Thrive Beyond Size

I just returned from two amazing weeks of camping, most of it out in Kananaskis in the Rocky Mountains here in Canada. I love Kananaskis: the beauty, the lack of tourists, the hiking and wildlife. Mostly I committed to not doing work while away. But on two days when smoke from the BC wildfires and rainy weather kept us inside our trailer, I did do a bit of work. I like being productive but also it helps to stave off that overwhelm of coming home to a giant pile of work that demands so much of you it’s like your vacation never happened. While I was thinking about work on those days I realized I’ve never done an episode on what my coaching focus is, especially now that I’ve pivoted away from weight loss. And once I realized that I knew it was something I wanted to share. The common thread weaving through all my coaching programs is Intuitive Eating.

I have three coaching programs on the go right now: Nourishment Lounge, Thrive Beyond Size, and Binge Free Breakthrough Program. They all focus on different aspects of health at every size but they are all rooted in Intuitive Eating. Intuitive Eating is essentially honoring your internal hunger and fullness cues instead of counting points or calories or using whatever other system is available. There are a lot of misconceptions about eating intuitively and I address those while also explaining how Intuitive Eating has positively affected my own life and health struggle. In the book Intuitive Eating, ten principles of the concept are outlined and I’m going to share those ten principles briefly in this episode to really help clarify exactly what it’s about. I truly hope you gain some insight into a powerful way to approach food and eating and if you want to talk more about it or any of my coaching programs, please reach out to me. I’m always happy to answer your questions.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• “Intuitive Eating, 4th Edition: A Revolutionary Anti-Diet Approach” by Evelyn Tribole, MS, RD, and Elyse Resch, MS, RD, FADA

—

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.

I sat down on a gorgeous August afternoon to record this episode about a book I had delayed reading until recently. And this book is “The Body is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-love” by Sonya Renee Taylor. I had it on my bookshelf. I just didn’t read it. I think the reason I didn’t is because Sonya talks about something called body terrorism and the term put me off. But she describes body terrorism as just the systems and structures that are in place in society to maintain the marginalization of people. So I read it, as I said, and the way she confronts fat-shaming and implicit bias has given me a lot to think about. I wouldn’t say Sonya takes a gentle approach, she’s direct, but this book has resonated with me now and I want to talk about it.

Sonya talks about systemic sizeism in culture and systemic discrimination but she also really emphasizes the fact that a lot of the work in addressing this has to start with ourselves. That’s not necessarily a fun thing to read, you know? But Sonya uses what she calls “radical self-love”, which goes way beyond self-compassion or loving your body, to take us into a place where we intuitively understand how valuable and worthy we are. We dismantle the implicit bias within ourselves and turn it around by fundamentally understanding our worth. So I’m exploring the four pillars that Sonya talks about that help bring us to a place of radical self-love. I’m going to talk about those four pillars - taking out the toxic, mind matters, unapologetic action, and collective compassion - and what it looks like to actually put these into action in daily life. I hope you find this as challenging and beautiful as I did.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• “The Body is Not An Apology: The Power of Radical Self-love” by Sonya Renee Taylor

—

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.

Have you ever sat down and had a good argument with your body? It’s possible and let me tell you I’ve been doing it often as I’ve been working on something for the past couple of months. I want to share the thing I’m working on because I think part of pushing through the external diet rules in our heads is learning to do more food matching. Food matching is when we give our body what it’s asking for in terms of nourishment. That’s what I’ve been doing, really listening to my body’s internal wisdom and trying to eat what my body is telling me it needs. Our bodies are very wise and know what we need to balance our nutrition but the trick is learning to listen to them.

Did you know that mothers of babies born prematurely have different breast milk produced? It contains more protein, fat, salt, and iron, which is exactly what a premature baby needs to flourish. The mothers’ bodies do that instinctively, they just know what nutrition is needed. And our bodies continue to know what we need, we just start overriding them with shoulds and should nots and diet dos and don’ts and emotional hunger decisions instead of actually listening. Food matching only occurs in the presence of actual physiological hunger which is why we need to push through all the external programming to figure out when we’re truly hungry and then ask ourselves what we truly want to eat. I’m going to talk about how to identify true physiological hunger so we can separate physical hunger from emotional or social hunger. And I’m going to share my process of asking myself the right questions to figure out what I truly want to eat; how to get to the message my body is sending me without being distracted. So join me as I talk about food matching, why it’s great, and how to achieve it.

—

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.

I am excited about this episode because I have a special treat for you today! One of my best friends in the whole world is joining us on the podcast. She’s actually visiting me this week and we’re having the most amazing time together with a lot of outdoors activity. Dr. Rosanne Mills and I first met in med school in Calgary and then both did residency in Toronto. After that I went into emergency medicine while she pursued psychiatry but we have remained as close as ever. Rosanne and I have a conversation about the realities of anxiety and depression and how to help our mental health. We address the question of what anxiety and depression actually look like and how to tell the type that needs treatment apart from times that are really just part of being a human being.

I want to say, first of all, that though Dr. Rose and I are both physicians, we are not giving out personal health advice in this episode. This is information shared for educational purposes only. If you feel you have any of the symptoms we talk about, please see your physician, visit an emergency department, or call your local Healthline. Rosanne defines depression according to the DSM, the Diagnostic Statistical Manual, and we talk about how a significant depressive episode can cause dysfunction in our lives in some way. We also discuss how anxiety is normal and healthy until it starts dragging at daily life and prevents us from visting people, making phone calls, and the like. Dr. Rose offers a lot of insight into how depression and anxiety both manifest, when they are emergency issues, and explains different kinds of medication available. She also discusses medication side effects and modalites outside of medication that can help mitigate depression. This episode is a clear and informative look at how depression and anxiety manifest and operate. It’s full of information and insight that will hopefully answer some questions and, most importantly, remind us that most people with anxiety and depression do feel better when we get appropriate treatment.

About Dr. Rosanne Mills

Dr Rosanne Mills is a Psychiatrist in Toronto, Ontario. She works as a Staff Psychiatrist at St. Michael’s Hospital.

—

Learn more about Dr Michelle Tubman and Wayza Health:

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

Contact Dr. Rosanne Mills:

• LinkedIn

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

This episode is actually the second version of a rant I recorded based on a Facebook post I had a reaction to. I discovered I hadn’t had my mic turned on after recording the first version of the rant and despite feeling slightly better after voicing my feelings to all of you, I still felt compelled to share my thoughts. Which brings us to this version. The Facebook post in question was from a fellow physician who wrote that only 40% of Americans are considered obese. Her caption stating she learned the statistic during continuing medical education combined with my poor decision to read the comments got me very upset. It just reminded me again of how pervasive weight discrimination and fat shaming is in our culture, and also within medical culture. So I’m sharing my thoughts about it here.

The obesity referred to in the Facebook post was almost certainly defined using BMI because that’s how the medical world defines it. I’ve addressed all the problems with the BMI previously and even in June of this year the American Medical Association released a statement urging physicians to reconsider how they use BMI because of its history and racial implications involved with its use. So many things about the reference to obesity in the post got me riled up, and understanding the misuse of BMI is just part of it. It sparked a complicated reaction in me because I am a board-certified obesity medicine physician and though I don’t actively practice due to not believing in the interventions we’re taught to prescribe, until recently I was coaching weight loss. The unease I felt in responding to the post (I didn’t), and my offense at some of the comments inferring that people categorized as obese are disgusting, just combined into upset that led to this episode. So please join me as I break down again what is wrong with BMI, with the arbitrary categorization of obesity, with assuming weight indicates health, with not allowing for health at any size, and in examining my own personal feelings about my place in it all. I end with a promise to you, and myself, to strive for more courage in addressing these errant beliefs amongst my colleagues. 

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!

—

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.

It’s the end of July and I’ve just returned from some time off for camping. I had recorded episodes ahead of time to accommodate that break, which was smart planning, but guess what? I’ve missed you all! I’ve missed being at my mic having these conversations with you. So today I’m really excited to be giving you a real time update on what’s going on with me. I’m sharing my wins and successes, what I’m working on, what’s been challenging me, and what the rest of my summer plans are. Wherever you’re listening, driving in your car or out for a walk or doing work around the house, I’m imagining we’re there together just having this conversation.

Things are quite amazing. If you remember two or three months ago, I changed the focus of my business from weight loss to encouraging appreciation for our bodies and coaching women to get what we want for ourselves without shrinking in size. That has been the most beautiful shift I could imagine. I’m so happy with the transition. I’ve been taking note of how things have been changing in my own focus as well. I remember certain food rules I had for myself for whatever reason and this summer I’ve been working through having those foods in the house and learning to relax around them. I’m excited to share how my mindset is slowly changing, the successes and revelations I’ve had through that process. And the interviews I’ve been sharing on this podcast have been contributing to that focus shift as well. Come reminisce, investigate emotions, hold space for, and share in all the ways in which not shrinking ourselves leads to healthier choices and outlooks. I want to hear your own journeys around this, too! Let’s celebrate where we’ve come from and where we’re heading 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!

—

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.

It’s July right now and I am spending a lot of time camping, so to prepare I recorded this episode in May. I decided to plan ahead so I could just enjoy nature and time away without stressing about having podcast episodes due. This is actually very relevant to the guest and topic today, which is why I mention it. I prioritized what I wanted and needed for my own wellbeing in July and planned ahead to make it happen. My guest, Robynn Powers, is a health coach, personal trainer, nutrition coach, pre-and-post natal exercise specialist, and group fitness instructor who works with moms to help them implement daily strategies to improve their energy, strength, and confidence. It’s all about prioritizing and deciding on your own self care. 

Robynn and I have a wonderful conversation about moms - but really this can apply to everybody - choosing to prioritize their health needs for the benefit not just of themselves but their families too. Robynn has several pieces of advice on how to re-balance busy mom lives so things can get done without sacrificing mom health, but her single biggest piece of advice is sleep. Get more sleep. Sleep well. What she says makes a lot of sense because sleep affects everything in our lives from focus to hormones. She acknowledges that we can’t just get more sleep all at once but we can start small, with just going to bed a half hour earlier every night, and weigh the long term benefits of sleep over the short-term gain of a half hour to ourselves. But we also talk about mindset, about choosing ourselves as a priority, and about how to make new choices stick. Robynn’s advice and knowledge is so practical and useful that I know everyone will benefit from hearing it. Small changes can make such a large difference to our overall health and we are worth it.

About Robynn Powers

Robynn Powers is a Health Coach with a BA in Psychology and a certified Personal Trainer, Nutrition Coach, Pre/Post-natal Exercise Specialist, and Group Fitness Instructor who helps busy Moms implement daily strategies to improve their energy, strength, and confidence. She is passionate about helping Moms become the healthiest versions of themselves so that they can feel good in their bodies and feel free to live their lives the way they deserve to, without taking time away from family or making the journey to health too complicated. She is a Health Coach and a Mom, helping other Moms identify what is keeping them stuck and helping them transform their overall health...and get BIG results in spite of what they’ve been able to achieve in the past.

—

Learn more about Dr Michelle Tubman and Wayza Health:

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

Learn more about Robynn Powers:

• Website: www.simplyembellishedlife.com
• Instagram
• Facebook

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

I reflected on how much I love sitting at my microphone talking to all of you as I started this recording. I hadn’t been confident when I started the podcast at all. I was so nervous about the mic and public speaking! But now, on episode 108, I see how I got over my fear by rising to the challenge through the power of mindset. And that’s what my guest is here to talk about. Tracy Pleschourt is the founder of Self-Made U and the host of Secrets of the Self-Made podcast, and we have a wonderful conversation about thoughts and learning to think in a different way and accomplishing goals through self-control.

Tracy talks about how we feel out of control and bury our heads in the sand which keeps us from achieving what we want. And what she teaches her clients is to ask themselves what they really want so they can define what is standing in their way. Self-Made U teaches the neuroscience of the brain, and understanding that enables decision-making and self-control. Tracy explains the four-part system SELF stands for, presents great questions to ask ourselves about our beliefs, and then she and I examine a decision I recently made that I wondered if I should second-guess. Spoiler: I made the right decision. Tracy led me in conversation to confirming that for myself. I loved this conversation! I hope this discussion inspires you and gives you questions to ask yourself, to get you moving, when you’re faced with inertia and fear.

About Tracy Pleschourt

Tracy Pleschourt, the Founder of Self-Made U and the Host of Secrets of the Self-Made Podcast helps men and women achieve their goals and solve all problems FAST by developing SELF-CONTROL!

Tracy has mastered and now teaches an operating system necessary to manage your mind and eliminate any obstacles, including overeating, overdrinking, time management, career & relationship changes and professional development. Just a few years ago, Tracy was a successful advertising executive. Stifled by the rigorous, time-consuming demands of the corporate world, she traded in her 20 years of advertising to pursue her real passion: personal and professional coaching.

Resources discussed in this episode:

• Secrets of the Self-Made podcast
• The coupon code to get 50% off of the Mind Over Matter course is THRIVE50
• The link to learn more about the $27, 3 part series is https://www.self-madeu.com/mind-over-matter

—

Learn more about Dr Michelle Tubman and Wayza Health:

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

Learn more about Tracy Pleschourt:

• Website: www.self-madeu.com
• Instagram
• Facebook
• YouTube
• LinkedIn
• Tiktok

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

I recorded this interview on a gorgeous warm day in May and it really set the tone for talking about transformation. Susan Gold, author of “Toxic Family”, joins me to share how she grew beyond a traumatic childhood into peace and compassion. Susan talks very openly about her struggles with self-image, weight, judgement, and toxic memories and the freedom and beauty she has now discovered makes her magical to listen to. I cherish the conversation we had. Transformation is such a powerful thing to pursue and it’s open to every one of us.

We talk about how food can become an escape, perhaps the only escape we have access to, because we don’t have anything else. Sometimes it’s a punishment. But when we learn that we’re worthy of love and a career and care, we can start to unwind that need to use it as an escape. Susan talks about the things she learned, in retrospect, from her family and her ex-husband and the memories of her own parents’ failings. When she had her own child she understood she could change that trajectory, set her son on a different path. Susan’s book is about finding freedom from toxicity and trauma, transforming your life on your own terms. It’s incredibly powerful, like Susan, and like our conversation as well. 

About Susan Gold

Susan Gold is magical. After a challenging upbringing she made a name for herself matching celebrities to brands in NYC and LA. Cleaning up remnants of her past were part of her trajectory - including weigh issues  - included in her recently published memoir: Toxic Family: Transforming Childhood Trauma into Adult Freedom.

Resources discussed in this episode:

• “Toxic Family: Transforming Childhood Trauma Into Adult Freedom” by Susan Gold
• “How To Do The Work” by Dr. Nicole LePera

—

Learn more about Dr Michelle Tubman and Wayza Health:

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

Learn more about Susan Gold:

• Website: https://www.susangold.us/
• Linktr.ee

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

The news that weight loss company Jenny Craig is shutting down had me thinking back on my times in Weight Watchers. Jenny Craig was a meal replacement system where you bought prepackaged foods or foods that were already calorie counted and macro portioned with the goal of weight loss. Weight Watchers is essentially the same: counting points assigned to food to reach a certain goal that will result in weight loss. Now, though, many weight loss companies are catching on that lifestyle changes are more in line with today’s goals. We want to be healthy, we want wellness, and they are pivoting to include that. So how can you determine what program is an actual lifestyle change program and which is still a weight loss system with an overlay of lifestyle change marketing?

The biggest question to ask is “is the goal of the program still to have you shrink your body?” If the goal isn’t just a healthier lifestyle but also to reduce the size of your body, the program is still just a weight loss program. Dieting is traumatizing. It does terrible things to our bodies, health, minds, and our souls. There is a lot of value in having a healthier lifestyle, absolutely, but dieting is dangerous. So I’m going to talk about things that suggest a program is more aligned with weight loss than lifestyle or health, drawing on my experiences with Weight Watchers. I have seven points to share with you. Seven points to watch out for to determine if a lifestyle program is just weight loss system in disguise. 

Resources discussed in this episode:

• “Jenny Craig bankrupt, will close down business in US and Canada” by Pete Evans for CBC News

—

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.