Using Fanfiction To Heal Eating Disorders
Embodied writer, Kayla MacDonald, shares her unorthodox (and totally unhinged) method that helped her heal her eating disorder and stop binging for good.
A Little About The Guest.
Kayla MacDonald is a food freedom and embodiment coach who helps women break free from self-sabotage and finally feel safe, sexy, and at home in their bodies. She’s the creator of Food Freedom Fantasy, a sensual, story-driven method that uses archetypes, nervous system rewiring, and inner storytelling to help women turn cravings into clarity, and self-care into sacred play.
Kayla believes that the most lasting change doesn’t come from willpower, but from desire, devotion, and rewriting the story you’ve been stuck in.
Find + Connect With Kayla Here:
WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK
The Guest Deep-Dive.
1. What does being ‘turned on’ by life look like for you? If you had to describe an ideal day filled with pleasure- what would you be wearing, doing, eating, etc?
It looks like having main character energy. It looks like bringing play and aliveness to even the most mundane things. It’s dancing in the kitchen while meal prepping. It’s wearing cute brightly coloured outfits from Silverwind (I’m a little obsessed - they make their clothes out of recycled plastic bottles).
It’s pulling tarot cards and then creating Dance Alchemy playlists to match the card’s vibe. It looks like taking multiple walks a day out in nature, and putting natural peanut butter on as many of my foods as possible. Crunchy, of course :)
2. Romantasy and fanfiction clearly live rent free in your head. What’s the best book or series you’re absolutely obsessed with in this area?
This is a tough one. It’s either the Black Dagger Brotherhood series by J.R. Ward or the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series by Laurell Hamilton. I started reading the Anita Blake series when I was fourteen - it’s no wonder I’m currently in love with why choose stories. Anita Blake ended up with so many boyfriends and girlfriends, she needed a spreadsheet to keep track of them all.
She was also a feminine character who reminded me of me - fiery, dominant, would not take a man’s shit, and fiercely independent. Then the Black Dagger Brotherhood series. This one has my favourite couple of all time - Blay and Quinn. Their very slow burn love story starts getting seeded into earlier books until they get their happy ending in book 10. It’s called Lover At Last for a reason. Plus, I love redheads.
3. What's a hill you will absolutely die on that nobody asked you to defend?
You might have guessed from my book picks above, but I truly believe that dark romance, why choose love stories and sword-crossing (aka, the boyfriends are also boyfriends) are deeply healing stories for high-performing women, which is probably why these tropes/genres have taken over BookTok.
Dark romance because all those morally grey male main characters aren’t unlike the toxic, unhealed inner masculine many women have. It doesn’t need destroyed - just a redemption arc. Why choose love stories are pure medicine for women who’ve been told they’re “too much” because in these stories, their “too much” gets celebrated and chosen by multiple partners who, together, can hold all of her.
As for sword-crossing... I wouldn’t even know where to start in a short answer, which is why I once recorded an entire 50-minute podcast episode on the topic.
4. What’s your most chaotic green flag; something about yourself that sounds like a red flag but is actually a gift to the right person?
My most chaotic green flag is that I’m really intense and dramatic. That might sound like a red flag to someone who wants everything calm, quiet, and emotionally beige, but for the right person, it’s part of what makes life feel alive. I care deeply, I feel things fully, I bring big energy into the room, and I’m usually incapable of pretending I’m less excited, passionate, or invested than I actually am.
The shadow side of that used to be creating chaos or over-identifying with every emotional wave, but the gift is that I bring aliveness, devotion, creativity, and fire to everything I love. I’m not everyone’s cup of tea, but for someone who wants a little more magic, momentum, and main character energy in their life, I’m exactly the right amount.
5. What is the weirdest or most unhinged compliment that you've ever gotten?
I used to get called a "try-hard" at my last workplace. I actually think it was meant to be an insult, but I loved it. I remember a person at work sharing this with me and I was like, "Yes, and?" I'll never understand how this managed to become some kind of insult.
Can we please make effort and caring sexy again? Apathy stopped being cool in high school. It was weird because it was meant to be derogatory, but it had the opposite effect. And unhinged because it's now something to be mocked instead of celebrated by some people.
6. Do you have a favourite treat that you love to indulge in (and allow yourself to do guilt-free), or has that been ruined by your past cycles of binging?
I'm obsessed with peanut butter. Always will be. I love it in protein mug cakes, smoothies, on pancakes, stirred into oats, or honestly anywhere it can reasonably be invited. I even put it on vegetables and add it to homemade salad dressings.
In the past, treats could get tangled up with binge cycles and guilt, but one of the beautiful parts of healing my relationship with food has been letting pleasure become normal again instead of dramatic. Peanut butter is one of those foods that feels grounding, satisfying, nostalgic, and delicious, and I refuse to make that weird.
And a few tablespoons of natural peanut butter are a beautiful replacement for my old habit of eating my weight in Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Though, I still have those sometimes, too. Just in more sensible doses.
The Podcast Deets.
What if I told you that you could heal your eating disordered eating patterns using pleasure, turn-ons, and fanfiction? If your jaw just dropped and open, and you thought ‘no way!’... well, do we ever have a wild story to share with you.
In today’s Friday’s with Friends episode, I am joined by the wise AF writer Kayla MacDonald for a conversation I honestly never would have imagined having.
In this totally unhinged (and completely unorthodox) chat, she shares with us how she was able to heal her eating disorder through two playful and sexy archetypes, named Rex and Haven.
She discusses her frustration with conventional methods and how stuck she felt for years, before she stumbled upon this practice- and then later, how she was able to adjust it to help other women heal too.
This conversation will have you on the edge of your seat in the absolute best way- and I just know you’re going to get so much out of it.
Let’s dive in, shall we?
133. Using Turn-on’s To Heal My Eating Disorder [with Kayla MacDonald]