Obesity, Nutrition and Health in COVID
SEASON 1 EPISODE 6
with Chloe Jane Prince
In this episode of Neighbourhood Nutritionist, I talk to Chloe, a food freedom coach about anxiety, disordered eating and maintaining our health in COVID.
In my conversation with Chloe, we talked about:
Chloe’s journey from disordered eating to food freedom
Scarcity mindset and fear-based behaviour like panic buying, comfort eating
Defining disordered eating
The modern narrative of obesity, guidelines and their impact on us
Taking ownership of our health and connecting with ourselves
Wim Hoff breathing exercises (you can find these on Youtube)
If you want to connect with Chloe, you can find her on:
Instgram: @chloejaneprince
FB: Chloe Jane Prince
FB Group: The Food Freedom Tribe
Website: www.chloejaneprince.com
Why Chloe Got Into Nutrition
Yeah, so it's been a journey by all meaning of the word. I spent most of my childhood quite overweight, definitely using food as a tool to deal with bullying and, and quite a lot of difficulties when I was growing up. I then experienced a severe trauma aged 11. And then went into the depths of anorexia and had that for about 12 to 14 years, some of that was in sort of a half recovery place, which quite a little, quite a lot of people get stuck in and from there, I went on to healing fully and now live life recovered and recovered for a very long time and happier than I've ever been. But after I recovered, I did develop some autoimmune conditions, which actually, you know, helped me in a lot of ways become really supportive of my body, you know, with anorexia with disordered eating and, and everything in between, we often work against our body. And so my journey to Health has really been learning what I get to work with and support my body rather than working against it.
Changes in our Eating Behaviours during COVID
I think this is something that's really misunderstood about disordered eating and eating sores in general, I think there's a belief that both disordered eating and eating disorders are at all to manipulate weight and shape. And yes, to an extent that is, you know, part of it. But it's so much more than that, primarily, it's a coping tool, it's a way of coping with emotionality, we don't feel that we can cope with it, whether that's experiences or thoughts, or anxiety, is a way to numb to not feel. So wherever you sit on the spectrum, whether that's from, you know, having emotional eating episodes to periods of restriction, or a mix of both all the way through to full blown eating disorders, or even, you know, not loving or, you know, liking what you see in the mirror, can often manifest can often be a signal of a disordered relationship with your body. And not something I really see a lot of, and particularly now where people who maybe were okay, and maybe struggling more than they were, and the people that were struggling a little bit and are struggling a lot is that, you know, quite often I'm seeing the people say, you know, but I'm not as bad as I could be, or, you know, I don't need help, yet. I'm not there yet. I'm not bad enough. And I think this, you know, in a way, there's a bit of a glorification of eating disorders in that, you know, there seem to be a glamorous thing to have and one that's so far from reality, it's scary. But also, you know, wherever you are on the spectrum doesn't mean that you don't deserve or need the help, you know, especially right now, where things are so strange transient, where we're dealing with so much more than we would normally be now is the time to get help, probably more than ever, in my opinion.
Why do We Develop Different Eating Behaviours?
I think it's really important that we normalise that we do all have weird and wonderful thoughts going through our head, it really differs in terms of the importance and the attachment we place on it. So I can have a thought in my head and go, do you know what I might not have lunch today, with people with disordered eating that often comes with a sense if not, if not consciously, subconsciously, if I don't have lunch, I will be accessed only what are we looking for, through doing those behaviours, which is really indicative, you know, a lot of people that struggle with restriction use restriction because it creates a sense of safety, having those rules, having that structure creates a sense of safety. And particularly if we look at safety as a need, you know, as part of Maslow's hierarchy, or whatever, you know, framework you use, safety is a really key need. And in this world, we have so much opportunity to thrive, and actually very little to be truly afraid of, and we've suddenly been faced with something, you know, a real fear, something that really could could hurt harm us and do damage to us. And now therefore, it's not surprising to me that we are, you know, potentially there are people that are leading more to, towards restriction towards exercise as coping tools. Because it creates safety by having those rules structures, you do create a sense of safety, I know what I need to do today, and what you know, it doesn't matter, really to the brain, whether that's a rigid morning routine, which can support us, or, you know, a restrictive eating behaviour or, you know, an unhealthy coping mechanism. Another way, you know, having that structure is what we're really looking for. And in a world where we don't have that sense of certainty, where, you know, lockdown rules are changing films like every week, where you know, the, the messages were given a different where people's financial situations may be uncertain, where their working patterns may be uncertain. And what you know, my partner was on furlough for a very long time, we've just moved down to Devon, but we were living somewhere else before and every month, we were waiting to see if he was going to be working next week, would he be on furlough? Would it be in a couple of days? Would he not be working at all you couldn't, it was so difficult to plan around it. Because, you know, we there was so much uncertainty for us financially in terms of whether he'd be employed long term or not. And so I know that that is going to be a really real feeling for people not feeling in control when feeling very uncertain and anxious as a result of that. And so it's quite common for to create that certainty in other ways. And disordered eating can be one of the, you know, less helpful coping mechanisms that people can choose.
think, in itself, the inability to meet with the people that we love, whether that's grandparents, friends, and how weird it is when you can get together really can have a really great psychological impact in terms of how we feel in terms of you know how we You know, I've walked away from a couple of interactions on hellos. And goodbyes are really weird, like, you leave on a goodbye, where you can't hug people where you just wave and walk away, you know, that can leave us feeling really strange. And when when we do have, you know, say pre COVID, if somebody was struggling more with disordered eating, you may find that, that lack of, you know, comfort zone stretching, the fact that they're not being asked to go out for dinner, not being asked to go out for a coffee and a cake with a friend will mean that their bubble will shrink, their bubble will, you know, shrink to as small as they can. And with COVID, I'm seeing quite a lot of people's bubble shrink, and mine included, you know, I'm not being exposed to the same comfort zone stretching things as I normally would. And also food, you know, you said, you know, quite rightly that food can can bring us a lot of joy, it can bring us a lot of happiness. And what I've noticed, for me definitely is that, you know, I'm not enjoying my food as much as I was, you know, we're not going for date nights, we're not having that variety in our food, it's all very, you know, I don't know, if it's just me, but I get stuck in a in a grocery shopping rut sometimes. And, and that's something that, you know, I've really struggled with, with COVID is not having that inspiration, not feeling inspired, not going out and saying, you know, all that looks like a really nice thing, I might try and make that at home. And things like that, I think, really missed, but also, when we do feel low, when we do feel maybe lonely, disconnected, or just not in great in ourselves. When we have this association of food being a reward being something that's lovely, it's not surprising that people can go the other way and, and comfy or emotionally to make themselves feel better. Because they're not feeling great. And I think particularly when, you know, one of my teachers always used to say food is what is the most acceptable and affordable drug going, you know, people can use alcohol, but you know, if you drink too much, we have an awareness of alcoholism, we have awareness of, of the fact it's not healthy for us. And there's a lot of shame and guilt around comfort eating. So people tend to hide that. But you know, really, it's comfort eating or trying to bring yourself comfort. And you probably we probably need that more than ever, you know, I haven't hugged my mum or people in my family for for a very long time. And as somebody that's quite a tactile person, you know, you could really see why somebody would reach to something else to give them to give them that comfort and to go to that happy place.
The COVID Impact on Our Health
irst of all, it's really important to know that not everybody will have had a detrimental result as of cave COVID, they will be people that are thriving with the space that they've created, maybe away from the jobs that they didn't enjoy, maybe working in a more supportive environment at home, than they would have been maybe where they worked originally, you know, but there are people on the other end of the spectrum that are maybe struggling more, maybe, you know, especially people on the frontline that are managing, you know, still working and, you know, having children and not having that space, I think we fall into two camps. Yeah, I don't have children, live with my partner, we COVID created a tonne of space for us. And it sounds similar for you in terms of creating that time and space to reflect. But I really want to touch on that scarcity thing, because, you know, I think that when we do have this sense of there not being enough, a sense of it is in that in that reptilian the fight flight freeze system, the sympathetic nervous system where we, we see a lack, we only think about a lack, we only think about danger. And we're really focused on those things. So it's not surprising that when we had this real fear for the first time, for for a long time for a lot of people, that we then went into that scarcity mode of you know, bargain buying and, and buying foods from a place of fear and not support and something that I really teach and coaches that health is for me is not about working against the body. It's not about working in a way to shift the body in a way that it's not supposed to be it's about working with. And I think that that's particularly highlighted from you know, from my journey, including the autoimmune conditions. If I push my body to fall, it will tell me and literally I, you know, I used to be bed bound with fatigue and pain. I'm now in a place where I'm not because I work with my body and not against it. And I think that for some people, this would have created the space to really reflect on what supports them and what doesn't. And this is really the difference between what is disordered and what isn't. And what what's the intention behind the exercise? What's the intention behind the eating? Is it to manipulate your shape and shape and weight? Is it to gain control? Is it to gain a sense of safety? Is it to do I mean, does it is it for me a need? Or is it because you want to give your body the best chance again, one comes from a place of fear, a place of lack of for us a place of not feeling good enough in ourselves, and the other comes from a place of just love. You know, I nourish my body with foods that helped me feel great by also eat foods that probably aren't as nutritionally great for my body because I want to sit and enjoy food that tastes amazing with friends and family or even just with my partner, you know, it's about having that balance and be able to look at the whole picture. The overall from a place of love and support rather than fear of weight gain fear of not being in control fear of, of the uncertainty. Does that make sense?
The Issue with Health Guidelines
I have a number of problems with the narrative of the the health guidelines around obesity, obviously, I work with a very particular demographic of people. And, and there are some people, you know, majority of people that aren't going to fall into this bracket. But for a lot of people, and actually, you know, for the majority of people who suffer with obesity, there is a shame around the weight that they carry. And I say this having been very overweight, as a child, I was 11 Stone Age 10. You know, before I had anorexia, I was, you know, clinically obese. And, you know, for me, I knew that I was overweight, I knew that I wasn't the way I was supposed to B. And this is the same for people we see with obesity. Now, you know, they know they're overweight, but that doesn't mean they feel empowered to do something about it. That doesn't mean they know how to do something about it and sustain it. That doesn't mean that they feel able to and you know, from the people I work with who who do sit in the category of being above a healthy weight. And they use food as a coping tool. And the more we shame them, the more we tell them that they're broken, that they're not good enough that they're a problem, we fat shame, which you know, is what I see this doing a lot of ways, the more they're going to have to rely on the coping tool, the more they're going to eat the shame away emotional eating, you know, numbing those feelings. That's one of my issues. The second issue is that there's a real focus around changing the way restaurants and places work, so that numbers are more available. Now people struggle with restriction, you know, and disordered eating which which can offer orthorexia, you know, anorexia, bulimia, it can be very numbers focused and for people that, you know, are learning to read, learning to eat again, like a normal person, and it is relearning, when you haven't eaten intuitively, for a very, very long time, it does feel like you're a toddler, learning how to feel yourself. And having numbers around to make those decisions for you is not supportive. It doesn't help you in terms of decision for you. But I'd go beyond that. And say that's the case for many people. Because what we're doing by making health about numbers, what we're doing by making health about things that we can see is that we we prevent ourselves for tapping into how we really feel. And for me, it's so much more than a weight on the scale than my heart rate is it's holistic. It's more than that is do I feel like I want to wake up in the morning like I want to go back to bed or do I feel like actually I have the energy? Am I in pain? Am I conditions better or worse? Do I feel happy? And actually when we deal most of the time with the psychological drivers behind overeating, when we deal with you know, meeting needs in a different way and we replace those coping tools are used as food. And when we trust when we teach people to trust their bodies because we've had these bodies for you know, our bodies are so in so intelligent and I always say to clients who are learning to come off fitness trackers and don't even run calorie counting, fitness trackers, all those things are tools and they're tools in their own right and they work for a purpose. But what I really don't like so much is choose my words more selectively, what I don't like so much is the fact that it disempowers us from trusting our own bodies. If the numbers are right, we must therefore be healthy. And actually, you know, override a number of the things that are happening in the body we've had appetite we have you know, as you know, as a nutritionist, you've got so many mechanisms in your body to tell you whether you're full or not full. We've got leptin and ghrelin as hormones, for example. And the same you know, we went with energy if we're, you know, if we're tired, we need rest, or maybe more fuel. If we're, if we're feeling full of energy, then yeah, go out for that run, do what makes you feel good. Maybe I've danced around the kitchen to Taylor Swift, that's one of my favourites. I feel fussing with that. But my point is, is that by making this a numbers game, we're missing the point of house. You know, even without the my background in disordered eating even without, you know, the the specialist population I work with, it's so much more than that health is not a numbers game. It can't be you know, those numbers get to be a tool, they get to be something we use as information, but they can't be the whole game. And that's the worry I have with with the one first of all the shame and also making it a numbers game, I think it's only going to make the problem worse.
the
main issue I have with that, and, you know, even not if we have struggled with disordered eating and say my partner is really healthy has a really good relationship with with food and body generally, if he if you put them on a scale, and it tells him You know, I don't know how much he weighs, but say you put him on a scale and you told him that he was he was obese, you would walk away and you know, he would walk away with feelings of not feeling good enough, you know, feeling ugly, feeling unattractive, you know, these are all stories that we have been told to believe about, you know, the things that you know about weight and shame. And actually, you know, if he's an athlete that changes what his you know, a BMI was not ever supposed to be used an individual basis and it was supposed to be used as a population tool. It was never supposed to measure measure individual people because it is so vague, it is so broad and yet we have health services globally, using it as an indicator of health. First of all, health you know, weight is not really a alone an indicator of health, we can be healthy and overweight. Again, depending on our history, depending on our genetics, depending on our activity, you know, if you put rugby players who pay for England or any, you know, any team, in fact, you know, their BMI is going to say there is something wrong with their weight is going to tell them that they're obese, if not morbidly obese, because of the amount of lean mass they carry. There is so much in that simplification, you're right in that so in that simplification, we lose so much information that actually the information we have slightly becomes null and void. And if we start looking at things as just calories, again, we miss the fact that you know, a low fat yoghurt that's you know, filled with sweeteners and doesn't have the fat that then helps the calcium absorption and all of those things, you know, we start to miss some of the point in that which our body is able to regulate quite quite well. You know, when I had anorexia I can't remember the vitamin It was now but I was basically you know, craving cans of sweet corn I opened a Canada sweet corn drain it and eat it with a spoon like my board donor want it was it was really You know, it was almost like a compulsion away lose this drive within me go to eat sweet corn, I went to get a blood test, as I was getting them quite regularly. So it was quite unwell. And they told me that I was missing a key vitamin and or mineral I can't remember what it was, I was too young at the time. And they and I said, you know, I've been eating all this week on it was like, that's because your body's craving it is trying to replace some of that. But I was like, wow, you know, I look back at that now and going I had so many signals that was telling me my body was my body knew what it was doing. And I didn't let it you know, didn't let I didn't trust it to do that process. For me. I didn't trust it to regulate the things for me. I don't tell my body how to breathe. I don't tell it how to process my waistline. I don't control so many other processes that happen in my body. Why do I feel the need to control this? Do you see what I mean? I don't eat we really discipline ourselves by by doing that.
Key Takeaways
Here are Chloe’s three actionable steps for you:
Connect with yourself.
Whether that's through meditation, whether through breathing, something I often invite clients to do is to do a brain dump literally anything, you're worried about anything that's in your head, get it on paper, that's after the shopping today, I'm too tired, I can't be bothered, you know, so and so's asked me to do this, get everything that's on your head out and onto paper, it creates such a relief and actually we start to then be able to step back and observe those feelings, those thoughts rather than being in them, so writing them down but anyway, you can connect yourself whether you connect with yourself whether through meditation, particularly body scans, if you struggle with disordered eating, or body dysmorphia, or any type of body image issues really good because they help us connect with our body with our hunger with our sensations.Create routines.
In a world where there is an amount of uncertainty, it's really important we create our own structure knowing that we either get to meet that need healthily or unhappy If you follow Maslow's needs of you know, we'll find a way to meet them we have to to survive, creating your own routine that's really supportive of you and that and that may include for you a morning practice for me, I meditate every morning, I then journal then go out and do some movement, whether that's walking, or maybe doing some yoga, whatever more feels good for my body. But creating that structure around your day, particularly around the beginning and end, maybe that's the time that's yours, especially if you work is really good for helping us create that sense of certainty helping us feel more safe, more calm, when we're faced with, you know, really uncertain times, which there could be for many people.Connect with others.
I think it's so easy for us to isolate ourselves during this time. And, you know, I'm not saying that, you know, obviously, maintain the guidelines that are, you know, appropriate in your area, and that you've been asked to buy by local governments, etc. But even if that's having a virtual coffee with a friend, even if that's by going for socially distant walk, can talk, if that's possible for you, you know, it can be really easy for us to feel isolated and lonely and knowing that that can easily become our new normal one.
The One Food That Takes You To Your Happy Place
Years ago, I probably would have said something really healthy and try to be like wearing like my medal of honour look at how awesome I am at restriction but that was not a clever thing to do. And I would say ice cream you know, I it was one of my fear foods for a very long time. And it was something that I restricted for a very long time. And I love nothing better than having a movie night with Kai with my partner and and having a spoon of ice cream spoon each and a tub and we eat until we don't want any more and it's really chilled and fun. What flavour it takes. I've got to Oh, I love Ben and Jerry's. I'm all for fish food. But really if you give me any ice cream I'm happy. Mint Chocolate is also one of my other faves
