AutoImmune Diets as a Disguise

in person. I don't think right, we have like a little special something happening over the years. It's my friend Madeleine. Mad about Food is her Instagram. I'm gonna put her amazing website in the show notes below as well because her recipe these are out of this world and her

online presence is just such a dream. So today's episode is having Madeline on as a guest to talk about her relationship to dieting and what prompted this was a great newsletter that she put out that says, after twelve years as a chronic diet or, I decided to quit diets forever the ten things I learned since quitting dieting.

So welcome, thanks for having me. So excited to have you, especially because you're one of those people and this is maybe a strange thing to say, but you're one of those people that I see that has so much going on professionally, so successful, so good at what you do, and also really confident in a relationship, all these things that I almost like, i'd never guessed that you were struggling with food. I get that response a lot with

like any of the struggles I've had in life. So you mentioned I'm in a relationship, I'm in like a same sex relationship. So I'm marry to a woman, And I get that same response from people who ask me about my process coming out, because I have this like someone in your face confidence and it's a little bit of a mask, but I've always had it, Like I've

always been speak up for myself. I'm always the kid in the classroom who like talks over the boys and tells them like you know what's up, because it's usually boys who when you're younger, are more talkative in class, I feel like, and so I've definitely been at like

bossy little girl. I guess I should say. And so even with coming out and with this whole thing, I've definitely always been one of those people like easy for me to hide behind confidence, and it's a recurrent theme that people in my life say, like what, I just thought you were okay. So definitely not the first person to say that, And I don't know why I felt like including that, and I hope it doesn't like make

you feel any other way. I think even more because we don't even have that like personal in person relationship. But more you run a food blog, you know your rest a piece. When I see them, they don't feel restrictive, they feel really balanced and beautiful. And you know, I'm somebody who kind of has like a trained eye for people that are struggling with food. And yet I just feel like you kind of would have slipped under my radar if we didn't have a little bit of a

personal relationship where you've told me. And I guess the whole point of me even bringing it up is just to say that everybody struggles with something. But when it comes to weight and dieting and thinking about food or body image, there's so much that goes, you know, before what meets the eye, and you just never know what somebody's going through. So twelve years as a chronic dieter, let's just kind of start there. Yeah, So I guess I was like edging on thirteen, So I'm trying to

do thirteen minus my age would be fifteen. I think it probably could say it started before that, But like I said, I will always have this like confident I've got everything under control of personality. And I think everything I've done in life, I've done it from like it comes from my own brain. I want to do it. It's my thing. And a lot of people have this history of like maybe they started dieting because they saw something their parents did, or they saw something a friended

or an older sister or whatever. But I just I guess saw, like in news media or around that, like there was something to be done of like control what you eat. It's a big was always a big control thing for me. Everything in my life that's a struggle is somewhat related to like control and needing to control when I think a lot of women relate to that, whether it's dieting or other things in life. And so when I first started dieting as a fifteen year older.

As a high schooler, I was going through S A t S and the college application process somewhat of a type over achiever teenager, and I was like, oh, this is something else that I could focus on, right, Like I could control a hundred and fifty percent of this. I can't control a hundred a deepercent of what I do on the S A T S. But this is like my own thing. Then. Since then, it's just been this arc of my life of like, when things get tough, I lean on or used to lean on, that form

of restriction or control. And I have like a very like stocky, solid body. So I think a lot of people would have looked at me, even at my lowest point and been like, oh, she's fine, she's very healthy looking, or people would compliment me even that I was maybe

thinner than I had been in the past. And so I think that's where like I even got more inspired to share more of it, because, like you said, everyone's struggling and we all are trained to be like, let me look at your body and let me see what your body looks like, and then I'll judge your health based on that, right, And it was such an eye opening process for me to like go back and look at moments in my life where I'm like, Okay, that was my thinnest way ever, my most miserable, And then

I see myself in pictures with friends and friends who I know like don't give a hoot about what they eat, and I look bigger than them in the photos. Right, So it's just this crazy thing that like it's been twelve years of dieting and twelve years of somewhat silent suffering because of how my body looks compared to other women and because of my personality of everything is all good, Everything's good. Look at these super healthy meals I share

on Instagram, whether I'm eating them or not. It's like the other layer of it. But like that was the ark of my life. And the other piece of it that I'm we could talk about more is that I have two autoimmune diseases, and unfortunately the world told me that like what I was doing and controlling my food was rewarded in that community, right, Like the less you eat, the more you cut out, the better autoimmune warrior you are.

And that has been like the biggest change in the last year for me to be like that is so toxic. That is so misleading a because everybody's body is different. So right, So like you're told to be vegan, keto, paleo whatever to be to curire autoimmune disease, but doesn't mean like one of those things it's gonna work for everyone. And doing those things puts an immense amount of stress on your body, especially if you jump from standard American

diet to one of them, or from vegan to keta. Who, right, Like, whatever you're doing, it's not always gonna be this like amazing transformation that people make it seem like in the autoimmune disease community. And I don't want to shame anyone who I walk a really fine line between shaming people who find relief from these kinds of diets, right, and my journey, But that was a really big piece of my diet journey and what stopped me eventually because of

that constant pedonic treadmill of keep cutting things out. I was on the carnivore diet so literally, like that was the last thing I did, and I was eating red meat and water for a month, and like there is nowhere to go from their? Right, Okay, got it is it possible that having to autoimmune diseases also very much contributed to the dieting that you've done over the last twelve years, not just the desire to want to change

your body physically. Yeah, so I think it's layered for me personally, and this is work I've done on my own with the therapist. Of Unfortunately for me and unfortunately for our society, I was able to use autommune disease as a disguise. Right, I'm dieting because I'm this healthy autoimmune warrior, when really, if I'm in my most honest, like vulnerable state, I say it's all about drinking my body. That final diet was I'm gonna go the most extreme

this thing that apparently cures everyone's arthritis. Right, And not only am I going to be the healthiest person in the world, I'm going to have the smallest, fittest body in America. Huh. And it was so mentally draining that that's the thing that pushed me over the edge to look in the mirror after those thirty days and be like, Okay, so I just drank water and eat meat for thirty days. I feel the worst I've ever felt in my life. I have the worst social relationships I've ever had in

my life. We're in the middle of the pandemic, right, So not only is my social life this tiny circle, I've lessened it too. I can only this very simple, simple thing. And my body looks kind of the same as it did thirty days ago, I hear you. So, yeah, I think, just to expand out for a second, you know, for anybody who has an autoimmune disease and you've found the diet that works for you, and your symptoms are alleviated, and it works fantastic, you know, just so that we

you know, speak to everybody here and and value your journey. Great. But what you're saying, Maddie is that even though the dieting may have stemmed from a place of wanting to get your symptoms under control, there was for you that other layer of also really wanting to change your body, feeling some sort of control, and doing really extreme things that impacted your quality of life. It sounds like they didn't improve your symptoms, but let's just say that they did.

Even if they didn't prove your symptoms, they were still causing stress for you mentally and therefore not working for you. Yeah, and I think the biggest thing I say to people is like, it's totally about a mindset, right, So if you're in it with the mindset of like doing X y Z helps me and I feel so much better. But I also like live a very source normal social life. I also eat the proper amount of calories to fuel my body. Right for me, there was no being on

a diet and fueling my body properly. As soon as I went to the let's cut certain food groups out, and probably because of my history of dieting, I went to not only do we cut food groups out, but we cut down on calorie consumption. And that's where you really hit that decrease in happiness and quality of life because you just aren't fueled. Yeah you're I mean, most of your body isn't fueled, but your brain isn't fueled. You you're going to feel awful if you're not eating

enough calories. And I don't think we're loud enough about that. And I don't know for me, calories like has become not a foreign word, but a foreign word in the concept of calories are bad, you know, but it's not a big part of my life anymore. But I forget that for so many people. That's where it always comes back to, and it's so ingrained, and we really have to ngo in that by recognizing that, like you said, like that's where the misery really really really comes from.

So this last diet that you went on that you mentioned this was June of corect Yeah, so I think, like what I've said before and what we said about control and about my health both are like this was the peak of it. So I was working part time as a freelance social media worker and it's a also for myself on my business. In March with twent twenty when the world changed, and by June I had lost so much income that I had to go back to

corporate full time. And not only was that a problem, I was under so much stress because of the COVID virus. My wife is a nurse, so she was going to the hospital every day. I felt like not every day, but three times a week, and I felt like I was worried about her, my family, myself. You know, if you're an automy and disease, we don't know exactly what you know what could happen, but you could be affected

worse by viruses. So the stress of that the stress of having to go back to a job full time where I had to be an in person worker in an office full time, running my own business that was seriously running into the ground out of my own control. I know some food bloggers who had their best years of their life in COVID, just wasn't me. I wasn't set up that way, and I learned so much, but I had to go back to corporate and I was so lucky that I had a job waiting for me.

But this was a breaking point for me under the control and health umbrella of Like, my health was the worst it's ever been. I had no control over my life. And I was like, Oh, the cardboard diet. It's the most extreme diet I could ever go on. Why don't I try that right now? The week I go back to a new job. It's like literally brought cold steaks in a lunch box. I don't know if that sounds like good to other people, but to to me, I'm just like, I love like salad instead before it's like

my favorite food. Like I'm all for any sort of protein that you want to add. But was there ever a moment we were like, hmmm, I like steak this sounds good. It's so sad to say like this because I love food so much, but I had lost sight of like what I loved to eat totally right, Like I didn't know what I loved anymore. So I now today sitting here, like if you take every ingredient from my fridge and put it in a salad bowl over lattice, like that is my jam, Like I will eat that

every day. But I also do love like proteins, so it's not all steak like not I don't. I would assume the people who are in the carnobarde I aren't listening down way, but maybe they are. But it's like, but it's like, um, you can eat eggs. I love eggs, like it's a huge part of like what I saw today. But if I'm like in my most honest moments, I'm not eating an egg without any sour dough bread these days, you know, like there's not a day where I'm just

eating an egg alone. But there were lots of days during this time when I was just eating an egg alone. So does it sound particularly appealing to me right now? No, but probably more appealing than for some other people. I hear you. I hear you. So this newsletter that you put out was really I waited for it. I waited like two weeks for it, and then it came in my inbox. The second I saw it, I was like,

I'm clicking this. I can't wait to read it. And I was shocked because I didn't realize that the last diet that you did was about a year ago. And I love the framing of this piece ten things you learned since you quit dieting, So I'd love if we could just like list through them and then just see kind of where that takes us. So point number one,

what did What's the first thing you learned? So I book ended this with like my top two so number one, number ten or like my most important but number one is I have so much brain space for more brain space for other things. And that's something that you don't

realize until you're out of the woods of it. And even today, like I just went out to lunch with a friend, there was no like checking the menu ahead of time, double checking the menu, long conversation with the waitress, or like long internal battle in my mind right about what to order or what am I going to eat for breakfast? So that for lunch, I can eat whatever I want and look quote unquote normal to my friend,

what am I going to do after the lunch? Like so much, I'm exhausted just listing all those things, right, and so now you just kind of live and like even going to the grocery store is so much more of a non issue. It's just shopping even on a food blogger and like a lot of it's a very detailed list of recipes I'm making. It's not like an

obsessive process. Obsessive is like one of the only word, like say, for this, and I think most people gonna read to that like it's all consuming and you don't even realize it till you're not fully consumed by it. And I'm so glad you said the last part, because that's what I was going to kind of harp on for anyone listening that is like unable to understand what that means. It's the most shocking realization that only happens once you liberate your brain and start doing other things.

Do you realize how confined you are by the obsessive compulsive thoughts about food control, thinking about it, feeling guilty about it, planning for it, all you know just how small it is. So I feel like that's all the one that you only understand once you're on the other side and you're like, Wow, what else does this world have to offer me? And there's so much possibility on that side. So I love that one. What's number two?

A lot of them, I think would say like on the other side of it, I noticed, or just why I wanted to share them? Right? So number two is even if every human at the exact same thing, so we would all look completely different. And I think a lot of this goes back to systematic issues of diet culture. We all have different bodies because of where we came from. We all have different bodies because of who our families are.

We all have different bodies because of like how we're raised or if we have an illness or if we don't,

or anything like that. And it's so funny because I jokingly say to my wife all the time, like, you see my grandma, That's who I'm going to be, because when I look at pictures of her in my age, we have the exact same body type and like she just is a more plump woman, Like it's just how she's built and she's never once been one of those like dieting Grandma's like I'm going to eat grape grapefruit and cottage. She's a way like those foods, So I

hate that they're like pumping on that. But she's not. She's not the diet in Grandma. And so this was a huge thing for me. We could all eat the exact same, perfect paleo diet today and look different in

a year. And I think this is an important one to harp on subconsciously on a subconscious level, because I think, especially with social media, with a lot of still photos and images of influencers that we've taken that we admire for whatever reason, even if we know that, you know, we're never gonna look like them, I think there is that subconscious belief that if I just do what they're doing, I will get some of that. And I think that's a hard one to break down, all right, So let's

move into point number three. Al Right, So this one other people were hyper aware of my dietary needs. So this was one another one that I guess I knew and when I was in it, but way more after the fact, which was that like friends, family, even people I hadn't seen a really long time would like double check with me before we went to do anything, like hey, what are you not eating right now? And it was

really hard for me every single time. For like months, this went on to be like I'm eating everything, like I truly am, Like I'll figure it out there. I eat everything now, So people trying to be considerate of your needs, but like it was such a focus about you that always came up. Yeah, and it made me almost feel like I was like it was like a little bit of like shame of like I was that person.

I'm lucky that a lot of my friends in life are so normal with food and I hate that word, but they're so normal with food that like I was the difficult one. And so it took a while to like make it through my whole rotation of people I know and I eat meals with to be like, yeah, I'm any restaurants, good gluten cheese, meats, not meats whatever.

I love that. I feel like I guess me because like I'm a registered dietitian too, because it's been a long time since I've kind of been in you know, my things that I eat don't eat and I could eat anywhere as well. But I feel like I'm still gootting through the people of oh, you know, there's nothing for you to eat at my house, and it's kind of fun to be like to show them, no, I eat, I eat everything. You know, but you didn't even realize what a focus your diet was for other people. Yeah,

that was the thing. I was like, cool, people really like knew me as the girl who was on some kind of a diet. I feel like if Amy were here, she would be saying that relates because she has a lot of people in her life too that I just saw her as eating so differently, and now we're like, wow, you're so much more fun to be around, even relatives like we do very consistently, like summer summer dinner, my grandmother's Sunday night dinner. She's a big Italian and there

was always like zotos or something for me. And it's like somewhat pains me now to like realize that. But that's why I wanted to emphasize it's been a year, because we're finally one full summer from when I did the carn Aboard diet, and it's like I show up now when no one even mentions what I eat or don't eat. I love point number five. I still have candy in my freezer from Halloween. I genuinely do. It's a bag. I know exactly what it is. It's a because my sister just eight one. It's a bag of

Reese's bats. And I had so many different Reces candies because I was developing recipes with them, and I am the kind of person who like had to finish and I think a lot of people can relate to this. Had to finish the point of ice cream, had to finish, the bag of candy, had to finish. The bag of chips Ashley Chips. Saw the chips for like my guilt food, and I would buy them only if I was out in the car. Finish the whole bag in the car and throw out the evidence like at a gas station.

A rich yea rich, a ritual comfort. A shame around that, right, Like I'm not allowed to be the person who eats two chips, and now I just buy chips regular, like like that's the only way for me, at least, especially to get out of this, was to make these foods just as regular as romaine lettuce, right, So like they go in my card in the store just as often. I probably don't even eat them as often as romaine lettuce to be honest these days. But like it's the

whole idea that like they're not off limits. They don't only get purchased at the gas station. You can purchase them whenever you want them. And that's another one of thing that like I think took me six months to get to that point. You don't realize how long it takes to get over that obsession. But now one year later, without willpower, you have Halloween candy in your freezer just because you haven't thought about it as much. Yeah, Like I opened the freezer how many times a day to

get ice and I just like to see it. And I'm like, Okay, if I wanted one, I'd eat it. I have things that i'd like want more, right, Like you realize that there were things that you were so obsessed over that you don't even like that much. Like i also have a ton of ice cream in my freezer, and I'm just a salty person, so like I'd rather pretzels. That was a huge exactly same one for me to such a sweet person. Thought I needed all the willpower,

all the rules, and I turned out. I'm way more of a salty we have the we have the same

like flavor profile. I just love that one because I feel like the rules, especially even around Halloween and social media, are all these rules to not eat the candy and to throw it out immediately or give it away or you know, all these like external rules and in reality, when you just think, no, that you could have these bats, you know, in November, December, February, March, April, May, June, July, they sit there and they lose all of their appeal. It's just like such a great ample of how we

do it all kind of wrong, all right. Number six? Okay, So this one is what I talked about a little bit, starting to get into my autoimmune disease health journey. What we eat is just one tiny piece of the health puzzle, and I have no health qualifications background. So I always want to say that when I talk about this, right, because it's all from my own perspective. But I lost sight of all the other things we do for health when I was so into food and so obsessed with food.

I lost sight of the fact that, like, because I didn't eat an ad equipped dinner, I stayed up all night hungry in bed right, so sleep I loose sleep. I was consistently dehydrated when I wasn't eating enough because we don't realize how much hydrations in our fruits and vegetables, right, Hydration, sleep, stress, reduction just as an activity, um movement, as a joyful thing, right,

and not as a punishment. So many different pieces that I've been able to add back in, and that goes back to like space in my brain for them, like we don't even notice how much our takes over and says, I don't have space to think about meditation, right, because you've spent twelve hours of your eighteen hour waking period

thinking of food. You want to do all these activities, go for your run, do your job, think about all this food for all this time, and you want me to meditate and do red light therapy and get enough sleep and drink water between each of these things. It's just like, oh, I had space for those things. My brain could breathe, I could breathe, I could incorporate things that help me. And number seven is super interesting. Continuing

on with your autoimmune disease symptoms. The thing I didn't write in the newsletter that I'll share here is that I'm in fertility treatments right now, so my blood is being drawn some weeks every other day a lot, but frequently, so people are checking my vitals frequently. My health improved when I stopped dieting, even though my weight increased, right, my health over health improved and my autoimmune disease symptoms

improved dramatically. I have very little services on my body and almost no art right is pain day to day. And that was the thing that I was like, Oh, I am for sure going to wake up stiff every day if I let myself eat whenever I want, whenever I want. Because I started this journey literally going from like zero to a hundred, I just said, like, no food off limit. I mean whatever I want, whenever I want.

And sure there are days when I still have pain, but autommune diseases cyclical, so they're flare ups, and sometimes the flare ups, most of the time the flare ups have nothing to do with what I've eaten. And that was a huge eye opener for me. And I know this is one of those topics where it's like so different for everyone else. I'm very lucky that I've learned that I truly have no allergies or intolerance is to food. I'm just one of those people who's lucky that I

can eat everything. And so for me, like I feel, I feel so much better. It's kind of crazy almost. And now I have what's something that's called and I'll say it wrong, but it's like an immediate autommune response. A few people have it. It's called instant autommune response something like that. I get it from things like certain types of white wine, certain things that I eat, but

also levels of stress in my body. So I'll go through a really stressful moment and immediately start to feel a tightening in my joints, in my fingers especially, And I'm lucky to I say that, I'm lucky to have the barometer a little bit to be like, oh, I know when this is affecting me. And when I stopped all of the obsession of food, I was able to tune into that even more and see that stress was

my biggest trigger across the board. And I could see that on days when I had just happened to eat, like let's say I had eggs and some veggies for breakfast, and it happened to have a salad with some protein for lunch, and then in the afternoon a stressful event would happen and I would have an autoimmune response. Clearly that wasn't like I wasn't eating chips and candy all day and then I had an not an immune response. So this is one of the things that I say

is controversial. Wouldn't happen for everybody. Don't know that would home for everybody, but from me was a huge eye opener, and I'm very thankful. And one more thing that you said, very briefly. I think it's important is that we really confilate weight loss with healthier everything. And you said it very quickly, but you said my weight went up, but my symptoms improved as well as my labs. So your

condition improved even though your weight went up. And I just think that's an a huge thing to highlight because it's so ingrained to believe that the way goes down, the labs get better. In fact, and here you are, you know, really great proof that that's not the case. And wait, maybe your weight could go down and your symptoms could improve, but your weight went up and your symptoms improved. And I don't think we talked about that

inverse relationship and its existence. Enough, what's number eight? Sorry, I'll go back for just a second. I even have post something I'm at about who I try to go back and delete some of my most like now I know problematic, but I probably have one so where I talked about if I have a certain amount of weight on my joints, my arthritis pain is worse, right, Or maybe that's true in an extreme sense, But the fluctuation I was referencing in those posts couldn't have possibly been that.

It was something else. But I was so obsessed with being in a smaller body that I was like, I can blame my weight on these symptoms. You also said it's the one thing you could control. So if I could pinpoint and I can't control these player ups, if I can't control my weight, if the weight is causing it, then I'll just go back to controlling the weight, which

you have admitted. Is you know how you deal with I mean, when things physically hurt, craving control is so you know necessary that we have to get rid of the pain, and so we go for the most obvious, but sometimes it causes more pain. Yes, exactly. We're so trained to hate pain, any little bit of it. We call being uncomfortable being a pain? Is how much as a society we hate pain? True? So true? What's number eight?

First my business suffered, then my business thrives. So I actually remember I think texting you about this because we were talking the beginning. When I first stopped dieting, I had so little interest in food as a concept, and this took, like I'm saying, all these takes months, but this was probably like about a month or two into hardcore, I let myself whatever I want. I am getting more in touch with what real hunger and fullness means to me. Right, all those things food was fuel and not in the

food is this perfect fuel kind of thing. It was more of a food is fuel. I got to get it in my body to keep on with my day. But it's not interesting to me anymore. I left this world of I'm so obsessed with the purity of my food and moved to this world of I need to eat to live and be fueled enough. But I don't care that it's gluten free, vegan, right or whatever it is. It's not being interesting. And I had to share that

on mat about food. I stopped sharing recipes frequently I had to share and say, hey, I'm not that into this right now. And also I think there's some things problematic with what I've shared in the past, and I'm distancing myself from these communities, especially the Whole thirty community, because I was known as a Whole thirty blogger. I had done a Whole thirty Recipes takeover, I had grown my following on these diets and so it clearly alienated people in a in a thousands of followers leave in

droves kind of way. And that was fine. I was in such a place at that point where not only had my business tanked in COVID, I was back working full time. I didn't have the effort to care about food. I didn't have the effort to care about my business, and you know the brain space, I just said, it's fine, leave whatever. And then this switch happened where all of these women showed up in my d m s. Mostly women.

I shouldn't say only, but from my perspective, it was who said I started following you during Whole thirty Recipes, which was probably a year prior to me quitting diets um. So they have been with me for like a little over a year at this point, right, and they stead of started following you during whole three recipes. And I've been on a similar journey where I realized how problematic some of my past thoughts have been about dieting. And I'm so thankful to you because you're one of the

few people who's talking about this in this space. And now I was like, I got these who cares about thousands? These ten women were so much more important to me than anyone else, right, because they got it. They were on the same page. And then I started sharing more. I started sharing like, Hey, this is my gene size, and I know that's gonna be triggering for some people, but I don't think that we talked about like a medium body size enough, right, Like, there's many of the

fashion bloggers are in super small bodies. Many of the plus size fashion bloggers are in a larger body than I'm in, So what about me if I'm like a thirty or whatever it is? Right? And so many women were like, thank you for saying that, because that made me feel so much more normal about my size. It became this thing, and so my business started to grow because I felt comfortable and who I was and food started being excited to me again. I started realizing what

foods I loved, what recipes I wanted to make. My recipes were so much more exciting to me because I actually liked the food, I was actually eating the food. And I've had the best six months of my business, even to that every single month is a record month for me on my blog. And so that's just like

an amazing feeling. I mean, that's just also incredible because I feel like whatever you know, as you grow as a public figure, which you know you are any blogger, is it can feel really scary to say, oh, what I said, what I did in the past, I don't align with anymore, especially if that's who flocked towards you.

And I've witnessed plenty of bloggers get backlash for evolving, like you said, maybe you didn't get backlash, but you lost the followers, which is a loss of income because that's eyes on your page and brands that you work with, I assume, so taking that leap to be authentic is so hard, and yet it is also what makes you

stand out. And I loved hearing you say that the ten women that you know you did hear from were so much more important than the thousands, because again I think that is like just who you are and makes you stand out as a great individual. So I just love that. What's number nine? Number nine? I still have

hard days. So this is what I was searching for with diets, right that, like, if I eat the perfect diet, everything else in my life is perfect because I controlled this thing, and then everything else would have fall into place.

And the same thing happened when I stopped dieting. Right when I'm on this journey to stop being obsessed with food, I had this notion that like, once I get to that land where I am right now, where food is just normal to me and I don't feel any way about it, the other things that are hard in my life will be easy to right. And it's not true. It's not true. Just like diet is only one a piece of the health puzzle, diet is also only one

piece of the mental health puzzle. And and my anxiety levels as a whole are definitely much lower because we know that when you're not fed, it's going to increase your anxiety. You're gonna be more geary, it's just known. So for me, that was a huge problem. I would just like fully not be eating until two pm some days, and of course when two pm hits something such a heightened state of stress, anxiety, hyper awareness that I'm not doing well. So I will say being fed, fully fed,

has helped those things. But I still have really good days and really bound days in a similar way that I did when I was dieting. What you eat doesn't change all of the other circumstances of your life. Yeah, I think that's the guys that were constantly being back, you know, roped back into that elusive net that says, again, I think subconsciously, if I can change my body, if I can look a certain way, the other problems will go away. And that's like super subconscious, but it's there.

And I also just just for a reminder for anybody who is experiences that anxiety throughout the day, not to say that food will heal your anxiety. However, nutrients or nutrients for a reason, and they are the building blocks for many of our neurotransmitters and the things in our brain that make us feel calm and happy. So we have to also think about food more than just for our bodies, but for our brain as well, and for our overall feelings of mental health. So thank you for

saying that number ten, the one we've been waiting for. Yeah, so my life is more full. So just everything about my life is more colorful, fun, spontaneous, lively, all these things because I don't agonize over what I eat in any way, it's just easier. Life is easier when I don't have the whole like what do I eat today hanging over my head, right like when I wake up in the morning and I look out at my day. There is still a lot to be dealt with, but what I eat three times a day or not eat

three times a day is not one of them. And just like socially, I mean, I know if you're on a roller coaster of what's acceptable and unacceptable for social things, but what is served at the restaurant doesn't have to go under my what can I do today? You know, there's so many other things to worry about that I don't have to worry about what that restaurant serves. I love it. And that is the one thing I hear time and time again is my life is more full.

And I think it was your first one. Yeah, that you have so much more brain space for other things. These are the two that when you are in the struggle. If you're listening and you're in the struggle and you can't understand, it's what you're fighting for, whether you could hear it or not, it's it's the space and a new dimension of life that you don't know exists because your current brain structure is so limited by those obsessive compulsive feelings. So if you want to know what you're

fighting for, it's this. I call it like a new dimension because you can't see it until you break through. And then again, going back to that what I said originally, it's like there's so much more possibility. And I love that you use the word vibrant and colorful, like you get your life back. It goes from black and white to color. It's like black and white to color TV.

It's the real upgrade. Yeah, I've heard a lot of people say this about whether it's a needing disorder or distorted eating or whatever you struggle with, or just e've interest chronic dieting. It's like you have a filter on and it's that new trendy Instagram filter that's like a little hazy. There's a first layer before someone else's face, and the layer is like what do they think about my body? What do I think about their body? What am I eating? Like it's blinding me and it's gone.

Now that's the difference, and I totally you know, I like, do you keep reminding people? It's so hard when you're

in it. You have to do some of the other things first to get to one in time, and then once you're there, you're gonna be like, oh yeah, that's what Lisa and Maddie were talking about, like this is this is the fuller the fuller life, and it's it's the liberation and once you get there, you I'm not gonna say you can't go back going back to there aren't hard days and that this is just like a trajectory upward. But once you experience the colorful life, it's

hard to go back to black and white. Yeah, And I think that there's so many moments where I had like this, you almost feet like a fear of like am I strong enough to keep on this path? Right? Am I strong enough to be the person who doesn't diet? But the more you do it, the more you you stay out. It's just one of for me, at least be one of those things that like, the more you have the winds, the more you're like, I'm not going

backwards now. Well, I'm so proud of you and I'm so thankful that you shared this with your community and continued to stay authentic to yourself even though it came with an initial loss and now a huge gain, which is what we see time and time again. So we're gonna link all of your information below. This is the food blog that you want in your life and go follow Maddie on Instagram. Will put that information below as well, And thank you so much, mad We'll see you soon. Thank you so much for me