Partners in Wellness

The best way to prevent purging after meals is to monitor. We encourage parents to ask their children to use the bathroom before the meal/snack and stay in a common area for up to 45 minutes after the meal. However, sometimes when you have to go, you have to go. In these cases you can put into place a no flush rule and ask them to talk to you continuously from their side of the door or sing their ABCs. You can’t talk or sing and purge at the same time.

I’m so excited to be speaking at the Victory Program Conference! 💙

My session, “Recovery is a Team Sport: The FBT Playbook for Athletes, Parents & Coaches,” will focus on how parents, coaches, athletic trainers, and treatment providers can work together to support athletes throughout eating disorder recovery and help create a safer, more sustainable return to sport.

I’m grateful for the opportunity to share this work and connect with others who are passionate about supporting athletes in recovery. I hope to see you there! 🫶
McCallum Place Eating Disorder Center

The link to register is
https://app.tpn.health/education/the-victory-program-conference-d8103986?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=direct

Eating disorders often try to place limits on life. Sometimes those limits show up in rules about how often you can eat out, where you can eat, or what foods feel “safe.” While these rules may seem protective, they often shrink flexibility, spontaneity, and connection with others.

Recovery involves challenging these restrictions, expanding choices, and learning that food and eating experiences do not need to be controlled by the eating disorder. Expert Therapy for Anxiety + OCD Hula Bowls🌺

So… meno belly has officially entered the chat. 👋

If you’re in your 40s and suddenly wondering why your waistband feels a little different, this is for you!

Perimenopause brings hormonal changes that can affect where our bodies store fat — and that doesn’t mean your body is failing you or that you’ve “let yourself go.”

Your body is wisely adapting. ❤️

Maybe we can stop fighting it and start listening to it.

Shout out to Signe Darpinian Signe Darpinian and Signe Darpinian, LMFT, CEDS for teaching us this and so much more at last week’s NetworkED conference

Learning, connecting, and sharing what’s new! 💙

Our Partners in Wellness team is at the St. Louis Network ED Gateway to Innovation Conference—always grateful for opportunities to learn from colleagues and strengthen our eating disorder community.

We’re also excited to introduce Family Eating Disorder Intensives (FED-I)! More to come soon… 👀

Partners in Wellness was happy to sponsor the Gateway to Innovation conference, supporting the fabulous NetworkED team!

Imagine if we talked about carbohydrates the way we talk about protein. 😂

“Did you get enough carbs today?”

“Wait… how many carbs are in that?”

“I’m really trying to prioritize carbs right now.”

“Sorry, I can’t eat that. It’s just not carb-dense enough.”

“Do you think this has enough carbs to support my goals?” 💀

Sounds ridiculous, right?

And yet this is basically how we’ve learned to talk about protein.

And to be clear: this isn’t about demonizing protein or telling anyone what they should eat. Protein is important. The issue is the obsession—the constant tracking, optimizing, moralizing, and fear around food.

For anyone with an eating disorder, a history of disordered eating, or who is in recovery, this kind of hyper-focus on a single nutrient can be especially triggering. You deserve to eat without turning every meal into a calculation. 🫶

Carbs. Protein. Fat. All allowed.
Food is nourishment—but it’s also culture, connection, pleasure, and joy.

You don’t have to optimize every bite. ❤️

But seriously… giving up your scale, even as an experiment, is an important part of eating disorder recovery.

When weighing yourself becomes a compulsion, the number can start to dictate your mood, your food choices, your movement, and how you feel about your body.

Putting the scale away creates space to practice something much harder and much more freeing:

Learning to trust your body instead of a number.

Sometimes recovery means letting someone else babysit your scale while you get back to living your life. 🫶

You’re exhausted. Your body is asking for sleep. You finally get comfortable in bed…

And then the eating disorder starts talking.

“You didn’t exercise enough today.”
“You ate too much to just lie there.”
“You should get up and work out.”
“You can sleep after you’ve earned it.”

Eating disorders don’t just try to control food. They can also convince you that rest has to be earned—and that you don’t deserve sleep unless you’ve been “productive enough,” moved enough, or burned enough calories.

But your body doesn’t need to earn sleep. Rest is not a reward. Sleep is not something you have to compensate for.

Sometimes recovery means staying in bed and letting the eating disorder be mad about it. 💙

Not eating doesn’t always sound alarming.

“I’m not hungry right now.”
“I ate earlier.”
“My stomach hurts.”
“I’ll eat later.”
“I had a big snack.”
“I’m just not in the mood for that.”

On their own, these explanations can sound completely plausible. And sometimes, they are.

But when you’re worried about an eating disorder, look for patterns—not just individual excuses.

One question we often encourage parents to ask themselves is: When was the last time I actually sat down and ate with my child?

Not when you think they ate. Not when they said they ate. When did you actually see them eat a meaningful meal or snack?

Eating disorders can be incredibly convincing. Paying attention to patterns and getting more information isn’t being controlling—it’s protecting your child. 💙