3 Things We Dive Into In This Episode:
Why finding and addressing the underlying cause of eating disorders is the path to healing.
How to form a more easeful and creative relationship with cooking.
How to reset your relationship with social media and alcohol.
đResources
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đEpisode Highlights
[02:46] How Are You?
Letâs take a moment to check in with ourselves without judgment.
Give ourselves credit for all that weâve been through today.
[07:12] The Way to Tiffany's Heart
Tiffany is a food person. She loves food, and enjoys eating it and feeding other people.
Her love language is sharing food with others. Many of her relationships blossomed through sharing a meal.
She's an executive chef, food scientist, and sommelier. She is also trained in nutrition.
Beyond food, Tiffany also likes to move. She enjoys activities like snow sliding in her home at Lake Tahoe.
[11:14] Every day is a Challenge
Being a professional chef and food scientist, in itself, is an obstacle. It demands work all around the clock and constant problem-solving.
Tiffany learned to think on her feet and stay calm even through chaos.
One of the biggest struggles she has faced was recovering from an eating disorder. Despite being recovered, she's still affected by her body's responses and triggers.
Being a living human being is challenging. However, what can help us is our connections and food.
Tiffany: "In terms of challenges, it's all challenging. Life is challenging. It's hard to be a human being. But I think it all can be helped and healed with connection and a little bit of food." - Click Here To Tweet This
[14:22] Full Recovery from Eating Disorders
Research shows that we can fully recover from an eating disorder. However, it can be a symptom of a bigger problem that needs more time and effort to heal.
For some of us, our eating disorders can keep popping up despite being recovered. This is because the deeper problem is not acknowledged.
Caitie: âIt's like you could chop a branch off a tree, which is like the eating disorder, but like, the roots of the tree are still there. So it's really important to actually get down to the root of what is causing that destructive coping tool. That's what an eating disorder is. It's a coping tool, it always serves a purpose.â - Click Here To Tweet This
Tiffanyâs drive for perfectionism and the pressure as an athlete was her deeper problem.
Now, sheâs 25 years out of recovery but she still finds herself in the healing process.
One of the things that helped her is getting away from the constant competition and comparison with others in sports.
[18:39] Stepping Away From Social Media and Alcohol
Instagram and alcohol were addictive to Tiffany. What she thought was moderation was actually a consistent addiction.
It was freeing for her mental health to step away and break her old habits. Tiffany started new, healthier habits to have a better relationship with social media.
Tiffany is critical of her health and wellness. Despite this, she kept drinking alcohol, which she now views as similar to poison.
The cultures of both wine and social media are a part of today's society. We need to acknowledge how they can be detrimental to our health.
Taking a break and changing our habits helps us build a healthier relationship.
[28:42] Breaking the Rules of Cooking
Tiffany teaches people basic cooking skills and techniques. She shows them how to enjoy the process and not get too caught up in the rules.
After learning the basics we can cook with our own creativity and preference.
Tiffany: "I feel like learning the rules allows you to know how to break them. So with cooking, what I like to do is teach people how to do certain techniques, and learn some of the basics, so that they can riff on their own and be a little bit more creative on their own." - Click Here To Tweet This
Her goal is to compress what she learned in her 25 years of cooking into a year of teaching.
The virtual cooking club is a place for people to learn how to cook together with Tiffany there to guide and teach.
It's harder to share her message without Instagram. Fortunately, there are a lot of other ways to spread the word.
[32:10] Exploring Your Relationship with Cooking
One of the reasons why some people don't like cooking is that they don't know the basics. It can be challenging without this foundation.
Tiffany is teaching someone who had never cooked before. Now, the person is cooking all the time because she knows the basics and that she is capable of doing it.
Another reason people donât like cooking is because of society's expectation that women should be the one cooking in the house. Remove these expectations and create a kitchen for everyone.
Growing up, Caitie never learned how to cook. Having to quickly learn it in her 20s made her resent cooking.
Honor your preferences in your cooking. As a professional chef, Tiffanyâs food can be simple at times, but she makes it all from the heart.
[39:07] Tiffany's Ever-Changing Routines
In the morning, Tiffany starts her day with her dog, drinking lemon water, eating granola, having tea, and taking a walk.
All throughout her day, she makes sure to stay cozy while doing whatever she needs to do.
Tiffany's evenings are less consistent. She's continuously discovering new evening routines and starting different habits.
Routines and habits can be constantly changing. It doesn't have to be the same every single day.
[45:39] This Weekâs Processing Prompt and Actionable Experiment
Processing Prompt: What is one thing that you desire to change your relationship with? Why?
Think about something you donât like the way youâre relating to, or feeling unsteady about your relationship with.
Can you step back and take a break from these things? Reassess your life with and without it and find the balance between both.
If your answer is food, it's not something people can take a break from. Look into other ways to process your relationship with food, such as a nutrition counselor.
Actionable Experiment: Cook a meal for yourself and see how it feels to take time to cook slowly.
Use that to assess your relationship with cooking. Do you enjoy it?
Make sure to take that quiet time to engage with food and the process of cooking. You deserve this.
About Tiffany
Tiffany Swan is an executive chef, food scientist, nutritionist, and sommelier. She believes that food not only fills bellies but also souls. Itâs a way to create connections and bring people together over shared food and laughter. Her love for food and her guests is put into every plate she prepares. Tiffanyâs 25 years of experience gave them the skills and techniques she now shares through her classes, intensives, and retreats.
Connect with Tiffany: Website | Instagram | Medium
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Transcript
Tiffany Swan: I do believe that you can recover. It's a really good point that you said because it's not necessarily the eating disorder that's always there. It's the thing that is behind it, those desires for perfectionism and body dysmorphia and all of that. If I don't take care of that, it comes through in controlling what I'm eating. But you're right, it's definitely like that underlying thing that is always there.
Caitie Corradino: Welcome to Whole, Full and Alive, a podcast exploring the art and science of falling in love with your life, with your story and with who you truly are, underneath your titles, your resume, your relationship status, and your bank account. I'm Caitie Corradino, a registered dietician nutritionist, certified fitness and yoga instructor, eating disorder, recovery coach, Reiki healer, and founder of Full Soul Nutrition, but underneath my titles and resume, a big fan of kitchen dance breaks, early mornings, all things chocolate truffles, world traveling and serendipity.
I'm here to share no bullshit stories and actionable tools to help you feel unshakably worthy. You have everything you need within you to feel whole, full and alive right here, right now. Let's get into it. Hi, welcome back to another episode of Whole, Full and Alive. If it's your first episode, welcome. Thank you so much for being here. I'm so glad that we were connected in some way, shape or form out there in the universe.
If it's your second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth or in like episode 15 or something now, thanks so much for coming back. I'm so grateful that you're listening. I'm so happy that we get to be connected. I am just wildly thankful for the small little community that has formed around this podcast, and I'm so grateful for your feedback that I've been receiving. Yeah, I'm done with my Oscar speech now. How are you today? How are you?
Wherever you are right now, can you take a moment to just check in with yourself? Really ask yourself that question, and don't judge the answer. Just sit with it for a moment. How am I today? What's on my plate today? How am I feeling in my body? What do I need right now? Do I need a little stretch? Do I need to twist around my chair? Do I need to look away from the screen for a moment?
Do I need to pause this podcast and take two deep breaths? Please, by all means, pause me. Do you need a glass of water? Do you need a break? Do you need a cup of coffee? That's something that we are totally allowed to need sometimes. Yeah, how are you feeling? Just ask yourself and don't judge the answer. I just wanted to open with that today, because I think it's so common to move through our days without taking inventory of how we're doing and how we're feeling and what's going on in our lives.
We don't give ourselves enough credit at the end of the day for everything that we go through in a day. So pull over, take inventory. I'm sure you've got a lot going on right now. Give yourself credit, you're doing an amazing job. So moving into today's episode, I have a very special guest. Her name is Tiffany Swan. She is an executive chef. She has been an executive chef at multiple restaurants.
She's also a food scientist and a sommelier, a wine expert, and the creator of a really fun virtual cooking club that helps make cooking more fun, more accessible for people in their homes who just want to learn the art and science of creating a little more flavor in their kitchen without overcomplicating it. I am so excited to be talking to Tiffany today, not only about cooking. We definitely talk about cooking.
She definitely talks about some tangible tools and some mindset shifts for kind of making cooking a little bit less intimidating, a little bit less anxiety inducing if you're someone who has a desire to cook, but is having a hard time, kind of, processing your relationship with it. We talked about that, and she also shares a lot about her personal life. Tiffany shares that she recently has set boundaries with social media, Instagram, in particular, and with alcohol.
It's interesting because she's an entrepreneur. She has her own business, her cooking club. I think a lot of entrepreneurs are told that they need to be on social media. They need to be on Instagram promoting their services, and she was like, but this is really bad for my health, and I feel like I need to set boundaries with it. Then, she also is a sommelier, a wine expert and she was like, but I need to set boundaries with alcohol.
So Tiffany opens up about this in a very authentic and courageous way, and I'm so thankful that she shares her experiences with setting boundaries with these two things, even though they're very much part of her career and what that has looked like for her so far. Tiffany also shares a little bit about her personal story recovering from an eating disorder. I kind of want to provide a little bit of a caveat about this before I dive into my interview with Tiffany.
One thing that Tiffany talks about is struggling with the feeling that sometimes her eating disorder thoughts get triggered when she thinks that she's finally let go of them. During the interview, Tiffany more or less shares this sort of fear that full recovery from an eating disorder is not possible.
I want to share that kind of off the bat, because it's important to me that you know that after Tiffany says that, she and I dive into a conversation about why full recovery from an eating disorder is possible, and why people kind of commonly are running with the misconception that it's not possible to fully recover from an eating disorder. So if you hear Tiffany say that in the interview, and you're like, oh, is full recovery not possible.
Stick around for 15 seconds, because immediately after that, she and I engage in a conversation about full recovery and what that really means and why a lot of people tend to think that it's not possible. So with that, I am so excited to introduce you to Tiffany Swan, an amazing chef. She is one of those people that just cooks food for you, and you just feel like all the love in it, and how much she loves cooking and making meals for people and bringing people together through food.
I had the pleasure, of course, of eating her food at one point, and also just all around an amazing human being that I'm so excited to be here talking with today. Let's get into it. Thank you so much for being here to talk to me today.
Tiffany: Thank you for having me. I'm so excited.
Caitie: I'm so excited for this community to meet you. I believe you're the first interview with the chef, so this is really exciting. I always ask my guests first, who are you, and I want to know what you do for sure. I just kind of, spoiler alert, gave a little bit of it away, but also let me hear about who you are, what makes you who you are, how do people know when they're in your energy, what do you value most. Take it away.
Tiffany: Oh my goodness, there's so many things, and definitely food is a lot of who I am, being a chef and a food scientist and a sommelier and trained in nutrition. Although I'm gonna caveat there, I know that you and a number of my other friends are in nutrition, and nutrition has changed so, so much. I was actually reflecting on this the other day. When I was in college studying nutrition, all of my professors were men, which I think is interesting, because itâs kind of a new science in a way, makes me sound like a dinosaur.
But also a lot of the things that we recognize as being kind of standard, like hunger hormones, for example, hadn't even been discovered when I was in college. So it's really interesting to see how nutrition science has evolved. While I'm not an RD and I'm not in the nutrition world, I still love it and follow it. I think it's very fascinating, so little caveat there. But ultimately, I'm a food person. I love food, I love to not only eat but feed people.
My biggest love language is sharing food with others. It sounds kind of cliche, but they say the way to a man's heart is through their stomach. I feel that way for everyone. Some of my closest friends have become close friends because I cook for them or we share a meal around a table together. You can have so much more connection over a meal than you can just chatting in a way.
So food and connection are really what drives me. But I'm not just food, I'm a full human. I live in Lake Tahoe, California, so trail running and snow sliding and lake swimming and all the things are other things that get me excited. So I like to move and I like to eat.
Caitie: What is snow sliding? Do I need to know that I just moved to Colorado?
Tiffany: It's kind of a all encompassing term for playing in the snow like a skier, a snowboarder, a backcountry skier, a cross country skier, but you're sliding on snow and having fun. You could be a tuber, whatever gets you excited on the snow. I don't know if it's a real term. I use it, because like it. I like to be out on the snow and just flying on it.
Caitie: I love that. I honestly love that. I was picturing you just like sliding on the snow. Oh, whatâs that? Maybe I could do that because I don't like skiing. Very cool. I think if a cozy and warm meal was a person, it would be you. You emanate connection and comfort and coziness, and I love being around you for that reason. I love that the first time I met you, you cooked a meal for me.
So I feel like I have experience of connecting with you through food, and you do truly see all of the different aspects of food, so you are a food scientist. You did study food and nutrition. You're also a professionally trained chef, and you also see the value of culture and connection and all the different things that are shared over a meal. I think that's so awesome.
There's so much stuff that I'm excited to talk to you about today. So the second question that I asked all my guests, though, is what is an unexpected challenge or obstacle that you faced in your life that brought you to where you are today, which is being a chef and having had so many experiences in different kitchens. You can talk about that a little bit more too if you want.
Tiffany: Oh my goodness. I mean, I think being a chef in itself is an obstacle. Gosh, I don't even know what the biggest thing is, but I've had a number of obstacles throughout my life. One in which I shared with you, I am an eating disorder recovered person, although it's always there. I share with people and you may feel the same way that it's kind of like having mono, like you get over it in a way.
But you always kind of have that in your body and your muscles and your mind just kind of responds, and you have to know the triggers. I think that really shaped a lot of what I do. Then moving into more of career style, like the actual work itself, like everyday is a challenge. As a chef, the food scientist, you're really just working on problem solving all the time.
I really learned how to think on my feet and stay calm and be a very kind of eye of the storm type person so that the chaos can happen around me, but I can stay calm. That has really shaped a lot of who I am and where my skills come from to. So in terms of challenges, it's all challenging. Life is challenging. It's hard to be a human being, but I think it all can be helped and healed with that connection and a little bit of food.
Caitie: Thank you so much for sharing all of that. Being a chef in and of itse