Speaker 1: I won't let my body out outweigh everything that I'm
Speaker 1: made do, won't spend my life trying to change. I'm
Speaker 1: learning love who I am again. I'm strong, I feel free,
Speaker 1: I know who every part of me. It's beautiful and
Speaker 1: then will always out way if you feel it with
Speaker 1: your hands in the air, She's love to the boom.
Speaker 1: I am. Then let's say good day and time did
Speaker 1: you and die out? Happy Saturday? Outweigh Amy here and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna start this episode off with a clip from
Speaker 1: cat defod As Unied Therapy podcasts that went up this week,
Speaker 1: where she processes diet culture and anti diet cultures wildly
Speaker 1: polarizing content that has left many of us very, very confused.
Speaker 1: We don't know what we're doing because, like at one point,
Speaker 1: thin as ideal, and then no, no, no, it's fit
Speaker 1: is ideal, and then it's no, no, no, Being strong
Speaker 1: is ideal. Do what makes your body feel good. But
Speaker 1: by the way, too much cardio is bad for you,
Speaker 1: and lifting weights is the best thing you can do
Speaker 1: for your body. Breakfast is the most important meal of
Speaker 1: the day. We've heard that all our lives, But did
Speaker 1: you know fasting until lunch is better than eating a
Speaker 1: balanced meal before work. You should probably put butter in
Speaker 1: your coffee now and don't use artificial creamers. But remember,
Speaker 1: you should eat and drink foods that bring you joy.
Speaker 1: I want you to wear whatever you want and whatever
Speaker 1: you feel comfortable in. But if you don't want to
Speaker 1: wear a crop top, it's probably because diet culture made
Speaker 1: you hate your body, and you should love your body
Speaker 1: no matter what it looks like at all times. However,
Speaker 1: if you love your body, you will not want to
Speaker 1: eat real ice cream because you can make ice cream
Speaker 1: out of bananas, and ice cream is full of toxins
Speaker 1: that will cause inflammation. Remember, though, you should listen to
Speaker 1: your body and allow it to have what it craves,
Speaker 1: except if you crave an actual banana, then you should
Speaker 1: actually have some nuts because bananas are full of sugar,
Speaker 1: and when you crave sugar, you're not allowing yourself to
Speaker 1: listen to the emotional need underneath. So try and go
Speaker 1: for a walk, but do it because it brings you joy,
Speaker 1: not because it's good and necessary for your health, because
Speaker 1: if you pay attention to your physical health, then you're
Speaker 1: suppressing what it is you really need underneath and allowing
Speaker 1: diet culture to manipulate you into a pawn of their
Speaker 1: multibillion dollar industry. So rebel against it no matter what,
Speaker 1: and do what makes you happy. Accept if it has
Speaker 1: anything to do with what you look like, because you
Speaker 1: shouldn't care. And if you do care, you're hurting other people.
Speaker 1: And smaller is better, but stronger is better than smaller,
Speaker 1: unless stronger it means you become smaller, then you should
Speaker 1: be stronger. And actually I want you to remember you
Speaker 1: shouldn't care about anything except what makes you happy. I
Speaker 1: encourage you to go listen to the full episode. It
Speaker 1: released on Monday, February twenty seven, so that's the date
Speaker 1: you can look for. And then the title is NIT
Speaker 1: a Week Diet Culture versus Anti diet Culture, and NITA
Speaker 1: stands for National Eating Disorder Awareness. We are wrapping up
Speaker 1: NIT a Week this week, and she has a lot
Speaker 1: of amazing episodes up. She's a great resource. She's a
Speaker 1: licensed therapist that specializes in eating disorders. So if you're
Speaker 1: here looking for support, that's amazing. But there are experts
Speaker 1: out there doing really really great things and putting out
Speaker 1: a lot of helpful content. I am not here as
Speaker 1: an expert. I am here as someone that has oh
Speaker 1: Man dealt with an eating disorder for much of my life,
Speaker 1: and thankfully now I'm in recovery. But it's a journey,
Speaker 1: it's a process. So I just share my experiences and
Speaker 1: I bring on others that are in the space but
Speaker 1: know what they're talking about. I really love that clip
Speaker 1: from Kat that I played for you, because it makes
Speaker 1: me feel less crazy that I spent so much of
Speaker 1: my life confused about what the heck to put in
Speaker 1: my body. It was so exhausting for me to keep
Speaker 1: up with all the latest diet trends. And then somewhere
Speaker 1: along the way, well probably because I talked about dieting
Speaker 1: all the time and food and working out and body stuff,
Speaker 1: I became the go to with different friends and family members.
Speaker 1: I don't know, honestly, now that I think about it,
Speaker 1: if they were really asking or if I was just sharing.
Speaker 1: But I felt as though at times I would get
Speaker 1: asked questions like, oh, what's the latest this or that?
Speaker 1: Or do I need to try this cleanse? Or do
Speaker 1: I need to do that? Or have you read this
Speaker 1: diet book? And of course I was always able to say, yep, yep, yep,
Speaker 1: I'm doing this, and of course when I was in it,
Speaker 1: it was the best thing ever, and you have to
Speaker 1: try it. And it's because I didn't want to be
Speaker 1: alone in my misery. I wanted others to join me.
Speaker 1: And so what I want to encourage you to do
Speaker 1: right now, without judgment, is to try to take note
Speaker 1: of all the fears that diet culture gave you about food.
Speaker 1: And for each of us it looks really different, but
Speaker 1: I honestly felt every single one that Kat mentioned in
Speaker 1: her little rant. Definitely felt the banana ice cream and
Speaker 1: the butter and the coffee. I felt those ones hard.
Speaker 1: And maybe you're not doing this right now because because
Speaker 1: you're listening, But in a few minutes when this is over,
Speaker 1: if you have time, get out a journal and take
Speaker 1: note of those fears. What has society diet culture, What
Speaker 1: are the messages that you have been receiving, and what
Speaker 1: fears do you have around food? And become curious about
Speaker 1: the feelings that come up with those fears around food
Speaker 1: and your body and sit with them. For me, personally,
Speaker 1: every time I choose to sit with my feelings rather
Speaker 1: than suppress them, which I mean, my eating disorder was
Speaker 1: a lot of suppressing and numbing my feelings. But when
Speaker 1: I sit with my feelings rather than suppressed them, I
Speaker 1: loosen their grip on me. And that would be my
Speaker 1: hope for you. And journaling has been a powerful tool
Speaker 1: for me in processing feelings and fears. So maybe give
Speaker 1: it a try today, just for a few minutes. Set
Speaker 1: a timer for three minutes in journal what it would
Speaker 1: look like to have a drama free relationship with food
Speaker 1: after you make note of some of those fears from
Speaker 1: diet culture and all the space it's taken up in
Speaker 1: your brain right now, and what it would look like
Speaker 1: to have a drama free relationship with food. What would
Speaker 1: you do with all the brain space that you would
Speaker 1: get back if you stopped obsessing about it? It lived
Speaker 1: rent free in my brain for years and years and years.
Speaker 1: It is all I thought about when I went to sleep,
Speaker 1: when I woke up, when I was out to eat
Speaker 1: with people, when I was working. Yeah, it was all
Speaker 1: the time. And if it wasn't about food, it was
Speaker 1: when I'm going to work out. So maybe some of
Speaker 1: your thoughts more so or around the workouts or body
Speaker 1: image things. My desire is for all of us to
Speaker 1: feel more peaceful around food and our bodies. That's the goal.
Speaker 1: That's why outweigh is here. A life without disordered eating.
Speaker 1: Outweighs everything. And my desire is for us to all
Speaker 1: feel that, truly feel that in our lives. Whatever age
Speaker 1: you are, you can get there. If you're sixteen or
Speaker 1: sixty six. There is room for recovery. There is hope,
Speaker 1: and I want people to know that. And there's so
Speaker 1: so many amazing resources out there. If you're you know,
Speaker 1: thinking about your body. I know we were talking about
Speaker 1: food and fears around food and journaling around that and
Speaker 1: what it would look like. But is there an area
Speaker 1: of your body that you pick apart? Can you start
Speaker 1: to have a loving dialogue with it? Can you talk
Speaker 1: to it? Can you look in the mirror and appreciate
Speaker 1: what it does for you? And maybe right a think
Speaker 1: you note to your body and all that it's been
Speaker 1: able to do for you. Are you noticing that writing
Speaker 1: is a theme. I've been writing a lot. Ali Fallon
Speaker 1: is a friend of mine. She's an author and a writer.
Speaker 1: But she was one of the leaders in a self
Speaker 1: care workshop that I went to last Saturday, and it
Speaker 1: was so so good. And when she was on stage,
Speaker 1: she was talking about writing and how powerful it is,
Speaker 1: and she's always been that. She wrote a book called
Speaker 1: The Power of Writing It Down, and she said that
Speaker 1: twenty minutes of writing for four days in a row
Speaker 1: will give you six months of benefits. And in that moment,
Speaker 1: I thought, well, that is doable, and I need six
Speaker 1: months of benefits, like I want the benefits of my
Speaker 1: journaling and my processing of my thoughts and putting pen
Speaker 1: to paper on things. So that was on Saturday, So Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.
Speaker 1: For four days in a row, I journaled for twenty
Speaker 1: minutes and it was amazing. I feel as though on
Speaker 1: day four my thoughts were flowing out so much more
Speaker 1: freely than they were on day one. That twenty minutes
Speaker 1: went by so fast, and I was processing in a
Speaker 1: way that I hadn't processed before. I was using words
Speaker 1: that even surprised me. I was like, oh, well, look
Speaker 1: at that word that just popped into my head and
Speaker 1: now I wrote it down and a look at that
Speaker 1: thought that I just had. And what I'm excited to
Speaker 1: also do is to take the time to go back
Speaker 1: and read everything that I wrote during those twenty minutes
Speaker 1: for four days, because I Honestly, right now, I can't
Speaker 1: tell you what I wrote on Sunday. I don't remember.
Speaker 1: That was day one and my writing was all over
Speaker 1: the place. It wasn't just twenty minutes of a specific topic,
Speaker 1: although you could do that. You could use a writing
Speaker 1: prompt like the prompts that I gave earlier, which Ali
Speaker 1: is big on that, so I know I mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: also setting a timer for three minutes, but hey, you
Speaker 1: could take Ali's suggestion and try to do twenty minutes.
Speaker 1: The first day, I was a little intimidated by it,
Speaker 1: but like I said, it got easier and easier, and
Speaker 1: maybe you check in with different parts of your body
Speaker 1: and you start writing about your feelings around that, right
Speaker 1: around your feelings about food. Choose an area of your
Speaker 1: body that is holding tension. At the self care workup workshop,
Speaker 1: excuse me, we also went through mindfulness movement and paying
Speaker 1: attention to your body and where things are showing up.
Speaker 1: So can you breathe right now and just feel anywhere
Speaker 1: that your body is holding tension and you can also
Speaker 1: start to have a loving dialogue with that part of
Speaker 1: the body. Sometimes my throat holds it, and my therapist
Speaker 1: always has me to put my hand on my throat
Speaker 1: and breathe through it and have loving dialogue with my voice,
Speaker 1: because what we have determined is that at times I
Speaker 1: may struggle with using my voice or feeling I can
Speaker 1: really express what I'm thinking, and also listening to myself
Speaker 1: and knowing that I can trust myself. That's huge. Something
Speaker 1: I've been working through is paying attention to my body
Speaker 1: and knowing, oh, I don't have to over explain this
Speaker 1: to anyone because I know this to be my truth
Speaker 1: and that is okay. Kind of just went off on
Speaker 1: a little thing there, but it's paying attention to your body.
Speaker 1: So whatever comes through for you, just pay attention to it,
Speaker 1: do some breathwork around it, take a moment to look inward.
Speaker 1: That's all I'm asking. Do some reflection, work through this stuff.
Speaker 1: Write stuff down. If writing is intimidating for you, which
Speaker 1: I get it. It was for me to one hundred
Speaker 1: percent when I started a few years ago. But I
Speaker 1: can't tell you how many experts of talk to me
Speaker 1: about the power of writing it down. You know, earlier
Speaker 1: I mentioned Kat's kneed a week episode from Monday, and
Speaker 1: I also wanted to share that she put up a
Speaker 1: couch Talks episode, which is her bonus episode that comes
Speaker 1: out on Wednesdays, and it's a Kneed a Week Q
Speaker 1: and A, and she addresses the following things. How can
Speaker 1: I handle the ups and downs between good recovery days
Speaker 1: and days I feel obsessed with food? How do I
Speaker 1: express my concern to someone who I think might have
Speaker 1: an eating disorder? And what is the difference between an
Speaker 1: eating disorder and disorder eating? So again, just search Unique
Speaker 1: Therapy Podcasts for those episodes and more awesome content from Kat.
Speaker 1: And Kat's actually going to be at my live podcasts
Speaker 1: that are in Nashville at the end of the month
Speaker 1: March twenty fifth, in Franklin. She is full of wisdom.
Speaker 1: She's going to be joining the stage with me and
Speaker 1: Leon Ellington and Ali Fallon which I mentioned earlier about
Speaker 1: the writing they are rock stars and the things that
Speaker 1: they're going to share with us. I feel like we're
Speaker 1: all going to leave Franklin Theater with a new energy,
Speaker 1: with new tools. We're going to feel empowered and encouraged
Speaker 1: and seen and supported. Now, the seven pm show is
Speaker 1: sold out and the three pm is close to selling out,
Speaker 1: So if you want to join us, get tickets because
Speaker 1: it's going to be amazing. Franklin Theater dot com as
Speaker 1: the website, but theater is spelled the fancy way like
Speaker 1: t E A t r E. I'll also put the
Speaker 1: link in the show notes, and then I have a
Speaker 1: link tree on my Instagram that will take you lots
Speaker 1: of places at Radio Amy and you'll see links in
Speaker 1: there to the pop up shop for Haiti, which is
Speaker 1: a free thing you can come to. There's gonna be
Speaker 1: so many cute things that we're gonna be selling for
Speaker 1: the orphanage in Haiti, where my kids came from. But
Speaker 1: if you RSVP to that, we're just trying to get
Speaker 1: a head count because it is a happy hour thing
Speaker 1: and drinks are on me. There's gonna be a bar,
Speaker 1: card a bartender, cocktails and cookies I think so far
Speaker 1: as the thing and shopping and it's going to be
Speaker 1: such a fun little happy hour hanging from four to
Speaker 1: seven the day before the live So that's in March
Speaker 1: twenty fourth. It's free to come if you're in Nashville.
Speaker 1: Would love to have you, and yeah, we're just trying
Speaker 1: to get a head count, so that would be amazing,
Speaker 1: And I wish you well on this journey. I know
Speaker 1: it's a lot of work, one day at a time,
Speaker 1: and you'll get there. There's hope, and I hope you
Speaker 1: have the day that you need to have right bite