Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Maybe that's Lisa and We're just two girls that want
to have a conversation with you. Dear sixteen year old
Andrea hey gorsgeous, Dear younger Lauren. Each episode is stories
from people I would deprive myself. Why myself obsessively? Because
I was eating healthy? I couldn't understand that I had
a problem with food. Losing my period scared me the most.
My story starts when I was around seven. That's when
(00:24):
I started to hate my body. Body image is like
our inner picture of our outer self healthy behaviors. I
had a much bigger role at all health than the
actual number on the scales. Internal dialogue can be so
powerful and often it's super negative and critical in a
way that we wouldn't talk to other people that we
care about. When you start to share your story, that
(00:44):
gives other people the courage to share theirs. I know
you would be proud now of how far you have
come in your relationship to food, exercise, and to yourself.
I felt freedom, I've gained relationships. I've found my true
sense of self worth. There's one thing I need you
to take away. You're going to be okay. Lisa and
(01:05):
I are super excited to have Sam Private join us
for today's episode. She is a dietitian that is creating
change in her own little bubble, but also in the
Instagram world, because that's where I found you, Sam, and
I'm so glad I did. I don't even know how
or who reposted you, but I'm sure I saw one
of your funny reels that you put up that are
very attention getting, and I love that you use your
(01:26):
creativity to bring awareness to something that's super important, and
it's diet culture and all the things that we have
that reigned upon us for years and years and years
that I know you and Lisa both being dietitians in
that world, it's probably a constant struggle. So talk with
us about how diet culture has played a role in
your career and then what you try to do for
(01:47):
clients online like your Instagram world, but also professionally in
your workspace. Well, thank you so much for having me.
And it's so awesome that social media can connect people
from from all over but for me, you know, I
wasn't all ways an anti diet dietitian, and I think
a lot of dietitians can relate to that is that
we are classically trained in diet culture. We are trained
(02:09):
to use weight loss as our party trick of how
we can be air quotes helpful for people that are
not watching this and listening. And so I spent a
lot of time counseling when I started as a dietitian,
counseling people in weight loss and weight management. And I
truly thought that I was helping people. I honestly thought that.
And I think that's why we go into this field
as a dietitian, as we want to help people, and
(02:30):
we're also seeking that answer of life, of happiness and
health and all these things, when really there is no
magic answer that's the answer. So I was doing you know,
weight loss counseling and whatnot, and then I recognized that
people would see short term success and then they would
go off on their merry way and they would come
back a few months feeling distraught, you know, feeling guilty
and shameful, reaching out to me and saying like I failed, Sammy,
(02:53):
I need you to help me. I need I need
to tune up, you know, I need to check in.
And I would see that over and over and I said,
something's not right here, like this isn't helping anyone, and
it wasn't until I found Intuitive Eating, which i'm also
a certified into a debating counselor trained under Evilent Triboli
and at least Rash, the authors of the book, where
I was able to see that really, if we can
help people make peace with food first, make peace with
(03:17):
their body, then we can get to the part that
dietitians think about of nutrition and things that genuinely improve
our health. But if everything that we do is so
rooted in guilt and shame, it's really hard to start
to make behavior changes for air quotes health if everything
has a shame wrapped up with it. So, to go
back to your question, I have not always been an
intuitive eating dietitian. I have not always been an intuitive
(03:38):
eater and an anti diet dietitian. It's really been in
the last two years where I've really don've been and
continue to learn. And we have a team now of
multiple registered dietitians that are all certified and Intuitive Eating,
and we help people all over the world in our
virtual private practice. Yeah, I think what you do is awesome,
and I love the way you present your material online.
It really is light and funny, but bringing the realness
(04:02):
to the conversation, but in a way that doesn't make
people feel bad. And I think that that's really the
critical component as to you know, why people are attracted
to you, of course, and and your practice. Thank you
so much for that. And I think that's where TikTok
came into play, where you know, we're in the midst
of this global pandemic and everyone's stuck at home and
I saw this TikTok app and I was like, no,
(04:24):
not another app, Like I can't do this. And then
we started making videos and people were having, like you
said that, the emotional reaction of like laughing and being like,
oh my gosh, I do that, Like you know what
I mean, and it's relatable. I'm not anti human beings dieting.
And I think that's where on Instagram things can get
really sticky, is people can feel shame and guilt for
(04:45):
their diet history. But we have to go through that
to be able to get to a place where we're
saying I don't want to diet anymore. I don't want
to do this anymore. This is harmful, And so there's
no shame in being a chronic dieter that was me
for eight plus years, but being able to laugh about
it and say, Okay, how can I move forward? How
can I change? Love that? And just so that people
(05:05):
know where to find you. On Instagram, You're at fine
dot food dot Freedom and is it the same on
TikTok ye find food Freedom. No dots on TikTok okay,
but on Instagram we got the dots, so yes, definitely.
What we encourage for our listeners to do is to
follow accounts such as yours so that you have those
positive reminders in your feed and maybe unfollowed stuff that
(05:28):
isn't necessarily healthy for you to see, because I feel
like when your post pop up, or if Lisa puts
up a poster any other amazing people that I've started
to follow, once I've become part of this anti diet
culture because I know shame here chronic diet or all
kinds of eating disorders from it. So I am right
there with a lot of America. And one of the
(05:49):
reasons why Lisa and I are here talking with you
is we want to keep having these conversations, say that
there's no shame, break the stigma around some of this stuff,
and as we enter into the holiday season. I think
that that is when diets start to rear their head,
whatever it looks like, because you maybe have wellies a
little weird, probably not as many parties, but you've got
(06:09):
different gatherings to go to where there might be this
kind of food in this kind of food, So you
better restrict for five days before you go eat your
big family meal or juice, the you know, some sort
of clans to detox after. And then the new year
approaches and it's like, okay, new year, knew me, and
it just seems like the last few months of the year,
and then as we enter a new year, it's a
(06:30):
vicious cycle. And I was a part of it. It
was almost like I could predict how it was going
to be November, December, January, November December just binge like
crazy January clans and then end up binging again because
my body was hungry. So talk with us about what
insight do you have to offer to navigate through the
holidays without doing what I just said that I did
for years. Well, I think it's one thing to recognize
(06:53):
is that's very conclusive with the evidence, we know that
restriction is the number one indicator of binging. So a
lot of times there's a lot of shame tied to binging,
and people are saying, you know, when you're in that binge,
you say, I'm never going to do this again, like
this is it that creates that urgency to eat even
more food because you truly believe that come Monday or
(07:14):
come that next day or after the holiday, that you're
not going to allow yourself to eat that food, And
that creates urgency to eat even more food, which then
fuels that restriction. So binging occurs because of the restriction.
I see it so often with my clients. And you know,
Thanksgiving is coming up, and that's one of the most
common holidays where people will have again, I'm gonna use
(07:36):
air quotes again, like saving your calories for the big
Thanksgiving meal, right, and thinking like, Okay, I'm gonna do
it right, I'm gonna not eat all day and then
I'll be really air quotes good becausing so many air
quotes on a podcast. But that is that diet culture mentality.
So being able to say, Okay, if I've ever restricted
in the past, how did that end up for me? Right?
(07:57):
Was I binging? And I like to normalize that for
people of if you've restricted and that's led to a binge,
which chances are it has congratulations. You are a human
being and your body works correctly, like that's something to celebrate,
that's not something to feel bad about. And so once
we can shift that mindset to, oh my god, my
hunger is working correctly, like I binged because my blood
(08:19):
sugar was low and because I was restricting and because
I was starving, then we can say, okay, we can
remove the emotional unpleasantness from that physical unpleasantness that happens
when we binge, because those are two separate things, and
then we can say, what can I do differently next time?
So when we go into let's say, let's go back
to our Thanksgiving example, can we eat a breakfast, Can
(08:40):
we eat a snack? Can we eat lunch? Can we
eat another snack? And then go into our Thanksgiving dinner
just as if it was any other meal, and recognizing
that fueling our body will help keep that urgency to
eat down because our blood sugars will be stable, we
will have the food and we won't feel that restriction.
And the one thing I just want to add, which
(09:02):
I think you'll agree with. But just how restriction played
out in my life over the last ten years or
during my disordered eating, is that it might not be
total calories. It might be clean eating or only eating
gluten free for no medical reason or even personal finding reason,
or dairy or sugar or whatever it is. I remember
(09:22):
when I saw my therapist for the first time and
I was explaining my binges and she said, well, are
you restricting, because restricting causes binges? And I said, no,
I'm eating. I'm eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And I was,
but I was excluding so much that it still resulted
in a binge. So I think just to expand that
conversation as to you know, what being good looks like,
(09:45):
maybe it's not just being keto up until Thanksgiving meal,
really allowing flexibility and examining what restriction looks like on you.
I love that. I love that that's a great point.
And I know that, you know, when we use the
terms being good right or being bad with food, big
part of intuitive eating, one of the principles is removing
the morality to food, and I think that's a you know,
(10:06):
we find so often that our clients have this cognitive dissidence,
their logic and their belief systems are not matching up.
So asking yourself right now, Okay, if I eat X
food whatever that food is, right, does that make me
a bad human being? Does that change my character? Does
that change my work worth? And most people say no, no, right,
that doesn't change my worth. But then if we say okay,
(10:28):
eat that same food, do you feel guilt or shame
for eating? And if the answer is yes, we know
that guilt and shame specifically guilt is rooted in a
moral emotion. But we just said that we weren't bad
like that doesn't change our worth. So okay, there's a
yes over here, there's no over here. That's a cognitive distance.
We need to dig into that and we need to
(10:48):
release that morality with food, and that will also help
with that binge restrict cycle as well. Something you said
about eating breakfast and lunch and a snack and going
into a holiday meal as if it's any other day,
I think it's huge. But also what I've loved about
learning from people like you and Lisa and others that
(11:09):
I follow is the reminders of, Hey, if you've struggled
with any type of disordered eating, patterns, and you woke
up today and you ate breakfast? High five, because I
think so many times I definitely participated in intermittent fasting,
and so many times I catch my brain being like, actually,
(11:29):
should I eat breakfast right now? Because I ate dinner
at eight o'clock last night and it's not even eight
am yet and it hasn't been twelve hours. My brain
still does that to me because it was such a
pattern for a long time. And then I check in
with myself and I say, okay, am I hungry right now?
Regardless of when I ate dinner? Who cares throw that
out the window? Am I hungry right now? If I am,
I eat. If I'm not, I wait a little bit.
(11:50):
And that's me working through in my own way. Everyone
has their own journey, their own stories, their own old
habits that they had that are hard to break. But
even though I'm haven't in or mittenfested in a very
long time, well for me, I you know, a year
or more, I still have those thoughts in my head.
We're not acting like waking up and eating breakfast and
(12:11):
having luncheon snacks on Thanksgiving Day is easy, and you
will still have mental thoughts. No matter. I don't know
the two of you. You've been at this a lot
longer than me. Do you still have to tell your brain?
Oh yeah, I don't think that way anymore so for
me personally at this point. No, but I will say
absolutely it takes time. It takes years. Right, So we
create neuropathways in our brain and these negative thought patterns
(12:34):
in these loops, which I think Jennifer Rowlands have talked
about one of your previous episodes, and that is so
important to be able to recognize that and know that
that is not a failure. That is just diet culture
trying to dig its nails right back in right and
and present itself. So, just like you said, Amy, being
able to recognize that, whether it's just recognizing it in
(12:54):
your head, writing it down on paper, and then being
able to redirect that and say, no, I need food
to fuel my body. I will function better with this meal.
I will be a better human being with this meal
or whatever it is. Being able to catch that is
so important, and that's that's really what the work is.
It's it's consistent, consistent work, and it's different I think
(13:17):
for everybody based on their own story of how long
that may continue, but I have so much hope that
you're gonna get to a point one day where you're like,
I just eat and I don't have to think about it.
I'll say though, that, you know, with so much time
I spend on social media as my job, and I'm
exposed to so much, once in a while, I'll get
something that is not me listening to my body. And
(13:38):
while I'm not fused to it, I'm not like, oh,
this person is doing this, I should try this. It's
a little ding that I'm no longer listening to my
body because it's rooted in fear and we feel fear.
So i'd say, once in a while, i'll notice something
and that's why I call it noise, because it's anything
that's pulling me out of my body. And I'll say, okay, noise,
you know, thank you for trying to keep me safe,
(14:01):
but I'm good here. And I think that's kind of
two approaches. It's like, get angry at diet culture, but
get kind to yourself for trying to protect you. And
it's wrongly perceiving of danger. So I feel like that's
kind of how it shows up for me. Once in
a while, I'll flag it, I'll dig it. It's very infrequently,
but I will notice it, and I'll come home, and
(14:22):
I'm constantly coming home to myself and my trust, and
those little moments even where I come home, are like
little pats on the back that bring me even closer
to trusting my body because it's like, hey, we just
worked together, like we just said like you know, see you,
no thank you. And so I don't think here if
anyone's a failure, if they get a moment of oh, well,
I just had dinner at eight o'clock. You know your
(14:43):
example of intermittent fasting, it hasn't been that long. I
think we're always works in progress, and new life changes
are going to bring up old thoughts or situations like
if Thanksgiving is a is a scary one for you,
that might bring it all back, or if you know,
we we're talking to women in people of all life phases.
Going through big life changes means your body is going
(15:04):
to change that might bring up stuff. So using those
tools is really how I how I see it. Yeah,
I love that. And Sam, since we're talking about the holidays,
to what advice do you have for people in situations
where they're around family that maybe triggering to them, Like
I would have been someone that showed up at my
family dinners and if someone was in recovery before me,
(15:25):
I would have been triggering them left and right. And honestly,
I was a real buzz kill because I didn't want
to eat anything that he had. I brought my own food.
I was real particular. My mom would have her candy dams,
but I made my candy dams with splenda, so I
was gonna eat my separate thing over here. You know,
I'm just thinking back on silly stuff that I used
to do, and I would have been better off eating
the family meal. But people are really listening to this
(15:48):
episode and wanting to put in the work for themselves.
But maybe they show up and there's some stuff surrounding
them or whatever vibe other family members are bringing into
the picture. Like do you have any tools that people
can kind of keep up in their back pocket to
help them navigate the holidays. That's a wonderful question, and
I think that's something we've already started with all our
team with our clients, because we know this is coming, right,
(16:10):
we can anticipate these triggers, and I think there's there's
different ways that we can do this but really role
playing the situation out before it happens, so we can
recognize it and we can actually walk through that situation
together with our client and they can actually start to
experience some of the anxiety or some of the discomfort
in that setting, which can be really helpful to walk
(16:30):
through it. So, for example, if Uncle Larry makes a
fat phobic comment right, being able to say it, like
write that down, what's like the worst scenario that could happen,
and then what are the emotions that we feel to
that common and how do we choose to respond? And
I think it might change depending on the day, but
I think it's being able to recognize do I have
(16:51):
the mental capacity for this conversation? Is Uncle Larry reachable
and teachable and wanting to hear about diet culture or
is it just not even worth it to sit and
just setting that mental boundary to say I'm not participating
in diet culture talk, so either change the subject and
or leave the room and just get out because you
(17:12):
know that that's going to be better for you. But
then I think that also comes down to let's say,
Aunt Cheryl maybe is presenting some signs of disordered eating,
maybe some of the things you were explaining any of
like making the splendid gams or or bringing her own
food or I think now people that have walked through
this journey a little bit more can have some empathy
for those family members, knowing that they are most likely
(17:35):
rooted in disordered eating. Because we know that women ages
twenty to forty five of them display disordered eating tendencies
and an additional ten percent has clinically diagnosed eating disorder,
So sevent of women are most likely walking around with
some form of disordered eating, which is insane. And that's
not even counting the numbers of people that are not,
(17:57):
you know, misdiagnosed or not diagnosed. So chances are we
can recognize that and maybe see it through a different
lens this year, where maybe that would have been triggering before,
but now we can almost have empathy and again create
those boundaries where they're needed to be created. Where is
it worth it to say something to aunt Cheryl and
try to open up and and help her, which might
be healing for you personally, or again, is it better
(18:18):
to change the subject, get out of the room and
really just making sure we're keeping ourselves safe, because boundaries
are meant to keep you safe, not those around you,
and that is what is most important this holiday season.
And just to reiterate something that you said that I
think is really important, especially if you're just starting to
unravel diet culture and you're really passionate about it, which
(18:40):
is what happens in the beginning. It sounds like you
agree to me, But when you said, is Uncle Larry
reachable and teachable? Like that speaks volumes to me because
I think sometimes we start the fight to prove how
right we are with people that are unreachable and unteachable,
and it leaves us feeling really depleted and alone, especially
when it comes to the holidays and family. I think
(19:02):
that people might associate not speaking back Uncle Larry as complicit,
but that boundary is to protect you kind of like
not today satan. You know, get through the day. You
have enough on your plate dealing with the triggers of
the holiday that you don't need to also go to
war necessarily. So evaluate who you are, what the situation is,
who your Uncle Larry is. Is there a conversation that's
(19:25):
going to be healthy for you or not? So I
just thought that was really important. I wanted to now that.
Thank you, and I think that's something I've learned personally.
And Lisa, you can probably attest this or even you too, Amy,
even though you're not a dietitian, like you said, when
you're passionate about this, you want to talk about it,
you want to shout out from the rooftops, want everyone
to know about it. And then there's a bunch of
we're just gonna keep going with Uncle Larry. There's a
bunch of Uncle Larry's in the world that want to
(19:46):
tear you down and tell you why you're wrong and
quote research, and you can get burnt out doing this
work very easily, and I've experienced that, and that's why
I think it's seeking mentors, seeking therapists, seeking dietitians, friends,
people who or supportive and understand it is not our
job to change the minds of all the Uncle Larry's
in the world. If you just focus on you and
(20:08):
your heart. And I love how you said earlierly, so
like coming home to you, You're going to plant seeds
and all the people around you that matter, and they
will notice something and they will ask you about that,
and that's how it will grow from there. I was
going to tap into that encouragement to that people will
notice in your family if you have been the aunt
cheryld before was that her name? And I think I
(20:30):
love I love how we have these people now. So
if you've been the aunt charitable for as I was
many times, and I just I was obnoxious to my family,
but I had no idea how uncomfortable I was making
My sister, for example, and she's so sweet and kind
that she would never say anything to me. She would
just let me be the party pooper and let me
(20:51):
say weird things that made her feel uncomfortable about what
she was eating, and she would just ignore it and say, Okay,
I mean, she's just in a better place with food
than I ever was, so she was able to still
eat her meal. But then I was giving her toxic
thoughts because I would say something it would make her think, oh,
should I not buy this, or do I need to
not use real cheese in this recipe? Or should I
(21:14):
alter X y Z, And ultimately she could talk herself
out of it. So I love that about my sister.
But it wasn't until I was recovered that she was
able to truly communicate to me how I would make
her feel and others. And now that I'm in recovery,
she notices how different things are. And I think maybe
your patient for certain conversations, because if you're in recovery
(21:36):
and your family notices it, aunt Cheryl when she's ready,
she might know, Hey, maybe something's different about Amy. Maybe
I can go talk to her and see instead of
you imposing upon them your new ways. Because I can't
tell you how many times I impose my diet upon people,
almost to where I feel like I've lost all credibility
talking to my family about anything and that I'm doing
(21:58):
food wise. So some times I feel like even if
I were to bring up now like no, no, now,
I don't have any issues, well for them, they're like,
oh well, Amy, for twenty years or more, we've been
dealing with your antics, so we actually don't really care
what you have to say. That's lived experience, and you
know that's that's so valuable because it's all the validation
you need that like that didn't work. I wasn't happy,
(22:21):
I wasn't okay, and now I am. And that's something
within tooit of eating through the research we see all
the time, there's actual studies on increased life satisfaction, right,
And I know you guys have talked about this in
previous OUTWEGH episodes, but of you know, being present in
moments because you're not wrapped up counting calories or thinking
about food, bringing your own food to events, diet talk,
(22:42):
and the conversation always coming back to dieting, like truly
being able to change the world because you're now not
focused on changing your body, and that that's priceless. I
feel like that's a really good place to wrap and
leave people before you go share with us the hope
you have for our future generation. For me and I
(23:03):
feel like a lot of our listeners, you and Lisa
are in this world and you're in this space, and
I think you've been a part of the change, and
it still feels sort of at least grassroots to me
because it's not the mainstream. But what's the hope for
the future, Like, do you see us clawing our way
out of this diet culture mentality? It's so ingrained in
(23:24):
so many of us without us even knowing it because
we've just been in it our whole lives. But what's
your hope for the future. It's a great question. The
good thing is, we know that dieting doesn't work, So
that's in our favor in the sense of we want
everyone to not have to go through that diet culture trauma.
But we know that diets don't work. We know they
have a percent failure rate, We know that two thirds
(23:45):
of dieters will gain back more weight than they originally lose,
and then that cycle continues. So once people get to
that state of I can't do this anymore. This is
not helping me, this is actually harming me, and they
have that awakening. It's magical what happens to them, and
they can really start to walk on their intuitive eating
journey and recognize that the answer lies within me. There's
(24:07):
never been anything wrong with my body, but diet culture
has built this distrust that there has been something wrong.
And once we can start to recognize that, and once
people see the intuitive eating and food freedom messages, you
can't unlearn that. That gives me so much hope because
I've seen it with hundreds and hundreds of people that
we've worked with. Once you learn this, you can't unlearn it.
(24:29):
And like we said earlier, you start to plant seeds
and the lives of others and those closest to you
and then it just spreads like rapid fire. Yeah, I
hope it spreads. I appreciate your work so much and
I think too that there's nothing wrong with our bodies.
Part of it is just, yeah, we need to ditch
the diet culture mentality, but why are we dieting? So
(24:49):
my hope is I'm just piggybacking off of you here
for a second, just to encourage listeners, is that Lisa
and I aren't just doing this podcast to expose some
stuff and break the stigma, make you feel comfortable to
talk about it and have these conversations so you don't
feel alone and whatever you're going through with food and
body image stuff. But like, all bodies are different, and
(25:10):
we have been given these different standards over the decades
of what bodies are supposed to look like here and
there and there, and we're constantly trying to conform to
look like everybody else. But my hope is that we
start to just want to look like ourselves and just
to clarify, not like everybody else, to look like one
body type that we've seen represented. So you know, it's
(25:30):
not that everybody else looks like that. We think that
everybody else looks like that because of I'd go big
media here, not just social media, you know, the advertisements, etcetera.
And so recognizing that there's so much bio individuality of
not just what you look like, but what you need
that you know, all of us eating the same things
and the same amounts wouldn't make any sense. Love that,
especially on the holidays, especially on the holidays. Okay, well, Sam,
(25:53):
thank you so much for coming on to talk with us.
And again I love following you on Instagram. So I
want to say your page one more time for people
to get out their phones right now. If you're listening
to the podcast on your phone, go to Instagram and
go to at find dot food, dot freedom, and I
promise you she will not disappoint and you'll see her
post come up and you'll feel encouraged. And we want
(26:14):
to give you people that you'll be encouraged by. And
then quickly to one more thing before you go. You
have a podcast called Drunk Dietitians. This is correct, So
we're actually we're actually rebranding where I'm not going to
save the new name because originally it started we just
wanted to have a cocktail mocktail and like talk about
how diet culture sucks a lot of what you guys
are doing today. But then we we realize that that
(26:35):
name can be a little harmful to some you know,
based on past trauma, and the last thing we want
to do is cause more harm. So we are admitting
our faults and mistakes, um and we have a new
name coming out soon. But yes, you can find us
right now at Drunk Dietitians. And I got goose bumps
that you had the opportunity to share that because I
didn't know. We didn't talk about it previously, and I said,
I was just trying to I saw it on your Instagram,
(26:57):
so wanted to give it a shout out. But what
a beautiful sample of recognizing where something wasn't the best
and moving forward. And there's no shame in that either,
because we're constantly evolving. I just think that that is
a good reminder for people that you can evolve every
day and there's so much grace to go around. And
(27:17):
I feel like that's just a good example of being like,
you know what, this probably wasn't the best thing, So
we're going to move forward with this. And well, I
look forward to seeing what your new name is and
listening to your podcast. So we'll keep people posted, but
I'm sure you'll keep us posted on Instagram, and I
hope people will check you out and thank you so
much for coming on. Thank you, ladies,