March 11, 2023 • 12 mins
OUTWEIGH: Curious if you have an eating disorder? Do you actually have to talk to a professional to find out, or is there a way you can figure it out on your own? Amy is joined by Kat Defatta (licensed therapist that specializes in eating disorders & host of You Need Therapy podcast) to answer these questions. We hope this episode encourages you to take inventory of your relationship to food (and your body) and that you never feel alone in your thoughts or any shame about your behaviors!!
Where to find more Kat:
Best places to find more about Amy: RadioAmy.com + @RadioAmy
To contact Amy about Outweigh: hello@outweighpodcast.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I won't let my body out way outweigh everything that
I'm made, don't won't spend my life trying to change.
I'm learning to love who I am again. I'm strong,
I feel free and know who every part of me.
It's beautiful and I will always outway if you feel
(00:24):
it with joys and the Here she's love to the
boom by a day. Let's say good day and time
did you and die out? Happy Saturday? Outweigh Amy. Here
and I am joined by Cat Defada, licensed therapist. She
co hosts The Fifth Thing with Me and she's also
the host of her own podcast called You Need Therapy
(00:46):
and Cat and bring you on Outweigh Today. Because I
got an email that's to both of us. It's a
listener she must listen to four Things, Fifth Thing and Outweigh.
And her name's Abby and she's thirteen years old. And
I thought this was the sweetest note ever. So here
it is. Hey, Amy, my name is Abby and I
am thirteen. As of a few weeks ago, I am
(01:07):
somewhat of a new listener and I absolutely love your show.
I was wondering, how do I know if I have
a neating disorder? Do I actually have to talk to
a professional or is there a way I can find
out for myself. I also want to say that you're
so brave for sharing your story. I haven't been able
to benefit from it, but I know there are a
bunch of people out there that have gotten good results
(01:29):
out of your podcast. You and Cat are a blessing.
I like to listen to you while I do chores,
and I love all the recommendations you make, whether it's
about food or clothes or TV. I most likely won't
be able to make it to your live podcasts because
of school, even though I would love to come. Once again,
I want to thank you and Kat for everything you do.
Your friend Abby smiley face. I love that she's so smart.
(01:53):
She does chores, she has chores, she listens to podcasts.
Why she has chores basically us Yeah, And so this
is outweigh. I feel like when we do the fifth thing,
we talk about all kinds of things, but we'll focus
on the question that she had in there. And this
is for someone listening whether you're twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen
(02:14):
years old or you're sixty, sixty five, seventy years old,
because I've heard from listeners that age range having curiosity
about disordered eating behaviors, and so Kat, being the licensed therapist,
I'm going to throw it over to you. How does
someone know they have an eating disorder? And then should
they actually talk to a professional to find out or
(02:35):
diagnose themselves in a way or can we find out
on our own? So I like that we're addressing this piece.
I think this is a question that comes up a lot,
especially because there's not just one eating disorder. It's not
like you have eating disorder. There's like a million, not
really a million, but there's a lot of ways that
it can be a diagnose. And then it looks how
(02:56):
I feel about this. I think this bleeds from professional
to even how I think as a human. The real
issue when it comes down to people asking the question,
how do I know if I have eating disorder? Isn't
so much do you have this eating disorder that according
to the Diagnostic Statistical Manual that we can diagnose you
(03:16):
and write this in your medical chart. The real issue
is your relationship to food, or your body, or exercise
or a combination of those. Are any of those affecting
your quality of life? Are any of those things keeping
you from doing the things you want to do, or
being the kind of person you want to be, or
(03:37):
experiencing the things in life you want to experience. That
then is enough to say that, Okay, this is an
issue for you, and there is hope and there are
other ways to live outside of that box you're in
right now. So rather than looking do I have all
of the things that meet the criteria, it does my
relationship to any of these things affect my quality of life.
(04:00):
I know you did a recent episode about this because
we actually talked about it last Saturday, And by we,
I mean I did with my listeners. I feel as
though anyone listening it's a wee. So because it was
need a week and you had your Monday episode on
Unique Therapy, but then your Wednesday episode is your Couch Talks,
(04:20):
you pretty much answered this question along with others, and
that's what I encouraged people to go listen to if
they have that. I was on Nita's website and then
that got me thinking about all the other different resources
out there, and I started clicking around to different things,
and it was in the show notes last week that
I linked it, and it was questions you can ask yourself,
(04:43):
like like you were saying, Okay, do I have an
unhealthy relationship? Or is this getting in the way of
my life? And sometimes it's even hard to tell that.
And so that questionnaire or other questionnaires, if you were
to search some up might just get It's like a prompt.
It can help you flore how you really feel, because
I feel like there was times in my eating disorder
(05:05):
where it just seemed like, Okay, I thought, kind of,
this is just how life is, so I didn't know
it was a red flag. Yeah, especial everybody probably feels
this way, right, yeah, or well, there's definitely some thoughts
I had where I was like, oh my gosh, I
could never share this thought that I just have because
it's so crazy, or I can't believe this behavior I
just did. Oh, like I had so much shame around it.
(05:27):
And then thankfully other people started to share their story
for their stories, and I was like, oh, yeah, I'm
not alone in hiding food. I remember kale Junkie, that's
her handle on Instagram, but she started talking about her
Binge eating disorder and like when she really had a
feeling like, Okay, this is out of control. I need
(05:47):
to get some help. He was either her boyfriend at
the time or her husband. But he came home and
she had like hidden bread in her bed. He walked
in and she was like, oh my god. She didn't
want him seeing her devouring a loaf bread because she
thought she was going to be alone. And that was
a moment where she thought, oh, I mean there were
several other things she had done, her just getting vulnerable
(06:09):
and sharing that one story where she had so much shame.
It was very embarrassed for her significant other, her partner,
to see her in this light, and then how she
was able to eventually open up to him and how
supportive he was of what she was going through. That
story stuck with me is oh, okay, I'm not alone
in some of the things that I've done. So anyway,
(06:30):
little tangent there about the different thoughts, but wondering if
your thoughts are normal or thinking is this a needing
disorder thought or is this a disordered behavior? We don't
know because sometimes society even tells us working out this
much or dieting this much is not disordered, So it's
hard to decipher. I was going to say, I remember
(06:51):
a specific experience where I went to lunch with my
family it was me, my grandma, my mom, and my sister,
and they chose to go to chilies, which back then
I loved chilies. But I had an internal breakdown where
I thought, I'm not gonna be able to eat anything,
and I'm not gonna be able to get food, and
then when's the next time I'm gonna be able to eat?
(07:11):
And there's not gonna be anything on this menu. And
I remember ordering a salad without any of the stuff
that came on it. It was I think, just lettuce
and chicken something like that, and I remember my sister
saying something to me. I don't know what it was,
but I had this very like aha moment of everybody
else is enjoying themselves except me, and I'm actually impacting
(07:33):
their ability to enjoy their meal right now because I'm
so worried about what I'm going to eat. And that
was very helpful for me to see. Wait, all these
behaviors that I thought were going to help me, they
are keeping me from having conversation. At this lunch with
my grandma was in town to visit. I could not
focus on anything else than what I was going to
eat and then what I was going to do about
what I was going to eat, and so I share
(07:55):
that example kind of similar to what you just said,
and that was like when I had already been I mean,
I was in the value of all of it. And
one thing that is really helpful, and I like that
this listener is asking this question now. Is one of
the most helpful things we can do is get help before,
like get ahead of it. So when we notice, hey,
I don't know if this might be something that I
(08:16):
should be doing, or I don't know if my relationship
is healthy or unhealthy, I don't I don't really know.
I don't know if I'm missing out on stuff, if
I'm even wandering those questions, get ahead of it, go
reach out for help. And if you don't have a
neating disorder or disorder eating, great, well, now you have
a relationship with a therapist and you can work on
other things. But if you do great, now you can
kind of get help and work on the things that
(08:37):
you need to work on before you're in the bottom
of the pit where it's going to be even more
hard or harder or more challenging to reach out and
ask for help and change behaviors. Oh yeah, I mean
there's times where so far down in a hole that
I was trying to climb my way out and it
seemed daunting and overwhelming and not doable. But the good
news is there is hope, there are sources. It is doable.
(09:02):
And earlier I mentioned just getting the prompts or taking
online like if some of these online resources that are
dedicated to eating disorder, you can take that as a
prompt or take the quiz or whatever, but look at
some of those questions and then maybe journal through them.
And something I did was four days in a row,
journaled about different questions but they were all sort of
(09:24):
the same in the same vein. But it was an exercise.
And then I went back and was supposed to go
through and circle the words that kept showing up over
and over. And it was bizarre because by day four
I'm journaling, I didn't really honestly remember everything I had
written at day one, and they were different questions, but
I was parallel. If you would do that with food
(09:46):
back in the day, you would be able to circle
some things that would have been like WHOA, yes, who
I didn't realize that this always is in my head. Yeah,
And you mentioning not being able to connect around the
table at Chili's, or enjoy that time, and that's what
Britney Spencer. She sings the theme song at the beginning
of this, and it's you know, I won't let my
(10:07):
body outweigh outweigh everything that I'm made of. I won't
spend my life trying to change. I'm learning to love
who I am. That's part of the I guess there's
a chorus, but the verse is missing out on family
meals around the table because what Grandma made is bad,
So I'm not able, and I missed out on so
many family meals because yeah, my brain was somewhere else
(10:30):
thinking about all the things, Oh, if I eat that,
I don't have to go work out, or if I
eat that, or or not enjoying what everybody else is having,
and bringing my own plates like to a family meal,
my own function and my own tup aware are going
to the store so I could control everything, and then
also then trying to force everybody else to eat it.
When they're like, no, I'm good, they're like don't. I
don't want that. I don't want that. So abby, Thank
(10:53):
you so much for the note. You're very brave at
thirteen to send a note and to be curious. I
think that's one of the big guess things that we
can do in life when it comes to all things
is be curious. And you're curious. You don't know where
you are, but I think it's super cool that you're
asking and continue to do that in all areas of
(11:13):
your life. And if you have access to a professional amazing,
absolutely do it. I don't know what your relationship is
like with your parents, but that might be a good
place to start to see if you can have some
resources or talk with other friends, or if you have
cool aunt in your life. Sometimes it's easier to talk
to someone that's not our mom or a dad, even
(11:34):
if you do have a good relationship. I found that
to be true. One time. My mom's best friend took
me out to lunch and I really looked up to
this person. I thought it was so cool and I
was I was able to open up to her way
more than I did my mom. And it's not because
my mom did anything wrong, just the way it is. Okay.
I hope y'all are having the day that you need
to have. That's what Cat loves to say, and definitely
check out. You need therapy. Podcast, especially last week's Nita episodes,
(11:57):
which I guess for this Saturday would be not the
last week that we just had, but the one before.
But all of Cat's episodes are good, all of them. Download,
subscribe single, like and subscribe. Also like and subscribe to
Outway too while you're at it. Okay, all right, bye
bye
I won't let my body out way outweigh everything that
I'm made, don't won't spend my life trying to change.
I'm learning to love who I am again. I'm strong,
I feel free and know who every part of me.
It's beautiful and I will always outway if you feel
(00:24):
it with joys and the Here she's love to the
boom by a day. Let's say good day and time
did you and die out? Happy Saturday? Outweigh Amy. Here
and I am joined by Cat Defada, licensed therapist. She
co hosts The Fifth Thing with Me and she's also
the host of her own podcast called You Need Therapy
(00:46):
and Cat and bring you on Outweigh Today. Because I
got an email that's to both of us. It's a
listener she must listen to four Things, Fifth Thing and Outweigh.
And her name's Abby and she's thirteen years old. And
I thought this was the sweetest note ever. So here
it is. Hey, Amy, my name is Abby and I
am thirteen. As of a few weeks ago, I am
(01:07):
somewhat of a new listener and I absolutely love your show.
I was wondering, how do I know if I have
a neating disorder? Do I actually have to talk to
a professional or is there a way I can find
out for myself. I also want to say that you're
so brave for sharing your story. I haven't been able
to benefit from it, but I know there are a
bunch of people out there that have gotten good results
(01:29):
out of your podcast. You and Cat are a blessing.
I like to listen to you while I do chores,
and I love all the recommendations you make, whether it's
about food or clothes or TV. I most likely won't
be able to make it to your live podcasts because
of school, even though I would love to come. Once again,
I want to thank you and Kat for everything you do.
Your friend Abby smiley face. I love that she's so smart.
(01:53):
She does chores, she has chores, she listens to podcasts.
Why she has chores basically us Yeah, And so this
is outweigh. I feel like when we do the fifth thing,
we talk about all kinds of things, but we'll focus
on the question that she had in there. And this
is for someone listening whether you're twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen
(02:14):
years old or you're sixty, sixty five, seventy years old,
because I've heard from listeners that age range having curiosity
about disordered eating behaviors, and so Kat, being the licensed therapist,
I'm going to throw it over to you. How does
someone know they have an eating disorder? And then should
they actually talk to a professional to find out or
(02:35):
diagnose themselves in a way or can we find out
on our own? So I like that we're addressing this piece.
I think this is a question that comes up a lot,
especially because there's not just one eating disorder. It's not
like you have eating disorder. There's like a million, not
really a million, but there's a lot of ways that
it can be a diagnose. And then it looks how
(02:56):
I feel about this. I think this bleeds from professional
to even how I think as a human. The real
issue when it comes down to people asking the question,
how do I know if I have eating disorder? Isn't
so much do you have this eating disorder that according
to the Diagnostic Statistical Manual that we can diagnose you
(03:16):
and write this in your medical chart. The real issue
is your relationship to food, or your body, or exercise
or a combination of those. Are any of those affecting
your quality of life? Are any of those things keeping
you from doing the things you want to do, or
being the kind of person you want to be, or
(03:37):
experiencing the things in life you want to experience. That
then is enough to say that, Okay, this is an
issue for you, and there is hope and there are
other ways to live outside of that box you're in
right now. So rather than looking do I have all
of the things that meet the criteria, it does my
relationship to any of these things affect my quality of life.
(04:00):
I know you did a recent episode about this because
we actually talked about it last Saturday, And by we,
I mean I did with my listeners. I feel as
though anyone listening it's a wee. So because it was
need a week and you had your Monday episode on
Unique Therapy, but then your Wednesday episode is your Couch Talks,
(04:20):
you pretty much answered this question along with others, and
that's what I encouraged people to go listen to if
they have that. I was on Nita's website and then
that got me thinking about all the other different resources
out there, and I started clicking around to different things,
and it was in the show notes last week that
I linked it, and it was questions you can ask yourself,
(04:43):
like like you were saying, Okay, do I have an
unhealthy relationship? Or is this getting in the way of
my life? And sometimes it's even hard to tell that.
And so that questionnaire or other questionnaires, if you were
to search some up might just get It's like a prompt.
It can help you flore how you really feel, because
I feel like there was times in my eating disorder
(05:05):
where it just seemed like, Okay, I thought, kind of,
this is just how life is, so I didn't know
it was a red flag. Yeah, especial everybody probably feels
this way, right, yeah, or well, there's definitely some thoughts
I had where I was like, oh my gosh, I
could never share this thought that I just have because
it's so crazy, or I can't believe this behavior I
just did. Oh, like I had so much shame around it.
(05:27):
And then thankfully other people started to share their story
for their stories, and I was like, oh, yeah, I'm
not alone in hiding food. I remember kale Junkie, that's
her handle on Instagram, but she started talking about her
Binge eating disorder and like when she really had a
feeling like, Okay, this is out of control. I need
(05:47):
to get some help. He was either her boyfriend at
the time or her husband. But he came home and
she had like hidden bread in her bed. He walked
in and she was like, oh my god. She didn't
want him seeing her devouring a loaf bread because she
thought she was going to be alone. And that was
a moment where she thought, oh, I mean there were
several other things she had done, her just getting vulnerable
(06:09):
and sharing that one story where she had so much shame.
It was very embarrassed for her significant other, her partner,
to see her in this light, and then how she
was able to eventually open up to him and how
supportive he was of what she was going through. That
story stuck with me is oh, okay, I'm not alone
in some of the things that I've done. So anyway,
(06:30):
little tangent there about the different thoughts, but wondering if
your thoughts are normal or thinking is this a needing
disorder thought or is this a disordered behavior? We don't
know because sometimes society even tells us working out this
much or dieting this much is not disordered, So it's
hard to decipher. I was going to say, I remember
(06:51):
a specific experience where I went to lunch with my
family it was me, my grandma, my mom, and my sister,
and they chose to go to chilies, which back then
I loved chilies. But I had an internal breakdown where
I thought, I'm not gonna be able to eat anything,
and I'm not gonna be able to get food, and
then when's the next time I'm gonna be able to eat?
(07:11):
And there's not gonna be anything on this menu. And
I remember ordering a salad without any of the stuff
that came on it. It was I think, just lettuce
and chicken something like that, and I remember my sister
saying something to me. I don't know what it was,
but I had this very like aha moment of everybody
else is enjoying themselves except me, and I'm actually impacting
(07:33):
their ability to enjoy their meal right now because I'm
so worried about what I'm going to eat. And that
was very helpful for me to see. Wait, all these
behaviors that I thought were going to help me, they
are keeping me from having conversation. At this lunch with
my grandma was in town to visit. I could not
focus on anything else than what I was going to
eat and then what I was going to do about
what I was going to eat, and so I share
(07:55):
that example kind of similar to what you just said,
and that was like when I had already been I mean,
I was in the value of all of it. And
one thing that is really helpful, and I like that
this listener is asking this question now. Is one of
the most helpful things we can do is get help before,
like get ahead of it. So when we notice, hey,
I don't know if this might be something that I
(08:16):
should be doing, or I don't know if my relationship
is healthy or unhealthy, I don't I don't really know.
I don't know if I'm missing out on stuff, if
I'm even wandering those questions, get ahead of it, go
reach out for help. And if you don't have a
neating disorder or disorder eating, great, well, now you have
a relationship with a therapist and you can work on
other things. But if you do great, now you can
kind of get help and work on the things that
(08:37):
you need to work on before you're in the bottom
of the pit where it's going to be even more
hard or harder or more challenging to reach out and
ask for help and change behaviors. Oh yeah, I mean
there's times where so far down in a hole that
I was trying to climb my way out and it
seemed daunting and overwhelming and not doable. But the good
news is there is hope, there are sources. It is doable.
(09:02):
And earlier I mentioned just getting the prompts or taking
online like if some of these online resources that are
dedicated to eating disorder, you can take that as a
prompt or take the quiz or whatever, but look at
some of those questions and then maybe journal through them.
And something I did was four days in a row,
journaled about different questions but they were all sort of
(09:24):
the same in the same vein. But it was an exercise.
And then I went back and was supposed to go
through and circle the words that kept showing up over
and over. And it was bizarre because by day four
I'm journaling, I didn't really honestly remember everything I had
written at day one, and they were different questions, but
I was parallel. If you would do that with food
(09:46):
back in the day, you would be able to circle
some things that would have been like WHOA, yes, who
I didn't realize that this always is in my head. Yeah,
And you mentioning not being able to connect around the
table at Chili's, or enjoy that time, and that's what
Britney Spencer. She sings the theme song at the beginning
of this, and it's you know, I won't let my
(10:07):
body outweigh outweigh everything that I'm made of. I won't
spend my life trying to change. I'm learning to love
who I am. That's part of the I guess there's
a chorus, but the verse is missing out on family
meals around the table because what Grandma made is bad,
So I'm not able, and I missed out on so
many family meals because yeah, my brain was somewhere else
(10:30):
thinking about all the things, Oh, if I eat that,
I don't have to go work out, or if I
eat that, or or not enjoying what everybody else is having,
and bringing my own plates like to a family meal,
my own function and my own tup aware are going
to the store so I could control everything, and then
also then trying to force everybody else to eat it.
When they're like, no, I'm good, they're like don't. I
don't want that. I don't want that. So abby, Thank
(10:53):
you so much for the note. You're very brave at
thirteen to send a note and to be curious. I
think that's one of the big guess things that we
can do in life when it comes to all things
is be curious. And you're curious. You don't know where
you are, but I think it's super cool that you're
asking and continue to do that in all areas of
(11:13):
your life. And if you have access to a professional amazing,
absolutely do it. I don't know what your relationship is
like with your parents, but that might be a good
place to start to see if you can have some
resources or talk with other friends, or if you have
cool aunt in your life. Sometimes it's easier to talk
to someone that's not our mom or a dad, even
(11:34):
if you do have a good relationship. I found that
to be true. One time. My mom's best friend took
me out to lunch and I really looked up to
this person. I thought it was so cool and I
was I was able to open up to her way
more than I did my mom. And it's not because
my mom did anything wrong, just the way it is. Okay.
I hope y'all are having the day that you need
to have. That's what Cat loves to say, and definitely
check out. You need therapy. Podcast, especially last week's Nita episodes,
(11:57):
which I guess for this Saturday would be not the
last week that we just had, but the one before.
But all of Cat's episodes are good, all of them. Download,
subscribe single, like and subscribe. Also like and subscribe to
Outway too while you're at it. Okay, all right, bye
bye
Feeling Things with Amy & Kat News
Host
Amy Brown
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