The Full Plate Podcast with Abbie Attwood, MS

Abbie is joined by the incredible Monika Ostroff, executive director of MEDA, clinician, author, and person with lived experience of both anorexia and DID — for one of the most illuminating conversations the show has ever had. This one will change the way you think about survival, the body, and what healing actually asks of us.
In this episode:
- What dissociative identity disorder (DID) actually is — and how it's almost nothing like what you've seen in media
- Why DID is far more common than most people realize, and why diagnosis takes so long
- The striking overlap between DID and eating disorders, and what that tells us about both
- How eating disorders function as a trauma response — and why that framing matters for recovery
- What it means to approach an eating disorder with compassion rather than shame
- The clinical and personal complexity of treating multiple eating disorder presentations within one system
- Why the "control freak" narrative around eating disorders misses the point entirely
- Monica's own lived experience with anorexia, DID, and what recovery has looked like
- The single piece of wisdom that reoriented Monica's entire relationship with herself
About Monika: Monika Ostroff, LICSW, CEDS-S is the Executive Director of the Multi-Service Eating Disorders Association, Inc (MEDA). She has over 25 years of experience in the field of eating disorders. Prior to leading MEDA, she directed several residential, partial hospital and intensive outpatient eating disorder programs in addition to having owned a thriving private practice. 
Practicing from a trauma informed, social justice and staunchly HAES® aligned lens, Monika is a dedicated ally and strong advocate working to ensure access to equitable, compassionate, and affirming care for all. Find Monika: Healing My Parts on Substack, Instagram, and podcast
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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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


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I'm joined by DK Ciccone — comprehensively certified Pilates instructor, pain reprocessing therapy practitioner, and author of You're Meant to Move — for a conversation that is both deeply personal and clinically rich. We talk about what chronic pain actually is, why so many people have been dismissed or mislabeled, and what it looks like to rebuild a relationship with movement that isn't driven by fear, punishment, or diet culture.
This was originally a paid episode. Consider upgrading to a paid subscription to keep Full Plate going: https://abbieattwoodwellness.substack.com/subscribe
In this episode:
DK's journey with chronic pain and her past as a dancerHow chronic pain forms and why the pain is real even in the absence of ongoing tissue damage
The nervous system science behind pain sensitization — and why catastrophizing physically amplifies pain
Kinesiophobia: the fear of movement that develops after chronic pain, and how to work through it
Somatic tracking and pain reprocessing therapy as tools for understanding pain signalsHow to explore the difference between pain and discomfort
DK's "refuge and reach" framework for rebuilding a movement practice incrementally
Exploring functional movement versus "exercise"The research debunking weight loss as a solution for chronic pain
Why restriction and dieting actually increase chronic pain risk — and the clinical evidence behind it
How trauma and disconnection from the body compound the chronic pain experience
What embodied movement looks like when you're coming back from years of diet culture messaging
About DK Ciccone: Dana Karen ("DK") Ciccone is a comprehensively certified Pilates instructor who helps people in pain improve strength, mobility, and well-being in a weight-neutral environment. She is trained in pain reprocessing therapy through the Pain Psychology Center and is the founder of Movement Remedies, a chronic pain–focused Pilates studio and movement coaching business. Her book, You're Meant to Move: A Guide to Conquering Chronic Pain, Increasing Stress Resilience, and Reclaiming an Active Life, was released in December 2023.

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

This week's episode is one I have been so excited to share. I'm joined by two brilliant, generous, and deeply thoughtful guests — writer, educator, and body liberation advocate Chrissy King, and creative and founder Claire — who have co-created the Child-Free Coven, a community and mutual aid space for people who are child-free, by choice or by circumstance.
In this episode:
*What the word “childfree” actually means — and why Chrissy and Claire are actively reclaiming it
*Why being childfree is not anti-child, and the James Baldwin quote at the center of their community
*Chrissy’s story: ending a marriage, being the first woman in her lineage to have this choice, and what liberation actually feels like
*Claire’s story: knowing from her early teens, navigating a partner’s uncertainty, and how 25 years of undiagnosed endometriosis is inextricably linked to her childfree journey
*The things people say to childfree women and what to make of them
*The connection between body liberation and the childfree experience
*Race, reproductive justice, and how this conversation is profoundly different depending on who you are
*The political moment we’re in — bodily autonomy, forced birth, and what history tells us about these tactics
*What it means to pour your love, attention, and energy into the world without motherhood as the vehicle
*The difference between grief and regret
*What Chrissy means when she says she wanted more than “fine”

Resources:
Find The Childfree Coven on Substack and Instagram
Chrissy’s book: The Body Liberation Project
Claire on Instagram and Chrissy on Instagram
Rachel Cargill / Rich Auntie Supreme
Resmaa Menakem, My Grandmother’s Hands
Tricia Hersey / Rest is Resistance
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: https://www.abbieattwoodwellness.com/circle-monthly-group
 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

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This is part two of my conversation with Kate Zigrang, founder of Viva Voce — and this is where everything shifts.
To hear it: abbieattwoodwellness.substack.com/subscribe
We left off last week with Kate at a turning point: an OCD diagnosis, a doctor who finally told her the truth about her health, and something beginning to loosen. This episode is about what came next — the harder, slower, more relational work of actually stepping out of diet culture after a lifetime inside it.
We cover:
* Going no contact with her parents — the decision, the grief, and what space it created
* The complicated dynamic with her mom: over-apologizing, enmeshment, and why leaving felt both impossible and necessary
* The slow, specific work of separating her own body from her mother's — learning to look at herself without dread
* Religious deconstruction happening simultaneously with the body acceptance work and the mental health work — all three threads unraveling at once
* The Manhattan pants incident — eighteen months of traveling the world, unable to find a single pair of pants in her size anywhere in New York City, and the rage that became a turning point
* What Viva Voce actually is — a marketplace vetting brands for ethics, sustainability, and genuine size inclusivity
* Why she insists on carrying straight and plus sizes in the same space
* The pop-up strategy — and why she's bringing it to smaller cities on purpose
* A data project collecting real body measurements to understand how clothes could actually be made better
* Why belonging is at the center of every decision she makes — and what that looks like in practice
This episode is for paid subscribers. If you'd like access to this conversation and the full archive, you can subscribe here:
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Find Kate and Viva Voce at vivavoce.live and on Instagram @vivavoce.live
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

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
 
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
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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