Speaker 1: I won't lend my body out out everything that I'm
Speaker 1: made do. Won't spend my life trying to change. I'm
Speaker 1: 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: it is beautiful and I will always out way if
Speaker 1: you feel it with your eys in the air, She'll
Speaker 1: love to the moot there say good day and did
Speaker 1: you and die out? Welcome back to Outweigh. Today's episode
Speaker 1: is really exciting for me, Lisa, because I'm interviewing a
Speaker 1: long time internet friend of mine who we've never met
Speaker 1: in person. I don't think right, we have like a
Speaker 1: little special something happening over the years. It's my friend Madeleine.
Speaker 1: Mad about Food is her Instagram. I'm gonna put her
Speaker 1: amazing website in the show notes below as well because
Speaker 1: her recipe these are out of this world and her
Speaker 1: online presence is just such a dream. So today's episode
Speaker 1: is having Madeline on as a guest to talk about
Speaker 1: her relationship to dieting and what prompted this was a
Speaker 1: great newsletter that she put out that says, after twelve
Speaker 1: years as a chronic diet or, I decided to quit
Speaker 1: diets forever the ten things I learned since quitting dieting.
Speaker 1: So welcome, thanks for having me. So excited to have you,
Speaker 1: especially because you're one of those people and this is
Speaker 1: maybe a strange thing to say, but you're one of
Speaker 1: those people that I see that has so much going
Speaker 1: on professionally, so successful, so good at what you do,
Speaker 1: and also really confident in a relationship, all these things
Speaker 1: that I almost like, i'd never guessed that you were
Speaker 1: struggling with food. I get that response a lot with
Speaker 1: like any of the struggles I've had in life. So
Speaker 1: you mentioned I'm in a relationship, I'm in like a
Speaker 1: same sex relationship. So I'm marry to a woman, And
Speaker 1: I get that same response from people who ask me
Speaker 1: about my process coming out, because I have this like
Speaker 1: someone in your face confidence and it's a little bit
Speaker 1: of a mask, but I've always had it, Like I've
Speaker 1: always been speak up for myself. I'm always the kid
Speaker 1: in the classroom who like talks over the boys and
Speaker 1: tells them like you know what's up, because it's usually
Speaker 1: boys who when you're younger, are more talkative in class,
Speaker 1: I feel like, and so I've definitely been at like
Speaker 1: bossy little girl. I guess I should say. And so
Speaker 1: even with coming out and with this whole thing, I've
Speaker 1: definitely always been one of those people like easy for
Speaker 1: me to hide behind confidence, and it's a recurrent theme
Speaker 1: that people in my life say, like what, I just
Speaker 1: thought you were okay. So definitely not the first person
Speaker 1: to say that, And I don't know why I felt
Speaker 1: like including that, and I hope it doesn't like make
Speaker 1: you feel any other way. I think even more because
Speaker 1: we don't even have that like personal in person relationship.
Speaker 1: But more you run a food blog, you know your
Speaker 1: rest a piece. When I see them, they don't feel restrictive,
Speaker 1: they feel really balanced and beautiful. And you know, I'm
Speaker 1: somebody who kind of has like a trained eye for
Speaker 1: people that are struggling with food. And yet I just
Speaker 1: feel like you kind of would have slipped under my
Speaker 1: radar if we didn't have a little bit of a
Speaker 1: personal relationship where you've told me. And I guess the
Speaker 1: whole point of me even bringing it up is just
Speaker 1: to say that everybody struggles with something. But when it
Speaker 1: comes to weight and dieting and thinking about food or
Speaker 1: body image, there's so much that goes, you know, before
Speaker 1: what meets the eye, and you just never know what
Speaker 1: somebody's going through. So twelve years as a chronic dieter,
Speaker 1: let's just kind of start there. Yeah, So I guess
Speaker 1: I was like edging on thirteen, So I'm trying to
Speaker 1: do thirteen minus my age would be fifteen. I think
Speaker 1: it probably could say it started before that, But like
Speaker 1: I said, I will always have this like confident I've
Speaker 1: got everything under control of personality. And I think everything
Speaker 1: I've done in life, I've done it from like it
Speaker 1: comes from my own brain. I want to do it.
Speaker 1: It's my thing. And a lot of people have this
Speaker 1: history of like maybe they started dieting because they saw
Speaker 1: something their parents did, or they saw something a friended
Speaker 1: or an older sister or whatever. But I just I
Speaker 1: guess saw, like in news media or around that, like
Speaker 1: there was something to be done of like control what
Speaker 1: you eat. It's a big was always a big control
Speaker 1: thing for me. Everything in my life that's a struggle
Speaker 1: is somewhat related to like control and needing to control
Speaker 1: when I think a lot of women relate to that,
Speaker 1: whether it's dieting or other things in life. And so
Speaker 1: when I first started dieting as a fifteen year older.
Speaker 1: As a high schooler, I was going through S A
Speaker 1: t S and the college application process somewhat of a
Speaker 1: type over achiever teenager, and I was like, oh, this
Speaker 1: is something else that I could focus on, right, Like
Speaker 1: I could control a hundred and fifty percent of this.
Speaker 1: I can't control a hundred a deepercent of what I
Speaker 1: do on the S A T S. But this is
Speaker 1: like my own thing. Then. Since then, it's just been
Speaker 1: this arc of my life of like, when things get tough,
Speaker 1: I lean on or used to lean on, that form
Speaker 1: of restriction or control. And I have like a very
Speaker 1: like stocky, solid body. So I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people would have looked at me, even at my lowest
Speaker 1: point and been like, oh, she's fine, she's very healthy looking,
Speaker 1: or people would compliment me even that I was maybe
Speaker 1: thinner than I had been in the past. And so
Speaker 1: I think that's where like I even got more inspired
Speaker 1: to share more of it, because, like you said, everyone's
Speaker 1: struggling and we all are trained to be like, let
Speaker 1: me look at your body and let me see what
Speaker 1: your body looks like, and then I'll judge your health
Speaker 1: based on that, right, And it was such an eye
Speaker 1: opening process for me to like go back and look
Speaker 1: at moments in my life where I'm like, Okay, that
Speaker 1: was my thinnest way ever, my most miserable, And then
Speaker 1: I see myself in pictures with friends and friends who
Speaker 1: I know like don't give a hoot about what they eat,
Speaker 1: and I look bigger than them in the photos. Right,
Speaker 1: So it's just this crazy thing that like it's been
Speaker 1: twelve years of dieting and twelve years of somewhat silent
Speaker 1: suffering because of how my body looks compared to other
Speaker 1: women and because of my personality of everything is all good,
Speaker 1: Everything's good. Look at these super healthy meals I share
Speaker 1: on Instagram, whether I'm eating them or not. It's like
Speaker 1: the other layer of it. But like that was the
Speaker 1: ark of my life. And the other piece of it
Speaker 1: that I'm we could talk about more is that I
Speaker 1: have two autoimmune diseases, and unfortunately the world told me
Speaker 1: that like what I was doing and controlling my food
Speaker 1: was rewarded in that community, right, Like the less you eat,
Speaker 1: the more you cut out, the better autoimmune warrior you are.
Speaker 1: And that has been like the biggest change in the
Speaker 1: last year for me to be like that is so toxic.
Speaker 1: That is so misleading a because everybody's body is different.
Speaker 1: So right, So like you're told to be vegan, keto,
Speaker 1: paleo whatever to be to curire autoimmune disease, but doesn't
Speaker 1: mean like one of those things it's gonna work for everyone.
Speaker 1: And doing those things puts an immense amount of stress
Speaker 1: on your body, especially if you jump from standard American
Speaker 1: diet to one of them, or from vegan to keta. Who, right, Like,
Speaker 1: whatever you're doing, it's not always gonna be this like
Speaker 1: amazing transformation that people make it seem like in the
Speaker 1: autoimmune disease community. And I don't want to shame anyone
Speaker 1: who I walk a really fine line between shaming people
Speaker 1: who find relief from these kinds of diets, right, and
Speaker 1: my journey, But that was a really big piece of
Speaker 1: my diet journey and what stopped me eventually because of
Speaker 1: that constant pedonic treadmill of keep cutting things out. I
Speaker 1: was on the carnivore diet so literally, like that was
Speaker 1: the last thing I did, and I was eating red
Speaker 1: meat and water for a month, and like there is
Speaker 1: nowhere to go from their? Right, Okay, got it is
Speaker 1: it possible that having to autoimmune diseases also very much
Speaker 1: contributed to the dieting that you've done over the last
Speaker 1: twelve years, not just the desire to want to change
Speaker 1: your body physically. Yeah, so I think it's layered for
Speaker 1: me personally, and this is work I've done on my
Speaker 1: own with the therapist. Of Unfortunately for me and unfortunately
Speaker 1: for our society, I was able to use autommune disease
Speaker 1: as a disguise. Right, I'm dieting because I'm this healthy
Speaker 1: autoimmune warrior, when really, if I'm in my most honest,
Speaker 1: like vulnerable state, I say it's all about drinking my body.
Speaker 1: That final diet was I'm gonna go the most extreme
Speaker 1: this thing that apparently cures everyone's arthritis. Right, And not
Speaker 1: only am I going to be the healthiest person in
Speaker 1: the world, I'm going to have the smallest, fittest body
Speaker 1: in America. Huh. And it was so mentally draining that
Speaker 1: that's the thing that pushed me over the edge to
Speaker 1: look in the mirror after those thirty days and be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: so I just drank water and eat meat for thirty days.
Speaker 1: I feel the worst I've ever felt in my life.
Speaker 1: I have the worst social relationships I've ever had in
Speaker 1: my life. We're in the middle of the pandemic, right,
Speaker 1: So not only is my social life this tiny circle,
Speaker 1: I've lessened it too. I can only this very simple,
Speaker 1: simple thing. And my body looks kind of the same
Speaker 1: as it did thirty days ago, I hear you. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think, just to expand out for a second, you know,
Speaker 1: for anybody who has an autoimmune disease and you've found
Speaker 1: the diet that works for you, and your symptoms are alleviated,
Speaker 1: and it works fantastic, you know, just so that we
Speaker 1: you know, speak to everybody here and and value your journey. Great.
Speaker 1: But what you're saying, Maddie is that even though the
Speaker 1: dieting may have stemmed from a place of wanting to
Speaker 1: get your symptoms under control, there was for you that
Speaker 1: other layer of also really wanting to change your body,
Speaker 1: feeling some sort of control, and doing really extreme things
Speaker 1: that impacted your quality of life. It sounds like they
Speaker 1: didn't improve your symptoms, but let's just say that they did.
Speaker 1: Even if they didn't prove your symptoms, they were still
Speaker 1: causing stress for you mentally and therefore not working for you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think the biggest thing I say to people
Speaker 1: is like, it's totally about a mindset, right, So if
Speaker 1: you're in it with the mindset of like doing X
Speaker 1: y Z helps me and I feel so much better.
Speaker 1: But I also like live a very source normal social life.
Speaker 1: I also eat the proper amount of calories to fuel
Speaker 1: my body. Right for me, there was no being on
Speaker 1: a diet and fueling my body properly. As soon as
Speaker 1: I went to the let's cut certain food groups out,
Speaker 1: and probably because of my history of dieting, I went
Speaker 1: to not only do we cut food groups out, but
Speaker 1: we cut down on calorie consumption. And that's where you
Speaker 1: really hit that decrease in happiness and quality of life
Speaker 1: because you just aren't fueled. Yeah you're I mean, most
Speaker 1: of your body isn't fueled, but your brain isn't fueled.
Speaker 1: You you're going to feel awful if you're not eating
Speaker 1: enough calories. And I don't think we're loud enough about that.
Speaker 1: And I don't know for me, calories like has become
Speaker 1: not a foreign word, but a foreign word in the
Speaker 1: concept of calories are bad, you know, but it's not
Speaker 1: a big part of my life anymore. But I forget
Speaker 1: that for so many people. That's where it always comes
Speaker 1: back to, and it's so ingrained, and we really have
Speaker 1: to ngo in that by recognizing that, like you said,
Speaker 1: like that's where the misery really really really comes from.
Speaker 1: So this last diet that you went on that you
Speaker 1: mentioned this was June of corect Yeah, so I think,
Speaker 1: like what I've said before and what we said about
Speaker 1: control and about my health both are like this was
Speaker 1: the peak of it. So I was working part time
Speaker 1: as a freelance social media worker and it's a also
Speaker 1: for myself on my business. In March with twent twenty
Speaker 1: when the world changed, and by June I had lost
Speaker 1: so much income that I had to go back to
Speaker 1: corporate full time. And not only was that a problem,
Speaker 1: I was under so much stress because of the COVID virus.
Speaker 1: My wife is a nurse, so she was going to
Speaker 1: the hospital every day. I felt like not every day,
Speaker 1: but three times a week, and I felt like I
Speaker 1: was worried about her, my family, myself. You know, if
Speaker 1: you're an automy and disease, we don't know exactly what
Speaker 1: you know what could happen, but you could be affected
Speaker 1: worse by viruses. So the stress of that the stress
Speaker 1: of having to go back to a job full time
Speaker 1: where I had to be an in person worker in
Speaker 1: an office full time, running my own business that was
Speaker 1: seriously running into the ground out of my own control.
Speaker 1: I know some food bloggers who had their best years
Speaker 1: of their life in COVID, just wasn't me. I wasn't
Speaker 1: set up that way, and I learned so much, but
Speaker 1: I had to go back to corporate and I was
Speaker 1: so lucky that I had a job waiting for me.
Speaker 1: But this was a breaking point for me under the
Speaker 1: control and health umbrella of Like, my health was the
Speaker 1: worst it's ever been. I had no control over my life.
Speaker 1: And I was like, Oh, the cardboard diet. It's the
Speaker 1: most extreme diet I could ever go on. Why don't
Speaker 1: I try that right now? The week I go back
Speaker 1: to a new job. It's like literally brought cold steaks
Speaker 1: in a lunch box. I don't know if that sounds
Speaker 1: like good to other people, but to to me, I'm
Speaker 1: just like, I love like salad instead before it's like
Speaker 1: my favorite food. Like I'm all for any sort of
Speaker 1: protein that you want to add. But was there ever
Speaker 1: a moment we were like, hmmm, I like steak this
Speaker 1: sounds good. It's so sad to say like this because
Speaker 1: I love food so much, but I had lost sight
Speaker 1: of like what I loved to eat totally right, Like
Speaker 1: I didn't know what I loved anymore. So I now
Speaker 1: today sitting here, like if you take every ingredient from
Speaker 1: my fridge and put it in a salad bowl over lattice,
Speaker 1: like that is my jam, Like I will eat that
Speaker 1: every day. But I also do love like proteins, so
Speaker 1: it's not all steak like not I don't. I would
Speaker 1: assume the people who are in the carnobarde I aren't
Speaker 1: listening down way, but maybe they are. But it's like,
Speaker 1: but it's like, um, you can eat eggs. I love eggs,
Speaker 1: like it's a huge part of like what I saw today.
Speaker 1: But if I'm like in my most honest moments, I'm
Speaker 1: not eating an egg without any sour dough bread these days,
Speaker 1: you know, like there's not a day where I'm just
Speaker 1: eating an egg alone. But there were lots of days
Speaker 1: during this time when I was just eating an egg alone.
Speaker 1: So does it sound particularly appealing to me right now? No,
Speaker 1: but probably more appealing than for some other people. I
Speaker 1: hear you. I hear you. So this newsletter that you
Speaker 1: put out was really I waited for it. I waited
Speaker 1: like two weeks for it, and then it came in
Speaker 1: my inbox. The second I saw it, I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm clicking this. I can't wait to read it. And
Speaker 1: I was shocked because I didn't realize that the last
Speaker 1: diet that you did was about a year ago. And
Speaker 1: I love the framing of this piece ten things you
Speaker 1: learned since you quit dieting, So I'd love if we
Speaker 1: could just like list through them and then just see
Speaker 1: kind of where that takes us. So point number one,
Speaker 1: what did What's the first thing you learned? So I
Speaker 1: book ended this with like my top two so number one,
Speaker 1: number ten or like my most important but number one
Speaker 1: is I have so much brain space for more brain
Speaker 1: space for other things. And that's something that you don't
Speaker 1: realize until you're out of the woods of it. And
Speaker 1: even today, like I just went out to lunch with
Speaker 1: a friend, there was no like checking the menu ahead
Speaker 1: of time, double checking the menu, long conversation with the waitress,
Speaker 1: or like long internal battle in my mind right about
Speaker 1: what to order or what am I going to eat
Speaker 1: for breakfast? So that for lunch, I can eat whatever
Speaker 1: I want and look quote unquote normal to my friend,
Speaker 1: what am I going to do after the lunch? Like
Speaker 1: so much, I'm exhausted just listing all those things, right,
Speaker 1: and so now you just kind of live and like
Speaker 1: even going to the grocery store is so much more
Speaker 1: of a non issue. It's just shopping even on a
Speaker 1: food blogger and like a lot of it's a very
Speaker 1: detailed list of recipes I'm making. It's not like an
Speaker 1: obsessive process. Obsessive is like one of the only word,
Speaker 1: like say, for this, and I think most people gonna
Speaker 1: read to that like it's all consuming and you don't
Speaker 1: even realize it till you're not fully consumed by it.
Speaker 1: And I'm so glad you said the last part, because
Speaker 1: that's what I was going to kind of harp on
Speaker 1: for anyone listening that is like unable to understand what
Speaker 1: that means. It's the most shocking realization that only happens
Speaker 1: once you liberate your brain and start doing other things.
Speaker 1: Do you realize how confined you are by the obsessive
Speaker 1: compulsive thoughts about food control, thinking about it, feeling guilty
Speaker 1: about it, planning for it, all you know just how
Speaker 1: small it is. So I feel like that's all the
Speaker 1: one that you only understand once you're on the other
Speaker 1: side and you're like, Wow, what else does this world
Speaker 1: have to offer me? And there's so much possibility on
Speaker 1: that side. So I love that one. What's number two?
Speaker 1: A lot of them, I think would say like on
Speaker 1: the other side of it, I noticed, or just why
Speaker 1: I wanted to share them? Right? So number two is
Speaker 1: even if every human at the exact same thing, so
Speaker 1: we would all look completely different. And I think a
Speaker 1: lot of this goes back to systematic issues of diet culture.
Speaker 1: We all have different bodies because of where we came from.
Speaker 1: We all have different bodies because of who our families are.
Speaker 1: We all have different bodies because of like how we're
Speaker 1: raised or if we have an illness or if we don't,
Speaker 1: or anything like that. And it's so funny because I
Speaker 1: jokingly say to my wife all the time, like, you
Speaker 1: see my grandma, That's who I'm going to be, because
Speaker 1: when I look at pictures of her in my age,
Speaker 1: we have the exact same body type and like she
Speaker 1: just is a more plump woman, Like it's just how
Speaker 1: she's built and she's never once been one of those
Speaker 1: like dieting Grandma's like I'm going to eat grape grapefruit
Speaker 1: and cottage. She's a way like those foods, So I
Speaker 1: hate that they're like pumping on that. But she's not.
Speaker 1: She's not the diet in Grandma. And so this was
Speaker 1: a huge thing for me. We could all eat the
Speaker 1: exact same, perfect paleo diet today and look different in
Speaker 1: a year. And I think this is an important one
Speaker 1: to harp on subconsciously on a subconscious level, because I think,
Speaker 1: especially with social media, with a lot of still photos
Speaker 1: and images of influencers that we've taken that we admire
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, even if we know that, you know,
Speaker 1: we're never gonna look like them, I think there is
Speaker 1: that subconscious belief that if I just do what they're doing,
Speaker 1: I will get some of that. And I think that's
Speaker 1: a hard one to break down, all right, So let's
Speaker 1: move into point number three. Al Right, So this one
Speaker 1: other people were hyper aware of my dietary needs. So
Speaker 1: this was one another one that I guess I knew
Speaker 1: and when I was in it, but way more after
Speaker 1: the fact, which was that like friends, family, even people
Speaker 1: I hadn't seen a really long time would like double
Speaker 1: check with me before we went to do anything, like hey,
Speaker 1: what are you not eating right now? And it was
Speaker 1: really hard for me every single time. For like months,
Speaker 1: this went on to be like I'm eating everything, like
Speaker 1: I truly am, Like I'll figure it out there. I
Speaker 1: eat everything now, So people trying to be considerate of
Speaker 1: your needs, but like it was such a focus about
Speaker 1: you that always came up. Yeah, and it made me
Speaker 1: almost feel like I was like it was like a
Speaker 1: little bit of like shame of like I was that person.
Speaker 1: I'm lucky that a lot of my friends in life
Speaker 1: are so normal with food and I hate that word,
Speaker 1: but they're so normal with food that like I was
Speaker 1: the difficult one. And so it took a while to
Speaker 1: like make it through my whole rotation of people I
Speaker 1: know and I eat meals with to be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm any restaurants, good gluten cheese, meats, not meats whatever.
Speaker 1: I love that. I feel like I guess me because
Speaker 1: like I'm a registered dietitian too, because it's been a
Speaker 1: long time since I've kind of been in you know,
Speaker 1: my things that I eat don't eat and I could
Speaker 1: eat anywhere as well. But I feel like I'm still
Speaker 1: gootting through the people of oh, you know, there's nothing
Speaker 1: for you to eat at my house, and it's kind
Speaker 1: of fun to be like to show them, no, I eat,
Speaker 1: I eat everything. You know, but you didn't even realize
Speaker 1: what a focus your diet was for other people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was the thing. I was like, cool, people really
Speaker 1: like knew me as the girl who was on some
Speaker 1: kind of a diet. I feel like if Amy were here,
Speaker 1: she would be saying that relates because she has a
Speaker 1: lot of people in her life too that I just
Speaker 1: saw her as eating so differently, and now we're like, wow,
Speaker 1: you're so much more fun to be around, even relatives
Speaker 1: like we do very consistently, like summer summer dinner, my
Speaker 1: grandmother's Sunday night dinner. She's a big Italian and there
Speaker 1: was always like zotos or something for me. And it's
Speaker 1: like somewhat pains me now to like realize that. But
Speaker 1: that's why I wanted to emphasize it's been a year,
Speaker 1: because we're finally one full summer from when I did
Speaker 1: the carn Aboard diet, and it's like I show up
Speaker 1: now when no one even mentions what I eat or
Speaker 1: don't eat. I love point number five. I still have
Speaker 1: candy in my freezer from Halloween. I genuinely do. It's
Speaker 1: a bag. I know exactly what it is. It's a
Speaker 1: because my sister just eight one. It's a bag of
Speaker 1: Reese's bats. And I had so many different Reces candies
Speaker 1: because I was developing recipes with them, and I am
Speaker 1: the kind of person who like had to finish and
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people can relate to this.
Speaker 1: Had to finish the point of ice cream, had to finish,
Speaker 1: the bag of candy, had to finish. The bag of
Speaker 1: chips Ashley Chips. Saw the chips for like my guilt food,
Speaker 1: and I would buy them only if I was out
Speaker 1: in the car. Finish the whole bag in the car
Speaker 1: and throw out the evidence like at a gas station.
Speaker 1: A rich yea rich, a ritual comfort. A shame around that, right,
Speaker 1: Like I'm not allowed to be the person who eats
Speaker 1: two chips, and now I just buy chips regular, like
Speaker 1: like that's the only way for me, at least, especially
Speaker 1: to get out of this, was to make these foods
Speaker 1: just as regular as romaine lettuce, right, So like they
Speaker 1: go in my card in the store just as often.
Speaker 1: I probably don't even eat them as often as romaine
Speaker 1: lettuce to be honest these days. But like it's the
Speaker 1: whole idea that like they're not off limits. They don't
Speaker 1: only get purchased at the gas station. You can purchase
Speaker 1: them whenever you want them. And that's another one of
Speaker 1: thing that like I think took me six months to
Speaker 1: get to that point. You don't realize how long it
Speaker 1: takes to get over that obsession. But now one year later,
Speaker 1: without willpower, you have Halloween candy in your freezer just
Speaker 1: because you haven't thought about it as much. Yeah, Like
Speaker 1: I opened the freezer how many times a day to
Speaker 1: get ice and I just like to see it. And
Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, if I wanted one, I'd eat it.
Speaker 1: I have things that i'd like want more, right, Like
Speaker 1: you realize that there were things that you were so
Speaker 1: obsessed over that you don't even like that much. Like
Speaker 1: i also have a ton of ice cream in my freezer,
Speaker 1: and I'm just a salty person, so like I'd rather pretzels.
Speaker 1: That was a huge exactly same one for me to
Speaker 1: such a sweet person. Thought I needed all the willpower,
Speaker 1: all the rules, and I turned out. I'm way more
Speaker 1: of a salty we have the we have the same
Speaker 1: like flavor profile. I just love that one because I
Speaker 1: feel like the rules, especially even around Halloween and social media,
Speaker 1: are all these rules to not eat the candy and
Speaker 1: to throw it out immediately or give it away or
Speaker 1: you know, all these like external rules and in reality,
Speaker 1: when you just think, no, that you could have these bats,
Speaker 1: you know, in November, December, February, March, April, May, June, July,
Speaker 1: they sit there and they lose all of their appeal.
Speaker 1: It's just like such a great ample of how we
Speaker 1: do it all kind of wrong, all right. Number six? Okay,
Speaker 1: So this one is what I talked about a little bit,
Speaker 1: starting to get into my autoimmune disease health journey. What
Speaker 1: we eat is just one tiny piece of the health puzzle,
Speaker 1: and I have no health qualifications background. So I always
Speaker 1: want to say that when I talk about this, right,
Speaker 1: because it's all from my own perspective. But I lost
Speaker 1: sight of all the other things we do for health
Speaker 1: when I was so into food and so obsessed with food.
Speaker 1: I lost sight of the fact that, like, because I
Speaker 1: didn't eat an ad equipped dinner, I stayed up all
Speaker 1: night hungry in bed right, so sleep I loose sleep.
Speaker 1: I was consistently dehydrated when I wasn't eating enough because
Speaker 1: we don't realize how much hydrations in our fruits and vegetables, right, Hydration, sleep, stress,
Speaker 1: reduction just as an activity, um movement, as a joyful thing, right,
Speaker 1: and not as a punishment. So many different pieces that
Speaker 1: I've been able to add back in, and that goes
Speaker 1: back to like space in my brain for them, like
Speaker 1: we don't even notice how much our takes over and says,
Speaker 1: I don't have space to think about meditation, right, because
Speaker 1: you've spent twelve hours of your eighteen hour waking period
Speaker 1: thinking of food. You want to do all these activities,
Speaker 1: go for your run, do your job, think about all
Speaker 1: this food for all this time, and you want me
Speaker 1: to meditate and do red light therapy and get enough
Speaker 1: sleep and drink water between each of these things. It's
Speaker 1: just like, oh, I had space for those things. My
Speaker 1: brain could breathe, I could breathe, I could incorporate things
Speaker 1: that help me. And number seven is super interesting. Continuing
Speaker 1: on with your autoimmune disease symptoms. The thing I didn't
Speaker 1: write in the newsletter that I'll share here is that
Speaker 1: I'm in fertility treatments right now, so my blood is
Speaker 1: being drawn some weeks every other day a lot, but frequently,
Speaker 1: so people are checking my vitals frequently. My health improved
Speaker 1: when I stopped dieting, even though my weight increased, right,
Speaker 1: my health over health improved and my autoimmune disease symptoms
Speaker 1: improved dramatically. I have very little services on my body
Speaker 1: and almost no art right is pain day to day.
Speaker 1: And that was the thing that I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: I am for sure going to wake up stiff every
Speaker 1: day if I let myself eat whenever I want, whenever
Speaker 1: I want. Because I started this journey literally going from
Speaker 1: like zero to a hundred, I just said, like, no
Speaker 1: food off limit. I mean whatever I want, whenever I want.
Speaker 1: And sure there are days when I still have pain,
Speaker 1: but autommune diseases cyclical, so they're flare ups, and sometimes
Speaker 1: the flare ups, most of the time the flare ups
Speaker 1: have nothing to do with what I've eaten. And that
Speaker 1: was a huge eye opener for me. And I know
Speaker 1: this is one of those topics where it's like so
Speaker 1: different for everyone else. I'm very lucky that I've learned
Speaker 1: that I truly have no allergies or intolerance is to food.
Speaker 1: I'm just one of those people who's lucky that I
Speaker 1: can eat everything. And so for me, like I feel,
Speaker 1: I feel so much better. It's kind of crazy almost.
Speaker 1: And now I have what's something that's called and I'll
Speaker 1: say it wrong, but it's like an immediate autommune response.
Speaker 1: A few people have it. It's called instant autommune response
Speaker 1: something like that. I get it from things like certain
Speaker 1: types of white wine, certain things that I eat, but
Speaker 1: also levels of stress in my body. So I'll go
Speaker 1: through a really stressful moment and immediately start to feel
Speaker 1: a tightening in my joints, in my fingers especially, And
Speaker 1: I'm lucky to I say that, I'm lucky to have
Speaker 1: the barometer a little bit to be like, oh, I
Speaker 1: know when this is affecting me. And when I stopped
Speaker 1: all of the obsession of food, I was able to
Speaker 1: tune into that even more and see that stress was
Speaker 1: my biggest trigger across the board. And I could see
Speaker 1: that on days when I had just happened to eat,
Speaker 1: like let's say I had eggs and some veggies for breakfast,
Speaker 1: and it happened to have a salad with some protein
Speaker 1: for lunch, and then in the afternoon a stressful event
Speaker 1: would happen and I would have an autoimmune response. Clearly
Speaker 1: that wasn't like I wasn't eating chips and candy all
Speaker 1: day and then I had an not an immune response.
Speaker 1: So this is one of the things that I say
Speaker 1: is controversial. Wouldn't happen for everybody. Don't know that would
Speaker 1: home for everybody, but from me was a huge eye opener,
Speaker 1: and I'm very thankful. And one more thing that you said,
Speaker 1: very briefly. I think it's important is that we really
Speaker 1: confilate weight loss with healthier everything. And you said it
Speaker 1: very quickly, but you said my weight went up, but
Speaker 1: my symptoms improved as well as my labs. So your
Speaker 1: condition improved even though your weight went up. And I
Speaker 1: just think that's an a huge thing to highlight because
Speaker 1: it's so ingrained to believe that the way goes down,
Speaker 1: the labs get better. In fact, and here you are,
Speaker 1: you know, really great proof that that's not the case.
Speaker 1: And wait, maybe your weight could go down and your
Speaker 1: symptoms could improve, but your weight went up and your
Speaker 1: symptoms improved. And I don't think we talked about that
Speaker 1: inverse relationship and its existence. Enough, what's number eight? Sorry,
Speaker 1: I'll go back for just a second. I even have
Speaker 1: post something I'm at about who I try to go
Speaker 1: back and delete some of my most like now I
Speaker 1: know problematic, but I probably have one so where I
Speaker 1: talked about if I have a certain amount of weight
Speaker 1: on my joints, my arthritis pain is worse, right, Or
Speaker 1: maybe that's true in an extreme sense, But the fluctuation
Speaker 1: I was referencing in those posts couldn't have possibly been that.
Speaker 1: It was something else. But I was so obsessed with
Speaker 1: being in a smaller body that I was like, I
Speaker 1: can blame my weight on these symptoms. You also said
Speaker 1: it's the one thing you could control. So if I
Speaker 1: could pinpoint and I can't control these player ups, if
Speaker 1: I can't control my weight, if the weight is causing it,
Speaker 1: then I'll just go back to controlling the weight, which
Speaker 1: you have admitted. Is you know how you deal with
Speaker 1: I mean, when things physically hurt, craving control is so
Speaker 1: you know necessary that we have to get rid of
Speaker 1: the pain, and so we go for the most obvious,
Speaker 1: but sometimes it causes more pain. Yes, exactly. We're so
Speaker 1: trained to hate pain, any little bit of it. We
Speaker 1: call being uncomfortable being a pain? Is how much as
Speaker 1: a society we hate pain? True? So true? What's number eight?
Speaker 1: First my business suffered, then my business thrives. So I
Speaker 1: actually remember I think texting you about this because we
Speaker 1: were talking the beginning. When I first stopped dieting, I
Speaker 1: had so little interest in food as a concept, and
Speaker 1: this took, like I'm saying, all these takes months, but
Speaker 1: this was probably like about a month or two into hardcore,
Speaker 1: I let myself whatever I want. I am getting more
Speaker 1: in touch with what real hunger and fullness means to me. Right,
Speaker 1: all those things food was fuel and not in the
Speaker 1: food is this perfect fuel kind of thing. It was
Speaker 1: more of a food is fuel. I got to get
Speaker 1: it in my body to keep on with my day.
Speaker 1: But it's not interesting to me anymore. I left this
Speaker 1: world of I'm so obsessed with the purity of my
Speaker 1: food and moved to this world of I need to
Speaker 1: eat to live and be fueled enough. But I don't
Speaker 1: care that it's gluten free, vegan, right or whatever it is.
Speaker 1: It's not being interesting. And I had to share that
Speaker 1: on mat about food. I stopped sharing recipes frequently I
Speaker 1: had to share and say, hey, I'm not that into
Speaker 1: this right now. And also I think there's some things
Speaker 1: problematic with what I've shared in the past, and I'm
Speaker 1: distancing myself from these communities, especially the Whole thirty community,
Speaker 1: because I was known as a Whole thirty blogger. I
Speaker 1: had done a Whole thirty Recipes takeover, I had grown
Speaker 1: my following on these diets and so it clearly alienated
Speaker 1: people in a in a thousands of followers leave in
Speaker 1: droves kind of way. And that was fine. I was
Speaker 1: in such a place at that point where not only
Speaker 1: had my business tanked in COVID, I was back working
Speaker 1: full time. I didn't have the effort to care about food.
Speaker 1: I didn't have the effort to care about my business,
Speaker 1: and you know the brain space, I just said, it's fine,
Speaker 1: leave whatever. And then this switch happened where all of
Speaker 1: these women showed up in my d m s. Mostly women.
Speaker 1: I shouldn't say only, but from my perspective, it was
Speaker 1: who said I started following you during Whole thirty Recipes,
Speaker 1: which was probably a year prior to me quitting diets um.
Speaker 1: So they have been with me for like a little
Speaker 1: over a year at this point, right, and they stead
Speaker 1: of started following you during whole three recipes. And I've
Speaker 1: been on a similar journey where I realized how problematic
Speaker 1: some of my past thoughts have been about dieting. And
Speaker 1: I'm so thankful to you because you're one of the
Speaker 1: few people who's talking about this in this space. And
Speaker 1: now I was like, I got these who cares about thousands?
Speaker 1: These ten women were so much more important to me
Speaker 1: than anyone else, right, because they got it. They were
Speaker 1: on the same page. And then I started sharing more.
Speaker 1: I started sharing like, Hey, this is my gene size,
Speaker 1: and I know that's gonna be triggering for some people,
Speaker 1: but I don't think that we talked about like a
Speaker 1: medium body size enough, right, Like, there's many of the
Speaker 1: fashion bloggers are in super small bodies. Many of the
Speaker 1: plus size fashion bloggers are in a larger body than
Speaker 1: I'm in, So what about me if I'm like a
Speaker 1: thirty or whatever it is? Right? And so many women
Speaker 1: were like, thank you for saying that, because that made
Speaker 1: me feel so much more normal about my size. It
Speaker 1: became this thing, and so my business started to grow
Speaker 1: because I felt comfortable and who I was and food
Speaker 1: started being excited to me again. I started realizing what
Speaker 1: foods I loved, what recipes I wanted to make. My
Speaker 1: recipes were so much more exciting to me because I
Speaker 1: actually liked the food, I was actually eating the food.
Speaker 1: And I've had the best six months of my business,
Speaker 1: even to that every single month is a record month
Speaker 1: for me on my blog. And so that's just like
Speaker 1: an amazing feeling. I mean, that's just also incredible because
Speaker 1: I feel like whatever you know, as you grow as
Speaker 1: a public figure, which you know you are any blogger,
Speaker 1: is it can feel really scary to say, oh, what
Speaker 1: I said, what I did in the past, I don't
Speaker 1: align with anymore, especially if that's who flocked towards you.
Speaker 1: And I've witnessed plenty of bloggers get backlash for evolving,
Speaker 1: like you said, maybe you didn't get backlash, but you
Speaker 1: lost the followers, which is a loss of income because
Speaker 1: that's eyes on your page and brands that you work with,
Speaker 1: I assume, so taking that leap to be authentic is
Speaker 1: so hard, and yet it is also what makes you
Speaker 1: stand out. And I loved hearing you say that the
Speaker 1: ten women that you know you did hear from were
Speaker 1: so much more important than the thousands, because again I
Speaker 1: think that is like just who you are and makes
Speaker 1: you stand out as a great individual. So I just
Speaker 1: love that. What's number nine? Number nine? I still have
Speaker 1: hard days. So this is what I was searching for
Speaker 1: with diets, right that, like, if I eat the perfect diet,
Speaker 1: everything else in my life is perfect because I controlled
Speaker 1: this thing, and then everything else would have fall into place.
Speaker 1: And the same thing happened when I stopped dieting. Right
Speaker 1: when I'm on this journey to stop being obsessed with food,
Speaker 1: I had this notion that like, once I get to
Speaker 1: that land where I am right now, where food is
Speaker 1: just normal to me and I don't feel any way
Speaker 1: about it, the other things that are hard in my
Speaker 1: life will be easy to right. And it's not true.
Speaker 1: It's not true. Just like diet is only one a
Speaker 1: piece of the health puzzle, diet is also only one
Speaker 1: piece of the mental health puzzle. And and my anxiety
Speaker 1: levels as a whole are definitely much lower because we
Speaker 1: know that when you're not fed, it's going to increase
Speaker 1: your anxiety. You're gonna be more geary, it's just known.
Speaker 1: So for me, that was a huge problem. I would
Speaker 1: just like fully not be eating until two pm some days,
Speaker 1: and of course when two pm hits something such a
Speaker 1: heightened state of stress, anxiety, hyper awareness that I'm not
Speaker 1: doing well. So I will say being fed, fully fed,
Speaker 1: has helped those things. But I still have really good
Speaker 1: days and really bound days in a similar way that
Speaker 1: I did when I was dieting. What you eat doesn't
Speaker 1: change all of the other circumstances of your life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's the guys that were constantly being back,
Speaker 1: you know, roped back into that elusive net that says, again,
Speaker 1: I think subconsciously, if I can change my body, if
Speaker 1: I can look a certain way, the other problems will
Speaker 1: go away. And that's like super subconscious, but it's there.
Speaker 1: And I also just just for a reminder for anybody
Speaker 1: who is experiences that anxiety throughout the day, not to
Speaker 1: say that food will heal your anxiety. However, nutrients or
Speaker 1: nutrients for a reason, and they are the building blocks
Speaker 1: for many of our neurotransmitters and the things in our
Speaker 1: brain that make us feel calm and happy. So we
Speaker 1: have to also think about food more than just for
Speaker 1: our bodies, but for our brain as well, and for
Speaker 1: our overall feelings of mental health. So thank you for
Speaker 1: saying that number ten, the one we've been waiting for. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so my life is more full. So just everything about
Speaker 1: my life is more colorful, fun, spontaneous, lively, all these
Speaker 1: things because I don't agonize over what I eat in
Speaker 1: any way, it's just easier. Life is easier when I
Speaker 1: don't have the whole like what do I eat today
Speaker 1: hanging over my head, right like when I wake up
Speaker 1: in the morning and I look out at my day.
Speaker 1: There is still a lot to be dealt with, but
Speaker 1: what I eat three times a day or not eat
Speaker 1: three times a day is not one of them. And
Speaker 1: just like socially, I mean, I know if you're on
Speaker 1: a roller coaster of what's acceptable and unacceptable for social things,
Speaker 1: but what is served at the restaurant doesn't have to
Speaker 1: go under my what can I do today? You know,
Speaker 1: there's so many other things to worry about that I
Speaker 1: don't have to worry about what that restaurant serves. I
Speaker 1: love it. And that is the one thing I hear
Speaker 1: time and time again is my life is more full.
Speaker 1: And I think it was your first one. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: you have so much more brain space for other things.
Speaker 1: These are the two that when you are in the struggle.
Speaker 1: If you're listening and you're in the struggle and you
Speaker 1: can't understand, it's what you're fighting for, whether you could
Speaker 1: hear it or not, it's it's the space and a
Speaker 1: new dimension of life that you don't know exists because
Speaker 1: your current brain structure is so limited by those obsessive
Speaker 1: compulsive feelings. So if you want to know what you're
Speaker 1: fighting for, it's this. I call it like a new
Speaker 1: dimension because you can't see it until you break through.
Speaker 1: And then again, going back to that what I said originally,
Speaker 1: it's like there's so much more possibility. And I love
Speaker 1: that you use the word vibrant and colorful, like you
Speaker 1: get your life back. It goes from black and white
Speaker 1: to color. It's like black and white to color TV.
Speaker 1: It's the real upgrade. Yeah, I've heard a lot of
Speaker 1: people say this about whether it's a needing disorder or
Speaker 1: distorted eating or whatever you struggle with, or just e've
Speaker 1: interest chronic dieting. It's like you have a filter on
Speaker 1: and it's that new trendy Instagram filter that's like a
Speaker 1: little hazy. There's a first layer before someone else's face,
Speaker 1: and the layer is like what do they think about
Speaker 1: my body? What do I think about their body? What
Speaker 1: am I eating? Like it's blinding me and it's gone.
Speaker 1: Now that's the difference, and I totally you know, I like,
Speaker 1: do you keep reminding people? It's so hard when you're
Speaker 1: in it. You have to do some of the other
Speaker 1: things first to get to one in time, and then
Speaker 1: once you're there, you're gonna be like, oh yeah, that's
Speaker 1: what Lisa and Maddie were talking about, like this is
Speaker 1: this is the fuller the fuller life, and it's it's
Speaker 1: the liberation and once you get there, you I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna say you can't go back going back to there
Speaker 1: aren't hard days and that this is just like a
Speaker 1: trajectory upward. But once you experience the colorful life, it's
Speaker 1: hard to go back to black and white. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I think that there's so many moments where I had
Speaker 1: like this, you almost feet like a fear of like
Speaker 1: am I strong enough to keep on this path? Right?
Speaker 1: Am I strong enough to be the person who doesn't diet?
Speaker 1: But the more you do it, the more you you
Speaker 1: stay out. It's just one of for me, at least
Speaker 1: be one of those things that like, the more you
Speaker 1: have the winds, the more you're like, I'm not going
Speaker 1: backwards now. Well, I'm so proud of you and I'm
Speaker 1: so thankful that you shared this with your community and
Speaker 1: continued to stay authentic to yourself even though it came
Speaker 1: with an initial loss and now a huge gain, which
Speaker 1: is what we see time and time again. So we're
Speaker 1: gonna link all of your information below. This is the
Speaker 1: food blog that you want in your life and go
Speaker 1: follow Maddie on Instagram. Will put that information below as well,
Speaker 1: And thank you so much, mad We'll see you soon.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for me