Speaker 1: Hey, Rebel Eaters, it's been a minute. Welcome to Season
Speaker 1: three of a Rebel Eaters Club. I am Virgie Tovar.
Speaker 1: This season will be offering you our very best tools
Speaker 1: for taking on love, happiness, diet, culture, and body image
Speaker 1: with some incredible guests, and we'll do it all as
Speaker 1: always with snacks. We're kicking things off with doctor Lorie Santos.
Speaker 1: I met Lorie a few years ago when I visited
Speaker 1: Yale to talk to students about the impact of fat phobia.
Speaker 1: Lorie teaches there and lives in what is basically a castle.
Speaker 1: For about a week, Lorie and I were neighbors that week.
Speaker 1: I learned so much about her amazing work as a
Speaker 1: psychology professor. I mean, she teaches the school's most popular
Speaker 1: class ever. She also hosts a podcast based on the class,
Speaker 1: called the Happiness Lab, where she explores evidence based ways
Speaker 1: to improve your well being. It's great, she's great, oh
Speaker 1: when she also has the best hair like ever. Laurie, Welcome,
Speaker 1: Welcome to Rebel Eaters Club. I'm so glad you're here.
Speaker 1: I'm just thinking about your long, luxurious, beautiful hair. Maybe
Speaker 1: that's weird, but it's just so beautiful. I hope. I mean,
Speaker 1: I wish everybody could have an opportunity to experience you
Speaker 1: in real life. But welcome to the show. Welcome, creepy Welcome.
Speaker 1: I'd expect nothing less great. Thank you, Laurie. In Rebel
Speaker 1: Eaters Club tradition, we begin every conversation with a snack.
Speaker 1: Do you want to introduce what the snack is? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's kind of weird his neck, but um, it's
Speaker 1: like it's right now, it's like winter, and so there's
Speaker 1: not really like great produce happening, but there are delicious,
Speaker 1: delicious pears right now. And so my snack is a pear.
Speaker 1: I'm really obsessed with Harry and David pears, which are
Speaker 1: like the most excellent pears in the universe. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: mine arrived yesterday carefully swaddled like a little chubby green baby.
Speaker 1: And when I opened up the tiny box that it
Speaker 1: was in, it's sort of the aroma just filled the
Speaker 1: kitchen with this like floral. It's pears have a distinct aroma.
Speaker 1: It's it's very floral and sort of I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's really beautiful. Also, we're missing this a little bit
Speaker 1: because but I think like the chubby sheep like the
Speaker 1: shape of them, like they kind of have like a
Speaker 1: little butt, and the stem is so kind of perky
Speaker 1: and cute. It's just it's a wonderful creature. Yea, we
Speaker 1: might call the pear, you know, a body positive fruit.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, yeah, exactly. My pears like
Speaker 1: really nicely sliced up. So I made it all the
Speaker 1: sliced and pretty. I don't see. I was going to
Speaker 1: ask you, Like, immediately before I was thinking about talking,
Speaker 1: I was like, is this a slice situation? Are we
Speaker 1: biting into it? Actually? I decided to do a half
Speaker 1: and half, so I cut half of it and then
Speaker 1: I left half of it in case the crunch felt
Speaker 1: like an important part of the ritual. I think if
Speaker 1: you start with the slice version, it's good, right, because
Speaker 1: then it's like you just get to enjoy the pair,
Speaker 1: but not like your face smushing into the middle of
Speaker 1: the kind of pariness. You know. Yeah, it's a thing.
Speaker 1: It is a thing. Yeah, especially for a good juicy half.
Speaker 1: But yeah, if you go slice, I think we'll be okay, great, Okay,
Speaker 1: should we? I've got the slice? Okay, okay, three two one.
Speaker 1: Mine is super it's super juicy. The awesome thing about
Speaker 1: a pair is that I don't know, you expect it
Speaker 1: to be a kind of hard like apple, but actually
Speaker 1: it's sort of more juicy, like on like the orange
Speaker 1: level of juicy spectrum, and it's awesome. So, I mean,
Speaker 1: I was also immediately transported to the movie City of Angels,
Speaker 1: which do you remember that scene and City of Angels
Speaker 1: where Meg Ryan is talking to Nicolas Cage, who's an
Speaker 1: angel but she doesn't know it, and she's talking about
Speaker 1: what it's like to eat a pair because he doesn't
Speaker 1: have any senses or something sweet, soft on your tongue,
Speaker 1: grainy like sugary sands. I think that in terms of
Speaker 1: my memory, it's like one of the only memories I
Speaker 1: have of a woman talking on screen lovingly about any food,
Speaker 1: and I just it's just so poetic. Um okay, So
Speaker 1: can you tell me about what memory or experience is
Speaker 1: associated with this pair? Yeah? Well, for me, you know,
Speaker 1: pairs are really complicated. I have a amplicated history when
Speaker 1: it comes to kind of enjoying my eating and really
Speaker 1: loving food. I feel like, you know, I of course
Speaker 1: grew up in the diet culture that pretty much everyone
Speaker 1: grew up in, and there was like you know, the
Speaker 1: you know, good for you food that was kind of
Speaker 1: not delicious and nasty, but that was what you're supposed
Speaker 1: to eat. And then there was like the delicious stuff
Speaker 1: that like, oh my gosh, that was bad for you. Right,
Speaker 1: Like this was my headspace growing up, you know. So
Speaker 1: what I've kind of come to and my eating is
Speaker 1: like I'm trying to feed myself lovingly. Like that's my
Speaker 1: move now, right, Like how can I feed myself something
Speaker 1: that's both delicious and ideally nutritious but not necessarily nutritious?
Speaker 1: Like what can you go for that like maximizes all
Speaker 1: of that stuff so you can be nice to your
Speaker 1: body and also have stuff that tastes freaking good. And
Speaker 1: one of my earliest experiences, especially with the Harry and
Speaker 1: David pears, came with my roommate Angie. This is my
Speaker 1: roommate in graduate school, and her family like would send
Speaker 1: her these Harry and David fruits all the time, and
Speaker 1: she'd get this box of pears, and again, in my
Speaker 1: like diet culture brain, that was like that's good for
Speaker 1: you thing. It's not going to be delicious, it's just like,
Speaker 1: you know, a healthy thing, and like, holy crap, it
Speaker 1: was like a dessert. It was like, this is delicious.
Speaker 1: In fact, I might be revealing too much about Angie,
Speaker 1: but Angie would say that eating the Hairy and David
Speaker 1: fruit was like going down on a woman as she
Speaker 1: imagined it. She's straight, so she just had to imagine.
Speaker 1: But it's like juicy. There's like, as you said, this
Speaker 1: like gritty, like like all crazy. And so for me,
Speaker 1: the like whoa to think that something that could be
Speaker 1: again with this messed up dichotomy that I grew up with,
Speaker 1: that could be good for my body, that could feel
Speaker 1: really nutritious, was also you know, so delicious. It was
Speaker 1: like going down on somebody. It's like, you know, world,
Speaker 1: world mess up. So that's why I picked the part.
Speaker 1: I just think it's freaking delicious. And it reminds us
Speaker 1: that all these dichotomies that we get in our head
Speaker 1: from diet culture. There b s right. You're just paying
Speaker 1: attention to your body and what feels good to you
Speaker 1: should be the way to go. You know, feed yourself
Speaker 1: like you'd feed a friend. That's kind of the mantra.
Speaker 1: Oh I love that. That's really sweet. Can you talk
Speaker 1: about what you learned about food growing up. Maybe that
Speaker 1: was home, and maybe it was you know, the culture
Speaker 1: at large or school. I just want to know, you know,
Speaker 1: what environment were you steeped into before you started having
Speaker 1: all these critical thoughts about diet culture. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I think the environment that so many of
Speaker 1: us were in right where you just grow up and
Speaker 1: like just every piece of the environment around you is
Speaker 1: pushing you towards diet culture. You know, I grew up
Speaker 1: my mom was on weight Watchers. You know, I remember
Speaker 1: being a young kid and she'd be grilling up like
Speaker 1: liver and onions because that's what you ate on weight Watchers,
Speaker 1: like in the you know, late seventies, early eighties and stuff,
Speaker 1: And so there was kind of always this air of like,
Speaker 1: you know, food is this thing that you know can
Speaker 1: affect you negatively or can make you look ugly, or
Speaker 1: that you have this kind of complicated relationship with and
Speaker 1: so yeah, I mean I kind of I feel like
Speaker 1: I kind of got to critically thinking about it, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe embarrassingly, like in my you know, late thirties where
Speaker 1: I started to learn more about this stuff in part,
Speaker 1: you know, because of work of people like you, right,
Speaker 1: you know, I was like in college right where you
Speaker 1: read all the woke stuff and you know, like all
Speaker 1: the kind of typical stuff. And then but it was
Speaker 1: much slower that it started to apply to me. And
Speaker 1: it came through recognizing, you know, a lot of what
Speaker 1: this bad messaging was doing to the way I talked
Speaker 1: to myself in my head, you know, to the way
Speaker 1: I reacted and was able to enjoy things in the world.
Speaker 1: It was really mindfully recognizing how these patterns were affecting
Speaker 1: me and realizing like, wait, I want to switch this
Speaker 1: stuff around. Quite explicitly, yes, totally. I mean I was
Speaker 1: just writing about, you know, how our value system can
Speaker 1: really be almost like a map to how this work
Speaker 1: can become integrated. I did this personal value sort a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago. Or there's just a ton of
Speaker 1: cards and there's just a ton of different values, potentially
Speaker 1: maybe sixty potential values that a person can have, and
Speaker 1: then you're asked to sort them from very important to
Speaker 1: not important. And I found that my top values were pleasure, joy,
Speaker 1: you know, adventure. And I was realizing when I thought
Speaker 1: about my path to this, I mean, because you know, similarly,
Speaker 1: I was aware of fat activism. I was aware of
Speaker 1: sort of some level of critique around diet culture and
Speaker 1: body constructions of body. But it wasn't until a fellow
Speaker 1: fat person said you can have a fabulous life as
Speaker 1: a fat person that it got under my skin. That
Speaker 1: it went from a message that was sort of an
Speaker 1: idea to something that was in my heart and it
Speaker 1: made complete sense because of my value system. I was like, yes,
Speaker 1: of course, something that's going to lead to something feeling
Speaker 1: exciting and amazing and very pleasurable is the thing that's
Speaker 1: going to sell me and get me all in. Yeah,
Speaker 1: totally exactly. Yeah. So you host the amazing podcast, The
Speaker 1: Happiness Lab. As you mentioned, it's about examining the science
Speaker 1: of happiness and the surprising things that stand between us
Speaker 1: and give you our own best life. So, Laurie, you're
Speaker 1: basically I mean, I think of you as the happiest
Speaker 1: expert or do identify that way? These so many people
Speaker 1: call me that that. I'm like, okay, fine, you know,
Speaker 1: as long as people realize that it doesn't necessarily mean
Speaker 1: that I'm happy all the time, then fine, Yeah sounds great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, well, so this podcast, your podcast started as
Speaker 1: the most popular course at Yale, which you teach called
Speaker 1: psychology and the good life. So, Laurie, why are you
Speaker 1: teaching happiness to super smart young people who are at
Speaker 1: an extremely well respected institution in a beautiful part of
Speaker 1: New England. Explain well, I think we really have these
Speaker 1: strong misconceptions when it comes to what it means to
Speaker 1: be happy, right, I mean, we think happiness is about having,
Speaker 1: you know, the perfect job, the perfect amount of money,
Speaker 1: the perfect relationship, the perfect body. You know. My Yale
Speaker 1: students think it's getting into the perfect school. It's like perfect, perfect, perfect.
Speaker 1: But what the science shows is that you know the
Speaker 1: real route to happiness. And let me define happiness how
Speaker 1: social sciences think about it. Social scientists think of happiness
Speaker 1: as kind of two parts, being happy in your life
Speaker 1: and with your life. So with your life is like
Speaker 1: you have a sense of meaning and purpose. It's overall
Speaker 1: the answer to the question how satisfied are you with
Speaker 1: your life? That's kind of being happy with your life.
Speaker 1: But being happy in your life is like positive emotions.
Speaker 1: You have joy, you delicious pairs all the time, you know,
Speaker 1: you have liked great friends like you. It's not that
Speaker 1: you don't experience negative emotion because, as we'll probably talk
Speaker 1: about grief, negative emotion. All of that is part of
Speaker 1: being happy. In fact, it's part of living a meaningful life.
Speaker 1: But the ratio is pretty good, and I think we
Speaker 1: think we get both of those from all the pursuits
Speaker 1: I've just talked about, right, Like, if only I could
Speaker 1: get the perfect body, right, then I would be happy.
Speaker 1: But in practice you can ask this, right, there are
Speaker 1: people who you know, achieve what they think is the
Speaker 1: perfect body, or at least, you know, lose weight or
Speaker 1: get plastic surgery or what have you, and we can
Speaker 1: ask are they happier? And the answer is like, not really, right.
Speaker 1: You know, the evidence really sage us that people who
Speaker 1: go through these changes that they chose and wanted, and
Speaker 1: in lots of cases work super hard for they're not
Speaker 1: as happy as they expect. And this comes down to
Speaker 1: a bunch of different cognitive biases and fallacies. You know.
Speaker 1: One of the big ones is what's called a rival fallacy.
Speaker 1: And this is true, you know, and body change domains,
Speaker 1: but it's also true and just like any domain, like
Speaker 1: when I find out I get into Yale, I'm going
Speaker 1: to be happy, or when I sell my first book,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be happy. You know, when your book Virgie
Speaker 1: gets on the New York Times bestseller lists. I will
Speaker 1: be happy, right, we pick some event that, like when
Speaker 1: I arrive at this place, I will finally be happy,
Speaker 1: and the data suggests that basically never happens. My colleague
Speaker 1: at Harvard, Dan Gilbert, who I interviewed from my podcast, said,
Speaker 1: happily ever after, only happens if you have three seconds
Speaker 1: left to live. Like, it just doesn't. There's just no
Speaker 1: you know, like our life changes and stuff comes up,
Speaker 1: and there's going to be these transitions. And so I
Speaker 1: think part of it is that we really assume that
Speaker 1: happiness comes from these kinds of achievements, these accolades, but
Speaker 1: in practice that is just not what the science shows.
Speaker 1: Happiness comes from other things. It comes from social connection.
Speaker 1: It comes from being present, even if that presence is
Speaker 1: with negative emotions. It comes from self compassion and giving
Speaker 1: yourself and other people grace. It comes not from Mimi, Mimi,
Speaker 1: me and focusing on the self, but focusing on others
Speaker 1: and community. Like people who do that stuff wind up
Speaker 1: self reporting that they're a lot happier. And this is
Speaker 1: not like the version of the pursuit of happiness that
Speaker 1: we've all been sold, but it's what the science really shows. Oh.
Speaker 1: I love that. Now, before we move on, I just
Speaker 1: want to take a second to acknowledge that happiness isn't
Speaker 1: the only motivation people have to participate in diet culture.
Speaker 1: People who are higher on the weight spectrum might get
Speaker 1: in a diet culture because they're being denied basic humanity,
Speaker 1: not because they necessarily want the so called perfect body
Speaker 1: or partner. There's no arguing with the fact that smaller
Speaker 1: bodied people are afforded more basic humanity and access to
Speaker 1: all kinds of things, from fashion to friendship, to romance
Speaker 1: to a regular day free from street harassment. We also
Speaker 1: know that ending diet culture isn't just about finding a
Speaker 1: better path to happiness. It's about something bigger justice. The
Speaker 1: arrival myth doesn't quite capture all of that nuance, but
Speaker 1: I still think it's important to say that regardless of size,
Speaker 1: this work around noticing where the arrival myth does show
Speaker 1: up in our thinking is useful because we all definitely
Speaker 1: buy into some version of this myth. Noticing is a
Speaker 1: great way to start breaking down some of that external
Speaker 1: messaging to make room for your desires and values, whatever
Speaker 1: they may be. I have this realization a few years
Speaker 1: ago related to die culture and body ease, that we've
Speaker 1: sort of been told and socialized into believing that privilege
Speaker 1: and happiness are one hundred percent overlaid. That you know,
Speaker 1: the acquisition of a certain type of body or a
Speaker 1: certain type of eating or whatever is absolutely you know,
Speaker 1: it's one to one ratio of like privilege happiness. And
Speaker 1: I think right, diet culture is a really popular or
Speaker 1: common path that is supposed to lead to happiness, and
Speaker 1: I think for a lot of us, the allure of
Speaker 1: staying in diet culture is the happiness we are supposed
Speaker 1: to unlock or earn at the end of our journey.
Speaker 1: And of course the end never seems to ever actually arrive,
Speaker 1: or to your point around the arrival policy, but nonetheless,
Speaker 1: happiness is the carrot in that process. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: there's so I mean, first off, there's just your happiness.
Speaker 1: Researchers have studied whether everything correlates with happiness. You know, income,
Speaker 1: which city you live in, which culture you're from, religion, like,
Speaker 1: you know, how much you exercise, how much you like
Speaker 1: have social connection. Like. They've looked at everything and they've
Speaker 1: never found a correlation between being skinny and being happy,
Speaker 1: Like it's just it's just not there. Right. But like,
Speaker 1: you know, people who really are trying to lose weight
Speaker 1: and then they get to their goal weight or they
Speaker 1: get you know, to whatever they were, you know, again,
Speaker 1: their arrival never really comes. But you know, to the
Speaker 1: extent that they got to some arrival point that they picked,
Speaker 1: are they happier? And the answer is no, And then
Speaker 1: this just isn't just true and diet culture, it's pretty
Speaker 1: much a feature of the human brain, right, you know,
Speaker 1: So take income levels, right, A lot of people think like, oh,
Speaker 1: if I could only make I don't know, one hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars right, then I'll be happier. Or I could
Speaker 1: only do you know, if I could only like you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know, by this school new car, then I
Speaker 1: will be happier. And the evidence suggests both the arrival fallacy.
Speaker 1: When you get there, you're not as happy as you think.
Speaker 1: But even once you get the thing, you kind of
Speaker 1: get used to it really really quickly. Right, Like, there's
Speaker 1: no kind of race that we can play where we
Speaker 1: get to the carrot, because as soon as you get
Speaker 1: to what you think is the carrot, the carrot's like
Speaker 1: a little bit further away. And this this is what
Speaker 1: scientists call hedonic adaptation, which is just a fancy way.
Speaker 1: Yeah it sounds great, right, hedonic, Right like happiness adaptation,
Speaker 1: You just get used to stuff. What does it mean?
Speaker 1: So you know, I don't know. You get the new
Speaker 1: the new version of an iPhone, which you're really excited by.
Speaker 1: This happens to me sometimes because I'm like a lotty
Speaker 1: and I keep technology like forever, and then I finally
Speaker 1: get a new one. I'm like, oh my gosh, it's
Speaker 1: got all these new things. The colors is so awesome,
Speaker 1: and I can like download these apps that I couldn't
Speaker 1: download before. And for a second, like a brief moment,
Speaker 1: you're like, this is so cool. But then you just
Speaker 1: get used to it. It's just your phone. It doesn't
Speaker 1: have any like special features anymore. Right. The same is
Speaker 1: true for, sadly, pretty much every good thing in life.
Speaker 1: The flip side if hedonic adaptation is that all the
Speaker 1: bad things in life you kind of get used to too,
Speaker 1: Like there are definitely things in life that you're like,
Speaker 1: this is just going to be awful and I'll never
Speaker 1: get through it. But like, actually, you get used to
Speaker 1: that stuff too, like think a breakup or you know,
Speaker 1: like some bad news, right, like all your rationalization processes
Speaker 1: kick in and wind making you feel okay with just
Speaker 1: a reasonably small amount of time. You know, if you
Speaker 1: had us predict how long it would take. And so
Speaker 1: that's hedonic adaptation. But what it means is like all
Speaker 1: these things in the ideals of you know, the kind
Speaker 1: of diet culture that you talk about being perfect, getting
Speaker 1: the perfect dress, like getting the perfect relationship, all the
Speaker 1: stuff that we think these kinds of changes are going
Speaker 1: to bring, they don't bring in the way we think.
Speaker 1: And so hedonic adaptation means we're constantly on this treadmill.
Speaker 1: People often talk about the hedonic treadmill where we're like
Speaker 1: chasing something thinking that once we get to it, it's
Speaker 1: going to be great, and either we never get to it,
Speaker 1: because that's the structure of these kind of you know,
Speaker 1: privileged chasing things, or once you do get to it,
Speaker 1: you're like, Okay, that wasn't as awesome as I thought, Like,
Speaker 1: move on to the next thing I think is going
Speaker 1: to be awesome. And you know what we've looked at
Speaker 1: in the podcast, which is funny. I mean it's sad funny.
Speaker 1: You know, it's kind of sad funny is that if
Speaker 1: you look at people who've achieved these ideals of privilege
Speaker 1: after lots of hard work, they're still not happy. And
Speaker 1: so I interviewed this fantastic to guy Clay Cockerell, who's
Speaker 1: a wealth psychologist. So he's a mental health professional that
Speaker 1: works with the point zero zero zero zero one percent. Right,
Speaker 1: So you have to have at least like over one
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars to like go to this guy. And
Speaker 1: already it should be shocking that he has like clients, right,
Speaker 1: because many of us thought if I had one hundred
Speaker 1: million dollars, a lot of stuff would get sorted out, right,
Speaker 1: could fire the therapist, you know, it's like, but no,
Speaker 1: and their problems are, oh my gosh, if only I
Speaker 1: could get to a billion dollars. And so it should
Speaker 1: kind of remind us that so many of the things
Speaker 1: we think are going to work. Again, a lot of
Speaker 1: things that we get these values of what's going to
Speaker 1: work from our culture. We think it's going to work.
Speaker 1: Our culture told us this is the thing we're supposed
Speaker 1: to do. But then we get there and we're just
Speaker 1: not very happy, right, I mean, yes, like I have
Speaker 1: so many thoughts and questions. I mean, I call it
Speaker 1: diet brain. But I notice, I mean, diet brain is
Speaker 1: what you're talking about, which is like, when I do this,
Speaker 1: I will get X, Y Z, And it's okay if
Speaker 1: I'm miserable on the way, because I'm going to get
Speaker 1: this thing at the end. But it's like I've noticed,
Speaker 1: even though I don't restrict food anymore, the diet brain,
Speaker 1: which we could call the capitalist brain, we could call
Speaker 1: it the white supremacist brain, whatever you want to call it, right,
Speaker 1: it's essentially it's the same function applied to all these
Speaker 1: different parts of life. So I'll notice my diet brain
Speaker 1: showing up in my romantic relationships, my diet brain showing
Speaker 1: up around work. And it goes back to you know,
Speaker 1: not being present, not being okay and accepting where you
Speaker 1: are right now. I think all of us have the
Speaker 1: experience of sort of feeling the arrival fallacy, and maybe
Speaker 1: it's just there for a second where we're like, maybe
Speaker 1: the game is rig even if it's only for a
Speaker 1: couple of seconds. But from a cognitive science perspective, why
Speaker 1: do people ignore that sort of maybe moment of like hmm,
Speaker 1: maybe something isn't right. Why are they attached to this fallacy?
Speaker 1: Why is it so alluring? I think it's just, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the things that's annoying about our brains is
Speaker 1: that this process fedonic adaptation, we're blind to it. We
Speaker 1: just don't know what happens, right, and that means we
Speaker 1: can't accurately predict what we're going to enjoy and what
Speaker 1: we're not going to enjoy. One of my favorite kind
Speaker 1: of funny studies about this, So a lot of the
Speaker 1: studies about this have people predict like, this wonderful thing
Speaker 1: is going to happen to you or this really terrible
Speaker 1: thing is going to happen to you. How happy will
Speaker 1: you be or how sad will you be? And for
Speaker 1: how long? And what you find is like, as you
Speaker 1: might expect, people get this wrong. So you know you're
Speaker 1: gonna lose fifty pounds, How happy? Oh my gosh, I'll
Speaker 1: be so happy. No, you just think you got to
Speaker 1: lose another twenty or something, right, you never you know,
Speaker 1: how you get into Yale University, How happy will you be? Like? Nope,
Speaker 1: you know you're immediately going to move on to the
Speaker 1: next goal post, right, So people are wrong about this,
Speaker 1: but there's some case where that they can find situations
Speaker 1: where people have to predict about the same thing over
Speaker 1: and over again, like literally the exact same thing, and
Speaker 1: they still get it wrong. And I think this is
Speaker 1: why diet culture takes hold, you know, for people who
Speaker 1: are kind of really embedded in it is like I'm
Speaker 1: gonna lose weight this time, and then maybe you lose
Speaker 1: some weight and then you gain it back, but then
Speaker 1: you're like, this time when I do, it's really going
Speaker 1: to be happy if I get there right, and it's
Speaker 1: like you're not. You can't update. It's very sad. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is this is a trick of our brain, and
Speaker 1: you can kind of know it rationally, but it's very
Speaker 1: hard to feel it in your body. Yes, absolutely, I
Speaker 1: mean a rebel eaters club, we're really big on listening
Speaker 1: to our bodies and following our intuition. But it sounds
Speaker 1: like sometimes those impulses are not actually always aligned with
Speaker 1: our biggest desires or values. How do we deal with
Speaker 1: that complexity? Laurie, Yeah, well, I think I mean this
Speaker 1: is a problem, right, like our brains. Our brains through
Speaker 1: this like clugy like pile of meat. That's been evolving
Speaker 1: over time. Like it's not sordid, right, like, like we
Speaker 1: give it like, oh my gosh, the human brain is,
Speaker 1: but like, no, it's got problems, right, And one problem
Speaker 1: is that you know, trauma leads us in all kinds
Speaker 1: of different directions when it comes to our intuition. I
Speaker 1: think you're you and this podcast and so many great
Speaker 1: people have done such good work trying to figure out
Speaker 1: how to unpack that. But even if you're not going
Speaker 1: through that, the evidence really shows that we have these
Speaker 1: brains that sometimes lead us in the wrong directions. Like
Speaker 1: or so, how I would build a brain. I would
Speaker 1: build a brain that was really good at like detecting
Speaker 1: things that were pleasurable, Like you know, brain is walking around,
Speaker 1: finds a pair is like, oh let me try this.
Speaker 1: Oh this is pleasurable. Let's go after this, right Like,
Speaker 1: it would kind of know that and the amount I
Speaker 1: worked to get to something would map on to like
Speaker 1: how pleasurable it actually was in reality for me. Right,
Speaker 1: turns out brain stupid not designed like that. We seem
Speaker 1: to have a system. We seem to have a system
Speaker 1: for liking stuff, and by that I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: the actual enjoyment I get out of the pair, Like
Speaker 1: when I taste it, it just there's a sensation, this
Speaker 1: taste that feels good, right, you know, you get that
Speaker 1: probably out of social connection, out of the kind of
Speaker 1: you know, joyful after interactions. I'm getting out of this
Speaker 1: conversation with you. Right, there's this stuff that feels good. Right.
Speaker 1: But then we have a separate system that craves stuff,
Speaker 1: that wants stuff. That's the motivational system that's kicking me
Speaker 1: in the butt, and say, go after that, go after that,
Speaker 1: go after that, get obsessed with it, you know, beat
Speaker 1: yourself up if you don't go for it. And you'd
Speaker 1: hope that those are connected, Like you'd hope that my
Speaker 1: motivational system, my wanting system as the scientists call it,
Speaker 1: would only go for stuff that I actually liked, But
Speaker 1: it turns out not. So there're these interesting disconnects between
Speaker 1: the system, even in like local things. I think when
Speaker 1: I've had a bad day, I'm like, I will really
Speaker 1: like to sit on the couch and scroll through Netflix
Speaker 1: and like do nothing and not talk to anybody and
Speaker 1: not leave the house. But actually what would I like.
Speaker 1: I'd probably like calling a friend, I'd probably like going
Speaker 1: for a walk and like moving my body in a
Speaker 1: kind way like there's all this stuff that would feel better,
Speaker 1: I just don't want it. You know. We get a
Speaker 1: lot of wanting for my phone, Like I definitely feel like, oh,
Speaker 1: I want to scroll Reddit for like sixteen hours, or
Speaker 1: I really want to like look at it, like the
Speaker 1: wanting system makes me do it. But then if you
Speaker 1: ask me at the end of it, like, hey, how
Speaker 1: did that feel, I'm like, I kind of feel sort
Speaker 1: of apathetic and nasty, you know, but I don't have
Speaker 1: like craving or wanting for you know, talking to other
Speaker 1: humans necessarily, or like again, doing the stuff that will
Speaker 1: really give you liking. That is a disconnect between the
Speaker 1: wanting and liking system. And I think that that disconnect
Speaker 1: gets worse when you have different kinds of cultures and
Speaker 1: systems feeding into your wanting system. Right, the wanting system
Speaker 1: gets way hooked up in fear. I think trauma plays
Speaker 1: all kind of like you know, you want to be
Speaker 1: by yourself and protect yourself, right, it gets fed into
Speaker 1: that system, and that doesn't necessarily map on to what
Speaker 1: you're going to like. And so I think for me,
Speaker 1: you know, you could hear about this disconnect and be like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, I'm never going to sort out my brains.
Speaker 1: I should never listen to my intuition whatever. But really,
Speaker 1: when you hear about this, it gives you a path forward,
Speaker 1: which is which is presence, which is mindfulness, which is like, gosh,
Speaker 1: I really got to take time to figure out and
Speaker 1: notice what I like and what I don't like. And
Speaker 1: you know that's one of the reasons I pick the
Speaker 1: pairs for this, right is. I feel like it's like
Speaker 1: a pair is one of these cases of like, actually
Speaker 1: I like the pairs. They're freaking really good, Like they're
Speaker 1: they don't have to get categorized as like healthy food
Speaker 1: in my diet brain. It's like I can enjoy this,
Speaker 1: right Yeah, I mean absolutely, I'm wondering, like, for someone
Speaker 1: like me who really values intuition but also knows that
Speaker 1: other factors like trauma and cultural influences play into the
Speaker 1: information my body is giving me, how do we arrive
Speaker 1: at the right answers for us? Yeah? Well, I think
Speaker 1: it's really I mean, from this perspective of this wanting
Speaker 1: liking system, it's finding ways to get in tune with
Speaker 1: the liking, and that means being present and noticing right,
Speaker 1: like you know, mindful eating, like tasting the food and
Speaker 1: noticing how it feels in your body, and really trying
Speaker 1: to do that in a way where you're really paying
Speaker 1: attention to the physical sensations of this stuff, right, That
Speaker 1: can be really powerful. Taking time to notice how you
Speaker 1: talk to yourself, right, like what are the voices in
Speaker 1: your head saying? And realizing they're just thoughts, right, I
Speaker 1: mean Freddie listener, who doesn't know the thoughts in your
Speaker 1: head aren't you? They're just your thoughts. And those thoughts
Speaker 1: can be influenced by all kinds of crap, your trauma
Speaker 1: about your culture, you know, like capitalism, blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: It's not you. It's just like a conglomeration. And when
Speaker 1: you start to recognize that and question it and realize
Speaker 1: you can change the way you talk to yourself, that
Speaker 1: can be really really powerful for breaking some of these
Speaker 1: things down. And so I think, you know, real practices
Speaker 1: where you engage in that kind of presence, whether it
Speaker 1: be a meditation practice of breath based practice, all of
Speaker 1: those things can be powerful. And I think within that
Speaker 1: is also the necessity of getting in tune with your
Speaker 1: negative emotions again, misconception. You know from all the stuff
Speaker 1: that we have to be happy, and you do have
Speaker 1: no negative emotions, no anxiety, no sadness, no anger. Just
Speaker 1: get rid of those, avoid them and suppress them completely,
Speaker 1: and then I'll be happy. First of all, it doesn't work.
Speaker 1: You know, there's lots of empirical evidence that you just
Speaker 1: cannot suppress your emotions. You try, but they leak out
Speaker 1: in your physiology. The body keeps score as it were,
Speaker 1: So it just doesn't work. But it turns out that
Speaker 1: the way to get through negative emotions is actually to
Speaker 1: go through them and not avoid them. And so practices
Speaker 1: where you really sit with the sadness and the trauma
Speaker 1: that comes from you know, like body hating culture, Like
Speaker 1: the time that you sit with whatever came from being
Speaker 1: part of a like nasty childhood or a traumatic childhood.
Speaker 1: You know that you sit with like just how pissed
Speaker 1: off and frustrating, like you know, the fact that we
Speaker 1: haven't achieved all that we want to achieve in social
Speaker 1: justice feels like right now? Right those are things that
Speaker 1: we need to take time to literally sit with and
Speaker 1: allow in our lives. And the odd thing is that
Speaker 1: by sitting with them, by not rejecting them, but being like,
Speaker 1: it's here, let's go, let's hang out together. You know,
Speaker 1: negative feelings of frustration, sadness, whatever, that's how you get
Speaker 1: through them. That's how you process them and overcome them. Yes,
Speaker 1: and I think you're going back to the concept of happiness,
Speaker 1: Like I think that this is how you create a
Speaker 1: meaningful life. So okay, Laurie, being a human being is
Speaker 1: a lot of work and conclusion. I love what you said.
Speaker 1: I love what you say about the brain, and I
Speaker 1: think there's an opportunity. Immediately when I was thinking about
Speaker 1: this idea of kind of like our imperfect, weird, sort
Speaker 1: of strangely designed brains, I was like, it's another opportunity
Speaker 1: for radical self acceptance, right exactly. Yes, yes, it's like
Speaker 1: and I think you do powerful. Yes, yes, I have this,
Speaker 1: you know, because so one of the things I realize
Speaker 1: is that the right move is embracing what you know,
Speaker 1: social scientists call like self compassion, like, which in the
Speaker 1: scientific literature comes with these three parts. One that we
Speaker 1: talked about a lot mindfulness, right, like noticing what these
Speaker 1: voices are making you feel, like noticing what you need
Speaker 1: um non judgmentally. That's like the important part of mindfulness
Speaker 1: having a common humanity, realizing, hey, everybody goes through this,
Speaker 1: lots of folks have trauma. I'm just human with this
Speaker 1: beat up meat brain that's leading me in the wrong directions,
Speaker 1: and like I shouldn't beat myself up. And then just
Speaker 1: like a real sense that you know, you are just
Speaker 1: human and it's okay, and you need to give yourself
Speaker 1: some self kindness. That's kind of the third piece that
Speaker 1: the way to get yourself to achieve any goal isn't
Speaker 1: to drill sergeant yourself, Like, the way to motivate yourself
Speaker 1: is with kindness, Like talk to yourself like you talk
Speaker 1: to a friend. And you know, this is why I
Speaker 1: love this podcast so much, because I think it's really
Speaker 1: trying to help people cultivate exactly that balanced voice, Like
Speaker 1: you know, we're all like reacting to this awful diet
Speaker 1: culture and like we're all going to do it differently
Speaker 1: and that's cool, and we're like figuring out our journey
Speaker 1: and our path and that doesn't involve beating ourselves up. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: I love this. I'm so excited, Laurie. It's been so
Speaker 1: fun talking with you, Laurie. Last question, if you had
Speaker 1: one tool you wanted to pass on to people who
Speaker 1: are breaking free from diet culture, trying to build their
Speaker 1: own version of happiness and something meaningful. You know what
Speaker 1: is that tool? I mean they already of your podcast,
Speaker 1: so I feel like they're doing okay. But yeah, my
Speaker 1: psychological tool, my psychological tool would be to invest in
Speaker 1: practices that build your self compassion. Self compassion as being mindfulness,
Speaker 1: an okay, recognition of your common humanity, like non judgmentally
Speaker 1: recognizing that you're just human and being kind to yourself.
Speaker 1: And if you need a good reference for this, I
Speaker 1: would suggest checking out this lovely book called Fierce Self
Speaker 1: Compassion by the researcher Kristin Neff, where she argues that
Speaker 1: the only way to you know, come through through trauma,
Speaker 1: to fight privilege, you know, to fight diet culture, all
Speaker 1: the social justice stuff we want to see in the
Speaker 1: world is to be fiercely self compassionate with ourselves. It's
Speaker 1: not to beat ourselves up. So yeah, self compassion would
Speaker 1: be the one tool. Ah, Laurie, you're wonderful. You're a genius.
Speaker 1: You're doing amazing work. Thank you for being on Rebel
Speaker 1: Eaters Club. Thanks so much for having me it was
Speaker 1: super fun. Yay Wow. Laurie's work always blows my mind.
Speaker 1: I'm going to be thinking about hedonic adaptation a lot
Speaker 1: this year. Laurie brought up some important questions I'd love
Speaker 1: to encourage us all to chew on, like how do
Speaker 1: you sort intuition from trauma from cultural influence? And how
Speaker 1: can we remember to use the tool of self compassion
Speaker 1: early and often to push back on the messages we
Speaker 1: get from diet culture. If you have thoughts on these
Speaker 1: questions or the conversation you just heard, or even if
Speaker 1: you just want to say hi, reach out shoot us
Speaker 1: a message at Rebel Eaters Club at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: Rebel Eaters Club is brought to you by Transmitter Media.
Speaker 1: This episode was written and produced by Isabelle Carter. Sarah
Speaker 1: Knicks is Transmitters executive editor. Wilson Sarah is our managing producer,
Speaker 1: and Greta Khane is our executive producer and I'm your host.
Speaker 1: Virgie tovar Rick Kwan is our mixed engineer. And thanks
Speaker 1: to Taka Yasuzala, who wrote some of the music we
Speaker 1: use in the show. If you love Rebel Eaters Club,
Speaker 1: tell your friends and share the love by writing a
Speaker 1: review on your favorite podcast app. See you next week.