291. How to Lose Weight AND Love Yourself (because you can do both!) with Sas Petherick [Body Stories Series]

Today’s episode is with my long-time friend and colleague Sas Petherick. It’s about those times when you want to lose weight… but you also want to love your body.

This is also the beginning of our new Body Series: ongoing conversations about the nuances of being in relationship with our bodies. And today I'm announcing the first live round of my Your Emotional Eating Blueprint: Why Am I Eating This Now? course, which you can hear more about by getting on my email list!

We discuss:

• Sas’ relationship with her body + illness
• Diet culture as “thin at all costs”
• Feeling peace within our bodies
• Centering strength & health instead of weight loss
• How Sas has changed her eating habits
• Why restriction is different than deprivation
• Doing the “good thing” vs actually feeling good
• Finding satisfaction in our day-to-day
• Letting go of the Weight Watchers “walk of shame”

More about our guest: Sas Petherick believes that healing our self-doubt is one of the most important contributions we can make to ourselves, our families, our work, and the world.

Sas holds a Master's degree from Oxford, and her research on self-doubt was published in the International Journal of Coaching and Mentoring. She has developed an evidence-based, trauma-informed, ICF-accredited coaching methodology for cultivating self-belief.

For over a decade, Sas has coached with hundreds of women experiencing self-doubt in their professional and personal lives. Sas hosts the top 1% rated self-doubt podcast Courage & Spice which has enjoyed over half a million downloads. She is also an accomplished speaker and has developed coaching workshops and programmes for clients like BBC Worldwide and Pinterest. Her writing has appeared in numerous magazines.

After 25 years in the UK, Sas currently lives by the beach in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland, with her partner Ash and pooch Bohdi, imagining a post-capitalist world, exploring consciousness, and listening to obscure UFO podcasts.

Connect with Sas Petherick:

• Visits Sas’s website
• Follow Sas on Instagram
• Subscribe to Sas’s newsletter Courage & Spice

Mentioned in this episode:

• That Sugar Film
• Freedom From Cravings Self Study
• Opt in here to be the first to hear about the first live round of my Why Am I Eating This Now? mini-course 

🌟 Registration for Your Emotional Eating Blueprint is now open! You can enroll for only $67 until April 30th or sign-up for a free sneak peak here: https://alishapiro.com/blueprint/

Transcript

Ali Shapiro [00:00:00]:
Welcome to Insatiable, the podcast where we discuss the intersection of food, psychology, and culture.

Sas Petherick [00:00:09]:
I think I've had this story around restriction as deprivation. And what I'm actually finding is this is a much more intuitive partnering with my body, but it doesn't feel like deprivation.

Ali Shapiro [00:00:29]:
I'm your host, Ali Shapiro, an integrated health coach, thirty two year and counting cancer survivor, and have radically healed my relationship with food and my body. And for the past seventeen years, I've been working with clients individually, in group programs, and in company settings to do the same. Welcome. The information in this podcast should not be considered personal, individual, or medical advice. We're back. It is so wonderful to be back in the insatiable podcasting seat. I have missed these kinds of conversations, especially with the world getting crazier and crazier. Today's episode is with my longtime friend and colleague, Sas Petherick.

Ali Shapiro [00:01:16]:
And this is about when you wanna lose weight and love your body. How do you square those things? Or as Seth said, you know, a lot of people will come to her and be like, I know I shouldn't wanna lose weight, but I really wanna feel good in my body, or I need to lose 10 pounds at midlife. And I have these conversations all the time with people. And so we're bringing these conversations that, obviously, I can't record with my clients because I'm very big on confidentiality out into the open in terms of SAS's own story. And so she has graciously and bravely been willing to have the conversations that she and I were having over Voxer podcast. In fact, it was her idea, which I thought was a great one. So we'll get more into that today. But the idea is about how do you really square wanting to love yourself, wanting to feel great in your body, and feeling great about yourself, and perhaps needing to lose weight or even wanting to lose weight.

Ali Shapiro [00:02:11]:
So we're gonna talk about that. And I just wanna let all of you know for the first time ever, and and I don't actually be the only time, I am hosting a why am I eating this now mini course in mid April through mid May. So we'll end right before summer kicks off, you know, unofficially Memorial Day. But this is gonna be a four week class for those people who want to get to the deeper understanding of why they're falling off track. So if you're someone who knows there's something deeper, but you can't quite put your finger on it, this is the class for you. Okay? It is also for people who want to eat more healthfully, consistently without more rules and perfectionist pressure, which is exactly what we need in time for summer when all of our schedules kinda go out the boot. Out the boot? Oh my god. Out the out the window.

Ali Shapiro [00:03:02]:
So this is the first time I'm get like I said, I'd be running this class, and it's also gonna be the only time I'm running live. And it's gonna be super accessible at only $97. So there's a link in the show notes to get onto my list once I release all the information, but I would love to have you there. So if you've listened to Insatiable for years, you're ready to integrate some of this knowledge and take real actionable steps in your life, and they are small and manageable. Right? A lot of times we think perfectionism, it's gonna be this big deal. No. Very small and very manageable. You're gonna learn how to have more consistency without less food rules.

Ali Shapiro [00:03:39]:
So that's my why am I in this now mini course, and I'm gonna be running it live this time only from mid April to mid May. And you can get all the details when they become available by signing up for my list, which is in the show notes. Okay. And with that, enjoy today's episode. It was rich. It was soulful. And because Sass is so brilliant in who she is, I think it's gonna give you a lot of insight into how to square this dilemma so many people come to me with of wanting to love themselves, wanting to be compassionate, and still needing or wanting to lose weight or change their body composition. Enjoy.

Ali Shapiro [00:04:22]:
Sass, I am so excited for us to chat. I think there's a lot of energy, enthusiasm about what we're gonna talk about today, the body stories.

Sas Petherick [00:04:32]:
I'm nervous too. Yay. What do you think's going on? Well, let's for for our dear listeners, maybe let me give some context and we'll we'll jump on in. So I'm Sass. I'm 52. I'm a coach by trade. That's what I do. I work at home, and I've always been in a bigger body.

Sas Petherick [00:04:54]:
And I've never loved that. I've always felt like there was at least one much leaner, stronger person living inside of me. And because I'm 52, I grew up in the eighties and nineties where we had some pretty toxic and difficult ideas about what a body should look like, particularly a woman's body. And I've worked really hard, like, really hard over the years to kind of come to a place of real peace with my body, which I absolutely have, and a real reverence and love for living in this form. And I also have a quite a complex heart condition. So I take seven different medications and I'll be on those for the rest of my life. And I have a very close kind of contact with a medical team who are basically keeping me alive. So I'm in active heart failure, which is a hereditary condition.

Sas Petherick [00:05:51]:
I have a pacemaker, and I have some other bits and pieces that I won't bore people with. But all to say that I'm quite limited in what I can do physically, like, not hugely limited, but I I have, you know, heart incidents regularly. I have AFib, which is when your heart beats quite fast and sometimes it slows down as well. So I'm constantly aware of being in this body that is vulnerable, I guess is the word. And I also know and have been encouraged to lose weight because that would be more gentle for my heart. And so I've been playing with this for a couple of years, this idea of wanting to lose weight for genuine health reasons, alongside this long history of it's felt hard one to get to a place where I really care about my body and want to nourish it well. And what I'm finding as I kind of gently move into losing weight, I want to do this very differently. And so who do I turn to? But my my bestie, Ally, we've known each other for well over a decade, and we're in each other's boxes most days.

Sas Petherick [00:07:09]:
And this is so your love language is how to help people rest in their bodies. And so you and I have been having these delicious conversations on Voxer. And we both well, I said to you, do you know, I think so many of the folks that listen into my podcast would love a little insight into this. And you were like, let's do it. So here we are, and we've decided to call this series The Body Stories. We think we'll probably meet up once every couple of months to do a bit of a check-in on this process of losing weight in a healthy way. We have no idea what's going to happen, but we're kind of willing to go anywhere and have lots of conversations about what's happening. For those of you listening on Courage and Spice you'll know that my work is about self doubt and body stuff comes up all the time.

Sas Petherick [00:08:05]:
So my hope is that these conversations will spark your own kind of thoughts and and ponderings about your own relationship with your body. And, Ellie, maybe you could introduce your work as well and share a little bit about why you're here.

Ali Shapiro [00:08:23]:
Yeah. Well, you made me tear up when you said that this I'm, like, sleep deprived. Do you know this? And this sass, you just are so good at the heart of the matter, but I teared up when you said it's my love language because it's hard one love language myself. Right? And I can relate to so much of what you're talking about. And as you were boxing me, I said, Oh, this just happened to come up in some of my group programs of people saying, I want to change my body composition or I want to lose weight. But how does this square with my work, which is about how do we partner with our body? How do we have a truce? How do we have to stop the battle with our bodies? And it's like, can you square that? And we've talked about how you have this chronic condition. And I've had an acute trauma of having cancer when I was 13. And because I didn't know how to deal with that emotional baggage, it turned into I could outrun what I ate back then.

Ali Shapiro [00:09:24]:
And I've had a storied history with emotional eating and binging and putting everything off in life until once I lost weight. Right? And like you, and I think a lot of people at midlife, there's this added complexity layer of health, real health concerns. Right? For you, it's your heart condition. For me at the time, it was irritable bowel syndrome, depression. For a short minute, it was infertility that I was able to work through, but it's been early menopause. And dealing with a lot of those health questions and whatnot. And so that is really what I realized through a lot of trial and error in my twenties and thirties was. And I love that we both work with beliefs and stories, is that diet culture, people define it different ways, but it's thin at all costs.

Sas Petherick [00:10:12]:
Gosh. That's such a good way of saying that. Yeah.

Ali Shapiro [00:10:16]:
Override your hunger, work out even if it sucks. Don't go to the social event if it means you're gonna go off track or pack your own food or whatever it is. It's thin at all costs. And then both of our work is rooted in developmental psych, which is about complexity fitness, right, which is about being able to hold the end essentially.

Sas Petherick [00:10:35]:
And that's the thing, isn't it? Like, thin at all costs, quite ironically, a thin story. Right? It's like it there's no room for nuance. There's no room for complexity there. And I think, you know, when we add in layers of things like our values, you know, we're both very progressive. I would say well, I was thinking for me maybe, but feminist and believe wholeheartedly in women identifying humans, feeling fully expressed. Like most of our clients are women and, and femmes, and we want all body shapes like this. Isn't, you know, there's a wrong and the right. And I think the conversations that are being had out in the world are so limiting and you're either this or that.

Ali Shapiro [00:11:17]:
Yeah. So it's like thin at all costs. And then the reaction, an equal opposite reaction to that, was body positivity, health at every size. And yes. Also, yes. And though, because it was in the binary or our work as the socialized mind, it was all weight loss is damaging that.

Sas Petherick [00:11:36]:
That's the pendulum swing. Right?

Ali Shapiro [00:11:40]:
And I mean, I've been ostracized in feminist circles because I will talk about weight loss. But what I'm trying to say is we can have the complexity or the nuance of how can we lose weight in a way that actually strengthens our relationship to ourselves. And that's what kind of our Voxer conversations have been around that. And what does that actually look like? Because you really have to unlearn most things everywhere.

Sas Petherick [00:12:10]:
Yes. And I think that's the one of the things that I've really been realizing is I've said to myself or I told myself this story that I've reached a level of peace in my body. Right? And so I've been challenged by this idea of it would probably be good for your heart if you weighed less, if you lost fat, basically change your body's composition so that you're leaner and stronger and you lose body fat because I have a quite a high body fat percentage. And I've been thinking, well, if I felt complete peace, that would be a pretty neutral statement. Right? That would be a cool, okay, like any other innocuous thing. Actually, it would be better if you cut your hair because you've got some kind of situation going on with your hair. Like, just get it cut and everything will be good kind of thing. Right? It would feel neutral.

Sas Petherick [00:13:03]:
It has felt the least neutral thing ever. Right? And I think I've been really challenged by this idea that, well, am I do I feel peace with my body? Or have I just convinced myself that it doesn't really matter? You know, it's almost like I've gone to a place of kind of going, okay. Well, it's almost indifference to my body. And I don't wanna be there. I wanna change my relationship with my body so that it is one of partnering. And that's why I just love your work because that's what you show people how to do.

Ali Shapiro [00:13:41]:
Yeah. And I think what you're describing is, and again, even though we say the pendulum is has swung, I think that's a natural part of development. Like when you wake up to the, you know, fuckery that is diet culture, it's like, why have I been believing all of this for so long? I was like, okay, I just, I have to give up losing weight. I remember telling myself in my mid twenties, like, you're just going to have to learn to be fat. And I had to unlearn that. But I think what you're describing is this really wonderful place of does peace have to mean neutrality or can it mean loving and being in choice at the same time holding both? Because I think a lot of times when nervous system work is in the ether. Right. And again, I look at through so much of the body and people think a regulated nervous system is calm and it's like, no, a regulated nervous system knows when to fight, when to flight.

Ali Shapiro [00:14:36]:
Right. It has choice. It has agency. And so what I think you're describing is, woah, because I've, I've done the work to be at peace with my body. Now I can actually take in this information, hold what it's bringing up, but not go react back into diet culture. So I just wanna honor all of that work counts.

Sas Petherick [00:14:58]:
Yeah. Okay. Good. Good. Yeah. Yeah. I'd seen at the start, like, I do feel a little nervous about these conversations. I think mostly because this does feel vulnerable.

Sas Petherick [00:15:10]:
I don't really know what's gonna come up, but I'm willing to look at that. It's also a public conversation. Right? Like, so this will have elements of coaching, and I'll be in the coach's chair and, the coachee's chair rather, the client's chair, and Ally will be the coach. And I'm so willing to offer that out to the world because I think it's so interesting to get a little insight into what that's like. And I'm super happy to be in the hot seat for that. But I guess I am also aware that for a lot of us, this idea of where do I sit on that spectrum of body positivity and diet culture and what voices am I listening to around that, and how is it influencing my own relationship with my body? And also, honestly, you know, I I have a background noise of, and the world is on fire. Does anyone really care what size you are? Like, so, you know, holding all of that complexity is kind of, it's an interesting spot to be in.

Ali Shapiro [00:16:13]:
Yeah. I wanna bring up the piece of the world on fire because you know I care deeply about the world being on fire as you and I have bonded over a lot of political you know, you and I are both, I would say, quite aware of political history and and current events. And this work actually, I think is so important at this time because of the journey that hopefully people go on in a healthy way that will reveal itself as we go through these stories. But what you said was I feel peace about my body. Right. And so much of this work is about feeling peace within our bodies. And so if we were in a more embodied world, including really being in our bodies and because so many of us work with women recognizing when am I eating to have energy to push through because I'm taking on too much. Right.

Ali Shapiro [00:17:05]:
When am I leaving my body? Because all of this is so messy and complex in the world events. Right. And what is actually mine to do and what are my gifts to bring forward? So this is actually it doesn't seem on the surface it's connected, but, you know, kind of what got us even started was you realizing how fucked up the food companies and how it wasn't your fault.

Sas Petherick [00:17:31]:
Okay. Yes. Yes. So I've had this invitation from my my cardiologist to to lose weight, which was, I have to say, the kindest and most loving invitation from my doctor as an Asian New Zealand man who's very small and slight. And he just kind of looked at me and he said, you know, because I'm like, what can I do? Because this is a genetic condition lifelong condition. So I do feel quite powerless around it. And he said, you know, I would like to see you lose a little body fat. I think that would take some pressure off your heart.

Sas Petherick [00:18:08]:
And I wonder how that feels to you. And I'm just like just a tearing up thinking about that. I mean, it felt so loving. I did not feel in any way embarrassed or humiliated or angry or indignant. Like, there was none there was just I couldn't feel any of those emotions. I just thought, oh, yeah. I'm interested in that. I can see where you're coming from here.

Sas Petherick [00:18:32]:
It felt so loving. And I thought, I wonder if that is the loving work that I can do. And so I sat with it for a while, and I started you know how your interest gets piqued. I started kind of reading some stuff, and I was talking to you about it. I watched this documentary on Netflix about sugar, and it was a really fun, creative documentary. I think it's about five or six years old by an Australian guy who found out that the average Australian eats around 40 teaspoons of sugar a day. And he just thought that was utterly outrageous. And so he decided, well, I'm gonna do that and see what happens just as a documentary fun exercise to see what would happen.

Sas Petherick [00:19:14]:
The thing that radicalized me was he did not just stuff his face with chocolate and sweets. He ate diet food. He ate protein bars and cereal, healthy granola, and he juiced. And he did all of these things that meant that he was taking in around about the same calories per day as his usual diet, which from memory was around about 2,300 calories. It was the same calorific intake, but he just made sure that he had 40 teaspoons of sugar a day. And he basically shortened his life by ten years. It was for he did it for ninety days. It was ridiculous.

Sas Petherick [00:19:54]:
Like, got all of the kind of blood tests and and, you know, all the functional kind of tests just to see what had happened. But he said the worst thing was that he just lost his joy for life. It was like he was tired all the time, short-tempered, couldn't see the point, all of that kind of stuff. And the thing that really radicalized me was I just thought since I was at my very first Weight Watchers meeting at age 11, I've always thought low fat was the way to go. And so I've believed that notion because fat is bad, bad, right, and I'm using that too very pejoratively. Fat has I've been brought up in the eighties, seventies and eighties, fat's bad, low fat equals smaller body, then you win at life. And I realized, holy crap, this is a doorway, right? That's that's what it felt like. Like, this is a doorway.

Sas Petherick [00:20:53]:
What if I decided to really care about and educate myself on how I could lose weight differently. Because I I now know if I go back to losing weight via that that method, then it's gonna end in tears and I'm gonna end up in a really disappointed and frustrated place. So, yeah, that totally radicalized me. And then I basically sent you a nine minute rant. Which I loved. I was like,

Ali Shapiro [00:21:23]:
can I get a witness?

Sas Petherick [00:21:24]:
Yeah. Exactly. And and I just thought, Ellie, I have to do this differently. Like, what? This is wrong. This is uncool. And like everyone else, right, like, my Instagram feed is basically, are you made of protein yet? Right? Like, literally, like, whatever you think you're eating in terms of protein, double it. And I think that has just become white noise to me. So so I I just can't hear that message enough.

Sas Petherick [00:21:56]:
I have also started, like, following women in their fifties who are strength training because I recognize that is something I've always enjoyed, and I think I wanna get back into that in a bit more of a intentional way. I've been dabbling, if I'm totally honest, but I don't have a regular routine. So that's something I really wanna explore. I feel like I'm sort of waking up to a new relationship with my with my body. You know?

Ali Shapiro [00:22:21]:
Yeah. You know, this is like on the most obvious level of what that guy was saying. Right. About I lost my zest for life. I lost my drive. Right. I sometimes think that I don't believe that there is an organizing force in The States, the way that some of the people in the wellness world, anytime someone's saying they I'm like, the world is not that organized.

Sas Petherick [00:22:43]:
If you've ever been part of a group project at work, you know, that this is conspiracy.

Ali Shapiro [00:22:49]:
Exactly. But I often wonder, like, our food supply makes us exhausted, unfocused, and that is very wonderful for corrupt power. Right? So and one of the big things that you're realizing and what I wanna talk to you about today and and kind of catch people up to speed where you are is that so many women are undernourished. They're undereating. They don't realize there's this, again, the overall political agenda, but also norms. We believe restriction is a strategy. Right? Like you said, I want it life. If I eat low fat and don't enjoy my food and right.

Ali Shapiro [00:23:29]:
And so one of the things is we start orienting towards life of like, I need to restrict, I need to get smaller, right? Metaphorically and everything. So there's a lot of ripple effect of why learning to fuel yourself, fuel your brain. You mentioned strength training, which does wonders for our mental health. When you feel physically strong again in our bodies, show up differently. Right. Okay. So I want to ask you, cause one of the big things that's been really and again, we talked about kind of the belief underneath this about restriction, but so you started kind of eating some more fat and all that stuff. And what was so revelatory for you about when you started adding in, like, good stuff rather than just taking away?

Sas Petherick [00:24:15]:
Yeah. Well, so one of the things that I'm realizing is I don't actually just wanna lose weight or change my body composition. I want to create a body that is strong and healthy for the rest of my life. So this can't be some kind of stupid diet that I would have followed in the in my teens and twenties. You know? It it just can't be a short term thing. So you and I have talked a little bit about paying more attention to eating whole foods. Right? Like, eating foods as they come and not worrying so much about minimizing the sugar or getting paranoid about that, but, like, adding in the stuff that as it came and and don't panic too much about fats and stuff. So what I have been doing, well, this sort of because everyone wants to know, well, what are you eating? So I'm basically making sure that I have two full meals a day.

Sas Petherick [00:25:06]:
And the reason I say that and please don't take this as, like, instruction. I know you won't, dear listener. You're so smart. But me, personally, I don't feel that hungry in the morning. And I'm curious to know if that changes as I start moving differently. But I don't really feel that hungry until maybe eleven, eleven thirty. So at around that time, I'm having a meal that is usually chicken or fish with whole half plate of veggies, sauce or something, some fats in there, like maybe some avocado or something creamy to go with it. And that feels lovely and nourishing and fulfilling to me.

Sas Petherick [00:25:43]:
What I'm noticing is that that can keep me pretty satiated until dinner time when I have another meal that is relatively similar. And so this process of, like, two full meals a day is fueling me, And I think I've had this story around restriction as deprivation. And what I'm actually finding is this is actually a much more intuitive partnering with my body where, okay, so I'm not hungry until 11:30. So so that's okay. Like, don't make that wrong. It might change. Right now, that's how you feel. Go with it.

Sas Petherick [00:26:26]:
And also, like, I'm eating way less than I might have when I wasn't really paying attention to this. But it doesn't feel like deprivation. Like, I'm definitely, like, conscious that I'm not going, oh, 04:00. It's chocolate time. Like, I'm trying not to and I I mean, I am a champion snacker. Like, six year old kids across the world are jealous of my snack game. Right? I'm I can have some fruit and some cheese and some chocolate and all kinds of things. It's ace.

Sas Petherick [00:26:56]:
But I'm just not hungry for that. And I think that's the bit that is really surprising me is for me right now, restriction is not equaling deprivation.

Ali Shapiro [00:27:07]:
We talked about earlier. This is a great example of growing up in the eighties and feeling peace about your body, feeling like I was doing the good thing versus feeling good. Right. The embodiment of feeling good. You use the word nourishing. Like it feels good in my body. You unbox or you shared like I'm not hungry. I'm not having the same cravings for like actual physical hunger.

Ali Shapiro [00:27:34]:
So that's, I think such a mindset shift and belief story, whatever we want to call it, that gets in the way of so many people. They think that they're doing it right. If they feel deprived and restricted. And so that stops people from really understanding what does work for me. And I just want to point out because both of our work is about making new meaning of things, right? You're redefining works. It's not, did I suddenly lose two pounds this week? It's do I feel pretty good in my body and satisfied for the next several hours? So I don't know how that lands.

Sas Petherick [00:28:13]:
And that's totally it. And I love that distinction between doing the good thing, like, and actually feeling good. Because what's the point in doing the good thing if it leaves you feeling like shit? Literally, what is the remember, folks, the world's on fire. Right? So I think that's the thing that I'm learning is, does it feel good to me? Do I feel satisfied? And it is astonishing to me that I can be consciously, I guess, dieting. I don't know what there's another probably a better word for it, and feel satisfied. Like, I'm that's the complexity that I'm finding quite tricky to hold because I think I've, you know, I have unlocked from diet culture so much that to be in this place very consciously and choosing it and to feel satisfied, it's almost like, you know, what is my life kind of stuff going on? You know?

Ali Shapiro [00:29:08]:
You know, I think you're describing diet as a noun, not a verb. Like, I have to have a diet of something instead of it being work because that's another thing. And this is kind of more relational, but so many of us grow up thinking you gotta work hard to succeed. And so we think we have to work really hard at food. And it's like, okay, I gotta have a meal plan. I gotta go to five different grocery stores. I gotta be thinking about it. And one of the things that you said was, like, I'm just shocked that I'm eating less, but I'm also thinking about food less.

Ali Shapiro [00:29:42]:
And I was like, SAS is learning to trust that the food is actually the easy part.

Sas Petherick [00:29:48]:
It can actually be easy. Yeah. I think you're right. And I'm kind of fascinated by the the sort of shift in how differently I feel about food as well. Like, I think, like, in the past and I wonder if folks listening can relate to this. In the past, I'd be like, right. Your diet starts Monday. And I would go through the house and get rid of any food that was dangerous, wrong, bad.

Sas Petherick [00:30:19]:
I've not done any of that. And partly because my husband is a very foodie person. He's a kind of amateur chef alongside his IT career. And he just he's like a magpie for interesting ingredients and trying stuff out. And so, you know, in talking to him about this, I don't want us to radically change how we live or eat, you know. And there's also, I have to admit, a story. I don't wanna be an inconvenience because that's a big thing. And he's like, well, that's cool.

Sas Petherick [00:30:50]:
Like, you just tell me if there's something I'm cooking you don't want or you don't feel like or you want more of, and we'll figure it out. And it's I think I feel quite irritated at how relaxed he is in his body and with food, you know, that's kind of annoying. But that idea of, like, I have to protect myself from the temptation of particularly for me, it's sweet food. Like, it's where I churn for comfort if I'm eating for comfort. And so not doing that and always having some chocolate in the house. And actually, I'm having a little piece of chocolate each night with my cup of tea, and that's my last kind of thing for the evening. So I end the day, in my world on a high, right? Yep. My favorite chocolate.

Sas Petherick [00:31:36]:
It is really fascinating to me that I can trust my appetite.

Ali Shapiro [00:31:42]:
See now if women trusted their physical appetite, that translates into the metaphor of their appetite. Sorry. I keep bringing it back to political. There's two things you said there. So like with Ash, who is assess his husband, him liking this novelty and all that stuff, our nervous system actually needs novelty. And so us, you thinking you need to protect yourself from that versus a lot of people will be like, I got bored off of a diet, and so I stopped doing it. And because they think they're being bad, because all of a sudden they want some pleasure, they're like because then there's shame piled on top of that. But it's like, I wasn't being good versus recognizing your system actually needs something new.

Ali Shapiro [00:32:28]:
It needs novelty. And we know from the research that the healthiest microbiomes are not rooted in restriction. They're not, you know, rooted in elimination diets. If you have to eliminate more and more foods means you're not actually healing your gut. The healthiest microbiomes have the most variety. And so this is a great example of how when we try to protect ourselves without understanding how to actually feel good in our body, and that includes enjoying certain tastes. And to take it one step further, if we look at traditional Chinese medicine, they talk about how there's like five flavors. So probably all the flavors that Ash likes to mix with.

Ali Shapiro [00:33:07]:
And what we tend to do is bounce back and forth between salty and sweet. And if we miss bitter or pungent or I'm thinking of the forgetting of the other one.

Sas Petherick [00:33:18]:
Is it an anime?

Ali Shapiro [00:33:20]:
Yeah. I think that's like all of it together, but it's like pungent, acidic. But if we don't get that variety of flavors, then we start going to extremes of salty, sweet, salty, sweet. So all of the stuff, if we don't have the self trust and the belief that we can have just one, right, we end up actually sabotaging ourselves in this way that we again, you and I both think sabotage is protection. So we're trying to protect ourselves in some ways, but it doesn't end up actually working. And so, again, part of the restriction is I can't eat like ash. I can't go out with my friends and enjoy the fun dinner versus if I actually know that, hey, okay, there was some truth to that Instagram ad. I need some protein, but I also need veg.

Ali Shapiro [00:34:08]:
And all of these spices and herbs and flavors count as variety. And then I do need some carbs. Like I don't have to revolve my life around this strategy of restriction.

Sas Petherick [00:34:21]:
Yeah. I love that. And what this is reminding me of is when you were talking earlier about our nervous system. Right? Like, if we just try and keep our nervous system protected, like, you know, the kind of, you know, this is the what we've done as, I think, as a world, is we've gone from being wholly traumatized and not really having any resources to then the pendulum has swung to I can never be triggered. And I think what we're talking about is actually, no, we want a flexible nervous system that can respond appropriately. It's okay. You know, like, you can trust it. And I think that's what I'm finding with this idea of appetite, right, is yeah.

Sas Petherick [00:35:02]:
And and if I go out for for dinner with people I love, then, yeah, food is more than just fuel, right, like it is connection and it, you know, it's nourishment and memories and all of those lovely things. And coming back to this idea that look one meal doesn't ruin everything. That is such a shift from my 20 self that was oh, well, I've screwed everything up and I just may as well, you know, diet starts Monday. So you get into this awful cycle of being wrong and, you know, screwing it up when I can't think of anything more boring than being in that cycle now. Like, it doesn't interest me at all.

Ali Shapiro [00:35:44]:
Yeah. And it's not sustainable. Right? So it's like this kinda circles back to the beginning of wanting to do it differently. But what we often think is motivation is like shame. Right? Like, get everything out of the house. I am wrong. I can't be trusted. It's like shame based motivation is like that sugary quick hit of carbs.

Ali Shapiro [00:36:04]:
Right? Like that the guy was talking about, you know, like refined sugar. Like,

Sas Petherick [00:36:08]:
oh my god. Oh my god.

Ali Shapiro [00:36:09]:
I feel so good. And then I'm gonna crash. And so that actually I wanted to circle back to you said, I feel so satisfied. So I'm curious. How are you defining satisfaction now that you're experiencing this satiety?

Sas Petherick [00:36:26]:
I think there is something that I'm noticing, although it's sort of like a presence of absence, if that makes sense. I don't have a ton of food noise. And I know food noise has, like, different definitions for different people. But for me, it's that thing of, oh, I could just have or, you know, that that kind of like, oh, am I hungry yet? Or I'm a bit bored or I'm a bit lonely or I'm frustrated with something. You know, tech issues when you're running your own business. It's like, if there's one thing that will send me to the fridge. And I think it's that thing of that just I'm noticing, oh, I haven't really thought I haven't really thought about it. So, oh, it's coming up to to five, like, Ash will be home soon.

Sas Petherick [00:37:06]:
Oh, I wonder what we'll have for dinner. So the satisfaction is the absence of that feeling like I'm being picked to death by ducks of, oh, could I have something else? Am I hungry? Do what do I wanna eat? What should I eat tonight? You know, all of that kind of sight obsession, I guess, quiet obsession around treating myself.

Ali Shapiro [00:37:29]:
And I was telling SAS, dear listeners in our boxer is that there's layers to food noise, but what she's talking about and why it's absent now is because she's feeling satiated. Right. That low fat was not making her feel satiated, not getting enough protein. So we again think food noise is wrong or that we have to battle it instead of saying, oh, does this mean that they didn't get the right nutrition? And because, again, our bodies are operating under an evolutionary premise that there is not enough food to go around. It does not know that that in the past fifty years, there's more calories, not necessarily more nutrition. And maybe we can even talk about the difference between that. But what SAS is describing is now that she's nourishing her body, right, doing this differently, her body's like, I've got the nutrition versus when we're doing a lot of processed foods or maybe even not the right nutrients for our body. Like SAS was talking about all of us who grew up in the eighties not getting enough fat.

Ali Shapiro [00:38:29]:
And so it's like, okay. I might have eaten enough calories, but I don't have the fat to make your brain work for the next couple of hours. Or I don't have enough fat to help you absorb all of the nutrition from your vegetables because that is all part of of things. And so instead, we're just coming back when we have deep body stories, which which most of us do. It always ends in I'm wrong and what's happening is wrong and I suck and I need to beat myself up instead of, like, why does this make sense?

Sas Petherick [00:39:02]:
And I think so we abdicate authority. Right? We say, so I'm wrong, so you tell me what to do. Internet. You know? You tell me what to do. Weight Watchers. Like, just, you know, all of that. And and I think that makes so much sense why I've just abdicated responsibility for even opening the door to to thinking about, like, well, what would satisfy me? What what is the nutrition that my body wants? Because I think that underneath it, there is you can't trust yourself to know what would satisfy you. Right? Because what you're gonna go do is, you know, binge on a chocolate bar because, you know, that's actually what you want.

Sas Petherick [00:39:48]:
And I think that that's such an interesting thing for me to be sitting with now is the idea that I can trust my appetite is so foreign, right? Because actually if someone says what what would you like to eat right now? I'm always gonna say oh should we have a little treat? Right? And I love getting I love it when people collude with me and say, oh, that would be great. What should we get? And and I think that's the thing, isn't it? Like, the availability of calories in food is so abundant, but it's not necessarily what would support you, what would help or fuel your body. And I think that's the thing that I'm learning is if I actually pause and go what do I actually want? It's not food, let alone the sweetest thing I can find within a one mile radius. Yes.

Ali Shapiro [00:40:45]:
Well, and that's part of why I wanted to ask for dissatisfaction because sometimes when I'm talking about this with clients, because we're coming from such a restricted, deprived state, we think we want the full chocolate bar. We think we want everything. And I think something that has come up in our boxer conversations and earlier in this conversation was like, oh, a little bit of chocolate at the end of the night satisfies me. Like, if I actually am in my body. And again, this is kind of the sequence. Well, I don't know if sequence is the right word, but like if you were to say, how about we have a little treat? It doesn't mean that you can never have a little treat, but if you nourish your body with the right nutrition that you need, then the ability to be moderate. Because so many clients consuming that, like, I don't I can never be moderate. Right? To your point.

Ali Shapiro [00:41:33]:
Like, I don't trust that I can be moderate. And it's like, well, let's first make sure you're eating the right things for your body, and let's do that before the treat. Right? So we can do that meal to meal, but you're having chocolate at night, and it's like, okay. I've eaten two good meals. I feel satisfied. So my body's balanced. It's got what it needs. So it's not trying to get all the nutrition from this chocolate bar.

Sas Petherick [00:41:58]:
It's literally the cherry on top.

Ali Shapiro [00:42:01]:
Exactly. Exactly. And that's that is a huge piece. And again, because we're coming from this chronic state of I can't have that. I can't have that. Part of it is just being able to have it, but it's also not putting in place the nutrition that your body actually needs. And again, you when you don't get the nutrition, you can't think. You're irritated.

Ali Shapiro [00:42:23]:
You're agitated. Even self doubt, your specialty. I mean, kind of spiraling is often part of that anxiety is your blood sugar crashing. It's not all emotional. And so it's like

Sas Petherick [00:42:36]:
Yeah. Like, is it self doubt or do you just need a piece of cheese? Like, literally. You know? And I and I think you're so right that really being curious about your own appetite, I think, is such a a good use of time. That's what I'm finding. That's what I'm really finding. And it makes me feel I like I feel actually a bit emotional thinking about this, this, but I feel quite hopeful. Like, for the first time, like, oh, I can eat lovely food that is super satisfying, and I can have my treats. And my body is slowly letting go of this this padding that I just kinda don't need anymore.

Sas Petherick [00:43:18]:
And it's like, it's such a head game. I think this is the thing. Like, you're saying, the food is often the easy bit, but it is also the doorway into all of this other stuff. Because one thing I'm realizing is when I don't have blood sugar spikes and I actually feel satisfied, all the other shit comes up, right, which we're gonna totally talk about in future episodes. But I think to start with this whole thing around, you know, trusting your appetite and being curious about what you're actually hungry for. I think that intuitively to me has felt like the first step. I don't I don't know if you've what you think about that, Ellie.

Ali Shapiro [00:43:57]:
Yeah. I think that's a great question because so clients come to me and they often there's there's either two things that are happening. They've gone to another expert. And again, I understand I've done Weight Watchers. I've done Richard Simmons, RIP, DLMEO. I mean, I've I've done it all too. Right? So I totally get it. I know this kind of is circling back, but for you with your heart condition, me with another authority saving my life.

Ali Shapiro [00:44:22]:
Right? Essentially. It makes sense that we would look outward as well. And you and I are not part of the hey. There you know, authorities know nothings. Right? It's like, okay. This is where the nuance is, but they have information, not the capital t truth. So clients come to me in a couple of different phases is one, they think they know what works for them and they think it's just emotional eating. And then maybe if they stick with me often, they realize like, oh, some of this, like, 20 to 30% of this is blood sugar.

Ali Shapiro [00:44:53]:
It's not really emotional. Or they come completely overwhelmed and feel like, I think I should be this, but my Instagram feeds said that. And I'm like, I get it. It's like, I'm so glad I got off the diet train before Instagram. Like, I would have been so much more overwhelmed.

Sas Petherick [00:45:07]:
It's a minefield.

Ali Shapiro [00:45:08]:
And these influencers are better at marketing than they are at really understanding the bodies.

Sas Petherick [00:45:13]:
Well and they've all got a bloody protein powder that they're trying to flog you. Right? So let's before you listen to anyone, just check their link in bio to see if you've got a discount code for their protein powder, and then you can unfollow safely safe in the knowledge that this this is probably not for you.

Ali Shapiro [00:45:31]:
Yeah. Or people have said something like, well, whole 30 worked in the past. Right? But now I I can't even get to day five or the thought of doing it. So I always say like, hey, if you feel like the emotional stuff is what you wanna work on, we'll start there. Inevitably, though, once they start to realize certain things and and we work together more closely, it's like maybe I do need the physical, but I do think the appetite is a great place to start with. You're talking about the satiety, you know, because the way that I teach it is so experimental. So you're unlearning. You need an authority.

Ali Shapiro [00:46:07]:
So you're starting that developmental process of becoming self authoring. So when you have these, I can feel it and hear it in your voice because I remember having it myself of, like, wait a second. I don't have to be vegetarian as a cancer survivor. Wait. It was kind of this the belief I had to unlearn was, like, if I sacrifice and it's hard, I'm gonna get a reward in the end instead of, like, wait a second. If I feel good today by being satiated and not having cravings and my mental health is better, I probably have a better chance of being healthy in the long run. I thought I had to like suffer for health.

Sas Petherick [00:46:46]:
Yes. Then at all costs.

Ali Shapiro [00:46:48]:
At all costs. So it does a lot developmentally for people to start to be like, wait, this can be easier. This has been hard my whole life. But, yeah, I think the physical addressing that creates the stability to then tackle the emotional stuff. Like Carlos for courage and spice listeners is my husband. And sometimes if we're like snapping, we're like,

Sas Petherick [00:47:11]:
do we just need to eat

Ali Shapiro [00:47:12]:
protein and then have this conversation? You know what I mean? It's like

Sas Petherick [00:47:15]:
Seriously, like, get yourself some cheese and then come back to it.

Ali Shapiro [00:47:23]:
Yeah. But, yeah, I wanna ask one more thing, and maybe this can be the cliffhanger we leave people with. But you we were talking about if we're gonna do it differently, and you said the food can be the easy part, but it is the mental stuff. It's the emotional stuff. One of the things that you had boxed about was like, okay, I seem to only and I put this in quotes, be losing. I remember doing the math. Like, it was like around a half a pound a week or something. I was like, gosh, that is great.

Ali Shapiro [00:47:50]:
It means you're not losing a ton of muscle. It means it's sustainable. It doesn't feel hard.

Sas Petherick [00:47:57]:
And I just want to share. I feel like I just need to keep qualifying what I'm saying, but I'm just going to trust our listeners to know that any of this that feels good, do it and if it doesn't, don't. Right? Like there's no right way here, we just want to have an open conversation about this. But I I bought myself some scales and I've been weighing myself a couple of times a week. I'm trying to see that as good data. Right? I'm also tracking what I'm eating. So I'm using, like, just an app just to chuck everything in. And I'm interested in things like, you know, am I having enough protein? It's actually less than you think you need, than the influencers are telling you.

Sas Petherick [00:48:36]:
But I think it it's a good way to start with protein because that's what keeps me full. So all to say, I am tracking my weight loss, which I'm assuming is fat loss, and I'm losing about two kilos, five pounds a month. That's basically what's been happening for the last couple of months. And I hate the process of standing on the scales and being disappointed. It's such a visceral memory for me of, you know, and for anyone who's done Weight Watchers, when you do the walk of shame up to the scales at the front of the room and with your card. Yeah. With your little card, and you're just going, please, God, please. Or should I have had a wee? Should I take my shoes off? Like, literally, it's ridiculous.

Sas Petherick [00:49:25]:
But that ritual is so ingrained into me, and it brings up so many feelings of disappointment and shame and embarrassment still and I'm like, oh, when will I let this go? Anyway, and I think it's the it's the look from the Weight Watchers leader. Have you been good or have you been bad? Do we celebrate you for being at a different stage in your bloody menstrual cycle? Right? Or do we condemn you for not probably not following the rules? Right? So I've been weighing myself each month. And when I said to you, it's only this much that I'm losing, and you were like, that's the perfect amount. I think that was the thing you said to me was that is the perfect amount to be losing. That's sustainable, and it's good. And it was like, more is not better. So I'm not winning at the diet game by losing more weight. Like, again, it's like such a shift, you know, from those old unhelpful stories.

Sas Petherick [00:50:30]:
Slow is good. Slow is sustainable.

Ali Shapiro [00:50:33]:
Yeah. I was in one of my groups, and I was talking about slower actually. Well, and especially because in midlife, a lot of things don't work anymore. But I was saying, you know, if this takes you a year or two, and I'm not talking about improving your health metrics, but if, like, you getting to your goal weight or, you know, or close to there, because also part of doing it differently is not undernourishing yourself to get to some

Sas Petherick [00:50:58]:
but tree number. Yeah.

Ali Shapiro [00:51:00]:
Yeah. Yeah. Arbitrary number. But so many people are like, oh, I can relax because I'm all about you have to enjoy the process. Like in your viewpoint of I'm doing this for the rest of my life. Listeners, think about that. Like if you were really surrendered your timeline, like how much less pressure would that be? How much more could you be like? I'm settling this in, settling in to figure this out for myself. It can be a very different experience when we don't do that.

Ali Shapiro [00:51:27]:
And I just wanna also mention about the scale because you talked about authority, right, around nutrition. But what we've all done based on diet culture, right, like you said, okay. If the scale's a certain number, we've given that the authority to tell us we win at life. Right. And that's what that scale is. And I love that you personified it through the Weight Watchers check-in person because all of us but all of us have had the experience of when that number is lower, we get attention. People tell us we look great. What have you been doing? Right.

Ali Shapiro [00:52:02]:
So this is a gradual process of having to be like what you said is the scales data. Right. It's not an authority telling me that all of a sudden I'm successful and everything I want in life is going to be easier or happen.

Sas Petherick [00:52:18]:
I really hope that this process, the one of the happy outcomes for me, non scale victory, would be for me to feel completely neutral about the scale. Like, I just I just don't want it to mean anything or or it just be information. Like, oh, okay. Cool. I'm coming up to my period. So I've probably put on a little bit away. That's makes total sense. Big deal.

Sas Petherick [00:52:42]:
It's not anything to do with me. It's just information.

Ali Shapiro [00:52:46]:
Yeah. I get what you mean there for sure. An intermediary step is not that it's just neutral, but that regardless of what it says, I'm okay, and I can keep showing up the way I wanna show up.

Sas Petherick [00:53:01]:
Yeah. Yeah. Because I think in the past, it's like, oh, I've put weight on. Well, I'm clearly doing it wrong, so I need to change everything. No.

Ali Shapiro [00:53:10]:
No. That will help you get there because that's what, to me, what body positivity and health at every size really offered was like, you are not your weight is not your worth. How do you do that? You show up regardless of what the scale says, regardless of how you ate the day before. And that is really challenging beliefs, assumptions, which both of our work, you know, encompasses. So how are you feeling now?

Sas Petherick [00:53:34]:
Okay. Good. Yeah. This was less anxiety inducing than I had anticipated, which is good. And I guess just for folks listening, we're gonna meet up once every couple of months and we're gonna because I'm settling in for a year or two of exploring all of this. So I'll be sharing what's going on and Ellie will be doing her magic and we'll figure it out together. But yeah, let us know if you if you've enjoyed this. Let us know if there's questions you have.

Sas Petherick [00:54:04]:
We might even it's just coming to me now, Ellie, that we might do it like a q and a.

Ali Shapiro [00:54:08]:
We're both generators, so we like to respond.

Sas Petherick [00:54:11]:
We love that.

Ali Shapiro [00:54:15]:
We like a good framework, don't we, Seth?

Sas Petherick [00:54:18]:
We love it. Hi. Thanks so much for this and just for being you and spreading your medicine.

Ali Shapiro [00:54:25]:
Yeah. I'm going to just let people know that if they're interested in this, I do have a freedom from cravings program right now. It's only $67, And I'll put it in the link to my show notes. But

Sas Petherick [00:54:35]:
Yeah. I'll totally share that as well. Like, please do. If you if you're like, oh, this is my thing. Like, listen in Ellie's podcast will link in the show notes. It's called Insatiable, and it's fabulous. And I think, you know, just go talk to Ellie if this is your thing because you you will be in the best hands.

Ali Shapiro [00:54:55]:
Oh, thanks, Sass. Yeah. I just wanted people to know if they're like, okay. I wanna try what Sass is doing. SAS isn't doing my programs, but she's taking the approach that I take in freedom from cravings, which is a self study. But I also offer people like a thirty minute follow-up usually I mean, for a short time to get your questions answered with that. And then in mid April for everyone, I'll be doing why am I doing this now? Mini course for $97, 4 weeks to get to the emotional component of this, which is what SAS and I will eventually lead into whenever whenever we get there. So just wanted to let everyone know about that too.

Ali Shapiro [00:55:32]:
And check out Sass's work, Courage and Spice, the podcast. As Sass would say, Courage and Spice is aces. I bring Sass into teach in my truce coaching certification. She is one of the best coaches out there, and I am highly discerning. So can't recommend your work enough either.

Sas Petherick [00:55:52]:
Hey. Thanks for listening, folks. This was fun. Yeah. Thank you.