Understanding Disordered Eating: Eating Disorder Recovery and Body Image Healing

Guys. We just hit Episode 200!! Whether you've been here since the beginning or you just found this podcast five minutes ago, I'm really glad you're here. This space has grown in ways I never expected, and it only works because you keep showing up and actually doing this work alongside me. In this episode, we're shifting the focus away from motivation and onto three capacities that actually determine whether you can follow through. These are the things that help you take action when you're tired, overwhelmed, not in the mood, or honestly just done with all of it. This is the work that makes recovery possible in real life, not just in theory. If you've ever felt stuck in that cycle of wanting to change but not being able to act on it consistently, this is where things start to make a lot more sense. Quotes "Ultimately, if motivation were enough, most of you would already be recovered." - Rachelle Heinemann "Motivation depends on your mood. It depends on your level of energy, and very often eating disorders reduce motivation for recovery because they solve something." - Rachelle Heinemann "Recovery requires skills that you can use without that feeling." - Rachelle Heinemann "Most eating disorder behaviors are attempts to regulate discomfort quickly. It is not necessarily instant gratification, but in some ways it is." - Rachelle Heinemann "There is no full recovery without relational recovery as well." - Rachelle Heinemann Resources Brave on Purpose! - Grab my new book here! Grab my Journal Prompts Here! Looking for a speaker for an upcoming event? Let's chat! Now accepting new clients! Find out if we're a good fit! LEAVE A REVIEW + help someone who may need this podcast by sharing this episode. Be sure to sign up for my weekly newsletter here! You can connect with me on Instagram @rachelleheinemann, through my website www.rachelleheinemann.com, or email me directly at rachelle@rachelleheinemann.com

In this episode, we're pulling back the curtain on what's actually happening underneath the surface. The suppressed needs. The tension. The resentment that builds while everything looks completely fine on the outside. And why your eating disorder might be stepping in to regulate what you're not expressing. Tweetable Quotes " So many people struggling with eating disorders also struggle with chronic people pleasing. That is not a coincidence. That is functional." - Rachelle Heinemann "People pleasing ends up being a way of regulating a way to feel safe." - Rachelle Heinemann "We're always looking out for what somebody else needs from me, and there isn't very much space for what I need in this situation." - Rachelle Heinemann "When we don't express our needs, and we don't get what we need, they don't disappear. They get redirected. It never, ever disappears, even though we think we're really good at it." - Rachelle Heinemann "There are all these suppressed needs, preferences, desires, etc. Then the tension builds and there's obviously a need for release because again, it doesn't go anywhere. And then the eating disorder behaviors step in as a means to regulate." - Rachelle Heinemann "When your life is organized around keeping everybody else comfortable, your eating disorder is going to find and have a place to live." - Rachelle Heinemann Resources Brave on Purpose! - Grab my new book here! Grab my Journal Prompts Here! Looking for a speaker for an upcoming event? Let's chat! Now accepting new clients! Find out if we're a good fit! LEAVE A REVIEW + help someone who may need this podcast by sharing this episode. Be sure to sign up for my weekly newsletter here! You can connect with me on Instagram @rachelleheinemann, through my website www.rachelleheinemann.com, or email me directly at rachelle@rachelleheinemann.com

There's a very specific kind of high that comes from validation. Someone compliments you, someone reassures you, someone notices you… And for a second, everything just settles. You feel calmer. More certain. A little more solid in yourself. And then it fades. So naturally, your brain goes, "Okay, cool, let's do that again." You check your phone. You reread the message. You replay the compliment. You look for the next hit. And suddenly you're stuck in this quiet loop of needing more just to feel okay again. It's subtle, but it runs deep. Tweetable Quotes "This is an unfortunate truth, but we are wired to need validation. That is not a weakness; it's a basic relational human need." - Rachelle Heinemann "We need relationships in order to develop what I call the emotional backbone, like a sense of self." - Rachelle Heinemann "If we don't have this emotional backbone, then we cannot fill it with external validation, even if there's a ton of praise in the world." - Rachelle Heinemann "We have to learn to trust our internal experience and tolerate moments of self-doubt without outsourcing worth" - Rachelle Heinemann "I don't need proof to exist. I don't need validation to take up space. I'm allowed to take up space on my own. I am good enough." - Rachelle Heinemann "Feeling hungry for validation is not a flaw. It's a sign that at some point in your life, your inner world wasn't consistently mirrored, seen, understood, acknowledged, etc." - Rachelle Heinemann Resources Brave on Purpose! - Grab my new book here! Grab my Journal Prompts Here! Looking for a speaker for an upcoming event? Let's chat! Now accepting new clients! Find out if we're a good fit! LEAVE A REVIEW + help someone who may need this podcast by sharing this episode! Be sure to sign up for my weekly newsletter here! You can connect with me on Instagram @rachelleheinemann, through my website www.rachelleheinemann.com, or email me directly at rachelle@rachelleheinemann.com

If you've ever done all the "right" body image work, challenged the thoughts, said the affirmations, stared into the mirror like you were told to, and still felt exactly the same… this episode is for you. And honestly? You're not broken. You're probably just being asked to do body image work that was never deep enough to begin with. Today's conversation comes from a place of deep respect for clients, for clinicians, and for how hard this work actually is. Because let's be real: showing up to talk about body image at all already means you're doing something incredibly brave. This episode isn't a takedown. It's more of a gentle (okay, sometimes pointed) "hey, let's zoom out for a second." Tweetable Quotes "Any clinician or client that comes to the room with any sort of body image concerns, you're already doing a really, really important thing." - Rachelle Heinemann "Body image is rarely just about appearance or what happens in the mirror. It's something that organizes our entire internal experience." - Rachelle Heinemann "Exposure without increased tolerance actually increases the person's sense of threat." - Rachelle Heinemann "Ambivalence is not resistance. That's not an annoyance we have to get through — that is the work." - Rachelle Heinemann "When we isolate body image from psychological context, we miss almost everything." - Rachelle Heinemann "Body image work is very central to eating disorder treatment. Body image work isn't effective enough when we treat body image as the problem, rather than the communication." - Rachelle Heinemann Resources Join my FREE webinar happening March 18th: Brave on Purpose! Grab my Journal Prompts Here! Looking for a speaker for an upcoming event? Let's chat! Now accepting new clients! Find out if we're a good fit! LEAVE A REVIEW + help someone who may need this podcast by sharing this episode. Be sure to sign up for my weekly newsletter here! You can connect with me on Instagram @rachelleheinemann, through my website www.rachelleheinemann.com, or email me directly at rachelle@rachelleheinemann.com

Let's be honest: if eating disorder recovery were just about wanting it enough, none of us would be here. You'd read one book, listen to one podcast, have one "aha" moment… and boom, cured. But that's not how this works, and if you've tried to shortcut your way through recovery before, this episode is probably going to feel a little too familiar. Tweetable Quotes "If we're working toward feeling safe, toward recovery, or toward mental wellness, you cannot ever do that with a starved mind or body. It just doesn't happen." - Rachelle Heinemann "Everybody's recovery is gonna look different." - Rachelle Heinemann "If willpower worked, then you wouldn't need recovery." - Rachelle Heinemann "Insight is great, but the insight without changing the behavior is just having a very nice intellectual conversation, which really does absolutely nothing or very little to change eating disorder behaviors." - Rachelle Heinemann "Healing is not linear." - Rachelle Heinemann Resources Grab my Journal Prompts Here! Looking for a speaker for an upcoming event? Let's chat! Now accepting new clients! Find out if we're a good fit! LEAVE A REVIEW + help someone who may need this podcast by sharing this episode. Be sure to sign up for my weekly newsletter here! You can connect with me on Instagram @rachelleheinemann, through my website www.rachelleheinemann.com, or email me directly at rachelle@rachelleheinemann.com

If you've ever been told that you need to "heal the root" of your eating disorder, but no one ever really explained what that actually means, this episode is for you. Maybe you've done the meal plans. The behavior tracking. The symptom management. And yet… something still feels unresolved. Fragile. Like the eating disorder quiets down for a while, only to resurface later in a different form. In this episode, we slow the conversation way down and talk honestly about unmet childhood needs. Not as a way to blame parents, caregivers, or anyone else, but as a way to finally understand why your eating disorder made sense in the first place. Tweetable Quotes "Relapse isn't the end of recovery. It's a moment inside of it." - Rachelle Heinemann "Eating disorders don't just happen. They happen within the context of the rest of your life." - Rachelle Heinemann "When emotional needs aren't consistently met, we still develop strategies internally to help us survive." - Rachelle Heinemann "You can stop the behaviors temporarily, but if the underlying emotional needs remain unmet, something else will pop up." - Rachelle Heinemann "Healing means giving yourself now what you didn't get then." - Rachelle Heinemann "Part of the process in therapy is creating a pause between the urge and the behavior." - Rachelle Heinemann "Your behaviors make sense in the context that you grew up in." - Rachelle Heinemann Resources Group Training for Clinicians, led by Jack Heinemann. Details: • 6 weekly sessions (75 minutes each) • Thursdays at 12pm EST • Begins 2/12 • $85 per session • Limited spots Looking for more information? Email jack@jackheinemanntherapy.com or info@bergenmentalhealthgroup.com Grab my Journal Prompts Here! Looking for a speaker for an upcoming event? Let's chat! Now accepting new clients! Find out if we're a good fit! LEAVE A REVIEW + help someone who may need this podcast by sharing this episode. Be sure to sign up for my weekly newsletter here! You can connect with me on Instagram @rachelleheinemann, through my website www.rachelleheinemann.com, or email me directly at rachelle@rachelleheinemann.com

Have you ever felt like you're living in a completely different reality than everyone around you? Like you're doing the hard, slow work of healing your relationship with food while the rest of the world seems to be shrinking overnight and talking about it nonstop? Feeling angry, jealous or left out is common, and you aren't alone if you're feeling this way too. Right now, weight loss medications and GLP conversations are everywhere. They show up at dinner parties, in group chats, on social media, and even in casual neighborhood conversations. And if you're in eating disorder recovery or trying to practice intuitive eating, those moments can feel deeply uncomfortable, and even unfair. Tweetable Quotes "It can just feel really unfair, like, 'why do these people just get to go on this easy shot and have this quick fix and not me?'" - Rachelle Heinemann "This idea of the eating disorder fixing our body image issues is the oldest in the book." - Rachelle Heinemann "I think something that we have to understand is that weight loss doesn't necessarily equal happiness." - Rachelle Heinemann "Their body is not a cue for me to abandon mine." - Rachelle Heinemann "I'm allowed to want stability more than thinness." - Rachelle Heinemann Resources Grab my Journal Prompts Here! Looking for a speaker for an upcoming event? Let's chat! Now accepting new clients! Find out if we're a good fit! LEAVE A REVIEW + help someone who may need this podcast by sharing this episode. Be sure to sign up for my weekly newsletter here! You can connect with me on Instagram @rachelleheinemann, through my website www.rachelleheinemann.com, or email me directly at rachelle@rachelleheinemann.com

January has a way of making everything feel louder. The pressure to start over, "fix yourself", and come back "better" than before. If you've ever felt that quiet panic underneath all the New Year motivation, this episode is for you. Instead of making a New Year's Resolution, we're making an anti-resolution. Tweetable Quotes "When we're under pressure, it's kind of impossible to make deliberate decisions and to really feel calm about it." - Rachelle Heinemann "You don't need a dramatic reinvention to be worthy of the start of the year or even a 'fresh start'." - Rachelle Heinemann "A lot of food-related resolutions or like body-related resolutions are rooted very much in shame, guilt, comparison, anxiety, fear of not being in control." - Rachelle Heinemann "If you're thinking 'I need to change because there is something terribly wrong about me as a person'… even if it is the best resolution in the world, that is never gonna hold up." - Rachelle Heinemann Resources Grab my Journal Prompts Here! Looking for a speaker for an upcoming event? Let's chat! Now accepting new clients! Find out if we're a good fit! LEAVE A REVIEW + help someone who may need this podcast by sharing this episode. Be sure to sign up for my weekly newsletter here! You can connect with me on Instagram @rachelleheinemann, through my website www.rachelleheinemann.com, or email me directly at rachelle@rachelleheinemann.com

Struggling to find motivation in recovery, or trying to make sense of what keeps people pushing through something as painful as an eating disorder, opens a door to a much deeper conversation. This episode steps right through that door. In this episode, we welcome back a longtime favorite guest: Dr. Jeffrey DeSarbo, a neuropsychiatrist and internationally known educator whose work sits at the intersection of brain science, mental health, and eating disorder treatment. If you've heard his previous episodes, you already know that he has a profound ability to make complex neuroscience feel not just understandable, but actionable. This time, he brings something new, something that might seem unexpected coming from a neuroscientist: the science of a bucket list. And no, not the Hollywood version. Not skydiving. Not "visit Paris." Something far more foundational. Tweetable Quotes "It's okay to be skeptical because that's part of it." - Dr. Jeffrey DeSarbo "Recovery kind of involves helping the brain remember how to feel that, that curiosity, pleasure, connection, and flexibility again." - Dr. Jeffrey DeSarbo "When you go places, and you meet different people with different cultures, the one thing I have learned… it has helped tolerability." - Dr. Jeffrey DeSarbo "We're programmed, and we don't even know we're being programmed to think and, more importantly, to react." - Dr. Jeffrey DeSarbo "Your brain is always changing." - Dr. Jeffrey DeSarbo Resources Grab my Journal Prompts Here! Looking for a speaker for an upcoming event? Let's chat! Now accepting new clients! Find out if we're a good fit! Dr. Jeffrey DeSarbo's YouTube Channel Dr. Jeffrey DeSarbo's Website LEAVE A REVIEW + help someone who may need this podcast by sharing this episode. Be sure to sign up for my weekly newsletter here! You can connect with me on Instagram @rachelleheinemann, through my website www.rachelleheinemann.com, or email me directly at rachelle@rachelleheinemann.com

If you've ever wondered why PCOS feels so confusing, why the symptoms don't line up, why the advice is contradictory, why the solutions feel like guesswork, you're not imagining it. That's exactly why I brought back Julie Duffy Dillon, registered dietitian, author, and host of Find Your Food Voice, to cut through the noise. Julie has a rare way of talking about PCOS that immediately makes your shoulders drop: it's science-based, deeply compassionate, and totally free of judgment or quick fixes. Tweetable Quotes " So many people are led to believe that it's just a problem with their ovaries, but really, PCOS is an endocrine disorder that starts in the brain, not in the ovaries. It's something that someone's born with and they're, they die with it too." - Julie Duffy Dillon "We don't have a lot of research. Doctors don't always have the answers, and there's a lot of weight bias in there, too. And unfortunately, most people just know about the reproductive interventions. They don't know about all the other ones." - Julie Duffy Dillon "I do feel like with PCOS, you have to advocate for yourself more. It's annoying." - Julie Duffy Dillon "PCOS is the number one cause of anovulatory infertility." - Julie Duffy Dillon " If you're eating enough with PCOS, adding movement is something that can really help with your insulin levels. But if you are someone who's painfully tired or your insulin levels are really high, so you have these cravings all the time, adding exercise or movement is just gonna make things worse." - Julie Duffy Dillon Resources Julie's Website: https://julieduffydillon.com/ Free Tools: https://julieduffydillon.com/voice/ Julie's Podcast: https://julieduffydillon.com/podcast/ Book: https://julieduffydillon.com/book/ Book bonus downloads: https://findyourfoodvoicebook.com PCOS Membership: https://julieduffydillon.com/pcos-power-course/ Bergen Mental Health Group Inc. is hiring! If you think you'd be a great fit, check it out! Grab my Journal Prompts Here! Looking for a speaker for an upcoming event? Let's chat! Now accepting new clients! Find out if we're a good fit! LEAVE A REVIEW + help someone who may need this podcast by sharing this episode! Be sure to sign up for my weekly newsletter here! You can connect with me on Instagram @rachelleheinemann, through my website www.rachelleheinemann.com, or email me directly at rachelle@rachelleheinemann.com

Have you ever looked around and wondered how everyone else seems to have such an easy, peaceful relationship with food? They order what they want at restaurants, stop when they're full, and move on with their day. Meanwhile, you're stuck in your head, negotiating with yourself, worrying about how much you ate, or planning the next meal before you've even finished this one. If that sounds familiar, you're not alone. Listen to the full episode to learn how you can start to rebuild trust with your body, release food guilt, and finally feel more at ease around eating; one meal, one moment, one connection at a time. Tweetable Quotes "Eating is not just a means to nourish yourself. It is a means to connect." - Rachelle Heinemann "The very first thing is you need structure. Because we can't really play around if we're not eating enough. And when we play around with our food, then we play around with our hunger fullness cues." - Rachelle Heinemann "What we're doing is shifting from our bodies and our meal plans as something to control and shifting to our bodies as something to listen to." - Rachelle Heinemann "It's not about getting it right, it's about just rebuilding these lines of communication." - Rachelle Heinemann "Your food choices don't define your worth." - Rachelle Heinemann Resources Bergen Mental Health Group Inc. is hiring! If you think you'd be a great fit, check it out! Grab my Journal Prompts Here! Looking for a speaker for an upcoming event? Let's chat! Now accepting new clients! Find out if we're a good fit! LEAVE A REVIEW + help someone who may need this podcast by sharing this episode. Be sure to sign up for my weekly newsletter here! You can connect with me on Instagram @rachelleheinemann, through my website www.rachelleheinemann.com, or email me directly at rachelle@rachelleheinemann.com Thank you to our sponsors! This episode includes paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Hidden River Healing provides compassionate, residential eating disorder treatment for girls, adolescents, and young women. Their expert clinical team emphasizes family involvement and individualized care in a beautifully designed facility surrounded by nature — a peaceful environment that supports recovery and lasting healing. Program Highlights: Specialized care for ages 8 and up, including a dedicated house for Emerging Adults (21+) and Mid-Life Adults In-network with most commercial insurances Ability to treat NG tube patients Learn more: hiddenriverhealing.com/about-us Follow on Instagram: @hiddenrivertx

Have you ever felt like your mind just won't shut off about food? You're in a meeting, at school, or out with friends, and instead of focusing on what's in front of you, all you can think about is what you'll eat next, what you shouldn't have eaten, or what you'll allow yourself later. That constant mental chatter, what many call food noise, can be exhausting. Tune in to the full episode to uncover what food noise is really telling you, and what steps you can take to finally quiet it. Tweetable Quotes "Thinking about food and being interested in food is really another sign of physical hunger." - Rachelle Heinemann "Restriction applies to the actual restriction of food not getting in enough, and it applies to the restriction of kinds of foods, types of foods, and the idea that they're off limits." - Rachelle Heinemann "Once you start eating adequately and regularly and consistently, and allowing yourself to have a variety of foods, then you'd be surprised how the food noise starts to quiet." - Rachelle Heinemann "If we still have our good foods and bad foods in different camps, then the food noise will probably be there." - Rachelle Heinemann "The more you avoid sweets and cakes and all these other kinds of fun foods, it's going to hold that power over you." - Rachelle Heinemann "The most important takeaway from today is 'Are you restricting? Is there some dieting going on? Are there lots of food rules?' In which case, you have to address that in order to decrease the food noise that is driving you up the wall." - Rachelle Heinemann Resources Bergen Mental Health Group Inc. is hiring! If you think you'd be a great fit, check it out! Grab my Journal Prompts Here! Looking for a speaker for an upcoming event? Let's chat! Now accepting new clients! Find out if we're a good fit! LEAVE A REVIEW + help someone who may need this podcast by sharing this episode. Be sure to sign up for my weekly newsletter here! You can connect with me on Instagram @rachelleheinemann, through my website www.rachelleheinemann.com, or email me directly at rachelle@rachelleheinemann.com Thank you to our sponsors! This episode includes paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Hidden River Healing provides compassionate, residential eating disorder treatment for girls, adolescents, and young women. Their expert clinical team emphasizes family involvement and individualized care in a beautifully designed facility surrounded by nature — a peaceful environment that supports recovery and lasting healing. Program Highlights: Specialized care for ages 8 and up, including a dedicated house for Emerging Adults (21+) and Mid-Life Adults In-network with most commercial insurances Ability to treat NG tube patients Learn more: hiddenriverhealing.com/about-us Follow on Instagram: @hiddenrivertx

Ever feel like nothing in your closet feels good, no matter how many outfits you try on? Or maybe you've found yourself spiraling about what people will think when they see you at a reunion, a wedding, or even just in the office. In this episode of Understanding Disordered Eating, I'm joined by my good friend and colleague, Sydney Green, MS, RD, to unpack the truth about body image: what it really means, how it shows up in daily life, and why it's so intertwined with our relationship to food. Tweetable Quotes "If you're on outfit seven, nothing's feeling good… can we just go with comfort? Can we just go with, okay?" - Rachelle Heinemann "Body image is the last to go… which again, I don't even know what that means, although it's true, but it doesn't really mean much without unpacking it." - Rachelle Heinemann "The successful woman is looking super chic, and she's really thin, and if I don't look like that, then I'm not successful. I'm not driven. I'm not motivated." - Sydney Greene "A huge salad… our stomach is not meant to digest that. We're not rabbits. It just sits there. We get bloated. It doesn't feel good." - Sydney Greene "Body image is not a symptom. It's like how we feel about ourselves… there's so much more richness to how we feel about our body." - Sydney Greene "There's an actual word for some of this in research, it's called fat talk… women get together and talk about, pick apart their body, kind of like that Mean Girls scene." - Sydney Greene "When somebody is struggling with body image, maybe the point is not to immediately erase it. Maybe we have to see it and acknowledge it and say, you're not alone." - Rachelle Heinemann Resources Connect with Sydney here: https://www.sydneygreenehealth.com/ Find her on Instagram!: @greenehealth Bergen Mental Health Group Inc. is hiring! If you think you'd be a great fit, check it out! Grab my Journal Prompts Here! Looking for a speaker for an upcoming event? Let's chat! Now accepting new clients! Find out if we're a good fit! LEAVE A REVIEW + help someone who may need this podcast by sharing this episode. Be sure to sign up for my weekly newsletter here! You can connect with me on Instagram @rachelleheinemann, through my website www.rachelleheinemann.com, or email me directly at rachelle@rachelleheinemann.com