The Diet Diaries

In today’s episode I have an extremely powerful and moving conversation with a former client (and now friend) Carissa Ambis.

Carissa shares her entire journey from being made fun of for being a “chubby” kid to gaining and losing 50-60 pounds multiple times through extreme dieting and exercise to investing the time and energy on herself to finally find a sustainable relationship with food and her body which has resulted in a body weight she feels healthy and fantastic at.

It is an incredible honor to have former clients come on to the podcast because there is nothing more powerful than hearing the story of someone else who has gone through what you’ve gone through.

Here is just a little of what we cover in today’s episode:

—How recognize your own disordered eating and/or exercise
—What you learn in coaching and how it actually creates the change you’ve been looking for
—What self trust is and what it looks like in action
—Carissa’s examples of exactly why we keep doing diets even when we hate them
—How you can work on fat loss and improving negative body image at the same time

I truly hope that hearing Carissa’s story makes you feel less alone and hopeful that change is possible for you too.

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If you're curious about what 1:1 coaching is like, click here to schedule a free consult. We'll hop on Zoom so you can share what you've been struggling with and I'll talk through how coaching works so we can decide together if it's the right fit.

I'm also starting semi private coaching  pods in early 2024. This is 1:1 coaching alongside 1-2 other women who are going through the same struggles as you. Which makes this an incredible opportunity to get personalized coaching and support from me while experiencing the connection of going through the process side by side with other women. The best of both worlds.

If you'd like to get more info about that in January, click here to add your name to the list. 

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Today’s episode is one of the most personal and vulnerable I’ve ever shared.

And it’s not about my negative body image or disordered eating--it's about my relationship to social media.

I’ve been sitting on this for a very long time and a big moment last weekend that was a turning point for me made me realize that it was time to take action.

The truth is that there are MANY parallels between our relationship with food and our relationship with social media. And that’s a big reason why I wanted to talk about my experience. But there are also some major differences and I share one of them in this episode and how its impacting my mental health.

I talk about what it’s like to work as a business owner who creates content for IG, why the nature of the work that I do heavily influences the type of content that I share and how consuming content on IG has impacted my well being. And I also get into why I enjoy being on social media and how that’s shaped my work.

I’ll let you know about changes I’ve made and am thinking about making and why it feels so scary to do that.

There’s a lot of nuance and a lot of messiness in this episode—I’m not sharing skills or coaching. I’m talking about a very personal struggle with the hope that it helps others feel less alone and reminds us of our common humanity.

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The holidays are here again. Time is the craziest thing, isn’t it? 

So many of us head into the next 6-7 weeks stressed about all of the parties, holiday dinners, family gatherings, school events. Thinking about what to wear for everything brings up a lot of body image issues and makes you question your body confidence. We’re worried about getting off track, gaining weight and sometimes just feel like the easiest way is to say screw it, I’ll just deal with it all in January and do a diet. 

But you’ve done that before and here you are again a year later still feeling the same kind of way about things.

Today’s episode is talking about a different way to approach the holidays. I offer some specific skills and strategies that you can use everyday to move through the next 6 weeks feeling great, not just counting the days till its over. 

I also talk through Nourishing Notes which is my free 6 week email support program. Each week has a specific theme and you’ll get 3 emails over the course of the week with simple skills you can use right away to help navigate stress around weight gain, over eating, getting dressed for parties and more.  Here are the 6 weekly themes: 

• Mindset
• Nutrition
• Body image
• Exercise
• Emotional eating/cravings
• Behaviors

Click here to sign up for Nourishing Notes 2023 Holiday Edition

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In episode 152 of The Diet Diaries I’m sharing something personal that I have not yet spoken about anywhere.

And that is why I went gluten free for 2.5 months this summer. 

I’m so glad I waited to talk about this because I had a lot of insights that came out even as I was recording this for you—it is truly a reflection of my lived experience and how far I’ve come. 

In today’s episode I talk about :

• How I made the decision to go gluten free
• What felt hard and what felt easy
• The most important part of my approach to doing gluten free
• Whether this impacted my body confidence and body image insecurities
• How it affected my weight
• How this was different from the diets I had done in the past
• How to know whether gluten is a problem for you
• The key 3 things you need to look at before you think about cutting gluten

I forgot to talk about it in the episode, but come join us for Nourishing Notes ’23. Six weeks of free, simple emails to help you feel great throughout the holidays instead of planning a January juice cleanse.

Here's a link to the episode I did all about my experience working with a functional medicine doctor. 

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Today’s episode of The Diet Diaries is a follow up to last week and talks all about how change actually happens in our brains and bodies including how we lose fat and develop more body confidence.

Understanding the science of how humans adapt is essential to making changes to our habits and behaviors around eating, exercise and self care. The hard truth is that a quick fix to our weight, our behavior and our relationship with food is pretty much impossible, yet that’s what we’ve all been tricked into believing exists.

And is a HUGE reason why we’re all stuck in the yo yo diet cycle, hating how we look and endlessly struggling with negative body image.

Graded exposure is an evidence based approach to adaptation that is used in many therapies and treatments…but for some reason when it comes to anything about what, why and how we eat and how we look we always think the all or nothing approach is the answer.

So today I’m breaking down the steps you need to go through to create true, permanent change around eating, body confidence and body image insecurities.


Sign up for Nourishing Notes Holiday 2023 Edition here.

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Today is episode 150 of The Diet Diaries. Seems like an important milestone but I honestly didn’t realize it until I was recording!

One of the MOST common fears I hear from people around food is the “I can’t have that in the house” story. So with Halloween and the holidays coming up, we needed an episode to address how to stop feeling controlled by food.

And how do you do that? By giving yourself unconditional permission to eat what you want.

I think that statement strikes fear into the heart of a lot of people—fear of binging, of feeling out of control, of not being able to stop, of gaining weight.

I get it. 10000%.

That’s why I did today’s episode. To address all of those fears and why they are valid. And also to talk through what unconditional permission means (it’s not what you think) and the skills to take action on it.

Here are some of the skills I talk through in today’s episode:

—Why unconditional permission is the only way to feel at ease around food
—Guidelines for how to eat foods that make you feel stressed
—The challenge with hyperpalatable foods and how to include them in your day to day diet stress free
—Exactly how to stop feeling like you “can’t have that in the house”

This blog post offers more skills for how to get started with binge eating recovery. And episodes 126 and 144 of The Diet Diaries dive into the all or nothing thinking we have around food and how that impacts binge eating recovery as well. 

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Today’s episode of The Diet Diaries is an extra special one. I’m talking with a former client, Alyssa Hoat, who shares her story of recovering from severe disordered eating and self destructive negative body image. I am incredibly grateful for Alyssa’s candor and vulnerability throughout our conversation, because it will help every single person listening feel seen.

This is what you’ll hear us talk through:

• Alyssa’s history with depression 
• How her disordered eating began
• How Alyssa got stuck in the yo yo diet cycle and how she got out
• The biggest transformation she had through her work in coaching
• How people’s comments on her weight loss fueled her disordered eating
• Why she believed she would always feel obsessed with food and losing weight
• The specific skills that helped her change her relationship with food and her body
• Where she’s at currently; what’s going well and what still feels like work

If you have ever struggled with stressful thoughts around eating, body image, weight gain, weight loss and felt totally trapped by food, please listen to this episode so you know that you are not alone and that change is possible.
 
If you're curious about how coaching could support you, set up a free chat to connect. 

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If you get my weekly newsletter then you know that Ben and I have been watching Friends together since the spring. 

I knew he’d love the physical comedy, Joey’s silliness and the New York backdrop.

What I forgot about was the intense body shaming, “fat” Monica and how the show idealized small, thin bodies at the expense of bigger bodies. 

I watched Friends from the age of 14-24 and seeing it now, 20 years later, it is blatantly obvious how detrimental it was to my body confidence and self esteem. 

We continue to underestimate the way media influences how we feel about our bodies. And now, with social media in our faces nearly every waking hour, the opportunities to compare and idealize only continue to get worse.

In today’s episode I’m talking about how Friends and some other major movies impacted me, why its essential to understand the source of our negative body image and what we can do about it. 

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Episode 147 of The Diet Diaries is a little bit of a rant episode, but very much connected to what we talk about here around negative body image and body confidence.

I’ve gotten really frustrated lately with how everyone uses the word “best.”

Everything is the best! Every dinner out, every weekend, every party, every friend, every event.

It’s all THE BEST.

As logic would tell us though, if everything is the best, nothing is the best. So what does it really mean then and why are we constantly using this word to talk about our lives?

In today’s episode  today I’m exploring how social media is creating this pressure, how it’s impacting our negative body image and well being and how to start normalizing things being just ok.

Tomorrow 10/3 is the last day to sign up for Project Plate Plan! 10 day self guided course that will teach you the skills to lose fat without counting calories, macros or points.

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Project Plate Plan opens up for registration tomorrow (but the link is open for podcast listeners below!) so today I’m talking about what it is, why I created it and what you can expect if you’re thinking about joining us.

Project Plate Plan is a 10 day self guided course to learn the four core skills you need to lose fat without counting calories, macros or points. If you’ve struggled to lose weight AND keep it off, this is for you.

1. How to use your plate to figure out portions that will help you lose fat instead of stressing about weighing/measuring and tracking numbers
2. How to prioritize efficient sources of protein so you can easily feel full after each meal and stop looking for snacks an hour later
3. How to include carbs at every meal so you always feel satisfied and aren’t battling cravings every night
4. How to add more volume & fiber to your meals to so you can have a full plate of food and never feel deprived

So wherever you go, wherever you are, whether it’s at home, on the go, at work, on vacation—you will always have the skills and confidence to eat in a way that feels great and helps you lose fat.

Sign up for Project Plate Plan here.

Connect with Jordana
Find me on Instagram
Sign up for my weekly letter with personal stories and nutrition, body image and mindset tips
Schedule a free discovery call to talk more about working together
Listen to more episodes of The Diet Diaries