Change your relationship with food and exercise with Ailey Jolie
anorexia, orthorexia, excessive exercise, mindfulnessListen on iTunes | Google Podcast | Overcast |Spotify | Anchor
Ailey Jolie
coach
I once lived with an eating disorder. My experiences in the entertainment industry offered a cultural environment where my disordered behaviours were not only accepted but encouraged. Despite being immersed and successful in this culture, performing with the Royal Moscow Ballet by age thirteen and wearing the crown of Miss Canada before my twentieth birthday, my struggle with food and body stemmed not from these experiences but from earlier trauma.
Changing my relationship with food meant changing the relationship I had with myself – first. Doing this meant looking at how my behaviour with food mirrored a deeper internal struggle and previous pain. My experience of healing is why I am passionate about helping others, not only recover, but live embodied lives.
We live in a world where we battle obesity, especially in the western countries, ameteur athletes and active people lean (pun intended) towards the opposite extreme. Sometimes we don’t realize it we can be overfed and undernourished but also underfed and undernourished, neither of which is ideal for our health.
In the first episode of 2019 I had an opportunity to talk with Ailey Jolie, who specializes in helping active people with eating disorders such as orthorexia, anorexia and excessive exercise.
All of these are prevalent in sports and especially among women but men are not far behind. Why I found our discussion very informative as more and more people chase the image of a perfect body and the idea of the perfect athlete, often losing touch with reality and their bodies.
Let’s find out together how to have a healthy relationship with food and our bodies and even improve how to feel good, look strong, and perform better.
What are some of the issues athletes face when in a low energy availability state?
- negative body composition
- tiredness,
- loss of bone density
- lose of hair
- lowered RMR (rested metabolic rate)
- loss of libido and hormonal disturbance
“However, the group with higher EXDS score did not adjust their energy intake to match the increased energy needs, thus resulting in a more negative energy balance with an increased risk of lower blood glucose and higher cortisol levels.”[1]
[1] [, et al Exercise dependence, eating disorder symptoms and biomarkers of Relative Energy Deficiency in Sports (RED-S) among male endurance athletes , ]