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Find Your Strong Podcast

Find Your Strong Podcast

Christine Chessman & Ela Law

Encouraging people to find what FEELS good in terms of food, movement and their bodies. Let's challenge the wellness w*nkery and start a new conversation.
In each episode, Christine and Ela discuss their thoughts on diet and fitness fads, speak with fabulous guests about their experiences with finding peace with food and movement, and interview experts so that they can share their insights and knowledge with you.

The hope is that together we can change the narrative around nutrition and exercise and help you find YOUR strong!

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Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Find Your Strong Podcast episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Find Your Strong Podcast for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Find Your Strong Podcast episode by adding your comments to the episode page.

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Warning: There is a discussion of disordered eating and exercise behaviors throughout this episode.

Today, I’m bringing you a conversation I had with Jill Angie a few weeks ago for her @notyouraveragerunner podcast.
Here's Jill's episode description:

Despite what we commonly see in advertising and social media, women of all sizes can get sucked into disordered eating and compulsive or obsessive exercising. From a young age, Christine struggled with disordered eating, which transitioned into compulsive or obsessive exercising, and she’s here to share how she broke free from and healed those behaviours.

Join us on this episode as Christine offers her experience of disordered eating and exercise behaviours, and what helped her approach her body with more love and kindness. She’s sharing her take on what women taking up space means, why it’s vital for us to do so, and her top tips for making strength training and running more accessible to you.
It is an episode you won't want to miss.
You can follow Jill on Instagram here
or
Click here for ways to work with Jill.
If you would like support o heal your relationship to food and movement, please contact me . I would absolutely love to help you on your journey to recovery
If you think that you may have an active Eating disorder or need support for yourself or a loved one and are based in the UK, Beat ( UK charity for eating disorders) - have helplines and chatroom support 365 days a year.
If you are in the US or Canada NEDA offer helpline support and have a database of treatment providers.
You are not alone.

Please reach out if you would like some support with your relationship to food OR movement. Ela currently has limited spaces for Intuitive Eating coaching and if you'd like to reconnect with movement, contact Christine.
AND if you enjoyed this episode, please share and follow the 'Find Your Strong podcast' and if you have time, write us a short review. It would honestly mean the world. Love to you all, Ela & Christine x

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Find Your Strong Podcast - You Don't HAVE to Lift Weights, with Dr Lisa Folden @healthyphit
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12/13/24 • 45 min

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Ela and I LOVED this conversation. It was a chance for us to debunk popular fitness culture myths and talk about why we don't all need to be lifting heavy shit, if it doesn't work for us and WHY even 5 minutes of movement counts.
Dr. Lisa brings something unique to this space, specialising in physical therapy and body image. Her own journey started only 6 years ago, having herself being submerged in diet culture and self flagellation until that point. Dr. Lisa talks to us about how she is navigating the road to body acceptance and is very candid about her struggles along the way.
*Dr. Lisa N. Folden is a North Carolina licensed physical therapist, NASM certified behavior change specialist and Anti-diet Health & Body Image Coach. She owns Healthy Phit Physical Therapy & Wellness Consultants in Charlotte, NC where she provides trauma-informed and weight-inclusive care to clients in diverse bodies and those in eating disorder recovery.

As a health at every size (HAES®️) ambassador and movement expert, Dr. Folden assists clients seeking healthier lifestyles. Her weight-neutral approach encourages intuitive eating, joyful movement, body acceptance and breaking up with toxic diet culture.

Dr. Lisa is a mom of three, published author and speaker whose goal is to see as many people as possible living their best lives without worrying about their weight!

Please reach out if you would like some support with your relationship to food OR movement. Ela currently has limited spaces for Intuitive Eating coaching and if you'd like to reconnect with movement, contact Christine.
AND if you enjoyed this episode, please share and follow the 'Find Your Strong podcast' and if you have time, write us a short review. It would honestly mean the world. Love to you all, Ela & Christine x

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Find Your Strong Podcast - Your Fat Friend. Let's Talk About It.
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03/19/24 • 41 min

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This week I grabbed my good friend Ela Law from @elalawnutrition to chat about the Your Fat Friend documentary, by Jeanie Finlay which followed Aubrey Gordon across 6 years, since she released an anonymous blog from an account called @yrfatfriend .
Aubrey has since written 2 New York Times Bestselling books (You Just Need to Lose Weight and What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat) and along with Michael Hobbes (adamantly NOT on instagram!) has created something truly special with the informative, endearing and forever engaging Maintenance Phase podcast .
Ela and I chat about weight bias and how it permeates our society. Neither Ela nor I have lived experience of being in a fat body and both of us were truly touched by being able to see the world even for a brief time through Aubrey's eyes.
At one point in the film, Aubrey alluded to the fact that she has been struggling with an eating disorder but really struggled to get the help and support she needed. Eating disorders do not discriminate. They impact people of all body sizes, of all ages, ethnicities and genders.
We chat about repairing our relationship with food AND finally finding peace with our bodies when we live in a dieting culture and thinness is a value praised above all else. It is the air that we breathe and the sea that we swim in.
Ela and I then segway into the world of Intuitive Eating.
I hope you enjoy this episode and let us know what you think. If you can PLEASE find an opportunity to watch Your Fat Friend It is a triumph and Aubrey and Jeanie IRL are simply a joy to be around and were both SO generous with their time.

Please reach out if you would like some support with your relationship to food OR movement. Ela currently has limited spaces for Intuitive Eating coaching and if you'd like to reconnect with movement, contact Christine.
AND if you enjoyed this episode, please share and follow the 'Find Your Strong podcast' and if you have time, write us a short review. It would honestly mean the world. Love to you all, Ela & Christine x

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Find Your Strong Podcast - What to do when you're losing your shit, with Suzy Reading
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09/18/23 • 47 min

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Are you just too busy? Do you often feel overwhelmed, anxious and that you're doing your best but it's still just not good enough?
This conversation is for YOU.
We talk about what it means to really rest.
How can we access rest when our days are so full on. This applies directly to movement.
When movement is one of our main coping strategies, how do we give our bodies permission to slow down?
How can we calm down in the moment?
Suzy offers us 5 simple go-tos to add to our existing toolkit that will take us from nervous system overdrive to a calmer state, where we can better process our emotions and be present when and where we need to be in our day.
This conversation rocked my world and I hope after listening to the episode, you can allow yourself to find some ease in your day.
Suzy is a mother of two, an author, Chartered Psychologist and Coach. She specialises in self-care, helping people manage their stress, emotions, and energetic bank balance.*
* Her first book ‘The Self-Care Revolution’ published by Aster came out in 2017, 'Stand Tall Like a Mountain: Mindfulness & Self-Care for Children and Parents' and 'The Little Book of Self-Care’ came out in 2019. ‘Self-Care for Tough Times’ and her first children’s book ‘This Book Will (Help) Make You Happy’ were published in 2021. Her first journal And Breathe, Sit to Get Fit and her new deck of cards, “

Please reach out if you would like some support with your relationship to food OR movement. Ela currently has limited spaces for Intuitive Eating coaching and if you'd like to reconnect with movement, contact Christine.
AND if you enjoyed this episode, please share and follow the 'Find Your Strong podcast' and if you have time, write us a short review. It would honestly mean the world. Love to you all, Ela & Christine x

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This episode went places neither of us was expecting! Tune in to find out why.
This week we are chatting with Kanoa Greene, celebrated by Good Morning America and CNN! Kanoa is proof that athleticism and adventure come in ALL shapes and sizes.
She is an internationally renowned fitness trainer and outdoor adventurer, and
is redefining what plus-size bodies can do, how they are perceived,
and where they can go.
Kanoa is also the founder of NAKOA Adventure; creating brave spaces for plus-size
bodies to discover and explore the great outdoors and adventure
travel.
Kanoa challenges us to break down the barriers of disbelief and
celebrate bodies of all sizes without limits; demonstrating that you
don’t know what your body can do until you do it.
Kanoa is a trailblazer. She works with some of the world's most renowned fitness brands, helping them to be more inclusive in terms of the sizes they stock and their overall ethos.
We talk about brand identity, and how brands like Lululemon need to step up. We chat about real weight-inclusivity in fitness, our work with Kim Stacey at Body Image Fitness, plus-size fitness wear, doing the thing you think you cannot do and navigating a fitness industry that simply isn't set up for you.
This is one of the meatiest episodes of our season so far and we know you will love Kanoa as much as we did. Enjoy!

Please reach out if you would like some support with your relationship to food OR movement. Ela currently has limited spaces for Intuitive Eating coaching and if you'd like to reconnect with movement, contact Christine.
AND if you enjoyed this episode, please share and follow the 'Find Your Strong podcast' and if you have time, write us a short review. It would honestly mean the world. Love to you all, Ela & Christine x

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It's always humbling to speak to our amazing experts and our conversation with Dr Kamila Irvine was no exception! Whilst she is a very senior researcher and serious advocate for weight-inclusivity, she is also incredibly good fun to chat to and we could have gone on for much longer!

We talked about:

how body image is susceptible to many influences

what are precipitating, perpetuating, protective and pre-disposing factors when it comes to our body image and how we can mitigate them

how neurodivergence can impact our eating behaviours and contribute to disordered eating

how eating disorder recovery might need a different approach in neurodivergent individuals

how body sensations can impact our body image

how disordered eating behaviours and intentional weight-loss have been normalised

her amazing work with www.bodyhappyorg.com

her flour/cake analogy!!!!

Bio:

Dr Kamila Irvine is a Senior Lecturer in Body Image and Eating Disorders at the School of Psychology, Sport Science and Wellbeing at the University of Lincoln, where she teaches and researchers all things body image in the context of eating disorders and beyond.
Her research work encompasses a number of multidimensional themes and interests including intervention and prevention, LGBTQIA+, weight stigma and anti-fat bias, and perceptual body image.
Her main teaching responsibility is her module "Body image and eating disorders" for 3rd year Psychology students, and she is soon to start teaching 3rd year medical students too!
She also supervises research projects of dissertation and masters students, as well as PhD students; and works closely with Body Happy Org and First Steps Eating Disorders charity.

Follow her or get in touch with her:

Dr. Kamila Irvine | Senior Lecturer in Body Image and Eating Disorders

BSc(Hons), MSc, PGCE PCET, PhD, FHEA
Programme Lead for BSc (Hons) Psychology with Mental Health(she/her)
SSB4204
School of Psychology, Sport Science & Wellbeing
College of Health and Science
[email protected]
@drkamilairvine, https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kamila-Irvine, x.com/drkirvine

Please reach out if you would like some support with your relationship to food OR movement. Ela currently has limited spaces for Intuitive Eating coaching and if you'd like to reconnect with movement, contact Christine.
AND if you enjoyed this episode, please share and follow the 'Find Your Strong podcast' and if you have time, write us a short review. It would honestly mean the world. Love to you all, Ela & Christine x

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Find Your Strong Podcast - Breaking the Binge Eating Cycle, with Milda Zolubaite
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04/22/25 • 38 min

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Ela was flying solo for this episode, speaking with the wonderful Milda Zolubaite, who is a Registered Nutritional Therapy Practitioner and Disordered Eating Specialist. Having struggled with disordered eating and binge eating herself, Milda is passionate about helping people find a way to break the binge-restrict cycle.

In this episode we talked about

Milda's story and how she found a way to heal her relationship with food and eating

how binge eating is not about lack of willpower

the role of restriction in binge eating

how there is a complex interplay of emotional, environmental and psychological aspects that can influence our food choices and eating behaviours

the amazing 'Break the Binge Cycle Summit' that Milda has organised (see info below)

Break the Binge Cycle Summit: a FREE four day event (28th April - 1st May 2025) to learn practical tools and strategies to help you stop binge eating and find peace with food - with presentations from 29 amazing experts and tons of resources

Click the link here to sign up (just a note from us: we would encourage you to get the upgrade pass so that you have ongoing access to the presentations, incredible bonus content from speakers at the summit, and more!)

Milda is an MSc Nutritional therapist and Disordered Eating Specialist and over the last 8 years she has supported hundreds of women and men in finding food and body peace. She's a firm believer that there is no "one size fits all" approach, hence she uses a mix of nutritional, psychological and behavioural interventions to help people reach peace and food freedom. She is also excited to host the Break the Binge Cycle summit at the end of April 2025
To find out more about Milda's work and to get in touch with her head over to her website, or follow her on socials:
Facebook
Instagram

Please reach out if you would like some support with your relationship to food OR movement. Ela currently has limited spaces for Intuitive Eating coaching and if you'd like to reconnect with movement, contact Christine.
AND if you enjoyed this episode, please share and follow the 'Find Your Strong podcast' and if you have time, write us a short review. It would honestly mean the world. Love to you all, Ela & Christine x

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Simone Samuels, B.A. (Hons.), J.D., B.C.L. is a consultant in equity, diversity and inclusion and a weight-neutral personal trainer/group fitness instructor. A lawyer by training and a fitness professional, she has consulted for fitness organizations in Canada, US and the UK and has delivered courses on weight stigma, fatphobia, anti-racism, allyship and anti-oppression.
Simone is a tireless advocate for making the fitness and wider world a more inclusive place.
I was SO excited to chat with Simone and knew it would be a confronting and very important conversation. She was incredibly generous with her time and I know you will very much enjoy this meaty conversation.
We chatted about:

  • How white female Fitpros can actually be inclusive in the fitness space?
  • The racist roots of the BMI and diet culture. Simone recommends some must-read books for those serious about doing the work.
  • According to the BMI the ROCK (Dwayne Johnson) is morbidly ob*se. It was never meant to be used at a population level.
  • Overcoming fatphobia in fitness spaces. How we can get informed.
  • Finding real joy in movement in this hustle culture and untangling weight loss and exercise.
  • We chat about Aqua Zumba and ask why aqua is always associated with an older demographic.

What a chat! I was truly buzzing afterwards and cannot wait to get Simone back for part 2.
Recommended Reading for Fitpros or anyone engaged in the fitness industry:
Sabrina Strings - Fearing the Black Body. The Racist Origins of Fatphobia
Da'Shaun L. Harrison - The Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness
Ibram X Kendi: Stamped From The Beginning: A Graphic History of Racist Ideas in America
If you'd like to know more about Simone, find her on Instagram or have a look at her website, where she has lots of different options to work with her.
* Simone was the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion reviewer of the canfitpro Personal Training Specialist textbook, helping to create an inclusive curriculum for future personal trainers in Canada. She has won multiple awards and commendations in the fitness industry, the most nota

Please reach out if you would like some support with your relationship to food OR movement. Ela currently has limited spaces for Intuitive Eating coaching and if you'd like to reconnect with movement, contact Christine.
AND if you enjoyed this episode, please share and follow the 'Find Your Strong podcast' and if you have time, write us a short review. It would honestly mean the world. Love to you all, Ela & Christine x

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Wow, what a fantastic conversation with the fabulous Emily Williams - and our first to be released on YouTube (you can watch it here!)
Emily is the Director and Co-founder of Every Body Outdoors and loves the outdoors - at the moment mostly cycling and wild swimming, but also paddleboarding, canoeing, camping and exploring and anything else that looks like fun.
In her day job she works as a self-employed knitwear designer and technical editor (specialising in plus size grading of hand-knit patterns) and is a campaigner advocating for better active travel infrastructure in the highlands.
Emily shared with us how she has always loved outdoor activities and adventures and how she became an activist to lobby for size-inclusive clothing. She has been putting herself out there, representing how those in plus-size bodies can have the adventures that we usually only see straight-sized and thin folks go on.
Every Body Outdoors is building a community exclusively for people in larger bodies who want to explore outdoor activities. They review clothes and gear, and they run regional walks.
We also talked about the brilliant short film 'Capsized' that showed Emily and her friend Lisa on a canoe adventure in the Scottish Lochs. We chatted about their journey, how getting the right gear was so much more difficult and labour intensive for Emily than Lisa, and how the film is meant to show people that there is a place for every body outdoors.
Here are links to the trailer:
Watch the Trailer on Facebook
Watch the Trailer on Instagram
The film will be screened at Kendal Mountain Festival on the 22nd and 24th November 2024, and will go on tour afterwards - check out the dates and book your tickets!
Buy your tickets for the festival here.
Check Out the Tour
Follow Every Body Outdoors on social media
@every_body_outdoors
OR join their Facebook group (exclusively for plus size folk!):

Please reach out if you would like some support with your relationship to food OR movement. Ela currently has limited spaces for Intuitive Eating coaching and if you'd like to reconnect with movement, contact Christine.
AND if you enjoyed this episode, please share and follow the 'Find Your Strong podcast' and if you have time, write us a short review. It would honestly mean the world. Love to you all, Ela & Christine x

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Find Your Strong Podcast - Men Have Body Image Issues Too. A Conversation with Jonny Landels
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02/21/24 • 38 min

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Today I am chatting with Jonny Landels, a former diet culture-obsessed fat loss coach turned Intuitive Eating coach and Health at Every Size Advocate. He spent YEARS fighting his own body but a couple of years ago, managed to turn things around and now adopts a non-diet approach.
I was really interested to get a male perspective on the impact of diet culture and Jonny feels incredibly passionately about ending the stigma, when it comes to discussing disordered eating, body dysmorphia and body image issues amongst men.
We touched on the following topics during our chat:

  • We spoke about Jonny's transition from fat loss coach to weight neutral coach and how his clients reacted.
  • We talked about cultivating a healthy relationship with movement when historically it's associated with dieting and self-punishment
  • How to know when too much is too much

I am so excited to bring you this conversation and love Jonny's passion and conviction for his work.

If you're interested in working with Jonny, he mainly hangs out on Instagram OR you can see what he's got coming up through his website.

Please reach out if you would like some support with your relationship to food OR movement. Ela currently has limited spaces for Intuitive Eating coaching and if you'd like to reconnect with movement, contact Christine.
AND if you enjoyed this episode, please share and follow the 'Find Your Strong podcast' and if you have time, write us a short review. It would honestly mean the world. Love to you all, Ela & Christine x

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FAQ

How many episodes does Find Your Strong Podcast have?

Find Your Strong Podcast currently has 71 episodes available.

What topics does Find Your Strong Podcast cover?

The podcast is about Health & Fitness, Movement, Strength, Mental Health, Body Positivity, Strength Training, Women'S Health, Fitness and Podcasts.

What is the most popular episode on Find Your Strong Podcast?

The episode title 'Your Fat Friend. Let's Talk About It.' is the most popular.

What is the average episode length on Find Your Strong Podcast?

The average episode length on Find Your Strong Podcast is 42 minutes.

How often are episodes of Find Your Strong Podcast released?

Episodes of Find Your Strong Podcast are typically released every 9 days, 19 hours.

When was the first episode of Find Your Strong Podcast?

The first episode of Find Your Strong Podcast was released on Feb 9, 2023.

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