The Lazy Genius Podcast - #81 The Lazy Genius and Healthy Eating

Episode Date: October 29, 2018

Are you tired of keeping up with diets and food trends? Let’s reframe how we view healthy eating and listen to what our bodies are telling us it wants and needs. Stuff Mentioned The Lazy Genius Loses Weight If you’re here for the healthy eating, I have a suspicion you might be curious about how to Lazy Genius an exercise routine Follow me over on Instagram @thelazygenius Download a transcript of this episode This podcast is hosted by Kendra Adachi and executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

She knows. How? Did you blam? No. The Devil Wears Prada 2. He's the movie event 20 years in the making. Honestly, can't with the secrets anymore, so I think we just should tell her. Will you two please spit it out already?

This Friday, be the first to experience it only in theaters. In light of the recent scandal, I'm sure to restore your credibility. Oh, because we're a team now? That's a nice story. The Devil Wears Prada 2 in Theaters Friday. Hey there. You're listening to The Lazy Genius Podcast. I'm Kendra and I'm here to help you be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about

things that don't. Today is episode 81, The Lazy Genius and Healthy Eating. This is obviously a tricky topic for a lot of reasons, but much like the lazy genius loses weight episode, we're going to do some refraining because honestly, I think the concept of healthy eating as defined by our current society and culture is something we should definitely be lazy about. Allow me to take this, this podcast episode to explain what I need. Here's the funny thing.

Our impulses and insecurities around food aren't at all about the food. Our concern deep down is what the food will do to our bodies. Underneath most conversations about food and diet and a balanced lifestyle is a focus on what our bodies look like. Sometimes it's what our bodies feel like and we'll get to that. But you and I both know that it's hugely about how we look. If you ate a plant-based diet, if you gave up sugar and bread and cheese and did all the things that diet culture told you to do, and your body did not change from where it is now, would you still eat that way? I don't know the answer for you, but I'm pretty confident in my own answer.

I would not. We already have a weird relationship with healthy eating because of how hard it is and how it occupies. and how it occupies so much of our thinking. But if we don't even get the payoff of like a smaller stomach or thighs or whatever you want to be smaller, what's the point? And therein lies the rub. If you think there's no point to healthy eating without a change in how your body looks, you're eating that way for the wrong reason.

Well, I don't want to say it's wrong. But man, is it exhausting and rooted in something so not important to who you really are? We have a lot of rationalizations about healthy eating. We want our bodies to be healthy. We want more energy. We want to be around for our grandkids. You guys, there are so many people who are healthy eaters who still get sick and die. I know it's grim.

It's true. And you know it. I'm not saying I don't want to have a body that functions well that has energy or that I don't want to be around a long time to see my kids grow up. What I am saying is that using food, as the sole vehicle to get me there doesn't work. I know there are people who have been diagnosed with diseases. And after embracing a healthier way of eating, like a plant-based diet, for example, we're completely cured of something that modern medicine couldn't fix.

Food is certainly important and it's really powerful. But I also think we give it too much power. So what then are we supposed to do? Are we supposed to just eat whatever we want? And who cares what happens to our bodies? Not at all. I want to invite you into a way of living where food has no morality. Instead, you trust your body to tell you what it needs. You might have heard of this as intuitive eating and I am fully on board. I have been for a while. The basic idea is that you listen to your body to know what you need and not even just with food, with other areas too.

your body is complex and amazing and bodies like ours have been existing for a super long time our bodies are excellent communicators and when we begin the practice of listening and trusting what they have to say and what our bodies need food no longer becomes the showrunner we've heard sayings like it's all about balance and everything in moderation we have heard people say that if you really pay attention to eating and mindfully taste and smell and create an experience around that square of dark chocolate, the square of dark chocolate will be enough and you'll no longer have any taste for a sleeve of Oreos. In my humble and very non-judgmental opinion for what you believe, I think those are false messages for me personally and maybe for you too. The idea of

balance communicates two sides. good and bad, chocolate and salad. Saying everything in moderation, it communicates that all excess is bad. A narrow view of mindful eating is kind of a sneaky way of putting negative value on more than one or two bites of something. Even folks like Michael Pollan, is how you guys last name, who are incredibly intelligent and are trying to take away diet culture and replace it with perspectives like eat real food mostly plants. That's one of Michael Pollan's things. He has a book called Food Rules and that's one of them. Eat real food, mostly plants. And another is like if you can't pronounce the ingredient list, don't eat it. Those are just really contributing to a new kind of diet culture. Eat real food, mostly plants, makes us feel like we're doing something wrong when we

eat fake food with no plant insight. Maybe we wouldn't see it that way if we were better equipped to handle the food and image messages, be raiding us at every turn, but we're not equipped. We are very ill-equipped. And we walk in bondage to food and what it will do to our bodies more than most people, I think, realize. Now, I'm not saying this is true of every single person at all, but based on my experience, it's true of most. Even if you're eating, quote, unquote, healthy, it's a huge suck on your time.

and thinking and for what purpose. There's nothing wrong with with healthy foods or at least like what we think of when we think of healthy foods, but there's nothing wrong with unhealthy ones either. In fact, I don't believe they're unhealthy because our bodies are smart and know what they need. I think health and unhealth is a very tricky message that we don't always understand very well. You know when you go a couple of meals where you eat a lot of fried foods like on vacation or something and then your body is desperate for a salad. Your body isn't saying, why did you give me that garbage? I deserve better. It's simply your body saying, cool, I need a salad next. There's no moral value one way or the other. When certain foods are

forbidden, even in the tiniest way, like only desserts one day a week or I'll eat anything I want on a cheat day or whatever it is, it makes that forbidden food more desirable. We all know that that and have experienced it probably multiple times. But if you were to say to yourself, I'm going to eat whatever I feel like my body wants right now. It takes the pressure off everything in your house. You don't have to be scared that you'll eat so many chips. So you either need to finish the entire bag now so you're not tempted to eat more chips tomorrow or you just have to keep chips out of your house completely. No, chips are fine. Chips aren't good or bad. They're just food. And when you take away the forbidden nature of

chips, you don't binge all the chips because you can just, you can eat more later if your body needs it. Your body might want just one chip or it might want a giant handful or two next to your burger. But as you listen to your body and hear it tell you that it's full, you won't panic and eat all the chips that are left because you can literally have them whenever your body wants them. Now, you might be thinking, well, if I trusted my body and ate whatever it wanted, I would only eat cheese fries and ice cream sandwiches. I'm not smart enough to say whether or not that's true, but I wonder if you might consider giving yourself and your body more credit than that.

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fixed just like that. I get that. But if we take the food out of it, which intuitive eating does, it leaves space for us to consider what's underneath the food. Are you eating a certain way or obsessed with certain foods or want to eat more healthy because you want your body to look differently? And why is that? Honestly.

Now, I get it. I talked about this in the weight episode, but for three years, for three years, for many years, way more than three. I thought that having a stomach that wasn't sculpted and flat and ready to wear a two-piece meant that I was a garbage person, or at least not as important or valuable as someone with that kind of stomach, which is utter nonsense. Now intuitively, that same intuition that is trying to tell you what to eat without all the weirdness, intuitively, I know that's nonsense.

but we're all hit with these conflicting messages from everywhere and we feel stuck. There's not a magazine around that isn't telling me how to get my abs. So apparently abs are really important. Okay, you will always fail at a diet. Always. Every time. You will never eat completely, healthfully in the traditional sense, ever. It is a losing game.

And yet we keep playing it. We keep saying, I'll do better, or I'm worth it, or any other kind of message that still doesn't really address. the fact that we're sticking morality onto food. Healthy eating is a trap. I'm just going to say it. I mean, I've been saying it, but now I'm going to say it like that. I believe that healthy eating is a trap, or the terminology is a trap.

It's just a nicer, less extreme way of saying that certain foods are better or worse. And when it comes to our bodies, which are completely different from each other and from themselves over time, better and worse, it just, you know, it's just. just isn't a thing. Now, you might say that, you know, like, well, sugar causes addictions for everyone. My own personal anecdote from that, I have done a couple of sugar-free challenges, and guess what? I was a garbage person during them. I was so mean. My body was so sad. And it's not because, like, oh, you're going through withdrawal. No, no, no. I was sad, genuinely sad, because baking is something that brings me tremendous joy. Not being able to bake

and eat and share was ignoring my body and my soul. It's all connected. Listening to our bodies isn't just listening to our hunger pains or our immediate reactions to a McDonald's commercial. It's listening to our bodies as a whole. Mind, soul, physiology, intuition. Because intuition is different than instinct. Let me say that again. Intuition is different than instinct. You might have an instinct to want a frosty when you pass the windy sign because our brains are triggered easily. And we remember how delicious a frosty is. Chocolate, not this vanilla nonsense. But if you're listening to your intuition, I'm not saying you'll drive by and skip it and be a better person. No, no, no. Whether you pull into the drive-through or keep driving is irrelevant. If your intuition says

a frosty, it's been a long time since I've had one, but it's not what I need right now. Maybe another time and I'll bring the kids or maybe your body is like we've had a hard day driving with the windows down and eating a frosty and remembering eating one as a kid with your cousins at the beach is a good call right now there's no right or wrong one scenario isn't better than another it's more right time or wrong time and your body knows the difference and if your body tells you we love sugar we love it but most of you Most days, let's skip it at night because our stomach needs the movement and the action of the day to kind of handle the sugar well. That's fantastic.

Your body knows what it needs. Your body might like adore a green smoothie every morning and crave it and thrive on it. Wonderful. No food is better than another. You don't have to feel badly about what your body needs either way. If you need more salads than a friend does, you're not a healthier eater. If you're sitting with that friend who seems to eat more salads than you do, it doesn't mean that you're a terrible person.

Your body just needs different things. And that is great and normal. Amen. Your body is trustworthy. I believe that for everyone. Just remember that intuition is different than instinct. And you can trust your intuition. Okay, I've already said a lot of words.

I realize that. And there are a lot more that could be said. but I think we're going to close up for now. I just want to encourage you to start thinking about this idea. Start noticing when you put morality on food, how often you think about food, how there might be messages that you believe that sound good, but are maybe keeping you in bondage to food and body image more than you realize. Just pay attention.

And we're coming into, you know, Halloween candy and Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas cookies and all the things and then come January it's like oh my pants just listen to your intuition start now there's not a there's not a start and stop on the calendar for intuitive eating you can eat this way all the time and enjoy your life and not put morality on food I just I want to invite you into that mindset just to start thinking about what that might be like notice little moments just pay attention you don't have to make a decision you don't have to right now. I want to talk about this more on Instagram this week, right? We can do that. I'm, I'm there on the lazy genius, not on the lazy genius, at the lazy genius. And I will be there

this Thursday, around 12.15 Eastern, like every week. And I'm really excited to hear your thoughts. Okay. That's it for today. I'm really glad you are here today. I hope you leave this time, every time encouraged. It is a great honor that you listen and that you share the show with your people. And remember, it's, it's okay to not always have an answer. Sometimes we talk about things here on the podcast that can't be wrapped up in a bow or stuck inside a routine. And that's okay. It's good even. You're okay sitting with the questions. And I can't wait to sit in them with you on Thursday. I will see you here on the podcast next week. And until then, be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. Bye guys. Have you ever felt like you were living

Just a B or B plus life, it's so dangerous to live that. More dangerous than a B minus or a C plus life, because when you're living a B or B plus life, you don't change it. You think it's good enough. Is it? I'm Susie Welch. I host a podcast called Becoming You. People think, okay, an A plus life is not available to me, but there is a way.

We are all in the process of becoming ourselves. Listen to Becoming You wherever you get your podcasts.