The Emotional Alchemy Podcast
Welcome to the Emotional Alchemy Podcast where safety is medicine, connection is never automated and everything is relational.
The Emotional Alchemy Podcast
130. Embracing Intuition and Breaking Free from Diet Culture with Intuitive Eating Counselor Lara Days
What does a Spiritual Business Mentor and an Intuitive Eating Counselor have in common? We both want you to feel your body. Lara Days joined me to discuss the the transformative journey of embracing body acceptance, finding joy in movement, and learning to honor your health holistically. Together, we talked about how to discern our body's natural signals for hunger, fullness, and nutritional needs.
This episode was a deep and heartfelt conversation, where we peeled back the layers of our emotional connections with food. We talked about how our eating habits are often a reflection of our coping mechanisms, and how important it is to develop a diverse range of strategies to process our emotions. I shared personal stories of how my husband and I navigate this in our own lives, and we emphasized the profound impact of mindful eating. We also pondered over the significance of our food choices, considering them as more than just sustenance—they are a celebration of culture, emotion, and pleasure.
Lastly, we took a critical look at how generational patterns and societal norms can shape our food behaviors and body image. We shared insights on building interoceptive awareness and the courage to break free from these inherited beliefs around food and bodies to establish a more intuitive relationship with ourselves.
Lara Days is a Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor, yoga instructor, and Board Certified Health & Wellness Coach who is on a mission to dismantle the diet industry and empower people to live their happiest, healthiest, most confident lives! Lara focuses on helping you improve your mindset, unlearn your past conditioning, and trust your body so that you can find food freedom, ditch diet culture, and step into your power!
Connect with Lara:
Kat HoSoo Lee is an Emotional Alchemy Coach, Spiritual Business Mentor and host of The Emotional Alchemy Podcast.
She loves playing in the space where science and spirituality converge because this is where we get to experience emotional alchemy. In her work, she educates space-holders about somatic physiology and environmental biology so they can deepen their practices of listening and presence which ultimately helps them expand their capacity to hold space for others.
As a Spiritual Business Mentor, she guides soulful entrepreneurs to approach their business as a spiritual practice. The work bridges the emotional landscape with practical tools which allow them to cultivate businesses that are rooted in conscious values, relational marketing and purposeful service.
This podcast is made possible with sound production by Andre Lagace.
Hello and welcome to the Rooted Business Podcast. Today I've got Lara Deyes and she is an intuitive eating counselor and BAM alumni and I love her work, I think personally, because I'm somebody who has struggled with a lot of eating habits, coming from the medical industry and being told this is what healthy food and healthy eating is, and finding that actually a lot of those things didn't work for me. So, yeah, I'm really happy to have you on the show and dive in and share what your work is all about and how it really fits into this bigger framework of this movement of listening to our bodies. That's where our crossover happens with what we talk about is how can you listen to your body?
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I'm so excited to be here and, yeah, I just I loved the work that we did in BAM because, well, because I love you, but also because you're so like, I feel like the whole point of BAM is to help people figure out the most aligned and intuitive way to run their own business and, as you mentioned, the crossover between your work and mine, I like that's basically what I help people do as it pertains to food, eating, movement, which, as you know, also bleeds into other areas of our life. Right, that's true.
Speaker 2:So, coaching is not just business. Physical health coaching is not just about physical health. Yeah, so I'm excited to have this conversation.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. So I was actually telling my husband that I was going to interview you this morning and he was like what the heck is an intuitive eating coach? So can you, can you start there and give us a little bit of a context of what that actually means?
Speaker 2:and yeah, yeah, so he's not alone. I don't know if he listens to your episodes, but you're not alone. Being an intuitive eating counselor essentially means that I help people relearn how to listen to and connect with their bodies so that they can eat and move and live in a way that is healthy and aligned for them. And there is, to his point, a lot of confusion around that, because intuitive eating is there's like lower case intuitive eating, which is like, oh, you just eat intuitively and listen to your body, yes. And then there's capital intuitive eating, which is a specific set of 10 principles that were developed by two registered dietitians back in the 90s to literally help teach people how to reconnect with their bodies.
Speaker 2:A lot of pushback that I get is people saying things like well, I can't feel my hunger and fullness cues, so therefore I cannot be an intuitive eater. And it's like well, the framework helps you relearn how to do that. Like it's not. We're not just throwing you into the deep end. It's really about eating foods and amounts of foods that serve your unique body, instead of following meal plans or macros or doing whatever. Next diet craze TikTok is, you know, pushing into your algorithm or whatever, because your body is not my body, and if we just eat according to how other people are eating, to bring it back to the work we do in BAM, that's like just copying what someone else does in their business when you guys run totally different businesses Like that just doesn't make sense, and so it's really intuitive. Eating is really a set of tools to help people understand, feel and interpret the cues that their body is giving them and respect those cues.
Speaker 1:I feel like the operative word there is feel. I think like I'm trying to pull myself out of the perspective of somebody who, like understands what it is that you do and is, like all on board with what it is that you do. And so I'm going to like poke holes, not because I'm like trying to be controversial, but because I'm trying to put myself into the context of someone who, like doesn't get it. And it was so amazing to have this conversation with my husband because he was just like I don't get it, so I'm going to like just literally use his question. I love it.
Speaker 2:Tell him thank you for doing that episode.
Speaker 1:I feel like he he's like a side interviewer here, so his thought was okay. So if I'm allowed to just eat, intuitively, I'm just going to eat all the potatoes and all the brownies and all the cake and drink all the beer, like, if you allow me to just like take the reins off of my eating. And he's like a bigger guy, you know, and he has struggled with weight off and on for a lot of his life. That is his like quotation mark. Fear is, if I am allowed, quotation mark allowed to do all these things, then how do I come back from from just letting the little kid in me run the show?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so this is a super common question. I said something to someone recently about being an intuitive eating counselor and they were like so I'll just eat Mexican food all day. And I was like okay, well, how does that make you feel? Like, Are you honoring your hunger and fullness when he's eating all these potatoes? Is he honoring his hunger and fullness because those are two of the intuitive eating principles Is he respecting his body? Like, is he eating foods that make him feel good and feel satisfied and don't make him physically ill? Right, Because from a lot of people they'll be like well, I'll just eat cheese all the time, but I'm lactose intolerant. That's not actually eating intuitively. If we're eating foods that make us sick, we're not being intuitive eaters.
Speaker 2:Principle 10 is to honor your body with gentle nutrition. So for only eating potatoes, it's so funny. I had a former client that was like I've been honoring all my cravings and eating bread and butter and I'm like cool, what else have you been eating? She's like well, that's all I've been craving. And I was like does that follow principle 10, to honor your body with gentle nutrition? And she was like okay, so maybe I haven't been intuitive eating. I'm like, yeah, like we, and this is why having a comprehensive understanding of all 10 of the intuitive eating principles is part of what helps us kind of wrap our brains around how it works. Because, to your husband's point, like, yeah, if all you're eating is potatoes, that's not actually eating intuitively, because at some point his lab work might not be good, he might not have a lot of energy, he might not be sleeping well, His bowel movements might not be regular and normal, right, and those are all indicators that we're not actually eating in the way that our body wants us to be eating.
Speaker 1:I think, too, when I look back on my own relationship and history with food. I came from an acupuncture background. One of the things that we learn about and teach about is nutrition, and at the time that I was an acupuncturist, like the gluten-free thing was like all the rage and everyone was going gluten-free, particularly in the area that I was living in in Santa Cruz, california. It was just like you go into any restaurant everything is gluten-free. And so I was like very strict with my dieting and eating. I would say I was pretty restrictive in terms of not just what I allowed myself to eat but the quantities of food that I allowed myself to eat. You know, I wasn't like a follower of the ten tenets of intuitive eating.
Speaker 1:I think I was probably more just practicing the like lowercase I intuitive eating.
Speaker 1:I was like what would happen if I just like let myself do that thing which is like binge out completely on, you know, bread and butter, like sort of to your, your clients point, and what I found is that I actually didn't feel good If I let myself just like take it to the extreme. And so it's it's what I understand from having lots of conversations with you. It's really about like moderation and Pulling the guilt and the shame out of our food choices, I feel like is another big part of the work that you do being okay with like not just okay, but like, like, like, honoring that, like sometimes I do want to tWicks bar or Sometimes I do want to, you know, drive through McDonald's and get a filet of fish sandwich, and like that doesn't have to be. I am, you know, a Bad person or I'm doing this wrong, or I'm a bad role model, you know. And so I'm curious if you can speak to Like these sort of like pendulum, like cycles that I'm sure you've seen lots and lots of people go through.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know I think this is just audio, but I actually bought a little pendulum because I talked about this so much and I use analogy Because, yeah, there's a lot of fear that, oh my god, if I let myself eat whatever I want, like I'm only gonna eat donuts and cookies and pizza and chips and Flai fish and whatever. And honestly, at first that might happen, because the psychological and physiological mechanism behind restriction is that we have cravings. We usually end up binging and that's like part of the irony of dieting is that restriction actually creates the cravings and the binging. And so at first that pendulum might swing really far to one side where Maybe we don't touch a vegetable for three days and we eat all of these really calorie dense, high sugar, high fat, high salt foods Like hyper palatable foods. But, as you said earlier, eventually you're not gonna feel good and this sometimes happens to me. I give this example and sometimes people can resonate.
Speaker 2:Um, when I go on vacation, a lot of times I'm eating foods that I don't don't normally eat. Depending on where I am, it might be some more of those hyper palatable foods, more alcohol, that kind of thing. When I get home, my body literally will crave Like vegetables and my friends and we'll go get like Kava bowls. I don't know if people have Kava where they're located, but it's like a big bowl of you get. You can get like rice and be. It's like Chipotle, but kind more Mediterranean and less Mexican food. But you just like pile up, will go pile up. You know corn and cabbage and cucumber and all of these things, because that is what our body is craving after not having what felt like enough of that While we were gone. The same thing will happen and it might be a little bit of a pendulum swing for a while until you find your happy medium, and I actually don't. This is very controversial, but I hate the word moderation as it pertains to food, because that can turn into another rule where it's like well, how much is moderation? Is One scoop of ice cream moderation? What if I want more than one scoop? Then it feels like restriction again. Right, and so I I view moderation as a form of restriction because it's just another label and food rule. So really it's about releasing any sort of expectations and just letting your body make the call and being okay with whatever call that makes, whether it's a filet of fish, whether it's a salad right.
Speaker 2:And the other thing that can be really hard for people who have been on this diet roller coaster is Understanding that diet culture does not own salads, they do not own smoothies, they do not own nutrient dense foods like you can still eat those things and it does not mean that you're dieting. And that's the other thing that comes up. For people who have experienced a lot of guilt and shame around eating is like they feel like they have to eat all of these hyper palatable foods and it's like no, that's also not eating intuitively. Intuitive eating means maybe you wake up and you make oatmeal for breakfast, you have some chicken sausage on the side, you go to lunch and your friend wants to get burgers and so you get burgers and then you get home and later for dinner You're like, mmm, a salad sounds kind of good, so you have that and then you realize you're not really satisfied and so you have some fries on the side and then maybe you want something sweet, so you take out the ice cream and have like three bites if that's what you want, or the whole pint if that's really what you want. Like it's gonna look different every day.
Speaker 2:And Another thing that people don't really consider when especially and disclaimer I counted macros for five years, like pretty religiously when I was doing competitive sports, and the funny thing about that is like we have this idea that we should eat the same amount of food every day, and that's just not how bodies work. If we are Louncing on the couch all day, we're probably not gonna be as hungry as a day that we run a marathon Like. That just doesn't make sense that we would eat the same amount of food every day, and Sometimes it's things we don't even notice, like if we're recovering from being sick, we might be way hungrier than normal because our body literally needs more energy to recover from illness and injury, and so this is another reason that really learning to Feel and Interpret and respect your body's cues is like actually a way bigger flex than having quote-unquote Discipline and following a regimented diet, because we can all do that. That's not actually hard.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a couple pieces that I want to like circle back and like dig a little bit deeper into, because, as you were speaking, I just had this like image pop up of an iceberg. I feel like this image pops up a lot for me, where it's like intuitive eating is like the very top of the iceberg, but you can see above the water. But then underneath, I was like connection to body and Acceptance are the two big things. That sort of like popped up for me, because it's like, yeah, we can look at you know, you or I, you know, look Approaching food from an intuitive place, but what's underneath the surface? There is an acceptance and our connection to our bodies and that's like that deep, deep level work that I think is missing in a lot of Diet culture, even just in the ways that people talk about how to eat healthy, because it's like a how do you feel connected to your body? You know what are like? Are you actually listening to those signals from the body? And again, this is where, like, our work intersects is. You know, sometimes in business, that thing that everyone else is doing is not going to feel Good in your body to do and so can you do the brave thing, which is actually listen to the signals in your body, to make decisions that are appropriate for your business. And I'm hearing, in the way that you're talking about it, it's like can you listen to the signals of hunger and cravings and and look at the context of your life and be like, hey, like I'm running a marathon today or I'm recovering from an illness today, maybe my body knows a little bit more about this and has a little bit more wisdom about this than my Gigantic brain knows what to do with. You know, and when we start moving our decisions away from Our brains and into our bodies, something shifts, and so I'm kind of wanting to like explore what that place is.
Speaker 1:So that's the first like big piece underneath the iceberg for me. And then the second piece is I struggled with weight my entire life. I, you know, grew up in California, where there's like a certain level of, like a beauty standard, and particularly like I feel like the Korean culture has an expectation of a man being petite and small and Really thin. I mean, when I go to Korea, I I walk down the street and like I look and feel like an obese person, even though I'm at a healthy weight for my frame and my body and I feel really, really comfortable in myself. But I definitely get looks when I when I walk around Korea, and so like having those kinds of pressures, I think, forced me to think about my ideal weight from brain space as being closer to 110 120, and what actually is healthy for me is like 160 170, and part of the acceptance of Like intuitive eating is being like, hey, I'm going to let my body choose what weight it wants to be at and I feel really strong at 160, versus like when I was one.
Speaker 1:I would say like 120 ish was last weight I remember because I don't have a scale anymore Like I was hungry all the time. I, you know, was tired all the time. I was anemic, like there were signals coming from my body saying that I'm not happy, you know, and so I'm just gonna throw that on the table and and Go play with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I love that you shared this and it made me think that it probably would be in service of Whoever's listening for me to at least, like, read through the ten principles, because, all of that, there's one for all of these scenarios, right? So Principle one is to reject the diet mentality. I think that one's pretty obvious, like we have to stop dieting in order to listen to our intuition. Principle two is to honor your hunger. This means Maybe not intermittent fasting. If you wake up hungry every morning, that's your body telling you it needs to eat, and looking at hunger as what it is, which is a physiological cue from your body that it needs energy. And principle three is to make peace with food, which we talked about regarding the pendulum swing and just looking at all foods as morally neutral. Principle four is to challenge the food police, and that might be the brain in your head that's telling you things like oh, you shouldn't eat, that that's not quote-unquote healthy, you are too big, whatever that looks like. Principle five is to feel your fullness. Principle five and six kind of go together feel your fullness and discover the satisfaction factor which we can come back to if that comes up. Principle seven is to cope with your emotions without using food, so learning how to actually cope with feelings. Principle eight is to respect your body. This one is really about what we were just talking about, which is, or what you were just sharing about, which is to honor your own unique genetic blueprint the same way that we. I Don't think I've ever heard someone say, well, I'm a, I'm a shoe size eight, but I'm not gonna buy new shoes until I miss six and a half Like that literally makes no sense, but we do that with our bodies all the time. Principle nine is Exercise. Feel the difference that one's really just about moving in ways that feel joyful, instead of moving in order to, like, burn calories or change the the shape of your body. And principle ten I mentioned earlier, which is to honor your health with gentle nutrition. So all of those come together to create this experience of actually eating intuitively.
Speaker 2:And I was thinking while you were sharing about how, unfortunately, one of the biggest how do I want to say this, one of the biggest, one of the places that people experience the most weight stigma is at the doctor and by their healthcare providers, and it's because they're using antiquated diagrams or little tables or whatever. They're using BMI, which was never meant to be an individual health metric. It was meant to measure populations. Also, fun fact, they changed the BMI scale, so there was this big uproar. I always forget what year it is. I can look and get back to you if it feels important when everyone was like, oh my God, then obesity rates are exploding and it's because they literally changed the classifications of which bodies are considered obese. It's not because people got any bigger, which is like people don't want to talk about that. They want to just say that everyone's lazy and eating too much McDonald's, because that's really easy. And I totally lost my train of thought.
Speaker 2:Oh, healthcare providers, yeah, weight is not a health indicator. Weight is also not a behavior, and this is why weight loss goals are actually super whack, because weight is not a behavior. It is not something that we control. If we are truly wanting to improve our health, then we need to look at health promoting behaviors. Am I moving my body? Am I sleeping seven to nine hours every night? Am I cultivating meaningful, deep relationships with people? Am I managing my stress? Am I hydrating well? Am I eating a variety of foods that are both physically satiating and also satisfying and make me happy Like those are behaviors that we can actually control. Weight is not Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think part of that is this concept of acceptance. You know, because, sort of to your point there, when I look at my life now like I was sort of like going through that checklist alongside you as you were saying that like one of the biggest things that's changed for me is that, like having this land, having this property, there's always shit to do and I'm always moving my body. And you know, I think that one of the things that doesn't get talked about enough is, like, do you move your body in ways that feel joyful for you? Because I hate going to the gym, like it is like a capital H hate. Like I do not like being inside period, like if I can just spend my entire day outside, that's my preference. And so now you're telling me I have to like be inside, to like move my body.
Speaker 1:No, no, thank you no you're absolutely right, yeah, but it's like I spend my day moving. Like today I moved horse poop, today I moved a bunch of wood that I found around the property so that I can build up my garden beds. You know, like these are the things that bring me joy in my life, and so I'm always asking people like, like hey, if you don't like doing that thing, then why do you continue doing that? Like, can we find something for you that is actually enjoyable, instead of having the like the exercise you know whether it's a physical activity or like I'm even relating it to business. It's like, if you don't want to be on Instagram, like that's not the only way to like attract people in right.
Speaker 2:I was literally just gonna say that, like that analogy like you have an email list, you can go to in-person networking events, you can be on Instagram, you can be on TikTok. I love this because it is like it's exactly the same with movement.
Speaker 1:Yeah cause it's like, yeah, like you might get a particular result, but like you have this one life to live, you've got one body. Girl like like why are you doing things in a way that feels really unpleasant to you?
Speaker 1:you know, and so, yeah, I think that that feels like an important piece to just sort of like give people the permission, the autonomy, to choose not just what foods they eat. Cause of what I'm hearing is it's not just about, like, intuitive eating is not your thing, right, it's like the whole holistic ways in which you relate to your body, and so I feel like calling yourself an intuitive eating counselor is a little bit of a misnomer, because you're, I'm sure, like in sessions, you're asking people about their lifestyles and how they move and how they take up space and how they're processing emotions and like all of these things, which I feel like is a more holistic way of looking at this relationship that you have with your body.
Speaker 2:And it is, and I have no idea ever like really what to call myself because of that, which is a whole other conversation. But you're exactly right and I think it's probably worth saying too that a lot of the folks who have really big followings on social media and who talk about quote, unquote health, they're looking at these like little, these two little pieces of health which are food and movement. They are not taking a comprehensive approach to health. And this is really important and it's I mean honestly. I'm a board certified health and wellness coach as well and, like we talked about holistic health also, which is this idea I shouldn't even call it an idea.
Speaker 2:It's a fact, this fact that, like financial health, emotional health, mental health, existential health, environmental health, physical health, they all impact one another because we are only one human living in one body, having one human experience. And this is where things like weight stigma get really tricky, because this society is not nice to fat people and it can be really hard. It's really hard for anyone who has struggled with their relationship with food to start trusting their bodies. But it's even harder when you are someone who's genetic blueprint is big and you're like, well, now this is what I'm stuck with and people treat me like shit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like I wish I had a better answer to that. I'm trying to make a bigger impact, but like that's just. That is the truth. And it's so interesting when you see people talk about like, oh well, that person's just naturally skinny and they have like a really fast metabolism. Why is it so hard for you to believe, then, that this other person isn't just naturally fat? It goes both ways. It's not only true for a certain body type. Bodies are different, they are varied, and that is a great thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think we've been talking a lot about like allowing, I guess, like being permissive with our food, and I wanna go to the other end of the pendulum, which is like people who have struggled with like maybe restricting so much to the point that like or I'm trying to edit this, trying to figure out how to make this more clear so I feel like we've been talking a lot about how, like, we can be permissive with food.
Speaker 1:So that's like one end of the pendulum. What about people who do need to like? I'm thinking about my husband in this instance, right, like he and I have had like a really beautiful conversation recently actually, about how, growing up, he grew up in a really chaotic childhood environment and so food was a comfort. It was this like friend he could always rely on, and I think one of the tenants that you talked about is to not emotionally eat, and so how can we sort of like touch on that end of the pendulum and that end of the spectrum of folks who are perhaps struggling with like? I don't know what my intuitive sense of eating is, because, like part of my intuition is saying that this is the one comfort that I have and that I need to reach for this comfort.
Speaker 2:Totally so. A couple of things I wanna just call out before I get into answering your actual question, because it's important is that there are things that are going to create extra barriers to becoming an intuitive eater. Passive or history of eating disorders is one. Trauma is one especially trauma that revolves around like feeling your actual body and what's going on in your body. One is kind of like what your husband dealt with, which is very common, is that food has always been the go to coping mechanism.
Speaker 2:Neurodiversity, adhd, makes it really hard to be an intuitive eater and I have helped people with all of these barriers still become intuitive eaters. So I'm not saying that so that you feel like, oh my God, it's impossible for me I'm saying that to validate that like it's going to be harder for some people than others. So generally in these scenarios where food was like quite literally our best friend and our comfort, we don't. There are different. Also caveat, individual differences are going to matter Right, like there's not one way to deal with this. I think part of this is just looking at have you ever actually sat with your emotions and not used a coping mechanism? That is part of the practice. Is like okay, even if it's not for very long, right, like they say 90 seconds, but can you make it five seconds, can you make it 10 seconds, can you make it 15 seconds? And just increasing the amount of time that you're sitting with whatever emotion feels really uncomfortable and building your own resilience for sitting in that emotion. It's going to be huge.
Speaker 2:The other thing that can be really helpful is building what I call our toolbox of coping mechanisms or stress management tools. So what else makes you feel really good, is it? And then I mean there's a lot of overlap here when we talk about stress management versus coping mechanisms, versus nervous system regulation tools. A lot of them are going to be the same, right, but like can you go ground outside, can you have a dance party and listen to some music? Can you call a friend, can you meditate, can you shake, like what? Let's make a really big, robust toolbox so that you have other tools, because if food is the only tool we've ever used, of course that's going to be the one that we always go to.
Speaker 2:Right, once we've built up that toolbox, I also grant people permission that food can still be in the toolbox. It's allowed to be a coping mechanism. We just don't want it to be the only coping mechanism. So it's still allowed to be that comfort for you and it's also. It's also really a mindfulness practice.
Speaker 2:So when we feel triggered or overwhelmed or whatever that experience is for someone, can we just pause and say what do I need right now? What is going to help me right now? Sometimes the answer is going to be food. If the problem is that you're hungry, if that's the feeling that you're trying to fix, food is quite literally the only thing that's going to make it better, right. And if you pause and you say what do I want right now to deal with this thing and you've taken the time to ask yourself that question and you make the mindful decision I'm going to go get some chips, great, cool. Who am I to tell you a different like, to use a different coping strategy? What we don't want is to be just in that constant habit of like oh my God, I like blacked out. I don't even know what was happening and the next thing I knew, the family size bag of chips was gone. That makes us feel out of control.
Speaker 2:The other thing that I think is really important in this conversation is and again this is not the case for everyone. For a lot of people, we're not eating enough food and or we're not eating enough of a specific food. And so it's not just the psychological oh I need this as a coping mechanism there's also a physiological pull of like I need a coping mechanism and also I need carbs because you haven't given me any all day long. So now I'm literally going to force you to go to the cabinet grab some carbs. And I know because our brain runs on carbohydrates. Glucose is a carbohydrate that is our brain's energy source. Our bodies are really smart. They're going to do whatever they can to get us what they need, or get them what they need.
Speaker 2:So also, just looking at what what does your fuel look like during the day If you're having these binges at night? What does your or what does your fuel look like during the week if you're having these binges on the weekends and being really honest with yourself and saying, oh, I'm eating, you know, egg whites for breakfast, a salad for lunch, chicken or a protein and vegetable at dinner, like, yeah, you're not eating carbs. Of course, your body is going to force you to eat those. So I just wanted to add that, because it sounds like for your husband specifically, it's more of just that comfort and coping mechanism. But for a lot of people there's also this added layer of like if we're not eating enough, food is almost always going to be the go to coping mechanism and you're going to have a really hard time stopping yourself and asking yourself those questions so that you can make a mindful choice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And again, this is where I feel like it's so important to note that everybody is so very different. You know, like what I started learning about my own body is that, like I need a lot of fat, like fat is the thing that wins my world. And it's gotten to the point now where, like, if I am uncharacteristically like cranky, my husband and my best friend, andre, like they know to ask, like when's the last time you had a handful of nuts? Like when's the last time you ate bacon? Because, like it's literally like sometimes, like I turn into a Jekyll and Hyde sort of a situation without even knowing it, because my blood sugar is not happy, you know, and my fuel source has gotten low, and so it's like go eat a boiled egg and then we can talk because this is not who you are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, and you know, for my husband it really like it's it's such an interesting thing because he is very emotionally aware. He is like very like, he's very good at sitting with his own emotions and like nervous stimulation, all that stuff. He never did that like through therapy or through a course or whatever, just like that was just a necessary part of his like toolkit for surviving in his family. But I feel like food is one of those places that he goes to, like where it's almost okay to check out, like it's like the one place where he feels like he can check out because everything else needs to be so present in his life. And so, like in those moments, you know we've been working on like, how can we bring that? Like, like how can we turn like the off button? You know what's your off button. It doesn't have to be food, yeah.
Speaker 2:I would also say in that scenario. So one of the practices that I've been teaching for years, before I even knew what intuitive eating was, is to eat slowly and mindfully, not just because it has a huge impact on our relationship with food which it does but it's also just so much better for your body and your digestive tract. Like people will think that they have food intolerances and I'm like how long does it take you to eat a meal? And they go time it and it's like six minutes, like okay, well, let's slow down first. So what I would say is like and this is for really any, this can be applied to other scenarios as well is pick the lowest hanging fruit. To practice eating slowly and mindfully. So like if your husband is really, if breakfast is like easy for him and that's not a meal where he's feeling like that's a coping meal, maybe, just like he can practice, okay, I'm gonna sit here, I'm gonna like really notice the texture and the flavor of my food and the temperature of my food and like is it savory, is it sweet, does it have that umami flavor? Is it sour? Like really just practicing the act of eating slowly and mindfully, because, as we build that skill.
Speaker 2:When it's easy, it will automatically most likely start to translate to those times where it's more challenging because we're building the habit, we're putting in the reps right. It's like if we're practicing I was trying to think of a not gym analogy, since you hate the gym, but like we're if we're practicing doing a body weight squat, like just squatting our body with like perfect form, and we just practice doing it over and over, really like feeling the right muscles activate, making sure we're not feeling any pain, then it's much more likely that when we actually have weight on a barbell, that we're gonna do that correctly, right. There are times where it might be a little bit too much, it's a little bit too heavy and you revert to those old movement patterns. Same vein there might be like a really bad day where it's like this is just not happening today and that's okay, and you're still putting in the reps and building the skills.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I love that concept of like making things conscious, because then like, anything can be medicine and something that I've talked about before. You know, I like jokingly said earlier like I still want to drive through and get a filet, a fish sandwich every once in a while and to me, the reason why like the filet of fish tastes and like feels so yummy to me is because it reminds me of my grandma.
Speaker 1:you know, and so it's like those moments where I'm like really missing my grandma, I'm gonna go grab a sandwich and like not feel guilty about it.
Speaker 1:And so, like I think that anything can be medicine I think donuts can also be medicine. Like I think that when we just look at the like nutritional facts of food and leave out the like beautiful emotional connections that we have with food, we, you know, we do ourselves a disservice. Like we don't, like we aren't fully present in our lives and we are just like approaching food as like this is fuel and this is what I need to like make my body move. It's like no, like this is one of the like beautiful things about having a body is that, like you get to eat these really wonderful yummy things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's a huge part of the work I do with my clients too is understanding that, yes, food is fuel and it's culture and connection and community and a way to show affection. And to your point, like, what are we even doing if we're not participating in those practices? Like, not every culture has those sorts of traditions around food, but a lot of them do. Like, are you just gonna not eat your favorite cookies that your grandma makes every year around the holidays because you're on a diet? Like when you're on your deathbed? Are you gonna be thinking about oh my God, I'm so glad that I skipped out on those cookies with grandma so that I could wear a smaller size pant. Or are you gonna be like I'm really glad that I was present with grandma and enjoyed her cookies while she was around?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, just taking a pause here. Is there anything else where you feel like you want the conversation to go, that we feel like we haven't covered?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think, just as someone who was in BAM and knowing that your people are intuitive people generally offering that, the intuitive practices that you've created, the rituals that you've created around your business or around your life, what might happen if you started including your food and eating experience and your movement experience as a part of those rituals? Like it's no different.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let me think of a question to lead that into. So I want to circle back to the intuitive part of the work that you do, because, again, the crossover here with both of our communities is that we're just people who are just trying to get back to the most intuitive parts of ourselves, whether that is working through our business or with movement, or with food or with relationships, like there's no difference. And so I'm curious if you can sort of speak to what, just having that connection to intuition, how that can sort of shift your relationship to all these pieces.
Speaker 2:Yeah, One thing that comes to mind is like how our brains have this tendency to segment things, like we'll be so intuitive in one area and then like so regimented in another, and that's not necessarily a bad thing?
Speaker 2:And like how can we utilize the intuitive practices that we already participate in whether it's like a morning ritual or a new moon ritual or whatever these rituals are and use those skills and rituals when it comes to our own body and the way that we're taking care of our bodies, whether it's food, whether it's movement, whether it's sleep, like maybe that's something to just offer as like homework. It's like what is an area that you feel like regarding your physical health, has been a struggle. Are you not sleeping well? Are you struggling to wake up in the mornings? Do you forget to eat breakfast? Like whatever it is, how can you work that into a ritual that you already know and love and I catch myself doing this sometimes is I'll like coach a client on something and then realize that I probably need to do the same thing and like right.
Speaker 2:So also looking at, like, what is coming up for those people who are coaches, like what's coming up in your containers with your clients, where you can maybe flip the mirror and be like, oh, I could actually do that regarding my relationship with food, or I could totally do that with movement, right, whatever it is, but I always I always tell people that listening to your body is always the biggest flex, whether it comes to a business decision or a food decision or anything else Like what might it look like if you cultivated your relationship with your body or your relationship with food the same way that you cultivate your relationship with your business or your romantic relationship? And just like with it is a relationship. And so I think also like innately yes, eating is supposed to be easy. Unfortunately, our social climate does not allow for it to be easy for most of us. So, instead of expecting it to just be easy, what if we prioritized that relationship and held it just as highly as we do our other relationships?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think what's coming up for me as you're talking about this is, like you know, as we are each individually on our healing journeys, there's a development of the consciousness and I think that in the beginning we start out by being like, oh, there's something going on in my relationship, so I need to go, you know, work on that.
Speaker 1:Or and then you're like, oh, I have something going on with my food stuff, so I need to go work on that.
Speaker 1:Or, you know, we end up just playing like whack a mole with all these things that we feel like are challenging in our lives.
Speaker 1:And when you get down to the core of it, like, there's oftentimes like a core wounding or a core sort of like sensation that feels uncomfortable, that is really actually affecting all these different areas in our lives.
Speaker 1:So, instead of playing like whack a mole and being like I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that, you know, in all these different areas in your life, can we get down to the core, which I mean intuition can only help in guide right and so, like, if I'm like thinking through sort of my own healing journey it's like a lot of it started in relationships because I have a tendency to go into like an anxious attachment style which is like I overthink, I over process.
Speaker 1:I need that human to be as close to me as possible and if they are separate from me then that becomes like this gigantic ball of anxiety and it's like I did so much work in that realm and then I started my business and I was like, oh shit, here it is all over again, you know, and it's like okay. So actually, when I get down to the core, that it's actually about control, which then explains a lot of this relationship that I've had with food, which has also been about control, and so then it's like okay, so can we bring in the wisdom of intuition and shine that light onto this core wound of my, which is control?
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:You know, and then that is the thing that's going to allow, you know, my business to run in a way that feels really intuitive and guided and creative. That is the way that it's going to allow my relationships to develop with, like, sovereignty and autonomy. That's how I'm going to develop trust with my body and like this sort of license of acceptance. And so it's like, like when we start being able to like get down into the like, the deeper, rootier levels and like get down to that like tap root. You know, that's when you know you don't have to hire a different coach for every single thing. You know you can work on these pieces at the core, root levels, and I think it's always helpful to like have a guide or a mentor or a counselor or a coach alongside you to just be like, hey, do you see the interconnectedness of all of this? You know, but ultimately it comes down to like, again, that concept of intuition is like can you discern Because sometimes it can feel really confusing where, like that craving might come from?
Speaker 1:A place of like I want to check out and I don't feel good about life and I'm feeling overwhelmed and I'm gonna reach for that filet of fish because I really just want to, like you know, be unconscious for a moment, and sometimes that craving can come from a place of like I really miss my grandma and I really want to feel connected to my grandma, who's gone.
Speaker 1:You know, and so like that is where I feel like the discernment of intuition is like such an important piece to really understand. And to me and I'm curious how you start to like help people differentiate these pieces To me it always goes back to the body. It's like what is the like unconscious feeling feel like in your body and what is the like missing your grandma feel like in your body. And it's like, if it's the missing your grandma feeling, then like 100%, let's go and like go get that filet of fish. If it's the other piece, it's like okay. So then what do we need to do to bring a bit more consciousness into this space? And if, after that, like level of understanding, you still want the filet of fish, like as you were saying, yeah, like we just reach for that, knowing that that is a coping tool that you need in that moment. But so yeah, I'm curious how you help folks differentiate that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think. Well, I want to just reiterate the fact that our issues with food and our body don't actually have anything to do with food. In our body, like it's, it's always something deeper, which is another part of why it's not as simple as eating quote-unquote should be. I think I take a slightly different approach, just because a lot of times, people coming to me would have no idea how to differentiate the feeling of missing grandma from the feeling of like being overwhelmed, because we're working on building that interoception or interoceptive awareness, which is basically just being able to feel and interpret the inner feelings in your body. I just ask why, like I really want this filet of fish, cool, why do you want it? And just see what? What comes up? Right? Is it because I'm hungry? Is it I feel lonely? Is it I'm just craving it, which craving and hunger are not the same. So, like, cool, and if it's a craving, then let's break down what have you eaten so far today? Is it a craving coming from not being well fed, or is it like if you've eaten enough, then it's like okay, maybe it is this emotional craving. And then we can start to ask more questions around that, like what are you feeling in your body what happened at work today, what was going on? Because doing that digging basically just gives us data, right, it gives us information and we can say then going forward oh, the last time I had a really bad day of work, I had that one craving.
Speaker 2:That's really interesting and you start to then reinforce your intuition, because another thing that makes this work so, so challenging is that everybody eats and so everybody has an opinion about what other people should be eating and everyone compares what they're eating with what other people are eating in a way that's different from running a business. Not everyone's an entrepreneur. Not everyone runs a business, and so it does. It can feel extra confronting and extra disruptive to do this work because it's so different from what we've been taught and it often and I say this because most of my clients come from a background of oh, my caregivers were dieting and they were taking us to Weight Watchers when we were 11 and whatever like we've never actually seen an example of what intuitive eating looks like, which is really just intuitive eating is just normal eating, if we really break it down simply.
Speaker 2:It's just not having weird food things, and so our intuition a lot of times has been shut up for so long that we do need to start almost with like the ego stuff first and like the curiosity first, and as we start to reinforce, like no, your body's actually not wrong, right, we'll do something like well, I feel hungry, but I shouldn't be hungry, and then we eat and then we're like, oh wait, I actually feel better. And it's about just reinforcing what our intuition was already telling us but we were ignoring. I think that was kind of like a roundabout answer to your question.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it totally makes sense and, like you were saying too, like something that I don't think people fully grasp, the concept around your work is that, like it's really not about our bodies and it's really not about food. It goes so much deeper than that and you know, like I think an important part to like question, as you're doing this kind of work, is like where did you receive messages about your body? You know, and like. When I think back to my childhood, it's like I look like the spinning image of my mother, like she and I like used to be mistaken as sisters when we were, when I was growing up and I mean she's quite young as well is as part of it.
Speaker 1:But I grew up with watching her weird diets in the 90s, like and like I remember in particular, she was like stoked because she was like I can eat as much as I want, as long as it is hard boiled eggs and great fruit, and like like I watched my mom do this to her body and you know she never told me anything bad about my body.
Speaker 1:She was always like you are, you know, perfect and beautiful and like would say all these things from her mouth, like that was affirming and validating and I'm watching her destroy her body. That looks exactly like my body. And so then, like in this, like subconscious level, I was like, oh, I also need to do that, because if I'm not careful, then when I hit my 30s, then I'm going to be too big for my body and my mom was never too big for her body. Like, let's just be clear, there is, like you know, and so, like, like, we pick up these messages about our own bodies, not necessarily from the words that are spoken to us, but sometimes just from like picking it up from the environment of like well, we grew up and so I attribute a lot of the patterns that I had in my 20s around food and dieting and like restriction to it was just like another form of the thing that my mom did in the 90s. It just looked like gluten free and counting macros, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know this. This makes me think about just breaking those generational patterns. And people ask me parents will ask me pretty frequently like how do I ensure that my child has, you know, a healthy relationship with food and gets all the nutrients that they need? And unfortunately, or fortunately, however you look at it it's all on you.
Speaker 2:Parents like you have to demonstrate for them what a healthy relationship with food looks like. You have to show them what eating a variety of foods and nourishing your body looks like. You have to show them what taking care of your health holistically looks like, because otherwise the exact same thing happens where, like, they can be giving you all the foods that you want and need, they can be taking you to sports practices, they can be doing all the things for you. But if you are not, like, kids learn by watching, and so if they're seeing you not eat dinner or they're seeing you serve yourself something different of course, aside from, like, allergies or things like that, right, like they're still seeing that. And so the best way to ensure that your kids have a good relationship with food is to do your own work, so that you can demonstrate what a good relationship with food looks like, exactly, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, my dear, I would love for you to share a bit about the Nourished and Whole program that we are just about to launch.
Speaker 2:So Nourished and Whole is my group intuitive eating program and basically we work through the book and the workbook. There is a workbook that goes along with the intuitive eating book. That has a lot of those questions that you were asking, things like when did you first learn that there was something wrong with your body? Who said that? Who benefits from you continuing to believe that? Like really great questions for each of the principles. We work through it as a group and I also bring in my education as both a teacher I was a teacher for many years and a board certified health coach, because I do think that there is an aspect of education that's really empowering.
Speaker 2:Part of what makes it easy to succumb to all of these crazy diets is that we just don't know any better, and so I also teach you all of the information so that you do know better and you can think critically and be like does this make sense that I ate that cell reduce with cured diseases? No, it actually doesn't, so I'm not going to do that. Yeah, so we do group calls. We have an online portal and I send everyone the book and the workbook and, if you hate reading, I do have a workshop that you can watch in lieu of reading the book. But I'm still going to. I still send people copies because I think it's really important to have, even if it's like someone comes over and is like what's that book on your bookshelf called intuitive eating? What a great opportunity to have that conversation with someone. But yeah, we start the week of March 4th and I'm really excited to hold space for folks and do some community healing.
Speaker 1:So does the program itself start on March 4th or does it launch on March 4th?
Speaker 2:We will begin that week sometime, based on schedules.
Speaker 1:Okay, sounds good. Yeah, and how can people find you on the web?
Speaker 2:The Graham is the best place to find me. It's at Laradayz, L-A-R-A. Like Lara Croft, Tomb Raiderdays, like Days of the Week. I always check my DMs. I'm super available there. Yeah, that's probably the best place to get a hold of me.
Speaker 1:Perfect. Well, thank you so much for coming on and having this conversation with me and, yeah, if any of you resonated with this conversation, go check out her program and I'll see you guys next time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you for coming to find me.