Nourish & Empower

A bathroom scale can become a judge, a ritual, and a cage and most people suffering from disordered eating learn to hide it well. We sit down with McCall Dempsey, founder of Southern Smash and a National Alliance for Eating Disorders advocate, and Johanna Scoglio, author of *When the Water Still Holds Me* and founder of A Dragonfly’s Dream, to talk about what happens when recovery stops being private and starts becoming community.

We get into Rally For Recovery and why it’s built differently: a morning focused on hope, connection, and real support, with creative grou...

What if yoga stopped asking you to earn your place and started meeting you where you already are? We sit down with Emily Anderson, a Pittsburgh-based yoga therapist and founder of All Bodies Welcome Yoga, to rethink movement through nervous system care, clear consent, and radical inclusion. No more “all levels” as code for bootcamp. No more stock-photo diversity without real access. This is yoga as a healing practice, not a performance.

Emily traces her path from sweaty power vinyasa to a therapeutic approach that brought amputees, pregnant students, folks with Parkinson’s, and people living with chroni...

A glossy show sold us aspiration; the documentary showed us the bill. We revisit America’s Next Top Model with clear eyes and full context, unpacking how a franchise turned vulnerability into spectacle and then tried to hide behind “it was the times.” As two providers who grew up watching, we connect the dots between what we saw as kids—thinness worship, racial caricatures, manufactured humiliation—and what our clients navigate now: diet culture, body surveillance, and the pressure to perform pain for attention.

Across our conversation, we look at accountability that never quite lands. Why does “reality chec...

What if recovery didn’t have to be perfect to be real? We’re joined by author Johanna Scoglio, whose new memoir, When the Water Still Holds Me: Letters Through the Tides of a Long-Term Eating Disorder, opens a candid window into life with a long-term eating disorder and the everyday courage it takes to heal. Johanna shares how shame kept her silent for years, how harm reduction and values-based choices gave her traction, and why support that sits beside you beats pressure that pushes. The story of Friday pizza nights leading to pizza in Italy reveals a practical, comp...

If body talk leaves you tired, you’re not alone. We dig into the honest, nuanced space between loving your body and hating it—and why body neutrality can be the most freeing path forward. With one of us practicing as a therapist and the other as a dietitian, we blend emotional insight with practical nutrition tools to help you move through tough body days without sacrificing your life, your relationships, or your meals.

We start by defining body positivity, neutrality, and negativity in plain language, then show how diet culture twists “self-love” into a checklist you can neve...

Fear, texture, and shame don’t stand a chance when the stakes are low and the support is real. We’re joined by creator Andrew Luber also known as, ARFID Andrew, whose wildly honest food exposures have helped thousands put words to what ARFID actually feels like: a body that misfires at the sight, smell, and feel of certain foods, and a brain that plans the entire day around avoiding them. Andrew opens up about why rigid rituals backfire, how spontaneity reduces anticipatory anxiety, and the unexpected role of humor in building tolerance without making the struggle a joke.We d...

 You can’t heal what you can’t name. We sit down with recovery coach and advocate Eric Pothen to name what often goes unseen: how eating disorders affect men, why stereotypes keep them silent, and what real support looks like when shame and masculinity collide. Eric’s story fuels a wider movement for representation—from launching EmbraceWare, an apparel brand that donates to treatment and sparks conversation, to building spaces where men can show up as they are and feel understood.

We dig into the signs most people miss in men: the normalization of bulking and cutting...

Ever wonder what makes good therapy consistently good? We open the door to the real work that happens off-mic and off-session: supervision, collaboration, and the ethical guardrails that keep clients safe and supported. With licensed professional counselor and supervisor Erin Scheidle, we unpack how individual and group supervision sharpen clinical judgment, reduce imposter syndrome, and translate directly into clearer treatment plans and stronger outcomes—especially in eating disorder care where dietitians and therapists must align.

We explore the difference between supervision and a clinician’s own therapy, and why that boundary matters for you. You’ll hear a clea...

A new calendar doesn’t require a new you. We kick off the year by taking apart the pressure cooker of resolutions, asking why a “firm decision” often casts you as a problem to be solved—and how that framing supercharges diet culture’s loudest season. Instead, we offer a humane alternative: intentions that honor context, capacity, and change over time. This is a conversation about self-trust, not self-surveillance.

We explore why so many plans collapse by February: shame-based goals, unrealistic timelines, and the myth that transformation must be dramatic to count. From body image to mental health, we...

A new “pyramid” lands, the internet erupts, and we’re left asking the only question that matters: what should actually change on our plates? We take you past the viral graphic and into the real guidance, translating policy-speak into practical choices you can make this week. From protein hype to saturated fat limits, from kids and sugar to food access and cost, we connect the dots with clear, judgment-free advice.

We start by grounding the conversation in history—how the 1992 pyramid gave way to MyPyramid and then MyPlate—and why that plate was easy to teach across ages, cult...

Ever feel trapped between diet rules and anti-diet slogans, like you have to pick a side to “eat right”? We invited ADHD dietitian Chelsea Pitrelli to break the stalemate. Chelsea has lived on both ends of the spectrum—teaching adult weight management classes and guiding eating disorder recovery—and she shows how the same core skills can serve radically different goals when we strip away shame and refocus on intention.

We unpack what anti-diet actually means, beyond hashtags and hot takes. Chelsea explains Health at Every Size as a behavior-first framework, how set point theory reframes the fight wi...

Show notes:

Trigger warning: this show is not medical, nutrition, or mental health treatment and is not a replacement for meeting with a Registered Dietitian, Licensed Mental Health Provider, or any other medical provider. You can find resources for how to find a provider, as well as crisis resources, in the show notes. Listener discretion is advised.

Resource links:

ANAD: https://anad.org/

NEDA: https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/

NAMI: ...