April 21, 2022 • 35 mins
Healing the physical self is not only about taking care of our bodies, but also about loving or, at the very least, respecting them. In this episode, Alicia is joined by Taylor Wolfram, a health writer and dietician who specializes in intuitive eating. There are a multitude of ways to feel good in your body. You can nourish it with the food you eat. You can listen to it and provide what it needs at that moment. You can feel beautiful while inhabiting it. Join Alicia and Taylor as they delve into this healing conversation about nurturing the bodies we live in.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
What is it really gonna take to heal ourselves, our communities,
and our planet. I'm Alicia Silverstone, and this is the
real heal. I'm sure we've all heard before how important
it is to love ourselves. We live with ourselves. We
(00:24):
wake up with our bodies every day. No one else does.
But that can feel almost impossible in a society that
has an ever changing definition of what beauty, health and
wellness actually mean. Truth is, having a healthy relationship with
our bodies is hard work. That's why I'm so grateful
(00:45):
to have Taylor wolf From on today's episode. Taylor is
a health writer, editor, and dietitian specializing in intuitive eating.
We talk about how we view our bodies, ways we
can shift into a healthier connection with ourselves and the
food we really need to feel nourished. So, without further ado,
(01:05):
let's get into the real Hell. Hi, Taylor, I'm really
happy to be talking to you today. Thank you for
coming on the Real Hell. Yes, thank you so much.
It's an honor to be here. I'm excited. There's so
much to talk about, Taylor. Why don't you tell us
(01:27):
what you do? Yeah? I think the easiest way to
describe that would be to say. I am a registered
dietitian and I run a private practice UM based out
of Chicago. It's all virtual these days, UM, but it's
really great. We focus a lot on body image, disordered
(01:49):
eating recovery, and also I'm vegan and I have specialty
and vegan nutrition, so we focus on that as well.
That's wonderful. I can't wait to talk about all of
that with you. I read that you were premed initially.
What what made you make a switch? Definitely? UM. I
think that had more to do with just realizing medicine
(02:12):
wasn't for me, more than feeling super called towards nutrition,
if you will. I think because you know, I grew
up as a high achiever, kind of straight a student.
The narrative in my home was, oh, you're smart, you
like science, you know, you should be a doctor. So
I didn't really think much beyond that, and that's where
(02:32):
I headed when I went off to college and had
taken nutrition classes and through some mentorship, kind of realized that,
you know, that would probably be a better fit for me.
I could still work in a hospital if I wanted,
It could still be very clinical focus, but it was
much more lifestyle based. UM. If you're working in an
outpatient setting or counseling like I do, now, you get
(02:54):
a lot more time with your patients, you get to
know them more. So that just seemed like a better
fit for me and kind of marrying you know, the
science and the clinical part of it with more of
the human aspect in all of your work. What would
you say that you are the most concerned about and
what would you say is the biggest problem that the
people that come to you are facing. So those might
(03:17):
be two different questions. No, I know what you mean,
and I think they definitely overlap. Um And obviously I'm biased,
right because I kind of see the biggest issue is
what I'm helping people with and what I specialize in.
But I think really it just comes down to people
feeling very disembodied, right. They're not connected with their bodies.
(03:37):
They think they don't know how to eat, They think
they need someone to tell them exactly what to do
and how to eat. They don't trust themselves. They're very
confused by you know, what everyone is saying, what the
internet is saying, what the books are saying, And you know,
is this food bat or is this food good? And
that can contribute not only just to a lot of confusion,
(03:59):
but I'll so some anxiety, some disordered eating. Um. So
that's really what I specialize in, is helping people really
connect with their internal wisdom and really build that trust
with their bodies. And yes, you know, I'm I'm here
to offer some gentle guidance and some gentle nutrition recommendations,
but we do that in a way where it's really
(04:21):
incorporated with their lived experience and their internal wisdom. It's
not trumping that it sounds like your dream is that
people would be free of this, be free of this
confusion and this this way of not being connected to themselves.
You know, I know we'll get into it, but I
think there's a lot of reasons why people find themselves
(04:43):
that way, right, the systems in which we live, right,
that kind of power, that disconnection and confusion. But yeah,
i'd say I would love to see a world where
you know, we all continue to have that intuition that
we're born with around food. Right when you think about
babies and little ones, like they know when you're hungry,
(05:04):
they know when they're full, They're very clear right when
they want food, when they're done with food, you know,
sometimes they're kind of picky and only want one thing.
Sometimes they're really adventurous and want to explore and need
a variety. And typically, you know, when left to their
natural devices, like, they have a pretty decent relationship with food.
But it's through you know, our culture and all of
(05:26):
the rules and messages that we begin to kind of
lose that intuition and lose that trust. So I think
I would say, yeah, my dream would be that people
would never become disconnected, that they would always have that
with them. Yeah, it's really interesting. That made my brain
want to ask you so many things. Um. The first
(05:47):
one is with kids. I have a child that I
have fed very very healthy, from conception, breastfeeding to first foods,
all the way up. You know, when you said if
they're left to their own vices, he does have a
very intuitive sense of, oh, I feel like I might
not feel so well or I've been eating so naughty,
(06:07):
that I should eat my greens, and I should make
sure I have brown rice, and I should have beans.
He has a sense of eating good food. But truthfully,
I think even children in my experience, you know, if
you put a four year old in front of blueberries
and a cake and you say you can pick there.
Some might pick the blueberries at first. Bear did for
the first three years, but it was more like, you
can have the blueberries instead of the cake, because the
(06:30):
cake was going to be sugar and it was gonna
be dairy. And he was young enough that I could
do that once I gave him the choice, right, I
feel like they start to make It's not that you
can't have cake. I'm not saying that, but I just
mean if I were to leave my kid or my
dogs to make their own decisions about food on the daily,
I do think that they're going to pick the shiny,
(06:51):
sparkly stuff, you know, Like my dog's not gonna let's
not talk about dogs, sorry, but but my kid is
going to He'll eat. He loves the good, healthy food
and he eats loads of it, and he's happy to
have it, and he knows it nourishes and makes him
feel good, and he understands and recognizes the difference between
when he's feeling good from food and not. But if
(07:11):
I said you could order out from your favorite vegan
restaurant every single day and get like, you know, vegan
all the fun, naughty stuff, he would, you know, what
I mean, And so I'm curious about that kind of
I wonder if we just all always have to have
some kind of boundary with ourselves about, actually, that's not
(07:31):
a good idea to eat out every single day. This naughty,
this fun, delicious, naughty food. It's not gonna it's not
gonna feel me. So in terms of when you were
talking about natural intuition, I'm just curious about it because
if all the worst foods in the world made my
body feel good and look good and didn't cause harm,
I would probably want to eat them, right, But I
have a knowing that they don't make me feel good,
(07:53):
they're not good for the earth, and they're bad for animals,
and that they're going to make me feel terrible. So
I and make better choices more often help me understand
that intuition part of it. Yeah, and thank you for
those questions, because those are really really common questions that
people have when they first hear of of intuitive eating.
(08:15):
And I'm wondering if we should actually define what that
is first before we dive into it. Do you think
that would be helpful? Sure? Yeah, And I think it's
important because this is kind of a phrase, a term
that has gained popularity and it's kind of used a
lot um, and some people don't realize this is a
specific thing. Um. So it's it's a science based framework
(08:37):
that was developed by two registered dietitians all the way
back in so it's been around for a while. Um.
There's multiple editions of the book by this point, but
because it's been around for so long, it's been well studied.
I think it's over a hundstred and fifty research papers
now on intuitive eating, which is really great because we
have solid evidence to kind of point towards the mental
(09:01):
and physical health benefits of it, not just saying, you know,
making promises of this is what you'll experience. Um. And
there's ten principles to it, so you know it's it's
a it's a framework that has specific strategies and and
principles to it. You know, if anyone wants to learn
more about that, they can go to in two debating
dot org, look at resources, learn about the creators you
(09:22):
know by the book, et cetera. This isn't something that
you know I made up or this isn't just my
spin on it, um. But the whole idea is that
giving ourselves unconditional permission to eat food across the board, right,
and really building that trust with with our bodies. And
(09:45):
that's distinct way that the creators describe it. They say
it's a dynamic interplay of instinct, emotion, and thought. And
so a lot of people think, oh, it's just instinct.
It's just means eat whatever you want, whenever you want.
And that's not necessarily true because that's kind of leaving
out the emotion part and the thought part. So like
(10:06):
you said, I know when I eat X food this frequently,
I tend to not feel very good. So I'm not
going to do that. Right, that's still intuitive eating because
that's using you know, your experience and your thought and
your logic rather than saying this food is bad for
me and I'm a bad person if I right. That's
a bit of a different narrative. Um. And so much
(10:30):
goes into it, right, Even using words like naughty to
describe foods can even put them on a certain pedestal, right,
that we kind of look at foods in a certain way,
um or you know, when we tend to think of
foods a certain way or tell ourselves we can't have them,
we tend to have more of a drive for them,
(10:50):
or when we do get them, the experience we have
maybe way more intense than if they were just kind
of everyday foods that were very normalized. You know, you
have them when you want, you can pass it up
when you don't want it. That sort of thing that's
very interesting. I feel like as a parent and as
a human who's been doing you know, deep nutrition work
(11:13):
for myself for maybe twenty five years or something, that
these are interesting concepts, but in play, the thing that
has worked most for me is choosing nourishing, balancing, healing foods.
And I don't mind giving those words, putting them on
a pedestal, because they are like chocolate cake is delicious,
but it doesn't do the same thing that brown rice
(11:35):
does to my body. And greens. Greens are nourishing heat,
they heal your organs. They do deserve to be, in
my opinion, be called super foods or superhero foods because
they create the most healing, nourishing results. And so what
I have found is when I eat that way, I
(11:57):
don't crave the other stuff because my body these imbalance
and it's getting everything it needs, and that when my
body is out of balance, or there's an emotional eruption,
or there's you know, your stress or whatever those things
are that come up in life. That that's when you
have to come in with the big brain and either,
you know, make the decision that's going to make you
feel better, or go with the feeling and let yourself
(12:17):
have a party for a second and get over it
and get back on track. You know, I, as a
(12:38):
woman or as a person, as a human, I feel
like we all struggle. And I would even want to
ask you, perhaps you had a moment in your life
that you were struggling with this exact issue, and this
maybe why you're so interested in it. Perhaps so I
will ask you about that. But I wanted to express
that I just think it's really hard for every human
(12:59):
to love our body. And in general, I love my body.
I'm grateful for my body. I know that I'm that
my body is pretty cute and and and I sometimes
can prance around naked and feel like, oh, yeah, this
is this is okay, this is all right. And then
other times you see yourself and you go, you're putting
on a pair of jeans, and and my tummy, if
(13:21):
only my tummy was tinier oh if my arms could
be tinier, why are my hips like this? But I
don't lose sleep over it. I don't not walk out
the door because of it. My relationship to my body
is good enough that I understand. Okay, you're just having
these silly thoughts. Ultimately, your body is just fine. Let's
not worry about this. Did you struggle with this yourself
like every person I've ever spoken to in my life? Yeah,
(13:43):
oh yeah absolutely. I think growing up, you know, as
someone who's female identifies as female in America, it's extremely
lucky if you never have anybody at my issues, right,
because we are just swimming in these waters of you know,
being told that our bodies are never good enough. And
like you said earlier, even supermodels have issues, right, there's
(14:07):
this never good enough kind of feeling. Um, you know,
no matter how much you diet or how much surgery
you get, or you know, how much you manipulate your
appearance in whatever way, we're always knit picking ourselves um
and every day still. I mean I think that's something
too that people come to realize, and a lot of
(14:28):
my clients have, is this work is never ending because
we're still living in this culture with these ideals, right,
And we're getting these messages all the time from all
over the place, so we're constantly having to do this
work and be resilient and kind of deal with any
triggers and thoughts that come up. Um. But I think
it's important to recognize that the roots of of like
(14:50):
diet culture and things like that don't just affect people
in those marginalized body right, They they informed the system
that we now live in, and that impacts everyone, right,
So I think that's important to recognize too, is that
you know, everyone can kind of struggle with body and right,
(15:11):
everyone can struggle with diet culture no matter your size,
your gender identity. But it's different for people who actually
live in marginalized bodies, even to this day. Right, it's
very different to live in a in a body you
know that is much larger, because you get treated different
(15:31):
than if you were to live in a body like
yours or like mine. Well I know firsthand because when
I was younger, and I know I don't have that body,
but when I was younger and thinner than I am now,
I was called fat girl. I was chased by pap
Rozzi screaming fact girl. Every newspaper was calling me fat girl,
(15:53):
and I was not a fact girl. And but I
wasn't as thin I suppose as I was supposed to
be from what I was a part of. And I
remember at the time it being I had a very
strong sense of self about it to know that this
is wrong. I knew that I knew this is really
really wrong. But in general, I have to say, and
(16:16):
I don't want any sympathy about this. I'm not telling
this story because I feel bad for myself or that
I think that I've been through something. Please, none of that.
But what I'm telling the story for is to say
I at first had this repulsion to the concept of health.
So if you were to say to me, you know, oh,
you might want to think about being healthy, all I
(16:36):
heard is you're calling me fat and you're addressing I
had no interest. And it wasn't until my love for
animals led me to make this choice to be vegan.
And then suddenly all this weight came melting off of
me naturally, and I just I thank the animals for
the good karma because they taught I don't know if
I could have done it for myself, is what I'm
(16:57):
getting at. I didn't have the self worth at that time.
I certainly do now, but I did not have it
when I was younger to think I want to be
a healthy, happy person. I just knew. Don't tell me
what to do, you know, nineteam, don't tell me what
to do. Do not call me fat. And this is awful.
And now, I of course felt really fat. And so
(17:18):
even now, you know, if I gain a little weight,
I feel different. I don't mean intellectually, I don't mean, oh, judgement,
judging myself. I mean my actual body doesn't want to
have extra inflammation on it. It doesn't want to have
you know, that's the beauty of having gone down this path.
I went vegan. My whole body changed, my health change.
(17:38):
I ditched my asthma hailer, I stopped taking allergy shots.
I never had to go to the doctor for antibiotics
ever again, like until I got attacked by some dogs
and then I had to get you know, my leg
sewn up, and then I took antibiotics. But the point
being that my body healed itself, and I found a
way of really being able to trust it, us into it,
(18:00):
all those things that you're talking about, that intuition, and
I think that what's the shame is that until you
have actually experienced the feeling of what it is to
feel good, like really truly clean, healthy, good food in
your body, you just have no idea. So my nineteen
year old self had no idea what health felt like
(18:20):
and how I would become addicted to the feeling of
wanting to feel good or at least have a knowing
sense of what I always want to get back to.
So I think for me it was about and I
don't think this is necessarily the healthy road in I'm
assuming you get people to find love in themselves through
therapy and help and all these wonderful things that you'll
tell us about. But for me, the animals got me in.
(18:43):
It was because of them that I was able to
feel the benefits without having to try, and the focus
wasn't on me, And through there I found the journey
of loving myself and respecting myself because it felt so good.
And once you feel that high of having it all
clean and healthy, it's like you know, when you're walking
around lighter and having spontaneous fits of joy just because
(19:05):
the food that you eat, because your body feels so
good that you're like, I'm so happy right now, what
is wrong with me? And I think that that is
really beautiful, and so all I can say is that
it's this. If I could bottle the feeling that I
get when I'm eating my best and share it with everyone,
I just want to give it to everybody as a potion,
(19:26):
because when you feel good, you know you're going to
be happy about that. And I just I know that
food is so connected to how you feel, and so
that is my little dream, is that everyone could have
this potion of what it feels like after a good
you know, for me, this is like when I'm just
really on point, and that doesn't mean not enjoying things.
(19:49):
I'm enjoying everything. Like I'm making all kinds of insanely
ridiculous sounds as I'm eating my you know, amazing stir
fry last night, and so it can be something really
healthy and delicious. Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that enjoyment,
because I think a lot of people think that too. Right,
if I'm going to eat healthy, that means all the
(20:10):
fun is sucked out of it, right, or I'm not
going to enjoy it, or I'm going to hate it,
And that just doesn't have to be the case whatsoever,
you can be nourished and be joyful, you know, with
food at the same time. And for some people it
takes a lot of work to get there, of course,
you know, coming from my experience working with people with
actual eating disorders is a little bit different, um, but
(20:31):
it is really powerful when people get there with food.
Last night, I took a bath, and I thought, because
I knew I was talking to you, I thought, I'm
going to practice right now being a little bit more
loving in my bath, because a bath right in itself
is loving. Yeah, I got in my bath, but now
I'm going to scrub my body. That's huge accomplishment because
that doesn't happen very often. So now I'm scrubbing it.
(20:53):
And then I realized, I'm scrubbing it really fast. Why
don't I scrub it with love? Why don't I scrub
it like, you know, to scrubbing it like it's my
baby and I want to take care of my baby.
And that was really fun to do that because I
did notice everything I'm doing, like washing my face, is
in such a hurry without like let's be sort of
not sensual about it, but enjoy the process and be
(21:15):
loving and say loving things. But anyway, for me, going
inside my heart and letting my heart guide all of
my decisions rather than my brain, that was a huge
shift for me in intuition and self love and getting
out of your mind about it and really just feeling
the space that it creates. So these are the things
(21:49):
that I do that I feel like are my self
love and definitely my food. Being very mindful that I
want to feel my best, So I'm going to pick
the foods to feel the best, and then I also
going to go out and do fun things and have balance.
What are the things with the people that you are
Because you're dealing with people who have very real issues
about all of this, what is it? What's the process
(22:10):
you take them through? How do you help them? Yeah?
So really kind of the concepts we work on is connection, right,
connecting with your body in a safe way, grounding right.
If you notice that your nervous system is feeling disregulated,
whether you're really overactivated and kind of anxious or maybe
you're really like low and almost dissociated, getting your nervous
(22:34):
system into more of a functional places is really helpful
and important for people. And then you know, we just
kind of start working on it and we go really slow. Um.
For some people, like I said, just acknowledgement is challenging enough,
Like the whole I love my body is going to
be light years away, if at all. And I think
(22:55):
that's something important to to recognize, is you don't have
to love your your body right to respect it to
take care of it, because that can feel really intimidating
for people like I'm so far from loving my body.
How could I ever love this body? You know, if
they're really in this place of self loathing and they
think that self love is a prerequisite for some basic
(23:17):
self care, that can be really tough. Um. So this
just basic idea of body respect body neutrality can be
a more accessible place for a lot of people to
start with. That's really interesting. I'm glad you just said
that because I know I'm not on that spectrum, but
I am a human who has these feelings. So I was,
(23:38):
and you just validated my experience this morning, which was
I took a look at my body as I was
getting ready and I went, remember, you have to love
your body, and I was going, oh, but what why
is it like this? And why is that like that?
And gosh, I gotta work on this, and then I
had the conversation with myself and said, we're doing everything
that we can to take care of you. Like so
(23:59):
I think it was respectful. But I didn't end up
with love. I ended up with respect and I think
that that is really important and I didn't even know that.
So thank you. Yeah, right, you did exactly that, right,
And it's not settling, right, it's not taking the easy road.
It's just being realistic. And it's honestly the best you
can do for yourself in that moment because of self,
(24:19):
love isn't going to happen. It's not going to happen
no matter how much you tell yourself it's supposed to happen,
or it has to happen. Right that that comes through work,
and so in that moment. You know, something that I
teach my clients is, you know, checking in, see how
you're doing, and just ask yourself, what do I need?
How can I take care of myself in this moment
(24:40):
and not even think about love or how I look
or anything like that, Just what do I need? Sometimes
it's really basic. Sometimes it's deep breaths, a glass of water,
a snack. Sometimes it's I'm really overwhelmed, right, I need
to ask for help in a certain way, or I
need to get support or use a certain coping strategy,
whatever it is. Yeah, it's it's really I love that
(25:01):
checking in and asking yourself what you need. That's so
powerful and it sounds so simple, but it's really when
you practice it and remember to practice it, it's very,
very powerful. And I also think that it's interesting that
that conversation with yourself that I know that even if
you're not living in a body that's bigger, if you're
(25:22):
living in a body that's whatever your body is, wherever
you are, that you could still be having this thought
of God, I want to be here. Is it okay
that I want to be here? Because is that self
love to want to be here and not that and
not where I am right now? Okay, I have respect
for where I am right now. I have a ton
of respect for where I am right now, and I
(25:42):
get that it's beautiful exactly as it is, and I
would also I know what it's like to have it
be in the other place too, and I like that.
So I'm gonna move in that direction gently and kindly
and do what and be proactive about it. But Yeah,
it's sort of a realistic You just gave me a
lot of permission to to be okay with the idea
(26:03):
that it's not. It's not You don't have to self
love and self and body love doesn't mean that you
have to say I love it exactly as it is
for reals. It's just I respect you and I love you,
and I can still dream for you how I want
it to be. Yeah, definitely, And you know this is
probably a whole different conversation, but sometimes it can be
(26:25):
helpful to check ourselves in terms of what those dreams are. Right.
Is it dreaming like, oh I I want to feel
more energized, right, or I want to feel more whatever
it is? Or is it I want to look a
certain way because that's how I believe I have to
look based on how other people treat me. And that's
where we can get into trouble and where a lot
(26:46):
of my clients struggle right with eating disorder issues and
a lot of that body and make stuff. Which again,
it's the world that we live in. It's the air
we breathe. You know, it's so so hard. We can't
we don't live in a vacuum. We can't ignore these
external factors, or for people who actually do live in
marginalized bodies, like it's difficult to do certain things or
uncomfortable to do certain things in their body, and so
(27:08):
they're like, oh, I have I really have to change
my body, right, And that's really really hard, um, to
feel like the world isn't made for you, or it's
not accommodating you, or just stepping outside your front door,
you have to be prepared to just be harmed by
the world and its people, and and that's really challenging.
(27:28):
Um it makes this work, you know, even more difficult.
So what are the success stories that you've had where
you've got Because I know that veganism is really important
to you personally and obviously you must believe that it's
really healthy. How do you have amazing success stories that
you can share with me of someone that's come into
your world and you've transformed them. And do you have
(27:51):
any of those? Oh gosh, you know, I won't say
I transform people. I say you know they're doing it themselves.
I'm I'm a part of their support system. Um um.
But yeah, it's really cool, especially people that will work
with long term, like for years, um, just to see
how they progress in their not only you know, their
(28:11):
behaviors of what they're actually doing, but their relationship with food. Right,
Maybe they came from a place where they were stuck
in this yo yo cycle between restricting and bingjing all
the time. They felt terrible physically, they felt terrible about themselves,
you know, horrible body image. To come to a place
of more easeful kind of balance with food. They're nourishing
(28:36):
themselves regularly. They're not restricting certain foods. You know, they're
having the let's say, chocolate cake when they want it,
but it's not a big deal, you know, that sort
of thing, and they're just not obsessed about food anymore.
And they're learning to be more connected with their body.
They're learning to trust that more right, to really be
able to trust that their body will tell them when
(28:57):
what and how much to eat and when what and
how much to move their bodies right, and really just
learning to rely on those internal messages. And for me,
that's the most beautiful thing is not only the recovery
right from actually harmful behaviors, but that internal wisdom and
trust that people have, because that's a resource that no
(29:17):
one can take away from you. That will serve you,
you know, moving forward forever. We've talked a lot about
self love and healing ourselves and all that that is
and the challenges of that. But one of the things
you talked about also was that no matter where we are,
(29:39):
sometimes walking out into the world, society and our culture
and the things that were fed in the world can
be not helpful and not help us in our process
of loving ourselves. So I guess my question to you is,
what can we as a society do. What are all
(30:00):
the things that we can do to help someone who
might be on the journey of trying to find self
love or might be on the journey of finding love
for their bodies, and how can we help facilitate that
rather than be one more block in that journey. In
terms of what we can do as individuals, I think
(30:21):
is just be aware of how we talk about bodies
and our conversations, you know, not only with ourselves, of course,
but with our family, with our friends, with other people.
Right in terms of the assumptions we're making or the
hierarchy of bodies, we might be talking about or or
making assumptions that certain bodies are good or healthy and
(30:41):
others aren't. I think just checking ourselves and how we
talk about bodies, how we talk about food and dieting.
I mean, gosh, there's there's so much that can trigger
folks out there. So I think a lot of it
is almost more of what not to do right, how
not to talk unkind about bodies, um, and just giving
(31:05):
people that space right to to live their lives and
do their thing. And a lot of these issues do
stem and systemic you know, um areas in terms of
folks having resources to certain things. But I think on
an individual level, we can just speak a lot more
kindly about bodies or you know, not at all. Right,
maybe it's not always necessary to even make comments about bodies.
(31:28):
And what would you say is the one thing if
you could give somebody one thing to take a new
step for themselves in this journey, Like I'm not I
don't presume they don't have self love or I don't
have the body I want. I'm frustrated, I don't know
what to do. I can't get where I want to go.
What's the thing that they can do, what's the first
(31:50):
thing that they can do? Yeah, you know, I think
getting comfortable with checking and with yourself is really powerful
and really should be the foundation for this work of
just you know, how am I in this moment? How
am I today? How am I feeling physically? How am
I feeling mentally? And that's going to help set them
(32:11):
up to get more familiar with their not only their
bodies cues, right, but then getting more familiar with what
their needs are so that they can be more prepared
to go out and meet those needs and practice keeping
the focus there, right, rather than how I look or
what the size of my pants are, how much I weigh?
What if they do? What if they just do care
(32:33):
about the size of their pants and the way that
they look and they don't like it? Yeah? No, absolutely,
And that's common for so many of us, right, And
that's where we we really practice redirecting, Right, we kind
of acknowledge that voice and like, Okay, I hear you,
and I'm going to redirect my energy and focus back
to how am I and what do I need right now?
(32:54):
Because so much of the worry and the stress and
the anxiety about how our body looks or how big
it is, That end of itself is not good for us, right,
That end of itself can be harmful to both physically
and mental health. The one thing I think I'll just
wrap it up by saying is that I know that
we don't love the word diet, but it's so sad
(33:14):
that it got a bad name because the real word
diet does not mean to restrict. It means a way
of life, a journey. And that's why I called my
book the kind Diet was because it was to have
a new path, a journey to the best, most healthy
version of yourself that you feel good, where you make
(33:34):
choices that are good for you, whatever that is, and
and and trusting your intuition and being kind to yourself,
and that diet. I would love if we could reclaim
the word diet. But it's a beautiful thing that what
it was intended to mean. Yeah, right, it's no longer
this neutral description of what you eat, right, but it
(33:55):
has more of that kind of fad restrictive diet connotation.
Absolutely well, thank you so much, Taylor. Thank you. It's
about a pleasure. You've given me so much to think about,
and I I think this is going to resonate with
so many of our listeners. And thank you for taking
the time to talk to us, Taylor. We really appreciate it. Yes,
(34:18):
thank you for the opportunity. It's bout my pleasure To
dig deeper into this episodes topic and resources, visit the
kind life dot com. The Real Hell is an I
Heart Radio production made in partnership with Frequency Media. I'm
(34:39):
your host Alicia Silverstone from I Heart Radio are managing
producer is Lindsay Hoffman from Frequency Media. Michelle Corey is
our executive producer. Jordan Rizzieri is our producer, and Amani
Leonard and Laura Boyman are our associate producers. Sydney Evans
is our dialogue editor and Claire Bitte Rry Curtis is
(35:01):
our mixer and sound designer. This podcast is available on
the I Heart Radio app, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts,
and wherever podcasts are found. H
What is it really gonna take to heal ourselves, our communities,
and our planet. I'm Alicia Silverstone, and this is the
real heal. I'm sure we've all heard before how important
it is to love ourselves. We live with ourselves. We
(00:24):
wake up with our bodies every day. No one else does.
But that can feel almost impossible in a society that
has an ever changing definition of what beauty, health and
wellness actually mean. Truth is, having a healthy relationship with
our bodies is hard work. That's why I'm so grateful
(00:45):
to have Taylor wolf From on today's episode. Taylor is
a health writer, editor, and dietitian specializing in intuitive eating.
We talk about how we view our bodies, ways we
can shift into a healthier connection with ourselves and the
food we really need to feel nourished. So, without further ado,
(01:05):
let's get into the real Hell. Hi, Taylor, I'm really
happy to be talking to you today. Thank you for
coming on the Real Hell. Yes, thank you so much.
It's an honor to be here. I'm excited. There's so
much to talk about, Taylor. Why don't you tell us
(01:27):
what you do? Yeah? I think the easiest way to
describe that would be to say. I am a registered
dietitian and I run a private practice UM based out
of Chicago. It's all virtual these days, UM, but it's
really great. We focus a lot on body image, disordered
(01:49):
eating recovery, and also I'm vegan and I have specialty
and vegan nutrition, so we focus on that as well.
That's wonderful. I can't wait to talk about all of
that with you. I read that you were premed initially.
What what made you make a switch? Definitely? UM. I
think that had more to do with just realizing medicine
(02:12):
wasn't for me, more than feeling super called towards nutrition,
if you will. I think because you know, I grew
up as a high achiever, kind of straight a student.
The narrative in my home was, oh, you're smart, you
like science, you know, you should be a doctor. So
I didn't really think much beyond that, and that's where
(02:32):
I headed when I went off to college and had
taken nutrition classes and through some mentorship, kind of realized that,
you know, that would probably be a better fit for me.
I could still work in a hospital if I wanted,
It could still be very clinical focus, but it was
much more lifestyle based. UM. If you're working in an
outpatient setting or counseling like I do, now, you get
(02:54):
a lot more time with your patients, you get to
know them more. So that just seemed like a better
fit for me and kind of marrying you know, the
science and the clinical part of it with more of
the human aspect in all of your work. What would
you say that you are the most concerned about and
what would you say is the biggest problem that the
people that come to you are facing. So those might
(03:17):
be two different questions. No, I know what you mean,
and I think they definitely overlap. Um And obviously I'm biased,
right because I kind of see the biggest issue is
what I'm helping people with and what I specialize in.
But I think really it just comes down to people
feeling very disembodied, right. They're not connected with their bodies.
(03:37):
They think they don't know how to eat, They think
they need someone to tell them exactly what to do
and how to eat. They don't trust themselves. They're very
confused by you know, what everyone is saying, what the
internet is saying, what the books are saying, And you know,
is this food bat or is this food good? And
that can contribute not only just to a lot of confusion,
(03:59):
but I'll so some anxiety, some disordered eating. Um. So
that's really what I specialize in, is helping people really
connect with their internal wisdom and really build that trust
with their bodies. And yes, you know, I'm I'm here
to offer some gentle guidance and some gentle nutrition recommendations,
but we do that in a way where it's really
(04:21):
incorporated with their lived experience and their internal wisdom. It's
not trumping that it sounds like your dream is that
people would be free of this, be free of this
confusion and this this way of not being connected to themselves.
You know, I know we'll get into it, but I
think there's a lot of reasons why people find themselves
(04:43):
that way, right, the systems in which we live, right,
that kind of power, that disconnection and confusion. But yeah,
i'd say I would love to see a world where
you know, we all continue to have that intuition that
we're born with around food. Right when you think about
babies and little ones, like they know when you're hungry,
(05:04):
they know when they're full, They're very clear right when
they want food, when they're done with food, you know,
sometimes they're kind of picky and only want one thing.
Sometimes they're really adventurous and want to explore and need
a variety. And typically, you know, when left to their
natural devices, like, they have a pretty decent relationship with food.
But it's through you know, our culture and all of
(05:26):
the rules and messages that we begin to kind of
lose that intuition and lose that trust. So I think
I would say, yeah, my dream would be that people
would never become disconnected, that they would always have that
with them. Yeah, it's really interesting. That made my brain
want to ask you so many things. Um. The first
(05:47):
one is with kids. I have a child that I
have fed very very healthy, from conception, breastfeeding to first foods,
all the way up. You know, when you said if
they're left to their own vices, he does have a
very intuitive sense of, oh, I feel like I might
not feel so well or I've been eating so naughty,
(06:07):
that I should eat my greens, and I should make
sure I have brown rice, and I should have beans.
He has a sense of eating good food. But truthfully,
I think even children in my experience, you know, if
you put a four year old in front of blueberries
and a cake and you say you can pick there.
Some might pick the blueberries at first. Bear did for
the first three years, but it was more like, you
can have the blueberries instead of the cake, because the
(06:30):
cake was going to be sugar and it was gonna
be dairy. And he was young enough that I could
do that once I gave him the choice, right, I
feel like they start to make It's not that you
can't have cake. I'm not saying that, but I just
mean if I were to leave my kid or my
dogs to make their own decisions about food on the daily,
I do think that they're going to pick the shiny,
(06:51):
sparkly stuff, you know, Like my dog's not gonna let's
not talk about dogs, sorry, but but my kid is
going to He'll eat. He loves the good, healthy food
and he eats loads of it, and he's happy to
have it, and he knows it nourishes and makes him
feel good, and he understands and recognizes the difference between
when he's feeling good from food and not. But if
(07:11):
I said you could order out from your favorite vegan
restaurant every single day and get like, you know, vegan
all the fun, naughty stuff, he would, you know, what
I mean, And so I'm curious about that kind of
I wonder if we just all always have to have
some kind of boundary with ourselves about, actually, that's not
(07:31):
a good idea to eat out every single day. This naughty,
this fun, delicious, naughty food. It's not gonna it's not
gonna feel me. So in terms of when you were
talking about natural intuition, I'm just curious about it because
if all the worst foods in the world made my
body feel good and look good and didn't cause harm,
I would probably want to eat them, right, But I
have a knowing that they don't make me feel good,
(07:53):
they're not good for the earth, and they're bad for animals,
and that they're going to make me feel terrible. So
I and make better choices more often help me understand
that intuition part of it. Yeah, and thank you for
those questions, because those are really really common questions that
people have when they first hear of of intuitive eating.
(08:15):
And I'm wondering if we should actually define what that
is first before we dive into it. Do you think
that would be helpful? Sure? Yeah, And I think it's
important because this is kind of a phrase, a term
that has gained popularity and it's kind of used a
lot um, and some people don't realize this is a
specific thing. Um. So it's it's a science based framework
(08:37):
that was developed by two registered dietitians all the way
back in so it's been around for a while. Um.
There's multiple editions of the book by this point, but
because it's been around for so long, it's been well studied.
I think it's over a hundstred and fifty research papers
now on intuitive eating, which is really great because we
have solid evidence to kind of point towards the mental
(09:01):
and physical health benefits of it, not just saying, you know,
making promises of this is what you'll experience. Um. And
there's ten principles to it, so you know it's it's
a it's a framework that has specific strategies and and
principles to it. You know, if anyone wants to learn
more about that, they can go to in two debating
dot org, look at resources, learn about the creators you
(09:22):
know by the book, et cetera. This isn't something that
you know I made up or this isn't just my
spin on it, um. But the whole idea is that
giving ourselves unconditional permission to eat food across the board, right,
and really building that trust with with our bodies. And
(09:45):
that's distinct way that the creators describe it. They say
it's a dynamic interplay of instinct, emotion, and thought. And
so a lot of people think, oh, it's just instinct.
It's just means eat whatever you want, whenever you want.
And that's not necessarily true because that's kind of leaving
out the emotion part and the thought part. So like
(10:06):
you said, I know when I eat X food this frequently,
I tend to not feel very good. So I'm not
going to do that. Right, that's still intuitive eating because
that's using you know, your experience and your thought and
your logic rather than saying this food is bad for
me and I'm a bad person if I right. That's
a bit of a different narrative. Um. And so much
(10:30):
goes into it, right, Even using words like naughty to
describe foods can even put them on a certain pedestal, right,
that we kind of look at foods in a certain way,
um or you know, when we tend to think of
foods a certain way or tell ourselves we can't have them,
we tend to have more of a drive for them,
(10:50):
or when we do get them, the experience we have
maybe way more intense than if they were just kind
of everyday foods that were very normalized. You know, you
have them when you want, you can pass it up
when you don't want it. That sort of thing that's
very interesting. I feel like as a parent and as
a human who's been doing you know, deep nutrition work
(11:13):
for myself for maybe twenty five years or something, that
these are interesting concepts, but in play, the thing that
has worked most for me is choosing nourishing, balancing, healing foods.
And I don't mind giving those words, putting them on
a pedestal, because they are like chocolate cake is delicious,
but it doesn't do the same thing that brown rice
(11:35):
does to my body. And greens. Greens are nourishing heat,
they heal your organs. They do deserve to be, in
my opinion, be called super foods or superhero foods because
they create the most healing, nourishing results. And so what
I have found is when I eat that way, I
(11:57):
don't crave the other stuff because my body these imbalance
and it's getting everything it needs, and that when my
body is out of balance, or there's an emotional eruption,
or there's you know, your stress or whatever those things
are that come up in life. That that's when you
have to come in with the big brain and either,
you know, make the decision that's going to make you
feel better, or go with the feeling and let yourself
(12:17):
have a party for a second and get over it
and get back on track. You know, I, as a
(12:38):
woman or as a person, as a human, I feel
like we all struggle. And I would even want to
ask you, perhaps you had a moment in your life
that you were struggling with this exact issue, and this
maybe why you're so interested in it. Perhaps so I
will ask you about that. But I wanted to express
that I just think it's really hard for every human
(12:59):
to love our body. And in general, I love my body.
I'm grateful for my body. I know that I'm that
my body is pretty cute and and and I sometimes
can prance around naked and feel like, oh, yeah, this
is this is okay, this is all right. And then
other times you see yourself and you go, you're putting
on a pair of jeans, and and my tummy, if
(13:21):
only my tummy was tinier oh if my arms could
be tinier, why are my hips like this? But I
don't lose sleep over it. I don't not walk out
the door because of it. My relationship to my body
is good enough that I understand. Okay, you're just having
these silly thoughts. Ultimately, your body is just fine. Let's
not worry about this. Did you struggle with this yourself
like every person I've ever spoken to in my life? Yeah,
(13:43):
oh yeah absolutely. I think growing up, you know, as
someone who's female identifies as female in America, it's extremely
lucky if you never have anybody at my issues, right,
because we are just swimming in these waters of you know,
being told that our bodies are never good enough. And
like you said earlier, even supermodels have issues, right, there's
(14:07):
this never good enough kind of feeling. Um, you know,
no matter how much you diet or how much surgery
you get, or you know, how much you manipulate your
appearance in whatever way, we're always knit picking ourselves um
and every day still. I mean I think that's something
too that people come to realize, and a lot of
(14:28):
my clients have, is this work is never ending because
we're still living in this culture with these ideals, right,
And we're getting these messages all the time from all
over the place, so we're constantly having to do this
work and be resilient and kind of deal with any
triggers and thoughts that come up. Um. But I think
it's important to recognize that the roots of of like
(14:50):
diet culture and things like that don't just affect people
in those marginalized body right, They they informed the system
that we now live in, and that impacts everyone, right,
So I think that's important to recognize too, is that
you know, everyone can kind of struggle with body and right,
(15:11):
everyone can struggle with diet culture no matter your size,
your gender identity. But it's different for people who actually
live in marginalized bodies, even to this day. Right, it's
very different to live in a in a body you
know that is much larger, because you get treated different
(15:31):
than if you were to live in a body like
yours or like mine. Well I know firsthand because when
I was younger, and I know I don't have that body,
but when I was younger and thinner than I am now,
I was called fat girl. I was chased by pap
Rozzi screaming fact girl. Every newspaper was calling me fat girl,
(15:53):
and I was not a fact girl. And but I
wasn't as thin I suppose as I was supposed to
be from what I was a part of. And I
remember at the time it being I had a very
strong sense of self about it to know that this
is wrong. I knew that I knew this is really
really wrong. But in general, I have to say, and
(16:16):
I don't want any sympathy about this. I'm not telling
this story because I feel bad for myself or that
I think that I've been through something. Please, none of that.
But what I'm telling the story for is to say
I at first had this repulsion to the concept of health.
So if you were to say to me, you know, oh,
you might want to think about being healthy, all I
(16:36):
heard is you're calling me fat and you're addressing I
had no interest. And it wasn't until my love for
animals led me to make this choice to be vegan.
And then suddenly all this weight came melting off of
me naturally, and I just I thank the animals for
the good karma because they taught I don't know if
I could have done it for myself, is what I'm
(16:57):
getting at. I didn't have the self worth at that time.
I certainly do now, but I did not have it
when I was younger to think I want to be
a healthy, happy person. I just knew. Don't tell me
what to do, you know, nineteam, don't tell me what
to do. Do not call me fat. And this is awful.
And now, I of course felt really fat. And so
(17:18):
even now, you know, if I gain a little weight,
I feel different. I don't mean intellectually, I don't mean, oh, judgement,
judging myself. I mean my actual body doesn't want to
have extra inflammation on it. It doesn't want to have
you know, that's the beauty of having gone down this path.
I went vegan. My whole body changed, my health change.
(17:38):
I ditched my asthma hailer, I stopped taking allergy shots.
I never had to go to the doctor for antibiotics
ever again, like until I got attacked by some dogs
and then I had to get you know, my leg
sewn up, and then I took antibiotics. But the point
being that my body healed itself, and I found a
way of really being able to trust it, us into it,
(18:00):
all those things that you're talking about, that intuition, and
I think that what's the shame is that until you
have actually experienced the feeling of what it is to
feel good, like really truly clean, healthy, good food in
your body, you just have no idea. So my nineteen
year old self had no idea what health felt like
(18:20):
and how I would become addicted to the feeling of
wanting to feel good or at least have a knowing
sense of what I always want to get back to.
So I think for me it was about and I
don't think this is necessarily the healthy road in I'm
assuming you get people to find love in themselves through
therapy and help and all these wonderful things that you'll
tell us about. But for me, the animals got me in.
(18:43):
It was because of them that I was able to
feel the benefits without having to try, and the focus
wasn't on me, And through there I found the journey
of loving myself and respecting myself because it felt so good.
And once you feel that high of having it all
clean and healthy, it's like you know, when you're walking
around lighter and having spontaneous fits of joy just because
(19:05):
the food that you eat, because your body feels so
good that you're like, I'm so happy right now, what
is wrong with me? And I think that that is
really beautiful, and so all I can say is that
it's this. If I could bottle the feeling that I
get when I'm eating my best and share it with everyone,
I just want to give it to everybody as a potion,
(19:26):
because when you feel good, you know you're going to
be happy about that. And I just I know that
food is so connected to how you feel, and so
that is my little dream, is that everyone could have
this potion of what it feels like after a good
you know, for me, this is like when I'm just
really on point, and that doesn't mean not enjoying things.
(19:49):
I'm enjoying everything. Like I'm making all kinds of insanely
ridiculous sounds as I'm eating my you know, amazing stir
fry last night, and so it can be something really
healthy and delicious. Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that enjoyment,
because I think a lot of people think that too. Right,
if I'm going to eat healthy, that means all the
(20:10):
fun is sucked out of it, right, or I'm not
going to enjoy it, or I'm going to hate it,
And that just doesn't have to be the case whatsoever,
you can be nourished and be joyful, you know, with
food at the same time. And for some people it
takes a lot of work to get there, of course,
you know, coming from my experience working with people with
actual eating disorders is a little bit different, um, but
(20:31):
it is really powerful when people get there with food.
Last night, I took a bath, and I thought, because
I knew I was talking to you, I thought, I'm
going to practice right now being a little bit more
loving in my bath, because a bath right in itself
is loving. Yeah, I got in my bath, but now
I'm going to scrub my body. That's huge accomplishment because
that doesn't happen very often. So now I'm scrubbing it.
(20:53):
And then I realized, I'm scrubbing it really fast. Why
don't I scrub it with love? Why don't I scrub
it like, you know, to scrubbing it like it's my
baby and I want to take care of my baby.
And that was really fun to do that because I
did notice everything I'm doing, like washing my face, is
in such a hurry without like let's be sort of
not sensual about it, but enjoy the process and be
(21:15):
loving and say loving things. But anyway, for me, going
inside my heart and letting my heart guide all of
my decisions rather than my brain, that was a huge
shift for me in intuition and self love and getting
out of your mind about it and really just feeling
the space that it creates. So these are the things
(21:49):
that I do that I feel like are my self
love and definitely my food. Being very mindful that I
want to feel my best, So I'm going to pick
the foods to feel the best, and then I also
going to go out and do fun things and have balance.
What are the things with the people that you are
Because you're dealing with people who have very real issues
about all of this, what is it? What's the process
(22:10):
you take them through? How do you help them? Yeah?
So really kind of the concepts we work on is connection, right,
connecting with your body in a safe way, grounding right.
If you notice that your nervous system is feeling disregulated,
whether you're really overactivated and kind of anxious or maybe
you're really like low and almost dissociated, getting your nervous
(22:34):
system into more of a functional places is really helpful
and important for people. And then you know, we just
kind of start working on it and we go really slow. Um.
For some people, like I said, just acknowledgement is challenging enough,
Like the whole I love my body is going to
be light years away, if at all. And I think
(22:55):
that's something important to to recognize, is you don't have
to love your your body right to respect it to
take care of it, because that can feel really intimidating
for people like I'm so far from loving my body.
How could I ever love this body? You know, if
they're really in this place of self loathing and they
think that self love is a prerequisite for some basic
(23:17):
self care, that can be really tough. Um. So this
just basic idea of body respect body neutrality can be
a more accessible place for a lot of people to
start with. That's really interesting. I'm glad you just said
that because I know I'm not on that spectrum, but
I am a human who has these feelings. So I was,
(23:38):
and you just validated my experience this morning, which was
I took a look at my body as I was
getting ready and I went, remember, you have to love
your body, and I was going, oh, but what why
is it like this? And why is that like that?
And gosh, I gotta work on this, and then I
had the conversation with myself and said, we're doing everything
that we can to take care of you. Like so
(23:59):
I think it was respectful. But I didn't end up
with love. I ended up with respect and I think
that that is really important and I didn't even know that.
So thank you. Yeah, right, you did exactly that, right,
And it's not settling, right, it's not taking the easy road.
It's just being realistic. And it's honestly the best you
can do for yourself in that moment because of self,
(24:19):
love isn't going to happen. It's not going to happen
no matter how much you tell yourself it's supposed to happen,
or it has to happen. Right that that comes through work,
and so in that moment. You know, something that I
teach my clients is, you know, checking in, see how
you're doing, and just ask yourself, what do I need?
How can I take care of myself in this moment
(24:40):
and not even think about love or how I look
or anything like that, Just what do I need? Sometimes
it's really basic. Sometimes it's deep breaths, a glass of water,
a snack. Sometimes it's I'm really overwhelmed, right, I need
to ask for help in a certain way, or I
need to get support or use a certain coping strategy,
whatever it is. Yeah, it's it's really I love that
(25:01):
checking in and asking yourself what you need. That's so
powerful and it sounds so simple, but it's really when
you practice it and remember to practice it, it's very,
very powerful. And I also think that it's interesting that
that conversation with yourself that I know that even if
you're not living in a body that's bigger, if you're
(25:22):
living in a body that's whatever your body is, wherever
you are, that you could still be having this thought
of God, I want to be here. Is it okay
that I want to be here? Because is that self
love to want to be here and not that and
not where I am right now? Okay, I have respect
for where I am right now. I have a ton
of respect for where I am right now, and I
(25:42):
get that it's beautiful exactly as it is, and I
would also I know what it's like to have it
be in the other place too, and I like that.
So I'm gonna move in that direction gently and kindly
and do what and be proactive about it. But Yeah,
it's sort of a realistic You just gave me a
lot of permission to to be okay with the idea
(26:03):
that it's not. It's not You don't have to self
love and self and body love doesn't mean that you
have to say I love it exactly as it is
for reals. It's just I respect you and I love you,
and I can still dream for you how I want
it to be. Yeah, definitely, And you know this is
probably a whole different conversation, but sometimes it can be
(26:25):
helpful to check ourselves in terms of what those dreams are. Right.
Is it dreaming like, oh I I want to feel
more energized, right, or I want to feel more whatever
it is? Or is it I want to look a
certain way because that's how I believe I have to
look based on how other people treat me. And that's
where we can get into trouble and where a lot
(26:46):
of my clients struggle right with eating disorder issues and
a lot of that body and make stuff. Which again,
it's the world that we live in. It's the air
we breathe. You know, it's so so hard. We can't
we don't live in a vacuum. We can't ignore these
external factors, or for people who actually do live in
marginalized bodies, like it's difficult to do certain things or
uncomfortable to do certain things in their body, and so
(27:08):
they're like, oh, I have I really have to change
my body, right, And that's really really hard, um, to
feel like the world isn't made for you, or it's
not accommodating you, or just stepping outside your front door,
you have to be prepared to just be harmed by
the world and its people, and and that's really challenging.
(27:28):
Um it makes this work, you know, even more difficult.
So what are the success stories that you've had where
you've got Because I know that veganism is really important
to you personally and obviously you must believe that it's
really healthy. How do you have amazing success stories that
you can share with me of someone that's come into
your world and you've transformed them. And do you have
(27:51):
any of those? Oh gosh, you know, I won't say
I transform people. I say you know they're doing it themselves.
I'm I'm a part of their support system. Um um.
But yeah, it's really cool, especially people that will work
with long term, like for years, um, just to see
how they progress in their not only you know, their
(28:11):
behaviors of what they're actually doing, but their relationship with food. Right,
Maybe they came from a place where they were stuck
in this yo yo cycle between restricting and bingjing all
the time. They felt terrible physically, they felt terrible about themselves,
you know, horrible body image. To come to a place
of more easeful kind of balance with food. They're nourishing
(28:36):
themselves regularly. They're not restricting certain foods. You know, they're
having the let's say, chocolate cake when they want it,
but it's not a big deal, you know, that sort
of thing, and they're just not obsessed about food anymore.
And they're learning to be more connected with their body.
They're learning to trust that more right, to really be
able to trust that their body will tell them when
(28:57):
what and how much to eat and when what and
how much to move their bodies right, and really just
learning to rely on those internal messages. And for me,
that's the most beautiful thing is not only the recovery
right from actually harmful behaviors, but that internal wisdom and
trust that people have, because that's a resource that no
(29:17):
one can take away from you. That will serve you,
you know, moving forward forever. We've talked a lot about
self love and healing ourselves and all that that is
and the challenges of that. But one of the things
you talked about also was that no matter where we are,
(29:39):
sometimes walking out into the world, society and our culture
and the things that were fed in the world can
be not helpful and not help us in our process
of loving ourselves. So I guess my question to you is,
what can we as a society do. What are all
(30:00):
the things that we can do to help someone who
might be on the journey of trying to find self
love or might be on the journey of finding love
for their bodies, and how can we help facilitate that
rather than be one more block in that journey. In
terms of what we can do as individuals, I think
(30:21):
is just be aware of how we talk about bodies
and our conversations, you know, not only with ourselves, of course,
but with our family, with our friends, with other people.
Right in terms of the assumptions we're making or the
hierarchy of bodies, we might be talking about or or
making assumptions that certain bodies are good or healthy and
(30:41):
others aren't. I think just checking ourselves and how we
talk about bodies, how we talk about food and dieting.
I mean, gosh, there's there's so much that can trigger
folks out there. So I think a lot of it
is almost more of what not to do right, how
not to talk unkind about bodies, um, and just giving
(31:05):
people that space right to to live their lives and
do their thing. And a lot of these issues do
stem and systemic you know, um areas in terms of
folks having resources to certain things. But I think on
an individual level, we can just speak a lot more
kindly about bodies or you know, not at all. Right,
maybe it's not always necessary to even make comments about bodies.
(31:28):
And what would you say is the one thing if
you could give somebody one thing to take a new
step for themselves in this journey, Like I'm not I
don't presume they don't have self love or I don't
have the body I want. I'm frustrated, I don't know
what to do. I can't get where I want to go.
What's the thing that they can do, what's the first
(31:50):
thing that they can do? Yeah, you know, I think
getting comfortable with checking and with yourself is really powerful
and really should be the foundation for this work of
just you know, how am I in this moment? How
am I today? How am I feeling physically? How am
I feeling mentally? And that's going to help set them
(32:11):
up to get more familiar with their not only their
bodies cues, right, but then getting more familiar with what
their needs are so that they can be more prepared
to go out and meet those needs and practice keeping
the focus there, right, rather than how I look or
what the size of my pants are, how much I weigh?
What if they do? What if they just do care
(32:33):
about the size of their pants and the way that
they look and they don't like it? Yeah? No, absolutely,
And that's common for so many of us, right, And
that's where we we really practice redirecting, Right, we kind
of acknowledge that voice and like, Okay, I hear you,
and I'm going to redirect my energy and focus back
to how am I and what do I need right now?
(32:54):
Because so much of the worry and the stress and
the anxiety about how our body looks or how big
it is, That end of itself is not good for us, right,
That end of itself can be harmful to both physically
and mental health. The one thing I think I'll just
wrap it up by saying is that I know that
we don't love the word diet, but it's so sad
(33:14):
that it got a bad name because the real word
diet does not mean to restrict. It means a way
of life, a journey. And that's why I called my
book the kind Diet was because it was to have
a new path, a journey to the best, most healthy
version of yourself that you feel good, where you make
(33:34):
choices that are good for you, whatever that is, and
and and trusting your intuition and being kind to yourself,
and that diet. I would love if we could reclaim
the word diet. But it's a beautiful thing that what
it was intended to mean. Yeah, right, it's no longer
this neutral description of what you eat, right, but it
(33:55):
has more of that kind of fad restrictive diet connotation.
Absolutely well, thank you so much, Taylor. Thank you. It's
about a pleasure. You've given me so much to think about,
and I I think this is going to resonate with
so many of our listeners. And thank you for taking
the time to talk to us, Taylor. We really appreciate it. Yes,
(34:18):
thank you for the opportunity. It's bout my pleasure To
dig deeper into this episodes topic and resources, visit the
kind life dot com. The Real Hell is an I
Heart Radio production made in partnership with Frequency Media. I'm
(34:39):
your host Alicia Silverstone from I Heart Radio are managing
producer is Lindsay Hoffman from Frequency Media. Michelle Corey is
our executive producer. Jordan Rizzieri is our producer, and Amani
Leonard and Laura Boyman are our associate producers. Sydney Evans
is our dialogue editor and Claire Bitte Rry Curtis is
(35:01):
our mixer and sound designer. This podcast is available on
the I Heart Radio app, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts,
and wherever podcasts are found. H
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