The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos - Feed Yourself Like You'd Feed a Loved One

Episode Date: January 18, 2021

Diets and "healthy" eating fads are a January fixture - but few of us stick to these harsh regimes. And when the dieting ends, we often go back to the "bad" foods we craved during our fasting.Psychotherapist Andrea Wachter says this dieting "roller coaster" makes our minds obsess over food and causes our bodies no end of harm. Andrea stepped off the roller coaster by taking a kinder and calmer approach to the foods she consumed. She tells Dr Laurie Santos the key rule - feed yourself like you'd feed someone you love. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pushkin. Year after year, one of the most common New Year's resolutions is losing weight. Many of us start the new year hating what we see in the mirror. And so we resolve to fix it, not by eating just a tad healthier, but by completely overhauling our entire food intake. January can feel like a time when everyone is on some eating regime. Our social media feeds fill up with diet ads and articles about paleo and keto and master cleanses and cabbage soup. Our friends download calorie counting apps and pledge to cut out carbs and

sugar. It's hard not to get swept up in all the fresh start diet culture frenzy, especially if you're not feeling all that positive about how you look after the holidays. I know all this very well because I too have had my fair share of January diet overhauls. I have started many, many a new year hating what I saw in the mirror and obsessing over my own eating habits. And what was the result of all this strict dieting weeks later? More often than not, I wound up beating myself up for not living up to that perfect picture of health I'd envisioned on New Year's Eve. A resolution I thought would make me happier ended up making me feel more disappointed and more depressed than ever. It's been hard for

me to break this annual cycle. But last year around this time, Andrea Wachter came to my rescue. Andrea is a psychotherapist who specializes in disordered eating and the problem of diet culture. She's been studying effective ways to eat for over 30 years. I decided to take her meditation course, Getting Over Overeating, on the Insight Timer app, and it was like a light bulb went off. Hello, and welcome to Lesson 1. I'm so glad you decided to join me on this journey. If you've been struggling with overeating or binge eating,

the most important thing to know is that it's not your fault. Like all the other experts in this new year mini season of the Happiness Lab, Andrea has discovered that a more self-compassionate approach is the key to becoming happier with our bodies and healthier in what we feed ourselves. So if you're ready to learn more about how you can be healthier

and kick that destructive diet habit through kindness, then join me, Dr. Laurie Santos, for another special New Year mini-season edition of the Happiness Lab. The topic of what I'm supposed to be eating has taken up way, way more of my thinking than I care to admit. I have spent an embarrassing chunk of my adult life plotting and planning new diet regimes. I've spent hours fantasizing that this time I really will perfectly adhere to that unnecessarily uber-strict new eating plan. And I inevitably become sad and disappointed when, surprise, surprise, I fail again to live up to the

superhuman diet goals I've set for myself. And because I then feel like a loser, I fail again to live up to the superhuman diet goals I've set for myself. And because I then feel like a loser, I wind up comforting myself with whatever off-limits food I was trying to limit in the first place. And that's why I was so taken by Andrea and her work. She knows exactly what all this feels like because she went through these very same behaviors and worse for years. I think it's really important to be open about the troubling relationship that many of us have with food and eating. But knowing Andrea's personal history, I was a bit nervous about asking her to share all the details. What was once the biggest shameful secret of my life is now my career. So there's kind of nothing I don't talk about anymore because there's no shame anymore because I know it wasn't my fault. And I know, you know, it was all passed down innocently and having found a way to climb out, I'm happy to share what I've been through. So with that permission, I asked Andrea to

explain her journey towards eating with greater self-compassion, beginning with her very earliest memory of when body image and disordered eating took over her life. Basically, I started dieting when I was about 12 years old. And it was the first time I remember having someone comment or say something shameful towards my body. Up until that point, I don't really remember thinking all that much about my body, even though my mom was a, and still is a chronic dieter. But when I was about 12, I got teased about the size of my thighs and I call it a dart in the heart moment where something happens and you feel terrible about it. Usually terrible about yourself, usually make decisions as a result that are not generally healthy or helpful. And so I felt

terrible about my body, decided that I needed to lose weight, and I started my first diet. And like I said, my mom was already dieting at the time, my older sister was already dieting, and I just hopped on what I now call the diet riot rollercoaster. So talk about what it was like to be on that diet rollercoaster inside. Well, once I started obsessing, it was this constant soundtrack and it colored my life. Now, some people can diet. I call them lightweight dieters, pun intended. Some people can diet and it doesn't take over their lives. And some people, it's a real huge obsession and leads to problems. And then many people, it leads to full-blown eating disorders. And that's what happened with me. I just became

obsessed, which is the natural response to dieting. I started sneak eating all the food that I wasn't supposed to have on the diet and had huge weight fluctuations. I did have a life. Like I went to school and I eventually went to college and I had lots of friends and summer jobs. But on the inside, no matter what I was doing, there was this constant soundtrack of what I was eating, what I wasn't eating, what someone else was eating and not eating, what my thighs look like compared to theirs. I just was constantly obsessed. And that really colored my life. So this sounds like a horrible soundtrack to turn on in your own head. But here we are at the start of the new year, and so many people are willingly jumping on this diet roller coaster.

Tell me kind of how that makes you feel as somebody who's studied this for so long. Well, it's sad because it's kind of the solution that people are given. And even though the diet industry is hugely successful and multi-billion dollar industry that continues to grow, it's got pretty much a 95% failure rate. People think that they themselves are failing, that they're just failing the diets. But really, the solution that we're given to body image issues and to binging or overeating is to diet. And the solution that we're given, the diet, is part of the problem. So I feel sad about it. And I know what it's like to spend your life obsessed on food and going to parties and not being able to eat what others are eating or what you really want or eating out of control once you, quote, slip or break or go off the diet. So I know that

only too well. And I also know what the effects of dieting are. And it is a roller coaster. So what were some of the negative behaviors you noticed in yourself? You talked about your obsessive thinking, but did you also have behaviors that made you worry that something wasn't right, that you were on this kind of strange roller coaster? Oh, absolutely. I snuck ate constantly. I tried to eat what I had deemed good foods in front of people and then naturally ate what I deemed bad foods or what I was taught were bad foods. I would throw food away in an attempt to get rid of it and then get it out

of the garbage and eat it again. I mean, just, they call it in Alcoholics Anonymous in the 12 step arena, they call it incomprehensible demoralization, things that I never dreamed I would do. There were even times I would steal people's food. I was out of control with food. What's amazing about your story is that you really realized the bad part of this diet riot rollercoaster firsthand, right? Yes, but after decades of dieting and rioting and severe eating disorder and going on one diet after the next and yo-yo weight fluctuations, on one diet after the next and yo-yo, weight fluctuations. And then I finally found help that actually helped. And I started working on the deeper issues. And so how were you able to get off this diet riot rollercoaster? Well, I began getting sufficient support that took me deeper than just my body size, support that helped me

learn what I was eating over, not just what I was eating, support that helped me stop restricting and start having a new relationship with food and learning how to approach food according to how it would make me feel rather than how it would make me look. And one of my biggest do-overs was deciding that I was going to let go of my obsession to change my body and instead learn how to treat my body respectfully and then make peace with whatever that body was going to be as a result. And so in some ways, ironically, it was this attempt to get over this diet mentality that allowed you to kind of come to terms and love your body, which is what people who are starting out on diets want in some sense in the first

place. Exactly. People think that if they change their body, then they'll love their body. But the way to love your body is to love your body. Like you cut out the middle guy and you work on that. And it's work on. It's roll up your sleeves, work on it because of the culture we live in. Talk a little bit about what happens and what the diet mentality does to our brains and our minds. Oh, let me count the ways, what it does to our brains and our minds. Well, mentally, first of all, when we deprive ourselves, we become obsessed. First of all, when we deprive ourselves, we become obsessed. If someone is cold and they don't put on a sweater, they're going to be thinking about how cold they are.

And when they put on that sweater, they probably don't continue thinking they're cold. Or if someone's tired and they continually deprive themselves of sleep, they can't stop thinking about how tired they are and feeling tired. But as soon as we sleep and get rest, we're not likely to obsess on being tired the next day because that need was met. So when we diet and chronically restrict ourselves of delicious food and enough food, then our minds obsess on food because they're not getting what they're needing. So it's a natural response. So that's the first huge effect of diets. Secondly, there are hormonal changes that happen in our

body as a result of dieting and attempting to lose weight unnaturally. We have hormones that are responsible for hunger and fullness. And when we diet and we lose weight unnaturally, our hormones will adjust to try to get us back to natural. So our hunger hormone will increase because it wants us to eat more. And our satiety hormone will decrease because it wants us to eat more. And our satiety hormone will decrease because it wants us to get more food, to get more calories because we need it. So hormonally, our bodies are very unhappy when we diet. And when we are eating in a loving, respectful way, which means we don't starve and we don't stuff ourselves, then our hormones regulate. And similarly, metabolically, that's a third area that changes and that gets affected by diets. Our metabolism will adjust if we deprive

ourselves and if we try to go lower than our natural weight range. We all have a natural weight range, just like we have a natural foot size and a natural height. Our natural weight range isn't one number as opposed to what we're taught. People try to get to be one number. Our natural range is a range. It fluctuates. And when we diet, our range tends to fluctuate enormously and unnaturally. And our metabolism will try to adjust to try to get us back to our natural range because it's natural. So that's another effect. To be metabolically happy, we want to stop stuffing and starving ourselves. And when we stop starving ourselves, we stop stuffing ourselves. And you use this wonderful metaphor of all these changes as this

kind of diet roller coaster. So talk to me about what you mean about this roller coaster. Yeah, I call it the diet riot roller coaster. So there are certainly many people that just riot, they just binge and painfully overeat and they don't diet. But I've never met anyone that doesn't diet in mentality. So I like to say, whether you're dieting in reality or mentality, it's still going to have that rebound effect of rebellion. So if somebody deprives themselves of food on a diet, whether it's a official diet in a book or a doctor, or it's your own deprivation and rules of food groups and foods that you're just not

allowed to have because they're bad, or they're fattening or whatever. So when someone does that, it sets up this natural response to just want to eat everything the diet mentality tells us not to eat. And again, there's people that just binge and overeat and they say they don't diet, but I've never met someone who didn't have diet mentality thinking that they should be dieting. And that still sets us up. And so, you know, I grew up in diet culture, obviously. I mean, I took your course on Insight Timer, which I adored. Everyone who's listening to this should take her course if you're struggling with this stuff. But even though I know this stuff, it's sometimes hard for me to believe that it's possible to kind of take care of your body and

lovingly feed it in a way that doesn't feel so obsessed. But you've argued that we can all do this if we kind of listen to that voice deep down inside of us, if we put some work in to kind of listen to it. We do have this voice, but it's a deep voice. It's kind of in our hearts. It's a natural knowing of how to treat your body. Just like, you know, if you're cold, you grab a blanket, you know, if you're tired, hopefully if you're caring for your body, you go to sleep or rest. And we've been so robbed of this innate knowledge of how to feed our bodies because of the diet industry. So this process is about getting it back. So I think people at the start of the new year really

want to do something positive for themselves, right? Like they want to, in some sense, be healthier or be fitter, but they unwittingly end up jumping on this diet riot roller coaster that leaves them in some ways like mentally and maybe even physically worse off than before. that leaves them in some ways like mentally and maybe even physically worse off than before. Absolutely. And it's like looking at one piece of a puzzle and missing that there are so many components. Like I like to talk about a four-legged table and that in order to be healthy and in order to heal from if somebody doesn't feel comfortable in their body or their treatment of their body, in order to feel more healthy and more balanced, we have to deal with all four legs of this table in order for the table to be stable. I love a good rhyme. So the four legs or areas to work on if someone wants

to start the new year and work on being healthier, the four areas are physical, which is letting go of that extreme diet riot and learning how to feed yourself lovingly and respectfully. And then it's emotional, which is learning how to cope with and tend to your emotions rather than think certain ones are good and certain ones are bad. And then there's mental, which is looking at your thinking. And I think disordered eating is really disordered thinking. So looking at the quality of your thoughts, how you're speaking to yourself all day long. And then the fourth is spiritual and how you're feeding yourself spiritually, how you're connecting with yourself or deeper areas of life. connecting with yourself or deeper areas of life.

And so when we deal with all four of those areas, physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual, not dealing with them perfectly or overnight, but we really work on all those parts of ourselves and our lives, that's how we get healthier in the new year or any time of the year. We're gonna take a short break now, but when we return,

I'll have Andrea explain exactly how we can make sure all four legs of that table are sturdy and how kindness and self-compassion, yet again, are key. The Happiness Lab will be right back. Psychotherapist Andrea Wachter describes her experience of disordered eating as like being on a diet riot roller coaster. It's an analogy I can relate to because it's not just that the ups and downs of strict denial and drastic overindulgence are like a fairground ride. There's also a disorienting and deafening inner monologue

that comes with this mental ride. It can even sound like a creaky old roller coaster. When you're dieting and rioting, you often can't hear that quiet, kind, calming voice inside you. The one that knows what a body really needs to feel healthy and happy. After years of riding the roller coaster, Andrea had to make a special effort to hear her own calm inner voice over all that diet noise. I would ask myself over and over, if I was feeding someone else who I love, how would I feed them right now?

And I always had to add the someone who doesn't diet or riot part. If I'm feeding someone else I love who doesn't diet or riot, how would I feed them? Because if you love someone, some people put loved ones on diets and some people stuff their loved ones and say, here, take more. I love you so much. Eat more. So if you're feeding someone who doesn't diet or ride and you love them, how would you feed them? Because I didn't have that intuition for a long time. That intuitive eating in the early years didn't work for me. I was like, I don't know how to eat intuitively. I know how to restrict and I know how to binge. But when I started asking myself that question and asking what feels loving, what feels respectful, then I would get little inklings until it became the new normal.

And so, I mean, I've tried to be on this path myself of sort of hearing that inner voice. And it's hard in part because of all these kind of cultural norms. But it's also hard because I think if you haven't listened to the voice in a while, it becomes hard to genuinely hear it. You know, sometimes when I hear, you know, how would you feed yourself lovingly? I think it's got to be the healthy stuff, you know, avoid the cookies, right? Like that kind of idea of good and bad sort of gets in there. And so in your course, you talk about three things to pay attention to when you're picking food that should feel loving, nutritious, delicious, and moderate. So talk about why that's kind of a good cue for those of us in the baby steps towards mindful eating. Yeah, I use nutritious, delicious, and moderate as a little checklist because we need to nourish our bodies.

And a lot of times when people say, I'm not dieting anymore, no more diets for me, then they're perhaps not getting enough nourishing foods. So we do need to nourish our bodies, whatever that looks like, or feels like for anybody is might be different, right? But there are, there are food groups, and there is a way to nourish our bodies. And again, if we begin to tune into that inner knowing or ask ourselves how we feed someone we love who doesn't diet or riot, we can get a sense. So how do you nourish someone? You're not likely to give a child a banana for breakfast and send them off to school for the day. When we think of how would you feed your child, you're more likely to give them a nourishing meal. So nutritious, delicious.

When we diet, we often eat kind of tasteless food. And so we need to make sure that it's delicious food. Now, if I'm just focusing on the deliciousness, then we might not be getting nutritious. So when I first started trying this all on many, many years ago, and I was, okay, I'm not dieting anymore. I'm just going to eat what's delicious. Well, it's not loving to just eat cookies. And it's not loving to just eat donuts. And it's not loving to just eat salad. So we've got some nutritious and some delicious, and they can overlap to many nutritious foods are delicious to us. and hopefully we do just eat what we like and love. And then moderate is what's a loving amount, a respectful amount for your body. Our bodies know when they're satisfied. So it's learning how to listen to that. And this is all

easier said than done, especially if we haven't worked on the other leg. So I can't stress that enough. This is a four pronged process here. And so let's talk about one of the other legs, I think kind of the mental part, right? So talk about how you would sort of work on that leg of the table, as you put it. Well, we need to look at what's the nature of our thoughts. I talk about three different mind moods. We have an unkind mind, a kind mind, and a quiet mind. And oftentimes when someone is living on the diet riot roller coaster, they're really hanging out on the unkind mind channel. So we need to have an upgrade in our thinking, the quality of our thoughts. And again, just like how would you feed someone you love? How would you speak to someone you love? And looking at the way we're speaking

to ourselves, and we need to be speaking to ourselves kindly. And then there's also which internal voice are you listening to? Are you listening to the dieter voice that's telling you that's bad? You shouldn't eat that. You shouldn't look like that. Are we listening to the rioter voice that says, give me everything that I never am allowed to have? Or are we tuning into love? What is

respectful, loving, compassionate treatment and self-talk? I think the unkind mind is so important to talk about right now at the new year, because I think so many of us in an attempt to better ourselves on January 1 end up talking to ourselves in a really unkind way. Yes. So it's bringing consciousness to the way we're talking to ourselves. So often we just have this monologue going and we don't even stop to question it because it just feels so real, sounds so real. But that's often where safe support can come in, getting help from someone who can say, wait a minute, that's really not a kind way to speak to yourself, or would you ever speak to someone else like that? And really beginning to

take a look at how am I speaking to myself? And would I speak to someone else who I love in this manner? And so another part of the table is to really pay attention to the physical cues that we have around eating and kind of what's causing us to eat. We often assume we just eat because we're hungry, but then when we really pay attention to what's causing us to pick up that sandwich or that cookie, sometimes it's not hunger at all, right? Yes. And if you've got a history of dieting and writing, you're likely to be pretty cut off from your natural hunger and fullness signals. When I first started that piece of the process, I couldn't really distinguish so much between, was that a feeling? Was that a hunger pang? Was that anxiety? Was that thirst? I don't know what's going on in there

because so much happens in our guts. So for me in the beginning, I just kept going with what feels the most loving? How would I feed someone I love who doesn't diet or diet? Well, I probably would give them some food upon awakening within a reasonable time, an hour or half an hour or something. And it probably, it wouldn't be a box of donuts and it wouldn't be a yogurt. It would be what's a loving meal. And I just kept asking myself that. It was, I call it the biggest do-over of

my life when I decided as I approach the kitchen or open a menu, I am going to ask myself what feels loving, what feels respectful to this body. And I'm going to move aside, step aside that voice that thinks I need to change my body in order to be lovable and acceptable. And I just kept doing that over and over. And it was hard at first because just like meeting someone new, you don't know them. It takes time. It takes time to get to know that voice inside of us. You know, one of the things I observed when I started to do this is that when I was craving food in the beginning of this journey, oftentimes it had nothing to do with my hunger cues whatsoever. The food was trying to fill something else. And this gets to, I think, your spiritual leg of the table. We need to kind of figure out what

else is missing because it seems like sometimes we kind of go to food when there's some other thing we're looking for. Absolutely. I read once that binging or dieting are attempts to find spirituality, but going to the wrong address. It's like a good, valid try to get filled up or to get some more sweetness in your life or to get some comfort. I say, good try. We're just doing the best we can, trying to fill ourselves up. But when we really fill our spirits, we feel better afterwards. But when we really fill our spirits, we feel better afterwards. We feel fulfilled afterwards. We don't feel regretful or stuffed or like we hurt ourselves or deprived ourselves. I always encourage people to make a spirit filler list and to gather ideas as you go and to find ways to fill your spirits in a way that you feel better afterwards. And so what are some examples on your spirit filler list? Because I think this will be really important for our listeners to hear some good examples.

Oh, my spirit filler list, rest and getting in nature and yoga and taking a bath and meditating and connecting with loved ones, watching a comedy or reading. I paint rocks. I decided a few years ago I needed something off the screens. So I started just doodling and painting on rocks.

So there's lots of ways that people fill their spirits, mostly to me going into nature, going to the beach or the woods or swimming. And everybody has to find what fills them and ways that even if it's just resting in a way that's guilt-free and you're filling back up, that's what we're looking for, getting comfort. I'm glad you mentioned the resting thing because one of the early experiences I had after taking your course on Insight Timer when I was trying to pay attention to why I was eating things was, you know, I was actually working on podcast episodes, in fact, and started writing, writing, writing. And I had this craving to like head downstairs and get like a cookie or get some chips or eat something. But I knew I wasn't really hungry.

And as I was kind of walking down, I realized actually what I really needed was just to like stand up. I was sitting in that chair writing for hours. And I think my body just wanted to like get up, move around, get a change of scenery. But the only thing that I would allow myself to do if I was like taking a break was to go eat something. And that was a really important moment because it made me realize like, oh, my body doesn't want food right now. It just wants a break.

And sometimes the only way you think you can give yourself a break is with like eating something. Especially if that's a habit. It's kind of like if a baby starts crying, you want to rule out all the reasons, right? So maybe it's hungry. Maybe it's tired. Maybe it needs a diaper change. Maybe it's something's poking it. We have to rule things out. So if we want food, we have to rule out, am I hungry or unsatisfied from my last eating experience? And if you've eaten and it was a delicious, nutritious, yummy meal or snack, okay, I'm probably not hungry.

So now am I having feelings? Do I need to tend to some emotions that I'm having? Or what am I thinking? Are my thoughts kind of sending myself in an unkind direction, an unhelpful direction? Or am I needing something? Is there a deeper need here and needing something more spiritual or to connect with or even just to rest or to stand up or sit down or whatever.

And all of the strategies you're giving us fits with something we talk a lot about on the Happiness Lab, which is the simple act of mindfully paying attention, right? You know, for me to notice what was going on with my craving, I had to kind of be there and pay attention, right, to my emotions. But I think also to notice that you're eating nutritious, delicious stuff, you also have to be there when you eat. And this is something I struggle with is like simply being present and not, you know, checking my email or ignoring it during the simple act of eating. So talk to me about some strategies people can use if they want to kind of pay more attention during eating and be more mindful.

Well, I think this process is about paying more attention in general, right? It's really about waking up and being more conscious. And that's the only way that I have found to make sustained change is to be more aware and kind of parent ourselves. And a loving parent doesn't just send a kid off and just let them roam the house all day without care. And so it's really caring for our body, caring for our mind, caring for our needs, and tending to ourselves and being awake at the

wheel, so to speak. So being awake and aware when you're eating, being more awake and aware when you're not eating, what you're needing, what you're feeling. And so often people with, whether it's a full blown eating disorder like I had, or just disordered eating, people have had kind of a hypnotic spell cast upon us. And it leads us to be pretty checked out with these screens, this constant screen use and with just obligations. And now all the anxiety in the world, it can leave us pretty numb. So what's being asked here is a lot, but you get a lot as a result. You get a lot back. So it's a worthy cause, but it is about being more aware of how you're treating yourself and how you're speaking to yourself. So as we put all these legs of the table back, I think a final thing we need to pay attention to is kind of trying to avoid these cultural forces

that led us onto this diet riot roller coaster in the first place. And I feel like there's nothing harder than to do that during the new year where it feels like, you know, there are forces screaming at us to restrict our foods or to eat keto or eat healthy? Any hints for how to fight these forces, especially at this time of the year? Well, the first hint is you have to believe in what I'm saying here, what we're talking about. You have to buy in to the idea that the diet is not the solution to a body image issue or feeling unhealthy in your body. The diet is part of the problem. So you'd have to believe that. And once you believe it, it's about really standing by that belief and acting according to that belief. And so once I believed that dieting is not of interest to me anymore,

and that it only sets up obsession and binging, then no matter what other people were doing, it didn't matter. It maybe wasn't as enjoyable. I remember in the early years when I was first trying to make the shift, and I would go be with people that were still dieting. And I remember there'd be times where, let's say I was visiting family and we were going to go out to dinner, let's say, and it was lunch time, it was mid afternoon, and I'd say, Oh, I'm gonna eat lunch. And they'd say, Oh, we're gonna have a big dinner and early dinner, I'm gonna skip lunch. And I'd say, Okay, well, I'm gonna go have a lunch. And I would just it took it was brave to go against the culture. Or I wanted maybe dessert with my breakfast and nobody on they

thought it was weird, or I don't want dessert with my dinner because I'm full of sort of going against the cultural norms is brave. But once you know, this is what I need to do to get my own relationship with my body back and to get off that diet riot rollercoaster, and you're committed to it. And once you know wholeheartedly that dieting is part of the problem, not the solution, then it's about being brave and taking a stand and doing it differently. Sometimes I'll say to my clients, if someone in your family has to go to the bathroom, do you think you should automatically go to? It's like we get to have different bodily needs and it's brave on this one. And so how has this approach changed your life?

I mean, you've talked about this being a moment that has changed everything. So talk about how it's changed your relationship with your body, but also your happiness. Only completely, only every day. Just I used to be completely obsessed with food and my body. And I was either restricting and obsessing or overeating and binging and obsessing and white knuckling or out of control. And again, you don't have to be as extreme as I was to still deserve and warrant help. And now I eat food when my body tells me it needs food. And I choose just exactly what I like and what I want. And there's no longer, in the beginning, when I was learning this, there was a

lot of inner committee dialogue of, you know, is that loving to have that? Is it restricting if I don't have that? It felt like every meal was a big committee meeting. And now I just know exactly what I want. And I just go get it. Fortunately, I'm fortunate enough to be able to have resources and have what I want in my home. So now that frees me up, that frees me up so much time. I think about all the time I spent thinking about food and my body size, and just missed out on life. And I don't think anybody gets to their deathbed and wishes they were a different size. I've had so many clients in their 80s and late 80s who have said that they don't even have a memory of eating naturally and feeling comfortable and peaceful in their bodies. So many

people just lose years out of their lives thinking about food and body obsession. So for me, I've gotten that back. I have a lot more free time and that frees me up. And I get to read if I want to read and go walk in nature or sit down or do a podcast with a lovely person. So it just frees me up to be able to see what else there is in life. It doesn't mean I'm happy all the time. That's not natural either. It just means that I'm not obsessed with food all the time or at all. Since learning of Andrea's work, I've tried really hard to reduce the amount of mental time and emotional energy I spend thinking about food and eating. I'm still more influenced than I'd like to be by all the cultural pressures to look a certain way or eat a particular thing or to think of food as good or bad. But this year,

I'm trying to find that kinder, more compassionate voice in my head. And so my eating resolution for 2021, unlike the diet riot urges of years past, is to ask myself the question Andrea suggested. If I was feeding someone else who I loved, how would I feed them right now? It sounds like a tiny step, but for me, it's been a game changer. In our next and final episode of this new year mini season, we'll tackle another super common resolution

that also causes us to be unkind to ourselves and to our happiness, exercise. So if you want to learn more about how you can engage with fitness more self-compassionately, I hope you'll come back for the next episode of The Happiness Lab with me, Dr. Laurie Santos. The Happiness Lab was co-written and produced by Ryan Dilley. The show was mixed and mastered by Evan Viola,

and our original music was by Zachary Silver. Special thanks to the entire Pushkin team, including Mia LaBelle, Maggie Taylor, Carly Migliore, Heather Fane, Sophie Crane-McKibbin, Eric Sandler, Jacob Weisberg, and my agent, Ben Davis. The Happiness Lab is brought to you by Pushkin Industries and by me, Dr. Laurie Santos.