Bite Back with Abbey Sharp - Navigating Stressful Medication Weight Gain & an Unfamiliar New Body with Jeremie Saunders (Sick Boy)

Episode Date: September 16, 2025

Here’s a run down of what we discussed in today’s episode:IntroductionLife With Cystic FibrosisFood Challenges With Cystic FibrosisTrikafta and the Metabolic ShiftBecoming a Stranger in Your Own BodyBody Changes, CF, and the Rise of #SkinnyTokDiet Culture Temptations and Disordered EatingWhen Wellness Culture Gets It WrongWhy “Natural” Isn’t a Moral FlexHumour as a Tool for Coping With Chronic IllnessSelf-Compassion Through Body ChangesGratitude, Growth, and Moving ForwardCheck in with today’s amazing guest: Podcast: SickboyInstagram: @jeremiesaundersYoutube: /sickboymediaDisclaimer: The content in this episode is for educational and entertainment purposes only and is never a substitute for medical advice. If you’re struggling with with your mental or physical health, please work one on one with a health care provider.If you have heard yourself in our discussion today, and are looking for support, contact the free NEDIC helpline at 1-866-NEDIC-20 or go to eatingdisorderhope.com.  🥤 Check out my 2-in-1 Plant Based Probiotic Protein Powder, neue theory at www.neuetheory.com or @neuetheory and use my promo code BITEBACK20 to get 20% off your order! Don’t forget to Please subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a review! It really helps us out. ✉️ SUBSCRIBE TO MY NEWSLETTERS ⤵️Neue Theory newsletterAbbey's Kitchen newsletter 🥞 FREE HUNGER CRUSHING COMBO™ E-BOOK! 💪🏼 FREE PROTEIN 101 E-BOOK! 📱 Follow me! Instagram: @abbeyskitchenTikTok: @abbeyskitchenYouTube: @AbbeysKitchen My blog, Abbey’s Kitchen www.abbeyskitchen.comMy book, The Mindful Glow Cookbook affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3NoHtvf If you liked this podcast, please like, follow, and leave a review with your thoughts and let me know who you want me to discuss next!

there is this like cloudy confused version of ourselves that we see when all of a sudden you wake up and your body is drastically different that is a really jarring experience welcome to another episode a bite back with abbey sharp where i dismantled diet culture rules call out the charlatans spinning the pseudoscience and help you achieve food freedom for good Today I am very excited about our conversation and guest because I recently had the pleasure of appearing on his podcast and we had such an amazing conversation. So I'm very excited to turn the tables and learn from him. Today we're going to be talking to Canadian actor, podcaster, and cystic fibrosis advocate Jeremy Saunders of the popular podcast Sick Boy, which builds on Jeremy's experience with cystic fibrosis. in discussing living well with chronic disease. This conversation is not only relevant to folks who have been personally affected by chronic disease, but we're going to be talking about the disorienting experience of rapid body

changes as it may relate to medication, illness, or stages of life, and I'll be offering some support on how to navigate this experience with compassion and grace. now a quick reminder that I would really appreciate if you would give bite back a follow on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast by pushing that little bell icon so that you get notifications in your app when we've released a new episode. Also my general disclaimer here that this content is never a replacement for personalized healthcare advice and also a heads up that we will be briefly touching on disordered eating themes. So keep that in mind if deciding whether or not this episode is right for you. All right. Let's get into it. All right, Jeremy, so nice to talk to you again. I had just such an amazing time on your podcast, Sick Boy, and I'm just really excited to continue our conversation today. Yeah, me too.

Thanks for having me. And also, thanks for putting up with me and Taylor on that conversation on Sick Boy. Oh, no, I loved it. I loved it. We had a lot of fun. Yeah, the talk, I was really thrown up. off by the IVF drink cum to get pregnant, I was like, we didn't try that. Like, all the research I did, like, I don't even think I'm that gullible, but like, I was really diving deep into, like,

did I read that somewhere? Like, did I just decide it was a no go? Like, it was like, it was like no fly zone. I was just like, no, no, we'll just, we'll go straight to the, the $10,000 IVF before we tried drinking cum, I guess. I think my favorite part of that was, so I do that, I mean, this is a consistent thing I do to Taylor quite often on the show is I'll say I'll say a complete full on lie about Taylor to our guest and usually Taylor's response is to step in and go that's not true and he's right and and I think he got the point this time and finally was like I you know what I think it's funnier if I just don't say anything but then I started to realize I was like oh no I think happy might have bought that I fully fully bought it I mean to be honest like any like

You know, for my friends who are listening, who've been in the IVF or the infertility world, like, you know that the things that we see and, like, Reddit threads and, like, you know, Facebook groups to do is just so wild and, you know, you're just so desperate. You're like, oh, yeah, that's, I'll try it. Like, whatever. So I was totally like, I wonder what that does. Oh, my goodness. I'm sorry.

Anyways, well, today we're not going to talk about drinking cum. Unfortunately, that would be. You might not be. I'm not right. I can't speak for myself. Right, right. Who knows where your rest of your day is going. But, okay, so like I wanted to kind of dive in. Obviously, you need to kind of catch some folks up to speed because I love your podcast. I love how you approach the challenges and the world of like living with chronic disease with like humor and light, which I'm just, I'm sure it's just so helpful for so many who are listening. And you're diagnosed with cystic fibrosy. fibrosis in infancy. So this is something that you've, you know, been living with virtually your whole life. For those who have never heard of cystic fibrosis, do you want to give like a quick little elevator pitch as to what, what it is, what it entails? Sure, yeah. I mean, I think

the, I think the like the most common elevator pitch is it's a genetic lung disease. That's what most people will know of or hear when they, they think about cystic fibrosis. But in reality, it's actually it's it's a little bit more complex than that a little bit I'm not a doctor so take what I say with a grain of salt but it is a genetic disease and it's a disease that affects the entire body multiple organs within the body pretty much any of the organs within the body that produce mucus are affected so it's it's mostly most commonly known as a lung disease because of the typical symptom of cystic fibrosis being that your lungs fill with this thick, sticky mucus, and that mucus provides a breeding ground for bacteria and leads to the slow

progression of the lungs starting to lose function to the degree where eventually they just stop working entirely. But also a big part of living with cystic fibrosis for a lot of CF patients is the fact that the pancreas is also affected. And so what's happening there is that due to this genetic mutation in my body, my pancreas does not produce the digestive enzymes required to break down food, to digest food. So every time I eat, I need to take oral enzymes in order to replace the enzymes that I don't produce. And then another interesting fact about the sort of malabsorption nutrition problems that CF patients have, that mucus that lines the intestinal tract also prevents

the body from being able to absorb a lot of the nutrients that I would take in, right? Right. So, yeah, that mucus is kind of just all throughout the body and it causes a buttload of interesting problems. A little, and I'll wrap this up by saying one little kind of interesting tidbit that maybe not a lot of people know is a very high percentage. of people born with CF, specifically males, I think it's 98% are born, are born sterile because we are born without a vast deference. So the vast deference doesn't actually form in

utero, which is a part of cystic fibrosis. So yeah, CF is, it's a lot more than just a lung disease, but if you were to kind of give it the high level overview, a lung disease with some malabsorption issues. Right. And speaking of, I mean, obviously that that's kind of where I come in because like you said, like nutritionally, one of these implications of cystic fibrosis is that it can result in failure to thrive and malnutrition and growth restriction. And generally, just a lot of difficulty gaining or maintaining weight because, again, you're not absorbing those nutrients that you're consuming. So take me back to kind of your childhood, young adulthood, living with cystic fibrosis

before we had Tercafta, which, you know, is a new cystic fibrosis miracle drug. And we'll talk about that soon. But I'm curious, what did your kind of relationship with food and your body look like growing up? My relationship with food growing up was, it was pretty fun, some might say. My relationship with weight was always one where I struggled. So, you know, in the body. building community, which I am not in, I would be considered a hard gainer. I have a really hard time gaining any weight. So for me, I mean, my entire, really my entire life up until maybe three years ago, I have my, my primary sort of objective is to maintain weight. Losing weight very easy, but I'm going to try to not do that as much as I can, gaining weight next to impossible.

right I was basically told my entire life to live by the the CF diet and the CF diet because of this malnutrition issue is high fat high calorie and and to the degree where my my medical professionals my you know my registered dietitian the cystic by versus clinic they're basically going hey look you need calories like you need double the amount of calories a normal person needs in a day. You need high amounts of fat. So we don't really care where you get it. And you also don't really think about it too much. Don't care where you get it. Just get it. So if you want to slam Big Macs, eat pizzas and, you know, chew on a stick of butter, go for it. Right. And to be honest with you, like, I, it was awesome. That was awesome. It was so fun. It was kind of a point of,

it was always a conversation starter. It was always something that I felt kind of, not proud of, but sort of like a, yeah, this is kind of fun. I don't have to like, I don't have to feel guilty about these things that I do.

I'm doing it to live. Totally. But the part that was kind of frustrating was eating like an absolute garbage truck and not, not adding a single ounce of weight. Right. I mean, even when I was,

I remember when I was really young, It was probably, oh, God, I don't know, 12, 13. My father was, my father was like, hey, Jare, listen, when you turn 100 pounds, I'll give you a hundred bucks. How about that? It might have been like 11. And I was like, oh, my God, that's, that'll be amazing. I can't wait.

I was maybe, like, I was close, right? I was getting there and maybe around 91, 92 pounds. Right. And that journey from getting from 90 pounds to like 100 pounds felt like a friggin' eternity, especially with a $100 bill kind of dangling on a carrot. But that was basically my whole life. My parents just being like, look, we got to like slam food into you. And you need to be physically active to, you know, sustain your lungs. And you need to be eating like Michael Phelps to just maintain your weight. Right. Yeah. No. And I mean, let's kind of fast forward

to today because we now have a kind of revolutionary drug here. It was, I believe we got access to tri-cafta in 2021 in Canada, but this drug is apparently effective for about 90% of people with CF, which is massive. But of course, like correcting these issues, as this medication does, means this abrupt shift in your metabolic needs and how your body effectively, you know, can utilize and absorb nutrients and calories, which obviously is an amazing thing for our health. this is what we want, but I'm sure felt quite jarring, just kind of that, that huge shift and experience and how you perceive food, what you know about food, how your body, you know,

utilizes food and what kind of foods your body needs and is helpful for you. Do you want to talk a little bit about that shift? It was pretty epic. It's really hard to convey how drastic of a change that this one drug has, has had on my entire existence, my, you know, from from my physical body to my physical health, to my mental health, to my, my understanding of spirituality and existence. Like, it's really, really mind-boggling. To give you a little bit of context as to what this, this miracle drug is, it's called TriCafta. it's it's a gene modulator so like I said cystic fibrosis is a genetic disease what's happening there in my body is that I have this genetic mutation where there's a particular protein within

my body that's that's shaped the wrong way it was just it just wasn't built to fit the rest of the building blocks that make up my body right and so this pill trikafta it doesn't treat the symptoms of cystic fibrosis it literally treats at the source So I take this pill and somehow through whatever miracle of science that this little pill does, it goes down to the molecular level to that protein, that one singular type of protein, and it folds it into the correct shape. So I still have cystic fibrosis, right? I still have that genetic mutation.

But the cause, or at least the symptoms that are at the root of my illness have, for the most part, sort of dissipated. Right. And so because of this now, my lung function, when I started taking the drug, right before I started taking Tricafta, my lung function was 50%. It was probably the lowest it had ever been. I was on a pretty steady trajectory downward. Two months after taking this pill, my lung function skyrocketed up to 85%. The highest it had been in over a decade. Wow. At the time of taking Tricafta, I was, maintaining a steady weight of around 138 to 140 pounds. It was kind of like where I've sat most of my adult life. Anything below 135, I would start to get worried because like that's

where, you know, I might need to do some work. And anything above 140 was a completely different foreign language. I don't understand what that means. Right. I started taking TriCafta. And in two months I was I was 175 pounds I was like you know creeping up to 180 pounds and like mind blowing oh my god like it was I started to see my body in the mirror and I was like oh oh my oh my word I'm I have love handles like I can see I can visually see fat on my body right I've never seen this before and it was it was awesome like it was awesome I was like holy yes all right Like, I want to, I'm going to fatten up. Like, I'm going to, I'm going to feel what it feels like to just, like, put on a bunch

of weight. Totally. And then, and then, uh, that, that novelty wore off pretty quickly, um, because I started to feel different in my body. Mm-hmm. I started to feel not so much the way my body looked. I was actually really, I was, I was kind of like, hey, yeah, like, you know, 36. Like, I've always kind of, it would be so fun to have a dab bod for once, you know?

Right. Right. Um, but really. it was I started to feel different in terms of the way that I moved through the world and the amount of energy that I had and it was it was so drastic it really kind of threw me for a loop because I've never once in my life I really took for granted how much energy it takes when you have to think about what you're putting in to your body and how that has an effect on things like your weight or your energy.

As much as cystic fibrosis is a horrible thing and I would never wish it upon, you know, my worst enemy, boy, it's pretty damn nice to just kind of have this one thing that you do and it doesn't really change a whole lot. And the only thing that you have to really worry about is when you start to get sick in other ways because that's the way that you'll have this like negative effect

on, you know, your weight or the things that you have to think about when it comes to nutrition. It really added a whole new layer to my day to day in terms of how much mental capacity I need to be now putting into nutrition and diet and just thinking about, like, you know, what feels good for my body, what doesn't feel good. Right. I think it also woke me up, too, to like, to this notion of eating like a garbage truck, like just going, oh, like, what's this thing on the ground? Yeah, cool.

I'll eat that. Like I like not even just like zero care, zero awareness. It started to wake me up to how when I, when I started to change that and I started to think about, okay, what does what does more conscious healthy eating look like for you now that you have this new body? And when I started to implement this, then I started to almost wake up out of this fog where I went, oh my goodness. Oh my God.

All I've ever known was just eating like just copious amounts of calories and fat. I've never really had the opportunity to feel internally what it feels like to eat healthy. Right. And that was a big kind of jaw dropper for me. This is so interesting that, you know, you. You know, You seemingly overnight became aware of diet culture in a lot of ways. And what so many people have to think about all day or they do think about and obsess. And like you said, the mental energy, the mental burden of having to think through every meal and look in the mirror and think, oh, I need to, you know, should I have the bun with that burger? Where you came from a place where you were thinking, oh, I need to put more bacon on that cheeseburger.

Like, how many patties can I fit into my mouth? Like, I can imagine that's, that's jarring. That's, that's, that's, that's a lot of body data to kind of try to catch up on almost overnight. And, you know, what you, what in the past, you know, felt good to your body, which was basically just like as many calories as possible so that you had enough energy to like live your day to day, to now, I mean, to kind of recalibrate what kind of, what, what, what, you you. I'm sure that kind of felt like a bit of a, you know, you're a stranger in your own body

in some ways. So, I mean, yeah, that that must have been a lot to kind of go through. How long did you feel like it took you to feel like you had a good grasp on, on your new body cues? Or is that something kind of like you're still working through? Yeah. I'm still trying to figure it out, you know, I, um, uh, yeah, like I, it's, it's still, it's still kind of foreign to me to a degree. Again, so, you know, when I, when I, when I, when I first took that first dose of TriCafta, I was, I think I was 33 or maybe I was just about to turn 33. I'm now 36. I'm just about to turn 37. And so that's, I mean, that's a long time. That's the, that's the entire time. I had been alive where I was living in this one way.

And then all of a sudden, I find myself living in this new body, this, this new life, you know, like up until Tri-Cafta, I had no tomorrow. I was not saving for retirement. I was not thinking about my future because, to me, I had no future. And then all of a sudden I get this drug and it's like, okay, well, first of all, you're going to have a future, right? So there's that. Figure out that real quick. Secondly, you're going to now know what it feels like to be able to breathe and to be able to just go out for a walk with your dog

without having to get winded, so that's fun. Enjoy that. Third of all, you were, you were totally down and totally engaging, like, embracing this idea of death. That's not going to come for quite a while. And then also, you are going to gain weight very quickly because of the way you're eating, so you're going to want to change that. And then on top of that, because you're going to be living potentially, I mean, you know, I could go get hit by a bus today. Who knows? But statistically speaking, based on the the lifespan that I now have the way that my disease is sort of manifesting. You're going to want to start to think about

what that means for your body as you begin to age. As you begin to reach, let's say you hit 50s, your 60s, your 70s. And so like all of this information, all of this information just slamming into me in the span of really like a couple of months. I mean, I had to start going to therapy, I'm still trying to unpack this stuff.

Like, it is, and it's, I can only do one layer at a time, you know. Right. So in terms of like my, my nutritional journey or my like my overall sort of health journey, my relationship to food, the one thing that I did find really helped me kind of get grounded was to find a sort of element to my life, my day to day, that allowed me to hone in on one aspect of my nutrition that was kind of similar to to the the CF diet that I was given. Right. So, and I don't mean this by like, you know, so I went out and I found the Atkins diet. And I was like, okay, this is it. No. What I mean is I, you know, I was like, okay, I am going to

age. But I think this entire experience sort of opened my eyes to this notion that unbeknownst to myself, I think I might have been carrying some like ageism and like almost like a phobia of old people, you know, like that I was holding on to that I didn't even realize. So now I have this idea like, oh, I'm going to get old. That scares me. And I'm scared of old people. I don't want to experience that. So how can I, in the very least, take some control over this and experience that in a way where I will be in a body that feels as good as it can feel at that time? And so I started to focus on my physical fitness. And I started to get on a routine. at the gym. So I have a good friend of mine, Brian, who's the co-host of Sick Boy with me. And he's,

he's a very, very fit fella. And he used to competitively lift. And he's always kind of asking me to go to the gym with him. So I said, you know what? I'm going to do it. Brian, I'm going to start coming with you. So since that time, I've been going to the gym five days a week. Getting in there five days a week. And in order to maintain a five day a week, high volume, high-intensity workout routine, well, I can't eat like a maniac, right? And I have to eat enough. Right. So that has been sort of like this new modality at which I now focus on my diet in a way that is kind of similar to the CF diet in the sense that it's like you need enough, you need enough nutrition to just push through, to be able to get to the next day. Because if you're

if you're working out this hard and you're not, then you're going to have a really hard time with all the other activities that you like to take part in during the day. With CF, it was, you know, your resting heart rate is 100. You know, you, you're not absorbing your nutrition. So if you want to live, you need to eat enough to get you through the day. And so I think I've kind of shifting that mentality from survival to, I guess, quality of life. right as opposed to you know quantity of life has been the thing that that has really kind of shifted my focus to make this transition I guess a little bit more a little less overwhelming and a little less focused on like where I'm getting my food and and and and you know what what's at

the heart of that food in terms of its nutritional you know breakdown the the calories and the fat and the sugars you know trying to step away from that and just going okay what feels good. What feels good to get me through to the next day? Because I know if I go to the gym five days a week and, you know, on day three, I don't have, I, you know, I'm too busy. I don't eat breakfast. Right. And I have maybe a little thing for lunch and I get to the evening and I'm famished. And then I slam myself full of food. The next day I wake up and I'm like, I'm not going to the gym today. Right. No recovery. Yeah, you, you've started to kind of learn that those body cues and that takes like a lifetime for a lot of people. So I mean, I can imagine you had to compact all of

that body knowledge into such a short period of time. And I'm, I mean, I'm sure this is such a common experience for a lot of folks in the CF community who, like you say, have like spent their whole life eating these high calorie foods and like maintaining a low body weight and like a six pack. I think you told me like everyone's got a six pack from chronic coughing. And then they see this huge, you know, leap in quality of life from Tri-Cafta that comes, of course, along with this hike in body weight. I'm curious, like, as somebody in the CF community, you know, especially in this age of OZempic, we're in skinny talk. And, you know, despite all of our advances in the body positivity, body kindness space, there's, there is so much of this pro thin, pro, you know,

skinny content out there. In the CF community, have you seen a rise? in like extreme weight loss conversations after, you know, now that people are on tri-cafta and experiencing just what it feels like to have to think about their body weight? I mean, I think the thing that I've been seeing, especially in the CF community, and with a lot of the conversations that we've had on Sick Boy with CF patients post-Tri-Cafta, it's more of a rise in dialed up body image almost body dysmorphia type not not to say that that we all are suffering from body dysmorphia but but there's this like cloudy confused version of ourselves that we see in in the mirror and and it's so not what we're used to you know it's it's like um i would i would assume this is an assumption because i've never experienced it but but i would assume it's it's very similar to what it might feel like when you are someone who, you know, has to go on a high dose, maybe a little longer term dose of prednisone.

Right. And you start to like, you start to experience moon face. And you look in the mirror and you go, wait, whoa, like this is not me. I don't look like this. When all of a sudden you wake up and your body is, is drastically different, you know, from one day to the next. That is a really jarring experience. Yeah.

A lot of us don't actually feel what. that feels like because regardless if you're losing weight fast or slow or gaining weight faster slow more often than not that is over a span of time that is kind of drawn out it's like when you look at your dog at three years old and you think my goodness like I I don't remember when you got so big right we oftentimes experience that when we look at ourselves it's you see this change but then you look at a photo for maybe last year and you go whoa whoa whoa whoa wow that's huh and then you start to see yourself maybe in this different light i mean it's literally like overnight you know to a degree where it's so rapid that all of a sudden you're looking

yourself going what the fuck like who is this and i think i feel very fortunate that for me i found i found a lot of levity and kind of fun and play within that i think that's just my sense of humor right but i know that there's a lot of cf patients that that really struggled with that all of a sudden now they're having to deal with like body image issues that are kind of swinging from one side of the pendulum to the other. You know, a lot of people with CF growing up, they see themselves in the mirror and they might think, okay, well, you know, I'm, I'm slim, but like it's hard for me to gain weight. And I wish, you know, maybe I, for males, I know for myself when I was growing up, I was like, I wish I was a little bulkier. You know, that'd be kind of,

it'd be kind of nice. Right. Sure. I always love my, my sweet six-pack. That's the best part of having CF, I would say. But to have a little bit of bulk would be kind of nice. And then all of a sudden you're, you find yourself, you're getting balked up and you're balking and balking. And then you're like, okay, okay, okay, I'm good. We're good. So I think there's, there's been a lot of discussion around just the mental anguish that can come with all of a sudden being kind of slapped across the face. And when you open your eyes, you're, you're in a new form. Right. I wonder with the ozempic thing because I I mean I don't know anyone who's on it or who's taken it but from what I gather that also seems to be a pretty fast transition of course I'm really curious I'm

curious about from a from a mental health perspective or like a sort of mental awareness perspective how that must feel for some people I'm sure for some people they're like oh thank God I've been waiting for this and I'm sure for some it's kind of like a oh geez this is a little bit jarring it's a little bit uneasy you know Well, yeah. I mean, I think we so, whether it's through illness, medication, like you mentioned, life stages, like it's, it is jarring to see your body change rapidly, you know, even myself, like going through pregnancy and postpartum and you, you know, one day, like you're, you look in the mirror and you're like, my, my face doesn't look like my normal, my pregnant face doesn't look like my normal face. And, you know, my body feels different. And, and there are comments that come up from people. you know, constantly. I mean, I don't know if you experience any of that. Obviously, I'm sure in a lot of cases are well-meaning, but especially if you are struggling with body image in that moment, that that jarring experience of like, holy shit, this is not the body I know. This is not

the person I know in the mirror. Like, did you ever feel triggered by people saying, oh, you know, even it was like in a joking way, like, oh, you know, you're packing on the pounds there, but, or, you know, like, look at you kind of thing. Like, did you ever, or was that kind of taken in jest for you just because of your personality and your ability to kind of manage those things? I think it's often taken in jest. I mean, you know, the one thing that I did experience quite a bit was this was more of a generational thing. If I saw anybody that was, you know, a family friend, you know, a friend of my mom's or maybe like an aunt or a family member who's a bit older,

I would always get, oh, my goodness, look how healthy you look. Oh, my goodness, you're packing on the pounds, aren't you? Look at that. So nice. And I always, you know, I personally, I always just smile at that. And I think that's, I know it's, I know, I know that probably wouldn't, that doesn't fly with some people. And it, and I probably should say, hey, you know, I don't mind.

Right. Maybe don't say that to just anyone, okay? Totally. But I don't do that. So, so, but I, I do find it kind of endearing. And to be honest with you, I, I do feel healthier. And I do look different. That's great.

You know, like I, I look a little less, you know, gaunt. Mm-hmm. So, so I take it. I take that and I enjoy it. But here's the thing that, you know, there's, there's been a number of studies out there that have pointed to the fact that compliments, no matter how, you know, positive they, they are in, in intention, no matter. no matter what the compliment is, oftentimes compliments, and I'm not talking just about compliments

about your looks or compliments about your body. I'm even talking about compliments about your ability to create something or how proficient you are at a certain skill or confident about your performance at work. Compliments across the board oftentimes are causing more harm than good. And the reasons for that are kind of complicated. and surround our psychology mostly about the ways that we think about ourselves or talk about ourselves. So, you know, you might give a compliment that is, hey, Abby, you know, I just read your book and I really love the chapter about, you know, yada yada, whatever. And you might hear that and go, oh, thank you so much. That means a lot. Unbeknownst to you, there's this other like little

part in your brain that starts to chime in and talk about, you know, what, what I might have actually thought about it or what you thought about that chapter because, you know, you didn't really, it's like, it would have been better if it looked like this or whatever. And then all of a sudden, it's now had this negative impact on you. And in reality, I was just trying to say, hey, I like this thing that you did. Right. Yeah. You know?

And that's not to say don't give compliments. I think it's just, it's more of a statement of like, hey, just every so often check in with the way that you are communicating with someone. If it's about them or referring to them in any way that is either. negative or positive. And, you know, maybe you don't have to give a compliment. Of course. Yeah. Maybe you don't have to take it out on yourself for the fact that you don't take compliments that well. You know, like we're always just like, oh, you know, I really don't take compliments well. Yeah, good. Don't be. Don't worry about that. You shouldn't be. Right. I don't think anybody really is. For sure.

One of my messages to everyone, especially, you know, as we see a lot of people, you know, family members and things like that. Again, these comments are typically well-meaning, but I always try to remind people, like, try your damn best to refrain from making comments like that because you actually never know how that's going to affect someone. If you were to tell somebody, oh, my gosh, you look so much healthier. somebody's mind, especially when they are kind of struggling with, you know, getting into kind of disordered eating or, you know, body dysmorphia beliefs or thoughts, that might be interpreted as, well, I didn't look healthy before. Or that might be thought as like, okay, does healthy mean I'll now look fat? Or, you know, like, you just never know what's going on behind the scenes. And that could very easily trigger somebody into some very, you know, very scary territory when they might just

kind of snap and like, okay, now I need to kind of like, I need to lose that weight back. And, and, you know, I can't speak for the CF community specifically, especially because I know that, you know, try to have to still a relatively new medication. But we do see in, you know, other conditions that do, that does do cause like rapid weight gain, for example, like PCOS. We do see heightened risk of disordered eating and eating disorders, likely because that, that experience of your body changing so rapidly is so jarring that people, you know, think they know themselves one day and the next they don't and they automatically kind of snap and they go into, okay, what kind of extreme diet can I do to fix this, to go back to the way I was, to change?

And I'm listening to you talk thinking, you know, a lot of these changes have been met with some kind of like a little bit of pride, like, you know, the bulking thing or like, you know, there's like a little bit of hey, you know, like I'm getting bigger after all those years of being the, you know, like little, little guy in class or whatever. I wonder how those comments may be interpreted by differently for women who's, you know, typically our whole identity is tied up into being petite and being, you know, small and, you know, not to say that die culture doesn't affect men because it absolutely does. But I, there's no question. it disproportionately affects women who have more pressure on them to be smaller, to be

thinner, to, you know, for that kind of to be wrapped up in the ideas of femininity. So I wouldn't be surprised if as we kind of move forward, you know, again, this is still a relatively new drug, new experience for people. But I wouldn't be surprised if we start to see data on that rapid shift increasing, suddenly increasing, disordered eating, you know, extreme diets, a lot of that kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah. And I can see it. Like I think I have a really like, well, someone might argue unhealthy, but I think I have

a pretty healthy viewpoint on my body in the first place. And and even to the degree where like I can very easily laugh and find humor in things that maybe some people might not if it was, if the tables return. But I think that's just me and that's who I am. but but I will say this I have found myself a couple of times looking at myself in the mirror and and saying I kind of miss that I miss that six pack a little right like but of course like I know that that's not going to like that's that moment I say that and then that sort of dissipates and it goes away and you know it is what it is I know that that's not going to lead me to

go off your medication dipping it dipping out on a couple of meals you know to like try to so so but but if I'm having that thought and and somebody else has that thought there's a possibility they don't have that same mentality where they go they can just brush that off and it becomes something that's bigger and insidious and leads to something that's quite unhealthy so yeah I think you're you're absolutely right and again when you look at tricafta and the and the unbelievable amount of ways that it's having an effect this thing that we're talking about is literally just one little tiny piece of the puzzle and and when you take that one tiny piece of the puzzle and you kind of pull back and you see the entire scope of that puzzle,

there's too much to be focusing on to perhaps notice how much you're struggling in one element of this or the other. So, you know, folks might be just like totally drowning in the body image issues and the weight gain or the, you know, the shift in the way that they see themselves in the mirror. But they don't even notice because they're so wrapped up, on the fact that now they can have an accidental pregnancy because their cervix isn't clogged with mucous anymore or the fact that they feel survivors guilt because their close friend who had CF died before they could get their hands on tricafta or you know I mean you name it there's just

so many aspects of this that are so unbelievably overwhelming that it would be really easy to just lose sight of the parts of your life that are in a state that really need some focus or attention because you now have been given a whole new life. Right. And on one hand, that is amazing. But on the other hand, I think a lot of people fail to recognize, boy, as awesome as this is to be given a second chance at life, it is also extraordinarily confusing. Yeah. And so I really do feel for those that are in that position where they're having an extra hard time with the on-paper positives about this drug. Right.

That, you know, in practice, maybe not so positive on the outset. I think this is, you know, a good time to remind people who are struggling with, you know, just the challenges of whether it's probably CAFTA or really like any other kind of big life experience like this, like so important to get some. support when it comes to therapy, talking to somebody. This is a lot to unpack. And it's a lot to unpack in a very short period of time. It's a real mind fuck, I'm sure, to kind of think one day, oh, I'm not going to have a future. I might, like, YOLO to thinking, wow, I might have a family. I might, you know, buy a house for this family. I might, like, think of all the things that,

you know, you've got to catch up on, basically. And that goes so far beyond food, beyond body, beyond weight and all of these things. I'm sure for a lot of people that are experiencing these rapid weight gains and rapid changes in their body, that it might be very easy to kind of hyper-focus on these very small, insignificant details in life when you think about the grand scheme of what you've been gifted, what you've got here at your fingertips now.

So again, very important to get some kind of one-on-one support there. But this was so interesting. and I am sure it has been so helpful for our followers who are listening. So thank you again, Jeremy, for chatting. Of course, for everybody who's listening, definitely check out my interview with Jeremy on his podcast, Sick Boy. And give the whole podcast to listen. There's so much amazing content over there. Thank you so much, Jeremy.

Yes, thank you. This has been an absolute treat. Thank you so much. I love that. I could literally talk to Jeremy all day. he's such an incredible beacon of light and an amazing asset to the chronic disease community. And while Jeremy's experience living with cystic fibrosis is relatively uncommon, the uncomfortable experience of a changing body is something that so many of us can relate to,

especially when diet culture teaches us that our adult body is supposed to look and operate the same as it did in high school. But weight or body changes can feel even more disorienting when they seem to happen overnight. Whatever your experience, we can work towards making peace with a new or changing body we don't recognize. One of my favorite techniques for practicing self-compassion in situations like this is to reframe our negative comments as you would for a close friend. So, for example, rather than thinking to yourself, oh my God, I cannot believe my body looks like this, right? now, you might remind yourself, hey, friend, it's okay to feel overwhelmed right now. That is all part of being human. But your body is going through a lot right now and it deserves some patience and care. So let's prioritize some activities that bring us some comfort and joy. I also find it

helpful to remind myself what I've gained through the process or purpose of my body changing. For folks who are experiencing significant weight gain from medication, think about the overwhelming boost in quality of life that you will get to experience from that medication. Likewise, for my moms who may be struggling with pregnancy or postpartum changes, consider the beautiful gift that comes with your new body. I understand that diaculture will always try to cloud our appreciation of what we may gain from a changed body, especially when it feels unfair to get the hand that you've been dealt like with chronic disease. But trying to find ways to cultivate gratitude in small authentic ways can bring us moments of peace and help shift our perspective without invalidating our struggles. Remember, bodies are not meant to stay stagnant.

They are meant to grow and evolve as they take on new experiences and teachings. And if we can learn to navigate these experiences with compassion and self-care, we will be able to enjoy the gifts that our body has given us to their full potential. And that is all that I have for you guys today. Thank you so much to Jeremy for helping me bite back against diet culture. Again, I will be leaving links to his podcast and social media in the show notes. And if you enjoy this episode, I would love if you would give by back a little five-star review and a comment. It really does make me so happy. And it helps get evidence-based content out to people who need it most.

Signing off with Science and Sass. I'm Abby Sharp. Thanks for listening.