Hello everyone, welcome to the Said in Therapy Podcast. Have you ever considered going to therapy and you ended up not going? My question is why? In my humble opinion, I believe everyone can benefit from therapy. In fact, I believe everybody should go at least once in their life. My name is Iman Tohami, and I'm a psychologist. This podcast tells you all about everyday cases with everyday people who have everyday problems and difficulties, and sometimes they carry around really deep wounds. These are their stories. Hey you, how are you? Take a moment. Think about this question. How are you really? Where do you stand in life? How do you feel? What's going on around you? What's going on inside you? I think it's very important, especially now, to reflect a little bit. Obviously, the pandemic is still going on, and I don't know about you, but I'm a little bit tired of all of this. And um, yeah, what can I say? Um many of you know that I live in the Netherlands, and the situation here is especially hard. We just got a curfew, and yeah, I don't blame people who are just frustrated with everything. So I hope wherever you are that you are healthy and safe. I want to start this eating disorder series. I have promised you that a while ago. Yeah, you know, while approaching this topic, I was thinking, what would make you understand this problem better, especially if you are not affected by it? Especially if you are not struggling with it. So just to give you some background, studies have shown that the rise of social media has also caused an increasing negative outlook on our own bodies. So everybody is one way or another affected by this. So let me ask you, what do you think? What do you look like? Be honest, please. My question to you is are you happy in your own skin? Body image is the mental representation that all of us create. A poor body image can affect us in so many ways and can eventually lead to eating disorders and self-harm. There are some people who think about food every single day. And I don't mean people who enjoy food or call themselves foodie or lead a healthy lifestyle and like to have, I don't know, a cheat meal every once in a while. I'm talking about people who obsess about food every day, every minute, every second. They're obsessed over what they can eat, should eat, or feel shame because they already ate, or they deprived themselves of food and think about it that way. How can they succeed in depriving themselves of food? So, does that sound familiar? I want to start a series to bring some awareness. And I won't lie to you. This is hard for me because in so many ways it hits home. But I want to start on a positive note. My guest today is Dana Habayeb, and I say positive because she truly, truly radiates that. Positivity. You can find her online, and I will leave her handles in the description of this episode. She studied public health and promotes a healthy lifestyle on her platforms. I highly recommend you follow her. I asked her about how to start a new lifestyle and how to maintain it, and generally speaking, what her outlook on food is and how we can approach it the best possible way. I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. And yeah, here we go. You have no idea. So let me tell you how I found you first. Okay. Because I can't really remember, but I remember that I was very frustrated, frustrated with the with my eating habits. I had um many trials with shake diets, and yeah, I I I have done so many experiments, you have no idea. So one day I went online and then I just found you. I don't know, it was got sent, and I was like, Oh my gosh, yes, such a soothing voice. It was so nice to listen to you. And I then I looked through your pic, I don't know, I saw all your salad pictures, and then the one thing that really stuck with me was when you were talking about the different um plant-based milks and how to find out the difference and what to what to pay attention to pay attention to. Um and I know, especially in the Middle East, it's a little bit more tricky because it's not like in EU, for instance, where you have everything regulated and stuff. Yeah, so I found this so interesting and I interesting, and I know that so many people would benefit from it because it's not common knowledge, right? And I thought, okay, let's follow her. And this is I I followed you before, but I was following you more, I was more aware of following you, and I was always very excited when I saw your stories and stuff. So yeah, this is basically how I found you. And yeah, then as I said, I reached out to you. I reached out to you after the picture you posted where you had a before and after, or a picture of you a couple of years ago and now, and how you actually spoke about the fact that you gained a little bit more weight and that you're actually. Yeah, but I I found it for so encouraging because to be honest, I would have if you hadn't pointed it out, I wouldn't even want noticed. I wouldn't have looked at you and said, Oh wow, she gained so much weight.
SPEAKER_01You know what even in real life, like not even just the people that I know and I see on a regular basis haven't noticed. Um, because I keep telling them I gained so much weight and I want to go back to that original weight, but and so they always say, Well, no, you look the same. And I think it's just like because it took such a long time to gain weight. Um, you know, even some people don't notice on themselves when they gain weight over three years, right? Yes. So yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So for me, basically, I had a baby and then I had all these kilos going up, and I didn't care for a very long time because I was in this phase where I really didn't care. And then suddenly I noticed, oh my god, it's actually 20 kilos more. What do I do with myself? And this is where everything started. So I I'm doing this series because it affects me personally, but I have also so many people coming to my office having having eating disorders, not knowing how to deal with their eating disorders, and body image problems, because you can actually have a very, I will not say skinny, but slender person sitting in front of you, and they would actually feel overweight. Um it's such a big problem in in our day and age. And this is where I actually decided we have to bring a little bit more awareness.
SPEAKER_01I think you can even have like a slender person sitting in front of you that looks healthy but isn't healthy at all. And that's even a bigger issue because they're they're putting um, they're kind of representing a certain group of people, and people look up to that, unfortunately. And so um, and so it it kind of passes along these unhealthy habits to stay that that weight, people thinking that that is healthy and it's not.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Why don't you tell us about you? So because as I as I understand, you you you do this as a hobby, or is this your profession? What so what is it, what you what is it that you do for a living?
SPEAKER_01Um okay, it's a little bit like complicated, but it's in part both. Um, so I I did study health, um, health science in university, and I I studied public health as well. And I studied a lot of nutrition and and things like that. And then when I came to Qatar, so I was studying in Canada, and when I came to Qatar, I um did a clinical nutrition um kind of certificate in addition to personal training, like an ACE personal training certificate. So I became a personal trainer and nutritionist. Um and I've worked in the health field for quite some time at diet centers, giving workshops with clients one-on-one. Uh right now I do business development and marketing for um a small hospital here. So it's not as much nutrition related, but it's still a very kind of fundamental part of my interest. Um, I'm just very passionate about it. So, and and it did start more or less for myself. So, besides my university education, when I really got into it, it like you, it was me searching for a way to be okay with my lifestyle and my eating habits.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's actually so nice. I think it, as I said, it affects all of us. And it comes from such an honest place when you do it for yourself first, and then you can actually share it with the world. Of course, it's always helpful if you study something or you have background in in certain education, but it only makes sense or it makes the most sense if you start with yourself and you find out what works for you and what doesn't. And I think I I want to speak about this a little bit more. Um, when you are with clients, what are the things that you notice? What are the difficulties that they have? What are the issues that they might face?
SPEAKER_01Um, okay, so some typical things, some big things, are that a lot of clients want to lose weight or become healthier without doing exercise or without doing diet. They want to only do one or the other. They don't want to do both. Um, and I think that makes it very difficult to live a healthy lifestyle because without being um active, physically active, you're going to have to restrict a lot of calories. You're going to have to be very stringent with what you eat. And that doesn't feel good because you're not getting the nutrients that you need from food, right? And then if you're working only on the other hand, where you're working out every day, oh, you know what? I want a personal trainer. I want to work out every day, but I want to eat whatever I want. Then typically those people don't even lose weight because they're eating whatever they want. And honestly, 80% starts in the kitchen. So it's very difficult to lose the weight by doing exercise only every day and not watching what you eat. So you need to have a combination of both. And I think the people who understand that are the ones that typically do the best. And then the second issue I've seen, like a reoccurring issue, is that a lot of people don't eat fruits and vegetables, which is so weird. Um, so so they'll come in and they'll say, you know what, I have migraines, I take medication for these migraines, they happen all the time. I think it's just genetic or it's something, you know, that just happens to me. And I think, and or digestive issues. They have digestive issues and they don't even recognize that it is an abnormal thing to have because they've been living with it for so long and because everyone in their family has it, so they think this is normal. Um, and it isn't until you look at their diet and you see that they're not eating any fruits, they're not eating any vegetables, their diet consists of brown foods, which is like rice, fries, potatoes, curries, um, things like that. And then you say, well, you know, you're not getting this whole list of nutrients. It's no wonder that, you know, you have headaches all the time, or you're not getting enough hydration from your food, like never mind water. So, of course, you're having digestive issues. You're not getting enough fiber from fruits and vegetables. So, of course, your body isn't able to get rid of the food that you're eating and it's stuck in your stomach, which is creating problems for you. So, these are two things that I think people really struggle with often.
SPEAKER_02That's so interesting that you pointed that out. Um, uh what would you say to people who who tell you it's actually very expensive to live a healthy lifestyle? Because this is something that I have noticed a lot in my own practice. People who are struggling with healthy food habits usually say it's too expensive to eat vegetables and fruits all the time.
SPEAKER_01Um, okay, so I think if you want to eat like an influencer on Instagram, then yes, it probably is expensive because they want to make it look pretty and put all these colors and fresh fruits and all of that stuff. But if you wanted to be very practical about the way you eat, you certainly can. In every category of food, there are cheap products. Bananas are cheap globally. It is a universally cheap fruit. You know what I mean? Um, fruits in season in any country will be typically cheap. Apples, pears. Um, these are typically cheap foods. Um, in the vegetables category, you have lettuce, most of the green foods, tomatoes, cucumbers, the very basic vegetables are typically cheap. You don't have to put avocados, you don't have to put um fancy vegetables, kale in your salad for it to be a healthy salad. Um, so you don't have to be eating salmon every day. You can be eating chicken, which is the cheaper protein option and the healthier one, to be honest, because it has less fat, less, you know, the red meat. We have an issue with red meat where people shouldn't be eating that every day. So you shouldn't be having a steak every day. You should be having chicken breast and these cheaper meat options. Uh, and and even in the dairy products, you don't have to be getting organic milk. You don't you don't have to drink milk, you know what I mean? And so um there are options in every category. And if you need to go for cheaper options, um, yes, you might be more limited in the number the variety of food that you can eat, but it's not impossible to eat on uh a healthy diet on a lower budget.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Um there is something that I often hear, and I want to have your take on it. Um what do you think about people who stop eating altogether in order to lose weight? Because they say, as you you said yourself, it starts in the kitchen, and 80% of a healthy diet obviously is or a healthy lifestyle, obviously, is food. But what do you think about people who start or stop eating altogether? As I said, I had a shake diet where I had three shakes a day uh a day, and this is how I was supposed to survive.
SPEAKER_01Um, okay, so I I don't know. My opinion here may be a bit controversial, but I do think that um fasting, uh doing a water fast or a juice detox is beneficial to the body. Um, there is scientific evidence. So if people looked for journal articles, they would find that there is there are benefits to fasting from regenerating cells, from killing off cancerous cells, uh, from giving the digestive system a break. Um so when you fast, you do give your body enough of a break for it to start looking for its damaged cells and repairing them or getting rid of them. Uh and in addition, you of course lose weight. But I don't think it is something that is sustainable for weight loss. I think it's more of a health thing. And by fixing your health, you make weight loss um easier in the future. Uh, but it's not, it I don't think you would successfully lose weight long term off of fasting or doing some sort of juice detox. This is more for repairing your health than anything else. And the weight that you do lose short term, you typically gain most of it back.
SPEAKER_02Yes, yes. You mentioned influencers before. So I would like to know what do you think about social media when it comes to food.
SPEAKER_01Uh, when it comes to healthy eating or just food in general?
SPEAKER_02I think food in general. I think all the food pictures and the hashtag food porn and all of these things have been um a lot of pictures went viral. Coffee, endless pictures of coffee and salads and burgers. And what is what is what do you think? How does it affect people when they see these pictures all the time?
SPEAKER_01Um, I think this goes way beyond social media. I mean, even previous to social media, you had billboards with burgers on them. When people watch TVs, they were forced to watch commercials about McDonald's. Um, so it's always kind of been around. I think now more than ever, we have an unrealistic kind of representation of what people eat, like specific people eat. And so when you have someone who looks very healthy posting a picture of a massive burger, it's no longer like seeing McDonald's burger on a billboard not associated with anyone. Um, because now when you associate it with this blogger, you think, oh, look at this healthy person constantly eating burgers, when that might not be the case. So there is some misrepresentation in um in what is being eaten to achieve a certain body or a certain um lifestyle, I guess. Um, but generally I think you choose who you follow, right? And so if you're following someone who posts a lot of healthy meals and tips, I think it's extremely beneficial. We've never had access to all of this information. And although some of it may be inaccurate, um, I do think a lot of it is quite inspirational at the very least. Um, and so I don't know. I from the feedback I've gotten at least, because people will say, for example, my dad has diabetes and cholesterol, and he never wants to eat healthy. He hates salad. But when I showed him your account, he was like, Oh, this is a salad too. You know what I mean? Because in his mind, salads are just like cucumbers and lettuce. So now he started eating salad because he realizes that, oh, I can add all of these things and it will be enjoyable for me, um, but still healthy. So it does have a positive influence if you want it to.
SPEAKER_02So I had a couple of clients who are actually influencers and uh they make their living through social media, which is actually a good thing if you know what you're doing and when you have a specific goal that you want to reach and everything. However, I had also a few, especially women, who, as you said, would post a burger, and when the picture is taken, they take they eat a fraction of that burger or even give it away. And I think we have to be realistic when it comes to certain pictures. Not everything that we see online is actually day-to-day life for those people who post it. And uh at the same time, those people who post so many food pictures have other struggle um struggles, and this is what I want to talk about a little bit more. Um when you as an influencer have constantly to watch your weight, and you have to, you know, you have a certain audience and you represent something, and you already became a brand because you look a certain way, and then you struggle with a healthy lifestyle, but nobody knows about it. What would you tell them?
SPEAKER_01Uh what would I tell influencers?
SPEAKER_02Yes, who who struggle really struggle with a healthy lifestyle, but at the same time uh wouldn't give it up because this is their brand now. They have a certain appearance and they have to keep it up. And if they eat more, they are afraid that they would gain and then they would look totally different than how they how they want to look or what how they want to represent their themselves.
SPEAKER_01Right. I don't think influencers are the only people that struggle with this. I think this is like uh a struggle for most people, women and men alike. Um, but I do think for influencers, it's just um they have a responsibility to to followers to be as transparent as possible. And I think that's more of a concern for me because ultimately we all struggle with this. And as long as you feel healthy and active and you have energy, then you know it's a struggle for everyone. So you do you, but I do think there is a certain responsibility to be as transparent as possible and show your followers um all angles of the story. Um, like you were saying before, it's not just influencers that will take a picture of a burger and not eat it, right? Even in real life, when you go out with your friends, um, some friends sometimes friends will say to me, they'll be like, oh my God, you know what? I want to order these fries, but I'm afraid you'll judge me. And I tell them, you know what? I don't know what you've eaten all day. You could have been eating healthy all day. You could have eaten nothing all day. So you eating your burger with fries right now is completely normal if that's the case, right? Like, who am I to judge you based on a snapshot of your life when I haven't seen the rest of it? But the point is that they have a responsibility to show all aspects just because they are an influencer and they are influencing people. Um, and it doesn't have to be all the time, but every once in a while, giving a realistic kind of viewpoint on what they're doing and what they're eating would be good. Uh, but it it is their private business, so I guess they share what they share. But as long as they're healthy and they're happy, um I say I think it is a struggle for everyone. So I wouldn't want to tell them, like, oh, don't worry about it, eat whatever you want, you know, no one's gonna judge you because it's not true. You can't eat whatever you want, whether you're an influencer or not, you want to be healthy.
SPEAKER_02right right tell me do you eat burgers I do I think I think what I'm trying to get at is that you can still eat burgers but everything has to be you you need balance in life you cannot eat burgers every day and you cannot have your fries every day but every once in a while it's it's okay to indulge because I'm afraid that nowadays with all this with the rise of healthy nutrition and uh veganism and there are so many trends right now to follow when it comes to um healthy eating or lifestyle uh changes um I think it's okay to do something unhealthy every once in a while just for your mental health it just shouldn't be the norm.
SPEAKER_01Or um so for me with what I've seen as the most successful strategy is to focus first and foremost on calories in, calories out. So focusing on the proportion of food that you're eating rather than what you're eating. And then always having every day a little indulgence like whether that's a hundred calories or 150 calories of something that you love. Like for me that's chocolate. It's not burgers actually. So you know every day I'll have a little bit of chocolate and that makes me feel good. I personally don't like the thing of eating super super healthy every single day of the week and then having this massive cheat day where you destroy everything because again it goes back to calories in calories out and that's not on a daily basis that's over a week. So if you're eating super healthy every day and then you go off and eat 3000 calories on a Friday because it's your cheat day you won't lose weight and you won't be healthier just because you've you've you've wrecked your calorie intake or that balance for the entire week. So I would rather do small indulgences every single day and go with that with burgers and pizza and things like that I might have that like once a month, twice a month but what I would rather do and what I would prefer my clients do is to make it a healthier burger so that you can have it more often if that is something you enjoy. So the bread that you use can be whole grain bread. The the meat is meat it's just low fat meat. It don't get the the high fat ground beef right um you're gonna put vegetables in your burger because you should you'll reduce the the number of sauces and the fatty sauces so ketchup might be okay but mayonnaise may be something you'll pass on. And so when you make something you love healthier you're able to include it in your diet um more readily with fries potatoes are really healthy. It's just don't deep fry them make you know have wedges in the oven make them yourself.
SPEAKER_02So there are ways around um around eating these things that you love often without without destroying your diet and your body do you have any tips generally speaking to change the mindset about food? Because when people think food is evil they will naturally stay away from it or have a very unhealthy relationship with food. There are actually certain ways to look at food from a healthy and positive angle. And I'm interested do you have any tips maybe to to approach food in a better way?
SPEAKER_01I think it depends on the person and their background like if someone comes in and they have a history of dieting and yo-yo dieting and losing a lot of weight and gaining a lot of weight I think getting them out of that um that dieting kind of phase and getting them to just eat what they want in a healthy way as much as they want and then getting them to understand their hunger scale is really important. And so getting them out of that diet mindset to begin with can be quite challenging because they're so used to it and so scared of moving forward but also preparing them mentally to perhaps gain some weight when they do that and telling them that that is okay. It's okay to gain a little bit of weight until we get you out of this mindset so that we can start working on your diet in a healthy balanced way and get you into the position that you want to be in or into the health that you want to be in. And then and then I think it's like it's a mantra it's how you talk to yourself, right? If you're talking to yourself in a way that is very negative so you know you're always commenting on your own fat or your own weight mentally telling yourself that you're too big, you need to diet you can't eat that it's not good for you you're lazy blah blah blah then that also has an impact on on your health and and on your weight loss. It makes it more difficult for you to lose weight because you will end up doing that yo-yo binge purge cycle that you were talking about. So continually checking in and revising your internal dialogue and the mantras that you keep repeating to yourself is really important as well. And I think the last thing is probably if you do have an unhealthy outlook on food and dieting and health to make sure the people that you follow um whether it's on social media or otherwise and the people you look up to are healthy role models and not people who are um who are promoting this dieting culture.
SPEAKER_02That's actually very interesting self-talk this is something this is a concept that I always bring up in my therapy sessions but especially I think with body image issues or eating disorders talking to you or being kind to yourself is something that is so important because when you're kind to yourself you also can start being a little bit more lenient. It doesn't mean that you give yourself permission to go overboard when it comes to food but you give yourself permission to actually live because I believe I I personally believe quality of life increases increases so much when you learn to eat healthy because you will feel uh more energetic you will feel healthier and uh yeah you will actually feel like a human being there are so many people who don't eat uh eat as much and they're actually a shadow of themselves yeah yeah exactly that's true um teenagers are really hard though because they're going through a very um sensitive part like phase in their life and so they're highly influenced by their friends and by media and I don't think they quite understand yet how to manage their health um and how to manage their eating habits and sometimes even their parents don't so that makes it extra difficult but I think um if you can discuss with them what a natural normal weight is and then have them talk to a dietitian or someone that is truly specialized in this they can they can give them a nutrition plan that that um that can help them eat healthily but at the same time maintain the weight that they would like to maintain without starving themselves um do you think it helps to understand how food works and what food does for you so for instance um you have an apple in front of you or a breakfast bar and you understand what this apple will give you in terms of nutrition and what this breakfast bar will give you in terms of nutrition. Would you recommend people to educate themselves when it comes to food?
SPEAKER_01I think that is so important. It is one of those things that they should be teaching in school and and so I I don't know why I was interested since I was very young. So I used to go to the library and rent out books to to learn about different foods and what nutrients they have in them and how that benefits our bodies but it's not something we learned in school which is so um it's frustrating because it's an essential part of your life it is a foundational thing in your life if your health isn't good because you're not eating well your your job suffers the quality of your relationships suffers um so so it is essential um finance financial management even should be taught in schools and it's never taught and it's an essential part of your life and so um I do think this is so important and you're right it starts at a young age in the school system they should be covering these things for sure.
SPEAKER_02What do you recommend for for a life journally when it comes to food?
SPEAKER_01What works for you um so I struggle a lot with eating healthy um and my friends can probably testify to that but um for me I think I eat a lot of vegetables and a lot of fruits um and that I think has balanced my weight because otherwise I would definitely be obese and I'm very active I walk a lot I go to the gym as much as possible I participate in a lot of sports and so that way I can be a little bit more flexible in how I eat um and not have to worry as much about it. So these things really help and that way if I do have um a meal that's not as healthy it doesn't have such a huge impact on my health and on my weight but I am very flexible and I will more or less eat anything if I really feel like it. And sometimes I think that that's healthy. That helps you not binge and not crave things all week. So that's kind of how I have managed my health and and besides my weight I do feel that I have a lot of energy and I'm very healthy. And that is absolutely my priority I'm a couple of years ago I went vegan for four months and I was dead there was no by the end of four months I was so not energized I would go to work for eight hours and come home and crash on my bed until until the next day sometimes and so that for me even though my weight was great I was in the right um uh the right range for my weight I looked good everybody was telling me I was losing weight and you know so besides that I wasn't feeling good and for me it doesn't matter how thin you are if you don't have energy to live life to your fullest it is absolutely not worth it.
SPEAKER_02I just have a couple more questions for you. And I I think first I think this is something a lot of people struggle with. They want to start a healthy lifestyle but they have also a very busy lifestyle so they don't eat at home a lot and actually um dinners or lunches obviously not now because we are in the midst of the pandemic but um lunches and dinners become more than a social gathering sometimes it's even a business thing that they have to attend. How can they make healthy choices that's such a good question.
SPEAKER_01You're right. I actually eat most of my meals outside the house as well it has to do with like you said work and having business gatherings outside and even when you want to see friends you meet them outside and so um but I think it's completely manageable to eat healthy um outside of the house because every restaurant now has healthy options. There's a whole list of salads there's always um a low fat, low carb option on the menu whether that's chicken breast with vegetables or or a steak or salmon um there's always something that you can order. So what I do typically when I go out if it's um let's say I'm eating out both lunch and dinner, one of those will always be a protein with vegetables no carbs um so it could be um shishta wok if you know what that is or like um some sort of chicken let's say with a salad or with vegetables and then the second meal will be again a salad some protein and then some sort of carb. So that carb could be rice it could be potatoes. I almost never eat deep fried food outside it is just super high calorie and I honestly don't feel good when I eat it so so it's not attractive to me at all. I and I think this is actually something that everyone should work on and it is keeping a diary of foods that make you feel really good and foods that don't because it is also not normal to eat a meal after you're hungry to eat a meal and not feel good afterwards. Something is wrong because we eat meals to energize ourselves not to make us lazy and sleepy and lethargic so interesting I think it's really important for us to be self-aware and I find that a lot of people are not aware at all of how food makes them feel so that is yeah that is another thing.
SPEAKER_02We always say as psychologists you have to make sure that you eat um that you you need to approach food with mindfulness. So when you eat you have to sit down you have to be in the head space that you're going to have a meal now and re-enjoy every bite. So that also makes you understand that you're eating and your body will send you the signals when you don't need to eat anymore. Because sometimes we just overeat because we are just in a rush and we are not sitting down and we overeat in that moment and then we actually um ate too many calories that we didn't need and so we end up gaining weight.
SPEAKER_01Yes exactly 100% so yeah so those are so those are things that I think help. I don't think you necessarily have to cook all your food to eat healthy and if you eat outside there are so many options it's just a matter of making sure you have the right macros, the right types of food, always having some sort of vegetable and I think if you're the type of person that loves dessert and you're eating with people it's always good to share a dessert if you take a bite and the other person takes a bite that's just you know 50 calories or something two bites a hundred calories it's it's nice to have that little thing every day that makes you kind of I don't know happy yes I agree.
SPEAKER_02So my last question for you would be how are you? Oh that's nice is this because you're a psychologist you're like I need to yeah so basically I always want to make sure that people reflect a little bit on how they feel and when I say how are you I actually really mean it so when I when I used to travel to the states back then I was always very annoyed by people greeting me with how are you where I come from how are you is a very deep question. You ask it when you really want to know how people feel where you from um where am I from um my background is Egyptian but I was born and raised in Germany and then I moved around for a couple of years stayed in the Bay for a little bit and now I live in the Netherlands with my family. Oh wow cool okay you've been in a lot of places eh I I I have indeed I have it's it's been quite right when you say where I'm from where where do you mean out of those places?
SPEAKER_01Uh so you you want to know where I'm from what I feel no like when you say when you say like for example where I'm from when someone asks how are you it's a deep question. So where where is that place?
SPEAKER_02Is that Egypt or is it Germany or uh yeah that's a very good question actually because for the longest time yeah for the longest time when I grew up in Germany I always felt not quite German even though German is my mother tongue I I for me German is my go-to language but I never felt quite German so I would always say I'm from Egypt but whenever I'm in Egypt I never feel egyptian at all because my mindset is too German and to be very honest with you I felt very good when I lived in Dubai just for the diversity this country or Dubai was I I loved it so much but it was not sustainable to live there for a long time I mean Qatar is the same yes it is uh I I'm quite happy in Amsterdam it's a cool city to live but I am not really connected to I wouldn't even I don't know I belong to the world so this is for me now what where I stand I don't really identify with anything in specific to be honest with you I have a little bit of everything and I like that I like yeah yeah I agree I'm I'm very similar to you yeah yeah I agree with you well to answer your question I I'm good thank you so much for listening I hope you enjoyed the episode so far if you have any questions or suggestions please don't hesitate to reach out you can find me on social media Facebook Twitter Instagram the handle is always @saidintherapy