January 9, 2023 • 33 mins
Everyone has a view about what you should eat and how much. We're so bombarded with fad diets, fasting plans and nutritional advice that we can bounce from one way of eating to another without stopping to think: "What do I want to eat?"
Psychotherapist Andrea Wachter endured years of disordered eating and obsessing about her weight, until she decided to heed her inner voice and what her body wanted to consume. She explains to Dr Laurie Santos how so-called intuitive eating can free us from both diets and overeating.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. The first few weeks of January are peak New
Year's resolution time, and a lot of those resolutions involved
changing how our bodies look. According to one global consumer survey,
nearly half of people who made New Year's resolutions last
year wanted to change what they ate and how much
(00:35):
they exercised, with more than four and ten specifically saying
that they wanted to lose weight. And this time of year,
there are lots and lots of outside voices that are
ready to tell us exactly how we should fix our bodies.
If you look at a magazine or your social media
feed this month, you'll probably get bombarded with healthy eating
ads claiming to have a scientific solution to the perfect
(00:55):
beach body, or stories of people who successfully toned their
butts with the latest bad diets. Every January were surrounded
by concepts like quito and pigan in intermit and fasting
and belly blasting. Even if we know rationally that bellies
probably aren't supposed to be blasted, it's really easy to
get swept up by all those deafening body shaming voices
(01:17):
and to think that we're going about something as fundamental
as feeding ourselves in all the wrong ways. But if
you think about it, all, this body shame is kind
of weird because we don't let outside voices tell us
what to do when it comes to navigating our other
bodily needs, like when to go to the bathroom or
whether or not it's a good idea to put on
a sweater if we're feeling cold. When it comes to
(01:38):
these physical requirements, we don't feel the need to look
to social media suggestions or magazine ads. We just listen
to our bodies in order to figure out what they
need to feel good. Our guest Today, author's psychotherapist and
Happiness Lab regular Andrea Walkder, argues that it's time to
start thinking about feeding ourselves in the same intuitive way
(01:58):
that we think about other bodily needs. Andrea herself struggled
for many years with disordered eating. She dieted drastically, restricting
her and take of food, but also rioted the phrase
she uses to describe the eating binges she went on
when she wasn't dieting. It was a roller coaster ride
that took her decades to get off. Andrea has seen
that taking time to listen to your wise, inner hunger
(02:20):
voice can help you avoid the shame that comes from
outside diet advice. In fact, she's living proof that with
some inner work, it's possible to not even hear all
those loud diet voices. Truth be told, I don't keep
up on those anymore. I used to know every single
diet that because I was like on them, And now
I don't even keep up because there's so many I
know a lot of people are doing the intermitten fasting
(02:42):
and a lot of carrying scales to the restaurant. I mean,
there's just so many things. But so many of us
have been hypnotized and programmed to think that we need
to be a certain body size or weight, and that
if we attain that certain magical number or size, we
will be happy, we will be healthy, and we will
(03:03):
even be more lovable. Never mind if that size is
even natural for us. But once we're pro grammed and
we buy into the programming, which is hard not to
buy into it. But once we're programmed, it causes us
to cut ourselves off from our natural hunger and fullness
and satisfaction and cravings. We have this innate knowing inside
(03:24):
of us. We're not born thinking foods are good or
bad or body sizes are good or bad. We get programmed. So,
like you say, with the bathroom, I have to go
to the bathroom, I go. There's no shame involved, there's
no pressure about it. Well maybe bladder pressure. If I'm cold,
I put on a sweater. It's not about my self esteem,
you know. But because there's so much pressure and programming
(03:45):
around body sizes, perfectionism, fat phobia, my okayness being based
on my size, then it causes us to split ourselves
off from this natural mechanism that tells us when, what
and how much to eat. It must be really frustrating
at the start of the new year, where you just
see article after article and Google search after Google search
(04:05):
about all these new weird diets when like you know,
you've seen the answers out there it should be inside
it is. It's sad to me because we're so seduced.
And I would say to everybody listening, prepared to be
seduced by the new fad diets, the old fad diets.
And you know, we don't click on every ad that
pops up on our screens, we don't buy every item
(04:27):
that pops up. It's like to have the not just
courage but the willingness to believe that if diets worked,
they would have worked by now. The diet industry is
the only industry I know of that continues to grow
despite a huge failure rate. But people still believe in them.
And so yes, when I hear people going on some
new diet and they're even like high in the beginning
(04:48):
from it, it's hard not to intervene. But I only
intervene with people who come to me for intervening, don't
go out and get them. So, yeah, people are so
seduced by diets, and I would say there's a very
small percentage of people that they work for. I haven't
met any of them, but I'm guessing there might be
a few. But for most people, they cause obsession, they
(05:12):
cause feeling unwell and malnourished, and then they cause riotous rebellion,
if not full blown eating disorders. And you're talking about
this in the abstract, but this is something that you
know personally, like you were under this spell a lot yourself, right, completely,
like in a trance from this spell restricting obsessing and
or binging. I was caught in it for decades, And
(05:34):
what was that like for your psychology? Right? Because It's
one thing to kind of it's stressful for how you eat,
but it's another thing because it really affects your flourishing too.
It affects everything. It affected my thinking. I was so
focused on body size and food, not only mine but others,
comparing and worrying about it, stressing about what I was
going to eat or not eat, and then of course
(05:55):
being so unsatisfied and hungry that I was out of
control so often. So I call it the diet riot
roller coaster. And I was riding that ride for a
long long time. And so, what was your turning point?
Because this idea of turning to the internal signals we
have when it comes to food, you know, it can
be really scary. You know, how did you find your
(06:15):
way back to your own inner food voice. Well, I
struggled for a really long time with an eating disorder.
Some people have lesser severe disordered eating. And I'd gotten
help for a really long time on those issues, and
I've made a lot of progress, but I still had
that leftover diet mentality and body dissatisfaction. And there was
(06:36):
just this moment I'll never forget it. There was this
moment where I decided I wanted peace of mind and
wellness more than I wanted to be a certain number
or a certain size. I was so tired of restrictive
eating and chaotic eating, and I took this vow with myself.
It was like, Andrea, do you take Andrea? I took
(06:57):
this vow with myself that when I approach a food choice,
whether it's walking into the kitchen, opening the refrigerator, opening
a menu at a restaurant, I am going to tune
into the part of me that is wise and loving
and just that knows. And prior to that vow, I
had like a committee going every time I approached a
(07:18):
food choice. Is that the dieter or should I eat that?
Is that the rioter? Or is that too? Was that
over feelings? It was just like this whole big deal.
Once I was trying to heal these parts of myself.
But once I had this moment, it was like, I'm
just going straight to the love. I'm just tired of
the battle, and I'll never forget it. I went to
the store for the first time in my adult life,
and I just bought what sounded good to me. I
(07:40):
went home and it was the first meal I can
remember that I ate a non restrictive, delicious, nutritious meal,
and I was totally satisfied. I mean, that sounds amazing,
right to kind of get off this roller coaster. But
I think, you know, for many of us, and you know,
even for you back in the day, like I think,
it's really scary because there's so much information out there
(08:01):
telling us, hey, this is the right way to eat
or that's a bad way to eat. You know that
this is so out there in the culture. It was
scary because I had only known two modes I had
only known, like caged animal around food or animal breaking
out of the cage. I really didn't have any reason
to trust myself because I hadn't been very trustworthy with food.
But I just knew, and I kept reminding myself that
(08:24):
I wanted peace of mind, and I didn't know what
would happen to my body if I let go of
that crazy roller coaster restricting and obsessing and binging. But
I just decided I was willing to find out and
willing to be kind to myself. You know, you engage
in this process after you know a lot of recovery work.
But these days this practice has become a little bit
(08:46):
more popular in the field talk about this idea of
intuitive eating. Yeah, intuitive eating is it's like a paradigm.
It's a way of approaching wellness and food choices and
taking care of yourself that really encourages going inside for
your cues rather than outside from all the rules. And
(09:08):
it really is a commitment. It's quite a duover for
people that are used to going outside to get their
ideas of how to eat, how to move, what to feel.
It originated with these two authors that are dietitians and
they wrote the book Intuitive Eating in the nineties and
it's still quite applicable today. We need it more than ever.
So it's really about giving yourself permission, but also being
(09:32):
kind to yourself and feeding Rather the old paradigm has
been that we're told what we're supposed to look like,
and then we try to eat an exercise in a
way that makes us look that way. But this paradigm
is about feeding yourself and treating yourself respectfully and allowing
your body to unfold into the body that nature intended
(09:52):
for you. I mean, it sounds in some ways so simple,
but you know it's it's so counterintuitive given so many
of the other outside forces I think, you know, another
paradigm that's really connected to the intuitive eating approach is
also this approach that's known as Health at Every Size.
You know, what's that and how is it really related
to this idea of intuitive eating. Health at Every Size,
or they call it HAZE for short, is a long
(10:15):
needed movement to end weight discrimination and to help people
shift the assumption that all fat people are unhealthy. It's
just simply not true. And both intuitive eating and Health
at Every Size promote practicing self care, self respect, feeding
yourself non restrictively and respectfully for the sake of well being,
(10:38):
rather than for the sake of trying to be a
certain size that might not even be meant for you.
You know, you engage in this process after a lot
of recovery work for eating and things like that. But
these days this practice has become a little bit more
popular in the field, right and you know, so talk
about this idea of intuitive eating like a little bit
of the history of this kind of program. In practice,
(11:00):
it's about becoming aware of diet mentality, being willing to
acknowledge or even consider that diets don't work, that they're ineffective.
If they worked, you would have been happily ever after
after your first one, and I'm guessing most listeners have
been on more than one, increasing your awareness of your
(11:21):
body's needs, just like you're aware when you're thirsty cold
have to go to the bathroom. Starting to get to
know when am I hungry? What are those signals? What
sounds delicious to me? What does my body need? Tuning
into your body's signals around movement instead of I should
exercise or I'm not getting off the couch, what does
my body want to do? And it takes a while
(11:44):
to kind of peel off the layers, you know, and
get through the brambles of diet mentality to really hear
that voice. It's it's a soft voice inside this knowing,
loving wisdom, and these loud voices of diet mentality, body hatred,
exercise rules can sometimes often sometimes slash all the time,
(12:06):
drown out that soft inner knowing. Problem with hearing those
soft inner voices is that we have to actually be
paying attention to them in our lives, right and I
feel like there's there's the noise of all these external
signals of what we should be eating, and you know,
our own inner diet mentality, but there's also just like
the noise of our lives, you know, Like you know,
there's probably some days that I don't notice I'm hungry
(12:26):
because I'm like running around, and it sometimes just feels
easier to eat by the clock or make a rule
about what I'm going to eat, because it's it's hard
in a busy lifestyle to really pay attention to what
your body needs. I mean, is this something that a
lot of people who start intuitive eating seem to go through. Absolutely,
it's like a symbol. If you're struggling with feeding yourself
or paying attention to yourself, look at your whole life,
(12:48):
not just the food. Food issues are about so many
more things. Because this is really a holistic approach. So
it's almost like the body is the child, and the
wise mind and the respectful actions are the parents. And
so yes, if we're busy, if we're lost on screens,
if we're not paying attention, if we're over work, how
(13:10):
can we take care of ourselves? But I would think
most people, if you have a child with a super
busy day school, after schools, things and sports, you would
pack that child food. So it's being willing to take
that time for ourselves and so let's kind of go
even deeper because I think, you know, as we start
to think about intuitive eating, I think a lot of
people have even more specific questions about, you know, what
(13:32):
are the kinds of things that you know count as
part of intuitive eating and not. You know, so many people,
for example, think about the possibility of, you know, a
particular way of eating. You know, let's say you're vegetarian
or vegan, or let's say you want to give up
a particular food group, Like, can that be done in
the context of intuitive eating or is that always restrictive? No?
I definitely think it depends on the motives. If somebody
(13:56):
is cutting out a certain food because ethically that's important
to them, or because their body has an allergic response,
it doesn't they don't feel well when they eat that food,
it's respectful not to eat that food. But if somebody's
cutting out of food because they think it's too high
in calories or fed, or they think it's not going
to make them get to their goals, then it's very
(14:17):
likely to cause obsession and preoccupation about that food and
or rebellious eating on that food or every other possible
food around that food. What about other forms of kind
of paying attention external cues, right, you know, like for example,
like is weighing yourself you know, consistent with intuitive eating?
Is kind of you tracking other kinds of nutritional values?
(14:38):
You know? Is that consistent with intuitive eating? You know?
I imagine it's kind of the same thing I'm hearing.
It might be like the motivation, the reasons why you're
doing those kinds of tracking, and the effects they have.
So if someone struggles with their eating and their body image,
weighing is usually not helpful and actually often triggering, because
(14:58):
intuitive eating is about getting your answers from inside. Am
I hungry? Am I tired? What do I need? Do
I need fresh air? Do I want a sandwich? Do
I want to rest? And a scale can't tell us that?
And if anything, oftentimes people will get triggered by the
number and it will lead them to restrict and or
rebel from the feelings. So I think for someone who
(15:20):
has body image issues and or disordered eating or an
eating disorder, I don't recommend scales, if anything, write down
on a piece of paper, listen to your body, sweetheart,
or the tape it on top of the scale. Those apps,
those tracking apps. My response would be similar that if
someone doesn't have issues or a history of body shame, dieting,
(15:42):
riotous eating, those tracking apps can be fun. My husband
has one and he even enjoys, you know, looking at
his steps or whatever the heap tracks. I don't know,
but an app can't tell me when I want to
take a walk or when I want to lay down.
That's up to me to know. So it really depends
on what the app or the group or the scale,
(16:05):
what they're aligned with. And the values here are about
of care, not having a certain food that you should
or shouldn't eat unless it's a loving motive, and not
having a certain size that you should or shouldn't be.
And so when we think about some of the benefits
that come from eating this way, you know, it's a
different kind of benefit than we usually think about with
(16:25):
this diet mentality. Right, you know a lot of these
you know, keto, paleo, you know, whatever the new thing is, Like,
the benefit that comes from that is supposed to be
a certain body size, you know, a certain number on
the scale. You know, intuitive eating doesn't come with that benefit.
What are the benefits that come from eating this way? Yeah,
that's a good question. There are a lot of benefits,
and the authors of intuitive Eating have hundreds of studies
(16:48):
on their website. I'm not affiliated with them, but if
somebody cares to look into that, benefits are increased energy
and clarity obviously if you're not starving yourself or stuffing
yourself regularly, decrease in disordered eating and eating disorders, improved
well being, improved happiness, improved cholesterol levels. There's really a
(17:09):
lot of benefits that have been shown for people who
intuitively ate for an ongoing basis. I'm glad you mentioned
this idea of, you know, things like reduce cholesterol too,
because I think, you know, when you're so used to
the diet mentality, you assume that if you just ate
what you wanted to eat, it would lead to these
negative consequences in terms of your health. I mean, I
think obviously, you know, people think in terms of the
(17:30):
negative consequences for their body weight and the particular body
weight they might be aspiring to be, or something like that.
I think we also assume that if we just let
ourselves eat the way we'd want to eat, you know,
it'd be hot fudge Sundays, you know, like every day,
and you know, you know, ruin your cholesterol, you know
your numbers would go go badly. But but that's not
actually what people see when they commit to eating with
(17:50):
love for themselves and really paying careful attention to what
this inner voice is saying right over time, Because sometimes
there's that rebellious response. If someone's been dieting for years
and now they're going to give themselves permission to eat,
there can be this you know riot is reacting. But
(18:11):
to me personally, that wasn't loving either. And when I
was in my early years of healing, I even read
books and worked with people that said, well, in order
to get over this diet riot mentality, you have to
just buy all your forbidden foods, load up your house,
and eat as much of them as you want to
get sick of them. And that didn't work for me.
(18:33):
I ate till I got sick from them, not of them,
And so that was not my path. My path was
just to fine what was loving and respectful and to
deal with the unmet needs and underlying issues that dare
I say, fed into my eating issues. So far, we've
heard the intuitive eating. This practice of listening to what
our bodies really need comes with a host of benefits
(18:55):
for our bodies and physical health, but also for our
happiness levels. But intuitive eating can also be tough to do,
at least at first. So when we get back from
the break, we'll talk more about specific strategies we can
use to stop focusing on inches or calories or pounds
and move towards a more intuitive relationship with food that
being a slab will be right back. Psychotherapist author and
(19:28):
insight time or APP teacher Andrea Walter has helped thousands
of students find their wise inner eating voice, So I
was interested in what she recommends for beginners. What are
the first steps we should take when it comes to
developing a more intuitive relationship with food? Well, what are
the first things that I do in my course is
really try to diminish shame, because if somebody has a
(19:48):
problematic relationship with food and their body, they usually feel
ashamed about it. So to try to help people see
that they're not bad, that their body and they're eating
are the kind of the innocent recipients of faulty and
insane programming, because then people eat over the shame and
they restrict over the shame. And to me, one of
(20:10):
the first steps is really seeing that we've been duped
and we've been taught that there's a certain body size
that's okay and acceptable and that will bring you happily
ever afterness and it's not true. Then we dive into
how to deal with your feelings, how to identify your feelings,
how to become aware of your thoughts, and if they're
(20:31):
not kind, to consider challenging them, upgrading them. We update
our phones all the time, updating our thinking. And it's
really all about awareness, right, I mean, that's the name
of the game. And the willingness. Like I took that
vow back then, I wanted peace of mind and wellness
more than I wanted to try to control my body.
So for people to continually look at their values. Is
(20:53):
this working for me spending so much time and energy
trying to control my eating and my body size and
or rebelling from the control, or do I want to
find another way? It does take work, it does take practice,
it does take patience, but it's a whole huge over
from what most people are doing. And so let's say
you want to engage with this practice of intuitive eating,
(21:14):
but you're like not really feeling that intuitive, or you know,
like you know you're a little worried, you're on the
baby steps you know to doing it. You know, you
sit down at a restaurant, right, you know, look at
the menu, you know, any tips for what to listen
to kind of make that choice. Well, I for myself,
when I was in the trenches, I would ask myself
these questions. I think we did a whole podcast on
one of them. I love these questions because it is
(21:37):
so hard when you're immersed in diet mentality, it can
kind of it can drown out that inner knowing. So
I found when I would ask myself, how would I
feed someone I love who doesn't diet or riot? Because
if you're thinking of feeding someone else, there's not the
shame there. There's just kind of wisdom and oh, I
would feed them this or this or I know they
love this or they like this. So how would you
(21:58):
feed someone else you love who doesn't diet or riot?
What feels the most loving for your body right now?
What feels the most respectful for your body right now?
It's not respectful to restrict and eat things you don't
even like, and it's not respectful to stuff ourselves. It's
just to tune into the kind voice inside. I also
(22:19):
like to help people distinguish between the different internal voices
that might be going on if they're sitting at a restaurant.
But know that if you keep practicing, it won't be
this much work. It gets more natural. So for most people,
there's an inner diet or voice, I should eat that,
I should order that. Oh, I shouldn't have that. That's bad.
Oh my friend is having that. I shouldn't have that
(22:41):
inner dieter. And then for a lot of people there's
the rioter from the dieter, and that's you know, I
want twenty or I want it all or forget it.
I'll have it when all when I get home. And
then there's this body wisdom, so to begin to ask themselves,
try to connect with the different parts till you get
to what feels loving, respectful, non restrictive, delicious, What does
(23:05):
my body truly want? And I think the act of
doing that require a certain kind of mindful attention in
these moments of decision. Right, my guess is that you're
not going to get to that wise inner voice that
can really tell you what you want if you're checking
your email while you're pulling up the menu or showing
up to this meal, like in a completely frantic space,
(23:25):
Like it takes a lot of intention and attention to
kind of figure this out, as does everything. I mean,
if we wanted to learn French, we wouldn't just go
to class and be on our phones and expect to
be fluent in two lessons. Right, Anything we want to learn,
it requires desire to learn it, the solution of what
to learn, what to do instead of what we've been
doing and practice, practice, practice and patience. Of course, when
(23:49):
you say that, it makes absolute sense, like this is
how we do anything important in life. But I think
that's the contrast from what our culture is telling us.
You know, our culture is telling us like, oh, if
you just do intermit and fasting, everything will be perfect,
or just follow keto. Like is there a sense in
which people can get worried about intuitive eating because it
is committing to this long process, in this mindful process
(24:10):
of paying attention. It's not a quick fix in the
way that you know other kinds of external plans seem
to be. That's true, And I would say, look at
your history. If diets were effective the first or maybe
even second, I'll be generous the second or diet you
went on would have done the trick. You'd be at
the body size that you think would make you happy.
(24:31):
You'd feel great, You're eating would be pleasurable and nourishing
and not a big problem. You'd be happy with your body.
It's like the diets promise us all of these things,
and people still believe them because they're so seductive, and
they don't come true, they don't pan out. So it's
questioning the diet rather than yourself. Another challenge people face
(24:53):
is that if you've really been on this kind of
diet mentality, diet riot roller coaster for a long time,
it can be hard to start, right. I think there's
this real worry that, you know, if you really listen
to what you wanted, you would be out of control, right,
you know, And so how do you kind of overcome
this sort of shame and guilt that comes up, especially
(25:13):
for people who've had a real struggle with eating history
for a long time. Well, I think it's being willing
to consider that even though you're eating has been problematic,
it's not the problem, and that the problems are deeper,
and so to be willing to question the programming around
(25:34):
body sizes perfectionistic eating, perfectionistic looks, fat phobia, diet mentality,
to begin to question those programs the same way we
question other social issues. We take a stand against social
issues all the time, or for social issues all the time.
So what's happened for so many people is they get
(25:56):
bombarded with the diet mentality and body perfectionism and fat phobia,
and then they kind of side with the programming and
turn against their poor bodies. But what we're talking about
here is siding with your body and say no to
those programs and decide that you want more peace. It
will take time, It will take work. So is dieting
(26:16):
and rioting. I mean that that takes time too. Hating
your body, that takes a lot of time. And then
I think another word that people have when they hear
about intuitive eating. I've heard friends of mine mentioned this
is like, especially if you have a history of diets,
you know, it can feel easy to maybe turn intuitive
eating into its own diet, right like now I must
eat intuitive, I must find inner voice. And I mean
(26:38):
do you see that with some of your students, Like
how do you prevent intuitive eating from becoming just another
thing that we should be doing in our minds. I
definitely see that, and we talk about that in the
course classroom often if someone has been dieting or and
or have diet mentality. You don't have to be on
a diet, by the way, to have diet mentality. It's
(26:58):
like I say, in action or just reacting to food
as good or bad. So that diet mentality is so
tricky and sticky. It's like it can be so subtle
and come into even this new way of being with food.
So I would I say to people, just keep an
eye out for it. Keep an eye out for that perfectionism.
I blew it. I have to start all over. I
(27:19):
shouldn't have that. I should be a certain size, just
to kind of keep an eye out for the diet
mentality statements that feel familiar and know that when you're
learning something new. Of course, it's challenging at first. It
takes practice, and just to keep renewing your vows that
we want peace here if somebody wants that. That's the
only reason someone comes to my course is because they're
(27:41):
tired of battling with food and their body. So renewing
that commitment again and again. Oh that's the reason I'm
here not to control my weight and not to continue
on this diet track. And I think it sounds like
also that that takes a lot of inner listening, right.
You need to notice the like subtle judginess that's there,
or the subtle riotiness when you've kind of give in
(28:04):
yourself permission. And I think in some sense, like you know,
notice it without judgment. Right, then keeping more shame onto yourself,
because that's not going to help the process, right, beating
yourself up? About beating yourself up? Yeah, not helpful? Yeah,
absolutely noticing being aware And it doesn't have to be perfect.
Intuitive eating diets are about perfection. This is like not
about perfection. It's just about continuing to be willing to
(28:28):
look inside, to be awake. We can't really learn anything
if we're not awake. So it does definitely take being
aware and being willing and renewing your commitment to why
you're doing this. You've been using these practices for a
long time and you've seen the benefits you in your
own students, like you know, how can this really change
our relationship with food in our bodies? It brings freedom.
(28:51):
There is so much more free time if you're not
obsessing on your food or your body. It brings a
feeling of wellness. It doesn't mean that we don't struggle
with other things or get sick from other reasons, but
it brings this sense of liberation that there's nothing to memorize,
there's nothing to calculate. I remember, I just would have
to work so hard to kind of keep track of
what I ate and how much should I be eating now?
(29:13):
And what time is it now. It's just the answers
are inside. It's so simple. It's just like simple, but
not easy. One place inside, same place. I know if
I'm thirsty or hungry or tired or have to go
to the bathroom. But it does take a lot of unlearning.
So yes, it is so liberating and freeing. And that's
what I hear from people often. I hear from people
that have been dieting and rioting for decades and now
(29:37):
they're feeling freer, and then a lot of grief comes up,
like that they wasted so much time obsessing on food
and their body and to just have some freedom where
you tune inside, you eat what you and your body love,
and like you stop when you're satisfied and comfortably full,
and you deal with your feelings in other ways. And
(29:59):
it's kind of ironic because I feel like, you know,
people when they go into the diet mentality, you know,
they're willing to learn, you know, some elaborate point system
they're willing to learn. You know how many carbs like
you know, slice of pepperoni has They're willing to learn
and put lots of time into some new workout. You know.
Intuitive eating kind of is the same, like if you
just put in the time and listen, you'll get this
(30:22):
benefit that won't have the blowback later one hundred percent.
And how much I waited and how many fat rams
were in a you know cookie, and yeah, exactly the
other day, I had bought some cookies a couple of
weeks ago from a bakery that my husband and I love,
and I ate a few when I got home, and
then I put them in a tup aware and about
(30:43):
a week or so later, he said, I'm starting to
finish up these cookies. Do you want to get in
on any before they're gone? And I had completely forgotten
about them, and I thought, there you go. I mean
I would have been possessed by them eating them all
on the way home, told myself, I can't have any cookies,
and I had a very difficult relationship in the past,
(31:03):
but just that I could forget about them, enjoy them
when I had them, and then was not possessed by them,
you know, say no more. I think part of it
is that we get really seduced by, you know, the
hope of a new diet, and you know, maybe in
some cases even the kind of you know, veneer of
science that comes with some of these diets that are
out there. But I think there's also like a deep
skepticism of our own inner voice. You know. I've heard
(31:26):
people who hear about intuitive eating will say, yeah, other
people have an inner voice when it comes to food,
but not me, Like I'm always going to be this
ravenous pit that's riotous all the time. I mean, do
you get that in your students of people who just
simply don't trust that the inner voice is in there,
that they'll find it right. But we've been brainwashed to
(31:46):
believe that a certain body size will bring us happiness,
health and forever afterness of everything, and so that brainwashing
is thick. So it takes a lot of washing our
brains of those beliefs, those programs they're so deep for
so many people, because if you look at it, well,
if someone says to themselves, I've been dieting on January
(32:07):
first for the last however many years, and then it
ends up I end up failing the diet, thinking the failure,
I end up blowing it. I end up rebelliously eating,
I end up hating myself. How many years in a
row have I done that? And now I'm going to
try it again. But it's not your fault. The diet industry,
(32:27):
the fitness industry, the media, they got us right where
they want us. So it's really taking a stand against
those messages instead of taking a stand against your poor body.
I hope all my listeners can start following Andrea's advice
and commit to shutting out those outside diet voices and
listening to what your body truly needs in the new year.
And if you want to learn more, you should check
(32:49):
out some of Andrea's courses on insight Time or app
including my favorite, Making Peace with the Body You Live in.
Next week, we'll tackle ways to listen to another quiet
voice that often gets drowned out in the midst of
all our New year's plans and goals. It's the voice
that tells us that we'd probably feel better if we
could be a little less critical of ourselves. We'll meet
a psychologist who thinks we should commit to a new workout,
(33:12):
one that exercises are positive self talk muscles, and that
doing so can help us be a little kinder to
ourselves in the new Year. We'll see just how to
do that in the next special New Year's Season episode
of The Happiness Lab with Me, Doctor Laurie Sandoms. The
Happiness Lab is co written by Ryan Dilley and is
(33:33):
produced by Ryan Dilley and Courtney Guerino. The show was
mastered by Evan Viola and our original music was composed
by Zachary Silver. Special thanks to Shane Beard, Greta Kone,
Nicole Morano, Morgan Ratner, Maggie Taylor, Jacob Weisberg, my agent,
Ben Davis, and the rest of the Pushkin team. The
Happiness Lab is brought to you by Pushkin Industries and
by Me, Doctor Laurie Sanders.
Pushkin. The first few weeks of January are peak New
Year's resolution time, and a lot of those resolutions involved
changing how our bodies look. According to one global consumer survey,
nearly half of people who made New Year's resolutions last
year wanted to change what they ate and how much
(00:35):
they exercised, with more than four and ten specifically saying
that they wanted to lose weight. And this time of year,
there are lots and lots of outside voices that are
ready to tell us exactly how we should fix our bodies.
If you look at a magazine or your social media
feed this month, you'll probably get bombarded with healthy eating
ads claiming to have a scientific solution to the perfect
(00:55):
beach body, or stories of people who successfully toned their
butts with the latest bad diets. Every January were surrounded
by concepts like quito and pigan in intermit and fasting
and belly blasting. Even if we know rationally that bellies
probably aren't supposed to be blasted, it's really easy to
get swept up by all those deafening body shaming voices
(01:17):
and to think that we're going about something as fundamental
as feeding ourselves in all the wrong ways. But if
you think about it, all, this body shame is kind
of weird because we don't let outside voices tell us
what to do when it comes to navigating our other
bodily needs, like when to go to the bathroom or
whether or not it's a good idea to put on
a sweater if we're feeling cold. When it comes to
(01:38):
these physical requirements, we don't feel the need to look
to social media suggestions or magazine ads. We just listen
to our bodies in order to figure out what they
need to feel good. Our guest Today, author's psychotherapist and
Happiness Lab regular Andrea Walkder, argues that it's time to
start thinking about feeding ourselves in the same intuitive way
(01:58):
that we think about other bodily needs. Andrea herself struggled
for many years with disordered eating. She dieted drastically, restricting
her and take of food, but also rioted the phrase
she uses to describe the eating binges she went on
when she wasn't dieting. It was a roller coaster ride
that took her decades to get off. Andrea has seen
that taking time to listen to your wise, inner hunger
(02:20):
voice can help you avoid the shame that comes from
outside diet advice. In fact, she's living proof that with
some inner work, it's possible to not even hear all
those loud diet voices. Truth be told, I don't keep
up on those anymore. I used to know every single
diet that because I was like on them, And now
I don't even keep up because there's so many I
know a lot of people are doing the intermitten fasting
(02:42):
and a lot of carrying scales to the restaurant. I mean,
there's just so many things. But so many of us
have been hypnotized and programmed to think that we need
to be a certain body size or weight, and that
if we attain that certain magical number or size, we
will be happy, we will be healthy, and we will
(03:03):
even be more lovable. Never mind if that size is
even natural for us. But once we're pro grammed and
we buy into the programming, which is hard not to
buy into it. But once we're programmed, it causes us
to cut ourselves off from our natural hunger and fullness
and satisfaction and cravings. We have this innate knowing inside
(03:24):
of us. We're not born thinking foods are good or
bad or body sizes are good or bad. We get programmed. So,
like you say, with the bathroom, I have to go
to the bathroom, I go. There's no shame involved, there's
no pressure about it. Well maybe bladder pressure. If I'm cold,
I put on a sweater. It's not about my self esteem,
you know. But because there's so much pressure and programming
(03:45):
around body sizes, perfectionism, fat phobia, my okayness being based
on my size, then it causes us to split ourselves
off from this natural mechanism that tells us when, what
and how much to eat. It must be really frustrating
at the start of the new year, where you just
see article after article and Google search after Google search
(04:05):
about all these new weird diets when like you know,
you've seen the answers out there it should be inside
it is. It's sad to me because we're so seduced.
And I would say to everybody listening, prepared to be
seduced by the new fad diets, the old fad diets.
And you know, we don't click on every ad that
pops up on our screens, we don't buy every item
(04:27):
that pops up. It's like to have the not just
courage but the willingness to believe that if diets worked,
they would have worked by now. The diet industry is
the only industry I know of that continues to grow
despite a huge failure rate. But people still believe in them.
And so yes, when I hear people going on some
new diet and they're even like high in the beginning
(04:48):
from it, it's hard not to intervene. But I only
intervene with people who come to me for intervening, don't
go out and get them. So, yeah, people are so
seduced by diets, and I would say there's a very
small percentage of people that they work for. I haven't
met any of them, but I'm guessing there might be
a few. But for most people, they cause obsession, they
(05:12):
cause feeling unwell and malnourished, and then they cause riotous rebellion,
if not full blown eating disorders. And you're talking about
this in the abstract, but this is something that you
know personally, like you were under this spell a lot yourself, right, completely,
like in a trance from this spell restricting obsessing and
or binging. I was caught in it for decades, And
(05:34):
what was that like for your psychology? Right? Because It's
one thing to kind of it's stressful for how you eat,
but it's another thing because it really affects your flourishing too.
It affects everything. It affected my thinking. I was so
focused on body size and food, not only mine but others,
comparing and worrying about it, stressing about what I was
going to eat or not eat, and then of course
(05:55):
being so unsatisfied and hungry that I was out of
control so often. So I call it the diet riot
roller coaster. And I was riding that ride for a
long long time. And so, what was your turning point?
Because this idea of turning to the internal signals we
have when it comes to food, you know, it can
be really scary. You know, how did you find your
(06:15):
way back to your own inner food voice. Well, I
struggled for a really long time with an eating disorder.
Some people have lesser severe disordered eating. And I'd gotten
help for a really long time on those issues, and
I've made a lot of progress, but I still had
that leftover diet mentality and body dissatisfaction. And there was
(06:36):
just this moment I'll never forget it. There was this
moment where I decided I wanted peace of mind and
wellness more than I wanted to be a certain number
or a certain size. I was so tired of restrictive
eating and chaotic eating, and I took this vow with myself.
It was like, Andrea, do you take Andrea? I took
(06:57):
this vow with myself that when I approach a food choice,
whether it's walking into the kitchen, opening the refrigerator, opening
a menu at a restaurant, I am going to tune
into the part of me that is wise and loving
and just that knows. And prior to that vow, I
had like a committee going every time I approached a
(07:18):
food choice. Is that the dieter or should I eat that?
Is that the rioter? Or is that too? Was that
over feelings? It was just like this whole big deal.
Once I was trying to heal these parts of myself.
But once I had this moment, it was like, I'm
just going straight to the love. I'm just tired of
the battle, and I'll never forget it. I went to
the store for the first time in my adult life,
and I just bought what sounded good to me. I
(07:40):
went home and it was the first meal I can
remember that I ate a non restrictive, delicious, nutritious meal,
and I was totally satisfied. I mean, that sounds amazing,
right to kind of get off this roller coaster. But
I think, you know, for many of us, and you know,
even for you back in the day, like I think,
it's really scary because there's so much information out there
(08:01):
telling us, hey, this is the right way to eat
or that's a bad way to eat. You know that
this is so out there in the culture. It was
scary because I had only known two modes I had
only known, like caged animal around food or animal breaking
out of the cage. I really didn't have any reason
to trust myself because I hadn't been very trustworthy with food.
But I just knew, and I kept reminding myself that
(08:24):
I wanted peace of mind, and I didn't know what
would happen to my body if I let go of
that crazy roller coaster restricting and obsessing and binging. But
I just decided I was willing to find out and
willing to be kind to myself. You know, you engage
in this process after you know a lot of recovery work.
But these days this practice has become a little bit
(08:46):
more popular in the field talk about this idea of
intuitive eating. Yeah, intuitive eating is it's like a paradigm.
It's a way of approaching wellness and food choices and
taking care of yourself that really encourages going inside for
your cues rather than outside from all the rules. And
(09:08):
it really is a commitment. It's quite a duover for
people that are used to going outside to get their
ideas of how to eat, how to move, what to feel.
It originated with these two authors that are dietitians and
they wrote the book Intuitive Eating in the nineties and
it's still quite applicable today. We need it more than ever.
So it's really about giving yourself permission, but also being
(09:32):
kind to yourself and feeding Rather the old paradigm has
been that we're told what we're supposed to look like,
and then we try to eat an exercise in a
way that makes us look that way. But this paradigm
is about feeding yourself and treating yourself respectfully and allowing
your body to unfold into the body that nature intended
(09:52):
for you. I mean, it sounds in some ways so simple,
but you know it's it's so counterintuitive given so many
of the other outside forces I think, you know, another
paradigm that's really connected to the intuitive eating approach is
also this approach that's known as Health at Every Size.
You know, what's that and how is it really related
to this idea of intuitive eating. Health at Every Size,
or they call it HAZE for short, is a long
(10:15):
needed movement to end weight discrimination and to help people
shift the assumption that all fat people are unhealthy. It's
just simply not true. And both intuitive eating and Health
at Every Size promote practicing self care, self respect, feeding
yourself non restrictively and respectfully for the sake of well being,
(10:38):
rather than for the sake of trying to be a
certain size that might not even be meant for you.
You know, you engage in this process after a lot
of recovery work for eating and things like that. But
these days this practice has become a little bit more
popular in the field, right and you know, so talk
about this idea of intuitive eating like a little bit
of the history of this kind of program. In practice,
(11:00):
it's about becoming aware of diet mentality, being willing to
acknowledge or even consider that diets don't work, that they're ineffective.
If they worked, you would have been happily ever after
after your first one, and I'm guessing most listeners have
been on more than one, increasing your awareness of your
(11:21):
body's needs, just like you're aware when you're thirsty cold
have to go to the bathroom. Starting to get to
know when am I hungry? What are those signals? What
sounds delicious to me? What does my body need? Tuning
into your body's signals around movement instead of I should
exercise or I'm not getting off the couch, what does
my body want to do? And it takes a while
(11:44):
to kind of peel off the layers, you know, and
get through the brambles of diet mentality to really hear
that voice. It's it's a soft voice inside this knowing,
loving wisdom, and these loud voices of diet mentality, body hatred,
exercise rules can sometimes often sometimes slash all the time,
(12:06):
drown out that soft inner knowing. Problem with hearing those
soft inner voices is that we have to actually be
paying attention to them in our lives, right and I
feel like there's there's the noise of all these external
signals of what we should be eating, and you know,
our own inner diet mentality, but there's also just like
the noise of our lives, you know, Like you know,
there's probably some days that I don't notice I'm hungry
(12:26):
because I'm like running around, and it sometimes just feels
easier to eat by the clock or make a rule
about what I'm going to eat, because it's it's hard
in a busy lifestyle to really pay attention to what
your body needs. I mean, is this something that a
lot of people who start intuitive eating seem to go through. Absolutely,
it's like a symbol. If you're struggling with feeding yourself
or paying attention to yourself, look at your whole life,
(12:48):
not just the food. Food issues are about so many
more things. Because this is really a holistic approach. So
it's almost like the body is the child, and the
wise mind and the respectful actions are the parents. And
so yes, if we're busy, if we're lost on screens,
if we're not paying attention, if we're over work, how
(13:10):
can we take care of ourselves? But I would think
most people, if you have a child with a super
busy day school, after schools, things and sports, you would
pack that child food. So it's being willing to take
that time for ourselves and so let's kind of go
even deeper because I think, you know, as we start
to think about intuitive eating, I think a lot of
people have even more specific questions about, you know, what
(13:32):
are the kinds of things that you know count as
part of intuitive eating and not. You know, so many people,
for example, think about the possibility of, you know, a
particular way of eating. You know, let's say you're vegetarian
or vegan, or let's say you want to give up
a particular food group, Like, can that be done in
the context of intuitive eating or is that always restrictive? No?
I definitely think it depends on the motives. If somebody
(13:56):
is cutting out a certain food because ethically that's important
to them, or because their body has an allergic response,
it doesn't they don't feel well when they eat that food,
it's respectful not to eat that food. But if somebody's
cutting out of food because they think it's too high
in calories or fed, or they think it's not going
to make them get to their goals, then it's very
(14:17):
likely to cause obsession and preoccupation about that food and
or rebellious eating on that food or every other possible
food around that food. What about other forms of kind
of paying attention external cues, right, you know, like for example,
like is weighing yourself you know, consistent with intuitive eating?
Is kind of you tracking other kinds of nutritional values?
(14:38):
You know? Is that consistent with intuitive eating? You know?
I imagine it's kind of the same thing I'm hearing.
It might be like the motivation, the reasons why you're
doing those kinds of tracking, and the effects they have.
So if someone struggles with their eating and their body image,
weighing is usually not helpful and actually often triggering, because
(14:58):
intuitive eating is about getting your answers from inside. Am
I hungry? Am I tired? What do I need? Do
I need fresh air? Do I want a sandwich? Do
I want to rest? And a scale can't tell us that?
And if anything, oftentimes people will get triggered by the
number and it will lead them to restrict and or
rebel from the feelings. So I think for someone who
(15:20):
has body image issues and or disordered eating or an
eating disorder, I don't recommend scales, if anything, write down
on a piece of paper, listen to your body, sweetheart,
or the tape it on top of the scale. Those apps,
those tracking apps. My response would be similar that if
someone doesn't have issues or a history of body shame, dieting,
(15:42):
riotous eating, those tracking apps can be fun. My husband
has one and he even enjoys, you know, looking at
his steps or whatever the heap tracks. I don't know,
but an app can't tell me when I want to
take a walk or when I want to lay down.
That's up to me to know. So it really depends
on what the app or the group or the scale,
(16:05):
what they're aligned with. And the values here are about
of care, not having a certain food that you should
or shouldn't eat unless it's a loving motive, and not
having a certain size that you should or shouldn't be.
And so when we think about some of the benefits
that come from eating this way, you know, it's a
different kind of benefit than we usually think about with
(16:25):
this diet mentality. Right, you know a lot of these
you know, keto, paleo, you know, whatever the new thing is, Like,
the benefit that comes from that is supposed to be
a certain body size, you know, a certain number on
the scale. You know, intuitive eating doesn't come with that benefit.
What are the benefits that come from eating this way? Yeah,
that's a good question. There are a lot of benefits,
and the authors of intuitive Eating have hundreds of studies
(16:48):
on their website. I'm not affiliated with them, but if
somebody cares to look into that, benefits are increased energy
and clarity obviously if you're not starving yourself or stuffing
yourself regularly, decrease in disordered eating and eating disorders, improved
well being, improved happiness, improved cholesterol levels. There's really a
(17:09):
lot of benefits that have been shown for people who
intuitively ate for an ongoing basis. I'm glad you mentioned
this idea of, you know, things like reduce cholesterol too,
because I think, you know, when you're so used to
the diet mentality, you assume that if you just ate
what you wanted to eat, it would lead to these
negative consequences in terms of your health. I mean, I
think obviously, you know, people think in terms of the
(17:30):
negative consequences for their body weight and the particular body
weight they might be aspiring to be, or something like that.
I think we also assume that if we just let
ourselves eat the way we'd want to eat, you know,
it'd be hot fudge Sundays, you know, like every day,
and you know, you know, ruin your cholesterol, you know
your numbers would go go badly. But but that's not
actually what people see when they commit to eating with
(17:50):
love for themselves and really paying careful attention to what
this inner voice is saying right over time, Because sometimes
there's that rebellious response. If someone's been dieting for years
and now they're going to give themselves permission to eat,
there can be this you know riot is reacting. But
(18:11):
to me personally, that wasn't loving either. And when I
was in my early years of healing, I even read
books and worked with people that said, well, in order
to get over this diet riot mentality, you have to
just buy all your forbidden foods, load up your house,
and eat as much of them as you want to
get sick of them. And that didn't work for me.
(18:33):
I ate till I got sick from them, not of them,
And so that was not my path. My path was
just to fine what was loving and respectful and to
deal with the unmet needs and underlying issues that dare
I say, fed into my eating issues. So far, we've
heard the intuitive eating. This practice of listening to what
our bodies really need comes with a host of benefits
(18:55):
for our bodies and physical health, but also for our
happiness levels. But intuitive eating can also be tough to do,
at least at first. So when we get back from
the break, we'll talk more about specific strategies we can
use to stop focusing on inches or calories or pounds
and move towards a more intuitive relationship with food that
being a slab will be right back. Psychotherapist author and
(19:28):
insight time or APP teacher Andrea Walter has helped thousands
of students find their wise inner eating voice, So I
was interested in what she recommends for beginners. What are
the first steps we should take when it comes to
developing a more intuitive relationship with food? Well, what are
the first things that I do in my course is
really try to diminish shame, because if somebody has a
(19:48):
problematic relationship with food and their body, they usually feel
ashamed about it. So to try to help people see
that they're not bad, that their body and they're eating
are the kind of the innocent recipients of faulty and
insane programming, because then people eat over the shame and
they restrict over the shame. And to me, one of
(20:10):
the first steps is really seeing that we've been duped
and we've been taught that there's a certain body size
that's okay and acceptable and that will bring you happily
ever afterness and it's not true. Then we dive into
how to deal with your feelings, how to identify your feelings,
how to become aware of your thoughts, and if they're
(20:31):
not kind, to consider challenging them, upgrading them. We update
our phones all the time, updating our thinking. And it's
really all about awareness, right, I mean, that's the name
of the game. And the willingness. Like I took that
vow back then, I wanted peace of mind and wellness
more than I wanted to try to control my body.
So for people to continually look at their values. Is
(20:53):
this working for me spending so much time and energy
trying to control my eating and my body size and
or rebelling from the control, or do I want to
find another way? It does take work, it does take practice,
it does take patience, but it's a whole huge over
from what most people are doing. And so let's say
you want to engage with this practice of intuitive eating,
(21:14):
but you're like not really feeling that intuitive, or you know,
like you know you're a little worried, you're on the
baby steps you know to doing it. You know, you
sit down at a restaurant, right, you know, look at
the menu, you know, any tips for what to listen
to kind of make that choice. Well, I for myself,
when I was in the trenches, I would ask myself
these questions. I think we did a whole podcast on
one of them. I love these questions because it is
(21:37):
so hard when you're immersed in diet mentality, it can
kind of it can drown out that inner knowing. So
I found when I would ask myself, how would I
feed someone I love who doesn't diet or riot? Because
if you're thinking of feeding someone else, there's not the
shame there. There's just kind of wisdom and oh, I
would feed them this or this or I know they
love this or they like this. So how would you
(21:58):
feed someone else you love who doesn't diet or riot?
What feels the most loving for your body right now?
What feels the most respectful for your body right now?
It's not respectful to restrict and eat things you don't
even like, and it's not respectful to stuff ourselves. It's
just to tune into the kind voice inside. I also
(22:19):
like to help people distinguish between the different internal voices
that might be going on if they're sitting at a restaurant.
But know that if you keep practicing, it won't be
this much work. It gets more natural. So for most people,
there's an inner diet or voice, I should eat that,
I should order that. Oh, I shouldn't have that. That's bad.
Oh my friend is having that. I shouldn't have that
(22:41):
inner dieter. And then for a lot of people there's
the rioter from the dieter, and that's you know, I
want twenty or I want it all or forget it.
I'll have it when all when I get home. And
then there's this body wisdom, so to begin to ask themselves,
try to connect with the different parts till you get
to what feels loving, respectful, non restrictive, delicious, What does
(23:05):
my body truly want? And I think the act of
doing that require a certain kind of mindful attention in
these moments of decision. Right, my guess is that you're
not going to get to that wise inner voice that
can really tell you what you want if you're checking
your email while you're pulling up the menu or showing
up to this meal, like in a completely frantic space,
(23:25):
Like it takes a lot of intention and attention to
kind of figure this out, as does everything. I mean,
if we wanted to learn French, we wouldn't just go
to class and be on our phones and expect to
be fluent in two lessons. Right, Anything we want to learn,
it requires desire to learn it, the solution of what
to learn, what to do instead of what we've been
doing and practice, practice, practice and patience. Of course, when
(23:49):
you say that, it makes absolute sense, like this is
how we do anything important in life. But I think
that's the contrast from what our culture is telling us.
You know, our culture is telling us like, oh, if
you just do intermit and fasting, everything will be perfect,
or just follow keto. Like is there a sense in
which people can get worried about intuitive eating because it
is committing to this long process, in this mindful process
(24:10):
of paying attention. It's not a quick fix in the
way that you know other kinds of external plans seem
to be. That's true, And I would say, look at
your history. If diets were effective the first or maybe
even second, I'll be generous the second or diet you
went on would have done the trick. You'd be at
the body size that you think would make you happy.
(24:31):
You'd feel great, You're eating would be pleasurable and nourishing
and not a big problem. You'd be happy with your body.
It's like the diets promise us all of these things,
and people still believe them because they're so seductive, and
they don't come true, they don't pan out. So it's
questioning the diet rather than yourself. Another challenge people face
(24:53):
is that if you've really been on this kind of
diet mentality, diet riot roller coaster for a long time,
it can be hard to start, right. I think there's
this real worry that, you know, if you really listen
to what you wanted, you would be out of control, right,
you know, And so how do you kind of overcome
this sort of shame and guilt that comes up, especially
(25:13):
for people who've had a real struggle with eating history
for a long time. Well, I think it's being willing
to consider that even though you're eating has been problematic,
it's not the problem, and that the problems are deeper,
and so to be willing to question the programming around
(25:34):
body sizes perfectionistic eating, perfectionistic looks, fat phobia, diet mentality,
to begin to question those programs the same way we
question other social issues. We take a stand against social
issues all the time, or for social issues all the time.
So what's happened for so many people is they get
(25:56):
bombarded with the diet mentality and body perfectionism and fat phobia,
and then they kind of side with the programming and
turn against their poor bodies. But what we're talking about
here is siding with your body and say no to
those programs and decide that you want more peace. It
will take time, It will take work. So is dieting
(26:16):
and rioting. I mean that that takes time too. Hating
your body, that takes a lot of time. And then
I think another word that people have when they hear
about intuitive eating. I've heard friends of mine mentioned this
is like, especially if you have a history of diets,
you know, it can feel easy to maybe turn intuitive
eating into its own diet, right like now I must
eat intuitive, I must find inner voice. And I mean
(26:38):
do you see that with some of your students, Like
how do you prevent intuitive eating from becoming just another
thing that we should be doing in our minds. I
definitely see that, and we talk about that in the
course classroom often if someone has been dieting or and
or have diet mentality. You don't have to be on
a diet, by the way, to have diet mentality. It's
(26:58):
like I say, in action or just reacting to food
as good or bad. So that diet mentality is so
tricky and sticky. It's like it can be so subtle
and come into even this new way of being with food.
So I would I say to people, just keep an
eye out for it. Keep an eye out for that perfectionism.
I blew it. I have to start all over. I
(27:19):
shouldn't have that. I should be a certain size, just
to kind of keep an eye out for the diet
mentality statements that feel familiar and know that when you're
learning something new. Of course, it's challenging at first. It
takes practice, and just to keep renewing your vows that
we want peace here if somebody wants that. That's the
only reason someone comes to my course is because they're
(27:41):
tired of battling with food and their body. So renewing
that commitment again and again. Oh that's the reason I'm
here not to control my weight and not to continue
on this diet track. And I think it sounds like
also that that takes a lot of inner listening, right.
You need to notice the like subtle judginess that's there,
or the subtle riotiness when you've kind of give in
(28:04):
yourself permission. And I think in some sense, like you know,
notice it without judgment. Right, then keeping more shame onto yourself,
because that's not going to help the process, right, beating
yourself up? About beating yourself up? Yeah, not helpful? Yeah,
absolutely noticing being aware And it doesn't have to be perfect.
Intuitive eating diets are about perfection. This is like not
about perfection. It's just about continuing to be willing to
(28:28):
look inside, to be awake. We can't really learn anything
if we're not awake. So it does definitely take being
aware and being willing and renewing your commitment to why
you're doing this. You've been using these practices for a
long time and you've seen the benefits you in your
own students, like you know, how can this really change
our relationship with food in our bodies? It brings freedom.
(28:51):
There is so much more free time if you're not
obsessing on your food or your body. It brings a
feeling of wellness. It doesn't mean that we don't struggle
with other things or get sick from other reasons, but
it brings this sense of liberation that there's nothing to memorize,
there's nothing to calculate. I remember, I just would have
to work so hard to kind of keep track of
what I ate and how much should I be eating now?
(29:13):
And what time is it now. It's just the answers
are inside. It's so simple. It's just like simple, but
not easy. One place inside, same place. I know if
I'm thirsty or hungry or tired or have to go
to the bathroom. But it does take a lot of unlearning.
So yes, it is so liberating and freeing. And that's
what I hear from people often. I hear from people
that have been dieting and rioting for decades and now
(29:37):
they're feeling freer, and then a lot of grief comes up,
like that they wasted so much time obsessing on food
and their body and to just have some freedom where
you tune inside, you eat what you and your body love,
and like you stop when you're satisfied and comfortably full,
and you deal with your feelings in other ways. And
(29:59):
it's kind of ironic because I feel like, you know,
people when they go into the diet mentality, you know,
they're willing to learn, you know, some elaborate point system
they're willing to learn. You know how many carbs like
you know, slice of pepperoni has They're willing to learn
and put lots of time into some new workout. You know.
Intuitive eating kind of is the same, like if you
just put in the time and listen, you'll get this
(30:22):
benefit that won't have the blowback later one hundred percent.
And how much I waited and how many fat rams
were in a you know cookie, and yeah, exactly the
other day, I had bought some cookies a couple of
weeks ago from a bakery that my husband and I love,
and I ate a few when I got home, and
then I put them in a tup aware and about
(30:43):
a week or so later, he said, I'm starting to
finish up these cookies. Do you want to get in
on any before they're gone? And I had completely forgotten
about them, and I thought, there you go. I mean
I would have been possessed by them eating them all
on the way home, told myself, I can't have any cookies,
and I had a very difficult relationship in the past,
(31:03):
but just that I could forget about them, enjoy them
when I had them, and then was not possessed by them,
you know, say no more. I think part of it
is that we get really seduced by, you know, the
hope of a new diet, and you know, maybe in
some cases even the kind of you know, veneer of
science that comes with some of these diets that are
out there. But I think there's also like a deep
skepticism of our own inner voice. You know. I've heard
(31:26):
people who hear about intuitive eating will say, yeah, other
people have an inner voice when it comes to food,
but not me, Like I'm always going to be this
ravenous pit that's riotous all the time. I mean, do
you get that in your students of people who just
simply don't trust that the inner voice is in there,
that they'll find it right. But we've been brainwashed to
(31:46):
believe that a certain body size will bring us happiness,
health and forever afterness of everything, and so that brainwashing
is thick. So it takes a lot of washing our
brains of those beliefs, those programs they're so deep for
so many people, because if you look at it, well,
if someone says to themselves, I've been dieting on January
(32:07):
first for the last however many years, and then it
ends up I end up failing the diet, thinking the failure,
I end up blowing it. I end up rebelliously eating,
I end up hating myself. How many years in a
row have I done that? And now I'm going to
try it again. But it's not your fault. The diet industry,
(32:27):
the fitness industry, the media, they got us right where
they want us. So it's really taking a stand against
those messages instead of taking a stand against your poor body.
I hope all my listeners can start following Andrea's advice
and commit to shutting out those outside diet voices and
listening to what your body truly needs in the new year.
And if you want to learn more, you should check
(32:49):
out some of Andrea's courses on insight Time or app
including my favorite, Making Peace with the Body You Live in.
Next week, we'll tackle ways to listen to another quiet
voice that often gets drowned out in the midst of
all our New year's plans and goals. It's the voice
that tells us that we'd probably feel better if we
could be a little less critical of ourselves. We'll meet
a psychologist who thinks we should commit to a new workout,
(33:12):
one that exercises are positive self talk muscles, and that
doing so can help us be a little kinder to
ourselves in the new Year. We'll see just how to
do that in the next special New Year's Season episode
of The Happiness Lab with Me, Doctor Laurie Sandoms. The
Happiness Lab is co written by Ryan Dilley and is
(33:33):
produced by Ryan Dilley and Courtney Guerino. The show was
mastered by Evan Viola and our original music was composed
by Zachary Silver. Special thanks to Shane Beard, Greta Kone,
Nicole Morano, Morgan Ratner, Maggie Taylor, Jacob Weisberg, my agent,
Ben Davis, and the rest of the Pushkin team. The
Happiness Lab is brought to you by Pushkin Industries and
by Me, Doctor Laurie Sanders.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.