Alana Van Der Sluys - Breaking the Cycle: Unpacking Eating Disorders, Body Image, and the Power of Intuitive Eating

Speaker 1: 0:35

Welcome back to Open Minded Healing. Today we're going to be discussing how yo-yo dieting can sometimes turn into an eating disorder for one in four people. So it's a slippery slope that we're going to be discussing with my guest today, alana Vander Sluis. Welcome, alana, how are you? I'm doing well, mila. How are you Good? So today we are going to be talking about yo-yo dieting because a lot of people do that right throughout life. They'll try one diet and then try another, and then it might be a variety of different types of diets or maybe the same one, just repeatedly. But you say from your own experience of how this can become a slippery slope and turn into an eating disorder. Do you want to start by talking about your own personal journey with dieting? What age did you first decide you wanted to be on a diet and why?

Speaker 2: 1:31

Sure. So I mean, I've always been in a straight-sized body or a thin body. But when I was 14, my mom toppled me the way to calculate how many calories you should be eating in a day in order to maintain your weight, based on the weight that you were already at. That sounds innocent enough, simple enough. You just want to kind of maintain where you're at. And then back in the day we didn't have the smartphones yet, so it was like me on a handheld calculator doing computations and it was like that for a while and it didn't really seem like an issue.

Speaker 2: 2:05

And then, when I went to grad school, I was just finishing up grad school and it was the first time in my life where I didn't know what my next step was. In high school, in college, in grad school it was you do your extracurriculars and get good grades and stay out of trouble. And it was very easy to figure out your place in all of that and where you ranked within all of that. And I always felt safe in knowing my rank, my place. And when I graduated grad school, I graduated with a degree in English Education. So I was going to be a teacher. But the thing is, with that is. You know, you're not really sure if you're going to get a job in time for September. You're not sure where you're going to get a job, if it's in the same state, if you're going to have to move, what grade level you're going to teach, what type of environment you're going to be thrown into. And it can be very unsettling for somebody who has had a very predictable life. And that's one of the markers that we see.

Speaker 2: 3:05

A lot of people, a lot of my clients, who have eating disorders or have disordered relationships with food in their body is a lot of times that starts because of a need for control. You want to control something in your life because everything feels out of control. So we want to control our body size and we want to control the food that we're eating or we're not eating, and the calories and the macros or whatever it is. We want to count and control and that becomes a very slippery slope, as I said before.

Speaker 2: 3:35

So it started out as wanting to meet a goal weight and when I got to that goal weight, I still wasn't happy. I still didn't feel any more in control of my life or my circumstance. So I made another goal weight that was even lower and then I tried to get to that. It's almost like I gamified it, like let's see how low I can go, let's see how thin I can be, coupled with the understanding that many of us have that thinner is better or thinner is more beautiful or more desired, and I wanted to be the best at something too. So it was kind of this very warped perception of what is best and again it went from simply counting calories to skipping meals and weighing myself every day and using laxatives and doing all these very damaging things to my body, which so many people want to diet and exercise for health reasons. But if you take a look at what you're doing, you might find that the things that you're doing clinical for health are actually really harming your health in the long run.

Speaker 1: 4:41

Yeah, definitely. I think there are a lot of people out there that have that need to control their lives. I can think of a lot of people I know and they do it in the sometimes the smallest of ways. It's not this big thing that you're trying to control the world, but you're trying to control your world and anyone who interacts with you sometimes. So I think that's an important element that you brought up. And also, the thinner is better.

Speaker 1: 5:07

There's so much marketing out there and I mean it's pervasive and I think everyone knows that at this point right, there's a certain standard of beauty. Hopefully that will change over time, but right now it is still that you know, be very thin or petite and look a certain way, and I think all the filters and everything out there have only added more to the need to look perfect. You know what we deem perfect. And the other thing I want to touch upon that you mentioned was the idea of wanting to be the best at something. I think probably all of us want to be the best at something, and then some people want to be the best at everything they do, right, whether it's they don't want to be deemed a failure or they just get such maybe even a rush from being number one or being the best, or I don't know where that stems from, but some people take it to a whole new level. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 6:02

And that was me. I think I am a recovering perfectionist. I grew up in a small rural pow town and I was valedictorian, so I was the number one in my class and it's such a wonderful feeling to be recognized for things that you're doing well. But when you are thrown into the adult world, where there is no best and it's a very big pun, you almost lose your sense of self a little bit when you can't claim anything as your own or your zone of expertise, so to speak. So you know, perfectionism can be one of the symptoms of somebody who has an eating disorder. If you feel like everything you put in your mouth has to be perfect and you need to weigh the perfect weight and you need to have the perfect flat stomach, that could be your slippery slope.

Speaker 2: 6:51

And in terms of control, I'm definitely not here saying that I still don't feel the need to control certain aspects of my life and I still don't fall prey to wanting to control, because right now I have a toddler who just turned well, he's not even a toddler anymore, he's a preschooler because he turned three and you can't control him. And sometimes it can be very frustrating for me because he's very unpredictable and it makes my life unpredictable. And you know, we're on this big rock, kind of hurtling through space and we don't know why we're here and we kind of grasp its draws to make meaning of everything. So it's very understandable why we want control. But I think the big question is can we find ways to control our lives in ways that truly serve us and help us heal our relationship to ourselves, instead of making it a war against ourselves?

Speaker 1: 7:45

Yeah, that's very well put. So you were on these different diets and trying to maintain a certain weight or look a certain way or perfect yourself. What was the turning point where you realized this may be an issue? I may need to address this for my own health and my own benefit, right?

Speaker 2: 8:05

right and it's never this like clean. You know, a light came down from the heavens and was like you're screwed up. It was a series of events. One of them I like to talk about is I was following this woman who had this fitness and nutrition blog and she made all these wonderful recipes and she was so pretty and thin and had a handsome looking husband for life-seeking Perfect. And then she came out with this post one day that she was having trouble conceiving and starting their family because she was diagnosed with hypothermic amenorrhea, which means she lost her menstrual cycle. She was too thin and she was restricting her food and exercising too much and she couldn't conceive and she had to gain weight back in order to get her menstrual cycle back and eventually she was able to have two beautiful children.

Speaker 2: 8:48

But it was a wake up call for me. Even though I was in my early 20s still and I wasn't ready to have children, I knew I wanted them in the future and I was just like wow, look at what restricted your food and try and get down to this goal. Like, look what it can do to your body, look what it could do to your health, look who it could do in terms of jeopardizing what you want in your future, and that was kind of crazy. And also just the idea of someone who I looked up to, who I thought had the perfect life and perfect body and perfect relationship with food didn't. So what we see online is very different from what the reality is. So people who want to compare themselves to these Instagram stars, who have six pack abs and look beautiful and airbrushed and like they're being so much fun it might be a complete dumpster fire in real life and you just don't know. So to compare is so unfair because there are so many variables that we might not even be considering.

Speaker 2: 9:46

But also just another thing that tipped me up that there was a problem was I never felt good If the scale was one pound higher than the day it was before. I was miserable and itchy the whole rest of the day to everybody, because I just felt like, well, now I'm gonna have to starve myself more today than I did yesterday so that the weight could go down. And when you restrict yourself, you think about food all the time. You feel weak and lightheaded and irritable and to go through all day, every day, like that, I just at one point was like I can't keep doing this to myself, I can't keep living in this cycle and feeling miserable, because then what's the point? I'm gonna be thin or I'm structurally probably always gonna be in the center body, but, like you know, am I gonna sacrifice my sanity and my happiness and feeling good for a number that pops up on the digital scale?

Speaker 1: 10:38

Yeah, it's figuring out really what true happiness is, not just obviously looking in a mirror and seeing what you look like, but having that true appreciation for who you are and surrounding yourself with the people that also appreciate that, I guess, appreciate you for who you truly are, for your spirit, for what you bring to the world, not what you look like on a daily basis, because obviously that can change, like you said, every single day that can change, whether it's in the number of pounds you weigh or its wrinkles that show up or whatever it is. That will always be in flux. You will never have control over that. So to really tap into who you will always be, that true spirit within yourself that's not gonna change and to focus on that and see how beautiful that is and see what you can contribute to the world in that way, I imagine would bring happiness a whole lot quicker than waiting for a diet to kick in Right.

Speaker 2: 11:40

Right and I agree with so many different directions based on what you just said. But you know, one of the things that I talk about in my book that's gonna come out in November is this idea of tombstone thinking, which can be very morbid. A lot of people like oh, it's so depressing to think about death or my own mortality, but it can be so life affirming in that when you're on your death, then what do you want to think about your life? What regrets do you not want to have? What do you want people to say about you? As a person Like you don't want the number one thing people are gonna say if you don't be like wow, she had a kick in body.

Speaker 2: 12:10

When we get stuck in dieting and I just need to get to this goal, weight, you stop focusing on the other things that make you you, your hobbies, your connections with other people, and perfection is boring, like that's. Another thing that I've had to teach myself and I continually have to remind myself is that, look, when we watch a TV show or a movie, the protagonist is never a perfect person. Otherwise there would be no story arc, there would be no character development. We have to see them stumble and fall and root for them and fall in love with their quirks. And we need to turn that idea onto ourselves and say you know, the quirks that I have, the flaws that I have, that's what makes me me compared to somebody else or compared to a robot. It was gonna be perfect, right? This is who we are, so can we embrace ourselves for all of?

Speaker 1: 13:00

it. Yeah, and the interesting thing to me is that if someone does come across as perfect and in your eyes those are not the people typically that you're engaging with or that you want to have a deep conversation with, you know, because you think you have nothing in common with them, they're not relatable.

Speaker 2: 13:19

They're not authentic. Yeah, it's like talking to a wall. There's no nuance or empathy or any of that stuff. And to kind of bring it back to weight and body, which is what I work with clients about bikes, things you know I had a baby and now I have some loose skin around my stomach and you know I have stretch marks on my inner thighs from a really big growth spurt I had as a pre-seeing and you can say those are imperfections.

Speaker 2: 13:46

But can you shift your mindset into? Those are just markers of the things that I have gone through in my life. This is my roadmap. You know, this is proof of the life that I have lived and there's nothing that you have to do in your life or want to do in your life that requires a certain body size. Yeah, and I mean of course there are extremes to that.

Speaker 2: 14:12

Obviously you want to be at your natural weight. I think that's where everybody wants to really be as a natural weight, that their body feels most comfortable. And you know, can you do XYZ in a 600 pound body? Probably not, but I don't think that's anybody's natural weight. When you get down to your natural weight for all of us and that doesn't necessarily mean everyone's thin. You could still be in a larger body, but can you still crush your career goals? Can you still have a family? Can you still be the best cat mom? Whatever it is that you want to do with your life, can you still volunteer? You can do it in any type of body. You don't need six pack abs to live out your life's purpose or to live out your dream.

Speaker 1: 14:53

Yeah, that's true, and even if you are that person that has a lot of extra weight, the yo-yo diet is still a slippery slope.

Speaker 2: 15:03

It's so dangerous. And yo-yo dieting in the medical community is called weight cycling. So that's when your weight goes up and then you diet and it goes back down, but then you stop the diet and it goes back up and down and up and up. That weight cycling, that yo-yo dieting, is actually more harmful to your health than just staying at a higher weight. It could increase your risk of diabetes, it could increase your risk of cardiovascular issues, it could increase your risk of death.

Speaker 2: 15:31

All of the things that we try to avoid through dieting you could actually get through the weight cycling. It stresses your body out so much to go up and down that the science is showing that just being at a consistently larger body is actually healthier. But diets are designed to be cyclical because that way you need them again and again and again and you pay for them again and again, and again. If diets worked, we would be on one diet and we work for the rest of our lives. But instead we jump from Weight Watchers to Noon, to Optivia, to Metcord Counting, to this, so that we're looking for that magic diet. But they're also unsustainable, that eventually of course we have to stop doing them, because you can't eat like that and move like that forever and be able to sustain that. There's no willpower in the world, yeah exactly.

Speaker 1: 16:24

I think the diets are about willpower and that's what makes them so difficult, as opposed to changing the nutrition your body's actually receiving, that your cells are actually receiving, and then they're totally content and you don't have these major cravings and it's more sustainable. I mean, starting is always difficult, starting something new but once you get past that initial beginning like what I have found, even with sugar, for example instead of focusing on eliminating sugar, which is so hard because it's so addictive, I have found it easier to increase the nutritious food in my life more fiber, more vegetables for whatever and not even address the sugar, and I find that the sugar slowly drops off because my body is getting more of what it needs as I go along. So it doesn't have to be such a drastic change, or all or nothing, or extreme highs, extreme lows.

Speaker 2: 17:24

Exactly, and I'm a certified intuitive eating counselor, so that was the philosophy that saved my life is intuitive eating this idea that if we truly get rid of the diets and we listen to our bodies and we trust our bodies actually do know what we need, we can arrive at a natural weight without having to think about it and we can move our bodies in ways that we really enjoy and be healthy that way and not really have to think about it all that much. So when you mentioned sugar, I used to feel like I was addicted to sugar. You could not get me away from a holiday dessert table fast enough, like I would eat everything on the table, even things I didn't want, because I was starving myself from sugar. I wouldn't allow myself sugar. So those times I would allow myself sugar, I would end and overeat on it. And you know, in intuitive eating we say all foods are allowed. There's no restriction of any foods as long as you know you're not allergic to them.

Speaker 2: 18:20

So when I started to allow sugar more often in my diet and I say I told myself I could have it whenever I wanted to the ironic thing that happened was I didn't want it as much because it wasn't this forbidden thing anymore. So now you know, I just had my son's birthday party on Saturday. He had ice cream cake and I had some ice cream cake and in the past I would have had a huge slice. I would have eaten the whole thing, I would have felt over, stopped, I would have had a sugar spike and crash and I would have felt shame about that and fear of waking. But now I had a small slice, I savored it. There was no guilt or shame involved in having the sugar and then I was like cool, that happened and if I want more later I can have it I want.

Speaker 2: 19:06

Chances are I won't want it because a little is enough for me and feels good in my body without making me feel sluggish and like I want to go to Gnab. You know what I'm saying. So I think allowing it helps us to take it off the pedestal and helps us feel a little more in control of it, but also, like you said, coming from a place of abundance. When it comes to the more nourishing foods and nutritious foods, can you add the fruits and veggies, can you add more fiber, can you add more water and also really help in not having to rely on things like sugar to keep you energized. If you eat nourishing foods, they'll keep you energized better and a lot longer than sugar ever will.

Speaker 1: 19:48

Yeah, I do want to say also, when we talk about eating intuitively and maybe you can get into this from your perspective eating intuitively isn't like what do I want right now, because if you're not being conscious about the way your body is feeling, you'll be like I want that cake, so let me eat it now. But I think it's more like when you really are tuned into your body, but maybe eating more slowly. I'm trying to think what I do to be more conscious of what I'm eating. One of the things I do is I try and eat the healthy thing first thing, so I don't have a sugary thing first thing, because once you do that it's like it triggers your brain and all day you want something sweet. So I try and fill myself up on the healthy stuff before I go somewhere where there might be something sweet and then I don't have that strong craving. I mean, I might want a little something, but I don't have that strong craving as if I had gone there on an empty stomach.

Speaker 2: 20:49

Sure, I think a lot of people have that issue of because, like you were saying, like you don't want to binge on it later, a lot of people will go into something like a party setting or like a dinner. They're going out later and they won't eat anything all day, thinking that they're going to save up the calories. And then they go and then they binge on all of the things, the sugar and all of the food, because they didn't give themselves anything beforehand.

Speaker 1: 21:15

Yeah, what do you suggest for healthy eating? And then, how do you go about intuitively eating? What does that mean to you?

Speaker 2: 21:24

So for me, intuitive eating is honoring your hunger and your fullness, but also your cravings as well. But I think the real key to intuitive eating is, at least for me and everybody's, joining a different. Again like, intuitive eating isn't prescriptive the way that a diet is, there are no real rules to it. But for me, I like to think about how am I going to feel after this meal, and that helps me to kind of marry my nutritional needs with my cravings in a way that's going to lead me feeling good. So, for example, when the cake was served to my son's birthday party, I wanted a piece of cake because you know it's my son's birthday and I want to be part of that experience with him and that memory with him. And you know we did have a fruit salad as well. But I was like I feel like that sends a bad message to him. If it's like well, why isn't mom eating any cake? Like, is cake bad? I don't want him to have morality around food and I wanted the cake. Like it looked delicious. So I had a piece. But I had a piece that I felt.

Speaker 2: 22:28

Now that I know my body well, I can savor and enjoy, but won't leave me feeling not great in my body later, right? So I could do that with pizza too. Pizza's delicious, right? Maybe that's the most nutritious thing in the world. So can I have my pizza and can I have a side salad with some grilled chicken on it too. Or can I have my pizza and can I have some grilled vegetables on the side. So I love the idea of and Can you have what you're craving and, from a place of abundance, add in something a little more nourishing to kind of balance it out, so you're not depriving yourself but you're still meeting your nutritional needs as well.

Speaker 1: 23:09

Yeah, and I just like what you said earlier about when we eat or have cravings or binge on something. A lot of times it is because our body is just looking for energy, because we haven't filled it with those nutritional foods that do give us energy on a much higher level than sugar does without the crash. But so being, I guess, bounce the blood sugar before you have a craving for sugar, then you'd be pretty good.

Speaker 2: 23:38

Yeah, and I can say two things about that. And watch we forget the second thing after we're done with the first. But you know I don't demonize sugar. I do think if you eat sugar all day, every day, the science does show that that's not great for your health. But I think we need to find the middle ground and I think that when we're not taking care of ourselves in all the ways that we need to for increased health and energy and longevity, we do rely more on sugar than we need to.

Speaker 2: 24:10

So, for example, someone who's, like I'm, so addicted to sugar are you getting enough sleep? If you don't get enough sleep, you're going to be looking for foods that are high in calories and sugar to keep you awake. Are you hydrating enough? Alive times would be a mistake. There's for hunger. Are you exercising and it doesn't have to be CrossFit for an hour in a gym setting, but are you doing 30 minutes of movement, whether it's walking or gardening or dancing, whatever it may be, that's also going to give you more energy.

Speaker 2: 24:39

And then the second thing is we have blood sugar spikes and crashes, because what a lot of people want to do is eat as little as possible to save calories and lose weight. So, for example, they'll have an apple and that's it, like it's a snack and all that apple is going to do because it's made of carbs and sugar it's going to spike your blood sugar and crush it back down. But you're trying to save calories and just have the apple. But if you have the apple with some peanut butter or some almond butter, that that is going to help stabilize the blood sugar and keep you fuller longer and it's also going to give you healthy fats which are good for your body.

Speaker 2: 25:16

So I did a reel the other day. It was a reel against somebody else's reel that they already made. It was like what I eat in a day and she's like I have half a watermelon for breakfast. I'm like what? Like that's all sugar. So she's going to have a sugar spike and a sugar crash. She should pair that carb, that watermelon, with a fat and a protein to make it a more well-balanced meal to keep her blood sugar, say, to keep her fuller longer. But people are trying to see calories here and there, but they're actually biting off their nose to spike their face.

Speaker 1: 25:45

It's not so much about having the small limited amount. It's about, like you said, pairing it with all the right things the healthy fats and the protein and maybe minimize the carb. But yeah, to bring in the fats and the protein is important, yeah.

Speaker 2: 26:03

And just being in tune with your body. I mean, I've noticed I can't have fried foods, and it's not because I'm afraid of waking, it's not because they say that fried foods aren't good for you, it just every time I eat them I get horrible, horrible stomach ache. So I don't know if it's the type of oil, I don't even know but when you go on an intuitive eating journey, you actually find out that a lot of the foods that are, quote unquote, bad for you, you don't even like the way they feel in your body anyway, and you've just been craving them because you've been told you can't have them.

Speaker 1: 26:34

Yeah, or the stuff that you've just maybe grown up with, or you ate a lot of for a while, and once you get away from it and then come back to it, it's like your taste buds have changed and your body has now been given a break and it realizes that's overloading my system.

Speaker 2: 26:50

Yeah, it's funny. You said that because I grew up in the nineties I'm a nineties kid and we had the Dunkaroos. It was like the little grand crackers that you would dip in the icing. It was so good, it was like my favorite snack growing up as a kid. And then my husband and I found out that they re-released them and we were like, oh my God, we're so excited. And then we found out a box and we had. Them were like this tastes like garbage, this tastes chemically and awful. And listen, if I want icing, I'm going to get a really nice cupcake and I'm going to save it. I'm not going to settle for this garbage that they're trying to serve us. So, yeah, you're right, your taste buds do change. You kind of have more nuance to your palate.

Speaker 1: 27:34

Yeah, for sure. Would there anything else you addressed in addition to the eating? What about the perfectionism? Did you deal with that in another way?

Speaker 2: 27:45

I'm still working on it. It's a little bit less in my food and exercise. Obviously, I made a whole lot of progress with that, but I still see my perfectionism pop up. Now, now that I'm a mom, I see it pop up there a lot, and sometimes in business, because I mean I have freedom with food and fitness as my business and I've never owned a business before and I have no marketing background. So navigating that can be really tough, especially when you see other people having success in their business in the same niche. It can be very difficult. So I temper it.

Speaker 2: 28:16

But I think one of the things that has really helped me and that I apply with my clients is this idea of cognitive behavioral therapy that our thoughts create our emotions and those drive our outcomes. So for me I have a signature coaching model that I use with all my clients and it's called I'm Not Gonna Curse, but it's Chill the F Out. I thought it was cute. I thought it really kind of summarized how I think we need to start approaching food and nutrition and fitness, because we're so serious about it and it's serious like to help the serious, but not every decision you make is the end all be all, so it's almost like Chill the F Out, it's going to be okay, but it's an acronym. So CTFO circumstance, thought, feeling and outcomes. So this idea that the things that happen to us in our life are circumstances, they are neutral events that happen to us and it's not until we assign meaning to them with our thoughts that it either serves or doesn't serve us. So if you eat a cupcake, that's a neutral event, but you might have thoughts around eating that cupcake like oh my God, that had so much sugar in it, that was so many calories. I'm going to have to do an extra hour on the treadmill. I'm going to gain weight, like if you have all those kind of negative, anxious thoughts in your head, you're going to produce feelings of hopelessness and fear and anxiety and those negative feelings are going to drive your outcome. You're going to go on a crash diet, you're going to skip your next meal and then be really hungry and binge late. You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2: 29:51

So understanding that the things that happen in my life that don't go quote unquote perfectly is within my ability and I am empowered to choose my thoughts around that event. And a lot of people are going to say that's toxic positivity. A lot of people are going to say that's very Pollyanna. I think that there is a time and a place for negative thought. Like my father-in-law passed away about a month ago and I have very negative thoughts about that, I have positive ones as well. I have ways that I think we can see this as a life affirming event for the rest of us who are still here. But at the same time, I grieve, I cried, I had a lot of negative emotions, I had anger, I had anxiety. I chose those because of somebody I loved passed away. And so all that to say you don't always have to choose the positive thoughts, but you always have choice.

Speaker 1: 30:48

And I think there is a difference between going through a tough experience and allowing yourself that emotion, not sweeping it under the rug, like letting yourself feel it, but then I guess also down the road, maybe when you processed it and let it flow, that you can look for the lesson in it, or the silver lining, and not just stay in a state of being a victim, or the world's always against me, or getting trapped in a negative line of thinking.

Speaker 2: 31:24

Absolutely, and it sometimes it takes years for that to happen. So like I had undiagnosed eating disorders for seven years and I could sit here and say I was a victim of this synopsis society and what was me and I? You know it's so hard that I went through that. But instead I'm like I built a business now that helps support my family and is a passion of mine, and I get to help other women all across the world. I have clients in the United States, I have clients in Australia and I've created this community from nothing and these women support each other and they heal together and I get to pay it forward in a way that I wouldn't have been able to had I not gone through that experience myself. So I get to make that mean what I want to make it mean now.

Speaker 2: 32:10

But you're totally right.

Speaker 2: 32:11

You have to go through every single feeling and all of us experience a range of emotions, positive and negative, and I think what we get in trouble with is we try to stop them down, we try to pretend they're not there, we try to pretend we're perfect, because perfect people don't have negative emotions.

Speaker 2: 32:27

But you can't step down your emotions without them coming up in other ways, and an emotion only lasts for an average of 90 seconds if you allow yourself to feel it. I think some of us are afraid that if we feel shame, if we feel anxiety or fear, that we're going to open up a floodgate and we're never going to be able to stop feeling it. But the opposite is actually true. If you allow it to be there, if you name it, if you say, God, I'm experiencing so much fear right now, it'll go away. But a lot of us were taught not to cry when we were little or not to feel negative emotion or turn that frown upside down. So a lot of us are very not comfortable feeling emotion and for me and the clients that I see, I see a lot of emotional eating happening.

Speaker 1: 33:17

Yeah, well, let's talk about maybe a success. You've seen with someone that you have helped.

Speaker 2: 33:23

Sure. So I'm going to shout out my rock star, emily. I love her to death. She came to me and she's had anorexia for 20 years and she was in treatment for 12, but traditional eating disorder treatment and she still has a therapist. She still has an eating disorder dietician and she has me as well. So she has a team. But she's noticing since the year she's worked with me that she's made far and away the most progress, she was telling me.

Speaker 2: 33:52

In traditional treatment they weigh you every day, they give you a meal plan to stick with, but a lot of the times treatment centers don't go into the thought process that you might be having that are causing you to do these certain behaviors with food.

Speaker 2: 34:07

They don't dig into you know where you're eating disorder started from, what was the trauma or the belief that began this whole journey for you, and if you're not digging into why those things are happening or what thoughts are keeping you're stuck, you're going to stay stuck Like you can't just tell someone to do something and have them do it and then have them sustain that without having them understand themselves and the kind of deeper issue to start that real, true healing. So she's gone very, very long stretches eating her meal plan, eating above her meal plan, eating off meal plan, eating a random cookie, which she would be so scared to do, and the way she shows up in our coaching calls. She'll pipe up when somebody else has an issue and ask them really poignant questions that I would have asked, and it's wonderful to see them not only apply what I teach them to themselves but to each other. It's just it's wonderful to see.

Speaker 1: 35:02

Well, I bet that's a big part of your program also is connecting people to other people that are going through the same thing and having that support.

Speaker 2: 35:11

Well, that was one of the things that I loved about Intuitive Eating when I first heard about it. I heard about it on a podcast and I cried because I was like number one there's a reality out there where women don't have to die and don't have to be pursuing weight loss and don't have to be picking apart their bodies Like I want to be part of that reality. Let me try to get there. And number two I was hearing stories of other people who had had disordered eating or eating disorder issues and they were doing the same behavior. I was like, oh my God, I'm not alone and I'm not crazy.

Speaker 2: 35:43

There are other people who do this too. This is a problem and a thing that's beyond just me and it made me feel so seen that I wanted to be part of this community to help myself feel because they understood me. So that's what I try to do with group coaching. I offer private coaching as well, but the bulk of my program is group coaching because you get to hear other people's issues that you might not even realize you have, or they ask questions they don't realize they also had, and they hear other people go through their own process and they have other people supporting them, and it's a like-minded community. We're all on the same journey and have the same goal of health in a way that's not obsessive and restrictive. It's nutrition, it's fitness, but it's not in a very restrictive box, the way that dieting serves it up to us.

Speaker 1: 36:33

So do you have any techniques you employ with your clients, such as maybe journaling, so they can go back and look at their successes? If someone works with you, what does that look like? Are you on a Zoom call doing group sessions?

Speaker 2: 36:48

It's a bunch of different things. I try to make the program as well-rounded as possible. So the program is called Defy the Diet and it's different packages. So depending on the package you're going to get different things. But there's a bunch of modules. They're all recorded videos of me going through certain strategies or lessons or scientific study information to kind of back up the whole philosophy of intuitive eating. It's all based on intuitive eating and that those go out and there are worksheets that go with each module so you can really kind of reflect on how each element of intuitive eating is affecting you and your life.

Speaker 2: 37:30

I give body image meditations that I encourage my clients to listen to every single day because repetition is how we rewire the brain. There are group calls on Zoom so you can come on. You can ask any questions that you have about the modules. You can come on with a problem that you've been having and I will go through that problem. You can have other support from the other ladies in that Zoom call. There's opportunity for private one-on-one sessions, coaching with my co-coach, maria. There's the option for text message support daily with me so you can text me your issues, your wins, your struggles.

Speaker 2: 38:09

There's so much to the program. Lots of journaling prompts as well, because, like you said, you need to see your own thought process as well as your progress in order to make the most progress. You can't just have your thoughts floating in your head, because they go in and out. We can't follow the logic up as well as we can in our journaling. Lots of journaling, meditation, accountability. We do goal setting. So there's so much involved because it's a tough process. It really is. You are, in effect, rewiring the neurons of your brain to think differently about what beauty is and what health is and what your self-worth is, and that's a whole lot of heavy lifting. So I try to pack as much into the program so that you can get the most out of it in the least amount of time.

Speaker 1: 38:58

Well, that sounds good. So, when you were going through this process yourself, what were you finding to be the biggest lesson, the biggest obstacle and the biggest kind of show to you as you're trying to heal this eating disorder?

Speaker 2: 39:13

You know I really liked podcasts. That was kind of my mode of learning. I would listen to all day, every day, different types of intuitive eating podcasts and that was my way of rewiring my brain because when I was going through it there weren't as many resources. I didn't know of any intuitive eating coaches you know what I'm saying. Like that wasn't really a thing yet. So I kind of did it on my own, which I don't recommend. It took a very long. It took me seven years to recover fully and that was a whole lot of listening and reading nonstop. So I wouldn't recommend that.

Speaker 2: 39:48

I think hardest part was the body image. I think I was able to heal with the food and heal with my relationship to exercise easier than the thoughts that would come up about my body, and I tell that to my clients all the time. You'll stop the behaviors like the calorie counting, the weighing yourself every day, then you'll stop before you stop having the thoughts that you want to do those things. So the rewiring of the brain takes time and for me, I had body dysmorphia so I always wanted six pack abs, flat stomach, and my genes aren't really built for six pack abs Like I just all the wood in my family have weight in their middle and that's just the weight of our built. So I had to do a lot of thought work around the fact that this is just the body that I'm in and I to accept this body the way that it is and it's not perfect, but I can appreciate it and I can respect it.

Speaker 2: 40:48

And body image is all about thought work. You're not going to improve your body image by losing 10 pounds. You might temporarily, but you'll eventually hit a point where you're still not happy and you'll want to lose more and more. And I was my most miserable I had the worst body image when I weighed. The least amount of it, I think, is really kind of proof of that. It's all in your mind. It's not what your body looks like and how much you weigh. Body image is built upon what you think beauty is and where you think your self worth comes from.

Speaker 1: 41:20

Yeah, yeah. Well, what is the biggest kindness someone showed you during those seven years?

Speaker 2: 41:26

The biggest kindness? That's a really good question, I would have to say. My husband, because when I met him I still was kind of in the throes of my eating disorder and he didn't really know. I kept it hidden. Even when we were living together it was still pretty hidden, and once I kind of came out and told him what I had been struggling with and this healing journey that I was currently on, he didn't bat an eye. He never judged me. He just kind of let me do my thing and do a check in with me. But he never made me feel like there was something wrong or broken about me. He never made it a big deal, which I appreciated, because sometimes when you do make it a big deal, it's almost like it kind of discourages you. He just treated me like a human being. It was like going through something. It was just very nice.

Speaker 1: 42:13

Yeah, that does make you feel so much better when someone can be open to what you have to share, but without the judgment. Yeah, yeah, that's great.

Speaker 2: 42:22

I mean, we've had 10 years, I've had a baby, but Maddie has changed and he still treats me the same way. He still looks at me the same way and I appreciate that.

Speaker 1: 42:32

That's awesome. So where can people find you if they want to work with you and also talk about the book that will be coming out as well?

Speaker 2: 42:41

Yeah, so, yeah. So the book I'm very excited for it's called Freedom with Food and Fitness how Intuitive Eating is the Key to your Happiest, healthiest Self. So basically, the book title same as the business title it's Freedom with Food and Fitness. It'll be out on November 14th with your Rano publishing and that will be worldwide, everywhere that you can get books. And I would say the things that differentiate it from the other intuitive eating books that are out there is there's a heavy focus on intuitive movement, otherwise known as joyful movement, because it's one of the 10 principles of intuitive eating, but not many people focus on it because it's only, again, one of the 10 principles.

Speaker 2: 43:23

So I wanted to dedicate half the book to it, because we talk a lot about nutrition and exercise together. So I wanted more of a conversation around what is intuitive movement look like? And if you are obsessive with your exercise, how can you scale down in a way that still feels good and honors your body? And if you want to challenge yourself with more movement but you don't want to do it in a way that feels so obsessive, how can you do that? So there's different levels, and I talked about the fitness industry and how nefarious it can be just like the rest of the dieting industry.

Speaker 2: 43:56

And then also, this book has a lot of very practical tips that you can implement that day, and I think there is kind of a hole in the market for something that's just very conversational, just kind of like a girlfriend telling another girlfriend hey, here are the tips and tricks that I use to intuitive the eat even though I have a really, really busy schedule. You know what I'm saying. So that's the book. If anybody wants to work with me or talk to me or find me, I'm at Freedom with Food and Fitness on Instagram mostly, and then I'm also at freedomwithfoodandfitnesscom. There you can find free resources, you can schedule a call, stop with me about coaching. You can see the coaching packages I have and the prices and all of that good stuff.

Speaker 1: 44:35

Well, that's great to know that there's a place people can go to get that extra support when it comes to eating disorders, Like you said, in addition to a therapist or whatever they may have tried. This sounds like a new approach and added bonus when it comes to improving your health and mindset about body shape and size.

Speaker 2: 44:57

Yeah, that's the last note I would want to end on is intuitive eating isn't letting yourself go. It's not letting go of your health. It's coming back to your health in a way that just feels more authentic and gentle. I'm fit and I'm healthy, and I keep my nutrition in mind. I keep my fitness in mind, but it's not this all-encompassing thing anymore, so I can focus on all the other things that bring me joy.

Speaker 1: 45:19

That's a very good note to end on. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and your own experience for others to be inspired by. Of course, thank you, marla, for having me.