Speaker 1: Pushkin. The first few weeks of January are peak New
Speaker 1: Year's resolution time, and a lot of those resolutions involved
Speaker 1: changing how our bodies look. According to one global consumer survey,
Speaker 1: nearly half of people who made New Year's resolutions last
Speaker 1: year wanted to change what they ate and how much
Speaker 1: they exercised, with more than four and ten specifically saying
Speaker 1: that they wanted to lose weight. And this time of year,
Speaker 1: there are lots and lots of outside voices that are
Speaker 1: ready to tell us exactly how we should fix our bodies.
Speaker 1: If you look at a magazine or your social media
Speaker 1: feed this month, you'll probably get bombarded with healthy eating
Speaker 1: ads claiming to have a scientific solution to the perfect
Speaker 1: beach body, or stories of people who successfully toned their
Speaker 1: butts with the latest bad diets. Every January were surrounded
Speaker 1: by concepts like quito and pigan in intermit and fasting
Speaker 1: and belly blasting. Even if we know rationally that bellies
Speaker 1: probably aren't supposed to be blasted, it's really easy to
Speaker 1: get swept up by all those deafening body shaming voices
Speaker 1: and to think that we're going about something as fundamental
Speaker 1: as feeding ourselves in all the wrong ways. But if
Speaker 1: you think about it, all, this body shame is kind
Speaker 1: of weird because we don't let outside voices tell us
Speaker 1: what to do when it comes to navigating our other
Speaker 1: bodily needs, like when to go to the bathroom or
Speaker 1: whether or not it's a good idea to put on
Speaker 1: a sweater if we're feeling cold. When it comes to
Speaker 1: these physical requirements, we don't feel the need to look
Speaker 1: to social media suggestions or magazine ads. We just listen
Speaker 1: to our bodies in order to figure out what they
Speaker 1: need to feel good. Our guest Today, author's psychotherapist and
Speaker 1: Happiness Lab regular Andrea Walkder, argues that it's time to
Speaker 1: start thinking about feeding ourselves in the same intuitive way
Speaker 1: that we think about other bodily needs. Andrea herself struggled
Speaker 1: for many years with disordered eating. She dieted drastically, restricting
Speaker 1: her and take of food, but also rioted the phrase
Speaker 1: she uses to describe the eating binges she went on
Speaker 1: when she wasn't dieting. It was a roller coaster ride
Speaker 1: that took her decades to get off. Andrea has seen
Speaker 1: that taking time to listen to your wise, inner hunger
Speaker 1: voice can help you avoid the shame that comes from
Speaker 1: outside diet advice. In fact, she's living proof that with
Speaker 1: some inner work, it's possible to not even hear all
Speaker 1: those loud diet voices. Truth be told, I don't keep
Speaker 1: up on those anymore. I used to know every single
Speaker 1: diet that because I was like on them, And now
Speaker 1: I don't even keep up because there's so many I
Speaker 1: know a lot of people are doing the intermitten fasting
Speaker 1: and a lot of carrying scales to the restaurant. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's just so many things. But so many of us
Speaker 1: have been hypnotized and programmed to think that we need
Speaker 1: to be a certain body size or weight, and that
Speaker 1: if we attain that certain magical number or size, we
Speaker 1: will be happy, we will be healthy, and we will
Speaker 1: even be more lovable. Never mind if that size is
Speaker 1: even natural for us. But once we're pro grammed and
Speaker 1: we buy into the programming, which is hard not to
Speaker 1: buy into it. But once we're programmed, it causes us
Speaker 1: to cut ourselves off from our natural hunger and fullness
Speaker 1: and satisfaction and cravings. We have this innate knowing inside
Speaker 1: of us. We're not born thinking foods are good or
Speaker 1: bad or body sizes are good or bad. We get programmed. So,
Speaker 1: like you say, with the bathroom, I have to go
Speaker 1: to the bathroom, I go. There's no shame involved, there's
Speaker 1: no pressure about it. Well maybe bladder pressure. If I'm cold,
Speaker 1: I put on a sweater. It's not about my self esteem,
Speaker 1: you know. But because there's so much pressure and programming
Speaker 1: around body sizes, perfectionism, fat phobia, my okayness being based
Speaker 1: on my size, then it causes us to split ourselves
Speaker 1: off from this natural mechanism that tells us when, what
Speaker 1: and how much to eat. It must be really frustrating
Speaker 1: at the start of the new year, where you just
Speaker 1: see article after article and Google search after Google search
Speaker 1: about all these new weird diets when like you know,
Speaker 1: you've seen the answers out there it should be inside
Speaker 1: it is. It's sad to me because we're so seduced.
Speaker 1: And I would say to everybody listening, prepared to be
Speaker 1: seduced by the new fad diets, the old fad diets.
Speaker 1: And you know, we don't click on every ad that
Speaker 1: pops up on our screens, we don't buy every item
Speaker 1: that pops up. It's like to have the not just
Speaker 1: courage but the willingness to believe that if diets worked,
Speaker 1: they would have worked by now. The diet industry is
Speaker 1: the only industry I know of that continues to grow
Speaker 1: despite a huge failure rate. But people still believe in them.
Speaker 1: And so yes, when I hear people going on some
Speaker 1: new diet and they're even like high in the beginning
Speaker 1: from it, it's hard not to intervene. But I only
Speaker 1: intervene with people who come to me for intervening, don't
Speaker 1: go out and get them. So, yeah, people are so
Speaker 1: seduced by diets, and I would say there's a very
Speaker 1: small percentage of people that they work for. I haven't
Speaker 1: met any of them, but I'm guessing there might be
Speaker 1: a few. But for most people, they cause obsession, they
Speaker 1: cause feeling unwell and malnourished, and then they cause riotous rebellion,
Speaker 1: if not full blown eating disorders. And you're talking about
Speaker 1: this in the abstract, but this is something that you
Speaker 1: know personally, like you were under this spell a lot yourself, right, completely,
Speaker 1: like in a trance from this spell restricting obsessing and
Speaker 1: or binging. I was caught in it for decades, And
Speaker 1: what was that like for your psychology? Right? Because It's
Speaker 1: one thing to kind of it's stressful for how you eat,
Speaker 1: but it's another thing because it really affects your flourishing too.
Speaker 1: It affects everything. It affected my thinking. I was so
Speaker 1: focused on body size and food, not only mine but others,
Speaker 1: comparing and worrying about it, stressing about what I was
Speaker 1: going to eat or not eat, and then of course
Speaker 1: being so unsatisfied and hungry that I was out of
Speaker 1: control so often. So I call it the diet riot
Speaker 1: roller coaster. And I was riding that ride for a
Speaker 1: long long time. And so, what was your turning point?
Speaker 1: Because this idea of turning to the internal signals we
Speaker 1: have when it comes to food, you know, it can
Speaker 1: be really scary. You know, how did you find your
Speaker 1: way back to your own inner food voice. Well, I
Speaker 1: struggled for a really long time with an eating disorder.
Speaker 1: Some people have lesser severe disordered eating. And I'd gotten
Speaker 1: help for a really long time on those issues, and
Speaker 1: I've made a lot of progress, but I still had
Speaker 1: that leftover diet mentality and body dissatisfaction. And there was
Speaker 1: just this moment I'll never forget it. There was this
Speaker 1: moment where I decided I wanted peace of mind and
Speaker 1: wellness more than I wanted to be a certain number
Speaker 1: or a certain size. I was so tired of restrictive
Speaker 1: eating and chaotic eating, and I took this vow with myself.
Speaker 1: It was like, Andrea, do you take Andrea? I took
Speaker 1: this vow with myself that when I approach a food choice,
Speaker 1: whether it's walking into the kitchen, opening the refrigerator, opening
Speaker 1: a menu at a restaurant, I am going to tune
Speaker 1: into the part of me that is wise and loving
Speaker 1: and just that knows. And prior to that vow, I
Speaker 1: had like a committee going every time I approached a
Speaker 1: food choice. Is that the dieter or should I eat that?
Speaker 1: Is that the rioter? Or is that too? Was that
Speaker 1: over feelings? It was just like this whole big deal.
Speaker 1: Once I was trying to heal these parts of myself.
Speaker 1: But once I had this moment, it was like, I'm
Speaker 1: just going straight to the love. I'm just tired of
Speaker 1: the battle, and I'll never forget it. I went to
Speaker 1: the store for the first time in my adult life,
Speaker 1: and I just bought what sounded good to me. I
Speaker 1: went home and it was the first meal I can
Speaker 1: remember that I ate a non restrictive, delicious, nutritious meal,
Speaker 1: and I was totally satisfied. I mean, that sounds amazing,
Speaker 1: right to kind of get off this roller coaster. But
Speaker 1: I think, you know, for many of us, and you know,
Speaker 1: even for you back in the day, like I think,
Speaker 1: it's really scary because there's so much information out there
Speaker 1: telling us, hey, this is the right way to eat
Speaker 1: or that's a bad way to eat. You know that
Speaker 1: this is so out there in the culture. It was
Speaker 1: scary because I had only known two modes I had
Speaker 1: only known, like caged animal around food or animal breaking
Speaker 1: out of the cage. I really didn't have any reason
Speaker 1: to trust myself because I hadn't been very trustworthy with food.
Speaker 1: But I just knew, and I kept reminding myself that
Speaker 1: I wanted peace of mind, and I didn't know what
Speaker 1: would happen to my body if I let go of
Speaker 1: that crazy roller coaster restricting and obsessing and binging. But
Speaker 1: I just decided I was willing to find out and
Speaker 1: willing to be kind to myself. You know, you engage
Speaker 1: in this process after you know a lot of recovery work.
Speaker 1: But these days this practice has become a little bit
Speaker 1: more popular in the field talk about this idea of
Speaker 1: intuitive eating. Yeah, intuitive eating is it's like a paradigm.
Speaker 1: It's a way of approaching wellness and food choices and
Speaker 1: taking care of yourself that really encourages going inside for
Speaker 1: your cues rather than outside from all the rules. And
Speaker 1: it really is a commitment. It's quite a duover for
Speaker 1: people that are used to going outside to get their
Speaker 1: ideas of how to eat, how to move, what to feel.
Speaker 1: It originated with these two authors that are dietitians and
Speaker 1: they wrote the book Intuitive Eating in the nineties and
Speaker 1: it's still quite applicable today. We need it more than ever.
Speaker 1: So it's really about giving yourself permission, but also being
Speaker 1: kind to yourself and feeding Rather the old paradigm has
Speaker 1: been that we're told what we're supposed to look like,
Speaker 1: and then we try to eat an exercise in a
Speaker 1: way that makes us look that way. But this paradigm
Speaker 1: is about feeding yourself and treating yourself respectfully and allowing
Speaker 1: your body to unfold into the body that nature intended
Speaker 1: for you. I mean, it sounds in some ways so simple,
Speaker 1: but you know it's it's so counterintuitive given so many
Speaker 1: of the other outside forces I think, you know, another
Speaker 1: paradigm that's really connected to the intuitive eating approach is
Speaker 1: also this approach that's known as Health at Every Size.
Speaker 1: You know, what's that and how is it really related
Speaker 1: to this idea of intuitive eating. Health at Every Size,
Speaker 1: or they call it HAZE for short, is a long
Speaker 1: needed movement to end weight discrimination and to help people
Speaker 1: shift the assumption that all fat people are unhealthy. It's
Speaker 1: just simply not true. And both intuitive eating and Health
Speaker 1: at Every Size promote practicing self care, self respect, feeding
Speaker 1: yourself non restrictively and respectfully for the sake of well being,
Speaker 1: rather than for the sake of trying to be a
Speaker 1: certain size that might not even be meant for you.
Speaker 1: You know, you engage in this process after a lot
Speaker 1: of recovery work for eating and things like that. But
Speaker 1: these days this practice has become a little bit more
Speaker 1: popular in the field, right and you know, so talk
Speaker 1: about this idea of intuitive eating like a little bit
Speaker 1: of the history of this kind of program. In practice,
Speaker 1: it's about becoming aware of diet mentality, being willing to
Speaker 1: acknowledge or even consider that diets don't work, that they're ineffective.
Speaker 1: If they worked, you would have been happily ever after
Speaker 1: after your first one, and I'm guessing most listeners have
Speaker 1: been on more than one, increasing your awareness of your
Speaker 1: body's needs, just like you're aware when you're thirsty cold
Speaker 1: have to go to the bathroom. Starting to get to
Speaker 1: know when am I hungry? What are those signals? What
Speaker 1: sounds delicious to me? What does my body need? Tuning
Speaker 1: into your body's signals around movement instead of I should
Speaker 1: exercise or I'm not getting off the couch, what does
Speaker 1: my body want to do? And it takes a while
Speaker 1: to kind of peel off the layers, you know, and
Speaker 1: get through the brambles of diet mentality to really hear
Speaker 1: that voice. It's it's a soft voice inside this knowing,
Speaker 1: loving wisdom, and these loud voices of diet mentality, body hatred,
Speaker 1: exercise rules can sometimes often sometimes slash all the time,
Speaker 1: drown out that soft inner knowing. Problem with hearing those
Speaker 1: soft inner voices is that we have to actually be
Speaker 1: paying attention to them in our lives, right and I
Speaker 1: feel like there's there's the noise of all these external
Speaker 1: signals of what we should be eating, and you know,
Speaker 1: our own inner diet mentality, but there's also just like
Speaker 1: the noise of our lives, you know, Like you know,
Speaker 1: there's probably some days that I don't notice I'm hungry
Speaker 1: because I'm like running around, and it sometimes just feels
Speaker 1: easier to eat by the clock or make a rule
Speaker 1: about what I'm going to eat, because it's it's hard
Speaker 1: in a busy lifestyle to really pay attention to what
Speaker 1: your body needs. I mean, is this something that a
Speaker 1: lot of people who start intuitive eating seem to go through. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: it's like a symbol. If you're struggling with feeding yourself
Speaker 1: or paying attention to yourself, look at your whole life,
Speaker 1: not just the food. Food issues are about so many
Speaker 1: more things. Because this is really a holistic approach. So
Speaker 1: it's almost like the body is the child, and the
Speaker 1: wise mind and the respectful actions are the parents. And
Speaker 1: so yes, if we're busy, if we're lost on screens,
Speaker 1: if we're not paying attention, if we're over work, how
Speaker 1: can we take care of ourselves? But I would think
Speaker 1: most people, if you have a child with a super
Speaker 1: busy day school, after schools, things and sports, you would
Speaker 1: pack that child food. So it's being willing to take
Speaker 1: that time for ourselves and so let's kind of go
Speaker 1: even deeper because I think, you know, as we start
Speaker 1: to think about intuitive eating, I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people have even more specific questions about, you know, what
Speaker 1: are the kinds of things that you know count as
Speaker 1: part of intuitive eating and not. You know, so many people,
Speaker 1: for example, think about the possibility of, you know, a
Speaker 1: particular way of eating. You know, let's say you're vegetarian
Speaker 1: or vegan, or let's say you want to give up
Speaker 1: a particular food group, Like, can that be done in
Speaker 1: the context of intuitive eating or is that always restrictive? No?
Speaker 1: I definitely think it depends on the motives. If somebody
Speaker 1: is cutting out a certain food because ethically that's important
Speaker 1: to them, or because their body has an allergic response,
Speaker 1: it doesn't they don't feel well when they eat that food,
Speaker 1: it's respectful not to eat that food. But if somebody's
Speaker 1: cutting out of food because they think it's too high
Speaker 1: in calories or fed, or they think it's not going
Speaker 1: to make them get to their goals, then it's very
Speaker 1: likely to cause obsession and preoccupation about that food and
Speaker 1: or rebellious eating on that food or every other possible
Speaker 1: food around that food. What about other forms of kind
Speaker 1: of paying attention external cues, right, you know, like for example,
Speaker 1: like is weighing yourself you know, consistent with intuitive eating?
Speaker 1: Is kind of you tracking other kinds of nutritional values?
Speaker 1: You know? Is that consistent with intuitive eating? You know?
Speaker 1: I imagine it's kind of the same thing I'm hearing.
Speaker 1: It might be like the motivation, the reasons why you're
Speaker 1: doing those kinds of tracking, and the effects they have.
Speaker 1: So if someone struggles with their eating and their body image,
Speaker 1: weighing is usually not helpful and actually often triggering, because
Speaker 1: intuitive eating is about getting your answers from inside. Am
Speaker 1: I hungry? Am I tired? What do I need? Do
Speaker 1: I need fresh air? Do I want a sandwich? Do
Speaker 1: I want to rest? And a scale can't tell us that?
Speaker 1: And if anything, oftentimes people will get triggered by the
Speaker 1: number and it will lead them to restrict and or
Speaker 1: rebel from the feelings. So I think for someone who
Speaker 1: has body image issues and or disordered eating or an
Speaker 1: eating disorder, I don't recommend scales, if anything, write down
Speaker 1: on a piece of paper, listen to your body, sweetheart,
Speaker 1: or the tape it on top of the scale. Those apps,
Speaker 1: those tracking apps. My response would be similar that if
Speaker 1: someone doesn't have issues or a history of body shame, dieting,
Speaker 1: riotous eating, those tracking apps can be fun. My husband
Speaker 1: has one and he even enjoys, you know, looking at
Speaker 1: his steps or whatever the heap tracks. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but an app can't tell me when I want to
Speaker 1: take a walk or when I want to lay down.
Speaker 1: That's up to me to know. So it really depends
Speaker 1: on what the app or the group or the scale,
Speaker 1: what they're aligned with. And the values here are about
Speaker 1: of care, not having a certain food that you should
Speaker 1: or shouldn't eat unless it's a loving motive, and not
Speaker 1: having a certain size that you should or shouldn't be.
Speaker 1: And so when we think about some of the benefits
Speaker 1: that come from eating this way, you know, it's a
Speaker 1: different kind of benefit than we usually think about with
Speaker 1: this diet mentality. Right, you know a lot of these
Speaker 1: you know, keto, paleo, you know, whatever the new thing is, Like,
Speaker 1: the benefit that comes from that is supposed to be
Speaker 1: a certain body size, you know, a certain number on
Speaker 1: the scale. You know, intuitive eating doesn't come with that benefit.
Speaker 1: What are the benefits that come from eating this way? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good question. There are a lot of benefits,
Speaker 1: and the authors of intuitive Eating have hundreds of studies
Speaker 1: on their website. I'm not affiliated with them, but if
Speaker 1: somebody cares to look into that, benefits are increased energy
Speaker 1: and clarity obviously if you're not starving yourself or stuffing
Speaker 1: yourself regularly, decrease in disordered eating and eating disorders, improved
Speaker 1: well being, improved happiness, improved cholesterol levels. There's really a
Speaker 1: lot of benefits that have been shown for people who
Speaker 1: intuitively ate for an ongoing basis. I'm glad you mentioned
Speaker 1: this idea of, you know, things like reduce cholesterol too,
Speaker 1: because I think, you know, when you're so used to
Speaker 1: the diet mentality, you assume that if you just ate
Speaker 1: what you wanted to eat, it would lead to these
Speaker 1: negative consequences in terms of your health. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think obviously, you know, people think in terms of the
Speaker 1: negative consequences for their body weight and the particular body
Speaker 1: weight they might be aspiring to be, or something like that.
Speaker 1: I think we also assume that if we just let
Speaker 1: ourselves eat the way we'd want to eat, you know,
Speaker 1: it'd be hot fudge Sundays, you know, like every day,
Speaker 1: and you know, you know, ruin your cholesterol, you know
Speaker 1: your numbers would go go badly. But but that's not
Speaker 1: actually what people see when they commit to eating with
Speaker 1: love for themselves and really paying careful attention to what
Speaker 1: this inner voice is saying right over time, Because sometimes
Speaker 1: there's that rebellious response. If someone's been dieting for years
Speaker 1: and now they're going to give themselves permission to eat,
Speaker 1: there can be this you know riot is reacting. But
Speaker 1: to me personally, that wasn't loving either. And when I
Speaker 1: was in my early years of healing, I even read
Speaker 1: books and worked with people that said, well, in order
Speaker 1: to get over this diet riot mentality, you have to
Speaker 1: just buy all your forbidden foods, load up your house,
Speaker 1: and eat as much of them as you want to
Speaker 1: get sick of them. And that didn't work for me.
Speaker 1: I ate till I got sick from them, not of them,
Speaker 1: And so that was not my path. My path was
Speaker 1: just to fine what was loving and respectful and to
Speaker 1: deal with the unmet needs and underlying issues that dare
Speaker 1: I say, fed into my eating issues. So far, we've
Speaker 1: heard the intuitive eating. This practice of listening to what
Speaker 1: our bodies really need comes with a host of benefits
Speaker 1: for our bodies and physical health, but also for our
Speaker 1: happiness levels. But intuitive eating can also be tough to do,
Speaker 1: at least at first. So when we get back from
Speaker 1: the break, we'll talk more about specific strategies we can
Speaker 1: use to stop focusing on inches or calories or pounds
Speaker 1: and move towards a more intuitive relationship with food that
Speaker 1: being a slab will be right back. Psychotherapist author and
Speaker 1: insight time or APP teacher Andrea Walter has helped thousands
Speaker 1: of students find their wise inner eating voice, So I
Speaker 1: was interested in what she recommends for beginners. What are
Speaker 1: the first steps we should take when it comes to
Speaker 1: developing a more intuitive relationship with food? Well, what are
Speaker 1: the first things that I do in my course is
Speaker 1: really try to diminish shame, because if somebody has a
Speaker 1: problematic relationship with food and their body, they usually feel
Speaker 1: ashamed about it. So to try to help people see
Speaker 1: that they're not bad, that their body and they're eating
Speaker 1: are the kind of the innocent recipients of faulty and
Speaker 1: insane programming, because then people eat over the shame and
Speaker 1: they restrict over the shame. And to me, one of
Speaker 1: the first steps is really seeing that we've been duped
Speaker 1: and we've been taught that there's a certain body size
Speaker 1: that's okay and acceptable and that will bring you happily
Speaker 1: ever afterness and it's not true. Then we dive into
Speaker 1: how to deal with your feelings, how to identify your feelings,
Speaker 1: how to become aware of your thoughts, and if they're
Speaker 1: not kind, to consider challenging them, upgrading them. We update
Speaker 1: our phones all the time, updating our thinking. And it's
Speaker 1: really all about awareness, right, I mean, that's the name
Speaker 1: of the game. And the willingness. Like I took that
Speaker 1: vow back then, I wanted peace of mind and wellness
Speaker 1: more than I wanted to try to control my body.
Speaker 1: So for people to continually look at their values. Is
Speaker 1: this working for me spending so much time and energy
Speaker 1: trying to control my eating and my body size and
Speaker 1: or rebelling from the control, or do I want to
Speaker 1: find another way? It does take work, it does take practice,
Speaker 1: it does take patience, but it's a whole huge over
Speaker 1: from what most people are doing. And so let's say
Speaker 1: you want to engage with this practice of intuitive eating,
Speaker 1: but you're like not really feeling that intuitive, or you know,
Speaker 1: like you know you're a little worried, you're on the
Speaker 1: baby steps you know to doing it. You know, you
Speaker 1: sit down at a restaurant, right, you know, look at
Speaker 1: the menu, you know, any tips for what to listen
Speaker 1: to kind of make that choice. Well, I for myself,
Speaker 1: when I was in the trenches, I would ask myself
Speaker 1: these questions. I think we did a whole podcast on
Speaker 1: one of them. I love these questions because it is
Speaker 1: so hard when you're immersed in diet mentality, it can
Speaker 1: kind of it can drown out that inner knowing. So
Speaker 1: I found when I would ask myself, how would I
Speaker 1: feed someone I love who doesn't diet or riot? Because
Speaker 1: if you're thinking of feeding someone else, there's not the
Speaker 1: shame there. There's just kind of wisdom and oh, I
Speaker 1: would feed them this or this or I know they
Speaker 1: love this or they like this. So how would you
Speaker 1: feed someone else you love who doesn't diet or riot?
Speaker 1: What feels the most loving for your body right now?
Speaker 1: What feels the most respectful for your body right now?
Speaker 1: It's not respectful to restrict and eat things you don't
Speaker 1: even like, and it's not respectful to stuff ourselves. It's
Speaker 1: just to tune into the kind voice inside. I also
Speaker 1: like to help people distinguish between the different internal voices
Speaker 1: that might be going on if they're sitting at a restaurant.
Speaker 1: But know that if you keep practicing, it won't be
Speaker 1: this much work. It gets more natural. So for most people,
Speaker 1: there's an inner diet or voice, I should eat that,
Speaker 1: I should order that. Oh, I shouldn't have that. That's bad.
Speaker 1: Oh my friend is having that. I shouldn't have that
Speaker 1: inner dieter. And then for a lot of people there's
Speaker 1: the rioter from the dieter, and that's you know, I
Speaker 1: want twenty or I want it all or forget it.
Speaker 1: I'll have it when all when I get home. And
Speaker 1: then there's this body wisdom, so to begin to ask themselves,
Speaker 1: try to connect with the different parts till you get
Speaker 1: to what feels loving, respectful, non restrictive, delicious, What does
Speaker 1: my body truly want? And I think the act of
Speaker 1: doing that require a certain kind of mindful attention in
Speaker 1: these moments of decision. Right, my guess is that you're
Speaker 1: not going to get to that wise inner voice that
Speaker 1: can really tell you what you want if you're checking
Speaker 1: your email while you're pulling up the menu or showing
Speaker 1: up to this meal, like in a completely frantic space,
Speaker 1: Like it takes a lot of intention and attention to
Speaker 1: kind of figure this out, as does everything. I mean,
Speaker 1: if we wanted to learn French, we wouldn't just go
Speaker 1: to class and be on our phones and expect to
Speaker 1: be fluent in two lessons. Right, Anything we want to learn,
Speaker 1: it requires desire to learn it, the solution of what
Speaker 1: to learn, what to do instead of what we've been
Speaker 1: doing and practice, practice, practice and patience. Of course, when
Speaker 1: you say that, it makes absolute sense, like this is
Speaker 1: how we do anything important in life. But I think
Speaker 1: that's the contrast from what our culture is telling us.
Speaker 1: You know, our culture is telling us like, oh, if
Speaker 1: you just do intermit and fasting, everything will be perfect,
Speaker 1: or just follow keto. Like is there a sense in
Speaker 1: which people can get worried about intuitive eating because it
Speaker 1: is committing to this long process, in this mindful process
Speaker 1: of paying attention. It's not a quick fix in the
Speaker 1: way that you know other kinds of external plans seem
Speaker 1: to be. That's true, And I would say, look at
Speaker 1: your history. If diets were effective the first or maybe
Speaker 1: even second, I'll be generous the second or diet you
Speaker 1: went on would have done the trick. You'd be at
Speaker 1: the body size that you think would make you happy.
Speaker 1: You'd feel great, You're eating would be pleasurable and nourishing
Speaker 1: and not a big problem. You'd be happy with your body.
Speaker 1: It's like the diets promise us all of these things,
Speaker 1: and people still believe them because they're so seductive, and
Speaker 1: they don't come true, they don't pan out. So it's
Speaker 1: questioning the diet rather than yourself. Another challenge people face
Speaker 1: is that if you've really been on this kind of
Speaker 1: diet mentality, diet riot roller coaster for a long time,
Speaker 1: it can be hard to start, right. I think there's
Speaker 1: this real worry that, you know, if you really listen
Speaker 1: to what you wanted, you would be out of control, right,
Speaker 1: you know, And so how do you kind of overcome
Speaker 1: this sort of shame and guilt that comes up, especially
Speaker 1: for people who've had a real struggle with eating history
Speaker 1: for a long time. Well, I think it's being willing
Speaker 1: to consider that even though you're eating has been problematic,
Speaker 1: it's not the problem, and that the problems are deeper,
Speaker 1: and so to be willing to question the programming around
Speaker 1: body sizes perfectionistic eating, perfectionistic looks, fat phobia, diet mentality,
Speaker 1: to begin to question those programs the same way we
Speaker 1: question other social issues. We take a stand against social
Speaker 1: issues all the time, or for social issues all the time.
Speaker 1: So what's happened for so many people is they get
Speaker 1: bombarded with the diet mentality and body perfectionism and fat phobia,
Speaker 1: and then they kind of side with the programming and
Speaker 1: turn against their poor bodies. But what we're talking about
Speaker 1: here is siding with your body and say no to
Speaker 1: those programs and decide that you want more peace. It
Speaker 1: will take time, It will take work. So is dieting
Speaker 1: and rioting. I mean that that takes time too. Hating
Speaker 1: your body, that takes a lot of time. And then
Speaker 1: I think another word that people have when they hear
Speaker 1: about intuitive eating. I've heard friends of mine mentioned this
Speaker 1: is like, especially if you have a history of diets,
Speaker 1: you know, it can feel easy to maybe turn intuitive
Speaker 1: eating into its own diet, right like now I must
Speaker 1: eat intuitive, I must find inner voice. And I mean
Speaker 1: do you see that with some of your students, Like
Speaker 1: how do you prevent intuitive eating from becoming just another
Speaker 1: thing that we should be doing in our minds. I
Speaker 1: definitely see that, and we talk about that in the
Speaker 1: course classroom often if someone has been dieting or and
Speaker 1: or have diet mentality. You don't have to be on
Speaker 1: a diet, by the way, to have diet mentality. It's
Speaker 1: like I say, in action or just reacting to food
Speaker 1: as good or bad. So that diet mentality is so
Speaker 1: tricky and sticky. It's like it can be so subtle
Speaker 1: and come into even this new way of being with food.
Speaker 1: So I would I say to people, just keep an
Speaker 1: eye out for it. Keep an eye out for that perfectionism.
Speaker 1: I blew it. I have to start all over. I
Speaker 1: shouldn't have that. I should be a certain size, just
Speaker 1: to kind of keep an eye out for the diet
Speaker 1: mentality statements that feel familiar and know that when you're
Speaker 1: learning something new. Of course, it's challenging at first. It
Speaker 1: takes practice, and just to keep renewing your vows that
Speaker 1: we want peace here if somebody wants that. That's the
Speaker 1: only reason someone comes to my course is because they're
Speaker 1: tired of battling with food and their body. So renewing
Speaker 1: that commitment again and again. Oh that's the reason I'm
Speaker 1: here not to control my weight and not to continue
Speaker 1: on this diet track. And I think it sounds like
Speaker 1: also that that takes a lot of inner listening, right.
Speaker 1: You need to notice the like subtle judginess that's there,
Speaker 1: or the subtle riotiness when you've kind of give in
Speaker 1: yourself permission. And I think in some sense, like you know,
Speaker 1: notice it without judgment. Right, then keeping more shame onto yourself,
Speaker 1: because that's not going to help the process, right, beating
Speaker 1: yourself up? About beating yourself up? Yeah, not helpful? Yeah,
Speaker 1: absolutely noticing being aware And it doesn't have to be perfect.
Speaker 1: Intuitive eating diets are about perfection. This is like not
Speaker 1: about perfection. It's just about continuing to be willing to
Speaker 1: look inside, to be awake. We can't really learn anything
Speaker 1: if we're not awake. So it does definitely take being
Speaker 1: aware and being willing and renewing your commitment to why
Speaker 1: you're doing this. You've been using these practices for a
Speaker 1: long time and you've seen the benefits you in your
Speaker 1: own students, like you know, how can this really change
Speaker 1: our relationship with food in our bodies? It brings freedom.
Speaker 1: There is so much more free time if you're not
Speaker 1: obsessing on your food or your body. It brings a
Speaker 1: feeling of wellness. It doesn't mean that we don't struggle
Speaker 1: with other things or get sick from other reasons, but
Speaker 1: it brings this sense of liberation that there's nothing to memorize,
Speaker 1: there's nothing to calculate. I remember, I just would have
Speaker 1: to work so hard to kind of keep track of
Speaker 1: what I ate and how much should I be eating now?
Speaker 1: And what time is it now. It's just the answers
Speaker 1: are inside. It's so simple. It's just like simple, but
Speaker 1: not easy. One place inside, same place. I know if
Speaker 1: I'm thirsty or hungry or tired or have to go
Speaker 1: to the bathroom. But it does take a lot of unlearning.
Speaker 1: So yes, it is so liberating and freeing. And that's
Speaker 1: what I hear from people often. I hear from people
Speaker 1: that have been dieting and rioting for decades and now
Speaker 1: they're feeling freer, and then a lot of grief comes up,
Speaker 1: like that they wasted so much time obsessing on food
Speaker 1: and their body and to just have some freedom where
Speaker 1: you tune inside, you eat what you and your body love,
Speaker 1: and like you stop when you're satisfied and comfortably full,
Speaker 1: and you deal with your feelings in other ways. And
Speaker 1: it's kind of ironic because I feel like, you know,
Speaker 1: people when they go into the diet mentality, you know,
Speaker 1: they're willing to learn, you know, some elaborate point system
Speaker 1: they're willing to learn. You know how many carbs like
Speaker 1: you know, slice of pepperoni has They're willing to learn
Speaker 1: and put lots of time into some new workout. You know.
Speaker 1: Intuitive eating kind of is the same, like if you
Speaker 1: just put in the time and listen, you'll get this
Speaker 1: benefit that won't have the blowback later one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: And how much I waited and how many fat rams
Speaker 1: were in a you know cookie, and yeah, exactly the
Speaker 1: other day, I had bought some cookies a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks ago from a bakery that my husband and I love,
Speaker 1: and I ate a few when I got home, and
Speaker 1: then I put them in a tup aware and about
Speaker 1: a week or so later, he said, I'm starting to
Speaker 1: finish up these cookies. Do you want to get in
Speaker 1: on any before they're gone? And I had completely forgotten
Speaker 1: about them, and I thought, there you go. I mean
Speaker 1: I would have been possessed by them eating them all
Speaker 1: on the way home, told myself, I can't have any cookies,
Speaker 1: and I had a very difficult relationship in the past,
Speaker 1: but just that I could forget about them, enjoy them
Speaker 1: when I had them, and then was not possessed by them,
Speaker 1: you know, say no more. I think part of it
Speaker 1: is that we get really seduced by, you know, the
Speaker 1: hope of a new diet, and you know, maybe in
Speaker 1: some cases even the kind of you know, veneer of
Speaker 1: science that comes with some of these diets that are
Speaker 1: out there. But I think there's also like a deep
Speaker 1: skepticism of our own inner voice. You know. I've heard
Speaker 1: people who hear about intuitive eating will say, yeah, other
Speaker 1: people have an inner voice when it comes to food,
Speaker 1: but not me, Like I'm always going to be this
Speaker 1: ravenous pit that's riotous all the time. I mean, do
Speaker 1: you get that in your students of people who just
Speaker 1: simply don't trust that the inner voice is in there,
Speaker 1: that they'll find it right. But we've been brainwashed to
Speaker 1: believe that a certain body size will bring us happiness,
Speaker 1: health and forever afterness of everything, and so that brainwashing
Speaker 1: is thick. So it takes a lot of washing our
Speaker 1: brains of those beliefs, those programs they're so deep for
Speaker 1: so many people, because if you look at it, well,
Speaker 1: if someone says to themselves, I've been dieting on January
Speaker 1: first for the last however many years, and then it
Speaker 1: ends up I end up failing the diet, thinking the failure,
Speaker 1: I end up blowing it. I end up rebelliously eating,
Speaker 1: I end up hating myself. How many years in a
Speaker 1: row have I done that? And now I'm going to
Speaker 1: try it again. But it's not your fault. The diet industry,
Speaker 1: the fitness industry, the media, they got us right where
Speaker 1: they want us. So it's really taking a stand against
Speaker 1: those messages instead of taking a stand against your poor body.
Speaker 1: I hope all my listeners can start following Andrea's advice
Speaker 1: and commit to shutting out those outside diet voices and
Speaker 1: listening to what your body truly needs in the new year.
Speaker 1: And if you want to learn more, you should check
Speaker 1: out some of Andrea's courses on insight Time or app
Speaker 1: including my favorite, Making Peace with the Body You Live in.
Speaker 1: Next week, we'll tackle ways to listen to another quiet
Speaker 1: voice that often gets drowned out in the midst of
Speaker 1: all our New year's plans and goals. It's the voice
Speaker 1: that tells us that we'd probably feel better if we
Speaker 1: could be a little less critical of ourselves. We'll meet
Speaker 1: a psychologist who thinks we should commit to a new workout,
Speaker 1: one that exercises are positive self talk muscles, and that
Speaker 1: doing so can help us be a little kinder to
Speaker 1: ourselves in the new Year. We'll see just how to
Speaker 1: do that in the next special New Year's Season episode
Speaker 1: of The Happiness Lab with Me, Doctor Laurie Sandoms. The
Speaker 1: Happiness Lab is co written by Ryan Dilley and is
Speaker 1: produced by Ryan Dilley and Courtney Guerino. The show was
Speaker 1: mastered by Evan Viola and our original music was composed
Speaker 1: by Zachary Silver. Special thanks to Shane Beard, Greta Kone,
Speaker 1: Nicole Morano, Morgan Ratner, Maggie Taylor, Jacob Weisberg, my agent,
Speaker 1: Ben Davis, and the rest of the Pushkin team. The
Speaker 1: Happiness Lab is brought to you by Pushkin Industries and
Speaker 1: by Me, Doctor Laurie Sanders.