The Full Plate Podcast with Abbie Attwood, MS

Kate Zigrang is an advocate, entrepreneur, impact investor, and the founder of Viva Voce — a size-inclusive fashion marketplace and community rooted in body justice. But before we get to what she's built, we go back to where it all started.
In this first part of a two-episode conversation, Kate takes us through her personal history with her body — from watching her mom navigate the world in a larger body and absorbing the shame that surrounded her, to puberty changing her own body in ways she wasn't prepared for, to a disordered relationship with food that developed in her late teens and went unnamed for years. We also get into her OCD diagnosis at 31 — more than a decade after onset — and what it meant to finally have language for what her brain had been doing all along.
This is a conversation about the things diet culture teaches us before we're old enough to question them, and what it actually takes to unlearn them.
We talk about:
*Growing up watching her mom be treated as a problem to be fixed, and inheriting that shame before she had words for it
*How her body changed at puberty while she was already carrying that inherited weight
*The food rules in her home growing up, the restriction and binge cycle they created, and how it planted seeds for a disordered relationship with food
*Moving away from home at 21, marriage, pregnancy, and her body changing again in ways that felt out of her control
*The wellness journey — naturopathic doctors, juice cleanses, a month-long juice fast, and crying in the shower
*Getting an OCD diagnosis at 31 and finally understanding what her brain had been doing since she was a teenager
*A doctor who told her, simply, that she was healthy — and how much that cracked open
*Finding Maintenance Phase, Aubrey Gordon, and Fearing the Black Body by Sabrina Strings, and what it meant to finally have the research match what she'd lived

Find Kate and Viva Voce at vivavoce.live and on Instagram @vivavoce.live.
Books mentioned: What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat by Aubrey Gordon; Fearing the Black Body by Sabrina Strings

Get 40% off of your Hungryroot order with code abbie40
Support the show: Enjoying this podcast? Please support the show on Substack for bonus episodes, community engagement, and access to "Ask Abbie" at abbieattwoodwellness.substack.com/subscribe
 
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Find the show on Instagram: @fullplate.podcast
Find Abbie on Instagram: @abbieattwoodwellness
Podcast Cover Photography by Anya McInroy
Podcast Editing by Brian Walters
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Abbie sits down with Dana Colthart, LCSW, a therapist specializing in OCD and eating disorders, to explore one of the most under-diagnosed and misunderstood overlaps in mental health. From intrusive thoughts to diet culture to why you can’t logic your way into recovery, this conversation explores what's truly driving our fears, our coping strategies, and the compulsions holding us back.
The first part of this episode is free for everyone. Paid subscribers can hear the entire conversation. You can upgrade here: https://abbieattwoodwellness.substack.com/subscribe
In this episode:
* Why OCD is so much more than hand-washing and organization — and what it actually looks like
* The key difference between OCD and generalized anxiety disorder, and why misdiagnosis is so common
* How the OCD cycle works: the obsession, the compulsion, the temporary relief, and why that relief is the trap
* What reassurance-seeking is, why it counts as a compulsion, and how it shows up in relationships with food and body image
* Pure-O OCD — when the compulsions are entirely mental, and why this goes undiagnosed so often
* Taboo and shameful intrusive thoughts: why the people most disturbed by a thought are almost never the ones who’d act on it
* What ego-dystonic versus ego-syntonic means, and why that distinction matters in disentangling OCD from eating disorders
* How diet culture functions like a mass OCD delivery system — rules, rituals, fear, and relief that never quite arrives
* Why clinicians treating eating disorders are often the only voice in a client’s life saying “you don’t have to do this” — and how hard that is
* The particular cruelty of food and body-related intrusive thoughts in a world that confirms them everywhere
* How OCD and eating disorders mimic each other, overlap, and take turns — and what that seesaw can look like in recovery
* What ERP (Exposure and Response Prevention) actually is and why the discomfort is the point
* Why your brain watches your actions, not your words — and what that means for recovery
* The systemic piece: how disordered behaviors get praised in some bodies and diagnosed in others
* What to do if you’re recognizing yourself in this episode but aren’t ready to call a therapist yet

About Dana: Dana Colthart, LCSW, is the clinical director of Clear Light Therapy, a boutique practice based in Englewood, New Jersey. She provides evidence based treatment for OCD, anxiety disorders, and eating disorders, blending Exposure and Response Prevention, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and integrative mind body approaches. Dana is also a Certified Eating Disorder Specialist.

Support the show: Enjoying this podcast? Please support the show on Substack for bonus episodes, community engagement, and access to "Ask Abbie" at abbieattwoodwellness.substack.com/subscribe
 
Apply for Abbie’s Group Membership:
Already been at this anti-diet culture thing for a while, but want community and continued learning? Apply for Abbie's monthly membership: https://www.abbieattwoodwellness.com/circle-monthly-group
Find the show on Instagram: @fullplate.podcast
Find Abbie on Instagram: @abbieattwoodwellness
Podcast Cover Photography by Anya McInroy
Podcast Editing by Brian Walters
This podcast is ad-free and support comes from your support on Substack. Subscribe HERE.

Abbie speaks with Anna Maltby — health journalist, personal trainer, and author of the How to Move newsletter — for a conversation that pulls back the curtain on the fitness industry. At the heart of this episode is: what does look like to rebuild a relationship with movement that isn’t rooted in shrinking, earning food, or “fixing” your body?
They talk about how fitness media manufactures insecurity to sell us solutions, what people are unlearning when they come to weight-neutral movement, why decoupling exercise from aesthetics can temporarily leave people unmotivated (and what to do about that), and why your squat is probably fine.
Tune in for more on:
* The “body as business card” problem in fitness and nutrition
* How magazine cover lines were engineered to exploit seasonal body insecurities
* Anna’s origin story: from Eat This Not That to anti-diet fitness journalism
* The Refinery29 moment that changed everything (shoutout to Kelsey Miller’s Anti-Diet Project column)
* What people are unlearning: trusting their bodies, eating before workouts, modifications that aren’t lesser
* Why losing aesthetic motivation can feel like losing all motivation, and how to find intrinsic intentions
* The importance of where you are in recovery before reintroducing movement
* How to experiment with movement without judging yourself on the first try
* The “you’re doing it wrong” trend and why it’s harmful even in anti-diet spaces
* Body diversity and squat mechanics (yes, really)
For more from Anna:
https://howtomove.substack.com/
https://www.instagram.com/howannamoves/
Support the show: Enjoying this podcast? Please support the show on Substack for bonus episodes, community engagement, and access to "Ask Abbie" at abbieattwoodwellness.substack.com/subscribe
 
Apply for Abbie’s Group Membership:
Already been at this anti-diet culture thing for a while, but want community and continued learning? Apply for Abbie's monthly membership: https://www.abbieattwoodwellness.com/circle-monthly-group
 
Social media:
Find the show on Instagram: @fullplate.podcast
Find Abbie on Instagram: @abbieattwoodwellness
 



This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit abbieattwoodwellness.substack.com/subscribe

Body image researcher and Rutgers University psychology professor Dr. Charlotte Markey is back for a second time on the podcast. She has spent nearly three decades researching body image, and has written books for tweens, teens, boys, girls, and adults.
We get into so much…including:
* Body image as relational: how environment and relationships shape how we feel in our bodies
* The father dynamic, achievement culture, and how a critical home environment affects girls
* Biohacking and wellness culture as diet culture in disguise
* What happens when food gets moralized into good and bad
* Parents disparaging their own bodies and how it lands on daughters
* Body dissatisfaction across racial, cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds
* Puberty: why normalizing it matters and why the conversation needs to extend beyond adolescence
* How diet culture exploits women’s hormonal life stages
* Whether there is a critical window for body image intervention
* Social media’s impact on body shame and how to learn media literacy for critical thinking and protection
* Body diversity and why the bodies we’re sold are not achievable for most people
* The protein obsession in wellness culture and why it’s concerning in adolescents
* What to do when your daughter is already struggling
* How parents can audit their own relationship with food and body in service of their kids
Charlotte Markey, Ph.D., is a world-leading expert in body image research, having studied body image and eating behavior for nearly three decades. She is passionate about understanding what makes us feel good about our bodies and helping people to develop a healthy body image and relationship with food. Charlotte is an experienced book author, research scientist, clinician, speaker, and psychology professor at Rutgers University, Camden.Her books: https://www.thebodyimagebook.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/char_markeySubstack: https://drcharlottemarkey.substack.com/Find Full Plate on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fullplate.podcast/Find Abbie on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/abbieattwoodwellness/Subscribe to the newsletter: https://abbieattwoodwellness.substack.com/Listen to the first episode with Dr. Charlotte Markey
Full Plate by Abbie Attwood is a reader-supported publication. To receive special posts, bonus episodes, and support this work, consider becoming paid subscriber.


This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit abbieattwoodwellness.substack.com/subscribe

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Abbie answers a listener question about one of the most complicated intersections: dating (relationships) and diet culture — especially when you're carrying a history of body shame, disordered eating, and the ongoing, nonlinear work of recovery.
Elizabeth, a listener in her early 30s, writes in about the men she keeps encountering on the apps — the gym-obsessed ones, the salad-only ones — and asks a question that cuts to the heart of it: is this my gut, or is this fear?
What you'll hear:
*Why "too sensitive" isn't a useful frame — and what to ask instead
*Safety and self-worth as the foundation of dating in recovery
*Learning to trust your intuition when diet culture has distorted it
*When to share your mental health history (and when you don't have to)
*The difference between a trigger and something to work through
*Revisiting your dating app parameters — and the biases built into them
*Abbie's own experience navigating ED recovery while dating
Then Jeb, Abbie's husband, joins for an unplanned conversation about what it was actually like when they met — both carrying things they weren't sure how to share.
*What happened when Jeb disclosed his sobriety on a rooftop, early on
*Why vulnerability can work as a filter, not just a risk
*What Jeb was looking for in a partner when he was newly out of treatment
*The moment Abbie knew he was someone she could be with through hard things
This episode is ultimately about openness — what it costs, what it protects, and what becomes possible when you find someone willing to meet you there.
This is a BONUS episode for paid subscribers on Substack. To hear it, upgrade here: https://abbieattwoodwellness.substack.com/subscribe