Did you know that focusing on weight loss and stepping on the scale every morning actually harms your health?
Today, we're joined by Susan, Food Freedom Academy alumni...and she had a LOT to share about her journey to intuitive eating. If you're having a really hard time accepting your body and letting go of control around food, this episode is for you... because Susan GETS IT.
Susan doesn't remember a time when she wasn't dieting or trying to lose weight. Her entire life has been clouded by this feeling of failure due to diets never working long-term.
Over time, instead of feeling the confidence, happiness and health that diet culture offered, she struggled for than ever. With her weight, with overeating, with cravings, with food guilt.
Making the decisions to put dieting behind once and for all was NOT an easy one, and she actually didn't fully believe that it was possible for her to have a healthy relationship with food. But, she had belief in the process and decided to take a leap of faith, because she was already at her worst case scenario.
In this episode, you'll learn:
RESOURCES
Connect with Sabrina:
Did you know that focusing on weight loss and stepping on the scale every morning actually harms your health?
Today, we're joined by Susan, Food Freedom Academy alumni...and she had a LOT to share about her journey to intuitive eating. If you're having a really hard time accepting your body and letting go of control around food, this episode is for you... because Susan GETS IT.
Susan doesn't remember a time when she wasn't dieting or trying to lose weight. Her entire life has been clouded by this feeling of failure due to diets never working long-term.
Over time, instead of feeling the confidence, happiness and health that diet culture offered, she struggled for than ever. With her weight, with overeating, with cravings, with food guilt.
Making the decisions to put dieting behind once and for all was NOT an easy one, and she actually didn't fully believe that it was possible for her to have a healthy relationship with food. But, she had belief in the process and decided to take a leap of faith, because she was already at her worst case scenario.
In this episode, you'll learn:
RESOURCES
Connect with Sabrina:
Today, you are going to learn how to go from being a lifetime dieter to being an intuitive eater with a healthy, peaceful relationship with food. 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. Now let's jump in.
Speaker 1:When you've been struggling with your relationship with food, when you have been on and off diets for maybe the majority of your life and you've internalized this belief that you're a failure, that there's something wrong with you, that you maybe are addicted to food, like there is something part of your DNA that will never allow you to be an intuitive eater, right To be able to listen to your body, trust yourself around food, eat the foods that you love without completely losing control. It can feel really natural to think that you are the exception and to listen to this podcast or learn about intuitive eating and think this all sounds so great, but it could never work for me. And I get it. I get it because when that becomes your belief and you've been reinforced throughout your entire life by diet culture that you're the one to blame, that you're the one who should have all the responsibility for the failed diets, then you carry that around with you and it stops you from trying to do something different and it stops you from believing in yourself anymore. And so what I want to do is, yes, I can talk about my story. All I want and give you belief and give you hope.
Speaker 1:And I can talk about the thousands of women who have gone through this and experienced food freedom. But it can be more helpful to really hear the story of women who are either in the thick of it or have just gone through it. So you will hear today from a woman who had a very long history with struggles with food and her body. Susan is one of our food freedom Academy alumni's and her story I say this with the most love is not exceptional.
Speaker 1:She is not this snowflake. She is not special and again I say this with love there's nothing different about her that made food freedom possible for her, and so what you're going to hear is the kind of mindsets that she had to develop and how much she had to work on one specific thing that helped her get to where she is today, and the process that took her from a lifetime of yo-yo dieting and body shame and binge eating and food guilt to now a life where she can trust herself around food and she has freedom and she can confidently call herself an intuitive eater. So, without further ado, let's hear Susan's amazing story. Thank you so much for being here, susan, and can you start by telling us a little bit about where you were, what you were struggling with before finding me discovering food freedom Academy, what your past was like?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm 47 currently, and I've been on some type of diet since I was about 13 years old, whether that was restriction or a workout plan or meal planning or a pill Like I've tried to alley the stuff that creates never mind, we don't need to talk about that. I've tried all this stuff and I think that my mom, bless her heart, raised me in a household where there was a strong body image focus and I didn't have what was considered the ideal body according to society standards, and so I was always trying to change it. I was always trying to make it what I perceived to be better. I never felt good enough, pretty enough, thin enough, and so that's just kind of an ongoing thing. Since I was 13 years old, I've always been trying to do something to alter my body and make it better, and so up until the point that I ran into I think I ran into one of your a challenge that you did or something, and signed up as quick as possible.
Speaker 2:You said whenever you started this that as long as you come up believing in yourself, I don't know that I 100% believed in myself, so much as I believed in the opportunity to have some kind of different change. I know I needed to change something, so I came in with complete faith in the program and with my faith in the program also learned to believe in myself, if that makes any sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. And what I always say to anyone who is considering doing this is at the beginning, you're not going to have any belief in yourself because for the last maybe 20, 30 years of your life, you have been conditioned to believe that there's something wrong with you. And every time that you've done a diet that hasn't worked or that you haven't been able to stick to, you have been conditioned by diet culture to believe that you are to blame. The responsibility is on you. Although I'm not going to go into the statistics, we know them, right, we know them. It makes sense when we think about okay, can I really see myself being 80 years old and still counting calories or restricting carbs?
Speaker 1:No, but we live in a society that always thinks about the short term and what can I do in the next three months? So of course, you go into this with a lack of belief and I always say, like at the beginning borrow mine, borrow my belief in you, because I have been on the other side. I have seen women from all walks of life go through this and no matter how much you might think that you are a special snowflake for who, it won't work. Whether you believe that you can or you can't, you're right. Right, your belief in yourself is really everything. Yep, I agree. If we go back to before you found me, can you tell me a little bit more about what your life was like? You mentioned I've always been on some kind of diet. So how did you feel? What was your self-talk like? What was your life like on a daily basis?
Speaker 2:So I definitely defined success in general as weight loss. So that was always my focus. So life in general yes, I had a job. I made it through college. I got my master's degree. I was doing therapy. I'm still doing therapy for others, so I was having success in other areas. I knew I could stick to things. I knew I got a master's degree. I have my associates, my bachelor's and my master's degree. So I knew I could stick to things. But I just never had a belief in myself to be able to stick to any kind of lifestyle change. The new coin term for diet.
Speaker 2:So I didn't think I could stick to anything like that For some reason. I always felt like I gave up on myself. So I would try something. I would try a diet and have success with it for a little bit and then get comfortable again and be like oh, now I've been doing so well that now I can reward myself, and so I would reward myself with food, and then it just kind of sucks you right back into it.
Speaker 2:So, successful, I guess, everywhere else in my life except for that area. So I did feel like a failure. I did feel like I was the one doing something wrong with every attempt that I made at trying to lose weight or change my body.
Speaker 1:That is such a common story that I hear and I experience the exact same thing of women who are so successful in all areas of their life, whether they're a job, or they're a really great mom, or they have a great relationship, all of these different areas of their life in which they're so successful, and just because of this food or this body thing, that entire thing kind of clouds everything else. You feel like that it's cognitive distortion. You're a therapist, you generalize that, you take on this identity of I'm a failure because you've been taught that it should be your fault, even though it's not. And then you hide the evidence in all of these different areas of your life of why you have so much to give and you are so much more than your body. But your entire life purpose is dedicated to this one thing, which is shrinking your body.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I think that truly was my life's purpose.
Speaker 1:There was always this belief or this feeling that I would be happy when Do you feel like there's anything that you were holding yourself back from doing or fully experiencing because there was this mentality of I'll be happy when, or I'll do this when, or I'll experience this when.
Speaker 2:I don't know, because I really just kind of, like I said, I was successful in so many other areas. I was really just kind of gung-ho about Most stuff. I mean, I would hold myself back from wearing a swimsuit in public without having like a swim skirt or you know tanking or something like over my belly or tucking shirts in. But I Don't, I don't really feel like it helped me back in other areas. I did not travel because of it or anything like that, but there was definitely a strong focus whenever I did those things, like whenever I'm walking out toward the beach or whatever, whenever I'm on vacation, like body monitoring and feeling like our people watching me.
Speaker 2:So I guess, yes, I did, because I did, I held myself back from really truly enjoying those occasions Because of body monitoring and wondering, you know, looking at myself through everybody else's eyes, wondering what they're thinking of me. Do they think that I look fat? Do they think I shouldn't be wearing this? Maybe I should have worn the other one. So maybe I shouldn't eat all of this in front of everybody. So, yeah, I guess I guess I did hold myself back in certain ways.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's kind of always on your mind, like, no matter what you're doing, who you're with, what you're experiencing, you could try your best to be enjoying it and be present in the moment. But, at least for me, I just felt like this kind of disconnection of I'm not fully there, I'm not fully present, because there's this voice in my head, this constant chatter of should you be eating that and how is that going to affect your weight and what are people thinking, and like it's just this constant, like bully in your mind that makes it really hard to fully engage in life. Yep, 100% true. And at what point did you realize that your relationship with food was problematic? Oh, man.
Speaker 2:I think I knew that my my relationship with food was problematic. Like I felt like my relationship with food was problematic from the get-go because I was raised in front of a TV With a refrigerator full of snack stuff and sodas and stuff like that, and so I I had the freedom to eat whatever I want and drink whatever I want as a kiddo and so fully engaged in that. And maybe maybe I was bigger before, I don't really remember, but like I knew at that, even at that point, that I was eating foods, that that didn't make me feel good but couldn't stop myself From eating them. So even at probably 13, 14 years old, I knew like, oh, I need to have this, like I've got to have this. There was something that pulled me to it for sure.
Speaker 1:And because it started at such a young age, did you ever have a mentality or a belief that, like there's just something wrong with me, like maybe I'm addicted to food, or there's something part of like my DNA or my biology that has made me have this relationship with food?
Speaker 2:Always, always. I think there's still a part of me that that somewhat believes that I have to argue with that. Still, even though I've come a come such a long way, I still have to like now come on, that's, that's my old way of thinking. That's not necessarily true. Yeah, so yeah, I was, I was. What was me, poor me victim? Everybody else does so well on all these diets in or they can eat whatever they want and look how thin they are, but no matter how hard I try, I'm still fat Like that.
Speaker 2:That was the ongoing dialogue in my head, probably from you know 13 or 14 until now. Well, not as much now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's that sense of learned helplessness, like there there must be. Just there's something wrong with me and like, no matter what, I try to become. This self-fulfilling prophecy, yeah, why do you think that you internalize this belief that there must be something wrong with me as like a body, as a person?
Speaker 2:I think, probably because of watching my mom and how she responded to stuff that she did that worked or didn't work, or didn't work A long time, but also because of, like, the message that we received from society of, oh, that didn't work here, try this instead, or you didn't, you didn't stick to that good enough, or like I don't know, just Messages like flying in from even loved ones and people that that cared and wanted to help Still flew in of like, oh well, you know, there must be something, there must be something that you're doing. Did you really stick close to the diet, did you? Yeah, kind of talk.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's. Uh. It's this belief that if you just had enough willpower, if you just are disciplined enough, then you can make your body look however you want to look.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all you have to do is stop eating.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so simple, oh, just stop breathing, stop sleeping. I'm doing anything that your body actually needs to survive and how important do you think it is um the mother's role in their relationship with food, raising their daughters, raising their son Absolutely huge.
Speaker 2:I know the impact that that's. Seen my mom always Criticize her own body. I know the impact that that had on me. She still does it. It still impacts me and I also know that unfortunately, I did that in front of my daughters and they have had um not so great relationship with their body because of it. They're better because of, I think probably because of me getting into doing therapy and learning how to help others. I was able to um apologize for the way that I spoke to myself in front of them and and kind of make amends and help them to see that they didn't have to follow that same path. But I know they still saw it Because I still see it in them. I still see them doing a double take in the mirror like, oh, you know, look at their bellies, and stuff like that. So it breaks my heart. But yeah, I do think it's huge.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wish I would have learned all of this a long time ago.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's.
Speaker 1:It's so tough because it's hard to heal others when you haven't healed yourself.
Speaker 1:And I hear a lot of women say like I, I am struggling and I do my best to not show it to my kids and not act around that way around my kids, but it's like your kids see from what you do, not what you say.
Speaker 1:And so when they see that you're not eating carbs or they see that you're very like protective and controlling around food and around exercise, like Kids are really a blank slate and and you know that as being a therapist like you grow up and then your program is based off what you see and the information that you take in. And that's why, like I'm thinking about it right now, probably the two most important things in your life are going to be what's happening in your home and what's happening in culture and in society and and what you're reading and what you're being exposed to. And so it's so important that, especially in those formative years before, like 12, 13 years old, that you're being exposed to the kind of messaging and the kind of information that you Want to take on when you're 40 or 50 or 60 years old, because that follows you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think there's hope for the the newest generations because of people like yourself getting out and about Inspiring people like myself to get out and start to try to make change. So I think that I think that change is coming, but, yeah, right now. Yeah, with the culture is still very, very powerful.
Speaker 1:Let's just say that. And um, when you were still struggling with your relationship with food, even up until a couple of months ago, when you joined the academy, when you thought about your future and when you thought, when you looked at other people and their relationship with food and their relationships with their bodies, what were your Dreams, your Desires like? What was the kind of person that you wanted to Become or act like or feel like or think like? When you're on your deathbed and and have your had your whole life passed by?
Speaker 2:Yeah, unfortunately, I think that I was still very much weight focused, and so any looks in the future was always Once I reached that number, once I reached that goal, how am I going to maintain it? What if I can't maintain it? And so there's always just been like a stress around it. Of course, I saw myself, you know, yes, I want to continue with my private practice and, and I want that to be successful, and I want to be able to Be involved in my kids life season, even as adults. You know, I want to be able to spend time with them and have a happy marriage and, you know, travel as much as possible. I have all those goals, but there was, they've always been tainted with the thought of how am I going if I am going to lose the weight. When I lose the weight, how will I maintain it? And, yeah, it's just always revolved around weight loss and how could I change my body, and because that was what I saw as being successful, yeah, period, yeah.
Speaker 1:And now looking back on it and seeing how much of your life's energy and purpose was driven by this constant desire to shrink your body, how does that make you feel?
Speaker 2:And it breaks my heart. It does. It absolutely breaks my heart because I feel like, even though it wasn't necessarily time wasted because it brought me to here, even though it, like I said, I wish it would have happened faster, it wasn't necessarily time wasted. But man, I think about the, the enjoyment, like I've been to Jamaica and a couple times and I've been to Mexico a couple times and just all these other trips that that are absolutely tainted by my Focus on food and weight and body monitoring and stuff. So I feel I feel upset, pissed off, I'm frustrated with the fact that I was so focused on that that I missed out on so much.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And at what point Did you feel like, okay, something needs to change. Like what was that tipping point for you from Deciding? Because I know that was hard for you. I remember talking to you just like maybe like six months ago and and you were still thinking about the next diet, and what was that Tipping point of realizing and what was kind of like the the mindset behind of realizing like, okay, what happens if I do another diet, what happens if I go back into that hamster wheel? Like what was that mindset for you to decide? Something is changing now.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm the tipping point, I think whenever I first met you I was I Was just coming off of Octavia. I did. Octavia lost like 50 pounds, was was feeling really confident, because apparently that's what I needed at that time to feel confident. And Then my daughter had went into the hospital and had all of this, these issues with Diverticulitis and a couple of surgeries, including an emergency one, and so I ended up with the stress of that, ended up putting the weight back on, and so I was in the throes of that. Whenever I came across, I think, one of your challenges that you did or something, and so I Knew that something had to give, of course, I was like, okay, well, that worked, but only worked short term, and so I was seriously considering ozimic whenever I first that's right, I forgot about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I, whatever. I first had a chat with you and so that was tipping point. That was like talking to you and having you kind of work me through the thought process of Okay, susan, you just did Octavia, right, you, you lost weight on it, but then you returned to normal eating and you gained it all back and then some. So what do you think is gonna happen if you do this shot? You know, if you take this or if you did other diet and I was almost like duh, I had myself full for so long that it would work this was gonna be the one that was gonna work long term and it was it was?
Speaker 2:it was a conversation with you on what, maybe one of your coffee chats or the challenge that you did, something that I partake in. Yeah, ever since then, that's that's been my mentality. I will. I'd be lying to say that those thoughts don't pop into my head whenever I see people that have lost a bunch of weight on Ozympic or something like.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, that'd be nice and I'm like huh nope, yeah, and you also now have the clarity to know, yeah, they lost weight, but where are they gonna be a year from now? And and I think that's something that I'm really appreciative I think I got probably got this from my dad. My dad has always really been a long-term thinker, and so he's an accountant.
Speaker 1:He is all about like saving money and calm down interest and he has that kind of mentality and so I think that that got instilled in me pretty young and so I Always think about anything not in, and I talked about this with you guys inside the Academy this week of we don't. We don't think about okay, what can I do a month from now or a year from now, but what is this gonna look like 10 years from now, 20 years from now, 30 years from now and when you can Elongate the timeline through which you look at life and you're no longer thinking about and I know it's so easy, like, especially when it doesn't feel safe to be in a bigger body in this society. It is, and there's a reason why diet culture is so strong is because it does a couple of things really well. It creates a sense of community which is, like, really huge to our safety and our survival as human beings, and it's not necessarily the kind of community, if you think about it, that you really want to have. Like it's a community of Women who are cheering each other on to shrink their bodies at, sometimes the expense of everything in their life, but it really gives you this sense of connection to people because you're both doing the same thing and you're, you're in this wagon together, so it does that really well. And then it also threatens your sense of safety because, yeah, you, it's no lie like we live in a society that discriminates against bigger bodies, and so when you're able to Look at and this is something we always do in the academy is like having compassion for the fact that, like, of course, I want to do something that is quickly going to make me feel better, so that I have this perception that at least I'm doing something, at least I'm doing something and moving forward and people are going to encourage me.
Speaker 1:But when you can actually break that bubble and look at, okay, yes, maybe in the short term you will feel better, you will feel like you're doing something and you're going to get compliments. But let's start tracking some patterns here, and that's what I did with you. It's let's. Let's track on the patterns that have happened in the past, and you probably look at all of the diet failures from the lens, and this is actually something that my own business coach made us do this week, and he made us look at what are two to three things that you deem as failures, as Disappointments that you've experienced in the past year.
Speaker 1:And and anyone who's listening, and and this is something that I do with you guys as well look at the two or three or four failures, disappointments, losses that you've experienced maybe in the fight past five years, and you're probably going to associate a lot of that to your weight loss attempts, your diets, food, because that takes up so much of your mental space. And then the next thing is what story, interpretation, perspective Do you associate to those failures? So, if you look at all of the failed diets that you had done, what story and interpretation had you created about all of those failures about you and about what it meant about you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, there was something wrong with me, something faulty in my wiring. If you will, yeah, and.
Speaker 1:And then the next question and that's a lot of the times. What happens is, if you hold on to this belief, there's something wrong with, there's something wrong with me and there's something wrong in my wiring. Going into the next year, if you carry that belief with you, what will the next year look like? Well, if you think that there's something wrong with you, then you're constantly going to be looking outside of you to fix it. So you're going to do the ozampic and the quick fixes and the fat diets because there's this driving belief. And when you can look at it from a different lens, of alright, let's look at all those failures and let's actually look at the Lessons that you can glean from that and and then the takeaways and you can disconnect yourself from them and actually start seeing patterns like you put a Bad, as scientists had on and for you. When you look at all those patterns and you disconnect yourself from it, what lessons could you take away from what kept happening for you?
Speaker 2:The lesson for me was that it works temporarily, it's a quick fix, but it's also a quick fail, yeah. So yeah, I can do that. The pattern is I can do it and succeed in it, and then not yeah. Does that answer the question?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And when you're able to disconnect yourself from it, then you're no longer the cause of the failure, you're no longer the one to blame, even though that's some wiring that you work through a lot in the program, yeah, and then you can go into the new year, or the new approach, or the new goal, with a new perspective of all.
Speaker 1:Right, then, what is actually important here and that's something that I hope that you took away from the program which is when you look at the root of the program, the root of the way that you feel about yourself, the root of your behaviors around food. It all comes down to your relationship with food, your relationship with your body and your relationship with yourself, right, yeah? And when you joined the academy, what were you hoping to get out of it?
Speaker 2:I know what you're going to say. She's going to show me how I can lose weight, but in a healthier way. Yeah yeah, I know that even with the name Food, fruit and Academy, there was still that little piece in my brain that was like this is the one that's going to work. This is where I'm going to learn the information that's going to help me to lose weight? Yeah.
Speaker 1:And if we go beyond the weight loss, was there anything else in terms of how you act around food, how you think around food, that you wanted to get out of it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wanted to improve that relationship with food. I wanted to be able to not feel like I had to be on a diet. I wanted to be able to. So I wanted the food freedom. But I wanted the food freedom to equal weight loss, I guess. So yes. I wanted to repair my relationship with food and to be able to take better care of myself, but there was at the back of my mind and that will result in weight loss.
Speaker 1:And what did repair your relationship with food? Look like to you, Like if I were to say all right, six months from now, your relationship with food looks completely different. What are the tangible things that you want to experience?
Speaker 2:Whenever I came in I guess I probably had it in my mind that it was going to be you were going to tell me what needed to be eaten and what needed to be avoided. Yeah, Because that's what I've experienced in the past With any other program I've been in. It's all the shoulds and shouldn'ts, and so I anticipated that that would be part of what this entailed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and what did you get instead in the program, like, what was your experience?
Speaker 2:Liberation, actual liberation I actually gained. Like it's in the title, food Freedom Academy. I don't have any shoulds or shouldn'ts. I don't have any strict shoulds or shouldn'ts with foods anymore. They're still there. This is three months in the making, three to six months since we've been talking, so I'm a work in progress, but there's so much more freedom around food. I don't sit and eat a meal now with guilt and thinking that I wonder how many calories are in this or this? Sure is a lot of carbs. If I eat this, I'm going to gain weight. That's just gone for the most part. Again, it still sneaks in every now and then. But I have the dialogue now to argue with myself from a place of love and be like no, there's no shoulds here. We don't should ourselves. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And in terms of I know that overeating was a big thing for you before you joined the program and we do a lot of that reprogramming around your behaviors around food. So how are your behaviors around food now?
Speaker 2:So much better. There's a couple of things. One of the main things that sticks out for me is whenever you told me at one point full math, empty hand, and so it reminded me like, put the fork down, really enjoy the bite that you have in your mouth right now, quit preparing for the next bite, like I would force feed myself. So that is something that stuck with me. It keeps me more mindful. It keeps me where I'm, actually enjoying and being satisfied by the meal, instead of eating something really fast and then going, oh, that was too much. Something else that I noticed that I do. I didn't realize it, but I would like save the best couple of bites for the last. You know like save the best for the last. That meat has a little bit more caramelization on it. That's going to be the last bite, because that's how I want to end it. But that just guaranteed that I would finish the whole meal because I've got those good bites set aside and so I've got to a place now where I go ahead and enjoy those early on.
Speaker 2:I have those best pieces first, so that it's so much easier. Whatever, I notice that I'm full, that I don't have to like still holding out for those last good bites I've already had them and so it just makes it easier to push the plate away and still have some food on it and not feel guilt for that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, feel satisfied. Yeah, for sure. And do you feel like going out to social events, being around food, is not as stressful for you anymore?
Speaker 2:Absolutely not. I love it. Yeah, I've been to a couple of parties. You know holidays are here and so I've been to a couple of parties even through Thanksgiving and Halloween and stuff, and it was just so nice to not be so focused on oh, I can't have that, I shouldn't eat that. It drives me crazy to think of how much I focused on it before. So even just the freedom from that, of not having to restrict myself or worry about what everybody's thinking of my plate or anything like that, it was awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. And what? So you mentioned that you thought that I was going to give you a set of rules and it was going to be kind of like the other things that you've done in the past. What surprised you about the process that I take you guys through and the things that I actually have you focus on? Because a lot of the work that we do is actually the work on yourself and the work on your brain and your subconscious mind, so you're a therapist. What were you surprised or maybe it was pleasantly surprised about the process and the way that you actually got to where you are today.
Speaker 2:I was probably most surprised by the fact that it wasn't food focused. It wasn't like. I think what I had pictured was that we were going to come in and we were going to have like a you know one food that we had deprived ourselves of for a long time, and we're going to be given permission, I guess, to enjoy it and then, like, maybe slowly taper off and then try another food. I don't know what I had in my head, so the surprise was in that it wasn't food focused, it wasn't calorie focused, it wasn't carb focused. You weren't telling us what it is that we needed to eat or what we shouldn't eat to feel better.
Speaker 2:It was all mindset and, I think, because I'm a therapist and I was aware to some extent that that's really where the work was, but I just never, I, never, I never fully believed it. I never fully believed that that would make a difference.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I feel the same way because I have, as you know, I've done so many coaching programs when it comes to business and I've learned from some of the greatest coaches in the world and I always thought joining a business coaching program like just tell me what to do, give me the strategy, like give me, just tell me the plan, and then I would go into it. And they would always say the same thing, which is the doing is only important, is only as important as the being doing, the doing. And if you don't change the person, you're being doing, the doing it doesn't matter, it truly doesn't matter. Because if we look at the be do have model. If you want to have something different, you need to be something different. And now, as I've been doing this work for a long time and I keep doing this work on myself, you actually start to see, like you, you have to do the work on yourself before you actually start believing of like, oh, yes, it makes sense, like it makes sense that I have to work on myself.
Speaker 1:And I was talking to you guys about the Mel Robbins podcast that I listened to this week, about the subconscious mind, and he said something along the lines of people don't want to look at that piece of themselves, right? They know that there are things that I am repressing, that I'm not looking at. It's kind of like this devil that's growing inside of us and we think, if I just don't look at it, it's going to go away. Right, yeah? And he uses the analogy which I love, which is imagine that you have an over Flowing toilet in your house and, instead of like addressing it, you're like you know what? I'm just, I'm just gonna, I don't like that, so I'm just going to go do something else.
Speaker 1:And then what happens is it's just going to make a absolute mess and it's just going to get worse over time. And that's really what hiding your actual relationship with food and with your body and with yourself does is it creates this weight that you carry around with you and it becomes heavier and heavier and heavier over the years. And then either you hit a rock bottom when you're in your fifties and your sixties and you're like, wow, I don't want to live my retirement feeling this way, or you never hit that. And then you get at the end of your life and you're like, wow, so many missed opportunities there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I can't even imagine being on my deathbed Looking back. I'm so, I feel so blessed to have found this, to have found your program before I reached that point. Yeah, because I think I would have just kept going. I would have just kept dieting and then losing weight and then gaining the weight back and then some, and I would just be on that same cycle and that is probably what would have killed me. Honestly, just the damage that it does to your body to go in and out like that of different restrictions and additional weight and then losing it and getting it back. That probably is what would result in me being on my deathbed. Yeah, and I mean, like seriously, would I be sitting there thinking, man, if I should, if I just would have done that diet instead of that one, is that what would have saved me? I hate that, I hate that. But again, it's such a blessing to have found you before I got to that point.
Speaker 1:That's such a good point is that people are driven either by trying to move away from pain or towards pleasure, and for anyone who's listening right now, it is a very scary but important question to ask yourself. Which is what will that look like for me if I keep doing this? And it's so easy again to look for the quick fixes, but quick fixes lead to long term implications on your health, on your mental health, and what do you feel and this is something I said on our last call this week. I said once you see it, you can't unsee it, and once you kind of have that bug to start working on yourself, then you just want to keep doing it and because you see, wow, this improves my life in so many ways. So what do you feel like now that you've gone through the program and you've gone, some of these tools is going to be the ripple effect on the rest of your life and your future.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, I just think I'm going to have improved mental health overall because I'm not so focused on it. I experience it has an impact beyond just my relationship with food. I think that it just frees me up for other things, like I'm learning how to play guitar now because I'm not sitting around, you know, playing on my menu for the week, or I don't know lazily watching TV or whatever, because I'm exhausted from all of the meal prep that I did, or whatever the case may be. So, ripple effect, I think it's going to impact me more than just my relationship with food. I think that it's going to impact my family's relationship with food. I know for a fact it's already impacted my sisters. Like I'm starting to kind of share details that I think will be beneficial for her, because she's in that same boat with me and always trying to change my body. But also my plan is to over the next year or so hopefully no over the next year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was going to catch you. I was like Susan, you know how we feel about the word hopefully.
Speaker 2:I am going to figure out what the steps necessary to get certified at health at every size so that I can start taking some of the same steps that you are whether it be through podcast or my therapy sessions and like narrowing in that focus to helping people free themselves from the diet culture.
Speaker 1:So ripple effect is that maybe you're having helped me is going to end up helping hundreds, maybe thousands of other people yeah yeah, and that's what I love about the work that I do is I don't just want to show you how to do something. I want to give you the tool so that you know how to do it yourself and you can share it with others. And whenever I hear people who go through the Academy and decide to either become a coach or a therapist and do this for other people, it just it warms my heart so much, because if we can have more voices who are spreading this message, like I said, diet culture is still very persuasive, it is still very powerful and it's everywhere and it's the norm. It's what we have as the undercurrent of our society and it's difficult to go against it, and I think that's something that is necessary to mention for you. Did you find it hard to go against what you have been taught your entire life? What is going on everywhere around you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean yes, absolutely. It's challenging, but I think probably the most challenging part of it is I already felt like I was kind of the butt of jokes because of having always been on a different diet and so then changing to this mindset of I'm not dieting anymore, like I still question whatever dialogue I use. I'm not dieting anymore. I'm really working on my relationship with food. I'm free to have whatever I want. I feed myself foods that nurture my body, that nourish me, whatever.
Speaker 2:I still tend to look at myself through the lens of others and I wonder what they're thinking like. This is just another fad for her. You know what's next. So, and also another challenge of it is because diet culture is still so like ingrained in everywhere. There's still so much dialogue at brunches that I go to parties that I go to, where everyone around me is still focused on what's going on their plate. Oh, I can't have that because that's got too much sugar. You know, are there any sugar free options that has low carbs I think I'll go to? Oh, there's a meat and cheese tray Awesome, it's just, it's everywhere. And I think that's the biggest challenge and I, you know, I want to be able to talk to everybody about it, but not everybody is ready to hear that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and talk about so many diets. They're like okay, susan, don't talk to me about you, know what you're on now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And when you see people who are now still avoiding the sugar and avoiding the carbs and you see that they're still so deep in diet culture, how does it make you feel?
Speaker 2:Sad for them but blessed for myself, like happy to be free from that and happy to not feel like I have to restrict myself and to know that it's crazy.
Speaker 2:Once I started allowing myself to have that stuff, it didn't seem so powerful anymore, and so I think I told you, probably weeks ago, that I had some little sugar cookie things that I could just throw in the air fryer if I want a cookie. I bought a package that has, like I don't know, 12 to 24 cookies in it. I don't even know how many are in it, but I had a couple. Like the first couple of days I allowed myself full freedom. You know, have a couple of them, it sounds good, eat them, enjoy them. And now there probably is more than half of the pack left in the fridge and it's just in there. It doesn't sound good right now, so I'm not going to have any if it sounds good later than I will, and so it's just amazing that the mindset change is that that stuff doesn't have power over anymore, because it did forever. For as long as I can remember, food has had power over me.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:If it was in there, it was calling my name. If I was going to have a package of Oreos, then let's go, because I'm fixing to go through that whole thing in a couple of days, because I'm not going to do that again.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So now I have the freedom to have it if I'd like to, and I typically don't choose to Like. Yesterday for lunch I had celery with ranch Lots of it, and it was amazing Wow.
Speaker 1:And when you heard me describe what it meant to become an intuitive eater through the academy right, being able to listen and trust your body and being able to know that you can have the foods that you want and actually sometimes not choose it and choose healthier options just because you're craving it, and not feel guilt or shame, and be able to go to the restaurant and order the thing that you truly want and not feel bad about it and not need to finish your plate. So I just heard that description. Did you have a voice that said there's no way in hell that can be you.
Speaker 2:Yep, I was the special snowflake.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. This probably won't work for me. I don't know how she's going to ever convince me that I can have that, said that and feel okay about it. Yeah, I was. I was the special snowflake. I figured I'll give it a whirl, I'll give it a try.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that was the question I was going to ask you is like, what was the mindset that got you to, even with all of that doubt, still say you know, I'm just going to trust the process, I'm just going to do what she says and kind of hope for the best.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, I think that your belief in it definitely pulled me through at the very beginning and just knowing that I need to do something different, even especially, I'll say, after we had that conversation, you're like so, susan, you know what's going to happen if you go on another diet, especially since I had that little flip, it made it easier, like I knew that you were onto something. I knew that I was onto something if I followed you after that.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, there was I don't know. There was just something that happened in that moment that I was like holy crap, she's right, like I could do another diet, but I'm just going to be right back on that track again. That I was like I think she knows something that I need to know.
Speaker 1:She knows a secret that she's not telling anyone.
Speaker 2:I need these details yeah.
Speaker 1:And how do you feel now, now that you've made so much progress, made so many changes in your life? How do you feel now, after doing the program?
Speaker 2:I feel grateful beyond measure, I feel blessed, I feel free. I mean, it's the perfect. It's the perfect title to the program yeah, feel free. I don't have to stress over food anymore. I don't have to stress over changing my body anymore. I will eat foods that are delicious. I will eat foods that are nutritious, that make my body feel good. I will move and enjoy it. So I'm not saying that I'm just going to sit around and, you know, eat bonbons all day and watch Netflix.
Speaker 1:I'm not, I'm definitely not saying that.
Speaker 2:But I have the freedom now to choose the things that I enjoy and have fun with and find delicious and nourishing. So yeah, jeff, it's. I'm just blessed. I really am.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I'm. I'm so grateful that you took that leap on yourself and for anyone kind of as we're wrapping this up, for anyone who right now is where you were a couple of months ago and has all of this self doubt, I'm the special snowflake. It won't work for me. You have no idea, sabrina, like you don't know what my past looks like and I've been struggling.
Speaker 1:There's no way that I could be coming into an invader Like you are probably the person who is the most perfect to talk to that, because it was your entire life and you probably couldn't even remember what a healthy relationship with food ever was. I don't, I don't, yeah. So for anyone who is in that position, what would you say to them?
Speaker 2:I would say you are not a special snowflake. You can make the change, take the leap. You've probably tried every other diet in the book anyways, so why not try something different? Why not try what's considered, you know, mainstream diet, culture, whatever? Break free from the trap of everything that you've been stuck in for so long and try something different, and you'll achieve different results. Yeah, completely different than I even expected.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's going to be uncomfortable, it's going to be different and, like I always say to you guys, inside the program, on the other side of discomfort, is growth, right, no, growth happens inside of your comfort zone. So, susan, thank you so much for being here. You're awesome and I'm so excited to kind of follow you this year as you're changing the direction of your practice and maintaining everything inside the academy. Thanks so much for being here and happy holidays and we'll see you in the new year. Yes, thank you so much.