If you’ve been tracking your food or dieting for an extended period of time you might be wondering how you make the shift towards intuitive eating. To answer this question, I want to tell you how I specifically transitioned off macro tracking to intuitive eating and what that looks like for me. I think it’s also important to note that this journey does not look the same for everyone, so I’ll also be dishing on what has helped my clients in their own journeys as well.

In this episode I talk on how I navigated ditching macros, what kind of struggles I faced in the process, and strategies I used to overcome disordered behaviors. I give insight into what my life looks like now and how my experiences have shaped me as a coach and the process I guide my clients through.

Connect with Coach Diana Leigh

Instagram @coachdianaleigh

Email [email protected]

Fatphobia - the fear of being fat, also known as weight bias or weight stigma. Have you ever given thought to how your thoughts around your body and health may be rooted in internalized fatphobia? Given that diet culture has generated an industry worth billions, it's safe to say our society is deeply rooted in fatphobia.

Fatphobia impacts our lives immensely - it impacts what we wear, what we buy, how we think of others as well as ourselves, and what measures we take to be healthy. The problem is deeply rooted internalized fatphobia can be causing an unhealthy impact through medical bias and our obsession with diets that are leading us down a path we never intended to go on.

What I want is for this episode to cause you to question some of your long held thoughts and beliefs and give more thought to the broader conversation. I want to inspire you to dig into your own possible internalized fat phobia and how it has impacted your relationship with food, your body, or even how you treat others. Regardless, for many of us it is there whether we’ve noticed it or not, and I hope this podcast is enlightening and educational for those who are taking the time to listen. With that said, let’s get into it.

Sources:

https://butterfly.org.au/weight-bias-fatphobia-diet-culture/

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/26/health/obese-patients-health-care.html

https://www.buzzfeed.com/mayaogolini/doctor-misdiagnosed-womans-cancer-symptoms

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/obr.12266

Recommended Instagram accounts:

@Moritsummers

@sportybethcf

@breeelenehan

@plussize_fitqueen4.0

@thebirdspapaya

When it comes to exercise, less is more. This is a lesson I wish I learned much earlier in my fitness journey as it would have saved me a lot of grief, but I guess if I didn’t learn it the hard way I probably wouldn’t be the coach that I am today. I take a lot of my philosophies from personal experience and quite frankly my goal in educating others is to ensure you don’t make the same mistakes I did.

In today’s episode, I’m going to provide some background on why we have a tendency to take fitness to an extreme and how even with the best of intentions it has backfired on us. I’m going to also give you a bit of background on my own journey because for one, it’s humbling to be reminded of my own mistakes but two, it really helps to illustrate these lessons learned because I lived both the before and the after. Then finally, I’m going to provide you with the most important key insights I provide my clients when it comes to navigating fitness in a way that both optimizes health but also helps you reach your goals.

Recommended apps:

GoWOD for mobility

Yoga | Down Dog for guided yoga and stretching

Other episodes referenced within this one:

Ep 5 - to learn more about how to eat more calories and specific macronutrients according to your goals and to optimize health

Ep 9 - to map out benchmark goals leading up to your ultimate goal as well as celebrate wins along the way

Connect with Coach Diana Leigh

Instagram: @coachdianaleigh

Email: [email protected]

It's that time of year in which we're thinking hard about the goals we want to accomplish in our future. But have you ever set your sights on a goal or multiple goals only to let time pass and see none of them come to fruition? Do you get started with the best of intentions and highest motivation only to see your efforts dwindle over time?

Instead today I break down how to set goals and develop a rock solid plan towards achieving them. Plus, I'm including this downloadable workbook to help walk you through the process.

Get your copy here: https://view.flodesk.com/pages/63b4ceaf37a7fb86b1f98c80

Connect With Coach Diana Leigh

Instagram @coachdianaleigh

Email [email protected]

Imagine being put on your first diet 9 years old. Think of the impact that will have on you and your relationship with food and your body for years to come. For many of you, you don’t have to imagine it because you lived it. To think that’s how entrenched we are in diet culture that we push it on our kids at early ages can be mind blowing.

But this is exactly what happened to today’s guest, Gabi Mahan. After being put on a diet at a young age, she eventually developed an eating disorder that she struggled with for over a decade. Now she’s a licensed professional counselor helping others overcome their eating disorders as well as using her social media platform to raise eating disorder awareness.

Gabi shed so much insight on the impact of diet culture on both the lives of the individual and how it impacts us as a society. On this podcast episode, we talk about dealing with internet trolls in the body positive space, finding body acceptance and unpacking internalized fat phobia, how diet culture impacts dating and finding your person, and more. I loved covering a breadth of topics with her to bring awareness around how our obsession with how we look and what we eat has permeated our every day existence. In addition, she delivers some amazing tips on normalizing your own body and finding peace in your skin.

Connect with Gabi

Instagram @grow_withgabi

Instagram @normalize.you

TikTok @grow_withgabi

Check out the accounts Gabi recommended on this episode:

@i_weigh

@confidentcollective

@find.food.freedom

@dietician.diana

It's time to address the elephant in the room. You've seen it on my Instagram headline. You've seen it in my videos and you've probably heard me talk about it before on any one of my social media platforms. What makes me the anti-macro coach and why am I anti-macro tracking? To fully answer this, I'm going to give you a little background on macro tracking my personal history with the method and some of my takeaways and why I've taken an anti-macro stance. Whether you agree with me or not, I believe this is a conversation that needs to be had so that people who are struggling with disordered eating no longer fly under the radar and get the help they need.

Connect with Coach Diana Leigh

Instagram @coachdianaleigh

TikTok @coachdianaleigh

Facebook @Coach Diana Leigh

Amy lived her life as an athlete starting at a young age through her collegiate basketball career and on to traveling the world through a professional basketball career. Post-athletics Amy experienced a shift in identity as she struggled to navigate assimilating to life after athletics and again when her body began displaying symptoms she couldn't quite understand. When she finally became fed up with feeling like sh*t, Amy sought answers that would eventually lead her to a diagnosis with Hashimoto's Disease and a journey into understanding thyroid health. Now, as a nutritional therapy practitioner Amy uses her personal experience and professional knowledge to help other women conquer their health.

In this episode Amy and I talk about what it's like to navigate life as a former athlete and the struggles that come with transitioning away from hardcore training routines, how chronic stress impacts our health and what we can do about it, as well as how to advocate for yourself when you feel like you're getting subpar answers and treatment.

Connect with Coach Amy Rae

Instagram @coachamyrae

Podcast: The Chronic Athlete

Email: [email protected]

You've been told all your life to eat less in order to shrink your body. The problem is that eating less hasn't been making you any healthier, in fact it's making you unhealthy. Our societal obsession with dieting is leading to us having a poor relationship with food, binge and restrict tendencies, gut health and hormonal health problems, and more. In this episode, we're going to dive into why you should be eating more than 1200 calories, how eating more helps you heal your relationship with food, and how to go about increasing your intake without mentally spiraling. I'll break down specifically how to look at your current intake and find ways to improve your nutrition through adding food or making nutrient-dense swaps.

Even when you're armed with the information it can be hard to put it into action. To help, I offer free nutrition consultations where I'll review a typical day of eating and provide feedback on how you can improve your nutrition according to your goals. Book your free consultation now.

Connect with Coach Diana Leigh

Instagram @coachdianaleigh

TikTok @coachdianaleigh

Facebook @Coach Diana Leigh

For this episode, I interviewed my former client, Jhana. Jhana worked with me from November 2019 until November 2020, so as you can imagine we tackled A LOT together. We reflect on what it was like for Jhana to kickstart her postpartum weight loss journey just before Thanksgiving and how ditching macros enabled her to enjoy the holidays while seeing progress as well as how we navigated the stress of the pandemic and everything that came with it. We also touch upon how she used what she learned while working with me to navigate her third postpartum weight loss journey on her own, proving these strategies are sustainable and create a lifestyle change that can always be relied upon. We also touch upon some of the craziest moments of our dieting days, the mindset shifts that come with ditching macros, and what it's like to live a life with real food freedom.

Connect with Coach Diana Leigh

Instagram @coachdianaleigh

TikTok @coachdianaleigh

Facebook @Coach Diana Leigh

The holiday season is a time of food-centric gatherings, indulgences, and being overwhelmingly busy which is why *most* people will fall off track with their health habits. What if you didn't have to be one of those people who struggled to stay on track during the holidays because you knew exactly how to overcome any obstacle you face? I'm dishing out my best holiday strategies to help you feel balanced WITHOUT feeling like you have to diet. In this episode, I'm providing tips to help you reduce over-eating, embrace mindful and guilt-free indulgences, set realistic habit standards, and more.

Connect with Coach Diana Leigh

Instagram @coachdianaleigh

TikTok @coachdianaleigh

Facebook @Coach Diana Leigh