May 5, 2020 • 43 mins
This is Amy’s ‘5th Thing’ (a bonus episode) where she answers your questions every Tuesday! ‘4 Things With Amy Brown’ comes out every Thursday, but on Tuesdays Amy answers questions you’ve emailed in. On today’s episode Amy has Lisa from @thewellnecessities on to help her answer your questions about disordered eating and their podcast series OUTWEIGH.
(Episode 143)
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Okay, Happy Tuesday. As promised, I've got Lisa here to
do a Q and A with me on Outweigh Questions.
So I've been blown away at the amount of emails
that have come in about Outweigh. I mean, Lisa, I
don't know about you, but sometimes I am when I
opened the email boxer, I open up d M s,
and I just see how people have been touched by
(00:27):
the series. It just for me, it's affirmation. I'm so
thankful that we did it, and it makes me so
excited for season two because our main goal is for
people to not feel alone and to dip their toe
in the water towards some freedom. Simply by listening to
the series. That's not going to get you there, and
Lisa will tell you it's a lot of work. I
(00:47):
will tell you too, and I'm still a work in progress.
But along the way, there's so many questions that pop
into your head, especially after listening to a series like that.
So we appreciate that y'all are sending us the questions
and we'll try to get them answered as we can.
But I pulled some and we're gonna do since to
(01:08):
go along with our four Things theme. I pulled four
questions and Lisa is gonna help me answer them, because
I feel like Lisa, she's the registered dietitian, She's the fork,
the noise creator, she has so much wisdom, and she's
the expert here in this Q and A. And then
(01:28):
I'm here to just give my thoughts on things, having
gone through it myself as well, and Lisa has gone
through it too. But then she has the background, and
you can say what your background is here, Lisa, in
case someone's just chiming in and they don't know. I
think you you kind of helped it on the head there.
I'm an expert, I think for two reasons. One kind
(01:48):
of I've been through the throes of it and out
the other side. And then the other one is I've
worked with people for the last three or four years,
specifically in your shoes, and for that reason, the same questions, thoughts,
confusion comes up all the time, and so I feel
really comfortable helping you navigate this with less error when
(02:12):
you go through trial or of figuring this out. So
I hope that my advice is not you know, you
don't take it for faith value, but you take time
to listen to what I say and either take what resonates,
or if something hits the wrong chord with you, you know,
take a moment and say, why is it hitting the
wrong chord with me? Is it because I'm scared to
(02:32):
do what she's saying, or is it because that won't
be the right answer for you? So, you know, just
empowering you to listen, but of course use your intuition
in knowing what truly is best for you. Awesome, Now
that we got our little disclaimer about who we are
and what we bring to the table out of the way,
I'm going to get to the first question, which is
(02:52):
from Teresa, and I'll read the questions and then Lisa
will be doing most of the answering, but I will
be chiming in as well. Hay, Lisa, and Amy, I
just finished listening to all four episodes of Outweigh, and
I wanted to thank you both for putting this together.
I have greatly struggled with disordered eating over the last
four years, and I started seeing a therapist in November
(03:12):
to help with intuitive eating and learning how to change
my thinking. I was starting to make some positive steps,
but in January I had a very painful miscarriage which
knocked me back several steps in my process, among dealing
with emotional pain from a miscarriage that also meant we
had huge medical bills to deal with, and the appointments
with my therapist I could no longer afford. I started
(03:34):
turning to the traditional comfort foods, which put me back
into a very negative headspace with my self esteem and
relationship with food. Outweigh has been a huge help in
this uncertain time. It has been a great podcast to
remind me of encouragement my therapist used to give me
along this journey. I do have a question. I struggle
with finding or discovering my inner voice when it comes
(03:56):
to listening to what my body needs. For example, when
I have a day without eating what I used to
think of as junk food, I always feel much better.
But I think it's because subconsciously, I feel proud of
myself for avoiding quote bad foods, even though I don't
call them that anymore, instead of really paying attention to
how I really feel, old habits die hard, so it's
(04:19):
hard to break my subconscious mind of feeling proud that
I avoided those previously bad foods. I don't think it's
a true reflection of listening to my body. But it's
more that I'm listening to the cues from my old
ways of thinking. How can I break that habit? How
can I become more in tune with my true in herself. Also,
I just wanted to throw in that. At my last
(04:40):
doctor's appointment, when they went to weigh me, I told
them that I've been struggling with disordered eating and I
asked them if I could stand backwards on the scale
so I did not see the number. I requested that
she not say the weight out loud, and the nurse
was happy to do that, so in case others struggle
with that awkwardness, that approach helped. Thank you, Teresa perfect. So,
(05:01):
I mean, Teresa has been through a lot this year,
so just to take a moment to kind of honor
a lot of the difficulty that she's going through. And
what I find so amazing about Teresa and the Teresa's
of the world really all the people that listen to
outweigh and send us feedback. They are so willing to
do the work to question their thoughts and their behaviors
(05:22):
and not just let little things kind of sneak up
on them. Despite the stress they're under. So there's just
like an introspective nature of our audience that I just
relate to personally, And it feels so amazing to be
surrounded by women that are so brave. So thank you
Teresa for sharing this. It's been a really tough year
(05:43):
for you, and we are holding space for you, and
you know we're here for you despite your therapist not
being a resource for you right now. So the first
thing that I'm kind of noticing with Teresa is that
she feels proud of herself for avoiding cool to unquote
bad foods, even though she doesn't call him that anymore.
So I think it's a really wonderful step to stop
(06:06):
calling foods good and bad. But sometimes we're kind of
in this in between state where we're not calling them
good and bad because we're trying not to see them
that way, but we haven't really neutralized them in our mind.
So even though we're not calling them a good or
bad food, in her mind, there's still that way. Does
that make sense totally. I'm in that phase right now
(06:30):
where I'm trying to break my horrible habit of calling
foods good and it's not easy. The first step, the
first step is to recognize with two foods you consider
good which foods you consider bad. So this is absolutely
a step in the right direction. But then comes the
neutralizing of the food show allowing these foods to be
(06:51):
back on your plate, your cable, in your cabinet, and
allowing yourself to eat these foods not just when you
really are in the mood for them or when you're
really craving them, but to have them around more frequently
and eat them and consume them and become more comfortable
with them. So we did provide a tool that I
think could be helpful, which is a Porsonoise dot com
(07:12):
forward slash food rules will provide you with some tools
to to go beyond step one, which is knowing which
is good and which is bad. So again step in
the right direction. I think that that's really a great
place to be, but it's time to go a step
further and actually start neutralizing them. So that means allowing
(07:32):
these foods to be part of your life even if
you're not craving them or desiring them, so you can
learn if you like them, how much you like them,
and show yourself that they really are available to you
at all times. So for myself, I found, you know,
I used to say that like all suits were off
limits unless a birthday or even after dinner, to allow
(07:54):
myself to have a cookie, for example, after lunch, even
if I wasn't craving it, and that allowed me to
be a better listener to my body. But most of all,
trust myself around these foods, and all of a sudden,
a cookie wasn't a bad booty because I was able
to have a bite or two of a cookie at
certain instances. And I'd also want Teresa to kind of
double check what that feeling of happening, of having pride
(08:16):
for herself after a full day of not having quote
unquote bad foods, and to ask herself, are you proud
for following the rules or proud of yourself for allowing
yourself to be the guys and allowing that to kind
of settle in and see what comes up. That's good advice,
because we we would rather be proud of ourselves for
(08:37):
the latter. Correct exactly, And it sounds like she's answering
these questions for herself, but she needs a little bit
of reassurance from us, you know, even just the way
she piped it out or sent it in. You know
she had. She knows exactly what she needs to be
doing and and and just doesn't know how to get
over that hump. So I think that she's doing a
(08:57):
wonderful job just listening to that inner voice that says, Okay,
I'm moving the needle, but I think I could move
it a little further, and just to know that you
know we're behind you, watching and take the leap, do
what you need to do to best serve you well. Teresa,
thank you for the email and then also the tip
that you shared with us for weighing yourself at the doctor,
(09:18):
because if you listen to episode four of the Outweigh series,
that comes up. And I've even avoided doctor's appointments simply
because I didn't want to be weighed, So appreciate that tip.
The next question is from Brooke. Hey, Amy, I'm really
enjoying your Outweigh series and definitely identify with the wor
(09:38):
the Rexiat description. And I'm a work in progress. I
have two sons, ages three and five, and I feel
as though I've transferred some of my obsession over healthy
eating to them. I'm having a hard time balancing the
desire to feed them nutrient dense food to support their
growing bodies without giving them a complex down the road.
(09:59):
I know you've talked about some of your struggles with
this pertaining to your own kids, and I'm wondering if
you could bring on an expert to help navigate this topic,
or if you could just share some of the tips
that you've learned. Also some tips on how to help
prevent eating disorders or disordered eating in our kids as
they grow. I follow kids Eat in Color on Instagram
(10:19):
and I really enjoy her posts, but sometimes I get
overwhelmed and I'm hoping to hear some concise advice from
an expert. For example, how much Easter candy do I
let them eat? If I limit them too much, well,
they just want it more. But if I don't put
boundaries on it, I don't think I'm being a responsible parent.
And school lunches. I packed my preschooler a nutritious lunch
(10:42):
each day, but he's looking around and as friends with
Doritos and Oreos in their lunch and wondering why he
doesn't have them. Thanks for all that you do, Brook,
So I mean, Lisa, I'm gonna I know that you
don't work with the kid area a lot, and I'll
just answer the brook. You're not alone in this at all,
and I think that it's amazing that you're recognizing as
(11:05):
a mom. Not only do we have a responsibility to
fuel our kids with you know, nutrient dense foods, but
we have also have a responsibility to not create a
negative thinking around food or body image issues and have
them put foods in categories of you know, referencing the
last email, good foods and bad foods. And I am
(11:28):
totally guilty of that especially. I mean, I've only been
a mom the last two years. We adopted two kids
from Haiti. I now have a twelve year old and
a nine year old. But oh mysh, oh my gosh,
my daughter just turned thirteen. I have a thirteen year old.
Good lord, Okay, I have a teenager, but she you know,
she's been with me the last couple of years. And
my kids growing up in an orphanage, I didn't know
(11:51):
what it would be like once they got here and
had a pantry full of food and a refrigerator full
of food that they could have access to at any time.
I knew I had read books where you know, it
could be that they started hoarding food and hiding it
under their bed in their room because they didn't know
when they would get access to food again, because that
wasn't their life at the orphanage. They ate when they
(12:11):
were given food at meal time, and that was it.
There wasn't hey, I'm hungry, I want to snack. I
can go to the kitchen. And then all of a sudden,
when they move in with families and they see all
this food, they wonder, is it always going to be
this way? Or should I go eat all this food
now or hoard it just in case it goes away tomorrow.
And I am very, very thankful and blessed that I
(12:36):
have not had that issue with my two kids. I
know that's not the case for everybody that adopts, and
I'm just thankful. There's already so many other things that
come along with adopting kids from an institutionalized situation that
I'm thankful that's not another thing on my plate, no
pun intended, But I know that I didn't do the
(13:00):
best job at keeping my unhealthy habits away from them.
I was already, you know, they would want candy right
when they got here, and I made candy so off limits.
I couldn't believe it. Everywhere returned there was candy, and
I was I was already lacking sleep and losing my
(13:20):
mind and going crazy. And you know when you first
it's like you when you first have a baby, Like
there's your not sleeping sometimes there's my kids have attachment disorder.
And we were just going through a lot and it
was hard. And I remember at church, I dropped them
off at kids church and when they got out, like
they gave them these bags of candy. And I looked
(13:43):
at the woman like she was crazy. Really I was
the one that was crazy, But again, had a lot
going on, and I was trying to figure out how
to be the best mom to them. And what I
thought being the best mom to them was absolutely no candy.
And if you want candy, you need to ask for that.
And I couldn't believe that strangers, we're giving my kids candy,
not because I thought they had poisoned it or anything,
(14:05):
but because like, don't they know that some moms are
trying to keep their kids to not have any candy
at all? Whatsoever? I mean, I I straight up returned
to the church candy and I said no, thank you,
And then my kids are sitting there looking at me,
probably well, they're English was not that great at the time,
but they understood that they were not getting the candy,
(14:27):
and it caused so many issues. It probably caused them
to obsess about the candy way more because I was
so obsessed with them not having the candy. So I'll say, Brooke,
I'm giving you that example of where I was at
the beginning of my parenting and where I was. It
shows you where I was on my journey with food.
(14:49):
I didn't want them to have the candy because well,
quite frankly, I didn't allow myself to have candy. So
we were going to be a no candy house. And
that's just how it was. And and I mean obviously
there could be candy from time to time, but not
on a random Sunday at church for no reason. I mean,
you know, I thought people had lost their minds and
(15:09):
I I was so mortified. Even a few weeks after,
I felt like I needed to go apologize to that
Sunday school teacher, but I never did. I love how
like Outweigh is structured and kind of this way where
you can really share your honest, pretty up to date stories.
I think that it's something that people probably weren't expecting
when they started listening to Outweigh. I mean, I know
(15:31):
we said in our intro that we are, you know,
two women that just are there with you. But I
think that your story is really drive home that point,
that and the tone that we were that we're trying
to express, which is different than I think any other
podcasts out there. You know, we're we're we're telling our
real stories in as as close to real time as possible,
(15:53):
and we're not talking down to our audience and a
sense of worthy expert. I know you're I'm the expert technically,
but you know, having you share this realness with the
audience is discomforting for me to here, so I can
imagine that the audience also feels that way. Thank you
(16:19):
for that, because because I want Brooke to know that
you are not alone in this confusion, and you are
doing the right thing by being concerned as to whether
or not you're passing this along to your kids, and
you fear you might already have. But here's the thing,
I know that I already did. But I am redirecting.
I am relearning myself, and I'm re teaching to them
(16:42):
and kids are amazing and they and so the best
thing you can do is not feel guilty about how
you've handled in the past, but just look at how
you want to be and move in that direction. So
you know, Easter was a couple of weeks ago and
you asked specifically, for example, how much Easter candy do
(17:03):
I let them eat? And I have been over the
last several months changing my my tune with candy. And
it doesn't mean that you're saying candy can be have
eaten it all hours of the day. I mean, that's
just not the same. That's not the structure at my
house with any food, because we have structured times for
(17:24):
meals and I think that that's healthy for kids to
have that. And my kids need to know that they
have more food coming and they have a snack time
and they can go get food at any time, but
they still have to talk to us about it because
we're the parents. And so even when it came to
the candy, they knew like, hey, Mom, can I have
this candy? And my answer on Easter was, of course, yeah,
(17:44):
no big deal, like I want this is what Easter
is all about. But then I knew that may cause
me some issues come Monday where they're like, wait a second,
I could have all the Easter candy that I wanted yesterday.
What do I do now? So old me would have said, oh, well,
it's not Easter anymore, you don't get any candy. Cut
it off, you can't have it. Knew me sees it
(18:07):
as okay. If I do that, then I'm going like
I did when they first got here, I'm creating more
of a candy obsession because then that's all they're going
to think about because I have denied it. And also
I would have referred to Easter Day or Candy Day
of all of that is like, okay, it's bad, but
tomorrow you gotta eat good. And again that's another thing
(18:27):
I don't want to put in their heads. So now
I don't even refer to candy is good or bad.
I just say for coming Monday. I allowed them to
still have their Easter candy, but I made it not
a big deal. I just said, okay, yeah, if you
want to throw a piece of candy in with your lunch,
let's do that. No big deal. And they responded so
well to that. They weren't obsessed about it. They thought
(18:50):
it was cool that they got a piece of candy
with their lunch. And then it's slowly, they slowly throughout
the week past Easter started to forget about their Easter candy.
And now we have their sterbaskets in the pantry in
full sight. Everyone can still see all the candy, and
everyone's living with the candy as if it's a it's
just normal. And then when if it shoot, I wouldn't
(19:13):
have been able to allow that for myself as the mom,
because I wouldn't been able to trust myself to not
go eat all their Easter candy. To that same point,
just to elaborate the food that I thought I couldn't
control myself around, that I couldn't have in the house,
And this is something that we hear from adults all
the time. Now that I have those foods in the
house all the time, it takes me months to get through.
Like these foods, you know, because they're not on my
(19:35):
mind when I eat them, they're not in copy in
huge quantities. I eat a my move on. So a
lot of the same mindset kind of happens for children too.
When the access is all around, they trust that it
will always be around, so anyway I'm gonna go a
little bit more general for my pips of what I
know can be helpful. Obviously, when you have children and
you want them to eat healthy and grow strong and
(19:58):
be healthy and have neutral an awareness, that's a wonderful thing.
So I just came up with a couple of like
dues and don't, starting with the don't avoiding words like
good versus bad, or even healthy versus junk food, kind
of just allowing them to see that food is food
and allowing them to kind of figure out what is
making what is fueling them to feel alive, and what's
(20:21):
making them feel more tired. Avoiding correlating a specific food
or ingredients to causing weight gain. Children are just I mean,
I think everyone's too young figure that language, but specifically
that's going to taint their understanding and connection to food.
And when we see food just about being the weight,
we really become disconnected to all the other wonderful things
(20:43):
that does for us. Avoid telling them how much to
eat if you feel like they're too much. Children have
amazing natural mind body connections in pat so they know
when they've had enough. Sometimes they will under eat, sometimes
they will overeat. But allowing them to kind of gear
that out is kind of just a beautiful face, and
they're they're less consciously making those connections of Okay, next
(21:06):
time you eat a little bit more, or next time
eat a little bit less. So this is part of
their learning to to allow them to learn. Some things
you can do that can make food kind of fun
is keeping about colors, like, for example, how orange foods
and vitamin C which is great for immunity, or talking
about things like avocado or olive oil, is having heart
(21:28):
protective types of fat, and again these are depend on
the age of the child. Of course, talking to them
about how foods like pasta and rice and carbohydrates can
make them run faster or have more fun. Also allowing
them to be part of the food press process. Again
this will depend on their age, but some things to
do could be like taking them to a farm to
(21:49):
see how food has grown, or having a gardening activity
in your backyard if you have access to that, you
know having them be part of the actual process of
creating the food can be really be powerful. The next
best thing would of course be allowing them to go
to the grocery store and seeing what excites them in
both the produce aisles and be the pantry aisles as well,
(22:10):
and then of course age appropriate pending maybe allowing them
to be part of the cooking process. I think the
most important point here is to be flexible. So if
you are somebody like Brook who stocks their house with
mostly very obvious healthy foods, that allowing them to try
and consume the foods that they're showing interest in, like
(22:31):
the dor ritos, and allowing them to be the decider
of if they like it. So I feel like Amy,
like you said, the bigger deal you make out of
the food being allowed or not allowed is going to
impact Thomas they want it or don't want it. I mean,
I have a niece and nephew and it's so funny
to just kind of watch their reaction to the things
that I thought were so amazing, you know, like they're
(22:52):
not even interested in chocolate, or if they have desserts
they often leave behind so much so just allowing them
to be the decider of what they like rather than
imparting our own thought. Yeah, I used to never think,
and I don't know why I thought I would be
able to magically control this. But we weren't going to
just have ice cream in the house whenever, and we
(23:14):
were having it last weekend or maybe the weekend before,
and my daughter finished hers and said, can I have
more ice cream? And my initial reaction in my brain
was no, you can't. But then I thought, shoot, is
that me? Uh? Is I don't? Then I have this
conversation with myself. Am I just having want? Making her
(23:35):
crave the ice cream more? And the minute I gave
her permission to have more and I said, yeah, sure,
I mean we were watching a movie. I said, if
you want to get up and go make it, then yeah,
you can have more ice cream. And she sat there
with her empty bowl for a little bit. And then
later I said, hey, did you not want to get
up and go get the ice cream? She goes. I
(23:55):
realized I didn't really want it, and I thought, oh
my gosh, like, okay, good for you, that's awesome. That
was a good example too, of babe, what I need
to do when I'm craving something again. Immediately after I
just had it, I give myself permission to go get
more if I want. But then maybe I sit with
it for a second and then maybe all conclude that
(24:16):
I don't really want it, and I think too. I've
had the issue with Stevenson. He loves blueberries and carrots,
and he would take those two school, and you know,
his other classmates would have cheetos, and he came home
very confused by that and almost embarrassed of his snacks.
And I thought, okay, well, this is difficult. But similar
(24:40):
to the tip you gave Lisa, I tried to start
approaching food. And I learned this from Kids Eating Color,
which is actually a wonderful Instagram account. I think all
of this information at times can be a little overwhelming, though,
and I would love to get Kids Eating Color on
our season two about way, but she helped me look
at foods yes for what they have to offer, and
(25:01):
speak to Stevenson about that. He wants to grow so badly.
He's pretty small for his age, and he sees that
his dad works out and has biceps and strong and
so I approach food more with language around that of
him growing and staying strong and having healthy eyes, and
(25:21):
thinking about the blueberries and how they're good for the brain.
And I give him that information to sit with, and
he still chooses the blueberries and carrots, and I don't
have a problem if he wants to eat the Cheetos
as much as I probably would have years ago, but
I guess I still don't. Lisa, just full disclosure. I
don't stalk my house with Cheetos or Doritos, but they
(25:46):
do have other kinds of snacks that they do get.
But I'm starting to wonder should I should I have
that stuff in my house. I don't know. I'm not
an expert or a mom, so I can't really say
what I would do yet, but I think that allowing
us to have to have that at certain times or
in you know, a certain situations like will allow them
(26:07):
to have access to it. And if you find them
asking for it to have in your house, I think
that could be a time to maybe consider having it
in your house, knowing that oftentimes that the access to
it won't mean that they eat it. Okay, good point.
He hasn't asked for it, so I guess I don't
need to bring the Cheetos it just I know it
was a thing at school, but he didn't ask for them,
so that's good. And then, did do you have another
(26:30):
a book recommendation for Brooke that might be good for
other people too? Yeah? So Ellen Sadder is an author
and I don't know if she's a registered dietitian, but
I was. I learned all about her approach when I
was in grad school, and so it's not new by
any means. Ellen Sadder was kind of the very ahead
of her time about talking about the division of responsibility
(26:52):
of eating, and she has different books. You can go
to Ellen Sadder dot com. It's e L l y N,
not the typical go away. Ellen is spelt Ellen Sadder
Institute and she has different books and she has a
really interesting approach about how like the parents role in
feeding their child and where where kind of they need
(27:13):
to step back to create confident, healthy eaters. Awesome. So
I'm sure that there are more and more kind of
recent books that I'll start to look into, especially as
we prepare for season two. But she's the one that
comes to mind. Okay, well, Brooke, hopefully we answered some
stuff there for you and then again we'll yeah, we'll
address it in season two. Okay. Next question is from Rachel. Hey, Amy,
(27:36):
I've been listening to Outweigh and I have a question.
I'm overweight and need to lose some weight, especially for
my health. How do I go about having a healthy
relationship with food and still lose weight. I've tried multiple
diets and always fall off the wagon. Any advice would
be much appreciated. Love and sunshine, Rachel. So Hey Rachel,
First of all, thank you for listening to every episode.
(27:57):
In episode four, we do have a doctor's seek about
quote unquote needing to lose weight, so I think everybody
should listen to that to have an understanding about how
making it about weight can take away from help. So
while the doctor and I don't argue that weight and
health are correlated, we know that weight doesn't cause disease,
(28:21):
and we also know that dieting itself can be an
independent risk factor for disease, and so Rachel's point, we
know that diets don't work, so really understanding that before
you try the next thing is an important piece of
information to go into. We also know that long term
weight loss is not possible for most people, and there's
(28:42):
evidence to show that weight loss increases risk of early death.
So that's all to say, in my opinion that it's
your choice if you want to pursue weight loss or not,
but the pursuit of weight loss is not an obligation
that you have. So I encourage you, Rachel Rachel's of
the world to understand your why and understand that you're
(29:04):
worth in this world will never come from your weight,
and you are loved and whole as you are. So
I just kind of wanted to preface that to begin with.
When it becomes to behaviors, to healthy behaviors, it's important
that we get specific and that means communicating what feelings
or symptoms you're trying to alleviate. So what is your
(29:26):
chief complaints other than the weight itself? Are you lacking energy?
Is your digestion sluggish? Weight loss is not a behavior?
So what can we do that is a behavior? Is
the question I really want to assess, and what we
can do rather than jumping on another diet that's going
to fail, like you said, Rachel and Rachel's of the world,
is we can try to eat in response to our
(29:48):
body cues. We can move our bodies in joyful ways
rather than always focusing on the caloric burn or sculpting
all that stuff. I think it's important to recognize in
this new process that we're entering that there's no such
thing as slip ups, the relapses, a wagon. This is
just a new process for the very first time, getting
(30:11):
to know yourself and your body again. And the best
thing we can do is not rely on more rules
or rely on another expert to teach us more about
our own bodies. This is up to you to become
the expert in your own bodies. You can look to
gentle nutrition principles to guide you. There's nothing wrong with
(30:31):
eating empowered and making conscious choices based on outer world
them but we want to make sure that these choices
come from you right now, not for you. That says
I want to lose weight. So I'm just gonna say
that part again, meaning I am eating this food right
now because I know it's good for abc D, not
I am eating this food because I want to lose weight.
(30:53):
So that's eating for the future, not allowing you to
connect with you in the moment and your needs. A
lot of people are going to argue that you can't
lose weight and feel your relationship to food at the
same time, and I personally do agree with this. I
think that having the goal of weight loss at the
forefront is always going to impede at your ability to
(31:14):
tune into that eating awareness cue that you do have.
So in order to make long term health related choices.
We need to learn how to take care of ourselves
in the moment, and that means understanding the current feedback
from our bodies. It means un learning a lot, including
cultural norm societal expectations, and also the truth about food
(31:36):
and our bodies. So I found that by using the scale,
for example, which obviously helps you, say, am I being
successful or unsuccessful at losing weight, is not going to
help you better understand your body. All it does is
make us lose sight of how we're actually feeling, what's
working and what's not working, and pulls us away from
(31:57):
our ability to take better care for ourselves. So that
was long winded, but I do this a lot of
kind of point out that to be the best caretaker
of yourself, we're not abandoning healthy habit or eating well.
We're just shifting the focus on things that are actually happening,
like digestion, energy, even your skin, even your joint mobility,
(32:19):
all those things. So begin to ask yourself questions when
it comes to nutrition, like would a salad go with this?
Can you add in vegetables? What does it take to
make this more well balanced? Does it need protein, fish beans,
what would make it more satisfying. What would allow me
to leave this meal feeling good and not uncomfortable. So
(32:41):
start asking the questions about this current meal rather than
the questions about your weight for the long term. Thank
you for that, answered, Lisa. Next question, and this is
the final one, is from Crystal. Hey, Amy, your Outweigh
mini series was fantastic. My first question is how do
you go about ten kids about nutrition instead of good
(33:02):
and bad foods. I don't have kids yet, but I
would love to have a starting place with them. I
don't want my kids to grow up having the struggles
that I have with food. So I'll just interject here
real quick, to me talking not Crystal's email. Crystal hopefully
when we addressed the other question, was it from Brooke
about her kids? That was helpful to you? And then
(33:22):
Lisa and I now know and I have other emails
about kids too, that this is a topic we need
to touch on. So again we'll address that in season two.
But I want to get to the second part of
her email, which was a second question, and here's what
she said. Currently, I'm gluten free because I have been
having certain issues acid reflex and other stuff. So this
(33:43):
is my first personal test on removing something from my
diet to see how it makes me feel. Then I
will eventually reintroduce it. So far, I think it's helped.
If I reintroduce it and have issues again, is it
okay to go gluten free or should I get a
doctor's opinion? This seems like a silly question, but I'm
just wanting to keep healthy habits. Thanks so much, Crystal Awesome.
(34:05):
What I love about Crystal is that she is experimenting
and listening to the feedback of her body. I encourage
all of us to do that and take note without
coming up with preconceived ideas about how we should feel.
I also love what I love about Crystal and the
way she worded that is that she's willing to reintroduce
it rather than stopping at the point right now of
(34:25):
I removed gluten, I feel good. I'm gonna keep gluten
out of my diet forever. So that shows that Crystal
is maintaining a healthy relationship. She's willing to enter it
back in to see how it feels. So her second
part of her question should she see a doctor is
a doctor contest for something called Celiac disease and Celiac
disease is an autoimmune disease, and what happens when you
(34:48):
pheliac disease is your body sees this as a foreigner,
as an invader, and attacks itself and as a result,
you can have some pretty serious short term and long
term health issues if you continue to eat gluten the
protein found in wheat over time. So it's important for
somebody who may be celiac to see a doctor to
(35:11):
rule out pheliac disease. It's not a very big population
that has pheliac disease, but if you're somebody that thinks
you could, it's worth seeing a doctor, either your primary
care or they'll probably refer you to a g I doctor.
So that being said, a blood test will tell you
if you have antibodies for phaliac disease or not. That
(35:32):
being said, there's a large population that could be gluten
intoleries or gluten sensitive, and for that reason it might
be worth working with a professional to do a proper
elimination diet and find out. So in my personal experience
with clients who thinks they can't eat gluten, what I
have found that they feel better simply because in removing
(35:54):
gluten they actually underwent a huge dietary Underhult that cut
out not just gluten, but a lot of food that
they used to eat. So this person, Crystal, speaks about
cutting out gluten and and experiencing less acid reflux. Obviously,
I've never worked with Crystal, but it's possible that in
removing spaghetti, a food that has gluten, she also took
(36:16):
out tomato sauce, which is an acidic food that might
have caused the indigestion. So it's possible for some of
us that it's not necessarily the gluten that is the problem.
There's also studies to show that cutting out gluten for
no reason, just because you think it's healthy, can negatively
impact our health. And that's because without gluten, we also
(36:38):
remove a lot of bull grain foods, which bring in
fiber and antioxidants which are successful in preventing heart disease.
So I have found out that clients that cut out
gluten for no reason can also replace it with gluten alternative,
which may not make them better off. So gluten mimicking products.
So if you're eating instead of a cookie, gluten free cookie,
(37:01):
you might be adding ingredients such as more sugar and
refined flowers rather than just eating a regular cookie that's
made with eggs and flour and stuff. So it's important,
as you and I have talked in previous episodes of
your podcast, to not get lost in the healthy halo
effects of gluten free and to really figure out what
kind of works for you. And lastly, I just want
(37:22):
to kind of point in that other people you may
find I think, amy you you don't feel fantastic, what's gluten?
You might find that gluten doesn't make you feel fantastic,
but you also know that you don't have Celiac disease,
and there might be situations where it's worth it for
you to be present and eat a gluten containing food,
whether that's pizza, cookie cake, or even something that is
(37:46):
healthful like sparrow, which is a whole grain, to be
present with the situation that you're in and choose to
feel mech or not so great for a day or
so after having it. So the bottom line here is
that Crystal, this may not mean that you need to
cut out gluten forever. It's worth investigating further, and in
the absence of feeling ACT disease diagnosed, it maybe it's
(38:09):
important for you to remain flexible when needs Yeah, Lisa,
that's all great advice for sure. And for me, Yes,
I cut out gluten because well, years ago, it was
part of a quote unquote plan that I was on
too We'll try to get pregnant, but then ultimately made
me lose weight, so then I felt better, and then
I just thought gluten was the culprit and I could
(38:30):
never have it again, and I avoided it like crazy,
but it was just I really can have gluten. I do.
I do believe that, and so I've even reintroduced foods
that I wouldn't previously have allowed myself to have the
last several years, and I feel fine. So you do
have to listen to your body and see what's best.
(38:51):
And I still like certain foods that don't have gluten.
But I've I know in my head because I had
previously told myself that it would be the end of
the world basically if I consumed gluten. But now I
have that freedom in my head and I know that
that is not true. It was a lie for my body.
But you you do have to listen to how it feels.
And I am obsessed with Ezekiel cinnamon raisin English muffins.
(39:18):
I love to just slice one open, put in the
toaster and then put some a bunch of gee on
top of it with some sea salt, and it's this
perfect salty sweet thing. And I have that on repeat
a lot of days. And that's something literally, I mean
in Ezekiel bread is really quality, amazing ingredients, but I
(39:41):
for years wouldn't allow myself to have it because it
wasn't gluten free. So and I think that's like an
important point that a lot of people don't know what
gluten is and they just think gluten mean the bagel, pasta, rice,
but a lot of full grains contains gluten, wheat, berries,
Semlina felt arrow, all these whole brains that I was
(40:01):
talking about has fiber and vitamins and antioxidants, and so
recognizing that gluten is not just one thing and it's
something to kind of consider. You got to dive a
little bit deeper into what you think gluten is and
and to understand kind of what works for you. So, yeah,
Zekiel filled filled with amazing nutrients and if you know
(40:23):
that that works for you. Yeah, And I was denying
myself something that I really enjoyed simply because it didn't
say gluten free, even though, like I said, and then
Lisa just you know, confirmed because she used the expert
that it's full of nutritious ingredients for my body. But
yet I would go to the store and buy a
box of crackers with who knows what kind of crap
(40:45):
in it simply because it said gluten free on the
box and it had well, I guess I shouldn't say that, Lisa,
because I'm retraining my this is, I mean, to your
to your point, it had a lot more ingredients and
unnecessary fillers, binders, preservative even to make it feel like
gluten when you know a piece of bread with wholes
(41:07):
and ingredients could have worked. Right. I'm just trying to
paint and array again. See, guys, I'm a work in
progress of calling food crap and good and bad and whatnot.
I see you're witnessing it in real time right here.
But I catch myself, which I'm proud of, but I would.
I'm just telling you how that's where my brain was.
It was so hyper focused on not having gluten that
(41:30):
I was denying myself a nutritious food that I previously
let myself consume and putting that on the back burner,
but allowing other foods into my body simply because it
had a gluten free stamp on it. Yeah, exactly, and
that is that's where it can get a little messed up.
And but hey, it's never too late to start un
(41:51):
learning things and and relearning. So I'm super thankful for
Lisa and her knowledge, and that'll include today's Q and A.
Continue to send your questions to four Things with Amy
Brown at gmail dot com. Continue to engage with Lisa
and I on Instagram. I'm Radio Amy. She's at the
Well Necessities And Lisa, you are putting this Q and
(42:13):
A up on your blog? Correct? Yes, So by whatever
day you published this, I'll publish this on my blogs,
The Well Necessities dot com. And if you want to
listen to this later on, just look at the published
date to to see where it is. It'll be fairly
new on my blog if you catch this around May. Okay, well,
I'll tell you the date is Sinco to Mayo, May five,
(42:35):
so should be easy to remember in case you're listening
to this, yeah at a later date and you need
to go back and find it. And Lisa, say, your
website again, The Well Necessities dot com. Okay, so it'll
be a post on the Well Necessities dot com. From
May five, Sinco to Mayo. I'm gonna have to have
Margarita today. Probably another thing I previously wouldn't have allowed
(42:57):
myself to have in my old way is of thinking
but having reasons to celebrate and living life and creating
memories with people. Those things far outweigh you denying yourself
Margarita on Sinca de Mayo with those that you love,
(43:19):
because that's what I did for for so many years.
And that's just an example. But the reason why we
made this called the series outweighs because of life without
disordered eating. Outweighs everything, including celebrations. So I hope everyone
has a great rest of your day, whatever time of
day you're listening to this, and we will see you
next time. Thanks for coming on, Lisa, Thanks for having me.
Okay, Happy Tuesday. As promised, I've got Lisa here to
do a Q and A with me on Outweigh Questions.
So I've been blown away at the amount of emails
that have come in about Outweigh. I mean, Lisa, I
don't know about you, but sometimes I am when I
opened the email boxer, I open up d M s,
and I just see how people have been touched by
(00:27):
the series. It just for me, it's affirmation. I'm so
thankful that we did it, and it makes me so
excited for season two because our main goal is for
people to not feel alone and to dip their toe
in the water towards some freedom. Simply by listening to
the series. That's not going to get you there, and
Lisa will tell you it's a lot of work. I
(00:47):
will tell you too, and I'm still a work in progress.
But along the way, there's so many questions that pop
into your head, especially after listening to a series like that.
So we appreciate that y'all are sending us the questions
and we'll try to get them answered as we can.
But I pulled some and we're gonna do since to
(01:08):
go along with our four Things theme. I pulled four
questions and Lisa is gonna help me answer them, because
I feel like Lisa, she's the registered dietitian, She's the fork,
the noise creator, she has so much wisdom, and she's
the expert here in this Q and A. And then
(01:28):
I'm here to just give my thoughts on things, having
gone through it myself as well, and Lisa has gone
through it too. But then she has the background, and
you can say what your background is here, Lisa, in
case someone's just chiming in and they don't know. I
think you you kind of helped it on the head there.
I'm an expert, I think for two reasons. One kind
(01:48):
of I've been through the throes of it and out
the other side. And then the other one is I've
worked with people for the last three or four years,
specifically in your shoes, and for that reason, the same questions, thoughts,
confusion comes up all the time, and so I feel
really comfortable helping you navigate this with less error when
(02:12):
you go through trial or of figuring this out. So
I hope that my advice is not you know, you
don't take it for faith value, but you take time
to listen to what I say and either take what resonates,
or if something hits the wrong chord with you, you know,
take a moment and say, why is it hitting the
wrong chord with me? Is it because I'm scared to
(02:32):
do what she's saying, or is it because that won't
be the right answer for you? So, you know, just
empowering you to listen, but of course use your intuition
in knowing what truly is best for you. Awesome, Now
that we got our little disclaimer about who we are
and what we bring to the table out of the way,
I'm going to get to the first question, which is
(02:52):
from Teresa, and I'll read the questions and then Lisa
will be doing most of the answering, but I will
be chiming in as well. Hay, Lisa, and Amy, I
just finished listening to all four episodes of Outweigh, and
I wanted to thank you both for putting this together.
I have greatly struggled with disordered eating over the last
four years, and I started seeing a therapist in November
(03:12):
to help with intuitive eating and learning how to change
my thinking. I was starting to make some positive steps,
but in January I had a very painful miscarriage which
knocked me back several steps in my process, among dealing
with emotional pain from a miscarriage that also meant we
had huge medical bills to deal with, and the appointments
with my therapist I could no longer afford. I started
(03:34):
turning to the traditional comfort foods, which put me back
into a very negative headspace with my self esteem and
relationship with food. Outweigh has been a huge help in
this uncertain time. It has been a great podcast to
remind me of encouragement my therapist used to give me
along this journey. I do have a question. I struggle
with finding or discovering my inner voice when it comes
(03:56):
to listening to what my body needs. For example, when
I have a day without eating what I used to
think of as junk food, I always feel much better.
But I think it's because subconsciously, I feel proud of
myself for avoiding quote bad foods, even though I don't
call them that anymore, instead of really paying attention to
how I really feel, old habits die hard, so it's
(04:19):
hard to break my subconscious mind of feeling proud that
I avoided those previously bad foods. I don't think it's
a true reflection of listening to my body. But it's
more that I'm listening to the cues from my old
ways of thinking. How can I break that habit? How
can I become more in tune with my true in herself. Also,
I just wanted to throw in that. At my last
(04:40):
doctor's appointment, when they went to weigh me, I told
them that I've been struggling with disordered eating and I
asked them if I could stand backwards on the scale
so I did not see the number. I requested that
she not say the weight out loud, and the nurse
was happy to do that, so in case others struggle
with that awkwardness, that approach helped. Thank you, Teresa perfect. So,
(05:01):
I mean, Teresa has been through a lot this year,
so just to take a moment to kind of honor
a lot of the difficulty that she's going through. And
what I find so amazing about Teresa and the Teresa's
of the world really all the people that listen to
outweigh and send us feedback. They are so willing to
do the work to question their thoughts and their behaviors
(05:22):
and not just let little things kind of sneak up
on them. Despite the stress they're under. So there's just
like an introspective nature of our audience that I just
relate to personally, And it feels so amazing to be
surrounded by women that are so brave. So thank you
Teresa for sharing this. It's been a really tough year
(05:43):
for you, and we are holding space for you, and
you know we're here for you despite your therapist not
being a resource for you right now. So the first
thing that I'm kind of noticing with Teresa is that
she feels proud of herself for avoiding cool to unquote
bad foods, even though she doesn't call him that anymore.
So I think it's a really wonderful step to stop
(06:06):
calling foods good and bad. But sometimes we're kind of
in this in between state where we're not calling them
good and bad because we're trying not to see them
that way, but we haven't really neutralized them in our mind.
So even though we're not calling them a good or
bad food, in her mind, there's still that way. Does
that make sense totally. I'm in that phase right now
(06:30):
where I'm trying to break my horrible habit of calling
foods good and it's not easy. The first step, the
first step is to recognize with two foods you consider
good which foods you consider bad. So this is absolutely
a step in the right direction. But then comes the
neutralizing of the food show allowing these foods to be
(06:51):
back on your plate, your cable, in your cabinet, and
allowing yourself to eat these foods not just when you
really are in the mood for them or when you're
really craving them, but to have them around more frequently
and eat them and consume them and become more comfortable
with them. So we did provide a tool that I
think could be helpful, which is a Porsonoise dot com
(07:12):
forward slash food rules will provide you with some tools
to to go beyond step one, which is knowing which
is good and which is bad. So again step in
the right direction. I think that that's really a great
place to be, but it's time to go a step
further and actually start neutralizing them. So that means allowing
(07:32):
these foods to be part of your life even if
you're not craving them or desiring them, so you can
learn if you like them, how much you like them,
and show yourself that they really are available to you
at all times. So for myself, I found, you know,
I used to say that like all suits were off
limits unless a birthday or even after dinner, to allow
(07:54):
myself to have a cookie, for example, after lunch, even
if I wasn't craving it, and that allowed me to
be a better listener to my body. But most of all,
trust myself around these foods, and all of a sudden,
a cookie wasn't a bad booty because I was able
to have a bite or two of a cookie at
certain instances. And I'd also want Teresa to kind of
double check what that feeling of happening, of having pride
(08:16):
for herself after a full day of not having quote
unquote bad foods, and to ask herself, are you proud
for following the rules or proud of yourself for allowing
yourself to be the guys and allowing that to kind
of settle in and see what comes up. That's good advice,
because we we would rather be proud of ourselves for
(08:37):
the latter. Correct exactly, And it sounds like she's answering
these questions for herself, but she needs a little bit
of reassurance from us, you know, even just the way
she piped it out or sent it in. You know
she had. She knows exactly what she needs to be
doing and and and just doesn't know how to get
over that hump. So I think that she's doing a
(08:57):
wonderful job just listening to that inner voice that says, Okay,
I'm moving the needle, but I think I could move
it a little further, and just to know that you
know we're behind you, watching and take the leap, do
what you need to do to best serve you well. Teresa,
thank you for the email and then also the tip
that you shared with us for weighing yourself at the doctor,
(09:18):
because if you listen to episode four of the Outweigh series,
that comes up. And I've even avoided doctor's appointments simply
because I didn't want to be weighed, So appreciate that tip.
The next question is from Brooke. Hey, Amy, I'm really
enjoying your Outweigh series and definitely identify with the wor
(09:38):
the Rexiat description. And I'm a work in progress. I
have two sons, ages three and five, and I feel
as though I've transferred some of my obsession over healthy
eating to them. I'm having a hard time balancing the
desire to feed them nutrient dense food to support their
growing bodies without giving them a complex down the road.
(09:59):
I know you've talked about some of your struggles with
this pertaining to your own kids, and I'm wondering if
you could bring on an expert to help navigate this topic,
or if you could just share some of the tips
that you've learned. Also some tips on how to help
prevent eating disorders or disordered eating in our kids as
they grow. I follow kids Eat in Color on Instagram
(10:19):
and I really enjoy her posts, but sometimes I get
overwhelmed and I'm hoping to hear some concise advice from
an expert. For example, how much Easter candy do I
let them eat? If I limit them too much, well,
they just want it more. But if I don't put
boundaries on it, I don't think I'm being a responsible parent.
And school lunches. I packed my preschooler a nutritious lunch
(10:42):
each day, but he's looking around and as friends with
Doritos and Oreos in their lunch and wondering why he
doesn't have them. Thanks for all that you do, Brook,
So I mean, Lisa, I'm gonna I know that you
don't work with the kid area a lot, and I'll
just answer the brook. You're not alone in this at all,
and I think that it's amazing that you're recognizing as
(11:05):
a mom. Not only do we have a responsibility to
fuel our kids with you know, nutrient dense foods, but
we have also have a responsibility to not create a
negative thinking around food or body image issues and have
them put foods in categories of you know, referencing the
last email, good foods and bad foods. And I am
(11:28):
totally guilty of that especially. I mean, I've only been
a mom the last two years. We adopted two kids
from Haiti. I now have a twelve year old and
a nine year old. But oh mysh, oh my gosh,
my daughter just turned thirteen. I have a thirteen year old.
Good lord, Okay, I have a teenager, but she you know,
she's been with me the last couple of years. And
my kids growing up in an orphanage, I didn't know
(11:51):
what it would be like once they got here and
had a pantry full of food and a refrigerator full
of food that they could have access to at any time.
I knew I had read books where you know, it
could be that they started hoarding food and hiding it
under their bed in their room because they didn't know
when they would get access to food again, because that
wasn't their life at the orphanage. They ate when they
(12:11):
were given food at meal time, and that was it.
There wasn't hey, I'm hungry, I want to snack. I
can go to the kitchen. And then all of a sudden,
when they move in with families and they see all
this food, they wonder, is it always going to be
this way? Or should I go eat all this food
now or hoard it just in case it goes away tomorrow.
And I am very, very thankful and blessed that I
(12:36):
have not had that issue with my two kids. I
know that's not the case for everybody that adopts, and
I'm just thankful. There's already so many other things that
come along with adopting kids from an institutionalized situation that
I'm thankful that's not another thing on my plate, no
pun intended, But I know that I didn't do the
(13:00):
best job at keeping my unhealthy habits away from them.
I was already, you know, they would want candy right
when they got here, and I made candy so off limits.
I couldn't believe it. Everywhere returned there was candy, and
I was I was already lacking sleep and losing my
(13:20):
mind and going crazy. And you know when you first
it's like you when you first have a baby, Like
there's your not sleeping sometimes there's my kids have attachment disorder.
And we were just going through a lot and it
was hard. And I remember at church, I dropped them
off at kids church and when they got out, like
they gave them these bags of candy. And I looked
(13:43):
at the woman like she was crazy. Really I was
the one that was crazy, But again, had a lot
going on, and I was trying to figure out how
to be the best mom to them. And what I
thought being the best mom to them was absolutely no candy.
And if you want candy, you need to ask for that.
And I couldn't believe that strangers, we're giving my kids candy,
not because I thought they had poisoned it or anything,
(14:05):
but because like, don't they know that some moms are
trying to keep their kids to not have any candy
at all? Whatsoever? I mean, I I straight up returned
to the church candy and I said no, thank you,
And then my kids are sitting there looking at me,
probably well, they're English was not that great at the time,
but they understood that they were not getting the candy,
(14:27):
and it caused so many issues. It probably caused them
to obsess about the candy way more because I was
so obsessed with them not having the candy. So I'll say, Brooke,
I'm giving you that example of where I was at
the beginning of my parenting and where I was. It
shows you where I was on my journey with food.
(14:49):
I didn't want them to have the candy because well,
quite frankly, I didn't allow myself to have candy. So
we were going to be a no candy house. And
that's just how it was. And and I mean obviously
there could be candy from time to time, but not
on a random Sunday at church for no reason. I mean,
you know, I thought people had lost their minds and
(15:09):
I I was so mortified. Even a few weeks after,
I felt like I needed to go apologize to that
Sunday school teacher, but I never did. I love how
like Outweigh is structured and kind of this way where
you can really share your honest, pretty up to date stories.
I think that it's something that people probably weren't expecting
when they started listening to Outweigh. I mean, I know
(15:31):
we said in our intro that we are, you know,
two women that just are there with you. But I
think that your story is really drive home that point,
that and the tone that we were that we're trying
to express, which is different than I think any other
podcasts out there. You know, we're we're we're telling our
real stories in as as close to real time as possible,
(15:53):
and we're not talking down to our audience and a
sense of worthy expert. I know you're I'm the expert technically,
but you know, having you share this realness with the
audience is discomforting for me to here, so I can
imagine that the audience also feels that way. Thank you
(16:19):
for that, because because I want Brooke to know that
you are not alone in this confusion, and you are
doing the right thing by being concerned as to whether
or not you're passing this along to your kids, and
you fear you might already have. But here's the thing,
I know that I already did. But I am redirecting.
I am relearning myself, and I'm re teaching to them
(16:42):
and kids are amazing and they and so the best
thing you can do is not feel guilty about how
you've handled in the past, but just look at how
you want to be and move in that direction. So
you know, Easter was a couple of weeks ago and
you asked specifically, for example, how much Easter candy do
(17:03):
I let them eat? And I have been over the
last several months changing my my tune with candy. And
it doesn't mean that you're saying candy can be have
eaten it all hours of the day. I mean, that's
just not the same. That's not the structure at my
house with any food, because we have structured times for
(17:24):
meals and I think that that's healthy for kids to
have that. And my kids need to know that they
have more food coming and they have a snack time
and they can go get food at any time, but
they still have to talk to us about it because
we're the parents. And so even when it came to
the candy, they knew like, hey, Mom, can I have
this candy? And my answer on Easter was, of course, yeah,
(17:44):
no big deal, like I want this is what Easter
is all about. But then I knew that may cause
me some issues come Monday where they're like, wait a second,
I could have all the Easter candy that I wanted yesterday.
What do I do now? So old me would have said, oh, well,
it's not Easter anymore, you don't get any candy. Cut
it off, you can't have it. Knew me sees it
(18:07):
as okay. If I do that, then I'm going like
I did when they first got here, I'm creating more
of a candy obsession because then that's all they're going
to think about because I have denied it. And also
I would have referred to Easter Day or Candy Day
of all of that is like, okay, it's bad, but
tomorrow you gotta eat good. And again that's another thing
(18:27):
I don't want to put in their heads. So now
I don't even refer to candy is good or bad.
I just say for coming Monday. I allowed them to
still have their Easter candy, but I made it not
a big deal. I just said, okay, yeah, if you
want to throw a piece of candy in with your lunch,
let's do that. No big deal. And they responded so
well to that. They weren't obsessed about it. They thought
(18:50):
it was cool that they got a piece of candy
with their lunch. And then it's slowly, they slowly throughout
the week past Easter started to forget about their Easter candy.
And now we have their sterbaskets in the pantry in
full sight. Everyone can still see all the candy, and
everyone's living with the candy as if it's a it's
just normal. And then when if it shoot, I wouldn't
(19:13):
have been able to allow that for myself as the mom,
because I wouldn't been able to trust myself to not
go eat all their Easter candy. To that same point,
just to elaborate the food that I thought I couldn't
control myself around, that I couldn't have in the house,
And this is something that we hear from adults all
the time. Now that I have those foods in the
house all the time, it takes me months to get through.
Like these foods, you know, because they're not on my
(19:35):
mind when I eat them, they're not in copy in
huge quantities. I eat a my move on. So a
lot of the same mindset kind of happens for children too.
When the access is all around, they trust that it
will always be around, so anyway I'm gonna go a
little bit more general for my pips of what I
know can be helpful. Obviously, when you have children and
you want them to eat healthy and grow strong and
(19:58):
be healthy and have neutral an awareness, that's a wonderful thing.
So I just came up with a couple of like
dues and don't, starting with the don't avoiding words like
good versus bad, or even healthy versus junk food, kind
of just allowing them to see that food is food
and allowing them to kind of figure out what is
making what is fueling them to feel alive, and what's
(20:21):
making them feel more tired. Avoiding correlating a specific food
or ingredients to causing weight gain. Children are just I mean,
I think everyone's too young figure that language, but specifically
that's going to taint their understanding and connection to food.
And when we see food just about being the weight,
we really become disconnected to all the other wonderful things
(20:43):
that does for us. Avoid telling them how much to
eat if you feel like they're too much. Children have
amazing natural mind body connections in pat so they know
when they've had enough. Sometimes they will under eat, sometimes
they will overeat. But allowing them to kind of gear
that out is kind of just a beautiful face, and
they're they're less consciously making those connections of Okay, next
(21:06):
time you eat a little bit more, or next time
eat a little bit less. So this is part of
their learning to to allow them to learn. Some things
you can do that can make food kind of fun
is keeping about colors, like, for example, how orange foods
and vitamin C which is great for immunity, or talking
about things like avocado or olive oil, is having heart
(21:28):
protective types of fat, and again these are depend on
the age of the child. Of course, talking to them
about how foods like pasta and rice and carbohydrates can
make them run faster or have more fun. Also allowing
them to be part of the food press process. Again
this will depend on their age, but some things to
do could be like taking them to a farm to
(21:49):
see how food has grown, or having a gardening activity
in your backyard if you have access to that, you
know having them be part of the actual process of
creating the food can be really be powerful. The next
best thing would of course be allowing them to go
to the grocery store and seeing what excites them in
both the produce aisles and be the pantry aisles as well,
(22:10):
and then of course age appropriate pending maybe allowing them
to be part of the cooking process. I think the
most important point here is to be flexible. So if
you are somebody like Brook who stocks their house with
mostly very obvious healthy foods, that allowing them to try
and consume the foods that they're showing interest in, like
(22:31):
the dor ritos, and allowing them to be the decider
of if they like it. So I feel like Amy,
like you said, the bigger deal you make out of
the food being allowed or not allowed is going to
impact Thomas they want it or don't want it. I mean,
I have a niece and nephew and it's so funny
to just kind of watch their reaction to the things
that I thought were so amazing, you know, like they're
(22:52):
not even interested in chocolate, or if they have desserts
they often leave behind so much so just allowing them
to be the decider of what they like rather than
imparting our own thought. Yeah, I used to never think,
and I don't know why I thought I would be
able to magically control this. But we weren't going to
just have ice cream in the house whenever, and we
(23:14):
were having it last weekend or maybe the weekend before,
and my daughter finished hers and said, can I have
more ice cream? And my initial reaction in my brain
was no, you can't. But then I thought, shoot, is
that me? Uh? Is I don't? Then I have this
conversation with myself. Am I just having want? Making her
(23:35):
crave the ice cream more? And the minute I gave
her permission to have more and I said, yeah, sure,
I mean we were watching a movie. I said, if
you want to get up and go make it, then yeah,
you can have more ice cream. And she sat there
with her empty bowl for a little bit. And then
later I said, hey, did you not want to get
up and go get the ice cream? She goes. I
(23:55):
realized I didn't really want it, and I thought, oh
my gosh, like, okay, good for you, that's awesome. That
was a good example too, of babe, what I need
to do when I'm craving something again. Immediately after I
just had it, I give myself permission to go get
more if I want. But then maybe I sit with
it for a second and then maybe all conclude that
(24:16):
I don't really want it, and I think too. I've
had the issue with Stevenson. He loves blueberries and carrots,
and he would take those two school, and you know,
his other classmates would have cheetos, and he came home
very confused by that and almost embarrassed of his snacks.
And I thought, okay, well, this is difficult. But similar
(24:40):
to the tip you gave Lisa, I tried to start
approaching food. And I learned this from Kids Eating Color,
which is actually a wonderful Instagram account. I think all
of this information at times can be a little overwhelming, though,
and I would love to get Kids Eating Color on
our season two about way, but she helped me look
at foods yes for what they have to offer, and
(25:01):
speak to Stevenson about that. He wants to grow so badly.
He's pretty small for his age, and he sees that
his dad works out and has biceps and strong and
so I approach food more with language around that of
him growing and staying strong and having healthy eyes, and
(25:21):
thinking about the blueberries and how they're good for the brain.
And I give him that information to sit with, and
he still chooses the blueberries and carrots, and I don't
have a problem if he wants to eat the Cheetos
as much as I probably would have years ago, but
I guess I still don't. Lisa, just full disclosure. I
don't stalk my house with Cheetos or Doritos, but they
(25:46):
do have other kinds of snacks that they do get.
But I'm starting to wonder should I should I have
that stuff in my house. I don't know. I'm not
an expert or a mom, so I can't really say
what I would do yet, but I think that allowing
us to have to have that at certain times or
in you know, a certain situations like will allow them
(26:07):
to have access to it. And if you find them
asking for it to have in your house, I think
that could be a time to maybe consider having it
in your house, knowing that oftentimes that the access to
it won't mean that they eat it. Okay, good point.
He hasn't asked for it, so I guess I don't
need to bring the Cheetos it just I know it
was a thing at school, but he didn't ask for them,
so that's good. And then, did do you have another
(26:30):
a book recommendation for Brooke that might be good for
other people too? Yeah? So Ellen Sadder is an author
and I don't know if she's a registered dietitian, but
I was. I learned all about her approach when I
was in grad school, and so it's not new by
any means. Ellen Sadder was kind of the very ahead
of her time about talking about the division of responsibility
(26:52):
of eating, and she has different books. You can go
to Ellen Sadder dot com. It's e L l y N,
not the typical go away. Ellen is spelt Ellen Sadder
Institute and she has different books and she has a
really interesting approach about how like the parents role in
feeding their child and where where kind of they need
(27:13):
to step back to create confident, healthy eaters. Awesome. So
I'm sure that there are more and more kind of
recent books that I'll start to look into, especially as
we prepare for season two. But she's the one that
comes to mind. Okay, well, Brooke, hopefully we answered some
stuff there for you and then again we'll yeah, we'll
address it in season two. Okay. Next question is from Rachel. Hey, Amy,
(27:36):
I've been listening to Outweigh and I have a question.
I'm overweight and need to lose some weight, especially for
my health. How do I go about having a healthy
relationship with food and still lose weight. I've tried multiple
diets and always fall off the wagon. Any advice would
be much appreciated. Love and sunshine, Rachel. So Hey Rachel,
First of all, thank you for listening to every episode.
(27:57):
In episode four, we do have a doctor's seek about
quote unquote needing to lose weight, so I think everybody
should listen to that to have an understanding about how
making it about weight can take away from help. So
while the doctor and I don't argue that weight and
health are correlated, we know that weight doesn't cause disease,
(28:21):
and we also know that dieting itself can be an
independent risk factor for disease, and so Rachel's point, we
know that diets don't work, so really understanding that before
you try the next thing is an important piece of
information to go into. We also know that long term
weight loss is not possible for most people, and there's
(28:42):
evidence to show that weight loss increases risk of early death.
So that's all to say, in my opinion that it's
your choice if you want to pursue weight loss or not,
but the pursuit of weight loss is not an obligation
that you have. So I encourage you, Rachel Rachel's of
the world to understand your why and understand that you're
(29:04):
worth in this world will never come from your weight,
and you are loved and whole as you are. So
I just kind of wanted to preface that to begin with.
When it becomes to behaviors, to healthy behaviors, it's important
that we get specific and that means communicating what feelings
or symptoms you're trying to alleviate. So what is your
(29:26):
chief complaints other than the weight itself? Are you lacking energy?
Is your digestion sluggish? Weight loss is not a behavior?
So what can we do that is a behavior? Is
the question I really want to assess, and what we
can do rather than jumping on another diet that's going
to fail, like you said, Rachel and Rachel's of the world,
is we can try to eat in response to our
(29:48):
body cues. We can move our bodies in joyful ways
rather than always focusing on the caloric burn or sculpting
all that stuff. I think it's important to recognize in
this new process that we're entering that there's no such
thing as slip ups, the relapses, a wagon. This is
just a new process for the very first time, getting
(30:11):
to know yourself and your body again. And the best
thing we can do is not rely on more rules
or rely on another expert to teach us more about
our own bodies. This is up to you to become
the expert in your own bodies. You can look to
gentle nutrition principles to guide you. There's nothing wrong with
(30:31):
eating empowered and making conscious choices based on outer world
them but we want to make sure that these choices
come from you right now, not for you. That says
I want to lose weight. So I'm just gonna say
that part again, meaning I am eating this food right
now because I know it's good for abc D, not
I am eating this food because I want to lose weight.
(30:53):
So that's eating for the future, not allowing you to
connect with you in the moment and your needs. A
lot of people are going to argue that you can't
lose weight and feel your relationship to food at the
same time, and I personally do agree with this. I
think that having the goal of weight loss at the
forefront is always going to impede at your ability to
(31:14):
tune into that eating awareness cue that you do have.
So in order to make long term health related choices.
We need to learn how to take care of ourselves
in the moment, and that means understanding the current feedback
from our bodies. It means un learning a lot, including
cultural norm societal expectations, and also the truth about food
(31:36):
and our bodies. So I found that by using the scale,
for example, which obviously helps you, say, am I being
successful or unsuccessful at losing weight, is not going to
help you better understand your body. All it does is
make us lose sight of how we're actually feeling, what's
working and what's not working, and pulls us away from
(31:57):
our ability to take better care for ourselves. So that
was long winded, but I do this a lot of
kind of point out that to be the best caretaker
of yourself, we're not abandoning healthy habit or eating well.
We're just shifting the focus on things that are actually happening,
like digestion, energy, even your skin, even your joint mobility,
(32:19):
all those things. So begin to ask yourself questions when
it comes to nutrition, like would a salad go with this?
Can you add in vegetables? What does it take to
make this more well balanced? Does it need protein, fish beans,
what would make it more satisfying. What would allow me
to leave this meal feeling good and not uncomfortable. So
(32:41):
start asking the questions about this current meal rather than
the questions about your weight for the long term. Thank
you for that, answered, Lisa. Next question, and this is
the final one, is from Crystal. Hey, Amy, your Outweigh
mini series was fantastic. My first question is how do
you go about ten kids about nutrition instead of good
(33:02):
and bad foods. I don't have kids yet, but I
would love to have a starting place with them. I
don't want my kids to grow up having the struggles
that I have with food. So I'll just interject here
real quick, to me talking not Crystal's email. Crystal hopefully
when we addressed the other question, was it from Brooke
about her kids? That was helpful to you? And then
(33:22):
Lisa and I now know and I have other emails
about kids too, that this is a topic we need
to touch on. So again we'll address that in season two.
But I want to get to the second part of
her email, which was a second question, and here's what
she said. Currently, I'm gluten free because I have been
having certain issues acid reflex and other stuff. So this
(33:43):
is my first personal test on removing something from my
diet to see how it makes me feel. Then I
will eventually reintroduce it. So far, I think it's helped.
If I reintroduce it and have issues again, is it
okay to go gluten free or should I get a
doctor's opinion? This seems like a silly question, but I'm
just wanting to keep healthy habits. Thanks so much, Crystal Awesome.
(34:05):
What I love about Crystal is that she is experimenting
and listening to the feedback of her body. I encourage
all of us to do that and take note without
coming up with preconceived ideas about how we should feel.
I also love what I love about Crystal and the
way she worded that is that she's willing to reintroduce
it rather than stopping at the point right now of
(34:25):
I removed gluten, I feel good. I'm gonna keep gluten
out of my diet forever. So that shows that Crystal
is maintaining a healthy relationship. She's willing to enter it
back in to see how it feels. So her second
part of her question should she see a doctor is
a doctor contest for something called Celiac disease and Celiac
disease is an autoimmune disease, and what happens when you
(34:48):
pheliac disease is your body sees this as a foreigner,
as an invader, and attacks itself and as a result,
you can have some pretty serious short term and long
term health issues if you continue to eat gluten the
protein found in wheat over time. So it's important for
somebody who may be celiac to see a doctor to
(35:11):
rule out pheliac disease. It's not a very big population
that has pheliac disease, but if you're somebody that thinks
you could, it's worth seeing a doctor, either your primary
care or they'll probably refer you to a g I doctor.
So that being said, a blood test will tell you
if you have antibodies for phaliac disease or not. That
(35:32):
being said, there's a large population that could be gluten
intoleries or gluten sensitive, and for that reason it might
be worth working with a professional to do a proper
elimination diet and find out. So in my personal experience
with clients who thinks they can't eat gluten, what I
have found that they feel better simply because in removing
(35:54):
gluten they actually underwent a huge dietary Underhult that cut
out not just gluten, but a lot of food that
they used to eat. So this person, Crystal, speaks about
cutting out gluten and and experiencing less acid reflux. Obviously,
I've never worked with Crystal, but it's possible that in
removing spaghetti, a food that has gluten, she also took
(36:16):
out tomato sauce, which is an acidic food that might
have caused the indigestion. So it's possible for some of
us that it's not necessarily the gluten that is the problem.
There's also studies to show that cutting out gluten for
no reason, just because you think it's healthy, can negatively
impact our health. And that's because without gluten, we also
(36:38):
remove a lot of bull grain foods, which bring in
fiber and antioxidants which are successful in preventing heart disease.
So I have found out that clients that cut out
gluten for no reason can also replace it with gluten alternative,
which may not make them better off. So gluten mimicking products.
So if you're eating instead of a cookie, gluten free cookie,
(37:01):
you might be adding ingredients such as more sugar and
refined flowers rather than just eating a regular cookie that's
made with eggs and flour and stuff. So it's important,
as you and I have talked in previous episodes of
your podcast, to not get lost in the healthy halo
effects of gluten free and to really figure out what
kind of works for you. And lastly, I just want
(37:22):
to kind of point in that other people you may
find I think, amy you you don't feel fantastic, what's gluten?
You might find that gluten doesn't make you feel fantastic,
but you also know that you don't have Celiac disease,
and there might be situations where it's worth it for
you to be present and eat a gluten containing food,
whether that's pizza, cookie cake, or even something that is
(37:46):
healthful like sparrow, which is a whole grain, to be
present with the situation that you're in and choose to
feel mech or not so great for a day or
so after having it. So the bottom line here is
that Crystal, this may not mean that you need to
cut out gluten forever. It's worth investigating further, and in
the absence of feeling ACT disease diagnosed, it maybe it's
(38:09):
important for you to remain flexible when needs Yeah, Lisa,
that's all great advice for sure. And for me, Yes,
I cut out gluten because well, years ago, it was
part of a quote unquote plan that I was on
too We'll try to get pregnant, but then ultimately made
me lose weight, so then I felt better, and then
I just thought gluten was the culprit and I could
(38:30):
never have it again, and I avoided it like crazy,
but it was just I really can have gluten. I do.
I do believe that, and so I've even reintroduced foods
that I wouldn't previously have allowed myself to have the
last several years, and I feel fine. So you do
have to listen to your body and see what's best.
(38:51):
And I still like certain foods that don't have gluten.
But I've I know in my head because I had
previously told myself that it would be the end of
the world basically if I consumed gluten. But now I
have that freedom in my head and I know that
that is not true. It was a lie for my body.
But you you do have to listen to how it feels.
And I am obsessed with Ezekiel cinnamon raisin English muffins.
(39:18):
I love to just slice one open, put in the
toaster and then put some a bunch of gee on
top of it with some sea salt, and it's this
perfect salty sweet thing. And I have that on repeat
a lot of days. And that's something literally, I mean
in Ezekiel bread is really quality, amazing ingredients, but I
(39:41):
for years wouldn't allow myself to have it because it
wasn't gluten free. So and I think that's like an
important point that a lot of people don't know what
gluten is and they just think gluten mean the bagel, pasta, rice,
but a lot of full grains contains gluten, wheat, berries,
Semlina felt arrow, all these whole brains that I was
(40:01):
talking about has fiber and vitamins and antioxidants, and so
recognizing that gluten is not just one thing and it's
something to kind of consider. You got to dive a
little bit deeper into what you think gluten is and
and to understand kind of what works for you. So, yeah,
Zekiel filled filled with amazing nutrients and if you know
(40:23):
that that works for you. Yeah, And I was denying
myself something that I really enjoyed simply because it didn't
say gluten free, even though, like I said, and then
Lisa just you know, confirmed because she used the expert
that it's full of nutritious ingredients for my body. But
yet I would go to the store and buy a
box of crackers with who knows what kind of crap
(40:45):
in it simply because it said gluten free on the
box and it had well, I guess I shouldn't say that, Lisa,
because I'm retraining my this is, I mean, to your
to your point, it had a lot more ingredients and
unnecessary fillers, binders, preservative even to make it feel like
gluten when you know a piece of bread with wholes
(41:07):
and ingredients could have worked. Right. I'm just trying to
paint and array again. See, guys, I'm a work in
progress of calling food crap and good and bad and whatnot.
I see you're witnessing it in real time right here.
But I catch myself, which I'm proud of, but I would.
I'm just telling you how that's where my brain was.
It was so hyper focused on not having gluten that
(41:30):
I was denying myself a nutritious food that I previously
let myself consume and putting that on the back burner,
but allowing other foods into my body simply because it
had a gluten free stamp on it. Yeah, exactly, and
that is that's where it can get a little messed up.
And but hey, it's never too late to start un
(41:51):
learning things and and relearning. So I'm super thankful for
Lisa and her knowledge, and that'll include today's Q and A.
Continue to send your questions to four Things with Amy
Brown at gmail dot com. Continue to engage with Lisa
and I on Instagram. I'm Radio Amy. She's at the
Well Necessities And Lisa, you are putting this Q and
(42:13):
A up on your blog? Correct? Yes, So by whatever
day you published this, I'll publish this on my blogs,
The Well Necessities dot com. And if you want to
listen to this later on, just look at the published
date to to see where it is. It'll be fairly
new on my blog if you catch this around May. Okay, well,
I'll tell you the date is Sinco to Mayo, May five,
(42:35):
so should be easy to remember in case you're listening
to this, yeah at a later date and you need
to go back and find it. And Lisa, say, your
website again, The Well Necessities dot com. Okay, so it'll
be a post on the Well Necessities dot com. From
May five, Sinco to Mayo. I'm gonna have to have
Margarita today. Probably another thing I previously wouldn't have allowed
(42:57):
myself to have in my old way is of thinking
but having reasons to celebrate and living life and creating
memories with people. Those things far outweigh you denying yourself
Margarita on Sinca de Mayo with those that you love,
(43:19):
because that's what I did for for so many years.
And that's just an example. But the reason why we
made this called the series outweighs because of life without
disordered eating. Outweighs everything, including celebrations. So I hope everyone
has a great rest of your day, whatever time of
day you're listening to this, and we will see you
next time. Thanks for coming on, Lisa, Thanks for having me.
Feeling Things with Amy & Kat News
Host
Amy Brown
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Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.