December 24, 2022 • 40 mins
OUTWEIGH: Orthorexia in its simplest terms means an obsession with healthy eating, and for people who are not immersed in this field, that may not sound like a bad thing because eating healthy isn’t bad. So, this week, Kat is diving into the topic to bring light to what becoming obsessed with the health and quality of the food we consume can do to our mental health. Someone who develops orthorexia most likely doesn’t start out being obsessed but things can take a turn pretty fast not just due to reasons associated with the individual. This issue is very much connected to our culture and the messaging companies and brands use to attract and illicit business and the manipulation involved in how diet culture sells their ideals and products. So, sit tight and get ready to hear how some of the most popular diets and diet buzz words have created a rise in some of the most stealth disordered eating patterns we are currently seeing today.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Happy Saturday outweigh Fam. Merry Christmas. It's Amy here, and well,
I guess if you're listening to this when it actually
comes out, then Marry Christmas because Christmas is tomorrow. But
you know, podcasts you can listen to when whenever you want,
so who knows, it might be July when you're hearing this,
but if it is Christmas time, I hope you're having
a great holiday weekend. And I have something special for
you today and next Saturday, We're gonna be airing some
(00:24):
episodes from Cat de fod as you need therapy podcasts
that are related to body image and eating disorders. And
the episode I'm gonna share with you today is about
orthorexy and Whole thirty And I like this particular conversation
because I'm someone that struggled with orthorexia for a long time,
way before I even knew there was a name for it.
I was very strict with my food intake and very
(00:47):
quote unquote clean, and it had to be on my
list and I would freak out if it wasn't. I
would study restaurant menus before I went out to eat,
trying to dissect every single ingredient they could possibly be
using so that I could or the best thing to
fit my need, or honestly, I probably didn't even really
eat out as much because I wanted to control everything,
so cooking at home was my best option. So here's
(01:11):
a chat from You Need Therapy about orthorexia and whole thirty.
Here you go, Hi, guys, and welcome back to another
new episode of You Need Therapy podcast. My name is Cat,
and I'm glad you're here. If you're new to the podcast,
(01:33):
then before we get started, I just want to give
a quick disclaimer that even though I'm a licensed therapist
and this podcast is called You Need Therapy, this podcast
does not stand to serve as a replacement or a
substitute for actual mental health services or therapy itself. But
you know, like I always like to say, it might
(01:54):
encourage you to go to therapy, or it might encourage
you to look at something different or in a different
way if you're already in therapy. That is really what
my hope is for this whole thing. Now today I'm
doing a solo episode again and we are talking about
something more in line with what I specialize in as
a therapist, and we're gonna be talking about orthorexia. I've
(02:15):
touched on this before on the podcast, but we are
going to talk about a little bit more in depth today.
And if you are unfamiliar with what orthorexia is, it's
a type of disordered eating where someone becomes obsessed with
the health of foods. Orthorexia is not yet recognized in
the d s M itself alone, which the d s
(02:36):
M is the Diagnostic Statistical Manual for mental health disorders,
but regardless of that, this type of obsession of food
can lead to an official diagnosis of eating disorders that
are already in there. You can be diagnosed with an
eating disorder in a couple of different ways, which we
don't need to go into, but this can lead to
one of those really easily. And again, in its simplest terms,
(02:58):
orthorexia mean an obsession with healthy eating, and someone who
might develop orthorexia most likely doesn't start out being obsessed
or start out wanting to develop something that is a
year bad or unhelpful. But things can take pretty fast turns.
And it's not just due to reasons associated with the individual,
(03:19):
like having an addictive personality. It's very much connected to
our culture and the messaging companies and brands use to
attract an illicit business, and the manipulation involved and how
diet culture sells their ideals and products in order to
push business. So we're gonna talk about this, and before
I get into any of the things that come with
our culture and some of the stuff that's pushed towards
(03:40):
us that kind of like impact or influence or even
just like highlight orthorexia as a good thing, We're going
to talk about what it might look like. Just so
if you know somebody or you yourself you're like, oh,
I don't know, if I'm like teetering on that line.
This is some of the things that um come with
having this type of disordered eating. And I'm taking these
(04:01):
straight from Nita's website. So that's the National Eating Disorder Association,
so NEEDA dot com. So we're go, I'm gonna just
want to credit that back to them. These are not
my words. So if you're like, you don't know what
you're talking about, well, I took this from the professional professionals. Okay.
So this would be compulsive checking of ingredients lists and
nutrition labels, an increase in concern about the health of ingredients,
(04:25):
cutting out an increasing number of food groups like all sugar,
all carves, all dairy, all meat, all animal products. And
again one of these doesn't elicit orthodoxia, like if you're
just like I'm a vegetarian or I have steliacs, that
is not orthodoxia. It's combination with other parts of these
and the why behind your doing it. Also, and inability
to eat anything but a narrow group of foods that
(04:47):
are deemed healthy or pure or clean or good. Unusual
interest in the health of what other people are eating
and how they're fueling and feeding themselves, spending hours per
day thinking about what food might be served at upcoming events,
showing high levels of distress when safe or healthy foods
aren't available, obsessive following of food and healthy lifestyle blogs
(05:07):
on Twitter, Instagram or any type of social media. And
in the past this might have looked like collecting a
lot of books on these things as well. And body
image concerns may or may not be there. This isn't
always associated with body image issues. This is specifically talking
about being highly highly concerned about the health of things
(05:27):
and the cleanliness of things and the goodness of things.
And when it's talking about being obsessed with like the
health of ingredients. It even goes down to like, not
only is it a pure food, like I don't know
an apple, it has to be like an organic apple
or certain type of apple because it has that apple
(05:48):
has certain ingredients and it's the best type of vitamin
whatever in that specific apple, or like the ripeness of something.
So I will only eat bananas if they're this color,
or only eat avocados if they're this firm, or it
just could get very very very specific. Now where does
this come from? And has this always been an issue
(06:09):
or is this new? And if it's new, why might
this be coming into our view now? So I kind
of love I did not do this on purpose, but
I kind of love how I wish that I've had
this much like what is it foresight into like planning,
but uh no, I didn't plan this, but I like
that it worked out this way. That this episode is
falling right after the one we did on brainwashing and cults,
(06:29):
because as I discussed in that episode, I talked about
how people can't just be brainwashed unless there's some part
of them that wants to believe what it is they
are stepping into, and most people who end up looking
like they were brainwashed by a cult. Start the process
with really good intentions. They want a better life. In
this case, in the case of order xia, the cult
(06:50):
of clean eating, these people are simply wanting to fit
in in society. They want to avoid current or future
health complications. They want to feel more confident or comfortable
in their own body. Like the list goes on, there
are very good reasons for walking into what might set
somebody up to developing this kind of disordered eating. In fact,
every single person I've ever talked to that has experienced
(07:12):
this reports it starting out in a positive way, starts
out on like taking care of themselves in a more
intentional way. And how many of us out there have
heard how the food we eat affects our health? Of us?
The issue is not that that's false. The issue is
to what extent does it affect our health? And how
(07:33):
do we know? Like, where are we getting this information?
And how far are we willing to go? If clean
eating promises a life free of any ailments plus happiness,
I would for sure give it a second take. But
does it, Like does it really? Where is the data
that shows us that? And how much does eating clean
impact the quality of our life and how much does
eating clean take away the quality of our life? And
(07:55):
I just want to give this disclaimer. I hate the
term eating clean, but for the sake of what we're
going to talk about, I'm going to keep using that
term for this episode because I think that that could
have so many different meanings and interpretations and problems in itself.
And that's part of the reason why. I mean, we'll
get into it later, but I talk about the equaling
diet anyhow, this is one of those things that you
(08:18):
have to look at. How do we balance our mental
and physical health. How do we not just look at
one of them, and how do we look at them combined.
We have to work together on this because if we
can avoid joint pain by cutting out three food groups,
but then we develop an anxiety disorder, are we helping
ourselves or hurting ourselves? Like? Where is the line in
which one is the bigger issue? And does it have
to be one or the other? Now a bigger problem
(08:41):
arises also for those who have the biological, social, and
psychological precursors for developing and eating disorder. These seemingly innocent
and helpful lifestyle changes that are included in some of
what diet culture sends us as like good things to
do to like take care of yourself, can actually have
(09:02):
very opposite effects, especially as the diet, wellness, and beauty
industries continue to reap the enormous financial benefits of these
humans growing addictions to their content. I remember back when
I began getting like super into health and fitness in college,
I was a super super heavy follower of this woman
(09:24):
named Tausca Reno or Reno. I don't actually even know
how to say her name correctly, and she, like I
was mentioned earlier as I was saying eat clean. She
had this book called The Eat Clean Diet. I bought
her cookbooks. I became engulfed in the principles of her
clean eating and how they promised things that I now
know are literally not connected to each other at all.
(09:45):
Things like happiness, things like finding love, self love, and
like a fulfilling life. Those are not attached to the
foods you're eating. Finding love and like practicing self love
and being happy are not connect did with cutting sugar
out of your diet seems really simple to say now
or maybe not? Maybe like yes, they are. We're going
(10:06):
to talk about why you might think that during this episode,
and I actually went to her website and read her
bio while I was preparing for this episode, and the
last paragraph of her bio literally had me laughing out loud.
And her life is actually a bit tragic, and it
seems that since my unfollowing of her and her brand,
she's been through some like really tough stuff. And that's
(10:28):
not what I was laughing about. There's actually not one
funny thing about the trajectory of her life, and I
do have a lot of empathy for her. What made
me laugh is the fierce dedication to connect her emotional
resilience to a diet or in reality, her commitment to
doing whatever it takes to keep her business in brand alive,
(10:49):
even if that includes using manipulative, attractive statements that have
the ability to draw in vulnerable people while making impossible
promises of a better life. Also spoiler alert, when the
promises don't actually work that these people talk about, when
they don't come true, it ends up being the individual's fault,
not the fact that what they were promised was impossible,
(11:11):
as in, you're a failure, not the program. So I
just want to read the last paragraph her bio because
I just need you guys to hear what I'm talking about,
she says, or whoever wrote this says. The challenges I
have endured make me an expert in these areas. I
(11:32):
know what it is to lose a husband whom I
love deeply, to cancer. I know what it is to
lose a step son. I know what it means to
face bankruptcy and to worry how to pay the rent
or eat. I know what it feels like to lose
your way. These things make me an expert. And this
is what I bring to you now. Along with my
clean living principles, I can help you. I bring you
(11:55):
the elixir of life. What I hear in her words
are the elixir of how to build resilience, how to
get over all these trials and tribulations, how to enjoy
your life through pain, heartache, tough things. Are my clean
eating principles. So there's that and the clean eating diet.
And I was all for that at one point. And
I remember in that time, I also digging up these
(12:17):
memories of watching the documentary Forks over Knives and the
fear that was instilled in me and experiencing this dilemma
around eating meat, And how was I going to be
a vegetarian even though I didn't want to be. But
like now, after watching that documentary, I thought I was
going to get all these diseases, And also like, am
I the problem? And I'm a bad person because I'm
eating these things? And how do I become a crusader
(12:38):
and in the anti animal eating business and all of that?
And so I have the clean eating fear instilled in
me and I want to, you know, live my best
life in that area. And then I have the people
who are telling me that I'm the problem when it
comes to like animal slaughtery and all of that, which
I will say, there's probably some truth to a lot
of the poor care that is put into how animals
(13:02):
are processed for human consumption. I'm not an expert in that,
and I'm not saying I am, but I'm just saying
at this time in my life, I was consuming all
of this different information that was creating a lot of
fear in what I was eating, how I was eating,
how I was going to be a good person and
also be the healthiest, best person at the same time.
(13:24):
And speaking of being a vegetarian, I was also recently
reminded by a book from the past by a client
that luckily I haven't actually read this book. I am
very grateful that I did not read this book at
this time. But I ended up doing some research on
the book because of what I was talking about with
my client, and I was shocked, but at the same
(13:45):
time not shocked by what I found. And I'm talking
about the Skinny Bitch diet, which is a fad diet
basically veganism at its core. But this book, Skinny Bitch
is written by a model one and an animal advocate
and a model ling agent, so Kim I don't know
how to say her last name, barn new In, and
(14:06):
then Rory Freedman created this and this book I somehow
found like a PDF of the whole book online, which
I don't know if that's normal, but I found it
and I started reading through it, and the first thing
I noticed is the constant language that they use, and
the demeaning and degrading language they use, and the terms
(14:26):
they use like don't be a fat pig anymore, And
they try to motivate you to follow this diet using
this language, and it's very shame based, and to me,
it was very off putting, but it also I think
that depending on the spot in life, you might be
that shame might force you into something because you don't
want to be a fat pig and they're telling you
(14:46):
that that's bad. Now, I want to introduce you to
one particular paragraph for reference of this book, and uh,
this one. Literally I sent it to so many people
and was like, can you believe this was written? And
people soaked this up. The title of this chap where
this excerpt came from, is called you are what You Eat,
And I was talking all about how like you shouldn't
eat animal products because of how the animals are prepared,
(15:08):
very similar to the Fork over Knives documentary, but this
was just a very different delivery where that one kind
of tore on my heartstrings and this one just made
me feel like a shitty person. And also like I
was very scared. And they write, I think of how
you feel when you're angry, afraid, and grief stricken. Bear
in mind the physical feelings that accompany these emotions. These
(15:29):
emotions fear, grief, and rage produce chemical changes in our bodies.
They do the same to animals. Their blood pressures rise,
adrenaline courses through their bodies. You are eating high blood pressure,
stress and adrenaline. You're eating fear, grief and rage. You
are eating suffering, horror, and murder. You're eating cruelty. You
(15:51):
are what you eat. You cannot be thin and beautiful
with a glowing complexion when you eat fear, grief and rage.
Y'all think about reading that and hearing that and invulnerable
state or really any state. The language that's used in
this book and throughout this book is some of the
most shaming, the most scary that I found, not just
(16:12):
in my research for kind of going through this episode,
but like in the existence of me working in this field.
I'm going to read a couple other quotes that I
found that also give a nice picture of what I'm
talking about. These are direct quotes to like, I'm almost like,
did I add something to the These are did I
make them worset to prove a point note? These are
just in the book. So here here there, Perhaps you
(16:32):
have a lumpy ask because you are preserving your fat
cells with diet soda. Whenever you see the word fat
free or low fat, think of the words chemical ship storm.
You are what you eat. You are a human body
compromised of organs, blood, and guts and other ship. The
food you put into your body works its way through
your organs and bloodstream, and it's actually part of who
you are. So every time you put crap in your body,
(16:54):
you are crap. Milk equals fat, butter equals fat, Cheese
equals fat. People who think these products can be low
fat or fat free equal fucking morons. And the most
confusing one that I found, Now that you're a skinny bitch,
don't turn into a skinny bitch. We conceived the title
skinny bitch to get attention and sell books, but we
are not bitches, and we have no desire to promote bitchiness.
(17:15):
There is nothing uglier than a pretty woman who's nasty.
If you look great, you should feel good about yourself
and be happy and dear God, I have so many
issues with that little part, especially the last one. You
should feel good about yourself and be happy as if
like looking away. It's like the message that we are
trying to pull away from society is that what you
look like does not have to have a direct impact
(17:38):
on how you feel. And also you get to decide
what looking great even looks like. But the part that's
confusing to me is this whole book is written in
the most I mean, using their language, bitchy terms. Ever,
it's a mean book. It is a mean book. But
then they're saying, we're not bitches. You should be happy
(17:59):
and essentially be like nice and kind. And it's like,
I don't know anybody who's developed like a kind attitude
and personality by being surrounded and being motivated by cruelty.
Correct me if I'm wrong. I just don't get how
that makes any sense at all. So then this leads
me to something that's way more mainstream and common, something
called the Whole Thirty. And this is one of my
(18:22):
worst memories. And I was all in. I did the
Whole Thirty like four times, and I was the person
posting about it on social media, like I have to
take accountability for this. I was sucked into this, like
I was sucked into some of these other things, not
the Skinny Bitch Book. But you know what, if I
would have read it, who knows. But the Whole thirty
is one of the most common diets I hear about
(18:43):
when I'm working with clients, Like one of the most
common diets that people are doing and have done in
a lot of ways. The Whole thirty, which is promoted
as not a diet. It's one of the worst diets
because I pretends that it's not one, but it literally is.
I remember getting the book and I remember specifically highlighting
the part where they said, oh my gosh, this memory
(19:06):
it brings back like feelings, like all throughout my body.
But I remember specifically highlighting and like sending this quote
to people because I thought it was so great, and
it's where they said, this is not hard. Don't you
dare tell us this is hard. Quitting heroine is hard,
Beating cancer is hard. Drinking your coffee black is not hard.
And as a mental health professional, even though I don't
(19:26):
think you have to be a mental health professional to
know this, but as one, I know that one of
the easiest ways to become obsessed with a food and
to make it really hard to not eat it is
to tell yourself you can't have it. So this literally
is the definition of hard. And even with that, it's
an unnecessary This is an unnecessary program. And I bring
(19:48):
all these things up because the pedestal that these programs
and the people involved in them have been put on
has undoubtedly played an active role in the increase of orthorexia,
and the minimization of the neg of effects of all
of the stuff, in my opinion, and the pointlessness of them.
A lot of these programs are pointless, and I'll get
(20:08):
more into that towards the end of this conversation. But
it is not a secret that diet culture continuously ties
the path to hope, happiness, and all the things that
you want to whatever it is selling programs like the
Whole Thirty, do you double, because not only do they
use this to reel you in, then they incorporate both
shame and fear to keep you there in a way
(20:29):
that is very attractive. And again this goes to the
clean eating thing that I was talking about in the beginning.
When it doesn't work out the way it was in
quote supposed to, it ends up being your fault. So
maybe you should try it again, or you call yourself
a loser and you succumb to the idea that you'll
never have the body you want, so then you'll never
get those things that were promised either, like the happiness
(20:50):
and the good life. And since the Whole thirty is
one of the most popular non diet diets I hear
about as a therapist. I want to spend some extra
time talking about it and talking about the days of
it and why I don't like it and why I
have a problem with it. And I say all this
knowing that, like I used to promote this, so you
know that quote that I like to repeat all the time,
(21:11):
you get to change your mind. I've changed my mind
on this as I gained new information. So if you're
unfamiliar with Whole thirty, here are the cliff notes. And
I'm taking this from their actual website. I'm not putting
any spin on this. I'm not paraphrasing it. I'm literally
taking all of this word for word from their website.
(21:33):
And on the page of their website that like you
click on, it says what is the Whole thirty? This
is what it says. The Whole thirty has been changing
live since two thousand nine, when co founder Melissa Hartwig
Urban blogged about a thirty day dietary experiment that transformed
her health, habits, and emotional relationship with food. Since then,
millions of people have changed their lives with the Whole
(21:54):
thirty program, limiting cravings, improving energy and sleep, reporting, and
improved allergies, anxiety, chronic pain, digestive issues, skin conditions, and
losing weight healthfully and sustainably. And then on that same page,
in response to what is this, they quote the founder
Melissa Heartwig Urban saying, what is this? It's thirty days
(22:17):
of self care, thirty days of new healthy habits, thirty
days of community. The whole thirty has the power to
change your life and you are worth it, which is
like similar rhetoric to the bio. I read from the
Clean Eating Diet page as well, and notice the theme.
Now we're gonna talk about their rules. Yes, their food rules.
(22:40):
Yet this isn't a diet, which is like, that's literally
what a diet is. But here's what their rules are. Um,
it's thirty days and you can eat they say, real food,
which includes to them, the only real food is meat,
seafood and eggs, vegetables and fruit, natural ats, herbs, spices,
(23:01):
and season eats. You have to eat foods with simple
or recognizable list of ingredients or no ingredients at all
because their whole and unprocessed. So that's what you can have.
So that means you can't have a lot of things
for thirty days. You can't have any of these You
can't have any sugar, real or artificial. This includes things
like maple syrup and honey, which I have my own
(23:23):
feelings on that because that's real to me. But like
anything like no date syrup, no monk fruit extract, no agba, nectar,
no like not even just like you can't have stevia
and splenda and uh like high fruc toast, corn syrup
or any of that. Like you can't have honey, okay,
no alcohol in any form, none whatsoever. No grains that's wheat, rye, barley, oats,
(23:47):
oats like you can't. You can't have oatmeal. That was
a huge one for me. No corn rice, millet, vulgar,
sprouted grains, any gluten free anything any like keen one things, nothing,
none of it. No lagoons. So this includes beans, black, red, pinto,
navy garbonzo, chickpeas, white kidney, I mean all of the beans.
(24:08):
No peanuts, no peanut butter, all forms of soy. And
they do make an exception. You can have green beans
and most peas, which says see the fine print, like
you have to be specific most peas, but not all
peas because one pima might kill you. But the others
will make you feel great and perfect and wonderful. I
don't know. No dairy of any kind, cow goat, sheep,
(24:30):
no milk products, no cream, nothing. The only exception here
you can have clarified butter or ghee says see the
fine print. No kara gens or sulfates. So if this
is in anything in the label, you can't have it.
No recreating baked goods or treats. No junk foods with
approved ingredients, So you can't even have like, let's say,
(24:53):
to have all approved ingredients, but you like mash them
up into a pancake like the banana egg pancake. Things
that people make you can't have that. You can't have
anything like that is approved, like coconut milk, ice cream,
like none of that. They say You're cravings and habits
won't change if you keep eating these foods eat if
they are made with whole thirty ingredients. So it's literally
(25:14):
saying like even if you can fake yourself into thinking
that you're having ice cream by like blending a banana,
you can't have it because you shouldn't want to have
ice cream, Like what in the world. Okay, So there's
that and no stepping on the scale or taking measurements.
So this is where they say your reset is about
so much more than just weight loss. Focusing on your
(25:34):
body composition means you'll miss out on the most dramatic
and lifelong benefits of this plan has to offer. That's
their little thing to say, this is not about losing
weight and changing what your body looks like. Okay, I'd
be interested to see, like how many people follow that
and then still say that they do the whole thirty,
you know, and then they say, give us thirty days.
Your only job during the whole thirty is to eat
(25:55):
Whole thirty compatible foods. Your only job is to stick
to the whole thirty rules for thirty days straight. Now cheatsness, slip,
no special occasions. This isn't a hazing or a boot camp.
The requirements for ad compliance is grounded in science. We
call the whole thirty a reset, but at its heart,
the whole thirty is an elimination diet. Elimination protocols have
been around since the nineties, and many doctors see how
(26:17):
they're using all these buzzy things. Many doctors say that
they are still the gold standard and identifying food sensitivities,
but only if you do them by the books. One
bite of a pizza, one spoonful of ice cream, one
step of beer within the thirty day period, and you've
broken the reset and you have to start over again
on day one. You must commit to the full program
(26:38):
exactly as written for the full thirty days. Anything less,
and you are selling yourself and your life changing results short.
It's only thirty days. So here's the thing. A whole
thirty often falls short itself of its claim that will
cause you to eliminate all your food cravings and make
them disappear, like magically disappear, As if you don't eat
(27:01):
ice cream or anything that resembles ice cream for thirty days,
you're never gonna want ice cream again. They can't claim
that like that is an insane claim to make. And
that also goes back into this idea. When it doesn't work,
it's because like you failed in some way, like you
did something wrong, and it's not the program. Because this
program has worked for millions of people. Yet I have
(27:21):
not met one person who has not talked about counting
down the days for it to be over, counting down
the days that they can have a glass of wine,
counting down the days where they can just go out
with their friends and to have a care free night
and eat pizza, Counting down the days where they can
have something as simple as oatmeal. I have not met
(27:43):
one person who has not talked about that. Day one
is rarely the first step of their ten day introduction phase.
For people, it's usually day one of either binging a
food you've been unnecessarily strict ing, or day one of
having a really hard time normalizing foods again and entering
(28:04):
back into normal eating patterns. That's pretty rare for a
lot of people to just enter back into that I
can like treat food as food again and take out
the morality or fear or shame involved in eating. And
in some cases, like especially my own, I created huge, huge,
huge fears around foods that used to be staples in
(28:25):
my earlier restrictive part of my eating disorder. As in,
I spent months being afraid of eating oatmeal again, plain oatmeal,
like and I would put nothing in my oatmeal and
I could not eat it because I was afraid that
every time I ate it, I was going to bloat,
or I was going to have this kind of pain,
or it was going to cause me to gain weight,
(28:47):
like I was afraid of oatmeal, and I feel really
sad for that part of me looking back now. While
floating around their website, I also thought it was very
interesting that I found how I mentioned that quote earlier,
the one that stuck out to me the most when
I was doing the whole thirty myself and reading the book,
and I'm going to say the quote again, It's not hard,
don't you dare tell us this is hard. Quoting Heroin
(29:10):
is hard, Beating cancer is hard. Drinking your coffee black
is not hard. I found this really interesting because they
actually bring that quote up on their website, and while
they're not taking this line out of their mission, because apparently,
per their website and quotes, thousands of people have told
us that this line is finally what motivated them to
start the program and change their lives. Notice they don't
(29:32):
say change their lives for the better, because that motive
me to change my life and it ended up being worse.
But maybe I'm the only one that happened to I
doubt it, but you know, I thought, oh, this would
be awesome. Maybe they're putting this quote on there to
talk about how they've changed their mind and and they've
got new information and now they don't see that shame
as a helpful way of encouraging people to create lasting
(29:54):
and lifelong healthy behavior change and all that. And no,
they don't want to take away this phrase because, like
they said, thousands of people have used this to actually
grab onto the program. And I assume that they don't
want to take that away because that would take money away. Right.
They decided they wanted to play both sides of the
(30:14):
fence because they also want to appeal to those who
don't get motivated by shame by saying, and this is
from their website, we'll always leave that line untouched because
it speaks to where we were when we created the
whole thirty and then many people that message has inspired.
Now we want to share something else. We know this
is hard. It may not be as physically challenging as
(30:37):
birthing a baby or as emotionally draining as the death
of a loved one, but changing the way you think
about food is hard. Our relationship with food is an
emotional one. Food is our comfort, a reward, a trusted friend,
a mother's love. You've got food habits, traditions, and associations
that go all the way back to childhood. You can't
imagine how you would live happily without certain foods in
(30:59):
your life, and we are asking you to give those
foods up for an entire month. Yes, the idea is threatening, scary,
downright paralyzing. How will you celebrate manager stress, deal with
the tough day at the office, bond with your family,
and enjoy life withoutcake, chocolate, wine, or bread. So the
issue that's here is, I mean, that is a well
(31:20):
written statement, and yeah, I agree with all of that,
Like this stuff is hard, and two things can be
hard at the same time, and the varying degrees don't
negate one from the other. All that they're saying right
there is super true. And the issue that I have
with this is this is a perfect, beautiful example of
gas lighting. At first, you undoubtedly professed that this isn't hard,
(31:43):
and then in the next breath you're saying that it is.
So is it not hard? And should I just get
over it? Or should I offer myself compassion? I'm so
confused here, and I'm really not sure what would have
been wrong with just acknowledging that only eating pure meat,
vegetables and fruits for thirty days was hard, and we
can do hard things like that. If you wanted to
(32:05):
create some messaging, that's what I would go with. Not
that I want to help this program, but that's the
marketing scheme that makes sense to me and kind of
takes the complicated nous out of this. But instead they're
going to tell you these two opposite things, and listen,
I am all for the both, and I'm all for
the two things that exist at the same time. But
(32:26):
they are literally contradicting themselves in the same paragraph so
that they can be attractive to multiple types of people.
They don't want this program to only be pigeonholed to
one type of person. They want anybody who sees whole
thirty to think that it's the program for them. And
I don't like that. I really don't like that. Also,
(32:49):
besides all of that, this is really challenging and really
hard for a lot of reasons. But let's not ignore
how privileged this diet is. The time, the the the energy,
the brain space that would have to go into this
is unreal. Trust me, I've done it multiple times, and
I was a single person not working full time, so
(33:12):
I had an excess of essentially free time, and it
was really freaking hard and took a lot of space
in my life to do this. It was hard, and
for just anybody to be able to do this and
put that much energy into what they're eating is scary
to me because of what you have to give up
and what we're saying is important and what we're telling
(33:32):
people is important, and also again gas lighting that we're
going to say that this isn't difficult to basically surround
your life and everything that you do around the preparation
and what is in your food. But none of this
even addresses the main issues with programs like Whole thirty.
One of the main issues is they are just not necessary.
They capitalize on saying things like elimination diets have been
(33:54):
around since the nineties. Well, okay, heroin has been around
since like the eighteen hundreds, And if that seems harsh,
bifocals were invented in the seventeen hundreds, so that is like,
it just doesn't make sense for saying that this has
been around for a long time, so that means it's
therefore has credibility, And yeah, bifocals and glasses, those are
(34:15):
good things. Those are helpful things, but what does it
matter when they were invented. Posturing an elimination diet to
the general public is like posturing wearing prescription glasses to
the general public. Not everybody needs them, and when they
were invented doesn't matter. It does not have any literally
any bearing on the validity or the goodness or the
(34:35):
helpfulness or the healthiness of them. And it doesn't also
have any validity on the fact that certain people need
them in certain people don't. Whole thirty is a business.
The equaling diet is a business. Skinny butch book. It
was a business move, like all these are businesses forks
over knives that had a business behind it that was
that people were making money. There was agenda attached to it.
(34:58):
And while there are many manynesses that exist to help people,
this one, very clearly to me does not. It's a
perfect example of how to use information that sounds right,
could be right, and just enough that actually is right
to real people in and make a ship ton of money.
The goal here, to me, cannot be actually helping people.
(35:19):
If that were the case, I think there would be
less applauding the weight loss associated with the program. There
would be more advocation to not use this as a
weight loss tool. But the thing is when you use
it as a weight loss tool, and a lot of
people do. I would love to see like actual research
on how many people do this because they are feeling
a food sensitivity or their doctors said we need to
(35:40):
do elimination diet, and how many people are using this
as a jump start to losing weight or a quick
fix to like lose weight or do something or reduce
bloating or whatever it is. But when you use this
as a weight loss tool, even if it's not the
point of why this thing was invented, the Whole thirty
business gained something. Whole thirty promises to people feel better,
(36:01):
promises to help people find food sensitivities and cure unhealthy habits,
but what they also advocate for is unhealthy rigid rules
around food that they call boundaries that are actually really
just food rules. What they also advocate for is morality
of food, while also adjusting the anti diet term food
freedom as a term to give their program more credibility.
(36:22):
I have a lot of passion when it comes to
things like this, and I think you guys can probably
tell one because I personally have been a victim of
the false promises, and that is in conjunction with my
own ignorance of health and wellness. And I also am
seeing every single day other people that have been victims
(36:42):
to this as well, people that again go into this
wanting something good, wanting to better life, wanting those promises,
wanting to be happy. Nobody becomes orthorexic because they want
to be sad. I wanted something better and I got
something really confusing. And this is not an antihealth podcast.
This is a podcast dedicated to helping people find the
(37:03):
highest form of both physical and mental health that they can.
But we don't find that through shame or fear or
being perfect. We find it through doing the best we
can with what we know until we know more. And
what we know now is that dieting doesn't work. We
know that for a fact, and we know that marketing
things as anti diet that are actually diets doesn't work
(37:26):
for the consumer. It works for the people selling something.
And I really am not upset with anybody who has
created one of these programs, anybody who has written one
of these books. I'm not upset with that, because I
think that at certain points the intentions around the development
of some of these things were really good. What I
get upset with is as we gain more information, as
(37:47):
we have research that says like this is false, this
is not true, this is harmful. We're not adjusting our plans,
we're not adjusting our language, and we're not apologizing to
the people that we've hurt. We're just continuing to hurt
people and promote something that continues to hurt people. There's
complete credibility to the fact that certain foods add certain
things to our lives, and certain foods, depending on the person,
(38:08):
can be harmful to people. But candy isn't poison. And
you're not going to die from drinking diet coke. I
don't know who needs to hear that. Who needs to
have me repeat that. I needed to hear this a
long time ago. But you will not die specifically from
drinking diet coke. You can have that and not be
afraid that you're going to drop dead in a year
from specifically drinking diet coke. I'm not a dietician, so
(38:31):
I'm not going to speak specifically to what foods we
should be eating and what quantities and what combinations and
any of that. But what I am is a mental
health professional who knows how engaging and hearing this language
over and over that is postured and these diets and
these programs in these books and these influencers, I know
(38:53):
how that can negatively affect our mental health and our
well being. And I also know that our mental health
literally really is connected to how we feel feel physically
literally connected to how our bodies operate. We get to
identify what the best version of our life looks like
and how we want to go about finding that there
isn't one way to feel and one way to look
and one way to eat, and we get to be
(39:14):
the deciders of what the line of ideal looks like
for ourselves. And that's what I want to leave you
guys with today. People who struggle with orthorexia can come
off as stuck up or can even themselves feel superior.
Trust me, I've been there. But it doesn't have to
be this way or feel this way. We can each
find our own level of health and that be okay.
And if dedicating the majority of your life around what
(39:37):
you're eating and how your food is prepared is taking
away from the quality of how you get to interact
and experience your life. I want you to know that
there are more options out there, like I promise you that.
So again, I didn't intend this episode to actually go
down this road, but it did, and I'm glad that
it did. And I want you guys to really think about, like,
(39:59):
what's the most hard full thing becoming obsessed and developing
anxiety disorders and eating disorders surrounded by the over analyzation
of the food that we are putting in our bodies
second by second by second by second, or eating a
bag of Doritos. I don't know. I have my own assumption.
I'm gonna let you guys answer that question for yourself.
(40:19):
If you have any questions about this episode, please feel
free to email me Catherine at you Need Therapy podcast
dot com, and you can follow us on Instagram at
at you Need Therapy Podcast and me myself specifically at
cat dot de fat A d E f A T
d a
Happy Saturday outweigh Fam. Merry Christmas. It's Amy here, and well,
I guess if you're listening to this when it actually
comes out, then Marry Christmas because Christmas is tomorrow. But
you know, podcasts you can listen to when whenever you want,
so who knows, it might be July when you're hearing this,
but if it is Christmas time, I hope you're having
a great holiday weekend. And I have something special for
you today and next Saturday, We're gonna be airing some
(00:24):
episodes from Cat de fod as you need therapy podcasts
that are related to body image and eating disorders. And
the episode I'm gonna share with you today is about
orthorexy and Whole thirty And I like this particular conversation
because I'm someone that struggled with orthorexia for a long time,
way before I even knew there was a name for it.
I was very strict with my food intake and very
(00:47):
quote unquote clean, and it had to be on my
list and I would freak out if it wasn't. I
would study restaurant menus before I went out to eat,
trying to dissect every single ingredient they could possibly be
using so that I could or the best thing to
fit my need, or honestly, I probably didn't even really
eat out as much because I wanted to control everything,
so cooking at home was my best option. So here's
(01:11):
a chat from You Need Therapy about orthorexia and whole thirty.
Here you go, Hi, guys, and welcome back to another
new episode of You Need Therapy podcast. My name is Cat,
and I'm glad you're here. If you're new to the podcast,
(01:33):
then before we get started, I just want to give
a quick disclaimer that even though I'm a licensed therapist
and this podcast is called You Need Therapy, this podcast
does not stand to serve as a replacement or a
substitute for actual mental health services or therapy itself. But
you know, like I always like to say, it might
(01:54):
encourage you to go to therapy, or it might encourage
you to look at something different or in a different
way if you're already in therapy. That is really what
my hope is for this whole thing. Now today I'm
doing a solo episode again and we are talking about
something more in line with what I specialize in as
a therapist, and we're gonna be talking about orthorexia. I've
(02:15):
touched on this before on the podcast, but we are
going to talk about a little bit more in depth today.
And if you are unfamiliar with what orthorexia is, it's
a type of disordered eating where someone becomes obsessed with
the health of foods. Orthorexia is not yet recognized in
the d s M itself alone, which the d s
(02:36):
M is the Diagnostic Statistical Manual for mental health disorders,
but regardless of that, this type of obsession of food
can lead to an official diagnosis of eating disorders that
are already in there. You can be diagnosed with an
eating disorder in a couple of different ways, which we
don't need to go into, but this can lead to
one of those really easily. And again, in its simplest terms,
(02:58):
orthorexia mean an obsession with healthy eating, and someone who
might develop orthorexia most likely doesn't start out being obsessed
or start out wanting to develop something that is a
year bad or unhelpful. But things can take pretty fast turns.
And it's not just due to reasons associated with the individual,
(03:19):
like having an addictive personality. It's very much connected to
our culture and the messaging companies and brands use to
attract an illicit business, and the manipulation involved and how
diet culture sells their ideals and products in order to
push business. So we're gonna talk about this, and before
I get into any of the things that come with
our culture and some of the stuff that's pushed towards
(03:40):
us that kind of like impact or influence or even
just like highlight orthorexia as a good thing, We're going
to talk about what it might look like. Just so
if you know somebody or you yourself you're like, oh,
I don't know, if I'm like teetering on that line.
This is some of the things that um come with
having this type of disordered eating. And I'm taking these
(04:01):
straight from Nita's website. So that's the National Eating Disorder Association,
so NEEDA dot com. So we're go, I'm gonna just
want to credit that back to them. These are not
my words. So if you're like, you don't know what
you're talking about, well, I took this from the professional professionals. Okay.
So this would be compulsive checking of ingredients lists and
nutrition labels, an increase in concern about the health of ingredients,
(04:25):
cutting out an increasing number of food groups like all sugar,
all carves, all dairy, all meat, all animal products. And
again one of these doesn't elicit orthodoxia, like if you're
just like I'm a vegetarian or I have steliacs, that
is not orthodoxia. It's combination with other parts of these
and the why behind your doing it. Also, and inability
to eat anything but a narrow group of foods that
(04:47):
are deemed healthy or pure or clean or good. Unusual
interest in the health of what other people are eating
and how they're fueling and feeding themselves, spending hours per
day thinking about what food might be served at upcoming events,
showing high levels of distress when safe or healthy foods
aren't available, obsessive following of food and healthy lifestyle blogs
(05:07):
on Twitter, Instagram or any type of social media. And
in the past this might have looked like collecting a
lot of books on these things as well. And body
image concerns may or may not be there. This isn't
always associated with body image issues. This is specifically talking
about being highly highly concerned about the health of things
(05:27):
and the cleanliness of things and the goodness of things.
And when it's talking about being obsessed with like the
health of ingredients. It even goes down to like, not
only is it a pure food, like I don't know
an apple, it has to be like an organic apple
or certain type of apple because it has that apple
(05:48):
has certain ingredients and it's the best type of vitamin
whatever in that specific apple, or like the ripeness of something.
So I will only eat bananas if they're this color,
or only eat avocados if they're this firm, or it
just could get very very very specific. Now where does
this come from? And has this always been an issue
(06:09):
or is this new? And if it's new, why might
this be coming into our view now? So I kind
of love I did not do this on purpose, but
I kind of love how I wish that I've had
this much like what is it foresight into like planning,
but uh no, I didn't plan this, but I like
that it worked out this way. That this episode is
falling right after the one we did on brainwashing and cults,
(06:29):
because as I discussed in that episode, I talked about
how people can't just be brainwashed unless there's some part
of them that wants to believe what it is they
are stepping into, and most people who end up looking
like they were brainwashed by a cult. Start the process
with really good intentions. They want a better life. In
this case, in the case of order xia, the cult
(06:50):
of clean eating, these people are simply wanting to fit
in in society. They want to avoid current or future
health complications. They want to feel more confident or comfortable
in their own body. Like the list goes on, there
are very good reasons for walking into what might set
somebody up to developing this kind of disordered eating. In fact,
every single person I've ever talked to that has experienced
(07:12):
this reports it starting out in a positive way, starts
out on like taking care of themselves in a more
intentional way. And how many of us out there have
heard how the food we eat affects our health? Of us?
The issue is not that that's false. The issue is
to what extent does it affect our health? And how
(07:33):
do we know? Like, where are we getting this information?
And how far are we willing to go? If clean
eating promises a life free of any ailments plus happiness,
I would for sure give it a second take. But
does it, Like does it really? Where is the data
that shows us that? And how much does eating clean
impact the quality of our life and how much does
eating clean take away the quality of our life? And
(07:55):
I just want to give this disclaimer. I hate the
term eating clean, but for the sake of what we're
going to talk about, I'm going to keep using that
term for this episode because I think that that could
have so many different meanings and interpretations and problems in itself.
And that's part of the reason why. I mean, we'll
get into it later, but I talk about the equaling
diet anyhow, this is one of those things that you
(08:18):
have to look at. How do we balance our mental
and physical health. How do we not just look at
one of them, and how do we look at them combined.
We have to work together on this because if we
can avoid joint pain by cutting out three food groups,
but then we develop an anxiety disorder, are we helping
ourselves or hurting ourselves? Like? Where is the line in
which one is the bigger issue? And does it have
to be one or the other? Now a bigger problem
(08:41):
arises also for those who have the biological, social, and
psychological precursors for developing and eating disorder. These seemingly innocent
and helpful lifestyle changes that are included in some of
what diet culture sends us as like good things to
do to like take care of yourself, can actually have
(09:02):
very opposite effects, especially as the diet, wellness, and beauty
industries continue to reap the enormous financial benefits of these
humans growing addictions to their content. I remember back when
I began getting like super into health and fitness in college,
I was a super super heavy follower of this woman
(09:24):
named Tausca Reno or Reno. I don't actually even know
how to say her name correctly, and she, like I
was mentioned earlier as I was saying eat clean. She
had this book called The Eat Clean Diet. I bought
her cookbooks. I became engulfed in the principles of her
clean eating and how they promised things that I now
know are literally not connected to each other at all.
(09:45):
Things like happiness, things like finding love, self love, and
like a fulfilling life. Those are not attached to the
foods you're eating. Finding love and like practicing self love
and being happy are not connect did with cutting sugar
out of your diet seems really simple to say now
or maybe not? Maybe like yes, they are. We're going
(10:06):
to talk about why you might think that during this episode,
and I actually went to her website and read her
bio while I was preparing for this episode, and the
last paragraph of her bio literally had me laughing out loud.
And her life is actually a bit tragic, and it
seems that since my unfollowing of her and her brand,
she's been through some like really tough stuff. And that's
(10:28):
not what I was laughing about. There's actually not one
funny thing about the trajectory of her life, and I
do have a lot of empathy for her. What made
me laugh is the fierce dedication to connect her emotional
resilience to a diet or in reality, her commitment to
doing whatever it takes to keep her business in brand alive,
(10:49):
even if that includes using manipulative, attractive statements that have
the ability to draw in vulnerable people while making impossible
promises of a better life. Also spoiler alert, when the
promises don't actually work that these people talk about, when
they don't come true, it ends up being the individual's fault,
not the fact that what they were promised was impossible,
(11:11):
as in, you're a failure, not the program. So I
just want to read the last paragraph her bio because
I just need you guys to hear what I'm talking about,
she says, or whoever wrote this says. The challenges I
have endured make me an expert in these areas. I
(11:32):
know what it is to lose a husband whom I
love deeply, to cancer. I know what it is to
lose a step son. I know what it means to
face bankruptcy and to worry how to pay the rent
or eat. I know what it feels like to lose
your way. These things make me an expert. And this
is what I bring to you now. Along with my
clean living principles, I can help you. I bring you
(11:55):
the elixir of life. What I hear in her words
are the elixir of how to build resilience, how to
get over all these trials and tribulations, how to enjoy
your life through pain, heartache, tough things. Are my clean
eating principles. So there's that and the clean eating diet.
And I was all for that at one point. And
I remember in that time, I also digging up these
(12:17):
memories of watching the documentary Forks over Knives and the
fear that was instilled in me and experiencing this dilemma
around eating meat, And how was I going to be
a vegetarian even though I didn't want to be. But
like now, after watching that documentary, I thought I was
going to get all these diseases, And also like, am
I the problem? And I'm a bad person because I'm
eating these things? And how do I become a crusader
(12:38):
and in the anti animal eating business and all of that?
And so I have the clean eating fear instilled in
me and I want to, you know, live my best
life in that area. And then I have the people
who are telling me that I'm the problem when it
comes to like animal slaughtery and all of that, which
I will say, there's probably some truth to a lot
of the poor care that is put into how animals
(13:02):
are processed for human consumption. I'm not an expert in that,
and I'm not saying I am, but I'm just saying
at this time in my life, I was consuming all
of this different information that was creating a lot of
fear in what I was eating, how I was eating,
how I was going to be a good person and
also be the healthiest, best person at the same time.
(13:24):
And speaking of being a vegetarian, I was also recently
reminded by a book from the past by a client
that luckily I haven't actually read this book. I am
very grateful that I did not read this book at
this time. But I ended up doing some research on
the book because of what I was talking about with
my client, and I was shocked, but at the same
(13:45):
time not shocked by what I found. And I'm talking
about the Skinny Bitch diet, which is a fad diet
basically veganism at its core. But this book, Skinny Bitch
is written by a model one and an animal advocate
and a model ling agent, so Kim I don't know
how to say her last name, barn new In, and
(14:06):
then Rory Freedman created this and this book I somehow
found like a PDF of the whole book online, which
I don't know if that's normal, but I found it
and I started reading through it, and the first thing
I noticed is the constant language that they use, and
the demeaning and degrading language they use, and the terms
(14:26):
they use like don't be a fat pig anymore, And
they try to motivate you to follow this diet using
this language, and it's very shame based, and to me,
it was very off putting, but it also I think
that depending on the spot in life, you might be
that shame might force you into something because you don't
want to be a fat pig and they're telling you
(14:46):
that that's bad. Now, I want to introduce you to
one particular paragraph for reference of this book, and uh,
this one. Literally I sent it to so many people
and was like, can you believe this was written? And
people soaked this up. The title of this chap where
this excerpt came from, is called you are what You Eat,
And I was talking all about how like you shouldn't
eat animal products because of how the animals are prepared,
(15:08):
very similar to the Fork over Knives documentary, but this
was just a very different delivery where that one kind
of tore on my heartstrings and this one just made
me feel like a shitty person. And also like I
was very scared. And they write, I think of how
you feel when you're angry, afraid, and grief stricken. Bear
in mind the physical feelings that accompany these emotions. These
(15:29):
emotions fear, grief, and rage produce chemical changes in our bodies.
They do the same to animals. Their blood pressures rise,
adrenaline courses through their bodies. You are eating high blood pressure,
stress and adrenaline. You're eating fear, grief and rage. You
are eating suffering, horror, and murder. You're eating cruelty. You
(15:51):
are what you eat. You cannot be thin and beautiful
with a glowing complexion when you eat fear, grief and rage.
Y'all think about reading that and hearing that and invulnerable
state or really any state. The language that's used in
this book and throughout this book is some of the
most shaming, the most scary that I found, not just
(16:12):
in my research for kind of going through this episode,
but like in the existence of me working in this field.
I'm going to read a couple other quotes that I
found that also give a nice picture of what I'm
talking about. These are direct quotes to like, I'm almost like,
did I add something to the These are did I
make them worset to prove a point note? These are
just in the book. So here here there, Perhaps you
(16:32):
have a lumpy ask because you are preserving your fat
cells with diet soda. Whenever you see the word fat
free or low fat, think of the words chemical ship storm.
You are what you eat. You are a human body
compromised of organs, blood, and guts and other ship. The
food you put into your body works its way through
your organs and bloodstream, and it's actually part of who
you are. So every time you put crap in your body,
(16:54):
you are crap. Milk equals fat, butter equals fat, Cheese
equals fat. People who think these products can be low
fat or fat free equal fucking morons. And the most
confusing one that I found, Now that you're a skinny bitch,
don't turn into a skinny bitch. We conceived the title
skinny bitch to get attention and sell books, but we
are not bitches, and we have no desire to promote bitchiness.
(17:15):
There is nothing uglier than a pretty woman who's nasty.
If you look great, you should feel good about yourself
and be happy and dear God, I have so many
issues with that little part, especially the last one. You
should feel good about yourself and be happy as if
like looking away. It's like the message that we are
trying to pull away from society is that what you
look like does not have to have a direct impact
(17:38):
on how you feel. And also you get to decide
what looking great even looks like. But the part that's
confusing to me is this whole book is written in
the most I mean, using their language, bitchy terms. Ever,
it's a mean book. It is a mean book. But
then they're saying, we're not bitches. You should be happy
(17:59):
and essentially be like nice and kind. And it's like,
I don't know anybody who's developed like a kind attitude
and personality by being surrounded and being motivated by cruelty.
Correct me if I'm wrong. I just don't get how
that makes any sense at all. So then this leads
me to something that's way more mainstream and common, something
called the Whole Thirty. And this is one of my
(18:22):
worst memories. And I was all in. I did the
Whole Thirty like four times, and I was the person
posting about it on social media, like I have to
take accountability for this. I was sucked into this, like
I was sucked into some of these other things, not
the Skinny Bitch Book. But you know what, if I
would have read it, who knows. But the Whole thirty
is one of the most common diets I hear about
(18:43):
when I'm working with clients, Like one of the most
common diets that people are doing and have done in
a lot of ways. The Whole thirty, which is promoted
as not a diet. It's one of the worst diets
because I pretends that it's not one, but it literally is.
I remember getting the book and I remember specifically highlighting
the part where they said, oh my gosh, this memory
(19:06):
it brings back like feelings, like all throughout my body.
But I remember specifically highlighting and like sending this quote
to people because I thought it was so great, and
it's where they said, this is not hard. Don't you
dare tell us this is hard. Quitting heroine is hard,
Beating cancer is hard. Drinking your coffee black is not hard.
And as a mental health professional, even though I don't
(19:26):
think you have to be a mental health professional to
know this, but as one, I know that one of
the easiest ways to become obsessed with a food and
to make it really hard to not eat it is
to tell yourself you can't have it. So this literally
is the definition of hard. And even with that, it's
an unnecessary This is an unnecessary program. And I bring
(19:48):
all these things up because the pedestal that these programs
and the people involved in them have been put on
has undoubtedly played an active role in the increase of orthorexia,
and the minimization of the neg of effects of all
of the stuff, in my opinion, and the pointlessness of them.
A lot of these programs are pointless, and I'll get
(20:08):
more into that towards the end of this conversation. But
it is not a secret that diet culture continuously ties
the path to hope, happiness, and all the things that
you want to whatever it is selling programs like the
Whole Thirty, do you double, because not only do they
use this to reel you in, then they incorporate both
shame and fear to keep you there in a way
(20:29):
that is very attractive. And again this goes to the
clean eating thing that I was talking about in the beginning.
When it doesn't work out the way it was in
quote supposed to, it ends up being your fault. So
maybe you should try it again, or you call yourself
a loser and you succumb to the idea that you'll
never have the body you want, so then you'll never
get those things that were promised either, like the happiness
(20:50):
and the good life. And since the Whole thirty is
one of the most popular non diet diets I hear
about as a therapist. I want to spend some extra
time talking about it and talking about the days of
it and why I don't like it and why I
have a problem with it. And I say all this
knowing that, like I used to promote this, so you
know that quote that I like to repeat all the time,
(21:11):
you get to change your mind. I've changed my mind
on this as I gained new information. So if you're
unfamiliar with Whole thirty, here are the cliff notes. And
I'm taking this from their actual website. I'm not putting
any spin on this. I'm not paraphrasing it. I'm literally
taking all of this word for word from their website.
(21:33):
And on the page of their website that like you
click on, it says what is the Whole thirty? This
is what it says. The Whole thirty has been changing
live since two thousand nine, when co founder Melissa Hartwig
Urban blogged about a thirty day dietary experiment that transformed
her health, habits, and emotional relationship with food. Since then,
millions of people have changed their lives with the Whole
(21:54):
thirty program, limiting cravings, improving energy and sleep, reporting, and
improved allergies, anxiety, chronic pain, digestive issues, skin conditions, and
losing weight healthfully and sustainably. And then on that same page,
in response to what is this, they quote the founder
Melissa Heartwig Urban saying, what is this? It's thirty days
(22:17):
of self care, thirty days of new healthy habits, thirty
days of community. The whole thirty has the power to
change your life and you are worth it, which is
like similar rhetoric to the bio. I read from the
Clean Eating Diet page as well, and notice the theme.
Now we're gonna talk about their rules. Yes, their food rules.
(22:40):
Yet this isn't a diet, which is like, that's literally
what a diet is. But here's what their rules are. Um,
it's thirty days and you can eat they say, real food,
which includes to them, the only real food is meat,
seafood and eggs, vegetables and fruit, natural ats, herbs, spices,
(23:01):
and season eats. You have to eat foods with simple
or recognizable list of ingredients or no ingredients at all
because their whole and unprocessed. So that's what you can have.
So that means you can't have a lot of things
for thirty days. You can't have any of these You
can't have any sugar, real or artificial. This includes things
like maple syrup and honey, which I have my own
(23:23):
feelings on that because that's real to me. But like
anything like no date syrup, no monk fruit extract, no agba, nectar,
no like not even just like you can't have stevia
and splenda and uh like high fruc toast, corn syrup
or any of that. Like you can't have honey, okay,
no alcohol in any form, none whatsoever. No grains that's wheat, rye, barley, oats,
(23:47):
oats like you can't. You can't have oatmeal. That was
a huge one for me. No corn rice, millet, vulgar,
sprouted grains, any gluten free anything any like keen one things, nothing,
none of it. No lagoons. So this includes beans, black, red, pinto,
navy garbonzo, chickpeas, white kidney, I mean all of the beans.
(24:08):
No peanuts, no peanut butter, all forms of soy. And
they do make an exception. You can have green beans
and most peas, which says see the fine print, like
you have to be specific most peas, but not all
peas because one pima might kill you. But the others
will make you feel great and perfect and wonderful. I
don't know. No dairy of any kind, cow goat, sheep,
(24:30):
no milk products, no cream, nothing. The only exception here
you can have clarified butter or ghee says see the
fine print. No kara gens or sulfates. So if this
is in anything in the label, you can't have it.
No recreating baked goods or treats. No junk foods with
approved ingredients, So you can't even have like, let's say,
(24:53):
to have all approved ingredients, but you like mash them
up into a pancake like the banana egg pancake. Things
that people make you can't have that. You can't have
anything like that is approved, like coconut milk, ice cream,
like none of that. They say You're cravings and habits
won't change if you keep eating these foods eat if
they are made with whole thirty ingredients. So it's literally
(25:14):
saying like even if you can fake yourself into thinking
that you're having ice cream by like blending a banana,
you can't have it because you shouldn't want to have
ice cream, Like what in the world. Okay, So there's
that and no stepping on the scale or taking measurements.
So this is where they say your reset is about
so much more than just weight loss. Focusing on your
(25:34):
body composition means you'll miss out on the most dramatic
and lifelong benefits of this plan has to offer. That's
their little thing to say, this is not about losing
weight and changing what your body looks like. Okay, I'd
be interested to see, like how many people follow that
and then still say that they do the whole thirty,
you know, and then they say, give us thirty days.
Your only job during the whole thirty is to eat
(25:55):
Whole thirty compatible foods. Your only job is to stick
to the whole thirty rules for thirty days straight. Now cheatsness, slip,
no special occasions. This isn't a hazing or a boot camp.
The requirements for ad compliance is grounded in science. We
call the whole thirty a reset, but at its heart,
the whole thirty is an elimination diet. Elimination protocols have
been around since the nineties, and many doctors see how
(26:17):
they're using all these buzzy things. Many doctors say that
they are still the gold standard and identifying food sensitivities,
but only if you do them by the books. One
bite of a pizza, one spoonful of ice cream, one
step of beer within the thirty day period, and you've
broken the reset and you have to start over again
on day one. You must commit to the full program
(26:38):
exactly as written for the full thirty days. Anything less,
and you are selling yourself and your life changing results short.
It's only thirty days. So here's the thing. A whole
thirty often falls short itself of its claim that will
cause you to eliminate all your food cravings and make
them disappear, like magically disappear, As if you don't eat
(27:01):
ice cream or anything that resembles ice cream for thirty days,
you're never gonna want ice cream again. They can't claim
that like that is an insane claim to make. And
that also goes back into this idea. When it doesn't work,
it's because like you failed in some way, like you
did something wrong, and it's not the program. Because this
program has worked for millions of people. Yet I have
(27:21):
not met one person who has not talked about counting
down the days for it to be over, counting down
the days that they can have a glass of wine,
counting down the days where they can just go out
with their friends and to have a care free night
and eat pizza, Counting down the days where they can
have something as simple as oatmeal. I have not met
(27:43):
one person who has not talked about that. Day one
is rarely the first step of their ten day introduction phase.
For people, it's usually day one of either binging a
food you've been unnecessarily strict ing, or day one of
having a really hard time normalizing foods again and entering
(28:04):
back into normal eating patterns. That's pretty rare for a
lot of people to just enter back into that I
can like treat food as food again and take out
the morality or fear or shame involved in eating. And
in some cases, like especially my own, I created huge, huge,
huge fears around foods that used to be staples in
(28:25):
my earlier restrictive part of my eating disorder. As in,
I spent months being afraid of eating oatmeal again, plain oatmeal,
like and I would put nothing in my oatmeal and
I could not eat it because I was afraid that
every time I ate it, I was going to bloat,
or I was going to have this kind of pain,
or it was going to cause me to gain weight,
(28:47):
like I was afraid of oatmeal, and I feel really
sad for that part of me looking back now. While
floating around their website, I also thought it was very
interesting that I found how I mentioned that quote earlier,
the one that stuck out to me the most when
I was doing the whole thirty myself and reading the book,
and I'm going to say the quote again, It's not hard,
don't you dare tell us this is hard. Quoting Heroin
(29:10):
is hard, Beating cancer is hard. Drinking your coffee black
is not hard. I found this really interesting because they
actually bring that quote up on their website, and while
they're not taking this line out of their mission, because apparently,
per their website and quotes, thousands of people have told
us that this line is finally what motivated them to
start the program and change their lives. Notice they don't
(29:32):
say change their lives for the better, because that motive
me to change my life and it ended up being worse.
But maybe I'm the only one that happened to I
doubt it, but you know, I thought, oh, this would
be awesome. Maybe they're putting this quote on there to
talk about how they've changed their mind and and they've
got new information and now they don't see that shame
as a helpful way of encouraging people to create lasting
(29:54):
and lifelong healthy behavior change and all that. And no,
they don't want to take away this phrase because, like
they said, thousands of people have used this to actually
grab onto the program. And I assume that they don't
want to take that away because that would take money away. Right.
They decided they wanted to play both sides of the
(30:14):
fence because they also want to appeal to those who
don't get motivated by shame by saying, and this is
from their website, we'll always leave that line untouched because
it speaks to where we were when we created the
whole thirty and then many people that message has inspired.
Now we want to share something else. We know this
is hard. It may not be as physically challenging as
(30:37):
birthing a baby or as emotionally draining as the death
of a loved one, but changing the way you think
about food is hard. Our relationship with food is an
emotional one. Food is our comfort, a reward, a trusted friend,
a mother's love. You've got food habits, traditions, and associations
that go all the way back to childhood. You can't
imagine how you would live happily without certain foods in
(30:59):
your life, and we are asking you to give those
foods up for an entire month. Yes, the idea is threatening, scary,
downright paralyzing. How will you celebrate manager stress, deal with
the tough day at the office, bond with your family,
and enjoy life withoutcake, chocolate, wine, or bread. So the
issue that's here is, I mean, that is a well
(31:20):
written statement, and yeah, I agree with all of that,
Like this stuff is hard, and two things can be
hard at the same time, and the varying degrees don't
negate one from the other. All that they're saying right
there is super true. And the issue that I have
with this is this is a perfect, beautiful example of
gas lighting. At first, you undoubtedly professed that this isn't hard,
(31:43):
and then in the next breath you're saying that it is.
So is it not hard? And should I just get
over it? Or should I offer myself compassion? I'm so
confused here, and I'm really not sure what would have
been wrong with just acknowledging that only eating pure meat,
vegetables and fruits for thirty days was hard, and we
can do hard things like that. If you wanted to
(32:05):
create some messaging, that's what I would go with. Not
that I want to help this program, but that's the
marketing scheme that makes sense to me and kind of
takes the complicated nous out of this. But instead they're
going to tell you these two opposite things, and listen,
I am all for the both, and I'm all for
the two things that exist at the same time. But
(32:26):
they are literally contradicting themselves in the same paragraph so
that they can be attractive to multiple types of people.
They don't want this program to only be pigeonholed to
one type of person. They want anybody who sees whole
thirty to think that it's the program for them. And
I don't like that. I really don't like that. Also,
(32:49):
besides all of that, this is really challenging and really
hard for a lot of reasons. But let's not ignore
how privileged this diet is. The time, the the the energy,
the brain space that would have to go into this
is unreal. Trust me, I've done it multiple times, and
I was a single person not working full time, so
(33:12):
I had an excess of essentially free time, and it
was really freaking hard and took a lot of space
in my life to do this. It was hard, and
for just anybody to be able to do this and
put that much energy into what they're eating is scary
to me because of what you have to give up
and what we're saying is important and what we're telling
(33:32):
people is important, and also again gas lighting that we're
going to say that this isn't difficult to basically surround
your life and everything that you do around the preparation
and what is in your food. But none of this
even addresses the main issues with programs like Whole thirty.
One of the main issues is they are just not necessary.
They capitalize on saying things like elimination diets have been
(33:54):
around since the nineties. Well, okay, heroin has been around
since like the eighteen hundreds, And if that seems harsh,
bifocals were invented in the seventeen hundreds, so that is like,
it just doesn't make sense for saying that this has
been around for a long time, so that means it's
therefore has credibility, And yeah, bifocals and glasses, those are
(34:15):
good things. Those are helpful things, but what does it
matter when they were invented. Posturing an elimination diet to
the general public is like posturing wearing prescription glasses to
the general public. Not everybody needs them, and when they
were invented doesn't matter. It does not have any literally
any bearing on the validity or the goodness or the
(34:35):
helpfulness or the healthiness of them. And it doesn't also
have any validity on the fact that certain people need
them in certain people don't. Whole thirty is a business.
The equaling diet is a business. Skinny butch book. It
was a business move, like all these are businesses forks
over knives that had a business behind it that was
that people were making money. There was agenda attached to it.
(34:58):
And while there are many manynesses that exist to help people,
this one, very clearly to me does not. It's a
perfect example of how to use information that sounds right,
could be right, and just enough that actually is right
to real people in and make a ship ton of money.
The goal here, to me, cannot be actually helping people.
(35:19):
If that were the case, I think there would be
less applauding the weight loss associated with the program. There
would be more advocation to not use this as a
weight loss tool. But the thing is when you use
it as a weight loss tool, and a lot of
people do. I would love to see like actual research
on how many people do this because they are feeling
a food sensitivity or their doctors said we need to
(35:40):
do elimination diet, and how many people are using this
as a jump start to losing weight or a quick
fix to like lose weight or do something or reduce
bloating or whatever it is. But when you use this
as a weight loss tool, even if it's not the
point of why this thing was invented, the Whole thirty
business gained something. Whole thirty promises to people feel better,
(36:01):
promises to help people find food sensitivities and cure unhealthy habits,
but what they also advocate for is unhealthy rigid rules
around food that they call boundaries that are actually really
just food rules. What they also advocate for is morality
of food, while also adjusting the anti diet term food
freedom as a term to give their program more credibility.
(36:22):
I have a lot of passion when it comes to
things like this, and I think you guys can probably
tell one because I personally have been a victim of
the false promises, and that is in conjunction with my
own ignorance of health and wellness. And I also am
seeing every single day other people that have been victims
(36:42):
to this as well, people that again go into this
wanting something good, wanting to better life, wanting those promises,
wanting to be happy. Nobody becomes orthorexic because they want
to be sad. I wanted something better and I got
something really confusing. And this is not an antihealth podcast.
This is a podcast dedicated to helping people find the
(37:03):
highest form of both physical and mental health that they can.
But we don't find that through shame or fear or
being perfect. We find it through doing the best we
can with what we know until we know more. And
what we know now is that dieting doesn't work. We
know that for a fact, and we know that marketing
things as anti diet that are actually diets doesn't work
(37:26):
for the consumer. It works for the people selling something.
And I really am not upset with anybody who has
created one of these programs, anybody who has written one
of these books. I'm not upset with that, because I
think that at certain points the intentions around the development
of some of these things were really good. What I
get upset with is as we gain more information, as
(37:47):
we have research that says like this is false, this
is not true, this is harmful. We're not adjusting our plans,
we're not adjusting our language, and we're not apologizing to
the people that we've hurt. We're just continuing to hurt
people and promote something that continues to hurt people. There's
complete credibility to the fact that certain foods add certain
things to our lives, and certain foods, depending on the person,
(38:08):
can be harmful to people. But candy isn't poison. And
you're not going to die from drinking diet coke. I
don't know who needs to hear that. Who needs to
have me repeat that. I needed to hear this a
long time ago. But you will not die specifically from
drinking diet coke. You can have that and not be
afraid that you're going to drop dead in a year
from specifically drinking diet coke. I'm not a dietician, so
(38:31):
I'm not going to speak specifically to what foods we
should be eating and what quantities and what combinations and
any of that. But what I am is a mental
health professional who knows how engaging and hearing this language
over and over that is postured and these diets and
these programs in these books and these influencers, I know
(38:53):
how that can negatively affect our mental health and our
well being. And I also know that our mental health
literally really is connected to how we feel feel physically
literally connected to how our bodies operate. We get to
identify what the best version of our life looks like
and how we want to go about finding that there
isn't one way to feel and one way to look
and one way to eat, and we get to be
(39:14):
the deciders of what the line of ideal looks like
for ourselves. And that's what I want to leave you
guys with today. People who struggle with orthorexia can come
off as stuck up or can even themselves feel superior.
Trust me, I've been there. But it doesn't have to
be this way or feel this way. We can each
find our own level of health and that be okay.
And if dedicating the majority of your life around what
(39:37):
you're eating and how your food is prepared is taking
away from the quality of how you get to interact
and experience your life. I want you to know that
there are more options out there, like I promise you that.
So again, I didn't intend this episode to actually go
down this road, but it did, and I'm glad that
it did. And I want you guys to really think about, like,
(39:59):
what's the most hard full thing becoming obsessed and developing
anxiety disorders and eating disorders surrounded by the over analyzation
of the food that we are putting in our bodies
second by second by second by second, or eating a
bag of Doritos. I don't know. I have my own assumption.
I'm gonna let you guys answer that question for yourself.
(40:19):
If you have any questions about this episode, please feel
free to email me Catherine at you Need Therapy podcast
dot com, and you can follow us on Instagram at
at you Need Therapy Podcast and me myself specifically at
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