Thrive Beyond Size

I’m talking about intuitive eating once again because it is such a beautiful way of tuning into your body’s wisdom and respecting your body. I’m so passionate about sharing this with you so I have another wonderful guest to interview about intuitive eating. Krista Beck is a Canadian registered dietician, certified intuitive eating counselor, and owner of Dietitian Krista. Krista’s mission is to expose diet culture for what it really is and to focus on mending people’s relationships with food and their bodies. We really have an amazing conversation about just the basics of intuitive eating. I love hearing Krista’s story and soaking up the insight she offers.

Krista shares about her own struggle with disordered eating and how she came to intuitive eating. I asked Krista if the principles of intuitive eating changed her relationship with food and her body and she said “I went through periods where I absolutely hated my body, and I was trying so hard to change it to now just totally accepting it, and also just being prepared to accept any future changes that do come with my body.” and that is so beautiful to hear. Krista and I explore all the “anti-diet” approaches that are still hiding diets, why diets don’t work, and how the intuitive eating approach is different from the restrictions of a diet. We talk a lot about food and Krista’s approach of not labelling food as either good or bad but thinking about formerly ‘bad’ foods as simply fun food or soul food as a way to help overcome the mental restriction to starting intuitive eating. This is a really informative episode and I hope you are as excited by what Krista shares about intuitive eating as I am.

About Krista Beck:

Krista Beck is a Registered Dietitian, Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor, dieter turned intuitive eater and owner of Dietitian Krista. After struggling with her own disordered eating, Krista has made it her mission to expose diet culture for what it really is and help as many women as possible ditch the diets for good and mend their relationship with food and their bodies.

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Learn more about Krista Beck:

• Website: DietitianKrista.com
• Instagram
• Facebook

Learn more about Dr. Michelle Tubman and Wayza Health:

• Website: www.wayzahealth.com
• Follow me on Facebook and Instagram

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Today’s episode is a conversation I think is so important to hear because it features Sarah Donner, a brilliant woman who started as a fashion model and is now a hypnotherapist and health coach. She started modelling when she was just 14 years old and while going through teenage body changes, had her whole self-worth focused on a career about her body and what size she was. It was when Sarah transitioned into start-up companies and the tech world that she learned there was so much more to her than her body. Sarah’s story and the work she does now are just so inspiring and really drive home the fact that we all think if we were thinner, with model bodies, we’d have more confidence or opportunities. But I think Sarah’s story kind of disproves that idea.

Sarah speaks frankly about the dark cycle of tying our self-worth to our body size and looks. She explains the struggle to find an identity outside of her looks and the intense imposter syndrome she experienced, and still does, in other careers. We can all identify with that, really, or certainly I can. One of the exciting things about Sarah’s journey is her work in hypnotherapy now. Hypnotherapy is not the same thing as hypnosis acts in Vegas or on TV, the two get confused, but it is a tool used to bypass the conscious critical mind which makes us more receptive to new ideas and realizations. Hypnotherapy can be a very useful tool in finding what lies at the root of self-worth or food issues. Like myself, Sarah focuses a lot on coaching toward intuitive eating. Hypnotherapy can help get to the truth of our struggle so that we are free to pursue intuitive eating because unless we can connect with our bodies, we can’t hear the signals intuitive eating requires. This conversation with Sarah is so important and I’m really glad you’re here listening to it now.

About Sarah Donner:

Founder of Siva Wellness, Sarah grew up in Germany and started her career in fashion, which allowed me to travel the world at a young age. After finishing her degree in New York City, Sarah pivoted into the start-up world and lived between New York and Europe. She had the privilege to work in some terrific tech startups and is the founding member of an AI-backed beauty company called 2250. 

Sarah is grateful for her past work experiences but needless to say, living that fast-paced life without the right tools in place left its mark on her and she ended up feeling mentally and physically depleted. She suffered from imposter syndrome and anxiety and was constantly battling all sorts of ailments that traditional medicine could not help her with. That is why she started to look for alternative methods to heal herself, and the journey and results have been remarkable.

After receiving her license as a Holistic Health Coach from the Institute of Integrative Nutrition in New York and her Hypnotherapy License from the Center of  Integrative Hypnosis, she studied Transpersonal Hypnotherapy with Allison Axinn in Tuscany, Italy. Sarah decided to turn her passion into her career and Siva was born. Siva is for everyone that is ready to implement change with a long lasting effect and without any of the side effects.

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Learn more about Sarah Donner:

• Website: siva-wellness.com
• Instagram

Learn more about Dr. Michelle Tubman and Wayza Health:

• Website: www.wayzahealth.com
• Follow me on Facebook and Instagram

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I’m excited to bring you another interview today, on a topic I’ve been wanting to explore but haven’t quite known what to say about. So today I will broach that topic with Heidi Karner, a dietician with a Masters in Health Promotion, who practices through an anti-diet, size-inclusive lens. We will be talking all about Ozempic and other GLP One inhibitors and weight loss medications. Heidi will provide one of the best-ever explanations of what Ozempic, and other medications like it, are designed to do and how they work in your body. And she and I will discuss a lot of different viewpoints about taking these medications for weight loss specifically. Please note that though Heidi and I are both healthcare professionals, we are not your healthcare professionals. So if you want to talk about taking these medications, make sure to talk to your own doctors.

Heidi, as I said, gives one of the best explanations of how GLP One inhibitors work that I have probably ever heard. She doesn’t immerse in doctor-speak but breaks it all down very clearly for the average listener. Heidi points out that medications like Ozempic were designed for people with diabetes and one of the concerns around the rebranding of them for just intentional weight loss is the lack of research available on using them outside of diabetes treatment. We talk about all the reasons why someone might need or want to use weight loss medications, the reality of the side effects of drugs like Ozempic, how the weight loss effects do not last after the use of the medication ends, and how we as a society approach body image as a whole. Heidi has so much wisdom in this area and this conversation is had with a lot of compassion, a lot of desire for people to own their own body health decisions, and also with very practical and direct information about what Ozempic actually is and does. My hope is that you’ll find it as informative and thought-provoking as I did.

About Heidi Karner, RDN, LDN

With a Master's in Health Promotion and a Certificate of Health Psycholohealthcarehealthcareexplanationsthe gy from the University of Connecticut, Heidi practices through an anti-diet, size-inclusive lens. She feels passionate about supporting her clients in nourishing their bodies without sacrificing their mental well-being and enjoyment of food through a compassionate eating framework rooted in self-care - Intuitive Eating. Heidi’s work with clients centers around body respect and making peace with food.

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Learn more about Heidi Karner:

• Website: HappyValleyNutrition.com
• Instagram
• Contact Heidi via Happy Valley Nutrition

Learn more about Dr. Michelle Tubman and Wayza Health:

• Website: www.wayzahealth.com
• Follow me on Facebook and Instagram

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I had one of those “a-ha” moments on Monday, one of those moments where suddenly you wake up and realize your life looks drastically different now than it did a year ago. It was a wonderful moment and I want to share it with you. Monday was my day off after a weekend of work and I felt just kind of exhausted and gross. I didn’t want to move but I took my dog Charlie to the Botanical Gardens anyway and instead of pushing myself to run or do squats, I just enjoyed the time there. I knew I hadn’t eaten well the week prior but instead of beating myself up about my food choices, I just sat on a bench and got curious. I used compassion with myself and I decided I’d needed that comfort food last week and that was okay. This week is entirely different, I’m back on my intuitive eating that feels so right. And that moment of curiosity and compassion was so much different than the self-flagellation I used to engage in.

Our relationships with food are difficult to heal. Our cycles of restriction or binging, of calorie counting or beating ourselves up for “failing”, are so ingrained in us. But as slow as the healing can be, it does happen bit by bit. There are steps in the journey that I’ve identified. The first step is restoring our biology. Eating enough to sustain us at regular intervals. The second step is learning how to have our feelings and manage our emotions. The third is to create new neural pathways in our brains. New habits. And the fourth is acknowledging what the root cause of our food struggles is. What is the underlying issue? I’m going to tell you how I worked through each step and give you some ideas on how you can work through them too. This is an episode where I share my healing journey and encourage you to examine your own. We all deserve to get to a place of healing and balance. Together.

About Dr. Michelle Tubman

Dr. Michelle Tubman is a physician and health coach. She helps women ditch dieting and thrive at any size. For the longest time, she believed that weight loss was the answer to all her problems. But decades of yo-yo dieting and restriction left her miserable, unhealthy, and exhausted. Now she teaches women how harmful dieting can be and shows them the way to true health and wellness.

As a physician specializing in both emergency and obesity medicine, with additional training in nutrition, eating psychology, and coaching, Michelle can tell you with certainty that dieting is dangerous. Studies associate compromised health more with yo-yo dieting than higher body weight. Yet, everywhere you turn, shrinking your body is hailed as the solution. Women don't need to change. Attitudes do. So let's stop self-shaming, speak out against sizeism, and fiercely champion unconditional self-celebration!

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Learn more about Dr. Michelle Tubman and Wayza Health:

• Website: www.wayzahealth.com
• Follow me on Facebook and Instagram

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Today I’m talking about eating disorders with Nicole Christina, a psychotherapist with 30 years of specializing in eating disorders. And specifically we’re going to talk about eating disorders in middle age. Nicole’s own podcast, Zestful Aging, covers topics related to healthy aging and acknowledging that eating disorders don’t just affect adolescents and teenagers is something we don’t discuss enough. But we will remedy that lack of discussion today! I’m very excited to have Nicole with me because even though this a very serious topic, she has such lovely energy and our conversation was very engaging. I do want to caution all you listeners that we will talk very openly about eating disorders and that can be triggering for many of us. If it’s triggering for you, take care of your needs and get some support before you dive into this episode.

Nicole says that when clients come to her about depression or anxiety, issues that are not specifically food-related, she will ask them about their eating behaviors because so often there is a rigidity or distress mirrored in their relationship with food as well. When we make food restrictions, regulation, and disordered eating our focus, intentionally or not, we rob ourselves of living in a lot of ways. Because food is everywhere! We are surrounded by events that involve food and to constantly assess and measure in our minds takes away from enjoyment in other parts of life. Nicole and I talk extensively about the energy we put into calculating food intake, why we are fixated on controlling food, and how happiness really stems from health which isn’t the same thing as restriction. Our conversation is very honest, about struggles and about how we work to overcome them in middle age. I enjoyed having Nicole on the show so much and I hope you get as much insight from her as I did.

About Nicole Christina

Nicole Christina is the host of the multi-award winning Zestful Aging Podcast, an interview show heard in 106 countries. Nicole’s guests are change makers from a variety of disciplines; filmmakers, writers, advocates, poets, musicians, scientists, athletes and entrepreneurs, many of whom are top experts in their fields. She calls herself “the Terry Gross of aging well.”

After a 30 year career as a psychotherapist, Nicole created Zestful Aging Coaching which supports people who would like to design a more engaging, energizing and peaceful life as they age. Nicole has also authored the book “Not Just Chatting; How to Become a Master Podcast Interviewer” and gives trainings and presentations on how to become a more skilled and effective podcast interviewer.

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Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Evelyn Tribole, MS, RDN, CEDRD-S
• Terry Gross
• The Renfrew Center

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Learn more about Nicole Christina:

• Website: ZestfulAging.com
• Zestful Aging Podcast
• Instagram
• Facebook
• Youtube
• LinkedIn

Learn more about Dr. Michelle Tubman and Wayza Health:

• Website: www.wayzahealth.com
• Follow me on Facebook and Instagram,

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A few weeks ago when I released my episode about ten principles of intuitive eating, I got a question from a listener. I really appreciate questions from you, I encourage you to contact me with questions, so this episode is in response to that question. The question was ‘Does intuitive eating have a role in the treatment of eating disorders?’. The short answer is yes, absolutely it does. Intuitive eating is an evidence-based approach to treating eating disorders. But of course, there is nuance to consider and caveats to explain, which is what I explore in this episode. I will be talking a lot about eating disorders here so I encourage you, if this is a sensitive topic for you, to prepare before we jump in.

Part of understanding eating disorders is understanding something called interoceptive awareness. Interoceptive awareness is the perception of physical sensations happening in your body: like when I talk about hunger and fullness cues. Another example would be feeling that your bladder is full and you have to pee. That is interoceptive awareness. These physical sensations are largely a right-brain phenomenon while eating disorders, centered around our food rules and restrictions and judgements, are mainly left-brain functions. So in treating eating disorders, we want to shift that left-brain focus into right-brain thinking. There are so many other facets of treating eating disorders with intuitive eating - from the characteristics of intuitive eating to how digestion works to understanding the difference between ‘not hungry’ and ‘full' - that I share with you in this episode. This is just an overview, of course, but this discussion is to show you how, with proper help, intuitive eating certainly can work in treating eating disorders. If you feel that you might need help with an eating disorder, I encourage you to contact your physician. 

About Dr. Michelle Tubman

Dr. Michelle Tubman is a physician and health coach. She helps women ditch dieting and thrive at any size. For the longest time, she believed that weight loss was the answer to all her problems. But decades of yo-yo dieting and restriction left her miserable, unhealthy, and exhausted. Now she teaches women how harmful dieting can be and shows them the way to true health and wellness.

As a physician specializing in both emergency and obesity medicine, with additional training in nutrition, eating psychology, and coaching, Michelle can tell you with certainty that dieting is dangerous. Studies associate compromised health more with yo-yo dieting than higher body weight. Yet, everywhere you turn, shrinking your body is hailed as the solution. Women don't need to change. Attitudes do. So let's stop self-shaming, speak out against sizeism, and fiercely champion unconditional self-celebration!

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Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Evelyn Tribole, MS, RDN, CEDRD-S

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Learn more about Dr. Michelle Tubman and Wayza Health:

• Website: www.wayzahealth.com
• Follow me on Facebook and Instagram

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After being on the road for some conferences and workshops related to my business, Wayza Health, I’m glad to be back to share all the amazing learning I did with fellow coaches! I do sometimes encounter vitriol when I talk about health at every size, though it’s usually online. So it caught me off-guard to have such an encounter in person. It’s that interaction, as well as the conversation with other women that followed, that prompted me to engage on this topic today: the weight-centric health paradigm we all live in. Our society equates weight with health and I want to address why this persistent attitude prevails and why it’s a fallacy.

The World Health Organization regularly publishes information that shows increasing obesity rates globally, and those graphs are used to make weight a public health and social issue. Of course, those graphs are also based on BMI which we all know is a useless tool that I’ve addressed many times on this podcast. We live in an obesogenic environment and studies that are often quoted are incomplete or don’t factor in other key factors. We also seem to have this unshakeable belief that weight loss is as simple as calories in, calories out or energy intake and energy expenditure. Nothing is that simple, certainly not weight. So what I want to do in this episode is address all these beliefs and counter them with facts and studies that prove, sometimes, the exact opposite of the “weight is the issue” outcome that most people cling to. Join me as I unpack the weight-centric paradigm and examine some truths about bodies and health.

About Dr. Michelle Tubman

Dr. Michelle Tubman is a physician and health coach. She helps women ditch dieting and thrive at any size. For the longest time she believed that weight loss was the answer to all her problems. But decades of yo-yo dieting and restriction left her miserable, unhealthy, and exhausted. Now she teaches women how harmful dieting can be and shows them the way to true health and wellness.

As a physician specializing in both emergency and obesity medicine, with additional training in nutrition, eating psychology, and coaching, Michelle can tell you with certainty that dieting is dangerous. Studies associate compromised health more with yo-yo dieting than higher body weight. Yet, everywhere you turn, shrinking your body is hailed as the solution. Women don't need to change. Attitudes do. So let's stop self-shaming, speak out against sizeism, and fiercely champion unconditional self-celebration!

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Resources mentioned in this episode:

• “What’s Wrong With the ‘War on Obesity?’ A Narrative Review of the Weight-Centered Health Paradigm and Development of the 3C Framework to Build Critical Competency for a Paradigm Shift” by Lily O’Hara and Jane Taylor, May 16, 2018
• Ignaz Semmelweis and ‘the Semmelweis Reflex’

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Learn more about Dr. Michelle Tubman and Wayza Health:

• Website: www.wayzahealth.com
• Follow me on Facebook and Instagram

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Today I admit I’m talking about a topic that still causes me a bit of discomfort in my own life. As the focus of my journey and the podcast have shifted away from weight loss, I’ve really had to examine why I was trying to lose weight. I told myself I was losing weight to be healthy. But was that really the truth? When I dug down deep I started to see that the daily societal messages telling us how to look, what to wear, what size to be, and that thin is beautiful were so ingrained that I simply accepted that my body had to look a certain way to fit in. But it doesn’t. So today I’m talking about that discomfort in our own bodies and how to embrace weight-neutral self-care.

I started to see that everything I was doing for so-called self-care was actually rooted in diet culture and the internalized messages of perfection and thinness. Eating better, yes that’s a great idea but it was rooted in weight loss. Exercise, it’s always a great idea but I wasn’t doing it for the joy of movement, I was doing it to lose weight. So I had to ask myself if I want to keep trying to shrink my body instead of celebrating the other gifts I have to offer the world. That’s part of this idea of weight-neutral self-care. Respecting our bodies. Having gratitude that our bodies let us live the lives we have. Changing our relationships with our bodies so it’s about actually feeling good and not looking a certain way. It’s a journey, it’s not easy at all, and there is a lot to struggle with. But I’m challenging us all, in this episode, to start that journey of self trust and kindness.

About Dr. Michelle Tubman

Dr. Michelle Tubman is a physician and health coach. She helps women ditch dieting and thrive at any size. For the longest time she believed that weight loss was the answer to all her problems. But decades of yo-yo dieting and restriction left her miserable, unhealthy, and exhausted. Now she teaches women how harmful dieting can be and shows them the way to true health and wellness.

As a physician specializing in both emergency and obesity medicine, with additional training in nutrition, eating psychology, and coaching, Michelle can tell you with certainty that dieting is dangerous. Studies associate compromised health more with yo-yo dieting than higher body weight. Yet, everywhere you turn, shrinking your body is hailed as the solution. Women don't need to change. Attitudes do. So let's stop self-shaming, speak out against sizeism, and fiercely champion unconditional self-celebration!

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Learn more about Dr. Michelle Tubman and Wayza Health:

• Website: www.wayzahealth.com
• Follow me on Facebook and Instagram

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Since I pivoted the podcast away from focusing on weight loss to embrace the new direction of health at every size, I’ve struggled to find guests who embody those new concepts. Today, however, I get to introduce you to Amanda Mittman who beautifully embodies everything I want to focus on. Amanda is a registered dietitian, nutritionist, certified intuitive eating counselor, and a body image coach. She owns a group private practice of registered dietitians supporting people with disordered eating and eating disorders and she teaches providers how to incorporate body image counseling skills into their practice. What a perfect fit for the new direction this podcast is taking! I’m so grateful to have found Amanda.

Amanda and I reflect upon our own journeys with disordered eating and weight loss, sharing stories from how we struggled to embrace our bodies and stop dieting. There is a lot of history to examine there and what it really does is give us a springboard to dive into diet culture at large and how deeply entrenched we all are in it. The journey to loving our bodies is not an easy one and Amanda argues that perhaps body love is not the ultimate goal, but that learning to respect and be kind to our bodies is easier to achieve. We talk about moving away from weight loss, the grief associated with abandoning a lifelong diet journey and accepting our bodies, intuitive eating, how body image and self-care are linked, and a whole host of other things that I know will resonate with all of you. Amanda is insightful and warm and our conversation was such a joy. I hope you find her as inspiring as I do.

About Amanda Mittman

Amanda is a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist, Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor and Body Image Coach. In addition to owning a group private practice of Registered Dietitians supporting people with disordered eating and eating disorders, she also teaches other providers how to incorporate body image counseling skills into their practice. She has worked with hundreds of clients in her career and what she knows is that people, especially women, feel so much shame around their body. And nobody is talking about this! Whether the client is in college, just had a baby or experiencing perimenopause/menopause, the conversation around the distress of a changing body is very similar. It is Amanda’s mission for people to talk about this topic without shame, guilt, or sense of failure, and to understand the systemic forces that cause us to feel the way we do about our body.

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Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Body Image with Bri

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Contact Amanda Mittman:

• Website: HappyValleyNutrition.com
• Instagram

Learn more about Dr. Michelle Tubman and Wayza Health:

• Website: www.wayzahealth.com
• Follow me on Facebook and Instagram

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I’ve been referencing this study for awhile now and it keeps coming up in conversations with clients and colleagues. So I want to devote this episode to discussing the study, called The Minnesota Starvation Study. It was conducted by Ancel Keys in 1944 to 1945, during World War II, on 36 healthy male volunteers. Ancel Keys’ goal was to study the physical and psychological effects of what he termed “semi-starvation” because of the soldiers and civilians across Europe who were chronically underfed as a result of the war. The Minnesota Starvation Study is, to my knowledge, the only study of its kind which is partially why it is constantly talked about in weight loss and obesity medicine circles. And the results of the study are profound and important to discuss in relation to self-restriction of calories through dieting. 

Ancel Keys ensured the 36 male volunteers met specific criteria in terms of their health and baseline eating habits before joining the study. During the study, which took place over a full year, the men lived in a controlled environment and adhered to very strict guidelines regarding calorie intake, activity, and testing. For the first 12 weeks they were in a control period. Then they entered the 6 month semi-starvation period which meant they each only ingested half the amount of their daily calories from before. Finally, they entered a 12 week rehab period. The effects of the semi-starvation on the men included cognitive and emotional changes as well as medical and physical changes and some of the symptoms they experienced echo those suffered by people with disordered eating. Keep in mind that the men’s overall caloric intake was decreased to 1570 calories per day, which is still more than most diets recommend now. The enormity of effects on their minds and bodies, some of which lasted for years, brings up very real harm questions about the cost of the diets we willingly put our bodies through. I encourage you to join me in this episode and to give the resources a read.

About Dr. Michelle Tubman

Dr. Michelle Tubman is a physician and health coach. She helps women ditch dieting and thrive at any size. For the longest time she believed that weight loss was the answer to all her problems. But decades of yo-yo dieting and restriction left her miserable, unhealthy, and exhausted. Now she teaches women how harmful dieting can be and shows them the way to true health and wellness.

As a physician specializing in both emergency and obesity medicine, with additional training in nutrition, eating psychology, and coaching, Michelle can tell you with certainty that dieting is dangerous. Studies associate compromised health more with yo-yo dieting than higher body weight. Yet, everywhere you turn, shrinking your body is hailed as the solution. Women don't need to change. Attitudes do. So let's stop self-shaming, speak out against sizeism, and fiercely champion unconditional self-celebration!

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Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Ancel Keys
• “The Minnesota Semi-Starvation Experiment: What It Teaches Us About Eating Disorders” by Samantha DeCaro, PsyD
• “The Starvation Experiment” by Chantal Gil, PsyD

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Learn more about Dr. Michelle Tubman and Wayza Health:

• Website: www.wayzahealth.com
• Follow me on Facebook and Instagram

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.