Laura lives outside of Philadelphia PA with her husband and almost 2-year-old son. Her journey began over 20 years ago in high school when she wanted to lose a little bit of weight, which quickly turned into an eating and exercise disorder. For years she struggled with finding peace with food and her body while trying to focus on recovery. It wasn’t until she reached her mid-30s and wanted to start a family that she realized quasi-recovery wasn’t going to help her reach her goals, which ultimately led her to the Food Freedom Fertility Society. Join me and Laura talk about her experience of natural pregnancy and in finding her “why” for real recovery

In this episode:

• The downsides of “DIY”ing your fertility journey 
• Why you need to gain at least 25 lbs. during pregnancy
• How to know what “quasi-recovery” looks like
• Using period recovery as an opportunity to finally find food freedom 
• Getting in touch with what your body really wants and needs to be healthy 
• The first step to moving out of quasi-recovery 
• Calling out the lie: “It’s not the right time” to work on recovery

Connect with Lindsey Lusson: 

Instagram:@‌food.freedom.fertility
Website:www.foodfreedomandfertility.com/
Twitter: @LindseyLusson
Tiktok:@food.freedom.fertility

Transcript:

Lindsey Lusson  00:00

When we started working together, you actually got pregnant really quickly. However, that pregnancy did end in miscarriage. Tell us a little bit more about your experience and what allowed you to stick with it instead of reverting back to some things that would have been easy to go to during that time.

Laura  00:16

It was really hard. I will say I was more motivated to stay recovered than I was to fall back into those habits again. I was on a mission to get pregnant again. And I think it was because I knew my body could do it now. I knew when I was nourishing it and feeding it, and when it got to a healthy weight, that it felt comfortable at that I could get pregnant. There wasn’t any underlying issue beyond that, and that was really reassuring to me. The chances of getting pregnant were between 20 whatever percent, and I just knew like could probably happen again if I kept going.

Lindsey Lusson  00:52

Welcome to the Period Recovery and Fertility Podcast, where we discuss the challenging warning and life changing process of recovering your period and finding freedom with food and exercise. Whether you’re hoping to regain your cycle to get your health back on track or you’re ready to become a mama, this podcast is for you. While the recovery process isn’t always rainbows and butterflies, it’s my hope to bring you both information and inspiration during your own recovery journey. I’m your host, registered dietitian and fellow HA woman, Lindsey Lusson. 

Lindsey Lusson  01:23

Laura lives outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with her husband and almost two year old son. Her journey began over 20 years ago in high school, when she wanted to lose a little bit of weight, which quickly turned into an eating and exercise disorder. For years, Laura struggled with finding peace with food in her body while trying to focus on recovering. It wasn’t until her mid 30s, when she wanted to start a family that she realized that quasi recovery wasn’t going to help her reach her goals, which ultimately led her to join the Food Freedom Fertility Society. 

Lindsey Lusson  01:51

All right, y’all welcome back to another episode of the Period Recovery and Fertility Podcast. I have a special client on with me today who is 34 weeks pregnant?

Laura  02:00

Not, oh yeah, close to 33.

Lindsey Lusson  02:03

Okay, man, and that is getting into the home stretch. So welcome Laura. We’re so excited you’re here. 

Laura  02:09

Thank you so much for having me. I’m happy to be here. 

Laura  02:11

Yes, and this is baby number two for you. Do you want to share just to paint the picture for listeners, a little bit about how we got connected, and maybe even just how your fertility journey went with baby number one? 

Laura  02:25

Yeah, sure. So I think before baby number one, I was pretty naive and relaxed around fertility. It wasn’t really until I started… My partner and I decided that we wanted to try for kids, that it became very apparent to me that this was not going to be as easy as I thought it would be. Which I had always kind of known in the back of my head because of my history. But it became apparent that I had work to do on my end. 

Laura  02:55

Once we had decided we wanted to start trying, I had spent several months trying to gain weight. I knew that I wasn’t getting a regular period, and that was going to prevent me from getting pregnant. So I really tried to commit myself to putting effort towards gaining weight. I did this alone, without really support, and I was able to put weight on, and I did start to get regular periods. It wasn’t until maybe the third or fourth period that I decided to use the ovulation strips or tracking. And we shockingly were able to conceive naturally on that time that we used the ovulation strips. 

Laura  03:40

So huge surprise to me. It was very reassuring to know that my body wasn’t broken and that I didn’t have any additional issues outside of really just needing to get my body nourished to a place to function and get my period. So that was really the first journey. It was hard at first, because I had to put in a lot of work. But was very happily surprised with how quickly it actually did happen. 

Lindsey Lusson  04:07

Yeah, and the first go around, it sounds like you almost kind of had you said a little bit naive to just the whole fertility journey. But when push came to shove, you’re like, “I know that I need to gain weight”. Tell us a little bit more about that, because I think more often than not, a lot of us who struggle with HA are kind of in denial about that piece. How did that become so apparent to you? 

Laura  04:28

For sure. Yeah, that was me for quite some time. I knew I needed to gain weight. I knew eventually I wanted to be a mom. But I think the urgency wasn’t there. I kept kind of putting it off because I could, honestly, I wasn’t in a relationship for a lot of my later years. And it wasn’t until I one wanted children and to also realize my age, honestly that I didn’t have a lot of time.

Laura  04:52

I needed to take this more seriously if I wanted to have this family and this future that I want. So, yeah, unfortunately, I really did sit in that place of, I know I’m not quite where I want to be. I’m just gonna hang out here until it gets really push comes to shove. And I wish I didn’t wait that long.

Lindsey Lusson  05:12

Yeah, yeah. There’s something that can happen when you’re transitioning into your 30s that you, I mean, first of all, yes, the the time starts ticking down. But I also feel like too once you’ve lived with disordered eating and eating disorder habits for longer than a decade, you just get exhausted.

Laura  05:36

Yeah, yeah. And I guess about the time when I was trying to get pregnant. It had been probably 18 years at that point, for when I had been diagnosed with my eating disorder, or, like developed my eating disorder, to when I wanted to get pregnant. So that’s a long time. I mean, I was in recovery for most of that time. But it’s a long time to be dealing with those habits and behaviors and all of that. Yeah, I was exhausted.

Lindsey Lusson  06:07

Yeah, yeah. Even outside the fertility piece, I think that everybody reached the breaking point. But we originally connected at the end of 2021 which I think was right around the time that you ended up getting that positive pregnancy test. Is that right? 

Laura  06:19

Yeah, we met, and I think it was a couple weeks later that I got the positive test. Yeah, which is crazy ironic to think about that.

Lindsey Lusson  06:28

Yes, yes. So we ended up not working together at that point in time. Tell us a little bit more about what pregnancy looks like, postpartum, and what led us back to a similar place two years later.

Laura  06:38

So I reached out, because I think… This was when I was still trying to get pregnant that first time, probably the fall of that year. And I was a little anxious if this was going to work. I was getting periods, but I wasn’t sure if I was going to get pregnant. I reached out to you because I had been following you on Instagram. And I think, honestly, the reason I didn’t move forward at that time, because I did not know I was going to get pregnant weeks later, was I’m stubborn. 

Laura  07:06

I really wanted to do it on my own for whatever reason. Felt like I thought I could do it, and I just like there was something blocking me from getting additional support. I just wanted to prove something to someone that I could do it on my own. That really held me back. I think it prolonged things a lot and made things take longer, not in this actual situation, because I did get pregnant quickly. But I do wish I kind of moved forward at that time to get support around it. 

Laura  07:36

So I did get pregnant, and we did move on to have a healthy baby boy, which is wonderful. I will say, looking back, I didn’t gain enough weight. I’m really surprised that I did get pregnant when I did, and it worked out. Because looking back, I can see that I still had more work to do, probably. But I’m obviously so happy with the outcome. So we had our boy. The pregnancy was honestly very uneventful. It was a very normal, healthy pregnancy. It was pretty smooth. And then postpartum. 

Laura  08:12

Looking back, I didn’t really gain enough weight during pregnancy that kind of hurt me postpartum. Because eventually we wanted to try again for number two, and I had a lot of work to do again to make up for the weight that I had lost just, I guess, naturally postpartum. And so that was kind of a climb back out of that hole again to try to get my body back to a place where it could be fertile and conceive again. 

Lindsey Lusson  08:41

Definitely.efinitely. I’ve talked about this on several other podcast episodes. But I do see inadequate weight gain during pregnancy as being the biggest risk factor for HA relapse, eating disorder relapse. Tell us a little bit more about why we feel like we didn’t gain enough weight during pregnancy for maybe somebody who’s listening, who is pregnant. Were people saying, “hey, you need to put on more weight” or were you like, was it not a big deal? Were you congratulated for undergaining? Tell us a little bit more about your experience and what you think kind of led to the outcome. 

Laura  09:11

Yeah, I think it’s a little bit of all of that. I honestly was surprised my doctors never really mentioned it. They never said anything that I wasn’t gaining enough weight. We always focused on the baby, and the baby was healthy, and that kind of, in my mind, was all that mattered. I thought everything was fine, and so I didn’t really focus on it too much. I actually did have some family members say to me, like, because they knew my history with eating disorders and whatnot. Just like, checking in on me to make sure I was doing okay. Andnd I genuinely thought that I was. 

Laura  09:42

I didn’t feel like I was actively restricting or anything. I think I truly just didn’t know how much my body needed to be nourished during that time. And so it was nothing intentional. Also, I think people did comment on my body. I’m hesitant o say anything about what they said, but like, I think there were some positive reinforcing comment that made me think I looked good and I was fine, and my pregnancy was going great. So I never really thought twice about it, and I definitely wasn’t thinking about postpartum. And again, this is maybe the naive part of me being pregnant for the first time, I just didn’t realize how detrimental that would be postpartum. Like not having that extra cushion of weight to kind of help me out during that time period. 

Lindsey Lusson  10:32

Well, what people don’t really talk about, what’s overemphasized in the postpartum period is how women struggle to lose the weight. And how it’s so hard to lose weight postpartum. So I feel because that message is so overemphasized, we especially with a history of an eating disorder, you kind of can contort that in your brain to think, “Oh, well, underweight, undergaining is good, because I don’t want to struggle with losing the baby”. God forbid, I struggle with losing the baby weight, right? 

Lindsey Lusson  11:01

And in reality that couldn’t be worse for your body. I mean, we talk about the breakdown of gaining at least 25 pounds during pregnancy. 25 pounds is increase in fluid volume, increase in blood volume, placenta, baby, breast tissue, a little bit of maternal fat stores. But it’s like, that is like the bare bones. So if you’re not gaining 25 pounds during your pregnancy, you’re probably losing weight. And unfortunately, I think a lot of women just don’t understand that piece. I know providers aren’t talking about that.

Laura  11:34

I 100% did not understand that I was losing weight while being pregnant and gaining weight. Like I didn’t realize that my body was losing weight, that was going to all those other things. Looking back, it makes so much sense to me now, but I wish I had known that the first time around. Because I think I would have approached it differently. 

Lindsey Lusson  11:53

It’s definitely undertalked about. But I’m glad that we’re here getting to have this conversation today. So postpartum obviously, weight came off really fast. You didn’t have a whole lot to lose. Labor and delivery is a very energy cost of event. It’s not uncommon for a lot of moms to lose a lot of weight relatively rapidly. And again, if you don’t have a lot of weight to lose, that can put you,  kind of at a pretty undernourished state. And so what did kind of the next couple of months look like for you?

Laura  12:23

So I was definitely in that boat where I was undernourished, and I realized it pretty quickly that I needed to again focus on my recovery and re nourishing myself. I think mentally, I was in a good place, as good as I could be postpartum. But like, I needed to really put things into practice again. So I did spend, again once my partner and I decided we wanted to have another child fairly close together, I put a lot of emphasis on trying to gain weight again and really trying to recover my period again. Which I did a lot on my own again, and I will say this felt even slower.

Laura  13:04

I feel like it took me a long, like, months and months and months to really put any decent amount of weight on. So again, looking back, I think I made it harder for myself trying to do it on my own. But I did. I’m thinking about when I reached out to you again, a second time.

Because it was again, clear to me that I was making this harder for myself. I hate to go back to age, but like, I didn’t have time to lose. I knew I wanted more than one child at that point, I was 38 I think. So I was like, I just don’t have the time. I need to bite the bullet, get over my ego. And I think that’s when I reached out to you again, just to get this, “get me over this hump, because I was making it harder for myself”. 

Lindsey Lusson  13:52

Yeah, it was almost two years later. I was looking back at the date from some of our notes. So it was almost two years later. And obviously, pregnancy was probably the biggest, that was probably the catalyst that I think correct that made [indecipherable] But another thing that you really talked to me about was beyond the pregnancy is you wanted to get out of this space of quasi recovery. 

Lindsey Lusson  14:15

For those unfamiliar, it’s a term that we use a lot, kind of in the eating disorder space, where you might weight restore. You might be 70 to 90% recovered from your eating disorder, but there’s still like this extra 10 to 30% that just lingers and lives with you. Which means there’s probably a lot of food rules, there’s probably a lot of restriction, there’s probably a lot of fear on weight gain, there’s probably a lot of compulsive over exercise. What did quasi recovery look like for you personally? And what motivated you to say, “I can’t stay here”?

Laura  14:46

I had said this earlier, I was in quasi recovery for so many years, and I felt like I was still in it, like postpartum. You know? For me I feel like every year I was improving, but I knew I wasn’t where I wanted to be. So I was grateful that I was working on recovery and trying to break some of these roles and habits. But I knew I still had more to go, like, every year that I was in recovery.  

Laura  15:14

And so for me, I feel like I was 80% there for a long time. I could go out socially, I could function, I could work, I could do all these things, and no one would really blink an eye or think anything. But I knew in my head and my heart that I still had extra food noise. I was still thinking about food more than I wanted to. I still had anxiety around certain situations, even if you couldn’t, like see it on the outside. So I think for me, it was more of this gut feeling that like this just isn’t the way it’s supposed to be. 

Laura  15:48

And I think my gut has always talked to me a lot to let me know that there’s still more work to to be done. And I think also, having gone through pregnancy and postpartum and having a child now, it was really important to me to not just live in this space that I could potentially pass on to my child, or have my child witness me living in this just not the full space of full food freedom and life. That was really important to me, and kind of scary. I didn’t want to stay in that place. 

Lindsey Lusson  16:22

Yeah definitely. It’s like that at the end of the day. I mean, you can justify, justify, justify, I can go out. I eat whatever I want. I’m okay with taking a rest day. But it’s like, at the end of the day, if you sit down and take an inventory, even like, 30% of your thoughts are consumed by food, exercise, how much you ate, you’re not in that place of actually being recovered. 

Lindsey Lusson  16:46

And the tricky thing is, is I think that a lot of women still live in this space and don’t have period issues. So in a weird way, a missing period or having fertility issues related to a past history of disordered eating, or eating disorder is kind of like a really beautiful opportunity. It’s like throwing yourself like a lifesaver, right? Like, “hey, you can get out of this”. And I don’t think everybody gets that opportunity, because some people will go on their merry little way and live with functional, disordered eating habits the rest of their life.

Laura  17:18

Yeah. And unfortunately, I feel like the world today makes it really easy to do that, which is so sad, and I think that’s also why I kind of live that way for so long. But I would really say and encourage people to  know deep down if you’re recovered, or if you’re living life fully free, or if you’re not.

And I think it’s so important to honor that voice that’s saying, “ugh, we’re just, like, not quite there, or something’s not quite right”. Like, really lean into that, because I had that voice for so long, and I think I really didn’t listen to it for a while. I lost a lot of time because of that. Which is sad to look back on, but I’m also happy that it was there speaking to me, and all I had to do was be open to listen to it, and then I could work on it more.

Lindsey Lusson  18:07

Exactly. And here we are now on the other side. 

Lindsey Lusson  18:11

When we started working together, you actually got pregnant really quickly. So I think despite your age, and I think this will be encouraging for some of our listeners who are in their late 30s, maybe even 40s. Like not everybody has horrible age related fertility genes. So like, you got pregnant pretty quickly. However, that pregnancy did end in miscarriage. And I see with a lot of my clients, especially the ones that I kind of visit with after their journey with miscarriage is like, miscarriage is a really sensitive time. 

Lindsey Lusson  18:41

I mean, you’re dealing with trauma and loss. And if your coping mechanism for dealing with any sort of stressor has always been food restriction and or over exercise, it only makes sense that those would be the easiest, safest, most comfortable coping mechanisms to go back to. Which is why I think having support through a miscarriage is so important. 

Lindsey Lusson  19:04

Tell us a little bit more about your experience and what allowed you to stick with it instead of reverting back to some things that would have been easy to go to during that time. 

Laura  19:16

For sure. That was another surprising thing. So when we started working together, it was within I think, a week or two that I did find out I was pregnant, which was wonderful. Like I said, I felt like I was kind of 80% recovered and putting this effort in. And I really just reached out to you and joined the program to get me over this last hump. I feel like, it happened. I mean, I was able to get pregnant, and then found out I miscarried about eight weeks in. And I won’t lie, I mean, I was devastated. I had never experienced loss like that before. 

Laura  19:51

And especially when you feel like you’re on a timeline and there’s so much writing on it. It was really hard. I will say I was more motivated to stay recovered than I was to fall back into those habits again. I was on a mission to get pregnant again. And I think it was because I knew my body could do it now. I knew when I was nourishing it and feeding it, and when it got to a healthy weight, that it felt comfortable at that I could get pregnant. There wasn’t any underlying issue beyond that. And that was really reassuring to me. 

Lindsey Lusson  20:27

I think also too in your specific case, there had just been such a long time of quasi recovery. You had kind of been through maybe even more than this. But like, from my perspective, you had been through HA recovery with your pregnancy number one, pregnant relapse, postpartum, HA recovery, again, pregnant again, loss. Like, it was just kind of a crossroads, right? I think probably for you, it was also like, “How long am I going to continue to repeat this pattern before I just need to keep going”? 

Laura  20:27

So I knew the chances of getting pregnant were between 20 whatever percent. I just knew it could probably happen again if I kept going. And I think I actually rejoin, I think, like my time in the group was up somewhat shortly after that, and I knew that I wanted to continue with the group again. Because I wanted support, I wanted to make sure I avoided falling back into those habits and potential bad behaviors, because I really wanted to hold myself accountable. And I wanted to give myself the best possible chance to conceive again. It was so important to me. And I just like, like I said, I was laser focused on having this happen again, because I knew it probably could.

Laura  21:48

I do feel like there were so many things that had happened fairly quickly. I think my body was so used to being in quasi recovery that it needed this jump start to just get over this little leftover piece that I just wasn’t addressing or able to address on my own. And once I was able to do that, yeah. It was kind of a roller coaster for me. It was up and down. 

Laura  22:13

And it was wonderful to get my period and then find out I was pregnant, but then miscarriage. It was just like, all these emotions that looking back, I’m really proud I was able to handle them in the way that I did, and not completely fall apart. But yeah, I think I was not going to allow quasi recovery be the reason why I wasn’t able to get pregnant the second time. It just wasn’t or a third time.

Lindsey Lusson  22:41

Yeah, I was thinking about that too. So it’s like, well, actually, it’s three pregnancies. And so you did get pregnant again, and now you are close to meeting your baby girl. Tell us more about pregnancy after loss.

Laura  22:54

Yeah, that’s also been a roller coaster. So luckily I rejoined the group again for the support, and I ended up the next cycle getting a recovery period, which is great. And then the following month is when I conceived again, which is the baby I’m pregnant with now. So once again, it was like all these emotions, so excited. And this pregnancy has been different for sure. There’s been a lot of… 

Laura  23:22

Pregnancy after loss is something I never really thought twice about. It had not happened to me. I wasn’t expecting, I mean, this is me personally, so I can’t speak for anyone else. But like, I definitely have felt a lot more anxiety this pregnancy because of going through the loss. So the beginning of this pregnancy was really hard on me mentally. Being afraid that it might be taken away again, and then dealing with starting over. So I was definitely fearful in the beginning. I really leaned into just my support system, my partner, my family, my doctors, and went off just like the evidence that I had that everything was going well. 

Laura  24:04

So that’s been a big difference. I’m approaching it differently too the second time around your body feels things differently than it did the first. And so I do feel I’m more in tune with my body. I honor it if it it needs, like, a lot more rest this time around, because I have a toddler, so I’m a lot more tired. And so being in this place of recovery now, I can honor those feelings, and if I need to rest, I rest. 

Laura  24:31

And I will also say the biggest difference between this pregnancy my first and I don’t know if this is correlated to the fact that the first pregnancy, I didn’t gain enough weight. I really experienced very little cravings during my first pregnancy. I was really looking forward to that, because I thought that would be fun and a good thing for my recovery. And I honestly didn’t really crave anything. I kind of ate the same foods. And this time around, was so different. The first trimester I had all these very specific cravings, and I leaned into all of them and got to kind of experience that part of pregnancy that I missed out on the first time. 

Laura  25:10

And I feel like I was able to do that because I feel recovered, or like very pretty solid in recovery. That was kind of like an enjoyable part. Even though the first trimester is hard, I loved being connected to my body in a way that allowed me to listen to those cravings and then honor them. It felt like a different relationship, I think. 

Lindsey Lusson  25:33

Yeah. I mean, it sounds like through recovery, really recovering and, some of the things that we uproot and do in our program, I think are very different than how somebody might approach recovery on their own. We do food challenges. We’re encouraging people to go out and get pizza. We’re talking about, doing challenge food challenges, where you go and get ice cream, or you have Oreos, like all of these foods that are so demonized in society. And that’s not because we feel like people need to eat these foods to get pregnant. Obviously, that’s not why we’re pushing it, but it’s really more that relational piece with food. 

Lindsey Lusson  26:10

I think when you’ve struggled with disordered eating and food restriction for over a decade, you don’t even know what you like anymore. Because you’re so convinced that you just like your safe foods. That’s why I think so many women say, “Well, I just love vegetables and craving vegetables.” Y’all, I like vegetables too, but if it were my last meal, I’m not going to have a huge plate of veggies, right?  It just doesn’t taste as good as something that has more fat, more flavor, more sugar, things like that. 

Lindsey Lusson  26:41

So it sounds like you were just able to actually get in touch with what your body wanted. And you didn’t have the stress, anxiety and guilt that comes for a lot of people, with actually eating those foods, or eating those foods with full permission, instead of, “well, just a little bit, but oh well, if I have it, I have to work out”, kind of that permissive relationship. 

Laura  27:00

Yeah, I had so much freedom around it.  There was a period where I was eating ice cream every night. Like, I did not care. It’s just what my body wanted and I was excited about it. It felt really easy. And I was so grateful to have gone through the program and allowed myself those foods that maybe I typically didn’t have because I do think that helped translate into this part of pregnancy where I wasn’t fearful around it.

Laura  27:29

Honestly, I just didn’t even care. When you get pregnant after trying or being afraid, you might not get pregnant for so long, I was so grateful that my body was allowing this to happen.  I just wanted to lean in fully and give it whatever it was asking for. And I think that also goes back to when you’re in quasi recovery for so long, you’re exhausted and you just don’t want to fight it anymore. You don’t want to fight that battle. And I feel like that’s kind of where I was, and I was ready to let it go.

Lindsey Lusson  28:05

And I think that pregnancy is such a beautiful time to really lean into that more relaxed approach to food. Because at the end of the day you do need, and same thing with HA recovery too, like you do need the extra calories, the extra carbohydrates and nutrients. It’s a win-win. It’s just getting over that mental hump of actually allowing yourself more more different types of foods. 

Lindsey Lusson  28:31

Laura, any things that have come up for you in kind of the past year, in your journey out of quasi recovery that other people have noticed? Husband, family members, friends. I think sometimes it can feel really validating to hear from other people. Sometimes it can feel a little bit triggering, but also validating when other people start to notice changes in you. Any of that for you?

Laura  28:55

I think honestly, a lot of it’s just my energy. Not how much energy I have, but like, the aura around me feels a little less anxious and rigid. I’m a little more go with the flow. I’m not super strict about timing of things. Like, I just feel like I eased up on that, and that just isn’t as important to me, or like necessary for me to control all of that. So I think that’s one thing that isn’t really tangible. 

Laura  29:24

But another thing I think about is my husband and son and I love to go out to breakfast every Sunday before we go grocery shopping. We moved into a new home in January, and it’s this little like tradition that we’ve started. And I think me a couple years ago or something would have, like, not loved that. I wouldn’t have loved that I had to go out to eat every week, or I would have stressed about it what I was getting. And now it’s one of the things I look forward to most. It’s just such a lovely thing that I can experience now without anxiety.

Lindsey Lusson  29:59

I think that’s wonderful. I also, as a mom of three, can speak to the fact that having a freer relationship with food makes being a parent 10 times easier. Because you can be like, oh, like, this is what the kids are having. I maybe wouldn’t have this every single night. But this is easy, this is going to make my life easier. So I’m going to have what they’re having. Or I’m going to eat the casserole that somebody took the time to make. And I’m not going to stress about, “it’s too high in carbs, or it’s not what’s in it. I do think that it can also make Big Mom a lot easier,

Laura  30:37

Totally. And I will say, I don’t want this to be taken the wrong way. I’m not saying pregnancy will change your relationship, or like having a child will recover you. But I do think that the work that I put in before having my child has made being a mom a lot less anxiety provoking. Like you said with food, it’s it’s a little more relaxed and carefree, and you just, you can’t really be that rigid when you have a child.

Lindsey Lusson  31:09

So you also know that they’re probably, if he hasn’t got to this point yet, they reach a very normal milestone, no matter how well you do baby lead weaning. They’re going to reach a milestone where they’re just going to exert their own independence and opinion, and they are probably only going to want to eat five foods. You can handle that however you want as parent. You have autonomy to have parent how you choose. But like, just understand that there’s going to be pushback from your child at some point, and it would benefit you to get to a place where you’re okay with giving your kid chicken nuggets or goldfish or something.

Laura  31:49

Yeah and that’s honestly one of his favorite foods, is chicken nuggets. And it’s so good for me to look at his relationship with food, and also how I view his relationship with food because he’s eating chicken nuggets, mac and cheese, he loves fruit, which is great. And I’m not sitting there judging him for eating, I mean, I’m not obviously feeding those things.  But I’m not judging him or thinking less of him for eating those things. He’s adorable and that’s what he likes. It may change, but, yeah, it’s very eye opening, watching your child’s relationship with food when you’ve had your own kind of issues with it in the past. It’s very refreshing. And I’m very aware of how I’m approaching that with him now, moving forward.

Lindsey Lusson  32:38

Yeah, that’s amazing. That’s so important. Well, any tips for somebody who is feeling stuck in that place of, kind of where you were in 2021 and almost maybe stuck with kind of the justification like, well, “my weight is normal, or I’m not as bad as I used to be.” Like, any tips for somebody who is stuck in quasi recovery, and what you might say to them to encourage them to get support or to be actively working on moving out of that space?

Laura  33:07

I have a few that come to mind. I think one is the first step is always being aware that you’re in quasi recovery. So really try to be honest with yourself, and I had mentioned earlier, like, the gut instinct. I really think we all have that. And if that is speaking to you, like, really listen to that. Don’t just put it aside. I know it’s hard to be aware of it and not push it away when you’re scared too, because I’m sure there’s fear around that. But that would be my first piece of advice is just let yourself acknowledge it if it’s true, and even if you don’t act on it right away, just being aware that you’re in that space is sometimes the first step.

Laura  33:49

And then listening to what your intuition is telling you that you’re not fully there. You can get there, even if you’re not ready to take that first step. 

Laura  34:00

I also think something that’s a little harsher, which I think I need, as someone who had was in quasi recovery for years. Sometimes I think I needed a bigger kick in the butt whether it was for me or someone else is, just get out of your own way.  I was in my own way for so long because like I said earlier, I was stubborn. I’m a Taurus. I didn’t want people to do it for me. I wanted to do it on my own. And I should have just, looking back, I didn’t need to prove anything. I was only making it harder. And I think sometimes we’re the ones in our own way, and that’s it. Just by reaching out and getting support that you need, it makes it a lot easier and gets you to your end goal quicker that you just did it alone. 

Lindsey Lusson  34:49

There’s no prize at the end for doing support. You know? 

Laura  34:54

Yeah. And that’s definitely what I learned, kind of the hard way. I feel like, in the end, it al has worked out. But yeah, looking back, I don’t want to say I regret anything, because I think it’s all happened for a reason. But yeah, looking back, I wish I did kind of act on things sooner. I wish maybe I had moved forward the first time I reached out. Because clearly, by reaching out, I knew I wanted or needed something, and maybe I just wasn’t ready. But I think looking back, I needed just a little push for myself. I didn’t have to wait as long as I did. 

Lindsey Lusson  35:30

I’ll also say too, because I know we’ll pop some listeners who maybe aren’t in their 30s, or maybe they’re in like, their early 30s is like, or maybe in their 20s, there’s never going to be a perfect time to do this. You can talk yourself out of really leaning into recovery. I mean, there’s always going to be an excuse. There’s always going to be a vacation, somebody else’s wedding, photos, stress, too busy at work.  Your eating disorder will find 5 million excuses to keep you stuck. And so sometimes you just have to jump. Sometimes you just have to say, enough is enough. I’m gonna make changes, or I’m gonna get more support so I can make changes.

Laura  36:10

Yeah and I would love to speak to the people in my situation who maybe are in their 30s and have been in quasi recovery. I feel like we’re forgotten about a lot because we are functional, and it’s not affecting our lives that badly. But then you’re probably not in treatment or it’s not as dire of an issue. And I think we kind of, I say, get forgotten about, but I think we kind of give up on ourselves and just kind of settle and think that that’s it. 

Laura  36:41

And it really doesn’t have to be that way. I went through so many years in my late 20s, early 30s, mid 30s, really being unsure about what my future was going to look like. And I think, like, to your point, you don’t have to wait to get to the very end. Especially if you want a family, you don’t have to push it to the last year that it could potentially happen. Like, you’re worth getting that support before then, whether you want to be a mom or not. 

Lindsey Lusson  37:13

Yes, definitely. And I agree with you. I do think that the later 30s, 40s there’s actually research on this that  perimenopause women in particular, are at a pretty high risk for eating disorders. Typically, when somebody’s that far into their lives, they’ve become so functional, I think they’re a lot less likely to get the support they need to really recover. 

Laura  37:36

I totally agree. And I think you had mentioned this earlier, even just going back to my situation where I was able to get pregnant a handful of times, and I have had healthy pregnancies both times that have been unaffected by age, like there was nothing wrong, like I said, with my body or my systems or anything like that. And I was really fearful at the beginning of before I even started trying to get pregnant, if that was the case, I wasn’t sure if I had really ruined my body through my eating disorders or over exercise. 

Lindsey Lusson  38:10

But they don’t necessarily need. And I’ll even argue it’s probably higher than that. But I’ll also level with people that when you’re ready to be pregnant yesterday… you’re ready to be pregnant yesterday, right? I do think that sometimes, if people had time on their side, or they were mentally able to wait it out, they probably could get pregnant mentally. 

Laura  38:10

And I think probably that first time around too, when I had reached out to you and didn’t move forward. There’s that fear, if you actually do try 100% and it doesn’t work, than what  and you don’t want to know that answer. And maybe there was part of that with my case, that first time around, that I just was afraid of finding out it wouldn’t work. Luckily, it did work. And I think you speak about this a lot like 80% of the people you work with are able to get pregnant, 

Lindsey Lusson  38:57

And I think, though back on the point because this is everyone’s fear. Everybody has this fear. What if I do this and this doesn’t work for me? Yeah, I mean, odds are in your favor. Like, it is pretty rare that this doesn’t work for someone. And I will say that, and I say kind of work too, because I think that there’s value in healing your relationship with food, finding your body’s natural set point weight and really, just the mental and physical healing that go with HA recovery beyond the actual period or the pregnancy. 

Lindsey Lusson  39:32

And I think whenever it doesn’t work for somebody, like, yeah, of course there’s gonna be outliers where there’s things, they have other things going on. But first of all, odds are in your favor. Second of all, like, at least you know. At least you’re not then living the next decade or two of your life being like, “what if, what if I would have really leaned in and actually healed from my eating disorder? Like, what if I could have got pregnant naturally?

Laura  39:55

Yeah, yeah. That’s, it’s so true. Yeah. But I think that is a reason that holds people back. They’re afraid of finding out that answer one way or another. And again, I think in my case, I’m glad I found the answer out, because it was a positive one, and it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. And that’s wonderful.

Lindsey Lusson  40:18

I always think about myself too, when I was trying for my first baby, I was kind of faced with the decision of, do I go down the fertility treatment route, or do I try to get my period back naturally. And I had options. I had the autonomy to make that decision. But it was like in the back of my mind, I would have always felt so much guilt, I guess that I spent my family’s money trying to have a baby. When, in reality, I wasn’t ready to deal with my own kind of internal issues. So that was, like, one of my personal reasons, as I was like, I am going to regret this the rest of my life if I don’t actually try to do this. 

Laura  40:57

Yeah, and that was kind of my situation.  Like, I knew I didn’t want to start with IVF or something, because I had a pretty good feeling that it was on me. I knew that I was not giving my body 100% of a chance to even try to get pregnant. And so that was always the first place I wanted to start. I do think thinkthis process works for most people if they are willing to take that jump and do it. 

Lindsey Lusson  41:31

The hardest part iss the trust and actually taking action. But fertility can be such a great place, such a great motivator for people doing it. And there’s so many wonderful things, even beyond pregnancy and baby waiting for you on the other side. 

Lindsey Lusson  41:46

So Laura, thanks so much for sharing your story. I know so many people are gonna find it inspiring, whether they’ve struggled with an eating disorder most of their life, whether they’re trying to conceive in their late 30s, or they’ve done recovery multiple times. This is such an awesome recovery story. And thank you for sharing.

Laura  42:02

Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.