LU 056: Michelle May – "Eat What You Love, Love What You Eat" as the way to heal eating issues.

Download Episode! Hey there, lovely radicals... podcast time! This week on the "Life. Unrestricted." podcast, I get to talk to Dr. Michelle May from Phoenix, Arizona. Dr. Michelle May is a former physician, mindful eating speaker, and recovered yo-yo dieter who founded the "Am I Hungry?"-company that offers mindful eating programs and training. "Am I Hungry?" empowers people to end chronic dieting and to get back a fulfilling life without deprivation and guilt. She is also the award-winning author of the book "Eat What You Love, Love What You Eat" and, based on the success people had with her first book, Dr. Michelle May wrote and published three more books: "Eat What You Love, Love What You Eat for Diabetes", "Eat What You Love, Love What You Eat for Binge Eating" and "Eat What You Love, Love What You Eat for Bariatric Surgery". Her books, programs and retreats are all designed to help people increase self-awareness of beliefs, habits, thoughts, feelings and physical sensations, to finally understand why diets do not work, to discover simple yet powerful methods for knowing when, what, and how much to eat without restriction. Since finding her passion in helping people get out of their dieting traps, Michelle has retired from her medical practice to focus fully on sharing the mindful eating method. Along the way she has been featured on countless media outlets and publications, her personal success story is featured in "Chicken Soup for the Dieter’s Soul", and it could well be that Michelle’s unique yet common sense approach will change the way we think about eating. Today, Michelle talks about: – How she felt in her body as a child – Why she though she "needed to go on a diet" when she was only 11 years old – How easy it is to market anything "weight-loss-y" to people, and what specific product her mother bought to "suppress her hunger" – How much we tend to keep believing the "weight-loss guaranteed"-products/programs because their advertisements is so convincingly designed, and at what cost that comes – What lies she bought into as she was looking for "the best diet" – How, as a physician, she sees behind the mechanisms of specific diets that falsely promise results – What "ketosis" really means for the body (!), and we should never override our body’s signals of distress – How many women get sidetracked by diets, and how much energy gets wasted in "trying to figure it out" – How different the world could look if women invested their energy into living fully, instead of perpetually chasing the "once I’m thin"-illusion – How women perpetuate the cultural oppression by comparing/diet-talking/body-shaming behavior – How she describes the "eat, repent, repeat"-cycle – Why never to fall for the "sugar/carbs are the devil" narrative – How to disprove the "you are addicted to food" narrative by digging one layer deeper – How to use the "Mindful Eating Cycle" and its brilliant questions to decipher your food behaviors – How dieting, food-obsessing, and a hyper-focus on weight messes with our natural "Mindful Eating Cycle" – How dieting/restriction is just as much a coping mechanism as eating is – Why stopping dieting/overexercising/restricting/overeating is harder than jumping on the next diet bandwagon – Why no company will ever sell you the message that "you can trust yourself" – Why empowering yourself works better than following rules in every case – How to stop proving your diet-beliefs right and start seeing how it was all set up to fail you – How, at first, the pendulum might swing widely, and how not to give up and keep trusting the process when that happens – How mental restriction has the same ramifications as physical restriction and how to combat restrictive thoughts – How to find out what unmet needs we might have that we are restricting/overexercising/overeating over – How not to demonize emotional eating and fall into the trap of turning Mindful Eating into another diet – What she learned in all those years of teaching her programs (and why „weight-management“ is not in her vocabulary anymore) – What she thinks about the way bariatric surgery is being marketed – What the misconceptions about the efficacy of bariatric surgery are – How to be there for someone when the "honeymoon phase" of the initial weight-loss after bariatric surgery passes... ... And so much more! Check out Michelle’s website: www.amihungry.com Here’s the link to Michelle’s books on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords;=michelle+may If you are interested in going to an Am I Hungry retreat, there is one coming up this fall. The "Am I Hungry? Mindful Eating for Emotional Eating and Binge Eating Retreat" will be from Thursday, Sept. 14 – Monday, Sept. 18, 2017, near Chicago, Illinois. Here are the details: https://amihungry.com/mindful-eating-for-binge-eating-retreat/ And: This conversation will be continued! Michelle and I have already set a date for a follow-up conversation in which we will address the specific cases she encounters where people tell her "Well, this is all great, BUT I can’t do this, because...", and how she counters that and helps those people, too. We will be diving into the topics of diabetes, weight-loss surgery, athletics and how "Eat What You Love, Love What You Eat" works for all of them individually. Please consider supporting the podcast with a donation by becoming a "Patreon"; so that I can keep producing it. Thank you! Here's the link: https://www.patreon.com/lifeunrestricted If you want this sort of badassery to come to your phone automatically, please DO subscribe on iTunes (Apple): https://itunes.apple.com/ch/podcast/life.-unrestricted.-podcast/id1130713233?mt=2 or on Stitcher (Android): http://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=93987&refi; ********* Don't forget!********* Make sure to join my tribe and meet some of the most supportive, loving and kind people of all shapes and sizes, including great coaches and leaders! We’re right over here at: http://www.lifeunrestricted.org/join/