The WHOLEistic Psychology Podcast

Nourish, Don't Punish: Rethinking Food Restriction with Emma Wylie #12

• Sophia Dawson

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Welcome back to The WHOLEistic Psychology Podcast 🤍

Today's episode began the way the best ones do: as a conversation Emma Wylie and I kept having over voice message, until we knew we had to bring it to the podcast. Emma is back with us, and this time we're talking about our relationship with food, eating, body shape and weight, and what happens when the pursuit of "healthy" starts to run the show.

I'm joined again by the wonderful Emma Wylie, Nutritionist and Founder of Elo Wellbeing, who many of you will remember from our Eating with Ease episode. Emma brings so much warmth, clarity and care to this work, and she has a real gift for making the science feel human.

Together we get into how a difficult relationship with food can show up, often in small ways that are easy to miss, and why control around eating so often sits on top of something deeper. We talk honestly about the cost of staying stuck in that pattern, the difference between a long life and a life that feels good to be in, and how small, doable steps can gently open things back up.

This episode is warm, honest, and deeply human. It's a conversation about making room for a bigger, fuller life.

In this episode, we explore:

✨ The subtle signs of a difficult relationship with food: fear foods, avoiding social meals, pre-checking menus, and choosing exercise over connection

✨ Why controlling food so often becomes a way to manage emotions that feel too big, and how that control can become a cage

✨ What gets overshadowed when we overvalue body shape: the roles, relationships and parts of ourselves that matter most

✨ The tug-of-war metaphor for the voice that polices what you eat, and what it means to put the rope down

✨ The difference between lifespan and health span, and the longer-term cost of under-fuelling for bones, muscle and energy

✨ What restriction can mean for hormones, cycles and fertility, and why a calm, well-fuelled body is a safer body

✨ The "challenge ladder": how small, steady steps rebuild flexibility without forcing a single outcome

✨ Emma's measured take on weight-loss medications, and why how a body looks tells us so little about whether it's healthy

A gentle note from me: this episode explores restrictive eating and difficult relationships with food. Please be kind to yourself as you listen, and come back to it whenever you feel ready.

To see more of the wonderful Emma Wylie and her work, find her at Elo Wellbeing and follow along on Instagram @elo_wellbeing_.

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SPEAKER_01

Welcome to the Holistic Psychology Podcast, where psychology meets nutrition, lifestyle, and physical health for a whole-person approach to your mental health. I'm senior psychologist Sophia Dawson. Let's step into true wellness from the inside out. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the Holistic Psychology Podcast. We have the fabulous Emma Wiley back with us today. Thank you so much for coming back, Emma. Thank you for having me again.

SPEAKER_00

Always the nicest place to be.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, thank you. Well, you know, we thought everybody that we would bring this to a podcast because Emma and I chat a lot of a voice message in our day-to-day. And we have been talking a lot about relationships with food, eating, body shape, weight, um, those sorts of topics. And while we were talking, we were like, we should make this a podcast episode. So here we are. So Emma, okay, I'm gonna throw the mic to you. So if somebody has a challenging relationship with food, what does that look like for you in practice?

SPEAKER_00

Such a great question. And I think it's really important to know that there's so many ways that we can have a difficult or struggling relationship with food. I think I'll just start to list some things. And if you as a listener start to resonate or sing yourself with any of these patterns, just start to bookmark that not everything is going to resonate, but there might be a few things in here. So one would be having fears around certain foods. Uh so it might be particularly carbohydrate-focused foods or based foods, or it might be higher calorie foods. So if you feel like there are certain foods that you have that you are, they're just not part of your food eating. So they're kind of you rule them out as maybe they're being um just not for you. They might be a little bit, yeah, higher energy. You might feel like they don't fit your paradigm of healthy eating. So for some people, this could even look like things like pasta, sushi. Some people even have bananas would be categorized as this, like I said, fair food. It's there's an internal kind of fear around if I eat this food, either I don't know what's going to happen in my body or to my body, or I don't know if that's going to unlock a floodgate of wanting more of those foods. Therefore, I just keep them uh out of my diet, and then I don't have to deal with whatever the repercussion might be. Other foods in that space might be for some people even nuts and seeds. It might be things like baking, it might be um nut butters, there's a whole horde of them. Breads would be a really common one. Um, but if any of these foods you start start to think of, yeah, I don't allow myself to have those every now and again or even weekly or regularly. And or if they come into my realm, I actively work to avoid them. I'd say that that might be starting to think about am I actually quite fearful of these foods? Am I fearful I'm gonna lose some form of control around these foods? Um, and is it better for me to control and keep those foods out of sight, out of mind? And therefore I feel like I have more control over my body. So if anything around fear foods or foods that you are actively avoiding come up, I'd say that that might be a little sign that you don't have a flexible, calm relationship with those foods. Um and then another one that would for me uh maybe signal that something's bubbling under the surface in terms of that relationship with food would be maybe avoidant behaviors around food as well. So if there's social occasions around food, um, trying to avoid those because confronting those social occasions might, I guess, expose the friction that you might have with foods or having to turn the foods away that you feel are those fair foods. So say we're out for dinner at a restaurant and someone decides we're gonna share all of the food and they're ordering off the menu. Does that bring fear into your world? Does that feel unstable, uncontrolled? Do you fear that the foods that are gonna be chosen don't fit your brief or your realm of like acceptable foods for you? Um, and does letting someone else have control of the ordering or the food just elicit a whole either physical, emotional, both responsive fear for you? So that would be another aspect of that feeling of losing control around food and not feeling that like flexible energy with it. Same thing could even be if you're going to that restaurant. Have you sort of checked that menu beforehand and kind of done some calculations or tallies in your head or thought about, okay, this is going to be the food that I'm going to feel safe with eating. Therefore, I'm happy to come out to this meal as long as that's the way that it'll go. Or do I want to completely avoid tonight's um social interaction or dinner because I just don't want to have to answer to anyone or highlight to anyone that I've got some uh control happening around my food, I guess as well. And in that case, do you feel like you're turning down social occasions more regularly because that's too tricky? Or are you avoiding these sort of social food and eating interactions because there's something more important to do with your time? For example, is that to go to the gym at that particular time of night, or is that to do a workout class? Maybe it's even a second exercise or something for the day. So is there any sort of feeling of the social occasion being less important than regular um physical exercise or kind of prioritizing exercise, even if it's not the first exercise for the day, kind of reprioritizing things that will make you feel more in control with whether it's weight, whether it's um body shape, all of those sorts of things. So I think if any of these things are starting to come up for you, these might be little signals that there's maybe too much of a weight on controlling and shrinking that environment to keep body weight, body composition at a certain place and less flexibility in your lifestyle.

SPEAKER_01

Gosh, you have worded that so beautifully, Emma. Thank you so much. That's so helpful because, you know, I think what I'm really hearing from that is that people are kind of overvaluing a part of themselves, like they're overvaluing their body shape or their weight. And that is the thing that is kind of central to their world and central to their decision making around what food they're gonna eat in the day, what social occasions they're gonna go to, how they're going to move their body every day. And when we overvalue a part of ourselves, it means that all these other beautiful parts of us just get completely overshadowed. You know, um, all these other roles that we have in life, you know, whether we're a mom or a sister or a partner or a dog mom or, you know, all of these things that we do, it just gets insanely overshadowed.

SPEAKER_00

And I think when we put so much onus on our physical presentation to the world, we start to almost um undermine, I guess, our internal or our um emotional contribution to the world, our like social contribution, we start to prioritize physical appearance, maybe over personality or um morals or other qualities that we actually also hold highly in life, but all of a sudden the skew of priority just starts to shift predominantly to that physical place. And I think it's really tricky because I don't think any of us can enter a difficult relationship with food wanting that to be the case. There just can be things that um emotions that might feel too big at any given time and uh controlling an element that we feel we are capable of controlling um can help us deal with those bigger emotions or feelings or things. So I think we don't set out to necessarily over-control our food or exercise, but you might be finding yourself in that place at the moment because it feels like something I can daily do to keep in check my emotional instability, to keep in check how I feel like I'm presenting to the world, to have some element of control over my life. This feels like something that I've begun to test and see changes and see improvements and see even sometimes feedback from people outside that I'm doing a good thing. I'm getting praised for um how I might look at the moment, or I might be getting seeing I like the way that my clothes fit a bit better, or I like the way that I'm actually feeling fitter now, that I'm doing more exercise. So there's all these positive reinforcements that your control over your relationship with food and exercise is positive, but then there becomes a point where that control actually cages you, essentially. And we're trying to decide or discuss ways in which we can highlight to ourselves that this might be happening, that we have potentially brought ourselves into a cage of control that now feels like I don't know how to get out of it. I don't know how to get back to the person I was before. My awareness of the food that I eat, my awareness of the amount of movement that I do has become so forefront now that I don't know how to go back to having that like ignorance of bliss mentality around all of these things. I don't know how to stepwise my way back to having a more flexible relationship with food.

SPEAKER_01

Because you're raising such an important point, because it's like, well, what does it mean about me now? You know, if I've kind of been funneled into this prison by the internal um sort of sense of like, oh yeah, I'm liking how my clothes fit, I like how I look in the mirror. But also, as you say, that external validation of people going, wow, you look amazing. You know, what are you doing? What does that mean about me if now I'm realizing, holy moly, this is an issue. Like I feel like I'm imprisoned and I have no flexibility in my life. How do I get out of that at this point as well?

SPEAKER_00

Like that living in that constant state of control, that constant bargaining with your brain about is this safe? Is this not? You are always in the state of that like fight or flight mentality. You will be operating in a far more agitated nervous system state constantly. Totally. And even in that sense, like when we are operating in that space more, we can become even more hyperfixated or um stuck essentially in that like hamster wheel. So yeah, you might be finding yourself in this space and being like, okay, I see that where I've got into has been helpful. I don't want to lose um all these positive things I've seen. I don't want to lose my fitness. I maybe I'm not um at an unhealthily thin space. I am actually just in a body shape that feels good, or maybe not. Maybe I actually am have tipped over a little bit into a space that my body weight is actually quite low. And actually, have I maybe lost my cycle? Um, is that like a physical sign that potentially I've I've taken things a bit far, but I don't know how to get back to that place. Like how do I get there essentially?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And because how do I kind of detach myself from that label? You know, I think again, if you're thinking that external validation of the skinny one, the fit one, the athletic one, whatever it might be for you. Like, how do I kind of how do I move away from that identity? Because we can hold a lot of value in these, the ways that other people see us or the way that we see ourselves. And it can be like, well, who am I without that? And it goes back to what we were talking about a little bit earlier, doesn't it? Of like all of these incredible values about us and things and qualities about us that are just completely overshadowed by that sort of like blinders on, I need to look a certain way. Yeah, I need to weigh a certain amount, I need to get a certain amount of validation from people around me to give me that sense that I'm on the right track here.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And I think it's like we need to like kind of zoom back out of that place that we have been in and start to think, okay, well, like, what do I love about my best friends? What do I love about my sisters or my brothers? What do I love about my parents, the role models in my life? Is it their body weight? Like, is that what I'm actually valuing? Is it their body composition and how they turn up? Is it how quickly they can do a spin class or whatever? Or is it how quickly they can like run a 10K? Is that what I'm valuing my relationship with those people on? Because like I would be to like I wouldn't think anyone is. Like I that's that's certainly not what I'm valuing my loved ones or people in on their life. I'm like, if they're you know out there running a great 10K, good for you. Like that like that's not why I'm your I'm not your friend for that reason. I am your friend for your warm heart. I am your friend for how you show up for me and give me energy, and therefore vice versa, I can give it back to you. I'm your friend because you have stimulating conversation. I feel um seen and heard and valued by you. I we have similar morals, shared interests, and for all of these reasons, you are a person that like fills my cup up and I get so much energy from you, and vice versa. But if I think about like coming to a friend who their whole focus and fixation is on their weight or their fitness and that body shape, and they really don't have much energy to give because they are so low at energy when I come to interact with them. I don't think I would get necessarily a very um like engaged conversation, maybe. Maybe that energy from there might be lacking. I might feel that their um conversation leads back to what they're currently valuing highly at the moment. And in that, I would feel quite pained to see that be a friend's or knowing that a friend had been in that space and their life had been, like you said, put into that cage or that prison and shrunk, shrunk down and seemingly a bit more isolated. They don't come to social occasions and reach out. Like in that space, and I think hopefully everyone listening to this could see how fragile and small that life has gotten, and how that is not the life that any of us want to see our loved ones living. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

No. Yeah, and you you speak to that, I guess, complicated dynamic really beautifully of like, is that something that I value about my friends? Is the way they look anything about what I value in no way? And equally, if that is the thing that they're valuing the most about themselves, can they show up as the best friend that they could be? Again, no way. Because how can you when that's consuming your brain? And I think of it in actually such a similar way. You know, I think of when I'm this is actually quite morbid, but when I'm on my deathbed, right? Am I gonna be like, I shouldn't have eaten that cake? Or oh God, I wish I didn't carry that extra five kilos, or you know, I wish I was a size 10 and not a size 14. Like, no, it's just not what I am going to regret. What I'm gonna regret the most is that I didn't show up as the best friend, wife, daughter, mother, whatever that I could be, because I was so consumed and fixated elsewhere. Um, and it's like I actually think about sometimes in client sessions, I use the metaphor of like playing tug of war. You know, when you play a tug of war and like you're kind of like, I don't know if people can see us right now, but if you're listening, like just imagine that you're playing tug of war and you're holding a rope with both of your hands, and like if you're playing tug of war, you're looking very kind of firmly on your opponent, right? If like your kids or your partner or your dog or your friends came up to you when you're playing tug of war, like can you give them all of yourself, like when you're engaged in this struggle? No way. Like, you're gonna be like, hey, um, I'm just a bit busy right now, you know, come back. Or the advice that you're going to give is going to be short and maybe not fully thought through because again, your attention is somewhere else. But if you drop the tug of war row, you know, it it means that all of a sudden you are free to kind of see your world for the full life that it is, and you can be present as present as you want to be with the people in your life. And 100%. It doesn't mean that the thing that you're struggling with on the other side that you were originally playing tug of war with, you know, for some people that are listening today, again, it might be you're playing tug of war with that voice in your head that is telling you not to eat a certain thing or that you need to move your body in a certain way. It's not that you've gotten rid of that struggle, but it's just you can see it, you're no longer engaged in the struggle with it. It's just there, it's just existing. And it can say all of the words it wants to say to you and it can talk as loud as it needs to talk to you, but you are no longer investing all of your energy into it. It can yell at you like, hey, you shouldn't eat that cake, but you aren't playing tug of war with it anymore. So your arms are kind of freed up to be 100%.

SPEAKER_00

So if you think about that as your whole life, like imagine having to hold on to that rope and tug and tug away at that your whole life. Like, how exhausting and how much wasted energy there in that relationship with the rope that like doesn't have to be there. Like that doesn't have to be your sole focus of the life of your life. Like, I can't think of anything worse than being attached to that rope for the rest of my life and missing out on everything else going around me because I've put so much and all of my value into this tug-of-war rope game that at the end of the day doesn't affect anyone else than me. It all it's doing is really like taking my life from me. And I think that's the one piece that we really have to like think about with this eating relationship is like, yes, this can feel all-consuming at the time. When you're in a tug of war match, that is where you have your whole focus. And that can feel like the biggest thing in the world. But like if you do step away and let go of the rope and take a look around you, you might see over there there's like other fun games going on that you want to have up here that are actually uplifting and fun. Or there might be, I don't know, like a face painting stall over there that you can go. I don't know, there's all sorts of things in this carnival that you can go and see. And it's like, why would we singly put all of our energy into this difficult, struggled tug of rope? Yeah, I think, and then I think as well, there's like the element of like understanding the cost versus benefit of this, right? It's like, okay, well, when I'm in this like tug of war, I know exactly what I'm doing. I might win this, and I might be able to keep control and I might be able to um have some sense of, I feel, I feel some sort of purpose, I guess, when I'm in this tug of war. Um, and it's keeping some control over my life, maybe. Um, but if we are to like let go of that, what other benefits could there be like outside of that? Or what is this tug of rope actually like weighing on my life? So if we think about the tug of rope, yeah, it's giving me purpose, which might be that feeling of like, or I feel like I have control over my body weight, and I feel like this has become my identity. I am the fit girl, or I like how I present in clothes, or I like how I look, and I want to maintain that external value system. But what is the like cost of this as well? I'm missing out on everything else that life has to offer. I might also be being really worn down in this tug of war. Like I might be breaking down my body throughout this. If this goes on so long, like my muscles will start to fade away. I will need to use all the energy in my body, and that can end up meaning I break down my muscle tissue. It can mean I break down my bone tissue, your bone mineral density, which is like that, these are real um examples of what's happening if we are actually in that like struggling relationship with food. But I think when I talk to a lot of particularly younger clients struggling with this, the concept of bone mineral density goes over their head. They're like, what the hell? Why would I even care about that? Like it really doesn't, that's like a very real and one of the most important physical um issues with staying in a sustained period of like weight loss or being underweight for too long. And the issue is that where we have strong, dense bones, we are very resistant to falls or breaks. If we fall over a trip over, we might get a graze on our hands, but our wrist or our um forearm doesn't snap, right? But if we are hollowing out our bones through having to use a lot of that bone, bone mineral to like fuel and power us because we're not getting that in from our diet, we end up with these very hollow, brittle. Bones that are very prone to breaking. And it's like, yeah, okay, cool, whatever. I break a few more bones. Right. The thing might be actually as well, if you're really into your exercise, you might start getting stress fractures, which will put you out of exercise for a wee while. Well, you have to recover from those. So stress fractures also can be a sign of that. Um, but the the key thing that I think that really people overlook in this whole equation is what is your health span for the rest of your life? Like we have our lifespan, which is how long we live to, but then we also have our health span, which is how long we can maintain health through our life. Um, and for most of us, our lifespan could be five years longer than our health span. But the more that we break down our muscle tissue, break down our bone mineral density, the wider the disparity between our health span and our lifespan gets. So our health span will start to reduce and reduce and reduce because we are putting a huge physical strain on our body. Um, and what that will do means that it might be that the last 10, 15, 20 years of your life, you could end up in a wheelchair or very immobile because we have broken down your body so much. And I think this is the part that really is overseen in the weight loss equation. I think even in today's day and age with some of these like weight loss drugs being used, maybe not for um medical purposes, but maybe for more aesthetic purposes, this is the part of the equation that's being missed. It's like, yeah, I want to be viewed as the healthy, thin, fit person right now. But if they are my morals and values that I'm chasing with trying to maintain a smaller body than maybe is healthy, I'm almost discounting that health element from the like end of my life. So it's like, if you actually value health, do you value health in longevity or do you value health right now? And I think this is one of those like trade-offs we really need to understand and work through to be like, do I want to be still walking and running and playing with my children or my grandchildren or whatever it is when I'm 60, 65, 70 versus being wheelchair bound or even in hospital constantly from that point onwards because I've my health has deteriorated so much. Because even though my goal with all of my control around my food and my exercise was to be healthier, I've almost pushed the boat too far. I've gone to a point where what I'm doing no longer promotes health. I want my life to be healthy, but I'm stuck in the space of potentially doing too much that I'm actually causing like a physical toll on my body. So we talk about this a lot in um our course, which we'll get to in a little bit, but it's sort of this concept of like not doing enough is sort of one end of the bowel curve. Doing um the right amount with the right amount of rest is the top of the bowel curve, the happy place to be. And then sweeping down the other end of the bowel curve, we do too much that we end up actually doing worse things for our health, even though the goal was health at the start of the day.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And God, I mean, just listening to you talk about that, the cost is immense, you know. And I think you you put it in such a way that I'm listening to you being like, holy moly, absolutely not. That would be a horrific way to spend the end of my life. Like, I think all of us listening want to be able to have kind of quality until the very end. But I also know for those who are listening who are maybe wanting to be parents or are on a fertility journey that this is also particularly pertinent for them, right? Like what goes on with fertility.

SPEAKER_00

100%. I think that's probably the next more immediate like marker that we can reach to if still bone mineral density or end of life still feels like not a right now problem. I'd still rather maintain my controlled relationship with food and still maintain that I'm still getting more benefit, say, from having this like rigid food relationship. I think the next thing to start to think about is if we're predominantly females, but also males, like males' sperm health is hugely based on um nourishment and things like that as well. If we are wanting to be period sometime, even in the next like 10 years, um, if not sooner, we need to be so conscious of fueling and nourishing our body. If you are starting to see a more regular cycle or missing your period and these sorts of behaviors with eating feel like they're going on for you, then it could be that we're essentially not eating enough energy to support reproduction. So our body is very smart, it's built for survival. So when we are in a healthy, relaxed, lower stress space, our body allows it to do all of its things. If we're getting enough energy to service everything that's needed in our body, we have thick, luscious hair, our skin is glowing, we are hydrated, our bones are strong, our muscles are very insulin sensitive and they are taking on board all the energy we're eating. Our metabolism is nice and um fast, and then we are um ovulating really regularly, so monthly. Bear in mind we're not talking about too many other um things that could interrupt our cycle, be it like PCRS or something else. But if we are having like a typical regular cycle and we are eating enough, that kind of signals to me that your body is just in a happy, calm space. It feels ready to bring in new life, it feels like it could sustain a healthy pregnancy. Um, and it can sustain all these other energy-intensive things that are going on in the body. When we reduce energy to a point that sits below what our general metabolism needs to keep all these things ticking along, it's kind of like getting a pay cut. Our body has to be like, okay, well, we have to think about what is need versus want right now. Luscious hair, healthy skin, re reproduction, they're all wants. They're all nice to have. What is essential to survival is our heart pumping, our lungs breathing, our brain functioning. Um, and that's pretty much it. So, and even in that case, the brain's not going to function at a high state, it's just gonna function just enough. So, like, even that component is like super important, but we might start to feel very cold, especially A, if we've lost some body fat. That's important for like our um thermoregulation and things like that. But also, if we're just not eating enough or burning enough energy, you might feel very cold in your body as well. Like uh, your particularly fingers and toes might get cold a lot of the time. You feel like you have to really layer up or you feel like your core temperature is just freezing all the time. So that is um again a nice to have. Like our body's gonna work to keep our core body at the temperature it needs to be. So it's gonna kind of like hypothermia forgo all the outer extremities and things like that. There's definitely not enough spare disposable income to grow like strong thick glashes here. We'll shut that down, even like outer third of eyebrows thinning, that can be another sign. Um, and absolutely we're in a state of famine, so we are not going to ovulate because that is unnecessary energy spend, and you're not in a position to like carry a baby right now, anyway. The other part of this is that so if we do shut down reproduction, we lose the cycle of strengthening and building muscle and bone tissue as well. So hormones play a role in whether our bones and our muscles are building up or whether they're breaking down. So when we are ovulating in the luteal phase, when our progesterone is high, that's a really anabolic building up phase. That's where we see a lot of bone mineral density build, we see a lot of muscle tissue build. That's really like building season for our body. And then when we're in our um follicular phase, like pre-ovulation, our body can be a little bit more catabolic. We can be breaking down things. And this cycle, when we're having our regular period, we have two weeks kind of in build mode, we have two weeks sort of more in break mode. But overall, if we keep that pattern going, we are constantly um strengthening our body. Kind of like when we do exercise, we might break down some muscle tissue, but then we risk to build it back up with all of that nourishment. It's the same kind of concept. So if we lose our cycle for um a long time, whether that's even six months or a year or two years, depending on how long we live without changing our way of being with food and exercise to try and get our cycle back, we're missing out on that rebuilding phase of our bone tissue, our muscle tissue. And this is where being at a lower body weight, especially for females, um, we have less chance to strengthen that bone mineral density, more chance to bring it back down. So that kind of circles back around to that lifespan. But in all of this as well, if family planning is something that you want to have, when our body switches off that cycle, we almost have to prove to our body above and beyond that it is safe. We are no longer in famine, we are in a um more calm nervous system state. Okay, now we can start back up ovulation again to start to try for a baby. And if we want to have a baby, we must be ovulating um to get to get that in. And so it's really important to be conscious of if this is something you want in the next one, two, five, ten years, we want to be having that constant regular cycle leading up into starting to try for a family, because if it's not regular or it's not even present, then we're not going to have any chances to have those babies. And also we want to make sure that that body feels calm, feels supported so that we can nourish and fuel the baby as well. So yeah, fertility is a hugely important piece. And hopefully, if not the health span, lifespan conversation doesn't get kind of your pros and cons. I'm trying to build a case for you to want to start to let go of a little bit of that control you have with your food. Try bring a bit more flexibility and fluidity, a little bit more nourishment in because I just want you to live a full, meaningful life that has um, that's open to like every opportunity that you might want to do, that gives you that like fuel and nourishment to live a full, big, fun, large life. Because I mean, we hear it all the time, but like it never used, it used to like touch my brain and skip bounce right off it. Like it was like a boomerang. This concept of like you only get one life just didn't actually ever resonate with me. I don't know if it's age, I don't know what it is, but it's like we literally only get one life. Why the hell would we want to like shrink that down to something so small and like be in that prison? Like, I mean, we actively as humans would hate to go to prison in real life for the sense of it being such a small, caged life. Why would we do that to ourselves in some sort of way? Like, why not do the travel, do the social things, like eat the yummy foods? Like, especially if there's like an underlying want of those things to happen, but you feel like that's not for me, like challenge that in yourself. Like, why is that not for you?

SPEAKER_01

Gosh, that that's so true. Like, particularly when you hear all these costs that we're talking about, like you're kind of weighing up, and like I look, I don't want to minimize this because I know it's much more complicated than what I'm about to say. But it's like weighing up, you know, again, wearing like size 12 jeans or being able to have a baby or um feel like wanting to show off your bikini bod versus like being in a wheelchair, you know, in the last 10 years of your life. Like again, I know that that's a a very simplistic way of looking at it, but it speaks exactly to your point of like, why do we want to shrink our lives? You know, why do we why do we need to punish ourselves? It's so insanely punishing to have such a controlled, like a tight grip on the food that you're eating and the exercise that you're doing. And I I kind of see it like a spectrum, and it's sort of like the bell curve that you were talking about, right? Like there's totally a sweet spot here where you can eat in a way that nourishes your body and move in a way that nourishes your body and like feel good in yourself, but also be able to have kids and be able to live this full life until you die. Like run around with your grandkids and that kind of thing. And this is exactly why we have created our course Eating With Ease, which I will put in the show notes a link to our course. So, Em, can you tell us a bit about this course?

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely. I just had one more thing that came into my mind that I think would be talk about before we like jump into that. Um so I guess like the tricky part with this, and kind of what you highlighted just when you s what and what you said there was we do have to eat every day, and we still, and the narrative globally is like eat healthy, eat healthy, eat healthy. Um, and so it's like every day, for me it would be like five or six times a day, because that's how regularly I'm eating, I'm confronted with choice, right? Like it's like what decision do I make? So unlike, and I want everyone to understand that like when we get into this space of super, super hyper fixation without eating and using our food and our eating as a way to control that big, scary voice in our head, control our emotions, it's not dissimilar to how like addiction can play out in other ways. It's like a substance, I guess, abuse or control or use in helping us manage big feelings. It's like this creates a positive like thought path in my mind, or a dopamine hit, or something in some way that I'm getting a reward from it. Therefore, that's why I keep doing it. Like I keep choosing the healthier, quote unquote, and I hate using this word, but like clean option or whatever it is, or the lower calorie option, because overall that manages the big feelings and thoughts and things that I have in my head. And I have to keep being confronted with this multiple times a day. But it's kind of like, I think from here we just need to keep thinking about how I can make a food or fuel choice that's going to support my body to do what it needs to do. How am I going to get in a good amount of nourishing energy? And if the easiest thing there to start with is like, even if I still want it to be this quote unquote clean food, say, like this, whatever that means. Like for some people that might mean like a lower processed food. For some people, it might mean lower sugar, for some people, whatever it means. I want you to step into a space where you're like, I would usually opt for, I don't know, the salary sticks here. I'm going to opt for a seedy crackle, or I'm going to opt for some nuts and seeds, or I'm going to add some avocado or some peanut butter to those salary sticks. It doesn't have to be, and what we're not asking you to do is go and eat something completely um crazy. Like it doesn't have to be those fear foods. Like we're not asking you to necessarily swap to having pasta or swap to having bread right away. It doesn't have to be that large, crazy step. It just has to be how can I get a little bit more nourishment in? How can I give my body a little bit more energy, even if it's something that's whole food, whatever it is, it's that sort of like let's just take a step in the direction that we want to. And when we start to do that more regularly, then we start to show our body that actually I might not have even changed body shape by making the small tiny change. And this is something we do actually work with in our course. It's something we call the challenge ladder. And it's like we're not asking you to get to the rung 10 of the ladder today. We're asking you to go up rung one, maybe rung two. And the rung one or rung two might be a small change, but it's at least a step towards the right direction. So it's changing from um having a carrot stick or a celery stick by itself to putting a little bit of peanut butter on that. That's like the first step we can make to add a little bit more nourishment in. Let's do that a few times. And then it's like, okay, we take, once we've progressed to that pace, we take the next few rungs. Eventually, that snack might look like a super seedy cracker top, slathered with lots of peanut butter, and maybe we also have a couple of other things in that snack. Like the beauty of this as well is like those small changes are gonna help us prove to our metabolism, prove to our body that it's safe with having a bit more, you know, those small weekly changes of increasing the amount of food that we're eating at each eating episode. That is gonna help signal to your body, hey, we're getting a little bit more energy each time. We can increase our um spend of energy across the body. So we can actually put a bit more energy back into the hair. We can put a bit more energy back into thermoregulation. So now my fingers don't feel so freezing all the time. We could put a little bit more energy back into ovulation, all these sorts of things, right? It's a little bit like getting a bit of a pay rise. We have a bit more to spend on other things. And so, yeah, it's that kind of lifestyle creep that we would get with like increasing our like income. We want to have that same concept happen like across the body. And with small, regular, constant change, that's like a key piece of it. We can't do it for one day and then pull back for a week. We need to keep some sort of momentum. That momentum can be small, but we want to keep it going. And eventually we can get back to that place that we all want to be at, um, where we can eat with more ease, which is exactly like the course. Like in this course, we talk about the basics of nutrition and why we need to eat a bit more and why that's important for our body. We get deep into how to build a balanced meal because that's gonna help nourish our body the best. And then throughout this all as well, Sophia our beautiful registered comes in and helps give us meaningful understanding, definitions, thoughtful ways to like stop and think about how either our voice, the voice in our brain, is talking to us about the way that we eat, we can start to challenge it. We can get those amazing psychological tools on how to move through despite the voice still being there. Like, how can we accept that that's going on and keep like working towards healing? Um, and then yeah, throughout it all, throughout the course, the goal is that we can get you to a place where you feel more at ease with your eating. You feel like you can start to bring back in some of those um amazing parts of life, whether it's socializing, whether it's um traveling, all of those things, just like letting go of the rope, the tug-abool rope. That life just doesn't feel so difficult anymore. We don't feel like we're putting ourselves in yeah, the on prison of our own life.

SPEAKER_01

Totally beautiful summary. And you know, you and I have created this online course, right? Because we both see people with challenging relationships with food and their body in our respective practices. And I remember in the early days we were like going back on voice message and we're like, we're seeing the same clients here. Like, who there's such a crossover in the the clients that we're working with? Whose like quote unquote like role is this? Because if somebody's got a challenging relationship with food, you need that psychological aspect to be able to have some tools of like, how do I learn to navigate that voice and simultaneously live this beautiful full life? Yes. And from a nutrition perspective, like, how do you make sure that you're nourishing and fueling your body appropriately? Like you actually need both of us, right? And just for the most effective care. And so this is where we were like, okay, let's create eating with ease. This online course that is self-paced, and it's we're giving you the tools so that you can move towards the life that you want to live. This is not a course that's just like, oh, everybody needs to be like eating more and like eat the cake and like whatever. It's not generic like that. It's like it's getting you to tap into kind of how you want to see your life. You know, what we were talking about in this episode of like being able to run around with your kids, or like, I want to be able to show up as the friend that I want to be, or whatever it might be. Like, whatever the thing is for you, we give you the tools to be able to shift your relationship with food.

SPEAKER_00

I think that's a really key point because I think the trickiest part with this healing equation and the stickiness can come is, and maybe the like um friction to like seek help when this is going on as well, is because, well, I still care about being like a very healthy person. Like at the end of the day, that's actually a core value for me. So yeah, if you feel like seeking help feels really frictitious. If you feel like there is Still a the thing that's not getting you to seek help is the feeling of I don't know if this is going to be done in the way that works for me. I think eating with these is like an exceptional first start because when we talked about that challenge ladder, we do not fill that out for you. That is you to fill out. So it might be that, yeah, where I actually do want to work to ultimately is I want to go to a restaurant and order pasta and dessert and not think twice about the health element or not think twice about what that might do to my body. That might be your pinnacle, that might be your top of the ladder. That might be your second iteration of the ladder. For some of us, it might just be to a case of being like, I really look at people maybe on Instagram or TikTok and they eat these beautiful breakfasts that have got nuts and seeds and yoga and oats and all of this goodness, or it might be a big like jammy, egg, chili, oil, sourdough, avocado situation. That feels, even though we can sit here and be like healthy, so healthy, look at all those nourishing ingredients. For you, that still might feel like a stretch. That might be your top rung of the ladder. And it's all about working to a point to get you feeling more comfortable with food. There's no set end goal. There's no you must eat white bread at the top of your ladder. No, that's like not the goal here. Like, let's make some benefit, let's get some more nourishment back in. And I think that might feel like, okay, I can do that. Like, no, I can't get to pasta and white bread and dessert tomorrow, but I can do something. And I think this is where like we do say eating with ease is like a first step tool just to try and challenge the thought path, try and challenge what you're doing. Let's take a look at how you're eating. Can we balance the plate a bit more? Has it been predominantly lean protein and vegetables? Can we bring a bit more fat in there? Can we bring a little bit more carb? Whatever that looks like. It's like getting you back to being, yeah, more um having your um, I guess, metabolism be more flexible, having your mindset be more flexible. It's all about like building flexibility and like challenging that muscle so that the end goal is you get to a place where you can live your life more fully.

SPEAKER_01

Very true. And I think the the premise of it, and it touches on something you were just talking about earlier, was like that I think for every one of us, health means something different. And I think what a lot of people listening, and just a lot of people in the world, have kind of unintentionally done, is sort of attach the word restriction to health. Like we think that being restricted in what we're eating or restricted in the way that we move our bodies is healthy. And you and I are both trying to say, like, there's a cost to that. Like, we need to nourish our bodies and not punish them. And even if white bread was the thing at the top of your challenge ladder, it's not actually the white bread, it's actually what it kind of represents. It's like that you could go out for dinner with your friends or family last minute, like, oh god, I was supposed to go for a run or a hit workout tonight. But no, I'm valuing the part of me that is like that person. I want to show up as the best friend, the best daughter, the best whoever. And that's what I'm doing. And I'm gonna order the fucking dessert because I want it. You know, that's what white bread kind of represents. And and it's it's representing that fuller, more flexible life. That means that it's on your deathbed, you're looking back. Exactly. You're looking back and you're going, I'm so grateful that I did that, because that's the stuff that was like joyful for me, you know.

SPEAKER_00

And I think that's it. It's like we can get so granular and so focused with like what is health, like being um, and I think there's like this is where I really challenge a lot of like the rhetoric is like, yeah, there are things that are healthier than others or more, there's more nourishment in one thing than the other, right? Like a super, super seedy bread has more nourishment, there's more vitamins, minerals, fiber, protein, all of that, healthy fats in a more seedy piece of bread than a white piece of bread. But that's not to say that actually it's healthy to be able to have a relationship with a white piece of bread and have it every now and again and not have thoughts or feelings around it. Like there's a healthiness to going with the flow. There's a healthiness to not getting stress and anxiety around eating something one off or even regularly. Um, it's like about challenging any sort of rules or thoughts we have in our mind and trying to have, yeah, like you said, less restriction, less rigidity around food rules. Overall, we have still a moral compass that we aim to live by. And that's like mine is I want to eat as much nourishing food in a day as I can. And sometimes for me, that means I eat like four big main meals and a couple of snacks. Like, because for me, I'm like, well, I want more in my day. I like I want more of these things, and um, and I've got to a point where like my metabolism can totally handle that because, like I said, when the more that you teach your body to like um eat more, the the more it's happy to burn, and the more that you're maybe um giving your body strength training and rest days, your muscles are better at up taking these things. They burn a bit more. So there's like all these benefits of actually um like adding more nourishment, more rest, more things into your day to like actually gain and achieve the moral or the yeah, I guess the value in life that you want, which is health, right? But I think like you said, there's so much around health being or how health should look, maybe. Um, or thinking about how we need to get there, which I mean, this is a whole nother conversation for a whole nother day. But like I think even in today's day and age, we've gone from being in like either a body neutral or a body positive space for the last, I don't know, 10 years ago or so. We've come back into a space where now um medications and other things have allowed us to like have more influence, maybe, on our weight, particularly. Like physical weight would be more the focus. And I'm not anti these medications because I have a number of like uh clients or um patients who will use these medications, talking like GLP ones and things, for severe insulin resistance, diabetes, and like weight management. And they are actually like powerful scientific tools like modern medit medicine to support these health conditions because these clients are at a space where their health span is more impacted by their insulin resistance and their body weight. Therefore, these medications create a net positive in their world. I think the issue is when these medications are being used purely for aesthetic purposes and that insulin resistance piece might not be so present. And certainly we might have been at a normal or even like smaller body weight to then use some of these medications. We're seeing this play out in like um Hollywood, for want of a better word. Like we're seeing this play out on the global stage. And women who had healthy, beautiful bodies are almost looking like somewhat skeletal, um, some of them. And I think this is just creating this whole new narrative around like how physical, how much physical bodies present or how much weight and onus we put on our physical body. But this will change again, I think. And I think knowing A, that all of these people who shouldn't probably be on these medications because they're not on them for health reasons, they're on them for more aesthetic reasons, they are getting those same um cons for their health on these medications. They are losing their bone mineral density, they are losing their muscle tissue, they are potentially uh reducing their like health span. And I think that piece is not talked about enough. Um, and and therefore, and and even with my clients who are utilizing these medications for as they should be, they are doing, we are doing a lot of work with the food that we are eating, with the exercise and strength training that we are doing to try and mitigate bone mineral density loss, mitigate muscle loss, um, and support the overall health picture. Whereas I think all of the nuance of this conversation has gone out the door. And so I think, I mean, I've completely taken this off on a tangent. I think it's I think this is what like people are interested in as well, is like, how can I grapple with maybe my body changing from where I've enjoyed it being when it's more prevalent than ever that female bodies are showing up far thinner or leaner than ever before. But I think we just need to like put all of these um cons back into the picture and just go, just because someone is looking this way doesn't mean they are healthier. Uh it just means that they look a certain way. That's all it means. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

That's it. See it for what it is. That's it. And just I think the the topic is insanely important because you're right. I think what we're seeing on social media and what we're seeing just out in the world are all these, yes, skeletal bodies. And like what message is that sending to us? Of like, oh my gosh, the the bar is changing. Like, I need to try and keep up with that, you know. And if I'm not keeping up with that, then that means Y Z. And again, this is why we've created eating with ease, because that kind of train of thinking is not taking you down a path where you're gonna live your best fullest life. Like, no, actually, you're going to live your most restricted, imprisoned kind of life, and it's gonna have all sorts of catastrophic ramifications on your body. And so we really are just here to kind of combine our wisdom and put it out into the world in an accessible way. So if anything that we've talked about today kind of resonates, I really encourage you to click the link in the show notes to look at eating with ease and just be curious about, you know, am I currently living my best life when it comes to the food that I'm eating? And if I'm not, can I just gonna be biased here and say eating with ease will absolutely be helpful one way or another because there is so many tools in there psychological tools and nutritional wisdom and so to fix things.

SPEAKER_00

Take the step, do the first module or two, let it sit with you, come back in. If you feel like you want to devour it all in one go, go ahead and do that and then start to like action the steps. There's it's fully self-paced, there's um no time limit on how quickly you have to move through things. All the information is there for you, and then you know that Sophia and I are the creators of all of this. Therefore, if there's anything you've got questions about, um, anything that comes up for you, there's an email there within the course to reach out, ask questions to us, but also know that we are very real people and we can be on the other end and like workshop things for you as well. We are both practitioners. So um, yeah, I just think knowing, I guess listening to this as well and feeling like I if you kind of resonate with our take on this, our um understanding of all aspects of everything that's feeding into the way that we are living our life and everything that we can do to like change the way that we're living, then yeah, this is the perfect thing for you to get started with.

SPEAKER_01

Beautiful. I could not agree more. Emma Wiley, thank you so much for being with us today. We're gonna have to have you back for more wisdom. Thank you for having me. You've been listening to the Holistic Psychology podcast. If you enjoyed this conversation, subscribe and share it with somebody who might need it today. Until next time, peers to true wellness from the inside out.