This week I'm joined by Elle Mace, author of the brand new book Food Freedom, out on the 27th of August, and a practitioner and speaker working in mental health and wellbeing. Before any of that, Elle spent 17 years living through a rotating cast of eating disorders and body dysmorphia, and this episode is her telling that story in her own words, including how much of what she thought was "wellness" was actually working against her.

When wellness culture isn't well at all

This is the bit of the conversation I keep coming back to. Elle talks about how toxic wellness culture rarely announces itself. It doesn't look like harm, it looks like self-improvement, discipline, "just being healthy." That's exactly what makes it so hard to spot from the inside. We get into how Elle started to tell the difference between what was genuinely supporting her and what was quietly keeping her stuck, and why awareness of that difference is often the hardest, most essential step in the whole process.

Body dysmorphia isn't always about weight

This is a part of the conversation I think a lot of people will find validating. There's a common assumption that body dysmorphia is purely about size or shape, but for Elle, it showed up in completely different places. We talk about what that actually felt like day to day, and how misunderstood this experience can be, even among people who think they understand eating disorders well.

One eating disorder didn't end. It just changed shape.

Something Elle said stuck with me: none of her eating disorders ever really ended on their own, they simply transitioned into the next one. That idea alone challenges a lot of the "wellness journey" narrative we're sold, the tidy arc from struggling to sorted. Elle's story is a lot less linear than that, and honestly, more true to how recovery actually tends to go.

The moment everything became unsustainable

Every recovery story has a turning point, and Elle's is no exception. We talk about the moment things became too much to carry alone, and what it actually took for her to finally reach out and ask for help.

What freedom actually looked like for Elle

This is where the episode goes somewhere really refreshing, and where the "food freedom" in the title starts to mean something much bigger than food. Elle's recovery touched relationships, work, old patterns, and parts of her identity she didn't expect to have to look at at all. We talk through what genuinely shifted for her, and why freedom looked nothing like the wellness-culture version she'd been sold.

Protecting your energy isn't selfish

If you've ever felt guilty for stepping back from the news, from other people's problems, or from anything that felt like too much while you were trying to heal, this part is for you. Elle and I talk about why protecting your capacity during recovery isn't selfishness, it's what actually makes it possible to show up for others later on.

What can change everything

We finish on something I think about a lot: how a relatable voice, someone speaking in ordinary, human language rather than clinical or wellness-industry language, can sometimes reach a person in a way that all the expert information in the world hasn't. Elle shares what that was like for her, and why she's now trying to be that voice for other people.

Listen to the full conversation

This episode is honest, myth-busting, and genuinely one of the most relatable conversations we've had on the podcast. If you've ever mistaken control for wellness, or wondered whether real freedom around food is actually possible, I think you'll find a lot of yourself in Elle's story.



🎧 Listen to the full episode with Elle Mace wherever you get your podcasts, or watch on YouTube.