Speaker 1: I won't lend my body out, be out everything that
Speaker 1: I'm made do, won't spend my life trying to change.
Speaker 1: I'm learning to love who I am. I get I'm strong,
Speaker 1: I feel free, I know who every part of me
Speaker 1: is beautiful, and I will always out way. If you
Speaker 1: feel it with your hays in the air, she'll love
Speaker 1: to the poet there. Let's say you one day and
Speaker 1: time did you and die out? Welcome back out Way family, Lisa. Here,
Speaker 1: I'm doing a solo episode sharing with you what happened
Speaker 1: when I went on a restrictive diet. Now, heads up,
Speaker 1: this was not a restrictive diet for weight loss or
Speaker 1: anything related to the way my physical body looks. However,
Speaker 1: I think that a lot of people go on other
Speaker 1: types of diets, whether they're not for weight loss, maybe
Speaker 1: there for health or some other reason, and they find
Speaker 1: themselves in a bad spot without meaning to. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people that go on restrictive
Speaker 1: diets for weight loss also find themselves in a bad
Speaker 1: place without meaning to, and it happens very subtly no
Speaker 1: matter what the reason for the restrictions are. Now, I
Speaker 1: want to mention here that the reason that I went
Speaker 1: on a restrictive diet was meant to be very short term.
Speaker 1: It was meant to help me learn something, and most importantly,
Speaker 1: I felt far enough away from my history of disordered
Speaker 1: eating to do this with the understanding that if things
Speaker 1: got murky, it would have to come to an even
Speaker 1: shorter stop than it was intended for. So I think
Speaker 1: that for anybody here who's in recovery or in the
Speaker 1: thick of it, going on any sort of a restrictive
Speaker 1: diet for any of those reasons that may not be
Speaker 1: related to the way you look, should really be done
Speaker 1: with proper assessment of where you are emotionally mentally with
Speaker 1: your relationship to food and self, and getting really real
Speaker 1: and honest with yourself, because I think those things can
Speaker 1: get clouded sometimes and we can convince ourselves that we
Speaker 1: have to do these things, when in reality it's just
Speaker 1: the guys for wanting to control our bodies. So the
Speaker 1: backstory here is that I won't I won't bore anybody
Speaker 1: too much with the details, but I had a baby
Speaker 1: four or five months ago. Hopefully you all know that
Speaker 1: solely and um I have been nursing, primarily so breastfeeding,
Speaker 1: but directly her to my breast and it's been amazing.
Speaker 1: I had no idea how much I would love nursing
Speaker 1: and how connected to it I would be from a
Speaker 1: mindfulness perspective. It has been my saving grace in this
Speaker 1: postpartum time that has been really difficult. Those carved out
Speaker 1: many hours of the day where all I'm doing is
Speaker 1: one thing. I don't think we have many times in
Speaker 1: our life where we are able to carve out so
Speaker 1: much time, too monotask to do one thing, and it's
Speaker 1: so healthy for us and um this became my my
Speaker 1: grounding point of the day. Amiss. The difficulty out of
Speaker 1: the blue nursing became an issue and my daughter was
Speaker 1: not responding to it the way that she normally did,
Speaker 1: and it was upsetting because I felt to blame. I
Speaker 1: felt that I had to figure it out, and I
Speaker 1: also had no alternate ways of feeding her. Fed is best.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people run into breastfeeding issues
Speaker 1: and turned to formula or donor breast milk or whatever
Speaker 1: it is. But for me, I had zero stores of
Speaker 1: breast milk and my daughter, for whatever reason, rejected the formula.
Speaker 1: So I felt very stressed to figure out what this
Speaker 1: issue was and the first place I wanted to look
Speaker 1: was my milk, my diet. She was having reflex like symptoms,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to see if there was anything in
Speaker 1: my diet that could be causing that. Now, a lot
Speaker 1: of people have told me, you know, eat anything when
Speaker 1: you're when you're breastfeeding, it doesn't matter. It's all the same.
Speaker 1: And as much as I really did kind of think
Speaker 1: that that was going to be the case, I felt
Speaker 1: like I had to explore that and exhaust that before
Speaker 1: moving on from what felt really good for me and
Speaker 1: what I thought is the best thing for her if
Speaker 1: it would work for us. This requires a lot of
Speaker 1: backstory because I I want to make sure that this
Speaker 1: episode isn't triggering and you really understand where I was
Speaker 1: coming from and the information that I had in my
Speaker 1: mind as a registered dietitian when it comes to elimination diet. Now,
Speaker 1: as registered dietitians, we oftentimes do help people figure out
Speaker 1: what is the root cause of their digestive issues by
Speaker 1: way of what's called the gold standard of the elimination diet.
Speaker 1: So elimination diet, you work hopefully with a professional, and
Speaker 1: you cut out a lot of food and then you
Speaker 1: slowly reintroduce them so that you can figure out what
Speaker 1: the issue is. It is intended to be very short
Speaker 1: term to help you assess what the issue is, figure
Speaker 1: it out, and then resume to hopefully having a normal
Speaker 1: relationship to food and um a healthy and a happy
Speaker 1: one as well. Granted, elimination diets are not my specialty.
Speaker 1: I had to wherewithal to understand what they involve, that
Speaker 1: they are short term and all of that. However, despite
Speaker 1: um what I always tell you all to be really
Speaker 1: cautious of the Internet and to use your own inner knowing,
Speaker 1: I got swallowed up by the noise, and I think
Speaker 1: we all kind of find ourselves there in times of desperation.
Speaker 1: I was desperate to figure out what was wrong, and
Speaker 1: so I looked towards experts. Google. How many times have
Speaker 1: you googled how to lose weight or how to do
Speaker 1: this or that and somebody, an expert comes up and
Speaker 1: they gain your trust immediately, essentially, because you need that
Speaker 1: rescue boat when it's coming by and you feel like
Speaker 1: you're drowning. Right, So for me, I've started googling reflex
Speaker 1: baby diet, you know whatever her and I found some
Speaker 1: woman not even a registered dietitian. But keep in mind,
Speaker 1: I don't think that only registered dietitians are the experts
Speaker 1: when it comes to nutrition, So I am open minded
Speaker 1: when it comes to that. But I didn't even look
Speaker 1: into this woman's credentials at all or her training. But
Speaker 1: she was offering a free master class on how to
Speaker 1: figure out what's causing the reflux in your baby, and
Speaker 1: so it was free. I was down. I took the course,
Speaker 1: and wow, um, it basically was an even more restrictive
Speaker 1: elimination diet than I could even imagine ever prescribing to
Speaker 1: somebody because of the specific foods that could affect reflux.
Speaker 1: The plan is kind of like there's there's foods that
Speaker 1: you start with and then you introduce more and more.
Speaker 1: But the original list was probably like ten to eighteen foods,
Speaker 1: which might sound like a lot, but it's really not.
Speaker 1: You know, first of all, a lot of the foods
Speaker 1: I don't even enjoy or eat, and then the other
Speaker 1: foods are just kind of random, and it was very
Speaker 1: hard to assemble a meal or a snack given these guidelines.
Speaker 1: So from this process, I got to really take a
Speaker 1: trip down memory lane and remember what it was like
Speaker 1: to be on these diets all the time, and what
Speaker 1: I gained was invaluable compassion for myself, my younger self.
Speaker 1: I gained compassion for people who do have to be
Speaker 1: on restrictive diets for medical reasons, and an understanding of
Speaker 1: how limiting that is and how effective it is to
Speaker 1: the rest of your life, because when we restrict for
Speaker 1: medical reasons or not, if your brain is like mine,
Speaker 1: which if you're listening it, it may be uh, these
Speaker 1: types of thoughts that start to happen and and behaviors
Speaker 1: happen really quickly. So, like I said here, you know,
Speaker 1: I think that it's great to rely on experts. You
Speaker 1: should always check out their their credentials, but really take
Speaker 1: note of when something doesn't feel right for you and
Speaker 1: honor that. I want to share with you what happened
Speaker 1: to me on this diet that were red flags that
Speaker 1: you should look out for when you're on any type
Speaker 1: of diet at all, because I think they're kind of uniform.
Speaker 1: These are the things that happen when we restrict, whether
Speaker 1: it's calories, whether it's food groups, whether it's for a
Speaker 1: very short period of time as mine were intended to be.
Speaker 1: So that you can be on the lookout for when
Speaker 1: things turn south. I don't think this lasted more than
Speaker 1: four or five days. And yet the amount of things
Speaker 1: that started to arise for me and the notes that
Speaker 1: I took to share with you all, it happened so quickly.
Speaker 1: And I think that they're also really easy to miss,
Speaker 1: especially when we're going for whatever it is we're trying
Speaker 1: to fix or heal or figure out. It's easy to
Speaker 1: to miss these signs. So I want to talk to
Speaker 1: you about what happened for me so that you can
Speaker 1: be on the lookout and really evaluate what's going on
Speaker 1: and is this healthy or or really helping anymore if
Speaker 1: you are on those sort of restrictive diet plans for
Speaker 1: any number of reasons. So the first thing that happened
Speaker 1: I want to talk about because it's it's very common
Speaker 1: and disordered eating and eating disorders. It's it's probably one
Speaker 1: of the biggest hallmarks of an eating disorder, true eating disorder. However,
Speaker 1: I don't think we talked about this at all, and
Speaker 1: it involves cooking for other people. Now, this is a
Speaker 1: telltale sign of one sign. This is a telltale sign
Speaker 1: in the context of any other signs of anorexia. A
Speaker 1: lot of people with anorexia love to cook and create
Speaker 1: food for other people, but they don't eat it themselves. Now,
Speaker 1: for me, I was so hungry and frustrated and bored
Speaker 1: with what I was eating that it did inspire me
Speaker 1: to get back into the kitchen and start playing around
Speaker 1: with the foods that I could have and seasoning them
Speaker 1: in a way that actually inspired me in a positive way.
Speaker 1: Where now I'm back in the kitchen after I don't
Speaker 1: know this pandemic, I've just been eating lots of frozen
Speaker 1: foods and not using my own imagination at all, and
Speaker 1: cooking is very meditative for me. But aside from my
Speaker 1: own meals, I just wanted to be in the kitchen
Speaker 1: as much as I could to. I was cooking Evan
Speaker 1: meals that he could eat and almost drooling over them.
Speaker 1: And again, it sounds kind of fine, like what's the
Speaker 1: big deal about cooking for other people, But I think
Speaker 1: it's an important one to kind of have in the
Speaker 1: back of your mind if you find yourself making all
Speaker 1: these elaborate meals but then not eating them yourself. Uh.
Speaker 1: And it was interesting because that is definitely something that
Speaker 1: I used to do all the time when I was disordered,
Speaker 1: the thoughts about food came in crashing like waves. I mean,
Speaker 1: all I could do was think about food, order groceries.
Speaker 1: I mean, I needed more groceries because I were so
Speaker 1: little foods that I could eat. But my brain was
Speaker 1: just occupied with thoughts of food pretty much at all times.
Speaker 1: I started to make really strange combinations of food. I mean,
Speaker 1: I was desperate for something to taste good, and I'd
Speaker 1: come up with these strange things, and after a day
Speaker 1: or two of eating them, they became my, Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I'm so excited to eat them. And I'm not going
Speaker 1: to say what the foods were because I don't want
Speaker 1: it to be triggering to anybody in any way. But
Speaker 1: I mean Evan would kind of look at me and
Speaker 1: be like, that's your dessert, and I'm like, I know, buddy,
Speaker 1: like you know, I have, I have. It was only
Speaker 1: five days, so I wasn't fully entrenched in it to
Speaker 1: know that this was normal. But I mean, your brain
Speaker 1: just starts to come up with weird things to put
Speaker 1: together to get any sort of satisfaction from the flavors,
Speaker 1: and you start to really think that that's what good is,
Speaker 1: and it reminded me of the disordered days when I
Speaker 1: would only eat diet ice cream and eat a pint
Speaker 1: of of the this, you know, guilt free ice cream
Speaker 1: at night, and when my friends would come over, i'd
Speaker 1: offer it to them and that I was so excited
Speaker 1: for them to enjoy it the way that I did,
Speaker 1: and they'd be like, that's not ice cream, Lisa. Um.
Speaker 1: At the time, I was too in the thick of
Speaker 1: it to really recognize how my mind or my taste
Speaker 1: buds evolved to consider this to be delicious. But you know,
Speaker 1: here out ten years of this and only doing this
Speaker 1: for a couple of days, it was very obvious to
Speaker 1: me that what I was eating was not a dessert,
Speaker 1: and yet I was calling it a dessert. Another huge
Speaker 1: one is that I was talking about this diet that
Speaker 1: I was on at all times. Granted, we're in pandemic
Speaker 1: mode over here. I know a lot of people traveled
Speaker 1: for the holidays, but Um, having a baby and I'm
Speaker 1: pretty afraid of COVID and all these things that we're
Speaker 1: going on with her digestion, the last thing I wanted
Speaker 1: to do was be around anybody. So I haven't been
Speaker 1: around many people. So when I stay talking about my diet.
Speaker 1: I mean mainly to Evan, and I don't think he
Speaker 1: picked up on it, but I did because I'm able
Speaker 1: to be really honest with myself about it. But I
Speaker 1: was looking for validation for doing it, some sort of
Speaker 1: an applause. Um. I wanted to let people know that
Speaker 1: I was doing it, you know, And I caught myself
Speaker 1: needing this external validation, this pat on the back, this
Speaker 1: look at how much you know, discipline I have, look
Speaker 1: at all that I'm doing for our baby. It kind
Speaker 1: of translated to this time. And I certainly know that
Speaker 1: in my previous disordered days, you know, I was always
Speaker 1: telling people about what I was and wasn't eating. And
Speaker 1: I know from being around lots of people now the present, Uh,
Speaker 1: it's very noisy when other people are on diets because
Speaker 1: they love to talk about it. They love to talk
Speaker 1: about how it's working, or they love to talk about
Speaker 1: how it's not working. But either way, they're talking about
Speaker 1: it because that's what their mind is filled with. And
Speaker 1: I think there's that validation factor. So that is a
Speaker 1: huge red flag to look out for if you find
Speaker 1: yourself doing that, to really ask yourself, why am I
Speaker 1: doing this? Like, is it really working if it requires validation.
Speaker 1: I found myself in really bad moods. I was hungry,
Speaker 1: I was in hanger moods. Um, I was just frustrated
Speaker 1: all the time. Like I kind of said with with
Speaker 1: the desserts, I had an odd idea of what was
Speaker 1: considered an indulgence, and it happened very rapidly in just
Speaker 1: a few days of what I considered to be a
Speaker 1: sweet or a dessert really changed into something that's definitely
Speaker 1: not a sweet and definitely not a dessert. As mentioned,
Speaker 1: this was only a couple of days, and to be honest,
Speaker 1: on day one, I couldn't even do it. I broke
Speaker 1: the rule on day one, and I started to feel
Speaker 1: like a failure. I felt like I can't even do
Speaker 1: this for a day, and it's for my daughter, and
Speaker 1: you know, all those those that negative self talk just
Speaker 1: came flooding back into my mind. And I think that
Speaker 1: the fact that I had to break it because it
Speaker 1: was so restrictive is the same feeling like we need
Speaker 1: to break it no matter what we're on. And I
Speaker 1: find it fascinating because you would think we can do
Speaker 1: anything for a day, right, Like it would be easy
Speaker 1: to just eat butternut squash and salmon plain grills for
Speaker 1: one day, right, I could do that every day? But
Speaker 1: I couldn't because of the frustrations that that I had
Speaker 1: felt and the breaking of the rules, which is sometimes necessary,
Speaker 1: like in my case it was it was too restrictive
Speaker 1: and and too unsustainable even for a day. How quickly
Speaker 1: that made me feel like a failure and I didn't.
Speaker 1: I'm saying now that the diet was too restrictive and
Speaker 1: that's it didn't work. But in that moment, I was
Speaker 1: the failure, not the list of approved eighteen foods or
Speaker 1: whatever it was that I could eat. And I think
Speaker 1: it's really important to take a look at that negative
Speaker 1: self talk, how quickly it comes in, and the conversations
Speaker 1: that that you're having with yourself. As soon as we
Speaker 1: start messing with our healthy relationship to food, the voice
Speaker 1: in our in our brains, or in my brain at least,
Speaker 1: really started to shift. And I think it's something to
Speaker 1: look out for, because again, like I consider myself a professional,
Speaker 1: I help people do this. I'm really good at noticing
Speaker 1: the noise, and yet there it was seeping in. I'm
Speaker 1: really proud of all the work that I've done in
Speaker 1: the past to kind of know even after four days, like,
Speaker 1: I don't think this is even helping my baby. So
Speaker 1: I'm not going to stick with it because I'm not
Speaker 1: going to be stubborn or you know, like I said earlier,
Speaker 1: a lot of these diets start out for a reason
Speaker 1: but morph into something else because of the control that
Speaker 1: it gives us. I was able to say, this isn't
Speaker 1: working for my mental health, it's not working for my
Speaker 1: physical health. Uh. And if it is improving the milk
Speaker 1: situation in any way, it's certainly um affecting everything else
Speaker 1: far worse. My well being is very poor. I'm miserable,
Speaker 1: I'm angry, and for what reason? Right, I'm trying to
Speaker 1: make nursing a positive experience and yet here I am miserable.
Speaker 1: At what cost? We really have to ask ourselves. So
Speaker 1: those were some of the things that I noticed that
Speaker 1: I wanted to share with you. I think it's not
Speaker 1: so often that a professional like me or somebody that's
Speaker 1: been through it, uh and it's really open with it,
Speaker 1: goes on a restrictive diet, and I thought having this
Speaker 1: opportunity to share with you all about it, UM was
Speaker 1: really insightful for me um as a health practitioner, also
Speaker 1: helpful for me as somebody who it's been many years
Speaker 1: since I've experienced those types of thoughts and frustrations and
Speaker 1: negative self talk around food, and I think it was
Speaker 1: also really important to show my younger self compassion for
Speaker 1: all those years that I lived that way. Years years, years,
Speaker 1: and I lived that way, and I thought that's who
Speaker 1: I was. I thought that negative voice was my voice.
Speaker 1: I thought that was the only way to be healthy.
Speaker 1: I had no idea how important mental health was, or
Speaker 1: even that mine was hurting at the time, so it
Speaker 1: was it was really an incredible opportunity that I just
Speaker 1: had to share with you all. I also want to
Speaker 1: just reinforce here the importance of working with a professional
Speaker 1: if you do have digestive issues and you are looking
Speaker 1: to consider an elimination diet. Even as a registered dietitian,
Speaker 1: I should have been working with somebody. I should have
Speaker 1: had somebody holding me accountable. I should have had somebody
Speaker 1: helping me weed through the foods themselves. It's a very
Speaker 1: complicated process. It's not as as straightforward as you know,
Speaker 1: eating one food today, adding another one in. It takes
Speaker 1: your body a few days to adjust to figure these
Speaker 1: things out, and because it is emotionally taxing, having somebody
Speaker 1: there to also hold your hand through it, through anything
Speaker 1: difficult is incredibly helpful. So do not do that I did.
Speaker 1: Do not do a webinar and then take matters into
Speaker 1: your own hands, no matter how competent you feel, work
Speaker 1: with a professional and um I believe that the result
Speaker 1: will be not only help you figure out what you're
Speaker 1: trying to figure out much more quickly, but much more enjoyably.
Speaker 1: And having that support system really is key. All right.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to share that quickly with you. I
Speaker 1: I hope that it was interesting and in the least
Speaker 1: it was very interesting to me. And I think it's
Speaker 1: really important to think about these red flags when we
Speaker 1: go on any sort of diet for any sort of reason,
Speaker 1: so that we can always pull the curtain back and say, Okay,
Speaker 1: what's going on, be real with ourselves, and sometimes throw
Speaker 1: that out the door and prioritize our mental health. All right,
Speaker 1: thank you all for being here and allowing me to
Speaker 1: share this personal story with you. I hope you found
Speaker 1: it interesting or at least insightful. I hope you walk
Speaker 1: away with some concrete things to look for if you
Speaker 1: ever find yourself on a diet for some reason or another.
Speaker 1: As you go through the life cycle, there could be
Speaker 1: many reasons that your health takes a toy us to return,
Speaker 1: and you do need to figure out what's going on
Speaker 1: with certain foods um In my case, I think it
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with diet, but I really had
Speaker 1: to figure it out in order to get there, and
Speaker 1: what came up for me was really interesting and I
Speaker 1: hope that it helps you whenever you need it to
Speaker 1: shine light on some strange things that you're doing and
Speaker 1: helps you take a moment to evaluate where you are
Speaker 1: and where you want to go so that you can
Speaker 1: prioritize your mental health. Thanks everyone for being here, and
Speaker 1: I'll see you next week. On that way,