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