298. Why Wholeness Beats “Being Good” with Elise Loehnen Artwork

Insatiable with Ali Shapiro, MSOD, CHHC

Are you struggling with food? Done with diets? Want another option between diet culture and body positivity?

This is *not* another diet culture in disguise wellness podcast. Host Ali Shapiro, creator of Truce With Food® and the ICF accredited and trauma informed Truce Coaching Certification, dedicated academic, and well-known integrated health behavior change expert shares a more truthful, holistic approach to freedom from cravings, emotional eating, bingeing, bargaining, and body image.

Join Ali for interviews, practical advice, and radically honest discussions about food, truth, psychology and change.

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Insatiable with Ali Shapiro, MSOD, CHHC

298. Why Wholeness Beats “Being Good” with Elise Loehnen

July 31, 2025 • Ali Shapiro, MSOD, CHHC • Episode 298

Today Elise Loehnen returns to Insatiable for a much-needed reminder that you don’t have to be good. And in fact, focusing on being “good” or “nice” might perpetuate your battle with food and leave you feeling deeply unfulfilled.

In this conversation, we unpack what it means to be whole, why it’s fine if some people don’t like you, and how to stop seeking external approval. We also tap into how the stories we tell about goodness impact our relationship to food and our body (including what the deepest layer of body image is really about).

Tune in for a huge permission slip to rest and replenish — even when you’d rather push through (and learn how this supports staying on track with your food). And stick around until the end for a great reframe for envy!

We discuss:

How your desire to be “good” shows up in your daily life
Ways to unhook from external validation
The shadow & why it matters in midlife, health included
Rejecting the “sin” of sloth & learning to rest
MAHA and why it’s not selfish yet essential to tend to your inner life during political turmoil
Envy as a GPS for your soul

More about our guest: Elise Loehnen Fissmer is a writer and editor living in Los Angeles with her husband, Rob, and their sons, Max and Sam. She is the host of *Pulling the Thread* where she interviews cultural luminaries on the big questions of the day. While she’s co-written 12 books, including five New York Times Best Sellers, her first book under her own name, *On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to Be Good* (Dial Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House), was also an instant New York Times bestseller. Previously, she was the chief content officer of goop, where she co-hosted The goop Podcast and The goop Lab on Netflix, and led the brand’s content strategy and programming, including the launch of a magazine with Condé Nast and a book imprint.

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