Rewired - Eating Disorder Recovery Podcast: Recent Episodes

Meg & Safia

Rewired is a podcast about eating disorder recovery. It is hosted by Meg and Safia, friends living in Dubai, originally from the UK. The episodes alternate between Meg and Safia chatting alone, talking about their own experiences of their eating disorder recoveries and lives beyond, and then welcoming guests and experts in the field who share their expertise and knowledge around eating disorder recovery.

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Dr G is a renowned eating disorder expert physician, the author of an incredible book ‘Sick Enough: A Guide to the Medical Complications of Eating Disorders’ and the founder and medical director of the Gaudiani Clinic. In this episode she discussed her holistic approach to patient care, power in the way we talk to ourselves, the myth of needing to be ‘sick enough’ and so much more.

Topics:

  • Why people feel not ‘sick enough’ to get help and support
  • What Dr G learnt from her patients that she applies to parenting
  • The power of asking : “ What do you need right now? “
  • House on Fire analogy to encourage the bigger picture
  • Meeting your own needs
  • Living in line with own goals and values
  • The fear of dropping deprivation and the mean inner critic
  • Honouring what your body needs
  • Biology of restriction and the cave person brain
  • Can my metabolism be broken ?
  • Why people respond differently to restriction Minnesota starvation

You can find us on social media:

Tallulah Self (editor and Producer)
Instagram: @tallulahself

Meg:
Instagram: @megsy_recovery
YouTube: Megsy Recovery
TikTok: megsy recovery

Safia:
Email: safia.s.muzaffar@gmail.com
Instagram: @safia_edrecoverycoach
Member of the Beyond Body Coaching team: https://www.beyondbodycoach.com

Please keep in mind we’re not medical professionals, and the podcast content reflects our own experiences and opinions, as well as that of our guests, so it shouldn’t be taken as medical advice. If you’re struggling with an eating disorder or disordered eating please reach out to a medical professional to discuss your own situation and get professional help with your own unique recovery.

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To kick off season two we are joined by the incredible Emmy Brunner who is a CEO, Empowerment and Results Coach, Creative Consultant, Speaker, Bestselling Author, Psychotherapist and Hypnotherapist with 20+ years of experience. As a clinician, Emmy has supported thousands of women to overcome their eating disorders with her holistic approach that changed the landscape of how eating disorders are treated and viewed in Europe.

Emmy loves sharing everything that she has learnt as an influential businesswoman, renowned clinician, respected coach, wife, mother of two and spiritual-being, and watching other's lives evolve in incredible ways. When she is not working with individual coaching clients or hosting group programs, Emmy trains and continues to mentor her intimate team of talented coaches, delivers enlightening talks and collaborates with brands globally on creating bespoke retreats, corporate coaching programs and holistic wellbeing offerings.

Topics covered:

-What trauma is and how it relates to eating disorders.

-What motivated Emmy to overcome her own eating disorder.

-Power of community and being vulnerable.

-The concept of life scripts and how this relates to eating disorders.

-How to make changes gradually.

-Symptom focussed treatment versus a more holistic approach.

-Challenging the unwell voice.

-A message to people who are struggling to get out of quasi recovery.

-Practises that would be helpful for listeners to start using in order to gain a more neutral relationship with their body.

-What can we do to support our children to develop healthy ways to manage challenges they face as well as build self-compassion and self-esteem.

-Emmy’s group digital programs and the power of group work.

Find Emmy here:

Instagram: @emmybrunnerofficial

Website: https://emmybrunner.com/

You can find us on social media:

Tallulah Self (editor and Producer)

Instagram: @tallulahself

Meg:

Instagram: @megsy_recovery

YouTube: Megsy Recovery

TikTok: megsy recovery

Safia:

Email: safia.s.muzaffar@gmail.com

Instagram: @safia_edrecoverycoach

Member of the Beyond Body Coaching team: https://www.beyondbodycoach.com

Please keep in mind we’re not medical professionals, and the podcast content reflects our own experiences and opinions, as well as that of our guests, so it shouldn’t be taken as medical advice. If you’re struggling with an eating disorder or disordered eating please reach out to a medical professional to discuss your own situation and get professional help with your own unique recovery.

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We reflect on holidays we had when suffering from an eating disorder. Particularly the stand out, cringe moments we are so grateful for being behind us. We also talk about holidays we went on whilst recovering - the fun times as well as the challenges that came up for us and the tools we used in overcoming them. We hope this episode makes you not feel alone and gives you lots of ideas for how to overcome eating disorder thoughts that may come up for you.

Topics covered:

  • Event restricting / compensating
  • Body image when wearing summer clothes
  • Social eating
  • Reflecting on what you truly want your holiday to be
  • Fear of weight gain on holiday and letting go of the fear
  • Buffet eating on holiday / eating at restaurants / eating local food
  • All or nothing mindset
  • Change of routine
  • Photos
  • Comparing to social media
  • Choosing hotels based on eating disorder rules

You can find us on social media:

Tallulah Self (editor and Producer)

Instagram: @tallulahself

Meg:

Instagram: @megsy_recovery

YouTube: Megsy Recovery

TikTok: megsy recovery

Safia:

Email: safia.s.muzaffar@gmail.com

Instagram: @safia_edrecoverycoach

Member of the Beyond Body Coaching team: https://www.beyondbodycoach.com

Please keep in mind we’re not medical professionals, and the podcast content reflects our own experiences and opinions, as well as that of our guests, so it shouldn’t be taken as medical advice. If you’re struggling with an eating disorder or disordered eating please reach out to a medical professional to discuss your own situation and get professional help with your own unique recovery.

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Chrissy is an incredible recovery coach, currently training to be a counsellor, and has experience working at a clinic as both an eating disorder recovery coach and mentor. She has a passion for ED recovery, mental health, body-image and self-compassion since she started her own recovery journey seven years ago. At the start of Chrissy’s journey, she was in treatment for an eating disorder, describing these as one of her symptoms, but in fact was really in recovery for all areas of her life. Since then she has also delivered workshops on body-image and the history of diet-culture, the science behind why diet culture tells us lies and why fatphobia and body ideals are just plain wrong. Her core message is that no one deserves to feel that they are inherently unlovable for whatever reason; their body, their soul, their voice or anything. She speaks about the fact that sadly there is much trauma that we, individually and societally, are hurting from and self-hatred is a huge product of that. Her biggest hope is to help others realise that they are worthy of love and a good life, as she was helped to discover on her own journey. She has a particular interest in the relationship between self-image and body-image, how the two exist in parallel and impact each-other.

Topics covered:

  • Chrissy’s own recovery journey and how she became interested in body image
  • History and origins of diet culture, and how racial, patriarchal, healthcare and all sorts of systems play a part.
  • Our bodies having their own ‘genetic set range’ and how respecting this impacts living a fulfilling life
  • Detaching her own sense of ‘lovability’ from body aesthetics
  • Connection between body image and trauma
  • Navigating diet culture and body expectations we are surrounded by
  • Where to start in developing a better relationship with our body and self as a whole

Find Chrissy here:

Instagram: @chrissy_shroomie

You can find us on social media:

Tallulah Self (editor and Producer)

Instagram: @tallulahself

Meg:

Instagram: @megsy_recovery

YouTube: Megsy Recovery

TikTok: megsy recovery

Safia:

Email: safia.s.muzaffar@gmail.com

Instagram: @safia_edrecoverycoach

Member of the Beyond Body Coaching team: https://www.beyondbodycoach.com

Please keep in mind we’re not medical professionals, and the podcast content reflects our own experiences and opinions, as well as that of our guests, so it shouldn’t be taken as medical advice. If you’re struggling with an eating disorder or disordered eating please reach out to a medical professional to discuss your own situation and get professional help with your own unique recovery.

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Leading Sports and Eating disorder specialist dietitian Renee McGregor joins us on the podcast. With 20 years experience working in clinical and performance nutrition, with Olympic (London, 2012), Paralympic (Rio, 2016) and Commonwealth (Queensland, 2018) teams she comes with a wealth of experience. She is also the author of five brilliant books and the co-founder and director of #TRAINBRAVE, a campaign raising awareness of eating disorders in sport. In this episode, Renee speaks openly and bravely about the childhood trauma she experienced and how that led to her battle with an eating disorder. She also shares her thoughts on eating disorder treatment today and how it could be improved.

Topics covered:

  • Eating disorder treatment today and how it could be improved.
  • Reasons why people relapse.
  • Why teaching about emotions in schools is essential for preventing eating disorders.
  • The pedestal we put the top level athletes on and how that can put too much pressure on the younger generation to achieve.
  • Social Media’s impact on mental health.
  • Orthorexia
  • What healthy eating truly is.
  • Why the pandemic has resulted in eating disorders rising.
  • The importance of human connection.
  • How your metabolism adapts but can’t be broken.

Find Renee here:
Instagram: @r_mcgregor
Website: https://reneemcgregor.com
Twitter: @mcgregor_renee

You can find us on social media:
Tallulah Self (editor and Producer)
Instagram: @tallulahself

Meg:
Instagram: @megsy_recovery
YouTube: Megsy Recovery
TikTok: megsy recovery

Safia:
Email: safia.s.muzaffar@gmail.com
Instagram: @safia_edrecoverycoach
Member of the Beyond Body Coaching team: https://www.beyondbodycoach.com

Please keep in mind we’re not medical professionals, and the podcast content reflects our own experiences and opinions, as well as that of our guests, so it shouldn’t be taken as medical advice. If you’re struggling with an eating disorder or disordered eating please reach out to a medical professional to discuss your own situation and get professional help with your own unique recovery.

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We chat about how we challenged our fear foods and food rules in recovery. How we had to repeat food challenges, several times a week, in different settings and contexts, and without compensating around the food, until they began to neutralise. And then, crucially, keeping all these foods in as permanent parts of our diets.

  • What process we used to challenge food rules/fears
  • Not compensating
  • Not treating challenges as a one off
  • Food obsessions
  • Did we go all in?
  • Tools we used during challenges
  • Coping with feelings of anxiety, guilt, frustration etc...
  • Mantras
  • Challenging in different contexts

You can find us on social media:

Tallulah Self (editor and Producer)

  • Instagram: @tallulahself

Meg:

  • Instagram: @megsy_recovery
  • YouTube: Megsy Recovery
  • TikTok: megsy recovery

Safia:

  • Email: safia.s.muzaffar@gmail.com
  • Instagram: @safia_edrecoverycoach
  • Member of the Beyond Body Coaching team: https://www.beyondbodycoach.com

Please keep in mind we’re not medical professionals, and the podcast content reflects our own experiences and opinions, as well as that of our guests, so it shouldn’t be taken as medical advice. If you’re struggling with an eating disorder or disordered eating please reach out to a medical professional to discuss your own situation and get professional help with your own unique recovery.

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Hope Virgo is a multi-award winning campaigner, speaker and author of three amazing books: ‘Stand Tall Little Girl’, ‘Hope Through Recovery’ and ‘You Are Free (Even If You Don’t Feel Like It)’. In this inspiring episode, she candidly shares her own personal experience of suffering from an eating disorder and offers lots of great practical recovery tips to stay motivated. With her super cute newborn cuddled up on her throughout this is an episode not to be missed.

Topics covered:

  • Hope’s experience of pregnancy and motherhood, the overwhelming gratitude for her little one as well as the more challenging messaging around food and body that she received when pregnant.
  • Her concerns regarding calories being put on menus and the prevalence of diet culture in children that she has become aware of from speaking in schools.
  • The campaigns she has spearheaded: #DumpTheScales and #ChangeTheStory
  • Her beautifully written, raw and relatable memoir: ‘You Are Free (Even If You Don’t Feel Like It)’ in which she includes reflective exercises, insightful interviews and advice from her own experiences.
  • Why to fight for full recovery and how to break out of the halfway house, stuck-in-the-mud stage of recovery.
  • The role her faith has played in her recovery.
  • Advice for how to reach out to others you can be vulnerable with for support and motivation.
  • Great ideas for supporting loved ones suffering from an eating disorder on their recovery journey.

Find Hope here:
Instagram: @hopevirgo_

You can find us on social media:

Tallulah Self (editor and Producer)
Instagram: @tallulahself

Meg:
Instagram: @megsy_recovery
YouTube: Megsy Recovery
TikTok: megsy recovery

Safia:
Email: safia.s.muzaffar@gmail.com
Instagram: @safia_edrecoverycoach
Member of the Beyond Body Coaching team: https://www.beyondbodycoach.com

Please keep in mind we’re not medical professionals, and the podcast content reflects our own experiences and opinions, as well as that of our guests, so it shouldn’t be taken as medical advice. If you’re struggling with an eating disorder or disordered eating please reach out to a medical professional to discuss your own situation and get professional help with your own unique recovery.

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Is your relationship with movement a problem? In this episode we chat about the role exercise played in Safia’s eating disorder and what she did to gain a positive relationship with it now. Throughout the episode there are some red flags to look out for if you are unsure as to whether your relationship with movement is a healthy one.

Topics covered:

  • How Safia’s relationship with movement has changed from when she had her eating disorder to now she is recovered
  • What drives the need to move when you have an eating disorder
  • The negative impacts of compulsive exercise
  • Ideas of how to heal your relationship with movement
  • Tools and strategies to use in the moment when you have the urge to exercise
  • Cutting back vs cold turkey
  • Severing the tie between exercise and food
  • Severing the tie between exercise and mood
  • Becoming accountable to yourself
  • Messaging in society which is not in line with what would be healthy for you personally

You can find us on social media:

Tallulah Self (editor and Producer)

  • Instagram: @tallulahself

Meg:

  • Instagram: @megsy_recovery
  • YouTube: Megsy Recovery
  • TikTok: megsy recovery

Safia:

  • Email: safia.s.muzaffar@gmail.com
  • Instagram: @safia_edrecoverycoach
  • Member of the Beyond Body Coaching team: https://www.beyondbodycoach.com

Please keep in mind we’re not medical professionals, and the podcast content reflects our own experiences and opinions, as well as that of our guests, so it shouldn’t be taken as medical advice. If you’re struggling with an eating disorder or disordered eating please reach out to a medical professional to discuss your own situation and get professional help with your own unique recovery.

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Ragen is a multi-talented writer, speaker, trained researcher, award winning dancer, elite professional athlete and self acclaimed lover of medals which has resulted in her completing a marathon. She is an inspirational and passionate thought leader in the fields of Health at Every Size, weight stigma and weight inclusive healthcare and fitness after being subject to size discrimination herself. Ragen’s incredibly articulate and research based answers resulted in us learning a lot in this chat. Hope you enjoy it too!

Topics covered:

  • How the diet industry operates.
  • The harm of weight cycling/yoyo dieting.
  • Definition of health and why you can’t judge health by looking at a person.
  • Why BMI is not a measure of health.
  • The activism work Ragen has been doing to try and change weight stigma in the healthcare system.
  • How to advocate for yourself when you go to the doctors.
  • How to achieve body acceptance and a positive body image.
  • Advice for people who want to get involved in movement, but feel they could be judged.
  • Creating a positive relationship with movement and detaching it from an aesthetic goal.
  • Activism burn out and what we can all do to support HAES.

Find Ragen here:
Instagram: @ragenchastain
Website: https://danceswithfat.org
Twitter: @danceswithfat

You can find us on social media:
Tallulah Self (editor and Producer)
Instagram: @tallulahself

Meg:
Instagram: @megsy_recovery
YouTube: Megsy Recovery
TikTok: megsy recovery

Safia:
Email: safia.s.muzaffar@gmail.com
Instagram: @safia_edrecoverycoach
Member of the Beyond Body Coaching team: https://www.beyondbodycoach.com

Please keep in mind we’re not medical professionals, and the podcast content reflects our own experiences and opinions, as well as that of our guests, so it shouldn’t be taken as medical advice. If you’re struggling with an eating disorder or disordered eating please reach out to a medical professional to discuss your own situation and get professional help with your own unique recovery.

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Conceiving, pregnancy and becoming a Mum are the most life changing events we have ever experienced. Each of them has brought us an incredible amount of joy, gratitude and taught us so much about ourselves as well as what we value in life. We also talk about the challenges we learnt to navigate through and practical ways we protected our recovery as we became mothers. Despite both having suffered from eating disorders in the past, we have some differences in our stories as well as commonalities that we connected on. We have been pregnant and given birth to two babies each within months of one another. Throughout our pregnancies and motherhood we have chatted off air about our experiences, so we're excited to chat on air with all of you in the hope it will be helpful or interesting to listeners.

Trigger warning: in this episode we talk about baby loss, miscarriage and fertility treatments.

Topics covered:

  • Our conceiving and pregnancy stories
  • Fears about whether we can have kids
  • Orthorexic messages during pregnancy
  • How we protected our recoveries
  • How life has changed since becoming Mums
  • What our kids have taught us
  • Fears of children suffering from eating disorders and how to reduce their chances

You can find us on social media:

Tallulah Self (editor and Producer)
Instagram: @tallulahself

Meg:
Instagram: @megsy_recovery
YouTube: Megsy Recovery
TikTok: megsy recovery

Safia:
Email: safia.s.muzaffar@gmail.com
Instagram: @safia_edrecoverycoach
Member of the Beyond Body Coaching team: https://www.beyondbodycoach.com

Please keep in mind we’re not medical professionals, and the podcast content reflects our own experiences and opinions, as well as that of our guests, so it shouldn’t be taken as medical advice. If you’re struggling with an eating disorder or disordered eating please reach out to a medical professional to discuss your own situation and get professional help with your own unique recovery.

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In this special episode, we chat with the superstar CBT-E therapist Carine El Khazen who supported us both on our recovery journey. The insight and incredibly helpful recovery tools she shares makes this episode an absolute must listen. Carine is a clinical psychologist at the American Centre for Psychiatry and Neurology in Dubai. She has also co-authored the first and only CBT-E guide for parents of adolescents receiving CBT-E treatment. The book is entitled: “Cognitive Behaviour Therapy for Young People, a parent’s guide”. She is also the Vice-President and head representative for the UAE of the non-profit association MEEDA (the Middle East Eating Disorders Association).

Topics covered:

  • The CBT-E treatment protocol: the process and what makes it different from other forms of treatment.
  • How to cope with gaining weight.
  • What the body comparison selection and assessment bias is.
  • What to do when you lose motivation at the point of taking action.
  • How to cope with a fear of losing your identity as you recover.
  • Advice for parents of children and young people suffering from an eating disorder.
  • Advice for parents on how to support their children in building a healthy relationship with food and their bodies.
  • How parents can support and educate their children on using social media.
  • How parents strike the balance between empowering their adolescent to take control over their treatment along with the need to be firm at times to give them the push they need.

Links to resources mentioned:

  • Carine’s Book: https://www.amazon.com/Cognitive-Behaviour-Therapy-Eating-Disorders/dp/0367775050
  • MEEDA Instagram & Facebook: @meedassociation
  • Dove Campaigns (Real Beauty): @Dove
  • Alex Light: @alexlight_ldn

Find Carine here:
Website: https://americancenteruae.com/clinicians/carine-el-khazen-hadati/

You can find us on social media:

Tallulah Self (editor and Producer)
Instagram: @tallulahself

Meg:
Instagram: @megsy_recovery
YouTube: Megsy Recovery
TikTok: megsy recovery

Safia:
Email: safia.s.muzaffar@gmail.com
Instagram: @safia_edrecoverycoach
Member of the Beyond Body Coaching team: https://www.beyondbodycoach.com

Please keep in mind we’re not medical professionals, and the podcast content reflects our own experiences and opinions, as well as that of our guests, so it shouldn’t be taken as medical advice. If you’re struggling with an eating disorder or disordered eating please reach out to a medical professional to discuss your own situation and get professional help with your own unique recovery.

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In this episode we talk about our own experience of food in our eating disorders, in terms of it holding an elevated status and importance in our lives. We talk about what it looked like for each of us to hold food on such a pedestal, why that caused us problems, how we went about knocking food off this ED pedestal, and what our relationship to food looks like now.

Topics covered:

  • Wanting food and eating conditions to be perfect
  • How restricting food elevates it’s status
  • When food becomes more important than the things you genuinely care about, and when your ED behaviours don’t align to your values
  • Food is more than what your ED reduces it down to (e.g. it’s more than a number)
  • No such thing as a recovery food
  • Losing the moral value and ‘good/bad’ labelling of food
  • The role of releasing restriction and weight suppression in knocking food off its pedestal
  • The role of challenging things like fears and rules in knocking food off its pedestal

List of resources recommended at the end of the episode:

  • Emmy Brunner - Find Your True Voice (book)
  • Dr Julie Smith - Why Has Nobody Told Me This? (book)

You can find us on social media:

Tallulah Self (editor and Producer)
Instagram: @tallulahself

Meg:
Instagram: @megsy_recovery
YouTube: Megsy Recovery
TikTok: megsy recovery

Safia:
Email: safia.s.muzaffar@gmail.com
Instagram: @safia_edrecoverycoach
Member of the Beyond Body Coaching team: https://www.beyondbodycoach.com

Please keep in mind we’re not medical professionals, and the podcast content reflects our own experiences and opinions, as well as that of our guests, so it shouldn’t be taken as medical advice. If you’re struggling with an eating disorder or disordered eating please reach out to a medical professional to discuss your own situation and get professional help with your own unique recovery.

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We absolutely loved this fun myth busting episode with eating disorder specialist dietician Talia Cecchele. She explains common misconceptions from a place of so much knowledge and experience, yet her warmth makes you feel you are having a chat with a friend. Talia is the founder of TCN (Talia Cecchele Nutrition) and works part-time in London's leading private mental health hospital on a specialist eating disorders unit. We are so excited to share this episode with you!

Topics covered:

  • Whether a ‘maintenance plan’ is ever needed.
  • Is there such a thing as a ‘recovery food’?
  • Is it possible to keep gaining weight and never ever stop?
  • How much influence BMI has on how much we should weigh.
  • Does being at a ‘healthy weight’ mean you don’t need to introduce new foods or break food rules?
  • Why thinner doesn’t equal healthier.
  • Fear of admitting you like certain foods.
  • Whether binge eating is linked to willpower.
  • What extreme hunger is and how to overcome it.
  • Why dietary restriction causes digestive issues and whether it can be fixed.
  • Intuitive eating.
  • How to cope with seeing calorie amounts on menus.

Find Talia here:
Instagram @tcnutrition
Website: https://www.taliacecchele.com

You can find us on social media:

Tallulah Self (editor and Producer)
Instagram: @tallulahself

Meg
Instagram: @megsy_recovery
YouTube: Megsy Recovery
TikTok: megsy recovery

Safia:
Email: safia.s.muzaffar@gmail.com
Instagram: @safia_edrecoverycoach
Member of the Beyond Body Coaching team: https://www.beyondbodycoach.com

Please keep in mind we’re not medical professionals, and the podcast content reflects our own experiences and opinions, as well as that of our guests, so it shouldn’t be taken as medical advice. If you’re struggling with an eating disorder or disordered eating please reach out to a medical professional to discuss your own situation and get professional help with your own unique recovery.

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Hi! We are Meg and Safia. We are both from the UK, but met in Dubai after having the same therapist who supported us to recover from our eating disorders. We immediately became friends and found out we had a shared passion for helping other people who are recovering, which is why we decided to start a podcast. In this first episode we introduce ourselves and fill you in on our experiences of having eating disorders from when they started, through the most challenging moments to the point we reached out for help. We then come to the treatment we received and the support from friends and families, all of which were essential in us being recovered today. We hope this episode raises awareness and makes people suffering from eating disorders realise they are not alone as well as giving them hope that full recovery is possible.

Topics covered:

  • Our recovery stories
  • The incentives that kept us focused during our recovery
  • Meal Plans
  • The CBT-E treatment we received
  • Helpful tools and practices we used to overcome tough body image days and eating disorder thoughts

Tallulah Self (editor and Producer)Instagram: @tallulahself

Meg:Instagram: @megsy_recovery
YouTube: Megsy Recovery
TikTok: megsy recovery

Safia:Email: safia.s.muzaffar@gmail.com
Instagram: @safia_edrecoverycoach
Member of the Beyond Body Coaching team: https://www.beyondbodycoach.com