#84 – Ciara Carter: Run Thrive Survive#84 – Ciara Carter: Run Thrive Survive
Recovery Survey
Behaviour analyst and trainer Sierra Carter shares her near-fatal experience with anorexia and how fitness, running and behaviour-based habits support her ongoing recovery. The conversation highlights the gaps in nutrition education, the mental toll of eating disorders, and practical ways to build healthier routines in a busy life.
26:21•13 Oct 2021
Running Toward Recovery: Sierra Carter on Eating Disorders, Habits and Healing
Episode Overview
- Eating disorders can be hidden behind seemingly normal eating while excessive exercise quietly causes serious physical damage.
- Lack of practical nutrition education in adolescence can contribute to dangerous dieting behaviours and misconceptions about food.
- Standard meal plans may not suit everyone; understanding personal behaviour and environment can make change more sustainable.
- Recovery from an eating disorder is ongoing, and stress can trigger old patterns, but those thoughts do not have to dictate actions.
- Small, realistic habits built into a busy schedule can significantly improve mental, emotional and physical health over time.
“You may always struggle with some of these ideas that you have, but they don’t have to control you.”
What emotional and inspiring tales of recovery are out there? This conversation zooms in on one: Sierra Carter’s story of almost dying from a severe eating disorder and how she rebuilt her life around fitness, behaviour psychology, and sustainable habits.
Sierra, host of the Run Thrive Survive podcast and a personal trainer, shares how anorexia showed up in her life in a way that “wasn’t how most people think you suffer.” She describes eating just enough to appear “normal” while running and working out obsessively, eventually landing in hospital with a haemoglobin level of 2.9. Doctors repeatedly told her, “you should be dead,” a moment she calls her second chance at just 17.
Sierra notes that even years later, stress and events like Covid can trigger old patterns, but she stresses that “you may always struggle with some of these ideas that you have, but they don’t have to control you.” Her focus now is helping busy people build small, realistic rituals around work and life so they feel better mentally and physically and can “run their lives.” Aimed at anyone dealing with eating disorders, mental health struggles, or alcohol and addiction recovery more broadly, this chat blends raw personal experience with practical, behaviour-based strategies.
Rather than simply following meal plans, Sierra explains why standard diet advice didn’t work for her and how she shifted towards understanding the behaviour and psychology behind health. She talks about learning to read food labels, getting certified as a personal trainer at 18, and studying behaviour analysis so she could “untangle the behaviour and the psychology behind health and fitness.” The episode is honest about the ongoing nature of recovery.
It might leave you asking: what’s one small habit you could change today to support your own recovery?
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