January 30, 2021 • 30 mins
Gabi (@gabikahn.rd) has a life mission: to help moms with young daughters create a positive relationship with food & their body so they can end the cycle of diet and despair. A lot of our personal body shaming rhetoric and food fears stem from learned behavior in childhood, BUT, It's never too late to flip the script! Whether you're a mom/parent or NOT, what we do today can positively influences future generations.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I won't lend my body out, me out everything that
I'm made do. Won't spend my life trying to change.
I'm learning to love who I am. I get I'm strong,
I feel free, I know who every part of me.
It's beautiful and I will always out with if you
(00:24):
feel it with yours in there, she'll love to the boom.
I am there. Let's say good day and did you
and die out? Hey? Amy, Here for a quick little
intro with my thirteen year old daughter stas Shira, because
today's episode focuses on mother daughter relationships. But really you
(00:47):
don't have to be a mom to gain insight from
this episode. You might be an adult with no kids,
but you're a daughter who grew up with a mom
that had unhealthy rhetoric or found her body or unhealthy
relationship with food, and now you have to deal with
that as an adult, because you know, when we learned
(01:09):
it as kids often sticks with us and it's hard
to shake. And I started dieting early. On Stashira's here,
she's in seventh grade. I probably started dieting in eight
or ninth grade, which is crazy. If Stashia came home
and wanted to be on a diet. I don't even
know what I would do. I would think, what No,
But it was just normal, I feel like for us
(01:31):
back then, like it was just something that we did,
especially in high school. Like I tried every diet under
the sun, and my mom didn't really talk to me
about how that might not be healthy. Now, I carried
my unhealthy diet habits with me all the way until
a couple of years ago, or maybe not even maybe
a year and a half ago. For being fully transparent.
(01:51):
So Stashira has been in my life or at least
here in America. Adopted her from Haiti and she got
here about three years ago. And so have you seen
a difference in me your mom when it comes to
food in our house in the last few years, like
from when you arrived to now, Yes, I have. And
do you do you like the new way that I
(02:13):
am with food? Yes? Yes? What does that allow for? You?
Allow for me to eat whatever I want? And we
can keep certain foods in the house that I used
to never allow. And so that was part of my problem.
I thought, if I had candy in the house for
my kids, then I would eat all the candy. If
we had oreos in the house, I was going to
(02:34):
eat all the oreos, so therefore they couldn't have candy
and oreos because I couldn't have candy and oreos. And
also I had lumped my foods into categories of good
and bad. And now we have been working very hard,
and when I say we, I mean mostly me, and
I've been trying to undo some stuff that I have
(02:55):
put upon my kids, especially when they first got here,
and we're neutralized seeing food. Now. Of course, I want
to teach my kids about nutrition and certain vitamins and
nutrients that their body needs, and we try to have
diversity when we're building our plates. But I am not
going to freak out about certain things that I used
to and STA shared. Do you remember the time I
(03:17):
freaked out about the candy at church? Wasn't that crazy sneaking? Oh?
So see what I caused. I mean, that's a good
point that you bring up, Like I was restricting my
kids from even having certain food freedoms because of my
own fears, and then that caused her to have to
sneak things. And we do that to ourselves. Your kids
(03:39):
may start to sneak things, but then even you, when
you restrict you start to have sneaky things that you
do to get food for yourself. So I just hope
that you all really enjoy this conversation that you're about
to hear that Lisa and I did with Gabby, who
is a non diet dietitian who has made it her
life's mission to help moms with young daughter create a
(04:01):
positive relationship with food and their body so that you know,
we can end the cycle of diet and despair. And
a lot of our personal body shaming rhetoric and our
healthy relationships with food came from what we learn as
kids are healthy or unhealthy relationships, and stuff we picked
up when we were little. But it's never too late
(04:22):
to flip the script. So whether you're a mom, a parent,
or not, I will say that what you're going to
hear today will positively influence future generations. And that's the goal.
We want to protect our daughters or sons and all
future generations from the dangerous rhetoric that a lot of
(04:43):
us grew up with and that actually you see in
society still every day everywhere we're inundated with diet culture messages.
So we hope to change that, and we're doing it
one episode at a time. Here on outweighs. So I
hope you enjoy our chat with Gavy, and thank you
Stashira for joining me in the intro. And this is
when you say thank you mom for changing your ways
(05:05):
with food. Thank you Mom, but gender no way with food.
You're welcome. Hey, Gaby, We're so pumped to have you
here with us today. Thank you so much for having me.
I'm really excited to be here. I feel like a
good way to introduce you to people is I pulled
up an Instagram post that you put up maybe a
couple of days ago or a couple of weeks ago,
(05:25):
depending on when someone is listening to this. What you
hit resonated with me, and I was like, okay, this
way people can understand where you're coming from and then
where you are now. So what you put in the
caption was I remember the days when I thought I
was the epitome of health. I woke up at five
am every day to go to the gym for my
cycle class. I had strict food rules. The list of
(05:47):
foods I could not eat was so long that I
thought it was healthy. I never went out for dinner
because I had no control over how the food was cooked.
I missed out on social events because health comes first.
I weighed myself every day because that was disciplined. And
the post goes on and it's longer, and I encourage
people to go to your Instagram and check it out.
(06:07):
But I really feel like for so many people, that
right there is how they define being quote unquote healthy.
So how long ago was that you? And then where
are you now? And what are you doing to help
other people, specifically moms so that we don't pass this
on to the next generation. Yeah, so that version of
(06:27):
myself was probably about six or seven years ago, and
that was actually the time when I thought I was
the best version of myself, as I kind of say
in that post. But my history of dieting started way
before then too, It started at the age of ten.
So really at that point in my life, that's kind
of what I thought health was. I thought health was
going your exercise class every single day, stepping on and
(06:50):
off the scale, and really being strict with your food choices.
And I thought that was the best version of me.
I thought I wasn't diet it because this was just
a healthy lifestyle. So for anybody who may be feeling
this way. Now, who kind of thinks that they are
the epitome of health, that they are following those strict
food rules, that they're exercising daily, that they have the
discipline or the willpower. The truth is, in a sense,
(07:11):
it isn't a healthy lifestyle. It's kind of an obsession
that is out of our control in a sense, because
we are so into this health I just feel like
I could have written that, so I really resonate with
those words, And it was also a nice check in
to kind of remember, you know, how our ideas of
health have changed over time, and to kind of reflect
back on what we used to check off as health
(07:31):
and this beautiful new reframe that involves honoring ourselves. And
I think it's just super important to recognize that even
when you stop dieting, you could still be holding onto
new quote unquote health behaviors that are still not healthy.
I think the end of that post is when I
thought I was the healthiest, I was actually the least healthy,
recognizing the mental component and the stress and the rigidity
(07:53):
that kind of went into that life. I don't want
a gloss over the fact that you said you started
dieting at ten years old, talk to us about that,
because I know a lot of our listeners were introduced
to dieting at a young age, some not, but for me,
ten seems extremely young, so I'm definitely curious. Absolutely. So
I grew up with a mother who died it, so
(08:14):
by the age of six, I started to recognize the
idea that you step on the scale, you see a number,
you don't like, the number, you get off, you look
in the mirror, you either pinch some part of your
body or you say negative things about your body in
the mirror, and then you go downstairs and you go
in the cabinets and you throw out all the food
you don't think you can have anymore because of this
new diet plan. So starting at six years old, I
was starting to get those ideas. And then at ten
(08:35):
years old, for my checking with my pediatrician, they let
me know I gained way too much weight in a year.
It was a red flag. And this is a while ago.
So at that point too, they were saying, this is
before you get your menstrual cycle. As soon as you
get your menstrual cycle, you cannot lose weight. It is
very difficult. You need to lose the weight now. So
the way. My mother thought she was protecting me, and
I don't blame her for this at all. I know
(08:56):
she was doing this out of love and protection. Was
she got me with the nutritionist and put me a
diet plan. At the age of ten, I was calorie counting,
I was portioning at my food, and I was traveling
everywhere with my green lunch box, which I vividly remember
because I missed out on so many events, so many sleepovers,
graduation parties, just because I couldn't eat the food there
and it was too tough to be around. At that
(09:16):
age two, I had teachers even complimenting me at graduation
parties for my discipline and my willpower. I had friends
coming up to me saying that they understand what I'm
going through. Their moms have gone through the same thing.
They know how angry they can get when they can't
have the food. And it kind of was just instilled
at me from the age of ten that we have
to be so careful about the size of our body.
Our worth comes from our body size, and the foods
(09:36):
that we eat affect our body so much. So that's
kind of when this like dieting started and kind of
leads this very unhealthy obsession with food in my body. Okay,
so then when did you decide you were going to
make it your mission with method? And I want you
to tell us what that stands for, because it's an acronym.
When did you decide? Okay? Now I want to help
(09:57):
others not repeat this cycle. So method stands for moms
eating to help overcome diets and disorders. And it actually
kind of started around like my late teenage year. So
one fun fact abound me is that my sister and
I have an eleven year age gap. So my sister
and I have always had this relationship where we're kind
of sisters, but my mom and I have always viewed
ourselves as co parents because I lost my father at
(10:19):
a very young age. So around the age when I
was about fifteen, so she was around four, I saw
her go into the mirror and pinch her stomach and
say that she was fat and then suck in her belly.
And that was kind of when I had this first
light up moment that my behaviors were already starting to
affect the next generation. Even though she is my sister,
(10:39):
we still have a little bit of a mother daughter
bond and the age gap is so big that I
could already see that my grandmother's diet habits affected my mother,
My mother's diet habits have affected me, and now my
diet habits have potentially affected my sister. And at the
age of four, she's looking in the mirror and she's
tearing apart her body. Then how is she going to
feel ten years from now. I knew at that point
that I had to change my actions, my behavior, my language,
(11:02):
my relationship with my body in order for me to
help her, and also so that I don't affect anybody
else in a way, whether it's cousins, family friends, from
having that really unhealthy relationship with food in their body.
I couldn't let her suffer and go through the things
that I had went through as a child just because
I was so obsessed with food in my body. And
I think it's really important that we also just kind
of zoom out to recognize that it's not just diet,
(11:24):
it's body image. So it wasn't even her relationship to
food in that moment, but rather the action of calling
herself fat that really alerted you as to, oh, no,
this is a problem, yeah, exactly. And the funny thing
is like, I don't even know if she knew what
that word really meant at that time. Either she just
saw me. It's the same thing that mother daughter relationship.
You see your mother stand the mirror, you see her
(11:46):
pinch some part of her body and say a word
or something, and then you just pick up the habits.
And that's exactly what she did. She saw my relationship
with her body. She mimiced the exact thing. And I think,
being the older person, that scenario like what many moms
may see if this is their kids were doing that
all of a sudden, this moment lights up and you're like,
oh my gosh, my habits are being passed down. How
do I stop this now? Kudos to you for recognizing
(12:07):
that at fifteen years old. Yeah, I mean, I will
admit it's a process. It's not this overnight thing where
I stapped my fingers and my relationship with food in
my body as healed, because as we spoke about too,
like I had the obsession with health later down the
line because I thought that was healthier, but it really
clicked in at that young age though that this is
a problem. How do I kind of solve this now?
(12:27):
And that's why I think, you know, going back to
so many episodes ago when we talked about our values,
I forget which expert we had on and we really
drilled that point home Amy. It was in Outweigh Season one,
was when you are living in line with your values,
you're living from a less self centered place. So it's
very clear that maybe because of the loss of your
father and you really stepped into the role of parenting
(12:49):
very young, that what came before you and even your weight,
even though your mom had an influence on you, and
that you were told that that was the most important
thing your soul was has always been very connected to
helping your sister, and without taking time to clarify that
and recognize it, it was like your values really stepped
up for you. And that's really important to anyone listening
(13:11):
who maybe hasn't thought about what they value, and therefore
the things they don't value are getting in the way
of the things that they do value and causing this
incongruency inside. So my values changed significantly in the last
three years. But again I would have defined myself as
a healthy person. I became a mom three years ago,
but to an older child we adopted, so my daughter
(13:34):
was ten, So it's not like I had a baby
and had time to work through stuff and then figure
out how I wanted to parent. She arrived into my
life at an age where she was absorbing everything and
she's very smart, and I thought, oh wow, I am
super healthy. My kids aren't going to have gluten. They're
not going to have candy. I would get so frustrated
(13:56):
if a stranger would give them candy. I remember the
first we took them to church, they went to their
Sunday school and they came out with these candy bags
and I almost had a panic attack because I couldn't
believe they gave them a bag of candy without asking
me the new mom. I mean, I freaked out, But
it was really my issue about with me, not for
my kids. And that's one thing that is significantly different
(14:20):
and how I parent. I also prioritized working out over
spending time with them because that was part of my
healthy lifestyle, that was part of my routine, and I
was gonna be better mentally for them. And so now
I show up for them before workout, hands down every time.
And now we have tons of candy in our pantry
(14:40):
and it's awesome. It's such a freeing feeling when you
can keep all these previously forbidden foods in your house again,
and no, you're not going to be out of control
with it. But there's one thing that you said that
I really want to highly onto is that so many times,
like I am not a mother yet, but for many
of the moms that I worked, was similar to what
you were saying. We want to do the best buy
our kids. We think that a limiting in the gluten,
being rid of the candy, you know, whatever it may be,
(15:01):
is a way of protecting our kids, way of showing
them love, and way of helping them fit into society
what the norms are. And it's really important to remember
there is no shame, there's no negative feelings, there's no
guilt associated with it. You were doing everything you can
in your power to protect your kids and it's from
a sense of love. But sometimes, as you were saying, now,
like you step back and realize and that your workouts
came before, or that you were too nervous about the
(15:22):
glue or the candy or whatever it may be. And
it's just really important to remember that moms don't have
mom manuals. We learn as we go and we kind
of learn from all these things as well to be
the best versions of ourselves, to heal our relationship with
food and our body, and to protect our kids. I'm
gonna go back to Instagram because there's another post that
I pulled up, and if people follow you, what I
I love that they're going to get from you or
these post it notes that you put up, these blue
(15:45):
posted notes, they're scattered all about and they have great
little things on their quotes or just a prompt or
a question. And something that you put up was you
will constantly be unhappy if you keep telling yourself that
happiness comes when you are ten pounds lighter. How can
you learn to be happy in your body now if
you are making happiness of feeling determined by weight loss.
(16:10):
I think so many times that we just focus so
much on weight loss that as soon as we lose
the weight will be happy. As soon as we fit
into our pre baby jeans, as soon as we lose
five to ten pounds, we're gonna be happy again. We're
gonna get our life back. We're gonna be able to
focus as a parent, be present with our kids, take
photos at Disneyland, go to the beach and a bathing
to whatever it may be. But it's everything is determined
by losing this weight. And the idea is, how can
(16:32):
we feel good in the body we are in now,
even if you are in a larger body, whatever size
body you may be in, how can you appreciate love
and learn to accept the body you're in so you
can be present as a mother, so you can take
all those photos that you can run on the beach,
whatever it may be. It's just it breaks my heart
so many times when I see people just waiting until
we lose the weight to take action on life now.
So I have two questions. You have created a brilliant
(16:54):
business around helping moms really m the cycle of dieting
so that they don't pass it down to their daughter.
The first question I have, because you're so vocal about
your relationship with your mom and how she had an
impact on your relationship to food and body image, how
does your relationship now that you kind of go out
publicly and tell this story. How are how are you
(17:14):
able to have a conversation clearly, very healthfully so that
she doesn't feel shameful. I think one of the really
important things is I always say that. I never blame
my mother, and I never think any of this was
her fault. She grew up in a household with a
mother who died. This is normal. This is just what
she thought was normal. She was doing this protect me
and love me. So my mother knows with everything that
I talked about, it's not ever coming from a place
(17:37):
of she did this to me. Look what my mom
did to me, she hurt me. It's coming from a
place of I started to recognize this pattern in my family,
this vicious mother daughter diet cycle. I noticed it, I
stopped it, and I take action now to help others.
So my mother and I have a very beautiful relationship.
I don't know if we'll ever see eye to eye
on food in our body, but either way, she knows
that what I'm doing right now is to help other people,
(17:59):
and her relations ship with food in her body that's
up to her right now, and she knows I'm here
to support her with whatever she needs. That's awesome. And
I also want to know from a business point of view,
you know, five years ago or so, we weren't calling
out what we're seeing now. We were defining health very
similarly to how you did in the beginning of the
post that Amy read as working out and discipline, and
(18:19):
now a lot of that's brought to light. Have you
found that mothers are really eager to fix their relationship
to food, not just for themselves, but because they've got
this motivator of having a daughter or a child. In general,
every single person who has applied to work with me
has most likely had one event take place, whether they
noticed their child standing behind them as they stood on
(18:41):
the scale, whether they saw themselves in the mirror while
they were picking apart their body, or their kid asked,
and you know, why can't you lick the brownie matter spoon? Mom? Like,
let's make brownies or whatever, counting almonds, whatever it may be.
There's one event that happens when all of a sudden,
this lights up and they realize, similar to how I did,
this is my mother. I'm being my mother right now.
I'm kind of passing down this diet cycle. How do
(19:02):
I stop this? Now? I think that's just really cool
because you've got this outside motivator that's living and breathing
outside of you, and every day you wake up wanting
to do a little bit better, not just for yourself,
so that's super cool to me. I think whether people
have kids or not, all of this is just how
do you want to live life? How do you want
to show up for others? I mean, sure, we want
(19:23):
to focus right now on you know, I'm a mom,
so I want to know how can I show up
for my daughter, for my son? But if you're not
a parent, how can you show up better for your friends,
for your significant other? What events or parties are you
missing out on? What family recipes are you not tasting
because you have anxiety around the food and you don't
want to touch it. What's one of the first things
(19:45):
that you have clients do to maybe help break some
of that. Because Lisa has been a huge part of
encouraging me in my new way of thinking and ditching
old things. So I even posted something the other day
like I specifically bought a muffin that was made with
wheat flour and it was not gluten free. It had
all the things and I saw it, I bought it,
(20:07):
I ate it and it was awesome, and I just
didn't know, like, what advice do you have for moms
when it comes to making memories? But again, if you're
listening to this, it could also just apply to insert
whatever your role is in someone's life, what is something
you encourage them to go do to kind of be
a rebel in a sense, but that's also going to
keep them in check. Yeah. The first thing we always
do is we go through kind of the diet and
(20:29):
the food rules, because these are the things that you've
been living on for so long. Like you said, with
the glue and like you went out and you got
a real muffin, wasn't glue and free? Whatever it may be.
So the first thing we do is we identify the
food rules and we learn how to bring back those
foods in. We don't do it all at once because
for a lot of us, there are so many food rules.
Maybe we're dairy free, gloom free, you know, we're not
(20:49):
having oil, we're vegan, whatever it may be, because this
is what health has told us. I had air quotes there,
But what I'm trying to say is that we start
by adding in one of those forbidden foods. And for
a lot of my moms, it's usually carves. The idea
of adding in carves, and I'm talking about like your starchy,
weak carves is horrifying. You've been told all your life
not to have these for weight lost purposes, for health purposes.
(21:10):
So we really start by how can we add these
carbs in and actually be really in tune of our
body and notice some of the differences. A lot of
my clients will say things like, I have my energy
back to play with my kids. I have the ability
to go for a long walk with my kids without
being burnt out. And I think for them, the biggest
thing that they want to see is that they can
be present and show up with their kids. And it's
crazy how much carbs can do that for us, especially
(21:31):
when you've been living a life on low carb diets.
I loves Yeah. I was waiting for Lisa a pipe
in with how important carbs are, and that is it
is a good point. I'm doing a lot of therapy
right now and again just trying to be the best
mom that I can be. And in a couple of
the parenting books and stuff that I'm working through, one
(21:53):
of the number one things that they stress is if
you want to show up for your kids in whatever
way possible, you need be taking care of yourself because
you have to be able to stay calm and firm,
and if you're irritable because you need some carbs, you're
not gonna be able to stay calm and firm, and
your kids aren't gonna feel the safest they possibly can
(22:14):
around you because you're gonna be on edge, or like
you already are on edge, because I know so many
of us just didn't allow ourselves carves or whatever it
is that you might be depriving yourself of. But like
Lisa will attest to, carbs are super important thing that
our bodies need to function properly. I mean, the hangar,
(22:34):
the hungry and angry combo when you're parenting is very
very hard. And if you are hungry and if you're
missing out on those carbs, that hangar is gonna come
in really hard and it's not gonna, as you were saying,
you're gonna not make like very sound decisions at that time. Yeah,
And my favorite thing about carbs not that anyone asked me,
but that's just so immediate. They give you immediately what
(22:54):
you need and I'm just like thank you, you know,
just just I ask and you give, and it's just
to be a full thing. I'm picking uPAR your Instagram
right now, but this is just too fitting for me
to not bring it up. On one of your other
blue post it notes, it said, mom, tip, carbs don't
make you fat, they keep you sane. You are not
failing the diet by adding in carbs, you are nourishing yourself.
And literally I just scrolled upon that as we were
(23:17):
talking about this. I didn't even plan to say that,
but it's so true. I feel like the nineties are
kind of fat free. But then when by the time
I was in college, actually my senior year of high school,
I was doing Atkins, then the South Beach Diet, then
probably back to Atkins. So like everything, we just were raised.
If you're around my age of thirty nine, not you,
(23:37):
but like listeners, we were such a no carb, low
carb lifestyle, and now with Keto, for example, the whole
low carb thing is being pushed out again. So it's
how can we teach people that we actually need carbs
is your body's preferred source of energy, They'll keep you sane,
and just watch the difference that it makes in your
headspace when you actually enjoy the foods. Dr Joshua is
(23:59):
on the podcast in season one, and he made an
excellent point that when we are super stressed out about
eating something it's actually worse for our body than if
we would actually just eat it. So I just always
find that it's it's like an interesting way to remind
people that just because you have, like you were saying
(24:19):
early on your life, you're being applauded for self control,
and but I'm sure certain things would stress you out,
but nobody is inside seeing what's really going on in
your body, and had you enjoyed the graduation party or
eating the food, that may have been better for you.
I was just gonna say that's such a good point,
because in the inside I was so angry, Like when
(24:40):
I think back to times when I died, it was
probably the angriest points of my life. But on the outside,
it's as you said, like she has willpower, she has disciplined,
look how good she is, and you're rewarded for this
really negative behavior as you're having this whole internal debate
inside of you as well, so nobody sees what's going
on inside, and it's just crippling and it's miserable. And
when you get out diet mindset, just the feeling of
(25:01):
peace and freedom and to have all the stress away
from making all those decisions, to just I'm going to
eat this food and nourish myself and move on. Is
just it's unbelievable. So some parents I know listening might
have a child who classifies as overweight or has gained
weight in a short amount of time. Similar to how
when you were I think you said ten years old
(25:22):
and you went to the doctor. So some parents are
dealing with the fact that the doctor said that the
child is overweight or weighing too much for their age,
on top of the fact that the child is starting
to have low self esteem, and the parents might be
really worried that the child's going to get bullied, and
they want to help their child, but they don't know
how all the medical professionals, the doctors are telling them
(25:45):
that the child needs to lose weight. How would you
talk to those moms about how to be a good
example for their daughter or child. So there's a few
things I always say. If your doctors make you feel ncomfortable,
it's really important that you research. You asked for help
looking for some kind of weight neutral or non diet doctor.
If your doctor every time you go is making you
feel uncomfortable, then that's not a great person to go to.
(26:07):
But it's really important as parents to lead by example,
to show them that at any body size, whether you
are in a smaller body size than your child or
even a larger body size, that you can enjoy all foods,
that you can appreciate your body in the mirror, and
that you can get dressed without stress. I also think
another thing I always promote is having these open conversations.
If your child comes home one day and says something,
whether it's from the pediatrician or it's from somebody at school,
(26:30):
you know, somebody called me fat, whatever it may be,
having that conversation with your child, you know, what does
fat mean to you? What do you think was going on?
Asking these really big, open ended questions that kind of
dive deeper to show your child that these aren't necessarily
negative things. How we can be healthy at every size.
But it is really hard nowadays because there's bullying, and
because there's doctors who don't promote this idea that we
(26:50):
can be healthy at every size. So it's really important
that we lead by example and we create this atmosphere
in our home that accepts our children at any shape
and size. I'm glad you asked that question, list, because
that is super important for parents to be able to
address if it does happen, or maybe if it's already happened,
they can go revisit it. What are like for me
my daughter that's thirteen, I know that the first year
(27:12):
and a half or so that she was here, I
feel like now I have some undoing to do because
of how rigid I was, and I would use label
food good and I would label food bad. Have you
found once you work with moms and they redirect how
they speak and they're rewiring their own brains, is there
anything that is particularly beneficial out of the gate to
(27:35):
like make sure they're doing with their kids to undo
some of the damage. Because my daughter is super smart,
so she never bought into my crap, But I wonder
if sometimes there's still things lingering in her head or
even my son, because they'll say, oh, Mom, you don't
eat ice cream? What? And now I have I Had's
almost like I have to convince them, yes, Mom eats
(27:55):
ice cream. Now it's totally fine. But I don't know
if there's something else I can do to kind of
undo the damage. I think you're doing everything right. It
always starts with the language. So before you were labeling
things as good verse bad. It's really important now that
you use very neutral language. As I always say, and
apple is not good in oreo is not bad. They
have different nutrient components to them, but they're both neutral foods.
(28:16):
So it's really leading by example. It's taking your old
food rules and kind of crossing them out. If you
never kept an apple and oreo on your plate at
the same time, maybe this is the time that you
combine those foods on your plate. This is the time
when you get rid of the good verse bad food
rules and the mindset that you have with it. I
think the first step is really working on your language,
and I don't think it's necessarily the idea of undoing
(28:38):
what we've done, but now teaching them that we can
change too. As adults. We can pick up when we've
done something that may have not been the best for
our health and may have affected our kids, but we're
going to change our behaviors. We're going to change our language,
We're going to change our action around that so that
we can lead by example and show them. So even
if our kids are making fun of us, are saying
you don't eat that or that kind of thing, you
(28:58):
can let them know that you're change doing your relationship
with food in your body. You're going to start eating
these things now because you want to show them that
all these foods belong on your plate. And I think
that's like the most admirable thing as well, is when
we can see our parents changing and realize that they're
human too, that they're doing these things not just for themselves,
but also for us to be the best role models.
I love that. I think that's going to be helpful
(29:19):
for a lot of people listening. Again, even if you
don't have kids, you may need to just change the
language and conversation with yourself and give yourself that grace
and understanding. And I like the encouragement you just gave
me of like, I don't need to undo it. I
I can also lead by example that people can change.
And this is a perfect opportunity to demonstrate that everything
(29:40):
that's happened to us our learning experiences, even if it's
kind of the worst situation, whether it's with food or
whatever it may be, we learn from that, we change
our habits from that, and that's how we're kind of
a role model. But the other thing I see a
lot too is I have people who come to me
who aren't parents yet, but they're afraid of continuing that
vicious cycle. So whether you're a mom or you're not
a mom, you can start to pick up on these
is now and learn how to change the behavior for
(30:02):
your kids or even your future kids. I love that,
and I'm so glad that we found each other on
the internet and now you can bring all of this
great information to our listeners who are just going to
love it. So where can we find you? So you
can find me on Instagram It's Gabby con dot r D.
Or you can find me on my website which is
method nutrition dot com. And we'll put all of that
in the show notes. Thank you so much for your time,
(30:24):
and we're so excited for this great episode to get
out there. Yeah, Gabby, thank you so much. Thank you
for having me
I won't lend my body out, me out everything that
I'm made do. Won't spend my life trying to change.
I'm learning to love who I am. I get I'm strong,
I feel free, I know who every part of me.
It's beautiful and I will always out with if you
(00:24):
feel it with yours in there, she'll love to the boom.
I am there. Let's say good day and did you
and die out? Hey? Amy, Here for a quick little
intro with my thirteen year old daughter stas Shira, because
today's episode focuses on mother daughter relationships. But really you
(00:47):
don't have to be a mom to gain insight from
this episode. You might be an adult with no kids,
but you're a daughter who grew up with a mom
that had unhealthy rhetoric or found her body or unhealthy
relationship with food, and now you have to deal with
that as an adult, because you know, when we learned
(01:09):
it as kids often sticks with us and it's hard
to shake. And I started dieting early. On Stashira's here,
she's in seventh grade. I probably started dieting in eight
or ninth grade, which is crazy. If Stashia came home
and wanted to be on a diet. I don't even
know what I would do. I would think, what No,
But it was just normal, I feel like for us
(01:31):
back then, like it was just something that we did,
especially in high school. Like I tried every diet under
the sun, and my mom didn't really talk to me
about how that might not be healthy. Now, I carried
my unhealthy diet habits with me all the way until
a couple of years ago, or maybe not even maybe
a year and a half ago. For being fully transparent.
(01:51):
So Stashira has been in my life or at least
here in America. Adopted her from Haiti and she got
here about three years ago. And so have you seen
a difference in me your mom when it comes to
food in our house in the last few years, like
from when you arrived to now, Yes, I have. And
do you do you like the new way that I
(02:13):
am with food? Yes? Yes? What does that allow for? You?
Allow for me to eat whatever I want? And we
can keep certain foods in the house that I used
to never allow. And so that was part of my problem.
I thought, if I had candy in the house for
my kids, then I would eat all the candy. If
we had oreos in the house, I was going to
(02:34):
eat all the oreos, so therefore they couldn't have candy
and oreos because I couldn't have candy and oreos. And
also I had lumped my foods into categories of good
and bad. And now we have been working very hard,
and when I say we, I mean mostly me, and
I've been trying to undo some stuff that I have
(02:55):
put upon my kids, especially when they first got here,
and we're neutralized seeing food. Now. Of course, I want
to teach my kids about nutrition and certain vitamins and
nutrients that their body needs, and we try to have
diversity when we're building our plates. But I am not
going to freak out about certain things that I used
to and STA shared. Do you remember the time I
(03:17):
freaked out about the candy at church? Wasn't that crazy sneaking? Oh?
So see what I caused. I mean, that's a good
point that you bring up, Like I was restricting my
kids from even having certain food freedoms because of my
own fears, and then that caused her to have to
sneak things. And we do that to ourselves. Your kids
(03:39):
may start to sneak things, but then even you, when
you restrict you start to have sneaky things that you
do to get food for yourself. So I just hope
that you all really enjoy this conversation that you're about
to hear that Lisa and I did with Gabby, who
is a non diet dietitian who has made it her
life's mission to help moms with young daughter create a
(04:01):
positive relationship with food and their body so that you know,
we can end the cycle of diet and despair. And
a lot of our personal body shaming rhetoric and our
healthy relationships with food came from what we learn as
kids are healthy or unhealthy relationships, and stuff we picked
up when we were little. But it's never too late
(04:22):
to flip the script. So whether you're a mom, a parent,
or not, I will say that what you're going to
hear today will positively influence future generations. And that's the goal.
We want to protect our daughters or sons and all
future generations from the dangerous rhetoric that a lot of
(04:43):
us grew up with and that actually you see in
society still every day everywhere we're inundated with diet culture messages.
So we hope to change that, and we're doing it
one episode at a time. Here on outweighs. So I
hope you enjoy our chat with Gavy, and thank you
Stashira for joining me in the intro. And this is
when you say thank you mom for changing your ways
(05:05):
with food. Thank you Mom, but gender no way with food.
You're welcome. Hey, Gaby, We're so pumped to have you
here with us today. Thank you so much for having me.
I'm really excited to be here. I feel like a
good way to introduce you to people is I pulled
up an Instagram post that you put up maybe a
couple of days ago or a couple of weeks ago,
(05:25):
depending on when someone is listening to this. What you
hit resonated with me, and I was like, okay, this
way people can understand where you're coming from and then
where you are now. So what you put in the
caption was I remember the days when I thought I
was the epitome of health. I woke up at five
am every day to go to the gym for my
cycle class. I had strict food rules. The list of
(05:47):
foods I could not eat was so long that I
thought it was healthy. I never went out for dinner
because I had no control over how the food was cooked.
I missed out on social events because health comes first.
I weighed myself every day because that was disciplined. And
the post goes on and it's longer, and I encourage
people to go to your Instagram and check it out.
(06:07):
But I really feel like for so many people, that
right there is how they define being quote unquote healthy.
So how long ago was that you? And then where
are you now? And what are you doing to help
other people, specifically moms so that we don't pass this
on to the next generation. Yeah, so that version of
(06:27):
myself was probably about six or seven years ago, and
that was actually the time when I thought I was
the best version of myself, as I kind of say
in that post. But my history of dieting started way
before then too, It started at the age of ten.
So really at that point in my life, that's kind
of what I thought health was. I thought health was
going your exercise class every single day, stepping on and
(06:50):
off the scale, and really being strict with your food choices.
And I thought that was the best version of me.
I thought I wasn't diet it because this was just
a healthy lifestyle. So for anybody who may be feeling
this way. Now, who kind of thinks that they are
the epitome of health, that they are following those strict
food rules, that they're exercising daily, that they have the
discipline or the willpower. The truth is, in a sense,
(07:11):
it isn't a healthy lifestyle. It's kind of an obsession
that is out of our control in a sense, because
we are so into this health I just feel like
I could have written that, so I really resonate with
those words, And it was also a nice check in
to kind of remember, you know, how our ideas of
health have changed over time, and to kind of reflect
back on what we used to check off as health
(07:31):
and this beautiful new reframe that involves honoring ourselves. And
I think it's just super important to recognize that even
when you stop dieting, you could still be holding onto
new quote unquote health behaviors that are still not healthy.
I think the end of that post is when I
thought I was the healthiest, I was actually the least healthy,
recognizing the mental component and the stress and the rigidity
(07:53):
that kind of went into that life. I don't want
a gloss over the fact that you said you started
dieting at ten years old, talk to us about that,
because I know a lot of our listeners were introduced
to dieting at a young age, some not, but for me,
ten seems extremely young, so I'm definitely curious. Absolutely. So
I grew up with a mother who died it, so
(08:14):
by the age of six, I started to recognize the
idea that you step on the scale, you see a number,
you don't like, the number, you get off, you look
in the mirror, you either pinch some part of your
body or you say negative things about your body in
the mirror, and then you go downstairs and you go
in the cabinets and you throw out all the food
you don't think you can have anymore because of this
new diet plan. So starting at six years old, I
was starting to get those ideas. And then at ten
(08:35):
years old, for my checking with my pediatrician, they let
me know I gained way too much weight in a year.
It was a red flag. And this is a while ago.
So at that point too, they were saying, this is
before you get your menstrual cycle. As soon as you
get your menstrual cycle, you cannot lose weight. It is
very difficult. You need to lose the weight now. So
the way. My mother thought she was protecting me, and
I don't blame her for this at all. I know
(08:56):
she was doing this out of love and protection. Was
she got me with the nutritionist and put me a
diet plan. At the age of ten, I was calorie counting,
I was portioning at my food, and I was traveling
everywhere with my green lunch box, which I vividly remember
because I missed out on so many events, so many sleepovers,
graduation parties, just because I couldn't eat the food there
and it was too tough to be around. At that
(09:16):
age two, I had teachers even complimenting me at graduation
parties for my discipline and my willpower. I had friends
coming up to me saying that they understand what I'm
going through. Their moms have gone through the same thing.
They know how angry they can get when they can't
have the food. And it kind of was just instilled
at me from the age of ten that we have
to be so careful about the size of our body.
Our worth comes from our body size, and the foods
(09:36):
that we eat affect our body so much. So that's
kind of when this like dieting started and kind of
leads this very unhealthy obsession with food in my body. Okay,
so then when did you decide you were going to
make it your mission with method? And I want you
to tell us what that stands for, because it's an acronym.
When did you decide? Okay? Now I want to help
(09:57):
others not repeat this cycle. So method stands for moms
eating to help overcome diets and disorders. And it actually
kind of started around like my late teenage year. So
one fun fact abound me is that my sister and
I have an eleven year age gap. So my sister
and I have always had this relationship where we're kind
of sisters, but my mom and I have always viewed
ourselves as co parents because I lost my father at
(10:19):
a very young age. So around the age when I
was about fifteen, so she was around four, I saw
her go into the mirror and pinch her stomach and
say that she was fat and then suck in her belly.
And that was kind of when I had this first
light up moment that my behaviors were already starting to
affect the next generation. Even though she is my sister,
(10:39):
we still have a little bit of a mother daughter
bond and the age gap is so big that I
could already see that my grandmother's diet habits affected my mother,
My mother's diet habits have affected me, and now my
diet habits have potentially affected my sister. And at the
age of four, she's looking in the mirror and she's
tearing apart her body. Then how is she going to
feel ten years from now. I knew at that point
that I had to change my actions, my behavior, my language,
(11:02):
my relationship with my body in order for me to
help her, and also so that I don't affect anybody
else in a way, whether it's cousins, family friends, from
having that really unhealthy relationship with food in their body.
I couldn't let her suffer and go through the things
that I had went through as a child just because
I was so obsessed with food in my body. And
I think it's really important that we also just kind
of zoom out to recognize that it's not just diet,
(11:24):
it's body image. So it wasn't even her relationship to
food in that moment, but rather the action of calling
herself fat that really alerted you as to, oh, no,
this is a problem, yeah, exactly. And the funny thing
is like, I don't even know if she knew what
that word really meant at that time. Either she just
saw me. It's the same thing that mother daughter relationship.
You see your mother stand the mirror, you see her
(11:46):
pinch some part of her body and say a word
or something, and then you just pick up the habits.
And that's exactly what she did. She saw my relationship
with her body. She mimiced the exact thing. And I think,
being the older person, that scenario like what many moms
may see if this is their kids were doing that
all of a sudden, this moment lights up and you're like,
oh my gosh, my habits are being passed down. How
do I stop this now? Kudos to you for recognizing
(12:07):
that at fifteen years old. Yeah, I mean, I will
admit it's a process. It's not this overnight thing where
I stapped my fingers and my relationship with food in
my body as healed, because as we spoke about too,
like I had the obsession with health later down the
line because I thought that was healthier, but it really
clicked in at that young age though that this is
a problem. How do I kind of solve this now?
(12:27):
And that's why I think, you know, going back to
so many episodes ago when we talked about our values,
I forget which expert we had on and we really
drilled that point home Amy. It was in Outweigh Season one,
was when you are living in line with your values,
you're living from a less self centered place. So it's
very clear that maybe because of the loss of your
father and you really stepped into the role of parenting
(12:49):
very young, that what came before you and even your weight,
even though your mom had an influence on you, and
that you were told that that was the most important
thing your soul was has always been very connected to
helping your sister, and without taking time to clarify that
and recognize it, it was like your values really stepped
up for you. And that's really important to anyone listening
(13:11):
who maybe hasn't thought about what they value, and therefore
the things they don't value are getting in the way
of the things that they do value and causing this
incongruency inside. So my values changed significantly in the last
three years. But again I would have defined myself as
a healthy person. I became a mom three years ago,
but to an older child we adopted, so my daughter
(13:34):
was ten, So it's not like I had a baby
and had time to work through stuff and then figure
out how I wanted to parent. She arrived into my
life at an age where she was absorbing everything and
she's very smart, and I thought, oh wow, I am
super healthy. My kids aren't going to have gluten. They're
not going to have candy. I would get so frustrated
(13:56):
if a stranger would give them candy. I remember the
first we took them to church, they went to their
Sunday school and they came out with these candy bags
and I almost had a panic attack because I couldn't
believe they gave them a bag of candy without asking
me the new mom. I mean, I freaked out, But
it was really my issue about with me, not for
my kids. And that's one thing that is significantly different
(14:20):
and how I parent. I also prioritized working out over
spending time with them because that was part of my
healthy lifestyle, that was part of my routine, and I
was gonna be better mentally for them. And so now
I show up for them before workout, hands down every time.
And now we have tons of candy in our pantry
(14:40):
and it's awesome. It's such a freeing feeling when you
can keep all these previously forbidden foods in your house again,
and no, you're not going to be out of control
with it. But there's one thing that you said that
I really want to highly onto is that so many times,
like I am not a mother yet, but for many
of the moms that I worked, was similar to what
you were saying. We want to do the best buy
our kids. We think that a limiting in the gluten,
being rid of the candy, you know, whatever it may be,
(15:01):
is a way of protecting our kids, way of showing
them love, and way of helping them fit into society
what the norms are. And it's really important to remember
there is no shame, there's no negative feelings, there's no
guilt associated with it. You were doing everything you can
in your power to protect your kids and it's from
a sense of love. But sometimes, as you were saying, now,
like you step back and realize and that your workouts
came before, or that you were too nervous about the
(15:22):
glue or the candy or whatever it may be. And
it's just really important to remember that moms don't have
mom manuals. We learn as we go and we kind
of learn from all these things as well to be
the best versions of ourselves, to heal our relationship with
food and our body, and to protect our kids. I'm
gonna go back to Instagram because there's another post that
I pulled up, and if people follow you, what I
I love that they're going to get from you or
these post it notes that you put up, these blue
(15:45):
posted notes, they're scattered all about and they have great
little things on their quotes or just a prompt or
a question. And something that you put up was you
will constantly be unhappy if you keep telling yourself that
happiness comes when you are ten pounds lighter. How can
you learn to be happy in your body now if
you are making happiness of feeling determined by weight loss.
(16:10):
I think so many times that we just focus so
much on weight loss that as soon as we lose
the weight will be happy. As soon as we fit
into our pre baby jeans, as soon as we lose
five to ten pounds, we're gonna be happy again. We're
gonna get our life back. We're gonna be able to
focus as a parent, be present with our kids, take
photos at Disneyland, go to the beach and a bathing
to whatever it may be. But it's everything is determined
by losing this weight. And the idea is, how can
(16:32):
we feel good in the body we are in now,
even if you are in a larger body, whatever size
body you may be in, how can you appreciate love
and learn to accept the body you're in so you
can be present as a mother, so you can take
all those photos that you can run on the beach,
whatever it may be. It's just it breaks my heart
so many times when I see people just waiting until
we lose the weight to take action on life now.
So I have two questions. You have created a brilliant
(16:54):
business around helping moms really m the cycle of dieting
so that they don't pass it down to their daughter.
The first question I have, because you're so vocal about
your relationship with your mom and how she had an
impact on your relationship to food and body image, how
does your relationship now that you kind of go out
publicly and tell this story. How are how are you
(17:14):
able to have a conversation clearly, very healthfully so that
she doesn't feel shameful. I think one of the really
important things is I always say that. I never blame
my mother, and I never think any of this was
her fault. She grew up in a household with a
mother who died. This is normal. This is just what
she thought was normal. She was doing this protect me
and love me. So my mother knows with everything that
I talked about, it's not ever coming from a place
(17:37):
of she did this to me. Look what my mom
did to me, she hurt me. It's coming from a
place of I started to recognize this pattern in my family,
this vicious mother daughter diet cycle. I noticed it, I
stopped it, and I take action now to help others.
So my mother and I have a very beautiful relationship.
I don't know if we'll ever see eye to eye
on food in our body, but either way, she knows
that what I'm doing right now is to help other people,
(17:59):
and her relations ship with food in her body that's
up to her right now, and she knows I'm here
to support her with whatever she needs. That's awesome. And
I also want to know from a business point of view,
you know, five years ago or so, we weren't calling
out what we're seeing now. We were defining health very
similarly to how you did in the beginning of the
post that Amy read as working out and discipline, and
(18:19):
now a lot of that's brought to light. Have you
found that mothers are really eager to fix their relationship
to food, not just for themselves, but because they've got
this motivator of having a daughter or a child. In general,
every single person who has applied to work with me
has most likely had one event take place, whether they
noticed their child standing behind them as they stood on
(18:41):
the scale, whether they saw themselves in the mirror while
they were picking apart their body, or their kid asked,
and you know, why can't you lick the brownie matter spoon? Mom? Like,
let's make brownies or whatever, counting almonds, whatever it may be.
There's one event that happens when all of a sudden,
this lights up and they realize, similar to how I did,
this is my mother. I'm being my mother right now.
I'm kind of passing down this diet cycle. How do
(19:02):
I stop this? Now? I think that's just really cool
because you've got this outside motivator that's living and breathing
outside of you, and every day you wake up wanting
to do a little bit better, not just for yourself,
so that's super cool to me. I think whether people
have kids or not, all of this is just how
do you want to live life? How do you want
to show up for others? I mean, sure, we want
(19:23):
to focus right now on you know, I'm a mom,
so I want to know how can I show up
for my daughter, for my son? But if you're not
a parent, how can you show up better for your friends,
for your significant other? What events or parties are you
missing out on? What family recipes are you not tasting
because you have anxiety around the food and you don't
want to touch it. What's one of the first things
(19:45):
that you have clients do to maybe help break some
of that. Because Lisa has been a huge part of
encouraging me in my new way of thinking and ditching
old things. So I even posted something the other day
like I specifically bought a muffin that was made with
wheat flour and it was not gluten free. It had
all the things and I saw it, I bought it,
(20:07):
I ate it and it was awesome, and I just
didn't know, like, what advice do you have for moms
when it comes to making memories? But again, if you're
listening to this, it could also just apply to insert
whatever your role is in someone's life, what is something
you encourage them to go do to kind of be
a rebel in a sense, but that's also going to
keep them in check. Yeah. The first thing we always
do is we go through kind of the diet and
(20:29):
the food rules, because these are the things that you've
been living on for so long. Like you said, with
the glue and like you went out and you got
a real muffin, wasn't glue and free? Whatever it may be.
So the first thing we do is we identify the
food rules and we learn how to bring back those
foods in. We don't do it all at once because
for a lot of us, there are so many food rules.
Maybe we're dairy free, gloom free, you know, we're not
(20:49):
having oil, we're vegan, whatever it may be, because this
is what health has told us. I had air quotes there,
But what I'm trying to say is that we start
by adding in one of those forbidden foods. And for
a lot of my moms, it's usually carves. The idea
of adding in carves, and I'm talking about like your starchy,
weak carves is horrifying. You've been told all your life
not to have these for weight lost purposes, for health purposes.
(21:10):
So we really start by how can we add these
carbs in and actually be really in tune of our
body and notice some of the differences. A lot of
my clients will say things like, I have my energy
back to play with my kids. I have the ability
to go for a long walk with my kids without
being burnt out. And I think for them, the biggest
thing that they want to see is that they can
be present and show up with their kids. And it's
crazy how much carbs can do that for us, especially
(21:31):
when you've been living a life on low carb diets.
I loves Yeah. I was waiting for Lisa a pipe
in with how important carbs are, and that is it
is a good point. I'm doing a lot of therapy
right now and again just trying to be the best
mom that I can be. And in a couple of
the parenting books and stuff that I'm working through, one
(21:53):
of the number one things that they stress is if
you want to show up for your kids in whatever
way possible, you need be taking care of yourself because
you have to be able to stay calm and firm,
and if you're irritable because you need some carbs, you're
not gonna be able to stay calm and firm, and
your kids aren't gonna feel the safest they possibly can
(22:14):
around you because you're gonna be on edge, or like
you already are on edge, because I know so many
of us just didn't allow ourselves carves or whatever it
is that you might be depriving yourself of. But like
Lisa will attest to, carbs are super important thing that
our bodies need to function properly. I mean, the hangar,
(22:34):
the hungry and angry combo when you're parenting is very
very hard. And if you are hungry and if you're
missing out on those carbs, that hangar is gonna come
in really hard and it's not gonna, as you were saying,
you're gonna not make like very sound decisions at that time. Yeah,
And my favorite thing about carbs not that anyone asked me,
but that's just so immediate. They give you immediately what
(22:54):
you need and I'm just like thank you, you know,
just just I ask and you give, and it's just
to be a full thing. I'm picking uPAR your Instagram
right now, but this is just too fitting for me
to not bring it up. On one of your other
blue post it notes, it said, mom, tip, carbs don't
make you fat, they keep you sane. You are not
failing the diet by adding in carbs, you are nourishing yourself.
And literally I just scrolled upon that as we were
(23:17):
talking about this. I didn't even plan to say that,
but it's so true. I feel like the nineties are
kind of fat free. But then when by the time
I was in college, actually my senior year of high school,
I was doing Atkins, then the South Beach Diet, then
probably back to Atkins. So like everything, we just were raised.
If you're around my age of thirty nine, not you,
(23:37):
but like listeners, we were such a no carb, low
carb lifestyle, and now with Keto, for example, the whole
low carb thing is being pushed out again. So it's
how can we teach people that we actually need carbs
is your body's preferred source of energy, They'll keep you sane,
and just watch the difference that it makes in your
headspace when you actually enjoy the foods. Dr Joshua is
(23:59):
on the podcast in season one, and he made an
excellent point that when we are super stressed out about
eating something it's actually worse for our body than if
we would actually just eat it. So I just always
find that it's it's like an interesting way to remind
people that just because you have, like you were saying
(24:19):
early on your life, you're being applauded for self control,
and but I'm sure certain things would stress you out,
but nobody is inside seeing what's really going on in
your body, and had you enjoyed the graduation party or
eating the food, that may have been better for you.
I was just gonna say that's such a good point,
because in the inside I was so angry, Like when
(24:40):
I think back to times when I died, it was
probably the angriest points of my life. But on the outside,
it's as you said, like she has willpower, she has disciplined,
look how good she is, and you're rewarded for this
really negative behavior as you're having this whole internal debate
inside of you as well, so nobody sees what's going
on inside, and it's just crippling and it's miserable. And
when you get out diet mindset, just the feeling of
(25:01):
peace and freedom and to have all the stress away
from making all those decisions, to just I'm going to
eat this food and nourish myself and move on. Is
just it's unbelievable. So some parents I know listening might
have a child who classifies as overweight or has gained
weight in a short amount of time. Similar to how
when you were I think you said ten years old
(25:22):
and you went to the doctor. So some parents are
dealing with the fact that the doctor said that the
child is overweight or weighing too much for their age,
on top of the fact that the child is starting
to have low self esteem, and the parents might be
really worried that the child's going to get bullied, and
they want to help their child, but they don't know
how all the medical professionals, the doctors are telling them
(25:45):
that the child needs to lose weight. How would you
talk to those moms about how to be a good
example for their daughter or child. So there's a few
things I always say. If your doctors make you feel ncomfortable,
it's really important that you research. You asked for help
looking for some kind of weight neutral or non diet doctor.
If your doctor every time you go is making you
feel uncomfortable, then that's not a great person to go to.
(26:07):
But it's really important as parents to lead by example,
to show them that at any body size, whether you
are in a smaller body size than your child or
even a larger body size, that you can enjoy all foods,
that you can appreciate your body in the mirror, and
that you can get dressed without stress. I also think
another thing I always promote is having these open conversations.
If your child comes home one day and says something,
whether it's from the pediatrician or it's from somebody at school,
(26:30):
you know, somebody called me fat, whatever it may be,
having that conversation with your child, you know, what does
fat mean to you? What do you think was going on?
Asking these really big, open ended questions that kind of
dive deeper to show your child that these aren't necessarily
negative things. How we can be healthy at every size.
But it is really hard nowadays because there's bullying, and
because there's doctors who don't promote this idea that we
(26:50):
can be healthy at every size. So it's really important
that we lead by example and we create this atmosphere
in our home that accepts our children at any shape
and size. I'm glad you asked that question, list, because
that is super important for parents to be able to
address if it does happen, or maybe if it's already happened,
they can go revisit it. What are like for me
my daughter that's thirteen, I know that the first year
(27:12):
and a half or so that she was here, I
feel like now I have some undoing to do because
of how rigid I was, and I would use label
food good and I would label food bad. Have you
found once you work with moms and they redirect how
they speak and they're rewiring their own brains, is there
anything that is particularly beneficial out of the gate to
(27:35):
like make sure they're doing with their kids to undo
some of the damage. Because my daughter is super smart,
so she never bought into my crap, But I wonder
if sometimes there's still things lingering in her head or
even my son, because they'll say, oh, Mom, you don't
eat ice cream? What? And now I have I Had's
almost like I have to convince them, yes, Mom eats
(27:55):
ice cream. Now it's totally fine. But I don't know
if there's something else I can do to kind of
undo the damage. I think you're doing everything right. It
always starts with the language. So before you were labeling
things as good verse bad. It's really important now that
you use very neutral language. As I always say, and
apple is not good in oreo is not bad. They
have different nutrient components to them, but they're both neutral foods.
(28:16):
So it's really leading by example. It's taking your old
food rules and kind of crossing them out. If you
never kept an apple and oreo on your plate at
the same time, maybe this is the time that you
combine those foods on your plate. This is the time
when you get rid of the good verse bad food
rules and the mindset that you have with it. I
think the first step is really working on your language,
and I don't think it's necessarily the idea of undoing
(28:38):
what we've done, but now teaching them that we can
change too. As adults. We can pick up when we've
done something that may have not been the best for
our health and may have affected our kids, but we're
going to change our behaviors. We're going to change our language,
We're going to change our action around that so that
we can lead by example and show them. So even
if our kids are making fun of us, are saying
you don't eat that or that kind of thing, you
(28:58):
can let them know that you're change doing your relationship
with food in your body. You're going to start eating
these things now because you want to show them that
all these foods belong on your plate. And I think
that's like the most admirable thing as well, is when
we can see our parents changing and realize that they're
human too, that they're doing these things not just for themselves,
but also for us to be the best role models.
I love that. I think that's going to be helpful
(29:19):
for a lot of people listening. Again, even if you
don't have kids, you may need to just change the
language and conversation with yourself and give yourself that grace
and understanding. And I like the encouragement you just gave
me of like, I don't need to undo it. I
I can also lead by example that people can change.
And this is a perfect opportunity to demonstrate that everything
(29:40):
that's happened to us our learning experiences, even if it's
kind of the worst situation, whether it's with food or
whatever it may be, we learn from that, we change
our habits from that, and that's how we're kind of
a role model. But the other thing I see a
lot too is I have people who come to me
who aren't parents yet, but they're afraid of continuing that
vicious cycle. So whether you're a mom or you're not
a mom, you can start to pick up on these
is now and learn how to change the behavior for
(30:02):
your kids or even your future kids. I love that,
and I'm so glad that we found each other on
the internet and now you can bring all of this
great information to our listeners who are just going to
love it. So where can we find you? So you
can find me on Instagram It's Gabby con dot r D.
Or you can find me on my website which is
method nutrition dot com. And we'll put all of that
in the show notes. Thank you so much for your time,
(30:24):
and we're so excited for this great episode to get
out there. Yeah, Gabby, thank you so much. Thank you
for having me
Feeling Things with Amy & Kat News
Host
Amy Brown
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