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125 Food and Self-Love: How to Break Up with Diet Culture and Build A Peaceful Relationship with Eating · Stacked Intent: Your Guide to Authentic, Intentional Living

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to our self-love nutrition episode.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: So, food and self-love, how to break up with the diet culture and build a peaceful relationship with eating.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: So, we're gonna look at diet culture as one of the most ways of the enemies of self-love because it teaches you that your body is a problem to fix, rather, or that certain foods are bad and good, and that you need to earn the right to eat.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: So, for millions of women and others, that's the message that gets created for a lifelong relationship with food.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: In this episode, Ashley and I are gonna talk about the approach of food from a place of self-love instead of self-judgment.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: So you're gonna hear the core principles of eating, why restriction typically backfire on us, how food guilt might deal with our self-worth and what it looks like to feel like at peace with what you're eating, not as a diet strategy, but as genuine act of self-love for yourself.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, this episode, we're gonna look at how you feel with that relationship with your food and is something that you need to fix, but how you can look at it a little differently instead.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: So, welcome back to it.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm joined with by Ashley with this episode for our conversation on self-love, because we're going to dig into that relationship between food and self-love.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: And this is a conversation that I think touches almost every woman.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: Whether you've dieted or you've struggled with your body image, or you think that you've just had a constant low-grade guilt about what you eat, this episode is for you.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to start with something that might be a little bold, but I don't think diet culture is one of the biggest enemies of self-love that exists.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think that that's an overstatement.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I don't either.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: And because diet culture, which is just a set of beliefs that says your body needs to be smaller, that certain foods are virtuous, others are failures, kind of that good versus bad, that you need to earn your food, that your worth is tied how to how well you're being good.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: That entire system is incompatible with the kind of self-love that we have been building.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: So you cannot simulate because you are worthy and valuable exist.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's also believing that your body needs to be fixed.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: So these two beliefs cannot live within that same house.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so we just really hope that you kind of help change what your view on looking at taking food is.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's important to look at what diet culture has taught us, how it impacts our self-worth, and what a genuinely self-loving relationship with food looks and feels like.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: So our first section is going to look at what diet culture taught us.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we're gonna name the water that we have been swimming in because most of us adsorbed in diet culture.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's we were it happened so early in life we may not even remember it, or we may not even be able to pinpoint when kind of we got introduced to diet culture, um, and it's been integrated so thoroughly into our lives that we don't even recognize it as a belief system, and we just think that it's the truth.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a core message that's kind of been told to us in what diet culture looks like.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: And some of his core messages are that smaller bodies are healthier, more attractive, and more disciplined.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: Food can be divided into good and the bad categories, and that eating bad food means that you have failed, that hunger is something to be managed or overridden rather than listened to, that how you look is a reflection of your character, and that you should be constantly working to change your body.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, those are some of the core messages that diet culture wants to wants to tell us and wants us to be able to identify with.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: And these are some of the things that we're going to address today, and it's kind of hard to talk about.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I'm glad that we are we are tackling it together.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: And you can you might have internalized some of these messages, which most of us have in some way, and it might have come from your childhood, it may have come from the media, it may have come from the women around you and how their relationship with food look like.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: And every time you eat something off a plan, it doesn't just feel like a food choice, but it feels like a character failure.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so it feels like evidence that you're not disciplined enough, not good enough, or just not enough in what you're trying to do in your eating.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: And like if I look at this from the standpoint of like nursing, you can like I can eat a whole meal and turn around and if I nurse or pump, turn around and be just as hungry.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's looking at that of like, okay, well, what's that relationship with food still look like?
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because if I just ate and I'm still hungry and I'm eating off a plan, you've got to look at what nourishes you the best.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: The weight of all of that is enormous.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so thinking about your how it relates to you, how you feel about your own character, um, your own self-discipline.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: All of those thoughts have nothing to do with health.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: Health is about how you feel, how you function, how you care for your body.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: Diet culture is about how you look and how much you can control yourself.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so all of these are very different things.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: So, first we're gonna look at how food guilt is with self-worth.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: So, we're gonna talk about the food guilt specifically because I think that this is one of the most underrecognized ways that self-worth might get chipped away at.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: Food guilt is the feeling that you've done something morally wrong by eating something.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: And for a lot of people, this can be a daily experience, and sometimes multiple times a day.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: They eat something that they've labeled as quote-unquote bad, they feel guilty, they criticize themselves, and sometimes they restrict to compensate.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: And then that restriction then leads to cravings, which can lead to eating the thing again, and which leads to more guilt.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: So it's kind of a an endless cycle.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's looking at the guilt as the problem, not necessarily the food being the problem.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: When you feel guilty about food regularly, you're essentially telling yourself on a daily basis that you've failed, that you like control, that you can't be trusted.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: And even if it's just about food on the surface, that story can spread and seep into how you feel about yourself more broadly.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: So research on chronic dietary restrictions a lot of them shows us that people who follow rigid food rules tend to sometimes have lower self-esteem and higher rates of depression and anxiety than people who might have a little bit of flexibility in what their eating pattern is.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: And that might be looking like that 80-20 rule we've talked about.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: The restrictive relationship with food is not healthy promoting.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of times it's damaging in our physical or psychological.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: And the cure is just not better willpower, it's permission, which is kind of a terrifying thing to think about if you've been taught that permission means that you will lose control.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: But the research on it is really interesting too.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: So looking at that eating as a self-love framework.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I want to introduce intuitive eating here because I think it's one of the most self-loving frameworks available for our relationship with food.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, what's that look like a little bit more in depth?
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: Intuitive eating is developed by dietitians Evelyn Travol and Elise Rich, and it's built on 10 core principles that essentially asks you to rebuild a relationship with food from the inside out.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: Just starts with rejecting the diet mentally or the diet the diet mentality, um, or kind of that diet culture that's been ingrained in our brains and acknowledging that diets don't work long term and that the pursuit of thinness has cost you more than it's given you.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: So, what are some of those other principles that go into this intuitive eating?
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: First, honoring your hunger, trusting responding to your body's hunger signals rather than overriding them, making peace with food, giving yourself unconditional permission to eat, which paradoxically reduces your obsession with food, and challenging the food police, the internal and external voice that calls food, quote unquote, good or quote unquote bad, and discovering the satisfaction factor, which is about finding genuine pleasure in eating.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I found that so interesting and so important of like giving yourself the permission to eat, giving yourself the permission of foods, and good versus bad, that also can depend on how your body absorbs different foods.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: Essentially, all food plays some purpose, so it has all food gives body energy, um, and whether it provides any other type of nourishment with that or any other nutrients that come along with that, um, that's kind of where people will get into, I guess, the good versus bad and categorizing foods.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: But it is interesting to think about finding genuine pleasure in eating.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: So satisfaction is one of the most neglected elements of healthy eating.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: When you eat something that's genuinely satisfying, something that you actually wanted, it tastes good, you've enjoyed, your body and your brain register that meal as being complete.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: When you eat a good alternative, as in quote unquote good, labeled good, that you didn't really want, you often feel frustrated, maybe unsatisfied, and you keep eating, looking for that satisfaction that you didn't get with the food that you didn't really want in the first place.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: I've experienced sometimes of like, if I really want something, like in going ahead and eating something else, I'm still not satisfied and I'm still hungry because I didn't eat the and it could even be a fruit, and I just didn't have that, and so I just ate the other fruit that I had.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so sometimes it's just giving yourself permission to eat, and I think that's where when you go back to meal prep meal planning and shopping, you gotta shop for what you'll eat too, not just what a plan is.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: So this is why eating things that you actually won't often sometimes result in eating less than eating what a safe version might be.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: Your body is smarter than a diet plate.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: So it's looking at that permission versus satisfaction of we're gonna talk a little bit on this permission piece because I know it's the one of those scary things for people of won't I just eat everything if I give my self permission?
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: I think that is the number one fear, and it's so understandable if someone has lived inside of restriction.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: But what the research actually shows is that when people are given genuine unconditional permission to eat whatever they want without guilt, without rules, the initial phase can involve eating a lot of the previously forbidden foods, which makes sense.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: You've been denied them.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: So it doesn't mean that this phase is gonna last, and you also in this have to sometimes reflect on what were restrictions placed on you and your childhood, because that might be what you're seeing come up and what your adulthood is.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: So, like you said, that phase does not last, and once your brain truly believes that the food is then available, it won't be taken away, and you're not going to restrict again tomorrow.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: Your obsession with that food fades, the food loses its power, and you can have a piece of chocolate and have just the one because you know you're not eating it while simultaneously planning how you'll make up for it.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a different energy from restriction.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Restriction creates urgency, whereas permission really does create a calmness around your eating.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: And a calm relationship with food is what allows you to actually tune in to what your body needs and wants instead of constantly battling your own hunger and cravings.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when you say cravings, that's one of the things that was really funny in my pregnancy is people would ask, Well, what are you craving?
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: And we could never really like the only thing that my husband would say was there is sometimes I would have stuff in the house that I didn't necessarily always have.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like we might have chips a little more often, or I think I some of the candies I ate a little more often versus when I wasn't pregnant not having some of that, but it really there wasn't like one specific craving we could identify, and it's just this relationship with permission of eating foods.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: I've decided I like being pregnant in the summer because it meant I could eat all the strawberries and peaches I wanted, and they were fresh.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: So the we're gonna look at the self-loving relationship looks like.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: So if I painted us a picture, what does a self-loving relationship with food actually look like and feel like?
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: It just feels neutral, food's not a moral issue.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: A cookie is not a character flaw, a salad is not a virtue.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: You eat what you want, you notice how it makes you feel, and then you let that information guide your next without judgment.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: So you're not continuously thinking about food, and you're not also biting it either.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: One of the hallmarks of diet culture is that food takes up enormous mental real estate, living rent-free for the most part in our heads.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: You're counting, calculating, planning, restricting, craving, regretting.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: But a self-loving relationship with food is quiet.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: Food has its appropriate place in your life, it's fledgible, it's nourishing, it's communal, and it's not your primary preoccupation, meaning that you are not thinking about it all day, every day.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's having an impact on your physical and your emotional and your mental well-being.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's looking at that eating when you're hungry, stopping when you're satisfied, and you enjoy what you eat without it being a problem.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that's so helpful.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: When you eat something that doesn't feel great, either because of maybe how it tastes or just how it makes your body feel, you just notice it, acknowledge it, and make a different choice next time without a spiral, without punishment.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: So that's actually one of the healthiest relationships with food that you can have.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so it has a very different and very little to do with what you're eating, but it has everything to do with how you feel about what you're eating.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: So your action steps from today's episode look like this.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: This week, I want you to identify one diet culture of relief that you are still carrying and challenge it.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: Just one.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's that carbs are bad.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: If one of these are your beliefs from diet culture, write it down.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: Then ask, where did this belief come from?
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: Where did where did I hear this?
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: Is it actually true?
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: Does following it make me feel better or just more in control?
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to throw out everything all at once, just loosen one thing at a time.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: Notice what happens to you.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: Notice if the sky falls, or if maybe you're just feeling a little bit freer.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: Because freedom from food rules is one of the most changeable forms of self-love available to eat.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: So this was such a good conversation on that self-love.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that it's something some of us need to hear because the diet culture might keep you running and it's deep.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: And pulling it apart is just genuinely looking at that act of self-love.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: And it is, it's a process.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: So we want you to be patient with yourself.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's not gonna happen every night, but every time that you choose to eat without guilt, to trust your body, to release a rule that was never yours to follow in the first place, you are practicing real and nourishing self-love.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: So we want to thank you for being here with today's episode.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: Share this with someone that you might feel they have a complicated relationship with food, or you just want them to share on this journey of looking at it with you.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: So until the next episode, thank you guys for joining today.