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July 8, 2023 17 mins

OUTWEIGH: Can you love food AND maintain a healthy relationship with food? We absolutely think so! And that's why we are here to talk about this very important distinction.  These things do NOT have to cancel eachother out or stay mutually exclusive. But...there are some very important distinctions that you want to keep in mind--- especially since there are a lot of mixed messages out there about this topic.


Amy & Leanne are back again for the FOURTH episode of the Mini-Series Two Things Can Be True At The Same Time (Normalizing the In-Betweens and Healing From Extremism) where they share their thoughts and takeaways on how you can have BOTH:  You can heal from your disordered eating and have a healthy relationship with food.... AND still love food, love sugar, find pleasure and joy in food....AND still have food 'stuff' you're continually working though (it can ALL be true).

 

HOST:
Amy Brown // RadioAmy.com // @RadioAmy

GUEST:
Leanne Ellington // StresslessEating.com


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 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.

Speaker 3 (00:11):
A gat I'm strong, I feel.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Free, I know every part of me.

Speaker 3 (00:16):
It's beautiful.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
And then will always out way if you feel.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
It, but you are, She'll some love to the food.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
Why have there take you one day?

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Nita?

Speaker 1 (00:31):
Did you and die?

Speaker 3 (00:32):
Out way? Happy Saturday? Outweigh.

Speaker 4 (00:36):
I'm Amy Brown and I'm Leanne Ellington, And this is
part four of a series we're calling two things can
be true at the same time, and today we are
focusing on well, three things being true at the same time.

Speaker 3 (00:49):
You can heal from.

Speaker 4 (00:50):
Your disordered eating and have a healthy relationship with food
and still love food, love, sugar, fine, pleasure and joy
and food and still have food stuff that you're continually
working through.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
All of these things can be true.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yeah, absolutely, all at the same time.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
So yeah, I think this is a big one because
we think that we need to or at least I died,
you know when I started my healing journey, and this
was a product of the extremism of you know, still
thinking that there was good and bad, right and wrong
or that I couldn't even imagine a version of myself
that could trust myself around these foods that I typically

(01:29):
associated with pleasure. And then of course I had been
hearing that like sugar is the enemy, sugar is the devil,
all these things. So we're being programmed and it's so confusing.
So we think that, at least I did, and I
know a lot of my clients have this perception as
well that when their air quotes healed, they're never going
to have sugar, or they're never going to want sugar,

(01:51):
or and maybe it's not sugar, maybe it's you know,
salty and savory and all of that. But I know
for me, I had this perception of what it was
going to look like, and so I didn't even have
the awareness to have the awareness that all of these
things could be true at the same time. So having
a healed relationship with food, finding joy and fun and
pleasure in food, which we'll talk about, but then also

(02:12):
be aware that I'm here and I'm at peace, but
there's also the next level of freedom and peace that
I might be working on, and giving yourself permission to
be on that journey as well. So starting with the
first thing, which is finding that freedom and that peace,
And like we talked about on the first episode of
this series, is this concept of really being mindful. And

(02:34):
in my opinion, I do believe you have to take
a sabbatical from the weight loss mentality and the typical
goal setting mentality and really go heal this. So when
we talk about having a healthy relationship with food, it
denotes that if you've learned and practiced many years of
an unhealthy or a disordered behavior relationship with food, that

(02:56):
it denotes that you're going to go through a period
of healing. And again it's not always linear, it takes time.
But coming from this place of having a more balanced
and peaceful driven relationship with food, where does the topic
of enjoying food come into play?

Speaker 2 (03:12):
Because that's the thing it's demonized.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
You know. Again, we talked about sugar being labeled as
bad and evil and addictive and all of these things,
But it doesn't leave space for food being part of
connection and pleasure and fun and family and culture and
all of these things. So how can we have both?
And another distinction that comes to mind around this is

(03:35):
when you're living in a reality that coexists with the
binge restrict cycle. So that bine restrict cycle is the
restriction takes over at one point where you're like, I
can't have that, not allowed to have that, that's bad,
that's wrong, and then you abstain or you control or
you restrict to the point in my case, when I
couldn't take it any longer and I switched to the opposite.
So when I wasn't playing my inner food police, I

(03:58):
was carefree, abandonment, eat everything in sight, and trying to
you know, air quotes, get it in before I knew
that the flip would be switched, the switch would be
flipped again.

Speaker 4 (04:06):
Oh yeah, That's how I spent much of my life, right,
So in that paradigm, there's no room for having food
for pleasure because it's not about that, right.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
But when you have.

Speaker 1 (04:16):
This relationship with food where it's just food and you
you can like use it for sustenance and feeding your
body and fueling your body, it also creates a space
where you can be like, Wow, that chocolate chip cookie
with like real sugar, real butter, real eggs, real chocolate
was delicious. And it doesn't mean that I don't like
my you know, protein cookie that I put cookie that

(04:38):
I put protein powder, and you know, egg whites and
stevia chips in isn't also good.

Speaker 3 (04:44):
Sure, but there is a right there's.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
A disorder that comes with that.

Speaker 3 (04:47):
No, I think that that's totally okay. I'm with you
on that.

Speaker 4 (04:50):
I will say, though, when I finally flipped the switch
to like being able to enjoy food, and I realized
some of the food I used to find so enjoyable,
or at least I convinced myself I did. I've gone
back to eating it at times because it was all
I had access to, or like, there was this particular

(05:11):
type of bar, for example, that I used to get
because it had no sugar in it whatsoever. I don't
even know how they make it sweet though, don't ask me,
but I ate them all the time, and I thought
that they were amazing.

Speaker 3 (05:23):
And then I had one the other day.

Speaker 4 (05:24):
Because again it's all I had access to, and I
was like, this is disgusting. Yeah, how did I eat
this all the time? Absolutely, for years I eat it.
And then now that everything's changed, Yep, I'm a different person. Yep.

Speaker 3 (05:39):
I can't go back to that now.

Speaker 4 (05:40):
Some stuff to your point, like you may still enjoy
that particular type of cookie and there's nothing wrong with
black bean brownies or whatever. Although when I was starting
that recovery, I swung all the way to where it's like, oh,
only bad brownies or bust because I don't care about
anything exactly. And now I'm in a place where I
could be like, oh, black bean brownies, that makes sense

(06:01):
right now because I would love to get in the
extra fiber absolutely. Or now I see even blueberries in
a different way. I used to see them as like, Okay,
that's a low sugar fruit that I'm gonna try to
you know, be quote unquote healthy with. And now I'm like, oh, wow,
I get to enjoy an abundance of blueberries right now,
and my brain is going to be so excited for

(06:22):
this absolutely, Like I see it more for what it's
actually doing for my body then that it's just on
this list of foods that I need to eat because
they're allowed totally.

Speaker 1 (06:31):
Yeah, you bring up such a good point, and that's
where I where it was saying, like, when you're in it,
you don't even see that this is possible, But once
you're in the healing side.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
Of it, it creates space for it.

Speaker 1 (06:43):
Because let's be honest, when I was at the height
of my disordered eating and even like the orthorexia side
of it, I could and then swaying to the binging
side of it. You better believe if even if I was,
you know, air quotes judging myself, if it wasn't a
black bean brownie, I would binge an entire batch of
black bean brownies. I didn't discriminate, right, So the pendulum
swings all directions, whether it's an air quotes healthy thing

(07:04):
or not. But part of it is like, that's where
I want to invite you all and kind of sets
you up for the expectation now that when you do
have a healed relationship with food, because part of it,
too is it's a product of being in that cycle.
You're probably very desensitized or disconnected from what is hunger?
What is fullness? What is pleasure? And where am I
feeding a hole in my emotional self? Where am I actually,

(07:28):
you know, enjoying this or where is it a coping
mechanism when I'm lonely stressed at our board. So we
become desensitized to it. We don't trust ourselves. Often one
of my clients was, like, my ticker's broken like she
doesn't trust herself, she doesn't know what she likes and
what she wants. So that's where I want to set
you all up for now, the possibility that once you
do have this, and I put it in air quotes

(07:48):
normal relationship with food. But whatever you dictate, you want
your new normal to be a healthy, healed relationship. Like
whatever your new normal is that you picture where you
feel healthy and at ease with food, I also want
you to invite you into the space where it can coexist,
where you can also enter into a conversation where food
is fun, it's pleasurable. You know, you could have a

(08:08):
list of restaurants that you want to visit. You could
have a page on Instagram that you follow because you
love their delicacies. Like, it doesn't have to be such
a threat, but when you're in it, you might not
even know that that's possible.

Speaker 4 (08:20):
And I think too, it's important to remember that it's
you're going to evolve the more you grow in this area,
because I think of things you know that even just
last year that let me see how I could put this, Like,
I guess it's it's like permission to maybe not feel

(08:40):
a certain way about a food for the rest of
your life. Yeah, even in healing, even in recovery, your
taste might change, your thoughts about something might change. And
that's the best part. My favorite things is like if
we're not evolving, we're dead. And so your desire for
certain fooddes are going to evolve and change as you're

(09:03):
on this journey. And just because in the first parts
of your healing you were like, oh, this is really
the bread that I'm into, and then suddenly you're not,
Like that doesn't mean anything. You just don't put your
pressure on yourself to have like Okay, now that I'm
in this lane, it's this way or the highway, Like
there's just some stuff for me that has flowed floan,

(09:24):
flowed loan and flowed flowed in and out of my
life and it's like I'm breezy with it. Yeahs like Okay,
one day I'm I'm wanting that and I ate that
and it's like, okay, no big deal. But we love
to bring up that pendulum swinging, Like there was times
where it's like, oh, I want all of this stuff
and that's totally okay. But if I go back over
here and only want this type of thing, that's also

(09:45):
okay too.

Speaker 1 (09:45):
I love how you said breezy too, because it denotes
this care free energy, which is the opposite of extremism
and putting yourself in a box and having to be
one way, and yeah, giving yourself permission to change your
mind and change your beliefs and change your thoughts.

Speaker 2 (09:57):
I know for me, you know, ten years ago, I
was like.

Speaker 3 (09:59):
Oh, official sweeteners or the devil, And.

Speaker 2 (10:02):
I mean I was on that bandwagon.

Speaker 1 (10:03):
And here's the thing, Like it's different for everyone, like
people have different But there's now talk about the evidence
based science world.

Speaker 2 (10:09):
There's study after study after.

Speaker 1 (10:11):
Study proving that you know, even aspartain, which is the
one that is like gotten a lot of flack, is
really not harmful in high doses, not everybody, or sorry,
in normal doses that people would intake. Now, not everybody
is feels their best when they're drinking artificial sweeteners. But
even things like that, like being open to new research
coming out and being open to the fact that like

(10:32):
maybe you're not the same person you were ten years
ago or five years ago, and giving yourself that breezy
attitude to be able to change your mind and leave
space for it, and that is the third thing of
the two things that can be true at the same time,
like your relationship with food, your body, yourself.

Speaker 2 (10:46):
Is always evolving.

Speaker 1 (10:48):
So I remember times when I couldn't keep peanut butter
in the house because it was a trigger for me.
I would you know, binge it. It didn't have to
be actual sugar, right, And then it was the next
level of like, oh I can actually keep peanut butter
in my house. And then it was like, oh, I
can actually keep something that has actual sugar in my house.
And it's like giving yourself permission to let it be
the next level, the next level, the next level, but
find that pendulum in the middle where you can also

(11:10):
give yourself permission to be human about food and pleasure
and cravings and all of the things.

Speaker 3 (11:17):
Do you watch Friends?

Speaker 2 (11:18):
I did.

Speaker 4 (11:18):
Yeah, it makes me think of that episode with Monica
where she's like, I'm breezy, yes, and Monica is the
most uptight of c not breezy person, but she's breezy
convinced yes that she's breezy.

Speaker 3 (11:31):
Yeah yeah, so get.

Speaker 2 (11:32):
Your inner Monica.

Speaker 3 (11:33):
Yeah, yeah you are, you are breezy.

Speaker 4 (11:36):
Yeah. I even journaled this morning about my breeziness. Because
I really wasn't being very breezy about something yesterday. So
and I know you and I talk about a lot
about acting as if, and I was like, you know what,
I really do think that that was circumstantial and I
am breezy and I'm easy to.

Speaker 3 (11:57):
Get along with in this area.

Speaker 4 (12:00):
It was something with my ex husband, and I was
not being breezy at all, and I see it today. Yeah,
but I'm going to celebrate the fact that I'm aware
of it totally. I'm aware that I wasn't breezy. And
then I journaled through how I'm going to be breezy,
and I see myself in the future being so breezy
next time. I'm already so breezy. It's amazing.

Speaker 2 (12:20):
Yeah. Absolutely, I can't even see you. You flew by so
quickly because you're so breezy, so breezy.

Speaker 4 (12:25):
And so that might be how you know, maybe listening
right now, you're not breezy about a certain thing, but
journal through it, picture yourself being breezy. Yeah, And how
does it feel being able to be breezy about it?

Speaker 2 (12:38):
Absolutely?

Speaker 3 (12:39):
Yeah, so much lighter.

Speaker 1 (12:41):
Absolutely, I love how you you created that picture, because
that's today's episode is a little bit harder to grasp
if you've never experienced it. It's one of the biggest
things for my clients are like, I don't even understand
what it would be like to not feel so crazy
around food. I don't know what it would feel like
to have peace around food, but to also not feel
like a chigarataqae Like it's hard for them to grasp.

(13:02):
So I think, if anything, if we're giving that weekly
dose of encouragement today, knowing that it is possible to
find peace with food and find pleasure in it, but
without it being this rabbit hole where it becomes almost
like a drug like pole, so to speak, or a
feeling like an addict, Like there is that space for
them to coexist even if you don't believe it's possible

(13:24):
yet just giving you that encouragement that it is.

Speaker 4 (13:26):
It is, it's totally possible. Because I had those exact
same thoughts for decades. Yeah, and I was in a
place of acceptance of this is just how this is
my life, this is how it's going to be, and
this is how we operate, and so.

Speaker 2 (13:39):
Let's get used to it, right, Yeah, And then becomes
yourself image and identity.

Speaker 4 (13:43):
And it's just so not the case. So I know
that if I'm able to be in a different place
with it, and it just expands your world, it frees
your brain up. I mean, they have that saying of like,
this sort of stuff is just living in your brain
rent free and.

Speaker 3 (14:00):
You deserve better. Yeah, and it's totally possible.

Speaker 4 (14:04):
Yeah, And that's why little conversations like this are helpful
because if you're having those thoughts. I also remember thinking,
am I the only person in the world with these thoughts?
Because nobody when I was in my teens twenties, like, okay,
so in the nineties and early two thousands, nobody was
talking about binge eating. I thought, literally I was the
only person and there was so much shame around it.

(14:24):
I didn't want to talk about it. And I'm like,
why in the world did I just eat all of that?
And who do I even tell? And I'm so messed up,
something's wrong with me. And then now we know that
there's so many people that have that, But it was
coming from a place of my times of restriction, and
it was this pattern.

Speaker 1 (14:44):
Absolutely, it's so isolating, and it makes us think that
we're the only one that struggles the way that we are.
And then a lot of the thoughts that came up
for me and for my clients are like, if only
they knew how crazy I was, messed up, broken, fill
on the blank. And that's another I think really import
and part of today's episode is really just letting you know, like,
you're not alone, you're not crazy, you're not messed up,

(15:05):
you're not broken, you're not too far gone. You learned
what we learned, and there's a way to unlearn it
and relearn something new that sets you free but also
coexists in a world where you can enjoy life and
socializing and friends and family and food and all the
things that come alongside it. And the journey can be
a dot dot dot, never ending, always evolving thing.

Speaker 4 (15:24):
Yeah, So to recap, you can heal from your disordered
eating and have a healthy relationship with food, and you
can still love food, love sugar, find pleasure and joy
and food and still have food stuff that you're continually
working through. It can all be true. Absolutely, boom Leanne.

(15:45):
Where can people find you?

Speaker 1 (15:46):
Absolutely to talk more about this, learn more about this,
you can head on over to stressless eeating dot com.

Speaker 2 (15:51):
There's some resources over there for you to learn more.

Speaker 4 (15:54):
And I am at Radio Amy on Instagram and we're
going to be taking a break from this series. We
did four in a row. Two Things can be True
at the same time, and Lane's got some cool interviews
coming up that she's going to be sharing every Saturday
for the next few weeks, and then we'll come back
yep with another four parts. Yep, So five, six, seven,

(16:17):
and eight. Yep, there's eight total. Do you want to
share who you potentially are interviewing or do we want
yeah to that?

Speaker 1 (16:23):
So our first two things Can be True at the
same time was about you can you know, be on
this journey of healing and health and loving yourself and
peace and all of the good stuff that we all
want more of and have goals and still you know,
want to take your health to the next level. So
I shared a little bit about how I drew a
line in the sand and decided to figure out how

(16:45):
two things could be true in my own life around
that after ten years of not not knowing what that
looked like. So the woman that I worked with, and
she's a friend and a mentor, will be sharing some
awesomeness about all of that and how we can really
bridge the gap between you know, the typical health and
fitness world, but also the mental emotional health and how

(17:07):
to really heal from this. She's had her own testimony
and experiences with eating disorders and disordered eating and body
dysmorphia and all of that stuff, so she'll definitely share
her own testimony and then we'll be talking about some
cool stuff in relation to that.

Speaker 4 (17:20):
Okay, so interview time coming up the next few weeks,
and then Leanna and I.

Speaker 3 (17:24):
Will be back together.

Speaker 4 (17:25):
But hope y'all are having the day that you need
to have and we'll see you next time.

Speaker 3 (17:30):
Bye bye
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