Well with Arielle Lorre - 104: Erin Treloar of Raw Beauty Talks on Being Hospitalized for an Eating Disorder, Today's Beauty Standards & Finding Freedom

Episode Date: April 7, 2021

In this episode I’m talking to founder of Raw Beauty Talks, Erin Treloar, about everything from eating disorders to today’s beauty standards. Erin gets vulnerable and honest about being hospitalized for an eating disorder; finding body acceptance; all about emotional eating; feeling torn between wanting to maintain beauty but not succumbing to societal pressures; how I balance self love and cosmetic enhancements; how to get over food guilt and so much more!   www.GoMacro.com with code BLONDEFILES for 30% off plus free shipping on all orders over $50 www.Blublox.com/BLONDE with code BLONDE for 15% off and free shipping worldwide www.Sakara.com/BLONDEFILES for 20% off your first order www.Talkspace.com with code BLONDE for $100 off your first month!   Produced by Dear MediaSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Auto-hue with Sunny Cars feels as if the children Not me's high. Giselsramble Sandvorda. Actisvercere, verdwined. Vacantzican chaotis

but who zorgalos an auto-hurt says, Uno dos no stress. No, no longer-verwachted costs, always fullledgiverts. So,

would auto-hue without your reis-adviseur or sunnycars. The following podcast is a dear media production. Hey, welcome to the Blond Files podcast. I'm your host, Ariel Lori, and I'm here to talk all things wellness.

From how to achieve optimal health and well-being to the best beauty tips and everything in between, no topic is off limits. I know there is so much information out there, so I'm here to help you navigate it all and live your best life. Thanks for listening. Let's get into it. Hi, everybody. Welcome to the show.

Today I am talking to Aaron Treloor from Raw Beauty Talks. Erin's greatest passion is helping girls and women learn to live from a place of self-love. She launched Raw Beauty Talks in 2014 with an interview series featuring over 200 women without makeup, photo editing, or filters that ignited a conversation surrounding beauty, confidence, and self-love. In 2014, she founded Raw Beauty Talks Society to support programs raising self-esteem in youth. Aaron is a founding partner of Free to Be Talks, a media literacy program for youth in grade 6 through 8, and currently sits on the board as a founding advisory board member. She is also a board member of the YWCA Culture Shift Project. She has two programs designed to

help women become the healthiest, happiest, and most confident version of themselves. Her work has been featured in publications including L. Magazine, the LA Times, and and Marie Claire, amongst others. She's a public speaker on the topics of beauty, confidence, and self-love, and a frequent contributor to Huffington Post being named as one of Huff Po Canada's top 50 bloggers. So we had a really organic, interesting conversation about her eating disorder and being hospitalized for it when she was younger. We talked about the difference between disordered eating and eating disorders, finding body acceptance, how to eat intuitively, all about emotional eating. And then we also had an interesting convo about today's beauty standards.

And we just have a really honest talk about cosmetic surgery and enhancements and how to reconcile both self-acceptance and choosing to do these things, you know, like Botox and whatever other cosmetic procedures. We also talk about how to get over food guilt and so much more. I really enjoyed talking to her about all of this. I went on her podcast too, the Raw Beauty Talks podcast, so make sure to check that out. And I just really liked hearing her experience and her perspective. So I think you guys will love her too. Enjoy. Welcome, Erin. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here today. I am really excited to talk to you. I love everything that you're doing. And I know a lot of my audience already follows you, but if

don't definitely go over and check out Aaron's account, Raw Beauty Talks and her podcast. I did some Q&As on my Instagram stories last night about body image and relationships with food and beauty standards. And, you know, I think we're all in this place where like social media is making us feel like shit. Beauty standards are out of control. Over 90% of the people who responded had struggles with their relationship with food, struggles with their really relationships with themselves. So it's just a really relevant topic right now. And there's no one better to talk to you about all of this with the news. So to start out, can you just introduce yourself and tell everybody a little bit about yourself and how you got to where you are right now?

Absolutely. So my journey around food and my body started back in high school. Like so many girls, I went through puberty. I went from being this like lean long bean pole to having boobs and having hips and I didn't know what to do with them and I kind of like got some new attention and I there were parts of my body that I was like okay yes I'm liking this and other parts where I was like no that's not how I want my hips to look in particular I loved YM magazine and 17 magazine there was no social media at the time but I like poured over these magazines and thought these girls in the images were just gorgeous and it looks like they had everything it's exactly the same as what social media is now, right?

We see these girls and their lives seem perfect and everything's so glossy and they have no cellulite. And so I bought into this dream. I was a bit of a perfectionist and I started watching what I was eating and what began very innocently as just trying to get quote unquote healthier and following these health tips on the magazines. Do you remember reading them and it being like five days to a six, pack or like seven ways to lose seven pounds in seven hours. Ridiculous claims, but I was eating it up.

I remember I was the same way I had those magazines plastered all over my room like, you know, back in the day when you'd cut it out and just. And I remember like a very vivid memory of probably being like 14 years old and doing the cabbage soup diet. Oh my God, me too. Me and the cabbage soup diet were like best friends back then, which is so sad. Yes. Yes, I was all over that. For anybody who's listening right now who's like, ooh, what's the cabbage soup diet? It is awful. It will not support your health and wellness. You will gain weight after doing it. It's just, anyways, we'll get into all of that. But, you know, I really believed that what I was doing was for my benefit. I loved dance. I wanted to become a better dancer. And so I really zoomed in on this. At the time, no one was counting macros. People were counting calories. So I started to become a better dancer. And so I started to become a better dancer. And so I started to become a better. And so I was really zoomed in on this. And so I was really zoomed. And so I was really zoomed in. At And so I was so I was. And so I was so I was so I was so I so I aware of like, okay, what are the models eating? And then can I mirror and mimic that? And very quickly, like within a matter of months, I had shifted from a space where it was no longer a healthy relationship with health and wellness. It was an obsession. It was something that I thought

about all day, every day. I mean, Ariel, when we were talking on my podcast and you started talking about your relationship with alcohol and that first drink and this very quick, slippery slope that you fell into where all of a sudden alcohol became your sole focus. I resonated with that so much. But for me, it was the obsession with health, with having the perfect body, with looking perfect, with ensuring all the foods I was eating was clean. Again, at the time, diet culture was saying that fat was bad. So like as minimal fat as possible, which now I'm like pouring olive oil and avocado and like eating all the fats, right?

Same. And so I within under a year, I mean, I was at such a dangerously low weight that I had had to drop out of dance. They could no longer let me do that. I was pulled out of classes at school. I could not focus at all. I had zero energy. I had to wear two pairs of pants everywhere I went because I was so cold all the time. And my life was revolved around this obsession with food. At some point, I knew that I was too thin and I was so unhappy, but I truly felt trapped. I couldn't stop that voice in my head that was counting calories,

the voice that was telling me, don't eat that. And so I was lucky enough to be admitted into an inpatient program at a local hospital. And I spent three months there in between grade 11 and 12. It was, I mean, anybody who's been to rehab or a treatment center like this, it's hellish. It is like sterile hospital vibes, every kind of food that I was terrified of, you have to eat. But it also saved my life. And it gave me an opportunity to really press pause on everything around me. And for the first time to start to pick up some tools to help me cope with emotions that I was using food as a way of coping with. And so that gave me a bit of a platform, got my weight back up to a healthier space, quieted that incessant voice in my head that was so focused on food. But it

didn't necessarily teach me how to create a healthy relationship with food. In a eating disorder clinic, they're like, let's get you stable so that you're not going to die of a heart attack. But it wasn't so much emphasis on, okay, how do you eat in a way that is going to fuel you in a way that feels good when you're surrounded by this diet culture conversation that is infused into everything that we do these days? So I went back out into the world and I started into this pattern of again, being very conscious of what I was eating during the day, not restricting as much, but like trying to eat well, quote unquote well, and having foods that I avoided. And then in the evenings, what I found myself doing was eating everything I could get my hands on, binging.

I didn't know that's what it was called at the time. I thought I was just this huge failure. and I was so ashamed of myself. I would leave work and I would be hungry and tired. And I would stop at a grocery store and I would load up on all these things that I told myself that I couldn't have. And I would sit there alone in my car eating and it was like I would black out almost and go numb.

And then I would throw the stuff away in some secret garbage like in a back alley and pretend that it had never happened but within was just crushed. and felt like, why am I the only girl who cannot figure out how to eat healthy and to eat well? What I didn't realize at the time was that my body was doing exactly what it was supposed to do in order to keep me safe and healthy. It was saying you're trying to take us back into starvation mode and I'm going to keep you at your set weight point like at that space where you're healthy.

So if you're going to restrict all day, then I'm going to find a way to get that fuel later on in the day. It's actually a really beautiful response that our body has when we restrict food. But the problem is that in this world of diet culture, this part that is kept secret by so many women isn't talked about. And so we feel like, again, we're the only one who's getting it wrong. We're the only one who's not disciplined enough to do it right. And so I lived in this space for a couple of years. And you know, from the outside, nobody would have known that it was happening. I was working at a restaurant and had a, you know, like great, fun early 20s vibe going on. My body did gain weight doing this for sure, but it was never anything where people would have started to notice or think that there was a

problem. In fact, people probably thought Aaron's just getting healthier and doesn't seem like she's restricting. But really, I was struggling just as much on the inside. And I think that, that while the eating disorder in my teens was perhaps a little bit more dangerous in regards to like what could have happened, I think that the disordered eating pattern that I was experiencing in my 20s was perhaps an even greater risk because I wasn't living life. I wasn't living life. I wasn't finding joy in anything. And yet nobody would have noticed. And So this is the space that now I spend, you know, all my working hours devoted to is helping those girls in that space who aren't yet diagnosed with an eating disorder, but who have a

disordered relationship with food in their body. Because I know how awful it feels. I know how it spills into every area of your life from your confidence to your relationships, to how you show up in your job, to how you show up in extracurricular activities. It is just, it's a poison, really, truly. And so it was a rough few years, I would say, a lot of anxiety. And I finally, I was at a party at one point, and I met a life coach. I was like, what the hell is a life coach? And we ended up talking and she was like, you know, I spent a lot more time working with people on where it is that they want to be in their life and how to get there. She's like, therapy's amazing. Therapy's great. Everyone should do therapy. But in therapy,

you spend a lot of time in the past. And then a little bit of time talking about the present. She's like, we don't dig around a lot in the past. And I was like, oh, my God, I've done like so much therapy at this point. I can not dig up. Like, there's nothing else to dig up. There's no, my life wasn't that awful. So I started working with her and really started practicing meditation and mindfulness.

I started looking into things like intuitive eating and just exploring all of these topics and slowly over the course of a couple of years really transformed my relationship with my own body. I know on the episode that we had, I asked you, what happened when you stopped being so harsh and obsessive with your exercising? Did your body like balloon up? Did your body change a lot? And you were like, no, my body kind of softened and relaxed a little bit, but like in a good way. And that's exactly what I experienced too. And so, yeah, it was, it's been a journey. It's been a journey.

If you're staring at a screen all day or looking at your phone constantly or waking up and scrolling Instagram or watching TV before bed like I am, I've been binging the good fight, you're not alone because such is life today. And I do it too. But you could be welcoming unnecessary stress, anxiety and discomfort like I'm headaches, insomnia, and more into your life. That's right. Blue light is the culprit here and it is everywhere. This is why I use blue blocks. I use their glasses and their red light bulbs and I've been doing this for about a year or so to protect myself from all of this. I read a Harvard study

recently about blue lights effects on our sleep and circadian rhythm. And it said to use dim red lights for night lights because red light is less likely to shift circadian rhythm and suppress melatonin. They also, of course, set a void looking at bright screens beginning two to three hours before bed. And if you are going to be looking at screens or if you work a night shift or just using devices at night to consider wearing blue blocking glasses. So blue blocks are the ultimate blue light blocking glasses created in optics laboratory conditions. They block out the blue light and unlike other trendy companies who have no understanding of how light impacts health, blue blocks are backed by the latest science and research. Blue blocks has high quality lenses for daytime, nighttime, and for

color therapy exactly in line with the suggested peer reviewed academic literature. And they have over 20 stylish frames to choose from in prescription, non-prescription, and readers. or they can take your favorite pair of glasses and fit them with custom blue blocking frames. So if you want to get your energy back, sleep better, and block out the unhealthy effects of blue light, go to blue blocks today and get free shipping worldwide and 15% off with the code blonde, B-L-O-N-D-E, or go to blueblocks.com slash blonde. Again, that's B-L-L-O-X.com slash blonde, B-L-N-D-E, or go to blueblocks.com. or use the code blonde for 15% off worldwide and free shipping.

If you are listening to this episode and feeling inspired to start nourishing your body with plant-rich meals, or you are busy AF and you're finding it hard to make healthy choices with your meals, or you're just wanting to eat a little bit cleaner, I'm here to tell you that Sakara makes it so easy. Sikara is a nutrition company that focuses on overall wellness, starting with, what we eat. They have organic, ready-to-eat meals made with powerful plant-based ingredients, and the menu is crafted by chefs weekly, so you'll never get bored. They have breakfast, lunch, and dinner, all made with ingredients designed to boost your energy, improve your digestion,

and get your skin glowing. I highly recommend going to saccara.com and putting in your zip code and just taking a peek at the menu. Everything is so delicious and it changes weekly. Sakara is great too because you can design your own program, whether you want it five days a week or just two or if you know you're going to be really busy for a few days, and you can try it one time or subscribe. Along with delicious plant-rich meals, Sakara also offers daily wellness essentials like supplements and herbal teas to support your nutrition. Experience the transformative power of plants with their best-selling metabolism super powder made with organic raw cacao. It works to boost energy, eliminate bloating, minimize sugar cravings, and reduce fatigue. And right now, Sakara is offering my listeners 20% off with their first order when they go to saccarra.com slash blonde files and enter the code Blond Files 20 at checkout.

Again, that's sacara.com, S-A-K-A-R-A-com slash blonde files, B-L-O-N-D-E-F-I-L-E-F-I-E-S, to get 20% off your first order. Again, that's saccarra.com slash blonde files and enter the code blonde files 20 for 20% off. What's up family? We are Terrell Njari is the host of Let's Go There where we will, in fact,

go there every single week. Every Wednesday in this podcast, no topics are off limits for us. We will be pushing ourselves and you to see different perspectives, challenging what you think you know, and have fun all at the same time. So listen, I want you guys to go ahead and buckle up because going there is going to be

the ride of your life. See you guys next week. I remember when I was in that place myself, because I had the same cycle, I was bulimic before I got sober. And then right when I got sober, it got really, really bad because all the feelings were coming up. And it was like, eh, it was like my only coping mechanism I had left. And then it kind of just went away. I was very fortunate in that way. But then the disordered eating started. And I remember like when I was in this place where I was like, okay, the macro counting is killing me. I'm obsessed with food. I'm obsessed with working out. I'm obsessed with what is going to happen to my body. If I don't hit my number, you know, just this very like meticulously trying to plan everything. And I remember somebody being like,

maybe what my idea of what I think my body should look like and what my body will actually look like when I'm treating it kindly are different things. And it was like, oh, you know, and it was like, wow, I realized that I had been trying to cram my body into this shape, into this box, the box that we see on social media that like probably 99% is photoshopped anyway. So those people don't even look like themselves. And yeah, that fear that it's going to like creep up on you. And if I stop doing this, I'm going to balloon. And you know what? Maybe you will gain a little. little bit of weight and then things will level off. But like, it's so worth it. It's the freedom that you find living in a space where you are kind to your body and working

on the same team as it and just comfortable in your body. Like, there's no way to describe that in comparison to being constantly in that space of stress. I was reading Christy Harrison's book. she's a registered dietitian and her book's called anti-diet, which we can have a whole conversation about anti-diet movement in a second. Anyways, in it, she explains how our bodies have a set weight, like a set place on a thermostat where the temperature kind of wants to be or the weight wants to be. And this is part of our genetic disposition in the same way that we're born with brown hair or blonde hair or brown eyes. We don't really question our our hair color. Like, yeah, some people might be like, oh, I'm going to go blonde or do some highlights or

whatever, cut it short. But in the same way that we are genetically set up in life with things like our hair color and our skin color, there is a set weight for our individual body, where our body will want to hang out around that weight. And it will work really hard to keep us there. So we can either, I mean, the tendency seems to be that you either live a life where you're very focused on cramming it into a specific size that it's maybe not meant to be, where you have to be really meticulous. You've got to be thinking about this kind of stuff all the time, or you give yourself permission to create your own box and to really allow your body to sit at the size that it is supposed to be at. And that can be a really scary thing for women because we're told over and over again that we are not valued, that we are not worthy, that the things that we crave and desire most in life, love and acceptance and belonging, that those aren't accessible to us if our body is bigger, if our body isn't perfect, if our body isn't X, Y, and Z. So it is a lot easier said than done to make these shifts. Right.

It is. And I think something important to keep in mind, too, is that these people that have the quote unquote ideal body, right, like models and whoever you see on Instagram and in magazines, a lot of them are being meticulous and obsessive about keeping themselves that way too. And they're miserable. I don't want to speak for all of them, but I think I saw TikTok and I heard a podcast recently where a model was talking about this. And she was like, it is awful. It's awful.

You know, and she was talking about her agents, you know, telling her she was only allowed to eat one kind of fruit and that was it. Like no other food, just this one fruit. I don't want to say it in case. Oh, I'm going to do that. You know, and she said like other models were, you know, eating cotton balls and stuff like that to stay full. And it's like what kind of life is that, you know? And how do we as a society allow these women, and I'm not judging the women here, like these women are doing what they need to do and to survive in this industry. But to be the role model of success, to be what we're striving for.

And I know not everyone's striving for that model scene, but we have to recognize that at a subconscious level, it's impacting all of us. Yeah. It is. Yeah. So when you made a shift to more intuitive eating, what were some of the steps you took or how did you do that without having that fear of, you know, your weight catching up to you and this fear that I think so many people feel.

And one of the main questions when I put a question box up on Instagram yesterday for this episode was like, how do I eat intuitively? And I've done this with other guests before. And everyone's like, well, intuitively, my body is telling me that I want to eat the whole box of Oreos. So how do I find what it really wants? So how did you do that with your own body? So first of all, I really want to state that it is a process and that it is something that is accessible to all of us because we were all born intuitive eaters. when you came into the world, you weren't struggling with all of these emotions and all of these

connotations of what food meant and what your body meant. When your body had a hunger signal, you cried and somebody fed you. And then when you were full, you stopped eating. And as you started to try different varieties of food, there were things that you liked and things that you didn't like. And again, when you were hungry, you ate. And if there was something that looked really yummy, you might have some of that, even though you weren't hungry. I'm thinking about my kids when they want cookies or whatever. But you didn't judge yourself after. You didn't make it into this whole big thing and then go jump on a treadmill and run to get rid of it. Like there's a sense of ease around eating when you're younger. So we have to recognize that when we're struggling with our

relationship with food in our body, that this is something that's that we've learned that's being taught to us. And so we keep hearing this word in 2020, 2020, 2021 of the unlearning. And again, we almost have to unlearn the various things that we've heard as we were growing older. So the first thing is when we're talking about overeating, binge eating, restricting, we have to realize that it, none of this is actually about the food. None of this is about the food. The eating patterns that you're in are a symptom of something else that's going on underneath. So we'll use the example of a stomach ache to chat about this. When you have a stomach ache and you get these pains that are happening, the pain is the symptom. That's the messenger from your body being like, hey, Aaron,

you ate something wrong or you're too stressed or your periods coming, but it's a message from your body letting you know that something's going on and asking you to pay attention. The actual issue or the problem is that you ate something that you shouldn't eat. Your periods coming. You're overwhelmed and doing too many things and that's your body's way of telling you that something's wrong. So the symptom is the pain and the actual problem is whatever caused that pain. Emotional eating is the same. thing. So emotional eating, whether that's restricting or overeating, is the symptom. That's the thing that is telling you something's wrong here. Something's off the way that you're living your life or the

mindset that you're carrying and your perspective around all of this needs to adjust in some capacity. So the first thing is to really have some compassion for yourself and recognize there's nothing wrong with you. You're not doing this whole life thing wrong, but your body's just speaking to and letting you know that there's something to address. Then we've got to dig into, okay, what's the problem? And this is where people are like, oh, shit, I don't want to do that. Like, I don't want to deal with that. I just want to deal with the food, which is what we turn to most of the time.

We're like, no, the food's the problem. If I just take the food out of my kitchen and throw it all away or I don't bring the chips into my kitchen, then I'll be fine. Or if I can just arrange the types of food that I'm eating in this specific pattern, then everything will be. okay. But that doesn't work. We know 98% of diets fail within two years and 70% of people who diet end up gaining more weight than the set point where they started. So arranging the food, manipulating the food doesn't work. It's not the solution because it's not actually addressing

the problem. So one of the first things that I do in the Raw Beauty Reset, which is my 12-week group coaching program where we really, we go through nourishment. movement, mindset, and self-love, those are four pillars, to rebuild our relationship with food and our body, we start to ask ourselves this question. The question is, what am I hungry for that can't be solved in the fridge? What am I craving that can't be solved in the kitchen? And so just notice, as I say that, maybe what bubbles up for you? And some of the most common things that I hear are, especially right now, connection. People are lonely. They don't feel seen. They don't feel fully expressed. Creativity, excitement is a big one. How often do you find yourself

going to the kitchen when you're bored? Or you're like working on some dumb work projects and they're like, oh, that looks more interesting in there. Right. And so simply by bringing some awareness to what emotion is driving me to turn to the fridge or the kitchen or the food right now. And sometimes it's easy to notice, okay, I'm feeling bored. I'm feeling really stressed and overwhelmed right now. And then we can look at alternative ways of managing those emotions. And sometimes there's older trauma or pain bodies that are stuck or things that we've been carrying around that are a bit more challenging to unearth or metabolize.

And that's where having a coach or a therapist or doing some meditation or journaling can really help us explore those things a little bit further. The challenge with the messages that we receive constantly is that you've got to get control of your body. You need to control it by managing the food and by working out in this specific way. and the more that we start outsourcing information about what our body needs to like that blogger or that doctor or the naturopath or whatever it is. And we need those people absolutely to give us a bit of guidance. But we always have to be turning back and listening to our own body as well. Just because the pandemic has turned our lives upside down doesn't mean you have to let the new normal of stress and anxiety be your normal.

Talking to a therapist is a great first step. It's a signal to yourself that you're ready to be the one in control. By seeking help, you're giving yourself a chance to heal and grow and to overcome the difficulties and uncertainty of this past year. You guys know I'm a huge proponent of therapy and I wholeheartedly recommend talk space. You can sign up online and start therapy the same day as you sign up. You can text video or send voice messages to your licensed therapy. so it's incredibly convenient and it lets you send and receive unlimited messages with your dedicated therapist in the Talkspace platform 247. With Talkspace, you can set goals with your therapist and they hold you accountable and make sure you're really progressing. Therapy can really

help you shift your perspective, find tools to cope in difficult times, and it can just really be a guiding light. Talkspace is a fraction of the cost of in-person therapy and instead of of waiting for an appointment, you can send unlimited messages to your therapist 24-7 and they'll engage with you daily five days a week. Talkspace has thousands of licensed therapist with years of experience in over 40 specialties, including depression, anxiety, substance abuse, trauma, anger management, relationship issues, food and eating, and so much more. And very importantly, talk space is secure and private using the latest end-to-end bank grade encryption technology to store client information and complying with the latest HIPAA regulations.

As a listener of this podcast, you will get $100 off your first month with Talkspace. To match with a licensed therapist today, go to Talkspace.com. Make sure to use the code blonde, that's B-L-O-N-D-E, to get the $100 off your first month and show your support for the show. Again, that's Talkspace.com and the code is blonde. If you follow me on Instagram or TikTok and you've seen my What I Eat in a Day videos, you know my love for go macro macro bars. I actually discovered them last summer when I was doing Loafod Map because they have seven certified loafodmap flavors. And they also have three nut free flavors, the oatmeal chocolate chip, maple sea salt, which is so good.

And sunflower butter. And all of the 15 macro bar flavors are made from high quality. ingredients. They are certified, organic, vegan, kosher, non-GMO, soy-free, and gluten-free. So there's something for everybody. And my personal favorite that I have daily is coconut almond butter with chocolate chips. I am telling you, it is out of this world good. I look forward to it every day. Another thing that I love about Go Macro is their ethos and their dedication to sustainability. So it's owned by a mother-daughter duo and they're based in a small rural community. And their mission is to spread awareness for a balanced plant-based lifestyle.

Not only do macro bars taste delicious, but they also help support our planet. All go-macro products are made with 100% renewable energy and sustainably sourced ingredients. So get your hands on some of Go Macro's delicious macro bars today by going to go-macro.com and using the promo code blonde files for 30% off plus free shipping on all orders over $50. Again, that's go macro.com, G-O-M-A-C-R-O-com, promo code blonde files, B-L-O-N-D-E-F-I-L-E-F-I-E-S for 30% off plus free shipping on all orders over $50. I mean, you've been on this health journey. I'm sure you've talked to very talented people who have made recommendations that

works for other people, but perhaps didn't work for your body. Has that ever happened? Yeah. And for years, even when I had started my Instagram account, you know, I was following other people and I was following exactly what they were doing. And I know that there is an inclination to do that. Like, you look at a picture of somebody on their highlight reel like we were talking about yesterday. And it looks like they have it all together and they're happy and they're no gut issues and they're lean and whatever. And you think, okay, I'm just going to do what they're doing. And yeah, I mean, we're so individual, bio-individuality. And like even for me, what worked for me six months ago isn't what works for me now.

Like we're just changing. Our needs are constantly changing. And we talked about this on your podcast, but, you know, I'm an evangelist for meditation because it taught me how to come into my own body and learn what I need and learn what my cues are. And so, you know, I can't. recommend that enough, but everybody knows that. They're like, okay, we get it. You're like, I will not stop talking about it until everyone is meditating. I completely agree. Meditation changed my life. I am going to do my meditation teacher training shortly because I just think it is such

a gift and really supportive of all of these things. Yeah. It's impossible as humans to not look around us and notice what other people are doing. And that's also how we learn. So I'm not saying to not go to the doctor or to not check in with other people and see what's working for them, but just always come back to your own body and really connecting to your body

and being on the same team with it is a practice. It's a mindset shift for a lot of people who are in the space where their relationship with food and their body is feeling hard because they've got this mindset of my body's against me. It's not doing.

doing what I want. I suck. I'm not good enough. I can't figure this out. And so we really want to practice just becoming a little bit softer. Everyone's always like, try harder. And I follow this guy, David Goggins, who my husband introduced me to, do you follow him? Oh my gosh. No. How do you spell it? He's basically the opposite of me. David Goggins. He's this super athlete. He's done some military challenge like 700 times. He says fuck about 400 times in every single Instagram video that he does. And so I love taking parts of the expertise of different people, but I've really started to learn that what's right for them might not always be right for me or I could take like 1% of what they're doing and apply it to myself, but everything else. Anyways, his whole thing, his hashtag is stay hard. Like,

stay hard, get up at 4 a.m. work your body. You don't. do not allow yourself sweets. Like, he's staying hard. And the more I heard him speaking, the more I was like, I think my life motto is to try softer. Yeah. To try softer. What would it feel to just try softer? And I think this is a much more feminine approach, of course.

Yeah. But one that I would ask, everyone who's listening right now, what would it look? like if you were to just give yourself permission to try softer. I love that. Something else that I want to touch on is beauty, like aesthetics, plastic surgery, Botox, all that I saw your post the other day. And I'm really interested to talk to you about this because I'm on the end of the spectrum where I do everything. I'm like Botox filler. I got a nose job. I got a brow lift. I don't like give it to me. I love it. I love it. But I also see how. how it's problematic. And again, it's like a really fine line. So I would love to hear your thoughts on

all of that. Well, I was feeling so conflicted because part of me has always felt this pressure to maintain a certain ideal. And not, I wouldn't even describe it as pressure. It's like I want those things, but I also question how that impacts the next generation. I have a little girl now. I think about the fact that, I mean, this is going to sound, I don't know. I just, a lot, a big part of me is like, okay, I could spend a thousand dollars getting my eyes done, but I also know that there's all these little kids starving across the world. And I'm not financially in a place where I can like do it all and where it really makes sense for me to go ahead with all of these procedures.

I got Botox for the first time when I was 25. A dentist told me it would be preventative for my 11, which I'm showing you right now. And I literally think I spent all the money in my bank account on the Botox, like the $400 Botox. And so Botox to me, on one hand, is so appealing. I've now done it three times since 25, like before my wedding. and then I did it again after having kids because I was like, I'm so effing tired.

I look so, what happened? What happened? Like, Mama needs some help. And I go and I love it and I also feel conflicted. So I wanted to broach the topic with our audience and I brought on the podcast the cosmetic medical doctor who did mine and another woman who is a mom who's really questioning like how far is too far in this conversation that we're seeing around body positivity that's sparking up everywhere. She was mentioning there are so many of these women who are body positive activists,

but when you zoom in on their face, I can tell they've had work done in Botox. So they're saying, like, allow my body to be whatever it will be. And I'm not going to fit into a box anymore, but like, except for my face. My face, I'm going to keep in the box and I'm not comfortable at that. That's me. Like me to a team. So we were talking about that. And I was saying, you know, as somebody who does advocate for raw beauty, and I do makeup every day, I've talked openly about getting Botox. So for me, raw beauty is really about knowing yourself deeply,

knowing what makes you happy, knowing what lights you up and feeling really good in your body and beyond. It's not about not wearing makeup or anything. But as somebody who is helping women get to that space, it's challenging. Like I said, I'm having this conversation. And yet my relationship with my body and aging isn't perfect yet either. This is a journey for all of us. And so, yes, somebody can be in a space where they're feeling more accepting of their body.

And they want to do this or that with their face. And that's their prerogative. At the end of this conversation and with the input of so many different women who are obviously a lot of us are thinking about this kind of thing. The key pieces that I pulled from it are that every woman has sovereignty over her body. Every woman's life and choices are her own to make. And if we can really work to live from a space of non-judgment towards other women, that is a beautiful space to be able to exist from. Where you do you and all do me and let's support and cheer for one another and hold one another up because Lord knows that's what we need right now more than anything.

At the same time, there are some really powerful messages that we are receiving as women constantly that tell us we should not be aging. We need to look like this in order to be valued. We need that beauty product in order to like continue to be accepted in this society that we live in and in order to belong. And these messages are results. in us spending billions of our dollars as females into like the surface level look and appearance, risking our health, like going for surgeries, actually cutting open our skin and like ripping off our noses and putting new ones on. And I'm just saying like the reality of what it is that we're doing. And focusing a lot of time and energy on this. And then we're like,

why is there a wage gap? Why aren't as many of us in C-suite positions? Why isn't there being a female president yet. It's like we're fucking numb and distracted. We can't get to those spots when there's this industry that's like, wait, don't spend much more time like working on your mind. Instead, just fix your nose. That will make you happy. So it's a journey and it really all does fall in a spectrum. I'm somebody who loves clothing and I appreciate beauty and I want to take care of myself. And so I think that should all be allowed. And after having two kids, like, I think about having a boob job at least once a week. I don't know whether I will or not, but it's all just an important conversation to have and things to think about at the end of the day. Yeah. Somebody asked me

for this podcast, like how I reconcile being accepting of my body and myself and also having cosmetic treatments. And, you know, like you were saying before, it is kind of like, it is a journey. I don't love that word, but it's something that I examine because I really truly feel like, I really do accept myself and I really like to like do these little tweaks, but there has to be something at the root of it. And of course, like, so when I first got Botoxin filler, I was maybe a year or too sober and I was 28 years old and after years of hard drugs and smoking cigarettes and not sleeping, you know, I looked weathered. We'll say that. It looks like you'd been doing some drugs. Yeah, like I looked not 28. So, and I wanted my outsides to match my insides, you know,

because I felt so good and I didn't recognize the person in the mirror. And then like with the nose job, it's something that I just wanted to do my whole life, which I'm sure stems from, you know, those YM magazines, I got that message somewhere. So I'm not, you know, I do recognize that the seed was planted, right? And I noticed, though, social media, especially in the last, seems like the last year or two, just if I go on my explore page and it's probably because I talk about this and I follow doctors and stuff, it's all surgery. And it's before and afters of celebrities.

And, you know, Bella Hadid, before and. after and allegedly there's just been she's done so much it's not Botox like we'll leave it at that yeah and so the reason that I started talking about it was because I think that part in and of itself is problematic the lying and I get that like people are entitled to their privacy and I totally get it yes the unrealistic expectations and these people who have the best doctors in the world the money, the access, all of that. And these are the people who have 200 million followers on Instagram and young girls. I don't know how old your daughter is, but I cannot imagine. So I always, when I talk about it, I'm like, I don't know if I'm doing the right thing because I don't want

people to feel like they have to go do this. Right. I would rather that people know that this is what a lot of people are doing and you don't have to do it, but like just transparency. I know that this is happening. Yeah. Yes. That was, when I started raw, it began as an interview series. And I interviewed over 200 women and we photographed them without makeup, photo editing or filters, which is probably why people, everyone thinks it's a no makeup movement, which it's not. But my whole thing was rather than hiding ourselves, can we just openly talk about your breast augmentation and why you decided to do that and how you felt after? Because I know some women do the work and they feel incredible and they don't think twice about it. And,

they hated their boobs before or they looked at their nose every day and they changed it and they went on and lived their life like great do you but let's talk about it and i also know people who have done it and experienced depression afterwards and felt like shit that didn't solve any of my problems and i still kind of feel crappy on the inside so i love that you're transparent about it I love that you're transparent about it. And I think it's, I mean, I think it's a really beautiful thing that more people are doing it. I would love to see more celebrities continuing to have these conversations. And I don't know what the right answer is either. I don't know. I don't know if it would be better if these young models and influencers, who everyone looks up to said, actually, I got some work done. I don't know if then 13, 14 year olds would want to go out and get facelifts or if they would. I don't know. I don't know. Or if they would, you know, I just feel like I see people who comment on these pictures and they're like, oh, it's just puberty. And I'm like, that is the opposite of puberty. My lips didn't look like that when I was in puberty. Things fall when we get older. They don't get lifted. Yes. Yeah, I know. It's so, it's so complicated. And there is definitely more pressure in our hands all day, every day than there's ever been. And so.

I think it comes back to asking this question of like, how am I feeling in my body? And what do I know brings me joy? What makes me feel my best self? Not my best self like I look my best self, but what lights you up on the inside? What makes you feel grounded and connected? When do you feel like you're using your gifts and your creativity in a way that allows you to see, see your worth beyond your beauty, beyond this external surface. And so that's a really great starting point is to create what I call a personal nourishment menu where you write a list of what are the things that fuel me. And it can have things on it that contradict themselves. It can have doing a spin class with amazing music and pumping myself up or a gentle yoga class with

candle lit in the morning, latte with friends, or spending an afternoon curled up in bed, reading a book, or listening to podcasts. So write that list for yourself and then put it somewhere where you can refer back to it when you're not feeling your best. And scroll down that menu and ask yourself, what do I need right now to nourish myself? Same as picking from a menu at a restaurant. You tune in and you notice what you feel like and what you don't feel like. So again, it's this continuous conversation of really softening towards your body, softening the dialogue within your head and the actions that you're taking and the way that you're treating yourself. Yeah, I love that because at the end of the day,

you can get a nose job and a browlift and a facelift and get your lips done and do the Botox and whatever. And if you are not doing those things that really fill you up, but you're going to just loathe what you see in the mirror. You'll never feel content. You can't find happiness in those spaces. I mean, you've said it in this show, on my show, when you were counting macros and your body was like as tight and tiny as it was ever going to be,

we're miserable, obsessed, and didn't feel your best. I was the unhappiest I have ever been when I was at the space where I flew to New York to meet with modeling agencies. So the look was there, but the way that I was feeling on the inside was trashy, to say the least. Okay, well, I know that we don't have a whole lot of time left, but I just want to check out some of the listener questions,

and I'm sure we covered a lot of them, but maybe we can do some kind of rapid fire. Let's do it. Okay. So how can somebody get over food guilt when they're trying to lose weight in a healthy way? That is a great question. And first, I would ask, when are those moments that you're feeling guilty?

My guess is that it's probably when you've eaten foods that you've labeled as bad or not clean or things that you shouldn't. So often when we're in this space of dieting, we have a list of foods that are allowed or okay or considered good and a list of foods that don't fit on that list. and so the guilt pops up when we stray from it. But this part of trying fear foods and allowing ourselves to incorporate them into our day is really, really important. One of the exercises that I do in the reset, we talk about something called your fearful friend. And your fearful friend is that voice that pops up that's like, why did you just eat that? You're never going to get in control. You're so lazy.

You're not motivated. It's that nasty voice that pops into your mind. So I'd recommend giving her a name, picking a name. So if you had to pick a name for your fearful friend, what would you name her? What's the first thing that comes to mind? Me? Yeah. Oh.

Cruella. Cruella. So Crewella. And what does Corella say to you when she pops into your mind? Don't eat that. Yeah. Don't eat that. So it's like this little character almost on your shoulder that's like, don't eat that.

You've had too much. Stop. You're going on a trip tomorrow. La, blah, blah. And so actually imagine that voice as being almost separate from you and picture her. Like give her some description. What does she look like? How does she spend her day?

How does she live her life? Who is she surrounded with? Most likely when you start to imagine the life that that fearful friend has. not the life that you're aiming for. So every time that that voice is popping up, it's almost like you're in a car driving along. And when that voice is speaking, that character, Cruella, is driving the car. And you're the passenger in the vehicle. So now she's deciding what road you're going down, what you get to eat, what you don't get to eat, how long you're going to stay there. Get back on the treadmill. You're so lazy. I can't believe you didn't get up today.

She is steering the direction of your life. And you have to ask yourself, are you have to happy with where she's taking you. If you're not happy with where Cruella is driving the car, then we've got to get her out of the front seat. I haven't found a way to remove her from the car completely because our fearful friend has positive intentions for us. The intention is to keep us safe. And in this world where you're meant to be small and beautiful and look like the edited Insta models, keeping you safe means telling you not to eat the thing. And and to get your butt out there for the workout. And so we have to recognize that we can have compassion towards that little character

because she is trying to help us, but that her method of helping us isn't actually serving us anymore. So you can literally have a conversation in those moments when the guilt pops up where she's like, oh, you shouldn't have eaten that, you're so bad, you're going to be fat forever, you're never going to feel good in your body. Where you're like, hey, Kruela, I hear you, girl. I hear you. I see you there. I got you. And I know that you want me to stay safe. But like, you're bringing me down. I just had a couple cookies. I had five cookies. Got it. We're going to

leave the kitchen right now. I know I'm bored, but like chill. And actually just take that, that process just creates a bit of pause between you and the guilt, you and the voice, you and the fearful friend, enough of a pause that you can then soften, find a more gentle, way of speaking to yourself, find a more compassionate voice towards yourself. Okay, I just had some cookies. That's not in my comfort zone. But I'm also practicing balance and cookies aren't bad. And I'm asking myself that question that Aaron told me, what am I hungry for that can't be solved in the fridge? Oh yeah, I really actually need some connection. I'm going to go call a friend now. And we move forward from there. Love it. Cruella. Cruella, you bitch.

Let's see. Ways to stop a toxic food mindset that social media, especially TikTok, is giving us. I got a lot of people saying that TikTok in particular is very toxic. Are you on TikTok? I'm on TikTok, but I've posted like two things. Okay. I think I'm on it. And I think, you know, the TikTok algorithm, you're really,

really just see, like, they have it pinpointed down so well, but I think I've seen some like, what I eat in a day is where it's like, you know, probably 500 calories and the girls are real that, but. Yes. Yeah, I mean, we know social media is addictive. We know that it is following your patterns. So the more that you watch those things, the more that you click on them, the more that you rewatch them, the more it's going to give you. And so unlike 17 and YM magazines that we used to get, you get to curate your own feed. You get to decide what images you're going to see. Now, we could have not bought those,

but that would be like deleting your social media account. We're not going to do that. So instead, can you get really conscious about who you're following, what you're clicking on? And this is going to take some discipline. But you get to curate what you see. On my feed, I don't see a lot of that, to be honest. I don't see it because I don't follow it.

And I'm really picky about what I do follow. and what I don't follow. So remember that you are the author, you are the publisher of your online magazine. So start following people who are going to let you up, who are sending you messages that will be supportive of where you're at in your story right now and go from there. Yeah, I love that. When I did that poll on my Instagram stories yesterday, one of the questions was, did social media make you feel better or worse? And like 85% was worse. And this is a conversation that I've been having with other guests. Like we do pretty much curate what we're going to see by what we interact with. And I did get messages from the 15% who said they felt better who were like, I went through

and I unfollowed and I muted certain people. And I did that myself a couple years ago. Like I said, my Explorer page is a different story. But I don't, I really try to not ever go on that. Like I just it's so hard though. You're like, I want to see what Bella Hadid's before and after was. It's clickbait. They know how to make you do it. It's like almost impossible. Yeah. Yeah.

But yeah, I mean, I like that. We're the publisher. Like, we can, we have control. Obviously, there are going to be certain things that kind of slip through the cracks and that we're going to see. But I don't, I think that the days of like hate following and following people that just make us feel like shit should be behind us. Yes.

And we call it inspiration. We're like, but they're inspiring me to do the workouts. And so, I mean, of course, there are tons of people that can inspire you and just check in with where that inspiration or motivation is coming from. I wanted to circle back on one thing because I know when you're in this space and you're struggling that just asking yourself, what do I crave that can't be found in the kitchen? It's not going to be enough necessarily to transform your whole relationship with food and your body. There are principles of intuitive eating and you can get books on this. There are so many different resources online. If it's not intuitive eating that you're doing, there are lots of people talking

about different ways of living and practicing wellness that aren't so heavily weighted in diets and in that conversation. So just keep looking for that. I have a 12-week program. called the Rob Beauty Reset. And we have the most amazing community of women in that program who are all, they're similar to you and I. They're like, I want to feel good in my body. I want to feel vibrant and healthy and energized, but I'm so done with being in this trap around food and feeling like crap in my body. And so in that, we really go through those principles of intuitive eating and something called the Golden Guidelines by Ali Eberhard, who's the dietitian. And Ali went through the whole program with me to really ensure that it was evidence-based, which was so important to me as someone

who struggled so much with food. I like, it's very important to me that what I teach is not just a bunch of woo-woo. So I've had a psychologist reviewed the program and Ali reviewed the program. And Ali has some golden guidelines that I just want to share to wrap things up. And the reason that she recommends these golden guidelines for nourishing yourself is because as your body starts to trust that you are going to feed it consistently, it will allow your hunger and fullness cues to come back. Those cues that you had when you were a baby that tell you I'm hungry and I'm full. And as those come back, you'll start to be able to really work with your body and know and trust that you can eat food when you're hungry and that you'll stop when you're full.

So some of Ali Eberhardt's guidelines are that we should have food within an hour of waking up. This is going to right off the bat have some people going like, oh, no, no, no, no, no. I don't eat until 12. So when we're doing the intermittent fasting, we're telling our body, we're restricting. You're in a state of restriction. And so if you're looking to improve your relationship with food, you've got to build that trust back. So having something to eat within an hour of waking up, eating food every three, to four hours. So we're never letting our blood sugar levels plummet below a point where your body's

going starving, starving. So we're fueling every three to four hours. At our meals, we want to aim to include three food groups. And at our snacks, we want to aim to include at least two food groups. So we're getting a variety of nourishment from different food groups to allow our brain and our organs and our heart to all work really well together. These are just a few guidelines that she shares and a good starting point to really help you build back that trust with your body. And for some of you, that will feel really scary and like you're having to eat a lot and you might eat that and still find your overeating. So just having patience and trusting the process. But when we're in this space of restricting, I can almost always guarantee you're going to end up in a space of overeating,

which is where, you know, everything starts to feel harder. Yeah. Those are amazing tips. Well, thank you so much for coming on. Where can everybody find you? Everything is over at our website, rawbeautcom, and on Instagram at Raw Beauty Talks. We will link everything. Thank you.

Thank you. Again. It's so good chatting. Thank you so much for joining me and for continuing to be so transparent about your own journey on all different levels. I hope you enjoyed that episode. If you liked it, and if you like the show in general, please take a second to rate, review, and subscribe. It goes a long way, and it's actually the best way to support the show. Also, if you want to see more about each episode, you can head over to

The Blonde Files podcast on Instagram. I'm always posting about each episode there or over on my personal page at Area Lori.