Disrupting Diet Culture and cultivating Food Freedom with Bianca Skilbeck

Bianca is a clinical hypnotherapist who trained at The Academy of Hypnotic Science, the largest training school in clinical hypnotherapy in Australia, recognised by the Australian Skills Quality Authority. Bianca has a special interest in working with people who experience disordered eating, anxiety, and the intersecting issues of gut-health and function which so often present for patients in these spaces.

In our first “healer/helper” style episode, we speak to an expert about the stories that keep us from being Wild + (finally fcking) Free. 

We talk about:

- Bianca’s own personal experience of discombobulated body image, anorexia and disordered eating in her teens, 20s and early 30s

- Kylie’s personal experience with emotional eating, “food addiction”, disordered eating and healing from her own 30+ decades yo-yo style diet-culture hell, and how she came to the realisation at the beginning of 2022 that a big F off change needed to happen
 
- The concept of Acceptance Commitment Therapy’s “creative helplessness” and how Bianca stealthily uses this to wake up her clients (Kylie included) to the unhelpful patterns that have around body image, body love and lack of real self acceptance

- Kylie’s journey in the past 9 months from food obsessions and dangerous restrictive eating practices in a “food addiction” cult (which led to binge eating behaviours) to shift towards a year free from diets
 
- The real science around the concept of “food addiction” and disrupting all the common myths of the diet culture industry, including the deeply engrained society-conditioned belief that “skinnier is healthier”

- The evidence behind health at every size, which clearly shows that it is the presence of healthy behaviours like not smoking, moderate alcohol intake, eating fruits and veggies every day and exercising 3 times a week that dictates H E A L T H (and not the size clothes you wear or the number on the scale)

- Body image distress, where it comes from, and the flow-on effects of trying to “control our bodies” has on other areas of life - if you find yourself with a need control in your parenting, your finances, your home, your career, your [fill in the blank], you N E E D to listen in to this!

- The real cost of being tied to spending emotional, mental and spiritual bandwidth on body image and dieting, and Kylie’s massive shift towards living a fuller version of her true self since she started doing this work



You can find Bianca:

Online at www.freedomfromfood.com
On Instagram  here  
On Facebook here
 
And you can download Bianca’s free resource we spoke about in this interview about the Myths and Truth about Body Image here

___

Come connect with Kylie on Insta @kyliepatchett or Facebook @kyliepatchettonline
and online for all your menoPAUSE and Brand, Content and Copy Storytelling needs at Kylie's brand new web home www.kpkreative.com.au

Transcript

Kylie Patchett: 0:08

Well, hello there, beautiful. It's kylie patchon here. Welcome to the wild. And finally, Becky free podcast. I deeply believe that the years during and beyond perimenopause are right up of passage. All of a sudden, we find ourselves on the precipice of a life transition where our brain literally rewires and runs out of ***** to give. We find ourselves shifting identity, no longer caring what other people think, and being invited to expand into new ways of being. Here we share the real and raw stories from women who have been through deep midlife medam offices, taken a leap of faith, or broken the tires that bind us in patterns of staying small, stuck, and like, our knees just don't matter. This is the midlife medicine you didn't even know you needed. Stories full of joy, despair, freedom, courage, and deep self honoring. I am so glad you found us. Welcome. Welcome back to the world. And finally ******* free podcast. I have got a treat for you today and I'm really excited because this is the very first of the style of interviews that is actually interviewing healers and helpers, that help us need life, mavens heal the **** that keeps us stuck and ties that bind. So welcome. Bianca Skillbeck. How are you?

Bianca Skilbeck: 1:32

I'm good, thank you. Thank you so much for the invite.

Kylie Patchett: 1:35

I think this is like a perfect full circle moment, which will become obvious in a little minute. But before we dive in, would you like to introduce yourself and how you came to be doing the work in the world that you do? Big questions to start with?

Bianca Skilbeck: 1:51

Yeah, just a little bit. We'll try to answer it by bite, I suppose so, right. My name is Bianca. I run a business called Freedom From Food, which is based on eating disorder recovery. So I am a counselor and clinical hypnotherapist. I am slowly moving towards the path of clinical psych, but it is a very long path. So we'll get there one day, but in the meantime, I've been doing this work for about ten years and specializing in the space of eating disorders, disordered eating, body image, all of that sort of stuff. Recovery for last five years. I came into this work because of my own personal experience, as it is for so many of us that do these kinds of healing jobs and healing work. I came into this because of my own tumultuous relationship with food. So as a teen, or even as a preteen, actually, I started restricting food. I think the first time I had awareness of my body and that awareness was not positive, I was probably 8910. Started playing with restrictions at that age, got really heavily into restriction in sort of my mid teens and spent some time with anorexia. That didn't last for me. It bounced back into binging and just a lot of the diet cycle, you know, through my teens, late teens, 20s into my early 30s, just lots of time in this diet cycle, lots of really destructive behavior with food and ultimately an experience that was psychologically just not sound for anybody. So I came into this work with personal experience of having really struggled with body image and food and all of that sort of thing. And I think for many of us that do these kinds of jobs or do this kind of work, we start because we want to answer the questions for ourselves. And then at some point in time, we answer the question for ourselves and think, oh, my God, I have an answer now, and I need to share that answer.

Kylie Patchett: 4:02

As your talking banker, I am nodding along. I know this is audio so no one could hear but I look back at my relationship with food and similar to you, I actually have never lived with anorexia I have definitely I'm going to say restricted under the guise of being on very strict eating plans. So I never ever identified that I was restricting food really into working with you. I didn't ever see that as restriction. And I never, ever identified as having an eating disorder either. Which is very interesting because I remember I have a very, very clear memory of my and I've shared with this, you know, in one of our sessions that I reckon I would have been four, maybe five. And I can hear people in my house fighting. And I remember feeling unsafe in my body and because, weirdly, we had a freezer in a spare bedroom. I don't know why, but anyway, just go with it. And I remember sitting on the floor with my legs crossed with a big tub of ice cream in my lap and a spoon and this very meditative I look back now and go, soothing process of scooping the ice cream, put it into my mouth, and it was like I was just trying to find a way to disconnect from discomfort and fear. And I've been to psychologists before and occasionally this will come up. And one of them actually said something quite pivotal in my sort of self awareness was because I've always blamed myself for my weird relationship with food, right? And I remember this counselor actually saying it was psychologist, whatever they were saying to me. Well, what an amazing way of you developing some sort of way of emotional regulation or soothing. Yes, it's not helpful as an adult, obviously, but then, obviously, as a four or five year old, you can't just walk out the door. You can't disconnect from that. You can't use your words to stop whatever's happening. But for me, that was the start of definitely pattern of emotional eating always. And then living in the world of diet culture. I remember my very first similar to you, awareness of my body not being what I wanted it to be was just before I actually got really bad length of fever as a kid and my dad took me to a natural path, which was pretty cool back in the 80s when I was a kid. But yeah, it involved cutting out a huge amount of food groups and having quite a strict diet. And I lost a huge amount of weight and I was like, this is pretty **** cool. And then I learnt control.

Bianca Skilbeck: 6:55

Food diet cycle began.

Kylie Patchett: 6:56

Correct, exactly. Control food, control body. It's something that I feel like I sort of and the ridiculous thing and I would love to dive into this with you, the ridiculous thing that we taught through. I feel like it's an ocean of diet culture. Like you go on Instagram Guaranteed or Facebook or wherever, wherever you get your media from, there will be some very particular image of a healthy body. And doing the air quotes. Let's talk about that. How do you even begin to understand that you're living in a ridiculous universe of diet culture if you don't even know? Because I feel like when we first started working together, I remember saying to you, like, it's like the blinkers came off. And I realized that every single bit of media that I'm seeing is informing how I should look, how I should be in my body, what size it should be, even how tanned it should be or whatever. How do you start to wake people up from that?

Bianca Skilbeck: 8:10

As you were talking and as you are forming that question, what came to me in order to be able to answer that was I don't know if you've heard of a therapy called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Act. For sure. There's a process in act called creative hopelessness. And the idea of creative hopelessness is it's about taking a client comes to you and there's something that they're trying to change and everything that they're doing thus far in life has not changed the thing, but still they keep beating that same drum, still keep doing the same thing and hoping for a different result. What we call that in act processes is creative hopelessness, where you don't tell the client, well, you need to stop doing this. You need to start thinking that, but rather you help them to elucidate. Like all of the things that they keep doing that aren't working. And so you say, and then what did you try? And then what did you try? And then what did you try? It's a matter of deduction really, because eventually you get to a point where it's like, well, the things that we're working aren't I'm sorry, the things that we're doing aren't working. And that's okay because we need that's still information, put it that way. Whenever we're trying to change anything, and I'm not just talking about body image or weight or anything right now, but whenever we're trying to change anything, we also always go through a process of deduction with what works and what doesn't work. And we actually want to get creative about that hopelessness in the patterns that we're already in. And so I think that hopefully I'm answering your question here. How do I work with people who are really stuck in that diet cycle and still wanting to stay dieting and losing weight and all that sort of thing? Well, I guess I thought I would start with that creative hopelessness kind of piece, like just talking about and did it work and then what happened and what did that lead you to? And then what happened and where did you start back? And sometimes that can be a bit of a slow process, but that's just the way of the work. It's actually a grief process.

Kylie Patchett: 10:28

Yeah, I definitely went through that. And I think I didn't realize that's what you were doing when you first working with me, but well done. Well played. So I'm going to answer your question just in very quick. So if you're listening to this and you have that first awareness around X amount of years that you started to go, oh, my body doesn't look the way that I do, maybe your journey is similar. Naturopath at about 14, interesting. Maintained that weight for a while. Stops doing that program or plan air quotes. Again, my body goes back to the size that it wants to be.

Bianca Skilbeck: 11:10

And can I just say that at 14, teenagers are not supposed to control their weight. They're still growing. Exactly.

Kylie Patchett: 11:19

So, flawed thinking to begin. And more power to my dad because he was taking me to try and get the glandula fever sorted, but unfortunately ticked off something that was already alive in my mind. Definitely.

Bianca Skilbeck: 11:30

Since he was doing the absolute best that he could.

Kylie Patchett: 11:33

Exactly.

Bianca Skilbeck: 11:34

No doubt about it.

Kylie Patchett: 11:35

Exactly. But fast forward a few years, get engaged. Perfectly normal size, healthy, active size. But of course, in our culture, you need to look the best you can possibly look on your wedding day. So diet down again, 20 kilos. Follow that plan for a little while and then obviously that becomes unsustainable. So then my body goes back to the size that it wants to be. And then this is the process that I've gone through. You know, I'm 47 and I remember saying to you,******* hell. Like, honestly, like, I do not want to be doing this in my 60s. I've done this literally since I was 14. Would have been the first kind of diet that I would have assigned to myself. And yeah, when I started working with you, the way that I found you was I had done a plan, lost weight, same thing. Stopped following the plan. Body goes back to the weight it wants to be and I want to get to that as well. And then I decided to do something that was an extremely restrictive program. Extremely restrictive.

Bianca Skilbeck: 12:44

I do remember you're talking about this.

Kylie Patchett: 12:46

Yes. I don't know. Do want to actually say what that is? I think I will, because there's a lot of people across the world that have drunk the Koolaid. The reason I want to go there is because I had myself convinced that I had food addiction. So I never identified as a binge eater. Although, looking back, I definitely had binge eating characteristics. Definitely. And that's why I came to work with you. But I came across a program called Bright Line Eating that is very, very strict. Basically says that you cannot ever eat sugar or flour ever again in your entire life. So that's the level of restriction we're talking about. Also, weighing and measuring food keeps people at a very low caloric range. So I'm someone that really needs to move for my mental health. And I like to lift heavy stuff, and I like to run. I like to stretch. I like to physically use my body. I didn't have the energy on that program to be able to sustain any sort of training. So obviously that has a lot of impact. Anyway, I did that, I got down to, and this is another point that I want to get to. Sorry. I know I'm talking a lot about my journey, but I feel like in informing where we're going, because I really want people who are listening to start questioning this bullshit if it's the same thing that's in your head. So. Yes, I do. Bright line eating. I get down to the weight. The thing is, get down to the weight that you remember being that you felt your best as an adult. And of course, when I got married, I was like a little prey, meant a stick figure. So I decided that that weight was where I needed to be. Now, this is where I was leading as well.

Bianca Skilbeck: 14:33

That idea of feel your best, as if feeling is one dimensional and it's just about your weight.

Kylie Patchett: 14:39

Exactly.

Bianca Skilbeck: 14:40

Like, how are we?

Kylie Patchett: 14:41

And I drank the freaking Koolaid. Like, when you're swimming in a sea of people that are so dedicated to a restrictive way of eating, it's like a cult. And I literally had myself convinced I was a food addict. I could not ever touch sugar or flour ever again because I couldn't control myself. Anyway, drank the Koolaid, did the program, lost 35 kilos, got down to where I was at 21, stayed that way for a couple of years. And then I went to a friend's and she offered me ice cream. And I was like, oh, a little bit couldn't hurt. And then we were off to the races, and I binge ate all the way back to the natural size that my body likes to be at. Enter huge amount of shame guilt. I'm a smart. This is a story I used to tell myself. I am a smart woman. Why the **** can I not figure this out? Number one, I'm assuming that there is a problem with my body in the first instance. And number two, I'm assuming because I'm a quotes intelligent that I should just be able to know this stuff and it's like, no, hang on, look at the ocean where you're living. Anyway, so fast forward to January of this year and I start going, I am not going to ever go on a diet ever again in my life. So the year is 2022. I'm not doing this to myself. I'm not available for this sort of clusterfuckery. And I'm very clear that I need some help to shed the skins that I've been conditioned with. Enter looking for. I don't even know how I found you. It's one of those magical things. I'm googling. I think I had it.

Bianca Skilbeck: 16:17

I'd love to think that my SEO is so good. Of course it is. But no, maybe it's just the universe. No.

Kylie Patchett: 16:24

You know what? I think I actually searched binge eating or food addiction psychologists because I was overdoing eating plans made by people that weren't even qualified to write eating plans. So not a nutritionist, not a dietitian, not anyone that had any informed evidence based on having an opinion. An opinion, a guru and a cult that I'd felt fallen for. So I found you and I remember saying to you, what the friggin hell do I do? And we went through this process of the creative hopelessness. Like, what have you tried? I'm like, I've tried this and I've tried that and I've tried this and I've tried that. And one of the biggest blocks for me was if I was going to let go of food rules and given that I thought I was a food addict, I'm going to put on weight and I'm never going to stop putting on weight. Is that normal for someone that starts working with you?

Bianca Skilbeck: 17:17

That is absolutely normal, yes. And in recovery from an eating disorder, or disordered eating, it's well known that ambivalence can be high. I think that fear of weight gain is one of the main cornerstones of that Ambivalence. And it makes sense because we live in a society that shames and makes bad the idea of weight gain or not being able to, quote, unquote, control your weight. This is absolutely one of the biggest fears that people have is that if they allow themselves to eat with unconditional permission, the foods that they actually enjoy, that they will never, ever stop, and that this is going to have dire consequences on their weight. And so a lot of the work that I'm doing with people is actually about exploring and unpacking and eventually unblocking that fear, you know, that fear that people can't actually trust their bodies to be able to signal what they need. Because the truth is that eating actually shouldn't be a cognitive experience. Our bodies can tell us what we need. Our bodies can tell us when we're hungry, when we're full, if we feel like something savory, if we feel like something sweet, if we're fluctuating with hormones or energy, levels or whatever, our bodies can direct us to eat more or less. Like that's what they just naturally do. It's not meant to be a micromanaged cognitive kind of experience, but diet culture has made it so. And so when people come to work with me and they're dealing with all of that, there's always so much fear about what happens when I just hand back the reins to my body. I can't let my body do that work. Because they've had so much experience at this point of feeling so out of control with food, because they've tried to control it for so long. Yes.

Kylie Patchett: 19:19

And this is something that I really want people to really understand. To me, what you're talking about is developing self trust. And self trust only happens when we believe we have power internally. And diet culture and antifat culture, by definition, puts a power outside of ourselves. So you will only be a good good in air quotes, worthy in air quotes, healthy in air quotes, human being. If you have a body that looks like this, a very small box of.

Bianca Skilbeck: 19:51

Body, very narrow spectrum.

Kylie Patchett: 19:53

Yes, exactly. And I think for me, the journey, and this is not a done deal for me either, I still have days where I'm like, whoa, hang on a minute. But what's happened over and we're talking it's in October, so we're talking nine months down the track. What's happened for me is I went through the fear, intense fear. I remember saying to you about session three, like, I'm just going to go on another diet. It is too uncomfortable for me, excuse me, to go down the path of trusting that my body, because I definitely felt like I believed really, really, really strongly and had a lot of resistance, huge amount of resistance, because I believed that my body did not have the signals that you're talking that I could not.

Bianca Skilbeck: 20:46

And the way that you use the term food addiction, quote unquote, tells me enough about your mindset that you had as you were coming into this, that you felt that you were addicted to food and that this was something that was not in your control. It was something that you've just been struck by this affliction and there was nothing that you can do about it. And the truth is that food addiction is I'm not going to say it's not a thing, because that's a very categoric thing to say, especially when we're speaking in scientific terms. Nothing is not open to debate. It's just open to more research. But basically the research around the idea of food addiction really comes up quite empty. There's not a lot to suggest that food addiction is actually a thing. It's a very contentious idea. It's an idea that's mostly propagated by the wellness industry, because, of course, the wellness industry is so closely linked to the diet industry, and there's products to be sold in that there's money to be made in that. And so the idea of the idea of us being addicted to food, it's a very snappy, kind of exciting idea. If I'm just a food addict, then I just need to deal with that addiction and then I'll lose all the weight. The truth is that scientifically, actually, there's very little evidence to suggest that food addiction is even a thing. And that makes sense if we think about addiction from the point of view of other kinds of addictions. Food is one of the main things that we actually just cannot live without. A person might have an addiction to drugs or to alcohol, to gambling. All of these things are not things that you have to have in order to survive, but you have to eat to survive. And more to the point, can start ranting. Now, some of the stuff is necessary, but more to the point is that often when people talk about food addiction and I'm addicted to food, what they're not saying is I'm addicted to eating too much broccoli every day. What they're often saying is that there are certain kinds of food that I find unacceptable that I should be wanting, and therefore I am addicted to them. And so, of course, we're talking about this highly palatable, highly enjoyable types of foods high sugar, high fat, all of that sort of thing. The false thinking in all of that is that even if somebody is really gravitating towards sugary types of foods, for example, are they ever just shoveling in spoons of the white stuff? Like no, they're having it, you know, in products that are a combination of fat and protein and carbohydrate and all of that sort of thing. And there's very few examples of foods that don't have sugar in them. And so even when we talk about this idea of being addicted to sugar, well, I mean, sugar is in just about everything in some form, so it actually doesn't make sense when we break it down.

Kylie Patchett: 24:06

Yeah, I think I'm really hearing in Bright Line Eating the person who is the self proclaimed guru in Bright Line Eating, who, it must be said, has a huge history of very disordered eating, personally an addiction.

Bianca Skilbeck: 24:27

She comes from a twelve step model of addiction recovery. Everything she learned in her drug and alcohol recovery, she just overlayed that onto food. Absolutely, I think quite mistakenly, yes.

Kylie Patchett: 24:42

But she has convinced many, many, many, many, like thousands of people around the world, that food addiction is the thing, that there's science behind food addiction and that the foods that certain brains find very palatable are the high sugar, high flour, or high processed carbohydrates. And one of the things that I have become very aware of is when you stop restricting. Because one of the things that is very true for my journey is it's the restriction of those foods and the inability to access those foods through feeling. Like I used to say to people. I am a food addict. I cannot trust myself around sugar. That's what I used to say, and I believed it 100%. I was like, I bought this drunk the Kool Aid, bought the T shirt. I was like Chief Bright line eating cheerleader. But what has turned out to be true is that when I have stopped restricting eating those foods so I went through a huge swing back the other way where all I wanted to do was eat sugary stuff, and yes, and I also ate lots of other food that I love, really good, nutritious foods. I ate lots of that, and I also ate lots of sugar on top of that. But after nine months of having no food rules to follow, I don't actually want sugar out of control ever. And so that, to me, is the key. It's like, for me and I'm talking I'm not a scientist. I'm not like any expert in this field for my journey. To me, it's the restriction of the diet that has created the pendulum swing back into what I would say is the binge eating behavior. And then over time, I've come back to the middle.

Bianca Skilbeck: 26:25

Yeah.

Kylie Patchett: 26:25

And I think it's going through. And you said before, there's a guilt. No guilt, sorry, grief period. So I had a lot of resistance. I remember being quite angry at the concepts that you were selling me. I can't have dieted for 30 something years and find out that that's the problem.

Bianca Skilbeck: 26:48

Sometimes people do get a bit angry. It's okay. You can shoot the messenger. I'm accustomed.

Kylie Patchett: 26:54

But you know what? Like you said, the creative hopelessness. I have been dieting on and off for my entire life, and it's never given me any peace around my body and my body image. And this is also what I'd really love to chat about, is we live in this culture which is very driven by the dollar. Dieting equals dollars, as you've just said. And it's very driven by selling women dissatisfaction with themselves, because then they will seek a solution, and the solution creates money for someone. That's the reality of where we're sitting. Can you talk a little bit about body image and the drive towards fixing ourselves? When you gave me something to read very early on that basically just shot out of the park, this concept of having to be a particular size to be healthy, et cetera. So can you talk to me about that? Okay, that was a very poorly phrased question, but let's just go there.

Bianca Skilbeck: 27:49

That's okay. So are you wanting to talk more about the health aspect of body image? Is that what I'm saying?

Kylie Patchett: 27:57

Yes. Let me rephrase. I will fix this. When we first started working together, you sent me something that was basically it made me question everything that I believed. And one of the things that I really believe was to be healthy in inverted comments, I had to have a body and ridiculously of a BMI of a certain point to be okay. And there's all this other stuff that we've talked about through our sessions, but the messaging in our society that says that if you're not that size and you must be lazy, unhealthy, et cetera, et cetera. So let me talk a bit about that, because let's just blow that **** out of the water because it's so flawed.

Bianca Skilbeck: 28:41

Yes, absolutely. So when people come to me with body image distress and perhaps therefore some disordered eating behaviors and things going on, there'll be often one of two things that they will say or things that will be driving them to want to fix this when it comes to the body image piece. And it might be either I just don't like how I look, and so that's why I want to change my eating and lose weight and all of this sort of thing. The other one will be for my health. And there's this very ingrained belief that, you know, in order for us to be healthy, we need to be within a certain weight range. It's a very flawed system of thinking, and I don't even know exactly where to start when it comes to answering this question, because for a start, the BMI chart that we're all facing so called, quote, unquote, health on was not even a formula that was meant to be applied to individual people. Exactly.

Kylie Patchett: 29:52

Yes.

Bianca Skilbeck: 29:53

You know, in addition to that, I always forget which year it was. I think it was in the BMI range actually changed. So whilst it was considered to be within a healthy range up to a BMI of 27 or 28 or whatever, literally overnight, one day it went down to 25 25, all of a sudden, all of these people that were a BMI between 25 to 27 got labeled as overweight. So there's a lot of arbitrary kind of stuff going on anyway with the BNI chart, and there's sort of a whole history lesson within that. But beyond that, even if we're not going to talk about BMI, if we're just going to talk about this very ingrained idea that a lot of people have because it's been given to us that we need to lose, weight in order to be healthy. The truth of the matter is that research actually shows that people can be healthy at any weight as long as they include more healthy behaviors in their lifestyle. So there was a big study done with about 140 people in it, and it was conducted over about 14 years, and they were looking at the hazard ratio for the basic the risk of developing illness and dying and all of that sort of thing over this group of people. And they categorize people in underweight normal range or overweight or obese, but they categorize people in this way. And basically what they found was that the hazard ratio, the risk of developing illness and dying, it leveled. Out across all groups once they introduced more healthy behaviors into their lives. So the healthy behaviors that they looked at was not smoking, moderate drinking, which they defined within the study. I think it was one to two drinks a day or whatever. It was eating fruit and veg every day and exercising three times a week. As soon as people across the weight spectrum at any weight, as soon as they introduced more and more of these healthy habits, their actual data at all leveled out to the point where there wasn't really a difference in health outcomes irrespective of how much the person weighed. So whether or not they were in the normal range or the obese range or the overweight range, it didn't actually matter. Once they had all of the healthy habits in place and that was consistently how they lived, their actual health outcomes kind of stabilized, which is really interesting, isn't it? That's really not the message that we're given.

Kylie Patchett: 32:45

I'm sitting here, I know I've heard this before. Like we've worked on this together. And it makes me simultaneously deeply angry that we are sold a very different story and deeply sad for myself and every other woman who has spent so many ******* years spending energy, shame, guilt, whatever in discomfort and fear for people.

Bianca Skilbeck: 33:14

Who naturally exist in larger bodies. Because, of course, we're not all supposed to be the same size either. For people who exist in larger bodies, this fear that if I don't lose weight I'm going to be giving myself XYZ disease and Ailment and whatever, it's not true. Correlation doesn't equal causation problem that quickly gets lost. It gets forgotten when it comes to weight science and it even gets forgotten by the medical world, which is the most outrageous part of the equation because it would be all well and good if it was just diet companies that were wanting to make money that were saying these things. But of course there's so much stigma that even happens in the medical world to the point where people in larger bodies are afraid to go to their doctors, they put off going to the doctor and it actually is correlated with worse health outcomes, that weight stigma that people face within the medical world as well.

Kylie Patchett: 34:16

You've got a Facebook group that I'm part of and some of the stories that are told there about the conversations that happen in doctor's offices when someone goes with very real valid concerns about health and the answer is always lose weight, go and lose weight. And it's so flawed because as you're saying, I'd actually want to bring to the surface. So thinking about these healthy behaviors. So I want to contrast so me two years ago. Super restrictive eating program. Mentally obsessed with what I'm going to eat next and staying away from sugar and flour and keeping myself safe from the food addiction. Not moving as much as what I like to for my mental health. Not lifting heavy weights, not running, not doing as much yoga as what I want to because I literally don't have the energy to do that. Think about that health wise. And we're talking like you said before, the whole concept of feeling healthy is way more than the number on the scale. So, yes, my number on the scale is significantly less than what it is now. And then the contrast is now I don't spend hardly any of my bandwidth, emotionally or mentally, is taken up with what I'm going to eat next. Because I have settled into the concept of, like, my body will tell me what I need when I need it. And I wouldn't say that that's every single day. But I'm going to the gym, I'm lifting heavy****, I'm running again. I feel much more happy and comfortable in myself. And the biggest thing for me is I don't have a big freaking voice in my head saying, you're not good enough today because you haven't hit that number on the scale.

Bianca Skilbeck: 36:01

And I hope it's okay that I share. I remember in one of the sessions that we had because you mentioned a lot of what the restriction, the mental preoccupation, the things that you couldn't do physically when you were doing all of that restriction. But there was one session that we had as well that I remember, it stood out because you told me that we met up this one day, and you told me that you had a great weekend. I think you might have had people around for dinner, and you'd all stayed up late dinner, and you're having some drinks and maybe there was ice cream and your kids were there, and you were all dancing in the kitchen at midnight. And you sort of painted this as you do, you painted this very bright picture of everything that was going on for you that weekend. And we both reflected at that time on how that just couldn't have happened when you were back in those really heavy restrictions days.

Kylie Patchett: 37:00

Definitely not, because I wouldn't even let myself be around food that might tempt the food addict, right? And I certainly wouldn't have like, I'm not a big drinker anyway, but I certainly wouldn't have put any alcohol near me because God forbid that sugarfied, the.

Bianca Skilbeck: 37:14

Ice cream, or the cake that got shared, that wouldn't have happened.

Kylie Patchett: 37:17

No. And so I really want people to hear this. Like, if my values are freedom, family, joy, adventure, love, deep connection, and my conviction that I had a food addiction, stole almost every single one of those. And I love that your business is around food freedom, because to me, I was not free. I don't think I've ever been free. Consuming, literally sudden, the pun every single ounce of my bandwidth. And I tell you what, it's a hell of a lot quieter in your head. And see, the thing that I realize about myself over the last nine months, too, is that this pattern of feeling like you have to improve yourself or control yourself or be a particular way to be okay. Actually, it steals away your ability to create the life you want because you're so obsessed with the drama of what you're going to eat next and what you can eat and who you're going to be with and how tempted you're going to be. Blah, blah, blah. And I just feel like this year I've flourished into a way more me version of me because I haven't got that **** on my windscreen. That's how I feel. So I really want people to hear that. If you're only assigning a number on a scale to feeling healthy or being healthy. Consider everything. Consider what it's costing you. And it may not. I'm not saying everyone that's listening as an issue with food, but I know I've got a lot, a lot of female friends. And almost every single one of us has a food story or a body image story or an ancient story around our bodies. One thing I wanted to ask you, actually two questions. So first of all, coming back to the science of weight science, can you talk about the research and evidence that's behind the health impact of swinging from weight to weight?

Bianca Skilbeck: 39:16

Yeah. So weight, weight cycling is often the phrase that gets used, and it has been positive that weight cycling, so that yoyo dieting that so many of us have actually done is potentially at the heart of a lot of the health problems that actually become correlated with people who live in a larger body. So not everyone, obviously, but a lot of people that live in a larger body who have, you know, they've put on weight over time have done a lot of dieting. And it's that dieting in and of itself that has increased the weight gain, because, of course, metabolically, our bodies just keep trying to protect themselves. And so every time we go on a low cal diet, every time we restrict in the moment, short term, that the body will lose weight. I mean, that's not rocket science that if we deprive ourselves of the amount of calories that we actually need to get by every day, we will lose weight. But it's what happens next question, which is the real question. And what happens is that 95% of people will regain the weight, and roughly about a third of those will put on just a little bit more in.

Kylie Patchett: 40:33

Case that's what I've done, because their.

Bianca Skilbeck: 40:36

Body is protecting themselves against this vomit that keeps coming up. And so a lot of the health outcomes that get talked about, things like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, stroke, all of these things that get correlated with being in a larger body are actually possibly, quite possibly due to the weight cycling that has happened possibly over decades.

Kylie Patchett: 40:58

Yeah, when I read that, because I'm a scientist originally, so I like, evidence. And when I was reading those papers that you'd kind of sent me to, I was like, oh my ******* God. So I'm trying to get this unattainable ideal of being back in my 21 year old body, which is ridiculous. Like, when you think about it, I just look back and go, what the hell was I thinking? Like, how did I think that that was even a good idea?

Bianca Skilbeck: 41:24

The idea that we can pick a weight that we want to be and just stick to it is just such a reductionist idea because it assumes that our weight is reliant on just one thing and one thing alone, lifestyle. But of course, our weight is actually influenced by a myriad of factors. Things like genetics, hormones, age, gender, socioeconomic status, previous dieting attempts, like the list goes on and on. And lifestyle is just one yeah.

Kylie Patchett: 41:56

Out of them. Exactly. Yeah. I felt like seriously ripped off when I realized that because I'm like, number one, I'm going towards this ridiculous ideal and actually the other thing. So too many questions. Yes, too many questions. I want to ask you about.

Bianca Skilbeck: 42:16

The.

Kylie Patchett: 42:16

Concept of the body's set point. Because in my story, when I'm listening to myself speaking to you now, I'm like, oh, there's a pattern here. You go on a plan, when you stop it, your body goes back to the original weight that it wants to be. Plus a couple of kilos. Can we talk a little bit about that? There's set point concept and the fact that it is dictated by so many things that are not our control.

Bianca Skilbeck: 42:45

So set point theory is exactly that, it's just a theory. But it's a pretty well established and accepted theory at this point that the body maintains a relative set point for what weight it is comfortable in being at. This can depend on many factors to begin with. What we're given in this life is a set of genetic factors and things like ethnicity and gender and all of that sort of thing. All of that plays into that too. So we'll be sort of given this set point that our body feels most comfortable at. Yes. The thing about set point theory is that it shows us that the body, in response to a lot of dieting attempts and calorie restriction, will often, over time, increase the set point. It will really decrease the set point because historically, as humans, having too much food was not the problem around us. It's a protective mechanism of the body that if the set point is going to change, it's only going to be in the upwards direction because we need to protect the body's. Energy stores.

Kylie Patchett: 44:06

Yeah, exactly. And that's something that if I could go back in time, I don't regret having gone through this journey because I do feel like it is definitely part of what I'm really being called to share. Because to me, this distrust of our bodies is just a symptom of being taught in a society and condition to not trust ourselves. That's a bigger picture for me. But if I could go back in time, I would tell my 14 year old self, just go easy. Your body is exactly the size and shape that it's meant to be. And you can spend the next 30 years trying to control it and actually end up like a good couple of sizes bigger than what your body probably wants to be naturally, because you're trying to control something that there was no fluorine in the first place. I remember at school looking at all of the naturally skinny girls and wanting to be one of them. And I'm like I'm curvy. I've always had ***** and an ***. That's my genetic shape. And funnily enough, over time I've met people that are like, oh, I wish I had more curve like you. And I'm like, oh my God. We always think that whoever not us, but also I carry muscle really easily. I build muscle really easily. And that's the way that I feel most grounded and most fit and most me is when, you know, I'm doing exercise that allows me to really shifting things through space thing that my body does. Where was I going with that question there?

Bianca Skilbeck: 45:32

Well, you said something interesting that like to UN touch on really quickly, that you don't regret the fact that you've been on this very long journey with weight loss and dieting and all of these things because it makes you part of who you are today. I think that this stuff, it actually really deeply connects to, you know, a much more intrinsic sense of, you know, things like self esteem, our desire to control our lives, our want to feel as though life is in our control, that we can choose to have things the way that we want them to do. And so, you know, the point to all of that is that often when I do work with people around the diet culture stuff and letting go of all of that desire for weight control, we can sort of get to a point with that and people start to really accept that's it and start to really, you know, lean into body acceptance. And then I'll find that other things come up, you know, oh, I'm also very controlling about parenting. Oh, I'm also very controlling about my work. I'm also very controlling about money. And it just kind of feeds into all this other stuff because it's a general style, isn't it? How we respond to things like fear and emotional discomfort and just acceptance and self compassion and all that stuff. Anyway just links into all these other things. So it can be, you know, once we sort of pop all that domino, we can also start to work on other things too.

Kylie Patchett: 47:07

Yeah, it opens up so many questions. I think for me, when you're talking the thing that I really relate to is so I grew up in two separate houses, two separate parents, one house. I often felt what is the most diplomatic way of saying unsafe, and like I was responsible for someone else's emotions. And so my reaction to feeling unsafe as a kid has always been my learned response to that is to try and lock everything down and control everything and know what's coming next. Because then I can keep myself safe. And as I get older, in the invitation of this perimenopausal clusterfucker, that happens. I mean, it is a delicious ride, but it's also very discombobulating that's where I am at the moment. But I am being invited more and more and I feel like this whole year has been about where am I seeking to control something, where I can choose, trust and surrender? Where am I seeking to try and do the right thing rather than just knowing that who I am and how I am in the world is more than enough. And I think to me, that's the golden lesson in all of this for me is the flawed belief that being able to control your body to a particular size is going to make you feel good about yourself or worthy or enough. So what would you say to someone who still is deeply in that ingrained belief? Because for me, what I've discovered is I need to choose to love and accept myself, warts and all. And this is really, really at the heart of this podcast is we need to be wild and free in terms of how we think we need to be in the world to be okay, because we are intrinsically worthy, beautiful, imperfectly, perfect people. It's been quite a freaking relief to put down the concept that I have to wait to be particular size to be okay or worthy. So if someone's listening and they're still swimming in that concept, where do they start?

Bianca Skilbeck: 49:16

And I want to point out that feeling of still swimming in that concept, that feeling of being so mired to dieting and to weight loss and all of that sort of thing, it's such an understandable position to be in because it's the message that we get from everywhere, so it's understandable. And that exists along a spectrum. It's not sort of on or off. Sometimes we're very ingrained in that. Sometimes we're completely just like, **** that, I'm not doing that anymore. And sometimes we're like, I can still hear a little bit of a voice, so we exist all along the spectrum. And that also can change from day to day as well. That's just a natural part of all of this work. But what I would say, in addition to the fact that it's not on or off and that it is a spectrum, is that if somebody's really feeling stuck by this, and believe me, I've been there as well, I would invite that person to just continue to think about their real values. They don't even have to. You know, sometimes I've been in that myself where I'm like, I just cannot let go of this desire to lose weight, to keep dieting. I just cannot let go of it. I'm so stuck. And in those moments I think to myself, you know what, I'm not even going to try to let go of it. I'm just going to think about what my values are. And the more you do that, the more you tend to find that just naturally your values will actually push out that other stuff. So you don't even have to you know, if you're really feeling stuck and you're just like, oh, how do I exercise this demon? I don't know how to if you're really feeling stuck, don't even try to remove it, but just think about what your values are.

Kylie Patchett: 51:14

Yeah, that's such good advice because I would always say turn inwards. The answer is not outside. Turn inwards. What's your heart calling you? And like I said with the story of dancing in the kitchen, my values were so alive in that moment and the cost of trying to diet myself into a particular size was completely out of alignment with my value. So of course it's not going to be sustainable. The other thing that I really consciously decided, because you use language then, which is like, I'm not going to do this anymore. One thing that I consciously decided when I made the decision at the beginning of 2022 to not ever go on a diet again, like never ever. And there's been many times this year I'm like, oh, I'm getting too big. I need to read diet. And then I'd be like, oh, hang on a minute, hang on a minute. Yes. What are my values? What do I believe about the way I have to be? I wouldn't expect anyone else in my life to look or feel or be perfect, whatever the hell that means, for me to love and accept them. So why would I do that to myself? But one thing that I did really consciously choose is not to swim in the diet culture ocean anymore. So I consciously curated my social media accounts. I consciously cut out anything that made me feel less than or like I had to control my body. So I did follow a lot of accounts of other bright line eaters, personal trainers that were super super skinny and super super fit. No disrespect to any of those people. It's just about my response to it. It was making me feel again and again and again. Especially when doing that mindless scroll which is a whole other real addiction. But yeah, anything that made me feel less than. And I started following and seeking out accounts that were intuitive eaters, health at every size, trainers that were people in larger, normal, healthy curvy bodies helped me to open up the field of possibilities. That what I wanted for myself was possible and drowned out the noise of the other stuff, because otherwise I was feeling like, I'd have a session with you, and I'd be like, yes, okay, this is possible. And then the very next hour, I'd be on Instagram, and something else would be in my awareness, like, oh, there's that diet control thing again. Get curious about your values. And my invitation would be just to consider what you're actually showing yourself and be aware of where you swing.

Bianca Skilbeck: 53:44

And what this also connects to is that idea of being the change that you want to see in the world as well. Because if you can't find it in your days, in any given moment, to be able to take yourself out of diet culture for you, then do it for the people around you, because the fat phobia that we all experience, the internalized fat phobia that we experience, is harmful for the people around us as well. Every time we talk about not liking our bodies, wanting to lose weight, that just puts out this message into the world that other people don't care about your body. They just think about this. When you say, oh, I'm too fat, the person that's hearing that isn't thinking about whether or not you're too fat. They're then questioning whether or not they're too fat without even getting to the point of it all, which is that fat is a neutral idea. Like, it's not inherently bad. We all have fat, and some people are in different sized bodies, and that's completely normal. But yeah, so it connects to this idea of even if you're having those days where you're finding it really hard to stop swimming in that land of diet culture, thinking about the bigger picture as well, what does this do for the people around me, the world around me, when I do? Yeah.

Kylie Patchett: 55:13

One of my deepest regrets as a parent is showing my daughters my behavior around food and weighing myself and all sorts of things. And I think, as we always say, as we forgive our parents, we're doing the best they could with what they have. But my girls are 17 and 18, so I'm tempted to go, well, the damage is done. But I also believe that setting myself free, even when they're this age does show excuse me a second. I will take that out. Even at this age, gifting myself the acceptance and the love and the surrender to not having to control food definitely still has that ripple effect. And I would again say, like, I've sat at tables with groups of women where everyone's going, oh, my God, I've put on so much. You don't have to contribute to that conversation.

Bianca Skilbeck: 56:14

And it's never too late as well when you say that maybe the damage is done with your daughters. We know that the brain is plastic. We know that from a neuroscience perspective, we're capable of change. So it's never too late.

Kylie Patchett: 56:30

Yeah. Thank you. That is my gift from you. Bianca, before we started recording, you were saying that you're putting together a guide that is something that I want to link to in the Show Notes. Can you talk about that? Because I think we've talked about a lot of very big concepts very quickly and in a very concentrated fashion. Talk about the guide that you've got together and we'll link it in the show notes, but just so people can know that there's a resources available to them if this is speaking to them about something they want to explore.

Bianca Skilbeck: 57:04

Absolutely, yeah. So this guide that I'm putting together, it's not going to be hugely extensive. You don't need to put aside weeks or months to read it. It's just going to be like a pretty simple kind of handout, but it's basically just going to touch on some of the myths and some of the truths about body image as the cornerstone of things because body Image sits at the central point. And all of this stuff about self acceptance and weight science and all of that sort of thing. Well, I think all of that ripples out from body image, so it's going to be like a bit of a bit of a mythbusting kind of document that people can refer to and it's not going to provide all of the answers, but hopefully it will peak enough curiosity that it starts that journey.

Kylie Patchett: 57:54

And we'll link these in the show notes as well. But for the people that are listening on the run, can you just repeat where we can find your social media? So your Freedom From Food, and you're on Facebook under that name as well?

Bianca Skilbeck: 58:08

Yes. Gosh, don't even ask me what I know. I had to change when I changed my business name a number of years ago, I couldn't get the exact one that I want.

Kylie Patchett: 58:17

I think it's fine.

Bianca Skilbeck: 58:18

Freedom from food, ed recovery, something like that. Show you a link to it in Facebook on Instagram. I am the Hayes Hypnotherapist.

Kylie Patchett: 58:25

Yes.

Bianca Skilbeck: 58:26

Hayes, as in H-A-E-S. Helped at every size. Yes. So the Hays Hypnotherapist, and of course, there's the Facebook group as well.

Kylie Patchett: 58:36

So we will link all of that. I'm very sure if you put Freedom From Food and even just Bianca without her last name, you will find her. But yes, if you're looking at this, but you can see she knows we'll link all of those and I'm so freaking excited to lift the lead on some of this. I really believe that these podcast stories, there's a deep healing in us being able to share our stories and be honest about the stockpoints that we've experienced. And often when people have listened to the podcast over the weekend, it's only been out for three days. That's the feedback that I'm getting is that, thanks for talking about that. I have deep shame or fear around that. And just having these conversations. So I'm really grateful to you for your time sharing your personal story and your work in the world. Because I just know the more that we can heal the concepts that we have to be a particular way to be okay in the world. The more free we are and the more able we are to deliver whatever. We meant to be doing instead of spending all the drama on food and what we're eating and what we look like and what size we are in****** glass.

Bianca Skilbeck: 59:48

Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you for the invite. And thank you for being such a star client as well. The fact that you said that there was such resistance for you, it's clear that you've done sort of the full 180, and there will be days, naturally, where you still question that because we're human, aren't we? And nothing is all or nothing. Nothing's completely on or off, nothing's black or white. But you really are such a good example of somebody that's been able to really kind of take this message and run with it. And that's really just really satisfying as a clinician.

Kylie Patchett: 1:00:27

Well, deep gratitude to you because I knew my energy was, I'm not ******* available for this **** anymore. I knew that. But yeah, I went through such resistance and you just have such a beautiful, quiet way of just leading gently so as not to because I've got a big rebel in me, and there was definitely times where I was like, I want to tell you to go ask yourself.

Bianca Skilbeck: 1:00:58

Most long term dieters do have a very active inner rebel. And I like that actually.

Kylie Patchett: 1:01:06

It's actually part of my personality that I really love because it does cause me to challenge the status quo rather than just going along with things. But yes, thank you. And I really encourage anyone that's listening who feels the opposite of wild and ******* free around body image, the concept of fatness versus not being healthy, that type of stupid,******, ingrained belief that we've been given or anything around food obsession or just that diabolical bandwidth that it takes to deal with this. Please allow this to be an invitation to you that there is a different way of being in the world. And it is a deep relief for me personally. And I also really strongly feel like I wouldn't have been able to step back into business if I hadn't worked on transforming or at least starting the journey of transforming this concept of myself. The not good enough was such a strong thing in my head that it was stopping me from doing all sorts of things. Stupid ****, like, I can't get on the back of a motorbike because I look too fat. On the back of like, who cares? Like, that's one of my deepest sources of joy and freedom. And I've definitely you know, when we first got the bike, which was a year ago, I definitely have had many times where I've been on the back of my bike and I'm sucking my tummy in and trying to and I'm like, no one is even looking at you. You're blaming, you're bonkers. That's how strong the voices were. And to just be able to and.

Bianca Skilbeck: 1:02:42

This is where we can engage our inner rebel to say, like, with a different kind of person, a man, for example, would they be thinking about this when they were on the back of the bike? And I want to generalize because, of course, men do have body image issues as well, but we're interlinking here with ideas of living in a patriarchal society.

Kylie Patchett: 1:03:05

Yes, exactly.

Bianca Skilbeck: 1:03:06

Aesthetic society, fatphobic society, all of that sort of thing. So we can engage that in a rebel that can ask that question, like, why am I holding myself back whilst other people are just allowed to?

Kylie Patchett: 1:03:21

Literally, I'm going for a ride, which is, like I said, one of my deep joys, but I'm actually giving myself a pain in my back because I'm sucking my stomach in so hard that I can't relax. And now on the back of the bike, I actually sleep on the back of the bike all the time, which people are horrified by. But I just to me, yeah, obviously not when I'm riding myself, like, when I don't have my own bike yet. But, you know, I love being on the bike with my husband and I have this deep sense of joy and freedom and just surrender often will close my eyes and just be totally in my body. And that was not available to me.

Bianca Skilbeck: 1:04:06

That you painted.

Kylie Patchett: 1:04:07

Well, that's actually what Wild and ******* Free is about. My leather jacket that I bought for my bike is called the Wild and Free Jacket. So that was the beginning of this. What do I need to actually free in myself? Where am I? Stuck. Where am I stagnant? Where am I believing **** that's not true. And deeply grateful for you and the work that you do in the world and just really encourage anyone where this is resonating to get curious about what's there for you. Yes, quite the ride. Thank you so much. Hello there, beautiful. Thank you so much for tuning in. I have something very exciting to announce. With spine tingling anticipation and bone deep certainty that this circle was meant to be, I have officially just thrown open the doors to a beautiful membership style community full of connection, empowerment, healing and support for midlife magic makers like yourself. She's called the Coming Home Collective. We've got the doors open for a week between the 15th and the 22nd. In a nutshell, this is a very low cost, membership style community where you're actually given three things an environment which supports your expansion, where your own healing is enabled, supported and encouraged, and that you've got access to all. Of the resources that I use as my one on one clients. And you're taught how to put them into practice in your day to day life. She's also a circle of support so where you can be held in safety and love. Truly seen, truly heard. Bringing out all of the ****** old stories into the light so we can dissolve the fear and allow you to shed the skins of your childhood conditioning. And the collective is such a powerful, potent space to create. You can hear from every single one of these stories. At some point, each one of these women realize that she has the power to choose. Please don't wait until life throws you a big f of curve ball to actually make changes. You have the power to do it now. So if you're sick of waiting for permission, love and approval from others, and you're ready to give it to yourself or you're tired of playing it small and stuck and you want to play it powerful, especially if you're ready to surrender the stories that keep you stuck so that you can set yourself free. Right now is the best time to join us. Because for the next seven days, the early bird November doors are open. And that will score you a 33% discount on your monthly investment, which means your monthly investment is lower than a gym membership. Think about this as a gym membership that actually supports your heart, your soul, your mind, your evolution, and literally teaches you the way that you contain fear and rewrite your life. The Coming Home collective is a nine month membership. The doors are open right now. If you get in before we close this very, very quick sneak peek, 2022 enrollment period, you will get access to coaching. Call with me, some dollars to spend on other products, and two very cool meditation yoga nature tracks. So check it all out. All the details are@kyliepatchett.com au. The coming home collective. I'm so looking forward to being able to hold space for all of you beautiful people out there ready to take a leap of faith and trust yourself and heal and create. Given the right environment, support and encouragement, you are your best healer. Let's freaking well do it.