61: Tracey's Real Story "I started secret eating at aged 10"

00:00:00:05 - 00:00:17:19

Lyndi

Okay. I would like to tell you your your weight is not the problem. It really isn't. I know you've been made to think your weight is a problem your entire life, but honestly, it's just been a red herring making you focus on diets that really suck and your weight is not. The problem is the title of my new book, and I would really like you to read it.

00:00:17:19 - 00:00:34:10

Lyndi

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00:00:34:10 - 00:01:04:09

Lyndi

Please go to my website Linda Cohen dot com and check out my new book. It's available from all great retailers. Please check it out. Oh, hello everyone, and welcome to today's episode of the Wellness Lingerie Podcast. I'm your host, Lindy Kerin, a dietitian, nutritionist and someone who got really messed around by diet culture growing up. So I'm here to help you untangle from all those silly diet rules that make healthy eating so much harder than it needs to be.

00:01:04:28 - 00:01:26:17

Lyndi

And today I'm very excited because we're mixing up the format a little bit to try something a bit new with real stories from people probably just like you who have also been tainted by diet culture. And for our first session today, we're speaking with Tracey Wright and she is an incredible woman whose story I hope you enjoy listening to.

00:01:27:11 - 00:01:38:02

Lyndi

Hi, Tracey, and thank you so much for coming on today's podcast. I'm so happy to have you as my guest on the first ever Real Talks Real Stories episode of No Wellness Wankery.

00:01:38:02 - 00:01:40:06

Tracey

Thank you for having me.

00:01:40:08 - 00:01:58:27

Lyndi

I pleasure. I think what I'm really excited about is for us to be able to have these conversations and for all of us to tune in and realize that we're not alone. A lot of us have been thrown down the dieting pathway way too early. And based on what I spoke to you about earlier, you started dieting at a was at age ten.

00:01:59:14 - 00:02:00:17

Lyndi

Can you tell me a bit about that?

00:02:00:17 - 00:02:25:24

Tracey

Between eight and ten. I remember even younger than that being taken to a doctor for something totally unrelated and him pulling myself and my mother aside and I'm one of about five or six saying that if my mother didn't start me on a diet very soon, that I wouldn't live until I was in my teens. And I was not an overly overweight child.

00:02:25:27 - 00:03:03:23

Tracey

I was active. I did all the stuff that normal kids do at that age. What was found out later was that I was just more developed than the other kids. So, you know, I started puberty at the age of nine, so my body was sort of working its way up at a younger age. And I still remember the feeling that I had being told that, you know, like you're not going to live if you don't, you know, stop dieting and I guess my mum, she only knew what she knew at the time.

00:03:03:23 - 00:03:12:15

Tracey

You know, like we're talking early seventies here. And so I think she started me on a diet there. And then do you remember what.

00:03:13:10 - 00:03:16:08

Lyndi

How she wanted you to eat or what were you trying to stick to.

00:03:16:24 - 00:03:40:06

Tracey

It's not, I don't remember exactly what happened, but I do remember feeling look oh, wasn't good enough the way I was. And not that my mother didn't love me any less. It was that society thought I was different. You know, other people thought all this different. And I know I retreated, retreated into myself. And I think I began sneaking food.

00:03:40:06 - 00:04:03:15

Tracey

By the time I was ten, I began sneaking food because I was just I'd been restricted for so long that I just started sneaking things to eat because I was hungry, you know, not admitting to myself, let alone anybody else that I was doing that. And honestly, I did fall back into that habit of sneaking food not long ago.

00:04:04:01 - 00:04:29:06

Tracey

And I've got no reason to do that. You know, I'll eat. Well, we don't want that. I snuck. I think I felt like I needed to sneak a donut or something like that, you know, while I was out one day and hide the evidence in the car, the is just a from such a young age to feel that you weren't enough just the way you were, because you weren't, you know, like everybody else, I suppose.

00:04:29:15 - 00:05:02:03

Lyndi

I think there's a lot of justification for why we end up sneaking through to for why you still might be sneaking food. I think when you're all the health message is receiving, which to be telling us these are the bad foods and we shouldn't be eating this. And then we might go, What if anyone sees me eating this in public, especially having being brought up the way you were, that being told that your love ability was dependent on how much you weighed, that was kind of the message you were told from a really young age that to be a good girl, you needed to stick within a sudden, you know your body was wrong and

00:05:02:03 - 00:05:20:06

Lyndi

that you needed to change that body. And, you know, I wonder then what would have happened if you weren't given diet advice from the age of five or ten years old? You know, it's a question of who knows what could have happened. But here you are at ten years old, already forming an unhealthy relationship with food in your body.

00:05:21:01 - 00:05:22:09

Lyndi

What happened from here on?

00:05:22:15 - 00:05:47:28

Tracey

I started seriously dieting of my own back before I was 13, so I begged my mother to join me up to a I think it was Jenny Craig at the time. They'd only just started. I wanted to join up to that and I'm I begged my mother to allow me to join that, which she did, because she knew I was unhappy.

00:05:48:14 - 00:06:11:10

Tracey

So she allowed me to join that. I did that for a while, couldn't continue it. So then I moved from diet to diet. Too often I did everything that was out there, absolutely everything. And I did that from the time I was about 13 to the time I was 40. Every week starting something new, you know, starting something new on a monday.

00:06:11:10 - 00:06:34:17

Tracey

And by Friday, it was just, look, I can't do this. I just can't keep going. And because everything was just restrictive, I couldn't change to fit the diet rules, you know, I just couldn't do it. I know I had I do still have a food addiction, which is really hard to admit. You feel like you people think, how can you be addicted to food?

00:06:34:17 - 00:06:55:27

Tracey

Up until I did some work on myself, I literally had to have all my pantry and cupboards full of food because I would go into a panic attack if I didn't have something there. And in this day and age we can go to the shop at any time. We need something. But if I didn't have the pantry cupboard full, I was terrified it was going to starve.

00:06:56:02 - 00:07:15:25

Lyndi

It makes so much sense to me that this might be a reaction that you would have had being brought up, being restricted on how much you're allowed to. You can throw a body into feeling like there is a famine, a starvation response goes on so that as soon as we do get access to food, we need as much as we possibly can to feel safe and secure.

00:07:16:03 - 00:07:40:15

Lyndi

This is such a natural and protective behavior. I think sometimes in the diet world we get told, you know, you're poor willpower. If you can't stick to a diet, not realizing that the very food rules have been dished out everywhere since we were young kids has been leading us to fear that food is running out and that we need to eat as much as we possibly can when we can, and that these behaviors stick around.

00:07:40:15 - 00:07:44:21

Lyndi

And there's nothing wrong with you, which is, I hope, something that you've come to realize.

00:07:44:24 - 00:08:09:22

Tracey

Oh, definitely. It's taken a lot of internal work, a lot of work to realize that it was a conditioning for me. So, you know, it went from being restricted to food to also being told to eat everything on my plate, not leaving the table until it was empty. But I was only allowed to eat at those certain times whether I was hungry or not.

00:08:09:29 - 00:08:34:00

Tracey

You know, it's just it's totally conflicting feeling and thought process because, you know, you've got to eat everything on your plate. But if you want to lose weight, you have to so-called you have to restrict what you eat there. The stories that you've been told and conditioned to do. I thought I was so broken that I could not lose weight and all was 140 kilos.

00:08:34:07 - 00:08:55:11

Tracey

So I'll own that. I'm not very tall, five foot one. I don't know what that is. In today's measurements, but five foot one. So I was what they called morbidly obese. I was on the verge of having diabetes, all those sorts of things because I thought I was broken and I couldn't control and have the willpower to lose weight.

00:08:55:15 - 00:08:57:19

Lyndi

So what? What age were you at this point?

00:08:57:26 - 00:09:02:10

Tracey

I was probably 140 kilos by the time I was 35.

00:09:03:00 - 00:09:20:04

Lyndi

So there you go. From from the age of ten, you dieted yourself to the point where you were morbidly obese. You felt deeply uncomfortable in your body, I assume. Definitely pain. You had these warnings from doctors that you'd be seeing it. And then and then what happened?

00:09:20:21 - 00:09:56:26

Tracey

So I also lived my life alone because I didn't think I was lovable. I didn't think anybody would want to be with me because also said I decided at the age of 45 that I'd had enough. I just had had enough and I couldn't continue walking into a room and looking around saying if I was the fattest person in the room, or if there's anybody bigger than me putting my life on hold because I was too uncomfortable and I researched that, I thought, well, the only thing that's going to work for me is weight loss surgery, because I've tried everything else and everything else.

00:09:57:09 - 00:10:14:12

Tracey

Nothing else works or I can't stick to it. If I had weight loss surgery, it was going to force me to stick to it. And that is just another whole kettle of fish. You just don't realize what that is going to do to your mind, your body and everything around you.

00:10:14:13 - 00:10:17:11

Lyndi

What did it do? How did it impact your life?

00:10:17:14 - 00:10:58:20

Tracey

For me? No, I'm not saying it does this, everybody. But this is just what it did for me. Yeah, I don't regret having the surgery at all. I regret not being fully informed about what was going to happen, not prepare ring beforehand. So not getting the nutritional help beforehand, not getting the mental help beforehand, the psychological help and not understand the tools that you need emotionally to deal with the tool that you're given physically.

00:10:58:20 - 00:11:28:07

Tracey

So I had none of that. I went to a surgeon, the surgeon performed the operation. I didn't see the surgeon again. I didn't see the dietician again. I didn't see this physio again either. So I had one appointment with H before my surgery and then I was left on my own. So and they took after us, you know, found out they took 90% of my stomach and left me with 10% of my tummy.

00:11:28:07 - 00:11:45:18

Lyndi

And for anyone who doesn't know about weight loss surgery, it has quite huge implications for how you can eat from there. And after in terms of how much you're allowed to eat at any sitting, because your stomach size, as you said, is you 10% of your stomach left, the amount you could fit in your stomach was so small.

00:11:46:02 - 00:12:05:12

Lyndi

And then you have to be so strategic about what you eat that you actually get the right nutrients that you need. That's right. So certain nutrients don't get absorbed as easily. So it's very easy to become deficient. And then at the same time, what it sounds like is there were these physical changes, but no one had actually addressed the fact that you had perhaps an undiagnosed eating disorder.

00:12:05:12 - 00:12:26:13

Lyndi

So I was feeling all of this. And so you still have the psychological impacts of being obsessed with food, of trying to get as much food as possible. But now with this very minute stomach that can handle it. And if you do end up eating more than what you ought to do according to your stomach size, then you can feel nauseous, you can plummet, you can have really unpleasant symptoms.

00:12:26:22 - 00:13:01:25

Tracey

That's right. And the amount of times that I would eat something and not know my cues and just have that one extra mouthful and have my head over the toilet and loose lose a lot. So I went from 140 kilos. Two years later I was 49, so I did not even recognize myself. Walking past a window at the shopping center and I felt I didn't have any energy.

00:13:02:03 - 00:13:28:15

Tracey

There was nothing there. I was taking all the vitamins I was told to take. I was doing everything that I had researched because I had to go online. There was no other way. I knew what to do. So, you know, I was given instructions, a book. I think it was just a book on what to do, what to eat, how to eat, not look at it and not go, I can't eat that.

00:13:28:26 - 00:13:59:27

Tracey

It's just, you know, like it looked like slop. Honestly. Just like slop and like, I just can't. So I would just prepare the normal meal and just cut one right down. So I can eat at any given sitting between half a cup and a cup of food depending on what it is. So you can't drink a now before an hour after you've eaten because it just doesn't sit in the in your stomach.

00:14:00:29 - 00:14:05:20

Tracey

You're on multivitamins and expensive multivitamins for the rest of your life.

00:14:06:06 - 00:14:09:03

Lyndi

How much would you say you spend on multivitamins?

00:14:09:03 - 00:14:15:09

Tracey

I would spend on vitamins each month between 100 and $150 each month.

00:14:15:19 - 00:14:38:28

Lyndi

I find it really sad that the way I kind of I think there is a time and a place for full weight loss surgery, a very small time in place where it is useful. What I have an issue with is I think so often we are trying to put a bandaid on a headache. We are trying to solve a problem with this completely wrong solution, which is I think what is what kind of happens here.

00:14:39:06 - 00:14:57:28

Lyndi

I'm really glad that you don't regret your surgery, but I think often what we do in this pursuit for a waiting list is we do sacrifice our wellbeing in every sense of that word, whether it's our financial wellbeing or and our physical wellbeing, our mental health, so we can attain, if not even a thinner ideal, but just to to weigh less.

00:14:58:17 - 00:15:06:25

Lyndi

So here you are at 49 kilograms, feeling quite depleted. And how did everyone else respond to you seeing the smaller size?

00:15:07:12 - 00:15:33:08

Tracey

It was amazing. The so-called friends that came out of the woodwork that wanted to the people that wanted to be around me because I was thinner. I dress differently and for a little while that felt nice, you know, like being accepted. That felt nice. And I chugged along quite, quite well. You know, I had between I allowed myself eight kilos.

00:15:34:02 - 00:16:03:19

Tracey

I just, you know, at that weight I thought not eight kilos is a good leeway. So a guide and lose gain or lose weight myself every day. Absolutely terrified I was going to gain more than that eight kilos because I knew I could loser eight kilos again. But I just absolutely was obsessed. I went from one addiction to another so I couldn't eat as much as normal.

00:16:03:25 - 00:16:13:18

Tracey

But I went to coffee and I would have 1020 cups of coffee a day. I don't know how I fitted in, but even with that.

00:16:13:18 - 00:16:21:16

Lyndi

Kind of a weight management strategy or was that a just something to do because you couldn't consumes you at least. Yes. You coffee and yes.

00:16:22:11 - 00:16:47:20

Tracey

That's right. So it was just something to put in my mouth. Eating became to a point she was it sounds and I've got no idea what anorexia is like but it comes to the point where you go from eating as much as you can and going from that starvation to that addiction to the other side of that addiction going, I don't want to put anything in my mouth because it's going to make me gain weight.

00:16:48:09 - 00:17:13:01

Tracey

And I don't want to go back to where I was. So my mentality was I got to the stage where I would live on protein shakes because I didn't want to eat. I was too scared to put anything in my mouth because that was going to make me gain weight. And it wasn't until I actually threw my scales away and just one day I was just like, just get rid of them, you know?

00:17:13:01 - 00:17:38:04

Tracey

Like, this is so, so hard to weigh myself every day and say that you weight changes every single day. Your weight changes. It depends on what the week before. It's not what you ate that day. So I threw them away and sort of started living my life to a normal stage. And I know I went to the doctors at one point she said, Oh, you've put on a little bit of weight.

00:17:39:17 - 00:17:55:15

Tracey

And I went, Yeah, I have that. I know I needed to because I wasn't well, didn't feel healthy. And she said, No, you're fine, you'll 58 kilos or something along those lines. She said, if you can stay between that in 65 you'll be fine. No worries.

00:17:55:16 - 00:18:14:08

Lyndi

And once again, at no point in any of these consultations was anyone noticing the fact that there was a deeply disordered relationship with food underpinning it. No one's asking questions about how you feeling around food. All that seems to matter sometimes to health care professionals is what's your BMI? How much do you weigh? And, you know, do everything that you can to stick within that?

00:18:14:08 - 00:18:15:22

Lyndi

I think that's the message would get told.

00:18:15:22 - 00:18:27:02

Tracey

Yeah. So I was exercising 4 hours a day, eating next to nothing, living on protein shakes, still had no idea that I had a what I would now say is an eating disorder.

00:18:27:03 - 00:18:33:10

Lyndi

Yes, I would. I think you would qualify that would have qualified for an eating disorder diagnosis.

00:18:33:15 - 00:19:00:09

Tracey

Then I suffered a really traumatic event. I actually lost. I had two of my fingers amputated in an accident and I did not know how to deal. Look, I couldn't deal with my emotion. I couldn't deal with how that made me feel. I couldn't deal with any of that. So two old habits and I went back to using food as my crutch, food as so where I could only have a small amount.

00:19:01:07 - 00:19:22:06

Tracey

I could have that small amount every hour. And I figured that out. You know, my warped, swollen face, warped brain now figured out that if I ate every hour, I could still eat all that stuff. And then I found what they call slider foods, which is just stuff that just goes straight down and doesn't take up any space.

00:19:23:04 - 00:19:35:13

Tracey

And you can eat innate, innate nature. So I turned to those foods so I could eat more to deal with my emotions. Then absolutely freaked out when I realized I'd gained 30 kilos in two years.

00:19:35:21 - 00:19:38:14

Lyndi

How did that make you feel and what did you do after you found out?

00:19:38:18 - 00:19:53:03

Tracey

I was just that was it all went into a deep depression because I'd failed again. I'd failed my last chance of being so-called normal. So obviously I was broken. There was something wrong with me because I couldn't make that work.

00:19:53:03 - 00:20:18:01

Lyndi

Even food is a food is one of the ways in which we can cope and deal with hard emotions. And I think anyone who tells us that we can't ever emotionally eat well, humans are emotional creatures and food is something that is going to soothe us. But emotional eating or eating is just one of the coping strategies that we want to develop in order to to use to to be able to feel better.

00:20:18:11 - 00:20:40:03

Lyndi

And when you've had a toxic relationship with food, we've had all these food was thrown at you like you had throughout your entire life. The emotional release that you get from eating gets heightened and heightened and heightened. So it's beyond that of what it previously was. Another food. When you do eat it, it gives you a much higher sensation than before you ever started dieting.

00:20:40:12 - 00:21:00:27

Lyndi

And this makes sense as to how this kind of fueled this entire process and how food became. Would you say that you very much looked forward to these moments of being able to binge as you know, within your capacity and simultaneously felt regret after doing it? What was your relationship with those without eating?

00:21:01:07 - 00:21:18:26

Tracey

To be honest with you, I didn't even know I was eating. It was just automatic. I would just find myself with a, say, a family block of chocolate gone in 2 hours and not know that I'd done it, you know, not remembering that I'd gone out and bought it because it's not something I just keep in the house.

00:21:19:24 - 00:21:39:23

Tracey

So not knowing that I'd gone out and bought it just it just happened. Not knowing that a big bag of potato chips had gone. And then, of course, once I've realized that just deep depression, all of a it again, you know, look, how could I have done this? How can I sleep, attach myself like this? How can I keep doing this to myself?

00:21:39:28 - 00:21:42:12

Lyndi

Do you ever resolve to act differently?

00:21:42:12 - 00:22:06:25

Tracey

I didn't know how to, and sometimes I still don't. You know, I have all the knowledge in the world over all the years of, you know, knowing what to do. I know to eat intuitively, you know, I know that we are designed excuse me, we are designed to eat when we're hungry, whether designed to stop or we've had enough, and we're designed to ask ourselves the questions.

00:22:07:01 - 00:22:25:10

Tracey

We shouldn't have to ask ourselves the questions that should just be we don't stop being forced to eat into it. About two years old, I believe when our parents stop thinking we're not eating enough and we're not eating the right things. So as a baby, we know what we're eating, what we're supposed to do, but we lose that.

00:22:25:24 - 00:22:44:23

Tracey

And it's a matter of trying to find that again. And I find sometimes I still do. If I get up in the middle of the night saying I'm tired, I still do go for that, You know, a handful of choc chips or the spoonful of Nutella or peanut butter. I still do do that, but I give myself permission to do that.

00:22:44:23 - 00:22:45:04

Tracey

Neil.

00:22:45:13 - 00:23:04:05

Lyndi

When when you've spent your entire life, as you said, from the age of two and four, you specifically at the age of five, you got dished quite clear food rules about what was acceptable to eat and what was not acceptable and how much you needed to eat. And it's been 15 years almost, of those food rules being thrown at you.

00:23:04:22 - 00:23:25:13

Lyndi

It's going to take quite a while for us to unlearn those things. So I think a lot of these, you know, wellness health ideas are like, well, in three, you know, three months or the 28 day challenge or whatever it is, if these behaviors and thought have been built up over decades, it's going to take us longer than a year, five years.

00:23:25:13 - 00:23:46:09

Lyndi

It could take, you know, ten plus years. And it's a constant evolution where you might notice that, oh, you know, maybe this is where you are now, and maybe in the year from now you go, maybe I do that slightly less. I think when people are specifically recovering from something like binge eating, we kind of would really like to go from binge eating multiple times a day to not binge eating at all within a few weeks or months.

00:23:46:09 - 00:24:04:09

Lyndi

That never happens, though. What we end up seeing is we go, okay, well, maybe you had one binge free day in a month and that's a huge win. And maybe, you know, in a year from now you're having two binges a week and that is a huge transformation. I think what we often fail to see is the micro changes that we're making.

00:24:04:09 - 00:24:20:21

Lyndi

The micro improvements, of course, those behaviors are still there, but I think as long as we're on the trajectory to go and think I'm doing this behavior a little bit less, I'm becoming more mindful when I do. Even if that's yeah, there's there's no behavior change. I'm just more conscious when I'm doing it that is already getting us much close to where we would be.

00:24:20:21 - 00:24:50:17

Lyndi

It's as long and as long a slow and long process. But it sounds to me that you're very much on that process, although you haven't arrived at the perfect destination because perfect destination does not exist. Tell me, Tracey, tell me a bit that in this depressive state, yeah, full, intense purposes, binge eating without awareness around it. And now you approached me saying you'd love to share your story because you have learned about intuitive eating and where you're at.

00:24:50:17 - 00:24:53:22

Lyndi

So how did you get to the point to that point to where you are now?

00:24:54:24 - 00:25:02:21

Tracey

There was a lot of internal work, a lot of reading, a lot of research, I think.

00:25:02:28 - 00:25:07:11

Lyndi

Sorry. Was there a moment when you thought, let's start doing this differently?

00:25:07:11 - 00:25:32:24

Tracey

There was it was I looked in the mirror, actually, and I thought, oh, you know, there's a photo of me and here I am at looks 50 something kilos. Here I am now it's 70 something kilos and I'm just feeling worse than I did ever because I feel like I've just totally just failed again and not failed forward, but failed and gone backwards.

00:25:34:15 - 00:25:55:14

Tracey

I'd let all my old habits come back in again. And I knew it. I knew they were they. I knew instead of feeling and feeling, I would turn to food because I didn't judge me for feeling that feeling. It just soothed me. So there was a lot of research and I have read so many books and there are so many out there.

00:25:55:14 - 00:26:24:18

Tracey

No sort on personal development, but also on people who have been through what I was going through, you know, who had had traumas and who didn't know how to deal with those traumas. And I had quite a few through my life. And I got some personal coaching just for someone to help me deal with my traumas. And once I released those, I was able to then look deeper inside and go, Well, I need to change this part of me.

00:26:25:02 - 00:26:50:06

Tracey

Honestly, I can say now still something I am working on and I think I will be working on this until the day I die because it's not something that is a quick fix. Nobody's perfect. Nobody eats perfectly every single day, grocery shopping days. It's normal to get takeaway on the way home, I've discovered. So you might have a bag full of fresh food, but you get takeaway on the way home because you just can't be bothered.

00:26:50:21 - 00:27:17:14

Tracey

And that's normal. So to learn what was actually normal in everyday life and not feeling like I was the only one doing it was a big step and learning to make sure that I was prepared, that I prepared myself to succeed in what I wanted to achieve. And all I want to achieve now is I don't want to achieve a certain weight.

00:27:17:24 - 00:27:20:07

Tracey

I don't want to achieve a certain look. I just want to be healthy.

00:27:20:20 - 00:27:21:22

Lyndi

What does that look like to you?

00:27:22:07 - 00:27:55:29

Tracey

Health looks like to me where I have energy to get up in the morning and go for a walk because I enjoy walking. I have the energy to get up off the couch at the end of the day and just get up and do the dishes without thinking about doing the dishes. It's just done and just, you know, just enjoying my life, being able to enjoy it and have knowing that I've got longevity coming my way, that I'm not on blood pressure medication, I'm not on insulin for diabetes, I'm not on you know, I'm not suffering migraines all the time because I've eaten something that's got something in it that's going to trigger it for

00:27:55:29 - 00:28:03:09

Tracey

me. And healthy for me, too, is also mental health as well. Now, you know, making sure I take care of myself.

00:28:03:22 - 00:28:15:21

Lyndi

So you've found a way of moving your body that feels really enjoyable, not a punishment for eating or not something that you feel you have to force yourself to do. It's something that you choose and you want to do. Each day and it makes you feel good.

00:28:16:00 - 00:28:37:28

Tracey

That's right. And I think that's a big something. It was really I needed to learn to because I thought exercise was because you had to exercise to work off what you're eating. So therefore it was a punishment. And I hated the thought of it my whole life. I hated the thought of exercise, and it was my story that I didn't do that.

00:28:38:26 - 00:29:04:15

Tracey

I did not exercise because I was not going to punish myself. And finding something that was enjoyable for me took a lot, a lot of trial, a lot of error, a lot of just trying something for a few weeks. And if it didn't feel right, was okay, not that's not for me. But the whole time I was still doing those walking because it always made me feel good.

00:29:05:12 - 00:29:19:15

Tracey

And I didn't realize that that set walking was enough of an exercise to help my wellbeing, my, my mental health, my physical health, everything. And it just did that for me.

00:29:20:17 - 00:29:42:09

Lyndi

So it sounds like you had to let go of what you thought exercise should look like. You didn't have to be going to the gym. It didn't have to be holding weights or running. You know, exercise can be, as my one of my clients said, just a walk. It could be just stretching. It can just be simple and enjoyable and slow and easy.

00:29:42:09 - 00:29:48:15

Lyndi

What would you say to five year old you or ten year old you? What advice would you give to her now?

00:29:49:07 - 00:30:17:07

Tracey

I would just and I'll have thought about this kind of thing before, because when I do speak badly to myself, internal, those really horrible things that you say. So I think you wouldn't say that to a five year old. The five year old need you to know that she was just perfect the way she was. And if she had have known that if she didn't feel like she knew to fit in with everybody else, I think she would have grown up without the eating disorders.

00:30:18:04 - 00:30:48:21

Tracey

She would have experienced so much more in life. And what she did, there were so many missed opportunities because the younger me was terrified of being seen. So being seen being overweight meant I wasn't seen, or I could hide behind my weight. And I think that's a lot. There's a lot of people who feel that, you know, you think that if they look big larger that you're going to be more visible.

00:30:48:21 - 00:30:57:00

Tracey

But I don't think you are. I think you hide behind that. So definitely tell my younger self to live big.

00:30:58:08 - 00:31:11:28

Lyndi

And is that what you tell someone who's listening right now who felt like they were keeping their life small, who who was waiting to lose weight to start living their life? You're just scared of eating the wrong thing and feeling guilty.

00:31:12:07 - 00:31:34:23

Tracey

What I say to myself is if I go if I go somewhere and there are people around me, I don't even look at what they look like, honestly, see if someone's having fun. I don't care what size they are, how old they are, what size they are, what they're wearing. I don't say that. And most people don't. And most people just see someone enjoying themselves and just want to be around that.

00:31:35:09 - 00:31:58:26

Tracey

They want to be around the the vibe that's put out. So if your and I did have someone say to me the other day, what advice would I give her? She's going she's going to another country for this summer. And her in-laws are very trim and tanned and live the outdoor life and she's overweight. And she said, I don't know what to feel around them.

00:31:58:26 - 00:32:22:03

Tracey

I can't wear a bathing suit around them. And I'm like, if they know that you're they can see you. You know, you're living your life to your best and that's what you want people to see. And anybody that see somebody living their life to the best that they can live it and enjoying themselves and making other people feel amazing around them.

00:32:23:06 - 00:32:26:15

Tracey

That's the biggest gift we can give anybody, including ourselves.

00:32:26:21 - 00:32:51:18

Lyndi

Stop waiting on the weight. So to turn up in photos you're not going to look back at in 20 years time. And and you can't even see yourself in your in your happy memories is because you're not in the photograph. So you have to turn up and start living life. I think sometimes when we have struggled with disordered eating or poor body image, we we look at other people's bodies a little bit more because we are so self conscious about how outward he looks.

00:32:51:26 - 00:33:22:21

Lyndi

And so we start to think this is how everyone thinks. We think everyone is assessing everyone else's body, and that's just not the case. And so I think and even if someone is assessing bodies, I find when insecurities the reason behind that and let's not let their insecurity become our insecurity, we can have to wrap up. But I wanted to know is anything else you'd want the listener right now to think about or something you wish you had done sooner that they could maybe to start doing from now on.

00:33:23:24 - 00:33:58:15

Tracey

I wish I had given myself grace sooner and allowed myself just to be me and actually asked for help. There's so many places now that we can ask for help that doesn't necessarily need to be a diet or a program or a challenge. And there's so many people who are willing to give that help that night. Not everybody has not been where you are.

00:33:59:01 - 00:34:27:23

Tracey

So don't look at a a dietician or a nutritionist or even just your next door neighbor and think that they you know, they live the perfect life, ask them for help because they've probably been where you are at some point. And it doesn't matter if someone has, you know, feels like they're five kilos more than they should be or 100 kilos more than they should be.

00:34:27:23 - 00:34:50:06

Tracey

The feelings are still the same, the body image is still the same. So ask for help, talk about it. Learn that the diet industry is not right, that they're just to, you know, make money and make you feel the worst that you're going to be. So you keep coming back. I have nothing but contempt for the diet industry.

00:34:50:13 - 00:35:06:26

Tracey

I really do, because it's just as if it wasn't there. So many more people would be living such move, you know, fulfilled lives because they'd be less worried about, you know, turning up in the photos spot on.

00:35:07:02 - 00:35:25:14

Lyndi

Sometimes I do wonder, you know, for yourself and I wonder about myself, what would have happened if I was never put on a diet. And my you know what? I have just existed in a normal, everyday sized body and, you know, just gone about living my life. I would probably not be a dietician helping people who have to struggle with diet, culture and all that nonsense.

00:35:25:27 - 00:35:46:15

Lyndi

It's incredible to think where how much more potential we could have if every thought didn't keep coming back to calories or how much we weighed or how many reps we did at the gym worrying about our weight keeps us small. It keeps us stuck and we need to live big. We need to turn up. And what do you say we do?

00:35:46:15 - 00:36:09:04

Tracey

I mean, years ago we didn't have these instant photos, and the photo was what the photo was, whether we had a funny face or whether, you know, our eyes were closed or, you know, we had double chins or whatever. They were there. And it was just, you know, look back on your family photos from years ago and you'll see that not the photos aren't perfect, but the feelings of the.

00:36:10:01 - 00:36:22:24

Lyndi

Tracey's has been so great to have you on the podcast. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for sharing your story with me, with everyone else listening, I feel like you're going to be able to help a lot of people just by telling us your stories. Thank you.

00:36:23:02 - 00:36:24:03

Tracey

Thank you for having me.

00:36:24:18 - 00:36:45:24

Lyndi

Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. If you would like to share your story on the podcast, I would love to hear from you. Please email me or email my team. We want to hear from you. Hello at Linda Cohen become Tell us a little bit about you. And I think the power of us sharing our stories together is that other people can hear them and realize that they're not alone either.

00:36:46:02 - 00:37:04:21

Lyndi

Shame exists as long as we don't shine a light on it. If it stays in the shadows, if it stays hidden. So by talking about these topics, these things that affect so many of us, whether it's body shame or obsession with food or eating disorders, we're helping to reduce the stigma that surround still. So please reach out to us.

00:37:04:21 - 00:37:23:07

Lyndi

Hello. Lindy Kerin, welcome and thanks for listening. Hey everyone. And before we get started in the podcast episode, I just want to tell you a little bit about how I might be able to help you if you want to get a healthy relationship with food because oh my goodness, there's a whole lot of stuff that's working against us all the time.

00:37:23:07 - 00:37:40:11

Lyndi

Hello, diet culture. So if you ever wanted a little bit more personalized support, just check out my program. Keep it real. Especially if you're struggling with binge eating. If you feel like every Monday, you start from scratch. If you feel like you know what you should be eating, but you just can't stick to it if you feel like you want to eat healthier.

00:37:40:11 - 00:37:58:20

Lyndi

But honestly, it just feels like you're out of control through your face planting into the fragile pantry. I can help you binge either. I really do. I do get it. So check out Keep It Real. Use the Code podcast to get 20% off if you if you get it via the the website. And also I also got my I cut back to basics.

00:37:58:20 - 00:38:15:06

Lyndi

Back to Basics is an app to help you be healthy without dieting and will help you work on your body image gives you a whole bunch of hundreds of recipes that are super quick and easy to make so you can just be healthy without having to get obsessed with that at all, without it taking over your life, because that's the way it should be.

00:38:15:15 - 00:38:34:06

Lyndi

Plus, you get mindset support For me inside the app. You also get a whole bunch of workouts that you can do at home. You can still just do your normal workouts, but check out back to basics. You can get it for free for seven. Check out Back to Basics on my website. Use the code again podcast, get 20% off and I'd love to see in there.