August 20, 2022 • 20 mins
OUTWEIGH: Certified Eating Disorder Specialist & Registered Dietitian, Melissa Giovanni, is our expert for the next 3 weeks! Today’s chat (episode 3 of 3) is about how to handle/ways to recover in a diet obsessed culture! We are surrounded by toxic messages, images, social posts, diet ads, etc... so it's really hard to navigate (even though in 2022 we have rounded a corner and seen some change!) Trying to recover feels like you're swimming upstream at times...but hopefully after listening to this there's less resistance in your path to freedom!
Melissa’s Instagram: @allthefoodsrds
Melissa’s Website: https://balancenutritioncounseling.com/
Melissa Giovanni, MS, RDN, CEDS, LDN is a licensed and registered dietitian in Nashville, TN and owner of Balance Nutrition Counseling, PLLC, a group private practice in Nashville and Murfreesboro, TN. She is also a certified eating disorders specialist. Melissa came to the field of nutrition with a passion for eating disorders treatment. She strives to help people heal their relationship with food and live a life without food rules and judgments. She provides clients with the information, skills, and support to progress in their recovery.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I won't let my body out out everything that I'm
made do, won't spend my life trying to change. I'm
learning to love who I am again. I'm strong, I
feel free, I know who every part of me it
is beautiful. And then will always out with if you
(00:24):
feel it, with joys in the air, She's love to
the boom. There, let's say good day and did you
and die out? Hey? We are back for episode three
or three with Melissa Giovanni. She is a registered dietitian
based in Nashville, the founder of Balanced Nutrition Counseling, and
(00:47):
she is a friend of Captain Fada's who we know
and trust well and I love the work that she's
doing and all of our guests and when they bring
their expertise. The other two episodes where she was on,
if y'all want to go back and listen, if you haven't,
we've talked about living in a toxic environment and how
to handle moments if you're triggered by people that you
(01:08):
have to be around, and then also how to have
a healthy relationship with exercise while you're working on recovery
for yourself. So go back and listen if you missed those,
but now We're just going to talk about diet culture
in general, because it's everywhere. We're diet obsessed. We have
been for decades, and some of us grew up with it.
(01:30):
How old are you, Melissa? Okay, so we're about the same.
I'm forty one, so nineties, fat free fast, like all
kinds of diets and workouts, and it's just it's been well,
pretty toxic for quite some time now. And here we are.
I feel like we're finally rounding a corner and we're
(01:52):
making some progress, but it's going to take some time.
So what advice do you have to offer us that
or trying to navigate this because like every ad that
may pop up or around every corner or a billboard
or a sign or driving by a building. You know.
I mentioned on the last episode that I worked at
a rate last center in college and I would weigh
(02:14):
and measure people. That was my I wasn't a counselor
because I wasn't that level. I think I graduated a
little bit to that point towards the end of my
summer career there, but mostly I would do and take.
I would have to like weigh and measure and then
if their weight and fluctuated. They would come in three
times a week to wag how toxic is that? And
I would have to say, okay, um, did you go
(02:37):
off the eating plan? And then they'd be like, well, yeah,
I had this or I had bad and I and
I'm like and I would write it down like shape,
like okay, well now it's forever in your chart. And
I wish I could call every single one of those
women that I weighed and measured because I was just
doing my job and they were they paid to be there.
It's like they wanted to be there. But this was
(03:00):
the late nineties, the early two thousand's and it was
a very popular weight loss clinic in my college town.
So I have contributed to this diet obsessed, toxic culture.
How can we now navigate It's what do we do?
It's still in our face all the time. Sure, it's
and it is, And like you said, we're kind of
(03:20):
rounding a corner of things are starting to change, but
there's still a lot of work to be done. And also,
we've all I think I can't speak for everyone, but
we've all probably contributed to it at some point or another.
You know, that's just the way this goes until we
know otherwise and have worked on intuitive eating or eating
disorder recovery. I think that eating disorder recovery and working
(03:41):
on intuitive eating in the world and diet obsess culture
that we live in can quite literally feel like you
are swimming upstream while everyone else is going with the current.
So it's super can feel super lonely and isolating if
we don't make an effort to find people who maybe
under stand or who are also working on that, or
(04:02):
who don't diet, even even if they don't even know
what intui eating is or they've never had any disort
of maybe they're just someone in your life who's never dieted.
So trying to surround yourself with those types of people
when possible. Same thing like we've talked about in the
other episodes, to social media, Like you know, any time
I get an ad for a weight loss thing or
a diet thing on my Instagram or Facebook or wherever.
(04:23):
Although I guess like Facebook and like aging myself. I
think a lot of people don't use facebock, but some
people any social media accounts, you know, high item report, um,
whatever you gotta do to like try to not see
those things all the time because I'm a dietician. Probably
what I'm like doing and looking at on my computer,
I feel like I get a lot of ads are
just like random things on the computer for diets and
(04:45):
things like that. So they're definitely still out there, even
though we're starting to change some things, but trying to
avoid those as much as possible. Again, that mantra we
talked about before too, like good for everyone else, I
just I cannot do that. Yeah, that was from our
first chat that we did a couple of weeks ago.
And it's good for you, it's not for me. And
(05:06):
that's something you can just say in your head, like
if it's if somebody else is talking about their amazing
diet and blah blah blah. Because here's the thing with
right now, because the diet industry is getting smarter, they
are learning how to play the game, and they're like, well,
we just can't be this like you know, in your face,
drink two shakes a day, eat a sensible dinner. That's
(05:27):
to diet. We need to be more sneaky about it.
And they are presenting as not a diet, but when
in all actuality, it is a diet. And I think
that in my teenage years, I was first exposed to dieting,
and that was the springboard. I can't say whether or
not I would have fallen into and needing disorder through
(05:51):
other means, but I know through some work, I've been
able to pinpoint when dieting was really introduced to me
and how that shifted my thinking and led to this
obsession with food which led to a binge restrict purge
cycle situation and my brain. I was so young, I
was like four fifteen years old and trying to figure
(06:14):
this out all on my own. But I know on
Instagram you have a whole highlight reel that's dedicated to
E D recovery and I was just flipping through it
and one of the things you posted said preoccupation with
food is a natural side effect of dieting, and I'm like, yes,
I got like I was obsessed. All I thought about
(06:36):
was food, and it was because I had put myself
on a diet and I was restricting and it happened
so early on and I lived with it for decades
that I didn't even know how to even trust my body.
And I know it was dieting that first did that,
because especially that restriction at such a young age too,
and then I had to really work hard in my
(06:59):
late thirties to rewire my diet brain. Yeah, and then
now what sucks is because these diets are now so disguised,
it's messing with with people. So is intuitive eating. This
is a question some people might have. Is that considered
a diet? No? Not the true Like, actually, what into
(07:21):
it of eating is? However, I will say, kind of
like you just mentioned, into a beating, I think is
kind of turning into a diet or people are spinning
it that way. Basically something to watch out for. If
anybody is telling you you'll lose weight within two it
de eating, then that's probably not actually into a de
eating because we don't know. I don't know as a dietitian,
(07:41):
nobody's going to know. A doctor is not going to know.
Into a de beating might cause someone to gain weight,
It might cause someone to stay the same weight. Where
it might cause someone to lose weight just kind of
depends on the person. So a red flag is anybody claiming, yes,
there are some other red flags we can look out
for for diets because again, and yeah, we're in a
diet obsessed culture. It is hard because there are a lot.
(08:04):
I know, there was one diet that came out a
few years ago, or an app or something. A bunch
of people started asking me about and they were like,
well they you know, they're talking about behavioral health and
they're going to change how you feel about food in
your relationship with food. And I was like, oh cool,
what is this app? So I downloaded and looked at
it and it was like I put in my stats
just to see as an example, it was like most
you need to eat X amount of calories and it
was like very low, and I was like, this makes
(08:26):
no sense. This is a diet. And then I started
looking through it and it was basically, like you said,
a diet in disguise that it was just going to
help our relationship with food, which is not true. So
pretty much anything that ever a list that gives the
claim of weight loss, or it's quick, it's fast, it's
you know, anything that has these like really really in
your face kind of claims, it's probably a diet. I know.
(08:50):
It's probably overwhelming for people. And you can again, because
the diet industry is so smart and they do make
so much money. They make a lot of money of us,
and so they're going to find ways to manipulate and
figure out how to still get into Now I'm gonna
age myself and say our pocketbooks. I feel like my
(09:11):
grandma used to say that dotet MoMA, Chris. But they
want to still get into our pocketbooks. And thankfully these
conversations are being had, and there's professionals like you, Melissa
that are changing the game and it's not as easy,
but they're sneaky and so you have to be on
guard and not fall for it. And if there's ever
(09:31):
anything that you're questioning, then hopefully you have an expert
or someone that you can lean into and try to
help decipher whether or not it's something that's going to
be a good fit fit for you. Because as a
registered dietitian, do you put people in recovery on any
type of meal plans or anything like that? As a
(09:55):
registered dietitian, do you put people in recovery on any
type of meal plans or anything like that? Yeah, so
a lot of times, so there's there's kind of like
a hot debate. I think eating to sort of recovery
world and meal plans at the moment, But I personally yes,
if somebody is in early stages of recovery, I think
that they might need a meal plan because they're not
(10:18):
sure how much to eat. They're eating disorders telling them
to only certain things. So it's not a diet by
any means. It's just like a guide to here's how
much food you need to wrap for breakfast, lunch, dinner,
and snacks. It's never a restrictive thing by all means.
But yes, I do make meal plans for clients and
things like that, which, again early on in my recovery,
I think that would have been helpful because I didn't
know I would. I had been messing with my body
(10:40):
for so long. You know, there's some meme or something
that's out there. I know we've mentioned it before, but
I'm going to paraphrase it. It's probably way cut if
I were to look at them and get it right.
But it's like like you said, you don't know what's
going to happen with someone's body once they adopt intuitive eating.
There's no way to guarantee. We are all different shapes
and sizes and we're supposed to be. It's the diet
(11:03):
culture that has said this is a body and if
you've been manipulating, speaking of manipulation, manipulating your body to
be a certain way, like once you let go of
certain things, you don't know what it's going to do.
But the meme is like, you know, I want my
baseline body weight to be whatever it is, where I
can like go to brunch with friends and not care
(11:23):
about what I'm ordered, like I promised. The meme is
probably way cuter than that. I know what you're talking about.
You yes, And it's like, yes, I've seen it a
few times, just posted here and there, and I'm always like, yes,
go to brunch with your friends and don't think about it. Boom,
that's your baseline, Yes, totally, because it is our biologically
(11:44):
appropriate weight. Is probably not the way we quote unquote
want it to be or what our culture has made
us believe is what we want it to be. Which
have you seen the documentary called Victorious Secret and Us
and Demons on Hulu? But I want to watch it
so bad I need you. It's pretty fascinating. I did,
(12:06):
And it's wild to think about what they were able
to do with Victoria's Secret and the company and the
founder creator the men were running it, and how Victoria's
Secret became this kind of character, this British woman and
her name she was Victoria, and this was her secret
(12:26):
and this was her lingerie. But over time she evolved
and she kind of disappeared, and then like it got
sexier and sexier, and then the Angels came on the scene,
and then there was the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, and
then they got Justin Bieber to play the show at
one point, and then the models were dressing up in
very childlike costumes walking down the runway, but it was
(12:49):
very much so to promote their team line, and so
they were marketing towards teenage girls. This is goals, and
it was these women that I don't even know the
stats of, like a supermodel like that. But it's sort
of like, you know, if your child is like I
want to be in the NFL, You're like, Okay, that's cute.
Good luck, Like I'm not gonna happen. And it's like,
(13:11):
so then you have all these teenage girls looking at
the screen like, oh, I wanna why my body doesn't
look like that? What's wrong with me? Now? I need
to like make it look like that. But they were
they were geniuses and that they were like, we got
a hook them and hook them young, and so we're
going to book Justin Bieber and then have girls, you know,
prance down the runway and like a tricycle and stuff
(13:32):
that just seemed very bubbly and young. It's actually sick.
If you watch it, you're like some of the women
that were working at the company, they just were appalled
at some of the things that came across their desk
and they're just very confused and how the men who
were really running it would always like to claim, well,
(13:53):
we've got women's CEO s over this branch, this branch,
this branch, but really these men were above I'm calling
the shots. Anyway, the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show is no more.
It is not. They have canceled it. And Victoria's Secret
did not want to budge and lean into diversity on
(14:14):
their runway. They're like, this is how a woman's body looks. Sorry,
good luck. But now they've been forced to rebrand because
their way, thankfully, isn't working anymore, and women are speaking
up and they're like that is just not attainable. And
plus they you know, they knew they were air brushing
all kinds of models in their magazines and it was
(14:34):
just crazy. And then part of the documentary they bring
up Rihanna's line and how she was when she introduced
her Lingerie line. Her lineup of models was extremely diverse
and had all different types of bodies and shapes and
colors and all the things, and it was really cool.
And Victoria's Secret was like, yeah, okay, good luck with that.
(14:55):
And then now they're rebranding and they have they don't
They got rid of their angel and now they have
like Victoria's Secret, like collective group and it's diverse. It's
got all different kinds of people. So you know they're rebranding,
but those are the images we grew up seeing, like
that's what was in our face, and so it's not
(15:15):
just diets that are in our face, it's the images
of what society has said we're supposed to look like.
And it really sucks because it had nobody ever done that,
then we would all be or people, some people, everyone
hopefully as a whole, would be more accepting. It would
just be the norm. They wouldn't even need to be acceptance.
(15:38):
It would be like, oh, this is it is cool exactly.
It's crazy the stuff that we've like grew up looking
at Have you seen those um images of like the
pictures of Jessica Simpson and like people that like certain
images of and they, the tabloids all said she was
so fat at the time, but look at she looks
like a normal human being. Oh yes, the mom jeans had.
(15:59):
Did you read her book? No? I didn't. Oh good,
And she shares her roller coaster with body image and
that you know, you would think looking at Jessica Simpson
by you know, society standards like what the old? Why?
Why would she have issues? But she went into her
record label and she was I don't know, she was
(16:21):
a teenager. I can't remember the exact age. It's been
a couple of years since I read the book, but
let's call it fifteen sixteen years old. And her label
was like, all right, cool, love, everything looking good, but
you're probably gonna need to lose about ten pounds. And
she is so short and tiny. And so then began
her journey of complete insecurity and trying to chase this
look because you know her late the men her label
(16:44):
and these guys running the show are like, this is
what we want to see on stage, so get it going. Terrible.
I'm looking up the book so that I can tell
y'all in case you haven't read it. And I don't
know why the name. It's called Open Book, that's what
it's called, and it it is really good. She share
some juicy details about John Mayor two very interesting life
(17:07):
and in the Victoria's Secret documentary too, they go into
Jeffrey Epstein, which is a whole not another thing that I,
you know, have been very into podcast wise and just
a total sick oh. And so he's intertwined with the
CEO of Victoria's Secret. So in the Founder it's crazy. Okay,
(17:29):
I'm gonna close out with some body image mantras that
you posted on Instagram if y'all want to follow Melissa.
Her handle is all the Foods s r d S.
And the last episode we were trying to make up
or at least I was some of my own mantras
around exercise, and so I thought, oh, yeah, these are
some good mantras to keith in your back pocket in
(17:49):
case you know, you run into some diet culture talk.
You are in a strip mall and uh, you know
there's a diet place that's kind of like trying to
lure you in or whatever, like these are things you
can just remind yourself. And again, Melissa posted this cute
little graphic on Instagram body image mantras. My body deserves
(18:10):
love and respect. My body is beautiful just as it is.
I celebrate my body's changes. My body is strong and capable.
I honor my body with nourishing foods. I am grateful
for the nourishing choices I make today. So there you go.
Six mantras for you to have, and they're way better
(18:32):
than the ones I'm just trying to make up last week.
You had some good ones, you know. I was just
trying to find a few words that rhyme, which now
I see that they don't have to rhyme. They just
have to like be something like quick, concise to the point,
and something that you can repeat to yourself or maybe
even right down and put on your bathroom mirror, post
it notes, journal them, whatever you can do to put
(18:55):
this into your brain as much as possible. My body
deserves love and respect. My body deserves love and respect.
And you could write that over and over, sort of
like you're in trouble at school. In the day. I
journal a lot, and sometimes it will be something just
over and over so that I see it, I feel it.
It's like coming a part of me. And it takes
telling yourself something. Sometimes are doing an action or thinking
(19:18):
a thought thousands of times, so you would be surprised
how long it takes for you to start to build
that new neural pathways. So be gentle with yourself. Absolutely,
and um, Melissa, thanks for the spending the last three
weeks with us. Yeah. Thanks, Amy, I appreciate it. I
love it. Yeah, I appreciate the work that you're doing.
(19:38):
And say your practice one more time in case people
want to check it out. It's based in Nashville, though,
do you all do any virtual or mostly in person? Yeah?
We do virtual and then we have an office in
Nashville and Murphysboro. Okay cool. And it's Balance Nutrition Counseling
dot com. And you can read about their story and
their services and different resources is it's all their Balance
(20:01):
Nutrition Counseling dot com. Thanks Melissa, awesome. Thanks to Amy
M
I won't let my body out out everything that I'm
made do, won't spend my life trying to change. I'm
learning to love who I am again. I'm strong, I
feel free, I know who every part of me it
is beautiful. And then will always out with if you
(00:24):
feel it, with joys in the air, She's love to
the boom. There, let's say good day and did you
and die out? Hey? We are back for episode three
or three with Melissa Giovanni. She is a registered dietitian
based in Nashville, the founder of Balanced Nutrition Counseling, and
(00:47):
she is a friend of Captain Fada's who we know
and trust well and I love the work that she's
doing and all of our guests and when they bring
their expertise. The other two episodes where she was on,
if y'all want to go back and listen, if you haven't,
we've talked about living in a toxic environment and how
to handle moments if you're triggered by people that you
(01:08):
have to be around, and then also how to have
a healthy relationship with exercise while you're working on recovery
for yourself. So go back and listen if you missed those,
but now We're just going to talk about diet culture
in general, because it's everywhere. We're diet obsessed. We have
been for decades, and some of us grew up with it.
(01:30):
How old are you, Melissa? Okay, so we're about the same.
I'm forty one, so nineties, fat free fast, like all
kinds of diets and workouts, and it's just it's been well,
pretty toxic for quite some time now. And here we are.
I feel like we're finally rounding a corner and we're
(01:52):
making some progress, but it's going to take some time.
So what advice do you have to offer us that
or trying to navigate this because like every ad that
may pop up or around every corner or a billboard
or a sign or driving by a building. You know.
I mentioned on the last episode that I worked at
a rate last center in college and I would weigh
(02:14):
and measure people. That was my I wasn't a counselor
because I wasn't that level. I think I graduated a
little bit to that point towards the end of my
summer career there, but mostly I would do and take.
I would have to like weigh and measure and then
if their weight and fluctuated. They would come in three
times a week to wag how toxic is that? And
I would have to say, okay, um, did you go
(02:37):
off the eating plan? And then they'd be like, well, yeah,
I had this or I had bad and I and
I'm like and I would write it down like shape,
like okay, well now it's forever in your chart. And
I wish I could call every single one of those
women that I weighed and measured because I was just
doing my job and they were they paid to be there.
It's like they wanted to be there. But this was
(03:00):
the late nineties, the early two thousand's and it was
a very popular weight loss clinic in my college town.
So I have contributed to this diet obsessed, toxic culture.
How can we now navigate It's what do we do?
It's still in our face all the time. Sure, it's
and it is, And like you said, we're kind of
(03:20):
rounding a corner of things are starting to change, but
there's still a lot of work to be done. And also,
we've all I think I can't speak for everyone, but
we've all probably contributed to it at some point or another.
You know, that's just the way this goes until we
know otherwise and have worked on intuitive eating or eating
disorder recovery. I think that eating disorder recovery and working
(03:41):
on intuitive eating in the world and diet obsess culture
that we live in can quite literally feel like you
are swimming upstream while everyone else is going with the current.
So it's super can feel super lonely and isolating if
we don't make an effort to find people who maybe
under stand or who are also working on that, or
(04:02):
who don't diet, even even if they don't even know
what intui eating is or they've never had any disort
of maybe they're just someone in your life who's never dieted.
So trying to surround yourself with those types of people
when possible. Same thing like we've talked about in the
other episodes, to social media, Like you know, any time
I get an ad for a weight loss thing or
a diet thing on my Instagram or Facebook or wherever.
(04:23):
Although I guess like Facebook and like aging myself. I
think a lot of people don't use facebock, but some
people any social media accounts, you know, high item report, um,
whatever you gotta do to like try to not see
those things all the time because I'm a dietician. Probably
what I'm like doing and looking at on my computer,
I feel like I get a lot of ads are
just like random things on the computer for diets and
(04:45):
things like that. So they're definitely still out there, even
though we're starting to change some things, but trying to
avoid those as much as possible. Again, that mantra we
talked about before too, like good for everyone else, I
just I cannot do that. Yeah, that was from our
first chat that we did a couple of weeks ago.
And it's good for you, it's not for me. And
(05:06):
that's something you can just say in your head, like
if it's if somebody else is talking about their amazing
diet and blah blah blah. Because here's the thing with
right now, because the diet industry is getting smarter, they
are learning how to play the game, and they're like, well,
we just can't be this like you know, in your face,
drink two shakes a day, eat a sensible dinner. That's
(05:27):
to diet. We need to be more sneaky about it.
And they are presenting as not a diet, but when
in all actuality, it is a diet. And I think
that in my teenage years, I was first exposed to dieting,
and that was the springboard. I can't say whether or
not I would have fallen into and needing disorder through
(05:51):
other means, but I know through some work, I've been
able to pinpoint when dieting was really introduced to me
and how that shifted my thinking and led to this
obsession with food which led to a binge restrict purge
cycle situation and my brain. I was so young, I
was like four fifteen years old and trying to figure
(06:14):
this out all on my own. But I know on
Instagram you have a whole highlight reel that's dedicated to
E D recovery and I was just flipping through it
and one of the things you posted said preoccupation with
food is a natural side effect of dieting, and I'm like, yes,
I got like I was obsessed. All I thought about
(06:36):
was food, and it was because I had put myself
on a diet and I was restricting and it happened
so early on and I lived with it for decades
that I didn't even know how to even trust my body.
And I know it was dieting that first did that,
because especially that restriction at such a young age too,
and then I had to really work hard in my
(06:59):
late thirties to rewire my diet brain. Yeah, and then
now what sucks is because these diets are now so disguised,
it's messing with with people. So is intuitive eating. This
is a question some people might have. Is that considered
a diet? No? Not the true Like, actually, what into
(07:21):
it of eating is? However, I will say, kind of
like you just mentioned, into a beating, I think is
kind of turning into a diet or people are spinning
it that way. Basically something to watch out for. If
anybody is telling you you'll lose weight within two it
de eating, then that's probably not actually into a de
eating because we don't know. I don't know as a dietitian,
(07:41):
nobody's going to know. A doctor is not going to know.
Into a de beating might cause someone to gain weight,
It might cause someone to stay the same weight. Where
it might cause someone to lose weight just kind of
depends on the person. So a red flag is anybody claiming, yes,
there are some other red flags we can look out
for for diets because again, and yeah, we're in a
diet obsessed culture. It is hard because there are a lot.
(08:04):
I know, there was one diet that came out a
few years ago, or an app or something. A bunch
of people started asking me about and they were like,
well they you know, they're talking about behavioral health and
they're going to change how you feel about food in
your relationship with food. And I was like, oh cool,
what is this app? So I downloaded and looked at
it and it was like I put in my stats
just to see as an example, it was like most
you need to eat X amount of calories and it
was like very low, and I was like, this makes
(08:26):
no sense. This is a diet. And then I started
looking through it and it was basically, like you said,
a diet in disguise that it was just going to
help our relationship with food, which is not true. So
pretty much anything that ever a list that gives the
claim of weight loss, or it's quick, it's fast, it's
you know, anything that has these like really really in
your face kind of claims, it's probably a diet. I know.
(08:50):
It's probably overwhelming for people. And you can again, because
the diet industry is so smart and they do make
so much money. They make a lot of money of us,
and so they're going to find ways to manipulate and
figure out how to still get into Now I'm gonna
age myself and say our pocketbooks. I feel like my
(09:11):
grandma used to say that dotet MoMA, Chris. But they
want to still get into our pocketbooks. And thankfully these
conversations are being had, and there's professionals like you, Melissa
that are changing the game and it's not as easy,
but they're sneaky and so you have to be on
guard and not fall for it. And if there's ever
(09:31):
anything that you're questioning, then hopefully you have an expert
or someone that you can lean into and try to
help decipher whether or not it's something that's going to
be a good fit fit for you. Because as a
registered dietitian, do you put people in recovery on any
type of meal plans or anything like that? As a
(09:55):
registered dietitian, do you put people in recovery on any
type of meal plans or anything like that? Yeah, so
a lot of times, so there's there's kind of like
a hot debate. I think eating to sort of recovery
world and meal plans at the moment, But I personally yes,
if somebody is in early stages of recovery, I think
that they might need a meal plan because they're not
(10:18):
sure how much to eat. They're eating disorders telling them
to only certain things. So it's not a diet by
any means. It's just like a guide to here's how
much food you need to wrap for breakfast, lunch, dinner,
and snacks. It's never a restrictive thing by all means.
But yes, I do make meal plans for clients and
things like that, which, again early on in my recovery,
I think that would have been helpful because I didn't
know I would. I had been messing with my body
(10:40):
for so long. You know, there's some meme or something
that's out there. I know we've mentioned it before, but
I'm going to paraphrase it. It's probably way cut if
I were to look at them and get it right.
But it's like like you said, you don't know what's
going to happen with someone's body once they adopt intuitive eating.
There's no way to guarantee. We are all different shapes
and sizes and we're supposed to be. It's the diet
(11:03):
culture that has said this is a body and if
you've been manipulating, speaking of manipulation, manipulating your body to
be a certain way, like once you let go of
certain things, you don't know what it's going to do.
But the meme is like, you know, I want my
baseline body weight to be whatever it is, where I
can like go to brunch with friends and not care
(11:23):
about what I'm ordered, like I promised. The meme is
probably way cuter than that. I know what you're talking about.
You yes, And it's like, yes, I've seen it a
few times, just posted here and there, and I'm always like, yes,
go to brunch with your friends and don't think about it. Boom,
that's your baseline, Yes, totally, because it is our biologically
(11:44):
appropriate weight. Is probably not the way we quote unquote
want it to be or what our culture has made
us believe is what we want it to be. Which
have you seen the documentary called Victorious Secret and Us
and Demons on Hulu? But I want to watch it
so bad I need you. It's pretty fascinating. I did,
(12:06):
And it's wild to think about what they were able
to do with Victoria's Secret and the company and the
founder creator the men were running it, and how Victoria's
Secret became this kind of character, this British woman and
her name she was Victoria, and this was her secret
(12:26):
and this was her lingerie. But over time she evolved
and she kind of disappeared, and then like it got
sexier and sexier, and then the Angels came on the scene,
and then there was the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, and
then they got Justin Bieber to play the show at
one point, and then the models were dressing up in
very childlike costumes walking down the runway, but it was
(12:49):
very much so to promote their team line, and so
they were marketing towards teenage girls. This is goals, and
it was these women that I don't even know the
stats of, like a supermodel like that. But it's sort
of like, you know, if your child is like I
want to be in the NFL, You're like, Okay, that's cute.
Good luck, Like I'm not gonna happen. And it's like,
(13:11):
so then you have all these teenage girls looking at
the screen like, oh, I wanna why my body doesn't
look like that? What's wrong with me? Now? I need
to like make it look like that. But they were
they were geniuses and that they were like, we got
a hook them and hook them young, and so we're
going to book Justin Bieber and then have girls, you know,
prance down the runway and like a tricycle and stuff
(13:32):
that just seemed very bubbly and young. It's actually sick.
If you watch it, you're like some of the women
that were working at the company, they just were appalled
at some of the things that came across their desk
and they're just very confused and how the men who
were really running it would always like to claim, well,
(13:53):
we've got women's CEO s over this branch, this branch,
this branch, but really these men were above I'm calling
the shots. Anyway, the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show is no more.
It is not. They have canceled it. And Victoria's Secret
did not want to budge and lean into diversity on
(14:14):
their runway. They're like, this is how a woman's body looks. Sorry,
good luck. But now they've been forced to rebrand because
their way, thankfully, isn't working anymore, and women are speaking
up and they're like that is just not attainable. And
plus they you know, they knew they were air brushing
all kinds of models in their magazines and it was
(14:34):
just crazy. And then part of the documentary they bring
up Rihanna's line and how she was when she introduced
her Lingerie line. Her lineup of models was extremely diverse
and had all different types of bodies and shapes and
colors and all the things, and it was really cool.
And Victoria's Secret was like, yeah, okay, good luck with that.
(14:55):
And then now they're rebranding and they have they don't
They got rid of their angel and now they have
like Victoria's Secret, like collective group and it's diverse. It's
got all different kinds of people. So you know they're rebranding,
but those are the images we grew up seeing, like
that's what was in our face, and so it's not
(15:15):
just diets that are in our face, it's the images
of what society has said we're supposed to look like.
And it really sucks because it had nobody ever done that,
then we would all be or people, some people, everyone
hopefully as a whole, would be more accepting. It would
just be the norm. They wouldn't even need to be acceptance.
(15:38):
It would be like, oh, this is it is cool exactly.
It's crazy the stuff that we've like grew up looking
at Have you seen those um images of like the
pictures of Jessica Simpson and like people that like certain
images of and they, the tabloids all said she was
so fat at the time, but look at she looks
like a normal human being. Oh yes, the mom jeans had.
(15:59):
Did you read her book? No? I didn't. Oh good,
And she shares her roller coaster with body image and
that you know, you would think looking at Jessica Simpson
by you know, society standards like what the old? Why?
Why would she have issues? But she went into her
record label and she was I don't know, she was
(16:21):
a teenager. I can't remember the exact age. It's been
a couple of years since I read the book, but
let's call it fifteen sixteen years old. And her label
was like, all right, cool, love, everything looking good, but
you're probably gonna need to lose about ten pounds. And
she is so short and tiny. And so then began
her journey of complete insecurity and trying to chase this
look because you know her late the men her label
(16:44):
and these guys running the show are like, this is
what we want to see on stage, so get it going. Terrible.
I'm looking up the book so that I can tell
y'all in case you haven't read it. And I don't
know why the name. It's called Open Book, that's what
it's called, and it it is really good. She share
some juicy details about John Mayor two very interesting life
(17:07):
and in the Victoria's Secret documentary too, they go into
Jeffrey Epstein, which is a whole not another thing that I,
you know, have been very into podcast wise and just
a total sick oh. And so he's intertwined with the
CEO of Victoria's Secret. So in the Founder it's crazy. Okay,
(17:29):
I'm gonna close out with some body image mantras that
you posted on Instagram if y'all want to follow Melissa.
Her handle is all the Foods s r d S.
And the last episode we were trying to make up
or at least I was some of my own mantras
around exercise, and so I thought, oh, yeah, these are
some good mantras to keith in your back pocket in
(17:49):
case you know, you run into some diet culture talk.
You are in a strip mall and uh, you know
there's a diet place that's kind of like trying to
lure you in or whatever, like these are things you
can just remind yourself. And again, Melissa posted this cute
little graphic on Instagram body image mantras. My body deserves
(18:10):
love and respect. My body is beautiful just as it is.
I celebrate my body's changes. My body is strong and capable.
I honor my body with nourishing foods. I am grateful
for the nourishing choices I make today. So there you go.
Six mantras for you to have, and they're way better
(18:32):
than the ones I'm just trying to make up last week.
You had some good ones, you know. I was just
trying to find a few words that rhyme, which now
I see that they don't have to rhyme. They just
have to like be something like quick, concise to the point,
and something that you can repeat to yourself or maybe
even right down and put on your bathroom mirror, post
it notes, journal them, whatever you can do to put
(18:55):
this into your brain as much as possible. My body
deserves love and respect. My body deserves love and respect.
And you could write that over and over, sort of
like you're in trouble at school. In the day. I
journal a lot, and sometimes it will be something just
over and over so that I see it, I feel it.
It's like coming a part of me. And it takes
telling yourself something. Sometimes are doing an action or thinking
(19:18):
a thought thousands of times, so you would be surprised
how long it takes for you to start to build
that new neural pathways. So be gentle with yourself. Absolutely,
and um, Melissa, thanks for the spending the last three
weeks with us. Yeah. Thanks, Amy, I appreciate it. I
love it. Yeah, I appreciate the work that you're doing.
(19:38):
And say your practice one more time in case people
want to check it out. It's based in Nashville, though,
do you all do any virtual or mostly in person? Yeah?
We do virtual and then we have an office in
Nashville and Murphysboro. Okay cool. And it's Balance Nutrition Counseling
dot com. And you can read about their story and
their services and different resources is it's all their Balance
(20:01):
Nutrition Counseling dot com. Thanks Melissa, awesome. Thanks to Amy
M
Feeling Things with Amy & Kat News
Host
Amy Brown
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