Speaker 1: I won't let my body out out everything that I'm
Speaker 1: made dope, won't spend my life trying to change. I'm
Speaker 1: learning to love who I am. I get I'm strong,
Speaker 1: I feel free, I know who every part of me
Speaker 1: it's beautiful and then will always out with if you
Speaker 1: feel it with your hands in the here, she'll love
Speaker 1: to the boom. Let's say good day and did you
Speaker 1: and die out? Happy Saturday? Outweigh fam Amy here and
Speaker 1: my expert guest today is Bobby Judically. And Bobby, I
Speaker 1: know you recently released a book and I'm obsessed with
Speaker 1: the title because it seems like something that's right up
Speaker 1: my alley. And it's freedom from a toxic relationship with food,
Speaker 1: A journey that will give you your life back. And
Speaker 1: literally that's how I felt once I truly got into recovery.
Speaker 1: I got my life back, and one that who knows
Speaker 1: that I hadn't had since I was a teenager. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure. You know it's interesting you use the word recovery.
Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever, in all my many years,
Speaker 1: used recovery. I've used I hope one day to be cured,
Speaker 1: and I never believed I would be, And I did
Speaker 1: believe it would always be more recovery, although I never
Speaker 1: used the word, but I will tell you I honestly
Speaker 1: feel cured at this point in my life. But I'm
Speaker 1: in my sixties and and I wrote my book for
Speaker 1: those people that don't want to wait until they're in
Speaker 1: their fifties and sixties to find what recovery and pure
Speaker 1: feel like. Well, so for you, when did your disordered
Speaker 1: behavior or you're eating disorder start? How many years were
Speaker 1: you living with it? From age eighteen until age I
Speaker 1: would say my journey to health be again ten eleven
Speaker 1: years ago, so from age eighteen until age fifty six,
Speaker 1: and it was excruciating. And I had always said, and
Speaker 1: to this day, I am fully committed to fiding being
Speaker 1: with supporting anybody to prevent them from having to live
Speaker 1: that many years with the struggle that it is. And
Speaker 1: so I know one of the things you're passionate about
Speaker 1: is dieting and why it doesn't work. Diets are in
Speaker 1: our face, and even diets and disguise are in our
Speaker 1: face all the time. But in your opinion, why do
Speaker 1: you think diets don't work? Well, First of all, they
Speaker 1: don't address the problem, and the problem is our relationship
Speaker 1: with food. The problem is our relationship and our perspective
Speaker 1: on ourselves, our bodies, how we feel, and then separately,
Speaker 1: we all live a life with a relationship with food
Speaker 1: because food is a necessity in our life. I always
Speaker 1: say that if you're an alcoholic, that is an easy,
Speaker 1: easier recovery. I believe I was never an alcoholic, but
Speaker 1: I believe it's an easier recovery because you can eliminate
Speaker 1: alcohol from your life and be healthier and sustain and
Speaker 1: so on. When your issue as a relationship with food,
Speaker 1: you cannot remove food from your life and be healthy.
Speaker 1: You just can't. I mean, anorectics fry that and they
Speaker 1: either die or they go down the path of some
Speaker 1: sort of re entering a relationship with food or or
Speaker 1: bringing food into their life. But diets don't work because
Speaker 1: that's one of the reasons they don't address the relationship
Speaker 1: with food. Number two, we constantly feel deprived. We look
Speaker 1: at a diet as a short term solution. Let me
Speaker 1: just lose the pounds and then I will be fine,
Speaker 1: and then I don't have to deprive myself anymore. So
Speaker 1: that's reason number two. We cannot keep food in our life.
Speaker 1: With constant deprivation. Number three, They don't work because the
Speaker 1: foods that we that are the majority of foods in
Speaker 1: our supply system, especially the ones that are packaged that
Speaker 1: say they are healthy, are not, and they create an
Speaker 1: addiction to the food that the ingredients, the way food
Speaker 1: is made, the processed food is addicting. Whether it's sugar,
Speaker 1: it's salt, it's the chemicals that are introduced. We get addicted.
Speaker 1: And so therefore you go, Okay, I'm going to diet,
Speaker 1: which means for the next X number of weeks, I
Speaker 1: can't eat cake. Well, okay, you're not eating cake, but
Speaker 1: or eating continuing to eat sugar. When you decide to
Speaker 1: stop dieing ing, the sugar itself is driving It was
Speaker 1: driving your cravings, it's driving your addiction, and you go
Speaker 1: right back to not just eating the unhealthy foods, but
Speaker 1: consuming them even in greater quantity. Well, so for me,
Speaker 1: I started dieting at a very young age, and my
Speaker 1: brain wasn't fully developed, and I wired it to binge
Speaker 1: on food because it was so deprived that it didn't
Speaker 1: trust me. So when I would allow myself to eat,
Speaker 1: it was uncontrollable. I would just find myself eating and
Speaker 1: eating and eating because my brain was like, oh, I
Speaker 1: better eat all that I can right now because I
Speaker 1: don't know when this person is going to feed me again.
Speaker 1: And so it was my survival brain kicking in, so
Speaker 1: that deprivation I definitely can relate to, and then how
Speaker 1: my body and my brain responded to that, and then
Speaker 1: the types of foods. I feel like for me, the
Speaker 1: pendulum has swung. When I first started to eliminate my
Speaker 1: eating disorder and work towards my recovery, I feel like
Speaker 1: I was allowing all kinds of foods because that's what
Speaker 1: I needed to sort of rewire my brain, like, oh,
Speaker 1: that as if method, Like oh, I'm going to act
Speaker 1: as if this is normal and I can eat whatever
Speaker 1: I want and allow it. And the pendulum swung so far,
Speaker 1: and I feel like that's what we see to a
Speaker 1: lot on social media, which can be a dangerous place
Speaker 1: for recovery because you can get information that's not very helpful.
Speaker 1: But then I just want your thoughts on this pendulum thing,
Speaker 1: like I swung all the way to the other side
Speaker 1: where every food was on the table, and really it
Speaker 1: still is, but I think that the pendulum has leveled
Speaker 1: out because I also have knowledge of food and what
Speaker 1: is in it and the wisdom to want to nourish
Speaker 1: my body. Well, if I were to just allow all
Speaker 1: foods at all times, I know I'm not going to
Speaker 1: wake up and feel my best. And I also want
Speaker 1: to take care of all my organs and know the
Speaker 1: foods that are going to be nourishing to them and
Speaker 1: foods that are gonna be toxic to my organs. So
Speaker 1: while everything is allowed, I do think that there's there's
Speaker 1: this balancing act that kind of happens. So wherever you
Speaker 1: are on this journey, just know that I think it
Speaker 1: it might swing, But it's true sometimes when I swung
Speaker 1: too far, I kept craving that stuff more and more
Speaker 1: and more because I was having it all the time.
Speaker 1: So so one of the things most people don't understand
Speaker 1: is that that is not happening in your brain. Actually,
Speaker 1: it's initiated in your gut. It's initiated in your microbiome,
Speaker 1: your entire what they called dys biosis. But it's the
Speaker 1: imbalance of the proper bacteria in your gut, which controls everything.
Speaker 1: It controls our digestion, it controls our immune system, it
Speaker 1: controls you know, It controls everything that happens in our
Speaker 1: body that is so critical, and we are constantly feeding
Speaker 1: it either good things that will promote the good bacteria
Speaker 1: or bad things that will promote the bad bacteria. And
Speaker 1: so that when you say the pendulum swings all the
Speaker 1: way to one side, what's really happening is you've created
Speaker 1: an environment in your gut that the bacteria itself is
Speaker 1: telling you and signaling you to eat that particular thing,
Speaker 1: be it sugar. Sugar is an easy example because most
Speaker 1: of us can relate. What most people don't know is
Speaker 1: dairy and cheese specifically are also extremely addictive. So you'll
Speaker 1: hear people say a lot of times, I can't give
Speaker 1: up cheese, I can't give up sugar, I can't give
Speaker 1: up salt. What they don't understand is, yes, indeed they
Speaker 1: can't because their body is constantly craving that because they've
Speaker 1: set up the environment. When I started my journey twelve, eleven,
Speaker 1: whatever years ago, I did not believe that I would
Speaker 1: ever be recovered, I that I would ever have a
Speaker 1: healthy relationship with food, to look forward to going to
Speaker 1: a grocery store, look forward to preparing a meal which
Speaker 1: I hadn't done for years. I married a man who
Speaker 1: loved to cook, and so he cooked, and we raised
Speaker 1: three boys with him doing all the cooking because I
Speaker 1: was petrified to be in the kitchen. Food and eating
Speaker 1: and meals and eating outside of meals was a very
Speaker 1: chaotic experience for me. Um And I think one thing
Speaker 1: that's really important for your audience. I know I'm straying
Speaker 1: kind of from the original question that you asked me,
Speaker 1: but I think one thing that's really important for your
Speaker 1: audience to understand is if there is chaos in your
Speaker 1: relationship with food, you have disordered eating, minimally disordered eating,
Speaker 1: I mean eating disorders from technically what's considered an eating
Speaker 1: disorder is more complex than that. If it's noisy, I
Speaker 1: can only explain it as very noisy in my head
Speaker 1: every time I would eat. So I would eat, and
Speaker 1: it would be a constant balance of oh my god,
Speaker 1: how many calories, Oh my god, there's too much fat.
Speaker 1: I can get more calories if I get less batty foods.
Speaker 1: If I'm going to eat that chocolate cake, that means
Speaker 1: I can't eat for two more days. If I want
Speaker 1: to fit in that dress in two weeks, that means
Speaker 1: I better stop eating completely. I mean it's noisy. So
Speaker 1: something that I would tell you, like when people say,
Speaker 1: I can't give up X y Z, let's take ice cream.
Speaker 1: I can't give up ice cream. You know. You hear
Speaker 1: people say that all the time. And the thing is
Speaker 1: that then they'll eat the ice cream and there's noise
Speaker 1: in their head because they know they shouldn't be eating it.
Speaker 1: But okay, they've made an agreement with themselves. They'll only
Speaker 1: eat one scoop. Okay, they'll only eat two spoon spoonfuls.
Speaker 1: Now what are they going to have to do? Run
Speaker 1: three extra miles tomorrow to counterbalance the impact of that. So,
Speaker 1: if you have that kind of noise in your head,
Speaker 1: there is disordered eating it. You know, if you're constantly
Speaker 1: looking for what's the answer, what's the next book, what's
Speaker 1: the next support group, what's the next whatever. Because I
Speaker 1: can't live like this anymore. I can't live with three
Speaker 1: sizes of clothes in my closet. I can't live with
Speaker 1: feeling like I have no energy. I just can't live
Speaker 1: like that anymore. You have disordered eating and there is
Speaker 1: as the title of my book, the subtitle of my
Speaker 1: book says, there is a journey that gives you your
Speaker 1: life back. I am here to tell you I never
Speaker 1: believed I would be saying this, but I love food.
Speaker 1: I have no negative impact when I eat, when I
Speaker 1: think about eating, when I plan what I'm eating. I'm
Speaker 1: sixty seven years old. I never believed I would ever
Speaker 1: be able to say that, and I don't want other
Speaker 1: people to wait until they're in their sixties to say that.
Speaker 1: I don't either, And you know, at forty one, I
Speaker 1: feel so gosh, so many years were wasted, but I
Speaker 1: want to say that, like something there was some benefit
Speaker 1: for that in my life, of like what is this
Speaker 1: made possible for me now? I don't want to look
Speaker 1: back and focus on the past like I want to
Speaker 1: see maybe it's so that I could come alongside and
Speaker 1: help others that are going through this and have this podcast.
Speaker 1: I don't know, So I don't want to harp on
Speaker 1: the past at all, but I do wish I would
Speaker 1: have entered or been exposed to this type of thinking
Speaker 1: or recovery or knowing that there's hope for it when
Speaker 1: I was thirty one, because there's so many family meals
Speaker 1: that I missed, or memories to be made or times
Speaker 1: where I could have been engaging in conversation with someone,
Speaker 1: but like you said, my brain was full of all
Speaker 1: kinds of noise and other thoughts, so I wasn't fully present.
Speaker 1: And Lisa, who is a registered dietitian in front of mine,
Speaker 1: Lisa Haymond, she's the one that originally co founded Outweigh
Speaker 1: with me. She has a whole program called Fork the Noise.
Speaker 1: So I love you called it noise because that's exactly
Speaker 1: what it is. And when we started this podcast, it's
Speaker 1: Outweigh a life without disordered eating, outweighs everything. But we
Speaker 1: also were very adamant of like the we're covering the
Speaker 1: gray area, Like this whole topic is not black and white.
Speaker 1: There's so much happening here, and there's so many different
Speaker 1: types of people that can be coming to the table here.
Speaker 1: And I love having people on, especially that have amazing
Speaker 1: resources like you do with freedom from a Toxic Relationship
Speaker 1: with food. I love that title so much, And then
Speaker 1: I love the journey that will give you your life
Speaker 1: that because that's truly what happens once you can have
Speaker 1: a cure or into recovery, whatever you want to call it,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't happen overnight. Mine. It was a journey,
Speaker 1: and I feel like I'm still working on it, but
Speaker 1: the noise is less and less and less and less.
Speaker 1: And I like the ice cream example too that you
Speaker 1: gave because I was talking king about the pendulum and
Speaker 1: it's like, when I wasn't allowing it, I wanted it
Speaker 1: more and more and more, and then I allowed it,
Speaker 1: and then the pendulum evens out because then it's less desirable,
Speaker 1: and you're like, oh, my pendulum evened out, and now
Speaker 1: I can keep ice cream in the fridge for weeks
Speaker 1: and months and I don't feel like I have to
Speaker 1: throw it away or eat it all in one night.
Speaker 1: It will literally be there for months at a time.
Speaker 1: Isn't that amazing? Yes? I I so relate to what
Speaker 1: you're saying. For me, it's I explain it a little differently,
Speaker 1: and I am kind of a I'm going to say
Speaker 1: and I use this term loosely, not technically, not medically,
Speaker 1: but I'm an O C D person. I work better
Speaker 1: when I build tight boundaries around something that's important to me.
Speaker 1: So you know, like no going back and what I
Speaker 1: found in my journey, So I did, I did change,
Speaker 1: I did take a lot of foods out of my
Speaker 1: day to day eating. So I am now whole food,
Speaker 1: plant based. I eat very little of anything processed. I
Speaker 1: eat no animal products whatsoever. And that's changed my life
Speaker 1: in other ways outside of food. But for me, there
Speaker 1: was no discussion about am I going to eat it?
Speaker 1: Am I going to eat that chocolate bar? No, because
Speaker 1: it's processed. If not, say I don't eat. I make
Speaker 1: my own dark chocolate with nuts snail and I like
Speaker 1: love it. But yes, like you said, now I can
Speaker 1: eat one piece and I and it lives in my
Speaker 1: freezer all the time, and I don't you know, I
Speaker 1: don't have to eat it. So for me, I needed
Speaker 1: to to really eliminate certain foods. But what happened for
Speaker 1: me by eliminating animal products, by eliminating any processed food,
Speaker 1: is it completely changed my taste buds. And now processed
Speaker 1: foods don't taste good. Animal products I used to love
Speaker 1: me and animal products I can't even imagine eating like
Speaker 1: I just look at it and it does not look appetizing.
Speaker 1: That's me. That's how it worked for me. I don't
Speaker 1: believe for anybody to recover UM that they really need
Speaker 1: to be as extreme but for me, I did. The
Speaker 1: other one thing point that I really really want to
Speaker 1: make is we all, especially women, grow up believing that
Speaker 1: our weight is critical, like what we look like, how
Speaker 1: much we weigh, how are close fit? We are told
Speaker 1: by society, and now it's even worse because of social media.
Speaker 1: We are told thin is it? I mean you, we
Speaker 1: are driven by our weight, and at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, we're compromising our health. Diet and compromises our health,
Speaker 1: eating disorders and disordered eat and compromise our health. And
Speaker 1: for me, I will tell you I kind of resign
Speaker 1: myself to the fact that I would always carry ten
Speaker 1: more pounds than I want to to until I changed
Speaker 1: the way I ate, and it was absolutely not motivated
Speaker 1: by weight. It was motivated by health. And my sister
Speaker 1: died of cancer, my father last ten twelve years of
Speaker 1: his life were horrible, and both of them I believe
Speaker 1: would due to diet. I really do believe that the
Speaker 1: outcome or their life quality of life would have been
Speaker 1: different had they eaten differently. And I was experiencing extreme,
Speaker 1: extreme fatigue, and that's when I said, this has to
Speaker 1: do with how I'm eating, and I'm here to tell
Speaker 1: you that I have more energy now in my late
Speaker 1: sixties than I had at forty, and that is a
Speaker 1: result of using food as medicine, as what sustains me,
Speaker 1: and not as the crutch and the numbing agent and
Speaker 1: the drug that I used it as my mom actually
Speaker 1: passed away from cancer, and that's when my eating just
Speaker 1: sort of came back with the vengeance and it was
Speaker 1: literally two numb out and it's stuck around for a while,
Speaker 1: even while my dad was diagnosed with cancer. So I
Speaker 1: I appreciate you writing this book and giving it as
Speaker 1: a guide too, so that those of us that are
Speaker 1: in recovery are looking to get rid of that noise
Speaker 1: in our head, but also be mindful of what we're
Speaker 1: putting in our body for overall health, because disease does
Speaker 1: scare me because I watched I was a caregiver for
Speaker 1: both of my parents, and it was I don't know
Speaker 1: for sure if their diet would have played a different role,
Speaker 1: but I know that I'm still young enough to where
Speaker 1: maybe if I start to do certain things for my
Speaker 1: body and my organs and feed it a certain way
Speaker 1: or feed at certain things that I can, I can
Speaker 1: be as proactive as possible. No it's not guaranteed to
Speaker 1: eliminate chronic disease, absolutely not. However, your overall quality of life,
Speaker 1: your energy. I mean, if you are somebody that's eating
Speaker 1: a lot of processed food, I guarantee you your energy
Speaker 1: is impacted. It just is. It has to be. It's
Speaker 1: the way your body works. If you're getting sick frequently,
Speaker 1: if you're getting colds frequently, it has to do with
Speaker 1: the way you are eating. And yes, it doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that you can eat however you want. Then you start
Speaker 1: to get a cold and you get a plug yourself
Speaker 1: with vitamin C. No, that's not taking care of yourself.
Speaker 1: Your overall immune system is impacted. And this is only
Speaker 1: recently that they understand this all comes from what you
Speaker 1: put in your body. So and I truly believe this.
Speaker 1: Everything you eat is either helping you have a better
Speaker 1: quality of life or negatively impacting your quality of life
Speaker 1: and your overall health. And I really really believe that.
Speaker 1: And the other thing I really want to stress though,
Speaker 1: is what I mentioned about your taste buds. What people
Speaker 1: don't get is not only can you give it up
Speaker 1: and and I really go through the steps in my
Speaker 1: book of what that journey looks like it's not only
Speaker 1: can you give it up, but you're not going to
Speaker 1: miss it at some point because food takes on a
Speaker 1: whole new look. Like I couldn't walk past chocolate without
Speaker 1: eating it in my earlier days. It doesn't do anything
Speaker 1: for me now looking at it doesn't do anything. If
Speaker 1: I decide I want to have a piece of the
Speaker 1: chocolate that I make, which probably happens once a month,
Speaker 1: I get a piece of chocolate that is good for
Speaker 1: me because it's first of all, very healthy chocolate. It's
Speaker 1: dark chocolate, it has minimal sugar, and the kakal is
Speaker 1: very healthy for you. It's an antioxidant and it has
Speaker 1: nuts in it, so that's more protein and healthy fats.
Speaker 1: I know, like just because I roll up my sleeves
Speaker 1: and learn about things in detail, I know everything that
Speaker 1: I eat what it's doing for me, and it helps
Speaker 1: me have an appetite for it. And I said, my
Speaker 1: taste buds are different. I couldn't eat milk chocolate now
Speaker 1: if you wanted me to. It's just doesn't taste right.
Speaker 1: I can't eat processed food. If I eat something processed,
Speaker 1: sometimes I'll go to a restaurant. I'll go oh, I
Speaker 1: can taste that. That does not taste good to me,
Speaker 1: and I don't need it. Do you have a different
Speaker 1: recipes anywhere? There's some in the book or on your
Speaker 1: website or this I'm curious about this chocolate recipe. No,
Speaker 1: I don't have recipes. I'm more than happy to share
Speaker 1: it with you. Um, I don't have recipes because I
Speaker 1: don't like cooking with recipes. What I do is I
Speaker 1: uh and I had to learn it because I've never
Speaker 1: cooked before and my husband not did not change the
Speaker 1: way he eats. So now I do cook every single night,
Speaker 1: but I throw things together like I know foods that
Speaker 1: I like, and I and I just experiment with stuff
Speaker 1: that I know is healthy, different herbs and spices, and
Speaker 1: and only recently started loving tofu because I throw it
Speaker 1: together with something and put it in my air fryer
Speaker 1: and I went, oh my god, this. I used to
Speaker 1: really dislike tofu for a vegan. That's a problem. Um,
Speaker 1: now I you know, really like it. It's like I
Speaker 1: just I love the exploration and yet so no, and
Speaker 1: I'll never write a cookbook because I'd be the worst
Speaker 1: person in the world to write a cookbook. I would
Speaker 1: just have to say, well, throw that and throw that,
Speaker 1: And I do look at recipes online and go, oh,
Speaker 1: that's a good idea. And I don't follow the measurements.
Speaker 1: I just throw that in and throw that in. But
Speaker 1: it's fun. And I'm telling you, I'm somebody who used
Speaker 1: to be petrified to walk into a grocery store, or
Speaker 1: petrified at the prospect that I had to make dinner
Speaker 1: that night because my husband wouldn't be home and I
Speaker 1: had three kids that needed to eat. That ended up
Speaker 1: being pizza night. Um, I couldn't handle it any other day,
Speaker 1: and pizza was one of my weak food, so that
Speaker 1: would mean a night I was over eating. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's just a different world. But I do want
Speaker 1: to leave you with I wrote the book to support anyone,
Speaker 1: anyone who wants the support and would like the support
Speaker 1: for exploring a different way. And I make myself very
Speaker 1: available to anybody who reads the book or sees this
Speaker 1: podcast or whatever to support them, because I probably have
Speaker 1: a lot of knowledge that even some standard nutritionists don't have. Well,
Speaker 1: Freedom from a toxic relationship with food, A Journey that
Speaker 1: will Give Your Life Back is available on Amazon. I'll
Speaker 1: link it in the show notes, but you can visit
Speaker 1: Food Freedom Advocate dot com for more about Bobby. But
Speaker 1: thank you so much for sharing some of your story
Speaker 1: with us. I know that everybody's on a different journey,
Speaker 1: but I think ultimately we want to get our lives back,
Speaker 1: whatever that that looks like. So thank you for sharing
Speaker 1: your journey with us and what it's looked like for you,
Speaker 1: the tools that have worked for you and helping us
Speaker 1: get rid of the noise. Everybody's got their different ways,
Speaker 1: and yeah, if you're thinking you've got the noise and
Speaker 1: this sounds like something that you would be into, I
Speaker 1: personally am going to order the book because I'm very
Speaker 1: interested in nourishing my body with different types of food.
Speaker 1: I think that I've kind of gotten in a little
Speaker 1: bit of a rut, but that's okay. I also don't
Speaker 1: have any shame with that or guilt, like I'm doing
Speaker 1: the best that I can with life right now, but
Speaker 1: I'm open to all different kinds of things. So thank
Speaker 1: you Bobby for sharing your book with us. Oh You're
Speaker 1: so welcome and it was such a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1: And I just I think food should be a joyful
Speaker 1: part of our life and for many of us. That's
Speaker 1: a challenge, but that's what my goal is for anybody
Speaker 1: else because it is joyful. And thank you again for
Speaker 1: having me. Absolutely