October 4, 2025 • 37 mins
In this final episode of the Outweigh Q&A series, we’re diving into a listener question about Orthorexia. While pretty much everyone knows what an Eating Disorder is, most have never even heard of this thing called Disordered Eating. An even lesser known (and talked about) form of Disordered Eating is something called Orthorexia.
Orthorexia is when someone takes their health to an extreme, and they inhabit an excessive preoccupation or obsession with eating healthy food. According to The National Eating Disorders Association Orthorexia entails: Obsessive focus on food choices, food regarded primarily as source of health rather than pleasure; distress or disgust when in proximity to prohibited foods; periodic shifts in dietary beliefs; moral judgment of others based on their dietary choices; body image distortion; persistent belief that dietary practices are health-promoting despite evidence of experiencing malnutrition...and the list goes on, and on, and on.
And because of all of the misinformation that's being thrown at us, Orthorexia is spreading like a wildfire -- ESPECIALLY in the female population. The EFFECT of all of this? An extremely DISORDERED relationship with food. And if you're like most women out there, you've been exposed to the 'Dark Side' of the health industry for a very long time, and it's super important that you know what to look out for to make sure that YOUR health journey....stays....healthy!
Listen in to an interview with Leanne and Laura Lea Bryant where they unpack this super-important topic (and Laura Lea shares her personal experiences....and her experience as an influencer in the health and wellness world).
HOSTS:
Amy Brown // RadioAmy.com // @RadioAmy
Leanne Ellington // StresslessEating.com // @leanneellington
GUEST: Laura Lea Bryant // llbalanced.com // @Lauraleabalanced
To learn more about re-wiring your brain to heal from the all-or-nothing diet mentality for good....but WITHOUT restricting yourself, punishing your body, (and definitely WITHOUT ever having to use words like macros, low-carb, or calorie burn) check out Leanne's FREE Stressless Eating Webinar @ www.StresslessEating.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I won't let my body out me outwait everything that
I'm made, don't won't spend my life trying to change.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
I'm learning to love who I am again. Strong, I
feel free, I know every part of me. It's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
And I will always out way if.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
You feel it with your hands in the air, She'll
some love to the view.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Why get there, say go one day? Anita?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Did you and die out Way?
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Happy Saturday.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Outweigh Amy here and I've got Leanne by my side.
This is part five of a Q and A series
we've been doing. I encourage you to go back and
listen to the previous weeks if you miss them. These
are questions that were sent in by you, people like you.
I put up a little question box on Instagram. This
wasn't a question, but there's a comment someone sent in
(00:56):
that said, Outweigh helped me realize I had this behaviors.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Thank you Outweigh.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
I got through it and over it. And the question
for today is about orthorexia, which someone sent in, can
you do an episode on orthorexia? And I threw that
comment in there at the beginning as encouragement and hope
that it is possible and it's through people sharing their
stories on outwey and the experts that have come on
(01:24):
and talked about different types of eating disorders, and even
in the original OG four part series of Outwegh, which
wasn't even its own podcast, it was just a four
parts on four things, four different episodes, Lisa Haym and
I loaded them up and had people sharing real life stories,
and then we had therapists, doctors, other experts, registered dietitians
(01:46):
joining us that work in the eating disorder disordered eating space,
so we knew we could trust their guidance. And I
think through people sharing that stuff and even their orthorexia
experiences specifically, because orthorexia it can be a sneaky one
where you don't even realize you have disordered behaviors because
you're just quote unquote eating healthy. And that's me summarizing
(02:11):
it quickly. There's more to it, but that comment, like
she was like outwait helped me realize. And I don't
know this person, but my guess might be that it
was one of the orthorexia shares that she might be
talking about in one of those OG episodes where we
went in depth on some of that stuff, and that
realization that aha, moment. I spent years of my life
(02:32):
thinking I was in recovery because I wasn't purging.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
I had a very.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Limited set amount of foods. But by society standards and
health standards, I was just living a healthy life. I
was trying to do all the right things for my body,
but it definitely got out of control and was one
hundred percent orthorexic. So I have experienced the bulimia, the
binge restrict purge cycle, and orthorecap That's my relationship with
(03:02):
disordered behaviors. And there are more and more that are
being discovered as the years go by and the more
we talk about it. That orthorexia is something that it's
still relatively new to people. And Leanne I know that
you have a gift for us because this is something
you've covered with our friend Laura Lee before and you
(03:22):
got a little treat.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Yeah. So we actually did an episode all about orthorexia,
so we're going to share it with you all now.
But yeah, like Amy said, it's one of those things
where it's kind of sneaky and insidious because it gets
almost kind of batched in with air quotes eating healthy,
and we think.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
That it's what we're you know, air quotes supposed to do.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
But then we realize, like, wow, there's something you kind
of know it in your soul, like you know that
something is a little bit too restrictive or confining. I'm
working with somebody right now who got on the vegan bandwagon,
and what happens is and there's nothing wrong with veganism
by any means, right, But what happens is she picked
up a lot of lies that like protein was bad
and fat was bad and stuff like that. So we
(03:59):
had to kind of to dismantle the beliefs. And I
think that's what happens alongside orthorexia is we build beliefs
and we give meaning to what certain foods mean or
don't mean, and those beliefs or what drive the disorder
and the behavior. But again, if we think we're being healthy,
because we're not, you know, falling into a black and
white case of an eating disorder, we might fall through
the cracks, and that's where a lot of people with
(04:19):
orthorexia do. So in this episode, we have Laura Lee,
who also experienced lots of orthorexia in her past, and
she shares her experiences. We talk about what it is,
what it isn't how to heal it, so we will
just go ahead. You ask and you shall receive. Can
you do an episode about orthorexia? We got you covered, all.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Right, Hope y'all enjoy this, and we'll just let that
episode end and it will roll out. Leanna and I
are not going to come back and say bye. We'll
just let her episode wrap. But thank you for sending
in your questions. We'll do another Q and A sometime soon.
I like keeping it personal and connecting with y'all in
this way, and just thank you to anybody that's listened
(04:55):
and shared and even shared outweigh with other people, Like,
maybe that's a way you can support others some of
the weeks we've been talking about support. Is that way
a tool where you can send over this podcast to
someone that might need to hear it?
Speaker 1 (05:09):
It could be helpful, but.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
I guess make sure because sometimes that can be damaging
if you're like, hey, listen to this.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Are you're trying to say, right right.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Use your discretion, but just thankful for this community. Thankful
for you Leanne and sharing some of your stressless eating
material with us as well.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
So y'all enjoy it. Bye, all right? We are back
for another episode of the Stresslesseeding Podcast, and I'm so
excited to welcome Laura Lee Bryant back to the show.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Hello, Hi, so glad to be back.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Absolutely absolutely so. We're going to be talking about a
topic today that a lot of women may have never
ever heard of. It's called orthorexia, and it's pretty mainstream
to hear topics about eating disorders such as you know,
bolimia and orexia, stuff like that, disordered eating. We've done
an episode on the podcast on that specifically because again,
(06:03):
you know, the diet mentality. People don't know that that
is a form of disordered eating or it absolutely can be.
But one thing that comes up all the time, and
it's kind of masked under this air quotes word health
is this concept of orthorexia, right, And if you were
to just kind of look at orthorexia in a simplified manner,
what it is is it's basically this like hyper intensive,
(06:27):
unhealthy focus on eating in a healthy way. And I'm
putting healthy in air quotes, right, And so you know,
it's one of those things where yes, we want to
focus on fueling our bodies and having a really beautiful
relationship with food, and nutritiously dense foods and all of that,
but if you get to it to a degree of
obsession and hyper vigilance, it's actually really unhealthy. And so
(06:53):
just like other eating disorders, it does focus around food,
but orthorexia revolves around the quality of food, not the
quantity of it, right, And it really is heightened with
terms like good, bad, right, wrong, should, shouldn't, healthy, unhealthy.
So super excited to have Laura Lee to kind of
talk us through this conversation as well, because first of all,
(07:13):
it's such an important topic that nobody's really talking about.
And also, you know, you have your own experiences that
I think will be really enlightening to be shared. I
know I have mine. And then of course you are
so deeply integrated in the health and wellness world, both
online and offline, that there can be a dark side
to this health world. So we want to just kind
of shed light on this really important topic and also
(07:36):
give women a safe space to know like they're not alone,
because again this is more prevalent than we think. So
thanks for being back and just you know, anything before
we dive in, anything that kind of comes to your mind.
And then I'd love to just hear, if you don't
mind just sharing a little bit about your experiences with
your own kind of like hypervigilance of the healthy foods
and all that, and then we'll get into how that's
extended outward into the health world and your career and
(07:58):
all that. But my just kind of filling us in
a little bit on your experience of this.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
So what comes to my mind first is that this
is even more insidious in some ways than traditionally recognized
eating disorders, because, as you said, it is about the
quality of food, and it's harder to sort of quantify
because of that, and there's a lot less conversation about it,
and it can be I don't want to say just
(08:25):
as damaging. I mean, I'm not a medical professional, but
it can be incredibly damaging, and it was for me.
And it can be harder for friends and family to spot.
It can be harder for you, as the ailing person
struggling with this, to recognize. And so I'm just really
glad we're shining a light on it for that reason.
And for me, you know, that was very very true.
(08:47):
I was living in New York. This was back in
from I guess two thousand and eight to about two
thousand and twelve, and food was the one thing I
could control in my life, out of control everywhere, but
I masked that as a problem by choosing to go
the route. I'm sure it was not sort of a
(09:09):
conscious choice, but I think it was conscious in the
sense that I knew on some level that if I
was traditionally sort of anerexic, if I was traditionally skipping
meals and not eating, people would recognize that. And I
also knew that, you know, I didn't want to go
the root of bolimia. I'd seen that in friends. That
(09:30):
seemed messy and complicated, and it seemed like there was
a lot of merit in choosing the health halo of
orthorexia as something that would be easier to get away with.
So I think that, And then I also think I
convinced myself that I was just being healthy, and so
what that looked like for me. There was definitely restriction.
(09:52):
I definitely was not consuming as many calories as I
should have been, But it was more that I ca
came up with my own arbitrary set of what it
meant to be healthy, and then anything that was even
slightly out of my rules for health made me feel guilty,
it would incite binges, it would just go into that
(10:17):
shame spiral that you talk about a lot. But it
was so silently deadly because it just showed up as
eating a lot of salads, making healthy choices. No thanks,
I don't want the junkie reces. I'm going to have
a homemade version or whatever. You touch on so many
important things. First of all, it's sneaky and insidious.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
We don't even know that it is a dangerous paradigm
to be living in because we're being given these messages
of like, oh, healthy means like no sugar, no this,
no that, it's all of the things that you can't have,
right this the elimination side of it, the restricting of
like can't have, shouldn't have not allowed all of that
side of it too, and then focusing on the hyper
(10:58):
like again, we want to be healthy, we want to
feed ourselves with nutritiously dense foods and really, you know,
focus on nourishing our bodies. But when it's obsessive, it
can become very unhealthy. But there's this dark side of
it because it's masked just like you said, as health,
you know, when in reality it's a form of control
that is really like kind of covering up for something
(11:21):
else that's going deeper on inside of our brain, our thoughts,
our nervous system, our beliefs, our self image. It's some
sort of void that we're using some sort of coping mechanisms.
So a lot of times on this podcast we talk
about how binging and overeating and over consuming is a
coping mechanism, but control, restriction, dieting, hypervigilance about what you eat,
it's also a coping mechanism. It's just an opposite side
(11:44):
of the same spectrum, right, And it's sneaking insidious because
the world is actually validating this and complimenting you for
your will power. And I say you, as in anyone
who's listening to this that's relating to this, if you
are showing up with these orthorexic kind of tenants, in general,
society is complimenting you for your willpower, telling you how
(12:05):
strong and resilient and accountable you are, telling you like,
oh my gosh, you're such a great example. I wish
I could be like that, right, And a lot of
the body positivity movement, and I agree, is saying like,
don't necessarily compliment somebody on their weight loss, right, because
you don't know how they got it, Are they sick,
are they unhealthy? All those things? And in so many
times in society it's like, oh, you've lost weight, you
(12:26):
looks so great. But a lot of times we can
be actually reinforcing a negative habit or something that's actually
like destructive, right, And so the same is kind of
true at this We get reinforced by other people's perceptions
of like, oh, my gosh, she's so healthy, she's such
an example. But then we also feel kind of trapped, right,
because I've never met a woman that struggles with orthorexia,
(12:47):
and I deal with it time and time again with
my clients that there isn't the other side of it,
which is what happens when they can't possibly white knuckle
and willpower their way through this any longer, that they
have to go to some sort of opposite extreme, and
it's usually an extrema, right, there's some sort of rebound.
But again, society is complimenting this. So then what they
feel trapped in that set of shame of the shame spiral,
(13:09):
which is like, oh my gosh, everybody thinks I'm so
healthy if only they knew, and then it becomes our
dirty little secret exactly.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
And yeah, it's interesting because sort of both ends of
it is what happened to me. I quote unquote used
orthorexia to my advantage to be traditionally very thin when
I was living in New York, and I did get
all of those compliments, especially living in that city, but
I was very unwell.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
And then what.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Happened is after years of being orthorexic, and this is
now several years into my career as a health food chef,
I was still battling with orthorexia in the first three
or four years. But what happened was I started to
have a more difficult time fighting the cravings for whatever,
(13:58):
but I fought against it, and so what I did
instead was I would overdo it on my health foods.
I had this health food arsenal like granola was okay
and almond butter was okay, but a slice of Costco
cake wasn't. So what I would do is just try
to fill that void by eating like bowls and bowls
of brunola topped with like, you know, organic peanut butter.
(14:21):
And honestly, I gained weight eating as an orthorexic person.
I gained like ten to fifteen pounds in the last
few years of that part of my life, and it
was when I actually got divorced was the turning point
for me, because all of a sudden, I stopped living
to eat and was just eating to live and I
(14:42):
just didn't care about the quality of the food, which
sort of long term is not something I would recommend,
but short term actually to go from feeling like, you know,
a bagel and cream cheese was the worst breakfast to
have to being like, sure, I don't care whatever, like
I just need fuel. And I built this healthy relationship
because it didn't hurt me and it didn't make me
(15:04):
unhealthy and it didn't ruin anything. And I actually ended
up losing that ten to fifteen pounds four years ago
after my divorce and haven't regained it because I let
myself have the things that I want to have when
I want.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Them, and there's a so much freedom that comes alongside it.
And I'm sure there's a lot of women that are
listening and that are like, oh my gosh, but like,
if I don't control it, I'm going to go to
the opposite. I'm going to go off the deep end.
I'm going to gain a bunch of weight. And it's like,
if somebody comes up to you and is like, hey,
stop controlling the one thing you're trying to control. I'm
not saying that because it takes away all level of
certainty and it actually creates anxiety and threat in our brain.
(15:40):
If somebody's like, I want you to stop controlling the
one thing you've been controlling your whole life. Right, what
I am inviting women into is learning a new paradigm
to replace it, right, but one build with structure and
free like structure as opposed to control, right, because our
brain does thrive on structure, But inviting them into a
paradigm of freedom and permission and choice as opposed to
being taken away and not all of a sudden, just
(16:03):
like reintroducing all of this stuff that you feel you've
been deeming healthy or unhealthy your entire life. It's a
gradual process, but part of it is, and we're going
to talk about this when we get to actual steps
to healing. It is first. The reason we're having this
conversation is to create the awareness because I've never met
a woman that's going and out and gung ho about
solving a problem that she doesn't even realize that she has.
(16:24):
And if you think, and again this is not to
shame you, but a lot of women that might be
listening to this think like, oh, my unhealthy obsession with
being healthy is actually healthy. And that's a little bit
of a mouthful, right, But the unhealthy obsession with being
healthy and all of these healthy words are really in
air quotes, that's the biggest prison of them all. So
thanks for sharing your version of it. I mean, for me,
(16:44):
it was, you know, I went from decades of not
caring and not taking care of my body to all
of a sudden being that hypervigilant. And what I noticed
that came alongside the hypervigilance was not only judgment of
myself when I thought about eating something air quotes naughty,
but I was judging everybody in my life. What I
(17:09):
noticed that came alongside the hypervigilance was not only judgment
of myself when I thought about eating something air quotes naughty,
but I was judging everybody in my life. I was
looking at people's you know, on the conveyor bell at
the grocery store, and judging the crap out of everything
that they were buying. I was at restaurants thinking, oh
my gosh, are they really going to use the whole
(17:30):
dish or the whole little ramikin of salad dressing? Don't
they know how much fat is in there? And I
was up on my almighty horse, and I mean, shame
for so many years wouldn't allow me to even talk
about what I'm sharing right now, because again it was
so shameful. But I was becoming, along with the hypervigilance
and the obsessiveness over my health, I was becoming a
judgmental jerk to the people that I loved because it
(17:53):
wasn't personal to them, it was the way I was
seeing myself. And I needed to rewire my brain and
un brainwash myself of that. Right, But again, first had
to become the awareness of like, wow, what I'm thinking
is healthy is actually super unhealthy.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Yeah. I did the same thing. I remember like getting
really mad at my mom when I first moved home
after culinary school because she didn't get a pasture raised
chicken and you know, she was just doing her thing,
and I just remember sitting the car like burrating her
for it. And you know, it's embarrassing to think back on.
But it was just this place of intense fear and
(18:31):
needing to have something figured out that other people didn't
have figured out, and oh man, it really can take
over your life. One of the things I'm doing right
now is writing my third cookbook, which I feel so
compelled to do because I feel like it's actually really
reflective for the first time of the healthy relationship that
I have with food, because looking back at my first
(18:54):
few books, I was still really struggling with that. And yeah,
no one wants to be the judgmental jerk. Our bodies
are strong. That's the other thing is, like our bodies
can handle a lot. We have this idea first of all,
like one of the health food concepts of like detoxification,
that certain foods like detox your body. Like I mean, yes,
it's sure, like consuming fiber is you know, important to
(19:17):
an extent to help you you keep yourself regular. But
this idea that like foods make us detoxified. Know, our
bodies aren't naturally detoxifying all the time, and so I
think this idea that like something bad is going to
happen obviously barring specific allergies or diet you know, conditions,
diseases like celiac disease or you know, all sort of clitis.
(19:38):
I mean, for the most part, eatings and potato chips
and areses. You can handle that just fine.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Right, And that's the thing. A healthy nervous system can
really handle anything. It's what happens is our nervous systems
are nervous, and so all of a sudden, we have
these food sensitivities and intolerances and really and then we
think like, oh, we have a gastrointestinal problem. But it's
like no, the gas ro intestinal system it's literally nicknamed
the enteric nervous system. Its nickname is the second brain.
It is literally dictated by your emotions and by your
(20:04):
olymbic system and how you're feeling moment to moment. And
so a lot of the gastro intestinal distress that people
are thinking is caused by oh, I ate that race's cup. No,
it's actually your thoughts about the raze's cup that are
causing your gas rational system to be in distress. It's
not the food. It's your thoughts about the food, and
it just contributes further to the vicious cycle of the orthorexia.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Yeah, and that's why when you're young. It's not like
your gastro intestinal system changes fundamentally from age twelve to
age twenty two. If you open up a sleeve of
oreos and you eat the entire sleeve at age twelve,
you're like, that tasted great, And guess what, You're probably
not going to be interested in oreos for a while naturally.
(20:45):
But at twenty two, where you know, when I started
this orthorexic journey, at twenty two, I would eat the
sleep of oreos, and there was just this whole world
of thoughts and meanings that I put to it in
the moment and then after for very long time, and
I was more likely to go for another sleep of
warreos the next day or to punish myself and not
(21:08):
eat for a certain period of time.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Absolutely, it's really our beliefs that come alongside it that
dictate our actions. Like behaviors are always following our beliefs.
Beliefs dictate our behaviors. And like even just the paradigm
that you shared, like ladies, I'm telling you, the hyper vigilance,
the orthorexia, the obsession over your health, there is always
an opposite spectrum. There's always a bounce back. That is
the number one cause of binging ladies. So I know,
(21:34):
you know it makes you feel in control, but the
more you try to control it, the less in control
or the more out of control you'll actually feel. And
that's why it's super important, and that's why we're here
today just talking about it, shining a light on this
topic that no one's really talking about.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Yeah, it's interesting, Leanne, I wonder I would be curious
to know from your expertise in a certain context, would
you recommend to someone who's been in an orthorexic place
to give that just sort of like, yeah, I know
you love experiments, sort of experiment for a couple of
weeks with just allowing yourself, hey, for the or just
(22:07):
a week for this week, I'm just going to have
what sounds good to me and then I can go
back to what I've been doing after a week or
anything like that. Do you have any experiments?
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Yeah, it's a great question. So the answer is yes.
And the first thing is is like what brain is
running an experiment like that? So first and foremost, you know,
I always look at the strategy, but it's got to
be alongside the stories and the thinking, right, So the
strategy might be X, right's the that's the content, but
what's the intent shaping it? Right? The intent might be, Okay,
what can we do? What thoughts and beliefs do we
(22:38):
need to overcome? And we get specific here and this
is this is specifically like some of the experimentation I
do with my clients, like reverse engineering overcoming carbophobia that's
a big one. Reverse engineering overcoming fat phobia, that's a
big one. Reverse engineering overcoming calorie phobia, that's a big one.
Reverse engineering overcoming the binging side book that comes alongside
the hypervigilance. Right, So there's specific experiments that we do
(23:00):
reverse engineer. But part of it is like, when it
comes to this concept of listening to our bodies, that's
where most women are shut down, tuned out, numbed out.
They don't even know what that feels like or looks
like because they've been paying so much attention to a
calorie count, a carb count, a micronutrient account, something external
to them that they have no idea what it's like
(23:20):
to actually listen to their body. So part of it
is like we need to change their brain and teach
them a new system of thinking and their thoughts about
food so that they actually know like, well, what is hunger?
Am I hungry? Or am I just bored? Am I full?
Or am I just trying to deprive and control and restraint? Right?
Am I hungry? Or am I just desiring something sweet?
(23:41):
Like all these different distinctions. There's so many micro distinctions
within it. And so part of it is like relearning
your body and relearning like what is a want versus
what is a need? Relearning like what does my body
actually need? If I were to say, hey, just let
my body eat what I need, So an answer to
your question, absolutely, but that would come off the back
of this new foundation of thought processes that again, they're
(24:06):
in our blind spot. We can't see that, we can't
see it, we don't have a map for it in
our brain. So we need to address the stories and
the thinking. And then on top of that, then we
placed a new strategy. But yes, what you just said
is absolutely right, but a lot of women are likely
and if I can't listen my body, I can't trust
my body, I'll go off the deep end. It's like, well,
with your current paradigm, yes, but in this new paradigm,
(24:29):
you've never tried it. In this new paradigm. Yeah, and that's.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
A really good distinction. It's sort of like you don't
want to put that time. Say, I guess weapon is
a little strong, but it's a very powerful tool, so
you want to put it in the hands.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Of someone who absolutely no you said it, I thought
on like it really, because here's the thing, tracking, counting,
way measuring can be an absolutely powerful tool if you
have a healthy relationship with food. It can become a
weapon of mass control and destruction if you have an
unhealthy relationship with food. So I think your use of
that word was bought on.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Yeah, it's like when you did you know keto for
a little while, and it was so powerful because you
have such a healthy relationship with food that you were
able to bring that into any any sort of dietary lifestyle.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
I hadn't thought about that in a while, but yeah,
like maybe I don't know, maybe like two summers ago
or so, I was just like, hey, I want to
play around, like supposedly it's good for inflammation. I haven't
done keto since I had the diet mentality. I'm gonna
do a little experiment to see what keto's like, because again,
I want to be able to speak to it to
my clients from like a present day experience. And I
did keto for like a week. And don't get me wrong,
I enjoyed it like I loved eating bacon wrapped you know,
(25:36):
Turkey manis on them and stuff.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
You know.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
I'm just like, like it was fun. I enjoyed it
like it wasn't. I didn't feel deprived. I was definitely
using like a feast of mentality, not a fast mentality.
I was listening to my body. I had the freedom.
But I came to you. I remember a few days later,
I was like, I don't like this. It's not stressless
because a I'm like full, but I'm never satisfied energetically.
I don't feel as good energy. I said, I just
(26:00):
thrive on carbs, you know. And I was like, the
reason I don't want to do this is not because
I'm not enjoying it, but it's not stressless, you know.
And so it was a great example of recency because again,
I'm not the same version of myself I was the
last time I did like a lower carb or keto,
it was called Atkins. The last time I tried it.
You know what I wanted to see and I was like, Yep, nope,
not for me carbs or my friend, you.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
So it's not about the food, it's who were being
when we use it. Kito was used as a really
cool tool of experimentation for me a couple of years ago,
versus a weapon of control and deprivation and restriction and
eliminating entire food groups. So that being said, I am
way more in the kind of personal development, emotional health,
mental health world. You are a lot more integrated in
(26:44):
the health and wellness world. So can you kind of
just peel back the curtain for us share a little bit?
How is this showing up in the health and wellness world?
What are you seeing? I know you're a big stand
and you're a big pattern interrupt in that world. And
I know there's a lot of your your friends are
doing it great, you know, but there's a lot of
people that you're seeing out there. And we're not obviously
here to bash anybody, name any names, anything like that.
(27:04):
Everybody's here doing the best they can with what they
got and I'm sure they are too, but we're here
to help people spot patterns. Right, What are you seeing
in the health and wellness world that's kind of being
guysed as health and wellness, but you know it for
what it is because you've been there and you've seen it,
and it's really this kind of exemplifying orthorexia. What are
some things that we can look out for? What are
you seeing in the health and wellness world today? What
(27:30):
are you seeing in the health and wellness world that's
kind of being guysed as health and wellness, but you
know it for what it is because you've been there
and you've seen it, and it's really this kind of
exemplifying orthorexia. What are some things that we can look
out for? What are you seeing in the health and
wellness world today?
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Oh, my gosh, there's so much that is problematic. I mean,
first of all, if someone if you hear anyone telling
you that there is one way to do things and
that health means X, Y and Z, you should run
for the hills. And I think that's an obvious way
that orthorexia shows up. So I think those people genuinely
believe that. Another way that it shows up is, as
you said, carbs and fat and calorie counting tend to
(28:05):
be I would say the top three fears that people have,
and so a lot of health food crusaders will be like, oh,
I eat all the almond butter, you know, and I
eat all the avocado, and like, I eat all the
sweet potatoes for all my carbs and whole grain bread
and I don't count calories. But they would still never
(28:28):
swap that almond butter for just like good old butter.
Or they wouldn't swap that whole grain bread for just
like some good holla bread. Or they wouldn't swap the
sweet potato for some potato chips. And you can see
through their lives that they show that they still have
a paradigm of health that has a lot of rules.
(28:49):
It's just that they have this you know, pretense that
they're healthy and they believe it because they are eating
you know, fat and carbs and they're not calori hunting.
But they're definitely still not taking any Halloween candy out
of their kids' baskets because that would probably make them
feel shameful. There's just a lot of that, a lot
of proselytizing too.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
Well. I was going to ask you, I remember, you know,
it's as you've been in the trajectory of like really
stepping into your own health and expressing your voice in
your cooking and your cooking classes and your cookbook. You're
getting ready to you know, you're working on your third
one as we speak. There was a lot of you noticed,
like you know, what I was, the ingredients that I
was using were like overly air quotes healthy and like
(29:33):
kind of expensive when there wasn't a need for it,
and it kind of isolated some people too on an
ingredient level. Right, So can you kind of share a
little bit about how you've eased up on that and
you've kind of met people where they are and like
kind of what to look for in the recipe side
of things too, when it comes to the healthy for
the sake of just calling it healthy when it really
doesn't make that big of a difference.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
You know, at this point, the more time goes on,
the more the longer I do this, the less I
have any kind of definition of health other than what happened,
whatever happens to make you feel good on a particular day,
and that can change from day to day. So, yes,
there are some general themes that I can point out
that seem to overarchingly help people feel their best, Like,
(30:15):
you know, eating some fruits and vegetables and getting some
fiber and getting some fat and you know, some some
protein and some complex carbs here and there. I mean,
there are some general rules, but really it's so based
on biow individuality. So instead of and I have to say,
after all these years, I don't see like massive health
(30:36):
changes in people from switching everything over to organic and
pasteurise and grass fed, you can still be healthy and
buy like generic stuff. And you can still be healthy
and just buy like regular old chicken. Sure if you
have the money for it, Like you can point you
could find some science to back up you know, any
type of anything. But I just at this point one,
(30:58):
I don't talk about that. I don't say I say
a pound of ground beef, I don't say it has
to be a pound of fashery is grassbed ground beef.
And I also happy to throw in the occasional cannon
packaged food and snack on things that are you know,
not considered real food, and have whole milk, God forbid
instead of you know, cashiw milk, and have you know,
(31:21):
a croissant from my favorite pastry instead of trying to
make like a gluten free grain free like paleo croissant.
I just like a you know, I mean those I
really just am just very chill about it, and it
all has even itself out.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Yeah. Absolutely. The theme here, ladies is there's no extremism
going on anymore, you know. And that's one of the
things about orthorexia or that kind of tendency to be
hyper vigilant about the quality of the ingredients that you're
putting in your body. It is a form of extremism.
It is a form of hypervigilance. It is a form
of control, and control is the opposite of freedom. Not
(31:57):
to mention, if love and a warm, flaky croissant is
I don't want you to be right, ladies, what is
life like if everything that you now don't get me wrong.
If you have a gluten intolerance, if you have CELIAX,
like I get it, go gluten free. I want you
to have that, right. And I love that there's the
availability of recipes that can keep things gluten free. So
we're not talking about stuff like that where women in
populations that need specific things because of your health. But
(32:19):
if it's about being on the healthy soapbox, and I
mean that with so much love, there's a form of
freedom that you're leaving on the table, and most likely
that lack of freedom and that control and that like
prison that you're in of rules and too much structure.
It is probably taking in the opposite direction of health.
Because anyone who if we're going to talk about health,
(32:39):
here to be honest, and I mean this was so
much love to anybody who's talking about health and not
talking to you about how the nervous system is the
sole dictator of your health. I would run far and
run fast. You could be eating this gluten free, soy
free croissant in a bath of stress hormones, cortisol, adrenaline,
ebinephrin and being in your sympathetic branch of your nervousism
(33:02):
while you're eating it, and it's going to be dictated
as like, for lack of a better way of saying it, fattening,
because the system of systems that is affected when you're
in that sympathetic branch of your nervous system. And again,
it's not about the croissant. It's your thoughts about the
croissant that matter, right.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
The tail too, cookies.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Amen. Amen. So we're not here to make anybody wrong
or call anybody out in a like confrontational way. We're
literally here to just shine a light on this subject
matter that people are kind of evangelizing, you know what
I mean, and making it like this almost a badge
of honor that you've never had a gram of simple sugars,
(33:41):
you know, and it's all good. I think that's the
other big thing, Like the big thing that's not being
seen in the micronutrient and macronutrient count of the foods
that people are being you know, super controlling about, is
the invisible judgment that's associated that ladies' food doesn't have
to be personal, food does not have to be emotional, right,
(34:02):
And when we assign these labels of good, bad, right, wrong,
should shouldn't? It is just one lump of judgment that
doesn't have to be there. But then on the flip side,
or in addition, I should say, if your self worth
and your self esteem is dictated by how well you
follow these rules, I hate to say it, but you're
screwed because you're gonna cave. This type of restriction is
the number one cause of binging. There's going to be
(34:25):
an offshoot somewhere right, and again, if your whole identity
is made up of how you know much willpower you
have or how much you're great about eating air quotes clean,
You're gonna be very disappointed in yourself. And that's why
I think it's a very misleading label to follow, so
to speak.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
Yeah, it's a losing game for sure. No, that's very
well said.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
Absolutely, anything else that you want to just add on
before before we wrap up. I think we really hit
this one home.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
I think we nailed it. Yeah, I mean I would
just wrap it up with you know, you don't have
to start your day with lemon water you feel good
about yourself. Yeah. Absolutely, there's actually no real science behind
lemon water. I feel like lemon water has become sort
of like the pinnacle of every what I eat in
a day YouTube video starts with that and avocado toast
(35:15):
and an apple, an apple cider vinegar exactly. Yeah, I
think this is really powerful. I'm excited to share this
with my community and listen to it myself. And there's
already a few people I want to specifically send this to.
So I'm really glad we're talking about it.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Yeah, and ladies, just like every episode on this podcast,
we were here to create awareness and it's an awareness. Awareness,
it's the ability to have an awareness is something that
you didn't even know you have the ability to have
an awareness of and there is no judgment, there's no shame.
But part of it is like we need to name it.
We need to name what it is so that we
can call it out be like, oh, that's shame. I
know what it looks like, so I can I can
(35:50):
influence how I show up when it shows up. Oh,
that's fear, that's loneliness, this is orthorexia. And part of
it is I want to eliminate the stigma from this.
So if you are really really relating to this, I
just want you to know you're not alone. This is
a conversation to show you like you've been bamboozled, just
like we have. There is multi multi billion dollar industry,
(36:11):
multiple industries that are throwing these terms at you to
make you believe that you are only as good as
the nutrients that you put in your body, or the
ability of control or the amount of willpower you have
to not put in air quotes junk food or things
that are naughty, you're bad for you, or air everything's
in air quotes, right, because this is the language that's
being thrown at you. So I just want to let
(36:31):
you know there's nothing wrong with you. If you were
made to believe that you are only as worthy as
the amount of nutrients that you put in your body,
and that if orthorexia has seeped into your consciousness, because
it happened to me, happened to Laura Le and you
would be shocked by the millions and millions and millions
of women that are out there that are experiencing the
same thing, but they don't have a name for it,
and they keep it. It's their little dark secret and
(36:52):
nobody knows. And that's why we're here to shine this
light and let you know you are not alone. You
don't have to walk through this alone. And that's exactly
why we're here shining a light on this really a
powerful topic. I love that.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Thanks for being here to shine the light on this topic,
Laura Lee. We appreciate you, ladies listening, and we will
talk to you on the next episode. Bye.
I won't let my body out me outwait everything that
I'm made, don't won't spend my life trying to change.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
I'm learning to love who I am again. Strong, I
feel free, I know every part of me. It's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
And I will always out way if.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
You feel it with your hands in the air, She'll
some love to the view.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Why get there, say go one day? Anita?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Did you and die out Way?
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Happy Saturday.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Outweigh Amy here and I've got Leanne by my side.
This is part five of a Q and A series
we've been doing. I encourage you to go back and
listen to the previous weeks if you miss them. These
are questions that were sent in by you, people like you.
I put up a little question box on Instagram. This
wasn't a question, but there's a comment someone sent in
(00:56):
that said, Outweigh helped me realize I had this behaviors.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Thank you Outweigh.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
I got through it and over it. And the question
for today is about orthorexia, which someone sent in, can
you do an episode on orthorexia? And I threw that
comment in there at the beginning as encouragement and hope
that it is possible and it's through people sharing their
stories on outwey and the experts that have come on
(01:24):
and talked about different types of eating disorders, and even
in the original OG four part series of Outwegh, which
wasn't even its own podcast, it was just a four
parts on four things, four different episodes, Lisa Haym and
I loaded them up and had people sharing real life stories,
and then we had therapists, doctors, other experts, registered dietitians
(01:46):
joining us that work in the eating disorder disordered eating space,
so we knew we could trust their guidance. And I
think through people sharing that stuff and even their orthorexia
experiences specifically, because orthorexia it can be a sneaky one
where you don't even realize you have disordered behaviors because
you're just quote unquote eating healthy. And that's me summarizing
(02:11):
it quickly. There's more to it, but that comment, like
she was like outwait helped me realize. And I don't
know this person, but my guess might be that it
was one of the orthorexia shares that she might be
talking about in one of those OG episodes where we
went in depth on some of that stuff, and that
realization that aha, moment. I spent years of my life
(02:32):
thinking I was in recovery because I wasn't purging.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
I had a very.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Limited set amount of foods. But by society standards and
health standards, I was just living a healthy life. I
was trying to do all the right things for my body,
but it definitely got out of control and was one
hundred percent orthorexic. So I have experienced the bulimia, the
binge restrict purge cycle, and orthorecap That's my relationship with
(03:02):
disordered behaviors. And there are more and more that are
being discovered as the years go by and the more
we talk about it. That orthorexia is something that it's
still relatively new to people. And Leanne I know that
you have a gift for us because this is something
you've covered with our friend Laura Lee before and you
(03:22):
got a little treat.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Yeah. So we actually did an episode all about orthorexia,
so we're going to share it with you all now.
But yeah, like Amy said, it's one of those things
where it's kind of sneaky and insidious because it gets
almost kind of batched in with air quotes eating healthy,
and we think.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
That it's what we're you know, air quotes supposed to do.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
But then we realize, like, wow, there's something you kind
of know it in your soul, like you know that
something is a little bit too restrictive or confining. I'm
working with somebody right now who got on the vegan bandwagon,
and what happens is and there's nothing wrong with veganism
by any means, right, But what happens is she picked
up a lot of lies that like protein was bad
and fat was bad and stuff like that. So we
(03:59):
had to kind of to dismantle the beliefs. And I
think that's what happens alongside orthorexia is we build beliefs
and we give meaning to what certain foods mean or
don't mean, and those beliefs or what drive the disorder
and the behavior. But again, if we think we're being healthy,
because we're not, you know, falling into a black and
white case of an eating disorder, we might fall through
the cracks, and that's where a lot of people with
(04:19):
orthorexia do. So in this episode, we have Laura Lee,
who also experienced lots of orthorexia in her past, and
she shares her experiences. We talk about what it is,
what it isn't how to heal it, so we will
just go ahead. You ask and you shall receive. Can
you do an episode about orthorexia? We got you covered, all.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Right, Hope y'all enjoy this, and we'll just let that
episode end and it will roll out. Leanna and I
are not going to come back and say bye. We'll
just let her episode wrap. But thank you for sending
in your questions. We'll do another Q and A sometime soon.
I like keeping it personal and connecting with y'all in
this way, and just thank you to anybody that's listened
(04:55):
and shared and even shared outweigh with other people, Like,
maybe that's a way you can support others some of
the weeks we've been talking about support. Is that way
a tool where you can send over this podcast to
someone that might need to hear it?
Speaker 1 (05:09):
It could be helpful, but.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
I guess make sure because sometimes that can be damaging
if you're like, hey, listen to this.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Are you're trying to say, right right.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Use your discretion, but just thankful for this community. Thankful
for you Leanne and sharing some of your stressless eating
material with us as well.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
So y'all enjoy it. Bye, all right? We are back
for another episode of the Stresslesseeding Podcast, and I'm so
excited to welcome Laura Lee Bryant back to the show.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Hello, Hi, so glad to be back.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
Absolutely absolutely so. We're going to be talking about a
topic today that a lot of women may have never
ever heard of. It's called orthorexia, and it's pretty mainstream
to hear topics about eating disorders such as you know,
bolimia and orexia, stuff like that, disordered eating. We've done
an episode on the podcast on that specifically because again,
(06:03):
you know, the diet mentality. People don't know that that
is a form of disordered eating or it absolutely can be.
But one thing that comes up all the time, and
it's kind of masked under this air quotes word health
is this concept of orthorexia, right, And if you were
to just kind of look at orthorexia in a simplified manner,
what it is is it's basically this like hyper intensive,
(06:27):
unhealthy focus on eating in a healthy way. And I'm
putting healthy in air quotes, right, And so you know,
it's one of those things where yes, we want to
focus on fueling our bodies and having a really beautiful
relationship with food, and nutritiously dense foods and all of that,
but if you get to it to a degree of
obsession and hyper vigilance, it's actually really unhealthy. And so
(06:53):
just like other eating disorders, it does focus around food,
but orthorexia revolves around the quality of food, not the
quantity of it, right, And it really is heightened with
terms like good, bad, right, wrong, should, shouldn't, healthy, unhealthy.
So super excited to have Laura Lee to kind of
talk us through this conversation as well, because first of all,
(07:13):
it's such an important topic that nobody's really talking about.
And also, you know, you have your own experiences that
I think will be really enlightening to be shared. I
know I have mine. And then of course you are
so deeply integrated in the health and wellness world, both
online and offline, that there can be a dark side
to this health world. So we want to just kind
of shed light on this really important topic and also
(07:36):
give women a safe space to know like they're not alone,
because again this is more prevalent than we think. So
thanks for being back and just you know, anything before
we dive in, anything that kind of comes to your mind.
And then I'd love to just hear, if you don't
mind just sharing a little bit about your experiences with
your own kind of like hypervigilance of the healthy foods
and all that, and then we'll get into how that's
extended outward into the health world and your career and
(07:58):
all that. But my just kind of filling us in
a little bit on your experience of this.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
So what comes to my mind first is that this
is even more insidious in some ways than traditionally recognized
eating disorders, because, as you said, it is about the
quality of food, and it's harder to sort of quantify
because of that, and there's a lot less conversation about it,
and it can be I don't want to say just
(08:25):
as damaging. I mean, I'm not a medical professional, but
it can be incredibly damaging, and it was for me.
And it can be harder for friends and family to spot.
It can be harder for you, as the ailing person
struggling with this, to recognize. And so I'm just really
glad we're shining a light on it for that reason.
And for me, you know, that was very very true.
(08:47):
I was living in New York. This was back in
from I guess two thousand and eight to about two
thousand and twelve, and food was the one thing I
could control in my life, out of control everywhere, but
I masked that as a problem by choosing to go
the route. I'm sure it was not sort of a
(09:09):
conscious choice, but I think it was conscious in the
sense that I knew on some level that if I
was traditionally sort of anerexic, if I was traditionally skipping
meals and not eating, people would recognize that. And I
also knew that, you know, I didn't want to go
the root of bolimia. I'd seen that in friends. That
(09:30):
seemed messy and complicated, and it seemed like there was
a lot of merit in choosing the health halo of
orthorexia as something that would be easier to get away with.
So I think that, And then I also think I
convinced myself that I was just being healthy, and so
what that looked like for me. There was definitely restriction.
(09:52):
I definitely was not consuming as many calories as I
should have been, But it was more that I ca
came up with my own arbitrary set of what it
meant to be healthy, and then anything that was even
slightly out of my rules for health made me feel guilty,
it would incite binges, it would just go into that
(10:17):
shame spiral that you talk about a lot. But it
was so silently deadly because it just showed up as
eating a lot of salads, making healthy choices. No thanks,
I don't want the junkie reces. I'm going to have
a homemade version or whatever. You touch on so many
important things. First of all, it's sneaky and insidious.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
We don't even know that it is a dangerous paradigm
to be living in because we're being given these messages
of like, oh, healthy means like no sugar, no this,
no that, it's all of the things that you can't have,
right this the elimination side of it, the restricting of
like can't have, shouldn't have not allowed all of that
side of it too, and then focusing on the hyper
(10:58):
like again, we want to be healthy, we want to
feed ourselves with nutritiously dense foods and really, you know,
focus on nourishing our bodies. But when it's obsessive, it
can become very unhealthy. But there's this dark side of
it because it's masked just like you said, as health,
you know, when in reality it's a form of control
that is really like kind of covering up for something
(11:21):
else that's going deeper on inside of our brain, our thoughts,
our nervous system, our beliefs, our self image. It's some
sort of void that we're using some sort of coping mechanisms.
So a lot of times on this podcast we talk
about how binging and overeating and over consuming is a
coping mechanism, but control, restriction, dieting, hypervigilance about what you eat,
it's also a coping mechanism. It's just an opposite side
(11:44):
of the same spectrum, right, And it's sneaking insidious because
the world is actually validating this and complimenting you for
your will power. And I say you, as in anyone
who's listening to this that's relating to this, if you
are showing up with these orthorexic kind of tenants, in general,
society is complimenting you for your willpower, telling you how
(12:05):
strong and resilient and accountable you are, telling you like,
oh my gosh, you're such a great example. I wish
I could be like that, right, And a lot of
the body positivity movement, and I agree, is saying like,
don't necessarily compliment somebody on their weight loss, right, because
you don't know how they got it, Are they sick,
are they unhealthy? All those things? And in so many
times in society it's like, oh, you've lost weight, you
(12:26):
looks so great. But a lot of times we can
be actually reinforcing a negative habit or something that's actually
like destructive, right, And so the same is kind of
true at this We get reinforced by other people's perceptions
of like, oh, my gosh, she's so healthy, she's such
an example. But then we also feel kind of trapped, right,
because I've never met a woman that struggles with orthorexia,
(12:47):
and I deal with it time and time again with
my clients that there isn't the other side of it,
which is what happens when they can't possibly white knuckle
and willpower their way through this any longer, that they
have to go to some sort of opposite extreme, and
it's usually an extrema, right, there's some sort of rebound.
But again, society is complimenting this. So then what they
feel trapped in that set of shame of the shame spiral,
(13:09):
which is like, oh my gosh, everybody thinks I'm so
healthy if only they knew, and then it becomes our
dirty little secret exactly.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
And yeah, it's interesting because sort of both ends of
it is what happened to me. I quote unquote used
orthorexia to my advantage to be traditionally very thin when
I was living in New York, and I did get
all of those compliments, especially living in that city, but
I was very unwell.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
And then what.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Happened is after years of being orthorexic, and this is
now several years into my career as a health food chef,
I was still battling with orthorexia in the first three
or four years. But what happened was I started to
have a more difficult time fighting the cravings for whatever,
(13:58):
but I fought against it, and so what I did
instead was I would overdo it on my health foods.
I had this health food arsenal like granola was okay
and almond butter was okay, but a slice of Costco
cake wasn't. So what I would do is just try
to fill that void by eating like bowls and bowls
of brunola topped with like, you know, organic peanut butter.
(14:21):
And honestly, I gained weight eating as an orthorexic person.
I gained like ten to fifteen pounds in the last
few years of that part of my life, and it
was when I actually got divorced was the turning point
for me, because all of a sudden, I stopped living
to eat and was just eating to live and I
(14:42):
just didn't care about the quality of the food, which
sort of long term is not something I would recommend,
but short term actually to go from feeling like, you know,
a bagel and cream cheese was the worst breakfast to
have to being like, sure, I don't care whatever, like
I just need fuel. And I built this healthy relationship
because it didn't hurt me and it didn't make me
(15:04):
unhealthy and it didn't ruin anything. And I actually ended
up losing that ten to fifteen pounds four years ago
after my divorce and haven't regained it because I let
myself have the things that I want to have when
I want.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Them, and there's a so much freedom that comes alongside it.
And I'm sure there's a lot of women that are
listening and that are like, oh my gosh, but like,
if I don't control it, I'm going to go to
the opposite. I'm going to go off the deep end.
I'm going to gain a bunch of weight. And it's like,
if somebody comes up to you and is like, hey,
stop controlling the one thing you're trying to control. I'm
not saying that because it takes away all level of
certainty and it actually creates anxiety and threat in our brain.
(15:40):
If somebody's like, I want you to stop controlling the
one thing you've been controlling your whole life. Right, what
I am inviting women into is learning a new paradigm
to replace it, right, but one build with structure and
free like structure as opposed to control, right, because our
brain does thrive on structure, But inviting them into a
paradigm of freedom and permission and choice as opposed to
being taken away and not all of a sudden, just
(16:03):
like reintroducing all of this stuff that you feel you've
been deeming healthy or unhealthy your entire life. It's a
gradual process, but part of it is, and we're going
to talk about this when we get to actual steps
to healing. It is first. The reason we're having this
conversation is to create the awareness because I've never met
a woman that's going and out and gung ho about
solving a problem that she doesn't even realize that she has.
(16:24):
And if you think, and again this is not to
shame you, but a lot of women that might be
listening to this think like, oh, my unhealthy obsession with
being healthy is actually healthy. And that's a little bit
of a mouthful, right, But the unhealthy obsession with being
healthy and all of these healthy words are really in
air quotes, that's the biggest prison of them all. So
thanks for sharing your version of it. I mean, for me,
(16:44):
it was, you know, I went from decades of not
caring and not taking care of my body to all
of a sudden being that hypervigilant. And what I noticed
that came alongside the hypervigilance was not only judgment of
myself when I thought about eating something air quotes naughty,
but I was judging everybody in my life. What I
(17:09):
noticed that came alongside the hypervigilance was not only judgment
of myself when I thought about eating something air quotes naughty,
but I was judging everybody in my life. I was
looking at people's you know, on the conveyor bell at
the grocery store, and judging the crap out of everything
that they were buying. I was at restaurants thinking, oh
my gosh, are they really going to use the whole
(17:30):
dish or the whole little ramikin of salad dressing? Don't
they know how much fat is in there? And I
was up on my almighty horse, and I mean, shame
for so many years wouldn't allow me to even talk
about what I'm sharing right now, because again it was
so shameful. But I was becoming, along with the hypervigilance
and the obsessiveness over my health, I was becoming a
judgmental jerk to the people that I loved because it
(17:53):
wasn't personal to them, it was the way I was
seeing myself. And I needed to rewire my brain and
un brainwash myself of that. Right, But again, first had
to become the awareness of like, wow, what I'm thinking
is healthy is actually super unhealthy.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Yeah. I did the same thing. I remember like getting
really mad at my mom when I first moved home
after culinary school because she didn't get a pasture raised
chicken and you know, she was just doing her thing,
and I just remember sitting the car like burrating her
for it. And you know, it's embarrassing to think back on.
But it was just this place of intense fear and
(18:31):
needing to have something figured out that other people didn't
have figured out, and oh man, it really can take
over your life. One of the things I'm doing right
now is writing my third cookbook, which I feel so
compelled to do because I feel like it's actually really
reflective for the first time of the healthy relationship that
I have with food, because looking back at my first
(18:54):
few books, I was still really struggling with that. And yeah,
no one wants to be the judgmental jerk. Our bodies
are strong. That's the other thing is, like our bodies
can handle a lot. We have this idea first of all,
like one of the health food concepts of like detoxification,
that certain foods like detox your body. Like I mean, yes,
it's sure, like consuming fiber is you know, important to
(19:17):
an extent to help you you keep yourself regular. But
this idea that like foods make us detoxified. Know, our
bodies aren't naturally detoxifying all the time, and so I
think this idea that like something bad is going to
happen obviously barring specific allergies or diet you know, conditions,
diseases like celiac disease or you know, all sort of clitis.
(19:38):
I mean, for the most part, eatings and potato chips
and areses. You can handle that just fine.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Right, And that's the thing. A healthy nervous system can
really handle anything. It's what happens is our nervous systems
are nervous, and so all of a sudden, we have
these food sensitivities and intolerances and really and then we
think like, oh, we have a gastrointestinal problem. But it's
like no, the gas ro intestinal system it's literally nicknamed
the enteric nervous system. Its nickname is the second brain.
It is literally dictated by your emotions and by your
(20:04):
olymbic system and how you're feeling moment to moment. And
so a lot of the gastro intestinal distress that people
are thinking is caused by oh, I ate that race's cup. No,
it's actually your thoughts about the raze's cup that are
causing your gas rational system to be in distress. It's
not the food. It's your thoughts about the food, and
it just contributes further to the vicious cycle of the orthorexia.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Yeah, and that's why when you're young. It's not like
your gastro intestinal system changes fundamentally from age twelve to
age twenty two. If you open up a sleeve of
oreos and you eat the entire sleeve at age twelve,
you're like, that tasted great, And guess what, You're probably
not going to be interested in oreos for a while naturally.
(20:45):
But at twenty two, where you know, when I started
this orthorexic journey, at twenty two, I would eat the
sleep of oreos, and there was just this whole world
of thoughts and meanings that I put to it in
the moment and then after for very long time, and
I was more likely to go for another sleep of
warreos the next day or to punish myself and not
(21:08):
eat for a certain period of time.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Absolutely, it's really our beliefs that come alongside it that
dictate our actions. Like behaviors are always following our beliefs.
Beliefs dictate our behaviors. And like even just the paradigm
that you shared, like ladies, I'm telling you, the hyper vigilance,
the orthorexia, the obsession over your health, there is always
an opposite spectrum. There's always a bounce back. That is
the number one cause of binging ladies. So I know,
(21:34):
you know it makes you feel in control, but the
more you try to control it, the less in control
or the more out of control you'll actually feel. And
that's why it's super important, and that's why we're here
today just talking about it, shining a light on this
topic that no one's really talking about.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Yeah, it's interesting, Leanne, I wonder I would be curious
to know from your expertise in a certain context, would
you recommend to someone who's been in an orthorexic place
to give that just sort of like, yeah, I know
you love experiments, sort of experiment for a couple of
weeks with just allowing yourself, hey, for the or just
(22:07):
a week for this week, I'm just going to have
what sounds good to me and then I can go
back to what I've been doing after a week or
anything like that. Do you have any experiments?
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Yeah, it's a great question. So the answer is yes.
And the first thing is is like what brain is
running an experiment like that? So first and foremost, you know,
I always look at the strategy, but it's got to
be alongside the stories and the thinking, right, So the
strategy might be X, right's the that's the content, but
what's the intent shaping it? Right? The intent might be, Okay,
what can we do? What thoughts and beliefs do we
(22:38):
need to overcome? And we get specific here and this
is this is specifically like some of the experimentation I
do with my clients, like reverse engineering overcoming carbophobia that's
a big one. Reverse engineering overcoming fat phobia, that's a
big one. Reverse engineering overcoming calorie phobia, that's a big one.
Reverse engineering overcoming the binging side book that comes alongside
the hypervigilance. Right, So there's specific experiments that we do
(23:00):
reverse engineer. But part of it is like, when it
comes to this concept of listening to our bodies, that's
where most women are shut down, tuned out, numbed out.
They don't even know what that feels like or looks
like because they've been paying so much attention to a
calorie count, a carb count, a micronutrient account, something external
to them that they have no idea what it's like
(23:20):
to actually listen to their body. So part of it
is like we need to change their brain and teach
them a new system of thinking and their thoughts about
food so that they actually know like, well, what is hunger?
Am I hungry? Or am I just bored? Am I full?
Or am I just trying to deprive and control and restraint? Right?
Am I hungry? Or am I just desiring something sweet?
(23:41):
Like all these different distinctions. There's so many micro distinctions
within it. And so part of it is like relearning
your body and relearning like what is a want versus
what is a need? Relearning like what does my body
actually need? If I were to say, hey, just let
my body eat what I need, So an answer to
your question, absolutely, but that would come off the back
of this new foundation of thought processes that again, they're
(24:06):
in our blind spot. We can't see that, we can't
see it, we don't have a map for it in
our brain. So we need to address the stories and
the thinking. And then on top of that, then we
placed a new strategy. But yes, what you just said
is absolutely right, but a lot of women are likely
and if I can't listen my body, I can't trust
my body, I'll go off the deep end. It's like, well,
with your current paradigm, yes, but in this new paradigm,
(24:29):
you've never tried it. In this new paradigm. Yeah, and that's.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
A really good distinction. It's sort of like you don't
want to put that time. Say, I guess weapon is
a little strong, but it's a very powerful tool, so
you want to put it in the hands.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Of someone who absolutely no you said it, I thought
on like it really, because here's the thing, tracking, counting,
way measuring can be an absolutely powerful tool if you
have a healthy relationship with food. It can become a
weapon of mass control and destruction if you have an
unhealthy relationship with food. So I think your use of
that word was bought on.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Yeah, it's like when you did you know keto for
a little while, and it was so powerful because you
have such a healthy relationship with food that you were
able to bring that into any any sort of dietary lifestyle.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
I hadn't thought about that in a while, but yeah,
like maybe I don't know, maybe like two summers ago
or so, I was just like, hey, I want to
play around, like supposedly it's good for inflammation. I haven't
done keto since I had the diet mentality. I'm gonna
do a little experiment to see what keto's like, because again,
I want to be able to speak to it to
my clients from like a present day experience. And I
did keto for like a week. And don't get me wrong,
I enjoyed it like I loved eating bacon wrapped you know,
(25:36):
Turkey manis on them and stuff.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
You know.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
I'm just like, like it was fun. I enjoyed it
like it wasn't. I didn't feel deprived. I was definitely
using like a feast of mentality, not a fast mentality.
I was listening to my body. I had the freedom.
But I came to you. I remember a few days later,
I was like, I don't like this. It's not stressless
because a I'm like full, but I'm never satisfied energetically.
I don't feel as good energy. I said, I just
(26:00):
thrive on carbs, you know. And I was like, the
reason I don't want to do this is not because
I'm not enjoying it, but it's not stressless, you know.
And so it was a great example of recency because again,
I'm not the same version of myself I was the
last time I did like a lower carb or keto,
it was called Atkins. The last time I tried it.
You know what I wanted to see and I was like, Yep, nope,
not for me carbs or my friend, you.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
So it's not about the food, it's who were being
when we use it. Kito was used as a really
cool tool of experimentation for me a couple of years ago,
versus a weapon of control and deprivation and restriction and
eliminating entire food groups. So that being said, I am
way more in the kind of personal development, emotional health,
mental health world. You are a lot more integrated in
(26:44):
the health and wellness world. So can you kind of
just peel back the curtain for us share a little bit?
How is this showing up in the health and wellness world?
What are you seeing? I know you're a big stand
and you're a big pattern interrupt in that world. And
I know there's a lot of your your friends are
doing it great, you know, but there's a lot of
people that you're seeing out there. And we're not obviously
here to bash anybody, name any names, anything like that.
(27:04):
Everybody's here doing the best they can with what they
got and I'm sure they are too, but we're here
to help people spot patterns. Right, What are you seeing
in the health and wellness world that's kind of being
guysed as health and wellness, but you know it for
what it is because you've been there and you've seen it,
and it's really this kind of exemplifying orthorexia. What are
some things that we can look out for? What are
you seeing in the health and wellness world today? What
(27:30):
are you seeing in the health and wellness world that's
kind of being guysed as health and wellness, but you
know it for what it is because you've been there
and you've seen it, and it's really this kind of
exemplifying orthorexia. What are some things that we can look
out for? What are you seeing in the health and
wellness world today?
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Oh, my gosh, there's so much that is problematic. I mean,
first of all, if someone if you hear anyone telling
you that there is one way to do things and
that health means X, Y and Z, you should run
for the hills. And I think that's an obvious way
that orthorexia shows up. So I think those people genuinely
believe that. Another way that it shows up is, as
you said, carbs and fat and calorie counting tend to
(28:05):
be I would say the top three fears that people have,
and so a lot of health food crusaders will be like, oh,
I eat all the almond butter, you know, and I
eat all the avocado, and like, I eat all the
sweet potatoes for all my carbs and whole grain bread
and I don't count calories. But they would still never
(28:28):
swap that almond butter for just like good old butter.
Or they wouldn't swap that whole grain bread for just
like some good holla bread. Or they wouldn't swap the
sweet potato for some potato chips. And you can see
through their lives that they show that they still have
a paradigm of health that has a lot of rules.
(28:49):
It's just that they have this you know, pretense that
they're healthy and they believe it because they are eating
you know, fat and carbs and they're not calori hunting.
But they're definitely still not taking any Halloween candy out
of their kids' baskets because that would probably make them
feel shameful. There's just a lot of that, a lot
of proselytizing too.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
Well. I was going to ask you, I remember, you know,
it's as you've been in the trajectory of like really
stepping into your own health and expressing your voice in
your cooking and your cooking classes and your cookbook. You're
getting ready to you know, you're working on your third
one as we speak. There was a lot of you noticed,
like you know, what I was, the ingredients that I
was using were like overly air quotes healthy and like
(29:33):
kind of expensive when there wasn't a need for it,
and it kind of isolated some people too on an
ingredient level. Right, So can you kind of share a
little bit about how you've eased up on that and
you've kind of met people where they are and like
kind of what to look for in the recipe side
of things too, when it comes to the healthy for
the sake of just calling it healthy when it really
doesn't make that big of a difference.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
You know, at this point, the more time goes on,
the more the longer I do this, the less I
have any kind of definition of health other than what happened,
whatever happens to make you feel good on a particular day,
and that can change from day to day. So, yes,
there are some general themes that I can point out
that seem to overarchingly help people feel their best, Like,
(30:15):
you know, eating some fruits and vegetables and getting some
fiber and getting some fat and you know, some some
protein and some complex carbs here and there. I mean,
there are some general rules, but really it's so based
on biow individuality. So instead of and I have to say,
after all these years, I don't see like massive health
(30:36):
changes in people from switching everything over to organic and
pasteurise and grass fed, you can still be healthy and
buy like generic stuff. And you can still be healthy
and just buy like regular old chicken. Sure if you
have the money for it, Like you can point you
could find some science to back up you know, any
type of anything. But I just at this point one,
(30:58):
I don't talk about that. I don't say I say
a pound of ground beef, I don't say it has
to be a pound of fashery is grassbed ground beef.
And I also happy to throw in the occasional cannon
packaged food and snack on things that are you know,
not considered real food, and have whole milk, God forbid
instead of you know, cashiw milk, and have you know,
(31:21):
a croissant from my favorite pastry instead of trying to
make like a gluten free grain free like paleo croissant.
I just like a you know, I mean those I
really just am just very chill about it, and it
all has even itself out.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Yeah. Absolutely. The theme here, ladies is there's no extremism
going on anymore, you know. And that's one of the
things about orthorexia or that kind of tendency to be
hyper vigilant about the quality of the ingredients that you're
putting in your body. It is a form of extremism.
It is a form of hypervigilance. It is a form
of control, and control is the opposite of freedom. Not
(31:57):
to mention, if love and a warm, flaky croissant is
I don't want you to be right, ladies, what is
life like if everything that you now don't get me wrong.
If you have a gluten intolerance, if you have CELIAX,
like I get it, go gluten free. I want you
to have that, right. And I love that there's the
availability of recipes that can keep things gluten free. So
we're not talking about stuff like that where women in
populations that need specific things because of your health. But
(32:19):
if it's about being on the healthy soapbox, and I
mean that with so much love, there's a form of
freedom that you're leaving on the table, and most likely
that lack of freedom and that control and that like
prison that you're in of rules and too much structure.
It is probably taking in the opposite direction of health.
Because anyone who if we're going to talk about health,
(32:39):
here to be honest, and I mean this was so
much love to anybody who's talking about health and not
talking to you about how the nervous system is the
sole dictator of your health. I would run far and
run fast. You could be eating this gluten free, soy
free croissant in a bath of stress hormones, cortisol, adrenaline,
ebinephrin and being in your sympathetic branch of your nervousism
(33:02):
while you're eating it, and it's going to be dictated
as like, for lack of a better way of saying it, fattening,
because the system of systems that is affected when you're
in that sympathetic branch of your nervous system. And again,
it's not about the croissant. It's your thoughts about the
croissant that matter, right.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
The tail too, cookies.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Amen. Amen. So we're not here to make anybody wrong
or call anybody out in a like confrontational way. We're
literally here to just shine a light on this subject
matter that people are kind of evangelizing, you know what
I mean, and making it like this almost a badge
of honor that you've never had a gram of simple sugars,
(33:41):
you know, and it's all good. I think that's the
other big thing, Like the big thing that's not being
seen in the micronutrient and macronutrient count of the foods
that people are being you know, super controlling about, is
the invisible judgment that's associated that ladies' food doesn't have
to be personal, food does not have to be emotional, right,
(34:02):
And when we assign these labels of good, bad, right, wrong,
should shouldn't? It is just one lump of judgment that
doesn't have to be there. But then on the flip side,
or in addition, I should say, if your self worth
and your self esteem is dictated by how well you
follow these rules, I hate to say it, but you're
screwed because you're gonna cave. This type of restriction is
the number one cause of binging. There's going to be
(34:25):
an offshoot somewhere right, and again, if your whole identity
is made up of how you know much willpower you
have or how much you're great about eating air quotes clean,
You're gonna be very disappointed in yourself. And that's why
I think it's a very misleading label to follow, so
to speak.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
Yeah, it's a losing game for sure. No, that's very
well said.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
Absolutely, anything else that you want to just add on
before before we wrap up. I think we really hit
this one home.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
I think we nailed it. Yeah, I mean I would
just wrap it up with you know, you don't have
to start your day with lemon water you feel good
about yourself. Yeah. Absolutely, there's actually no real science behind
lemon water. I feel like lemon water has become sort
of like the pinnacle of every what I eat in
a day YouTube video starts with that and avocado toast
(35:15):
and an apple, an apple cider vinegar exactly. Yeah, I
think this is really powerful. I'm excited to share this
with my community and listen to it myself. And there's
already a few people I want to specifically send this to.
So I'm really glad we're talking about it.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Yeah, and ladies, just like every episode on this podcast,
we were here to create awareness and it's an awareness. Awareness,
it's the ability to have an awareness is something that
you didn't even know you have the ability to have
an awareness of and there is no judgment, there's no shame.
But part of it is like we need to name it.
We need to name what it is so that we
can call it out be like, oh, that's shame. I
know what it looks like, so I can I can
(35:50):
influence how I show up when it shows up. Oh,
that's fear, that's loneliness, this is orthorexia. And part of
it is I want to eliminate the stigma from this.
So if you are really really relating to this, I
just want you to know you're not alone. This is
a conversation to show you like you've been bamboozled, just
like we have. There is multi multi billion dollar industry,
(36:11):
multiple industries that are throwing these terms at you to
make you believe that you are only as good as
the nutrients that you put in your body, or the
ability of control or the amount of willpower you have
to not put in air quotes junk food or things
that are naughty, you're bad for you, or air everything's
in air quotes, right, because this is the language that's
being thrown at you. So I just want to let
(36:31):
you know there's nothing wrong with you. If you were
made to believe that you are only as worthy as
the amount of nutrients that you put in your body,
and that if orthorexia has seeped into your consciousness, because
it happened to me, happened to Laura Le and you
would be shocked by the millions and millions and millions
of women that are out there that are experiencing the
same thing, but they don't have a name for it,
and they keep it. It's their little dark secret and
(36:52):
nobody knows. And that's why we're here to shine this
light and let you know you are not alone. You
don't have to walk through this alone. And that's exactly
why we're here shining a light on this really a
powerful topic. I love that.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Thanks for being here to shine the light on this topic,
Laura Lee. We appreciate you, ladies listening, and we will
talk to you on the next episode. Bye.
Hosts And Creators
Amy Brown
Leanne Ellington
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