The Appetite

Are you good at doing absolutely nothing at all? In mainstream American culture, the values of productivity and accomplishment can be so front and center that the need for rest and play can take the backseat or—worse—be deemed useless. Opal Co-Founders Dr. Lexi Giblin, PhD, CEDS, Kara Bazzi, LMFT, CEDS, and Julie Church, RDN, CEDRD, CD sit down with host Carter Umhau, LMHC for a roundtable conversation around the "art of non-productivity." The concept, a key tenet of Radically Open DBT (a therapeutic modality targeted for the treatment of those with a more over-controlled temperament) emphasizes the importance of learning how to be unproductive.

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The ever-popular Whole30 and Paleo diets are often described as a "lifestyle change" or even a "return to the basics." Though they're packaged differently than the diets of yore (like Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, or Atkins, to name a few), the restrictive mentality and the long term ineffectiveness remains the same as any other diet. In this episode, Opal Dietitian Kelly Finan, MS, RDN talks with host Carter Umhau, LMHC to explain the key principles behind Whole30 and Paleo, and debunk the myths behind their success.

Links: Summary of Whole30 and Paleo, by Kelly Finan, MS, RDN

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What does it look like to get un-stuck? Dr. Amy Burns, MD shares her expertise in Motivational Interviewing and explains how this person-centered approach to behavior change embraces the ambivalence so often thought to be in the way of growth. Opal Co-Founder Dr. Lexi Giblin, PhD, CEDS offers her own struggles with making a change in her life while Dr. Burns playfully interacts with her in an on-air example of the Motivational Interviewing technique!

Connect with Opal:

www.opalfoodandbody.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Opalfoodandbodywisdom/

Instagram: @opalfoodandbody

Twitter: https://twitter.com/opalfoodandbody?lang=en

Have you considered how a deepening connection to your body's desire for food may impact your body's sexual appetites as well? Longtime Opal therapist Tahney Jones, LMHC, CEDS joins Kara Bazzi, LMFT, CEDS and host Carter Umhau, LMHC in an exploratory conversation around the intersection of recovery from disordered eating and sex. (P.S. Though this conversation could feel applicable to all, we're aware that it centers around a cis female perspective.)

Girls and Sex book by Peggy Orenstein

In a culture that moralizes exercise and reveres star athletes, avoiding exercise can elicit discomfort (at best) and at worst, can induce loads of personal shame. In this episode, Kara Bazzi, LMFT, CEDS (Opal's Co-Founder and head of the Exercise + Sport Program) and host Carter Umhau, LMHC will explore why people find themselves avoiding exercise and the barriers in moving towards a relationship of trust and attunement with movement and sport. Practical tools will be offered for listeners to be encouraged if they identify as avoidant.

When you come to terms with the fact that diets just don't work, what comes next? Listen to your hunger and fullness! In this episode, Opal Co-Founder and Nutrition Director Julie Church, RDN, CEDRD, CD talks with host Carter Umhau, LMHC about what it looks like to eat from a place of attunement, rather than the rules and structures of one diet or another. Julie and Carter will walk through how to identify the cues of hunger and fullness, and how attunement in and of itself can ask you to stay an active participant in your relationship to food.

"Intuitive Eating" Evelyn Tribole, MS, RDN and Elyse Resch, MS, RDN, CEDRD, Fiaedp, FADA, FAND.

"Moving Away from Diets" Karen Kratina, PhD, RD,

Hunger Fullness scale

Opal Hunger Fullness Image

Love is in the air! Embrace new ways of thinking about the different kinds of love in your life by joining Opal's "love tour." All three of Opal's Co-Founders--Julie Church, RDN, CEDRD, Kara Bazzi, LMFT, CEDS, and Dr. Lexi Giblin, PhD, CEDS--join host Carter Umhau, LMHC to explore "irrationally crazy love," "limerence," "radically open kindness," and "amae"--terms for love that show up in all kinds of relationships, even beyond the romantic.

Envy shows up in all kinds of relationships, but how often does it actually make us closer to one another? Host Carter Umhau, LMHC talks with Opal Co-Founders Kara Bazzi, LMFT, CEDS and Dr. Lexi Giblin, PhD, CEDS about their envy for one another and explore the ways in which their envy--after it almost created distance--brought them into a deeper relationship as business partners and friends. Plus, Lexi brings in her Radically Open DBT expertise to lay out the differences between helpful versus unhelpful envy!

Virginia Sole-Smith--author of The Eating Instinct: Food Culture, Body Image and Guilt in America and co-host of the Comfort Food podcast--joins host Carter Umhau, LMHC to share the story of how the feeding issues that arose for her newborn daughter inspired a new way of thinking about body trust and the diet industry in America. Virginia and Carter talk body image, parenting, feminism, and what it means to relearn your own "eating instinct."

The Eating Instinct: Food Culture, Body Image and Guilt in America: https://www.amazon.com/Eating-Instinct-Culture-Image-America/dp/1250120985/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1548431931&sr=8-1&keywords=the+eating+instinct