For many people, the idea of no longer dieting is the easy part of Intuitive Eating. If you’ve dieted since you were 15 years old – you’re SO exhausted by now. It’s kind of a relief to hear “diets don’t work” – because you’ve known it all along.
But then what?!
What often DOESN’T feel like relief for clients is the idea they are going to be stuck in a bigger body that feels uncomfortable.
Today, Dalina and Melissa talk about how to work toward body neutrality, that is, respecting your body, so you don’t feel so much guilt and rebellion around food. First we’ll describe how to imagine body image on a spectrum, then we will cover some tips to go from there. You’ll learn:
- How to surface and calm your inner body police based on your lived experiences in a bigger body
- Why body neutrality matters to staying motivated (and being realistic!) with the body image process
- 3 exercises for body neutrality you can consider to find more neutrality in your bigger body
What did you think of our conversation today? DM on Instagram us with your reactions – we love to hear from you!
Episode Resources:
Join the Break the Diet Cycle Podcast Community on Instagram: @break.the.diet.pod
Connect with Melissa on Instagram: @no.more.guilt
Connect with Dalina on Instagram: @your.latina.nutritionist
Follow Break the Diet Cycle on Apple Podcasts
Follow Break the Diet Cycle on Spotify
This episode was sponsored by No More Guilt with Melissa Landry. Reminder that though we are dietitians, we’re not *YOUR* dietitian. Podcasts don’t constitute treatment. If you have concerns about your dieting behaviors, seek out guidance from a medical or mental health professional. And if you’re looking for the process, support, and focus you need to live life without food guilt apply for a coaching program from today’s sponsor. No More Guilt with Melissa Landry is currently enrolling clients into 1:1 programs, group programs, and, recently added a do-it-yourself learning format: the Ex-Dieter’s Guide to No More Guilt.
how do you let go of wanting to lose weight? transcript
Dalina Soto 0:02 Hola hola chulas. Melissa Landry 0:04 Hi there. We are experts in intuitive eating for on again off again chronic dieters, and we are here to help you take the guilt and stress out of eating so you can become the first in your family to break the diet cycle, just like we are in our families. We want you to be who you are without food guilt. Be sure to follow us on Instagram. No more guilt for Melissa and your Latina nutritionist for Dalina. Are you ready? Let's break the diet cycle. Hey, it's me Melissa. Before we start, I want to let you know that this episode is brought to you by no more guilt with Melissa Landry. What you're about to listen to is not a professional coaching or counseling session. Each episode is a one time conversation meant for educational purposes. Look, we're dieticians. But we're not your dietician. Remember that podcasts don't constitute treatment. If you have concerns about your dieting behaviors, seek out guidance from a medical or mental health professional. And if you're looking for the process, support and focus you need to live life without food guilt apply for a coaching program from today's sponsor, me. I'm currently enrolling clients into one to one programs group programs and I recently added a do it yourself format the X dieters guide to no more guilt. Apply for a program at Melissa Landry nutrition dot com.I hope to meet you soon. Have you heard that you need to love your body but feel completely lost? How to start doing that. Especially if you've been dieting since you were a teen, you've probably learned your body was all wrong. I want to ask about you an adult right now. How do you feel about your body body image is on a spectrum. And if you feel like right now you don't like it very much. It's okay. We can start there many where you need to love your body. In order to be successful in this work. We hear all the time that feels impossible. We want to let you know if it's refreshing to hear you don't need to love your body to find peace and calm around food. Today we're going to talk about how to work toward body neutrality that is respecting your body so you don't feel so much guilt. And you can give yourself the love you deserve. We're going to describe how to imagine body image on a spectrum. And then we're going to cover some tips for you to go from there. We hope that you have an open mind and you think a little bit about what could be a small and simple next step to start respecting your body. One more thing to left. We know how hard you are working to break the diet cycle out there. We appreciate that work. Because we know every single one of you who breaks a diet cycle is making a World War inclusive and safe for others to do the same. It's personal, we get it. That's probably why you're listening to a podcast, it's private and at your own pace. That's why if you've ever found benefit from this podcast, we want you to review and rate us there are more people like you who want the same benefit. Helping our podcast get found by women like you is the best way to help us further our mission to break the diet cycle. We literally couldn't do it without you. Will you review us after you listen to this episode. Thanks chula. The question that is on everyone's mind, when they become intuitive eaters, how do you actually let go of the desire to lose weight and look, Dalina, like a lot of clients always tell me letting go of diets is actually not the scary or the hard part for at least my clients. They've been dieting since their 15. So for someone to say to them, like Oh, diets don't work, you don't have to pursue that if you don't want to. They're like I kind of knew that all along because I've been going through that. So like thank you Instagram community. No problem, clap, clap, clap, just our hands off. We're done with diets. That's actually not the scary part of intuitive eating. What it is, is like, okay, but now what? Now what do I do? Because if dieting isn't happening, then weight loss isn't happening. And that's when you start to see that spiral happen and fear and anxiety. What do you see with your folks? Is it like a similar thing? I was just wondering if they usually feel the same way? Like is it scary to let go of diets or not so scary? Because I think it's different, right? Like the dieting and accepting your body are like two different pieces of work? Yeah, I think that for at least for my community, what I see the most is that health is intertwined into all of this. So it's not only this idea of like, I know diets don't work. I know that it's not good for me, right? But then there's still an and this idea of like the weight loss equals health. And if I'm not actively trying to lose weight, then I'm not actively trying to be healthy. And I think that that is the big confusion, right? Because we always equate weight loss with health. And so that muddies the waters when you try to divest from dieting, because in your head, then you're like, Well, how am I being healthy that like, how am I working on my health if I'm not actively trying to shrink myself to be the size I was when I was 15 Ding ding ding! And this is what we're going to bring to the table today, Julian On this episode because I noticed a similar undercurrent for my clients in bigger bodies. And so similar to how you talk about in the Latinx community, there's a lot of message about cultural foods, being unhealthy, overweight and being unhealthy. That keeps those messages really front and center for your community. And for the women that I'm working with in bigger bodies. I noticed this with my mom and I just had a conversation with her last week where she every ache and pain that she has, every time she goes to the doctor's office where like, the blood work is a little, but I was changing and she's getting feedback about that. Her brain activates in a way where she's pulling in every single message she heard from being a little girl that her body was going to lead to disease, death or discomfort and all of the big scary things that we linked so I'm so happy you said that cuz I think it's a slightly different sorts. There's certainly Latinx women in bigger bodies are going to have like that double layer of pressure on them as they go to accept their bodies. Yeah, and I'm sorry if you hear the ruffling of freisin eating Oreos, Melissa knows that. It's next time. Yeah, it's okay. Just got home from school. He just grabbed four Double Stuffed Oreos. Well, my man, treat yourself this afternoon. I love you guys. I gotta keep working. So she's balancing? Dalina Soto 6:24 I think you bring up a really good point, right. And I think that this is the unfortunate part of the healthcare system that has been educated in such a way that we equate body size to health. And then it begins on such a small age where we are hearing, you know, I just posted not too long ago about I don't know where it was posted about diets. But you know, people were telling me how they started diving at nine years old, or they went to the pediatricians office. And they were like, oh, you know, you're the 100th percentile, which you and I know that that doesn't mean anything but as a parent, right? They're like, Oh, 100% Oh, that must not be good. I mean, I have had, I remember this call vividly from a mom, who had a one year old in the 100 percentile. And she called me to work with me, and she's hysterically crying, saying I have to cut carbs. Because my kid has a potbelly. And I'm like, oh, babies have potbelly, that's a baby. Like, when, like, Melissa Landry 7:28 that's what they look at my face gets scrunched up anymore. Yeah, fall apart. Dalina Soto 7:32 That's diet culture, because her pediatrician told her her one year old was in the 100 100 percentile, and that she needed to limit their foot right there. And this is the frickin water as we keep saying that we're all swimming in. And so your mom, kids, everybody that's listening. Nyla in her house class right now. Having to ever say this. She's like, I'm gonna she told me she had health today. Literally, this happened today. She's like, I have health today. What do you want me to say to my health teacher? I was like, no. Melissa Landry 8:08 She's like, what age should I bring? Dalina Soto 8:11 Yeah I was like, I don't want you to say anything. Do you want me to tell her that she knows nothing. Melissa Landry 8:18 This is hilarious. But she is she's segwaying into a really good point here, which is like, body image work and pushing back on health ism, and wage discrimination are separate things. Um, so I kind of love, love that little advocate you have right there. Because that would be the ideal, right? Like that would be ideal that we stopped perpetuating these messages. And you and I talked about this, it's gonna be work. I think all of us listening, all of you listening and ourselves are like part of this movement to push back and change it. But in the meanwhile, you're a real person, who is, you know, we're in the middle of this movement, we're in the middle of getting these messages out there, you're a real person who's thinking back on their past experience going, you know what I can remember the time that doctor said this, or mom said this, or maybe it really isn't linked to health, per se, but you have learned, it doesn't feel comfortable, for example, to go to a restaurant and find a seat that feels comfortable for you or get on an airplane, you know, these are all fears I talk about with clients regularly. So I want to bring this up. Because when we think about why it's hard to lose, or hard to let go of weight loss, we have to give ourselves grace and understanding that we're doing that work in a context where some people are uncomfortable in their bigger bodies because of the way society is built and the way that you are treated. And the Lena and I as you know, do not have those lived experiences. Those are things that I've learned about secondhand watching my mom through talking with clients, both of us and by learning from educators who have gone through this and so As we go through this, I want to remind you that everybody who's listening is going to have different intensity around messages internally, the messages might look different. And the work here is figuring out how you want to cope with those messages in your life. Like we're not here to tell you what to do or to not do. And I hope, I think because clients have told me that can feel like relief sometimes to know that the outcome of exploring body image doesn't need to mean I won't ever try to lose weight again. Yes, that isn't me telling you to go lose weight. Obviously, you guys know me, you know, Dalina, we don't tell you to lose weight. But to take the pressure off to say, like me, looking at other ways of thinking about this problem does not mean that I don't have the option to use my body autonomy and go lose weight down the line. What do you think about that approach is to take the pressure off your feedback, people, and I think it's important for everybody to understand, and this is where we're playing devil's advocate here, like sometimes they can have weight loss or pursue weight loss might help you feel safe. Because you might be in a space or time in your life where fat advocates talk about this all the time, when we talk about anti fat bias. I think that this is where a lot of this gets muddy, we're like, yeah, you know, straight size people like you and I are talking but nobody's talking about the fact that sometimes dieting is safe for some people, because it's the only way that they might feel accepted. Right. So if you have the privilege to be able to talk to us and work with us, or work with somebody else and work on your health outside of intentionally trying to lose weight, then that's beautiful. Right? But it's also okay, if you're not there yet. And I think that that's the safe space we're trying to build for you all here that like, that's probably some of the gripe a lot of people have with this Instagram Intuitive Eating world, right, is that it feels so polarizing. And we've talked about that on this show. Before it seems very polarizing, because, yes, Melissa, and I don't know how it feels like, right, and we're talking and we're trying to educate you, but you have bodily autonomy, you have the right to choose, and it's not our job to tell you what to do. It's our job, if you want to learn another way that we are here to help you with that. But, you know, I think that it's important for me to say that I don't know, you think I went maybe too far, but never, I think that's fine. Dalina Soto 12:27 I think it's important for everybody to know that right? Like, I usually have people, you know, comment on my stuff all the time. But But But But what about health? What about weight? And it's like, again, if that's what you want. There's other dietitians out there for you. All right. Like if this is just a point where you're just listening and learning and you're curious, please continue to listen to us. And hopefully we can get you on our side. But if that's not what's right for you, that's not what allows you to feel safe. Then there are other dietitians and other you do you do? Yeah, you do you? We're not here to shame anybody or guilt anybody. Melissa Landry 13:02 So going into this conversation with that in mind can often help us to say okay, like, where am I at right now my readiness to consider other ways of creating safety for myself beyond the diet cycle? That's really a big a big old question. If you're saying right now, I am absolutely not ready. Heck, no, you're gonna listen to this like, like you listen to any show. Like, it wasn't some interesting ideas that I may never use in my life. I listen to podcasts, interviews all the time with things that I just ain't for me that I, I like to learn. Me, maybe you're in a place right now, where you're like, um, I get it. I don't want to keep choosing dieting, I actually had a group client last night, two different group clients had different points of view on this is always interesting. Mm hmm. And we were kind of allowing that difference in the group. And I was, it was summarizing back then, like, one of the persons was younger, hadn't really gone through as much trauma around dieting, versus another person who was a little bit older, had gone through a lot more trauma with dieting, one of them was more clear that dieting actually makes her feel less safe in the long run. And the other person saying, Well, right now, I don't know I'm a little more on the fence. And both of them are doing solid, amazing anti diet work. One is not better than the other. And so that's what I want you to do right now, if you're listening is to kind of figure out like, if you're not fully sure, if you want to dye it or not, again, it's okay. And if you are very sure you don't want to dye it again. You're going to be the person who jumps after this book as episode and tries this stuff tomorrow. Because that you're going to be more likely to benefit from this where the other person might just want to understand what it looks like. Dalina Soto 14:49 Yeah, and I in my discovery calls I'm notorious for saying like, my goal isn't to stop you from ever dieting again. My goal is to help you understand that if If you fall for dieting, or if you attempt weight loss again and it fails, that, you know you did nothing wrong, that it wasn't your fault. And then you can try again. Because Intuitive Eating is not a linear thing. It has bumps in the road, you fall off, you pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and try again. I'm not trying to quote Alia here, but Hello. Melissa Landry 15:25 She does this stuff, you gotta make that baby noise in the background. We're like, Ah, no, that was one somebody tell me, somebody, we got our phones and lyrics. All the time, my sisters make fun of me in the car. Because like, I will, I will go in with a confidence of like, veto, like just and then in the middle, the I don't know what these behind. It's like, I just can never, we just backed up. We made a joke out of all this. But honestly, as per usual, I'm going to reel it back in here, not my job. Usually, it's usually Melissa, who does this. But the goal, there's no perfection, there's no, there's no 100% right way to do this. It's that you know that intuitive eating and coming back to your body and feeling good in your body is always available to you. And I have heard Evelyn, in a podcast talk about how like, sometimes our clients are like, but I want to try this diet. And she's like, cool, let's do it together. Let's see how it makes you feel. Because our job isn't to tell you what not to do. Right? Our job is to be there for you, and to listen to you. And to help you feel that it is right. And that's true coaching and what coaching is, many people who have worked with dieticians in the past, you have more of a style of like, I'm the guru, here's my method, I'm going to tell it to you you're going you're I'm going to hold you accountable to that method. That is a more prescriptive style of work, then more more, more, the more educational like we're I'm I'm the expert. And I'm telling you, versus coaching, which is more like, Hey, you're the expert in you. I'm going to listen very closely for who you are and what you want. And I'm going to help you get there. So that if that helps people understand when you're shopping around for people to help you to different styles, sometimes people are in the middle. That's why you go to discovery calls, make sure your person is a fit. Alright, good shopper for him. All right, I want to talk a little bit more about skills now. Because I think we've set the context for where people might be coming from. And we've helped you all decide how you might use the information you're about to hear. Last season, we did the intuitive eating series where we walk through the 10 principles. Yeah, and one of those principles is challenge the food police, which was one of my favorites all about, you know, disordered thinking that we can have around food. And I want to offer an idea today about that skill. So let's recap for just a moment. The food police voice is the one inside of you, that makes you feel guilty, shamed or judged for how you eat. And very often that voice comes from past diets we've been on so your favorite thing to hate maybe a diet told you don't eat past seven. And now you have a rule to not eat past seven. Right? So that would be a food police message. Maybe that policing came from a former caregiver, someone in your life when you were little who would say you just ate you know, you shouldn't eat right now you just you're not even hungry, those types of messages. Or maybe it just came from the general media and diet culture. So the food police are internalized rules or judgments that came from these places around food. I want to make a leap for a second, that there is actually another voice that intuitive eating does not mean but we're going to name right here. And that voice is called the body police. So it has the same tone. It comes from the same places. But the messages have to do with body instead of our plates. What do you think of this idea? Does that does that work? This idea of a food police and a body police? Dalina Soto 19:02 Well, yeah, I mean, I think we all have the body police. I mean, we compare ourselves to everyone all day. Melissa Landry 19:10 That's the name of the game. So that's true to body police is going to be the voice driving comparisons. The reason I point out this voice the body police is because depending on your lived experience. So for example, someone from the Latin X community who has grown up with tele novellas we've talked about this before, is probably going to have an ideal around their bodies that is different than someone else who grew up in a different culture. So when you do this work, part of the individualization is surfacing the messages of the body police because the techniques that you use are going to depend on what those messages have to say, and mention this because I think when we hear random tips, we can get frustrated, like why isn't it working? And I want to plant that seed To say that sometimes we need support, figuring out what our policing messages are. So we can actually pick the techniques that are most connected with those messages. So that can be where a breakdown can happen. We have talked before about the body image spectrum Dalina. What do you know about that body image spectrum? So what are some of the things you learned about body image on the spectrum? Dalina Soto 20:24 Well, I mean, I think that your infographic is like, my favorite thing to use. And I think that, again, that spectrum is like a spectrum on everything in life, like we, we have to let go of this idea that everything is always going to be the same, that we're meant to be stagnant, that like life is perfect. And that we're never supposed to change, right? Like that, that we have to let go of this perfectionism idea, especially around our body and understand that just like we have relationships with people, where we don't like them all the time, or basic get on our nerves, or like Nyla told me last night, she felt annoyed with me, I got her like a feelings wheel. And I was like, tell me what you're feeling. She was like, annoyed. I was like, Okay, I'm gonna leave now. But like, you could feel annoyed with your body, you can feel neutral to your body, you can feel respect, you can feel love some days, like, you can feel an emotional, we'll have different things for your body, which, you know, maybe we should print out an emotional wheel for ourselves. But like, there's such a range of emotions that like body love is not the only thing and love. When we think about love, you can love someone. And again, be annoyed, you can love someone and like, be angry at them. You love someone and not like them at that moment, right, like, so I think that's what I need everybody to understand about this, that like, when we talk about bodies, we have a shit ton of different feelings towards them. And that's okay, Melissa Landry 21:48 and more than one, and they fluctuate, and they they change depending on your context and what's going on that day. And so the body image, texture and visual that I've made and delete is referring to has, you know, I think we could probably adapt it depending on what language resonates with people. But the one that I've shared on one end has the word hate. So this feeling of hatred toward your body. For many of you, that means trying to starve it really beating yourself up these disorder behaviors that often only feel better if you kick start a diet. And that's something that many people can identify as they come into intuitive eating some feelings of hatred. The next rung on that ladder is respect. This is feeling like maybe you don't like your body but you're going to feed it you're going to speak kindly to it you're going to drink we're going to treat it like a good plant you're going to water it and give it sunshine and all the things that you need to meet your own needs, then it moves up to appreciation. So appreciating your body for what it can do the functions that it has and moves on to loving your body and then at the end is feeling like you're more than your body that beauty redefined talks about this a lot that it's an instrument not an ornament you know this this is your your meat suit and dietitian Anna talks about that language a lot that this really is just a vessel for you to live your purpose which is being who you are. And so with my clients I try to get them to think about one like Dalina is saying it fluctuates you know, because you're feeling hatred in one moment doesn't mean that's permanent. Overall though, we do want I think most of us to see the trend of experiences move more towards the neutral and the positive. So that's how we would assess body image over time right? Are you spending more time in the negative versus neutral versus positive knowing you will always experience all three as a human being so today as we go through this ask yourself like where are you on that body image spectrum are you feeling most of the time like is a hatred? Are you respecting yourself? Most of the time? Are you appreciating yourself most of the time? Where are you most of the time? Dalina Can I ask you where do you find yourself most of the time your body image I will say that I am in body respect a lot and I definitely you know I've said it before I practice a lot of body neutrality when it comes to like my stretch mark things that I really have struggled with in the past when it comes to like body image there are days where I look at myself and I'm like Hey girl, you look great and then there's days where I'm like oh you know and that's that's normal but i think that i i tried to stay in the bio neutrality as much as I can because like you said I personally wants to be in my body as my vessel not that ornament and that's something that I think growing up Latina is really hard because we are paraded our bodies are paraded like think about like pageant culture is so big. Like Miss Universe is so big in our culture. And also like you know, just like parading yourself for like using it as like parties or like even or no violence like the body was always paraded portrayed it Gosh, I don't even know what the words like. I just don't want that anymore. For myself, I personally what I'm working on is like viewing my body or, or knowing that my body is my vessel, my meat suit, whatever it is. It's not an ornament. And that's where I'm focusing on. And I know that not everybody is like that, you know, I think that JLo is very much into like, my body is an ornament. And this is my dog. And this is like, I have to look a certain way, right? But I don't need to do that. I don't want to do that. And I just want my body. I want to feel good in my body. And that's it. Yeah, yeah. It's such a good point to like, other people might value their ornamentation more than you. And it can be hard. I keep saying this to my husband. Like, I find like a lot of things in my life. Like, I'm changing my beliefs. And like my values, I think I very much was more so worried about how I look, did I say the right thing? Am I being that? Like, there was a lot of perfectionism within me? And more and more, I'm like, Yeah, I don't, I'm caring a little less. But the minute I'm around someone who does care, I'm like, should I care? Either that it's very normal for that to come back. I love that idea of like, it's okay, if someone else chooses a different set of priorities in your life than you that doesn't make them good, are you bad or vice versa, like it being okay with what you want out of this body image work, where you're at and where you want to go? I'm with you. I think the neutrality is such an empowering, goal or focus to have, most of us want to live for our values a little bit more deeply like to feel more authentic. We don't, I don't know, for me, trying to love my body spending more time thinking about my body. Like, it's like, the opposite end of the spectrum, I'm still spending time thinking about my external, instead of building my skills as a person and being a good person or doing the things that I want to do in life. So I'm there. And it's a spectrum because of course, like on the holidays, or going out on my Oh, good. I want to wear this cute dress, I want to look fancy, you know what I mean? Like, that's, that's what we're talking about is that there is the spectrum. And there's most days, I just want to be neutral. I don't want to do that. But then there's days that I do, and I want to call myself up and I want to look good. And like you can do that. No. Is that one of them, though? They're bad. I don't think that that lives on the axis of like, caring about how you look or not. I think that like when you dress up, can I just tell you that I'm going to find out? Yeah, like you are someone to me who is bold, expressive. You like to show up for the people in your life. And I see that in the way that you dress like you the patterns, you choose the colors you choose, yes, you want to look good. And maybe that overlaps with like ornamentation and pretty ideals and all that shit. But you've also found a way to like, express who you are in that fashion and clothing. And I think that that is such a powerful way to frame that. Like, if you like doing your hair, because there's something about that that can link to a value. That's more than just I'm doing this so that people think that I look acceptable. You it can be both, you know what I'm saying? Like, yeah, and I feel like you do such a good job of that. Like, I don't I don't view it that way. Well, we never see ourselves how others see us, which actually is one of the techniques I want to give folks today. So I want to switch gears into like, how do we maybe practice new ways of being in ourselves. And one of them is actually to consider how your best friend would describe you beyond your weight and size. And I say this because obviously like deleted just pointed out if I were if I said to you like what do you like about yourself beyond your weight and size? She would probably feel like superduper awkward about it. And shut down and be like, don't ask me this in public Melissa. you know what? I had the tools do this exercise once and I text my best friend and I actually asked him to help me Yes, get that it was so awkward. I'm not gonna lie, the most awkward thing but they made me cry. They made me cry. Because I was like, y'all never told me these things. I would actually just, you know, just go fishing for compliments, but go fishing for a couple minutes. It's really helpful. Sometimes I've asked my husband that before. I'm like, what makes me me why? And he was like, You're quirky as all hell, you're so goofy. Like, that's something I really love about you. Like, I never know what you're gonna say. And that that was kind of fun to hear. Because sometimes I tell myself that I'm not like spontaneous or fun. And that's not true. So I think when we can get a good sense of like, I call them identity chips, like what are identity chips beyond the way that we look? Because on days that we have deflated body image. If we look around and we say well, there's nothing else that makes me me besides when I'm small looking quote put together my favorite, my favorite phrase that clients often say and I've said too, what is it that makes you you because our self esteem, we can diversify our self esteem. It's okay if it lives a little bit on how you look. But what would it look like to diversify? and let it live on other aspects of yourself. Yeah, it's hard though. We live in a society that only wants, like, Look face things, right? And so again, like, you know, marching at the beat of your own drums, like, sometimes you just got to do that you do you do. I want to give one more tip here. So, one exercise I often give to clients when they say to me, you know, Melissa, let me tell you something. When I was thinner, when I was smaller, I did, I felt like a million bucks. I had no pain in my body. And I felt so confident and Cray. And their memory is that thinness made them feel wonderful. And of course, that if that's your experience, being bigger and staying bigger, feels like the opposite, which might mean discomfort, not feeling sexy being in pain. And it would make a ton of sense if you felt a lot of fear around the idea that that would be your permanent state. So this exercise I'm about to share with you, is it to change your mind about your past experience. You were there? I wasn't. So if you're saying that it's it felt great, I believe you. It felt great for you, and you're in a smaller body. And there's a lot of reasons for that. Beyond the thinness itself. We know that we get more praise when we're thinner. Hello, how many of you have been told oh my God, you look so good when you lost weight, and then the frickin compliments disappear if the weight ever returns. So we know that there's a social context that sometimes makes you feel good when you're thin. But it doesn't matter why you felt good. It matters that you did feel good when you were thinner. So rather than letting that be a block expenditure experience, thin equals good. Fat equals bad. Take a moment and write down why your thinness felt good to you. So get specific. I felt sexier. My clothes fit better. What else deleted you here? I felt more energized. I didn't have pain. Yeah, I didn't have pain. Mm hmm. Anything else? I'm sure I'm sorry. Someone's yelling at their Yeah, right now? Well, it doesn't matter. Because it doesn't matter what we think it matters what your experience was. So come up with that list, and see if you can invite a tiny brainstorm here. So let's say sexy, right? You felt sexier when you were smaller. Okay, thinness might be one way at accessing that sexy feeling. What are other things that you can do show your brain that fitness is not the only avenue for you to get the sexiness for you to get clothes that fit for you to find comfort in your body. Another way of tackling this is asking what would a thin person do? Like if you already had the thinness? How would you enhance the things that you value or need in your life with non weight related activities, or whatever it may be. So that's an exercise one of my clients is doing right now. And she took that with the caveat of like, you don't have to do one damn thing that you write down. We just want to remind your brain and show your brain that if you were to not lose weight, you have options. You're not stuck and claustrophobic in a corner, unable to use weight loss as the tool to get what you want in life that you can still pursue it. Definitely probably a very hard exercise to do, right. But it's like, I almost have to tell you like when we think about like health and doctor's visits and things like that, like what would you tell us in person? Like what would a sane person do? Right? That's really what it comes down to like this idea that like if you had that, then what else would you do to feel comfortable in your body? I always I always asked my clients to write down what comforts dieting brought them. Because we can try to achieve that. That's a good way. Weight related ways, right? Because dieting brings comfort, we always it's it has to be said it brings community it brings comfort, it makes you feel good at the beginning, right, not over short, or very short. While so what are those things that you got from dieting? Let's do that now. Right? So giving the brain and this this comes back to that challenge the food police skill, we've changed it to challenge the body police skill. If you go back to that episode, you can kind of learn more about the different types of distorted or disordered thinking that can occur, but one of them is all or nothing thinking. These judgments and generalizations that we make and one form of all or nothing thinking is that then equals good, energize whatever positive words you want to assign. And fat equals bad, tired and all the negative words that you want to assign. And this is rooted in anti fat bias what we learn all of us when we're willing to keep saying the water we swim in the water we swim in is that anti fat bias exists and we learn these messages through our life and so this exercise is meant for you to kind of just like look at that a little bit chip. Have a little bit show your brain it isn't as black and white. Because once you release those judgments, then the fear has less to tack on to. And when the fear gets really big, that's when I see clients really freeze up and not get the benefits of intuitive eating that they're wanting. They're there that spiral where like, I can't diet, but I'm too afraid, but I can't hide it, but I'm too afraid. And that's what really interested in cracking up here so that you have that relief and that piece and that comment you're wanting. We probably have time for one more tip. I did have some more. But you know, we cannot. We cannot give all the sauce away in one hour. We try our best. Dalina Soto 35:35 Well this one who made the sauce? I made the sauce. She made this all if you haven't heard that. My face is very confused right now. It's a commercial. Melissa Landry 35:40 I don't have cable and I don't really see TV. Okay. And I also don't think I don't know. All right, well, Taco Bell saltstick. I don't know. I don't know, whatever. There's a lot of weird lyrics in this today. I'm sorry, guys. Sorry, audience. Okay, so the last thing I want to offer looking my little tip list and pick a good one. Gosh, I there's so many I want to say, I'm going to pick this one, self care. Taking care of yourself and meeting your own needs his body image work, almost say that, again. Taking care of yourself and meeting your own needs his body image work, when you don't get enough rest. When you don't set boundaries in your life, when you don't honor your basic needs for nutrition for sleep for movements, your intellectual needs, your social needs, when those things are not met, body image becomes much more challenging to work with, right? Because if we're not safe and secure and nourished at a base level, we can't expect it to these higher level thinking things like we're kind of talking about some self actualization work where we're like, what's my values? How do I manifest my values? How do I live my best life? If you've ever told yourself, I really got to get my life together. Don't you dare start that until you look a little bit more at yourself care at its root, we can't thrive. So I think that's the last tip I want to impart upon all of you that if you are in a place of body hate, and you want to get to more neutral, you want to get to body respect, like deleted, I like to hang out at what would it look like to meet your needs? Dalina Soto 37:16 Yeah, you can't. There's just no other way of saying it. Like you can't do this work until your brain is nourished. Body image is very mental. Yeah. Right. And if you're not fully nourished, your brain, you know, can't entertain these don't really know what's not going to feel right. Melissa Landry 37:35 Right. And that's where I think community and support can be helpful because, again, back to that loop that a lot of people find themselves in like, you're afraid to nourish yourself more because your brains telling me you things like well, I'm already so big, how could I possibly need more food? You know, those kinds of food police messages that leave you feeling judged that bring up fear, guilt and shame. It winds up becoming a self fulfilling prophecy that you stay stuck and uncomfortable, because you're not is a self limiting thought in that way. And so that's why the support and the inspiration of communities like ours is so so important. I know this stuff is so hard to wrap your head around. And I want you to give yourself so much credit for keeping an open mind today. You know, at the start of this episode, you were asking whether or not you might be able to let go of weight loss. And now you have lots of ideas to experiment with. That's a big difference. Helping you feel less alone and unlearning generational diet trauma is what I do. I do it because I wish anyone had told my mom in her bigger body that being prescribed and praise for diets her whole life was not okay treatment. You know, I wish anyone connected her with fellow X dieters to make her feel less alone. And right now women are coming together through the no more guilt community membership to learn intuitive eating through my repeatable framework. This membership keeps you inspired to focus on taking things one step at a time, which is so desperately needed after you felt overwhelmed by dieting and the intuitive eating process for so long. We keep you motivated as you get coached through the process with weekly office hours and meetups and you get 24/7 access to a discussion board with women in bigger bodies who are also recovering from generational diet trauma. If you've been doing intuitive eating and body image work on your own spinning your wheels, it's okay to say you know what, I don't know what I don't know. Sometimes a little support is all we need to get where we want to be in life, which is why I'm inviting you to become a member of the Nomorobo community. My member Kelsey said it best she said it's so inspiring to see women go through the struggles that I do, and then keep going on in this work. It makes me want to keep going to Kelsey loves watching fellow members dust themselves off, get inspired and keep experimenting with the consistency of the membership in there. lives. That's what inspired Kelsey to do what it takes to make intuitive eating her way of life. That's some big aspirational it could never happen for me idea. She's been supported enough through membership to learn this for life. That's exactly what our goal is together. If you're looking for a way to get your feet wet with deeper work on intuitive eating and body of inch, head over to my Instagram page, no more guilt at no dot more dot guilt. My link in bio will have the information you need to join us in membership or you can DM me with any hesitations you have. Thanks for being here with us for today's episode and being who you are. Please love and break the diet cycle.
