About a year ago, after experiencing some increasingly bothersome hormonal symptoms, I received a diagnosis of PCOS - Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. My doctor advised me that if I wanted to improve the condition on my own without birth control or other medications, I might want to consider losing weight.

That statement is loaded for anyone, but especially for people recovering from disordered eating, as I have been for 20 years.

I felt into her recommendation, and was surprised by what I discovered. I wanted relief from these hormonal symptoms. Maybe, just maybe, I thought, I could experiment with re-entering the fitness and diet maze on my own terms, with the wisdom I’ve acquired over the past 20 years of recovery at my side.

I embarked on a journey of re-orienting to nutrition and exercise in a program that I loved, with a mild hope that any weight loss would help relieve my symptoms. I had a surprisingly empowering experience, and in the process, I lost 20 lbs.

A few weeks ago, I recorded an episode of the podcast called “Things I Learned From Losing 20 lbs.”, chronicling what I learned through this process, including the surprising shame that comes with weight loss when in eating disorder recovery.

I received some great feedback about the episode, including some important critiques that by centering weight loss in the title and connecting weight with health, I was playing into a harmful idea that weight and health are related.

I called my friend Isabel Foxen Duke, founder of the Center for Weight Neutral Coaching, and asked her if she’d be willing to talk to me on the podcast about my potential blind spots on the subject. She agreed, and I’m very excited to share that conversation with you today.

You’ll hear about:

- The medical industry’s agenda when it comes to weight loss, and what my doctor should have said regarding treatment of my condition, instead of “lose weight.”

- The ties between the diet industry, white supremacy and capitalism, and how diets are precisely designed to fail so that we will keep buying them

- Resources to begin a sustainable journey of re-orienting to health at every size

If you enjoyed this episode, you'll love this private audio collection: In Celebration of Beauty, a free mini-course on how the medicine of beauty can heal, uplift, and transform your life. Go to: marylofgren.com/beautiful