Struggling with societal pressures to maintain the 'perfect' body?
You're not alone.
Join me as I sit down with Dr. Diana Gordon, a licensed psychologist and intuitive eating specialist, who shares her own experiences living in a larger body.
Dr. Gordon will make you question the true meaning of acceptance and the hazardous effects of diet culture that are more pervasive than you might think.
During our conversation...
However, Dr. Gordon assures that embracing body acceptance can significantly shift our perspective and guide us toward self-esteem and confidence.
This episode will inspire you to rethink societal norms and standards.
It serves as a reminder that it's okay to be different and that happiness and confidence are not size-dependent.
Remember, self-love comes in all shapes and sizes. Tune in to find your own freedom from diet culture.
Connect with Dr. Diana Gordon
RESOURCES
Connect with Sabrina:
Struggling with societal pressures to maintain the 'perfect' body?
You're not alone.
Join me as I sit down with Dr. Diana Gordon, a licensed psychologist and intuitive eating specialist, who shares her own experiences living in a larger body.
Dr. Gordon will make you question the true meaning of acceptance and the hazardous effects of diet culture that are more pervasive than you might think.
During our conversation...
However, Dr. Gordon assures that embracing body acceptance can significantly shift our perspective and guide us toward self-esteem and confidence.
This episode will inspire you to rethink societal norms and standards.
It serves as a reminder that it's okay to be different and that happiness and confidence are not size-dependent.
Remember, self-love comes in all shapes and sizes. Tune in to find your own freedom from diet culture.
Connect with Dr. Diana Gordon
RESOURCES
Connect with Sabrina:
I think I was really looking for acceptance from not only from myself, but also from the people in my life who were very fat, so big.
Speaker 2:If you're here listening to this podcast, then that means that you're starting to, or you've been following intuitive eating and food freedom resources like podcasts or social media accounts. Maybe you're diving into the world of health at every size and you're starting to educate yourself on the harm of diet culture. And maybe you're at a point where you know that dieting does not work. It has not improved the quality of your life over the years and actually it's made it worse and you look back on the years and years of dedicating your life to shrinking your body with a lot of sadness, and yet you still find yourself getting pulled back into diet culture. Why does that happen and how can you protect yourself against it? That's exactly what we're talking about today's episode, and it is truly phenomenal because we are joined by an amazing guest, dr Diana Gordon. This is a little bit of a longer one, but you're going to want to stick around until the end because we give you actionable steps, journal prompts, things to reflect on, to help you solidify your journey towards a healthier relationship with food and your body. 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 Magna, 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.
Speaker 2:Now let's jump in. This is the time of the year where diet culture gets loud and we start talking about starting a new diet in January, or you might be going into the holidays with some anxiety around food and your body. So I wanted to touch on this topic before we get into the holiday season so that you can enjoy it without stress, without guilt, without anxiety, and so that you can make sure not to fall back into the same one last diet trap in the new year and just get pulled right back into diet culture. And I brought in the big guns for today's conversation. We are joined by Dr Diana Gordon, if you don't know her from her amazing Instagram, and I do recommend following her because she puts out some really great content out there.
Speaker 2:I'm going to give you a little introduction before we get into today's conversation. So Dr Diana Gordon is a licensed psychologist, coach and content creator, specializing in intuitive eating and health at every size. She combines evidence based skills such as mindfulness, cognitive behavioral skills and other coping tools with intuitive eating principles. As a person of size, living in a larger body her entire life, she's able to draw on both her personal and professional experience to dismantle fat phobia and to help people live in a life free from dieting. You're going to hear her talk about her own experience living in a larger body her entire life, fighting acceptance and comfort in her own body, and how to make sure that you don't get pulled back into a system that is made to oppress women, that is made to keep you small and quiet and away from your life purpose. So let's get into our amazing conversation with Dr Diana Gordon.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, diana, for joining us today, and the conversation that we're having is really timely because we are about to head into the holiday season and you know just as well as I do that this is the time where diet culture gets really loud and proud and we start talking about New Year's resolutions and starting again on January 1st and getting back into dieting.
Speaker 2:And the reason why I wanted to have you on is because I follow you on Instagram and I love the content that you post, and there was one specific post that you had talked about, which was why is it that, even when you've been doing work on your relationship with food and you've been reading about intuitive eating and health at every size and you know the statistics and you know that dieting doesn't work it hasn't brought you the joy and the health that you were promised? You can know this all intellectually. Why is it that people get pulled back into dieting? And I would love to know your own story, because I know that part of the work that you do is having been and living in a larger body. You can really deeply understand why people get pulled back into that. So I would love to have your input and, starting off by hearing a little bit about your own story and why you got to doing the work that you do Awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think this is such a great topic and so I'm excited to dive in and I think my own story is a good jumping off point for it. So I have been fat since I was a child. I was overweight, really, starting when I was six or seven years old, and I grew up in a very fat phobic family that was very focused on their own weight, their own diets, and both of my parents are naturally larger people and, you know, my grandparents are larger people, and so it's very much like my entire family is either fat or dieting, or both, you know. And so when I was growing up, I also grew up in an area of the United States, in the Los Angeles area, that you know can be very image focused, and so I grew up around a lot of people dieting, a lot of dieters, and so for me, dieting was just like a normal part of my life. You know, I would bring slim-flop shakes to school, I would go to Weight Watchers meetings with my mom, like it was completely a part of who I was. It almost felt like part of my identity, was like a person who was trying to lose weight, you know. And I think I wanted that identity and more than I wanted, the identity of the other people who play a summy which was like a chubby person or even a fat person, right. And so I really went through so many cycles of losing and regaining weight.
Speaker 1:By the time that I was in college, I had already gotten to a point that a lot of chronic dieters get to later in life, where I actually couldn't lose weight Like I. Just no diet that I went on worked for me and I met with a dietitian who had been trained in intuitive eating and she had explained to me that at this point in my life I had wheat cycled so many times that I had damaged my metabolism and that I was at a point where I wasn't going to be able to reduce my body weight. And we started to talk about, you know, what would it be like to live in a larger body. So I read the intuitive eating book and I from the. From the beginning, I was so drawn to, I was so drawn to this idea, like you know, I said to myself you know, maybe I can learn to accept myself if I don't have to spend all this time fighting with myself about what I eat and how I eat. And so I started to eat intuitively, and I would love to tell you that you know like my story ended there, right, that I became an intuitive eater and I, you know, never looked back. But the truth is like, that isn't what happened for me, and I think this is really ties into this question we're talking about today.
Speaker 1:I went back to dieting, you know, not once, not twice, but multiple times, and I feel that the thing that keeps us back in that like, keeps us hooked to diet culture is something that people of all sizes struggle with, which is just that there is massive pressure on us to diet, there's massive pressure on us to be thin, and we get it from everywhere.
Speaker 1:We get it from family, from friends, from magazines, even. You know, I'm reading a book, like a domestic thriller, that has nothing to do with dieting, and both of the female characters around diet that are talking about in this book, right. So I think that it's this massive societal pressure that people experience, and it's especially true for larger people, but I actually think it's true for people of all body sizes and so I almost think there's like this collective consciousness of like diets are what you should do and like we get like pulled back into that, and it can be really hard to stay grounded in what we know to be true, which is that we don't have to change our bodies All bodies are fine just as they are, and that, even if we do want to change our bodies, we're not going to be able to do so successfully. And so you know, going back to dieting doesn't make sense. But I think that it's very easy to get pulled back in, and I say that as a person who did get pulled back in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and your story is definitely one that a lot of people can relate to, and you mentioned that you went back to dieting a couple of times, even after reading the intuitive eating book, and I've heard that a lot. And that's because healing is not linear. A lot of people think that when you start healing your relationship with food or you go on intuitive eating journey, it's just going to click and it's really all just going to make sense. And I'm curious for you at what point was there like that rock bottom where you were like I cannot diet any longer? What was it that had to happen internally for you to really move away from it once and for all? Because I'm assuming if you're doing this kind of work, then dieting is no longer on the horizon for you. So what kind of shift in perspective had to happen for you?
Speaker 1:So you know, something that really shifted for me was when I started graduate school. I started learning about the ways in which fat phobia ties in to so many forms of systemic inequality. I learned about how the roots of fat phobia really come from racism, and I also think that diet culture, and its influence over women specifically, has been created as a way to keep women small. When we're focused on keeping our bodies small, we're not focused on other things, and I think that benefits a lot of people in our society. So when I started to think about the ways in which this was systemic, that was really helpful for me in saying I don't want to participate in that system. Maybe I'm only paying Weight Watchers 10.99 a month, but that's 10.99 a month. That is going to the active oppression and discrimination against fat people and against people with all sorts of differences, right, and so I just said to myself, like I'm not giving another cent to you, I mean I would never do that, right?
Speaker 1:The other thing that shifted for me was I started to notice what it was like for me as a larger bodied person, when other people would talk about dieting, and something that I noticed is that people who were much thinner than me, would talk about how fat and disgusting they felt, and it really made me realize.
Speaker 1:I said, you know, wow, like this is really, like it's really about our positionality. Like I'm a person, like there's a spectrum of fatness and I'm a person who's on the smaller end of that, and I realized that by dieting, by talking about dieting, by being unhappy about myself, I was also affecting the people around me, because I saw the people around me affected me. And then the final aspect of that was like I got married, I started thinking about having children and I said to myself, like no way am I going to raise my kids in diet culture. Like I'm a larger person. My partner is a larger person. Chances are, both of our kids will have larger bodies and I knew going into it that I wanted to raise them in a home that was free of diet culture and free of anti-fat bias, and so those were really like. My motivating factors was like it had to become bigger than me. It had to become about what it was doing to other people in the world and in my immediate world as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's so interesting and that was really like the one common theme that I saw in those three answers that you gave, like not wanting to be part of the system, seeing how it affects other people around you and then not wanting to pass that down to your kids. That common theme was that I think that's the easiest barrier, like the easiest entry is to look at it not as being about yourself, but as being about part of something bigger. Because if you can look at yourself as being part of, you know the female group and seeing people around you who, you want to be lifted up, you want to have loud, proud voices, you want to create change in the world. It's really hard to do that when your entire life project is about shrinking your body.
Speaker 1:Yes, exactly, I think a lot of times people don't realize how much cognitive effort they put into dieting and how it almost becomes like a hobby, or maybe I would call an interest, where it's like, you know, not only are you on a diet, but you also are, like online reading articles about dieting. You might be on the program itself's website, like numerous Weight Watchers, looking at all the point trackers, looking at recipes. Like you become very immersed in it, and something that I noticed when I stopped dieting was I actually had a lot more time on my hand to go do other things that were actually important to me, like, instead of reading, you know, weight Watcher's message boards, I could be, you know, reading about something on Reddit that's actually interesting or enriching, right. And so I find, with a lot of my clients, that another thing that keeps them motivated to stay away from dieting is they realize, when they stop, that it opens up all these opportunities to them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and one thing I always talk about when it comes to goal setting is that we never actually go after a goal for the thing itself, like the money, the body, the job, but we go after what we think that thing is going to make us feel. And so when you noticed that you were constantly going back to dieting and you were chasing that thinner body, what do you think that you were actually chasing? What was the thing underneath that thinner body that you were hoping that you would get?
Speaker 1:I love that question. You know, I think I was really looking for acceptance from not only from myself, but also from the people in my life who were very fat phobic. I was looking to change myself so that they would accept me, so that I would accept myself. And I think I made it about other things right. I made it about my health or I made it about you know different motivations, but the truth is, what I wanted was to feel comfortable in my skin and to be accepted by the people around me. And what I realized is that being comfortable in my skin and being accepted by the people around me is a goal that I can accomplish without changing my body size. And I also realized that changing my body size wasn't guaranteed to get me that acceptance right, because I think so many people find they do get to their goal weight or whatever and all their problems are still there, you know, and mine, mine, were two when I was thin and I, you know, what I will say to people is that what often larger people will say? Well, you know, I am chasing something tangible, like I'm chasing not being discriminated against, not being harmed by fat phobia, and what I will say to that is like I 100% think that's a valid desire, like, believe me, like I long to live in a world where people are not fat phobic. But your body getting smaller will actually change the world right, and it won't necessarily change how you experience the world, because there's always going to be things about you that people don't like or that people attack.
Speaker 1:Many people who are fat hold multiple marginalized identities. You know, like I'm also queer and I find the same people in my life who don't like fat people also don't like queer people, you know. So I think that's so. I think for a lot of larger people, like that chase, like it's so valid and I always sit with my clients in that like, of course, it's valid to not want people to discriminate against you because your body size and weight loss is not the solution to that problem, and I think those are the two components together that people have to really sit with, you know. And how do we solve that problem? Like, if we're not going to help you lose weight, how can we make your world safer for you? Because that's a super valid thing to want.
Speaker 2:Yes, and that was actually going to be my next question, because you mentioned something that I think I want to like mentally highlight for anyone who's listening. You mentioned I wanted to feel comfortable in my skin and I wanted to feel accepted by others, and what I learned was that those things were within reach in the current body. That I have and this is a question that I often get from my clients and women in my community is like how do I let's start with the first piece how do I feel comfortable in my body without changing it?
Speaker 1:Yes, it's. You know. I think that really a lot of that work is in getting to a place where you really feel grounded in your determination not to change it. Like I think that we can start to practice contentment and self acceptance, but only when we are really in a headspace of I am not going to change this, and so what I always say is, like the first step is really getting clear. I'm like I'm not going on another diet, I know it won't work and really spending the time that you need getting the education needs with whatever reading you want to do, however many sessions you want to have with your coach or therapist, your dietitian, but really making sure that, like you fully understand the science, you know that you're not going back to dieting because I think that, like, otherwise, you kind of have one foot out the door. Yeah, and then I think the self acceptance fees comes from a variety of things.
Speaker 1:I think internal acceptance comes from learning to see yourself as more than a body. I love the work of Lexi Kite. She wrote a book called more than a body, which is an incredible book, and I just I love her work in general. I also love Jesse Neelan's body neutrality work. I think that those types of approaches where we sort of learn to see ourselves as more than a body like. For me it was about what are the other things that bring me joy, that I'm passionate about and, for example, like you know, I am a person who likes to be active, and so it's important to me that, even in a larger body, that I play and use sports, I practice them, I excel at them, and I don't let the fact that I'm larger stop me from trying. And then I build my confidence like, hey, I can, I can do these things right.
Speaker 1:And so, with my clients, what I often work on is let's figure out who you are Like, let's figure out the parts of you that want to shine, that are not about your physical appearance, like, let's imagine that your, your body doesn't matter at all, because it actually doesn't. And let's figure out, like, where does your self esteem come from? Where do we need to build that? And then I think the last component of that is protecting yourself, and I think boundaries are huge in this area, right when there may be people in your life who, when you say, hey, I've made a decision not to diet, will not be supportive of that, and I think it's then up to us to hold really firm boundaries around. You know, I'm not open to your feedback about this and perhaps having less or limited contact with people who you know are damaging to us in this way or in any other way, because I think we can't grow our self esteem when we have people around us telling us that we're not worthy. You know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely I am when you were talking about how do we start working on the parts of ourselves that we love and are proud of and we want to bring forward and shine, disconnected from our body.
Speaker 2:I had Steph Daudier on my podcast a couple of months ago and she she asked a question that I think is so important for everyone to ask themselves, and it's just the question of why do we have a body, what is the purpose of our body? And we have been taught by diet, culture, by patriarchy, that we have a body to please others, and that's why women are here to look a certain way. And one of my clients she was having a really hard time feeling, feeling proud, feeling successful in her life, because her entire definition of success for her entire life was losing weight. So, of course, if you don't have a new definition of success, of what you want your life to look like and what you want to be proud of, then you're always going to feel like you're falling short no-transcript Thanksgiving, because I'm out of sour cream, okay, which just happened, and I'm, like you know, stealing the sweats I slept in and my hair is an abessie bun and whatever.
Speaker 1:you know, men in that store gaze upon me and don't find me pleasing. I'm okay with that as long as I leave with my sour cream, you know, yeah, and so I think that really stepping back and recognizing, like when people say, like dress to impress, or like always look nice, when you leave that like literally, for like who are you trying to impress? And I think, yeah, moving away from these, like I always talk about, like diet, culture and beauty standards to me are like in bed together, right, and whether it's anti aging cream or a low carb diet, like they're have one thing in common, which is that neither one of them work, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think a big reason why we're constantly chasing that approval from other people, especially when you've been dieting your entire life and I'm sure that you've seen that in your clients as well is usually your level of self esteem goes hand in hand with how much you've been dieting. And when you don't have that own self acceptance, if you're not able to see your own value, then it doesn't matter how many other people's opinion you try to chase and approval that you try to get If internally either you don't agree with them, right? How many times have people said compliments to some of your clients and they just didn't believe it? Because internally it doesn't matter what other people say. If you don't have that own self acceptance, then you're always going to be chasing what other people are going to think of you.
Speaker 1:For sure. There's an exercise in acceptance, excitement therapy act, which I really like doing with clients, where we talk about you know what would be on your grave step, and it can be a really powerful exercise for people because what they recognize is that, just as you were saying, the goals and the things that they're working towards in life are all we are, beauty centered. And when they kind of sit with that, and I think you know, do I want my tombstone to say dieted vigorously for 50 years, right? Or do I want my tombstone to say like loved going to loved going on cruises with my grandkids and hitting the all you can eat buffet, right. Like most people probably wanted to say the second one, right.
Speaker 1:Like most people want a life. Well, they want a life that's vibrant, where they feel fulfilled and satisfied, where they are connected with people around them, and dieting is the opposite of that. Dieting takes you out of connection with like the people that you're, with the people in your life. You know, I've talked to people who have skipped family trips because they were on a diet. I've talked to people who have not gone to a kid's sporting event because they were on a diet and didn't want to deal with a food step and like when we start to miss out on opportunities and life, we really think about like what's our gravestone going to say, right, and I think it's a. It's a. It's sort of a grim way of looking at it. But I also think it's so important that we really fast forward through the years and know that none of us know how much time we have. Right, and that's the other piece of like you know we diet to improve our health, right, but like, what if it? What if it doesn't make a difference? Is it still worth doing, you know? So, yeah, I think it's.
Speaker 1:It's a lot of like food for thought, for people to really look forward into the future, and I tell people to just be patient in this work. Like I love what you said, like healing isn't linear, repairing our self-esteem and our relationship with ourselves. Like that doesn't come overnight. Like I've been in this body size for many years and I feel very differently about it now than I did five or 10 years ago, you know. And so I want people out there to know that. Like there is hope, even if you're listening to this now and you're saying like, oh God, like I don't think I can ever get there. That's actually where just about everybody starts and you can get there, and all it requires is just being committed to stay in the work, even when the work feels like it's it's going backwards. Staying in the work and being willing to keep trying is all you need to eventually come out the other side.
Speaker 2:Yes, oh, my God, that is so. That is so inspiring. And that brings me to the question that I'm sure a lot of people ask themselves, and I would love to know your own perspective on this. A lot of people think can you really be happy and confident in a larger body? And what would you have to say to any of my listeners who are thinking that, because you mentioned one of the pieces of feeling comfortable and accepting in your own body, is making the decision? I'm not going to change this, and a lot of people see that as, like quote unquote, giving up.
Speaker 2:I'm giving up. I'm giving in, and they see that, as I don't think that I could, I don't think that that's within reach for me. So what would you have to say to those people?
Speaker 1:So I think what I have to say to those people is just, first of all, that I have so much empathy and compassion for the place that they're in and that maybe, as you listen to what I'm saying now, if you're one of those people, assume that I'm not trying to talk you into anything, because I'm actually not. I respect every person's right to bodily autonomy and that includes the choice to diet or to modify our bodies. But if you are feeling ready to challenge that belief that, like you, could you know you can't possibly live like this but you also can't diet. What I would invite people to do is to ask themselves could I be curious about what it would be like to really work on accepting this right? Like, could I?
Speaker 1:Even if I don't think I can do it, can I just be?
Speaker 1:Can I commit to being curious about it?
Speaker 1:You know, can I commit to really doing some journaling around this, working with a professional, really thinking through my relationship with my body, really working on trying to build other facets of my self esteem and to be open to seeing where that process goes, even if I'm not sure that it will work, oftentimes like that's all the buy in that we can get from folks and I think that's totally an okay place to be, right to be like I'm curious, I'm open, I'm not sure if I can change like.
Speaker 1:I can totally work with that as a provider. And I think, for people who are feeling like you know, I don't know how to be sexy or attractive in my body, I don't know how to date, I don't know how to have sex, I don't know how to like be a fat person and still be out in the world, what I say to them is that the truth is I see a lot of parallels between like my own coming out as queer and my like sort of coming out as a fat person in my own acceptance, which is that I knew that I couldn't chase away the gay Like I knew that I was queer and that it like didn't matter if I pretended I wasn't like.
Speaker 1:I still was right, and I feel like that is a little bit the same way, except we all been told we can chase away the fat right now. And so I started to look at it as being an inherent part of my identity, of who I am, of how I'm being. And again, you may not be there now, and that's totally okay, but can you be curious about that, about what it would be like to see yourself in that way? And I think when you see this as an inherent part of your identity, you also are able to be embodied right and like, yes, fat people date, get married, have sex, have babies, like all of the above. There are definitely fat people doing those things.
Speaker 1:And then the last thing I'll say to people who are especially large amount of people is curate your social media a little bit. Like. There are tons of beautiful, stunning fat people of all genders who are showing you on social media the types of clothes they wear, the types of activities they do like. I love looking at like fat people doing like exercise. I follow a lot of accounts of like fat people hiking, fat people lifting weights.
Speaker 1:So I think it also is like expanding our view of what people can do in different body sizes, because I think a lot of our media especially like media that's, you know, produced tends to have thin people in it. So I think that's another way that people can start to see themselves is like, yeah, look at this fat person like they like go on runs, indeed, like I could actually do that. So I think all of those things help, but I think, like the biggest thing I tell people is like if you can just be curious and open, like you don't have to be 100% sold today, that you can live as a bad person forever. But you know, it could be a starting point.
Speaker 2:I really love the social media piece because if you look at the way that fat people are portrayed in TV and movies and in popular culture, they are portrayed as having that identity of not exercising, not dating. They're always the butt of the joke and so, of course, someone who thinks about embodying that identity, they're like well, I can't possibly be fat and exercise. I can't possibly be fat and confident and dating, because you never see that in popular media. So I think that's huge is being able to see, like I love seeing, like fat influencers who are just showing themselves truly living their lives and being able to show other people that this is possible and it takes making that choice to make it possible for you, yeah.
Speaker 1:And like this is why, you know, I posted photos of myself in a beating suit on my Instagram. You know, it's not because I think the whole world wants to see me in a beating suit. It's because I think that there are people who follow me who want to see a person my size in a beating suit, playing with their kids living their lives. And I'm sure there's other people who saw it and laughed at me or thought I was disgusting. And you know that's okay too, like I am, like I don't have to take that on. Yes, and I'm not saying that like my clients should be posting beating suit photos themselves online. Like I do it as an act of, you know, resistance, as an active social justice. I don't expect everybody to do that, but I do think that, like you know, I talk to people about this all the time. Like so many of my fat clients, they don't want to get a beating suit right. They don't want to get in the pool with their kids that my kids, like they want to swim all day and they want me there. They want me on the water size with them, they want me in the ocean with them and it's so important to me to put on that beating suit and do it, even though I know that there will be people looking at me and thinking, you know, whatever, whatever it is they're thinking because I'm here with my family, living my own life. You know, and I think, ultimately, for the people that I work with, there's a lot of freedom in that and there's also degrees right. Like you don't have to get in a string to get in the pool with me. Like there are beating suits you can wear. That offer more coverage if that feels appropriate to you, you know. But I think it's important to like get get away from like being like I'm fat, so I can't do that.
Speaker 1:And I need to give another example.
Speaker 1:Like I recently took up pickleball and I was a competitive tennis player when I was younger and I start playing and I'm playing with a lot of people in every of these things, you know, and I was like really good at pickleball and I was like what's going on here?
Speaker 1:And I realized it's my body, because I'm significantly larger than that and I'm like I'm at the net and I'm just hitting the ball, like I have a lot more power than they do because I have a lot more weight on right, and I was like, oh, it's so interesting how, like in this sport, my size is actually giving me a significant advantage over these like teeny tiny, like 100 pound women, you know, and it was really cool to like just kind of notice that. But it was, it was an experience I had to have in person, and telling folks is like whether it's like a bar class or a pickleball tournament or whatever you want to do, like you don't even know that your size is going to stop you and it likely won't. So, yeah, I think just like expanding our views of what's possible is so important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and what I really love is knowing what's going on in people's head and knowing the kind of things that people tell themselves to get themselves through harder situations. Because I'm curious, when you're about to put on the bathing suit, or you're about to post the picture of you in a bathing suit or you're showing up to that pickleball, do you still have that instinctual voice of what are people going to say? Do you have to? Do you have certain things that you talk yourself through to protect yourself against people's judgment?
Speaker 1:So I honestly, at this point I really don't anymore, and part of that is that, you know, having a social media following and posting controversial things such as that people deserve dignity, you know so controversial? Yeah, I got plenty of haters already you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Like.
Speaker 1:I get the dns, you know, I get the comments. And I decided, when I entered this like in a public way, where I was going to do podcasts and post on Instagram, I knew that part of the consequence of that was that I was going to open myself up, because if you're a fat person who talks about fat liberation, like you'd best believe people are going to come for you, you know. And so for me, like that actually like makes it way easier for me to deal with because I'm just like this is just it just noise. You know, it's just noise. And when I'm with my family, like, let's say, I'm at like sometimes I'll go to like a public pool with them. I'll just kind of like look around and notice like I'm the fattest person there. You know I'm like, oh, I'm the fattest person here.
Speaker 1:And I definitely used to tell myself I am here to be with my family, I am here to live a life that's in alignment with my values. I am not here to impress the other people in this pool, you know. So what I will tell clients is like a great way to move past negative criticisms. One is just to say I'm not taking that on, like that's their judgment. That's their issue, like that has nothing to do with me. And the other is to really ground yourself before you put on that bathing suit or before you go to that exercise class. You're scared to go to ground yourself. Why are you doing it? What are the values that are important to you in doing this? You know, do you want to be someone who has self discipline, who, like, shows up for classes you enroll for? Do you want to be a person who's present for your family, like? Those values are way more important than the value of other random people thinking you look good, right, like when you really weigh it out. So I think that can really help people.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's so helpful, and I like to make these podcasts very actionable so that people can take away from it either things that they can start practicing telling themselves, or even like questions that they can journal on so that they can start bringing some of those things to the surface and to their awareness.
Speaker 2:So, as we're wrapping up, if you had maybe like so, I thought of one question that people should definitely journal on, which is what are some of your values, what are some of the things that are important to you at the end of your life, when people are talking about you at your funeral, or what's written on your tombstone? What do you want to show reflected in that? I think that's a really good question for people to journal on, because that can then guide all of the decisions that you make moving forward into 2024. Do you have any other questions? Journal prompts, things or even steps that people can take going into the new year to kind of figure out, like what do I want to focus on, what is a good area of work, whether it's body image or relationship with food, your self-esteem.
Speaker 1:I love this. So, as a therapist, this is something. I do a ton of journaling myself and I always recommend it to clients. I think journaling is such a great way to get to know ourselves and I also tell people. It doesn't have to be intimidating. You can write bullet points. You can do it on your phone in the memos app. You don't need to be at your computer writing an essay unless you want to. But journaling, I think, is just such a good way to get in contact with these thoughts. I think my first action step I would recommend is start a journaling process. See if you can set aside half an hour one to three times a week to sit down with your journal and journal on your relationship with food.
Speaker 1:I love the values prompt. I have a couple of others, so one is I think it could be nice for people to sit down and reflect on who around me dislikes my body and who around me is supportive of my body, to get a sense of what is my support system look like in this world. And I think, for the people who you put in the unsupportive category, then, doing some journaling around are there some boundaries I would like to set with these people. Are there some changes I want to make to our relationship? How can I make this so that when I look at my circle, I have a fully supportive circle? I think that's always a good reflection.
Speaker 1:I also think a nice reflection for people is to ask themselves who would I be if I didn't hate myself? I know it sounds like a strong way of putting it, but I think all of us hold some self-hatred. I think everyone who has spent a lot of time dieting probably thinks themselves yeah, that's probably true of me, it's definitely true of myself. And so I think, asking yourself, who would I be if I let go of that? What would I be doing? Would I be finally applying to graduate school? Would I be getting on that dating app that I've been wanting to get out?
Speaker 1:Who would I be if I didn't hate myself? And what could I do differently? Sometimes in cognitive theory, we talk about how we can have thoughts and emotions, but our behaviors are separate from those thoughts and emotions, and so when we ask ourselves, who would I be if I didn't hate myself, the natural extension of that is could I start doing some of these behaviors, even if I still have conflicting feelings about myself? And the idea is that by doing different behaviors, by finally taking that cooking class or going on that date, we start to change our internal perceptions as well. So I think that's such a great starting point.
Speaker 2:I absolutely love that and it made me think of one of my clients who has really been working on body image and she never, ever posts pictures of her full body. It's always just like from the head up. And so there was one week where she said, hey guys, I'm going to post a picture of my entire body. So she posted it on her Facebook and the caption was like I normally wouldn't post this because you could see my belly, but I am working on accepting it and here I am, big and full, and it was her most liked and commented on picture, because people looked at that and were like and people could relate to that Like, wow, I want to be that confident, I want to be able to show up, because everyone can relate to having body image issues, no matter what body you're in. And so she took that action, even if she wasn't 100% confident yet or proud of her body, she took that action and then she got such positive feedback from it that it creates a positive feedback loop.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally I as a client. He wanted to go back to an exercise class that she used to really enjoy. She had put on a lot of weight since the time she had gone to that class. And we talked about well, what would you do if you didn't hate your body? What would you do? And she's like, well, I would go to the class. And it's like, ok, well, could you go to the class and bring your body hatred along with you, like you don't have to chase it away, like we talked in act again, they talked about can you put all that negativity into a briefcase or a backpack and just carry it with you while you go do the thing anyway? And it's such a helpful metaphor for me. And she went to the class. She brought her backpack full of concerns and she had a great time.
Speaker 1:And so I think sometimes really getting that boldness of noticing behavior is one of those things where it's like it's actually probably the easiest of the three to change. Emotions really can't change, we just experience them. Thoughts we can change, but it takes us some time to talk, as I'm into it. But behavior is like we control our hands and our feet, so we can still walk out the door and do that thing we're scared of doing, even though our thoughts are telling us not to, and so I think separating out those three is a really helpful way to start tackling some of this. Yeah, and I also remind people every committed action you take is a step closer. So if you do one thing and then you're like OK, that was a lot for me. Great, you know. Yes, you don't have to do it all at once.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Oh my god, Diana, I love you and I'm so happy that I had you on and thank you so much for taking the time and enlightening our listeners and talking about your own perspective. So for anyone who wants to get in touch with you, who wants to follow you, who wants to consume your content, where can they find you?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, so I would love for you to find me on Instagram. I'm at Dr Diana Gordon. I love putting content out on Instagram because I am a big believer that, because dieting is a social justice issue, I want free information available to people who want to consume this kind of content, so I love posting. I hope you'll follow me there and definitely, if you have questions about my posts or you have something you want me to cover, feel free to message me. I love getting messages like that, and on my Instagram you'll see links. I have a mailing list where I send out information about my offerings, including newsletters, and then I also have a website where you can get in touch with me if you're interested in one of my intuitive eating courses or an individual coaching support.
Speaker 2:Amazing and, as always, I'm going to put all of your links in the show notes so that people can contact you. Thank you so much again for being here today. Thank you to all of you listeners for joining us and hopefully doing some of the reflections that we talked about in today's episode. And enjoy your holidays. Remember to protect your own energy and your own boundaries when needed with some family members. And thank you so much, diana. Have yourself a great holiday and we'll see you on the next episode.
Speaker 1:Yes, happy holidays to you and to everyone.