Today's episode covers a lot of ground with a guest that is extremely fluent in the BodyLove Language. Isabel Foxen Duke is the Creator of Stop Fighting Food—a free video training program for women who want to "stop feeling crazy around food." After years of trying to overcome emotional eating, binge-eating and chronic weight-cycling through "traditional" and alternative approaches, Isabel discovered some radical new ways to get women over their "food issues" once and for all—not just by shifting the mindsets of individuals, but by challenging the dominant diet culture as a whole. A fixture and thought-leader in the greater body-positive movement, Isabel has been featured in the Huffington Post, Elle Magazine, XOJane, and has been praised by Ricki Lake. Her writing and free guide, How To Not Eat Cake, can be found at www.isabelfoxenduke.com and you can watch her free video training series at www.stopfightingfood.com.

Resources

• Jessi’s Free Intuitive Eating Audio Download
• BodyLove Project Patreon Page
• Isabel Foxen Duke’s Website
• Stop Fighting Food (Video Training)
• Minnesota Starvation Study

Meredith Noble is a certified coach who helps plus-size people find food and body peace. Her practice combines Health at Every Size and intuitive eating philosophies with feminism and fat acceptance. With her compassion and expertise, her clients learn how to feel more comfortable in their skin, be at ease around food, and leave toxic diet culture behind.

In this episode Meredith talks about how one doctor’s weight loss recommendation lead her down the road to disordered eating, body shame, and over exercise. It wasn’t until she discovered Health at Every Size that she was able to just live her life as a self-identified “small fat person”.

After going through her own healing process, Meredith decided to dedicate her career to to helping people in plus-size bodies build resiliency in a world that favors small bodies and diet culture. Now, she does the work to help people heal on an individual level, and also works as an activist to help us heal on a cultural level.  

Resources

• Jessi’s Free Intuitive Eating Audio Download
• Jessi’s Nutrition & Movement Therapy Services
• Meredith Noble’s Website
• The Men Who Made Us Thin
• Grieving the Thin Ideal
• Dances with Fat
• Kelsey Miller
• Shrill by Lindy West

In this episode we talk about: 

• How Shira experienced weight stigma as a child, and how that set her on a path to disordered eating.
• How she found dance and yoga in a dark and sad time in her life. And how it both made her feel both connected and disconnected to her body at the same time.  
• How she was suffering from anorexia for months, and simultaneously being praised by colleagues and friends on her “dedication”.
• How she worked with an eating disorder therapist and dietitian to help her recover.

Join the conversation: http://www.JessiHaggerty.com/blog/blp27

Resources

• Jessi's Website + Free Intuitive Eating Audio Guide
• Shira's Website

One of my favorite things about hosting this podcast is my guests’ willingness to share their stories. Today’s guest, Emily Fonnesbeck, was so generous in sharing her personal history with orthorexia, and how her eating disorder recovery now informs her practice as a dietitian. Emily is a Registered Dietitian and her practice is in southern Utah.

Here are some of the highlights from this episode:  

Orthorexia

• Orthorexia, directly translated means “perfect eating”. It is typically accompanied by a lot of food rules, elimination diets or “cleanses”, and an obsession with “clean” or “pure” eating.
• Emily talks about how her “functionally dysfunctional” relationship with food and exercise snowballed, overtime, into “full-blown” orthorexia.
• Orthorexia, combined with an exercise addiction lead to a pelvic stress fracture, a weak and fatigued body, and a slew of digestive issues (all of which are very common side effects of undereating and overexercising).
• Orthorexia, exercise addiction, and perfectionism are really praised in our culture. Emily talks about how the biggest lie her eating disorder told her was that, in order to be strong, she needed to ‘stick to the diet’.

Discerning Between Food Rules vs. Food Values

• Emily talks about how food rules are really anxious, and often driven by perfectionism and a need to control; they often elicit dichotomous thinking and deal in absolutes (separating foods as good or bad, healthy or unhealthy).
• Food values on the other hand, are really empowering. Now, Emily’s number one food rule is that food has to be flexible.
• When your behaviors are no longer in conflict with your values, you can start listening to the “healthy self” versus the “eating disorder self”.

Digestive Health

• Emily and I were both trained in an extreme approach to digestive health, where the number one solution was an elimination diet. Listen to my episode with Lauren Dear to see that there is more than one way to treat digestive dysfunction!
• Emily states “I will maintain that elimination diets are what caused orthorexia for me”.
• Elimination diets have no place in eating disorder treatment and can easily trigger an eating disorder in an individual who is predisposed.
• Before we put someone on an elimination diet, we need to do a VERY thorough screening to see if someone has eating disorder tendencies or qualities.
• It’s important to note that often, greater flexibility with food supports digestive function. And to add fuel to that fire, under-eating can exacerbate (and cause) inflammation.
• If you have digestive issues, there are things we can do that will support your digestive health, without an elimination diet. And, if you’re in recovery from an eating disorder with a digestive issue, you can take steps to improve your symptoms without fear of relapse, under the care of a trained professional of course!
• Bottom line: DO NOT DIY GUT HEALTH.

Resources

• This episode + Printable quotes: http://www.JessiHaggerty.com/blog/blp26
• BodyLove Project Bonus Episode
• Jessi’s Nutrition & Movement Therapy Services
• Emily’s Website

Read the full blog post: http://www.JessiHaggerty.com/blog/blp25

Meg and I covered a lot of ground in this episode, but one of the most fascinating topics we covered was on this intersection of eating disorders and diabetes. Similarly to last week’s episode, the question comes up: which comes first? We don’t know the answer, but Meg delves into her theories, and how she actually works with clients with diabetes under the Health at Every Size, Intuitive Eating, Weight Neutral model.

Resources

• BodyLove Project Bonus Episode
• Jessi’s Nutrition & Movement Therapy Services
• Meg’s Website

My conversation with Lauren is chock full of amazing information about digestive health, and I have to say, we’ve barely scratched the surface! I think we need to do a follow up episode to dig even further. But, if you’re someone who’s suffered from digestive discomfort, you’ll likely find this information fascinating. In this episode we cover:

• The interesting intersection of eating disorders and digestive health. Many people who suffer from an eating disorder might also suffer from digestive issues. Alternatively, those with digestive health issues might try so many restrictive diets, that it can ultimately lead to an eating disorder or disordered eating pattern.
• IBS, what it is, how to get diagnosed, and two effective treatments you can try, under the supervision of a registered dietitian.
• Why “bloating” might not be as abnormal as you think.
• How hypnotherapy might be just as effective as following an elimination diet for IBS.
• Why (unfortunately) there is no one-size-fits-all model to correcting digestive health issues, and it’s best to work under the care of a GI doctor and dietitian. 

Resources

• BodyLove Project Bonus Episode
• Jessi’s Nutrition & Movement Therapy Services
• Lauren Dear’s Website
• Boston Behavioral Medicine Website
• Hypnotherapy Practitioners

I was so excited when Paige and I scheduled her return to the BodyLove Project Podcast to talk about the practice our practices are centered around: nuance. It seems to be a lost art in our culture. We really like black and white, right and wrong thinking. It's easier to make a "yes" or "no" decision than to really spend some time formulating your own thoughts, based on your own values. 

Here's a great example:

Jake: Where do you want to go for dinner? Me: I'm not sure, what are you in the mood for? Jake: I'll eat anything. Me: Ok, what about Highland Kitchen? Jake: No. 

And this goes on and on and on and on, until I finally list a place he agrees on. Now I know we are not the only couple that deals with this. But the moral of the story is, it's easier to answer a question when you're presented with two options, versus when you have to develop a thesis, support your thesis with research, and develop a conclusion. 

In this episode Paige and I talk about...

• How to help open a larger conversation, avoid arguments, and hear more than one side to every story.
• Why we tend to be so dogmatic about our beliefs around nutrition (amongst other topics).
• How to NOT be dogmatic, about promoting a non-dogmatic approach. 
• The importance of separating your identity from your beliefs (and knowing who you really are). 
• How to not be perfectionistic, about not being perfectionistic. 

I hope you love this conversation as much as I did!

• Jessi's Free Intuitive Eating Training
• Paige's Website
• Paige's Course
• Secular Buddhism Podcast
• Brene Brown
• Body Kindness
• Intuitive Eating

A few months ago I connected with psychotherapist Jennifer Rollin in a professional Facebook group we're both in. We both happened to watch a particular interview with an MD who was promoting a pretty strict diet to "cure" depression. It didn't take much digging to find out that there is no substantial evidence to support this doctor's claims, and I thought it would be fun to have Jennifer on the podcast to really hone in on just how dangerous these messages are.

My goal with this podcast is NOT to get you as a listener to buy into MY way of eating or moving. My goal is to help you think more critically about the health and wellness information you see out there and learn to become your own expert.

• Jessi’s Intuitive Eating Bonus Episode
• Jessi’s Nutrition & Movement Therapy Services
• Jennifer Rollin’s Website
• Jessi’s Menopause Article
• The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris
• DBT Skills Workbook