touch on is that when people are struggling with these things, they so often feel very alone and isolated in it. And it’s shockingly common.

Julie Duffy Dillon (05:48)

shockingly common for sure. I mean, that’s why I have a feeling you and I both podcast is like, we hear so many people feel so alone in their experience, but yet everyone is like experiencing really the same kind of things with food, even if they have a different story and the forlorn experience. There’s this common kind of pattern and a lot of it is just feeling so isolated. So let’s dive in more into what when you were reading through the letter, what you thought this letter writer was experiencing.

Katy (06:45)

I would say the number one thing that really spoke to me was the shame and the feeling of hopelessness that it’s possible to connect with and to trust their body and to trust themselves with food.

Julie Duffy Dillon (07:03)

Something that I’m thinking about that you just said was how they felt fine with food, you know, and then all of a sudden they weren’t fine. And they said I was fine until college. And I think it’s so interesting to think about, and I remember doing this with clients, like trying to put a finger on when did they lose that trust? Like how did that happen? And you know, this person talks about going to college and everything was fine until then.

Katy (07:23)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Julie Duffy Dillon (07:31)

and they even like loved food. And then they went through this hard thing and they were sad and they were betrayed by a friend. I’m like, ooh, there was some gossip there. I wonder if that was like the friend hooked up with the boyfriend. Oh, shit. I know. I was like, I wish I could talk to this person to find out more, but how horrible. But then that’s when food became complicated, you know?

Katy (07:43)

Right. Yes, between the breakup with the boyfriend and the friend, ⁓ boy. Yes. And also it jumped out to me going off to college. That’s a theme that I hear a lot because it’s the first time in our lives for so many people that they’re like now out on their own and making all of their own food decisions. And that can sometimes be really challenging in and of itself too.

Julie Duffy Dillon (08:01)

Yeah, yeah, and the thing that’s really normal, especially if you lived in a house where maybe there was some hidden diet culture or maybe not so hidden, ⁓ where you were told to act a certain way or only eat certain foods. And then when you go to college, you really can choose what you want. And so there is a time where you probably will experiment and experiment with a lot of things outside of food too, but you know, eating more than probably feels comfortable eating different foods. And it’s really normal to like, you know, kind of I don’t know, mistakes is not the right word for me. I don’t know about you. But like, you know, to make some choices where you kind of feel like crap. And I don’t mean like emotionally, but just like physically like, I have a tummy ache. And yeah, so when you go to college and you’re having to like make all these big jumps all at once. Yeah, that can be quite a trigger. And the thing that’s really interesting, I think just even like clinically is something that I have worked a lot with is people who have PCOS. And for many people with PCOS, they start to experience the symptoms of PCOS in their late teens, early twenties. And so a lot of people get diagnosed either like in college or after college. And I think of a lot of it comes down to this. Plus there’s also like the end of puberty happening. You that’s the other thing we didn’t really talk about yet is like, this person was, they’re just, finishing adolescence, so their body’s gonna change. So they were like, my quote, cute little body, or I forget exactly how it was spelled out, noticing that changed. I’m like, well, yeah, we’re not supposed to be adolescent forever, right? You know, and that’s not the failure.

Katy (09:42)

Right? Yep. my gosh, that’s such a good point. I don’t know about you, but I hear that a lot from people when I might ask them, know, what was like your, know, sort of, has there been a normal weight that your body seemed to gravitate towards? And I will often hear them say, well, when I was in high school, I weighed this and I’m like, okay, time out. In high school, like you were still an adolescent and sometimes I’ll even show them how on growth charts, like the growth chart itself goes.

Julie Duffy Dillon (10:21)

Yeah.

Katy (10:29)

up to age 20, like there’s still an upward trajectory there even though your height has usually completed. Like we wouldn’t expect you to not gain weight when you go off to college. But yet there’s all this like, you know, freshman 15 and blah, blah, blah that I think further perpetuates this distrust that people have.

Julie Duffy Dillon (10:31)

Yeah, so no wonder that this letter writer was starting to distrust food because they were experiencing like friendship betrayal, a heartbreak, and they were going through like normal developmental changes. And they were like having to like do all these things on their own for the first time. So what a clusterfuck. That’s a lot at one time. Yeah, we expect a lot out of people I think about that and in the United States of like for

Katy (11:07)

right

Julie Duffy Dillon (11:16)

if they’re gonna leave for college and live away from home. My boyfriend grew up in Mexico and he was like, yeah, we didn’t do that. ⁓ He’s like, people live at home through college. If they go to college, they stay at home. guess that’s what’s normal. And I think about how there’s so many benefits to that. Although at the same time, I’m like, I love my children, but I’m also kind of excited for when they leave the house so it’ll stay clean and stuff like that. ⁓

Katy (11:25)

interesting.

Julie Duffy Dillon (11:45)

developmentally, it makes sense to like still be at home during adolescence. And we’re an adolescent through 25, right? So I love the idea of the growth chart, like just showing a blank one. Like there’s so much shame and blame used in the growth chart thing, but like showing a blank one up and being like, look, see, our body changes even after. Yeah, yeah.

Katy (12:07)

Right, this is the expected trajectory. Yeah, exactly.

Julie Duffy Dillon (12:11)

What a way to use the growth chart for good instead of evil in that moment.

Katy (12:15)

I know. Yeah, there’s so many ways growth charts get kind of weaponized with people and that’s its own

Julie Duffy Dillon (12:19)

Exactly, exactly.

Katy (12:22)

problem.

Julie Duffy Dillon (12:23)

the pattern that I see happening over and over again is people talking about restricting through their teens and 20s and being so scared of binging more frequently. And then eventually the body just can’t seem to keep restricting and binging becomes more the repeated pattern. And so many people would be in my office and be like, why can’t I be restricting like I did again. Like why can’t I just diet a little bit like I did before? Like almost like they’re failing as a human because they can’t withhold their like, they can’t keep their hunger back anymore and they can’t stop eating. So I’m like imagining a listener who may be in the throes of like that cyclical kind of restriction without much binging or maybe none at all and being scared of this step or someone who yeah, was like that the letter writer and now is like, why?

Katy (12:49)

Mm-hmm.

Yep. Yep.

Julie Duffy Dillon (13:17)

Why can I only binge now? Like what’s happening? I’m assuming you see that too in your practice.

Katy (13:23)

Yeah, for sure. And I’m curious how you might help people understand this. The way sometimes I frame it is to me, it makes sense where the body experiences restriction as a threat to survival. And it figures out, it gets really smart that like, we’re not going to put ourselves at risk. And so it like attempts at restricting or I’ve seen some studies where it’s like even thinking about restricting can lead to increased binges and overeating. And so it’s like this defense mechanism of the body. And when we look at it that way, we can sort of appreciate what our body is trying to do for us to protect us instead of having that narrative that like, I just, I don’t have enough willpower. I’m not strong enough, or I’m too addicted to food or Like basically the assumption there’s something wrong with me when it’s like, well, there’s very much not something wrong with you. This is biologically how we are designed as human beings. And it has served us well at points in history when we didn’t have consistent access to food.

Julie Duffy Dillon (14:21)

Exactly 100%, I’m like totally aligned with you. I think that’s like why I do everything that I do. It’s like, want people to know that. Like, yeah, I know you are like a successfully evolved human. Like this binging is not a weakness. This is your strength. This is your ancestors have passed this down to you. This is how they survived. And it also reminds me too, and I talk about this in the Find Your Food Voice book is that,

Katy (14:51)

I love that, yeah.

Julie Duffy Dillon (15:06)

you know, eating and food, it’s like a basic part of survival, you know, just like breathing is just like drinking enough water and having shelter. So if we’re drowning and gasping for air, and then finally get to breathe again, it’s not going to just be this little bit of like, taking normal breaths, it’s gonna be like gasping for air. Sometimes people even need to be intubated or get a trach or And then also people will have like nightmares about drowning and probably have to go to therapy for the trauma. like, yes, the food is the same thing. Like when we don’t have enough of it, our body’s going to have years of recovery. And I think the only thing that makes oxygen and food different is like, we’ve been trained to believe that we have to like limit our food intake and we are bad if we can’t. And no one’s like shaming us for over breathing, right? Yeah, so ⁓ yeah, diet trauma is a real thing. And I agree, so many people I would work with, especially over time, I started to work more with people who had read Intuitive Eating, were really invested in anti-diet work. And if you’re not watching this, I’m using bunny ears, but they felt like they were still eating too much or even though they were eating enough, they still like,

Katy (16:03)

It’s so true. Yeah.

Julie Duffy Dillon (16:32)

felt like something was wrong, like they were doing it wrong because of the binging and peeling back layers. What was always there was the evidence of diet trauma and whatever something rub against that edge of the trauma, there was like that mental thing that you were talking about, like that, that like fear of restriction and the trauma when it gets activated, it’s your body’s just like, shit, we’re gonna be going through another famine or. We’re going to have to go through a diet again. And so I know there are lots of people who would talk about like eating a salad would be the trigger or just going to ⁓ getting a wedding invitation. Just certain things would trigger a mental restriction. And sometimes there’s no cue. It’s just like how sometimes anxiety can be uncued think there’s also like uncued mental restriction with food that the world just reminds us of know, that diet trauma. so yeah, letter writer, what you’re experiencing is like what we would predict, like, it’s like a really normal kind of experience. And Katy when you were reading through the letter, was there anything in particular that you’re like, I would suggest this to someone like, I don’t know, some first few steps away from this chaos or like, when I even say that, I’m like, maybe not even that, but like, the first steps towards healing for this letter writer or anyone who can relate to this experience.

Katy (18:04)

I think in this situation, the first thing I usually will talk to somebody about is kind what we just talked through is like, is a really normal expected response. And so in terms of kind of like breaking out of this cycle and helping you find some like peace and stability with food and getting connected and trusting with your body, we may have to create a little bit of intentionality and some flexible structure with food to kind of like recalibrate, so to speak, your body’s digestive system, your circadian rhythm, your appetite signals, and even just like mentally understanding what does your body need and what is normal eating patterns, what does that actually look like in a non-restrictive way? And So I often will encourage people to like, let’s make sure you’re eating something every three to four hours. Like let’s have meals, let’s have snacks, let’s include the different food groups and let’s think more in terms of providing these reliable and predictable opportunities for your body to eat so that your body’s not trying to protect you based on the assumption that it doesn’t know when there’s going to be adequate access to nutrition.

Katy (19:25)

So we kind of prove to your body that we don’t need to inhale anymore, like the oxygen thing. We don’t need to gasp for air anymore because we know that there’s going to be food here again in another couple of hours. So that’s usually just from kind of a practical standpoint where I will start people to give them a little bit of something to find their footing again, too.

Julie Duffy Dillon (19:30)

Yeah, yeah. And I hope a listener hears too, like this isn’t a meal plan. Like so many people will be like, Julie, can you just give me a meal plan, please? Have you been in that corner? Like, please just give me a meal plan. And I’m like.

Katy (19:51)

Right. for sure. i could. And if they really want that and believe that’s what they need, I often will say, okay, this can be kind of a tool, but we’ve got to be flexible with it, right? Yeah.

Julie Duffy Dillon (20:04)

Yes, yes, it’s probably not what is expected. Yeah, because it oftentimes I will do what I call them chips or these check in props where people then every two to three hours check in and, and practice like, Am I hungry? Am I hot or cold? Do I need to pee? What’s going on right now? And like, get just practice checking in and then going to eat something to like have that, like you said before, just having that consistent check-in. And sometimes people wanna have some like guardrails, ⁓ some like loose guardrails to help in those check-in times. And that’s about as far as I would go with a meal plan where I’d be like, okay, have a source of carbohydrates, source of protein, source of fat, like have like some food group representation.

Katy (20:48)

Yep. Same. Yeah.

Julie Duffy Dillon (20:55)

⁓ not like eat a banana and some cottage cheese or whatever diet shit that most people get in a meal plan. ⁓ Banana cottage cheese. No.

Katy (21:01)

Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I’m like, I’m not going to tell somebody you need to eat a turkey sandwich at 12 o’clock today.

Julie Duffy Dillon (21:09)

gosh. Because seriously, like between the turkey sandwich, the cottage cheese and seasonal fruit, and then the chicken breast with a sweet potato and in season vegetables. I’m like, that’s what people already know to do, right? Like, I feel like that’s like the diet coded meal plan that everyone has been told at some point.

Katy (21:26)

Yeah. Yeah. Do you ever have people who are just like, can’t look at those foods for a while? They’re like, I can’t. Like you said, the salad earlier, or like, I had somebody a while back, I used cottage cheese as an example of a protein food. And she’s like, I can’t. It’s just like, that is like a diet trauma food for me. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Julie Duffy Dillon (21:35)

yeah, no, yes. Uh-huh. That is a, it’s a diatomic food. Exactly. And I think knowing that is so, so powerful. And it’s okay if you never eat cottage cheese again. Like you don’t have to eat cottage cheese ever and you’ll be just fine. And I would say the same thing with the salad. You don’t have to eat a salad ever again. That’s fine. You know, just like we can find other ways for you to get your micronutrients and fiber, you know, it’s, it’s okay. Yes. Like recovering like, and this is maybe where I’m maybe we need to go next, but like, cause I’m hearing a letter writer.

Katy (21:54)

Totally. a million percent.

Julie Duffy Dillon (22:16)

or someone listening who can identify with this, like if they’re in the throes of binging frequently to say something like, well, what about my health? And what I always think about like, you know, telling someone they don’t ever have to eat a salad again is, you know, recovering from an eating disorder, healing your relationship with food is a very like healthy thing to do. And not only like your emotional health, but your physical health too. Like having a relationship with food that

Katy (22:39)

Mm-hmm.

Julie Duffy Dillon (22:46)

is not rooted in trauma is super wonderful for your cortisol levels. Like all your inflammation markers, your insulin levels, like those are all really great. And we may have to do behaviors that look like the, diet culture would say is against that, but that’s not true. Like food is just not that black and white, but yeah. Do you have any kind of like response when someone says that to you? Like, but I’m binging all the time. This can’t be healthy. Like, what do you think?

Katy (23:06)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I mean, I talk about similar things that you just said and also trying to help zoom out that like the binging itself is not usually supportive of health. so like ⁓ what we have to do in order to try to break out of that cycle of binging and kind of like stabilize food patterns.

Katy (23:39)

that ultimately is going to be more supportive of health in like the grand scheme of things. And like we’re playing the long game, not the short game basically, because if what we’re doing is trying to exert control in a way that essentially resembles dieting and is gonna have that same impact where it’s gonna create the back and forth of the extremes of restriction to bingeing or like weight cycling, like the weight cycling itself.

Katy (24:07)

is worse for our health than just staying at a weight, even a higher weight. And most people don’t realize that weight cycling is extremely detrimental to our health and correlates with cardiovascular disease and even early death. And so it’s like, when we have that conversation with health, it’s just so complex and so much of it goes against what people have heard. And it can be a lot to unpack that. But usually when I explain to people that like,

Julie Duffy Dillon (24:08)Katy (24:35)

Okay, the binging itself is not necessarily supportive for health in the way that they’re thinking of it. Like it is in terms of survival mechanism, they can sort of get on board with that. And it’s like, okay, you know, we, we do at least need to like have more regular eating patterns and kind of like distribute it more evenly throughout the day.

Julie Duffy Dillon (24:41)

Yeah, yeah, like maybe ⁓ experiencing a binge and it’s gonna raise blood sugar insulin levels in that moment. But finding a way to heal your relationship with food by eating more frequently is gonna promote the long game, like you’re saying, like it’s gonna help people to eventually have a relationship with food that feels more like dependable and consistent and enough. Yeah, instead of this like ricochet back and forth. Yeah, I think that’s.

Julie Duffy Dillon (25:22)

It’s a hard sell, I also, the other thing I would say too is, you know, there’s this random person where if they are binging and it makes their blood sugar go up and they restrict and then everything’s great years later, but like that’s like incredibly rare. That’s not the norm, you know? And so like I would think about for this letter writer, like they’ve already learned that like restricting doesn’t help them. It already like has caused this really like detrimental.

Katy (25:39)

huh, yeah.

Julie Duffy Dillon (25:51)

⁓ eating disorder and kept them from living their life. even you know, you and can talk about like, hey, we have all this research and like, it doesn’t help most people. But like, even from the individuals that we’re talking to, we can look at your own like diet history and be like, okay, we know that taking food away only seems to make things worse. So how about we add instead and see what happens? ⁓

Katy (26:10)

Yeah, that’s so true. I think, sometimes when we throw out the line about, you know, most people who try to diet, like it doesn’t work, blah, blah, I think it’s just human nature to see ourselves as like the exception, not the rule of like, maybe I’ll be that small percentage of people for whom it does work or that people think of, well, I know so and so and they lost weight and kept it off and they don’t eat carbs or whatever. And so like in their mind, that shows like it’s possible.

Julie Duffy Dillon (26:19)

Mm-hmm. They don’t eat carbs.

Katy (26:40)

And we search for that. So I like that, pointing people back to like, okay, so what’s been your experience and what evidence do we have right here?

Julie Duffy Dillon (26:45)

Yeah, yeah. Let’s look at your own data. you have, like, you know, this letter writer is in their 20s, but for all, like most of the people that I’ve worked with as a dietitian, they’re in their 30s, 40s, 50s or beyond. And so they have decades of dieting history. And so we’re like, okay, let’s go through your data. And maybe, maybe you have one or two more diets that you need to go through to really exhaust.

Katy (26:50)

Sure. Yup.

Julie Duffy Dillon (27:14)

the outcomes to know if they don’t work for you or maybe you’re already there. Like, because honestly, if it hasn’t worked after 20-30 attempts, why will the next one be different? I don’t know. they’re, that’s probably, yeah, yeah. And I think everyone probably has their breaking point where they’re like, okay, yeah, no, I know diets aren’t gonna work for me. And so we’re rooting for you, letter writer, to be at that point where you’re like, okay, no, diets don’t work for me. I…

Katy (27:25)

Mm hmm. It’s a valid question. Yeah.

Julie Duffy Dillon (27:43)

I need to do something different. And I think about those first steps that you mentioned, you know, trying to get to this place where you’re consistently eating and like working towards that and adding foods into your life instead of focusing on taking away. I would also say like naming, like we were talking about earlier, like naming the diet trauma, whenever we can do that, it’s really powerful. I think it helps take a lot of the blame off. And I always think back to when I was training to become a therapist, that was one of the theories that was most attracted to was feminist theory. a big part of it is naming the systems. And there’s something about doing that that just, it serves to take some of the blame off the individual. So I’m all for naming the diet trauma I think that like right there starts the process. ⁓ And I hope people, yeah.

Katy (28:37)

Well, and it changes everything when you frame it that way instead of just personal failure. It’s like, ⁓ OK, so well, if that’s true, then what? Then it’s like the whole conversation from there is different. Yeah.

Julie Duffy Dillon (28:43)

Then what? Yes, yes. And usually that’s about when the anger floodgates open. I don’t know if you’ve seen that too, but like usually that’s about when people are like, wait a second, I have been duped. And I’m like, yes, you’ve been duped. And I think anger is really uncomfortable. And especially for this letter writer, again, I’m still thinking back with the betrayal.

Julie Duffy Dillon (29:15)

You know, like there’s a lot to be angry about. And we’re not taught, especially if you’ve been socialized as a girl or a woman, like we’re not taught how to handle all this anger, but there’s a lot to be pissed off about. that’s the fuel

Katy (29:15)

I know, right? huh. Mm-hmm. I remember I was at a conference once and the psychologist presenting, he said anger is an emotion of self-respect. And it has stuck with me for like 10 years. I’m like, yes. And he was talking about how difficult it is for people with eating disorders often to be able to allow themselves to not just express anger, but to just experience anger. It can be such a scary emotion.

Julie Duffy Dillon (29:38)

Yes.

Katy (29:56)

Yeah, I think that being able to get appropriately angry at culture and at the trauma and at the messages we’ve been fed and the pressures for unrealistic body standards, know, all the things that like we should be angry about that.

Julie Duffy Dillon (30:12)

Mm-hmm, we should. Yeah, not at yourself, at all the things. So we have this new segment on the Find Your Food Voic- Can I say my name of my podcast and my book? Okay, let me start that over. We have a new segment on the Find Your Food Voice podcast called Nest Time. And Nest Time is this concept that I explore in chapter nine of the book. Nest Time is when you basically design a life where you can add more community, more self care to help you to feel more at home in your body, safer in your body to tend to that diet trauma. It can be as simple as like making a grocery list or hanging out with a friend who’s also in diet culture recovery. But I ask you, Katy, what are you adding? What kind of nest time are you enjoying these days?

Katy (31:05)

You know, a few things come to mind. One of them is I literally kind of make this nest for myself in this one spot on our couch. We have family movie night on Saturday nights. And so we all get curled up in front of the movie. The kids pick the movie. And I’ve got this spot. And I’ve got like my nice soft blanket. And I might have like a cup of tea or a cocktail or something. And like, just feels like it’s like a really anchoring point of our week that we try to do this every Saturday if we can. And so that comes to mind. Another thing that I’ve started doing recently, my girlfriends and I, like, we’ve all got kids who are around same age, kind of like elementary age, and life is just busy. And we have a hard time getting together very often, but we started doing once a month, we go to a different coffee shop, and we just sit there and chit chat for an hour or two. And that time and that connection with friends, I mean, it’s like my soul is so parched for it and it feels so, so good.

Julie Duffy Dillon (32:04)

Yes. I love that. You mentioned two things that I always like to include in my nest time connection. I love that so much. It’s the extroverted me, I need connection. And then also texture, like the texture of the blanket and like the holding the cup of tea, there’s textures are definitely a thing for me. Like, I don’t know if I’m a sensory seeking or something.

Katy (32:22)

Mm-hmm. my gosh, at my house, we fight over the fuzzy blankets. We have so many of them and it’s like, there’s a hierarchy of which one’s the softest, you know? Yes.

Julie Duffy Dillon (32:35)

I’m here for this fight, yeah. I love a good nest. I love that your nest time actually is literally a nest as well. I love that. So if someone wants to find out more about you, because they liked what you were saying about this letter, where can people find you?

Katy (32:42)

There’s literally a nest involved, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I also have a podcast. Julie was on my podcast. You should come listen to that episode. It’s called Rebuilding Trust with Your Body. And then as far as social media, I hang out quite a bit on Instagram. It’s at katy.harvey

Julie Duffy Dillon (33:07)

Well, thank you so much. We’ll put all the links in the show notes, of course. And thank you so much for your time today, I really appreciate it.

Katy (33:12)

This was great. I absolutely loved it.

Julie Duffy Dillon (33:14)

Thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Find Your Food Voice. Before you go, I do have food’s letter back to this letter writer. But before you go, please stay in touch on socials. I’m most active currently on Substack with the same name. I’m doing weekly lives and essays. I’m also on TikTok if you’re there with the handle FoodVoiceRD I would love to teach you more about ways to quit dieting and get off this shame roller coaster for good, buy the Find Your Food Voice book wherever books are sold or in the link below. All right, let’s get to food’s letter.

Dear Secretly Broken We have been on quite a roller coaster, haven’t we? You have endured trauma and loss, so much loss, and we wish you knew you are a survivor and so very brave. As you went through transitions and didn’t get support, we, food, appreciate we have had more connection. That connection has felt soothing and troubling, relieving and chaotic.

Let’s bring awareness and compassion to this complicated connection we have. With non-judgmental curiosity, consider you have not been doing it wrong. You have been brave and witnessed your own triumph and survival.

Acknowledging and giving permission for all these parts is another way to fuel you toward your food voice for another day. Love food.