"We might not be in control of everything in our lives, but we can be in charge of our bodies"
If you are a woman in midlife you know that your body can feel very out of your control. Unintended weight gain, while just looking at food, can feel like we've gained ten pounds without even trying. It can be a very confusing time.
I spoke with the inspiring Heather Fusilier, a certified Health and Wellness coach, as well as a Mindful Eating coach, who shares her personal story about turning her early struggles with weight, stress, and body image into a transformative journey to wellness.
In This Episode Heather and I Talk About
Let's celebrate the power of shared experiences and profound transformation with each other. Listen to Heather's journey, soak in her wisdom, and get ready to be inspired on your path to wellness.
Connect with Heather
Learn more about Heather HERE
Follow Heather on IG HERE
Let's Be Friends
Hang out with Heather on IG @greenpalettekitchen or on FB HERE.
Let's Talk!
Whether you are looking for 1-1 nutrition coaching or kitchen coaching let's have a chat. Click HERE to reach out to Heather.
Did You Love This Episode?
"I love Heather and the Real Food Stories Podcast!" If this is you, please do not hesitate to leave a five-star review on Apple or wherever you listen to podcasts.
"We might not be in control of everything in our lives, but we can be in charge of our bodies"
If you are a woman in midlife you know that your body can feel very out of your control. Unintended weight gain, while just looking at food, can feel like we've gained ten pounds without even trying. It can be a very confusing time.
I spoke with the inspiring Heather Fusilier, a certified Health and Wellness coach, as well as a Mindful Eating coach, who shares her personal story about turning her early struggles with weight, stress, and body image into a transformative journey to wellness.
In This Episode Heather and I Talk About
Let's celebrate the power of shared experiences and profound transformation with each other. Listen to Heather's journey, soak in her wisdom, and get ready to be inspired on your path to wellness.
Connect with Heather
Learn more about Heather HERE
Follow Heather on IG HERE
Let's Be Friends
Hang out with Heather on IG @greenpalettekitchen or on FB HERE.
Let's Talk!
Whether you are looking for 1-1 nutrition coaching or kitchen coaching let's have a chat. Click HERE to reach out to Heather.
Did You Love This Episode?
"I love Heather and the Real Food Stories Podcast!" If this is you, please do not hesitate to leave a five-star review on Apple or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Hey everybody and welcome back to the Real Food Stories podcast. Today I am with Heather Fusilet, and Heather is a nationally board certified health and wellness coach who holds credentials as a wellness coach, certified tobacco treatment specialist, certified running coach. She is an author, a trainer and employee well-being consultant. Heather helps clients achieve a range of goals, including weight reduction and management, stress management, life balance and tapping into the incredible power of visioning, proper goal setting and achieving progress not perfection.
Speaker 1:But before all of her coaching, certifications and help with people, heather had her own personal story of experiencing overweight, being under nurse, stressed out and fed up. She felt like she did everything right but could never achieve her fitness goals. And I imagine, through some exploration, heather, you changed the way that you approached your wellness and, in turn, lost weight, gained energy, balanced your life and even quit your job so you could help coach others to do the same thing. Thanks again for being on the show today. I want to hear more about your personal story with weight and stress that got you into coaching other people to lose weight, with a focus, I believe, on mindfulness and mindset. That's really what I am particularly interested in. So why don't we just jump in and tell me a little bit about your story, well thanks.
Speaker 2:It's great to be here and in hearing that portion of my story through in your voice is really interesting, because I feel like nobody's story is a straight line and I think when we sum it up into a couple of paragraphs it sounds like, oh well, I just did this and then I just did that and then, poof, everything was better.
Speaker 2:And we all know there's a lot more to the story than that. But, yeah, when I was so frustrated, felt like I was doing all the right things and really had this vision of really being super fit. That was my goal. I've always been fascinated by the human body and the potential that we have, especially in sports and athletics, like watching the Olympics and seeing the gymnasts and what they can do with dedication and work. I really admired that and I wanted to emulate that. But I felt like I was working really, really, really hard and doing all of the quote right things and it just wasn't happening for me and that was difficult for me to accept, that that might not be part of what my body was going to do, and so I reinterpreted what health and fitness meant and redefined it, and then it became much more of a joyful journey when I was working with myself rather than trying to force myself into a category that I don't know I was ever meant to be in.
Speaker 1:So you said that you were doing all of the right things, or you wanted to do all the right things. What were those things that? You were trying to emulate.
Speaker 2:This is back in the day, so let's go all the way back to Denise Austin. Do you remember Denise?
Speaker 1:Austin, of course I remember Denise Austin, yes.
Speaker 2:She was such an inspiration and she was an inspiration to me then and still is now. But I would get up and I would do my Denise Austin workout and then I at the end she would always make a smoothie in her Hamilton Beach blender. So I would make a smoothie and then I would follow all of the rules about don't eat anything white, don't eat any carbs which for in my mindset that meant starches and bread but always whatever diet promised was going to help me burn fat. Thinking back, I didn't have any fat to burn, but my mindset was that I need to achieve this ideal that I couldn't really conceptualize, other than I knew it was different from how I was, and so a lot of that process was chasing, trying to be trying to fit into the mold of what the media portrayed as fitness. I remember the first time I read an article in a magazine about Gabrielle Reese. Do you remember the volleyball player Gabrielle Reese?
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course.
Speaker 2:Gorgeous, fit, strong woman. I saw her picture and I thought that's what I want to be like. I want to be like Gabrielle Reese. And in her little write up it had her, her kind of her health stats and her weight was like 165 pounds. I could not figure out how that could possibly be Because she was so fit and I thought how could that possibly be? That's when I started putting the pieces together. It was one of the first times I started to think outside of that stereotypical image of what fitness was and realize there's more to this than the very limited worldview that I've been operating in. It's very confusing.
Speaker 1:I mean diets, food. Yeah, it's all confusing, especially when you're a woman in the 80s and 90s, right? I mean, we're just inundated with diets and ways to eat and standards for body image and what bodies look like. Then there's Gabrielle Reese, who's 165 pounds, what? That doesn't make sense. She was really fit and athletic and I couldn't understand how you'd want to emulate that type of person. But I'm curious to just go back in your story a little bit. Before that, maybe when you were younger, how did this want or desire to just be really fit or like a Gabrielle Reese, or I mean that doesn't happen to everybody. There's pro athletes for a reason because they are just maybe genetically predisposed gifts that make them athletic.
Speaker 2:People have different body types. Some are more lean than others.
Speaker 1:I mean supermodels, these super athletes, bodies that most of us will never aspire to. Do you have a story back then that got you into that mindset?
Speaker 2:The earliest that I can remember starting to become really focused on that area of achievement was, gosh, probably in elementary school. I was never athletic or sporty but I was intrigued by the idea of being athletic and really being able to do those types of things and I remember the 1984 Olympics and that's when I think Mary Lou Retton and gymnastics started to be something that I was into and I was just absolutely fascinated by it and I wanted to be that type of a person who could do those types of things. And I think I always knew that the level of work that it would take to get to that point was just not really going to happen for me. Like I wasn't there. It wasn't that much of an obsession, but I still had that seed planted that I could be like that.
Speaker 2:But unfortunately for me it didn't go to a healthy place. It went to a place that was kind of like it started to become more and more prevalent in my thought processes to the point where I started. I'm not somebody who has a lot of limiting thoughts to begin with. I have a pretty big interpretation of what I'm able to achieve, and so it did feel very achievable that if I just keep working and I just keep following these rules, then I'll be like Mary Lou Redden too, and I'll be super fit and strong and I can do all of those things as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I understand that. I remember feeling too. I was not that athletic growing up and so I was on and off diets for half my life. But I didn't ever want to be a wave model, thin like that, but I wanted to be in shape or whatever. I'm trying to remember what we used to call it back then. I guess it was in shape or strong, or more like fit.
Speaker 2:We would probably be in the tone, and I think that when it comes to these types of disordered eating patterns and thought processes, it's hard to pin down because it's just part of you. My brain always thought that way and I don't really remember ever thinking otherwise. Yeah, I just had a brain that automatically went to what's the ideal, what's the pinnacle? Am I at that point now? Then how do I get there In the categories that I was interested in? And I don't know whether other people who have similar issues that I have share that experience, but that's just how my brain works.
Speaker 1:So you mentioned disordered eating. What type of eating issues do you feel like were coming up for you?
Speaker 2:For me. I was very much in a restrictive eating pattern that would backfire into overeating, and so I was always about control, always trying to meet An ideal that in my mind, was always going to be thinner than I was, and I was very aware of anorexia and I did not want to develop anorexia. But I wasn't as aware of other types of eating disorders. And when I look back now I realize that I was definitely in an eating disordered pattern, but we didn't have names for binge eating disorder back then, and so for me it was feeling like, oh, I can't control myself, or I just have an addiction to food or some other type of rationalization, when really, when you look back on it, I had binge eating disorder and so it was a constant battle of trying to keep myself in control and then being out of control, and I had to learn how to be comfortable in the middle, which for somebody who is a high driven, achieving person, is really really hard to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, especially with binge eating disorder. I mean, you're right, you have this out of control and control and want to need to really hold on to that control. Was this a decades long challenge that you had? Did this go into your 20s, did it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I kind of feel like it's always been part of my life and even now, at my late 40s, I'm experiencing a different version of it. I think, through some intentional work and lots of work, just lots of hard work to change my mindset, really partner up with myself, understand my tendencies and patterns, understand my kind of my personal psychology, and working hard to create a different type of a framework for myself, I felt really really good for a long time and probably like 15 years felt really really good. And then, just somewhat recently, really in my 40s, around the time that everything starts to shift, I started noticing that some of those thoughts were bubbling up again. Now that I have the skills and the awareness to shift my mindset, it's a much easier process. But I honestly feel like that's the type of thing that's with you forever. It's always part of your thought process and you have to check it and you have to be aware and when it shows up, just deal with it in the moment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I understand that. I mean, I grew up a very emotional eater. I definitely ate in reaction to big, scary things going on in my life, so it's something that really doesn't, I think, ever go away fully. It doesn't dominate my life now and I have tools to help me, like mindfulness and mindset and things like that, but it's something that you have to practice daily. So you said that you did a lot of intentional work. Talk to me more a little bit about that. What is the definition of intentional work to you?
Speaker 2:The definition of intentional work to me is seeking out resources that are going to help me get to a different place. I think sometimes people will attach themselves to diets or I'm gonna follow this program or this is gonna be finally the one that works for me, and they don't really have an end result. I wanted to be living in harmony with myself. I really wanted to be able to enjoy gosh it sounds weird to say enjoy life, because I've always enjoyed life but I really wanted to just get to a place of harmony and get to a place of balance. So I worked with a counselor and that was really helpful, just to have somebody to teach me some skills and help me to change my mindset and gain different perspective. And then I practiced, practiced, practiced, practiced and really just worked hard to reframe my relationship with food, to be really honest with myself and talking about it.
Speaker 2:Talking about having an eating disorder is not the easiest thing to do, especially as an adult, because I think people really think of that as being a teenage thing. But it's not. And I know that. There are a lot of other women who are in my shoes and I know that firsthand because I have worked with hundreds and hundreds of people in my 15 plus year coaching career who have told me similar stories to mine. But not very many people really talk openly about what it's like to have this experience and to not feel like it's some type of a shame isn't the right word, but shortcoming it's not. It's just part of psychology, it's just a brain thing and when you can look at it that way, it becomes a lot easier to be intentional about creating a different path and then choosing that path every day and kind of knowing that it might be scary, it might be weird, it might not always be very well lit, but it is the path to stay on.
Speaker 1:Yes, I think practicing every single day, not as in I have to do this again. Today is another 24 hours and I have to do it but it just I think when you hook into mindful eating, you know, like have it, it's just something that kind of runs in the background. I don't know if that makes sense to you, but, like, for me, that's how it's just, you know, like I'm, just, I'm constantly just in touch with my hunger, my physical hunger, my emotional hunger. Am I doing this because I'm having a bad day or am I genuinely hungry? And if I'm hungry, I'm going to honor that hunger and eat.
Speaker 1:But I want to mention something too, or just go back to something that you said that you know you got into your 40s.
Speaker 1:So, like you know, you had a number of years where, like, things were sort of settled and then you got into your 40s and things started coming back up, and I think that's such a great point and and something I agree with I want to.
Speaker 1:I want to keep that conversation open more and really be talking about this more, because I do think that a lot of women have disordered eating rate in their 20s or teens stuff, and then it's, and then it might go, maybe have learned to manage, or it goes dormant a little bit. Or you have kids now and your focus is, you know, out there and then by their 40s, the perimenopause, menopause. We are going through such an incredible change in our bodies and women are gaining weight in, or either you're gaining weight or your weight's distributing and you're, you know, you have, you know, maybe more weight in your belly and, and it's really confusing because now you are feeling out of control again, you know of your body. I just, I mean I so many of my clients say I just look at food and I gain weight. I mean that's like the number one thing that I hear. So it's, it's really yeah, and I think then it's it's like a recipe for just all the you know eating issues kind of coming up to the surface again.
Speaker 2:For sure, for sure. That's what it was for me. And I just had to laugh because when I recognized what it was, I thought, oh my gosh, we're here again. And part of my reaction was gosh, it really is still about control, because when your body starts changing with no participation on your part, that is very frustrating. And and then you know you want to be this enlightened person who's like oh, it's fine, this, I'm just aging, this is the way my body ages and I think, like 75% of me is there, but there's always that that part that's always been there, that's like this can't happen, fix it.
Speaker 2:But I think that the motivation is different. When I was younger, the motivation was the size of my body. Now the motivation is my personal well-being. I'm not as hung up on the size of my body as I used to be, but I am completely committed to my personal, mental and emotional well-being and I just don't want to go back to that way of life of all the circular thinking and the second guessing and the self-doubting, the amount of energy that's wasted thinking about food. I'm just not willing to do that anymore. And so when I started noticing, oh my gosh, we're here again, I do not want to deal with this. It wasn't because I was necessarily afraid to get fat in air quotes, but that I just don't have patience for it anymore.
Speaker 1:I know because you realize that it's exhausting to constantly be obsessing about a couple of pounds or what you're eating next, or good foods versus bad foods, and it really is. It's draining. I know we're at an age where you feel like I'm done with that. You know I'm over that, but we have got social media to contend with. I mean it's out of control. On social media, the ads targeted towards women in perimenopause and menopause and how we have to lose weight and you have to get rid of your belly fat, and it's just. We are at a very unfair advantage, just a big disadvantage, with just as women in our 40s and 50s Well, and that's part of the intentionality that I bring now of I hide those ads.
Speaker 2:I mean they as soon as our phones are always listening. Soon, probably after this, I'll start getting all kinds of stuff. Because as soon as I start seeing those ads about perimenopause or menopause, weight gain and here's what the solution I hide, hide, hide, hide, hide, because I know that if I even let that into my airspace, that it's just going to be mental clutter for me. But that's a proactive thing that we have to be intentional about. You know, curating our own media diet of what we let in.
Speaker 1:That's a great point. Yeah, no, I like that. I usually. I know what you mean. I mean just to like delete those ads and know we have control over that. I usually just keep them going sometimes because I feel like it's almost my job sometimes. So I'm just curious to see what's out there and you know, once you click on one and I agree with you, we'll be talking. When we're done with this conversation, my phone will probably be blowing up with ads.
Speaker 2:I look up a lot with, like I will look up the different products or programs and read the reviews that are, you know, from credible sources, because clients ask me a lot, well, what do you think about this and what do you think about that? And I want to have an informed and fair answer for them. But you know, I think that we I personally have my limits and my boundaries of, like how much am I willing to entertain that in my space.
Speaker 1:Exactly. Yeah, oh no, I'm not in there looking like, should I try that? It has nothing to do with that, it's just that I want to know, I want to be informed. When people come to me and say have you heard about that diet? I just want to know.
Speaker 2:But it's yeah, but there's still that voice that's like oh, you should do that. And I was like no, we are not doing that anymore, exactly exactly.
Speaker 1:You know it's all very alluring. It is because when you are vulnerable and feeling that loss of control and you've got ads coming at you and saying I got the solution, it's, it is very, it can be very alluring. So I understand that. So with your work now with your clients, you know, you said you know and I really like this phrase you know, like intentional work, what are some of the top things you do to work with your clients? It sounds like they're, they are similar to you, like maybe they've come to you for weight or they feel out of control with their eating or some disordered eating. They're gonna mix.
Speaker 2:I think that right now a lot of my clients are in the same category that I am of. I've had disorder eating patterns for a lot of my life. I might not have recognized it, or maybe I did, and you know, either it's back or I'm still there and I just want peace of mind, I want to heal my relationship with food, and I totally get that. And then I also have clients who really what comes down to is priority management, you know, and identifying priorities, identifying values. You know where are your boundaries and deal breakers in life and are you living according to that? And many times, if they've made it to me, it's because they're not and they're in such a place of stress and unhappiness over it that they want to reconnect.
Speaker 2:And so it starts with identifying what is your life about? You know, what are you doing here and like, what do you want to be doing with your life? And doing a gap analysis how close is the life you're living in now to the one that you would like to be in? How do we get those two things to be the same? And you know, just not quickly, but identifying where the gaps and then how can we start to bridge those gaps is as in as uninvasively as possible, without changing very much of the life that you're already comfortable in, that where most things are working fine. In other words, I don't want to flip somebody's life upside down, hand them something and say here's your new life. Do this because that's diet mentality, that's diet for your life, but rather helping people to identify where are the gaps, how can I gently build a bridge over that gap so that I am more in line with my values and my priorities in life, whether that is related to your health or your family or your career or your general well-being?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that sounds like a nice action step. I mean just envisioning the bridge, you know, to fill in the gaps, rather than, you know, getting to the water and swim with the sharks. You know which is like the diets you know. Try this new plan, try this other desperation diet, and we know this does not work. If women you know around, like this mid-lifetime, perimenopause, menopause, just really honestly feel stuck which many of them do, I see them myself what's the first big thing you would do with them?
Speaker 2:I would want to know what else they would like instead. You know what would unstuck feel like, what would you be doing if you weren't stuck? And you know I guess that's kind of a different version of the gap analysis idea you know of well, what would be better than this? And really name it like let's get specific, so that you know whether or not you're successful. So you know, I want to be spending my time doing these things. I want to stop feeling this way. I don't want this to be a burden or a challenge anymore, and then we can start getting some ideas, because until we know really what's the goal, how do you want to be living, then we're just spitballing ideas.
Speaker 1:You can do that with your friend, you don't need me for that, right, right, yeah, the word mindfulness. I mean that whole theory around mindful. You know there's even magazines of notice and grocery stores called like mindful living or things like that. Tell me about your relationship with mindfulness and mindful eating, because for me, that was the ultimate game changer. When I discovered mindfulness around food and this is years ago, but this was a really radical concept for me because, even though I went to graduate school for nutrition, clinical nutrition they never taught us about mindfulness. They taught us about fat grams and carbs and how to count calories and BMI's and all of that. They never mentioned mindfulness, mindset, compassion, any of these other like which I consider like the foundation to weight loss or just healthy eating and living, and it's the difference between being on a diet and being just eating for the rest of your life, happily in a piece with your food. So what's your take on mindful eating specifically, you know, just with food and weight and diets.
Speaker 2:For me. Mindfulness was a game changer for me as well, and I think the reason is because it put my hands back on the steering wheel and I was charting my own course, driven by different motivators than I had been before, whereas before it had been about follow these instructions. You do these things. This is the map to get to where you want to be. Everybody follows this map. If it doesn't work for you, you must be doing it wrong.
Speaker 2:Whereas that was mindless, that was I am thinking. I am not thinking at all. I am only following directions and I am, I'm doing what it says, regardless of whether that feels authentic to me.
Speaker 2:Mindfulness is the complete opposite of that.
Speaker 2:You know, it's deciding where you want to go and having the I'd say courage, but then also confidence that you don't necessarily need a step by step instruction guide to get there, that you can start with one step forward and then decide what's the next step and what's the step after that, and you have the skills within yourself, through all of your life experiences, plus things you haven't even tapped into yet to be able to make that decision for yourself.
Speaker 2:And so it puts you and the drivers see to where, even though we're not in control of the circumstances of our life. We're always in the position to be in charge, and I think that is a really powerful place to be at any stage of your life, because we have so much noise around us telling us what we should be doing or opportunities to compare ourselves to what other people are doing, and I think mindfulness really just gives us the opportunity to acknowledge, notice that interesting and then make your own decision, something that's informed from your own body, wisdom and from what you've already determined you want out of life, not what you've been told you should want.
Speaker 1:Right, yes, I mean that takes the right, the shoulds out of life, because you are ultimately in charge of all the decisions you make around food. And yeah, and just to bring up what you said about mindless eating, which is total diet thinking, I mean that's, those are diets, right, step by step do this, do that, don't eat this, eat that. Anyone could do that for 30 days. I mean we can all do suck it up and do that, but the game changer is being mindful, because that's what's going to keep you going for the long term. Right, just always be checking in with yourself. What do I want today, like? What do I want to eat? What am I in the mood for? What tastes good?
Speaker 2:And I still have clients that are working towards weight loss goals, and that's totally fine. You can absolutely be working towards a weight loss goal using mindfulness, because you're going to be mindful of what your needs are for your, for where you want to go with your body composition. If you've identified a goal and you know what the logical action steps are for that help come to happen. You're still mindful of that and you're still working towards that, but it's at your direction, at your pace.
Speaker 1:Yes, exactly Right, you have thought it through, you have made a decision and it's all within you and that's yeah, and that can bring a lot of peace. I think around just making decisions about any meal, that you're eating any food any time of the day, because sometimes when there's rules that says you cannot eat past eight o'clock at night, those are the society's rules that we're not supposed to be eating late. But you're really craving a cookie and if you're doing it with mindfulness, you are having a conversation with yourself and you really want that cookie. Have the cookie. I mean, that's what I tell my clients all the time as long as you're like you're not just going mindlessly into your kitchen grabbing a dozen cookies and going in front of the TV with your phone and your computer in your lap and you're really just giving it some well-thought intention and attention.
Speaker 2:It's interesting because I think that we could use those same words about binge eating. Plenty of people put intention and planning into a binge. They know what they're going to get, they know what the setting is going to be, they know exactly how they're going to set things up, and then they totally immerse themselves in that experience. And I could see how somebody would say oh well, that's very mindful, I am totally paying attention to this and I have made this choice and that's the key. You made that choice and so yeah, I mean yeah, anything can be flipped and used against you, I guess would be a way to say it. But ultimately, I think that what we want is for mindfulness to be used for the power, to be used for good and not evil, and that you're really being true to yourself about what you really want out of life. And is that truly the path that will get you to what you've decided that you want and that you're committed to? Because I would argue that it's probably not.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean that's a great point to just reiterate, right, that's something like a binge, could definitely take a lot of mindful planning and set up and everything, and that's could be confused with attention and intention, yeah, and so I think that's not where, right. I think if it's in alignment with your goals, your vision for your life, then so be it and that's yeah, that's the mindfulness that I was talking about. But very good point to just bring that up because that's true. Yeah, anything can be mindful. I guess Alcohol, drugs, I mean whatever I guess you could do it with mindfulness. Yeah, but I mean, if it's as long as it's in alignment with your vision, the long-term vision that you have for yourself. Good point, heather how can people find you and work with you and do you have programs around mindful eating and tell me more about how you work?
Speaker 2:I work in a variety of ways. The easiest way to find me is to just go on Google and type in Heather solves everything. That's the name of my website. I have a podcast called Heather Solves Everything, and this current season is all about mindful eating. I also teach the am I hungry? Mindful eating class. I offer three cohorts a year and if you go to heathersolveseverythingcom then you can see what the dates are for those classes. And I also work with individual clients with one-to-one coaching, and that's just such an honor and a privilege to be invited into somebody's life to help them with some of their most personal and vulnerable elements of life, and I take that very seriously. So Heather solves everything is the place to find me and I'm on all the stuff, and I love engaging with people who are curious about what they could do with their life, and especially if they want to work with somebody who has been there and understands what they're going through. Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Well, I will put all of those links in the show notes so people can grab those after they are done listening, and I really appreciate you telling your story today and being here. I think this is really important to get our stories out, so women especially do not feel like they are alone. So thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Thank you for providing the opportunity to share. I really enjoyed being here.