Simple Nutrition Insights
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Simple Nutrition Insights
Food, Memory, and Healing: A Journey Through the Middle Place
Mallory Tenor Tarpley shares her journey through eating disorder recovery and what she calls "the middle place"—the complex space between acute illness and full recovery. Her memoir "Slip" explores how recovery isn't linear and challenges the perfectionism that can derail healing progress.
• Mallory developed her eating disorder after losing her mother at age 11
• She wrote "Slip" to represent those in the "middle place" of recovery who are better but not fully recovered
• Recovery involved small steps like changing the order of foods eaten before attempting variety
• Writing helped Mallory bridge emotional gaps and understand her relapse patterns
• She surveyed over 700 people and interviewed 175 respondents to include diverse experiences
• "A slip doesn't have to equal a slide" - slips can be opportunities for growth rather than failures
• As a parent, Mallory focuses on teaching her children that "all bodies deserve respect"
• She created a flower mirror for her daughter with character traits on each petal
• Maintaining support through therapy and dietitian visits remains part of her ongoing recovery
• "Slip" is available wherever books are sold and explores themes of grief, motherhood, and healing
https://www.mallarytenoretarpley.com/
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Hey, hey, everybody. Welcome back to Simple Nutrition Insights. I'm your host, Leonila Campos, registered dietitian, mother and advocate for nourishing the body and mind through evidence-based compassion care. Today's guest is someone whose words are more powerful as they are vulnerable. Mallory Tenor Tarpley is a journalism and writing professor at the University of Texas, at Austin's Moody College of Communication and Macomb School of Business. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post and more. She's also the author of Slip, a memoir that explores their experience with eating disorders and the complexity of healing. This is a conversation about writing, recovery, resilience and the ways our stories can either weigh us down or set us free. Mallory, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me. I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you so much for being here. Let's begin with Slip. It's such a raw and honest exploration of your experience. What moved you to write this book and what was it like revisiting the chapter of your life through the lens of memory?
Speaker 2:It's a beautiful question. I for a long time read books about eating disorders and found them very helpful in many regards, but they were pretty much all written from the perspective of people who were fully recovered, and I felt like there was this lack of a mirrored image, because I didn't see my own narrative reflected in those books as a woman who is better but not all better, and as a woman who still lives with the imprints of my eating disorder. So I really wanted to write a book that explored what I call the middle place, which is this liminal space between acute sickness and full recovery, and it's a space where progress is always possible but slips also happen. And so I really wanted to just speak truth to my own experiences in that place and also help other people to feel less alone, because for a long time I thought I was the only person in the middle place. And then, when I started to interview and survey hundreds of people for the book, I realized that this space is quite populous and yet we don't talk about it enough in eating disorder circles.
Speaker 2:And for me, writing this book was incredibly cathartic, but it was also painful in parts, because I did have to really recall painful memories. I had to go back through my old journals that I kept when I was in the throes of anorexia. I had to go back through all of my old medical records, which I was fortunate enough to attain, and I also revisited the places where I was treated for my eating disorder as a teenager. So I had to make sure I was taking care of myself during that part of the process because in many ways I was trying to re-inhab. Taking care of myself during that part of the process because in many ways I was trying to re-inhabit my younger self so that I could write really powerfully about those moments in time. But I was very deliberate about going back to therapy once I started writing this book, just knowing that that could be a challenge.
Speaker 1:Right, such an amazing story right, but also, as you mentioned, like being ready to revisit all those painful memories right and just planning for it and getting the support and the help that you need? Yes, for sure. As a dietician and I have colleagues that work closely with clients navigating disorder eating I deeply appreciate your honesty and how complicated the healing journey is. Were there specific moments in your recovery where nutrition played a pivotal role in your healing, not just physically but emotionally?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so definitely. Especially when I was in residential treatment, I began to really think through why I was restricting my food intake and the loss that that created. There was this loss of desire, certainly a loss of caloric intake, but also just a loss of connection to these foods that I once really enjoyed eating, and it took me a really long time to be able to almost reacquaint myself with these foods that I had once loved. But a big part of my recovery was taking these very slow steps toward having more variety in my diet. So we sometimes would try to switch up the foods that I ate. But that proved to be really difficult.
Speaker 2:So my treatment providers at the time said well, let's switch up the order in which you eat the foods, because I was very meticulous about eating foods in the same order.
Speaker 2:So we started with this very small step of switching up the order of the foods and then we would switch up very small things like having Chex instead of Rice Krispies for my cereal right and just making these little small changes that ultimately over time led to bigger ones. I remember in treatment having ice cream for the first time in almost four years and just feeling really anxious about it, but going to the ice cream shop with my therapist and also secretly enjoying it. I couldn't express the fact at the time that I really enjoyed eating that ice cream, but now I can look back on it and recognize that I did, and so being able to make these choices in a safe environment in the residential treatment program was incredibly helpful. And then, as I got better, I was able to really think through more of what I wanted to eat, rather than what the eating disorder was telling me I should and shouldn't eat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and thank you for sharing that, and I'm sure the entire process right is a work in progress and just trying different things.
Speaker 2:Yes, it was so helpful just to be able to talk with someone who knew what I needed but who was talking more about the pleasure behind food, because, I mean, when I was really sick, eating gave me no pleasure at all. But I developed my eating disorder after my mother died when I was 11. And so one of the things that dieticians and therapists did was talk with me about the foods that I'd once really enjoyed eating with my mother, and so then I started to think about how could I potentially incorporate those foods into my meal plan so that I can begin to think about the foods that I once loved, that gave me joy, and how can I find that sense of joy again with these foods. And ultimately it took a really long time, but I was able to.
Speaker 1:Ultimately it took a really long time, but I was able to. So thank you for sharing your story and writing the book for others to read as well.
Speaker 2:Yes, I really do hope that it helps people, because I certainly wish that I had a book like this when I was sick and in the early stages of my recovery. Yeah, I can imagine.
Speaker 1:So often in recovery there's a gap between knowing and feeling. How did writing help you bridge the emotional truths that weren't always visible during treatment?
Speaker 2:So writing has always helped me to make sense of the world, and it's how I make connections between what I think and what I say and what I do.
Speaker 2:And so, in writing the book, I was really able to think about just how hard it was for me in the early stages of my recovery, because, looking back on that time period, it became very clear when I was writing the book that I was so intent on reaching the gold standard of full recovery, and yet I really didn't know what that meant, and so, in the absence of a real definition, I thought of it as this perfectionistic ideal where I would have to go about my eating and exercise and schoolwork and everything perfectly, because I wanted to be the poster child for full recovery.
Speaker 2:But that really felt so insurmountable after a couple of years, and I did end up relapsing in college, and writing about that particular period in time helped me to really just empathize with myself more, because I was really stuck in this relapse in which I would binge eat one day and restrict the next, and this lasted for well over a decade.
Speaker 2:And yet I kept continue to tell people I was fully recovered during that time, because I was too afraid to admit that I was anything but fully recovered and, looking back on that period in my life, I wish I could have extended a hand to my younger self and said it's okay to ask for help, it's okay to have these slips in your recovery, because basically when I was in that relapse I didn't think that slips were okay and so every slip would turn into a slide because I would feel really bad about slipping and then I would feel defeated by the slip and ashamed of the slip, and then I would just keep repeating these negative behaviors.
Speaker 2:And it wasn't until I started thinking about this middle place framework that I really began to make meaningful progress forward, where I could recognize that slips can happen, but that progress is also possible and slips don't have to be grounds for failure. They can be opportunities for growth. So writing the book helped me to make a lot of connections between that relapse that I experienced and the ways in which developing this middle place thinking helped me to really be able to move forward in my recovery.
Speaker 1:Right, yes, absolutely, and almost not feeling ashamed Slips are essentially going to happen and we don't have to justify things right or feel like we're disappointing anybody. But we don't know that right in the moment until we reflect and, in your case, knowing that, okay, slips are going to happen, right, and they're not failures but maybe an opportunity to, or part of the progress to you. So thank you for sharing that. Are part of the progress too. So thank you for sharing that. You've written for some of the top publications in the country and now teach future storytellers. How has your relationship with food, image and identity influenced your role as a writer and teacher?
Speaker 2:So I love to write personal essays about those very topics because I don't think that they're discussed enough and a lot of times they can be written from the perspective of people who are recovered or over their issues, and I don't want to discredit those narratives, because we need to hear those as well.
Speaker 2:But I as a writer tend to gravitate more towards stories about messy middles and stories that don't have tidy endings, that are wrapped up with a pretty bow, and in my writing classes I really encourage students to look at the messy middles, because so often in storytelling we hear about the beginning and then we hear about the end, but we lose track of that arc in the middle and that's where some of the most meaningful storytelling and progress can happen. And it's an act of courage in many ways to write from that perspective of being in this middle place, because societally we tend to prefer stories with protagonists who prevail and who overcome their disorders and their struggles, and I totally understand why those narratives are popular. But I ultimately think that narratives about people who are still in it and really working their way forward and trying to, despite slips, those stories can open up a lot of points of relatability for people. And those are the stories that I'm most interested in reading and thereby also the stories that I'm really most interested in writing.
Speaker 1:Right, absolutely Right, and I think it also puts that human aspect to it right, like we are human and we're not going to always have a perfect ending or a perfect beginning right or a perfect middle, and so I think that brings that human aspect to it too as well, that storytelling right. And storytelling is so powerful, it really gets the point across right. And storytelling is so powerful, it really gets the point across right and, like you mentioned, I mean people can relate to those stories too and have a greater impact as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely, I know that's always my hope with a piece of writing is that it will help other people to feel less alone, and if I can do that, then in my mind that story has been a success.
Speaker 1:Yes, once, definitely. In my practice I see how deeply shame can silence people's stories, especially when it comes to eating disorders or disorder eating. How do you learn to separate your worth from your struggle, and what would you say to someone who's still holding their story in silence?
Speaker 2:I just hid behind the shame of my own experiences and found that there was this disconnect between the story that I was sharing with the world and the one that I was living out behind closed doors.
Speaker 2:So I was telling everyone I was fully recovered and yet I was still very much struggling, and that was partly because there was just so much shame around this idea of slipping and I didn't think that it was okay to admit that I wasn't fully recovered, nor did I really have the language to describe what it would mean if I wasn't.
Speaker 2:And so it's really important to give ourselves grace when we find ourselves in this place and to recognize the progress that we are making, because so often, if we're in the middle place, it can be really easy to fixate on our slips and everything we're doing wrong, but rather, instead of doing that, we can really think about the fact that oftentimes we slip when we're doing really hard things, when we are trying to make progress.
Speaker 2:Because if you think about that very word slip, it suggests some sort of forward movement, because you can't slip if you're standing still. So if we always have shame around our slips, then we're going to likely stay silent about them, and we know that silence can really keep us stuck and it can make us sick, and so the extent to which we can recognize and normalize slips is so important. And that's something I've worked really hard to do in my own recovery, where if I have a slip, then I look at that slip and say, okay, this happened, why did it happen, who can I talk to about it and how do I get back up now? Not next week once I'm past my deadlines, not next month once the kids are back to school. How do I get back up now? And that framing of slipping and thinking about recovering in that way can be really helpful in terms of removing the stigma and shame that so often accompanies slips.
Speaker 1:Right, absolutely, thank you. And just knowing, right that if we speak up, it helps to you, know, to give back up to you, but also it can help others, right, that are probably, as you mentioned, struggling with the same things, thinking that they're alone. Right, and so now you have, almost like, this community that hopefully can help each other out. And I love what you said about what can I do now, right, as opposed to like dragging it for another week or two, which might be harder. Right To be able to get out of, as opposed to that, but also the process that you have. Right, the reflection that, if it happens, trying to figure out why, by essentially finding the root cause and what is going to help you to move forward.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly, because I think one of the biggest misconceptions of the middle place is that it's about settling for stagnancy, and that's not what it's about. It's rooted in the idea and the belief that recovery is possible, but it's really about recognizing that those slips do happen and we need to be able to not let those stop us right. A slip doesn't have to equal a slide. So how do we look at those slips and figure out the ways in which they can ultimately help us to move forward Right?
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely. Your book doesn't just focus on food. It focuses on control, loss, perfectionism and grief. As a professional working in both health and narrative spaces, I found that balance powerful. In narrative spaces, I found that balance powerful. How do you ensure that sleep didn't become just another eating disorder memoir, but something more expansive?
Speaker 2:That was so important to me as a writer because in many ways, I acknowledge that I am someone who fits the stereotypical mold of someone with an eating disorder, in that I identify as a female, I live in a smaller body, I'm middle to upper class, and so I didn't want this to just be my story alone. I really wanted to weave my own story together alongside the narratives of other people. So I ended up serving over 700 people from 44 states and 37 countries, all of whom have lived experience with an eating disorder, and I interviewed 175 of those survey respondents and clinicians and researchers, and I really weaved together my own personal narrative with those other narratives, alongside the latest research and for me that was so important One because, again, I want to make people with eating disorders feel seen and heard. I also want to dispel misconceptions about who does and doesn't struggle, because very often eating disorders are misunderstood, and I really want this book to help educate people around eating disorders, and certainly those in the medical community, but also caretakers and educators as well.
Speaker 2:I think all too often we look at books on eating disorders and we think, well, I don't have an eating disorder, I don't know anyone who does, so that book's not relevant to me, but we could all benefit from learning more about eating disorders because, more likely than not, we are going to be touched by an eating disorder or affected by one at some point in time in our lives, whether it ends up being us who struggle individually or people we know, and so the more we can learn about them, the more we can work at eating disorder prevention. And being able to do that with this book was so important to me because I really want this to just be a resource and a public service for lots of different folks who are interested in eating disorders and who want to learn more about them.
Speaker 1:Right and you're absolutely right that, even if maybe you don't have an eating disorder right, but you might know somebody or you might be able to help somebody that maybe is showing some signs right of eating disorders and being able to, as you mentioned, prevention right, being able to help them and support them. Oftentimes even families right struggle with like understanding what an eating disorder is or how to help their loved ones or their friends, and so you know, being able to have a resource like your butt slip can definitely help right. And put it in not such a scientific way where it's like hard to like digest right, but it's more so like a story that you're telling to yes, exactly that is.
Speaker 2:One of the benefits of being a journalist by trade is that I can take research and then really interview the people behind the research and then describe it in a way that is easy to understand, because we know that sometimes it can be quite complicated when you start reading about genetics or the brain, and I do talk a lot about just how the brain is affected by eating disorders and how genetics play into the development of eating disorders. So I really wanted to try to take that compelling research that's being done and just make it a lot more accessible to the average reader.
Speaker 1:And it's just amazing the work that you did to be able to write your book right and backed by science, and just all the interviews and surveys that you did. I can imagine all that work, but also all the connections that you created right. I bet that was amazing.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, I really got to learn so much in the process of writing this book and also got to meet so many amazing individuals, so I consider myself really lucky just because of the community of support that this book has created. Yeah, amazing.
Speaker 1:As a mom of two myself, I often think about how we model our relationships with food in our bodies to our children. What kind of conversations do you hope to have, or are already having, with your kids about this topic?
Speaker 2:So it's something I think a lot about as a mom, because my kids are seven and nine, I have a boy and a girl, and I do know that there are genetic risks that can be associated with eating disorders. So when I started working on this book, I came across this statistic that loomed really large for me, and it was the fact that girls who have a relative with anorexia nervosa are 11 times more likely to develop the disorder themselves. But when I talked with geneticists for the book, they assured me in some ways that that does not mean that we are doomed if our parents have had an eating disorder, nor are our children genetically doomed if we've had one, because we don't inherit eating disorders. We inherit a risk to them and certainly there are these genetic risk factors, but there are also genetic protective factors. There are environmental risk factors and environmental protective factors, and I know I can't control genetics, but I can control environment to an extent, particularly as my kids just are younger and before they are exposed to social media and other things.
Speaker 2:So I try really hard to create an environment in which they recognize that all bodies are worthy of respect. I often tell them all bodies deserve our respect, no matter how tall or small, no matter how short or tall, and that's something that I really try to emphasize with them, because I don't want them to grow up thinking that being overweight is something that is morally wrong, right. I also really try to help them to see themselves outside of what they look like. So when my daughter turned nine a couple months ago, I made her this mirror, and it's in the shape of a flower, and on each petal I painted a word that described who she is so creative, kind, empathetic. Because I want her to look in the mirror and see who she is and not just what she looks like.
Speaker 2:Because all too often we're going to get these messages that tell us that our weight determines our worth, and I want my kids to recognize that they are going to hear those messages because we live in a society that's steeped in diet culture.
Speaker 2:But I want them to recognize that they don't have to internalize those and they don't have to necessarily let those affect the choices that they make around food and their bodies. So we talk about how food is fuel. Food helps them to take up space. It gives them energy to play and move around in their day, and I really try to look at food that way, as opposed to talking about food as being good or bad, because very often when we think about kids, they don't have the ability to really look a whole lot at nuance, and so it's very easy for children to ascribe moral values to food where if you say that a certain food is bad, then a child may think that they're then bad if they're eating that food. So I really try to avoid those labels which may seem innocuous but they can end up being pernicious, particularly if a child is already predisposed to developing an eating disorder.
Speaker 1:I love that. Oh my goodness, I think it's so powerful. Why you said because it's so true, right, the way that we talk about our bodies, the way that we talk about food in front of our kids, right, we are the role models, even if sometimes we feel they're not listening to us. They are listening all the time about our bodies or about food, or this food is bad, as you mentioned, right. They're going to be like, well, if I eat that food, then I'm bad, and so then internalizing that, right, and we can definitely see a cascade of, like negative things about that. And I love that flower mirror that you created for your daughter. I think that is such a wonderful idea and such an amazing way to see you know herself, as these other descriptive words that do not involve the body, right, or how she looks. You know what makes her beautiful in different ways, so it's amazing.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Yeah, she uses the mirror a lot, which makes me happy and just also makes me happy to think about her and my son really just recognizing what their body can do for them. We talk about how the body is not an ornament but an instrument, and so I don't expect them to always unconditionally love their body as they get older, because that can sometimes feel unrealistic and can almost be a form of gaslighting if we're always telling children that they have to love their bodies. But I really want them to respect their bodies. I would love for them to unconditionally love their bodies as well, but more so I want them to just really be appreciative of what their bodies do for them.
Speaker 1:Amazing. Thank you so much for sharing that, and I think it's such a powerful statement for all the parents and anybody right that is essentially out there listening, because we can use those words for ourselves, too, to describe ourselves, the way that we look or the way that we want diet culture to see us, but essentially, the words that we provide to this world that goes beyond our looks is empowering. Let's talk routines. Writing, like recovery, often requires structure, requires structure, grace and self-compassion. Do you have any rituals or nutrition habits that help you stay grounded as both a writer and a person in long-term recovery?
Speaker 2:yes. So when it comes to writing, I definitely have a routine where I get up very early to write. So to write this book, as someone working full time with two young kids, I had to get up at 4am to work on this book, and that habit has just stuck for better or worse. So I get up very early, but I also find that I just need a burst of energy at that time of day. So I always have a cup of iced coffee with cream in it, and then I always have at least one piece of chocolate, and that's just almost like a little treat for myself, but it's just a way to feel energized at the start of the day. And then I still make sure that I have my meals.
Speaker 2:One thing that I sometimes have to do is just set reminders to eat. Not that I'm not ever thinking about food, but sometimes I just need to make it more of a priority, because in this middle place, I recognize that I still do have tendencies to restrict my food intake if I'm really stressed or if I'm just super busy throughout the day. So I have to be really deliberate about that, and so that is part of my routine, alongside still seeing a dietician. So I still do see a therapist and a dietician because it can be really easy at certain points in our recovery to think, well, we don't need that anymore or we should be on that. But for me it's about just maintenance and about being held accountable and having someone who I can talk to about what I've eaten or when I've had slips, and that has become a really important part of my routine and a form of self-care in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1:I love that you share those essentially your support group right, and who keeps you accountable, and just providing support right, because you are absolutely correct that when we get busy or when we get stressed or like when we have more of these stronger emotions, right, we sometimes kind of go back to what we think right is going to help us, as opposed to like what we actually need to do and so having those professionals right to support you and guide you when you need it, or just for maintenance, as you mentioned right, and to help during those slip times, it's definitely helpful to have that support. Mallory, let's talk about your book a little bit more, right? Where can listeners find it? Any other thoughts or comments that you want to provide the listeners before we wrap up?
Speaker 2:Sure. So the book is out and available wherever you buy books. So it's on Amazon, it's on Target's website, it's in your local independent bookstore. If they don't have it in stock, you can always order it through them. So I really hope that readers and listeners will check out this book, because it's all about eating disorders, for sure, but it's also about these other themes that people can relate to, even if they haven't had an eating disorder.
Speaker 2:So in many ways, the middle place is an apt term for where so many of us see ourselves in life. I think about it even with regard to grief and loss, how I haven't arrived at some place of closure since losing my mom, even though she's been gone almost 30 years. I still carry the load of that loss, but it's lighter now than it once was. So I'm very much in the middle place with grief and loss, and I think that a lot of listeners could relate to that concept of the middle place. I'll just say, too, that it feels really meaningful to be putting this book out into this world at this moment in time, because I write a lot about loss and grief and motherhood in the book as well, and I just turned 40, which is the age my mom was when she passed away. So it feels very symbolic to just be publishing this book at the moment in time when I'm outliving my mother. So for anyone interested in those scenes of motherhood and loss and grief, there's probably a lot for you in this book as well.
Speaker 1:Right. Thank you so much for sharing that and happy belated birthday as well. I will make sure to share the links to your social media, if that's okay with you. If you have anything else that you want me to share, I will also add it to the show notes. But, mallory, thank you so much for sharing your story and for allowing us into such an intimate part of your life as a dietician. I believe stories like yours are essential in reframing how we think about recovery, food and self-worth To those listeners. If you or someone you love is struggling with eating disorders, know that you're not alone. Recovery is not linear, but it's possible and your story is worth telling. Thanks again, mallory, and to each of you for tuning in. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review. And thank you again for all that you do and remember to stay safe.