Thank you, Clare! We all have struggles, I know I have in my past and I personally appreciate you sharing today. A thank you to your guest Claudia as well.
Wow it was great listening to your Chanel,I can relate as I struggled with Anorexia from the age of 16 off and on with Bullimia until my late 30's which as you said stay's with you. I now manage by eating disorder very well and eat well but can at times being in my 60's put on weight which seems to be harder to move. This is a real problem larger than most people like to admit.
I agree with Claudia that traditional psychotherapy is mostly a waste of time. It can make you feel worse because you know WHY you are repeating the same destructive patterns but you can't stop! The Lefkoe Method was mind blowing in its simplicity and effectiveness and gave me the tools to quickly stop destructive habits, emotional or physical.
Informative video. We've come a long way since the days of blaming fashion magazines for why women are anorexic. There is a third type of eating disorder -- overeating. Yet only anorexia and bulimia are considered mental disorders. Obesity is glamorized by society as being 'empowering' and if you say different, it's called fat shaming. The key to all three disorders is to realize they are unhealthy ways to cope with life and give a false feeling of control. Alcoholics and drug addicts use a different substance to get the same effect but society shames them.
Oh my goodness, thank you so much for both being so open and honest with your struggle with food! This is a topic that affects so many of us and isn't talked about anywhere near often enough. I think so many of us, particularly women, have such a bad relationship with food. I know I have for all of my adult life, and I think to a certain extent, even at 58, I still do. I started binge eating in my early 20s when I moved out of home to go to uni. I was really homesick, hated the course I was doing, and started turning to food for comfort. I went from 53kgs to 87kgs over about 2 years. I have spent the rest of my life trying to get rid of that weight, which I did manage to do fairly successfully. However, the way I think about food changed forever. Often, it was an all or nothing approach where if I ate one "bad" food the whole day was a right-off. I can honestly say I very very rarely look back on a day and think- I ate well today. It is so linked to self esteem, and I think this is what so many so called weight loss places don't take into account. It's not always about being hungry. It's all in our head. Thank again for sharing your life stories and experiences. Lots of love to both of you. Love your channels ❤❤❤
I've never had mental issues regarding food. I always associate food with family gatherings and socializing. I've only started researching food 6 years ago after turning 41 and started keto because I wasn't feeling well on SAD. I hope people who have this get better and turn their mental health around.
I'm a 50 yr old woman who after two decades is still struggling with bulimia. I have my theories as to why I can't or won't release myself from this strong hold. What works for a period of time will not work the next time I fall off the wagon. I've been hospitalised at 33 kgs when a traumatic event had caused me financial devastation & it was then anorexia with bulimia. I was told I was lucky to be alive. I have no family support & I don't really seek to forge any close friendships anymore. The ed has become everything. It's cultivated loneliness & made itself my one & only. Anyway I could relate to both your stories ( thanks for sharing,) I think you are both very brave & strong to venture into the very critical judgemental world of social media when self worth is a big component of the disorder. I hope you are proud of yourselves, I certainly am of you both❤
I am so sorry to hear you've been struggling with this for so long. Your kindness means so much and I just hope you can extend that to yourself and find peace and happiness again.
You hit on many good points- appreciate your transparency. In the age of social media, this is an important topic and should be openly discussed more than it is. I can relate to both of your stories-initially anorexia in my late teens ( though body image issues all thru childhood - god knows why, I was just a little thing) It took a jerk of a boyfriend who knew how to push my buttons and policed what I ate/how I dressed, plus a very stressful time in college for the eating disorder to become a crisis. Luckily I went through a program that sounded much like Claudia’s - but it only lasted @2 months. During that time I met other young woman, also struggling. We spent many nights talking about our experiences; many were bulimic. So when I came hime, and was overwhelmed with guilt trying to eat the allotted calories I was supposed to, I remembered what the young woman with bulimia told me about how they got rid of their food. For most of my 20’s I was ‘bulimarexic’, alternating between restricting and bingeing. Clare, I so agree with comparing an ED with an addiction. Not only the from binge, but the feeling of relief when it was purged, and the elation when the scale went down, and even the meal planning and exercising, which took so much of my time I didn’t have any energy left to “feel”- which was almost like being on a drug that numbed any unpleasant feelings- As if I had blinders on and only being thin mattered. It was a coping mechanism for me.- A very self destructive one. Long story short, by the time I was 30, the need to do this myself stopped. That was over 20 years ago. I credit meeting my husband, some very good therapists/psychs, and maturing to my recovery. Thank you so much for your honesty, and for sharing this with your audience❤
I’ve similar problems in my life, largely from a mother who had been a model and was terrified I would get fat. She controlled every aspect of my life and especially controlled what I ate. She also had me do all of the housework before I could do my homework! My friends and school mates (and the school nurse, I found out later) all thought I was sickly because I was so thin. I took extra courses in high school so I could get away from home at a younger age. Once away from home, living in a college dorm and eating in a dining commons, I ate what I wanted, but all the walking and stair-climbing kept me from gaining fat; it all seemed to go to muscle, and I looked very fit. My mother, however, seemed to think I looked grotesquely fat! To make a long story short, my father died at the end of my first year of college, and without him to protect me from my mother’s physical and verbal abuse, I left home for good. Of course, in the US, I couldn’t go back to school without money, and I got a low-paying job which barely paid my share of rent and groceries. I actually did okay, it wasn’t until I got married and had a complicated pregnancy (after 4 miscarriages and one stillbirth), and had to stay in bed for months, that I really started gaining weight and then found it hard to completely lose. I started working out with weights, which my husband didn’t like the look of. So I started dieting as well to stay thin. His parents criticized me constantly and i just couldn’t take it on top of having a child with ADHD and learning disabilities. I ended up in hospital with severe fatigue from pressure to be a perfect employee, wife, daughter-in-law and mother. It took three tries before I finally found a good psychiatrist, and it took three years to stabilize my relationship with food and separate THAT from the other pressures! Buy I have been eating only healthy foods for thirty years now.
My mother used to call me fat and looking back I wasn't fat I was a UK size 14 at the time in my early 20s I guess a UK size 12 would have been better but it was compounded by a boyfriend who was always talking about how he couldn't stand fat women I became a size 8 and I was underweight I suffered from bulimia for about 10 years the boyfriend married someone else ironically put on weight until she became obese as for my mum I realised in my 30s she could be very psychologically cruel to me which was a revelation, I had some counselling which was tough but I eventually got healthier and got my weight to normal it was an awful waste of what should have been the most productive years of my life, but I survived it and now I have a healthy happy lifestyle 🙏
We all have a hole in our hearts that only our creator can fill because HE loves us so much!!!! Religion is man made & that won't cut it! Speaking of cut, I love your haircut, Clare! Thank you both for sharing because we've all been there.......
Two beautiful and intelligent YTubers! Thank you for sharing Clare, this was a really honest and open chat between you both. It is a struggle that so many women can relate to. Love the new haircut on you, makes you look even younger 😀❤💜
i will say im eating a small ramican of pretzels and pb and feeling a little guilty. life can be overwhelming... big problems can hit from all sides. sometimes just making it through the day is a win....
Another good video. Quite some time ago, I read a mystery novel featuring a heroine named Elizabeth. As I recall, early in this novel, Elizabeth, in the spring of her last year at her university, was walking around a small lake on the campus with her fiance. The fiance looked admiringly at their reflection and said something like, "Elizabeth, if you would only lose 10 pounds, we would be a perfect couple!" She pushed him in the lake. That was the end of the engagement, and we were on to Elizabeth's further adventures. I was hooked and read not only that book but several others by that author. I think many, if not most, women have weight/appearance issues that center on self-worth/self appreciation issues. I have often thought we might do well to mentally visualize these issues walking beside us and then mentally push them in the lake! Not that I would ever actually push anything in a real lake, by the way.
Wow how brave clare. Iv always thought you must be a strong intelligent confident lady which hopefully you are now but nobody knows what is going on inside someone. Iv struggled with weight gain most of my adult life and find it so hard to loose it, now i watch so many healthy slim women on you tube then i go and look at all the links for food supplements ect but i just cant afford it all, as im sure many others cant, its so hard i feel to be healthy and eat properly and take the right supplements because at the moment things are so expensive. Well done on you both sharing your stories xxx
Thank you Ann ❤️ I really think we all struggle with self doubt at times and I completely understand how overwhelming all the different info around food supplements can be. I would prioritize nutrition over supplements, trying to cut down on sugary and processed foods. Doing that has made such a difference in my own life xx
In 2016, at 40 I had a change which can only be explained by a miracle , which was the beginning the process. My lowest was 40 kg (168 cm tall); at , what I thought was healthy, I got to 50 , and couldn’t eat unless I exercised , at 48 , in 2024, I can say I am recovered. No idea how much I weigh , and seriously, I couldn’t care less how much. I’m happy I finally am not in the grip of the eating disorder. Thank you for sharing your journey. I couldn’t be happier those who are affected are able to see recovery is by all means possible!!!
The American diet is awful. Fast easy and unhealthy And I blame our fast corporate world. Work long hours and you have no time to make healthy nutritious meals. Worse if you have kids also food is so expensive our younger college aged kids can't afford 20 bucks for a chicken Caesar salad And of course if we are stressed we will shove it in.
No need to apologize! I could have equally been working in a UK restaurant that served these foods. It was the shortage of knowledge at that time that really caused the problem.
@@thehonestchannel I was shocked the high rates of obesity in the UK when I visited. At first I thought everyone was American! Then I heard them speak. LOL
Are you ladies both vegan? It amazes me how people can be so fixated on fixing their looks from the outside when they could just skip all that work by just adding eggs, fish, and meat for essential collagen and other building blocks to their foods. Ps, these are also whole foods; don't have to be processed in any way. Great interview btw and you both look great!
Great conversation ladies ❤ Since Covid lockdowns in Melbourne, Australia (270ish days) I have gained 10kg & haven’t been able to shift it so far. Although I don’t believe I suffer from an eating disorder Claudia’s words “we are not enough” resonates with me deeply. I too have a cold mother who often told me she wished she hadn’t had me (too long a story to reveal here) I am 64 & have had several successful careers but in my mind those words echo “you are not enough” In me it manifests in extreme perfectionism so of course “I am never enough” because perfect doesn’t exist 🫣
That feeling of not being enough is so common. Somehow just knowing that helps me a lot. Others will marvel at what you do due to your perfectionism. It will be more than enough.
Thank you for having this conversation with me! I so appreciate you and your friendship ❤
Thank you Claudia! So appreciate our friendship too ❤️❤️
I feel like Claudia could write an important book
Thank you, Clare! We all have struggles, I know I have in my past and I personally appreciate you sharing today. A thank you to your guest Claudia as well.
❤️
❤
Wow it was great listening to your Chanel,I can relate as I struggled with Anorexia from the age of 16 off and on with Bullimia until my late 30's which as you said stay's with you. I now manage by eating disorder very well and eat well but can at times being in my 60's put on weight which seems to be harder to move. This is a real problem larger than most people like to admit.
Thank you for sharing this with us. I’m
glad that you too are doing better now.
I agree with Claudia that traditional psychotherapy is mostly a waste of time. It can make you feel worse because you know WHY you are repeating the same destructive patterns but you can't stop! The Lefkoe Method was mind blowing in its simplicity and effectiveness and gave me the tools to quickly stop destructive habits, emotional or physical.
Glad to hear you found an approached that helped you.
Informative video. We've come a long way since the days of blaming fashion magazines for why women are anorexic. There is a third type of eating disorder -- overeating. Yet only anorexia and bulimia are considered mental disorders. Obesity is glamorized by society as being 'empowering' and if you say different, it's called fat shaming. The key to all three disorders is to realize they are unhealthy ways to cope with life and give a false feeling of control. Alcoholics and drug addicts use a different substance to get the same effect but society shames them.
Oh my goodness, thank you so much for both being so open and honest with your struggle with food! This is a topic that affects so many of us and isn't talked about anywhere near often enough. I think so many of us, particularly women, have such a bad relationship with food. I know I have for all of my adult life, and I think to a certain extent, even at 58, I still do. I started binge eating in my early 20s when I moved out of home to go to uni. I was really homesick, hated the course I was doing, and started turning to food for comfort. I went from 53kgs to 87kgs over about 2 years. I have spent the rest of my life trying to get rid of that weight, which I did manage to do fairly successfully. However, the way I think about food changed forever. Often, it was an all or nothing approach where if I ate one "bad" food the whole day was a right-off. I can honestly say I very very rarely look back on a day and think- I ate well today. It is so linked to self esteem, and I think this is what so many so called weight loss places don't take into account. It's not always about being hungry. It's all in our head. Thank again for sharing your life stories and experiences. Lots of love to both of you. Love your channels ❤❤❤
I relate to everything you say here Sharon. Thanks so much for sharing this ❤️❤️
❤
I've never had mental issues regarding food. I always associate food with family gatherings and socializing. I've only started researching food 6 years ago after turning 41 and started keto because I wasn't feeling well on SAD. I hope people who have this get better and turn their mental health around.
I hope so too ❤️
I'm a 50 yr old woman who after two decades is still struggling with bulimia.
I have my theories as to why I can't or won't release myself from this strong hold. What works for a period of time will not work the next time I fall off the wagon. I've been hospitalised at 33 kgs when a traumatic event had caused me financial devastation & it was then anorexia with bulimia.
I was told I was lucky to be alive.
I have no family support & I don't really seek to forge any close friendships anymore. The ed has become everything. It's cultivated loneliness & made itself my one & only.
Anyway I could relate to both your stories ( thanks for sharing,) I think you are both very brave & strong to venture into the very critical judgemental world of social media when self worth is a big component of the disorder.
I hope you are proud of yourselves, I certainly am of you both❤
I am so sorry to hear you've been struggling with this for so long. Your kindness means so much and I just hope you can extend that to yourself and find peace and happiness again.
You hit on many good points- appreciate your transparency. In the age of social media, this is an important topic and should be openly discussed more than it is. I can relate to both of your stories-initially anorexia in my late teens ( though body image issues all thru childhood - god knows why, I was just a little thing)
It took a jerk of a boyfriend who knew how to push my buttons and policed what I ate/how I dressed, plus a very stressful time in college for the eating disorder to become a crisis.
Luckily I went through a program that sounded much like Claudia’s - but it only lasted @2 months. During that time I met other young woman, also struggling.
We spent many nights talking about our experiences; many were bulimic. So when I came hime, and was overwhelmed with guilt trying to eat the allotted calories I was supposed to, I remembered what the young woman with bulimia told me about how they got rid of their food.
For most of my 20’s I was ‘bulimarexic’, alternating between restricting and bingeing.
Clare, I so agree with comparing an ED with an addiction.
Not only the from binge, but the feeling of relief when it was purged, and the elation when the scale went down, and even the meal planning and exercising, which took so much of my time I didn’t have any energy left to “feel”- which was almost like being on a drug that numbed any unpleasant feelings- As if I had blinders on and only being thin mattered. It was a coping mechanism for me.- A very self destructive one.
Long story short, by the time I was 30, the need to do this myself stopped.
That was over 20 years ago.
I credit meeting my husband, some very good therapists/psychs, and maturing to my recovery.
Thank you so much for your honesty, and for sharing this with your audience❤
Thanks so much for sharing this. I’m very glad the experience is behind you now and you got the support you needed ❤️
Thank you ladies for sharing your human vulnerabilities. We all have our neurosis.
I’ve similar problems in my life, largely from a mother who had been a model and was terrified I would get fat. She controlled every aspect of my life and especially controlled what I ate. She also had me do all of the housework before I could do my homework! My friends and school mates (and the school nurse, I found out later) all thought I was sickly because I was so thin. I took extra courses in high school so I could get away from home at a younger age. Once away from home, living in a college dorm and eating in a dining commons, I ate what I wanted, but all the walking and stair-climbing kept me from gaining fat; it all seemed to go to muscle, and I looked very fit. My mother, however, seemed to think I looked grotesquely fat! To make a long story short, my father died at the end of my first year of college, and without him to protect me from my mother’s physical and verbal abuse, I left home for good. Of course, in the US, I couldn’t go back to school without money, and I got a low-paying job which barely paid my share of rent and groceries. I actually did okay, it wasn’t until I got married and had a complicated pregnancy (after 4 miscarriages and one stillbirth), and had to stay in bed for months, that I really started gaining weight and then found it hard to completely lose. I started working out with weights, which my husband didn’t like the look of. So I started dieting as well to stay thin. His parents criticized me constantly and i just couldn’t take it on top of having a child with ADHD and learning disabilities. I ended up in hospital with severe fatigue from pressure to be a perfect employee, wife, daughter-in-law and mother. It took three tries before I finally found a good psychiatrist, and it took three years to stabilize my relationship with food and separate THAT from the other pressures! Buy I have been eating only healthy foods for thirty years now.
My mother used to call me fat and looking back I wasn't fat I was a UK size 14 at the time in my early 20s I guess a UK size 12 would have been better but it was compounded by a boyfriend who was always talking about how he couldn't stand fat women I became a size 8 and I was underweight I suffered from bulimia for about 10 years the boyfriend married someone else ironically put on weight until she became obese as for my mum I realised in my 30s she could be very psychologically cruel to me which was a revelation, I had some counselling which was tough but I eventually got healthier and got my weight to normal it was an awful waste of what should have been the most productive years of my life, but I survived it and now I have a healthy happy lifestyle 🙏
I'm so sorry to hear you went through these tough times, but relieved to learn you are through the other side and eating healthily.
Thanks for sharing this Michelle. Glad you're doing well now.
We all have a hole in our hearts that only our creator can fill because HE loves us so much!!!! Religion is man made & that won't cut it! Speaking of cut, I love your haircut, Clare! Thank you both for sharing because we've all been there.......
You’ve been a wonderful supporter this week for both Claudia and I. Thank you 🥰
Love you bunches!!!!!@@thehonestchannel
@@valentina-pg4bj❤❤❤
two of my favorite utubers!!!
❤
You’re a great support Jill ❤️
Two beautiful and intelligent YTubers! Thank you for sharing Clare, this was a really honest and open chat between you both. It is a struggle that so many women can relate to. Love the new haircut on you, makes you look even younger 😀❤💜
❤
Thank you Val! ❤️ Wasn’t sure about the haircut at first but I’m happier with it now - especially if it makes me look younger 😁😘
i will say im eating a small ramican of pretzels and pb and feeling a little guilty. life can be overwhelming... big problems can hit from all sides. sometimes just making it through the day is a win....
That is true. And I refuse to feel guilty over the delicious slice of banoffee pie I ate tonight! One of life’s great pleasures ❤️
Another good video.
Quite some time ago, I read a mystery novel featuring a heroine named Elizabeth. As I recall, early in this novel, Elizabeth, in the spring of her last year at her university, was walking around a small lake on the campus with her fiance. The fiance looked admiringly at their reflection and said something like, "Elizabeth, if you would only lose 10 pounds, we would be a perfect couple!" She pushed him in the lake. That was the end of the engagement, and we were on to Elizabeth's further adventures. I was hooked and read not only that book but several others by that author.
I think many, if not most, women have weight/appearance issues that center on self-worth/self appreciation issues. I have often thought we might do well to mentally visualize these issues walking beside us and then mentally push them in the lake!
Not that I would ever actually push anything in a real lake, by the way.
100%! I spent way too many years listening to a very unhelpful voice that belonged in the lake!
This was invaluable, so courageously candid and open. I am IN AWE of you both.
❤️
Wow how brave clare. Iv always thought you must be a strong intelligent confident lady which hopefully you are now but nobody knows what is going on inside someone. Iv struggled with weight gain most of my adult life and find it so hard to loose it, now i watch so many healthy slim women on you tube then i go and look at all the links for food supplements ect but i just cant afford it all, as im sure many others cant, its so hard i feel to be healthy and eat properly and take the right supplements because at the moment things are so expensive. Well done on you both sharing your stories xxx
Thank you Ann ❤️ I really think we all struggle with self doubt at times and I completely understand how overwhelming all the different info around food supplements can be. I would prioritize nutrition over supplements, trying to cut down on sugary and processed foods. Doing that has made such a difference in my own life xx
I can see your skin is getting more youthful now, I think the treatment is working.
Thank you both for doing this.Both of you are beautiful women.💜
Thank you Sheila ❤️
Wow..amazing. thank you ladies.
Thank you so much for sharing
In 2016, at 40 I had a change which can only be explained by a miracle , which was the beginning the process. My lowest was 40 kg (168 cm tall); at , what I thought was healthy, I got to 50 , and couldn’t eat unless I exercised , at 48 , in 2024, I can say I am recovered. No idea how much I weigh , and seriously, I couldn’t care less how much. I’m happy I finally am not in the grip of the eating disorder. Thank you for sharing your journey. I couldn’t be happier those who are affected are able to see recovery is by all means possible!!!
I’m so glad that you too have recovered. Thank you for sharing this ❤️
@@thehonestchannelthank you . Keep spreading the word of recovery , with your platform many are likely to learnt ❤️
Thank you
The American diet is awful. Fast easy and unhealthy
And I blame our fast corporate world. Work long hours and you have no time to make healthy nutritious meals. Worse if you have kids also food is so expensive our younger college aged kids can't afford 20 bucks for a chicken Caesar salad
And of course if we are stressed we will shove it in.
I hear you.
Proud of you darling ❤️
So proud of you too!! ❤️❤️
👍👍
I’m so sorry my country made you sick.
No need to apologize! I could have equally been working in a UK restaurant that served these foods. It was the shortage of knowledge at that time that really caused the problem.
@@thehonestchannel I was shocked the high rates of obesity in the UK when I visited. At first I thought everyone was American! Then I heard them speak. LOL
@@selectiveoutrage6617 Unfortunately there is very high consumption of ultra processed foods in this country. It's a big health issue.
Are you ladies both vegan? It amazes me how people can be so fixated on fixing their looks from the outside when they could just skip all that work by just adding eggs, fish, and meat for essential collagen and other building blocks to their foods. Ps, these are also whole foods; don't have to be processed in any way. Great interview btw and you both look great!
Claudia is vegan but she’s very up on her proteins. I include meat and fish in my diet. Thanks for watching! ❤️
Great conversation ladies ❤
Since Covid lockdowns in Melbourne, Australia (270ish days) I have gained 10kg & haven’t been able to shift it so far.
Although I don’t believe I suffer from an eating disorder Claudia’s words “we are not enough” resonates with me deeply.
I too have a cold mother who often told me she wished she hadn’t had me (too long a story to reveal here)
I am 64 & have had several successful careers but in my mind those words echo “you are not enough” In me it manifests in extreme perfectionism so of course “I am never enough” because perfect doesn’t exist 🫣
That feeling of not being enough is so common. Somehow just knowing that helps me a lot. Others will marvel at what you do due to your perfectionism. It will be more than enough.