What if we told you that our relationship with food is far more complex than it seems, that it is intricately tied to our mental wellbeing and can require a drastically different approach from one person to the next?
On board with us is the experienced Dietician, Dr. David Wiss, who shares his unconventional journey to discovering the impact of nutrition on mental health, the need for nuanced discussion in the anti-diet & eating disorder recovery world, and how you can tackle the complex conversation of healing your relationship with food while also caring for both your physical and mental health.
In this episode , we cover:
Connect with Dr. Wiss
RESOURCES
Connect with Sabrina:
What if we told you that our relationship with food is far more complex than it seems, that it is intricately tied to our mental wellbeing and can require a drastically different approach from one person to the next?
On board with us is the experienced Dietician, Dr. David Wiss, who shares his unconventional journey to discovering the impact of nutrition on mental health, the need for nuanced discussion in the anti-diet & eating disorder recovery world, and how you can tackle the complex conversation of healing your relationship with food while also caring for both your physical and mental health.
In this episode , we cover:
Connect with Dr. Wiss
RESOURCES
Connect with Sabrina:
If you've ever wondered where there is space in the world of food freedom and intuitive eating for conversations about nutrition, about the link between food and mental health, ultra process food, food addiction, well, that's exactly what we're going to talk about today with a really special guest. This is such an important conversation, so let's get into it. Welcome to the live unrestricted podcast, a show where you'll learn how to heal your relationship with food and your body so that you can focus your time and energy on more important things, like your personal growth. I'm your host, sabrina Magnia, food freedom coach, and my mission is to help make your life happier and healthier, without stress, overwhelm or guilt about food. If you love the show, please do go out and share it, and if you're looking for support with your relationship with food, details about my programs are in the show notes. Thanks for spending time with me today. Now let's jump in.
Speaker 1:So a little background about this episode. But I am someone who genuinely, really cares about my health. I, if you were to ask anyone around me, I eat what you will call relatively healthy. Um, I still, of course, love having my treats and my cookies and those things that just bring me joy, but on a general basis, I like having nutrient dense foods because they make me feel good, and I really do just love caring about my health because it gives me energy. I love moving my body every day because it helps me be focused and be productive and do the work that really matters to me, like recording this podcast and helping my clients. So I am really someone who's passionate about health and finding ways to make myself feel as good as I possibly can.
Speaker 1:However, it comes from a place of love. The intention behind it is truly coming from a good place, but that's not where I was a couple of years ago, if you go back to when I was struggling with an eating disorder and I was counting calories and I was overly obsessed with the quality of my food and I was scared about the ingredients that was in my food. When I went out to restaurants and I would ask about do you cook with oil or butter? And I had this obsession about organic versus non-organic food, and those were all traits of orthorexia, which is this unhealthy obsession with eating healthy. When I had all of those behaviors and I was doing all of these things in what I thought was the name of quote unquote health. The intention behind it was driven by fear and anxiety and it wasn't driven from a place of love. It was punishment and restricting. And so if you were to talk to me back then about the link between nutrition and mental health and we were to talk about ultra processed foods and the effects on our environment or on our bodies, then that conversation it would have landed very differently for me, because my mindset at that time was not in a place where it would have been receptive to that information in a positive way.
Speaker 1:So when it comes to conversations about health and about nutrition and how it really does have an impact on the way that we feel, our energy levels, our mental health, our mood, there can be a really big lack of nuance. And I am fully aware of that. Because if you're someone who has a history of eating disorders or you're currently struggling with disordered eating and an unhealthy relationship with food, then it becomes very easy for any well meaning messages to land wrongly and be turned into a rule, into a food rule. There's a reason why the last principle of intuitive eating is gentle nutrition Because if you jump into gentle nutrition too early and you're still coming from a place of fear and you haven't made peace with food, then it will just send you back into restrictive patterns and disordered eating. And you need to have a good foundation, a good relationship with food. Think of it as like if you're building a home and you're building the foundation that is supposed to hold the walls and the furniture, once you have everything in place, if you start trying to tack on those extra things right, so you try tacking on the walls and that furniture and moving into the house before the foundation is really stable and it's in place then everything's going to fall apart. And if you had just waited a little bit longer to make sure that everything was finalized and everything was in place before moving on to the next stage, then, yes, maybe it would have required a little bit more patience, but you've got something strong that's going to be lasting, that's going to be permanent.
Speaker 1:So, when it comes to conversations about nutrition, if you're in the food freedom and intuitive eating world, then I myself have felt this way, and I know that many of my colleagues and other coaches and dieticians in the space also feel this way that you have to. You have to be careful about how much you talk about health and about nutrition, because it can land in the wrong hands, it can be misconstrued and, like I said, I am someone who personally really loves to take care of my health and this is something that I do talk about with my clients when they're ready. But if you're not with a coach or you're not working with someone and you're just consuming a bunch of content online, then what you're going to see is polarization. Either you see the intuitive eating space, which feels and may seem like it's just eat whatever you want, whenever you want, and eat processed foods all the time and it doesn't affect your health, and that might be the message that you take away, which is a really wrong view of what intuitive eating really is. But that is hard to portray when you just see a six second video on social media. And then you've got the other side of it, which is diet culture or wellness culture, and it's all about the anti-inflammatory foods and the gut health, and some people will take that side to the extreme as well and make it rules and make it restrictive.
Speaker 1:So there's very little space for the nuance, the in between right, looking at eating behaviors on a spectrum, and so that's what we're talking about today with a really amazing guest, so we are joined by Dr David Wiss. So David became a registered dietitian nutritionist in 2013 and founded nutrition in recovery, a group practice of registered dietitians specializing in the treatment of eating and substance use disorders. So he is very passionate in the intersection between eating patterns and substance use and addiction disorders. So he's particularly interested in the link between nutrition and mental health and he's created an app called Wise Mind Nutrition that delivers education content using nutrition and lifestyle medicine to improve mental health outcomes. And what I really admired and respect about Dr Wiss is that he lives in the middle, he lives in the nuance and is able to see that there is no right or wrong side and there's just complexities.
Speaker 1:So during this conversation which is a little bit longer than usual, but I really recommend that you listen all the way till the end, because every piece of it has really important gems and I want you to take notes.
Speaker 1:And I also want you to listen to this conversation with a critical mind right, because, like I said at the beginning, it is easy to take some of the topics and the conversations that we have and spin it, depending on where you're at in your intuitive eating or recovery journey.
Speaker 1:So you're going to hear about his personal story and background in nutrition he has such a fascinating story and how he got to where he is today. We're going to talk about the link between nutrition and mental health, how there needs to be different approaches for those with a history of restrictive eating versus those with a history of substance abuse and addiction. You'll also hear us talking about the difficulties that come with talking about health in a non-triggering or rule-based way, and so much more. So, without further ado, I'm going to play that conversation with Dr David Wyss for you. Well, thank you so much, dr Wyss, for being on the show, and I'm so excited to have you, and I know that we are going to have a really good discussion that talks about the nuances of the nutrition and wellness world, and I know that that's something that you're really passionate about. So thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 2:I'm so excited to be here. Let's build.
Speaker 1:So, before we get started, I was just talking to you before about how I was diving into your story, and you have just a fascinating story of how you got to where you are today. So before we really get into our deeper discussion, can you tell my listeners more about who you are, what your background is and why you became so passionate about the work that you do?
Speaker 2:Yes, the personal story is something that a lot of people want to hear, and my path is non-conventional, so I'm happy to share a little bit about it. I definitely didn't plan on being into nutrition. In fact, I always share a story that I took a nutrition class when I was in an undergrad program and I dropped out because I couldn't hang. It wasn't my flavor. The class was about tracking macros and counting calories and I remember hating it. Okay, I remember they, they, they measured your body composition. This was like back in the year 2000,. Right? So, anyways, my early exposure to nutrition was not favorable, but I had some difficulties in my early twenties. I was in school and had a lot of anxiety and addiction issues and, um, you know they. They weren't all terrible times.
Speaker 2:I certainly had a blast raving and doing counterculture activities in the late nineties and early 2000s, but I definitely got to a place where I needed to start my life over and change directions and do some new things and and think differently and behave differently. And I did get a call from the universe to pay attention to what I ate, you know, and that was something that was very clear to me. And so when I would go to the grocery store and start like I started just wandering around. I was like I don't go to. I don't go to places like that. Previously, you know, they weren't, uh, comfortable places. I started wandering around and I started noticing colors and I saw like some of those dark purple blues and stuff like that, and I was like whoa, you know whether it be the blackberry or the egg plant. I started seeing colors in the grocery store and color started calling me. And I didn't have a lot of money, but I remember the little bit of money I had I would spend on colorful foods and I would. I was like what does this mean? Sprouted, you know.
Speaker 2:And I just got interested in nutrition, and it wasn't in a disordered way. It wasn't like, of course, like I had some vanity concerns. You know what I mean. Like, yeah, I wanted to, like, I wanted to improve my appearance. That drove me. I would be lying to you if I said that wasn't a part of it, but it quickly shifted into whoa, my energy's different, I'm a different person, my skin's different, the way that I interface with people is different, and I knew that nutrition had some profound aspects to it. And so that's when I was like I know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna learn more about this, and so it started, you know, working one-on-one with people.
Speaker 2:I got into fitness. I went to graduate school and I was on the path to becoming a dietitian. I didn't love that, but I learned a lot. And, yeah, I got into nutrition for mental health early on, Like you know, over 10 years ago, before this conversation was starting to pick up steam. So my original interest was nutrition for substance use disorders. I wanted to learn about how people with alcohol and opioid addictions, you know, had gut issues and how that affected nutritional status. That was my entry. And, yeah, I got into eating disorders and I got into food addiction and I got into, more recently, nutrition for depression, anxiety, PTSD, et cetera. And it's all super exciting because it's a lot of untraveled territory.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and I have so many questions as you were telling us your story. Why was it that you became so passionate about the link between nutrition and mental health? And then, once you answer that I also want to follow up with how do you navigate the world of working with eating disorders, where there is this unhealthy thought and relationship with food and then also talking about the very real effects of nutrition on mental health?
Speaker 2:Yes, three pieces. Hopefully I can bookmark those together and bring them together cohesively. I got into nutrition for mental health because it seemed unexplored. I was very unsatisfied with the trajectories that were offered to me in dietitian school. It was very much like you could go into community nutrition, school nutrition, clinical dietetics. You could go into private practice if you're lucky, there's eating disorder work. It seemed like there was lanes and none of those lanes called me.
Speaker 2:I didn't want to follow any of those paths. I was like we need people to talk about nutrition in some new ways. So I got interested in addictions nutrition for addiction right and I've written some papers about it that were published. I always wanted to do the big study, the big study to really see if nutrition interventions could improve disordered eating, because there's a rampant forms of disordered eating that are in the substance use disorder space that are not identical to the forms of disordered eating that you see in the eating disorder world right. So, for example, in the eating disorder space you see a lot of loss of control eating that might stem from dietary restraint and restriction, but there's a lot of people with substance use disorder that have binge behaviors and loss of control eating and don't have restraint or restriction.
Speaker 2:You see what I'm saying yeah, so I started to learn early on. Maybe there's different conceptual models for understanding disordered eating. Maybe not everyone's the same right. And that was like the beginning of my nuanced ways of thinking. What if two people that have bulimia nervosa have very different biology and they have very different psychological drivers?
Speaker 1:right.
Speaker 2:What if you know? There were different treatment strategies for different people. And so, yeah, I got really interested in eating disorder work because it's recovery work. That's the real reason why I like healing work. I like to talk to people about recovery and help them find a path. That's my real, real passion. So that level of counseling and trying to understand the inner workings of the mind and possibly even bringing in spirituality into the picture, like that's the good stuff. Yeah, that's what I like. So, yeah, when I was in dietitian school, it kind of felt like, nope, you have a lane, you have to stay in your lane. You can talk about whole grains or you can talk about, you know, vitamins, but, like you know, outside of that you gotta stay small. And I was like heck, no, that ain't me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I hear that a lot from people who do go to dietitian school because I feel like, well, not, I feel health is such a multifaceted thing and you can't possibly just look at it in terms of what you eat and you have to dig deeper into human behavior and why we develop the kind of habits and patterns around food that we do. So that must have felt so constricting for you to be in an environment where stepping out of that lane was discouraged.
Speaker 2:Yes, I wanna live unrestricted.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm. Yeah, so you mentioned something and I think that's a. It's a really interesting angle to explore because this podcast really does speak to people with a history of dietary restraint restraint, eating and dieting and you know being afraid of food. But what you're mentioning is there is a space and an intervention for that subsector or that population that comes from that history, and then there's also a different path that you would take for someone who has a history of substance abuse. So I'm curious what did you find as you started exploring that sector of the population who does struggle with substance abuse and disordered eating? What is different from that other side of someone who does have a strained eating?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think the first thing I noticed is that you know the popular culture and a lot of people call it diet culture, right. Wellness culture, right Is like very clearly trying to educate people about things to move toward, things to avoid. Like it has a very clear message of get your stuff together and eat better food and stop buying into this corporate machine and cook your own food and eat anti-inflammatory and look out for your gut, right, like that's wellness culture. I don't even want to call that diet culture, because diet culture is one step further. Right, there's wellness culture right that if you were to go to Whole Foods grocery store and you're standing in the checkout and you look at the magazine that's for sale, right, and it's kind of saying like best ways to eat anti-inflammatory to slim down for the summer, right, there's a little wellness culture in there and there's a little diet culture in there, right, the diet culture is going to be the thing that actually sells the magazine, right, and the wellness culture is going to be the thing that probably has value. There's some value to eating colorful fruits and vegetables and eating high fiber. There's clearly value in that.
Speaker 2:And then in the eating disorder world, I noticed early on that a lot of the messaging is, almost by design, counter to the wellness message, right, because a lot of people with eating disorders go too far with wellness and now they're obsessed and it impairs quality of life, right?
Speaker 2:So I noticed this early on that there was divergence. Divergence mean like there's energy over here, there's the counter message over here. And I don't know if it's like who I am, you know, constitutionally, but early on in my career, even like when I was in dietitian school, I knew that it couldn't be that one of these models is right and one of these is wrong, right? I kind of look at them as like they're both right and they're both wrong and that there has got to be a entire world of possibilities between them. And the reason that I know this is because mental health diagnoses are not black and white. It's not like, oh, you either have this diagnosis or you don't. Everything exists in nature I shouldn't say everything, but mental health at least exists on a continuum, it exists on a spectrum, right?
Speaker 1:I definitely felt that when. So I've always kind of struggled with some kind of anxious behaviors and thoughts and I used to look at people in my life who were diagnosed with anxiety or who had very, in my eyes, real anxiety, and I would compare myself to them and I was like but my anxiety doesn't manifest in the same way that this other person does, and so I must not have anxiety and I must just have something else and I could really. It's only recently that I started coming to terms with the fact that anxiety doesn't have a look and anxiety can live on a spectrum and there is nuance there. So I do believe that there needs to be more conversation in that middle ground because, like you said, it's not you have it or you don't, that's right.
Speaker 2:And then we live in a system where we sort of treat diagnoses. So you know, the biggest problem that I've saw early on is like if someone has body image issues or disordered eating, they will get lumped into a category of eating disorder. And then it becomes a binary like, oh you're, either you're eating disorder or you're not right. And if you are, you get this message, and if you're not, you get this message right. And I was like there's no way that that's an actual, accurate representation of what's going on. Is that? You know what, if someone has a little bit mild disordered eating and they also have mild substance use disorder and they have mild depression, cd, yeah, yeah. And then you just have this like cluster, what we call a psychiatric profile. So now, instead of thinking about, well, this is the diagnosis, this is the treatment, you start thinking about what happens when a lot of different complex situations all co-occur. How does that affect someone's treatment trajectory?
Speaker 1:And so and what do you do with that? What do you do when you start noticing that Cause? I think people like to live in the black and white and the this or that because it's easier. It's easier especially if someone doesn't have access to the kind of care that you might provide to a coach or a therapist or a doctor who can really deep dive into the root cause of it, especially when it comes to doctors. So many of my clients say they go to a doctor, they get seven minutes with the doctor and so of course you get okay, just lose weight or just restrict food. What do you do when you recognize that behaviors and mental health is so much more complex? What can you even do with that information?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the epiphanies really started for me when I was running groups. Okay, I used to run nutrition groups and still do, sometimes to this day, at addiction treatment centers. Okay, so let me just give you the context. Let's say there's five people there and they all have a history of drug use, alcohol. They have poor health behaviors, poor gut health. Maybe there's been some medication related weight changes. Maybe they don't go to the grocery store and they just eat fast food. Maybe they just eat convenience food.
Speaker 2:Right, the logical thing to do in that group would be to teach people how to connect with food and to improve their health. Right, that's what the needs are. But then what if one day a six person shows up to the group and this person has an eating disorder? Now, as a facilitator, you start to be like okay, well, can I teach health anymore? Am I allowed to even teach health to these five people?
Speaker 2:Because there's someone out there, someone there, that might latch on to one piece of information that feels like health promotion and spin that to be a new obsession or a new rule. A new rule, yeah, a new rule that they become restrained with. And now, all of a sudden, they're like oh, the dietician or the doctor told me to only eat fruit and not to drink fruit juice. Right, and now it's like they have this new eating disorder rule and that, but like, in reality, those five other people maybe they all drink fruit juice and they don't eat fruit at all Maybe those five other people would have really done good with that sort of recommendation, but there's one person who doesn't. So it was in the group settings that I realized that there has to be a way to be able to talk about health in a way that's non-triggering, that doesn't have any rule energy, that doesn't have any restrained underpinnings. And so that's the group level. I think your question was about the individual level Like, what, like. How do you navigate that?
Speaker 1:Well, I think what you brought up is such a good point. It's in the reality that, especially when it comes to social media or even people listening to podcasts, a lot of the times people don't know what their own starting point is. So they're listening to a podcast or they're following someone on social media and I know that for me, when I had an eating disorder, I wasn't able to critically look at content and be like is this gonna be helpful for me or not, or is it actually going to drive me deeper into my eating disorder?
Speaker 1:And so there is this like group think and you're part of this larger environment where, when people are online and they're promoting either disordered eating or diet culture or even on the other spectrum of it, there's not that okay, this is who, this is for this specific person, and so someone might be taking an advice that is not going to serve them individually.
Speaker 2:That's right. That's right. And it's really challenging nowadays to create content because the algorithm supports you when you create content for one specific person. When you niche down and say I am going to do my channel is gonna be only eating disorder recovery and this is a place where it's just gonna be food positive, body positive. That would lend itself to the building of a community and a following right. Similarly, if someone were to say this is a channel for food addiction recovery over here, where, like this is about people that lived in larger bodies and that got serious about their food there would like, if you niche down and only talked about that, you would gain some traction there with those people.
Speaker 2:But what if someone tried to talk about the intersection of these areas? What if someone has a food addiction and they have bulimia nervosa? It's too jarring for the consumers, right? They're like I don't know what this person is talking about because there isn't a single niche here per se. So I've wrestled with that quite a bit, which is that we do live in a world where we're looking at information very briefly and our antennas detect Is this part of my tribe? Is this the in-group or is this the out-group? Right, and people can pick up on it really, really quickly. These are my peeps, or no? This is not where I wanna be, and so nuance and nuanced ways of thinking, thinking on continuums and thinking on spectrums, is not well supported by the social structure of our world, especially in the online space with social media.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so how did you make sense of that, given that, when you started thinking outside the box and you started recognizing that there was nuance, how did you make sense of that in your own career and in the kind of research that you do and the kind of people that you help?
Speaker 2:It's been super difficult. One of the early papers that I wrote and it stirred the pot a lot, at least in my field was stemming from a lot of the work that I did at Substance Use Disorder Treatment Centers and looking at these complicated cases where someone has a substance use disorder, they have an eating disorder and they display high symptoms of ultra-processed food addiction. And so it's like, okay, like what are we doing here? And that became my life's work. Right, and I'm very capable of treating someone that's more on an eating disorder spectrum in the restrictive sense, someone that has substance use disorder and addiction-like compulsivity and impulsivity, right. But what if they're all coming together? And I think the general consensus is just prioritize the eating disorder because it has its life-threatening potential, not to say addictions, don't but we tend to just prioritize the eating disorder.
Speaker 2:But I wrote a paper early on that said was about incorporating some of the food addiction literature into the eating disorder paradigm and it was like, okay, well, what if there are maybe a small subset of people maybe 10 to 15% of the people that are here, maybe 25, maybe 30, that are more on a addiction continuum than they are on a restriction continuum?
Speaker 2:And so, yeah, a lot of my early work was about bringing in this neurobiology into the eating disorder world. It made the eating disorder world nervous for sure and they were like no, no, no, we don't talk about that here, canceled completely. And then in the addiction world, I think a lot of people because I'm not into rigidity with food, I'm not into food plans, I'm not into weight loss, I'm not into like a lot of the stuff that they're into they look at me kind of as more of an eating disorder person because I'm more of a non-diet. Let's celebrate food, let's eat the food. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, and so I never fit into either one of those boxes and I just been talking about things on this middle path and it's been lonely, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's been lonely.
Speaker 1:That's the truth. I can only imagine and I can only speak on my own experience. I know that I developed my eating disorder as a mean to control things. It was when I started counting calories, getting my FitBid being able to notice that, okay, if you just eat less, you can manipulate your body. And it started in university, when I was moving away from home, and it was the first time that I was kind of going through this massive life change and it really came from this need for control and I do think that I have OCD tendencies just in general, and that manifest obviously not through food anymore.
Speaker 1:But for me, in order to heal my eating disorder, I first had to cause. I was hyper health conscious, right? So I had orthorexia and I was hyper health conscious, and so I had to go through the process of moving away from that, of healing my relationship with food, in order to come back to it. And I think that's what's really important and lacks in the conversation when it comes to intuitive eating and food freedom, is that there is a healing period before you can come back to it, but you come back to it from a different place and now a lot of my friends would probably consider me their healthiest friend. I just naturally choose nourishing, great foods. I love moving my body, but I was able to prioritize health in a way that is truly authentically healthy and nourishing and balanced only after doing the work to heal my relationship with food first.
Speaker 2:Your story is textbook, as you probably know. The college onset, the restriction, the tracking right Like perfect age, perfect storm. All the tendencies are like 100% textbook, and it's one of my favorite things to treat is to help people become more inclusive with food, and I mean you said something super important, which is that you had to be a little bit more I guess inclusive is the best word around food for a while and maybe eat some of your fear foods or foods that were deemed as negatively charged for you. You had to learn how to incorporate them. But after you've been in recovery for a long time, I'm assuming you have a recovery track record now that you're saying that you are someone that is interested in health and eating good food that's high vibration and moving your body and drinking water and getting sunlight and taking care of yourself. You are someone that's very interested in wellness, but the way you were interested in it before was extreme and now you're not extreme about it because you have balance, because your mental health issues around them have resolved. Is that correct?
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly yes okay, but as a podcast host, you tiptoe. I'm just guessing You're very nervous about sharing about health because you know that you have listeners that are too obsessed with health. Is that correct?
Speaker 1:Yes, exactly, and that's something that I am extremely mindful and aware of. Is that in my space and the kind of people I'm talking to, if they hear a message that their current mindset is not ready to hear?
Speaker 1:then, it can be twisted and turned into a new rule. And there's a reason why when I'm sure you're familiar with intuitive eating. There's a reason why gentle nutrition is the last principle, because we can only really start talking because gentle nutrition is so important. Nutrition is so important and I do not discount that one bit. But we cannot start talking about that unless our relationship with food is in a good spot.
Speaker 2:So here's the bone that I have to pick with the eating disorder field, if we might. Yeah, absolutely yeah. I think your story does represent the majority, which is that there's, you know, maybe there's genetic predisposition, but there's a social construction of thinness. There's quantitative nutrition out there to get you to like, buy into the metric crap you know what I mean and you get sucked into a world of wellness pursuing. That turns into restriction, restraint and eventually disordered eating. Right, I think that is the majority.
Speaker 2:Okay, the bone that I have to pick is when that in-group starts to determine that there's other types of eating disorders that aren't following that same structure, that and this is the minority, the minoritized groups, right, that become these out-groups, right? That if you have binge eating disorder, for example, and the binge eating is just very, very challenging to overcome, and someone goes into a treatment center and they're being told that their only problem is restriction and restraint because that's the problem for a lot of eating disorders and that isn't necessarily what's true for them they might be more of a trauma-based eater. They might have had a lot of adverse childhood experiences and learned to binge eat as a whatever coping mechanism you wanna call it addiction, self-soothe, self-harm and they develop a different structure of disordered eating. And then that group let's call it the minoritized group feels misunderstood in eating disorder treatment and they might even wanna say you know what?
Speaker 2:My recovery doesn't involve eating a cupcake. My recovery actually involves not eating a cupcake. And then the eating disorder climate, the milieu at the treatment center or the online community says well, unless you eat the cupcake, you're restricting. You should know what I'm saying. And then that person feels like they've become this marginalized group where now they're a monster because they don't wanna eat the cupcake. They're a monster because they wanna lose a little bit of weight. And they're now in the out group right and they represent a marginalized community of people with eating disorders that feel like their voice isn't well received in the eating disorder community.
Speaker 1:So I'm curious, as you were saying this and I could be completely wrong, but I'm curious if this has a link, cause you mentioned a lot of the times when we're talking about that marginalized group, in that minority group, there is a history of trauma and there could be a history of substance abuse and a lot of the times that could have maybe an underlying cause underneath it. So would you say that for that group, we're talking more in terms of nervous system regulation, addressing the emotional eating and what's really causing it. So would you say that that would be the thing that you need to place more focus on?
Speaker 2:Yes, I think that bringing in more recovery principles, understanding how trauma affects the biology, right Like you said, understanding how the nervous system might be highly dysregulated, but also understanding how the immune system can be impacted by trauma. And when it comes to the immune system, we're talking about inflammation and we know that a lot of the inflammation does start at the level of the gut okay, Gut-based inflammation. So I am talking about different therapeutic and psychological interventions, but I'm also talking about a particular group of people where the actual food that they eat matters a little bit more. Mm-hmm. Yeah, there is room for nutrition therapy.
Speaker 1:How do you approach that for someone who might come from a history of restrained eating? How do you approach that nutrition intervention of this food really does matter without it turning into disordered eating again.
Speaker 2:Yes, great question. This is my life's work. There is a way to create nutrition that is qualitative rather than quantitative. I do know that.
Speaker 1:Sorry, do you mind explaining that to my listeners, who might not know what that means?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so quantitative nutrition is generated from the calorie assumption calories in calories, out tracking macros using my fitness pal, using the devices, the step counting it's all of the metrics that the majority, and especially big tech, wants to push on people. Oh, we're coming out with the latest nutrition app. You bring all your metrics in right. And I actually looked at someone's program the other day and it just was just metrics and I was thinking about how, like this is great for 70% of the people. What about the 30% of the people that this is super jarring for right? Yeah, so that's who I'm interested in. I'm interested in the people that quantitative nutrition can create problems for right. So we need to move into qualitative nutrition, which is looking at different health outcomes. So you're not doing any sort of nutrition-focused work to change your BMI or your blood pressure or your cholesterol. You're doing it to change your quality of life, your relational health, sleep right, your outlook and mood right, to improve mood. Okay. So that's the basis of safe and gentle nutrition, from my standpoint is thinking about things qualitatively rather than quantitatively.
Speaker 2:Another piece is that you always focus on what to include rather than what to avoid. So you avoid any food, negative food, punitive rules right. As soon as you start demonizing food, it can get really, really tricky because that can be a rule. However and this is me coming from a long history of working in these settings and figuring out how to message these things safely one can identify. If you identify like specific foods as problematic, that can create rules.
Speaker 2:But if you talk about the system as being problematic and the food industry as being problematic and you take things from a broader perspective of public health, it tends to be a lot more eye-opening for people and not feel like this little individual bubble that I have to manage. So, for example, if I were to talk about ultra processed foods, which is getting very popular in the press and in the scientific literature because it is measured now, I think the anti-diet community would say there's nothing wrong with ultra processed foods. We need processing, eat them right. The overwhelming weight of the scientific literature in the context of mental health says hey, like this stuff's not great, you know, like it's linked to anxiety and depression, like hate, to say it, you know, especially, you know, for people that are on the cusp of restriction and restraint, but like that's what the science says, okay. And so if I were to talk about ultra processed food. I would never talk about it related to cardiometabolic outcomes diabetes. That feels to me like diet culture.
Speaker 1:You see what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:If I was like you're talking about, oh, these foods are negative and because they're giving people diabetes, right, that feels like diet culture. If someone were to talk about ultra processed foods and put it in the context of mood disorders, and talk about ultra processed foods and their impact on the environment, you start talking about planetary health, talking about big corporations that have factories that are affecting our environment, which has downstream impacts on our endocrine system. Those are different conversations. You see what I'm saying? Absolutely yeah, you have to have a strong radar for diet culture and you have to stay away from it, because diet culture is one of the biggest problems in our society today. But just because diet culture is a problem, it does not mean that the pursuit of health is a problem.
Speaker 1:Yes, and I want to summarize what you just said, because if we want to start talking about health and nutrition in a way that will truly serve the wider variety, wider population, what you mentioned is the first thing is change the way that you monitor progress, or change the way that you monitor change. And when clients come into my program they're so used to monitoring progress is the number on the scale. That's right. So I have a file that says 23 ways to monitor progress beyond the scale and it's things like I wake up in the morning and I have more energy, and it's really tuning into the way that food affects you, the way that you feel. And I know for me personally, if I have a large quantity of chocolate, for example, which I don't do because I don't overeat on that food anymore, but that's only because I was able to heal my relationship with chocolate. But if I were, I know how I would feel, which is really lethargic and probably a little anxious, and I'm able to recognize that. So that was the first thing that you mentioned, and then the second one and I'm really summarizing this for my audience because I think these are things that I want to like mentally highlight is inclusion instead of avoidance.
Speaker 1:So when we're talking about diet culture, it's always what can I cut down on? What can I take away? What should I avoid? So what are some things that I can include, and starting really small. If you're someone who you don't see a vegetable or fruit all day, then start with one one thing that can be easy for you so that, like, the basis of dieting is you feel restricted, you feel deprived. So how can I take that feeling away and feel expansive? And then the third one is, especially in the context of ultra process food, is changing the language around it. Just like you, I love that you use the example of, like, if we're talking diabetes and cholesterol and BMI, heart disease, then it feels really icky, it feels scary, and that's really what diet culture is all about. It's about fear mongering. So changing the language around it and what it really means. I think those three things are just really important things that our listeners can take away.
Speaker 2:That was a great summary and I think it's helpful to add a little quick like concept around what restriction can be for people. Some people restrict calories right, that's their cognitive load, the number that was me, right. Like none of the other details matter. They're interested in restricting calories. Some people restrict macros right, they really want to stay away from carbohydrates. Or perhaps a plant based eater doesn't feel like they need a lot of protein. Or maybe someone's still stuck in the 80s and 90s and going low fat. People that go low fat are usually the calorie people, by the way, right. So there's restricting calories, there's restricting macros, and then some people restrict food groups. Maybe there's a specific food group that they really don't like, whether it be for whatever reason grains or dairy or nuts or fruit. Beyond that, people can restrict based on quality organic versus non-organic. Now we're getting into the territory of orthorexia nervosa, yep.
Speaker 2:And then fifth one is based on food processing, like real food versus ultra processed food, and I think it's safe to say that those first three calories, macros and food groups generally tend to feel pathological, like if someone's really cutting out a food group or trying to hit a magic 1200 number, whatever it is right, that's usually pathological.
Speaker 2:But when someone is interested in food quality or even food processing, that could be very restrictive for one person, but it could also be very supportive for the next, and I think that's the level of nuance that people need to think about. And I also like to say that if someone is not restricting calories, they're not restricting macros, they're not restricting food groups. They're eating all the food groups every day and they're getting enough energy and their needs are met and they're in recovery. The question is is there room to be interested in the quality of the food that you eat? And of course, you've already said it, you've said yes, although I know that you get nervous and right. We're doing this with a high level of intention right now. Is it possible that someone could be interested in the quality of the food they eat without it being pathological?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that a really good way to put this is that talking about nutrition and talking about the health of our nutrition is a tool and, just like any tool, it can be used for good or for evil.
Speaker 1:If you take a knife, you can use it to cut up and cook an amazing meal for your family, or you can use it to hurt someone.
Speaker 1:And for anyone who's listening to this and who might be in the recovery stage, or maybe they're still dieting and they're taking this as the wrong message, then I'm really talking to you, my listeners, right now. A really good way to know if you're ready to start doing this is to take a second, and when you think of the thought of starting to prioritize less processed foods and starting to implement gentle nutrition, how does that make you feel? Do you feel anxiety in your body? Does your stomach start to get tight? Do you start to feel restricted and tense up in your body? Usually, that's a pretty good sign that you're not ready for it. If you feel expansive, if you feel a sense of relief, if you feel maybe even excited, your body is a pretty good guide as to the intention that would be driving the behaviors, if it's coming from true love and self-acceptance or if it's coming from punishment and restriction. I think that's a really good way to know if you're ready.
Speaker 2:I couldn't agree more. Thank you for that. That's such good advice. We have to tune into our internal cues because the answer is rarely outside of us. There's no expert, there's no coach, there's no doctor that's going to have all the answers. These are things that people have to check in within, bring it into meditation. If you have a practice and figure out, then remember that what's true for you might not be what's true for your friend, and what's true for you today might not be what's true for you next year. You have to trust the evolution of recovery and stay attuned to the inevitable changes and embrace the uncertainty, because life is not black and white. It's a roller coaster and it's an ongoing journey of exploration. It is good to live in more questions and less answers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. You said what's true for you now might not be true for you a month from now. I had one of my clients who started diving into gentle nutrition while we're working together and she said I started getting into it and right away I found myself getting pulled back in and I said then we don't have to get into it. We don't have to get into it. We revisited a month later and she said I had a completely different experience. That's because more healing got done in that process. This is such a good conversation. I wish that we could go longer. Before we wrap things up, can you tell our listeners more about your app, your business and what you do and what you're all about, and if someone wants to connect with you, how they can?
Speaker 2:Yeah, my clinical practice is called nutrition and recovery and it's nutritionandrecoverycom. I've been doing one-on-one work with people all over the globe for 11 years now. It's the thing that I love to do. I work across the entire continuum of disordered eating and I tend to work with complicated cases, so people that have eating disorder and gut issues, eating disorder and substance use disorder issues, et cetera, so that I'm able to provide more nuanced language and more nuanced treatment to be appropriate for each person, rather than having a single food philosophy that I extend to all people. I'm very curious about different energies that will match people.
Speaker 2:I built an app called Wise Mind Nutrition and it's the most exciting thing in my world right now because we just launched. The app is a food log, similar to recovery record that allows people to log qualitatively. So there's no calories, there's no macros, there's no metrics, it's just photos, food groups, hungerfulness. It allows people to journal. You can set your own intentions in the app. Whatever you want to work on, whether it be social connection, you can set a lot of intentions. You can log your own food and then, at the end of each day, there's something called a nightly review, and that's something a lot of us in recovery do, where you look back at your intentions, ask yourself what did I do well? What corrective measures can I take? What can I do better tomorrow? And whatever conclusions you come to, we'll populate in your next day. That's all part of the free app. It's a completely robust free version of the app where you could engage all of that.
Speaker 2:There's a Connect feature which allows you to follow someone or be followed. That allows for clinicians and coaches to be supportive of journey. It's also built where friends can follow each other, but it's completely anonymous so you can't see other people's activity. I have all my patients in the app and I follow them, but I also started logging some food here and there and letting people follow me, just so you can see what balance looks like. That's the Connect feature. Then there's a full program in there. It's 42 days, 42 modules of nutrition for mental health, focused information. It's eating disorder informed, gentle nutrition, trauma informed, but it does have a slant toward health improvement using lifestyle medicine. No focus on those metrics, but it does encourage people to think about how you can use nutrition to improve mental health. I built it for people with anxiety, depression, ptsd, substance use disorders. I've had several eating disorder clients complete the program and have had incredible revolutions. It's super affordable. I made the whole program $29.00. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Amazing.
Speaker 2:So that more and more people could use it and so that therapists and coaches would refer their clients in. I'm giving a talk at the International Association of Eating Disorder Professionals Conference next year, and the talk is called Ultra Processed Foods Worthy of Discussion or Just More Diet Culture.
Speaker 1:I'm going to be talking about it as like is this all diet culture?
Speaker 2:or are these things that some people should think about? The nuance and the gray? That's where I live and that's where I invite people to dance with me.
Speaker 1:Yes, I really appreciate that, because I want to be open to having these discussions on my podcast. I do not want to just push one agenda without focusing on things that are important to talk about and have discussions around.
Speaker 2:There's about 80 or so blogs at wisemindnutritioncom, so that's also a good place to learn about the intersection of nutrition and mental health. I have a wisemind nutrition Instagram all one word wisemindnutrition on YouTube and there's a wisemind nutrition on TikTok. There's a couple underscores in there, but I'm really having a blast with the TikTok.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. I love that it's kind of the same name all around on all platforms, easy to find you. I will put those links in the show notes so that people can find you as well. And congratulations on the app. It must feel like your baby that you've been working on for probably a very long time at this point. So congratulations on the launch and I hope that it is massively successful, because what you're doing is really important work and I really appreciate you taking the time and coming on and having this amazing discussion with me and my listeners.
Speaker 2:You're so welcome. Thank you for the chat today.