Your Brain on Malnutrition: Anorexia and Hoarding

I blogged about the scarcity mindset last week. Now I will go a little more into some of the more common behavioral repercussions that I have noticed people with malnourished brains tend to develop. This blog post is about hoarding. Not all of you reading this will...

Your Brain on Malnutrition: Scarcity Mindset

I’ve done a load of YouTube videos on “your brain on malnutrition” but this is such an important aspect of understanding your anorexia or eating disorder behaviours that I’m going to start a series on it in this blog too. Scarcity mindset is...

Recovery Stories: The dangers of diabulimia

In this podcast Tabitha talks to a person in recovery about her struggles with diabulimia.   link to the BBC diabulimia documentary mentioned: The Eating Disorder Recovery Podcast Recovery Stories: The Dangers of Diabulimia Tabitha: Hello there, welcome to this...

If you are restricting, purging, compensating, regardless of your body size, this blog is for you

This is another post I should have written a long time ago. I am aware that I use “anorexia” almost exclusively in this blog, but the reason for that is that I try to keep it to my personal experience and anorexia (with a very hefty side of exercise...

Ask Dr G: Edema [Podcast]

In this podcast Tabitha talks to the wonderful Dr Gaudiani about the important and often misunderstood topic of edema. In this podcast we cover: pitting edema dangers of long-term edema triggering aspects of edema edema and purging medications for edema if long-term...

Mid-Recovery Clusterfuck: Body Guilt

I’ve written about Mid-Recovery Clusterfuck stuff before, more in the sense of the emotions that blow up when your brain starts to care more about other people and life experiences than it does about obsessing over food and exercise. And the discomfort and grief...

Lower-level movement and why it is scary to be still

Lower-level movement After stopping exercise, it became clear that my lower-level movement urges — walking, cleaning, shopping-without-buying, etc — were increasing. It took me a while to work out I had to cease responding to all these compulsions too. More on...

Recovery Stories: Recovering despite weight stigma in eating disorder treatment [Podcast]

In this podcast Tabitha talks to Sarah Thompson about her recovery, and her journey into body positivity. We also discuss: Being queer and having an eating disorder Weight stigma in eating disorder treatment The Be Nourished retreat and certification Recovery in an...

Let’s talk about sex … (and relationships)

Salt and Pepper. Yeah, I’m old. Sex and anorexia don’t usually go all that well together. I’ve known one or two people who have told me that their sex drive actually went up when they were in malnutrition, but that tends to be the anomaly. Most of us...

[Podcast] Dr Colleen Reichmann on recovery, HEAS, body diversity, and advocacy.

In this podcast Tabitha chats to Dr Colleen Reichmann about her recovery, health at every size, body diversity, and advoacy and activism. Dr. Colleen Reichmann is a licensed clinical psychologist, practicing in Williamsburg, VA. She works in her private practice,...

Just because you are an adult with anorexia doesn’t mean shouldn’t have support

I’ve got a presentation coming up with the fabulous Rebecka Peebles, Rachel Millner, and Therese Waterhaus in April at AED that stems from this topic. It is titled “Why go it alone? How Family-based Treatment of Young Adults with Anorexia is Possible and...

Podcast: Study shows diet talk and behaviour passes down through generations

In this podcast Tabitha Farrar talks to Jerica Berge about a new study illistrating how diet talk and encouragement to diet can be passed down through generations Parent Encouragement to Diet From Adolescence Into Adulthood May Cause Intergenerational Harm...

“If start eating I won’t stop” and other anorexia recovery worries

I know that one of the things that used to worry me when I had anorexia was the fierceness of my hunger. My hunger could be absent physically until I started eating something. And then I wouldn’t want to stop. Of course, the mental hunger was there pretty much...

Recovery Stories: Kayla K and why all diets should be damned! [Podcast]

In this podcast, Tabitha chats to Kayla Kotecki about her path to recovery, and the story behind damnthediets.com. We talk about: unrestricted eating diet culture obcessive and complusive exercise bikini contest culture social pressures to lose weight and exercise...

Force feeding yourself as an adult [Podcast]

In this podcast I talk about the skill of being able to force feed yourself as an adult in recovery from anorexia. In the process of making yourself eat food you are afraid of you achieve both nutritional rehabiliation and neural rewiring goals. You train your brain...

New Book: Rehabilitate, Rewire, Recover!

Note: this is available for Kindle pre-order right now. Give it about 10 days and the print option will also be available.  I have put all my blogs, podcasts, and YouTune channel information into one book! This book is for adults in recovery from anorexia, as the...

Once again, dear doctors: A person can have anorexia at any size!

I’m going to share with you an email I got earlier this week. Sadly, the things written here do not surprise me at all. I hear stories like this very often. Many doctors are ignorant to the truths around eating disorders, and often rely on the myths — such as...

Recovery Stories: Anorexia recovery with kids [Podcast]

  In this podcast, Tabitha Farrar talks to an adult in recovery from anorexia who has young children. We talk about things children pick up on, dealing with children when you are going through recovery stress, and ways of talking to young children about eating...

Recovery Stories: Allow for body diversity when setting target weights

(Transcript for this podcast is available if you scroll down! Thanks toMarie for transcribing it!) In this podcast Tabitha talks to the fabulous Carrie Arnold about the problems associated with setting target weight too long: Topics covered: – Body diversity...

My cold turkey journey: Fear

I’ve talked about stopping compulsive exercise. I get lots of questions on this topic, and requests to elaborate. Here is a little more information on how cold turkey played out for me. In this post I will focus on the obstacles to cold turkey. The things that...

Why Weight Watchers can go to hell with their “FREE” teens membership

Where to start with this one? You’ve probably heard the news that Weight Watchers is targeting teenagers now with a free membership. Looks like they are on the hunt for more lifelong members. Lifelong being the word, because dieting behaviour tends to lead to a...

Stop gaslighting eating disorder patients (and parents)

Gaslighting = manipulate (someone) by psychological means into questioning their own sanity. Gaslighting is usually thought of in a domestic abuse setting but also happens in many other settings — including therapy. This sort of behaviour is not limited to eating...

Recovery Stories: Elisa Oras, feast eating, and coming out the other side [Podcast]

  In this podcast Tabitha talks to Elisa Oras about recovery.  Topics covered include: – Anorexia in people in larger bodies – Bulimia, and binge/purge subtypes – Feast eating in recovery – Eating lots of food! – Non-traditional...

Recovery Stories: How allowing my parents to refeed me saved my life [Podcast]

In this episode, I talk to “Simon’s Cat” a woman in recovery from anorexia. She shares her story about going back home to live with her parents for 3 months in order to start her recovery and get though the thoughest parts of the refeeding process....

Question/Answer: Why is it so difficult for me to eat more?

Here’s a question I got via email today. I will write here my opinion on this question. I would like to remind readers that my opinion is just that, and that we are all unique individuals so it would be impossible for my general opinion on anything at all to be...