Is Uncle Larry Reachable or Teachable?

join us for today's episode. She is a dietitian that is creating change in her own little bubble, but also in the Instagram world because that's where I found you, Sam, and I'm so glad I did. I don't even know how or who reposted you, but I'm sure I saw one of your funny reels that you put up that are very attention getting, and I love that you use your creativity to bring awareness to something that's super important.

And it's diet culture and all the things that we have that reigned upon us for years and years and years. That I know you and Lisa both being dietitians in that world, it's probably a constant struggle. So talk with us about how diet culture has played a role in your career, and then what you try to do for clients online like your Instagram world, but also professionally in your workspace. Well, thank you so much for having me. And it's so awesome that social media can connect people

from from all over. But for me, you know, I wasn't always an anti diet dietitian, and I think a lot of dietitians can relate to that. Is that we are classically trained in diet culture. We are trained to use weight loss as our party trick of how we can be air quotes helpful for people that are not watching this and listening. And so I spent a lot of time counseling when I started as a dietitian, counseling people in weight loss and weight management, and I truly

thought that I was helping people. I honestly thought that, and I think that's why we go into this field as a dietitian, as we want to help bol and we're also seeking that answer of life, of happiness and health and all these things when really there is no

magic answer that's the answer. So I was doing, you know, weight loss counseling and whatnot, and then I recognized that people would see short term success and then they would go off on their merry way and they would come back a few months feeling distraught, you know, feeling guilty and shameful, reaching out to me and saying like I failed, Sammy, I need you to help me. I need I need to tune up, you know, I need to check in. And I would see that over and over and I said,

something's not right here, like this isn't helping anyone. And it wasn't until I found Intuitive Eating, which I'm also a certified into it of eating counselor trained under Evil and Tripoli and at least Rash, the authors of the book, where I was able to see that really, if we can help people make peace with food first, make peace with their body, then we can get to the part that dietitians think about of nutrition and things that genuinely

improve our health. But if everything that we do is so rooted and guilt and shame, it's really hard to start to make behavior change just for air quotes health if everything has a shame wrapped up with it. So to go back to your question, I have not always been an intuitive eating dietitian. I have not always been

an intuitive eater and an anti diet dietitian. It's really been in the last two years where i've really do've been and continued to learn, and we have a team now of multiple registered dietitians that are all certified and intuitive eating and we help people all over the world in our virtual private practice. Yeah. I think what you do is awesome, and I love the way you present your material online. It really is light and funny, but bringing the realness to the conversation but in a way

that doesn't make people feel bad. And I think that that's really the critical component as to you know, why people are attracted to you, of course, and and your practice. Thank you so much for that. And I think that's where TikTok came into play, where you know, we're in the midst of this global pandemic and everyone's stuck at home and I saw this TikTok app and I was like, no, not another app, Like I can't do this, And then we started making videos and people were being like you

said that. The emotional reaction of like laughing and being like, oh my gosh, I do that, Like you know what I mean, And it's relatable I'm not anti human beings dieting, and I think that's where on Instagram things can get really sticky, is people can feel shame and guilt for their diet history. But we have to go through that to be able to get to a place where we're saying, I don't want to diet anymore and I don't want

to do this anymore. This is harmful, And so there's no shame in being a chronic dieter that was me for eight plus years, but being able to laugh about it and say, Okay, how can I move forward? How can I change? Love that? And just so that people know where to find you on Instagram, you're at find dot food dot freedom And is it the same on TikTok yep, find food Freedom. No dots on TikTok okay, but on Instagram we got the dots. So yes, definitely.

What we encourage for our listeners to do is to follow accounts such as yours so that you have those positive reminders in your feed and maybe unfollowed stuff that isn't necessarily healthy for you to see, because I feel like when you're a post pop up, or if Lisa puts up a poster or any other amazing people that I've started to follow once I've become part of this anti diet culture because I know shame here, chronic dieter or all kinds of eating disorders from it. So I

am right there with a lot of America. And one of the reasons why Lisa and I are here talking with you is we want to keep having these conversations, say that there's no shame, break the stigma around some

of this stuff. And as we enter into the holiday season, I think that that is when diets start to rear their head, whatever it looks like, because you maybe have wellies a little weird, probably not as many parties, but you've got different gatherings to go to where there might be this kind of food in this kind of food, So you better restrict for five days before you go eat your big family meal or juice, the you know,

some sort of cleans to detox after. And then the new year approaches and it's like, okay, new year, knew me, and it just seems like the last few months of the year, and then as we enter a new year, it's a vicious cycle and I was a part of it. It was almost like I could predict how I was going to be November December, January, November December just binge like crazy January clans and then end up binging again

because my body was hungry. So talk with us about what insight do you have to offer to navigate through the holidays without doing what I just said that I did for years. Yes, well, I think it's one thing to recognize is that's very conclusive with the evidence. We know that restriction is the number one indicator of binging.

So a lot of times there's a lot of shame tied to binging, and people are saying, you know, when you're in that binge, you say, I'm never going to do this again, like this is it that creates that urgency to eat even more food because you truly believe that come Monday or come that next day or after the holiday, that you're not going to allow yourself to eat that food, And that creates urgency to eat even more food, which then fuels that restriction. So binging occurs

because of the restriction. I see it so often with my clients, and you know, thing skiving is coming up, and that's one of the most common holidays where people will have again I'm gonna use air quotes again, like saving your calories for the big Thanksgiving meal, right, and thinking like, okay, I'm gonna do it right. I'm gonna not eat all day, and then I'll be really air quotes good, using so many air quotes on a podcast.

But that is that diet culture mentality. So being able to say, Okay, if I've ever restricted in the past, how did that end up for me? Right? Was I binging? And I like to normalize that for people of if you've restricted and that's led to a binge, which chances are it has congratulations. You are a human being and your body works correctly, like that's something to celebrate, that's

not something to feel bad about. And so once we can shift that mindset to oh my god, my hunger is working correctly, like I binged because my blood sugar was low and because I was restricting and because I was starving, then we can say, okay, we can remove the emotional unpleasantness from that physical unpleasantness that happens when we binge, because those are two separate things, and then we can say, what can I do differently next time?

So when we go into let's say, let's go back to our Thanksgiving example, can we eat a breakfast, can we eat a snack, can we eat lunch? Can we eat another snack? And then go into our Thanksgiving dinner just as if it was any other meal, and recognizing that fueling our body will help keep that urgency to eat down because our blood sugars will be stable, we will have the food and we won't feel that restriction.

And the one thing I just want to add, which I think you'll agree with, but just how restriction played out in my life over the last ten years or during my disordered eating, is that it might not be total calories. It might be clean eating or only eating gluten free for no medical reason or even personal finding reason, or dairy or sugar or whatever it is. I remember when I saw my therapist for the first time and I was explaining my binges and she said, well, are

you restricting, because restricting cause the binges? And I said, no, I'm eating. I'm eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And I was, but I was excluding so much that it still resulted in a binge. So I think just to expand that conversation as to you know, what being good looks like, maybe it's not just being keto up until Thanksgiving meal, really allowing flexibility and examining what restriction looks like on you. I love that. You know, when we use the terms

being good right or being bad with food? A big part of intuitive eating, one of the principles is removing the morality to food, and I think that's a you know, we find so often that our clients have this cognitive dissidence. Their logic and their belief systems are not matching up. So asking yourself, right now, Okay, if I eat X food whatever that food is, right, does that make me a bad human being? Does that change my character? Does

that change my work worth? And most people say no, no, right, that doesn't change worth. But then if we say, okay, eat that same food, do you feel guilt or shame for eating? And if the answer is yes, we know that guilt and shame, specifically guilt is rooted in a moral emotion. But we just said that we weren't bad like that doesn't change our worths. So okay, there's a yes over here, there's no over here. That's a cognitive distance.

We need to dig into that and we need to release that morality with food and that will also help with that binge restrict cycle as well. Something you said about eating breakfast and lunch and a snack and going into a holiday meal as if it's any other day,

I think it's huge. But also what I've loved about learning from people like you and Lisa and others that I follow is the reminders of, Hey, if you've struggled with any type of disordered eating patterns and you woke up today and you ate breakfast, high five, Because I think so many times I definitely participated in intermittent fasting, and so many any times I catch my brain being like, actually,

should I eat breakfast right now? Because I ate dinner at eight o'clock last night and it's not even eight am yet and it hasn't been twelve hours. My brain still does that to me because it was such a pattern for a long time. And then I check in with myself and I say, Okay, am I hungry right now? Regardless of when I eat dinner? Who cares throw that out the window? Am I hungry right now? If I am, I eat. If I'm not, I wait a little bit.

And that's me working through in my own way. Everyone has their own journey, their own stories, their own old habits that they had that are hard to break. But even though I'm haven't intermitten fasted and a very long time, well for me, I you know, a year or more, I still have those thoughts in my head. We're not acting like waking up and eating breakfast and having luncheon snacks on Thanksgiving Day is easy, And you will still have mental thoughts no matter. I don't know the two

of you. You've been at this a lot longer than me. Do you still have to tell your brain? Oh yeah, I don't think that way anymore so for me personally at this point. No, But I will say absolutely, it takes time. It takes years. Right, So we create neuropathways in our brain and these negative thought patterns in these loops, which I think Jennifer Rowlands have talked about one of your previous episodes, and that is so important to be able to recognize that and know that that is not

a failure. That is just diet culture trying to dig its nails right back in right and and present itself. So, just like you said, Amy, being able to recognize that, whether it's just recognizing it in your head, writing it down on paper and then being able to redirect that and say, no, I need food to fuel my body. I will function better with this meal. I will be a better human being with this meal or whatever it is. Being able to catch that is so important, and that's

that's really what the work is. It's it's consistent, consistent work, and it's different I think for everybody based on their own story of how long that may continue. But I have so much hope that you're gonna get to a point one day where you're like, I just eat and I don't have to think about it. I'll say though that, you know, with so much time I spend on social media as my job, and I'm exposed to so much, once in a while, I'll get something that is not

me listening to my body. And while I'm not fused to it, I'm not like, oh, this person is doing this, I should try this. It's a little ding that I'm no longer listening to my body because it's rooted in fear and we feel fear. So I'd say, once in a while, I'll notice something and that's why I call it noise, because it's anything that's pulling me out of my body, and I'll say, okay, noise, you know, thank you for trying to keep me safe, but I'm good here.

And I think that's kind of two approaches. It's like, get angry at diet culture, but get kind to yourself for trying to protect you. And it's wrongly perceiving of danger. So I feel like that's kind of how it shows up for me. Once in a while, i'll flag again, I'll ding it. It's very infrequently, but i will notice it, and I'll come home and I'm constantly coming home to

myself and my trust. Than those little moments even where I come home, are like little pats on the back that bring me even closer to trusting my body, because it's like, hey, we just worked together, like we just said like you know, see you, no thank you. And so I don't think you're if anyone's a failure, if they get a moment of oh, well, I just had dinner at eight o'clock. You know your example of intermittent fasting,

it hasn't been that long. I think we're always works in progress, and new life changes are going to bring up old thoughts or situations, like if Thanksgiving is a is a scary one for you that might bring it all back, or if you know, we're talking to women and people of all life phases, going through big life changes means your body is going to change that might bring up stuff. So using those tools is really how

I how I see it. Yeah, I love that. And Sam, since we're talking about the holidays to what advice do you have for people in situations where they're around family that maybe triggering to them. Like I would have been someone that showed up at my family dinners and if someone was in recovery before me, I would have and triggering them left and right. And honestly, I was a real buzz kill because I didn't want to eat anything that he had. I brought my own food. I was

real particular. My mom would have her candy dams, but I made my candy d ms with Splenda, so I was gonna eat my separate thing over here. You know, I'm just thinking back on silly stuff that I used to do, and I would have been better off eating the family meal. But people are really listening to this episode and wanting to put in the work for themselves.

But maybe they show up and there's some stuff surrounding them or whatever vibe other family members are bringing into the picture, Like do you have any tools that people can kind of keep in their back pocket to help

them navigate the holidays. That's a wonderful question, and I think that's something we've already started with all our team with our clients, because we know this is coming, right, we can anticipate these triggers, and I think there's there's different ways that we can do this, but really role playing the situation out before it happens, so we can recognize it and we can actually walk through that situation together with our client, and they can actually start to

experience some of anxiety or some of the discomfort in that setting, which can be really helpful to walk through it. So, for example, if Uncle Larry makes a fat phobic comment right, being able to say it, like write that down, what's like the worst scenario that could happen, and then what are the emotions that we feel to that common and how do we choose to respond? And I think it might change depending on the day, but I think it's being able to recognize do I have the mental capacity

for this conversation? Is Uncle Larry reachable and teachable and wanting to hear about diet culture or is it just not even worth it to sit and just setting that mental boundary to say, I'm not participating in diet culture talk, so either change the subject and or leave the room and just get out because you know that that's going

to be better for you. But then I think that also comes down to let's say, Aunt Cheryl maybe is presenting some signs of disordered eating, maybe some of the things you were explaining any of like making the splendid gams or or bringing her own food or I think now people that have walked through this journey a little bit more can have some empathy for those family members knowing that they are most likely rooted in disordered eating.

Because we know that women ages twenty to forty five percent of them display disordered eating tendencies and an additional ten percent has clinically diagnosed eating disorder. So sevent of women are most likely walking around with some form of disordered eating, which is insane. And that's not even counting the numbers of people that are not, you know, misdiagnosed

or not diagnosed. So chances are we can recognize that and maybe see it through a different lens this year, where maybe that would have been triggering before, but now we can almost have empathy and again create those boundaries

where they're needed to be created. Where is it worth it to say something to Aunt Cheryl and try to open up and and help her, which might be healing for you personally, or again, is it better to change the subject, get out of the room, and really just making sure we're keeping ourself safe, because boundaries are meant to keep you safe, not those around you, and that

is what is most important this holiday season. And just to reiterate something that you said that I think is really important, especially if you're just starting to unravel diet culture and you're really passionate about it, which is what happens in the beginning. It sounds like you agree to me, but when you said, is Uncle Larry reachable and teachable?

Like that speaks volumes to me because I think sometimes we start the fight to prove how right we are with people that are unreachable and unteachable, and it leaves us feeling really depleted and alone, especially when it comes to the holidays and family. I think that people might associate not speaking back Uncle Larry as complicit, but that boundary is to protect you kind of like not today Satan.

You know, get through the day. You have enough on your plate dealing with the triggers of the holiday that you don't need to also go to war necessarily. So of evaluate who you are, what the situation is, who your Uncle Larry is, Is there a conversation that's going to be healthy for you or not. So I just thought that was really important and I wanted to now thank you. And I think that's something I've learned personally.

And Lisa, you can probably attest this, or even you too, Amy, even though you're not a dietitian, like you said, when you're passionate about this, you want to talk about it, you want to shout it from the rooftops, you want everyone to know about it. And then there's a bunch of we're just gonna keep going with Uncle Larry. If there's a bunch of Uncle Larries in the world that want to tear you down and tell you why you're wrong and quote research, and you can get burnt out

doing this work very easily. And I've experienced that, and that's why I think it's seeking mentors, seeking therapists, seeking dietitians, friends, people who are supportive and understand it is not our job to change the minds of all the Uncle Larry's in the world. If you just focus on you and

your heart. And I love how you said earlier, Li, So like coming home to you, You're going to plant seeds and all the people around you that matter, and they will notice something and they will ask you about that, and that's how it will grow from there. I was going to tap into that encouragement to that people will notice in your family. If you have been the aunt Cheryl before was that her name? And I love I

love how we have these people now. So if you've been the aunt Charable for as I was many times, and I just I was obnoxious to my family, but I had no idea how uncomfortable I was making My sister, for example, and she's so sweet and kind that she

would never say anything to me. She would just let me be the party pooper and let me say weird things that made her feel uncomfortable about what she was eating, and she would just ignore it and say, Okay, I mean, she's just in a better place with food than I ever was, so she was able to still eat her meal. But then I was giving her toxic thoughts because I would say something it would make her think, oh, should I not buy this, or do I need to not

use real cheese in this recipe? Or should I alter X Y Z? And ultimately she could talk herself out of it. So I love that about my sister. But it wasn't until I was recovered that she was able to truly communicate to me how I would make her feel and others. And now that I'm in recovery, she notices how different things are. And I think maybe your patient for certain conversations, because if you're in recovery and your family notices it, aunt Cheryl when she's ready, she

might know, Hey, maybe something's different about Amy. Maybe I can go talk to her and see instead of you imposing upon them your new ways. Because I can't tell you how many times I impose my diet upon people, almost to where I feel like I've lost all credibility talking to my family about anything and that I'm doing

food wise. So sometimes I feel like even if I were to bring up now like no, no, now, I don't have any issues, well for them, they're like, oh well, Amy for twenty years or more we've been dealing with your antics, so we actually don't really care what you have to say. That's lived experience, and you know that's that's so valuable because it's all the validation you need that like that didn't work. I wasn't happy, I wasn't okay, and now I am. And that's something within suit of eating.

Through the research we see all the time, there's actual studies on increased life satisfaction, right, And I know you guys have talked about this in previous OUTWEG episodes, but of you know, being present in moments because you're not wrapped up counting calories or thinking about food, bringing your own food to events, diet talk, and the conversation always coming back to dieting, like truly being able to change the world because you're now not focused on changing your body,

and that that's priceless. I feel like that's a really good place to wrap and leave people before you go share with us the hope you have for our future generation. For me and I feel like a lot of our listeners, you and Lisa are in this world and you're in this space, and I think you've been a part of the change and it still feels sort of at least grassroots to me because it's not the mainstream. But what's the hope for the future, Like, do you see us

clawing our way out of this diet culture mentality? It's so ingrained in so many of us without us even knowing it because we've just been in it our whole lives. But what's your hope for the future. It's a great question. The good thing is we know that dieting doesn't work, so that's in our favor in the sense of we want everyone to not have to go through that diet culture trauma. But we know that diets don't work. We

know they have a percent failure rate. We know that two thirds of dieters will gain back more weight than they originally lose, and then that cycle continues. So once people get to that state of I can't do this anymore. This is not helping me, this is actually harming me, and they have that awakening. It's magical what happens to them and they can really start to walk on their intuitive eating journey and recognize that the answer lies within me.

There's never been anything wrong with my body, but diet culture has built this distrust that there has been something wrong, and once we can start to recognize that, and once people see the intuitive eating and food freedom message, you can't unlearn that. That gives me so much hope because I've seen it with hundreds and hundreds of people that we worked with. Once you learn this, you can't unlearn it.

And like we said earlier, you start to plant seeds and the lives of others and those closest to you, and then it just spreads like rapid fire. Yeah, I hope it spreads. I appreciate your work so much and I think too that there's nothing wrong with our bodies. Part of it is just, yeah, we need to ditch

the diet culture mentality, but why are we dieting? So my hope is I'm just piggybacking off of you here for a second, just to encourage listeners, is that Lisa and I aren't just doing this podcast to expose some stuff and break the stigmas. Make you feel comfortable to talk about it and have these conversations so you don't feel alone and whatever you're going through with food and

body image stuff. But like all bodies are different, and we have been given these different standards over the decades of what bodies are supposed to look like here and there and there, and we're constantly trying to conform to look like everybody else. But my hope is that we start to just want to look like ourselves and just to clarify, not like everybody else, to look like one body type that we've seen represented. So you know, it's

not that everybody else looks like that. We think that everybody else looks like that because of I'd go big media here, not just social media, you know, the advertisements, etcetera. And so recognizing that there's so much bio individuality of not just what you look like, but what you need that you know, all of us eating the same things and the same amounts wouldn't make any sense. Love that,

especially on the holidays, especially on the holidays. Okay, well, Sam, thank you so much for coming on to talk with us. And again I love following you on Instagram. So I want to say your page one more time for people to get out their phones right now. If you're listening to the podcast on your phone, go to Instagram and go to at find dot food, dot freedom, and I promise you she will not disappoint and you'll see her post come up and you'll feel encouraged, and we want

to give you people that you'll be encouraged by. And then quickly to one more thing before you go. You have a podcast called Dietitians. This is correct, So we're actually or actually rebranding where I'm not going to save the new name because originally it started, we just wanted to have a cocktail mocktail and like talk about how diet culture sucks a lot of what you guys are doing today. But then we we realized that that name can be a little harmful to some you know, based

on past trauma. And the last thing we want to do is cause more harm. So we are admitting our faults and mistakes. Um and we have a new name coming out soon. But yes, you can find us right now at Drunk Dietitians. And I got goose bumps that you had the opportunity to share that because I didn't know, we didn't talk about it previously, and I said, I was just trying to I saw it on your Instagram,

so I wanted to give it a shout out. But what a beautiful example of recognizing where something wasn't the best and moving forward. And there's no shame in that either,

because we're constantly evolving. I just think that that is a good reminder for people that you can evolve every day and there's so much grace to go around, and I I feel like that's just a good example of being like, you know what, this probably wasn't the best thing, so we're going to move forward with this, and well, I look forward to seeing what your new name is and listening to your podcast. So we'll keep people posted, but I'm sure you'll keep us posted on Instagram, and

I hope people will check you out. And thank you so much for coming on. Thank you, ladies.