Podcast Transcript

Episode 58: The Road to Recovery Through Farming: Renfrew Alum, Chef, and Farmer Kate Spurlock’s Journey

[Bouncy theme music plays.]

Sam: Hey, I’m Sam.

Ashley: Hi, I’m Ashley, and you’re listening to All Bodies. All Foods. presented by The Renfrew Center for Eating Disorders. We want to create a space for all bodies to come together authentically and purposefully to discuss various areas that impact us on a cultural and relational level.

Sam: We believe that all bodies and all foods are welcome. We would love for you to join us on this journey. Let’s learn together.

Ashley: One cup emotional regulation and values work. Two cups trauma work. A dash of distress tolerance. And a sprinkling of exposure work. And you have yourself one recipe of many for the road to eating disorder recovery. Welcome back to another episode of All Bodies, All Foods, where today we are taking an inside peek into one of our alum’s journeys to her recovery path and how growing food and building recipes became her driving force for healing. Kate is a young woman who has struggled with disordered eating for most of her life. After finding healing in regenerative agriculture and cooking, she has been in recovery for three years. She is eager to share her story with others so that they know they are not alone and that recovery is possible for everyone. We hope you enjoy this very special episode. And just a quick reminder that this is Kate’s story about her own journey.

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to this episode. And I’m your host, Ashley. I’m here with my co-host, Sam. And today, we are speaking with Kate Spurlock. And Kate, we are so excited to have you here. Thank you so much for joining us.

Kate: Yeah, of course. I’m excited to be here.

Ashley: Yeah! So I would love for us to just jump in if you’re down for that. We would love to learn more about you. You are an alum of Renfrew, and we’re curious if you could share some of your background about your story and essentially like how you found yourself getting into the place of going to eating disorder treatment.

Kate: Yeah, absolutely. So right now I’m about to be 23. I am currently, let’s see, I guess, three years into recovery. Very exciting. But I really struggle with disordered eating for as long as I can remember. My first memory of really having these negative thoughts was in first grade, and I just have such a vivid memory. And it’s so silly when I look back on it, but I just really feel for my young self. My teacher said, “I will know you guys are ready to learn when you’re sitting up straight. Your legs are into the desk and like your hands are on your thighs and you’re ready to go.” And I’m like, I can’t put my hands on my thighs. Like my thighs are touching the desk, like, can anybody else do this? Like, I don’t remember what anybody else was doing. But I was like, “I’m too big. I take up too much space.” And like that was like the first thought that I had negative, like the negative thought I had about my body. And then just by happenstance, also, like my friends growing up were always very tiny and petite. And I was always so muscular. I did all kinds of sports. I danced. I ran track. I was just always very muscular. But I always felt like I was too big, even though I was strong. It didn’t matter to me that it was muscle. It was just, no, I’m just too big. So I already kind of had these undertones of struggling with my body, but my parents were divorced, and I don’t even remember them ever being together. And they got remarried. I’m from a big family. I’m one of nine children. It was always a very dysfunctional, just family dynamic. I moved houses every week. I only was with three siblings all the time. They would go back and forth with me. The other siblings stayed in the other households. And it was just always a very, just unstable environment. My parents didn’t get along. They still don’t get along, and in one of my households, the food was always a little bit weird. Like my parents wouldn’t, we weren’t poor, but they wouldn’t always have enough food for us to eat. They’re like, “oh, you guys are going to be leaving on Monday to go to your mom’s. Like we’re not going back to the store because the food’s going to go bad.” And we’re like, “but we don’t have anything to pack for lunch.” And like at some points I’m like, “oh my gosh, like what are we going to eat for lunch?” But on the other side, I was like, “oh, I won’t have to eat anything for lunch today because we don’t have anything and I shouldn’t be eating anyway because I’m too big.” And that was just, it was a love hate that I felt about that whole situation. So yeah, just growing up, my thoughts literally were all about food and I didn’t think I had an eating disorder, but looking back, it’s like it was kind of the beginning of it all.

I also refused to eat meat, not because I didn’t like it, but I just wanted to be difficult and have some kind of control. And just anytime I felt something negative, I always just was like, “oh, you’re just too big of a person. That’s the problem.” I wouldn’t ever say I’m sad, angry. It was just, nope, my emotion is that I’m too big and I take up too much space, which is not an emotion. But yeah, so that just led to just really disordered thoughts about food and exercise, and it wasn’t until I was 16, I guess 15, my sophomore year of high school, that I really started struggling with binge eating. And I was like, “well, this is weird. Like, this is new, I don’t like this.” And so I was really uncomfortable with that. And this was kind of when my twin sister and I, we teamed up and we’re like, okay, we need to figure out how to stop binge eating, so we’re going to just only eat clean foods, I say that in quotes, and we’re going to like run every day and just work out all the time. And so that’s kind of when like the full on eating disorder started was myself for a year of high school. And I lost an extreme amount of weight very quickly, mostly muscle because I was just under fueling and doing all this cardio. And so I was diagnosed soon after with anorexia because of the extreme weight loss, but it was never that I didn’t want to eat. It was, I wanted to eat super clean. So I feel like it was, I feel like I struggle more with orthorexia, but I don’t really know how widely accepted that is as a diagnosis, even still, a lot of people don’t know what it is when I mention it, but that’s really what I feel like I was struggling with. And so when I was 16 was when I was admitted into Renfrew’s Residential Treatment Center.

Ashley: Yeah. So what I’m noticing just first and foremost, Kate, thank you so much for being so open with us about your journey. But I’m hearing a theme that Sam and I have heard a lot on this show. And it’s that maybe you had different behaviors throughout your time leading up to residential treatment. It sounded like there was some restrictions, some binging, some of those orthorexic thoughts, and sometimes the traditional scope of anorexia, bulimia, binge eating don’t feel like they fully fit our story. And so in our end, there is now kind of a category called other specified feeding and eating disorders or OSFED. And so we, orthorexia is becoming more of a common language that we can speak now. And that’s really that kind of restriction piece, but maybe like you were saying from the viewpoint of quote unquote wanting to be as healthy as possible, right? And so I just want to say like, I’m glad even though things weren’t always fully lining up and even though the anorexia diagnosis didn’t fully fit with you, I’m glad you were still able to journey into that path of treatment.

Kate: Yeah.

Ashley: Even if that was a little bit confusing.

Kate: I was so confused. I’m like, you guys don’t understand. I want to eat. I’ve always loved food. It’s just like, I didn’t love the fact that I loved food. I always tried to suppress that. But I was like, “guys, I don’t want to not eat. So like, why are you saying this to me that I’m anorexic? Because that is not what I’m feeling. “

Ashley: Yeah.

Sam: I think it’s so common that symptoms just don’t fit neatly into certain diagnoses. And it can feel invalidating because you really do want your treatment team to understand exactly what it is that you’re struggling with, and thank you for bringing attention to orthorexia. We have a whole other episode on lesser known eating issues. And I think there are so many people who maybe don’t realize they actually would benefit from treatment.

Kate: Yeah. And the thing about orthorexia though, I feel like it’s more socially acceptable because it’s like, “oh, you’re eating so clean and like you’re working out.” Cause like I was being praised for the first like little bit of me like engaging in these behaviors. I’m like, “oh I’m doing a really good job.  I didn’t think I needed to be in treatment because I’m like, I’m doing what everybody has always said you should do, is eat well and exercise.”   But you can take it to an extreme.

Sam: Oh yeah, and that’s what’s so confusing is that we get so many mixed messages about what is quote unquote healthy. Yeah, yeah. And you know, and you’re getting all this praise and a lot of people think what they’re doing could be called self-care. And meanwhile, it’s actually really harming them physically and mentally.

Kate: Yeah, definitely.

Sam: Yeah. So, Kate, you had mentioned at one point when we were communicating before this episode that I think, let me read the quote to you, because I would love for you to say more about this. I think so many people can relate to this and recovery.

Kate: Mm hmm.

Sam: That you had no intention of sticking to a recovery protocol. Do you remember that time in your recovery and what was going through your head?

Kate: Yeah, definitely. I was so angry when I was put into treatment, because again, I thought what I was doing was good. I was so proud of my accomplishments, meaning losing all the weight that I had lost. I’m like, I am doing what I should be doing. And I was like, I”’m not eating junk food. I’m like working out.” So then when I was put into recovery, and I was eating these foods that I was like, this isn’t good food to be eating foods I hadn’t touched in years because like, then looking back, I’m like, “Oh, like the eating disorder has been going on a lot longer than I thought.” And when you’re in treatments, you can go for one 10 minute walk a day. I’m like, “that’s it. We can go for one.” And so in my head, I’m like, “these people don’t know what health is. I was so mad at everybody at Renfrew, even though I’m like, you guys are only trying to help.” But yeah, I just was like, “I don’t think they know what they’re doing and I do so I am not going to follow through with it.” Now I’ve obviously learned that I did not know what I was doing. I was not very kind to my treatment team, and I feel so bad for everybody who helped me. In fact, I actually, I worked at Trader Joe’s for a while. Years after my treatment, I saw my dietitian and I was like, “Oh my gosh.” I went up to her and I was like, “I don’t know if you remember me, but I was one of your patients and I’m so sorry for how I treated you.” And I was like, “but I want you to know I’m doing so much better now.” It was a very sweet moment to kind of see her again. I don’t know if she remembered me, but I was grateful for her help, even though I didn’t agree with what she was telling me when I was in treatment.

Sam: Yeah. It’s so confusing because we hear from diet culture, you know, whether it’s social media, commercials, whatever it may be, you know, we learn all these things that we think are helping us, you know, there’s so much misinformation out there, and I can understand why, you know, you would go into treatment and think, like, “who are these people? Why are they telling me I can eat really anything” and, you know, being resistant to that. I was curious, is there any guidance you would give to someone who might be having those thoughts in treatment right now? We have a lot of people who listen in who are in eating disorder recovery.

Kate: Yeah, that is so tough, because I only felt anger in there. I will say though, I was also very relieved. I was like, “I don’t have to worry about life.” I didn’t have to do schoolwork. That was really nice. I really did enjoy that. I don’t know. I feel like you just kind of have to let go and just be like, “okay, they’re going to take care of me. I just need somebody to help me and it’s okay.” And it’s so hard. Really, it is. I do recommend though, all the people who are in treatment, if you’re listening, like find something to do with your hands. Like I started looming when I was in treatment. I made the biggest blanket ever. I love this blanket this day. I use it all the time and it just reminds me like, “oh my gosh, I went through that really difficult time in treatment and even after that.” And it’s just a nice reminder of like, you know, I’ve come a really long way even it was really difficult. And it’s still like, I don’t think anybody ever fully recovers from an eating disorder. The thoughts still stick with you and you have to just, you have to retrain yourself to be like, “no, that thought is not true just because you have it.” But yeah, I would just try to stop resisting treatment because if you do, you could end up like me and get put back into treatment multiple times. And it’s worse every time because you’re you know what it’s going to be like, and you’re not going to like it. And you’re just like starting the process over again, and it’s not fun to keep restarting.

Ashley: Kate, I feel like that dichotomy of experience between anger and relief is like something that so many people experience in the recovery process. And even in the treatment process, because it’s almost like you’re being told that you have to break up with your best friend, which is yeah, disorder.

Kate: Exactly.

Ashley: And we’re not happy with that, like none of us are, you know. But then that feeling of relief too, that just like you, like there are people there that are going to support you and are going to help you and kind of carry the space for you, so you can just take a breath, you know. I just want to say it, leaning into both of those emotions I think is actually pretty important and I think fairly common.

Kate: Yeah. Oh my gosh. Me and my sister definitely felt that way.

Ashley: Yeah.

Kate: But yeah, just like when you’re in the thick of your eating disorder, you’re so mentally exhausted.

Ashley: Yeah.

Kate: And so being in treatments, like you’re not allowed to decide what you eat, you just like do what you’re told. And it really, it was such a relaxing time. Like we got to sit and knit and we got to just make good friends. It wasn’t the best time, like most fun time of my life, but you just get to rest. You know? And just kind of come alive again. Because I went in there dying. Like actually.

Ashley: Yeah. So I’m curious, you shared with me before this podcast that it took you about two years after you first entered treatment, before you finally felt ready for recovery. So I was curious if you could speak more about that experience, and also what would you like other folks to hear about that experience, because I feel like you’re not alone in that one either.

Kate: Yeah, I was actually thinking about this as I read the question, it was more like four years, because I started treatment at 16 and it wasn’t until I had just turned 20 that I was like, “okay, I have to get better.” But yeah, so I, my, for like a whole year, I was in treatment, in and out of treatment, up until like I was 17, and then I was like, “okay, I have one more year until I’m an adult, I just have to like be really subtle about my behaviors until I legally, like my parents can’t just put me into treatment.” So once I turned 18, I’m like, great, I’m free, I can do whatever I want, and I did. I was exactly how I was before. I was just a little bit smarter because I was like, okay, I know what will be too far that I will possibly die. But because I didn’t want to die, I just wanted to carry out my behaviors that I was doing. They were very comforting to me. But when you’re doing this, my whole entire life was about food. What am I going to eat? When am I going to exercise? I would literally plan out a week’s worth of food to make sure it’s like, okay, I’m not eating this one category of food too many times, or just silly little things that’s just so exhausting. And I was also so physically exhausted. When you’re just living like this for years, your body cannot keep up. I’m sure my bones are struggling still from my malnutrition. And that was a big thing. I was just tired of being just so lethargic. You can’t even think straight. You know, your brain has not enough fat to even think rationally. And then once I was 20, I just I feel like I was just getting why like older and wiser, like I’m so very young. But I then started to think, I’m like, “oh,  I haven’t had my period yet ever.” And everyone was telling me this in treatment. They’re like, “you need to get your period. So that’s very important.” And I was like, “I don’t care. I don’t want kids.” I never wanted kids because just my childhood was just very, like, I just don’t want to have kids and do that to them. But then I was like, “oh, I don’t think your period’s only for you to have kids. It’s also just so your body can function properly. “And my whole idea was I just wanted to be healthy. And so that’s why I was doing all of this. Very ironic because I wasn’t healthy. But then I was like, “oh, maybe I need to have a period.” So maybe I actually do need to get better. So it was just like the whole culmination of like, OK, I need to have my period because if I want to be a healthy woman,  that’s required. I was just tired of being tired mentally and physically, and just didn’t want to be thinking about food all the time. I actually had moved across the country to Washington state for nine months, and when I was coming back home, I was like, “you know what? I’m going home, but my eating disorder is not coming with me” and I was like, “it’s staying in Washington.” Now, obviously I was still struggling when I got home, but just that idea of leaving it was very helpful.

Ashley: Wow.

Kate: To kind of cut ties, because I was like, “I am so done with this.”

Ashley: Yes.

Kate: And so that was, it was just too much. I was like, “I can’t do it anymore.”

Sam: Yeah. It is exhausting mentally and physically, and also your world gets so small because there just isn’t room for anything else in your life.

Kate:  No, there’s not. Something that really was comforting in my eating disorder was I had a very rough relationship on my dad’s side of the family, and when I was going through all of this, it kept them kind of at like arms length. They were afraid of doing something that would break me. And I loved that because I was like, “I don’t want them in my life. I don’t want them bothering me.” And so it kind of kept that distance that I wanted from them. But then again, as I got older, okay, maybe I had a rough time with them as a kid, but they’re still my family. And family is very important to me now. And it’s still a struggle even though I’m in recovery, but it’s I could have a relationship with them. And I could not do that if I was still in my eating disorder.

Ashley: Yeah. I feel like what you’re speaking to here, Kate, we talk about eating disorders being emotional disorders and so meaning that like they really help you manage this bigger emotional issue. So this kind of emotional yuck with your dad’s family that you didn’t want to deal with, and as, as you progressed, you realized that you actually do want to engage, and so you leaned in and you did some of the hard work. And that is such a huge thing that we work with with our clients with eating disorders is that like something can be hard and it cannot feel awesome and you can do the hard thing anyway. And you don’t have to use that eating disorder behavior. And look at you, you’ve come out on the other side. You know, it can be such a big thing.

Kate: Yeah, you can do it.

Sam: Yeah, yeah. And the importance of being able to identify the function of your eating disorder. It’s like to have that awareness. It’s like, “oh, when I’m in my eating disorder, I notice that this happens in my family. And I like when this happens in my family. And maybe I don’t want to recover because then how will this continue in my family?” And yeah. And so it’s so important to kind of figure out what is the eating disorder doing for me in my relationships?

Ashley: Yeah.

Sam: And is recovery scary because I’m afraid that that will change. Kate, there’s a really unique piece of your story that I was reading about. You started working on farms and learning about where food comes from, how it nourishes the body. I was wondering if you could share more about this experience, how did you even get into farming?

Kate: Yeah.

Sam: How did you, like, when did you notice your perspective shifting around food?

Kate: Yeah, so it’s quite a little silly story how I got into it. I thought I wanted to be a dentist for the longest time.

Sam: Really?

Kate: I was always a very good student. I knew that school was a game you had to play and I was very good at playing games, just getting good grades. And I was like, “oh, because I can do that, I bet I could go do something really hard, like be a dentist and go to dental school.” So that was kind of my mindset why I wanted to do that. When I graduated high school the summer after my senior year, I did a dental assisting program for 10 weeks. I got licensed to take x-rays. I started working in a dentist’s office. I started school on a pre-dental track studying Spanish. My goal was to be a traveling bilingual dentist, and I had my whole life planned out. But then my first year of college was when quarantine happened, and so I couldn’t go to the dentist office for work. And I still worked at Trader Joe’s at the time. Like I was still working, but then when they called me back a few months later, I really had an emotional reaction. Like, “I don’t want to go back.” I mean, what is, I was like, what is it about it? It’s not that I don’t want to work cause I had been working this whole time. I was just like, you know what? I don’t want to be a dentist. And I’m like, “oh my gosh, what do I do? I had my whole life planned out around this whole idea.” So then I was like, “you know what? I’m just not going to go back to college because I’m not going to go study something when I don’t know what I want to major in when it’s all going to be online because of COVID.” And so I was just still working at Trader Joe’s. I was talking to one of my bosses and telling her, I’m like, “my life is all falling apart because I don’t have a plan.” And she goes, “Kate, I think you’d be really good at growing things.” And I’m like, what the heck? But I was like, OK,  let me give it a try. So I started reading all these books about farming, and I watched a documentary called Kiss the Ground. And I was like, yes, I want to be a farmer. So then I found a farm on Lopez Island, Washington. That’s why I moved to Washington. So I drove across the country. I’m from outside of Philadelphia.

Ashley: You drove to Washington State?

Kate: I did. My aunt was with me, so I didn’t have to drive the whole way, thankfully. But yeah, I drove and I was like, I’m moving to Washington because I’d always wanted to go see the West Coast. I’m like, well, why not? I’m 19, I have nothing else just going on. So yeah, I moved to Washington and I, it’s so funny, I was not thinking at all, like, oh my gosh, I’m going to be surrounded by food 24 seven. I was just like “Oh, I’ll just like work outside” and then and then I get there and it’s like we all eat lunch together every day and I’m like, Oh my gosh, what am I going to do, because like I’m still in the thick of my eating disorder at this point. But I just fell in love with it. I’m like, this is it. This is what I want to do. I loved being in the garden. I loved being out in the fields with all the animals. Oh my gosh. And I just love the community of it. It was just such an amazing experience and it felt so meaningful and purposeful to me. It was like the best time of my life, but also the worst because like my eating disorder was so bad. I was away from home. Nobody could tell me what to do. I was waking up so early in the morning, working out, then working on the farm, not eating enough. I really do not know how I’m alive. Looking back on photos, I’m like, no, what? I started going to church as well at this time and all these ladies just flocked to me. I wonder if they were very concerned for my wellbeing. They probably were, because I just looked so malnourished. And what drove me away from Washington, why I went back home, was because I was like, I’m really not doing well with my eating disorder. My thoughts were just, I was creating all these stories in my head. I felt like I was in danger there and nothing was wrong, nothing. But I was like, I have to leave. Now looking back, it’s because my brain just couldn’t function. But then that was when I drove home and I was like, nope, this has to stay in Washington. Then I moved back to the East Coast and I started farming at this farm in Maryland. And this truly was like the best decision I’ve ever made because I made the best friends. They had community dinners every Wednesday. Like we all had to bring stuff. It was a potluck. And I almost didn’t go to this farm because of that, but I loved everything else about it. I was like, I have to go and just push through. But really like those community dinners healed me. There was something about them. I’m like, “wow, like we’re growing all this food together and now we’re sharing it.” And it’s just, it was so beautiful. And oh my gosh, they got me eating ice cream again. Like I was hardcore vegan for a while because of that’s just an acceptable way to restrict, but I love dairy. It’s like one of my favorites ever. Growing up, I would literally bring gallons of milk to my friends’ house because I just drank so much milk. So I realized I was like, “Oh my gosh, food is not scary. Like we, if we just like eat it as God intended it, we’re growing it, we’re raising it ourselves. It’s so incredible.” And when I was on that farm, I actually bought myself a cow with the neighbors because I was like, I really want a cow. And so that was just like the most- oh my gosh, it was like the best time of my life ever having this cow. And it was just such a testament to how far I’d come because even just a couple of years before dairy was the most terrifying thing. And now I have a cow and I’m milking her every morning and I’m teaching myself how to make cheese and yogurt and just sharing it with everybody. And so yeah, just farming really helped me heal my relationship with food and just be like, food has never been the enemy, that’s never been the issue. It’s really just, I love, I’m such a foodie. I love good food and I want to be a farmer. I want my own land. Unfortunately, I did have a back injury last summer, so I’m still kind of recovering, so I’m not farming at the moment. But I hope that I get back to it one day.

Ashley: Wow.

Sam: Oh my gosh. Wow. I was just mesmerized by that entire story. Wow. That is incredible. And I just want to point out some themes I’m noticing because here’s what I’m hearing. When you have passion, community, nature, right, connection. It’s really hard for an eating disorder to survive.

Ashley: Yeah. Yep.

Sam: And you found all those things and suddenly you realized, “I don’t really want this eating disorder anymore. I don’t need it.”

Kate: Yeah. It’s really just, it holds you back.

Sam: Yeah.

Ashley: She found all those things and the cow. Did you name the cow?

Kate: Her name was Mildred. She came with that name. And get this, she ran away the day we brought her home. She ran four miles pregnant. And I was like, “well, it was nice having a cow for that one hour before she ran away.”

Sam: Oh no.

Kate: And she really didn’t like us in the beginning, but I would go after work every day for hours. I’m like, “you’re going to love me.” And she did by the end of it.

Sam: You willed her to love you. Oh, wow.

Ashley: That is so cool.

Kate: She was amazing. I want to cow again so badly. I’ll have another. I’ll have one day.

Ashley: What just a cool experience and way for healing to enter in your life, you know? Recovery journeys, they’re never going to be the same, right? We’re all going to have different experiences, but opening the door for this healing just sounds like it was so incredible for you. This newfound relationship with the earth, with the food, with the, you know, support system, with your friends. That’s just so incredible.

Kate: Mm hmm. Yeah. Oh, I’m so glad that I fell into all because my boss said you’d be good at growing. I’ve never said that to anybody. They’re like, what should I do for work? You know, so weird.

Sam: I want to ask you, Kate, like, what do you think she saw in you? What was it? I mean, looking back, how do you think she knew?

Kate: I was always just like very conscious about, I just like never wanted any of my actions to have a negative consequence for anyone else. I didn’t care how it impacted me, obviously, I was harming myself, but I never wanted to harm the earth or just take more than I needed. And I was just always very thoughtful with my work. Everyone loved me at Trader Joe’s. I started working there when I was 16 and they were like, “you’re such a good worker.” I’m like, what do you mean? Because I had never had a job. I was like, “isn’t this what everyone does? You just try your best.” And they’re like, “no.” But yeah, I think she just always saw that in me that I just was very thoughtful. And I think when you’re growing things, you have to nurture it and just have hope that something good will come of it. And I think that’s what she saw.

Sam: Yeah, your compassion.

Ashley: Yeah. I’m also thinking about that when you’re growing things, you have to nurture it and there’s hope, right? And I’m thinking about that for yourself too. Like really having that shifts that like, “oh, I deserve to be nurtured. There is hope for me. I deserve to be compassionate to myself too.”

Kate: Yeah.

Ashley: So you farmed, you farm, you farm currently. That is a part of your story. And then your story grows and you start cooking, right? And you start using this food to make recipes, to cook, to become a chef, right?

Kate: Yeah, I guess I am a chef now. They call me the brunch chef. I run a whole brunch ship service, yeah. I hurt my back in September of 2023, so I was like, I couldn’t farm. It was actually, I had a whole identity crisis because farming helped me heal. I’m like, “if I’m not a farmer, then what the heck am I? Who am I?” So yeah, that was really tough. It took about like six months for me to be like, “okay, I think I’m going to get over this.” And a long lost cousin of mine that I didn’t know existed until last summer, we connected on Instagram, but that was it, I had never met her. But she reached out. She’s like, “hey, I’m opening up this restaurant.” She had seen on my, I was trying to become a farming influencer, but I’m like, social media is really too much for me, but I was posting all these recipes that I was making, and she’s like, “I see your passion for it and your talent. I want you to come work for me. What do you think?” I’m like, I was just babysitting at the time while I hurt my back. I’m like, “yeah, let’s do it.” I want my own business. I don’t know what that is. Hopefully a farm. But she’s a very successful business owner. She owns a winery. And now she’s opening up this restaurant. And like, let’s just do it. Try it. And so yeah, I just moved to New York. Pretty southern New York. Not in the city, but at the bottom of the Catskills. And yeah, I’ve been here for like two and a half months. I’m working at this restaurant just cooking and learning a lot from her. Everything, like it’s so funny. I feel like it’s so funny that I’m just surrounded by food again after having such a horrible eating disorder.

Ashley: But I was curious, so like being surrounded by food, cooking, being the brunch queen now, you know, like being involved in it. What is it like to have this relationship with food now where you’re like, grafting and creating not only for yourself, but for other people to enjoy. Like that’s got to be such a switch of a relationship.

Kate: It is. And I do still really struggle though with making food for other people. It’s so funny, that I’m a chef and making food. But when I was really in the thick of my eating disorder, I made the weirdest things. You know, nobody wanted to eat my food, and so in my mind, I’m like, “nobody likes my cooking like and I’m very self-conscious and I’m so glad nobody can see me” because that still is a struggle for me but it is how I’m feeding people, and my cousin she’s very much like “we need to use good ingredients,” we buy from local farmers when we can. She doesn’t waste like anything. We have a guy come pick up our food scraps for his chickens, and so it’s everything that I would want in a kitchen. The one thing I will say I struggle with is being surrounded by so much food and growing up when there wasn’t always food all the time. I have this scarcity mindset about it and I’m like, “well when there is food, you need to eat it. all”  I don’t act on those thoughts often, but sometimes I get in the mindset, like “this food will like be taken away very quickly,” and I just feel like I need to eat everything. But I’m like, “Kate, these are just your thoughts. If you work at a restaurant, you’re not going to run out of food.” The same thing that happened when I was farming, I literally would spend every day after work preserving something, canning, freezing, freeze drying, dehydrating. And everyone’s like, “Kate,  what are you doing?”  I’m like, “I’m preparing for winter. We will have food in the winter time.” And so that is still something I need to work on. Cause yeah, part of my restriction was like, “oh, if I eat a little bit now, I’m going to have some later and I’ll never run out.” So that is definitely a thought pattern that I need to figure out how to break, which has been like most difficult one.

Ashley: Well I think that’s a part of this process, right? Is like moving towards a place of seeking healing and wanting growth and wanting that self-compassion for yourself and acknowledging full well, what are the things that activate us? What are the things that can set us off this spiral or down this path that doesn’t feel great for us? You know? And so bringing it to the surface, right? And acknowledging it for what it is, acknowledging what the eating disorder wants to do with that and intentionally walking in your path of healing, you know?

Sam: I mean, I just want to just thank you for bringing awareness to this topic of food insecurity because this is a hot topic in the eating disorder field and it’s a relatively new topic where there’s finally research on it that there are a lot of people in this country who struggle with that scarcity mindset because they didn’t have access to adequate amounts of nutritious food. And it can impact your relationship with food for years to come.

Kate: Yeah.

Sam: So you’re not alone. And I think maybe there’s people out there who are wondering if there’s a term for this. And there absolutely is. It’s called food insecurity. And there’s more and more research now on it, how it actually impacts eating disorder symptoms and is actually a risk factor for eating disorders.

Kate: Hmm. That’s such a shame. Yeah, it is tough. Like even now I’m surrounded by food. I worked at a grocery store, then went to farms. Now I’m at a commercial kitchen and it still is programmed in my mind that food will in a split second just be taken away.

Sam: Yeah. I think that’s why it’s so important in recovery to have that compassion for yourself and have that patience, knowing that it’s not your fault that you have these experiences and that it will take time to heal and that’s okay. There’s a lot of people, Kate, that tune into our podcast who are in eating disorder recovery, or maybe they’re thinking about going into treatment, maybe they’re on the fence. I’m wondering, what you would like those folks to take away from this episode, if there’s any, anything you’d like to leave them with.

Kate: Well, mainly that food is not the enemy that I’ve learned the hard way. Something though that’s been the biggest struggle for me in recovery is my body image. And it sounds so superficial, or like, why do you care so much about what your body looks like? But it’s just a scapegoat for whatever you’re feeling. And I know that, but I don’t always believe it. And I still struggle. Sometimes I look in the mirror, “I’m like, oh my gosh, like what, what, why,” and there’s nothing wrong with my body. There’s nothing wrong with anyone’s body. But it’s so hard sometimes. My body has changed so much since I started recovery. Still now, it’s been three years since I decided to recover, and then it took me eight months to get a period. And so I’m 23, about to be 23, I’ve only had a period for two years. So my body is not fully developed, it’s still trying to figure things out, it doesn’t trust me yet. And so just like learning to let your body be is probably that I work on it every day. And it’s so tough. But I will say, now that I am in recovery and I eat all foods and I feel strong, it’s like some days I’m like, “dang, like you’re pretty strong. You got lots of muscle.” I’ll have these days where I’m like, “ wow, I’m a strong girl.”  When I was on the farm, I came in, I was the tiny little girl who went from “how is she going to be able to do anything” to then by the end of it, people would be like, “Kate, we can’t do this. We need you to help us lift these three crates of cabbages,” and I’m like, “oh, I got you. Don’t worry.” So it’s the things that your body can do when you are in recovery is just so amazing that it’s like, “so what if I’m a little bit bigger? It’s because I’m stronger and I can do things that I never would have been able to do when I was really in the thick of it.” So yeah, learning to just love, maybe just accept your body. Love is a very strong word. I don’t know if I can say that I love my body, but just like accept it and trust that it’s healing.

Ashley: Yeah. Kate, is there any way for our listeners to follow you on social media or the restaurant that you’re working at? Can we follow that?

Kate: Yeah, so I was on social media and it was a lot for me. It actually did not help my eating disorder. And then I hurt my back. I’m like, “okay, we’re not doing this anymore.” I’m not really active on social media at the moment, but the restaurant is called Basbousa, B-A-S-B-O-U-S-A. And I think the Instagram is @eatbasbousa. So Basbousa is a Middle Eastern little dessert if you’re like, “what the heck does that mean?” But yeah, that’s the restaurant name. My cousin wants to kind of do more on social media with that. And I was like, “well, I know all about social media. If I just could do the content for you, but not post it, I’ll help you out.” Yeah, try to do some more stuff on there. But if you’re ever like around the Catskills, come and visit the restaurant.

Ashley: Yeah. Awesome.

Sam: Well, Kate, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for sharing your story, your vulnerability and all of your helpful guidance. I so appreciate you being here.

Kate: Oh, well, thank you so much. I always enjoy sharing my story. Just you never know who you’re going to connect with. And like, they say, “Oh, my gosh, like I felt the same way.” It just helps in the recovery process.

Ashley: Yes. Awesome. Thank you, Kate.

Kate: You’re welcome. Bye.

Ashley: Thank you for listening with us today on All Bodies. All Foods. presented by the Renfrew Center for Eating Disorders.

Sam: We’re looking forward to you joining us next time as we continue these conversations.

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