In today's episode, I interview Miriam Max, a therapist with a twist. Miriam is also an amazing artist, and she combines these two in her captivating art. We discuss how she got into this field and we even talk about some of her art work. 

In this weeks episode - I am presenting different ways to view our choices? Sometimes, we may not have a choice, Other times- the choices are more obvious? Learn your personality type, love language and tendency to have a better understanding of yourself. This will help make positive changes. To learn more please visit my website ...gilaglassberg.weebly.com Or to work with me, email me at [email protected]

My interview with Rivky Itzkowitz takes a lot of different spins. To start Rivky is a 25-year-old Fashion Designer based out of NYC. She designs modest special occasion wear from sizes 2 to 24. She is also a practicing Orthodox Jew.

  I wanted to find out more about Rivky and how she was able to reach the point where she is today. As a child Rivky was bullied, but who knew that being bullied would make her the person that she is in this present day.  She was bullied for being overweight and being smarter than everyone else. But Rivky didn't let any of that get to her, for her what she was bullied for she called her superpowers. "People make fun if the things that make you different and those things are your superpowers". Bullies are pointing out what you have that they don't. Rivky explained that she always had a strong back-bone and she just feels like it was a trait that she was born with and that is what helped her to overcome the bullying. She was always confident in herself and she was also very stubborn (naturally stubborn). " I am stubborn if you tell me I can't do something I'm going to do it". Rivky was built tough , she never cared about others opinions about her. The only people that mattered to her were the people that were close in her life.

Rivky had a very good support system and her parents were there for her as she experienced being bullied. I asked Rivky to walk me through how her superpowers turned into a fashion business. She explained that she would paint, draw, and knit in her free time because she didn't have to study as hard as her other classmates did so she had a lot of free time. Her grandmother shared the skill of learning how to knit and sew. She started sewing at 10 years and from then she knew this would be her lifelong goal. She also watched Youtube videos to get more practice and to craft her skills. When she got to college she began sewing custom gowns and dresses and she was working so hard to the point that she was barely functioning.  Then in the summer of 2016, she started Impact Fashion. Her sister and her cousin helped her to come up with the name. 

Her goal for her was to create high-quality pieces and also to offer a variety of sizes. Rivky used herself as the model to sell to clients so her pieces would be a size 10 when she modeled them. Rivky explained that a lot of companies that design clothes tend to cut their sizes differently so you may be one size in a different piece compared to other pieces you have. Her goal was to have her gowns true to size. Rivky is doing a number of things including recently starting her podcast Be Impactful . Rivky started this podcast because she wanted to be able to share with everyone the amazing people that she meets and comes across and people that she calls friends. She wants people to hear the experiences of others and in the end, we realize we have a lot in common with people than we think. "We are all just doing our best to do our best".

Connect With Rivky:

Podcast: Be Impactfulimpactfashionnyc.cominstagram.com/impact.fashion.nycfacebook.com/impact.fashion/nyc

I had the pleasure of interviewing Temimah Zucker. Temimah is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and she works with Monte Nido (Manhattan) recovery center as the assistant clinical director where she specializes in eating disorders. She is also very passionate about working with the Jewish community because this too was a very critical part of her own recovery. Temimah herself is also a survivor of having an eating disorder. In this interview, we were able to share our experiences with eating disorders and learn more about her experience and recovery. As being a Registered Dietitian one of my areas of focus is working with women who have eating disorders. I to myself struggled with disordered eating without actually being diagnosed. Eating disorders can be triggered by many things whether it is body image, dieting, depression, or fatphobia. Temimah was able to backtrack with us and share her story of when her eating disorder began. One of my first questions to Temimah was her experience as a teenager with food and body image and how it affected her as a teen and how it affects her in this present day. Temimah is proud to say that in this present day she has fully recovered, and no longer has an eating disorder even though she did at one point. She explained that when she was in her early teens she struggled with disordered eating but she was not fully aware that she had an eating disorder due to the cultural and social norms it was hard to distinguish. As time went on her disordered eating developed into a full-blown eating disorder. One question that I asked her that I feel is very important for any person struggling with disordered eating to know is what were her disordered eating patterns and what triggered those patterns and did it have anything to do with diet culture. Temimah explained that her eating patterns were more of not being in touch with hunger and fullness, and not so much of having to do with diet food rules. During the day she would not really eat much food and during the evening hours towards the end of the day is when she would eat and that was considered "normal" to her but in reality, it was not normal and it would catch up to her where she would feel that she had no energy to get through the day. So for her as a teenager who was figuring themselves out and had so much going on around them, it was a combination of things that was a trigger for her along with also dealing with depression. So eventually over time, she used food as a coping mechanism to deal with all the things that were happening in her life that it became hard to break out of that pattern. While going through this depression it led Temimah to struggle with Anorexia.

By the time Temimah was to begin college her eating disorder was fully developed and turned into Anorexia. She explained that she did not have good coping skills and wasn't aware of what she was doing. All her friend groups were gone and off to college and she had a long-distance relationship that most of the time she felt lonely and led her deeper into the depression and eating disorder she had no real appetite for food. Eventually, her parents began to notice the changes taking place in her image and that she was not eating. When Temimah went to the doctor her blood test results were alarming. Her parents stepped in and supported her to help her on the road to recovery. Her parents began supervising all her meals and her dad showed her a film that was produced by the Orthodox Union called"Hungry to be heard" and this was the changing point for her to see people of her own culture going through what she went through. This is when she was finally able to admit that she had an eating disorder after being in denial for such a long time. That began the road to her now recovery. One thing that we touched on and discussed that is very important is the fact that in terms of people wanting to be healthy, happy, or skinny at what cost would it take to reach that fulfillment. How far would you go to lose weight and be skinny and could you put yourself at risk for developing an eating disorder because you are going too far? Are you living according to your values?

Temimah explained that when teaching her clients about eating disorders she compares it to a flower. The most visible part of the flower that is focused on is the bud or the bloom. With eating disorders, people focus on the symptoms but overlook everything else. With a flower, there are other parts to it besides the bud which is the stem that represents the emotional state and the roots which represent the core beliefs or "stuck points". In order to recover from an eating disorder, you can't just look at the symptoms, you have to dig deeper and find out the emotional experience as well what the client is coping with. Eating disorders are real and they are happening every day. Recovery doesn't happen in one day or one month it takes time, it takes having the right support and the right team. Recovery starts with you.

In this episode, I will trace back to my interview with Evelyn Tribole co-author of Intuitive Eating. Evelyn explains that it was a concept that was started back in 1995 along with Elyse Resch. This book is evidence-based and has inspired 120 studies on their work. Well, what exactly is intuitive eating? , as Evelyn explains, intuitive eating is a self-care eating framework with 10 principles that stand behind it that were created by herself and Elyse as a solution to dieting. Those ten principles are: Reject diet mentality Honor your hunger (keep your body biologically fed) Make peace with food and start eating what you want Challenge the food police Respect your fullness Discover the satisfaction factor Honor your health Cope with your emotions with kindness Movement Respect your body

These ten principles are the core at which we should be when beginning our journey intuitive eating. Even though it has been almost 25 years since this book has been written it is still at the forefront for the recognition it is getting in the nutrition community. Evelyn talked about the purpose behind the movement and she explained that intuitive is about digging deeper into ourselves and telling ourselves that we are beautiful and finding those things that we love about our bodies. To feed our bodies in a way that feels good and without guilt. Intuitive eating helps to center the client and let them know that they are the expert of their own body. These are guidelines, not rules, these principles help people to connect to their bodies. The purpose is to heal your connection to your food, mind, body and get your life back. Evelyn explained that when you are preoccupied with your body it interferes with your relationships. Our bodies know how to communicate with us, and we must honor our bodies to have our needs met. Evelyn also touched on the subject of children and how parents should approach their eating habits and the answer to that is parents should let children explore food and their own eating. The more that parents restrict their kids from eating certain foods the more it will make them focus on it. It is important to give children autonomy when it comes to food. I asked Evelyn where do you think negative self-talk in our culture comes from? Evelyn followed with a great response " the language of diet culture is the problem". In this country, we create a lot of stigmas about being overweight. There is also fatphobia and this creates disordered eating. To end our conversation I asked Evelyn does she see that many health professionals are taking an interest in intuitive eating and her answer excited me. The future of intuitive eating is now. Many health professionals are starting to gravitate more in this direction and are teaching their patients about intuitive eating. Remember to be kind to yourself and you will love your body for what it is.

Welcome to Get INTUIT with Gila. A show about intuitive eating, making peace with food and ultimately yourself. 

In this weeks episode: I talk about my to intuitive eating, how I got here, and why I strongly believe in it.

Join me on my journey through intuitive eating and please feel free to share yours? 

Welcome to Get INTUIT with Gila. A show about Intuitive Eating, making peace with food and ultimately yourself. Let's dive right into how Intuitive Eating can spill into other areas of life?

I have many interviews of other empowered women as well as just myself talking about the things I am passionate about and things that have helped me immensely.

Intuitive Eating has changed how I relate to food and my body

IE has changed other woman's lives.

We will also be talking about woman who has made a pivotal change in their life or empower others to do so.

The more you focus on diet culture, shrinking your body, the more it steals your time, money, and sense of self and worth.

I want you to recognize this.

Make the choice to eliminate self-doubt and self-criticism.

Intuitive eating is a journey, it takes practice, work, self-awareness.

This is individualized. Diet culture tells us we are all the same and we should all lose weight.

Intuitive eating understands how every person is different and everybody is different.

Having my own business has opened my mind to how we let our fears interfere with how we behave and show up in this world.

I FELT LIKE THIS! HOW CAN I START MY OWN BUSINESS?

Ask yourself why you feel like YOU can't do it? What are you afraid of.

Self explore.

Where are you out of alignment? How can you take steps to move forward?

CLUE-What is keeping you up at night. Your emotions create motion ------>>>>>> how can this painful emotion move you.

Everyone deserves to get their needs met.

Nothing is wrong with you. You are worthy because you are a human.

TAKE MASSIVE ACTION. We don't know the outcome but we can always try! We can't control the outcome but we can control what we put our best foot forward.