How This Christian Therapist Healed Her Relationship with Food (Client Confessional with Julianne)

Today I’m joined by my former client and licensed therapist Julianne — who brings the perfect mix of clinical wisdom and “yep, I’ve been there” energy to this conversation. She gets honest about what brought her to Nourished & Free® in the first place — think postpartum chaos, generational baggage, medical trauma, and some real mixed signals from both church and culture about what her body “should” be.

We get into the messy, often-ignored space where faith, food, and body image collide — and talk about what it actually means to honor God with your body (hint: it’s not obsessing over every calorie or shaming yourself into submission). We cover everything from performance vs. perfection to raising daughters in a world that still acts like thinness = holiness.

Whether you share our faith or not, this episode is packed with raw honesty, relatable “oh my gosh, same” moments, and some hard-hitting truths about food shame, body image in the church, and finding freedom in the gray area.

If this conversation hits home and you're tired of doing this food + body image stuff alone, Nourished & Free® might be exactly what you need. It’s my group coaching program where we ditch the guilt, unpack the shame, and rebuild your relationship with food in a way that’s actually sustainable (and not miserable). Learn more or apply here.

TOPICS COVERED 👇

00:00 Introduction
03:36 Julianne's Journey with Food and Body Image
07:57 The Impact of Athletic Background on Body Image
08:52 Faith and Body Image: A Christian Perspective
13:16 Deconstructing Body Image Beliefs
21:38 Light Bulb Moments in Nourished & Free
25:51 Unraveling Lies About Food and Body Image
29:17 Redefining Success Beyond the Scale
30:18 Celebrating Strength and Body Adaptation
31:17 Cultural Pressures and Body Image
32:11 Navigating Conflicting Messages About Body Image
35:12 The Journey of Self-Acceptance and Community Support
37:05 Healing Through Shared Experiences
39:06 Transforming Relationships with Food
42:13 Finding Balance in Food and Life
43:07 Encouragement for Women Struggling with Body Image
45:05 The Importance of Community in Healing
46:51 Navigating Faith and Body Image
48:44 Hope for Future Generations
49:30 Closing Thoughts and Resources

CONNECT WITH JULIANNE:

Visit her website or Instagram

Transcript

Michelle Yates (00:01.256)
Welcome to the show, Julianne. I'm so happy to have you here. How's your morning so far?

Julianne (00:06.998)
it's good. Eventful always with a almost two-year-old who has an attitude, but it's very good. Yeah, it's laid back and the weather here has not been great in West Michigan lately, so we're ready for the sunshine to come back.

Michelle Yates (00:12.62)
I guess.

Michelle Yates (00:21.998)
Do you have a lot of rain right now?

Julianne (00:23.96)
We do, it's very rainy, which is great for the plants and the water, but I would love to be outside more.

Michelle Yates (00:31.018)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I feel like such a nerd lately because we have we just moved to a new house last September and this is my first spring season with this house. So I'm finally seeing like what kind of plants I have, what kind of flowers we've got. And I feel like that 65 year old retired woman who's just obsessed with her plants and is like standing outside seeing what's growing and the person being like, we need the rain. This is good.

That's me now.

Julianne (01:02.628)
think when you start watching birds, that's when you know you've reached a stage, right? And you're like the birds, I've had my geranium pots and I'm like, every year they come back and I'm so maternal over them. Like I just want them to just stay and make their nests and have their babies. I bring them in from the rain, I'll like pet the little thing over them. It's intense.

Michelle Yates (01:07.691)
Yeah.

Michelle Yates (01:26.058)
is so real. My parents now have a camera to watch their birdhouse and they have an app and they send me pictures and I'm like, my gosh, you guys are you're on the brink of death now. That's all we'll do.

Michelle Yates (01:42.99)
Okay. Anyway, so as we know, you were in Nourished and Free. Actually, I was looking back at your timeline and it was almost exactly a year ago that you finished. And your end date is like May 9, I think. So it's been a little over a year. At this point, I think it'd be helpful for listeners to know more about like

your relationship with food before getting into that and yeah, what that looked like, especially with your body before we started working together, what were the types of thoughts and struggles that you were carrying with you?

Julianne (02:13.251)
Mm-hmm.

Julianne (02:22.699)
Yeah, so when I entered Nurtion Free, I can't remember if I started in January or February, but it was in a newer part of the year. Yes, so obviously you're in a place like our culture does where it's like, okay, figure your life out, figure your body out, this is the time. So when at the time I was 36, I was about six or seven months postpartum with my third baby.

Michelle Yates (02:30.286)
It was January, it was like right after the new year.

Julianne (02:52.766)
And at that time, so when my third pregnancy, I had had blood clots at 14 weeks and in utero with her and it was just a really scary time. So that was a year prior to starting nutrition free, literally. And so I remember being in the hospital and just being like, I have to drastically do something to change my body. Like this is being caused like,

my health is in jeopardy, is this baby gonna be okay? I just remember really panicking at that time because our medical system was like, well, if you were such and such percent body fat or your BMI was at this point, we might not be here, was essentially the message I was receiving. And I just remember, so that connects back to pretty traumatic experience growing up where I lost my dad when I was 29 to a massive heart attack.

He lived a pretty active lifestyle up until his 20s, but then after that point, he became pretty obese and he struggled with binge eating and just a lot of behaviors that I had then taken on into my adult years and even into childhood too. So there was this generational trauma piece tied into this really medical trauma piece in my 30s and just feeling like my body had betrayed me.

And I was so angry and so lost. was like, there's gotta be more, right? I was tired of dieting. was tired of feeling this chronic shame toward my body, I think is a pretty good term, just chronically feeling like I'm never enough. I'm never good enough and I'm tired of that. There's gotta be a better way. And so that led me to Nurtion Free. And I think I saw an ad on Instagram and I was like, okay, this hits.

a lot of the boxes I want to figure out for myself, let's just go. And I also wanted to learn for my professional life just how to support women too. So I'm like, can only take these women as far as I'm willing to go. So I've gotta do more, essentially. So that led me to you. And I think eating at that time was like, you

Julianne (05:15.766)
your postpartum, you're chaotic. We had gone through a pandemic. I've got three kids now. I was constantly tired. I was constantly overeating and using food as a dopamine hit, right? And so, feeling caught in that cycle too, right? So there's this chronic shame mentally, and then food is not fuel. It's just, it's my addiction, right? It's, it's what I needed to get by in my

at that time. and then being an ex-athlete like throw that into the mix too of being like okay your body could have done all these things in your you know teenage years and early 20s and now look at you right you're you're not in that place anymore and that feels shameful and hard too.

Michelle Yates (06:04.302)
I think that makes it almost double the amount of difficult when you're going through things with food. you have this past history of... Excuse me, I've got like, of course when I want to podcast, I've got a frog in my throat. But when you've got this past history of being an athlete and there's so much... What sport were you? What sport did you do? Okay. Yeah.

Julianne (06:26.474)
I played soccer through college.

Michelle Yates (06:30.592)
Yeah, and there's like so much intensity around being at the peak physical fitness level. And if you could just like push harder and work better, then you would be able to win these games or go the extra mile or whatever it is. And it's interesting to see how that carries over into adulthood, even when you're like well past doing that sport anymore. Like those subliminal messages, I don't know if it would even be subliminal, but just

lingering messages of work harder, push harder, do more, then you'll achieve X, Y, and Z, which is like technically not wrong, but also it can get you in trouble when it comes to food and how you feel about your body and it can lead to burnout in so many ways. So something that we've connected on a lot is our Christian background.

and present as well. And a lot of people obviously don't relate to us on that, and that's fine. But what I think has been really, really interesting as a Christian is seeing how

Julianne (07:28.681)
Okay.

Michelle Yates (07:40.32)
our relationships with food and with our body sometimes get like separated from our relationship with God. And we like kind of put them in this different little box. At least that's how it was for me personally. For whatever reason, I felt like that wasn't something I wanted to bring God into. And ultimately, it was the reason that I was able to get through things was when I finally did bring him through it. you mentioned these feelings of like shame and guilt and not feeling

Julianne (07:55.424)
Okay.

Michelle Yates (08:09.624)
good enough. Was there any messages that you got from church culture, Christian culture that you think fueled those types of feelings towards yourself?

Julianne (08:15.488)
yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'm in I'm in Christian faith in a space now that was very different than I was growing up because I've done this work around understanding

who I am in relationship to God and the gospel message.

what it means to be a Christian now looks very different, right? To love my body, sorry, dog. To love my body is to honor God, right? Like ultimately, that's the goal, right? Is to be created in an image and be an image bearer means I accept myself and love myself because God first loved me, right? Not because I to earn that or I needed to,

Michelle Yates (08:51.916)
Mm-hmm.

Michelle Yates (08:56.046)
It's okay. He wants to be a part of it too.

Michelle Yates (09:01.953)
Hmm.

Michelle Yates (09:13.484)
Mm.

Julianne (09:20.779)
perfect myself to a point that was unattainable or harmful, right? And I needed to separate that from culture or even just Christian practices. You know, I was taking notes as I was thinking about the questions, like there's a huge history of women's bodies being hurt and abused in the church, right? And that's a whole nother podcast, whole nother topic. But it is relevant that we look at women's bodies as

Michelle Yates (09:41.538)
Yeah.

Julianne (09:48.851)
something good to be versus something to be sexualized or to be hurt in a culture that has really twisted what it means to be loved, right? That's a really good way to just summarize it. Growing up, it meant being modest enough, being perfect enough, being good enough to be loved and earned that, right? Purity culture comes into that.

Michelle Yates (09:50.286)
Hmm.

Michelle Yates (10:00.514)
Mm-hmm.

Julianne (10:18.333)
as well, but when it comes to dieting, your body image, I can totally relate to how you said I put it in a box, right? Like the Bible doesn't really explicitly talk about a body shape or a body, an ideal body type, and that has changed throughout history, right? We've seen bodies just be, you know, what is good now, what's

Michelle Yates (10:27.564)
Mm-hmm.

Michelle Yates (10:37.72)
Yeah.

Michelle Yates (10:41.294)
Yeah.

Julianne (10:46.207)
good 20 years ago or 100 years ago. So what does it mean to be good? And religion often, least Christian religion and most religions, has a good and a bad, right? There's a and a bad. And we do that with food. You talk so openly about food not having a judgment to it, right? Like, have a judgment. Let's throw it away. And not that we have to

Michelle Yates (10:57.411)
Mm-hmm.

Michelle Yates (11:07.234)
Yeah.

Julianne (11:13.321)
there are pieces of that in faith to say, okay, yes, there's right and wrong. Absolutely, there's morality. But my goodness, my inherent goodness is not tied up into a size, right? My inherent goodness is not tied up into a weight. And so my connection with God has to be, am I fueling my body because I love my body? Am I working toward health because I'm honoring that? And just taking all of the stigmas out and all the lies out.

I think was really important for me. And it's still very easy to go back to those lies, right? Like they're innate and indoctrinated even into my system, my body. But truth is what I've worked really hard to get to. And I think nourished & free was a huge part of that for me, just figuring out, like gleaning through and be like,

Michelle Yates (11:45.432)
Thank you.

Michelle Yates (11:49.484)
Yeah, absolutely.

Michelle Yates (12:11.874)
Hmm.

Julianne (12:12.131)
not part of my story anymore and figuring out what that was.

Michelle Yates (12:18.742)
Yeah, I think it's tough because in the church, can be, it goes one of two ways. There's either this hyper sexualization where we have to avoid women's bodies at all costs almost, know, like cover up as much as possible. There's like this, and yeah, there's a place for modesty, but it's also to the point where it's like, can we not?

make it such an obsession though. I almost feel like it makes it worse, you know, when we're obsessing over being modest enough. So there's that aspect, but then there's also this interesting thing that's happening in, I think, more of like the progressive churches where...

you know, everybody's obsessed with fitness and it's like, your body is a temple, your body is made in God's image. So it has to be, but then we're kind of using that as like justification to obsess about it and then make it into an idol. And I hate when people use that, that verse of like, your body is a temple because it's like, hang on, it's a temple for worshiping the Lord, not for worshiping yourself. And I hate that like people are taking that to a place of well now.

That means that I can obsess over every single calorie. I can shame other people for not respecting their quote unquote temple enough. can look at myself in the mirror every single day and pour over every little detail because this is a temple. It just becomes this twisted way of, in the end, still doing the same thing, which is putting our bodies in too important of a place. And at the end of the day, our bodies are just...

Julianne (13:54.205)
Michelle Yates (14:01.132)
bodies like they're literally vessels for our souls and made in the image of God and that's something to be appreciative of, to care for it and honor it just like you were saying because it's made in the image of God and we want to care for that and like show honor to that but not idolize it. And I just think in the church there's this really big gap between having that

healthy view of our bodies. And I don't know why. I don't know why it's like not understood enough, you know.

Julianne (14:40.433)
Yeah, it is. It has this really, it's very sad. You and you look at like generations before they view themselves and their bodies. We've come a long way, but there's still this, this deep, yeah, this deep shame that just keeps carrying down. I, have an eight year old daughter and it blows my mind when I some of the things that come out of her mouth that I know she's getting from

you know, social systems or TV or culture that like that didn't come innately from you, right? Like out of you organically learned that somewhere. But it is this fight I think for us as as women raising girls, especially to say, what what generationally did I learn that I'm undoing so that I can do it better for you? Right? Like,

Michelle Yates (15:16.846)
Hmm.

Michelle Yates (15:20.824)
Mm-hmm.

Michelle Yates (15:35.817)
Mm-hmm.

Julianne (15:39.26)
Like that's my prayer for my girls is to love their body going to whatever relationship they go into, whatever work setting that they're going into to know like, I have this autonomy, right? I have this beautiful gift and however I'm shaped or however I, however I fuel best or move my body best, it doesn't have to measure up to anybody else, right? And genetically dispositioned to be this way or this way and this way. That is so great.

Michelle Yates (16:03.544)
Yeah.

Michelle Yates (16:08.909)
Mm-hmm.

Julianne (16:08.943)
Right? So learning to embrace it and accept it and not hate it, right? Or think there's something wrong with me.

Michelle Yates (16:17.772)
Yeah. Yeah, and that term genetically predisposition, I think is such a such a good term to use because it's almost like for those who do believe in in the Lord and like Him creating us and everything, that genetic predisposition is almost like that's specifically the formula that God used when He was creating you, you know, like the way that He wrote.

how you were gonna be. And that's something that we can appreciate and respect. we live in a fallen world, so there is a lot of brokenness with our bodies as well. Like we are not perfect by any means. We can't be perfect. We're only made perfect through Christ. And that is something else. Speaking of like just bad perspectives, I guess, that's something else that I see sometimes is like this appeal to...

care for yourself enough so that you can be perfect again, just the way that God designed you to be. And I think that's kind of missing the plot of like why we need Jesus in the first place is because our bodies really aren't perfect at all. And you can never outrun being a human in that sense of just.

eating healthy enough or getting enough adjustments at the chiropractor or exercising enough is never going to make you into a perfect body. Because even though that is how we were initially created, it's not how we are now.

Julianne (17:59.931)
And the hope that we have as Christians goes into that as well, to say, this is not the end game. Heaven is the goal, this body is the vessel. So if I don't have that hope at the end of this life, this is the only thing I have. Perfection there becomes like,

Michelle Yates (18:13.624)
Mm-hmm.

Michelle Yates (18:23.116)
Right.

Julianne (18:26.232)
I understand it, you're not a person of faith in that aspect, why wouldn't you for gaining perfection, right? It makes total sense. Why wouldn't the medical system seem like they know it all? And we rely on that, of course. So to me, like, my faith gives me so much more context to love myself. If I didn't have that, I don't know, it would be really hopeless, right?

Michelle Yates (18:35.256)
Yeah.

Michelle Yates (18:54.881)
Yes.

Julianne (18:55.865)
It would feel really hard to come to an acceptance place in my body otherwise, honestly.

Michelle Yates (19:02.03)
Yes, I agree. think that was actually one of the biggest things that when I made that connection of, you know, we're talking about like putting our relationship with food in a box. When I made that connection of, well, actually, my goal in this life is not to live as long as possible, because I will be with Christ someday in heaven. I'm made perfect in that way.

And on earth, there is no promise of me having a perfect body. It is not a part of the story. It's not a part of the goal here. The goal is to honor Christ with my body so that I can point to him. It's all about his glory, not mine. And that was like super convicting for me to realize that I had been living for my own glory and trying to seek my own glory in how my body looked rather than.

How can I honor God in this body by serving others, taking care of it so that I can serve others? You you think about like motherhood or ministry or whatever. And yeah, we want to take care of ourselves so that we can continue to care for others. But I think it's tough. wish that that, you know, going back to what I said earlier, I wish that that gap didn't exist where people aren't making those connections.

Julianne (20:02.015)
Mm-hmm.

Michelle Yates (20:23.118)
And I wish that we heard more messages like that from the pulpit of like, hey, your body doesn't need to look a certain way in order for you to be able to honor Christ with it and point people to God with it. But yeah, mean, when you were in Nourished and Free or even just like after that, do you think there were any kind of light bulb moments for you specifically that helped you connect those dots?

Julianne (20:51.674)
Um, I don't know if there was a definite moment, but it was certainly like, you know, we use the word deconstruction a lot around faith. there is certainly a connection to deconstruction in, in body image too, right? Slowly, slowly. I'm just feeling these layers away and making light bulb connections. do remember a session, um, specifically one of the group calls, I think, and I was able to share a little bit about.

my own experience with my dad and like this.

that I had to this idea that I was gonna continue that, like his life, essentially, or his life choices and having this distinct moment with the therapist at the time on the call saying, that's not your life, right? You have to be able to separate what happened to your dad from your own life and your own life choices. And I do remember that. That was pretty pivotal for me to be like,

Michelle Yates (21:43.928)
Hmm.

Julianne (21:56.824)
There it is. Our stories are often connected back in the therapy world. We do a lot with like that inner child, that child who grew up watching her dad or her mom eat or be a certain way around their baby is going to emulate that. That's just modeling. And so to have compassion on yourself as an adult to be like, that's learned behavior.

Michelle Yates (21:56.963)
Hmm.

Julianne (22:26.499)
stuff that I've carried, have a trauma top of it. Like, okay, I have to learn that's not, that's not a story, right? Like I can't write that. That's my fear speaking into my life, right? That's not being a mother to my kids as long as I can possibly be in their life, right? God's story is God's story and I have to surrender that. And I'm gonna let him write it. So how can I live present moment and love my body and accept my body and work

Michelle Yates (22:38.581)
Uh-huh.

Julianne (22:55.832)
toward health in a way that isn't obsessive, but is loving, right? And is modeling that.

Michelle Yates (23:02.156)
Yeah. You mentioned having that learned behavior from watching your parents. It takes a lot of effort to get to the place where you notice that that's what you're doing. To put that on its head and think about now how we're modeling behavior to our kids, which I know you mentioned this in the beginning, wanting to be able to set a good example.

it's kind of scary to think about like, what things am I modeling to my kids that are going to be learned behaviors? And it becomes this really, I think important call to examine how like the example you are setting because they might not get to that point. Well, hopefully they do because we're their parents, but they might not get to that point where they're noticing what are learned behaviors from us. And we hope

as parents that our kids are gonna have a better life than us and that they're gonna do better than us and be happier than us always. We could try to protect them from our struggles and scars and all, but they need to know what it is that we've modeled that might not be helpful for them and have open conversations about that. And that's just like, so.

interesting to think about like 10, 20, 30 years from now, I hope that my kids feel safe enough to have conversations with me like, hey, this was something I picked up from you and I had to unlearn that, you know, but we hope that we don't have to that we don't model things they have to unlearn, you know, and that's where like doing your own body image work and relationship with food work is so, so huge.

Julianne (24:34.928)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Michelle Yates (24:50.508)
What do you think were specific lies? Well, you mentioned the subconscious lie of continuing on your dad's life. Were there any other lies or beliefs about your body or food that you felt like God began to unravel for you?

Julianne (25:10.795)
Yeah.

Julianne (25:14.602)
I think certainly like around...

Julianne (25:21.61)
I think around the good and badness of food, right? I don't know if you're familiar with the Daniel fast or the Daniel plan or the biblical like.

Michelle Yates (25:31.852)
I don't think so.

Julianne (25:36.682)
It's a fast that has been pretty prominent in the, well fasting in general is church related, right? So I think you take culture, right? We've got keto, we've got carb watching, low carb, know, now we've got the GLP ones, we've got so many tools and things that we wanna just quickly changes. It took me gleaning out so much of the world, I think,

Michelle Yates (25:43.874)
Yeah.

Julianne (26:06.775)
I really trusted, I think, doctors and medical professionals for really long time. And it took getting to that point. And my third point is, I need to figure out what grounds me because all of this message is so hard for me. And it just makes me feel like crap. It makes me feel terrible. And I don't want to feel this way anymore. it took me finding a provider, a female

Michelle Yates (26:27.8)
Yeah.

Julianne (26:36.246)
provider for my health, my general health, so a PCP, who didn't make my body or my weight the entirety of my session or time with her. It took me being able to just have people around me that spoke truth into my life about my body and what it was capable of joining a gym that was focused on

Michelle Yates (26:48.056)
Yeah.

Julianne (27:03.252)
muscle building and movement and overall wellness and nutrition and learning about that. There's just so many pieces that I had to say, this is not my truth anymore. This, right? And I know that seems black and white and we're trying to find the messy middle, but I think that that is the messy middle for me is saying my BMI, my pants size, my number on the scale does not dictate

if I can do 30 wall balls and, you know, get on the sleds and push it because I feel like a bad ass when I'm in the gym. And you know what I mean? Like those things give me life and for me. I had to do this evaluation of like, where do I fly? Right? Where do I excel? And I want to into the spaces. So I think it was just doors opening.

Michelle Yates (27:42.978)
Yeah.

Michelle Yates (27:46.37)
Mm-hmm.

Michelle Yates (27:58.264)
Yeah.

Julianne (28:01.641)
and I was walking through them with faith saying.

scared not feel good. The risk out there again, trying a nutrition or like a button and I'm like, what I mess it up. But the day it's not about that, right? It's about it's about community. It's about loving yourself. It's about that modeling to our kids, having a good really husband like all these things that really just give me life again.

Michelle Yates (28:17.87)
Hmm. Mm-hmm.

Michelle Yates (28:35.052)
Hmm. That's such a good example of taking almost like aesthetic and numbers focused goals or weight focus goals and making them into performance goals, or guess like separating and refocusing to performance goals. And how much of a game changer that can make on how you feel because you could...

like the wall balls example or the sleds, you could be improving your capacity to do those things longer, do more reps, do heavier weight, all of that, and your weight might not change for whatever reason because there's so many things that affect your weight. It's like, are we supposed to think that that wasn't worth it then to be increasing our load and our performance?

Julianne (29:09.055)
Thank

Michelle Yates (29:29.152)
and improving that just because the scale didn't change. It can be very damning for people where they feel like this was worthless because I didn't see a change in the scale. Then they stop doing it. But when we have those more performance-focused goals that are about how we feel and the results of strength and

Julianne (29:50.451)
Mm

Michelle Yates (29:54.136)
cardiovascular, like how long can I last? You know, those things are so much more fun to achieve.

Julianne (30:02.867)
Yeah, I'm in a place now that, well, the gym that I go to, they do the in-body testing. So you get to see muscle mass increase and skeletal lean muscle mass and be able to learn something different about your body. Like how is my body adapting to getting stronger versus a number, just a number, right? That means nothing really. And for my entire 30 plus years,

Michelle Yates (30:23.832)
Right.

Julianne (30:32.66)
That was the number, right? This number dictated my goodness. And to go to a gym and hear coaches say, do you know what that increase of muscle mass means for you? And I'm like, no, I don't, tell me please. So excited to finally have a new perspective on my body that meant I was getting stronger. This was an amazing jump for my body to be able to take on this muscle mass.

Michelle Yates (30:33.794)
Mm-hmm.

Julianne (31:01.874)
to be celebrated in that, right? Like, my gosh, it was a game changer. So I just think if there's more of that for women, you know, for anybody, but for women to feel like I got stronger, right? Especially our pre and post menopausal selves, like this is a game changer for us to see strong women and not weak or not enough or

Michelle Yates (31:04.589)
Yeah.

Julianne (31:30.9)
whatever it is.

Michelle Yates (31:32.044)
Yeah. Where do you think kind of backtracking a bit, you mentioned like, not feeling good enough or looking to your body for goodness. Was there anything specific that jumps out at you that kind of made you have those beliefs that you had to look a certain way to be good enough or to be good?

Julianne (31:41.342)
Mm-hmm.

Julianne (31:51.667)
yeah

Julianne (31:59.111)
I know you go back to like that middle school, high school age, but I can even go back to like, you know, probably late elementary, realizing I went through puberty faster than my peers. I was taller, thicker than most of the girls. I remember looking at, you know, the armpit space and you're like, why do I have that? Right? Like,

Michelle Yates (32:22.606)
Oh yeah, yep. Yes.

Julianne (32:28.02)
And again, I couldn't tell you like, oh, MTV was pretty big back when I was like, watch MTV and see Christina, you're on the TV and you're like, well, my stomach doesn't look like that, right? Or if I wear low cut jeans, I'm not gonna look like that. And they're together, right? Like that I look different or my body looks different. So, know, culture is there, but then

Michelle Yates (32:48.492)
Mmm, low cut, gosh.

Julianne (32:57.619)
church too, you have these hypersexual things on TV. Okay, this is what girls look like if we're beautiful. But then at church, you got to cover it up and you can't wear that mini skirt to church or you can't, you know, embrace the body that's changing. And so you've got these conflicting things that are happening. And I think that that is a total perfect storm for shame to seep in to be like, I don't know how to love

Myself as I am right my my curves all these things that are happening for me. I don't know how to do it Right. There's so many conflicting here. So it causes this internal tension That I think is very confusing for a lot of girls and teenagers and young women

Michelle Yates (33:36.706)
Yeah.

Michelle Yates (33:41.518)
It's almost like you're taught to think that having those curves in and of itself is wrong. You shouldn't. It's like we're trying to force women to stay in adolescent bodies for the rest of their lives. It's like, God's design can't help it. I'm going to get curvier. Why are we suppressing that?

Julianne (33:51.11)
Yeah.

Julianne (33:58.961)
Yeah.

Michelle Yates (34:10.154)
I mean, there's a difference between showing that off and being immodest and being like over the top and then just like literally being like, no, this is my body. Like, why do we need to be so weird about it?

Julianne (34:23.026)
My daughter is a very thin, tall girl.

the things that I was not in a lot of ways growing up and the sheet you know when she wears shorts or dresses or things I was like look at your beautiful long legs and like just loving but also not like you're trying to night hop not hyper focus focus on bodies but just saying you look great you look beautiful and but that body sheeps in very early and so they

Michelle Yates (34:51.564)
Mm-hmm.

Michelle Yates (34:58.09)
It does.

Julianne (35:00.156)
your friend's body looks different than yours and there is no difference to how God loves either of you or the way that, you know, there might be comments made that feel weird or icky when you think about them, but I want you to know that there's nothing bad about your body or hers, right? Know that judgment is not there, which is such a battle, right? Such a hard thing.

Michelle Yates (35:20.29)
Mm-hmm.

Michelle Yates (35:25.57)
Yeah, it is. It really is. Do you feel like there was anything in Nourished and Free in terms of our approach that was surprising for you or that you weren't used to, I guess?

Julianne (35:42.546)
Good question.

Julianne (35:52.626)
I go back to a learning of here's not the right way to do it and the openness to like there isn't necessarily a right way to do it. And I think so many of us want a prescription of how to get it right.

Michelle Yates (36:10.658)
Yeah, well that's comforting to just have an answer.

Julianne (36:13.712)
You want quick fix, you want to feel better. This is awful. I've suffered. I'm done with that. And what Nourished and Free did, so many good programs, you know, ought to do is say, no, like, is it? How do you, how do you come back to not judging yourself, taking away the judgment of food? And I think that's uncomfortable at first. I think you, you know, you probably get a lot of women in the program, like, I don't know how to

Michelle Yates (36:33.709)
Hmm.

Julianne (36:43.086)
of do this, right? Like to be in a box in order for me to function with it.

Michelle Yates (36:44.014)
yeah.

Julianne (36:51.672)
I think that was hard. I think I had done work up until that point that maybe helped me get it a little quicker, but it certainly is hard when you want help, right? And you're telling somebody, actually there's an ambiguity here and a space of healing that has to happen that I can't give you a prescription for. So that's uncomfortable, right?

Michelle Yates (36:58.487)
Mm-hmm.

Michelle Yates (37:14.989)
Yeah.

Michelle Yates (37:20.298)
It is. we don't like to have that junk at all, much less sit in it and reflect on it and face it. It's gross.

Julianne (37:21.403)
Sit in

Julianne (37:35.729)
But I think that's what Nourished and Free does so well is just holding space for that hard pain. we allowed tears to happen. We allowed the stories to be shared. And I think that camaraderie was really cool. The women supporting each other in that way. That was really beautiful.

Michelle Yates (37:54.54)
Mm-hmm.

Michelle Yates (38:00.13)
That's one of my favorite parts about it, if not my favorite, because this is such a shame inducing thing, especially when you struggle with things like binge eating. There's so much shame around that because we're just expected to be perfect when it comes to food. Women have this expectation put on us to not struggle with overeating or not struggle with... We have so many expectations put on us in all the ways.

in terms of our body and how we eat. And so it makes it so hard to open up about stuff like that. And that very same pressure can be why we struggle with it in the first place. And it's cool to see people get together and be like, wow, I'm not alone. also have a messed up, or they also have a messed up relationship with food. And they also feel this way about their body, even though they have a body I wish I had.

Julianne (38:58.802)
Hmm.

Michelle Yates (38:59.5)
can be really, really healing. So how would you say that your relationship with food and your body looks today? I mean, a year later, where are you at?

Julianne (39:08.272)
Yeah.

I mean, some of the things that I have worked really hard at is moving into spaces of fueling my body for movement, focusing on protein intake, understanding foods role so much more like if I eat two Oreos before I go workout, realizing I just gave myself a quick fix before I go burn it all. You know, it's not the...

Michelle Yates (39:38.2)
yeah.

Julianne (39:41.808)
Gosh, I ate three slices of pizza. I gotta go run three miles, think, anymore.

Michelle Yates (39:46.398)
No, it's like the Oreos or the pizza is fueling you having a better performance in your workout. It's awesome.

Julianne (39:51.66)
Right. Right.

And like I said, I look at, I'm considering doing, I don't know if you've heard of a hyrax race. It's crazy. Who does these things? It's a whole different breed of people. Anyway, a friend, one of the good friends I've made at the gym, she is an endurance athlete or ex endurance athlete, mom of three. And we just go hard at the gym together. We have a lot of fun together and.

she told me about this race and a lot of it is like movements at the gym that we do together. So wall balls, sleds, skis, burpees, it's athletes of any caliber or just normal people, because that's all we are, getting together and doing these races like all over the world. And so you get to get together and like you can do it with buddies and it's just, it's fun.

So anyways, I'm considering doing that, which feels crazy. Like I never thought I would ever do something like that in my life. Yeah. So it's really transformed. It's really different. I thought my body was pretty much.

Michelle Yates (40:58.936)
So cool.

Julianne (41:10.287)
kind of like hang your hat up, know? Like this is what I'm have to deal with is chronic pain, you know, just depriving myself, constantly going through cycles of dieting, never being in a place where I can appreciate my body again. And I'm not, like this is a cool place to be and I'm really grateful for it.

Michelle Yates (41:35.822)
I love that. When it comes to food, do you feel like you're living in that ambiguous space now and comfortable with what used to be uncomfortable there with food not having moral value?

Julianne (41:49.986)
Yeah, yeah, this really beautiful place of knowing how to gauge hunger, knowing how to love food well, like in this like unhealthy food is food is God, right? But seeing it as like, and I really love food, feels really good to eat. also brings community. means my family sits together at the table. We enjoy it at this. It's got this good balance to it.

Michelle Yates (42:06.573)
Mm-hmm.

Julianne (42:20.269)
Whereas before it was, okay, I'm ravenously hungry. I'm going to go raid the cupboard. I'm going to go, you know, go ham on some pasta. I can know like, okay, what is going to fuel me for what couple of hours are like? How much protein do I want to impose into my meal? Just there's a whole different aspect to it that I think.

Michelle Yates (42:30.018)
Mm-hmm

Julianne (42:47.937)
And I'm still learning, right? Like I've not arrived. And I think that's the beauty of it too, is like I can continue to learn and evolve, but there's certainly this piece about it too.

Michelle Yates (42:55.821)
Yeah.

Michelle Yates (42:59.938)
Yeah, and there will be different seasons in your life where you do have to shift your approach to food, you know? So yeah, like it's never not gonna be something that you're learning. And it sounds like at this point, food is in a way adding to your quality of life rather than taking it away. Would you agree with that?

Julianne (43:18.989)
Hmm.

Julianne (43:23.213)
100%. Yeah.

Michelle Yates (43:24.276)
Yeah, I love that. What would you say to any women who, especially Christian women who are struggling with their relationship with food and feeling that guilt and that shame about not having it all together, not having a body that looks a certain way? Maybe they've been shamed by the church for quote unquote being gluttonous. Yeah, what do you want those women to hear?

Julianne (43:54.062)
Find your spaces of who make you feel seen and people who give to you rather than take from you. Finding community, I think, is key to healing. I don't think we heal in vacuum, right? We can't be isolative. And that takes risk, right? To put yourself out there, to be a part of a program like Nourish and Free, to be a part of any

change a gym, a group of people who run together or walk together, like that's risky. That's really hard. But it's also, I think, so good. Like why do we have AA or NA or anything like that? It's because we heal together. So spaces like the church that have pretty, sometimes toxic entities to them, it can feel like, okay, well, that's my people. I don't know anything different.

Michelle Yates (44:51.278)
Mm-hmm.

Julianne (44:52.735)
if it's taking from you and hurting you, it's okay to leave that space. And I say that very broadly. That is not of the Lord and Savior that I know and love. Those are not the spaces that I think are of Him, if that makes sense. And I think there's a lot of women who stay in spaces that feel like

Michelle Yates (44:59.82)
Mm-hmm.

Julianne (45:19.543)
to stay here in order to bring honor or to bring loyalty. And quite frankly, you just have to find spaces that feel full of love, right? And sometimes it takes a minute to figure out what that means. But I don't think hurting our bodies in any shape or form of disordered eating or thinking is of God.

Michelle Yates (45:32.59)
Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Michelle Yates (45:45.72)
Yeah.

Julianne (45:48.054)
So working through that.

takes time, takes intentionality, and it takes being really courageous.

Michelle Yates (45:57.134)
Yes, so much courage, so much bravery. It's, I think, like a really helpful distinction to look for is whether we are feeling like our churches or even just ourselves are.

Approaching how we view our bodies and food as an act of worship or as an act of punishing yourself and You know, some people would say well, that's the same thing you have to punish yourself and that is worship

Julianne (46:35.478)
We need to.

Michelle Yates (46:37.326)
Yeah, exactly. It's worshipful to take care of what God has given you and to be a steward of it. It's not worshipful to him to start to worship yourself though. It's a fine line because we do live in this culture that makes it very...

Julianne (46:50.944)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Michelle Yates (47:02.094)
easy and subconscious to start to worship your own body and idolize it and idolize the way we eat. even a lot of my conservative and Christian friends, like I see those patterns happening so easily because it's just normalized. But that's, you know, for anybody listening that is like, man, I wonder if I've been putting that on a pedestal. I shouldn't have been. Just encourage you to pray through that and ask the Lord to reveal any.

any sin in your heart there that might be keeping you from better community with Him or better communion with Him, because it can happen so, so easily in this culture that we live in. And our culture doesn't typically want us to be close to Christ. it's important. So, yeah. Any last thoughts on your journey being a Christian or navigating your relationship with food, with that, like anything that

Julianne (47:48.896)
Edge.

Julianne (48:01.195)
Such a big mishap.

Michelle Yates (48:02.584)
feel like you want to share that you haven't yet.

Michelle Yates (48:08.768)
I know. I'm sorry.

Julianne (48:12.555)
wish so much more time. I think that, no, we hit a lot of really good places. think women, I'm hoping that we see in next 10, 15, 20 years so much more good literature and supports around like good body image work tied with the church. Like I think more and more women

are going to start talking about their stories. think we've seen that in the Me Too movement around sexual abuse and being hurt in our bodies in that way sexually. But I think that the more that that movement grows, the more we see women stepping out saying, you know what, this was a dysfunctional way that I was living. Whether that was because of the church or within spaces that just didn't feel good for them, I think we're going to see more of that.

My hope and prayer is that we lean into just being good and discerning what is good truth, right? And I think that's always a battle. And again, this isn't every, I know women who have been really hurt by the church and walked away. And I understand, I get it. But I pray and I hope, and we keep exploring how to live in the in-between, right, with love.

Michelle Yates (49:23.566)
Mm-hmm.

Totally.

Julianne (49:36.45)
and figuring out, like you said, how to live in perfectly while we're here in this world, but doing it with love, right, toward others.

Michelle Yates (49:46.39)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. That is a big topic. I think we did hit some good points, though. At the very least, I hope that this is a helpful scratching of the surface for anybody listening who hasn't maybe thought about your relationship with food and with your body in these categories before in the context of your faith.

Julianne (49:53.512)
Yeah.

Julianne (50:07.679)
Mm-hmm.

Michelle Yates (50:14.486)
Yeah, I mean, that's where digging in deeper with your own therapist or your own dietician or both ideally would be great because then you can get into all of the other nitty gritties, especially when it comes to your story and how you specifically have been impacted in your own beliefs, just like Julianne had her own specific story of her relationship with her dad and all of that. Like we all have our own.

little things that make us tick and make us believe what we believe or that we've subconsciously taken on. So yeah, it's important to have that support and community on your side like Jillian was talking about. Yeah, any places that listeners can connect with you if they want to chat more with you specifically, do you even do like virtual?

work? that, are you licensed in multiple states or how does that work?

Julianne (51:11.86)
Unfortunately, way that I think specifically for Michigan, probably other states as well, is that I am not able to do, if I am out of state, I can work with anybody within Michigan. That's how it's licensed, but I can't specifically work with people who are out of state. That's just the way I'm only licensed in Michigan. So, yeah, I'm based in West Michigan,

have a small caseload right now because my kids are crazy busy. But like these topics are super dear to my heart and I'm excited for learning more and getting trained in some things around these topics and more because I just see specifically I came back to I left to practice when I had my third baby because I was like I just want to be

in my community and I feel called to that. There's a lot of thought, especially in the Christian community that I'm like, you know what, I want to challenge that. I want to look beyond maybe what we've thought was helpful and let's bring some like clinical aspect. I know you do that really, really well as saying, okay, but let's look at some science here or let's look outside the box and let's challenge some things. And I was just feeling like moved to do that more. So yeah, so

People want to contact me. I'll leave you my Instagram. I have an email. I have a website and I'm just doing kind of some small stuff right now, but I love meeting people and where they're at. And if I can take somebody on, I'm absolutely going to try. But yeah.

Michelle Yates (52:58.726)
in the show notes. And then of course, too, if anybody wants to learn more about Nourish and Free, what Julianne went through, our group coaching program, I'll put that information in the show notes as well. It's not a program where it's like you have to be a Christian and join, like that's what we're talking about all the time. But something that I do really love about it is that because we are very hands on, if that's something you want to bring into your journey, we can. And obviously I get it.

I'm happy to have those conversations with our clients as it's helpful for them. But yeah, we do a lot of science as well. So I love blending the two. Thank you so much for coming on, for taking the time out of your day. And I just so appreciate your thoughts and your wisdom in this area. And it's been super fun to.

Julianne (53:31.4)
Thank

Julianne (53:38.277)
Okay. Good.

Julianne (53:46.55)
Okay.

Julianne (53:52.433)
Good.

Michelle Yates (53:55.04)
be on the sidelines of your journey and learn with you.

Julianne (53:58.4)
Thank you, Michelle. Thank you for all your leadership and all that you're bringing to communities of women all over.

Michelle Yates (54:05.454)
I appreciate that. as I said, all information will be in the show notes and hopefully we'll get to touch base again soon. Thank you, Julianne.

Julianne (54:15.622)
Yeah, thanks Michelle.