Episode #60 // Eating disorder recovery, thriving in menopause, navigating perimenopause,  fueling for power and performance without restriction

CW: Eating disorder

If you have questions about perimenopause, menopause, or how you can eat what you want without adhering to any rules and still perform well as an athlete, do not go anywhere, this episode was MADE for you.

Today I have Selene Yeager, the host of the Hit Play Not Pause podcast, content manager at Feisty Menopause, and best-selling professional health and fitness writer, including the co-author of ROAR and Next Level with Dr. Stacy Sims.

She lives what she writes as an NASM-certified personal trainer, Pn1 certified nutrition coach, off-road racer, and former All-American Ironman triathlete.

In this interview Selene discusses her history with an eating disorder- and consider this a content warning, she gets into some graphic detail - and how she ultimately healed her relationship with food. She also talks about the evolution of her career as an athlete, how she’s come to embrace gravel biking and bikepacking, and how both her approach to training and her outlook have changed since going through menopause.

 Selene also shares some beautiful insights on how a perimenopausal mom and an adolescent daughter can not just survive but thrive while living in the same household- you’ll definitely want to listen all the way through to the end for that little gem.

CONNECT WITH SELENE
Website: https://www.feistymenopause.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fitchick3/

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Episode #59 // Covering the first principle of Intuitive Eating: Reject the Diet Mentality, part 3- the importance of curiosity

I'm back with a solo episode on intuitive eating, discussing the first principle: Reject the Diet Mentality. (Quick backstory if you're new here: Intuitive Eating is a practice Evelyn Tribole and Eileen Resch originally presented in the 90's in the book Intuitive Eating, is now in its 4th edition.)

This is actually the third in a three-part series on the first principle of Intuitive Eating (the first two as well as an episode where I go over all the basics of IE are linked below). 

Why am I devoting three entire episodes to one principle? Because this is a hard one! Rejecting the diet mentality means undoing all the brainwashing we've been exposed to since basically forever. That means unlearning all the implicit and explicit messages we've ever absorbed, from friends, family, teachers, coaches, media, ad copy, product descriptions, and healthcare providers, etc telling us that thinner is better, weight loss is healthy, and that food is attached to morality (and mortality for that matter). 

Honestly, 300 episodes wouldn't be enough to cover this one topic. But in this third (and final) episode on Reject the Diet Mentality, I give you three strategies to help you undo some of that programming. 

First, though, I share a story (the Great Broom Heist of 2007) for the dual purposes of (hopefully) making you laugh and demonstrating just how easily we can dupe ourselves into believing our own lies. 

Links

• Episode 44: What is Intuitive Eating?
• Episode 47: Intuitive Eating Principle 1: Reject the Diet Mentality (Part 1)
• Real Fit Episode 54: IE Principle 1: Reject the Diet Mentality (Part 2)

Want to stop dieting AND stop hating your body?

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Episode #58 // Alison Rothman, Body-Centered Holistic Empowerment Coach and yoga practitioner // How can we use what's already inside of us to heal from trauma and cultivate resilience?

TW: trauma, gun violence, eating disorders, addiction

 I’m so excited to bring you a conversation with Body-Centered Holistic Empowerment Coach and yoga practitioner Alison Rothman.  Alison is a fellow Boulderite and podcaster- her show is called Embodied and Awake, and she’s also the mom of a teenage boy. 

Through healing from her her experiences with trauma, addiction, and an eating disorder (please consider this your trigger warning), she learned to reconnect with her true self and has since made it her mission to share the tools she used in her own healing journey to help others in her practice. 

In this episode, she shares her story and how, after decades of being disconnected from herself, a practice of embodiment led her back to herself and how that has literally saved her life and her sanity over and over again. She shares what it means to be embodied, why it matters, and how you can start becoming more embodied right now.

If you know me at all you know I am passionate about intuitive eating and one of the reasons why is that every time we restrict our food or deny our appetites we are essentially training ourselves to disconnect from our true selves. But our true self is where all our power is. It’s the home of our, emotions, our authentic voice and our intuition, and we NEED to honor it in order to live a life that’s aligned with our values and to fully express our gifts. 

READY TO STOP STRESSING ABOUT FOOD, EXERCISE, AND YOUR BODY?

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Episode #57 // Erin Ayala, cyclist and sports psychologist // How do the stories we tell ourselves impact our self-image, our performance, and even the enjoyment we derive from sport? And what if those stories aren’t serving us? How can we change them? 

Licensed sport psychologist, certified mental performance consultant, researcher, and elite cyclist Erin Ayala and I explore these questions and so much more in this week’s episode of Real Fit. 

Erin also shares the surprising comment from an ex that sparked her leap into endurance sports, her experience competing in triathlons in the Athena category, why she’s passionate about creating space for athletes of all sizes, how she’s rewritten her own body image story, and how self-compassion has served as the basis for all of it.

Connect with Erin
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/erineayala
Website: https://www.skadisportpsychology.com/

READY TO STOP STRESSING ABOUT FOOD, EXERCISE, AND YOUR BODY?

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#56 // Sara Gross, retired pro triathlete and founder of Feisty Media // Growing up, Sara Gross was one of the strongest, fastest, kids in her class. So she didn’t understand why she only saw women playing sports on TV once every four years, at the Olympics. Today, she’s a retired professional triathlete and the CEO and Founder of Feisty Media, a company she created in 2017 with the goal of creating an empowering culture for all active women. Feisty Media approaches change-making in a multi-disciplinary way, using four pillars of performance: Physiology, Nutrition, Mental Health and Culture.

After defending her PhD in Women’s History in 2008, Sara competed as a professional triathlete for 14 years and won two Ironman titles and two major championships.

Born in Canada, she went to high school in the United Arab Emirates, and has lived in Scotland, France, Switzerland, and the US. Sara currently lives in Victoria, British Columbia with her daughter Rosalee.

In addition to being the head Feisty Chief, Sara also hosts the Feisty Women’s Performance Podcast, and is an amateur CrossFitter.

In this interview we discuss…

• How Sara became a pro triathlete
• What it took for her to win her first Ironman at age 38
• How inadequate nutrition impaired her performance
• The intersection of diet culture and sport
• Why Sara is actually grateful for PMS
• How she’s negotiating perimenopause
• The shift from endurance sports to CrossFit
• The parallels between sport and entrepreneurship

CONNECT WITH SARA
Website: www.livefeisty.com // Instagram: instagram.com/feisty_media // Twitter: twitter.com/saragross

READY TO STOP STRESSING ABOUT FOOD, EXERCISE, AND YOUR BODY?

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#55// Kim Basler, group fitness instructor and food freedom & mindset coach// TW: Suicidal thoughts // How do you let go of restrictive dieting and a lifetime of people pleasing to ultimately embrace intuitive eating and start living a life that honors your true needs, desires, values? 

Food freedom & mindset coach, author, speaker, and award-winning fitness professional Kim Basler takes a deep, vulnerable, insight-filled dive into that question in this episode. Kim is a flipped her professional and personal life upside down when she admitted that dieting and perfectionism were destroying her mental and physical health. 

I suggest preparing to be inspired and having a tissue ready before you listen. Kim's honesty about some truly tough stuff is such a gift. 

We discuss...

• Beginning to diet at a young age 
• The pressure to "look fit" as a fitness professional 
• Searching for validation through weight loss and professional success 
• The breaking point where Kim knew her life was no longer sustainable
• Managing the uncomfortable feelings that came with weight gain as she became an intuitive eater 
• The power of mirror work as part of the intuitive eating journey
• What it looks like to respect your body 
• What it feels like to separate your weight from your worth 
• How to change your self-talk 

Connect with Kim
Website: www.kimbasler.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kim.basler
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kimbasler_foodfreedom/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@kimbasler_foodfreedom
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@rawandunscripted
Community: https://www.kimbasler.com/empowered-movement-community

READY TO STOP STRESSING ABOUT FOOD, EXERCISE, AND YOUR BODY?
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No matter what you've seen on Instagram, intuitive eating is about so much more than eating whatever you want whenever you want. It's not the hunger/fullness diet. It's not license to eat donuts all day every day or permission to never eat a vegetable again. 

Intuitive eating (which is based on the eponymous book by dietitians Evelyn Tribole and Eileen Resch, originally published in the 90s), is based on ten principles — the first of which is Reject the Diet Mentality. 

This episode is part of a series on Intuitive Eating where I'm exploring each of the ten principles. I've already released two episodes in the series; if you haven't heard them yet, you can check them out: 

Episode 44: What is Intuitive Eating?

Episode 47: Intuitive Eating Principle 1: Reject the Diet Mentality (Part 2) 

While episode 47 focuses on what the diet mentality is, in this episode, I'm talking about why it's such an important aspect of intuitive eating, including some research that highlights the futility of dieting/intentional weight loss, the (weak) link between weight and health, and the importance of healthy behaviors (regardless of weight). 

Links to research

TONS of studies on the Intuitive Eating website: https://www.intuitiveeating.org/resources/studies/

Intentional weight loss typically is not sustainable and most dieters will return to their baseline weight within 5.5 years: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17606960/

Finnish twins study: https://www.nature.com/articles/ijo2011160

Swiss researchers find weight loss can lead to net weight gain: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41366-020-0547-1#:~:text=Several%20large%2Dscale%20prospective%20studies,than%20in%20those%20with%20obesity

Study authors fail to find a consistent relationship between higher BMI and mortality: https://www.cell.com/iscience/fulltext/S2589-0042(21)00963-9#%20

Study finds significant segments of "normal weight" people have markers for cardiometabolic issues, while significant segments of people who are considered "overweight" or "obese" have none of these markers: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18695075/.

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Christine Yu is an award-winning journalist whose work focuses on the intersection of sports science and women athletes. Her writing has appeared in Outside, The Washington Post, Runner’s World, and other publications. She’s a lifelong athlete and yoga teacher who loves running, surfing, and skiing. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Her new book, Up to Speed: The Groundbreaking Science of Women Athletes, masterfully blends narrative and science to explain what we know about female athletic performance, why women have historically been left out of the research, why it matters, and what it would take to fill to the gap.

I’ve read so many books that felt like an article or two with about 50k extra words thrown in. This was absolutely NOT one of them. The only thing better than reading the book — which covers everything from the history of the sports bra (originally slated to be called the Jock Bra- who knew!?) to how your period can affect your performance — was talking to Christine herself. 

We dug into some of the book's content as well as: 

• How she scored the book deal
• What drove Christine to write the book
• The self-doubt, occasional procrastination, copious reporting, and meticulous research that were part of the process 
• The sticky note that got her through drafting the manuscript and edits 
• What it took for Christine to adopt a healthier approach to eating
• Why the current state of women's sports nutrition science is in direct conflict with diet culture

I thought I knew a lot about women's sports science but it turns out I'd only scratched the surface. Christine's book is a must-read for every woman athlete out there. 

Connect with Christine
Instagram @cyu888 // Twitter @cyu888 //
Get the book!| www.christinemyu.com/book

Ready to stop stressing about food, exercise, and your body?

💌 Subscribe to the Real Nourished newsletter and get my FREE guide, 11 Things You Can Do Right Now to Feel Better About Your Body!).

💖 Click here to learn about my 1:1 coaching services. 

Let's Connect! 
My website // LinkedIn // Instagram

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Jill Merkel is an anti-diet, weight-inclusive Registered Dietitian specializing in disordered eating, Intuitive Eating, and sports nutrition. She’s  been in private practice since January 2017 helping women find freedom from diet rules and restriction and helping athletes and active individuals fuel their bodies without obsession.

The team dietitian for the NFL Tennessee Titans for 5 seasons (2017-2021), she previously worked for several colleges, serving their student athletes. In Jill’s free time, you’ll find her reading, running, or traveling. Her goal is to run a race in all 50 states.

Connect with Jill
website: https://jillmerkelrd.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JillMerkelRD/
IG: https://www.instagram.com/jillmerkelrd/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/JillMerkelRD/
Blog: https://jillmerkelrd.com/blog

Links/Resource
Body image with Bri
More Than a Body by Lexie and Lindsay Kite

Ready to heal your relationship with food, exercise, and your body?

💌 Subscribe to the Real Nourished newsletter and get my FREE guide, 11 Things You Can Do Right Now to Feel Better About Your Body!).  

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Let's Connect!
My website
LinkedIn
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When queer athlete, writer, and influencer Shilletha “Dragonsky” Curtis lost her job right when the pandemic lockdowns started, the depression and anxiety she’d been living with for years kicked in — hard. She experienced panic attacks, and ended up doing intensive outpatient treatment and when her program ended, the New Jersey native noticed everyone seemed to be talking about hiking. 

As a New Jersey native, hiking wasn’t something Shilletha had done or knew much about. But she followed her curiosity, first to the trails of the Garden State, and eventually to thru-hike all 2190 miles of the Appalachian Trail. It’s a feat that most never attempt and that many never complete. And as a queer woman of color, Shilletha navigated a set of challenges that most backpackers don’t. 

Today she’s on track to be the first lesbian Black woman to complete the Triple Crown of hiking and her memoir, Mountain of the Moon, is scheduled to release in 2024. 

In our interview she shares her experiences with navigating mental health issues on and off the trail, how a Facebook post served as the catalyst for her entry into the world of freelance writing and later signing a book deal for her forthcoming memoir and becoming a sponsored backpacker, coping with racism on the Appalachian Trail, dealing with injuries, and so much more. 

Connect with Shilletha
Instagram | TikTok | YouTube

Links/Resources
Unfuck your Brain
Real Fit interview with Kriste Peoples 

Ready to heal your relationship with food, exercise, and your body?

💌 Subscribe to the Real Nourished newsletter and get my FREE guide, 11 Things You Can Do Right Now to Feel Better About Your Body!).  

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My website
LinkedIn
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