The Wellness Scoop - Body Acceptance & Making Peace with our Plates

Episode Date: May 14, 2019

Accepting our bodies as they are, cultivating a positive relationship with food and stepping out of diet culture. We talk to nutritionist and intuitive eating expert Pandora Paloma about how to make this happen, how to reclaim our thought patterns around food and how to stop defining ourselves by the way we look. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Visit BetterHelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com. Hi everyone and welcome to the Deliciously Ella podcast with just me actually today, Ella Mills. And today we are talking about a really really interesting topic or at least I think a really interesting topic and one that we've actually had unbelievable number of readers questions on so I hope this will be helpful and I guess the topic as a whole is on the concept of intuitive eating and the idea of not so much body positivity but body neutrality and a sense of kind of complete acceptance and in that trying to reclaim a positive relationship with food I think a lot of people in this day and age have a very complicated

relationship with food in one way or another and actually that can end up being take up a lot more of our thought process and our kind of thinking time than we would like and the brilliant Pandora Paloma is with us today who's just written a whole book on intuitive living with a big focus on intuitive eating and reclaiming that mind-body connection. So I guess obviously first of all welcome Pandora and thank you for coming and I would love to just start with the kind of top line question of what is intuitive eating and how does it connect to this idea of body neutrality or body acceptance and creating a long-lasting peaceful relationship with our plate.

Well, hello. Thank you for having me. Intuitive eating as a concept was written quite a long time ago by two nutritionists who saw women coming in predominantly for weight loss. And so they would give them a meal plan and send them on their way. And within a year, normally, they would come back and say, I've regained all the weight. So it got them thinking about, does this form of restriction actually serve us and that's really where intuitive eating came in that actually you know if we allow food to satisfy us in a way that feels nourishing this is a big difference between fullness and being satisfied you know a big bowl of vegetables might

make you full but would they necessarily make you feel satisfied without a bit of vegan pesto or cream cheese or something and so yeah really they sort of saw that actually if we started to tap into what our body needed and sort of be governed by what our body was saying a little bit more and asking for then we would find a more peaceful relationship with food so the original book has 10 principles so I started my work as a nutritionist and then I specialized in intuitive eating because I noticed that women predominantly because that's who I worked with were sitting in the chair and of course when I said you know how are you feeling emotionally is there anything going on in your life that's causing you stress or do you feel that you have blocks in any way there were lots of things coming out and it really made me think

that actually we need to transform how we're living in order to transform our relationship with food, and that the living really comes first. So introducing intuitive living, which incorporates intuitive eating, but really looks at that life element as well. And the reason why I think this is, you know, such a beautiful way of living and something that's really long standing, you know, it's not another fad, is because the foundation of my work specifically is self love. And when you can really come back to your needs and what you need in life, and from food, you know that there's no other thing that you need. It's just that's everything that you need, you know, you need to always be coming back to you and what your body needs. And I think the tools that you need you know you need to always be coming back to you and what your body needs and I think the tools that you learn can then really sort of guide you in life versus you know

always looking for that next thing that quick fix or that magic pill that's going to help you lose weight or find better health actually you know for me I believe that all of the answers are inside of us and it's it's just really tapping into that feeling that's important. Yeah, I love that. And we've actually talked about that a lot, about how making like positive change, which is long lasting change, rather than, as you said, those like quick fixes in any aspect of your life comes from a positive relationship with yourself. It doesn't come from being incredibly negative and critical of yourself. And I know self-love is a big topic for you and in your book,

but a lot of people would kind of eye roll. It can sometimes I think to some of us feel a bit cheesy, potentially even self indulgent to some people, you know, it is quite a buzzword at the moment. But it's incredibly important. So I'd love to hear kind of how you define it, like what is self love away from the kind of trendy word? And why is it the foundation of changing those kind of negative thought patterns that then have a negative impact on the way that we eat on the way that we look at our bodies? Completely. So self love is always the foundation in my work. You can't forget yourself and you can't forget your needs when you communicate better with yourself when you self-develop as it were you can communicate better with the world when you come back to yourself and your needs you're better able to set boundaries

so whether that's in a relationship or in your career you know you're able to set those boundaries and know what's working for you and what's not so self-love yes in one aspect is looking after yourself mentally physically spiritually emotionally but there's a lot of practical elements that self-love brings you know the boundary setting the being able to communicate more clearly that brings so many other benefits to to to you know all of these different aspects of your life as well. And I think with the body positivity, I really am aiming for body neutrality in a way that we're not even talking about bodies in that way anymore. It just starts with acceptance and that's really where that self-love sits as well.

If you can accept who you are, the shape that you are in the body that you know the body that you are yeah you can just move more freely in the world you know you're not constantly being tied back with that inner critic and those negative beliefs as well so it's interesting when because I there's body positivity there's body neutrality there's body acceptance there's so many different words I know they all have different kind of foundations and and have evolved from different places and I like how you talk about the importance of body neutrality and actually almost stopping obsessive obsessing over that complete need to love all the time and actually just like letting your body just exist in the world rather than obsessing about it positively or negatively

the other thing that you said which I really like that I would love to talk about is both that but then also how you have to in order again to move forward with that sense of neutrality and just allowing us to be the way that we are we have to completely reject the notion that certain bodies have more value than others and I think it feels really difficult to get away from that in the world that we live in today because as much as we claim one thing or the other it does feel like there's like a certain body size or shape that is celebrated a lot and that we see in the media a lot and can be hard to kind of move away from so how do you create that sense of kind of acceptance of yourself rather

than than looking to the next person yeah so I think something I always say to clients is you know imagine if there weren't any labels in clothes and you just instinctively knew what size was going to fit you and you'd go in you know actually would you then hold yourself against other people because they were a size 8 versus a size 14 and these are ways in which I suppose we have labels of what's good and what's bad and I hate I even hate this term plus size models well they're just models um but we're seeing a lot more plus size models kind of moving into the mainstream which is brilliant but what I'm also noticing is there's also a lot of sort of over sexualizing of this as well which I think can almost make it certainly for

some of my clients they're like god I'm not that body positive like I wouldn't put a picture up of me in a bikini does that mean that you know I'm not body positive or I won't ever be body positive and it gets very complex and confusing and I think the body sort of love and the body positivity was so far out of reach for a lot of my clients and you know and always is so that's really where that acceptance comes in you know can you accept where you are right now and know that your body is going to change you know it's like the aging process you know you can slow it down a little bit but we're all going to age and I try and explain to people that the body's similar to that. It's like we are all different shapes and sizes. So if it's something that you're working with, can you find people on social media platforms

that actually you do look up to that do kind of represent the category that you feel that you're in? We're not going to get away from the categories or it's going to take a little bit longer than I would like. But, you know, we control what we see and what impacts us so if you can start actually embracing perhaps you know a different arena it's it tends to be a good first step versus constantly seeing people that do look very different to you and constantly striving to look like them we are all beautiful we're all worthy and so that's that's a really good starting point and in that is the neutrality the idea that actually also we're so much and so that's that's a really good starting point and in that is the neutrality the idea that actually also we're so much more than like our physical we're so much more than

our bodies yeah and it feels like there's a middle ground that often also feels like it gets missed and everything has to be extreme and everything has to be such a huge conversation and you know we have to stand up and say we love our stretch marks we love our scars and can't we just say like we actually love that we learned this yesterday or that we're doing this or that we achieve this in work and like actually stop obsessing about the physical form altogether because it seems like even if it's technically more positive it's still the same conversation wrapped up in another bow which comes back to still making us obsessed with our physical appearance to me it still feels like that

would trigger sometimes the negativity in our eating patterns because you're still thinking maybe too much about the way that you look rather than how you feel what are you achieving in life you are you know i always say to clients you know what do you want to be known for do you want to be known for the person that had hurt boobs and you know or do you want to be known for someone who was really kind and was you know really supportive of women and actually when you really think about that very rarely do I get an answer of like I want to be known to be beautiful you know it's it's so transient because what's beautiful to you may be different to me which is why you know I married Tom and you married Matt it's so subjective so subjective yeah totally and it's the same as you

said like if I think about all my girlfriends why I love them I don't love them because of their hair even if they have really nice hair like I love them because they make me laugh or I have a great time with them or I feel really emotionally supported by them yeah whether they have a nice haircut or not is not how I would go around defining my friendship with them but I feel like them but we we do that to ourselves which is so interesting when we don't do that to other people. One of the things that you talk about that feels a big part of this is this diet culture. And I'd love to spend some time talking about this because I know for me, at least like growing up, diet culture was everywhere. Everyone did the 5-2 diet, the Dukin diet, the Atkins diet. Like I remember my dad doing the Atkins diet when

I was like 10 years old or whatever it is. And so I feel like for all of us growing up there's always been this sense of like control over food and again overthinking potentially what we were eating and making it something that can be obsessive and you know I might like best phrase in life it's like for anything to be sustainable it's got to be enjoyable and I think one of the things that always strikes me with diet culture is that it's not sustainable because it's not enjoyable because it's so rule-based and I would love just to get your kind of insight on diet culture how we actually move away from it and what it is about it that can create this kind of damaging system within us that again creates a problem with having a peaceful relationship with food yeah what I see the most is issues with food

based on what we grew up with so if you watched your mother diet all the time or you you were restricted as a child I've worked with a number of women who were put on weight watchers at age 12. You know, really damaging effects that we, I call them imprints, but they're things that we are led to believe as children that we see. And then we take them on and live through them as, you know, into adulthood. So really identifying our diet mentalities is a really strong first step and actually looking at where we got them from, whether we feel that they're true now. And then I always encourage people to look at what we need to release to overcome them and then what we need to accept. So it could be that you had a sister who could eat what she wanted, whereas you struggled to look like her. You had to watch what you ate.

Your parents maybe put that on you or you shouldn't really eat that. There's a lot of comparison there. So something you'd probably need to release is comparison. And what you need to accept is that you were just a different size to your sister. So there's kind of that process, which can be really helpful. you know actually when you think about all of those things that we see around us you know is this making me feel good about myself is this diet culture trying to make me feel bad about myself and as soon as you start acknowledging it it becomes a lot easier to get over it and know that this is just something I'm seeing but I'm not going to take it on as my own story I'm not going to bring it into to my sort of physical body and my mindset if If diets worked, then there would be the one diet and we'd do it and that would be it. But there's lots of mini diets. And, you know, yes, different ways of eating

work for different people. No food in isolation is really neither good nor bad. It's sort of more what, and I think we isolate, you know, what we eat in a day. And it's like, okay, but let's look at what we eat in a month. And these really tapping into these foods that we deem as good or bad, healthy or unhealthy. Again, it's a okay but let's look at what we eat in a month and these really tapping into these foods that we deem as good or bad healthy or unhealthy again it's a really good first step you know why do you see this as bad and then bring it into the body does this make you feel good

do you feel good on this restrictive diet no do you feel good when you eat these foods yes i hear this a lot you know god if i eat intuitively I'm just going to eat loads of pizza and burgers and I'm just going to let go and that was one of the questions that we had from readers a lot is a fear to eat intuitively and let go of the rules in fear that if you let go of the rules you would only eat McDonald's it was like either I'm healthy and I eat broccoli and rice or I live in McDonald's yeah and like move into Cadbury's world exactly and it was like this complete terror and the thing that I found very insightful about it is it showed such a lack of trust in our bodies yeah that you don't feel like you could control yourself in any capacity and that like if you started eating dairy milk you would eat

700 bars of it rather than having like a bar of chocolate and being like that was delicious that's enough now yeah but actually feeling that you can't identify what's enough now yeah we um we trust our phones I think more than we trust bodies. But that takes a lot of time because we've been pre-programmed to eat certain foods that are healthy and not eat these foods. And what I tend to see is there might be a little honeymoon period when you start eating intuitively and you sort of go, oh, now that I can eat what I want. But give it a few weeks, people tend to think, actually, do you know what I really just want to eat some vegetables now you know I have not seen someone who could eat that kind of food on a very ongoing basis and and feel good from it we know the basics are to eat fruits and vegetables and to do a bit of exercise and I think if you've ticked those boxes then you're good and I know how I feel you

know if I'm on holiday and I eat different foods or I eat a little bit more than normal. As soon as I get back, you know, I probably won't eat as much for a few days because I'm, you know, I've overeaten as it were. So, again, it's just finding that trust. And, you know, with intuitive eating as well, we sort of break the rules a little bit of sort of breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks. So if you're hungry in the morning, then eat. And if you're not hungry, then wait until you're hungry, because I guarantee you'll feel more satisfied from eating at the right time than eating when you're not necessarily hungry, but you're eating because you think you should. And the should comes in a lot with food. I should eat this. Okay, but how would things change if you could eat what you wanted? You know,

there's a big difference in those two words yeah I think it's so interesting I see it a lot from people and they're like why don't you have the calorie count on this I'm like we don't really believe in focusing on food in that way because I think it it's really hard for it not to become obsessive when you see a number every time you look at a recipe there's no judgment or blame on anyone but if it's all you see every time like it's you can't ignore it completely it's it's challenging and so we would we would never do that for that example but then the same people are like can you show me exactly what you eat in a day and it's like but first of all like my body's different to your body like

right now it's growing a baby so like it's probably going to be doing things differently but second of all like maybe today I like taught three yoga classes and I took the dog on a two-hour walk and in which case I'm going to be really hungry and I'm probably going to eat a lot more than I did yesterday where I sat in the office for 12 hours yeah so what's the point in me telling you what I ate because you're not doing the exact same day that I'm doing. And even if you were, our bodies are still different. Our taste buds are different. Like, as you said, I always think it's so true. You have to be actually satisfied by what you eat mentally,

as well as on a physical level. And what I might today find really satisfying, you might not really. And we'll be totally different to what you find satisfying tomorrow. Exactly. And when we can really allow ourselves to eat in that way it becomes really empowering you know to sort of trust and know our bodies and and our signals better one thing that you talk about a lot in your book which I thought was really interesting and something else that we had a lot of questions on was you talk a lot about a kind of vicious diet cycle and a sort of diet dilemma as such

where we're jumping on and off different diet band a sort of diet dilemma as such where we're jumping on and off different diet bandwagons again and again and then we're blaming ourselves this lack of willpower self-control and that to escape that what we need to do is actually kind of pinpoint what's going on for us how do you advise clients to kind of move away from this and create a kind of more stable relationship because I think that binging cycle can be quite common for people and and I it seems something that that is very upsetting and that's something what people would really like to move away from the diet dilemma that we restrict and then because we've restricted we have a tendency to overeat and then because we've

over overeating we feel guilty so then we restrict and it just goes around in this circle it can be quite difficult to kind of find a new way with food i was i was talking to someone earlier and they were talking about you know knowledge is one thing but execution is the power and you can have all the knowledge you can probably read my book and go okay yeah this makes sense but actually the execution of it is very different and that's sort of where I step in as a as a coach and nutritionist because you know people do need hand-holding because it's so deeply ingrained there's something I use a lot with my clients which is judgment journaling and it's it's ways in which we think about things because we've been told that information but is it necessarily true for us now and a lot of the time it isn't so I should eat like this why you know what's the why oh well

oh I don't know actually oh I think because that's how my mum ate right but that's how your mum ate so how do you want to eat and it's when you start really breaking that stuff down people realize that they're kind of wearing all of these I call call them, you know, layers. When you peel them back, it's like, who are you behind all of these layers? Who do you want to be in this world? How would you like to eat? I want to be free around food. Okay, well, what's the action that you need to take to be free around food? Start small. You know, if you're someone who is a binge eater, we need to address what's going on. What are you feeding? Because if it's not hunger, then it must be something else. And that's where the living aspect of my work comes in. So I look at satisfaction as one of the chapters in the book, you know, where are we feeling

satisfied in play and adventure, romance in our careers, spiritually, you know, emotionally, are we satisfied? And I tend to find that looking outside of food first is going to give you more insights, because it's the living aspect that helps transform how we eat. We stop using food as a coping mechanism. When we emotionally eat, or we binge eat, it's a good sign. You know, it's the body saying something's up, I'm not feeling good. So you have to look at, you know know what needs some nurturing over in the living aspect of of yourself and with that you can start to transform you know the food if it's i'm not really sure i really enjoy my career actually okay right so how is that making you feel it's actually making me feel quite negative and

okay is that why you're using food at 4 p.m yeah I'm not even hungry I'm just I'm just doing it for habit and because I'm a bit bored you know I see a lot overeating in the evenings if you're someone who is alone lives you know lives by themselves or is seeking a partner you're going to eat for comfort because you feel lonely so what do we do to combat the loneliness it's always about the other things and then and then the food sort of you know transforms yeah I love that we've we've talked a lot in general about that the importance of like not seeing anything in healthy mind and body in isolation and actually I think so often like we put a lot of pressure on our plates or on on one aspect of our life without looking at it

as a whole and ultimately like broccoli kale they don't solve everything and you can't put the pressure on them to do that and when you do that and you ignore the other aspects that are going on in your life it's very easy for food to become an emotional response and again it's over complicating the way that we eat because we're putting all these layers on a bowl of pasta that don't belong the pasta's the pasta let it be the pasta alone yeah and I see quite a lot you know that again the should comes in I should eat this I should eat that and they tend to overeat with the things that they think they should eat because it's not satisfying them yeah actually if they gave

themselves the brownie then they'd probably take a couple of bites and be like oh that was delicious yeah and then you're done I do something of bites and be like, oh, that was delicious. Yeah. And then you're done. I do something called the first bite test. So the things that you tend to binge on the most, you know, have the first bite. How does that feel? How does that taste? Second bite, third bite.

And actually, really, by sort of fourth, fifth bite, you stop enjoying it as much as you did that first bite. So do you need to eat three of them? Or actually, would you be okay with with half, you know, if it's about satisfaction? And it seems, as we're saying, like people overthink the way they eat a lot. And that takes away from finding peace and kind of just ease around mealtimes for a lot of people. And so a few people said that they worry, the more we focus on what we eat the more fixated we get and that creates negative relationships so if you are wanting to transition into this how do you kind of do it without then almost overthinking through intuition do you know what I mean

overthinking like am I hungry do I want this and just sort of almost like how do you get to the stage where you just let it be first of of all, we use like a hunger scale. So 0 to 10. You always really want to sit between a 3, sort of, you know, hungry but not ravenous, and a 7. So full, but not Christmas dinner full, you know, Christmas day full. And I start by guiding people with those numbers. And it gives them a sense of it's not words then. It's actually a number which simplifies things a little bit and then from there you sort of can gauge you know your your hunger and fullness

signals really for people who have deprived quite a lot it can be hard for them to really detect when they're hungry so I maybe get them to really focus on those on that naught to five they're so used to being in the one zone because they're so used to under eating perhaps so I get them to really clearly sort of feel the sensations of that nought to five and and over time you can just start to let those numbers go a little bit because you feel you feel deeply I mean I used intuitive eating throughout my process of healing you know I had eating disorders in the past and it does take time to allow yourself those forbidden foods I mean I never used to eat pasta and now I eat it probably once or twice a week and my whole thing was oh I'm going to gain weight and I've not gained any more weight than

any other years you know I've stayed the same and and I find that a lot with my clients actually when they start to eat intuitively whilst we put weight loss on the back burner for people who are overeating you know they stop using food as that coping mechanism therefore food just becomes less of a thing so the steps really are to sort of really tap into that that hunger start small you know start one meal at a time maybe it's that you kind of have your normal meal for lunch and dinner but maybe you shake up the morning how are you feeling what do I fancy is it sweet or savory and then go from there and in the process of intuitive eating as well because we tap so deeply into our hunger we often find that in in a normal world anti-intuitive eating you might have a big lunch

and then because it's 7pm, you think, well, it's dinner time, I've got to eat. You might eat something even though you're not necessarily hungry. In intuitive eating, if you're not hungry, you might have something light or not at all. But if you are still hungry, even though you've had a big lunch, you know that that's just that day and that your body clearly needs a bit more fuel. Every day is different. I always look at times of the months for clients as well you know where are you in your cycle how are you feeling emotionally how much sleep have you had all of these things have an impact on the foods that we choose

on that in your second chapter you look a lot at the power of the way that we talk to ourselves and trying to kind of banish that niggling inner critic that is all too familiar to a lot of us and I think negative or toxic self talk is very very common in the world today and you quoted an incredible stat which I found actually quite mind-blowing which was a study of female students published by the psychology of women quarterly and they found that 93 percent of the women involved in the study were engaging in toxic self-talk, with a third doing it on a regular basis. I mean, it's absolutely nuts how many of us have a very judgmental, incredibly unkind view of ourselves.

And as you said, this has such a huge impact because we don't think we're worthy of kind of looking after ourselves in a positive way how do you help people move away from this you have to open up a safe space for conversation it's the first step inner critic comes out tells us something and we we don't fight back we don't say anything back which is yes okay yeah I'm not good enough okay I'm not good enough and that's it and actually when you open up that conversation, why are you saying that again? Where is this coming from? It creates that safe space, that conversation, actually, where is this coming from? What do I need to overcome here? What is this a fear? Is this a

block? I get clients to do all sorts of things like a valuables list. And that's not, you know, your jewellery. It's why are you valuable? valuable again it comes back to let's take this emphasis away from your body who do you want to be what actions are we taking to step into that person you know who do what do you want to be known for and that valuables list can really help us and strengthen that self-worth I also go to a reprogramming tool so So again, I talk a little bit about this in the book, but the inner child stuff. So if your inner child is calling the shots and things that you've been led to believe, these imprints that you have from childhood are still manifesting and calling the shots in adulthood, then we need to nurture that inner child what does she need to hear and with reprogramming we go back to some of those old let's say negative memories and we

reframe them into a positive so it can be um I don't have confidence and then we look at why why there is a lack there when I was at ballet I was the only one that used to wear glasses and people used to laugh at me. So it knocked my confidence. And then we bring that into sort of adult zone. So, OK, how does adult you feel about that? Well, it's really silly. You know, I wear contact lenses now and I wear my glasses. Sometimes it doesn't really bother me. Do you think it affected your ballet wearing glasses? Well, no, not at all. You know, I was one of the best in the class. So when you start to break it down as adult adult you you realize that actually that lack of confidence doesn't need to

come from that so we reprogram we see it differently and that in itself can be really helpful in starting to break down a lot of those negative beliefs that we have that inner critic kind of likes to tell us and start to look at things differently so there's a lot of kind of cognitive exercises to really start to transform that mindset it's really interesting because it's not about just you and what I wanted to ask you is as a mother do you feel like this has become increasingly important to you because you're now setting an example to your daughter and trying to instill that sense of positivity in her so that hopefully she grows up with a really healthy positive attitude towards both herself and as a result to the way that she is yeah absolutely and um I get I work with a lot of new mums actually I have I do a six-week program and I get a lot of

new mums on there because I think the process of pregnancy makes you perhaps eat differently sometimes if you've got morning sickness for me I just had coca-cola and it was the only thing that really kind of allowed me to work for three hour stints because I was I had such bad sickness yeah I only ate chips and crisps yeah 12 weeks and I didn't see a vegetable for at least three and a half months yeah and and you just have to do I get asked so so so often you know nutrition tips for pregnancy and I'm like do what you need to do eat what you need to eat to get through it and yeah I think you know then then they you know they have daughters even with sons as well and they think god I really don't want to be putting this my issues on around food on onto my children and of course our bodies change throughout pregnancy and postpartum so

I see a lot of people um seeking my support and I myself yeah you know it really really shifted um I want a positive example for my daughter and they almost teach you a lot because there's some days like this morning Romilly had a whole banana and two pieces of toast she's 13 months old there are other days where she's doesn't want nothing you know and just wants to drink you know some milk and that's it and she eats probably the best she's the most wonderful intuitive eater because she's no I'm not hungry or I'm teething I'm in pain I'm not going to eat it's the wrong time other days she eats a lot so they can kind of be our greatest teachers as well in surrendering to that control and in kind of letting letting go to to a lot of these beliefs that we have around food and it's important you know the way that we

speak around food with children as well you know one of the the good things to do is sort of just have lots of different foods on the table so they can kind of the good things to do is sort of just have lots of different foods on the table so they can kind of pick different things so it's less about you know we have food and then dessert it's actually well if you don't we kind of mix and match you know have vegetables on the table but don't force it some days they'll eat more than others and it's you know it's just kind of allowing that their own guidance really but obviously being very careful about how we talk about ourselves as well you know mommy doesn't eat ice cream why oh because you know mommy doesn't want to get fat they go oh if you eat ice cream you get fat you know that's it but also then you

suddenly start having these then then that would make you a bad person and it's a negative thing rather than just yeah and again suddenly you've got these unbelievably complicated feelings tied up with the simplest act of maybe just having a spoonful of of one thing yeah exactly one one question that we had quite a lot from people because I think a lot of people who are interested in kind of obviously creating a more positive relationship with the way they eat struggle sometimes with some semblance of an eating disorder and a few people asked what advice would you give someone who is struggling to some extent with it do you think intuitive eating is something that we can all tap into I know you said it helped you but I think people again are nervous

of it yeah I would say yes absolutely um get support start small if you're an under eater typically an under eater again you know maybe it's an extra spoonful of nut butter in your morning smoothie or on your toast to start eating in a way that feels better for your actual hunger if you're an over eater you know maybe just try and reduce what you're eating in one moment and ask yourself in that moment okay actually what do I need and if you can do that one night out of the six that you're binging on chocolate then you're starting to become aware it's all about awareness and just taking those small steps that feel right for you at that time because it's you need a lot of hand-holding I

think with intuitive eating as I say you know the knowledge is there but actually it's the execution and that if you've got those diet mentalities that are very deeply ingrained in you you might need a bit of support in working through them because they can be very personal and time as well yeah time again it's not a quick fix it will take time and everyone works differently the six-week program that I do I find people within a couple of weeks are like oh my god like I feel transformed already other people you know maybe want a bit of one-to-one support for six weeks after and then a top-up once a year everyone is different and it really again depends on how kind of deeply ingrained those beliefs are and the severity as it were I hate using that word but of your eating

habits whether that's over or under eating okay and then i guess and again coming back to it looking at the bigger picture and focusing in on creating a accepting relationship of yourself and moving away from defining yourself solely by a physical appearance yeah exactly so to close um i wanted to kind of close with yeah sort of food for thought and some takeaways for our readers and listeners who maybe have really enjoyed this and feel like there's a lot for them in it what are the kind of five things in terms of a daily practice that you would say to anyone listening today potentially incorporate this into your life i was thinking about this earlier and the first thing that always comes to mind is to find a meditation practice.

If it's not meditation, breath work. But you know if you want to be more intuitive whether that's with food or in your career or in your relationship or just in life you have to find some stillness. You have to be able to calm the mind mind it's really transformational in so many ways from self-love connecting to your intuition allowing your intuition to guide you body positivity I think cultivating a really healthy meditation practice has been a game changer for me and hundreds of my clients I've said this before but start small if you've got issues or habits around food that you want to change start small you know what's the one thing that you can do today that will have the biggest impact for you and do that

give yourself permission things are changing but society does still have a lot of rules and it puts a lot of rules on us but now is really the time to give ourselves permission to things so you know permission to to eat permission to go to places permission to explore you know, permission to eat, permission to go to places, permission to explore, you know, new relationships that truly satisfy us. So, you know, really give yourself permission to feel satisfied by life. And then learn, you know, knowledge is really great. The execution is greater, but practice things that you're called to do. You know, if you do happen to read a book and there's one exercise that calls to you, do it and practice it over and over again and I really do believe that you know knowledge is the power as well you know the more that you know about the body for me it was going

to nutrition school that I just found this newfound respect for my body and it suddenly shifted how I started how I was talking to my body and how I felt in my body, you know, and that was through learning what the body does. And I say this to clients over and over again, you want to get to know your body, learn what it does on a daily basis. And you will kind of, you'll suddenly find some, some new perspective. And then finally, I have to say this, you know, but self-love is your foundation. You don't forget yourself and don't ever forget your needs as well yeah absolutely and then to close could you walk us through one of your daily practices that that you do maybe something that listeners could just settle into for a minute or two and just kind of get a sense

of how that feels and what a difference it makes yeah absolutely um I've actually started a new morning routine since becoming a mother I don't get a lot of time to myself so something that I do in the mornings now I get up quite early about an hour before the rest of the house wakes up and for me even just the process of giving myself that time feels very rewarding and I do a number of different things now and I've seen such transformational benefits that I'm telling everyone about it but I will meditate I practice Vedic meditation then I practice some affirmations there's some in the book and I will generally write them down or I'll recite them back to myself if I don't have too much time, I will do some visualization. So I really visualize kind of,

you know, what I want to achieve for the day, who I want to be, you know, the person I'm stepping into. And then I do a tiny bit of exercise, you know, I think just moving the body, it moves any stagnant energy. So if you want to feel good, and you want to feel good in your body, you just need to do even if it's just, you know, jumping up and down for five minutes or putting a song on and having a dance and then I read I read five pages every day because like I've just said you know knowledge is really important and the more that I read about things that feel important to me whether that's you know health or self-development I feel more powerful more empowered in the life that I'm living and then finally journaling and I give quite a few journaling prompts in the book, actually. But certainly, I think if you're feeling overwhelmed, or you've got lots on your mind, it's really good to get these things out on paper.

And just, you know, even if you just want to scribble it and then burn it, or chuck it in the bin, and it's like, and so it is, you know, it's done, it's out of your body, out of your mind, and you can get on with your day. But I definitely would recommend a morning ritual. I think what you do in the morning sets you up for the day. I absolutely love that. Well, thank you so, so much for coming on. And thank you guys for listening. I hope that you are feeling ready for your Tuesday.

And we will be back again next week. If you enjoyed it, please do share it with friends. And please do rate it and review it if you feel called to because it makes a massive difference. And we will be back again next Tuesday. Thank you so much. Bye. You're a podcast listener, and this is a podcast ad heard only in Canada. Reach great Canadian listeners like

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