Finding Freedom with Food Through Technology | Dr. Megan Osborne of Peace With Food

A lot of it really kind of boils down and comes back to just my heart for freedom. I really just. My desire is that somebody who is out there struggling with food, feeling like they have power over them and that I want them to be free of that. And. And so I think that was really our heart, that rather than having to have, you know, my list of clients that are coming to see me locally, that I. I can touch their lives, it's an amazing feeling to know that we are. The app is on every continent. It's all over the world. People are using it, they're finding freedom. I mean, there's not a week that goes by that I don't get an email from somebody in the uk, somewhere in Europe, somewhere in Australia, that said, I finally have freedom. And, like, I can't believe it feels so simple now that I've gone through the Peace with Food app and understood, like, what was in the way.

Welcome to the Mental Health Entrepreneur podcast. We are here to inspire creative ideas and connections for entrepreneurs and advocates working to address our mental health crisis. As you listen, I hope you will experience new ideas and motivation to innovate in your business, your community, and in your life. Welcome back to the Mental Health Entrepreneur Podcast. I'm glad to have you all with us. And we are back today to talk more about creative innovations in the mental health space. I'm really excited for you to meet Dr. Megan Osborne, who is the co founder and lead researcher for the app Peace with Food. She is also an author of children's books, as well as a mental health practitioner specializing in the treatment of eating disorders. Megan, welcome.

Oh, thanks for having me, Rachel. This is great.

Of course. So let's talk a little bit about what a day in the life looks like for you. You have all these pieces that you do, so can you talk a little bit about, like, what that look day to day life for you?

Oh, yeah. Oh, day to day. Yeah, it's. It's an amazing thing of balancing client load and being in the tech world of apps and managing users online and reviewing reviews online. I mean, there's just. There's a lot for sure, but it's a joy and it's been an amazing journey, for sure.

Okay, so let's dig into that a little bit.

Yeah.

How did you. You started as a mental health practitioner, right? Seeing clients, working with eating disord.

Yeah.

So how did this idea about an app get started for you?

Yeah, you know, and I mean, it even goes back further, I'd say for me, myself, personally, I Had an eating disorder pretty severe as a teenager. When I was in recovery and in counseling, part of it was, you know, you have a meal plan, you work with a dietitian, and then you're recovered. But when they don't address how do you continue to eat, A meal plan can become a crutch in itself. Early on in my career and when I was getting after my own recovery and I was getting trained as a counselor, that was really on my heart, like, how can we help? How can I help my clients to not maybe have the stumbling blocks that I did when I was in recovery as a teenager? And. And really, that key piece was intuitive eating. For those that are familiar with intuitive eating, it is recognizing your hunger and fullness. And it sounds so simple when I. When we say it out loud. But those of us that have struggled with an eating disorder, if. Then if there's one thing I'd say, you know, eating disorders, there's. The etiology is all over the board. There's so many reasons why eating disorders come into our life the way, you know, we become in bondage to food. But there is one common denominator I'd say, for all people who struggle, and that is that they have lost touch with their ability to feel their hunger and fullness. So that's across the board. If you're struggling with food and what becomes of that? It's an external thing. So. So food becomes external. Whether it's somebody telling you how much to eat, what the. Our culture or diet's telling you how much to eat, it's external. And we lose touch with what's inside of feeling our hunger and feeling our fullness and actually being able to taste on our palate. So people lose touch with that. So intuitive eating is reintroducing that and relearning that, because really, we're born with it. We just lose touch with it. So that was really the piece for me, becoming a clinician in it and then specializing, opening my practice and making that my foundation was teaching intuitive eating, even planting the seeds for someone who was acute on day one. And what I saw was this just huge success of people recovering and really getting well. And so that was just kind of. I was moving through practice doing the things. And I always laugh about this, but we. Back in the old days of intuitive eating, I would make a copy. You know, there's this nice little chart of tracking your hunger and fullness, getting people to come back this. And I'd make seven copies and I'd staple it, and I'd hand it to my clients. And they.

Oh, wow.

They'd go out and they would use it for the whole week. And it was. It was. It's. It's life changing to people to have the empowerment of themselves again, not somebody else or something telling them. And then fast forward, and it was about 2013. I was at a conference, and I met Amy Carlson, and she's a registered dietitian in Houston. She's pretty renowned for what she does. And so Amy and I, you know how it is, we're sitting at a table together, meeting, and we were basically doing the same work. So she was talking about making the seven copies and stapling it because. Because that was the overlap for her as a dietitian and myself as a mental health practitioner. And so we just. We laughed and we just talked about just how wonderful our work is. And then there was just something that happened between Amy and I, and it was this, like, hmm, there's like, is there a book we're doing together? Is there a project we're doing together? And so we stayed in touch. You know, we really became fast friends and colleagues, supporting each other in the work. And then there was this faithful day, probably about two years later, that I had a client that said, oh, Dr. Osborne, I just wish I had you in my back pocket. And I just thought, okay. So I gave Amy a call and I said, well, what if we kind of took a lot of what we do and in terms of the intuitive eating pieces, and we boiled it into an app that could reach more people and be a more affordable option rather than having to come and be on a waiting list for us and spend over $100 an hour. And she said, I'm. I'm in. Let's do it. And so that was. That was the beginning of where it all began.

I love that. And going back to intuitive eating, there's a lot of science behind that too, isn't there?

Oh, definitely. The research is huge in terms of whether it's coming out of the diet culture. So this. This really works for people who don't even have a clinical eating disorder, but just have been on a roller coaster of a diet world. Maybe they've had a family that's been dieting. They learn at a young age that they can't trust their body to know what it needs. So what we. We find a lot is when you put good food and bad food, the bad food is on a pedestal, and that makes you want it. And so that's where binge eating will come in. You know, when people finish a box of cookies, two boxes of cookies at night, you know, emotional eating comes into play. All of that is because it's become external and it's different than listening to your body again. So it's breaking down those old rules.

That's amazing. I love that it's coming out of research and that you use it as a tool. So it sounds like it could be something people use standalone if they're not in therapy, but also maybe as an adjunct if they are working with a dietitian or a therapist.

Yes, definitely. When Amy and I began writing and drafting the app, one of our heart was that there was no eating disorder language in it at all. So you don't hear anything about that. There is. And part of that is the stigma. We. We just wanted to wipe away any stigma that might be attached to that. So really, it's written just for anybody, the general user that's coming out of dieting maybe tired of the yo yo dieting. I mean, even in my practice, so often I see women who just have said, I'm done, I'm done dieting. Like, every time I'll diet, I'll lose the weight, and then it comes back plus. And so we just move them right back into trusting their hunger and fullness again. Really, when you stop the binge eating, it's amazing how many unnecessary calories we're not consuming. That I always tell people. And you're not tasting and enjoying it either.

What was it like then to develop this app? Because I think. Think you'd correct me if I'm wrong, but I haven't heard anything yet. In your background that's techy?

No, no. I mean, the closest tech well that I have was. I was in my. In my graduate work. I was at Stanford, and we were doing work on going into PE classes and health classes in the high school and being able to use technology in that way of discovering who would be at high risk for eating disorders and who would not. So I. I got to see kind of early on, like the play of when technology in Swiss, like way back. I mean, it's so archaic to even think about what we were developing back in those days. So that was the only tech I had, except to know that, you know, when you are on the cutting edge of using something, it can be very useful to a population. So that is probably the biggest challenge. I, of course, have no coding or tech. We just have ideas, you know, as professionals and what we're good at. And I think that's something that I would say for Amy and we would both say we've struggled with over the years because we know what we know, but we have to trust that our developers development team does what they know how to do. And it's just breakneck technology speed these days. Everything is changing always. So all the things that come with funding and marketing and, you know, like, we didn't go to school for this, you know, we know how to pour into that for, for eating disorder work.

How did you learn all of that?

Well, I didn't. You know, thankfully, we're blessed with a wonderful development team that kind of came on board right away with us. We kind of pitched the idea of, hey, you know, we're just professionals that we have this. I mean, I brought in my paper pencil, intuitive eating, like hunger, fullness, sk and I said this, this is working, it's great. But we'd love to see it where people can actually have it on their phone and use it more efficiently. And they were just like, wow, this is really cool. And so, you know, we had a really great team join us right away. And I always like to tell this story, even a couple of our developers, as they were even coding it for us into the app, to the mobile app, they were coming back and asking us questions like this is pretty cool and giving us examples of like not overeating pizza night before because they were actually listening to their tummy and being like, you know, I. And satisfied, so I didn't need to eat. So we were changing the lives of our developers while they were developing it, which is this, which is the sweetest story. But they really stuck with us because they believe in it too. So.

Right. I mean, that's the best. Right? If they understand from an experiential piece what you're doing, it's going to be that much more effective for them to pour their work into the app.

Yeah, it's been wonderful.

Wow. So how do you kind of balance this? I mean, to me that, yes, you're a clinician and you're also very much an entrepreneur. You're doing these things, you're creating these things. How do you define that part of yourself or how do you look at yourself as an entrepreneur or not?

Yeah, yeah. You know, I think a lot of it really kind of boils down and comes back to just my heart for freedom. I really just my desire is that somebody who is out there struggling with food feeling like they have power over them and that I want them to be free of that. And, and so I think that was really Our heart that rather than having to have, you know, my list of clients that are coming to see me locally, that I. I can touch their lives. It's an amazing feeling to know that we are. The app is on every continent. It's all over the world. People are using it, they're finding freedom. I mean, there's not a week that goes by that I don't get an email from somebody in the uk, somewhere in Europe, somewhere in Australia, that said, I finally have freedom. And, like, I can't believe it feels so simple now that I've gone through the Peace with Food app and understood, like, what was in the way. So that has really been like, the piece of it for Amy and I is just to be able to get it out there, we had to grapple a little bit with, you know, do we go with more investors? Do we make this more of a profitability piece of bringing people on? And that was just for Amy and I, it was. It felt like over our heads for what we could manage and do. At that point, we would have to give up our practice and what we were doing as, as clinicians. And so, I mean, really, we just kind of chose to just keep going with, with where we're at. You know, we both have a caseload, we manage the app on the side. We have some amazing people that are just. That help us, just even pro bono, because they see the use of it. So I think the balance of it is deciding, is it something that I am an entrepreneur or do I just continue to pour into what I can do as a professional? So.

But I think you can be both. You can and you are both.

Yeah, yeah, it is, it's. It's amazing. I mean, it's been such a blessing to be able to do this work and, and, and see that it's fruitful for people.

Yeah. So you've kind of maybe spoken to this a little bit, but where do you see this all going? Where's your ultimate vision for this app?

Well, even right now, we're in some talks with a few other companies that we are going to be collaborating with kind of coming up in 2024 and into 2025, which is exciting. Give us a little bit more vis. To bring in more of a team rather than just a few of us. It's a very. We've really been on a shoestring budget of a small team just kind of making this happen. And so, so that's exciting. So I do see it coming. I mean, we have a really big release that our developers Working on that should be out in about a month. You know, I think managing that stuff, that's all the new stuff that wasn't in my grad work. Right. So we've learned along the way what this is like. I have such a heart when I see apps out there, like, oh, wow, I know what you're going through. It's a lot more than people realize. So, yeah, it's great film.

What are some of the things. When you say it's a lot more than people realize, what are some of those pieces?

Yeah, just the bugs that pop up that, you know, in tech, like, even if, like, you and I both know we have an app on our phone and it's like glitching, we're like, ah, darn it, you know, and it's annoying to us, but that's. That's the stuff that we have to figure out. So we have to then, you know, go. And it can happen at any given day, any given hour, you know, we'll get a rash of emails of like, the app's not working. So then your day changes. And because we are such a small team, you know, we have to stop what we're doing and we have to, you know, call our developer. He has to go in and, you know, sort through, try to find it. That's just one example. So, you know, bug squashing is big. He's helping, you know, guide users. You know, we just, we love, absolutely passionately love all of our users and we want them to have a good experience. And so just having that, helping them, if they have questions, you know, we're doing that. And I don't think I've mentioned this, but we have just a number of dietitians and doctors that use this app with their clients. There is a feature in it where you can share with your professional or even a family member. So there's a sharing feature on it. So we have a lot of professionals using it that we engage with as well, so that they use it with their clients.

So that's amazing. So they can actually see the, the plan or the eating or all of that.

And we call it rhythms. It's like our rhythm of the day, just in the sense of like, you know, you wake up in the morning, you eat when you're hungry, you stop when you're phone satisfied, and that rhythm, which we all have, follows the day. And so when the. Because the app also works with the Apple Watch, it can just notify you and just do a quick little touch of where are you at in terms of Hunger and fullness. So instead of the paper pencil, now it's just, you know, a quick tap of the phone. We want it to take a split second because we want you just to be able to tune into your body and move on with your day. And that's the difference, because the mind space is really where it's all at. People are used to overthinking, over planning, and when your mind space becomes bogged down, that's where we have the issues, you know, that stem from that. So. So we're taking away the mind space of it. So, yeah, so, you know, we get the rhythm through the day. They can share it with either a family member, a doctor, a dietitian, and then they can quickly see, oh, what's going on. Like, for example, if you see in your rhythm that it looks like every night you're. You're overeating or you're getting what we call out of the gray. The gray is where we want to stay. We. We could talk about that. We talk about, you know, were you not nourishing yourself through the day? Is there emotional eating component that's happening at night that. That we can talk about and bring other coping skills, other grounding skills into. So that's where the rhythm snapshots are really helpful.

How young could somebody potentially use this app?

Oh, my gosh. And kids are so techie. So I think when. When you come to that place of the phone, you know, if they're. If they're familiar with the phone and using apps, you know, which, gosh, I'm gonna give an age of, like, 13. 12. 13. You know, we've had. We've. I've had kids that have used it directly with their professional counselor, and it's been beautiful. You know, oftentimes we can find that kids are quicker to come back to their hunger and fullness because they've just more recently left it. But of course, we have people in their 70s, you know, that are just now finding peace with food, and they're so happy about it, and they think, I wish I had done this earlier. So really, it touches all ages.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that you're. You're bringing up that concept to me of. Of relationship with food.

Right.

We all have a relationship with food, no matter what that is. And you're. You're wanting people to have peace in that relationship.

Yes, we want them to have peace in it. Where we get to choose. We get to decide what. What sounds good. That's something we say. I tell my clients all the time. You know, learning to ask ourselves that question, what sounds good? We're so used to not being able to ask ourselves that question because we have a good food, bad food category. Or we think, well, I'm dieting. Well, I have this. Or I'm trying to lose weight or all. All the things we say. We're trying to push all that away and instead come back to what sounds good. Like, what really sounds good. And then whatever that is, you decide that, let's learn how to taste it again. It's amazing how much we've learned how to taste food. It is amazing. So reintroducing that experience to clients is so much fun. And we do a lot of that in the app too. So there's a lot of that. Amy and I have quite a few videos, just four or five minute videos we put in there. There's a lot of Q and A. So there's a lot of education for it, of just experimenting with what. What works for you. What sounds good, right? Yeah. That relationship is huge.

Mindfulness, too, as you're saying that I'm thinking about mindfulness, right. Being able to stop and notice what your body's experiencing. Taste food again.

Yeah.

All your senses telling you. Being present.

Being present.

Yep.

In fact, that's what the app. That's those you use exact words the app has so you can set your frequency in the app for when you're reminded to check in. And our words are be present, where are you now? So that's what everybody gets. So if I have it checking in like once an hour every other hour, it just comes on my watch or comes on my phone, says, be present. Where are you now? And that's what it's all about, is about being present, tuning in. Where am I now? And whatever that is. We want to honor our body. We want to nourish our body. We want to go slow, taste, enjoy. Because we know that when time goes by and I'm hungry again, I can eat again. Often our culture tells us, you know, I'll allow myself to have it now, but I don't know if I'll be able to allow myself to eat again or have this again, so I better just have it all right now. And so we. We really push back on that, lie and say, well, why is that? Can't we taste enjoy right now and know we'll see if we want it again later? So whole different approach.

That is a different approach. I love it. Are there any new ideas that you have that you're wanting to pursue? Kind of like Floating around in the back of your mind there.

Oh, gosh, man. If you gave Amy and I a second, we'd have like a hundred. We've had to like kind of lower expectations just in terms of funding and over the years of like, okay, we, we, you know, we do everything of what we can actually just do, you know, I would love to see another app out there that I'm not sure if you're familiar with is the Reframe app. And I'll just give them a little shout out right now. They do a phenomenal job of helping people be mindful about drinking. So it's, it's very alcohol based. Whether it's like completely dry or let's learn to cut back. I love how they engage with their users. Like they have a really great community that's inside the. And that's something that we haven't been able to do is bring users inside the app and be able to support them through whether it's moderators or they're supporting themselves in a safe environment. That takes much more of a team to do. But reframe does it really well. So I would love to see something like that for the Peace with Food app someday.

That's a fantastic idea.

I like that too. Yeah, dreaming big.

I know.

So much of dreaming big though, to be honest, is just keeping up with the app updates and, you know, the things that we're not in control of that users don't actually experience and see. It's just keeping the app going with everything that's updating because it's happening so quickly. So we get kind of bogged down into just keeping it going, which we're grateful we were there. We're still keeping it going. But yeah, so it is, it's such an ever moving industry.

Definitely, definitely in our field. I think the field of psychology has been slow to innovate maybe and slow to get into technology. So this is a cool. And for some good reasons. I think there are some concerns about that.

Yes.

Because how do you do, how do you do one size fits all therapy?

Exactly. That's exactly right.

But this is a great adjunctive piece because it has to do with eating.

Yeah, it does. And, and we always say it's a tool in your recovery. A lot of times people end up with the app and they go, you know, I think I want to see somebody to talk about this. This is deeper than I thought. Then we have a lot of people who are just like, hey, I just really want to get rid of these numbers in my head. And calculating things, and I want to have peace with this, and it works, and that's all they need. You know, I have a waiting list of clients right now, and I love to be able to tell them, hey, download the Piece of Suit app and get a little kickstart. And I've had so many people that have emailed me and said, thank you. I think I'm good. I'll circle back if I need anything. And to me, that's a blessing. I would love to put myself out of work, please. And, like, wouldn't that be great? Like, if this is something that worked, that would be great. But if it could help anybody and just be more affordable, that's what, that's what we want.

And so what would you say to other entrepreneurs that are, that maybe have an idea, but it seems really daunting, Kind of like you had to switch into technology somehow. What kind of advice would you give?

Oh, man. Okay. Yeah, raw advice is sleep on it for quite a while. Like, really decide if you want it. You, you, you recognize that you end up not really being able to do what you're good at and what you love, like what you're trained in. You end up doing a lot of other things. So my advice is to get a good team around you. Get an amazing, like, especially if it's in the tech world, just find an amazing tech partner, whether it's somebody who, you know is doing mobile app development, web development, somebody that's passionate. We were so fortunate to have somebody who really understood our mission and cared about the users as we did. Like, that was amazing. I don't, I still, I'm still floored that we have him on our team. So, you know, having that team around you is huge. You know, the marketing, the social media, all of that, I mean, that. Those are all the pieces that you never really realized that are, are so important. They're right there. Having people to help you to do that and then just, you know, being ready to be flexible, being ready to change. If you want something new, you just be flexible. Because it's probably not going to be exactly the way you're envisioning today with the dream. It's going to look different. Are you okay with that? That that's where we had the flex in the middle was like, this isn't exactly what maybe we were thinking, but can we flex in the middle and just say, hey, let's just do what we can. We have people that are finding freedom with it. Let's go with that.

So I love that, Emdr Language.

Yeah, I know.

I caught that a lot these days. Yeah. No, I think you're right about the flexibility. It's never what you think it's going to be. I mean, therapy is like that, but so is entrepreneurship.

Yeah, it won't be. And if you have a cost price that like a budget, just go ahead and quadruple it. Like, that's another thing. I'd say it will be way more expensive than you initially think. That's the other piece that we have had to grapple with and another piece

of advice that is so true. And sometimes I think we might not take it on if we knew the challenges and the budget and all of that at the front end, but good news is we did.

Yeah. Right. Sometimes, like, ignorance is bliss, I always say. So. Yeah.

Need a little bit of that for sure. Awesome. Well, anything else you want to share with either entrepreneurs or people who are looking into your app?

Yeah, I mean, I don't want to. I won't want to sound too negative because, like, if. If you have an idea that is going to change things, like, I just always want to encourage people to go for it. Like, it will. It will come into place, it will be good. And if it's going to help people, like, what else could we ask for? Right. So just. Yeah. Encouraging people to just follow their dreams. I still am amazed that, you know, we are where we are today. And, you know, the Peaceless food app, it's. It is ever evolving and we are excited about the updates coming and the changes and, you know, just some of these partnerships that we're forging right now are exciting. So we're looking forward to having a little bit more of a personalized community that can support each other. You know, Facebook can only go so far. We've learned, you know, there's some other things that are in the works today that are a lot more just I think, valuable and valuable for people's time where they can feel even a little safer. So something kind of like what we're frame is doing, we'd love to incorporate that. But, yeah, we. We love it. People finding freedom with food is an amazing thing. It's. I never get tired of hearing people's stories of the peace that they are experiencing now versus before.

So that's awesome. Well, thank you for the work that you do and for thinking outside of the box to something that can help people even beyond the therapy office. I love that you do that.

Oh, yeah, it's amazing.