319. What a Truce with Food Taught Me About Redefining Success

After nearly a decade of conversations about food, culture, and psychology, this podcast has a new name. What was Insatiable is now the Truce with Food Podcast. What started as a rebrand turned into an honest look at how success, ambition, and identity shift over time.

Ten years ago, metrics like downloads and productivity felt like the scorecard. Then motherhood happened. Menopause happened. The realities of limited time and energy became impossible to ignore. I had to ask what actually feels like success now.

In this episode of Truce with Food, I share how hustle culture quietly shaped my definition of success and how I used my own framework to work through overworking. Because creating a truce with food often means creating a truce with the relentless pursuit of success itself.

4:26 – How a decade of podcasting quietly reveals how cultural definitions of success shape our goals and habits 

9:57 – When things began to shift in my energy and capacity regarding hustle culture

13:13 – What the rebrand is about and why a years-long evolving framework involving work with real people matters now more than ever

16:48 – The Truce with Food framework as a way to take back your power and how I used it to stop overworking

23:32 – Re-evaluation of time, energy, and capacity as a result of hustle culture limits in midlife 

32:54 – What is and isn’t changing about the podcast

Mentioned In What a Truce with Food Taught Me About Redefining Success

Truce with Food

How Just Showing Up Ended Years of Binging

Content with Carlos | my husband, who designed my new website and content strategy

Braid Creative | Kathleen Shannon on Skipping One-Size-Fits-All and Experimenting Instead

Health, Body, and Business with Ali Shapiro (Being Boss Podcast)

Find Your Food Stage Quiz

Transcript

Welcome to Truce with Food, the podcast where we stop fighting food and start addressing the deeper story of what you suspect is going on but can't put your finger on. Because the focus on food is a waste of your precious time, resources, and life. 

What you can't get from AI, or really ever get from reading and learning more, listening and learning about change is different than actually doing it. It's what happens when that protocol meets your actual life, your actual history, the deeper patterns that have kept you stuck. That understanding only comes from years of sitting with real people doing their real work. There's no shortcut for it.

I'm your host, Ali Shapiro, an integrated health expert with a 19-year proven track record of client success. I'm a 33-year and counting cancer survivor and creator of the research-based Truce with Food framework that came out of my own personal experience from recovering from cancer and yo-yo dieting. Because you name it, I had tried it. I also have a master's degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

I'm affectionately called people's last best resort and a coach's coach as people come to me when they've tried everything and nothing's worked long-term. This show is where we quiet the noise so we can go deep to get you the results you deserve. This podcast is for informational purposes only and does not constitute personal, individual, or medical advice.

Now onto the show.

Well, you might have noticed something different in your feed this morning. My face, and a new name for the podcast, Truce with Food. Yes, Insatiable is changing names. That's not all. Remember the '80s, '90s infomercials? Are they still on? I don't know. I don't really watch TV.

Anyways, I want to tell you the whole story behind this change. Not just the what, but the why. Because I have a podcast. I do not quietly move on. That's not how I do things. I'll be honest, I was surprised how emotional it was to put this episode together. I really wasn't expecting that. But reflecting on the last 10 years of this podcast opened up a lot. I think that's actually part of the story and something that actually might be useful to you right now.

So I'm going to bring you the real thinking behind it, the process, because that's what Truce with Food has always been about. Not the tidy arrival, the real path, the soul of something.

Okay, so 10 years. Yeah, I'm an OG podcaster. Again, I had to tell people what a podcast was. A lot has happened. So unless you're driving, close your eyes and time-travel back with me to 2016. Where were you? That's when I started this podcast.

I had to Google the cultural moments that were happening because I lose track of time. Adele's Hello was everywhere. Remember? "Hello from the other side." I've always been an off-key alto. Ignore that.

Stranger Things had its breakout debut. Of course, Trump was elected president for the first time.

I bet you aren't the same person you were then. I am certainly not. There's really been a full life in these last 10 years. Personally, I went from East Coast living in Philly and New York City, thinking I would live my days out in Philly, a little detour to New York City, and then I returned to my hometown of Pittsburgh.

I got my first dog, my first pet in my life, Coffee. He's still with us. He's aging like the rest of us, as Carlos and I say. I had a miscarriage. I had an infertility diagnosis. Then I defied that diagnosis and had my baby boy, Eça. I became a mother, first in title only, and then really growing into that role over the last six years.

I'm having a moment where I'm really growing up. Wow, Eça has continually grown me up, and he's grown me up a lot in this moment.

Trump freaking got elected again. I can't believe I said it the first time. Can't believe I'm saying it again. I became an aunt twice over. Yeah, a lot of life has happened. I bet that is the same for you.

Now, personally, I started this podcast 10 years ago. At that point, I was about three years outside of grad school where I really built this research-based Truce with Food model. And my work has really deepened. I'm really masterful at it now. Whereas 10 years ago, I was really trying to fill in the gaps between what I learned in academia and the real world.

Because change and coaching theories are really neat and tidy. Us real humans, not so much. We are brilliantly and lovingly messy.

I transitioned my business model to more group work. Now I'm certifying others in this framework after 15-plus years of refining it and seeing the life-changing results. So in October it will be 19 years full-time doing this. I had the framework I was developing for 13 of those years, and I've been refining it.

When I think about the through line through all of this, what's been the biggest transformation related to this podcast change is that I've had to genuinely grapple with how I define success. I think this will be useful to you too. I know when I shared more of this with my email list a few years ago, the value shifts I've undergone, many of you wanted to hear more. So I'm going to go deeper here.

Because while I'm going to talk about this through the lens of my career, specifically this podcast, you can also think about how it applies to your own idea of success, weight and health included. So while on the surface it can seem like weight and health are different from career success, they share the same root issue, which is what is enough?

When will I feel the satisfaction I keep thinking is just around the corner? Once X happens, then I'll be good, finally feel relief, etc.

Okay, so one of the things that we work on in Truce with Food is, like, what are we actually measuring that makes us feel like we belong, that we're safe or not? Because when we feel we belong, we don't eat out of alignment with our goals. We still want to eat. We should be hungry. That's a sign of a healthy body.

But okay, back to what was I actually measuring when I was pursuing a certain type of success?

So when it comes to success, our cultural conditioning always tells us we should be measuring more. Even if you're a rebel like me who thinks, "Oh, I'm above this mainstream culture." No. That's often a sign we haven't examined it yet. But our culture always tells us to measure more.

More weight loss, more youth. As someone in their 40s, I can tell you a lot of people are chasing more youth. More health optimization, quality, and quantity of life. More money, more recognition or fame. The bigger house. The list goes on.

None of this is inherently wrong or bad. We're about nuance and context here. Except there are real limits in life, with time being one we all share. With our bodies, especially over 40, we have different energy, different capacities, different to-do lists. Often when we're moving so fast for more, we aren't slowing down to really taste or savor what we do have. Yes, the food metaphor applies here.

When we're not really enjoying what we already have, of course we want more. It is exactly like eating.

So that was the matrix I was operating in when I started this podcast. Let's call it hustle culture. I think those of us, especially in the entrepreneur space, are familiar with hustle culture. But I think everyone kind of is who has a job.

The characteristics of hustle culture are faster, more productive, more successful. More, more, more. Or said another way, it's never enough. Of course, hustle culture doesn't advertise that. That's not a way to get someone into a cult. I'm just kidding. I say that lovingly as someone who was part of it, or cultish.

Instead, it says, dream big. Don't settle. You're not important if you're not busy. There are now a bazillion courses on how to publish your New York Times bestseller or become a leading media expert, even if you have no credentials. Make a bazillion dollars in under 24 hours.

The underlying premise is always the same. Find the right protocol, perfect it, and you'll achieve success. It's that easy. With success being more love, more fame, more money, more security, more worthiness.

This applies to weight loss and health too. Find the right protocol, perfect it, and you'll reverse your chronic health issues or finally lose the weight. Of course, it's always going to be 10 pounds. You're always going to want to lose 10 pounds more.

So hustle culture was the matrix I was in when I started Insatiable. Matrix, cult, you know. Although I don't know who the cult leader is. Maybe that's what makes it so seductive. It's like, no, this is just normal.

Okay, at the time, I was 37\. Pre-motherhood, pre-menopause. I had time, energy, and capacity that felt limitless. I had testosterone, estrogen, and progesterone in spades. No sleeping problems. My parents didn't need any help. I didn't have a child. I had tons of runway and no reason to question any of it.

So I drank the hustle culture Kool-Aid. Of course, it was the red-dye-number-five-free version, of course. It was a time.

For this podcast, that meant I tracked a different kind of scale than the one I'd stopped standing on: download numbers. I thought quantity was all that mattered because I was unconsciously measuring more. I was about more episodes, more downloads, more effort. More, more, more. See what happens when you don't know what's unconsciously driving you or you don't know what you're actually measuring?

Now, having said that, I've always had integrity. I'm pretty proud of that, especially in this day and age when a lot of integrity illusions are coming crashing down. I've never chased guests or conversations I didn't actually want to have or that I thought were harmful.

I'm not saying I'm perfect. Don't put me on that pedestal. I'm saying I think I've always been rooted in integrity. I have genuinely loved the way that I did the podcast.

This is why this stuff is so tricky, and so matrix life, there was enough I enjoyed that I never had to look too closely at what was driving me or examine my ideas of success.

But here's something important about podcasts that, unless you're a podcaster or run your own business that involves content marketing, if we want to reduce it to that, it is a lot of work. Podcasting is a shit ton of work.

For me, it's one of the biggest expenses in my business. Not only money, but time, energy. It's a significant resource investment. Many people who podcast, that's their full-time job. Especially it's wild. They're on an advertising model. I am not, because I think buying more stuff for our health is rarely the answer, and definitely not for the planet.

Podcasting is not my full-time job. My full-time job is running my Truce with Food groups, my certification, my private clients, my speaking.

So after a few years, and especially since 2020, remember that year, COVID? Four years into podcasting, at which point I was a new parent in a pandemic going through the last hurrah of menopause at the same time. What was once fun and totally manageable started to feel like two big portions. Again, really good at first, but then it was starting to not feel so good anymore.

Just like dessert. A little bit is wonderful. I love the taste. I feel okay. But binging on a dessert and then not being able to sleep at night is an entirely different thing, or feeling your stomach hurt, or when I had IBS, my IBS symptoms returning.

So I got curious. All right. They say that those who cannot teach do, those that cannot do teach. Well, we don't live in that world anymore. So those who teach have to embody. So this is where the Truce with Food framework meets real life.

Here's where I want to reintroduce something, or maybe introduce it more clearly than I had before. The Truce with Food name isn't new. In fact, I ran my first group in 2010, okay, 16 years ago. Some of you already know it as one of my programs alongside what was formerly called Why Am I Eating This Now and the Emotional Eating Blueprint and Freedom From Cravings.

What's happening now is that Truce with Food is becoming the name for the whole body of work, the umbrella for everything, because it's always been a part of this bigger research-based process. This rebrand is really about that codification, giving a clear name to what has been built over 19 years of working with real clients, watching theory meet actual human complexity, and refining something that couldn't have been built any other way.

My clients have literally helped me build this by me seeing how this stacks up against real-life humans and what actually works with real humans. The theories, the understanding, that helps get us started, but that's not what keeps things working. Again, not in a classroom, not from a book, and not from a protocol someone generated last week.

I want to say that and just pause because we're here for a second. I know a lot of practitioners and other health coaches listen to this podcast. People who are selling you on, like, "Hey, here's how you can create a framework in, like, a six-week program." That's bullshit.

Frameworks come out of lived experience where theory meets real life. Okay? So I just want to say that because sometimes you can think you're doing it wrong. It took me years to build this. I just want to give you permission to experiment, not have a "framework" or messaging right away.

In some ways, I'm so glad I came up when I did. I mean, it was a lot harder of a haul because, again, no one knew what health coaching was or anything like that or functional medicine at the time. But I also didn't expect to have my own framework or my own unique take on something right away. It takes time.

For those of you who might be beating yourself up because you're relatively new or you're still experimenting, that is normal.

All right. So back to this framework being built over time with theory. I don't want to discount theory and academia because I'm of the mind you need to know the rules to break the rules. That's where some of the best innovations come from versus people just breaking rules.

So this matters now more than ever because in the age of AI, you can get a custom meal plan in minutes, a protocol for almost anything almost instantly. It's kind of amazing, really. So we don't need more information. We need more understanding.

What you can't get from AI, or really ever get from reading and learning more, listening and learning about change is different than actually doing it, it's what happens when that protocol meets your actual life, your actual history, the deeper patterns that have kept you stuck. That understanding only comes from years of sitting with real people doing their real work. There's no shortcut for it.

Here's something I want to name. One of the things this Truce with Food framework actually does is help people stop putting others on pedestals. Celebrity doctors, wellness gurus, whoever has the latest protocol. After the Epstein files came out and there were a lot of celebrity doctors in there and wellness gurus, we heard a lot of "take back your power." We've always heard that, but that got really amped up.

But that's actually a developmental process. You can't just tell people to do that. It's something you have to grow into. There are skills required. That growth is exactly what Truce with Food facilitates.

The Truce with Food developmental framework is built from all of that. Now it has a home. When I certify people, I literally say Truce with Food was built out of my own questioning of why did I put doctors or diet books on a pedestal. That's literally part of what this framework was about. That came as a result of reversing my own health issues. I was like, "What? Me with no medical degree? What?"

Okay, but more on that developmental process in a moment. But first, let me tell you how I use this framework on myself with my overworking. Like I said, you can no longer just teach and not do.

So back to redefining success, okay? As I was doing the real work, the underworld visit, during early motherhood and the last hurrah of menopause—and damn, I was there a long time—I found a quote from Dr. Marion Woodman that captured exactly what this process felt like.

Dr. Marion Woodman is a woman who is amazing, so far ahead of her time, and really used psychology to work through her own anorexia. Well, she worked through it and helped articulate more about how depth psychology can be embodied. She says, "A life truly lived constantly burns away veils of illusion, burns away what is no longer relevant, gradually reveals our essence until at last we are strong enough to stand in our naked truth."

Strong enough to stand in our naked truth.

So one way I interpret this is that with the right support—and for me, that includes my Truce with Food framework; I would not have gotten out of the underworld without it—we can use the biggest challenges in our lives as an opportunity for real self-actualization. To develop what I call x-ray vision into what's really happening when we're stuck. To really hear ourselves and not just our cultural conditioning.

So Truce with Food clients know we call this self-authoring our story. When I have that clarity, I'm strong enough to let the illusions fall and be left with what's really important to me now.

So I got curious about my own overworking pattern. Okay. Did I actually love overworking, or why did overworking make so much sense?

I'm always asking those of you who come to me with food challenges, "Why does it make sense?" And I help you figure that out because until you know that, you're working on the wrong problem.

So using my own framework, the same one, again, I use with clients for stubborn change, I found a deep story I'd been operating under. Working hard produces exceptional results. So the story is you need to be exceptional to succeed.

If that isn't some middle-class American meritocracy programming, I don't know what is. Again, me being a rebel thinking I'm not the norm, I'm not hooked in with all that mainstream culture. Oh, class. Class is baked into American culture so deeply. Work hard. You will have upward mobility. The goal is always more. Get noticed, get promoted, get chosen, get liked.

Look, that story has been true for me in some ways. As I share more personally with clients in my groups, like, look, I wouldn't have the career success I have today without working hard. You can't not work hard. And there's much more to that story.

Because I've also grown up enough now. I've matured so much over the past 10 years. I think we're all maturing rapidly as we see so much of what we thought to be true not be true. But I've matured enough to know that often the people who work the least have the most. Those who work the hardest have the least.

I learned how some people buy their own books to get on the New York Times bestseller list. Yeah, I was so naive. I was like, "Oh, it's really about the best book." Sometimes, and not always. I've learned how it's often your network more than the quality of your offering that gets you rewarded.

In narrative coaching, we'd call the story I was operating under a thin story. No complexity, no multiple factors. Just hard work equals exceptional results equals success. There were a lot of illusions that hadn't been burned away.

It's like "eat less, move more." Way oversimplified. Same thing.

Even if you aren't contending with overworking, this hard-work-equals-success story might be operating in your life. If you think weight loss is about more effort and restriction, it might be controlling you, running you. If you think health is about doing more instead of "less is more," it might be for you too.

If you think building up food more is what's going to get you better results—going to five grocery stores, meal planning, looking at the menus before you go, putting so much hard work into food—you might be under that same programming.

Because there's so much more to success than just working hard. It's working strategically. It's who you know. It's capacity and time. Access to resources. Right timing. Being in your zone of genius. That right fit of your gifts and talents with what the world needs.

Not everyone gets that opportunity. I am fortunate that I had the ability to do that, and I've worked really hard to make that happen, but not everybody has that ability. So there are so many factors.

So I had to start asking a different question. Not how do I get more, but what does success that really feels good look like as I go? I'm not waiting for that finish line that keeps moving.

A consistency group participant just last week—we just kicked off our new group, and the women are freaking amazing—she said it perfectly, "I'm getting the process matters."

Yes, exactly. We all know food from a farmer's market feels a little bit different than food from Costco. And again, I go to Costco, no judgment. But there's a soul to farmer's market foods that I do not feel at the Costco warehouse. So yes, process matters.

One of the first things I realized was I have a whole lot less runway than when I started Insatiable. Less time because I have a kid now. And I do other caretaking that isn't as chronic, but is there. I have less physical capacity because of the hormonal shifts of menopause. I actually have done so much growing up in the past 10 years that I have more emotional capacity than ever, but I don't have the same physical capacity I once had. And that was coming out in my insomnia.

I want to invite you to sit with that question too. So think about your own runway right now. Your time, energy, and capacity 10 years ago versus now. Has it changed? Are you pretending it hasn't? Are you still going at the same pace, but finding your health is declining? Maybe your food stuff is getting more out of control. Do you feel more rushed and irritated? Feeling flat? Or you might keep thinking, "Once I achieve this, then this."

These might be signs that your idea of success doesn't feel so good anymore. That's okay. It's allowed to change.

Here I want to say something clearly, because I don't want this to sound like resignation. It is not. If anything, I just love more of my life now. But this is about being clear-eyed. Because midlife isn't about rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. It's about getting off before sinking your ship, with your ship being your soul.

For me, having a truce with overworking was so much harder than working on my truce with food. Because my food battle was destructive and it cost me dearly, whereas my overworking was rewarding me in many ways. That's exactly what makes it so hard to see.

But in the same way you can't hate yourself into a loving relationship with yourself and you can't stress your way into health, success has to feel satisfying as you go. Otherwise, you're just waiting to retire.

So as I worked my own framework, here's what I eventually found works for me: 25 to 30 hours of deep, focused work each week, which lets me love the work, stay inspired, and create from energy rather than depletion.

Groups have become an important part of my work. They are so medicinal. They are the medicine. There's a reason we heal better together. It is such a triple win. I get to step off the podcast as a full-time treadmill. My clients get a group experience that's genuinely part of the healing. The business stays sustainable without me burning out.

I'm focusing on quality over quantity. Sometimes it's both, but quality is my priority. I am not trying to be more popular. I think I unconsciously was still trying to heal some bullying wound. I don't know.

Instead, I'm asking, "What conversations do I actually want to be having? Who are the people I most want to meet on this path?" The download numbers that I used to track so closely matter so much less to me now. I mean, I don't even check them for months. What I care about is engagement, the quality of the people listening and feedback, and what people are saying.

How long do people actually stay with an episode? How deeply does it land? I value depth so much. That's the number that tells me something real. That's the number that reflects the conversations I want to be having.

I'm happy with my download numbers, but more listeners was never really the goal. Again, this wasn't a complete 180\. I wasn't constantly chasing popularity or "grow big or go home." I've always had a side eye. But again, some of this was still in there. It was in there enough that I had to really look at this idea of success.

The right listeners has always been the goal. I just hadn't gotten more clear on that. This was about iteration. Again, I certainly welcome more of the right listeners. If that's you, tell a friend.

But it's been amazing how my groups have grown, and it is the right people. They want to be talking. Essentially, we just go a lot deeper than the conversations we're having here, and they get to see how it all applies to them.

So my groups have become just—I mean, they've always been great—it's like, "How good can it get?" Now, I want to be honest. I'm sharing the highlights here. But there's been a real learning curve, ups and downs. They don't call it being in the underworld, which is full of darkness, for nothing. There was a lot at first of thinking I was going to miss out on certain things. I most probably certainly have.

Lots of "Who am I outside of my work?" blank stares. "What do I do? What do I like to do?" I love my work. I mean, what do other people do? Lots of risks I've had to take and wait out, including financial risks versus having that certainty that in the short term feels safer.

I know if this was me 10 years ago, I'd be listening to this because I would have so much shadow material around not working hard. I'd be like, "Oh, nice for you, Ali. It's probably your privilege."

I've had some privilege, and I have not had financial privilege in terms of—I mean, I grew up middle class, but I have had to self-sustain my business on my own from the beginning. I've never had outside help in building my business in building it.

So if that helps, if you're so repulsed by me not working as much, I don't know if that helps. But this wasn't an easy thing to just, "Oh, I'll..." And through all of this, Carlos got laid off. And Carlos and I both come from very working-class families.

Okay, now I feel like I'm justifying it. Maybe I still haven't fully integrated it. But no, I'm just saying that.

But long story short, I've had to walk my talk. I ask my clients to take risks in terms of building their sense of safety. Life was asking me to do the same thing. I had to honor the time, energy, and capacity I actually have now. I have to center my body and my shorter runway.

That's allowed me to hear my own truth. It hasn't just allowed me to center my health, but part of my health here is that vitality and aliveness of what's going to feel good in terms of meaning.

The truth is I've discovered I don't want to be working so much, to the point where I genuinely don't care if people judge me. When I see people trying to get me to come to summits that are encouraging people to make their next million, I'm like, "That just doesn't even feel good anymore." It used to hook me in, and now I'm like, "Oh, no, thank you."

I want to be out on my bike because I know what's important to me in this phase of life. I know how good my life feels. I'm not saying that's wrong for them. It's just this feels really good right now. That roots me. So I'm not swayed by the cultural conditioning that is showing its cracks more and more every day.

I love my life so much more because I'm not always working. I love Eça. It's like, doesn't everyone love their child? But the baby stage was really hard for me, but I love this stage of motherhood.

Eça's super into sports. It's reawakened my sporty side. He's a freaking hoot, as younger kids often are. I'm just having so much—I joked with friends, "I'm in my domestic goddess era. I'm a room mom."

I love working with my husband, Carlos, and being with him and laughing and just what we do together, taking walks. Carlos has been my biggest supporter since day one. When he lost his job, he started helping me, and he is one of my best collaborators. He's so smart and caring and sensitive, more sensitive than I am in certain ways.

So he's helped me so much with the marketing aspect of stuff because I'm like, "I just want to explain to people how this works."

It's like I get to spend more time with my family, and I've become an aunt twice over. So I've been able to help out my sister's family here and there with their new kiddos. We've gotten to visit them when they come here. I can take time off and be with them.

I've been able to spend more time with my friends, my community. I bike, like I said, and my work—I still work. It's still such an important part of who I am. But it's easier to love because it's not such big portions anymore.

I get out in nature more, and I just have such a stronger connection to my soul and what really lights me up.

Here's something I will offer gently before we move on. Many of us "rebrand" ourselves in midlife, if we're going to use a capitalistic term. We may not name it that way or not, but we feel huge shifts. The story we've been telling about who we are and what we're for, at some point it has to catch up to who we've actually become.

That's not a crisis. That's maturity. That's exactly what Truce with Food is about. So long story long, what's changing and what isn't? Let's make this concrete. So what's staying the same here? Twice-a-month episodes, with more frequency when I'm launching the Truce with Food Consistency Program and Truce with Food Certification.

I still have my other programs, but now, because this is so developmental-focused, everybody has to start with Truce with Food Consistency, unless, of course, you're taking the certification. We're still going to have great guests. I've been even more discerning about that over the years, and I'm going to keep refining.

We are still going to be going deep and trying to be genuinely helpful and practical, okay? That's staying the same. We're still going to be bringing nuance here, okay? It is so noisy out there because we're in an attention economy. So the more “all” somebody can be, the more outrageous, or the more “nothing” someone can be, the more they get your attention.

We're going to be a sane middle ground between that all-or-nothing black-and-white rigidity out there, okay? So this is a place that you can continue to trust for real, solid ideas on how to move forward with your health. We're going to continue to be part of the cultural conversation. There is so much I want to touch on, and these episodes take time because I don't want to recreate the binary reactivity that's out there already. We have enough of those. You don't need me to be part of that. I'm not good at it anyway.

So what's changing? So obviously the name. This is now called the Truce with Food Podcast. I'm going to be sharing more in-depth about this framework, the developmental aspect, and why that's so important for you on so many levels. The starting point for that is to go find your food stage. I'll tell you more about that in a moment.

There's going to be more solo episodes for me based on the themes coming up in my groups. Those conversations are so nourishing. They've kept me so grounded. They've continued to reaffirm my belief in humanity because I'm telling you, the people in my groups and those of you that listen to this podcast, you're the best of humanity.

My client D, who was recently on the podcast, said, “There's no other place like the communities, people in my group.” She's right. You really have to experience it to understand it.

But I'm going to bring more of the themes that are coming up there. Like in today's Truce with Food for Good call, our people brought up their relationship to their mother. So it's like, “What does that have to do with food?” And it's like everything. So I'm going to share some of those themes.

There's going to be shorter episodes. We're going to go deeper, not wider. I'm no longer trying to boil the ocean. My strength and weakness is I'm an integrative thinker. I can see how everything's connected.

In our information overload era, I think we need to go a little bit deeper. So we'll still go wider on occasion, though. I'm not all or nothing. We might start going weekly in 2027, but we'll see how that unfolds. All right, I'm going to live into the answer.

Okay, so I have an invitation. Truce with Food, that's where we're going. The home base for all of it is trucewithfood.com. My longtime site, alishapiro.com, is still up, but over the coming months everything is migrating mindfully over to Truce with Food. This transition is intentional. I've always seen myself as a guide on this path, not the destination, and trucewithfood.com is where that guidance will now live.

I want to give—I know I mentioned Carlos above—but I need to give him another shout-out again. He helped me with the design and strategy behind my site. He is my resident strategist, collaborator, biggest cheerleader, and he's extraordinarily exceptional at this kind of work that helps tell a story so that you can get clear and get more help faster. I'm like, “How does this help me? How does this relate to me?” He's been a true creative partner through this whole process, taking my vision and making sure every piece of this site reflected it in a way that I loved it.

Then I also want to give a shout-out to Kathleen Shannon from Braid Creative for the visual brand work. Kathleen's been on this podcast many moons ago, and I was on her podcast Being Boss, and we have remained friends. She's amazing. So I collaborated with her from Braid Creative for the visual brand work.

One of the things I'm most excited about that Carlos helped me design as your starting point, again, to help orient you—“Where am I?” If we don't know where we are, where we belong right now, we can't move forward. So he helped me create this Food Stage Finder.

Here's what you need to know about it. There are four distinct stages in how we relate to food. A few questions will reveal yours. This isn't your typical quiz. These questions are designed to uncover something deeper about your relationship with food and with yourself.

Alexis S. from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, said, “Thank you so much for this quiz. I loved how accurate and in-depth it was.” So you can go find your food stage at trucewithfood.com.

Knowing your stage gives you a clear picture of what's actually possible from where you are. I see you, perfectionist. A lot of my clients, maybe the majority of them, 80%–90%, identify as perfectionists. Just don't overthink it.

So to everyone who has been here since the Insatiable days, thank you. Those of you listening to this podcast, like I said, are the best of humanity. I said it earlier and I'll say it again. There are more than enough of you out here. So don't lose the faith that we can make something more beautiful out of this cultural breakdown we're having.

Breakdowns can be breakthroughs with the right people, the right support. We can't get there if we think there's not enough of us out there. We don't need everyone. We just need a few people.

Breakdowns can be breakthroughs if we come together, if we keep showing up with a C-plus effort and center all of our bodies—personal, political, and the earth. Our interconnected health and well-being depends on it.

I have so much energy for this next evolution because I have an equal amount of rest. I'm looking forward to having these conversations with those of you who want to come along.

I will see you in the next episode back here in your feed in two weeks. Thanks for listening and being here. I hope you're as excited as I am for what's to come.