Day 1 - How to Un-Diet in Midlife and Menopause

Half a million downloads. I'm still a little speechless! To celebrate, I'm doing a five-day un-dieting mini-series, and Day 1 starts with the one question I want you to carry into every episode: What would taking care of myself look like if I didn't require my body to get smaller in return?

In this short episode I explain why un-dieting isn't the same as "not dieting." Un-dieting is unlearning, letting go of the default programming that says your body has to shrink in exchange for eating a vegetable, moving your body, or adding more protein to your plate. I walk you through the diet cycle I see so many of us stuck in, why it stops working, and how even "weight-neutral" goals can quietly pull you right back in.

No download or signup required, just a few minutes  a day for the next 5 days.

Free support to get you started:

• Un-Diet Your Mindset → https://www.menopausenutritionist.ca/undietyourmindset
• Food Guilt Decoder → https://www.menopausenutritionist.ca/FoodGuiltDecoder

If you need some support:

• Try the Midlife Feast Community free for 7 days → https://www.menopausenutritionist.ca/7daytrial
• Book a no-strings connection call (virtual coffee with me) → https://p.bttr.to/3DQX9SF

📚 I wrote a book! Eat To Thrive During Menopause is out now!  Order your copy today and start thriving in midlife.

Transcript

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Welcome To The Midlife Feast

Jenn Salib Huber 0:00

Welcome to the Midlife Feast, the podcast that helps you make sense of your body, your health, and menopause in the messy middle of midlife. I'm Dr. Jen Salib Huber, intuitive eating dietitian, a naturopathic doctor, and author of Eat to Thrive During Menopause. Around here, we don't see midlife and menopause as problems to solve, but as invitations to live with more freedom, trust, and joy. Each week you'll hear real conversations and practical strategies to help you feel like yourself again. Eat without guilt, and turn midlife from a season of survival into a season of thriving. I'm so glad you're here. Let's dig in.

Mini-Series Announcement And Why Now

Jenn Salib Huber 0:41

Hello, friends. I'm back for a little mini-series. The regular season will be starting back up in a few weeks. But something crazy happened the other day, and I immediately thought, oh my gosh, the first thing I want to do is actually talk to the podcast community about

The 500,000 Download Milestone

Jenn Salib Huber 0:58

this. So I woke up to an email from Buzzbro, my podcast host, telling me that 500,000 downloads had happened. So 500,000, half a million episodes of my little podcast have been downloaded. And as you can tell, I'm still kind of speechless about it. And if you've been listening for a while, you know that I don't get speechless very often. But I am and was and probably will be for a while, very humbled that so many of you have listened to this podcast over the last almost five years, by the way. So I wanted to do this little mini-series, which I've actually been thinking about doing for a while. I did one a few years ago, actually, but I felt like it was time for an update. So we're gonna spend some time together over the next five days, just a few minutes a day. There's nothing to download. You don't have to give me your email. If you want to give me your email, I have lots of free resources for you, and that'll all be in the show notes. But I really want this to be just something that you can listen to when you need a reminder about all of it. When you need a reminder about how to eat, why to eat, what to eat, but in a way that doesn't make you feel like you're losing your mind. So let's get started with this midlife undieting mini-series.

What Undieting Really Means

Jenn Salib Huber 2:25

So the first question is always well, what do you mean by undieting? Lots of people like the word, are curious about the word, but they have no idea what I'm talking about when I say we need to undiet. So undieting is different than not dieting, although they're related, obviously, because undieting is also unlearning. So you're unlearning some of the rules, some of the default programming that maybe you grew up with or you picked up along the way, or you continue to be inundated with about what it looks like to be eating well, whatever that means. But every day I want to help you answer one question. So if you remember one thing about this episode, before you listen to the next one, I want you to listen to every episode with this question in mind. What would taking care of yourself look like if you didn't require your body to get smaller in return? Because that is essentially what undieting is. Because when we undiet our beliefs about what our body needs to do, meaning does it need to get smaller? Does it need to change? In return for eating a vegetable or going to the gym or putting more protein on your plate, whatever it is, it becomes a lot easier to have a relationship with food that is maybe more flexible than what you've had in the past.

Understanding The Diet Cycle Trap

Jenn Salib Huber 4:02

So I'm also going to walk you through over the next four days these four pillars of intuitive nutrition, which I've talked about before, but we're talking about a little bit more now, which is understanding, self-compassion, attunement, and gentle nutrition. So today we're talking about understanding. So if we go back to that question, how would you take care of yourself if you didn't require your body to get smaller in return? Why, and this is the understanding part, why do we have that condition in the first place? We believe, and we've been taught, and maybe even our own experience has taught us or shown us that if I eat a certain way and I do it well enough and for long enough, my body will play along. And often that works the first time. So people who have been dieting for a long time, who are, you know, chronic or professional diers, as I call them, know that the first time worked. Maybe the second time worked, maybe the third time worked, but oh gosh, the 15th, 16th, 20th, 30th time. Why doesn't it work anymore? So that diet cycle of start a diet, do it for a while, get tired of it, or get tired of it not working, fall off the wagon, start over on Monday. That diet cycle is happening as part of your default programming for more people than you think. And so the understanding part is knowing that there's also something that I call the undiet cycle, that you can recognize you're in this cycle, but I want you to know that you don't have to be stuck in it. But it's very hard to decide that you want to have a salad for lunch if you don't feel like you're also trying to be good, right? And that is the diet mentality. So the diet mentality and the diet cycle and the belief that your body has to play along in order for something to be working is the whole problem. So if you're somebody who is thinking, I really want to improve my health, improve my nutrition, maybe you want to eat more protein for whatever reason or more fiber. But the minute that you start doing that, even if your initial motivation isn't weight loss, you might have the thought, oh, I'm gonna try and get 30 grams of protein with my breakfast because that's gonna help me to feel more full and build muscle. But then this little voice in the back of your head pops up and says, Oh, and maybe we'll finally lose weight. And this is what I see all the time is even when people are trying to make weight neutral non-diet goals because they know that following this strict rule system is not gonna work in the long term, but gosh, they really want to feel like they're doing something, they get caught up in the diet cycle before they even know what is happening, right? So I hope that over the next few days, what you'll see is there is a framework that you can apply. You can do something because we want to do something. You can do something without doing the thing that you've always done that isn't working anymore. And that's what we're gonna explore together over the next few days.

Support Options And Next Steps

Jenn Salib Huber 7:31

So, like I mentioned, you don't have to do anything other than just listen. But if at any point you're listening to this and you think, yep, that's me, I want some help. Jenkin, how can you help me? There are two links that I want you to check out in the show notes. And one is a link to join the feaster community, the midlife feast community for seven days. You can try us out, see if we're your people. There's some amazing people in that feaster community. And the second is a link to book a no strings attached connection call so that we can have virtual coffee together or tea or whatever floats your boat and we can talk about what you need because I really think that undieting is for everyone. But you might need support. So don't feel like you're doing something wrong if you're like, oh, I've been trying to do this for a long time, Jen. It just doesn't work for me. I really believe that intuitive eating and undieting applies to everyone. So that's the end of day one. Understanding. I'll be back tomorrow for day two, which is self-compassion. And I hope that you keep that question in mind: what would taking care of yourself look like if it didn't require your body to get smaller in return? See you tomorrow.

Closing Reminder And Share Request

Jenn Salib Huber 8:42

Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Midlife Feast. If you're ready to take the next step towards thriving in midlife, head to menopause nutritionist.ca to learn more about my one-to-one and group coaching programs, free resources, and where to get your copy of Eat to Thrive during menopause. And if you've loved today's conversation and found it helpful, please share it with a friend who needs to hear this and leave a review wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps so many more people just like you find their way to food freedom and midlife confidence. Until next time, remember midlife is not the end of the story, it's the feast. Let's savor it together.