June 3, 2019 • 30 mins
What does food have to do with change? WW’s Aransas Savas talks us through how changing our relationship with food can be a catalyst for change in other aspects of our lives.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
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 (00:06):
I am Lisa Oz and I am Jill Herzig. I'm sick. So, um,
I just had breakfast. I just had my breakfast that
I have been having for I think the last twenty years,
which is some variation of meat, butter and jelly on
a whet toast. I replaced the jelly, and I learned
(00:27):
I was pre diabetico, pre diabetic a whole ninety four pounds.
It doesn't matter how much you way, you can still
be pre diabetic. I discovered how fun. So I replaced
that with fruit. But the peanut, butter and the toast
has remained the same. So I think that I if
I had to describe my relationship with food, I would
say that I am a monogamist, but I really I
(00:48):
strive for for hot, sexy monogamy. I tried to banana
on your Sometimes it's a banana, you know what. Sometimes
it's a fig Lady, WHOA so exciting? So what is
your how would you just the relationship with both of
those fruits have some significance deeply. But um, now I
(01:09):
have to say, I'm just not even a little bit
surprised that you have the same breakfast every day. I
know my relationship for food. If I were doing Facebook,
what are those things called? What you describe yourself and
your yes, my status is it's complicated, endlessly complicated. I
(01:31):
love you, I hate you, I love you, I hate you,
my sister, my mother. You know, it's that kind of crop. Um. Yeah,
So that's all I have to say about It is
one of those areas where I really need a U
turn and which is why I'm so grateful to have
our guests in studio today with us UM talking about
wellness and food. UM. We are joined by the Senior
(01:56):
director UM of Service, Design and Studio Experience ants at
WW and for those of you are super confused, that
is the artist formerly known as Weight Watchers and now
it's just ww UM. We are with Auronta's Savace. Thank
you so much for joining us. Thank you so much
for having me. So first question, food, we were chatting
(02:17):
about it before. UM. Everyone's talking about what you should eat,
what you shouldn't need. What is the conversation really about?
I think so, I mean food, how so many different
roles in our lives. It's a source of connection and
community and comfort, and there's all these sort of emotional
(02:39):
endowment that comes with that, and then it also has
this sort of performative effect, right that it's nutrition. Okay,
you needed to survive, it's to survive. And we feel
better when we eat some foods and worse when we
eat other foods. And some things do things for our
bodies that we don't like, and other things do have
effects that we feel really good about out And so
(03:01):
I think for most people it's about finding that balance
for themselves, finding the foods that emotionally satisfy them but
also physically nourish them and support their goals. But it
seems like so few of us are at that nice
balance point, and it's so hard to stay there. Why
are we We're just kind of weird about food. It
(03:23):
seems like almost everybody's a little bit weird about food.
I honestly think that most people get thrown off track
because they don't recognize that there are both of those
elements to it, and so they're only looking at one
kind of minuscule piece of the role that food is
(03:43):
playing in their lives, rather than taking a more holistic
view of it and saying, Okay, what is this What
do I need from food personally, and then meeting those
needs head on. Um, you know, it's really easy to
say I want to be skinny and then just depriving yourself,
And certainly I've done that in my life, where I
just took that sort of negative view of food and
(04:08):
my and its role in my life and used it
as a bit of a punishment frankly. Um, But over
the years, what I've come to do is use it
as an additive element in my life. So finding foods
that excite me, like the preparation of them is a
big creative stimuli in my life, Like it's something that
I find very fulfilling and satisfying. To prepare healthy food
(04:31):
for my entire family honestly goes well beyond myself now.
But then also food that I feel like, oh wow,
I'm stronger, and I have better mental clarity, and I
sleep better and um, I feel fitter. All of these
things enable me to live the life I want and
have a healthier, happier or balanced relationship with food. So
(04:54):
that that's wonderful. Bravo, congratulations life. I haven't met a
lot of people like um in that regard, and I'm
just I'm wondering why so many of us have so
many issues on food. Why does it? Is it? Familial background?
Is it? How do we get this way? Because food
(05:17):
is almost like a separate person in our lives. We
have a relationship with food as if it is like George, Um,
what what stimulates that? What creates that? Why? Why are
we in that weird place most of us. I've often
wondered if it's because of it's sort of omnipresence in
our lives. That literally way learned very early on that
(05:41):
when we're happy, we should celebrate with food. But we're sad,
we should mourn with food. When we're bored, we should
fill that gap with food. When we're lonely, oh, we
can fill that emptiness with food. And it just becomes
this sort of catch all for everything in our lives.
So then if you want to make any changes in
relation to how you eat, it means sort up ending
(06:01):
the way you moved through the entire world. Yeah, it
was so funny. I was having a conversation last night
with a young mom who you know, was talking about
how she never goes anywhere without snacks and that little
attached cup that that goes on your stroller for your kid,
And I'm way, way, way out of this stage, but
(06:22):
I so remembered it. I remembered like the panic if
there were no cheerios in that cup, because that cup
was what was going to get me, you know, onto
the subway with my kid, off the subway with my
kid to whatever class you know, or doctor's appointment. We
do this early, right, Yeah, from the very beginning. I mean,
(06:42):
everybody as a new mom gets caught up in this
great debate around to nurse or not right, And I mean,
certainly I felt like the most stressful element of being
a new mom wasn't is my kid sleeping, but it
was my breastfraating. Well, am I making enough milk? Is
(07:03):
it nutritionally valuable enough to my child? Am I starving
my child? And my over femes? And it just becomes
I mean, I think from the moment a child is born,
literally the first thing we do is feed them. And
so I mean it's complicated. From way back, I always
tend to think things are all connected, and so I
think when we have an unhealthy relationship with food, it
(07:27):
translates to an unhealthy relationship with our bodies, which if
impact every other interaction we have with people. Do you
have you found with your time at w W that
people who and I don't want to say control their
relationship with food, but kind of figure out their relationship
with food, that that seeps into every other aspect of
their life. Yeah. I mean, I think it's interesting because
(07:49):
I feel like people use that word control a lot
in relation to food, and and that's in many cases.
It certainly was for me. It was what I wanted
to get a handle on. I felt like I know
how to take care of myself, but food just feels
so out of control. And it's something I hear really often,
especially from women. Um Like, we there's some there's some
(08:10):
sense of agency that we're lacking when it comes to
um our food. And honestly, for me, I just didn't
know anything about nutrition when I started. I didn't know
how to take care of myself and it it is.
It sounds really dramatic when I started talking about this,
but I completely learned how to take care of myself
(08:33):
through learning how to pay attention to my food, being
more mindful about my food. And I think to take
care of yourself on every lot, on every level, relationships,
your your relationship to ambition and work in life, and
what you want all of it totally. I learned how
to ask for what I needed. I learned how to
listen to the signals that my body was telling me
(08:55):
about what was helpful and unhelpful. Um. I learned how
to how to prioritize myself care uh, in order to
enable everything else in my life. I mean, the list
goes on and on, honestly, but so much of it
really started with is probably most of your guests come
to say at some point or another paying attention, right,
(09:15):
And I think the word tracking to me is something
and we are known at w W for like one
of the core elements of the program is tracking your food.
And the whole word tracking just sounds very like tedious,
since like it's something like a punishment at school you
have to track, Um, isn't points to is tracking? Yeah,
(09:38):
exactly to add and track to do math and oh,
I know it's that's no fun. But for me, when
I reframed it as an awareness tactic and a mindfulness tactic,
I felt like a greater sense of purpose in the
action of tracking. And so for me, the writing out
(10:00):
became my way of sort of finding the patterns and
seeing for myself what my my truth was when it
came to food, what was good for me personally and
helpful for me personally as opposed to sort of general
broad rules which we all know, with bodies being as
unique as they are, we'll just never really hold true.
(10:22):
There are no general broad rule. New when we come back,
we're going to going in deeper into our relationship with food.
Before the break, we were chatting with aroonsa sav Us
(10:44):
about food and aronsas Dylan, I love to talk about
you turns and changes and you guys have been friends
for a long time, and she told me some really
interesting stuff about your personal U turns. Can you share
that with us? Yeah? I think that's sort of my
stock in trade. UM is having these many different lives,
(11:07):
and I really loved all that they've each brought me.
Uh So, when I moved to New York, I came
to be an actor. I thought I would make it
big on Broadway. And I really did love the storytelling
aspect of it. I loved the community of it, I
love the words. I love the theater itself and all
the ritual and history it brings. But it turned out
(11:30):
I hated being an actor. I did the job of
it um and so you know, I was very clear
and said a very strong intention for myself in terms
of what I wanted, and um, it was through a
conversation with my mother, And I didn't know what the
job was that I wanted to do next, but I
(11:51):
knew what I wanted it to give me, and UM,
when I got clear on that, it was very easy
to see it when it came. And so do you want.
I wanted a mentor, um who could help guide me
and sort of unlock my strengths. UM. I wanted it
to have a purpose, and which was something I really
(12:11):
felt like sadly as an actor, and you know, it's
certainly a craft y there's a lot of potential to
have impact. But I was doing a lot of really
crappy work um that didn't have a lot of positive
impact on the world, UM, and feeling pretty um, pretty
depleted by that. So I wanted to have a positive
impact on the world. I wanted to have a mentorship
(12:32):
and sort of a system of support, and I wanted
some consistency. It turned out that I am a person
who likes to get dressed every day and go to
an office. UM. But I didn't I didn't know any
more than that, except that I wanted those sort of
core values met. Um. So as soon as I had
joined w W as a member, and um I had
(12:54):
somebody had weighed me one day and said, have you
ever thought about working here? And I was like, oh
that sweet, yeah, I'll do that as a part time thing.
Um And then I was at this training and this
woman I remember so clearly, she looked at me from
across the room and she just it was like one
of those Oprah looking deep into yours ald moments, and
she looked in my eyes and wordlessly, there was just
(13:16):
sort of this acknowledgement in that moment. She called me
the next day and she said, I see you. I
want you to come work for me. And she offered
me the job that I was totally unqualified for and
had no idea what it even meant to do it.
But I was so ready to do something and I
could hear in it on alignment with the values I
(13:36):
had laid out, and I was like, okay, And so
I just really took a leap and jumped into a
totally unknown world. Well, I mean, I understand what she
was even saying French, because it wasn't she literally saw something,
and I can track my entire life back to that.
You know, I found my husband through that job. I
(14:00):
found my career through that job. I discovered what this
thing that I like to do. I like creating human experiences.
I love making a theme party. I love making experiences
that bring people together and create connection. I mean, that
is just my happy place. I've never heard of a
(14:20):
service designer. I'm not even sure the term existed at
the time. UM, but it was like, through through all
of these very unknown channel I found what I was
looking for um and And honestly, it was just because
I said yes. I was just because I got clear
about what I wanted frankly, and then said yes when
(14:41):
it came um other big U turns. I mean, I
went from pretty slovenly theater student to a very active runner. UM.
My daughter yesterday was doing her homework and they had
this thing where it was like interview a person and
unless the qualities you associate with that person, and so
(15:04):
uh as she had this long list of traits that
she was asked to associate with me as the person
she was interviewing, And it was one of the best
moments of my life to see how she saw me,
and she described me as energetic and positive and Um,
an athlete, imagine that, except you've run a lot of marathons.
(15:28):
Why were you surprised by that? It was it was
just a cool thing of her seeing me that way.
And I mean seeing myself that way has taken a
lot of time, but there was just something so profound
and that being like a core quality trait that my
child identified in me because that's how I've lived my
life now. Sheill said something about that. I just wanted
to touch on with you, which was the emotional aspect
(15:50):
of eating and the point system kind of deals with
kellories in, calories out. But how do you personally and
a w W dres us the the weird emotional aspect
of Sometimes we eat to punish ourselves, sometimes we eat
to reward ourselves. Sometimes we can't stop ourselves. What it's
(16:13):
not just about counting. How do you get to the
root of that? Oh my, it's a big one, um,
And it's I mean, honestly, it's such a huge factor
for I almost all of as I joke all the
time in my workshops that nobody joins WW because they
only when they're hungry. Um, you know, it is a
(16:39):
factor for all of us to one degree or another.
Part of what I think happens um and I'm not
sure if our scientists would vouch. Part of what I
believe happens is our brains are made up of a
very logical side and an emotional side. And part of
the value of having that sort of that number assigned
to foods is it gets a little bit out of
(17:01):
that emotional mindset and let's just focus on something that
feels a little more factual and tangible when making a
decision about whether or not a food is worth it.
That said, I mean, all that emotional stuff is playing
into it all the time. But hopefully what we can
do is create a little bit of space for ourselves
to have a more logical conversation with food, to breathe
for a second and say, how will I feel if
(17:22):
I eat this? How will I feel if I don't? Right?
Because that punishment thing usually happens when we we you know,
if we don't feel good, then we eat, and then
we feel worse, and there's this vicious cycle that's created
that can really steamroll people's intensions. And so the more
we can kind of create space too to ask ourselves honestly,
(17:45):
and and like I said before, a more holistic way,
not just how is this going to be for my body?
But how is this going to be for my mindset?
Am I gonna feel really crappy after I eat this?
Am I going to beat myself up after I eat it?
Maybe I'll take a pause and try something else to
meet that need. And so one of the things I
try to work through with people is how is that
(18:05):
food serving you? What are you getting out of this moment?
And what else might more directly support you in meeting
that need? Because we're gonna get our needs met one
way or another as humans, So like, let's be honest
with ourselves and do it in a way that serves
us and instead of one that kinds of things to
people discover. Like I mean when you say that the
(18:28):
magic of a French try meeting a need is pretty powerful?
So what what do people replace it? It's funny, um,
you know. One of my favorite stories of this is
a woman who said just every week she had this
urge to just have a big blowout meal and she
just wanted to just like like I said before, it
(18:49):
feels like wild and rebellious, and I think that urge.
I don't know. Maybe it's because I'm from Texas, but
I get that urge um like a pioneer thing. Maybe
I don't know, um the it She wanted to just
be unbridled, and she when we had this conversation about well,
what why, what are you missing there that you're trying
(19:12):
to serve with that, and she was like, you know,
the last time I felt that way and really felt
satisfied by it was when I was slopping paint on
giant canvases in college. And so she began a practice
of exploring other ways to be wild and unbridled in
(19:32):
her life and in meeting that needs. She felt less
of an urge to always go back to the food
answer the question. I mean, sometimes the food is still
gonna answer it. But the point is to again find
that balance for ourselves and have other ways of meeting
our needs that aren't just food. Welcome back. We're going
to discuss that in more death for the break. We
(20:04):
were chatting with a service up about ways that we
can bring something else into the void that we think
we need to fill with food. Um. We have to
be careful that it's productive, because I do know people
who take up smoking in order to avoid eating. But
(20:25):
one of the ways I think that's really positive that
you guys encourage is exercise. Um one, can you talk
a bit a little bit about the role of exercise
in general and the w W philosophy, but also about
Jill told me some crazy stories about you and the
exercise things, So if you could talk about that a
little bit too. Um. Yeah, I mean this is sort
of continuing the same sense of discovery that I got
(20:48):
from learning how to take care of myself, opening up
a whole world of potential that I really didn't know
I was capable of. Um. You know, I I think
and this is something that has very much supported me
through my own weight journey. You know, I lost sixty
pounds on w W. I probably took like a year
(21:11):
and a half weeks in a two weeks, that's right.
I took I went to sleep, I woke up. It
was like magic. Um No, it was like a year
and a half. But it was eighteen years ago. And
that's the part I'm really proud of is that for
eighteen years, I get rid of clothes because I'm tired
of them, not because they don't fit anymore. Yep, which
(21:31):
I didn't even know is a thing that like you
could buy clothes and then just wear them for a decade,
you know, wear out your jeans. I have to get
rid of them because they're worn out, not like because
something has changed in the fun won't go exactly. It's
not the muff and top anymore. Um. Yeah, it's a
It's a one of those funny measures of success that
(21:51):
we don't anticipate it. Yeah. For me, I I think
it has been very much in an alignment with what
the science says about activity in a way journey is
that weight, ultimately, um, is much more influenced by the
food you eat than the amount of exercise you do.
That said exercises all sorts of other benefits, as I'm
(22:12):
sure you know well, um, between helping people sleep better
and heart health and cancer risk and all these many
sort of health and well being elements, and frankly it's
all so intertwined, right. But what the what the research
has shown in relation to activity and weight is that
(22:33):
it is a powerful factor in maintaining weight loss. And
so for me and for many of the members that
I've counseled over the years, one of the most powerful
things I got out of the weight lost journey was
learning how to be active, creating a routine and a
practice around that that now has just continued to sustain
(22:55):
all of my goals over these last eighteen years. Um.
So you know, I went from being the kid in
middle school who cried at the punishment of having to
run a lab two. Now somehow, over the course of
these years of run eighteen marathons, I qualified for Boston
last year, which was a big dream of mine. Um,
(23:17):
and wait, what do you have to run under to
qualify for Boston. It's based on gender and age, so
for my age group, for the age group, I had
to run a sub three. So I got a three
forty three and I was super happy and um, but
it was one of those things again, I it was hard, right,
(23:39):
And I think I'm so fascinated by the hard things
we do in life and how they teach us what
we're capable of. Like I'm not a naturally fast runner.
I am persistent, um, and I you know, I'm built
for distance, so I had that on my side, but
I'm not fast, and so they can inceptive. Doing that
(24:01):
just seemed really overwhelming and sort of impossible. But that's
pretty fast. It's pretty fast. I'm pretty fast. I'm pretty
proud of it. Um. But I chunked it down, just
like I do with my members every week. It's really
about Okay, let's pick a goal that is reasonable, that
is inside. When I set out to lose sixty five pounds,
(24:21):
if you would ask me if I was going to
lose sixty pounds, I would have laughed at you, But
then I would you would have laughed because you tried,
because it's just such a huge hill. Hard, it's a
big hill to climb. Yeah, um, and sort of completely
overwhelmed by the scale of that goal. But then I
(24:41):
broke it down into small goals and with each one
of those, just stayed focused on action. And you know,
I think that's true for everything in life, that our biggest,
most paralyzing forces overthinking. And so I tried to just
not overthink it, but just just keep it active and
progress of And that, of course has incredible power overall,
(25:04):
because we start with that one tiny step and it
builds your confidence and your capability, and then that second
goal that might have seemed impossible for it seems pretty reasonable. Well,
I will never run a marathon. My wait, why would
you say never? You guys both live in Brooklyn because
together are shot. It's amazing what I do on these replacements.
(25:25):
Then you can run. Seriously, I'm looking forward to a
new replacement. I'm I'm excited about about getting my spyron
being to do it. Yes, there have been too much
of a lot of things, but a marathon, I don't.
I'm playing more of a long game where I just
want to be able to be active and do not
marathon level feats, but just kind of sweating generic sweating
(25:49):
for a really, really long time. And I guess for me,
like my kids used to say when I would get
a little testy on we get mornings, we gotta run, mommy.
We gotta get outside and run mommy, like having like
the do, like having a dog, and again not going far,
not going particularly fast, but Mommy just needed to run.
(26:11):
And that to me, it is such therapy for me,
so much so that sometimes it scares me. What would
happen if one of these knees really really like not
doing it anymore? Given the power of it, why do
we all struggle to get ourselves to do it? Or
why does so many people struggle? It is free, incredible therapy.
(26:34):
It has been shown to be just as effective as
powerful antidepressants in a myriad of studies, and yet we
push it away. What's that about. I think it's the
same thing as the kale okay, really like it's used
as punishment for children. You know, it gets all wrapped
up in shoots instead of the benefits right now, and
(26:57):
we're not a very reflective society in general, and it's like,
I think we miss all of those powerful benefits and
we forget them in the moment of just doing what
we've always done, which is playing on a computer or
so how do you characterize it with your kids? You
have two kids and they're like right in the sweet
spot of learning about their bodies and food and what's
(27:20):
good and what helps. I have to say, this is
one of the things I'm most proud of in my
life is that so far my daughter's I mean, then
they're eating tents that were on the cusp of anything
could happen, um, But they see w W as a
place to go get stronger. They see food as nourishment
nutrition Now, I mean, they still eat their fair share
(27:41):
of candy and speeds and I you know, I've been
very conscious of trying to find that balance. But I
also really put a lot of emphasis on listen to
your body, how do you feel when you eat that?
And one daughter felt like she didn't feel very good
when she had dairy, so we cut back her dairy
and she felt better. And we're like, Okay, let's run
(28:03):
some experiments and you tell me how you feel. Because
I feel like if I can teach them one thing,
it's to listen to their bodies. Our bodies know so
much more than we give them credit for, and we
we drown them out until they yell at as so
loudly that we're having a heart attack. What is your
take on all of the highly restrictive diets out there now,
(28:24):
the ketogenic diets, the paleo, the whole thirty. How do
you approach those? Because I will say that so many people,
I think, grab onto those diets thinking this will help
me make change in my life, and here we are
at your turns talking about change. I do think sometimes
that's what people are actually hoping for when they say
(28:46):
I'm going to eat in this totally bizarre way for
as long as I possibly can. Yeah, I think the
as long as I possibly can part is the drink
evnit until you collapse on the floor with the chocolate cake. Yeah, yeah,
I think it's about that sustainability. And you know again,
I go back to like the the great satisfaction and
(29:08):
calm that's come out of not having to sort of
yo yo diet for the last eighteen years, and over
time the effects have been cumulative of sort of building
as opposed to I'm gonna go in hard on my
diet project, the I'm gonna go live and then I'm
gonna go hard on my diet project and then I'm
gonna live and all this sort of suffering that that breeds,
(29:31):
and my whole story and philosophy is built around let's
take care of ourselves. Let's love on ourselves in the
way that we expect the world to. Yeah, imagine the
human potential, particularly among women, that would be unlocked if
we could just stop with us, stop with the project dieting. Like,
(29:51):
oh well, I'm certainly feeling healthier after having had this
conversation around us. Thank you so much for being here today,
around us, Thank you for me me as well, and
thanks as always to our producer or at least Heywood
Um listeners If you want to connect with the Rancis,
go to waite watchers dot com. Until next time, H
I am Lisa Oz and I am Jill Herzig. I'm sick. So, um,
I just had breakfast. I just had my breakfast that
I have been having for I think the last twenty years,
which is some variation of meat, butter and jelly on
a whet toast. I replaced the jelly, and I learned
(00:27):
I was pre diabetico, pre diabetic a whole ninety four pounds.
It doesn't matter how much you way, you can still
be pre diabetic. I discovered how fun. So I replaced
that with fruit. But the peanut, butter and the toast
has remained the same. So I think that I if
I had to describe my relationship with food, I would
say that I am a monogamist, but I really I
(00:48):
strive for for hot, sexy monogamy. I tried to banana
on your Sometimes it's a banana, you know what. Sometimes
it's a fig Lady, WHOA so exciting? So what is
your how would you just the relationship with both of
those fruits have some significance deeply. But um, now I
(01:09):
have to say, I'm just not even a little bit
surprised that you have the same breakfast every day. I
know my relationship for food. If I were doing Facebook,
what are those things called? What you describe yourself and
your yes, my status is it's complicated, endlessly complicated. I
(01:31):
love you, I hate you, I love you, I hate you,
my sister, my mother. You know, it's that kind of crop. Um. Yeah,
So that's all I have to say about It is
one of those areas where I really need a U
turn and which is why I'm so grateful to have
our guests in studio today with us UM talking about
wellness and food. UM. We are joined by the Senior
(01:56):
director UM of Service, Design and Studio Experience ants at
WW and for those of you are super confused, that
is the artist formerly known as Weight Watchers and now
it's just ww UM. We are with Auronta's Savace. Thank
you so much for joining us. Thank you so much
for having me. So first question, food, we were chatting
(02:17):
about it before. UM. Everyone's talking about what you should eat,
what you shouldn't need. What is the conversation really about?
I think so, I mean food, how so many different
roles in our lives. It's a source of connection and
community and comfort, and there's all these sort of emotional
(02:39):
endowment that comes with that, and then it also has
this sort of performative effect, right that it's nutrition. Okay,
you needed to survive, it's to survive. And we feel
better when we eat some foods and worse when we
eat other foods. And some things do things for our
bodies that we don't like, and other things do have
effects that we feel really good about out And so
(03:01):
I think for most people it's about finding that balance
for themselves, finding the foods that emotionally satisfy them but
also physically nourish them and support their goals. But it
seems like so few of us are at that nice
balance point, and it's so hard to stay there. Why
are we We're just kind of weird about food. It
(03:23):
seems like almost everybody's a little bit weird about food.
I honestly think that most people get thrown off track
because they don't recognize that there are both of those
elements to it, and so they're only looking at one
kind of minuscule piece of the role that food is
(03:43):
playing in their lives, rather than taking a more holistic
view of it and saying, Okay, what is this What
do I need from food personally, and then meeting those
needs head on. Um, you know, it's really easy to
say I want to be skinny and then just depriving yourself,
And certainly I've done that in my life, where I
just took that sort of negative view of food and
(04:08):
my and its role in my life and used it
as a bit of a punishment frankly. Um, But over
the years, what I've come to do is use it
as an additive element in my life. So finding foods
that excite me, like the preparation of them is a
big creative stimuli in my life, Like it's something that
I find very fulfilling and satisfying. To prepare healthy food
(04:31):
for my entire family honestly goes well beyond myself now.
But then also food that I feel like, oh wow,
I'm stronger, and I have better mental clarity, and I
sleep better and um, I feel fitter. All of these
things enable me to live the life I want and
have a healthier, happier or balanced relationship with food. So
(04:54):
that that's wonderful. Bravo, congratulations life. I haven't met a
lot of people like um in that regard, and I'm
just I'm wondering why so many of us have so
many issues on food. Why does it? Is it? Familial background?
Is it? How do we get this way? Because food
(05:17):
is almost like a separate person in our lives. We
have a relationship with food as if it is like George, Um,
what what stimulates that? What creates that? Why? Why are
we in that weird place most of us. I've often
wondered if it's because of it's sort of omnipresence in
our lives. That literally way learned very early on that
(05:41):
when we're happy, we should celebrate with food. But we're sad,
we should mourn with food. When we're bored, we should
fill that gap with food. When we're lonely, oh, we
can fill that emptiness with food. And it just becomes
this sort of catch all for everything in our lives.
So then if you want to make any changes in
relation to how you eat, it means sort up ending
(06:01):
the way you moved through the entire world. Yeah, it
was so funny. I was having a conversation last night
with a young mom who you know, was talking about
how she never goes anywhere without snacks and that little
attached cup that that goes on your stroller for your kid,
And I'm way, way, way out of this stage, but
(06:22):
I so remembered it. I remembered like the panic if
there were no cheerios in that cup, because that cup
was what was going to get me, you know, onto
the subway with my kid, off the subway with my
kid to whatever class you know, or doctor's appointment. We
do this early, right, Yeah, from the very beginning. I mean,
(06:42):
everybody as a new mom gets caught up in this
great debate around to nurse or not right, And I mean,
certainly I felt like the most stressful element of being
a new mom wasn't is my kid sleeping, but it
was my breastfraating. Well, am I making enough milk? Is
(07:03):
it nutritionally valuable enough to my child? Am I starving
my child? And my over femes? And it just becomes
I mean, I think from the moment a child is born,
literally the first thing we do is feed them. And
so I mean it's complicated. From way back, I always
tend to think things are all connected, and so I
think when we have an unhealthy relationship with food, it
(07:27):
translates to an unhealthy relationship with our bodies, which if
impact every other interaction we have with people. Do you
have you found with your time at w W that
people who and I don't want to say control their
relationship with food, but kind of figure out their relationship
with food, that that seeps into every other aspect of
their life. Yeah. I mean, I think it's interesting because
(07:49):
I feel like people use that word control a lot
in relation to food, and and that's in many cases.
It certainly was for me. It was what I wanted
to get a handle on. I felt like I know
how to take care of myself, but food just feels
so out of control. And it's something I hear really often,
especially from women. Um Like, we there's some there's some
(08:10):
sense of agency that we're lacking when it comes to
um our food. And honestly, for me, I just didn't
know anything about nutrition when I started. I didn't know
how to take care of myself and it it is.
It sounds really dramatic when I started talking about this,
but I completely learned how to take care of myself
(08:33):
through learning how to pay attention to my food, being
more mindful about my food. And I think to take
care of yourself on every lot, on every level, relationships,
your your relationship to ambition and work in life, and
what you want all of it totally. I learned how
to ask for what I needed. I learned how to
listen to the signals that my body was telling me
(08:55):
about what was helpful and unhelpful. Um. I learned how
to how to prioritize myself care uh, in order to
enable everything else in my life. I mean, the list
goes on and on, honestly, but so much of it
really started with is probably most of your guests come
to say at some point or another paying attention, right,
(09:15):
And I think the word tracking to me is something
and we are known at w W for like one
of the core elements of the program is tracking your food.
And the whole word tracking just sounds very like tedious,
since like it's something like a punishment at school you
have to track, Um, isn't points to is tracking? Yeah,
(09:38):
exactly to add and track to do math and oh,
I know it's that's no fun. But for me, when
I reframed it as an awareness tactic and a mindfulness tactic,
I felt like a greater sense of purpose in the
action of tracking. And so for me, the writing out
(10:00):
became my way of sort of finding the patterns and
seeing for myself what my my truth was when it
came to food, what was good for me personally and
helpful for me personally as opposed to sort of general
broad rules which we all know, with bodies being as
unique as they are, we'll just never really hold true.
(10:22):
There are no general broad rule. New when we come back,
we're going to going in deeper into our relationship with food.
Before the break, we were chatting with aroonsa sav Us
(10:44):
about food and aronsas Dylan, I love to talk about
you turns and changes and you guys have been friends
for a long time, and she told me some really
interesting stuff about your personal U turns. Can you share
that with us? Yeah? I think that's sort of my
stock in trade. UM is having these many different lives,
(11:07):
and I really loved all that they've each brought me.
Uh So, when I moved to New York, I came
to be an actor. I thought I would make it
big on Broadway. And I really did love the storytelling
aspect of it. I loved the community of it, I
love the words. I love the theater itself and all
the ritual and history it brings. But it turned out
(11:30):
I hated being an actor. I did the job of
it um and so you know, I was very clear
and said a very strong intention for myself in terms
of what I wanted, and um, it was through a
conversation with my mother, And I didn't know what the
job was that I wanted to do next, but I
(11:51):
knew what I wanted it to give me, and UM,
when I got clear on that, it was very easy
to see it when it came. And so do you want.
I wanted a mentor, um who could help guide me
and sort of unlock my strengths. UM. I wanted it
to have a purpose, and which was something I really
(12:11):
felt like sadly as an actor, and you know, it's
certainly a craft y there's a lot of potential to
have impact. But I was doing a lot of really
crappy work um that didn't have a lot of positive
impact on the world, UM, and feeling pretty um, pretty
depleted by that. So I wanted to have a positive
impact on the world. I wanted to have a mentorship
(12:32):
and sort of a system of support, and I wanted
some consistency. It turned out that I am a person
who likes to get dressed every day and go to
an office. UM. But I didn't I didn't know any
more than that, except that I wanted those sort of
core values met. Um. So as soon as I had
joined w W as a member, and um I had
(12:54):
somebody had weighed me one day and said, have you
ever thought about working here? And I was like, oh
that sweet, yeah, I'll do that as a part time thing.
Um And then I was at this training and this
woman I remember so clearly, she looked at me from
across the room and she just it was like one
of those Oprah looking deep into yours ald moments, and
she looked in my eyes and wordlessly, there was just
(13:16):
sort of this acknowledgement in that moment. She called me
the next day and she said, I see you. I
want you to come work for me. And she offered
me the job that I was totally unqualified for and
had no idea what it even meant to do it.
But I was so ready to do something and I
could hear in it on alignment with the values I
(13:36):
had laid out, and I was like, okay, And so
I just really took a leap and jumped into a
totally unknown world. Well, I mean, I understand what she
was even saying French, because it wasn't she literally saw something,
and I can track my entire life back to that.
You know, I found my husband through that job. I
(14:00):
found my career through that job. I discovered what this
thing that I like to do. I like creating human experiences.
I love making a theme party. I love making experiences
that bring people together and create connection. I mean, that
is just my happy place. I've never heard of a
(14:20):
service designer. I'm not even sure the term existed at
the time. UM, but it was like, through through all
of these very unknown channel I found what I was
looking for um and And honestly, it was just because
I said yes. I was just because I got clear
about what I wanted frankly, and then said yes when
(14:41):
it came um other big U turns. I mean, I
went from pretty slovenly theater student to a very active runner. UM.
My daughter yesterday was doing her homework and they had
this thing where it was like interview a person and
unless the qualities you associate with that person, and so
(15:04):
uh as she had this long list of traits that
she was asked to associate with me as the person
she was interviewing, And it was one of the best
moments of my life to see how she saw me,
and she described me as energetic and positive and Um,
an athlete, imagine that, except you've run a lot of marathons.
(15:28):
Why were you surprised by that? It was it was
just a cool thing of her seeing me that way.
And I mean seeing myself that way has taken a
lot of time, but there was just something so profound
and that being like a core quality trait that my
child identified in me because that's how I've lived my
life now. Sheill said something about that. I just wanted
to touch on with you, which was the emotional aspect
(15:50):
of eating and the point system kind of deals with
kellories in, calories out. But how do you personally and
a w W dres us the the weird emotional aspect
of Sometimes we eat to punish ourselves, sometimes we eat
to reward ourselves. Sometimes we can't stop ourselves. What it's
(16:13):
not just about counting. How do you get to the
root of that? Oh my, it's a big one, um,
And it's I mean, honestly, it's such a huge factor
for I almost all of as I joke all the
time in my workshops that nobody joins WW because they
only when they're hungry. Um, you know, it is a
(16:39):
factor for all of us to one degree or another.
Part of what I think happens um and I'm not
sure if our scientists would vouch. Part of what I
believe happens is our brains are made up of a
very logical side and an emotional side. And part of
the value of having that sort of that number assigned
to foods is it gets a little bit out of
(17:01):
that emotional mindset and let's just focus on something that
feels a little more factual and tangible when making a
decision about whether or not a food is worth it.
That said, I mean, all that emotional stuff is playing
into it all the time. But hopefully what we can
do is create a little bit of space for ourselves
to have a more logical conversation with food, to breathe
for a second and say, how will I feel if
(17:22):
I eat this? How will I feel if I don't? Right?
Because that punishment thing usually happens when we we you know,
if we don't feel good, then we eat, and then
we feel worse, and there's this vicious cycle that's created
that can really steamroll people's intensions. And so the more
we can kind of create space too to ask ourselves honestly,
(17:45):
and and like I said before, a more holistic way,
not just how is this going to be for my body?
But how is this going to be for my mindset?
Am I gonna feel really crappy after I eat this?
Am I going to beat myself up after I eat it?
Maybe I'll take a pause and try something else to
meet that need. And so one of the things I
try to work through with people is how is that
(18:05):
food serving you? What are you getting out of this moment?
And what else might more directly support you in meeting
that need? Because we're gonna get our needs met one
way or another as humans, So like, let's be honest
with ourselves and do it in a way that serves
us and instead of one that kinds of things to
people discover. Like I mean when you say that the
(18:28):
magic of a French try meeting a need is pretty powerful?
So what what do people replace it? It's funny, um,
you know. One of my favorite stories of this is
a woman who said just every week she had this
urge to just have a big blowout meal and she
just wanted to just like like I said before, it
(18:49):
feels like wild and rebellious, and I think that urge.
I don't know. Maybe it's because I'm from Texas, but
I get that urge um like a pioneer thing. Maybe
I don't know, um the it She wanted to just
be unbridled, and she when we had this conversation about well,
what why, what are you missing there that you're trying
(19:12):
to serve with that, and she was like, you know,
the last time I felt that way and really felt
satisfied by it was when I was slopping paint on
giant canvases in college. And so she began a practice
of exploring other ways to be wild and unbridled in
(19:32):
her life and in meeting that needs. She felt less
of an urge to always go back to the food
answer the question. I mean, sometimes the food is still
gonna answer it. But the point is to again find
that balance for ourselves and have other ways of meeting
our needs that aren't just food. Welcome back. We're going
to discuss that in more death for the break. We
(20:04):
were chatting with a service up about ways that we
can bring something else into the void that we think
we need to fill with food. Um. We have to
be careful that it's productive, because I do know people
who take up smoking in order to avoid eating. But
(20:25):
one of the ways I think that's really positive that
you guys encourage is exercise. Um one, can you talk
a bit a little bit about the role of exercise
in general and the w W philosophy, but also about
Jill told me some crazy stories about you and the
exercise things, So if you could talk about that a
little bit too. Um. Yeah, I mean this is sort
of continuing the same sense of discovery that I got
(20:48):
from learning how to take care of myself, opening up
a whole world of potential that I really didn't know
I was capable of. Um. You know, I I think
and this is something that has very much supported me
through my own weight journey. You know, I lost sixty
pounds on w W. I probably took like a year
(21:11):
and a half weeks in a two weeks, that's right.
I took I went to sleep, I woke up. It
was like magic. Um No, it was like a year
and a half. But it was eighteen years ago. And
that's the part I'm really proud of is that for
eighteen years, I get rid of clothes because I'm tired
of them, not because they don't fit anymore. Yep, which
(21:31):
I didn't even know is a thing that like you
could buy clothes and then just wear them for a decade,
you know, wear out your jeans. I have to get
rid of them because they're worn out, not like because
something has changed in the fun won't go exactly. It's
not the muff and top anymore. Um. Yeah, it's a
It's a one of those funny measures of success that
(21:51):
we don't anticipate it. Yeah. For me, I I think
it has been very much in an alignment with what
the science says about activity in a way journey is
that weight, ultimately, um, is much more influenced by the
food you eat than the amount of exercise you do.
That said exercises all sorts of other benefits, as I'm
(22:12):
sure you know well, um, between helping people sleep better
and heart health and cancer risk and all these many
sort of health and well being elements, and frankly it's
all so intertwined, right. But what the what the research
has shown in relation to activity and weight is that
(22:33):
it is a powerful factor in maintaining weight loss. And
so for me and for many of the members that
I've counseled over the years, one of the most powerful
things I got out of the weight lost journey was
learning how to be active, creating a routine and a
practice around that that now has just continued to sustain
(22:55):
all of my goals over these last eighteen years. Um.
So you know, I went from being the kid in
middle school who cried at the punishment of having to
run a lab two. Now somehow, over the course of
these years of run eighteen marathons, I qualified for Boston
last year, which was a big dream of mine. Um,
(23:17):
and wait, what do you have to run under to
qualify for Boston. It's based on gender and age, so
for my age group, for the age group, I had
to run a sub three. So I got a three
forty three and I was super happy and um, but
it was one of those things again, I it was hard, right,
(23:39):
And I think I'm so fascinated by the hard things
we do in life and how they teach us what
we're capable of. Like I'm not a naturally fast runner.
I am persistent, um, and I you know, I'm built
for distance, so I had that on my side, but
I'm not fast, and so they can inceptive. Doing that
(24:01):
just seemed really overwhelming and sort of impossible. But that's
pretty fast. It's pretty fast. I'm pretty fast. I'm pretty
proud of it. Um. But I chunked it down, just
like I do with my members every week. It's really
about Okay, let's pick a goal that is reasonable, that
is inside. When I set out to lose sixty five pounds,
(24:21):
if you would ask me if I was going to
lose sixty pounds, I would have laughed at you, But
then I would you would have laughed because you tried,
because it's just such a huge hill. Hard, it's a
big hill to climb. Yeah, um, and sort of completely
overwhelmed by the scale of that goal. But then I
(24:41):
broke it down into small goals and with each one
of those, just stayed focused on action. And you know,
I think that's true for everything in life, that our biggest,
most paralyzing forces overthinking. And so I tried to just
not overthink it, but just just keep it active and
progress of And that, of course has incredible power overall,
(25:04):
because we start with that one tiny step and it
builds your confidence and your capability, and then that second
goal that might have seemed impossible for it seems pretty reasonable. Well,
I will never run a marathon. My wait, why would
you say never? You guys both live in Brooklyn because
together are shot. It's amazing what I do on these replacements.
(25:25):
Then you can run. Seriously, I'm looking forward to a
new replacement. I'm I'm excited about about getting my spyron
being to do it. Yes, there have been too much
of a lot of things, but a marathon, I don't.
I'm playing more of a long game where I just
want to be able to be active and do not
marathon level feats, but just kind of sweating generic sweating
(25:49):
for a really, really long time. And I guess for me,
like my kids used to say when I would get
a little testy on we get mornings, we gotta run, mommy.
We gotta get outside and run mommy, like having like
the do, like having a dog, and again not going far,
not going particularly fast, but Mommy just needed to run.
(26:11):
And that to me, it is such therapy for me,
so much so that sometimes it scares me. What would
happen if one of these knees really really like not
doing it anymore? Given the power of it, why do
we all struggle to get ourselves to do it? Or
why does so many people struggle? It is free, incredible therapy.
(26:34):
It has been shown to be just as effective as
powerful antidepressants in a myriad of studies, and yet we
push it away. What's that about. I think it's the
same thing as the kale okay, really like it's used
as punishment for children. You know, it gets all wrapped
up in shoots instead of the benefits right now, and
(26:57):
we're not a very reflective society in general, and it's like,
I think we miss all of those powerful benefits and
we forget them in the moment of just doing what
we've always done, which is playing on a computer or
so how do you characterize it with your kids? You
have two kids and they're like right in the sweet
spot of learning about their bodies and food and what's
(27:20):
good and what helps. I have to say, this is
one of the things I'm most proud of in my
life is that so far my daughter's I mean, then
they're eating tents that were on the cusp of anything
could happen, um, But they see w W as a
place to go get stronger. They see food as nourishment
nutrition Now, I mean, they still eat their fair share
(27:41):
of candy and speeds and I you know, I've been
very conscious of trying to find that balance. But I
also really put a lot of emphasis on listen to
your body, how do you feel when you eat that?
And one daughter felt like she didn't feel very good
when she had dairy, so we cut back her dairy
and she felt better. And we're like, Okay, let's run
(28:03):
some experiments and you tell me how you feel. Because
I feel like if I can teach them one thing,
it's to listen to their bodies. Our bodies know so
much more than we give them credit for, and we
we drown them out until they yell at as so
loudly that we're having a heart attack. What is your
take on all of the highly restrictive diets out there now,
(28:24):
the ketogenic diets, the paleo, the whole thirty. How do
you approach those? Because I will say that so many people,
I think, grab onto those diets thinking this will help
me make change in my life, and here we are
at your turns talking about change. I do think sometimes
that's what people are actually hoping for when they say
(28:46):
I'm going to eat in this totally bizarre way for
as long as I possibly can. Yeah, I think the
as long as I possibly can part is the drink
evnit until you collapse on the floor with the chocolate cake. Yeah, yeah,
I think it's about that sustainability. And you know again,
I go back to like the the great satisfaction and
(29:08):
calm that's come out of not having to sort of
yo yo diet for the last eighteen years, and over
time the effects have been cumulative of sort of building
as opposed to I'm gonna go in hard on my
diet project, the I'm gonna go live and then I'm
gonna go hard on my diet project and then I'm
gonna live and all this sort of suffering that that breeds,
(29:31):
and my whole story and philosophy is built around let's
take care of ourselves. Let's love on ourselves in the
way that we expect the world to. Yeah, imagine the
human potential, particularly among women, that would be unlocked if
we could just stop with us, stop with the project dieting. Like,
(29:51):
oh well, I'm certainly feeling healthier after having had this
conversation around us. Thank you so much for being here today,
around us, Thank you for me me as well, and
thanks as always to our producer or at least Heywood
Um listeners If you want to connect with the Rancis,
go to waite watchers dot com. Until next time, H
Road to Somewhere News
Hosts And Creators
Lisa Oz
Jill Herzig
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.