And so what effect did that have on your relationship with food and your body?

Yeah, big time.

So synchronized swimming is very similar to dancing and what we see in ballet, for example, where there's a big focus on the way that your body looks and on perfection and on so much of your worth being attached to something external.

I also come from a family that has really high standards and perfectionist tendencies.

And so when I retired from the sport at 16, I was so terrified of gaining weight.

And I remember this one comment that my sister had said to me my last year of training was, She had said, if you keep eating that way, you are going to balloon up when you stop swimming.

And that obviously stuck with me.

Yeah.

Okay.

I was feeling...

If I didn't know how to sit with uncomfortable emotions, because in my family, we didn't talk about emotions.

My dad, I still have never seen him cry.

I've never s- heard him say the words, "I'm feeling" anything.

And so I had never learned how to handle those uncomfortable emotions of anxiety or lack of control or boredom and loneliness.

And so when I would feel those things, I had learned, well, when I turn to food, that goes away.

What's the third phase?

So where do you usually start with a client that comes into your program?

Yeah.

So the basis and the foundation that I always start with is that whenever someone comes to me and they are struggling, they're constantly thinking about food, they're binging, there's a lot of anxiety, a lot of guilt, a lot of dysregulation around food.

The basis is that Anyone is capable of having a healthy relationship with food.

We are all born as having this ability to regulate our own eating.

We see kids, they eat when they're hungry.

They stop when they're full.

So from there, where do you go? So what's the third piece to the puzzle?