Things We Dive Into In This Episode:
Why it's not "you'll lose weight when you stop looking for it" (14:43)
Why you don't have to "turn off" your desire for weight loss (32:19)
How to re-route your desire in a healthier, more sustainable direction (22:51)
How to make empowered habit changes (35:54)
The importance of the process feeling good (40:37)
Q&A (42:51)
šResources
šEpisode Highlights
If you try to force weight loss through an unsustainable, restrictive diet program, you are either going to gain that weight back or develop a rigid, disordered relationship with food and your body. If you believe you'll lose weight when you stop "looking for it" that's assuming no action can be taken.
It's not "you'll lose weight when you stop looking for it". When we tell people to stop looking for it, it isn't empowered advice. Let's take that idea of you'll lose weight when you stop looking for it, flip it around, and add more nuance and look at it in a way that's more specific and hopefully empowering to you.
**Disclaimers**
Everything that I say is not a substitute for individualized medical or mental health advice. It is always best to use this podcast for educational/entertainment purposes and then take this information and play with it in whatever way feels good for you. But ultimately, if you're looking to make hyper specific, sustainable changes to your life, go get individualized medical or mental health advice.
It's important to think about whether conversations about weight are very activating and very triggering for you. If you feel like the mention of weight loss is going to be activating or triggering for you, find some support and someone to hold the space for you before tuning in.
It is important to acknowledge of my privilege. I am a CIS, white, straight-sized provider. My perspective is one perspective. My perspective is not going to encompass all of the systemic matters and the many things that impact people's relationship with their bodies, body weight, and body shape. I do not know what it is like to navigate the world in a much larger body. I do not know what it's like to not have a clothing store carry my size or to not have an airplane seatbelt fit me. And most importantly, I do not know the pain of systemic weight stigma.
Actionable tools for approaching the topic of weight loss:
It's most helpful to change your aim to the pursuit of health. (0:22:51)
It's that you need to change your aim. You need to understand what it is you're actually looking for that is actually within your control, that you actually do have a sense of agency over. We can actually have some sense of agency over our health and well-being by engaging in certain behaviors. And when we create a plan and a structure around pursuing health and engaging in certain health promoting behaviors, then our body might lose weight if that is what our body wants to do to maintain a sense of healthy homeostasis.
You can't wake up and say, I'm going to lose weight. You can wake up and say:
I am going to eat a balanced breakfast with lots of fiber, carbs, fruits, and veggies. I am going to stop smoking.
I am going to reduce drinking or stop drinking.
I am going to go to a mental health therapist.
I am going to make sure that I am reducing the stress load on my body and ventilating out some of the tension that can be causing physical stress.
I am going to decide that I'm going to stretch right now.
I am going to decide that I'm going to hydrate throughout the day.
When people hear stop looking for weight loss, they tend to interpret that as stop looking for health. But that's not what anyone's saying at all. People who are saying stop looking for weight loss are often just trying to say, stop engaging in rigid and restrictive behaviors that are trying to force weight loss and focus instead on what's going to help you pursue health.
We do need to be empowered to choose different behaviors, and we need to figure out what's causing us to engage in these behaviors that ultimately don't promote a sense of energy, health, well being, fulfillment. Weight is not a behavior, so I take a behavioral approach to nutrition counseling. I want my clients to focus on changing their behavior so that they can improve their energy levels, their quality of life, their mental state, their blood pressure, their labs, and their digestion.
You don't have to "turn off" your desire for weight loss. (0:32:19)
We deserve to look at our desires and understand where they came from. We need to in fact do that. So I say this to clients all the time.
Where does your desire to lose weight come from? Why do you really want to lose weight? Oftentimes what it comes down to doctors saying you should lose weight, but what did your doctor really mean? Your doctor meant your cholesterol is high, for example. Let's do some nutrition related remedies that might help lower your cholesterol, that might help lower your LDL levels.
Sometimes when we look at our desire for weight loss, we just really get an understanding of what we're missing or what we feel we're missing. Where are the gaps for us? Where are we suffering? And how can we hold ourselves and help ourselves and nurture ourselves more?
It's not about just saying, turn the desire off like a faucet. It's about exploring our desires, holding space for our desires, and understanding them a little bit better.
How to make empowered habit changes instead of throwing our hands in the air. (0:35:54)
Release the fixation on size and turn your focus inward towards health and empower yourself. You cannot be shamed into losing weight, right? Research has validated this over and over and over again, and you cannot be shamed into pursuing health.
The idea of health at every size does not necessarily mean you're healthy at every size. The idea is that you can start pursuing health at any size and you do have agency no matter where you're at today.
We need to come at the pursuit of health from of a place of wholeness and knowing we are worthy of being taken care of, rather than I'm only worthy when I lose weight.
The process of reframing weight loss to the pursuit of health should feel good. (0:40:37)
Restrictive dieting with the pigeonholed pursuit of weight loss doesn't feel good. You feel tired. You feel like your brain is preoccupied by what am I going to eat next? How am I going to move next? You feel guilty when you miss workouts. It doesn't feel good.
The pursuit of health and well being feels so much better. Don't you want to feel good along the way while you're making your way towards the things that you're striving for?
Q&A:
Q: What if I just want to lose weight?
A: I understand why you would want to lose weight in this world that we live in. And I understand why there are many reasons you might be feeling uncomfortable in your here and now body. And there's many reasons why you might be feeling like the body you have right now is not the healthiest body that you can have and you want to take care of it better. And so that's okay. We don't need to turn our desires off like a faucet or shame ourselves for our desires. But what if the desire for weight loss could still be there without it being the thing that drives the car? I can't look at my decisions and my behaviors from a lens of what's going to help me lose weight, because that's not something that I have complete and total agency over. But I can have agency over my digestion, my health, my energy levels, my happiness, my sleep, my sense of fulfillment. So we focus on that instead.
Q: Is it unhealthy to have strength training goals?
A: No, it's not unhealthy. Goals are not unhealthy. Trying to control things that you cannot control is unhealthy. So if you want to be able to lift a certain amount of weight, you can take really specific measures to try to achieve that goal. You can create a gentle structure for yourself with fitness that you're going to engage in on a regular to increase your strength. You can engage in intentional nutrition practices that help you, that foster muscle growth and muscle repair and muscle recovery. What's important is that the goals are flexible, though. So it's not like it's the end all, be all. If I don't make it to the gym one day when I really aimed to make it to the gym because I'm sick or injured, I'm not going to shame myself. It's not about letting yourself off the hook and saying like, oh, I have this goal and I'll achieve it if I achieve it, and I won't achieve it if I don't achieve it. You do have to have a compassionate sense of nudging yourself and at the same time, it's very important that you're not shaming yourself. It's very important that you're flexible and that you have some sort of gentle structure around it rather than a rigid structure, because then it's just another diet.
Q: Why have I read so many places that eating less is better for living long?
A: What this advice might be stemming from is the idea that binge eating is probably not good for your health. Eating consistently and objectively beyond fullness to a point where you feel like you've lost control or where you feel like food is your default coping tool. That's probably not promoting a sense of longevity. But we really need to look at the nuances of that. Why is that happening? If you are objectively eating beyond your fullness cues and you are using food as your default way to cope, why is that happening? We need to understand what's going on there and help you heal from that. In general there needs to be way more nuance to this. This person, this place where you read this advice needs to add 90,000 times more context to what they're saying. And it's hard for me to even answer this question because of the lack of nuance. But eating enough is better for living long. Making sure that you are eating enough and having balanced plates of proteins, fats, carbs, and fiber throughout your waking hours and then going to sleep and waking up and giving your body the fuel to live your life the next day, that is what's better for living long.
Q: I think weight is such a familiar form of data to track, so what would be tracked instead?
A: You can track a lot of different things.You could track if your digestion is better. Are you having a bowel movement every day? You can track if you're not getting cramping and GI discomfort. You can track your sleep. How are you sleeping? Are you sleeping through the night? How many hours are you sleeping? You can track your energy levels. How are you feeling during a workout, when you're on a walk, when you're walking up a hill, when you're trying to focus at work, just generally throughout the day, how is your energy? You can get labs drawn. You can see what your levels are of iron. You can see what your cholesterol levels are. You can see how your thyroid is functioning. You can look at many different lab tests. You can look at your blood pressure. You can look at your heart rate, your resting heart rate. So many different ways. You can look at your relationship with food. How often are you thinking about food? Your relationship with your body? How often are you thinking about your body? You can track your sense of self esteem in some cases. How empowered are you feeling in your life and in your nutrition and health related decisions? Quality of life in general is a really important thing to track, and there are plenty of ways to reflect on that. If we're hyper fixating on tracking our weight, the little normal fluctuations that happen in our weight tend to freak us out. That is one reason to really not track that. And it also takes the focus away from your holistic health and well being. And it's not that we should completely ignore weight. Weight is a vital sign. Just like your heart rate and blood pressure are vital signs. If you go to the hospital or to the doctor, and they take your vital signs. Sometimes if you are seeing certain fluctuations or trends in your weight, that can give us some information over time. If someone loses a significant amount of weight in a certain period of time, that's a sign that something's medically off. Weight is just one of the vital signs, so cant only look at that without holding onto it so tightly.
Q: How do you balance different types of food with intuitive eating?
A: Part of intuitive eating is being intentional with your nutrition. So intuitive eating isn't just eat whatever you want it isn't eat when you're hungry and stop when you're full. Intuitive eating is a peaceful interplay between your emotions, your instincts, and practical knowledge about yourself. What are you going to find emotionally satisfying right now? What's going to incite positive centered emotions for you right now? What emotionally are you craving? Are you honoring your culture, traditions, contexts, and things like that? Your instincts are your hunger cues, your fullness cues, and maybe more functional cravings? Then your irrational thoughts are considering health and nutrition and considering, do I have carbs, proteins, fats on my plate? And the idea with intuitive eating is not that you're considering all three of these things in a perfectly even and balanced way every single time you eat, but it's just that they all have a seat at the table. You're also thinking, what's my body feeling right now? And what am I desiring emotionally right now? You're not only purely emotionally eating. And then very rarely, people are only listening to their bodies because I think that that piece of hunger, fullness and functional cravings is the thing that we tend to lose touch with the most in this world. And so when we do intuitive eating counseling, it's like really trying to get those cues back online and really trying to listen to our bodies so we can regulate in that way.
Q: What do I do when I am no longer dieting and pursuing weight loss but want to start dating?
A: You are not alone in this anxiety. Remember that there is a difference between being desired and being valued. When we feel stuck in the feeling of no one's ever going to want me if I'm not in the thinnest body possible, we're talking about desire rather than value. We're not talking about someone actually coming in and valuing you. We're talking about someone coming in and looking at your body and judging it from the outside. There are a lot of superficial people in this world who judge others based on their body shape and size. Let's not discount that thin privilege is a thing, and weight stigma and weight bias is a thing. And it's the worst and it's the worst experience to feel invalidated for your body. And also, what is it that you really want in this life? Is it to be desired or is it to be valued with this? I also want to share a quote that I read the other day from Hillary McBride about body image, and it says body image research tells us that the closer we get to achieving our ideal appearance, the more conditional our sense of self worth becomes, and the more we fear what it will cost us when our appearance inevitably changes. And so if we are pursuing weight loss because we think that it's the thing that is going to give us the sense of esteem that we need to dive into dating, then we are making our sense of self esteem conditional. It becomes so conditional on our body shape and size. And I want you to have a robust sense of self esteem that isn't contingent on being a certain body shape or size. And ultimately, that's what people are attracted to. And that's what creates really beautiful, meaningful, palpable, lovely relationships, not the superficial attraction to someone certain body shape or size.
Q: Does structure mean diet? What does structure with nutrition look like without a diet?
A: No, structure does not mean going on a diet. A diet is really about making your nutrition and health decisions based on what you believe is going to help you lose weight. So it often involves restriction and rules and rigidity. Whereas not being on a diet is really just pursuing health through nutrition and intentional healthy behaviors that is not centered on what's going to help me achieve weight loss. You can create structure around that without it being like a diet, but it's going to be highly individualized. So it is important to work with a dietitian if you're looking to create structure around your nutrition in a way that's individualized to you. As you're creating that structure, the most important thing is how it feels to you. It's important that the structure feels grounding and that it feels energizing and that it feels in alignment with your values. And it doesn't feel like it's restriction or like it's driven by shame or by fear. There's got to be a flow to it and a positive energy to it. And that's going to be something that's really individualized as well, is like, how can you feel into the energy of this structure? One example of how I've built some structure into my nutrition is having the same three or four breakfasts ready to go at all times. I alternate between an oatmeal bowl, a yogurt bowl, a smoothie, or eggs with avocado toast. And I kind of just try to alternate these things. I try to make sure I always have berries on me and flaxseeds and seeds to put on top my bowls to make them really nourishing, nutrient dense, and have enough energy in them that I'm not going to get hungry like five minutes later. So there's intention there. There's intention in the way I've designed, a breakfast that always has proteins, fats ,and carbs in it. I rotate the same four things and this doesn't feel restrictive or rigid to me. It's something I aim to do because I know it's really good for my digestion, my sense of fullness, my energy levels, for getting a sense of variety, more vitamins, and minerals in my diet.
Thanks for listening! š Stay tuned to my website for more episode updates and other exciting programs and resources.
Transcript
Pursuing relational health can result in finding a partner. Pursuing health can result in losing weight. And you might not find a partner necessarily right away or ever, but you can pursue relational health, and that will result in sense of fulfillment and confidence and well being and nourishment and nurturing, which is really the thing that we desire above all else when we think about the pursuit of a partnership. Yeah? And you can pursue health, and that may result in weight loss, and it might not, but if it doesn't, at least along the way, you are improving your energy levels and increasing your muscle mass and feeling good in your body and improving your lab values. So it's about changing your aim.
0:1:00 Welcome to Whole, Full and Alive, a podcast helping you feed yourself, feel yourself, and be yourself. I'm Caitie Corradino. I'm a registered dietitian nutritionist, a body image coach, and the founder of Full Soul Nutrition, a method that combines nutrition counseling with a powerful toolkit of somatic healing modalities. I have guided hundreds of clients to freedom with food, their bodies, and every aspect of their lives. I've also been through this healing myself. And on this podcast, I want to help you eat with confidence, embrace your body, form aligned relationships, and create a life that you're in love with. I'll share actionable tools, no bullshit stories and interviews that will remind you why you have everything you need within you to feel whole, full and alive. Are you ready? Let's get into it.
0:01:54 Hey, welcome back to another episode of Whole, Full and Alive. I want to pull over to invite you to take the deepest breath that you have taken all day today before we get into anything else. So through your mouth, take a nice deep breath in, maybe sip in a little more air and then exhale. Let something go. Maybe do that one more time if you didn't actually do it. From wherever you are joining me from today, take a nice deep breath in through your mouth, sip in a little bit more air, fill your chest and then exhale. Release some tension. Shake out your body. Wiggle your toes. Wiggle your fingers. How are you today? Have you asked yourself how you are today? You don't have to come up with a super profound intellectualized answer or perfect feelings word to describe how you are today, but just notice. Just notice how you're feeling. If there's a place in your body that needs a little wiggle, a little stretch, if you need another deep breath, if you need to just feel your feet on the ground, give yourself a chance to notice your body and notice that you are here right now, wherever you are.
0:03:18 I am coming to you today from a place of just feeling so freaking ready to finally record this episode. I have been trying to record this solo episode for you for weeks. Truly weeks. The place that I've been subleasing here in Portugal has some construction happening on the floor below. And it seemed that every time I pushed record on this pod, they would start construction even when I was sure they were done, when I was sure. All right, finally, 06:00 p.m. Time to record, a wall would be demolished, a hole would be drilled. A construction worker would yell at another construction worker. So now I am finally in an environment that I feel is going to be as quiet as it's going to get. I moved to a different location, and I am puppy sitting for a friend. And so the only interference I might get at this point might be some sniffs or some groans from the puppy sitting behind me who really didn't want to be alone, who really wanted to listen to me record this episode for you today.
0:04:38 So, yeah, that's where I'm coming from. I'm so excited to be here speaking to you today about maybe a topic that seems a little bit spicy based on the title of this episode. I am calling this episode the podcast or the episode for the person that is trying to lose the last ten pounds, because that is who I hope I am speaking to today. That is a group of people that I want to speak to today because there is such a large number of people who are out there air quotes, struggling with their weight, people out there who are feeling uncomfortable in their body as it is right now. Struggling to be in their body as it is right now. And maybe we're told by someone that they have to lose weight, whether it was their doctor or their mom or they're telling themselves that they have to lose weight. That's who I want to speak to. And the first thing I want to say before I begin speaking to you is that I feel you. I feel you. And I have so much compassion for any human who clicked on this episode because of the title, who isn't a regular listener of my podcast.
0:05:59 I feel you for so many reasons. I know what it's like to be you. And I know also how challenging it is to navigate the world of nutrition and wellness and self care and weight science right now, because there's a lot of conflicting and confusing information out there. And I also know that this world is full of weight stigma and a hyper fixation on body weight and shape. And if you are someone who's struggling to lose that last ten pounds, it sometimes feels like maybe all you can think about in this world that focuses so intensely on body weight and shape as an indicator of health, as an indicator of confidence, as an indicator of happiness.
0:06:48 What I'm going to do today is provide a perspective on weight loss that I think will that I hope that I believe will be valuable to you if you identify in this group of like, I've got to lose the last ten pounds. If only I lost the last ten pounds. If only this, if only that I could just be in my body. And I'm going to provide four specific, tangible tools for you that can help you implement this perspective, I believe, and start to find the peace and confidence and health that you're looking for.
And I'm also going to do a little Q and A at the end of this episode because I posted on my Instagram a few weeks ago basically saying, hey, I don't tell my clients that their body weight is the thing that needs to be changed ever. I focus on a holistic perspective to nutrition and health and well-being, and I've recognized or have been reminded over the last couple of weeks that this is still somewhat a radical approach to a lot of people. So as I just moved here to Lisbon, I've obviously been meeting a lot of new people. And when I meet a new person, it comes up that I am a dietitian nutritionist, and so many people will say to me, oh, can you help me lose weight? How many calories do I need to lose weight? How many calories do I need to gain weight? Weight is so commonly the first thing that comes to people's minds when I tell them that I'm a dietitian nutritionist. And so I take a holistic approach, and weight is not the first thing that comes to mind when I talk about what I help people with. As a nutritionist and holistic wellness coach, I hate using that title for myself, but basically I'm a nutritionist, and then I also integrate other somatic practices to help people really heal their relationship with food and their bodies and all that stuff.
And so I said, what questions do you have about this? Do you think this is crazy? What questions come up for you when I say this? And people submitted great questions, questions like, well, what if someone just really wants to lose weight? And they come to you? And if you're not going to measure weight, what do you measure? If you're not going to focus on weight, what do you measure? And okay, but there's a lot of content out there that says that eating less is better and it's better for your longevity. And really great questions were submitted, so I'm going to answer those at the end of this episode after I go into my perspective or my message for the person that is struggling with this idea of losing the last ten pounds.
0:09:34 And three quick disclaimers before I dive into that format. Number one is everything that I say. It's not a substitute for individualized medical or mental health advice. It is always best to use this podcast for educational purposes and entertainment purposes and then take this information and play with it in whatever way feels good for you. But ultimately, if you're looking to make hyper specific, sustainable changes to your life go get individualized medical or mental health advice. Work one on one with a counselor like myself, or another medical professional, another trained health professional. I do have space open for one on one coaching clients. That is my little plug right now. I have about two spaces open right now. If you're listening to this in real time in September 2023, if you're interested in working with me for one on one coaching, I do provide a combination of nutrition counseling and holistic coaching. So I integrate nutrition counseling with a toolkit of somatic modalities such as breath work and movement and confidence coaching to really help you eat well and heal your digestion and heal your relationship with food, and feel better about what you are putting on your plate. And also deeply heal body image challenges that are coming up for you. Deeply heal confidence challenges that are coming up for you. Deeply cement a sense of self worth and nervous system regulation.
0:11:03 I'm really so excited about the approach that I take and the framework that I've created through my practice over the last couple of years. And I'm so happy to support you if you want me to be the person that supports you one on one. The second disclaimer is that it's important to think about whether conversations about weight are very activating and very triggering for you. And if you feel like me mentioning weight loss is going to be activating or triggering for you, maybe find some support and someone to hold the space for you that you deserve and process that activation and process that trigger before you tune into a podcast like this one.
I am not here talking about dieting or the pursuit of weight loss or my weight loss journey or anything like that. I have not flipped the switch and all of a sudden become a weight loss dietitian. But I just want to address weight loss today because I feel like it is the elephant in the room and I want to provide a perspective on it and I just want to talk about it head on. And I want to talk about my approach to it and my thoughts about it. And I know that for some people where they are in their process of healing their relationship with food and their body, it's better to just not talk about weight for a little bit, not acknowledge it. And so that's okay. And if you're that person, then if you think you might be that person, maybe just take a moment to think about it. And again, if you want to work with me, I'm here for you. If you want to talk to me, I'm here for you. If you want to have a more nuanced conversation that's individualized to you and your experience, I'm here for you.
0:12:46 And disclaimer number three, I think, is just an important acknowledgment of my privilege. I am a CIS, white, straight sized provider. My perspective is one perspective. My perspective is not going to encompass all of the systemic matters and the many things that impact people's relationship with their bodies and with body weight and body shape. And I do not know what it is like to navigate the world in a much larger body. I do not know what it's like to not have a clothing store carry my size or to not have an airplane seatbelt fit me.
And most importantly, I do not know the pain of systemic weight stigma. And so it is important to me to also acknowledge that those perspectives are needed when it comes to this conversation as well. I do know what it's like to have a doctor tell me that I need to lose weight. That has happened to me before. And to some extent, the weight stigma and the hyper fixation on weight and shape in the world certainly does exist on some sort of spectrum. And at some point in my life, I did have a doctor tell me that I should lose weight. And so I want to say that because I know what it's like to be on the receiving end of the advice to lose weight. And my body weight has fluctuated throughout my life, and I know what it's like to have your body weight fluctuate throughout your life. And also, I just have a lot of privilege, and I'm speaking to you from a place of privilege. And so it's really of high value to me to bring alternative perspectives onto this show and to listen to and learn from people who have different experiences and identities from my own.
0:14:43 So those are some disclaimers. Before we dive in, let's do it. What am I thinking today about weight loss? What am I eager to share with you about weight loss? I'm going to start here. Have you ever heard someone say you're going to find a relationship when you stop looking for one? Have you ever heard someone say that? I have. As a single lady in my late 20s who has expressed the desire for a relationship to many people in my life, I am given this advice so often, this advice of you are going to find a relationship when you stop looking. You've just got to stop looking. And I freaking hate that advice. I think I really understand that advice in terms of letting go of force. Forcing a relationship is a recipe for disaster. Maybe you're going to find a partner through forcing it, through forcing a square peg into a round hole, but it's probably not going to be the best fit partner for you, and it's either going to end or it's going to be miserable. So that advice makes sense from that perspective.
0:16:03 But for the most part, that advice is really terrible advice. And I think it's terrible advice because it doesn't really give me anything to do. It says stop looking and throw your hands up in the air. And that's not really empowering advice, it isn't practical advice, and it really isn't advice that's going to help someone find a healthy, long term, sustainable partnership. And the reason I'm opening up with this is because a lot of people are saying, in essence, oh, you'll find weight loss as soon as you stop looking for it. And I also think that that is the way that a lot of people view my perspective on weight loss when I say that as a provider and as a holistic nutrition counselor, I don't tell people that they have to change their weight. We focus on changing their behaviors and we focus on more holistic goals. And I will explain more about that in a moment. I think a lot of people are saying, oh, so what you're saying is that you can lose weight as soon as you stop looking for weight loss.
0:17:09 And in some respect, I understand that perspective too, right? Because forcing weight loss is just like forcing a relationship. If you try to force weight loss through an unsustainable restrictive diet program, you are either going to gain that weight back because the diet program is unsustainable, or you're going to develop a rigid, disordered relationship with food and your body as you try to maintain that unsustainable diet plan and try to sustain that unsustainable approach to weight loss. Just in the same way that maybe you're going to find a partner through forcing it, but it's probably not going to be the best fit partner or it's going to be a miserable relationship. Right? It's like, okay, if I force weight loss through an unsustainable restrictive diet program, like a lot of the programs that are out there, keto, Whole 30, Weight Watchers, all these things that aren't like the tracking, the restriction, these things that aren't sustainable, right? If I try to force that, I might lose weight, but I am probably going to gain it back because it's unsustainable. Or in an effort to maintain these unsustainable practices, develop an eating disorder. Similar to the way if you force a relationship, if you force yourself to have a partnership with someone just for the sake of having a partner, it's going to end, it's going to be unsustainable or it's just going to be like not the best fit partner and it's going to be a miserable relationship. So I understand this advice of you'll find the thing that you're looking for when you stop looking for it from that perspective. Because I think what people are trying to say is don't force it.
0:18:54 But ultimately I think we should toss out that advice. I think don't force it is one thing. I think don't force it in an unsustainable way is one thing. And I think that's what people really mean when they're saying this. But when we distill the advice down to stop looking for it, we're not giving people the tools to empower themselves to find what it is that they're actually looking for. And I really see this coming up with weight loss in particular in the nutrition and health media right now. I'm seeing that there is a group of people that are saying, hey, here's how you lose weight. And they're kind of promoting this very rigid path, this restrictive path, this fixation on weight loss. And then there's a group of people that are saying, fuck the pursuit of weight loss. Turn it off, don't look for it. And I don't think that either of these perspectives are helpful. I feel like it's really a challenging place to navigate for the person who feels like they are uncomfortable in their here and now body and they're being told by their doctor that they need to lose weight. I don't think that either of these perspectives are helping people. And I think that so many people don't intend to do harm. And I'm not accusing anyone of intentional harm. And I feel like harm is being done when we toss out nuance and we say things like stop pursuing weight loss, period, stop looking for it. Or when we are on the other end of the spectrum and saying like, weight loss, here we go, here's how it happens, and being rigid, right? So I want to say that my guidance, my hopefully, compassionate guidance for the individual who is trying to lose the last ten pounds and feels like they have to lose the last ten pounds is not you're going to lose weight when you stop looking for it.
0:20:58 My advice is let's take that idea of you'll lose weight when you stop looking for it and flip it around and add more nuance and look at it in a way that's more specific and hopefully empowering to you. So I want to provide four tools for taking that advice that I feel is kind of making its way around the Internet right now and reframe it in a way that I hope feels helpful to you, that I hope feels helpful to this person who is struggling with the idea of weight loss and is struggling to accept their body and is feeling uncomfortable in their body and wants to pursue something and wants to change something, but is feeling really lost, especially in this dichotomous world of fuck weight loss. And here's how you do weight loss in a really specific, hyper, rigid, diety culty way.
0:22:00 And I feel that this probably resonates with a lot of people I know because there are a lot of people who reach out to me to do nutrition counseling and say that they are feeling lost in this world of anti weight loss and rigid pursuit of weight loss. And so let's reframe this advice of you're going to find weight loss when you stop looking for weight loss. And let's get more specific, let's hopefully start feeling more empowered around this. Let's hopefully find some peace. I'm going to share four little ways to reframe that advice. Also continuing to use this metaphor of like, a relationship happens when you stop looking for it, and then I'm going to go into the Q & A part of this pod. All right?
0:22:51 So number one, it's not that you should stop looking for weight loss. It's not that it's that simple, as I've already said. It's that you need to change your aim. You need to understand what it is you're actually looking for that is actually within your control, that you actually do have a sense of agency over. We can't ethically say, as nutrition and health professionals, here's how you lose exactly ten pounds in exactly this amount of time. Yada yada. We cannot ethically say that we don't have the body of research that tells us exactly how every human being's metabolism works. There are a whole host of metabolic and also genetic factors that are going to make it hard or impossible to predict the way in which an individual is going to lose weight. Does that mean that you can't lose weight? No, you can lose weight. You can lose weight if you pursue health. Some people might lose weight, but that's the thing, right? We can actually pursue health. We can actually have some sense of agency over our health and well being by engaging in certain behaviors. And if your body needs to lose weight, then weight loss can happen as a result of pursuing something that you actually do have agency over, like certain aspects of your health and well being, right? We don't even have agency over every aspect of our health and well being, right? There's genetic factors that contribute to that too. And there are many aspects of our health and well being that we have a sense of agency in.
0:24:56 And when we create a plan and a structure around pursuing health and engaging in certain health promoting behaviors, then our body might lose weight if that is what our body wants to do to maintain a sense of healthy homeostasis. But we can't force our bodies to lose weight. We can't just wake up and decide, I'm going to lose weight. That's why I hate when doctors say to clients or patients, oh, you need to lose weight, you need to lose weight. You need to lose weight. Because that isn't something that you can wake up and have a sense of agency and empowerment in. You can't wake up and say, I'm going to lose weight. You can wake up and say, I'm going to eat a balanced breakfast with lots of fiber and carbs and fruits and veggies and things like that. I am going to stop smoking. I am going to reduce drinking or stop drinking. I am going to go to a mental health therapist and make sure that I am reducing the stress load on my body and ventilating out some of the tension that can be causing physical stress and blocks and slowing my metabolism and my stomach emptying. Right? I can decide that I'm going to stretch right now. I'm going to decide that I'm going to hydrate throughout the day. There are certain things that you have agency over. And so it's not that we just say, okay, stop looking for weight loss. It's we say start looking for something else. Start looking for health and well being and a thing that you actually do have agency over. I think when people hear stop looking for weight loss, they tend to interpret that as stop looking for health.
0:26:44 But that's not what anyone's saying at all. People who are saying stop looking for weight loss are often just trying to say, stop engaging in rigid and restrictive behaviors that are trying to force weight loss and focus instead on what's going to help you pursue health. I think so many people are so against the idea of letting go of the pursuit of weight loss because they're like, oh, so you're saying it's fine that I eat French fries for breakfast, lunch, and dinner? Oh, so you're saying it's fine that people sit at their desk all day and never move their bodies, and while anything is technically fine, right. Like, I'm never going to demoralize someone or dehumanize someone or shame someone for the behaviors that they might be engaging in for a variety of reasons, right. These behaviors might be coping tools for someone that's trying to feel safe in the world. There's a million reasons why people engage in behaviors that are bad for your health.
0:27:49 But what I am saying is that it's not that these behaviors are totally fine. It's not that these behaviors are going to promote health. It's not that these behaviors are going to promote the best quality of life. And really, we do need to be empowered to choose different behaviors, and we need to figure out what's causing us to engage in these behaviors that ultimately don't promote a sense of energy, health, well being, fulfillment.
0:28:15 And it's just that weight is not a behavior. So I take a behavioral approach to nutrition counseling. The focus is on behaviors. I'm not anti weight loss, but I'm anti zeroing in on weight loss because it's not a behavior. I want my clients to focus on changing their behavior so that they can improve their energy levels and their quality of life and their mental state and their blood pressure and their labs and their digestion.
0:28:39 And then weight loss can happen gradually and naturally if that's what their body needs. And the truth of the matter is, that might not be what everybody needs. Being objectively clinically underweight is a thing if you have to restrict calories, you have to rigidly control and restrict calories to a certain amount of food or a certain number in order to stay at a certain weight. Your body's not meant to be at that weight. If you are a menstruating person and you've lost your period, your body's not meant to be at that weight. If you're really tired, if you're having trouble sleeping, if you have insomnia, if you have low blood pressure, if you have hair loss, if you are always cold, if your weight is continually declining, if you have certain lab tests like low iron, if you have mood swings, that's a sign that you're clinically underweight. And so you can't undergo this pursuit of health and expect to lose more weight.
0:29:34 And also, even if you're not someone who's experiencing those symptoms of being clinically underweight, you might still not be necessarily a candidate for weight loss. There are many genetic factors that make it hard or impossible to achieve a certain sense of weight loss that make it impossible for some people to be this lean, thin, ideal standard that we see in the media. Some bodies are just not going to be there. And so what we can do is pursue health and well being in a way that is nourishing and natural and sustainable for us and see if our body loses weight. It might, it might not. And working with a dietitian nutritionist is definitely a good way to take an individualized approach to this. And the first thing is change your aim. Pursuing relational health can result in finding a partner. Pursuing health can result in losing weight. And you might not find a partner necessarily right away or ever. But you can pursue relational health and that will result in a sense of fulfillment and confidence and well being and nourishment and nurturing which is really the thing that we desire above all else when we think about the pursuit of a partnership. Yeah, and you can pursue health and that may result in weight loss and it might not. But if it doesn't, at least along the way, you are improving your energy levels and increasing your muscle mass and feeling good in your body and improving your lab values. So it's about changing your aim, knowing that you can lose weight and let's pursue health and see what happens. And you can find a partner and let's pursue relational health and see what happens. We can't rigidly say I want a partner tomorrow, by any and all means. That won't result in anything sustainable or healthy. And we can't say I want weight loss by any and all means that won't result in anything healthy or sustainable.
0:31:59 So we're changing our pursuit to the pursuit of health. Instead of stop looking it's, let's change our aim and start looking for the thing that might result in that desire that we have in a sustainable and healthy way that will actually nourish us versus just by any and all means.
0:32:19 The second thing is that saying you'll lose weight when you stop looking for weight loss is promoting this idea that you should just turn your desires off like a faucet. And I don't believe in doing that. Saying that you will find a partner when you stop looking for a partner is like saying, yeah, turn your desires off like a faucet. We deserve to look at our desires and hold them and get an understanding of them and understand where they came from. We need to in fact, we need to do that. So I say this to clients all the time. When they genuinely desire weight loss, I say, okay, where does that desire come from? Why do you really want to lose weight? Okay, where does that desire come from? Why is it that you want to lose weight? And oftentimes what it comes down to is stuff like, okay, well, my doctor said I should lose weight. Okay, well, what did your doctor really mean? Your doctor meant your cholesterol is high. Let's do some nutrition related remedies that might help lower your cholesterol, that might help lower your LDL levels. And if weight loss happens as a side effect of taking those steps, cool. Sometimes it comes down to I want to feel loved. I want to feel desired. I want to feel like people think I'm beautiful. And that is a whole other story. Right. The pursuit of health can help with attaining that desire as well. And there's also other work that needs to be done concurrently on cultivating a sense of self worth and a sense of safety in the world and a sense of belonging in the world and a sense of aliveness. And so that's one of the reasons why I work on that stuff with my clients, too, is because the desire for weight loss really speaks to a desire to be loved and held and to belong.
0:34:28 And sometimes when we look at our desire for weight loss, we just really get an understanding of what we're missing or what we feel we're missing. Where are the gaps for us? Where are we suffering? And how can we hold ourselves and help ourselves and nurture ourselves more? So it's not about just saying, turn the desire off like a faucet. And that applies to the relationship one too, right? It's not like a relationship happens when you stop looking for it. It's like, why do you want a relationship? Why do you have that desire? Is it just out of pure loneliness? Because that is something that needs to be explored and felt and addressed. Is it to feel validated? Because that is something that needs to be explored and addressed. Is it because you want to have children? Because that's something that we can certainly explore and address and help you with. Yeah. Is it because you genuinely want to partner for logistical, financial reasons? Like, let's explore that and look at that. And so the second reason why I hate this advice of just stop looking for the thing is because it suggests that you should turn your desires off like a faucet. And it's not what I'm in the business of doing. I really want us to explore our desires, to hold space for our desires and get to understand them a little bit better.
0:35:54 Number three reason why I guess this is turning into a reason why I hate this. Reasons why I hate this advice versus alternative perspective, but I'm getting a little spicy now. Number three reason why I don't want you to just stop looking for weight loss is because I think that saying that sort of perpetuates this idea that we can't be empowered in our choices and we do just have to throw our hands up in the air. I think that a lot of people who hear this notion of, hey, release the pursuit of weight loss tend to think, oh, okay, so you're just saying that I should throw my hands up in the air and not do anything at all. And that's not true. What we're saying is release the fixation on size and turn your focus towards health and empower yourself. You cannot be shamed into losing weight, right? Research has validated this over and over and over again, and you cannot be shamed into pursuing health. And so we need to take shame out of the equation, which is another reason why I think it's important for people to not just be shamed into turning off their desires and take steps to empower yourself. I think people hear the idea of health at every size and they think, oh, so you're saying I'm healthy at every size? And that's not really necessarily what health at every size means. The idea is not you are healthy at every size. The idea is you can start pursuing health at any size. And it's also that you can't be shamed in relation to your body size into improving your health. And it's also that maybe you're not healthy at every size and you still deserve respect and compassion and love at every size. Because anti-fat rhetoric is not inspiring weight loss. It's actually fueling eating disorders, including binge eating disorder. Nothing will ever be causing as much harm as weight stigma and shame. So the idea is not to throw your hands up in the air and say that every behavior that you engage in is perfectly fine and you don't have to explore it.
0:38:16 Smoking is still smoking. Smoking is still harmful. Eating beyond fullness and using food as your only coping tool is still what it is. And not exercising and living a sedentary lifestyle and not giving your body the opportunity to move and stretch and oxygenate is a harmful behavior. But we can't shame ourselves into letting go of these behaviors by saying we've got to lose weight. We get to empower ourselves to take action. And empowering ourselves to take these actions needs to come from a place of self care and self compassion rather than shame.
0:38:56 You do have agency. You do have a say in your health and well being and in how you feel in your body and in the health of your body in many ways. And that obviously is so similar to the way we want to reframe advice about relationships too, right? It's not. You find a partner when you stop looking for a partner. You need to empower yourself to look for a partner in a healthy, non shame based, non chaotic way. So rather than going immediately for everyone who you feel physical chemistry with and feel attracted to, can you be more discerning and find people that are in alignment with your values? And can you change the way in which you go about partnership? Rather than I'm lonely and I need someone, anyone, who's going to validate me? Can you say I deserve a healthy relationship? And so I'm going to approach this pursuit of a partnership from a place of knowing that I deserve self care and not from a place of I feel shame. Who's going to validate that I'm right? Who's going to validate that I'm all right? Who's going to validate that I matter in this world? Coming at the relationship from a place of wholeness is important. And that's what it's like with the pursuit of health too. We need to come at the pursuit of health from somewhat of a place of wholeness, from feeling whole and knowing we are worthy of being taken care of, rather than I'm only worthy when I lose weight.
0:40:37 And the number four thing is that I wrote down when it comes to sort of reframing this idea, reframing this unhelpful black and white advice is don't you want to feel good along the way? Don't you want to feel good along the way as you are pursuing your goal and dieting straight up doesn't feel good. Restrictive dieting with the pigeonholed pursuit of weight loss doesn't feel good. You feel tired. You feel like your brain is preoccupied by what am I going to eat next? How am I going to move next? You feel guilty when you miss workouts. It doesn't feel good. The pursuit of health and well being, the pursuit of better energy levels feels fucking better. It feels good. And just don't you want to feel good along the way while you're aiming to pursue the things that you're aiming towards? And just straight up dieting and focusing on weight loss never, never feels good for so many reasons. Because of the preoccupation it perpetuates, because of the health risks that come with restriction in certain diets and the low energy levels and the fatigue and just overall, the hyper fixation on it. So let's pursue health instead.
0:41:55 And obviously hyper fixation on a partnership doesn't feel good either. Because then you miss out on living your fullest, most expressed life and doing the things that you really, really want to do because you're always missing out on, or you're often missing out on the things that you really want to do because of the chance to meet someone. Or you're sacrificing your physical and mental health because of the chance to meet someone. Going out to places on nights when you really don't want to go out because you're really fucking tired because you want to meet someone and don't you want to feel good along the way? So let's change the way we're approaching these things. It's not that we should just straight up stop looking for it. It's that we want to make changes and adjustments to the way we're looking for these things and change our relationship to our desires. And yeah, I'm hoping that sticks with you FAM. Hoping that lands.
0:42:51 I am going to dive now into the Q & A portion of this episode. So the first question I got was from another health professional, a fitness instructor, and she said, I feel like the big thing I hear from clients is, yeah, but what if I just want to lose weight? And my answer to that question is, okay, yeah, fine, acceptable and respectable. And I understand why you would want to lose weight in this world that we live in. And I understand why there are many reasons you might be feeling uncomfortable in your here and now body. And there's many reasons why you might be feeling like the body you have right now is not the healthiest body that you can have and you want to take care of it better. And so that's okay. And just like what I was saying earlier, we don't need to turn our desires off like a faucet or shame ourselves for our desires. But what if the desire for weight loss could still be there without it being the thing that drives the car? One of my gurus, Elizabeth Gilbert, always says, fear can come along for the ride, but it can't drive the car. So if you're having fear or anxiety about something, particularly something that's good for you and that fear anxiety keeps popping up, we're going to say, okay, you're clearly very functional fear, thank you for being here, but you're going to sit in the backseat and something else is going to drive the car. My intuition is going to drive the car. Love is going to drive the car, whatever it is, and I'm going to focus more on my desire to do this thing versus and I'm going to let my intuition run the show. My intuition that knows how to make healthy and empowering and adventurous decisions for me rather than listening to that voice of fear even though it's probably there for a reason. Because fear is totally functional and purposeful, and it keeps us alive as humans. And if we didn't have fear sometimes, then we'd be completely reckless people.
0:44:52 So this is the same thing, right? Like, weight loss and the desire for it is a super reasonable thing. There is a predominant narrative that weight is to blame for our health issues. And there also is a predominant narrative that being in the thinnest and smallest body that you can be in is the best way to go, and that's how you're going to be most accepted and celebrated. And freaking Oprah got on a stage at an award ceremony and was like, inside all of you, there's a thinner version of you, right? That's the predominant narrative. So of course you want to lose weight. And also, if we hyper fixate on that desire for weight loss, rather than focusing on health promoting behaviors and on changing your life in a holistic and sustainable way, then we're not going to get anywhere healthy. We're not going to get to a sustainable place where you actually feel confident and strong and empowered. So let's hold space for that desire for weight loss. Explore it, get to understand it, see why it's perfectly reasonable and functional, and say, okay, let's pursue health, because that's what we actually have agency over. And if the body needs to lose weight to maintain a sense of homeostasis, the body might lose weight, and we'll see what happens. We need to see what your metabolism is doing. We need to see what your genetics allow for. We need to see what the case is for your unique body. But what we do know that we have agency over is the behaviors that we engage in and the foods we eat and the workouts that we do. And if we try to control the foods that we eat or control the workouts that we do with this mindset of which one's going to help me lose weight, then we're just going to screw ourselves over because these things will become way too rigid. They'll become compulsory. You'll be hyper fixated on weight loss rather than fixated on, oh, which of these foods, which of these workouts is actually going to help me improve my blood cholesterol levels? Which of these foods, which of these workouts is going to give me more energy? Which of these foods and which of these workouts is going to help me increase my muscle mass? Which of these foods and which of these workouts is going to help me improve my digestion? Which of these foods, which of these workouts is going to help me decrease my stress? You see the point here, right? Rather than saying which of these foods and which of these workouts is going to help me lose weight, you've got to look at it as, okay, yeah, I have this desire for weight loss. It makes sense. Totally get it. Not going to shame myself for it. I get it. I understand why I have this. And also, I can't look at my decisions and my behaviors from a lens of what's going to help me lose weight, because that's not something that I have complete and total agency over. But I can have agency over my digestion, my health, my energy levels, my happiness, my sleep, my sense of fulfillment. So we focus on that instead.
0:47:53 Question two is, is it unhealthy to have strength training goals. Like a weight I want to lift? No, it's not unhealthy. Sorry, I think that might have sounded a little bit off. It's not unhealthy. No. I think the reason I answered with that straight up like no is because it's so crazy that there is content on the internet that would make people think it's unhealthy to have strength training goals. It's totally not. Goals are not unhealthy. Trying to control things that you cannot control is unhealthy. So look, if you want to be able to lift a certain amount of weight, you can take really specific measures to try to achieve that goal. You can create a gentle structure for yourself with fitness that you're going to engage in on the regular to increase your strength. You can engage in intentional nutrition practices that help you, that foster muscle growth and muscle repair and muscle recovery.
0:49:00 There are things that you can do. Goals are specific and what's important is that they're flexible, though. So it's not like it's the end all, be all. If I can lift this amount of weight and if I don't make it to the gym one day when I really aimed to make it to the gym because I'm sick, I'm not going to shame myself or because I'm injured. I'm not going to shame myself or just because one day I'm a human and I make a mistake and I get off my strength training schedule for one day. Right? It's not about letting yourself off the hook and saying like, oh, I have this goal and I'll achieve it if I achieve it, and I won't achieve it if I don't achieve it. Right. You do have to have a compassionate sense of nudging yourself and at the same time, it's very important that you're not shaming yourself. It's very important that you're flexible and that you have some sort of gentle structure around it rather than a rigid structure, because then it's just another diet.
0:49:52 But as a whole, in general, it is not unhealthy to have strength training goals. I think it's awesome and strength training feels so good. I miss it so much. Since I've been traveling, I haven't been doing it very much and I feel like it's just important to make sure it's gentle, it's flexible and it's not getting rigid. The thing that's unhealthy is trying to control things that you can't control and shaming yourself when you're being a human. That's unhealthy.
0:50:18 Question three why have I read so many places that eating less is better for living long? So confusing. Yes. This is exactly why a lack of nuance does harm. This is exactly why we need to have nuance in the nutrition and health information that we post online. If anything is like very all or nothing, very black and white and says something like, eating less is better for living long, period, then it's not really saying anything at all. It's not providing context. It's not providing advice, it's not providing anything meaningful that's going to help people make an informed decision about their health and therefore it is doing more harm than good. This happens a lot. And this is exactly what I'm saying with the advice of, like, you'll find it when you stop looking for it, right? That's very all or nothing. That's very like, okay, I guess I should just stop looking for it. All right, bye. It's just not helpful. What this advice might be stemming from is the idea that binge eating is probably not good for your health. Eating consistently and objectively beyond fullness to a point where you feel like you've lost control or where you feel like food is your default coping tool. That's probably not promoting a sense of longevity, but we really need to look at the nuances of that. Why is that happening? If you are objectively eating beyond your fullness cues and you are using food as your default way to cope, why is that happening? We need to understand what's going on there and help you heal from that. So, yeah, that might be one thing, but I wonder what they're saying. Less than what? Eating less than what is better for living long?
0:52:14 There needs to be way more nuance to this. This person, this place where you read this advice needs to add 90,000 times more context to what they're saying. And it's hard for me to even answer this question because of the lack of nuance. So that's like, the first thing that comes to mind for me. But eating enough is better for living long. I can say that making sure that you are eating enough and having balanced plates, proteins, fats, carbs, and fiber throughout your waking hours and then going to sleep and waking up and giving your body the fuel to live your life the next day, that is what's better for living long. Yeah, perhaps binge eating isn't better for living long, but we need to contextualize that and make sure you are truly binging if you feel like that's the case for you. And work with the nutritionist who's going to help you take a really individualized and contextualized and nuanced approach to this. Thanks so much for submitting that question.
0:53:19 I think weight is such a familiar form of data to track. So what would be tracked instead? You can track a lot of different things. So you could track if your digestion is better. Are you having a bowel movement every day? You can track if you're not getting, like, cramping and GI discomfort and things like that. Sorry for bringing up poop first, but that really is such a good indicator of your health and your nutrition and your metabolic well being. And you can track your sleep. How are you sleeping? Are you sleeping through the night? How many hours are you sleeping? You can track your energy levels. How are you feeling during a workout, when you're on a walk, when you're walking up a hill, when you're trying to focus at work, just generally throughout the day, how is your energy? You can get labs drawn. You can see what your levels are of iron. You can see what your cholesterol levels are. You can see how your thyroid is functioning. You can look at many different lab tests. You can look at your blood pressure. You can look at your heart rate, your resting heart rate. So many different ways. You can look at your relationship with food. How often are you thinking about food? Your relationship with your body? How often are you thinking about your body? You can track your sense of self esteem in some cases. How empowered are you feeling in your life and in your nutrition and health related decisions? Quality of life in general is a really important thing to track, and there are plenty of ways to reflect on that. Yeah, sense of mindfulness, so many different things. So, yeah, I know that weight is such a familiar form of data to track, but really, if we're hyper fixating on tracking our weight, the little normal fluctuations that happen in our weight tend to freak us out. That is one reason to really not track that. And it also takes the focus away from your holistic health and well being. And it's not that we should completely ignore weight. I explain this to my clients pretty often. I think that weight is a vital sign. Just like your heart rate is a vital sign, your blood pressure is a vital sign. You go to the hospital or to the doctor, and they take your vital signs right? Weight might be a vital sign. It might be a piece of medical data. Because if you are seeing certain fluctuations in your weight, your weight is trending in a certain way that can give us some information over time. If someone loses a significant amount of weight in a certain period of time, that's a sign that something's medically off. Perhaps if weight fluctuates up in a certain amount over a certain period of time, that can also be a sign that something is medically off. But really, just like one isolated number, even like five isolated measurements over a period of a couple of weeks, doesn't really give us that much information about your health and well being. If anything, we're just going to use weight as a vital sign and as a way to track trends over time to make sure things are okay with your health. But overall, it's not really giving us the same information as tracking all of these other things, this whole other host of health related signs, symptoms, indicators.
0:56:42 How do you balance different types of food with intuitive eating? Is the next question. And the answer to that is part of intuitive eating is being intentional with your nutrition. So intuitive eating isn't just eat whatever you want it isn't eat when you're hungry and stop when you're full. Intuitive eating is a peaceful interplay between your emotions, your instincts, and practical knowledge about yourself. So your emotions are like, what are you going to find emotionally satisfying right now? What's going to incite positive centered emotions for you right now? What emotionally are you craving? Are you honoring your culture, traditions, contexts, and things like that? Your instincts are your hunger cues, your fullness cues, and maybe more functional cravings? Like, my body feels like it needs this food right now. And then your irrational thoughts are considering health and nutrition and considering, okay, do I have carbs, proteins, fats on my plate? And the idea with intuitive eating is not that you're considering all three of these things in a perfectly even and balanced way every single time you eat, but it's just that they all have a seat at the table. So you're not only thinking about rational thoughts. You're not only thinking, what's the absolute healthiest thing? Like, healthiest way to optimize my plate right now, right? You're not only relying on that intellect and on nutrition science. You're also thinking, what's my body feeling right now? And what am I desiring emotionally right now? And then you're not only thinking about the emotional piece, right? You're not only purely emotionally eating. And then very rarely, people are only listening to their bodies because I think that that piece of hunger, fullness and functional cravings is the thing that we tend to lose touch with the most in this world. And so when we do intuitive eating counseling, it's like really trying to get those cues back online and really trying to listen to our bodies so we can regulate in that way.
0:58:30 But intuitive eating isn't all about the body. It isn't all about just like, sitting on a meditation pillow and being like, what do I want to eat today? Let me listen to my body. It's involving the body, and it's important. And there's an emphasis placed on the body when it comes to intuitive eating because so many people have lost touch with their bodies over time. But it's not the only thing. It is not the only thing. And so that's how you balance that. It's like you do incorporate a little bit of rational thought, and you think, what's been missing in my diet lately? And how can I add a little bit more nutrition to my breakfast or whatever it is? So I hope that feels helpful for you.
1:00:38 And there are a lot of superficial people in this world who judge others based on their body shape and size. Let's not discount that thin privilege is a thing, and weight stigma and weight bias is a thing. And it's the worst and it's the worst experience to feel invalidated for your body. And I'm not discounting that. And also, what is it that you really want in this life? Is it to be desired or is it to be valued with this? I also want to share a quote that I read the other day from Hillary McBride about body image, and it says body image research tells us that the closer we get to achieving our ideal appearance, the more conditional our sense of self worth becomes, and the more we fear what it will cost us when our appearance inevitably changes.
1:01:34 And so if we are pursuing weight loss because we think that it's the thing that is going to give us the sense of esteem that we need to dive into dating, then we are making our sense of self esteem so conditional. It becomes so conditional on our body shape and size. And I want you to have a robust sense of self esteem that isn't contingent on being a certain body shape or size. And ultimately, that's what people are attracted to. And that's what creates really beautiful, meaningful, palpable, lovely relationships, not the superficial attraction to someone certain body shape or size. And there's so many layers in this. There's so many layers. And I really appreciate the person who wrote this question, and I want to talk about it more, and I will talk about it more. And I'll bring also a dating and relationship expert on the show as well to talk about this because I think that it's an important and valid question. And yeah, those are the two things I'm feeling inspired to share with you today, being that the whole episode is not about this one question, but thank you for sharing it.
1:02:43 Okay, last question. Does structure mean diet? What. Does structure with nutrition look like without a diet? Cool. Good question. No, structure does not mean going on a diet. A diet is really about making your nutrition and health decisions based on what you believe is going to help you lose weight. So it often involves restriction and rules and rigidity. Whereas not being on a diet really just pursuing health through nutrition and intentional healthy behaviors is not centered on what's going to help me achieve weight loss. It is about what's going to help me promote my health, promote good digestion, promote good energy levels, promote a sense of meaning and fulfillment, et cetera, et cetera. And you can create structure around that without it being like a diet, but it's going to be highly individualized. So it is important to work with a dietitian if you're looking to create structure around your nutrition in a way that's individualized to you. And as you're creating that structure, the most important thing is how it feels to you. It's important that the structure feels grounding and that it feels energizing and that it feels in alignment with your values. And it doesn't feel like it's restriction or like it's driven by shame or by fear. There's got to be a flow to it and a positive energy to it. And that's going to be something that's really individualized as well, is like, how can you feel into the energy of this structure?
1:04:24 I can give you one example of a way I've built some structure into my nutrition. I have the same kind of three or four breakfasts that I have. I have pretty much an oatmeal bowl, a yogurt bowl, a smoothie, or eggs with avocado toast. And I kind of just try to alternate these things. And when I have them, I try to make sure I always have, like, berries on me and flaxseeds and seeds and things that I'm going to really top my bowls with to make them really nourishing and nutrient dense and have enough energy in them that I'm not going to get hungry like five minutes later. So I've built this structure of creating a rotation in these meals because I know that they're healthy and nourishing and balanced meals. And I also have created a structure of making sure I always have flaxseeds and things on me because I feel like it's such a nice thing to start my day with this pop of fiber. And also I put a little drizzle of honey on my yogurt and oatmeal bowls, and I include things that are sweet and satisfying to me. Sometimes I'll put chocolate chips on it to make it satisfy my emotional cravings a little bit more. And yeah, I have a structure around my breakfast, and I make a ritual around eating breakfast and sitting down and eating it because it really is an important way for me to start my day feeling centered and balanced. And when I don't have that time to sit down and eat it. I do feel a little more dysregulated. And so there's intention there. There's intention in the way I've designed, like a breakfast that has proteins, fats and carbs in it, and I kind of rotate the same four things. And this doesn't feel restrictive to me. It doesn't feel rigid to me and doesn't feel like if I don't have the flax seeds and the nuts, that I don't have nuts. I'm allergic to nuts, but the seeds and things like that on my bowl every morning, then I've failed. But it's something I aim to do because I know it's really good for my digestion and my sense of fullness and my energy levels and for getting a sense of variety and more vitamins and minerals in my diet.
1:06:37 Yeah, but it's so individualized. It's even hard for me to kind of explain my own example with this. It's just going to be so truly individual to you, but I promise doesn't have to be a diet. All right, I'm going to wrap up here because this is a long episode. I hope that you took something meaningful away from today's show. I hope your perspective is broadening, widening. Hope you're finding a little bit more peace if you're that person trying to lose the last ten pounds.
1:07:11 I'm here for you. I want to hear from you. I want to know what other questions have sparked for you. And yeah, thank you so much for tuning in. I'm so grateful that we're connected and that you're part of this community. If you want to ask me more questions, find me on Instagram at @caitiecrd, linked in the show notes. You can connect with me fullsoulnutrition.com. You can buy the Whole, Full, and Alive Toolkit on fullsoulnutrition.com. And that is a great place to get started with the pursuit of health. I have a lot of tangible tools in there, and the toolkit itself is value packed at a very low cost without investing in customized counseling. It gives you a lot of ways that you can start kind of self coaching and a lot of tools and a lot of things related to pursuing health without dieting. That's the mission of that Whole, Full, and Alive Toolkit.
1:08:13 Yeah. I'm going to wrap it up here. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a five star rating on Apple or Spotify. That would mean the whole entire world, and it'd mean actually even more if you shared this episode with someone else who you think might need to hear this perspective today, because that's my mission here, is to get these messages in the ears of people who need to hear them. I hope that you have a beautiful day. Take another deep breath as we're closing out here. See you next time you close.
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