Looking back on my teenage eating disorder: here’s what got me through

This week’s podcast highlights with model and parenting influencer Louise Boyce. Plus: 8 great swimwear brands with sales on right now

Louise Boyce: definitely still got it

How fabulous it was to have Louise Boyce, aka Mama’s Still Got It, one of social media’s biggest and funniest parenting stars on our podcast this week (she has a whopping half a million followers on Instagram). As with all our guests she shared her pearls of wisdom about keeping it together through the parenting and midlife years (her book is called Mama Still Got It: How To Make It Through The Calpol Years Without Losing Yourself, so you get the idea). And also her own struggles with body image and eating disorders in her years as a model. Here’s a trio of her tips for you, and if you’d like to hear the full interview click here. Keep scrolling too for our pick of the best swimwear buys which we discussed on the show - the sales are on so now is a good time to snap up a bargain.

Mental overload makes you feel like a computer with too many tabs open

‘We mums can be very critical of ourselves, we think we’re never doing enough even though we  are. When I feel overwhelmed, it’s like my computer having too many tabs open. At its worst, when the mental overload is too much, I can just snap - at my husband, at the kids - and I really don’t like myself for it. So instead I try to shut down the ‘tabs’ that really don’t need to be open. I ask myself what is the most important thing right now? Do I really need to answer that email? No, it can wait. I have to be disciplined with myself in order to work out how I am going to get the best out of a situation. My mum always says: ‘Don’t let your storm rain on other people’, and I try to practise this. She was amazing when I was growing up because she was a single mum and it wasn’t easy for her, we had nothing but I only have really happy positive memories of my childhood. She is a survivor, not a victim.’ 

Modelling started my eating disorder - and this is what helped

‘I was only 15 when I was spotted by a model scout. I started modelling in 1995 and by 1996 I’d developed an eating disorder. I was so young and I felt the pressures of having to be a certain size. I didn’t talk to anyone about it because I knew mum would have taken me out of the agency and modelling altogether. So I hid my bulimia from her and everyone else. I ate everything mum cooked for me, but then I threw it all up.