Understanding Disordered Eating: Eating Disorder Recovery and Body Image Healing

Rachelle Heinemann
  • 4.8 (65)
  • MENTAL HEALTH
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

This show will explore the deeper meaning of our relationship with food. We dive into issues related to body image, restriction, bingeing, purging, compulsive exercise, and eating disorder related behaviors. We utilize ideas from psychoanalysis, the deep work therapy, to bring you answers about why you do the things you do and one step closer to a healthier relationship with food and yourself.

  1. 1D AGO

    Why You Can Be Doing Everything Right and Still Feel Worse

    Have you ever hit that point where you're doing recovery "right" and instead of relief, you feel like absolute garbage? Like… you gave up the behaviors, you're eating regularly, you're showing up to sessions, and somehow everything inside you feels louder, messier, and harder to deal with than before. This episode is about that part. The part no one really warns you about. The phase where recovery doesn't feel freeing, it feels destabilizing. Where you might quietly wonder if you made a mistake, or if maybe the eating disorder actually worked better than this. Tweetable Quotes "Feeling worse does not mean that you're failing. It means everything is changing." - Rachelle Heinemann "Part of what the initial stages of recovery does, is that it removes your capacity to cope before it builds your capacity to cope better." - Rachelle Heinemann "You're not worse. You're just less dissociated, which is a sign that things are actually headed in the right direction." - Rachelle Heinemann "If you're willing to stay where it's uncomfortable, I guarantee you will find a lot more on the other side." - Rachelle Heinemann Resources Grab my Journal Prompts Here! Looking for a speaker for an upcoming event? Let's chat! Now accepting new clients! Find out if we're a good fit!    LEAVE A REVIEW + help someone who may need this podcast by sharing this episode. Be sure to sign up for my weekly newsletter here! You can connect with me on Instagram @rachelleheinemann, through my website www.rachelleheinemann.com, or email me directly at rachelle@rachelleheinemann.com

    14 min

  2. FEB 10

    Unmet Childhood Needs & Eating Disorders: Healing the Roots, Not Just the Symptoms

    If you've ever been told that you need to "heal the root" of your eating disorder, but no one ever really explained what that actually means, this episode is for you. Maybe you've done the meal plans. The behavior tracking. The symptom management. And yet… something still feels unresolved. Fragile. Like the eating disorder quiets down for a while, only to resurface later in a different form. In this episode, we slow the conversation way down and talk honestly about unmet childhood needs. Not as a way to blame parents, caregivers, or anyone else, but as a way to finally understand why your eating disorder made sense in the first place. Tweetable Quotes "Relapse isn't the end of recovery. It's a moment inside of it." - Rachelle Heinemann "Eating disorders don't just happen. They happen within the context of the rest of your life." - Rachelle Heinemann "When emotional needs aren't consistently met, we still develop strategies internally to help us survive." - Rachelle Heinemann "You can stop the behaviors temporarily, but if the underlying emotional needs remain unmet, something else will pop up." - Rachelle Heinemann "Healing means giving yourself now what you didn't get then." - Rachelle Heinemann "Part of the process in therapy is creating a pause between the urge and the behavior." - Rachelle Heinemann "Your behaviors make sense in the context that you grew up in." - Rachelle Heinemann Resources Group Training for Clinicians, led by Jack Heinemann. Details:  • 6 weekly sessions (75 minutes each) • Thursdays at 12pm EST • Begins 2/12 • $85 per session • Limited spots Looking for more information? Email jack@jackheinemanntherapy.com or info@bergenmentalhealthgroup.com  Grab my Journal Prompts Here! Looking for a speaker for an upcoming event? Let's chat! Now accepting new clients! Find out if we're a good fit!    LEAVE A REVIEW + help someone who may need this podcast by sharing this episode. Be sure to sign up for my weekly newsletter here! You can connect with me on Instagram @rachelleheinemann, through my website www.rachelleheinemann.com, or email me directly at rachelle@rachelleheinemann.com

    25 min

  3. FEB 3

    What To Do When Treatment Feels Stuck (For Clinicians) with Jack Heinemann, LCSW-R, BCD

    In this episode of Understanding Disordered Eating, I'm joined by Jack Heinemann for a live, supervision-style conversation that explores what's often happening beneath the surface when therapists feel stuck. Rather than focusing on what to say or do next, we slow the work down and examine how unconscious relational patterns quietly organize the therapy relationship itself, shaping both the client's experience and the clinician's emotional response, often without either person realizing it. This episode isn't about quick techniques or the perfect intervention. It's about learning how to think differently. Resources Group Training for Clinicians, led by Jack Heinemann. Details:  • 6 weekly sessions (75 minutes each) • Thursdays at 12pm EST • Begins 2/12 • $85 per session • Limited spots Looking for more information? Email jack@jackheinemanntherapy.com or info@bergenmentalhealthgroup.com    Grab my Journal Prompts Here! Looking for a speaker for an upcoming event? Let's chat! Now accepting new clients! Find out if we're a good fit!      LEAVE A REVIEW + help someone who may need this podcast by sharing this episode. Be sure to sign up for my weekly newsletter here! You can connect with me on Instagram @rachelleheinemann, through my website www.rachelleheinemann.com, or email me directly at rachelle@rachelleheinemann.com

    26 min

  4. JAN 27

    How to Recover in a Weight Loss and GLP-1 Obsessed World

    Have you ever felt like you're living in a completely different reality than everyone around you? Like you're doing the hard, slow work of healing your relationship with food while the rest of the world seems to be shrinking overnight and talking about it nonstop? Feeling angry, jealous or left out is common, and you aren't alone if you're feeling this way too. Right now, weight loss medications and GLP conversations are everywhere. They show up at dinner parties, in group chats, on social media, and even in casual neighborhood conversations. And if you're in eating disorder recovery or trying to practice intuitive eating, those moments can feel deeply uncomfortable, and even unfair. Tweetable Quotes "It can just feel really unfair, like, 'why do these people just get to go on this easy shot and have this quick fix and not me?'" - Rachelle Heinemann "This idea of the eating disorder fixing our body image issues is the oldest in the book." - Rachelle Heinemann "I think something that we have to understand is that weight loss doesn't necessarily equal happiness." - Rachelle Heinemann "Their body is not a cue for me to abandon mine." - Rachelle Heinemann "I'm allowed to want stability more than thinness." - Rachelle Heinemann Resources Grab my Journal Prompts Here! Looking for a speaker for an upcoming event? Let's chat! Now accepting new clients! Find out if we're a good fit!    LEAVE A REVIEW + help someone who may need this podcast by sharing this episode. Be sure to sign up for my weekly newsletter here! You can connect with me on Instagram @rachelleheinemann, through my website www.rachelleheinemann.com, or email me directly at rachelle@rachelleheinemann.com

    23 min

  5. JAN 13

    187. Understand Hypothalamic Amenorrhea with Dr. Nicola Sykes, PhD and Gemma Lewis

    You know when someone says, "Oh, that's normal", but something in your body clearly doesn't feel right? Maybe you've lost your period and brushed it off because you exercise a lot. Maybe a doctor waved it away. Maybe you've been praised for your discipline, your control, your "healthy" lifestyle, even while your body has been quietly asking for more. In this episode, we're having an honest, deeply human conversation about hypothalamic amenorrhea (HA), disordered eating, and the ways diet culture disguises itself as wellness, especially in athletic, high-achieving bodies. Tweetable Quotes "It is not normal to not have a period." - Dr. Nicola Rinaldi "I had prided myself on my body because I thought I was very healthy. What I came to realize was that I was not, and I was abusing my body in a lot of ways." - Gemma Lewis "I told countless people in my life that I didn't have my period, and nobody had ever said that. Nobody had ever asked me, 'Are you not concerned about the long-term implications of this and what you're doing to your body?'" - Gemma Lewis "Our society really encourages that. Our society encourages exercise more, eat less." - Dr. Nicola Rinaldi "I Googled 'how can I get my period back without gaining weight'. There is no good answer out there." - Gemma Lewis "HA can happen to anyone in any body size." - Dr. Nicola Rinaldi "You are more than your body." - Dr. Nicola Rinaldi  Resources Looking for a speaker for an upcoming event? Let's chat!  Now accepting new clients! Find out if we're a good fit!  Dr. Nicola Sykes website Connect with Dr. Nicola Sykes on Instagram No Period, Now What? Period Recovery Community  REVEAL Study Grab my Journal Prompts Here!   LEAVE A REVIEW + help someone who may need this podcast by sharing this episode. Be sure to sign up for my weekly newsletter here! You can connect with me on Instagram @rachelleheinemann, through my website www.rachelleheinemann.com, or email me directly at rachelle@rachelleheinemann.com

    43 min

  6. JAN 6

    The Anti-Resolution: Listen to This Before You Make Your Resolutions

    January has a way of making everything feel louder. The pressure to start over, "fix yourself", and come back "better" than before. If you've ever felt that quiet panic underneath all the New Year motivation, this episode is for you. Instead of making a New Year's Resolution, we're making an anti-resolution.  Tweetable Quotes "When we're under pressure, it's kind of impossible to make deliberate decisions and to really feel calm about it." - Rachelle Heinemann "You don't need a dramatic reinvention to be worthy of the start of the year or even a 'fresh start'." - Rachelle Heinemann "A lot of food-related resolutions or like body-related resolutions are rooted very much in shame, guilt, comparison, anxiety, fear of not being in control." - Rachelle Heinemann "If you're thinking 'I need to change because there is something terribly wrong about me as a person'… even if it is the best resolution in the world, that is never gonna hold up." - Rachelle Heinemann Resources Grab my Journal Prompts Here! Looking for a speaker for an upcoming event? Let's chat! Now accepting new clients! Find out if we're a good fit!    LEAVE A REVIEW + help someone who may need this podcast by sharing this episode. Be sure to sign up for my weekly newsletter here! You can connect with me on Instagram @rachelleheinemann, through my website www.rachelleheinemann.com, or email me directly at rachelle@rachelleheinemann.com

    13 min

  7. 12/23/2025

    Emotional Eating at Night

    For so many of us, nighttime feels like stepping into a different version of ourselves. One that feels "fine" all day, but starts to unravel the moment the sun goes down. One who can't stop thinking about snacks, who wanders into the kitchen on autopilot, who feels out of control around food in ways that never show up at noon. It can feel confusing, frustrating, even shameful. Listen to the full episode for the full unpacking and for the practical steps that can help you finally feel at peace when the night comes. Tweetable Quotes "Your body might not be confused or just randomly anxious. It might actually be undernourished." - Rachelle Heinemann "Sometimes we get caught up in what we call healthy habits… and these are like the perfect conditions to breed bingey eating or nighttime food anxiety." - Rachelle Heinemann "At night, usually that's where all the leftovers emotionally show up." - Rachelle Heinemann "Emotional hunger is not fake hunger, it's just a metaphoric hunger." - Rachelle Heinemann "If you're hungry, whether it's metaphoric or otherwise, you're hungry for something." - Rachelle Heinemann Resources Grab my Journal Prompts Here! Looking for a speaker for an upcoming event? Let's chat! Now accepting new clients! Find out if we're a good fit!    LEAVE A REVIEW + help someone who may need this podcast by sharing this episode. Be sure to sign up for my weekly newsletter here! You can connect with me on Instagram @rachelleheinemann, through my website www.rachelleheinemann.com, or email me directly at rachelle@rachelleheinemann.com

    22 min

  8. 12/16/2025

    Hope, Healing, and the Bucket List You Didn't Know You Needed with Dr. Jeffrey DeSarbo

    Struggling to find motivation in recovery, or trying to make sense of what keeps people pushing through something as painful as an eating disorder, opens a door to a much deeper conversation. This episode steps right through that door. In this episode, we welcome back a longtime favorite guest: Dr. Jeffrey DeSarbo, a neuropsychiatrist and internationally known educator whose work sits at the intersection of brain science, mental health, and eating disorder treatment. If you've heard his previous episodes, you already know that he has a profound ability to make complex neuroscience feel not just understandable, but actionable. This time, he brings something new, something that might seem unexpected coming from a neuroscientist: the science of a bucket list. And no, not the Hollywood version. Not skydiving. Not "visit Paris." Something far more foundational. Tweetable Quotes "It's okay to be skeptical because that's part of it." - Dr. Jeffrey DeSarbo "Recovery kind of involves helping the brain remember how to feel that, that curiosity, pleasure, connection, and flexibility again." - Dr. Jeffrey DeSarbo "When you go places, and you meet different people with different cultures, the one thing I have learned… it has helped tolerability." - Dr. Jeffrey DeSarbo "We're programmed, and we don't even know we're being programmed to think and, more importantly, to react." - Dr. Jeffrey DeSarbo "Your brain is always changing." - Dr. Jeffrey DeSarbo Resources Grab my Journal Prompts Here! Looking for a speaker for an upcoming event? Let's chat! Now accepting new clients! Find out if we're a good fit!  Dr. Jeffrey DeSarbo's YouTube Channel Dr. Jeffrey DeSarbo's Website   LEAVE A REVIEW + help someone who may need this podcast by sharing this episode. Be sure to sign up for my weekly newsletter here! You can connect with me on Instagram @rachelleheinemann, through my website www.rachelleheinemann.com, or email me directly at rachelle@rachelleheinemann.com

    42 min
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4.8
out of 5
65 Ratings

About

This show will explore the deeper meaning of our relationship with food. We dive into issues related to body image, restriction, bingeing, purging, compulsive exercise, and eating disorder related behaviors. We utilize ideas from psychoanalysis, the deep work therapy, to bring you answers about why you do the things you do and one step closer to a healthier relationship with food and yourself.

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