Speaker 1: I won't let my body out out well everything that
Speaker 1: I'm made do, won't spend my life trying to change.
Speaker 1: I'm learning to love who I am. I get I'm strong,
Speaker 1: I feel free, I know who every part of me
Speaker 1: it's beautiful and then will always out way if you
Speaker 1: feel it with yours in there, she's love to the boom. There,
Speaker 1: let's say good day and did you and die out.
Speaker 1: Lisa and I are super excited to have Sam private
Speaker 1: join us for today's episode. She is a dietitian that
Speaker 1: is creating change in her own little bubble, but also
Speaker 1: in the Instagram world because that's where I found you, Sam,
Speaker 1: and I'm so glad I did. I don't even know
Speaker 1: how or who reposted you, but I'm sure I saw
Speaker 1: one of your funny reels that you put up that
Speaker 1: are very attention getting, and I love that you use
Speaker 1: your creativity to bring awareness to something that's super important.
Speaker 1: And it's diet culture and all the things that we
Speaker 1: have that reigned upon us for years and years and years.
Speaker 1: That I know you and Lisa both being dietitians in
Speaker 1: that world, it's probably a constant struggle. So talk with
Speaker 1: us about how diet culture has played a role in
Speaker 1: your career, and then what you try to do for
Speaker 1: clients online like your Instagram world, but also professionally in
Speaker 1: your workspace. Well, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: And it's so awesome that social media can connect people
Speaker 1: from from all over. But for me, you know, I
Speaker 1: wasn't always an anti diet dietitian, and I think a
Speaker 1: lot of dietitians can relate to that. Is that we
Speaker 1: are classically trained in diet culture. We are trained to
Speaker 1: use weight loss as our party trick of how we
Speaker 1: can be air quotes helpful for people that are not
Speaker 1: watching this and listening. And so I spent a lot
Speaker 1: of time counseling when I started as a dietitian, counseling
Speaker 1: people in weight loss and weight management, and I truly
Speaker 1: thought that I was helping people. I honestly thought that,
Speaker 1: and I think that's why we go into this field
Speaker 1: as a dietitian, as we want to help bol and
Speaker 1: we're also seeking that answer of life, of happiness and
Speaker 1: health and all these things when really there is no
Speaker 1: magic answer that's the answer. So I was doing, you know,
Speaker 1: weight loss counseling and whatnot, and then I recognized that
Speaker 1: people would see short term success and then they would
Speaker 1: go off on their merry way and they would come
Speaker 1: back a few months feeling distraught, you know, feeling guilty
Speaker 1: and shameful, reaching out to me and saying like I failed, Sammy,
Speaker 1: I need you to help me. I need I need
Speaker 1: to tune up, you know, I need to check in.
Speaker 1: And I would see that over and over and I said,
Speaker 1: something's not right here, like this isn't helping anyone. And
Speaker 1: it wasn't until I found Intuitive Eating, which I'm also
Speaker 1: a certified into it of eating counselor trained under Evil
Speaker 1: and Tripoli and at least Rash, the authors of the book,
Speaker 1: where I was able to see that really, if we
Speaker 1: can help people make peace with food first, make peace
Speaker 1: with their body, then we can get to the part
Speaker 1: that dietitians think about of nutrition and things that genuinely
Speaker 1: improve our health. But if everything that we do is
Speaker 1: so rooted and guilt and shame, it's really hard to
Speaker 1: start to make behavior change just for air quotes health
Speaker 1: if everything has a shame wrapped up with it. So
Speaker 1: to go back to your question, I have not always
Speaker 1: been an intuitive eating dietitian. I have not always been
Speaker 1: an intuitive eater and an anti diet dietitian. It's really
Speaker 1: been in the last two years where i've really do've
Speaker 1: been and continued to learn, and we have a team
Speaker 1: now of multiple registered dietitians that are all certified and
Speaker 1: intuitive eating and we help people all over the world
Speaker 1: in our virtual private practice. Yeah. I think what you
Speaker 1: do is awesome, and I love the way you present
Speaker 1: your material online. It really is light and funny, but
Speaker 1: bringing the realness to the conversation but in a way
Speaker 1: that doesn't make people feel bad. And I think that
Speaker 1: that's really the critical component as to you know, why
Speaker 1: people are attracted to you, of course, and and your practice.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for that. And I think that's
Speaker 1: where TikTok came into play, where you know, we're in
Speaker 1: the midst of this global pandemic and everyone's stuck at
Speaker 1: home and I saw this TikTok app and I was like, no,
Speaker 1: not another app, Like I can't do this, And then
Speaker 1: we started making videos and people were being like you
Speaker 1: said that. The emotional reaction of like laughing and being like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, I do that, Like you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, And it's relatable I'm not anti human beings dieting,
Speaker 1: and I think that's where on Instagram things can get
Speaker 1: really sticky, is people can feel shame and guilt for
Speaker 1: their diet history. But we have to go through that
Speaker 1: to be able to get to a place where we're saying,
Speaker 1: I don't want to diet anymore and I don't want
Speaker 1: to do this anymore. This is harmful, And so there's
Speaker 1: no shame in being a chronic dieter that was me
Speaker 1: for eight plus years, but being able to laugh about
Speaker 1: it and say, Okay, how can I move forward? How
Speaker 1: can I change? Love that? And just so that people
Speaker 1: know where to find you on Instagram, you're at find
Speaker 1: dot food dot freedom And is it the same on
Speaker 1: TikTok yep, find food Freedom. No dots on TikTok okay,
Speaker 1: but on Instagram we got the dots. So yes, definitely.
Speaker 1: What we encourage for our listeners to do is to
Speaker 1: follow accounts such as yours so that you have those
Speaker 1: positive reminders in your feed and maybe unfollowed stuff that
Speaker 1: isn't necessarily healthy for you to see, because I feel
Speaker 1: like when you're a post pop up, or if Lisa
Speaker 1: puts up a poster or any other amazing people that
Speaker 1: I've started to follow once I've become part of this
Speaker 1: anti diet culture because I know shame here, chronic dieter
Speaker 1: or all kinds of eating disorders from it. So I
Speaker 1: am right there with a lot of America. And one
Speaker 1: of the reasons why Lisa and I are here talking
Speaker 1: with you is we want to keep having these conversations,
Speaker 1: say that there's no shame, break the stigma around some
Speaker 1: of this stuff. And as we enter into the holiday season,
Speaker 1: I think that that is when diets start to rear
Speaker 1: their head, whatever it looks like, because you maybe have
Speaker 1: wellies a little weird, probably not as many parties, but
Speaker 1: you've got different gatherings to go to where there might
Speaker 1: be this kind of food in this kind of food,
Speaker 1: So you better restrict for five days before you go
Speaker 1: eat your big family meal or juice, the you know,
Speaker 1: some sort of cleans to detox after. And then the
Speaker 1: new year approaches and it's like, okay, new year, knew me,
Speaker 1: and it just seems like the last few months of
Speaker 1: the year, and then as we enter a new year,
Speaker 1: it's a vicious cycle and I was a part of it.
Speaker 1: It was almost like I could predict how I was
Speaker 1: going to be November December, January, November December just binge
Speaker 1: like crazy January clans and then end up binging again
Speaker 1: because my body was hungry. So talk with us about
Speaker 1: what insight do you have to offer to navigate through
Speaker 1: the holidays without doing what I just said that I
Speaker 1: did for years. Yes, well, I think it's one thing
Speaker 1: to recognize is that's very conclusive with the evidence. We
Speaker 1: know that restriction is the number one indicator of binging.
Speaker 1: So a lot of times there's a lot of shame
Speaker 1: tied to binging, and people are saying, you know, when
Speaker 1: you're in that binge, you say, I'm never going to
Speaker 1: do this again, like this is it that creates that
Speaker 1: urgency to eat even more food because you truly believe
Speaker 1: that come Monday or come that next day or after
Speaker 1: the holiday, that you're not going to allow yourself to
Speaker 1: eat that food, And that creates urgency to eat even
Speaker 1: more food, which then fuels that restriction. So binging occurs
Speaker 1: because of the restriction. I see it so often with
Speaker 1: my clients, and you know, thing skiving is coming up,
Speaker 1: and that's one of the most common holidays where people
Speaker 1: will have again I'm gonna use air quotes again, like
Speaker 1: saving your calories for the big Thanksgiving meal, right, and
Speaker 1: thinking like, okay, I'm gonna do it right. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: not eat all day, and then I'll be really air
Speaker 1: quotes good, using so many air quotes on a podcast.
Speaker 1: But that is that diet culture mentality. So being able
Speaker 1: to say, Okay, if I've ever restricted in the past,
Speaker 1: how did that end up for me? Right? Was I binging?
Speaker 1: And I like to normalize that for people of if
Speaker 1: you've restricted and that's led to a binge, which chances
Speaker 1: are it has congratulations. You are a human being and
Speaker 1: your body works correctly, like that's something to celebrate, that's
Speaker 1: not something to feel bad about. And so once we
Speaker 1: can shift that mindset to oh my god, my hunger
Speaker 1: is working correctly, like I binged because my blood sugar
Speaker 1: was low and because I was restricting and because I
Speaker 1: was starving, then we can say, okay, we can remove
Speaker 1: the emotional unpleasantness from that physical unpleasantness that happens when
Speaker 1: we binge, because those are two separate things, and then
Speaker 1: we can say, what can I do differently next time?
Speaker 1: So when we go into let's say, let's go back
Speaker 1: to our Thanksgiving example, can we eat a breakfast, can
Speaker 1: we eat a snack, can we eat lunch? Can we
Speaker 1: eat another snack? And then go into our Thanksgiving dinner
Speaker 1: just as if it was any other meal, and recognizing
Speaker 1: that fueling our body will help keep that urgency to
Speaker 1: eat down because our blood sugars will be stable, we
Speaker 1: will have the food and we won't feel that restriction.
Speaker 1: And the one thing I just want to add, which
Speaker 1: I think you'll agree with, but just how restriction played
Speaker 1: out in my life over the last ten years or
Speaker 1: during my disordered eating, is that it might not be
Speaker 1: total calories. It might be clean eating or only eating
Speaker 1: gluten free for no medical reason or even personal finding reason,
Speaker 1: or dairy or sugar or whatever it is. I remember
Speaker 1: when I saw my therapist for the first time and
Speaker 1: I was explaining my binges and she said, well, are
Speaker 1: you restricting, because restricting cause the binges? And I said, no,
Speaker 1: I'm eating. I'm eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And I was,
Speaker 1: but I was excluding so much that it still resulted
Speaker 1: in a binge. So I think just to expand that
Speaker 1: conversation as to you know, what being good looks like,
Speaker 1: maybe it's not just being keto up until Thanksgiving meal,
Speaker 1: really allowing flexibility and examining what restriction looks like on you.
Speaker 1: I love that. You know, when we use the terms
Speaker 1: being good right or being bad with food? A big
Speaker 1: part of intuitive eating, one of the principles is removing
Speaker 1: the morality to food, and I think that's a you know,
Speaker 1: we find so often that our clients have this cognitive dissidence.
Speaker 1: Their logic and their belief systems are not matching up.
Speaker 1: So asking yourself, right now, Okay, if I eat X
Speaker 1: food whatever that food is, right, does that make me
Speaker 1: a bad human being? Does that change my character? Does
Speaker 1: that change my work worth? And most people say no, no, right,
Speaker 1: that doesn't change worth. But then if we say, okay,
Speaker 1: eat that same food, do you feel guilt or shame
Speaker 1: for eating? And if the answer is yes, we know
Speaker 1: that guilt and shame, specifically guilt is rooted in a
Speaker 1: moral emotion. But we just said that we weren't bad
Speaker 1: like that doesn't change our worths. So okay, there's a
Speaker 1: yes over here, there's no over here. That's a cognitive distance.
Speaker 1: We need to dig into that and we need to
Speaker 1: release that morality with food and that will also help
Speaker 1: with that binge restrict cycle as well. Something you said
Speaker 1: about eating breakfast and lunch and a snack and going
Speaker 1: into a holiday meal as if it's any other day,
Speaker 1: I think it's huge. But also what I've loved about
Speaker 1: learning from people like you and Lisa and others that
Speaker 1: I follow is the reminders of, Hey, if you've struggled
Speaker 1: with any type of disordered eating patterns and you woke
Speaker 1: up today and you ate breakfast, high five, Because I
Speaker 1: think so many times I definitely participated in intermittent fasting,
Speaker 1: and so many any times I catch my brain being like, actually,
Speaker 1: should I eat breakfast right now? Because I ate dinner
Speaker 1: at eight o'clock last night and it's not even eight
Speaker 1: am yet and it hasn't been twelve hours. My brain
Speaker 1: still does that to me because it was such a
Speaker 1: pattern for a long time. And then I check in
Speaker 1: with myself and I say, Okay, am I hungry right now?
Speaker 1: Regardless of when I eat dinner? Who cares throw that
Speaker 1: out the window? Am I hungry right now? If I am,
Speaker 1: I eat. If I'm not, I wait a little bit.
Speaker 1: And that's me working through in my own way. Everyone
Speaker 1: has their own journey, their own stories, their own old
Speaker 1: habits that they had that are hard to break. But
Speaker 1: even though I'm haven't intermitten fasted and a very long time,
Speaker 1: well for me, I you know, a year or more,
Speaker 1: I still have those thoughts in my head. We're not
Speaker 1: acting like waking up and eating breakfast and having luncheon
Speaker 1: snacks on Thanksgiving Day is easy, And you will still
Speaker 1: have mental thoughts no matter. I don't know the two
Speaker 1: of you. You've been at this a lot longer than me.
Speaker 1: Do you still have to tell your brain? Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think that way anymore so for me personally
Speaker 1: at this point. No, But I will say absolutely, it
Speaker 1: takes time. It takes years. Right, So we create neuropathways
Speaker 1: in our brain and these negative thought patterns in these loops,
Speaker 1: which I think Jennifer Rowlands have talked about one of
Speaker 1: your previous episodes, and that is so important to be
Speaker 1: able to recognize that and know that that is not
Speaker 1: a failure. That is just diet culture trying to dig
Speaker 1: its nails right back in right and and present itself. So,
Speaker 1: just like you said, Amy, being able to recognize that,
Speaker 1: whether it's just recognizing it in your head, writing it
Speaker 1: down on paper and then being able to redirect that
Speaker 1: and say, no, I need food to fuel my body.
Speaker 1: I will function better with this meal. I will be
Speaker 1: a better human being with this meal or whatever it is.
Speaker 1: Being able to catch that is so important, and that's
Speaker 1: that's really what the work is. It's it's consistent, consistent work,
Speaker 1: and it's different I think for everybody based on their
Speaker 1: own story of how long that may continue. But I
Speaker 1: have so much hope that you're gonna get to a
Speaker 1: point one day where you're like, I just eat and
Speaker 1: I don't have to think about it. I'll say though that,
Speaker 1: you know, with so much time I spend on social
Speaker 1: media as my job, and I'm exposed to so much,
Speaker 1: once in a while, I'll get something that is not
Speaker 1: me listening to my body. And while I'm not fused
Speaker 1: to it, I'm not like, oh, this person is doing this,
Speaker 1: I should try this. It's a little ding that I'm
Speaker 1: no longer listening to my body because it's rooted in
Speaker 1: fear and we feel fear. So I'd say, once in
Speaker 1: a while, I'll notice something and that's why I call
Speaker 1: it noise, because it's anything that's pulling me out of
Speaker 1: my body, and I'll say, okay, noise, you know, thank
Speaker 1: you for trying to keep me safe, but I'm good here.
Speaker 1: And I think that's kind of two approaches. It's like,
Speaker 1: get angry at diet culture, but get kind to yourself
Speaker 1: for trying to protect you. And it's wrongly perceiving of danger.
Speaker 1: So I feel like that's kind of how it shows
Speaker 1: up for me. Once in a while, i'll flag again,
Speaker 1: I'll ding it. It's very infrequently, but i will notice it,
Speaker 1: and I'll come home and I'm constantly coming home to
Speaker 1: myself and my trust. Than those little moments even where
Speaker 1: I come home, are like little pats on the back
Speaker 1: that bring me even closer to trusting my body, because
Speaker 1: it's like, hey, we just worked together, like we just
Speaker 1: said like you know, see you, no thank you. And
Speaker 1: so I don't think you're if anyone's a failure, if
Speaker 1: they get a moment of oh, well, I just had
Speaker 1: dinner at eight o'clock. You know your example of intermittent fasting,
Speaker 1: it hasn't been that long. I think we're always works
Speaker 1: in progress, and new life changes are going to bring
Speaker 1: up old thoughts or situations, like if Thanksgiving is a
Speaker 1: is a scary one for you that might bring it
Speaker 1: all back, or if you know, we're talking to women
Speaker 1: and people of all life phases, going through big life
Speaker 1: changes means your body is going to change that might
Speaker 1: bring up stuff. So using those tools is really how
Speaker 1: I how I see it. Yeah, I love that. And Sam,
Speaker 1: since we're talking about the holidays to what advice do
Speaker 1: you have for people in situations where they're around family
Speaker 1: that maybe triggering to them. Like I would have been
Speaker 1: someone that showed up at my family dinners and if
Speaker 1: someone was in recovery before me, I would have and
Speaker 1: triggering them left and right. And honestly, I was a
Speaker 1: real buzz kill because I didn't want to eat anything
Speaker 1: that he had. I brought my own food. I was
Speaker 1: real particular. My mom would have her candy dams, but
Speaker 1: I made my candy d ms with Splenda, so I
Speaker 1: was gonna eat my separate thing over here. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm just thinking back on silly stuff that I used
Speaker 1: to do, and I would have been better off eating
Speaker 1: the family meal. But people are really listening to this
Speaker 1: episode and wanting to put in the work for themselves.
Speaker 1: But maybe they show up and there's some stuff surrounding
Speaker 1: them or whatever vibe other family members are bringing into
Speaker 1: the picture, Like do you have any tools that people
Speaker 1: can kind of keep in their back pocket to help
Speaker 1: them navigate the holidays. That's a wonderful question, and I
Speaker 1: think that's something we've already started with all our team
Speaker 1: with our clients, because we know this is coming, right,
Speaker 1: we can anticipate these triggers, and I think there's there's
Speaker 1: different ways that we can do this, but really role
Speaker 1: playing the situation out before it happens, so we can
Speaker 1: recognize it and we can actually walk through that situation
Speaker 1: together with our client, and they can actually start to
Speaker 1: experience some of anxiety or some of the discomfort in
Speaker 1: that setting, which can be really helpful to walk through it. So,
Speaker 1: for example, if Uncle Larry makes a fat phobic comment right,
Speaker 1: being able to say it, like write that down, what's
Speaker 1: like the worst scenario that could happen, and then what
Speaker 1: are the emotions that we feel to that common and
Speaker 1: how do we choose to respond? And I think it
Speaker 1: might change depending on the day, but I think it's
Speaker 1: being able to recognize do I have the mental capacity
Speaker 1: for this conversation? Is Uncle Larry reachable and teachable and
Speaker 1: wanting to hear about diet culture or is it just
Speaker 1: not even worth it to sit and just setting that
Speaker 1: mental boundary to say, I'm not participating in diet culture talk,
Speaker 1: so either change the subject and or leave the room
Speaker 1: and just get out because you know that that's going
Speaker 1: to be better for you. But then I think that
Speaker 1: also comes down to let's say, Aunt Cheryl maybe is
Speaker 1: presenting some signs of disordered eating, maybe some of the
Speaker 1: things you were explaining any of like making the splendid
Speaker 1: gams or or bringing her own food or I think
Speaker 1: now people that have walked through this journey a little
Speaker 1: bit more can have some empathy for those family members
Speaker 1: knowing that they are most likely rooted in disordered eating.
Speaker 1: Because we know that women ages twenty to forty five
Speaker 1: percent of them display disordered eating tendencies and an additional
Speaker 1: ten percent has clinically diagnosed eating disorder. So sevent of
Speaker 1: women are most likely walking around with some form of
Speaker 1: disordered eating, which is insane. And that's not even counting
Speaker 1: the numbers of people that are not, you know, misdiagnosed
Speaker 1: or not diagnosed. So chances are we can recognize that
Speaker 1: and maybe see it through a different lens this year,
Speaker 1: where maybe that would have been triggering before, but now
Speaker 1: we can almost have empathy and again create those boundaries
Speaker 1: where they're needed to be created. Where is it worth
Speaker 1: it to say something to Aunt Cheryl and try to
Speaker 1: open up and and help her, which might be healing
Speaker 1: for you personally, or again, is it better to change
Speaker 1: the subject, get out of the room, and really just
Speaker 1: making sure we're keeping ourself safe, because boundaries are meant
Speaker 1: to keep you safe, not those around you, and that
Speaker 1: is what is most important this holiday season. And just
Speaker 1: to reiterate something that you said that I think is
Speaker 1: really important, especially if you're just starting to unravel diet
Speaker 1: culture and you're really passionate about it, which is what
Speaker 1: happens in the beginning. It sounds like you agree to me,
Speaker 1: but when you said, is Uncle Larry reachable and teachable?
Speaker 1: Like that speaks volumes to me because I think sometimes
Speaker 1: we start the fight to prove how right we are
Speaker 1: with people that are unreachable and unteachable, and it leaves
Speaker 1: us feeling really depleted and alone, especially when it comes
Speaker 1: to the holidays and family. I think that people might
Speaker 1: associate not speaking back Uncle Larry as complicit, but that
Speaker 1: boundary is to protect you kind of like not today Satan.
Speaker 1: You know, get through the day. You have enough on
Speaker 1: your plate dealing with the triggers of the holiday that
Speaker 1: you don't need to also go to war necessarily. So
Speaker 1: of evaluate who you are, what the situation is, who
Speaker 1: your Uncle Larry is, Is there a conversation that's going
Speaker 1: to be healthy for you or not. So I just
Speaker 1: thought that was really important and I wanted to now
Speaker 1: thank you. And I think that's something I've learned personally.
Speaker 1: And Lisa, you can probably attest this, or even you too, Amy,
Speaker 1: even though you're not a dietitian, like you said, when
Speaker 1: you're passionate about this, you want to talk about it,
Speaker 1: you want to shout it from the rooftops, you want
Speaker 1: everyone to know about it. And then there's a bunch
Speaker 1: of we're just gonna keep going with Uncle Larry. If
Speaker 1: there's a bunch of Uncle Larries in the world that
Speaker 1: want to tear you down and tell you why you're
Speaker 1: wrong and quote research, and you can get burnt out
Speaker 1: doing this work very easily. And I've experienced that, and
Speaker 1: that's why I think it's seeking mentors, seeking therapists, seeking dietitians, friends,
Speaker 1: people who are supportive and understand it is not our
Speaker 1: job to change the minds of all the Uncle Larry's
Speaker 1: in the world. If you just focus on you and
Speaker 1: your heart. And I love how you said earlier, Li,
Speaker 1: So like coming home to you, You're going to plant
Speaker 1: seeds and all the people around you that matter, and
Speaker 1: they will notice something and they will ask you about that,
Speaker 1: and that's how it will grow from there. I was
Speaker 1: going to tap into that encouragement to that people will
Speaker 1: notice in your family. If you have been the aunt
Speaker 1: Cheryl before was that her name? And I love I
Speaker 1: love how we have these people now. So if you've
Speaker 1: been the aunt Charable for as I was many times,
Speaker 1: and I just I was obnoxious to my family, but
Speaker 1: I had no idea how uncomfortable I was making My sister,
Speaker 1: for example, and she's so sweet and kind that she
Speaker 1: would never say anything to me. She would just let
Speaker 1: me be the party pooper and let me say weird
Speaker 1: things that made her feel uncomfortable about what she was eating,
Speaker 1: and she would just ignore it and say, Okay, I mean,
Speaker 1: she's just in a better place with food than I
Speaker 1: ever was, so she was able to still eat her meal.
Speaker 1: But then I was giving her toxic thoughts because I
Speaker 1: would say something it would make her think, oh, should
Speaker 1: I not buy this, or do I need to not
Speaker 1: use real cheese in this recipe? Or should I alter
Speaker 1: X Y Z? And ultimately she could talk herself out
Speaker 1: of it. So I love that about my sister. But
Speaker 1: it wasn't until I was recovered that she was able
Speaker 1: to truly communicate to me how I would make her
Speaker 1: feel and others. And now that I'm in recovery, she
Speaker 1: notices how different things are. And I think maybe your
Speaker 1: patient for certain conversations, because if you're in recovery and
Speaker 1: your family notices it, aunt Cheryl when she's ready, she
Speaker 1: might know, Hey, maybe something's different about Amy. Maybe I
Speaker 1: can go talk to her and see instead of you
Speaker 1: imposing upon them your new ways. Because I can't tell
Speaker 1: you how many times I impose my diet upon people,
Speaker 1: almost to where I feel like I've lost all credibility
Speaker 1: talking to my family about anything and that I'm doing
Speaker 1: food wise. So sometimes I feel like even if I
Speaker 1: were to bring up now like no, no, now, I
Speaker 1: don't have any issues, well for them, they're like, oh well,
Speaker 1: Amy for twenty years or more we've been dealing with
Speaker 1: your antics, so we actually don't really care what you
Speaker 1: have to say. That's lived experience, and you know that's
Speaker 1: that's so valuable because it's all the validation you need
Speaker 1: that like that didn't work. I wasn't happy, I wasn't okay,
Speaker 1: and now I am. And that's something within suit of eating.
Speaker 1: Through the research we see all the time, there's actual
Speaker 1: studies on increased life satisfaction, right, And I know you
Speaker 1: guys have talked about this in previous OUTWEG episodes, but
Speaker 1: of you know, being present in moments because you're not
Speaker 1: wrapped up counting calories or thinking about food, bringing your
Speaker 1: own food to events, diet talk, and the conversation always
Speaker 1: coming back to dieting, like truly being able to change
Speaker 1: the world because you're now not focused on changing your body,
Speaker 1: and that that's priceless. I feel like that's a really
Speaker 1: good place to wrap and leave people before you go
Speaker 1: share with us the hope you have for our future generation.
Speaker 1: For me and I feel like a lot of our listeners,
Speaker 1: you and Lisa are in this world and you're in
Speaker 1: this space, and I think you've been a part of
Speaker 1: the change and it still feels sort of at least
Speaker 1: grassroots to me because it's not the mainstream. But what's
Speaker 1: the hope for the future, Like, do you see us
Speaker 1: clawing our way out of this diet culture mentality? It's
Speaker 1: so ingrained in so many of us without us even
Speaker 1: knowing it because we've just been in it our whole lives.
Speaker 1: But what's your hope for the future. It's a great question.
Speaker 1: The good thing is we know that dieting doesn't work,
Speaker 1: so that's in our favor in the sense of we
Speaker 1: want everyone to not have to go through that diet
Speaker 1: culture trauma. But we know that diets don't work. We
Speaker 1: know they have a percent failure rate. We know that
Speaker 1: two thirds of dieters will gain back more weight than
Speaker 1: they originally lose, and then that cycle continues. So once
Speaker 1: people get to that state of I can't do this anymore.
Speaker 1: This is not helping me, this is actually harming me,
Speaker 1: and they have that awakening. It's magical what happens to
Speaker 1: them and they can really start to walk on their
Speaker 1: intuitive eating journey and recognize that the answer lies within me.
Speaker 1: There's never been anything wrong with my body, but diet
Speaker 1: culture has built this distrust that there has been something wrong,
Speaker 1: and once we can start to recognize that, and once
Speaker 1: people see the intuitive eating and food freedom message, you
Speaker 1: can't unlearn that. That gives me so much hope because
Speaker 1: I've seen it with hundreds and hundreds of people that
Speaker 1: we worked with. Once you learn this, you can't unlearn it.
Speaker 1: And like we said earlier, you start to plant seeds
Speaker 1: and the lives of others and those closest to you,
Speaker 1: and then it just spreads like rapid fire. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: hope it spreads. I appreciate your work so much and
Speaker 1: I think too that there's nothing wrong with our bodies.
Speaker 1: Part of it is just, yeah, we need to ditch
Speaker 1: the diet culture mentality, but why are we dieting? So
Speaker 1: my hope is I'm just piggybacking off of you here
Speaker 1: for a second, just to encourage listeners, is that Lisa
Speaker 1: and I aren't just doing this podcast to expose some
Speaker 1: stuff and break the stigmas. Make you feel comfortable to
Speaker 1: talk about it and have these conversations so you don't
Speaker 1: feel alone and whatever you're going through with food and
Speaker 1: body image stuff. But like all bodies are different, and
Speaker 1: we have been given these different standards over the decades
Speaker 1: of what bodies are supposed to look like here and
Speaker 1: there and there, and we're constantly trying to conform to
Speaker 1: look like everybody else. But my hope is that we
Speaker 1: start to just want to look like ourselves and just
Speaker 1: to clarify, not like everybody else, to look like one
Speaker 1: body type that we've seen represented. So you know, it's
Speaker 1: not that everybody else looks like that. We think that
Speaker 1: everybody else looks like that because of I'd go big
Speaker 1: media here, not just social media, you know, the advertisements, etcetera.
Speaker 1: And so recognizing that there's so much bio individuality of
Speaker 1: not just what you look like, but what you need
Speaker 1: that you know, all of us eating the same things
Speaker 1: and the same amounts wouldn't make any sense. Love that,
Speaker 1: especially on the holidays, especially on the holidays. Okay, well, Sam,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for coming on to talk with us.
Speaker 1: And again I love following you on Instagram. So I
Speaker 1: want to say your page one more time for people
Speaker 1: to get out their phones right now. If you're listening
Speaker 1: to the podcast on your phone, go to Instagram and
Speaker 1: go to at find dot food, dot freedom, and I
Speaker 1: promise you she will not disappoint and you'll see her
Speaker 1: post come up and you'll feel encouraged, and we want
Speaker 1: to give you people that you'll be encouraged by. And
Speaker 1: then quickly to one more thing before you go. You
Speaker 1: have a podcast called Dietitians. This is correct, So we're
Speaker 1: actually or actually rebranding where I'm not going to save
Speaker 1: the new name because originally it started, we just wanted
Speaker 1: to have a cocktail mocktail and like talk about how
Speaker 1: diet culture sucks a lot of what you guys are
Speaker 1: doing today. But then we we realized that that name
Speaker 1: can be a little harmful to some you know, based
Speaker 1: on past trauma. And the last thing we want to
Speaker 1: do is cause more harm. So we are admitting our
Speaker 1: faults and mistakes. Um and we have a new name
Speaker 1: coming out soon. But yes, you can find us right
Speaker 1: now at Drunk Dietitians. And I got goose bumps that
Speaker 1: you had the opportunity to share that because I didn't know,
Speaker 1: we didn't talk about it previously, and I said, I
Speaker 1: was just trying to I saw it on your Instagram,
Speaker 1: so I wanted to give it a shout out. But
Speaker 1: what a beautiful example of recognizing where something wasn't the
Speaker 1: best and moving forward. And there's no shame in that either,
Speaker 1: because we're constantly evolving. I just think that that is
Speaker 1: a good reminder for people that you can evolve every
Speaker 1: day and there's so much grace to go around, and
Speaker 1: I I feel like that's just a good example of
Speaker 1: being like, you know what, this probably wasn't the best thing,
Speaker 1: so we're going to move forward with this, and well,
Speaker 1: I look forward to seeing what your new name is
Speaker 1: and listening to your podcast. So we'll keep people posted,
Speaker 1: but I'm sure you'll keep us posted on Instagram, and
Speaker 1: I hope people will check you out. And thank you
Speaker 1: so much for coming on. Thank you, ladies.