The Food Medic - S4 E8: Content Content Roz Purcell

Episode Date: July 10, 2020

This podcast episode includes some sensitive and potentially triggering content relating to eating disorders and body image. This week we are joined by Roz Purcell - former model and miss Universe contestant, now a bestselling cookery writer, host of the Bite Back Podcast and creator of the Hike Life community.Dr Hazel chats to Roz about her career as a model and turbulent relationship with her body and food, and how that has evolved over the years, how she avoids the pressure of having the perfect instagram profile and has learnt to be content in her own skin, sustainable fashion and food! If you have been affected by the topics discussed in this episode, or are looking for additional support, please visit https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk/. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I'm a medical doctor, registered associate nutritionist, author and founder of the Food Medic. This podcast episode includes some sensitive and potentially triggering content relating to eating disorders and body image. This week I'm joined by Roz Purcell, a country girl from Tipperary. Roz first came into prominence in Ireland when she won Miss Universe, but it wasn't until she quit modelling and launched the hugely popular food blog, Natural Born Feeder, that her career really took off. Roz is now a best-selling cookery writer, host of the Bite Back podcast and creator of the Hike Life community. We chat about Roz's career as a model and her relationship with her body and food and how that has evolved over the years avoiding the pressure of having the perfect Instagram profile feeling content in your own

skin sustainable fashion and of course food. Okay so I'm I mean obviously I've introduced you but it would be really good to kind of in your words who you are your kind of story and just like briefly so we can set the scene before jumping in yeah I am a food writer I'm a little bit of a presenter now and again I'm a mixed bag of things and I have been friends with Hazel for quite a while now and I'm delighted finally to be welcomed on. Thank you. I'm glad to have you here. And also I was on your podcast by back, which is something I want to chat to you about first. And yesterday I actually listened back to your first episode and it's just you on your own, basically explaining, and you're really frank about it actually, is your history of disordered eating and your relationship with your body and that's obviously off the back of you know a very highly pressurized job that you

had you know as a teen as a model and you're very honest and you can also hear in your voice how emotional you are and like I felt like I was welling up listening so first of all thank you for being so brave and honest but if you would be happy to it would be really nice if you could share your story here with us kind of talking about your history through your teens and your 20s and where you are now and how you feel about food and your body yeah I'd love to you know what I think it's really important for someone like myself who has suffered with disordered eating and has come out the other side to share the journey because so many people out there suffer with it and they're going through it maybe you're listening and just to know that there is a way out because for me I always thought that I would

have an issue with food I would have an issue with my body and that I was stuck I really genuinely felt like I was stuck and I was jealous of everyone else who could just eat something and move on I was jealous of someone who had a naturally good physique and thankfully through getting expert professional help I came out the other side and when I went to record by back it had been about three years since I'd gone and got professional help but only then was I really able to talk about it from the other side and I'm so so fortunate now that I can look back and go that was part of my past and yes I learned a great deal from it and I want to share it with other people because I want them to know there's a way out and I want them to know that there's so many people out there

who really want to help them and who can so I I guess for me, it started, let's go way back. I always had a very good relationship with food growing up. And if anything, I used to always tell my parents I wanted to be a cooker growing up, which, you know, look, I was never, they probably never thought I was going to do well in school. But, you know, they were like, you can't become a cooker. That's a thing, but you can definitely become a chef. So I was really, really, I just loved cooking and uh a very big foodie I think I always knew that food kind of brought people together and I loved being creative

with my hands cue going to college I think you know when everyone goes to college you kind of you know you put on a little bit of weight because you're going out partying and whatnot um but at the same time I had started modeling and I distinctly remember the first time someone told me to lose weight it was when I just started modeling and it was my first year of college and they had said look you're after putting on weight quite quickly and that was highlighted for me again and again and again and once I felt like I was the only one going through this and that's I think when I started to resent my body I resented looking at my friends who could just go out and have both sides eat food and still be in really good shape and not have to worry like I had to worry. So I started to really get into

training, which I don't think is a negative thing. I think it's really good. I always played sports growing up, but I think when you go to college, you kind of get out of that, you know, team sports thing. But I started to take up running and learning about the gym, which is all very positive. growing up but I think when you go to college you kind of get out of that you know team sports thing but I started to take up running and learning about the gym which is all very positive um but as the years progressed through modeling I think it was really when I went to New York to start modeling that's when I was told over and over and over again that I just wasn't going to succeed unless I met my measurements which were like extraordinary small for my type of build. Nevertheless, I guess I didn't want to come back a failure. And that was my really big thing. I

didn't want to be a failure. I don't want to be someone who went to New York. And at the time, you know, there's a lot of pressure over here. You know, everyone was like, oh, my God, she's gotten this big contract in New York. She's working with the top agency. And I didn't want to come back and go go I got sent home because I was too big for me that was like the ultimate failure and I definitely think especially back then in society putting on weight was kind of a negative thing and you know thin was so in that whole skinny look was definitely highlighted with all the top celebrities and in the modeling industry so every week I was measured by my agency,

which was quite normal then. I didn't really enjoy it. Obviously, I hated every single Friday, but that was the industry I chose. And I was very aware that, look, I chose to do this and I want to do it right. So I really started getting into diet culture when I was in New York.

I know you have to remember now, that was 10 years ago. So when you Googled how to lose weight, it was the Atkins diet. It was, you know, just don't eat carbs. That was kind of the main message, like just don't eat carbs. So for a lot of my early twenties, I just did not touch carbohydrates. I built up this really negative relationship with them. And of course, it led into this whole cycle of binging and purging. All week when I was in New York, I wouldn't eat. I'd maybe have a bit of broccoli or a tablespoon of something here and there. And I would run for an hour every single morning at 5am. And then I'd

walk New York for 15, 20k going to castings. And on the weekend, I would binge because it was like, oh, I don't have to go see anyone I don't have to go into the agency no one's going to see me and then Monday morning that guilt will kick in oh my god I can't believe I did it again you know and I'd go back to purging and it didn't help I was obviously in a model house where a lot of the other models were going through the same issue you know they were even the ones who I would look at them and go oh my god you're absolutely perfect we're constantly trying to lose weight and doing anything they could from smoking to whatever to just not eat just avoid it thankfully I never really took up any of those habits but it was

definitely unavoidable I was in an environment where being skinny was our only priority for our body. I decided, well, I kind of decided that I think I was forced to change location because I was not getting skinny enough. Even though when I look back at photos of myself in New York, I don't even recognize myself. I was skin and bone, but yes, I still was not good enough. I went to South Africa, which is a little bit more of a kind of curvy bikini body kind of, I suppose, look to it. And I did some work, but that's when I really fluctuated quite a lot because I was just so relieved not to be in New York and not have as much pressure. And I think, you know, after restricting for so long, my body and my mind, I just wanted to indulge the whole time.

But that whole sense of arriving home and after putting on weight, and then my agency here saying to me, that's when it all really kicked off. I felt like such a failure from not succeeding modeling abroad. And for putting on weight in my mind was like one of the biggest failures as a model. And that really led me to just go down a complete spiral of disordered eating. And I can honestly look back and say, I truly hated myself. I'd walk down the street and it's really sad to think I would look at someone else's body and be like, I just want that body. I hate my body. And I've done every single diet you can imagine out there. I've obviously done the Atkins. I've done those shake diets. I'm pretty

sure I even got those like prescription shake diets, which I don't even know how I got my hands on them. I have tried absolutely everything. My only priority for my body was to be smaller. And that carried on for, I would say, the guts of six years. It ruined relationships. It ruined friendships. My whole world was consumed with being a certain size I wouldn't take certain opportunities because I didn't feel like I was small enough I was never ready so a big opportunity would come but I'd never feel ready I was never happy with myself I was always reaching for that smaller number and there was countless times I met the weight I wanted to I reached my goal but it was I was never satisfied it was never

enough and I think I was almost rewarded when I was losing a lot of weight people go oh my god you look great and I think as a society it's something we really need to be careful with you know when we meet someone and they've obviously lost weight or whatever like we congratulate them and I think you have to be very conscious of that because in my road to recovery what was really holding on to me and not letting go of my disordered eating was because I felt it was a part of me and I was like this is the Roz people like like this is the person people go you look great and if I change that I don't think it's going to be the same so while I was obviously losing a lot of weight and getting smaller you know I was doing people were congratulating me saying I look great I was doing a lot of interviews of how to get

this look, how to get the rawest body and all of this. And it was living up to this massive lie. I was over training. I stepped up training. You know, what went from a very healthy relationship to training went to training two, three times a day. And my body was in bits at 22 I had serious pain in my knees I had to stop running I had to take painkillers if I wanted to walk any long distance and I was really messing up my body but I really I honestly didn't care because I was small and people were noticing that I was small and if someone said oh are you okay you've lost a lot of weight that was like joy to my ears I'm like okay I'm that small now and it's really sad to look back on but I understand that there's a lot of people out there who are still like that and I'm sure there's people listening maybe who

can relate to this and that is it's really sad because through this whole experience the biggest thing I've learned is our bodies are not just for show doesn't really matter what weight they are like they have so much to offer so I think going through the situation we're going through right now even a global pandemic you're like the one thing you want your body to be is healthy yeah I absolutely agree and what point did you say look enough I'm putting myself through hell here did you go to your GP or speak to someone and how did you kind of initiate your process of recovery? So before I really made a change I had gone to see a few psychologists and I had gone to a few counselling sessions and that was because at the time

my boyfriend was very aware that I had an eating disorder because we were living together but you know it was kind of treading softly with it he wasn't pointing it out but he you know suggested I go see someone but the thing about having an eating disorder is you won't be able to solve it unless you're ready to change and I wasn't ready to change when I first started going to therapy I went to make someone else happy I didn't want to change and it took about you know a year after therapy when I realized I only became me after I let go of my eating disorder so when I decided to go get help it was a few things really that was the catalyst it was when I was turning 26 well first of all I had gone through a really tough breakup

it was a bad breakup and I definitely think going through a breakup you are definitely you're at your worst you kind of feel very much unloved and you feel like you are kind of worthless anyway so I was really at my worst I think I had to get to my worst to realize that I needed to pick myself back up and I deserved better so that had just happened and then my sister who I'm best friends with we're very close in age got diagnosed with CML which is chronic myeloid leukemia which you can probably tell more about than I than I can um but it's a incurable form of cancer now it's very manageable they know a lot about it but I guess as a family the first month of her diagnosis they weren't sure was it acute which

is very bad or chronic and they didn't know much about what she's going through and all we knew was our sister our daughter our friend Rachel had cancer and my mum's brother had died from leukemia so at that moment nothing else mattered but Rachel and was she okay it was the first time in my life where what weight I was didn't matter and that was a big realization for me that it doesn't matter all that matters is that your family's healthy and you're healthy yeah so it really threw all my priorities up in the air and I think once adrenaline of Rachel's diagnosis started to settle, those food guilt started to creep back in. And I went, no, you know what? I need my life back. And I am going to 100% commit to getting better.

And I did. Yeah. I mean, what an amazing story. And sadly, not everyone does get to that point. But I think you tell a very honest kind of portrayal of what it's like you know you have to be ready and willing and accepting you have to have insight to the fact that you do have a problem and it does need to be addressed and now like obviously you run a very successful Instagram account two Instagram accounts you've got Natural Born Feeder and you've got Roz Purcell. And they're both focused around food. Obviously, a Roz

account covers other things. But having, you know, food online and also training and things like that, do you feel pressure to eat in a certain way or label your diet? Or do you think people put pressure on you? Because I know you've like chatted about this before. And a lot of people assume you're vegan because you eat largely plant based. And this is something that I also come up against. And while you want to share nutritious meals and really vibrant, colorful, tasty food, you have to be very careful about what you put online and the words that you use and is this something that you struggle with or have you found a way of navigating it well I guess for me as I said growing up I've always had an interest in creating recipes and sharing food because it gives me so much joy and I love when

someone tags me a recipe and I've been able to give them something and I guess my sharing of food online has definitely changed through the years. When I started Atom and Feeder, I was definitely still in my orthorexia phase where healthy food was healthy and unhealthy food was very much on a limit. And, you know, I portrayed that even in my wording on my blog, which is something I've gone back and changed. Like you'll never see on my blog, you know, guilt-free brownies or sinless whenever. Like that's all gone. Food is food.

Do you know what I mean? If you want to have brownie have brownie and now when it comes to food I never label things a cookie's a cookie it's not a bad one it's not a good one it's whatever you want it to be like you have the ingredients in front of you I'm just sharing with you how to make something that's delicious and tasty and when it comes to my diet I think you know in general I'm kind of a nosy person myself and when I follow someone in line I think you know in general I'm kind of a nosy person myself and when I follow someone in line I want to know everything about them I want to know what they eat and stuff and I think you and I actually we had this discussion last year I actually stopped

sharing what I eat in a day and I did that because yeah when I was going through disordered eating and I'd see something that would pop up like Candy Swanipole who's a very top Victoria's Secret model what she eats in a day I would click into it straight away and try emulate her diet because I would think oh my god she's got the perfect body and now I just think it's such an unhealthy thing to share you know everyone is so different in you know how much exercise they do how much they need and I just stopped that whole thing of over sharing exactly what I do myself and it's just back to doing what I love which is creating recipes that are easy tasty and of course in general I love keeping a plant base because of

ethical reasons but myself I really veer away from that whole question of what exactly I eat and what I follow and running a food blog I really keep it to me as a cook yeah and I think that's the right balance to have because I do think a lot of people have stopped doing the what I eat in a day but even now I'm seeing a lot of what I eat in quarantine oh my god some of them I see I'm like if I ate that in quarantine I would not even have any energy to sit and watch my Netflix you know what I mean I'm like oh my god and I think even you know there's a huge pressure right now and look I come from a background of over training and exercising that people are definitely over sharing look I get it you know people are trying like, it's really important to keep moving. And, you know, inspiring is a great thing. But there

is a whole sense of when you go online, you almost feel like you're getting the exercise gilts. You know, you see everyone, they're out training so much. And it's almost like this competition of who can keep getting fit in quarantine. So I think we all need to be very conscious of what we're consuming right now as well. Yeah sure I mean it's amazing that like we're able to go virtual with lots of classes and things like that but I can imagine and I feel it myself you know especially when you log on in the morning and there's like 600 IGTV lives going on and you're just like what is happening and you almost get overwhelmed with all of the choice and it can be really paralyzing. I know a lot of people are like, look, I know that there's all these classes

available, but I'm really not motivated or I don't enjoy running and I feel the pressure to run right now. And then just some people who feel like, you know, I'm worried that being at home means that I'm going to fall into bad habits or start to binge eat. And it's like being at home and contained, it does really open up people to a lot of triggers and maybe past habits. And so we do need to be really mindful of like what we're putting out there and that we're not putting people under pressure to kind of do what we do or do something that they're not comfortable doing because we are facing a pandemic it's a very stressful time and as you said the most important thing is that you're fit and healthy and that

you're you know you're able to breathe and your heart's pumping and your legs can carry you not that you're burning 600 calories a day that's not health yeah and we should definitely be using this time to like rest and give our body a break because not only you know are we going through this huge change but we're also probably going through a lot of stress and like I know myself when I got back from New York the first three weeks every morning I woke up I felt like I'd run a marathon from just pure adrenaline and stress going on in my body as well I think I definitely went into that whole rhythm again a bit over training because you're like I'd run a marathon from just pure adrenaline and stress going on in my body as well I think I definitely went into that whole rhythm again a bit over training because you're like I've not much to do and everyone online is training and I really it's taking me time to adjust so I think

give yourself some time to adjust and you know find that new normal that's at home for me and something I always talk about online is when we're spending so much time scrolling and on social media not to get so caught up in what you see online because I know we had this discussion before that uh not all of it's real and I don't know Hazel do you find it that sometimes and even though I say it still happens to me I end up on some stranger's page and I'm looking at their body their life and I'm like comparing myself yeah no absolutely I think no one is immune to that like it's it's so easy to do it and especially if you're and I'm using like creator loosely but like a creator and an influencer online you kind of have the pressure

to like have a really dynamic feed always talking about about the most woke, up-to-date things, trying to have a beautiful feed, but also not too airbrushed. And like, it's almost, you're constantly in a battle and you have to remove yourself from that and remind yourself, who's putting this pressure on me? Is it someone else or is it me? And it's always you. And I think it's such a good reminder for all of us to kind of think these feeds are created for a purpose and no one is, you know, just putting up anything willy nilly. Yeah. And I think right now, while we have the time we're at home, it's to really go back and

curate your newsfeed, like follow people who make you happy, follow people who are giving you good information, like hazel giving like some really good nutritional advice and medical advice whatever it is and you know not following people who are going to make you feel bad or who have picture perfect profiles because that's not real life and i definitely think we need an old reminder of what the normal is like you know we're all walking around with the hair clips in her hair in her dressing gowns and there's some days i do absolutely nothing and people are like how are you so motivated I'm like you're only probably seeing the motivated side of me but it's really important you know I think as us as

influencers or people with platforms online to make sure we have that balance and I definitely think for us at home it's a reminder that you are in control of your social media you are in control who pops up on your feed every single day and just make sure it's people that make you smile it's people that give you back something yeah and that's actually something I wanted to chat to you about because obviously like if I go on your feed it's absolutely stunning the colors there's such a like an array of different things from hiking your outfits food makeup blah blah blah but you also like share a lot of unfiltered content which I think you now called your content content yeah I know it's a bit of tongue twister and especially like yeah it's the tone

how you do it's like content content yeah there you go that's it yeah that's the one so why is it important to you to keep some of these less airbrushed let's just say than others or less filtered yeah well I guess I never touch up or airbrush any of my photos I'm kind of like really okay with myself I'm very like happy with myself I'm like this is who I am I never want to hide a part of me and I never want to have that fear that if someone meets me in person they go she doesn't look like that at all in the photos you know um so anything I ever do sometimes you might see I'll just throw an else filter on something you know like in a nice hiking photo or something like or a travel photo give it a bit of oomph bit of life but what I do do is I share unseen snaps the snaps that didn't make it the ones that got deleted where um they may not

be so flattering you know I think if we have to remind ourselves that most people online take about 100 photos and pick one and that one photo they pick is absolutely stunning they look great they're in a great position it's a perfect picture moment and the other 99 they probably are blinking you know maybe they're not sucking in and whatever. And I just kind of like to remind people by sharing side by side of picture perfect moment I posted versus 99 percent of the other photos that were on that list. As a reminder that if you're sitting at home and you see all these picture perfect moments, you go, oh, my God, that person looks great all the time. Every moment of their life is like, no, that was planned. And my boyfriend took 100. We got in a fight halfway through. looks great all the time every moment of their life is perfect like no that was planned and my

boyfriend took a hundred we got in a fight halfway through and I was like posing you know doing that like all booty pose or whatever it is you do so it's just a reminder to people that you know a photo doesn't give us much information it's just a photo and I guess we can't take it for much more than that no but I think what you're doing is so important you know when you show like the normal parts of our bodies like if there's any stretch marks or any dimpling of the skin or even things like freckles and moles and anything like that that we feel like we need to cover off or body hair like anything like this is like it's become so abnormal when it's the most normal thing as normal as fingernails and I think we need to show especially

young girls and young boys growing up that because they're growing up in like a snapchat filter life and they must think that like people are just you know absolutely flawless all the time and that's just not reality like I'm so glad that like as teenagers we didn't have like these kind of phones where we had our Nokia 3210 and like the most you could do was snake oh my god and you know what sometimes I go online and I'm like there's people here who don't even have pores they don't even have like hair pores or hair follicles on their legs like what's going on like everything's smoothing out so I just think that when I share images of me just being completely natural where there's like tummy rolls stretch marks whatever it is I'm so happy like every time like I remember the first time I posted

I was so scared and I was feeling really vulnerable putting you know an image like that out there and it was so it was like a weight off my shoulders. I was like, oh my God, I for so long hid who I actually was and posed in a certain way and was afraid to just show my normal bits. And now every time I do it, it's just so refreshing. I feel like this should be a normal thing. And I hope it, if if anything inspires another influencer or someone with the platform who follows me just to make it normal I don't want to round for calls when I do

it it's completely normal things that everyone has and it should just be normal content because whether it's uneven skin whether it's you know stretch marks hair follicles really normal like everyone has them and kids need to see this like growing up do you remember growing up all you'd see is like the bottom abs when in slow rise jeans of britain and christina absolutely those p lines smooth butts everywhere and that's just like that's just not reality no it's really not and no one talked about the fact that it wasn't reality with whereas at least now we have that conversation. And we're starting, although very slowly, to see more body diversity and, you know, diversity of skin colors and ethnicities online. And I think, you know, we're very much only at the beginning and there's a long way to go there.

But it's really nice to see especially big magazines and harness that kind of energy like I mean cosmopolitan like I just applaud them for being more diverse with their uh like magazine covers and I just hope other female-centered magazines follow suit because some of them are still stuck in the 90s with their bikini bodies on the covers and it's I think it's just insulting at this point to be honest yeah and I definitely think as well like right now it's like extremes it's just insulting at this point to be honest yeah and I definitely think as well like right now it's like extremes it's one or the other it's like very very small very slim physiques or plus size there also needs to be that middle range as well of just like normal you know yeah absolutely and we chatted a bit about social media and kind of like comparison and things like that

but obviously you've been on it probably as long as I have have you had any kind of negative experiences with it in terms of trolling or have you been able to kind of escape that so far and detach from that if it does happen yeah look I think Anyone Online has had their fair share of a little bit of trolling and at the start it most definitely did have an impact on me and it was something I carried around for the day or two days and it's very hard when someone tells you they don't like you to just accept that and move on you do think about it quite a lot but the longer I've been online I understand that not everyone's going to like you not everyone's going to like your opinions on different things and that's

totally fine and I'm able to separate it now And I really try not to let it ruin my day or get to me. Saying that, the odd one really does. And I think that you'll agree that it's very hard when someone has that direct contact with you and can send you something that, you know, mightn't be nice. Thankfully, I do not get it a lot I think especially since my content itself has changed quite a lot in the past two years in terms of like I'm just I feel like I can be more myself once I went to counseling and got over a disordered eating I just became a lot happier in myself so I've really been sharing who I am and just sharing my lifestyle more rather than what I think people want to see so I don't definitely don't get as much as I used to but

what about you do you ever find I can't imagine anyone having a problem with you no I mean I don't really but I think because I don't really get much of it when I do get the occasional one it really it really does affect me I think I've gotten more anxious as I've gotten older as well I hate to say I mean I'm not old I'm 30 this year but I'm an inherent like people pleaser so if someone says something that is negative towards me or the platform I'm kind of like oh gosh I could do better but I've learned to kind of not respond to that. So like sometimes you'll get like,

I remember when this whole COVID situation just kicked off and I was on my first day actually on the COVID ward and someone commented on like an old photo of me. Like it wasn't very old. It was a couple of weeks old, but it was one of the photos where I was like on a TV, like program doing cooking. And they were like, look at her look at her like you know her colleagues are on the front line and here she is like just on the telly and I was like oh my gosh like this was from December and also I'm

currently like in my scrubs like ready to go like people just don't know what you're going through I think you have to remember like people have you know they get a sense of who you are online and even me like I definitely try to be as honest as possible but they don't really know what goes through your head every second of the day they don't they don't know you like your friends and family know you I definitely can agree with you that um I I was for a while getting a bit anxious as I grew up but I it's something I do now I go to counselling every single year I kind of kept on top of it after I recovered from disordered eating because I think you know for me it's definitely something to always make sure I'm managing because once you get over it doesn't just end you still kind of get you know triggered and I think especially

this whole experience of being in lockdown you have a lot more time to think but yeah something uh I learned last year was I'm a bit like you as a people pleaser for a long time and it's something I always like to remind myself is you were not born to make people happy or to please people and die yeah you were born to live your life it's something I always try to say to myself and remember when someone's unhappy about the way I'm living mine yeah that's so true it's such a simple like phrase but it's really true because sometimes you just need to check yourself and it's so easy to just run away with working your hardest to make everyone pleased and keep saying yes and you're like why am I doing this is this supporting like the life I want to

live is this making me happy yeah and you know what a big thing is this isn't a run-through like our life isn't a this whole thing isn't like oh this is a run-through for your real life this is the real thing this isn't a dress rehearsal so you just don't want to look back you know when you're 50 60 70 whatever it is and go I did everything for everyone else I didn't just do enough for myself I didn't do everything I wanted to do so that's something I'm very conscious of now and I really when I'm making decisions or you know when something kind of triggers me it's like do I want to fall back into this routine or do I want to make sure I'm doing the thing that's right for me yeah it's so true so so true the next thing I wanted to briefly chat about I know we've been chatting loads and we could probably chat all day but um you're really passionate about kind of sustainability

and choosing vegan cruelty-free products for your skin and also makeup tutorials and you're also really great at upcycling old clothes which is I'm always in awe I'm like how did she think of doing that but um have you always been environmentally aware or did you slowly transition to that way of living? And what advice can you give to people who are like, right, I just want to, you know, start slowly. Where do I start? Do I start with my food? Do I start with my clothes? Growing up as a household, we were very environmentally conscious. And I think anyone who's grown up on a farm, you know, waste not not want not is a huge kind of how you live and you know from a money's perspective nothing was ever left on we paid for our own water I'm obviously in Ireland so we don't pay for water but living on a farm you

do pay for water so we were very conscious not to spend long times in the shower you know not to waste uh I do have to say obviously when I was going through disordered eating my priority was me I was very selfish and I was very much concerned with my weight and I didn't really care about anything else so I definitely lost touch with being conscious and you know that's obviously something I don't like to admit but I didn't recycle I didn't care I bought I shopped whatever I wanted to and this might sound strange but a huge part of my disordered eating was kind of having this control with my food having control of my body but also having this big ego that I had to be the best like had this ego that I had to live up to and once I kind of shed my ego everything else that

was going on in the world seemed so much bigger which is really strange you might go like how did that come from recovering from an eating disorder but I guess I became very conscious of everything around me my whole world wasn't about me and what I was doing I was very aware that the world wasn't just about me and I want to be part of lots of good change and where I started was with my food when I went to see I also went to see a dietitian when I was recovering and I had to rebuild my relationship with carbohydrates from all those years of the Atkins diet and through rebuilding my relationship with carbohydrates, I just realized like how much I love them, like bread and pasta. You know, like they are just the best.

So my diet evolved of preferences, first of all. And then after kind of changing up my diet, I went back to becoming a really good at recycling and compost. And eventually I kind of dug my heels into fast fashion and I haven't shopped in fast fashion over a year now I buy everything second hand and oh my god I'd say I've saved a lot of money as well I used to be a serious shopaholic but it's actually brought back a huge amount of creativity I never have the fear that someone else is going to rock up in the same outfit as me and it's made fashion fun again I think I was just constantly going to the same shops over and over again what was on trend and like the trends change every couple of weeks in fast fashion and I have to say consciously I feel so much better that I

don't give my money to something that's completely unethical something that's ruining our planet and I know some people might be like oh god listen God, listen to this. But at the start, I was so resistant on the fashion side. But once I've made that change, it's very easy. I found secondhand stores online. I have really got into Depop. And I still have a long way to go. I'm not an expert by any means. But I've definitely done it in stages.

I didn't tackle it all at once. And it's become my normal way of living now yeah what you do with your clothes is amazing and I think not everyone will have your creative eye but um like you said like it's to start slow because I know for like a lot of people you do have to have access to these stores and compared to the some of the prices that you can get in like you know really cheap online um retailers it can sometimes be expensive actually to buy secondhand stuff or vintage and that's one of the arguments people use with me like you have to be in a place of privilege sometimes to go that extra mile but I think like you said if you start slow and if you know where to shop and if you're not buying all the time so if you buy maybe a couple of staple pieces and even if you kind of mix and match them and style

them in different ways and things like that but I would love to see way more of that content from your page because I'm always like getting my style inspo from you. But you know what I would have to say to people and something I didn't mention earlier, it's kind of like going back and working with what you already have as well. Like we all have clothes in the back of our wardrobe we've forgotten about and we have the same clothes we go to every single day. So maybe it's just re-looking at what you have and maybe change it up just a small bit without going and buying anything new and what I would say to people is secondhand drift stores are definitely really inexpensive but maybe if

you don't have the time only buy things you know you're going to get 30 40 wears out of you know you can you can go into a shop and you see this lovely dress like oh my god that's amazing and you know you're probably going to go underwear once just having that bit of separation with it and go it's just not really worth it yeah it's not and I think I mean right now I don't know about you but like I haven't even thought about clothes shopping obviously we're not going anywhere but maybe it's teaching us a lesson that actually really only needs a couple of things in life and the most important things are the people and the social connections and maybe food but like it's it's a nice lesson although a difficult lesson at the moment is I think we're all going to come out of this

hopefully with like a new perspective on life and what's really important yeah you know what I keep saying that right now we're going through a struggle and I think sometimes people need a struggle to realize what's important we'll never take for granted again getting to sit down with their family getting to hug our nephews or our sister or best friend and I just hope as a society we don't fall back into the same routine we don't need over consumption we don't need to get our highs off these external things. We can get them from all the things we already have. Yeah, exactly. Amazing.

I feel like that was a huge big girl chat. It was, I know. I loved it. You know what? I definitely like, I love doing it because right now, as I said, I'm such a sociable person and I love getting to just chat and feel like I'm

connected and engaging and podcasts for me are such a great way to feel like that so hopefully people who are listening you feel like you've been sitting down with us and having a cup of tea amazing and if people want to find more from you where are the best places how can we get more of yeah so uh you can check out natural born feeder for loads of recipes really easy tasty recipes and then my own page at rosanna purcell there's a whole mix of things there amazing well thank you so much for joining us i can't wait to listen back okay guys that was the wonderful Roz Purcell. I just want to flag that if you have been affected by the topics discussed on this episode or are looking for additional support, please visit

beat eating disorders.org.uk. Their helplines are open 365 days a year, and they have an online chat function. That's all from me, see you again next time.