Rebuilding Trust With Your Body

In this episode I'm giving you the pep talk you need to stop obsessing about weight and to get comfortable in your own skin. I'm going to share 3 lies you are telling yourself that are preventing you from accepting your body, along with a journaling exercise that is so powerful.    Also, I'll be breaking down what body dysmorphia is (and what it's not, because it's very misunderstood). Having nega...

Planning your meals doesn't have to just be a thing you do when you're dieting. In fact, planning your meals can actually help you have more freedom with food. In this episode, I'm going to take you behind the scenes and show you how I planned an entire week's worth of meals for myself and my family. I'm going to let you in on my strategies, my decision-making process, and tips that will make meal...

Our fears about weight gain (and our desire to lose weight) often stem from a much deeper place than we realize. We assume it's about appearance or health, when really it's about deeper fears and desires that we have as human beings. Being able to get curious and explore these things is key for making peace with our bodies and learning to accept ourselves at our natural weight.   In this episode I...

In this episode I'm going to help you step back and think about how you WANT to feel this holiday season. If we could wave a magic wand and make the holidays great for you with food, what would that look like and feel like? And I want you to really think about this from the standpoint of having a flexible and enjoyable relationship with food - I'm not trying to send you down the rabbit hole of thi...

This week on the podcast, I'm talking about the differences between physical and emotional hunger. In the episode you'll hear:   Why we turn to food in response to emotions and a different way to think about this struggle How to separate out physical vs emotional hunger before you eat so you can choose what you truly want to do with food in that moment The 3 key questions to ask yourself when you'...

You don't have to lose weight to feel better about your body. Learning how to change your inner dialogue about your body can literally change your life. Rather than spending years (or decades) being on and off diets, clean eating plans, detoxes, cleanses, exercise programs, and basically anything to try and lose weight - what if you called a truce with your body instead?    That's why I invited An...

When your self-worth is tied to your weight it keeps you in a vicious cycle of battling food and your body. But what if you could really, truly believe that you are worthy no matter your size?   That's what I'm talking about in this episode with Carly Taylor, a woman I met inside my Intuitive Eating Made Easy FB group. Carly shares how she was taught not to trust her body or her appetite from a ve...

Do you judge candy as being "bad" or "unhealthy?" Are you afraid to keep it in your house because you don't trust yourself to not binge on it? You're not alone. In this episode, I'm breaking down the Candy Dish Phenomenon, which is the paradox of how avoiding certain foods backfires and make us want them more. The truth is, candy is just a type of food, and we don't need to be stressed out about i...

One of my favorite podcasters and business coaches, Amy Porterfield, says that sometimes we have to DSD - Do Something Different - in order to grow. And this really resonates with me, because so much of the process of what I teach - i.e., making peace with food and our bodies - means that we must DSD and get uncomfortable to heal because we are up against diet culture. Every year they have a fundr...

Have you ever felt like you just can't keep doing the same thing with food? Like you're on a hamster wheel that you are tired of being on? I get it.   The process of trying to control your food, or "be good," eat "clean," or stay within a calorie range is exhausting. And it usually ends in binging or overeating at some point. The irony is that the more you try to control your eating, the more like...

In this episode, my guest Jenna Waite talks about how to feel comfortable in your body in a fatphobic world. She shares how she grew up in a larger body and went down the path of trying to change and control it, and how she learned to accept her body and find peace within herself.   We cover what it means to be healthy regardless of your size - and how weight actually isn't a very good indicator o...

If you ever thought that it would be impossible to find joy with exercise after years of dieting, my guest today - Suzane Bamonto - will prove you wrong. She's a school psychologist who has decided to ditch the diet mentality, make peace with food, and enjoy movement again.   What's so wonderful about Suzanne's story is that she has discovered what "joyful movement" truly feels like (and wait unti...

Let's talk about food rules. How do you know when you are making a choice with food that's based on your instincts and wisdom about your body versus when its diet culture is telling you to eat a certain way based on food fears and judgments?   What exactly do I mean when I say "food rule?" Well, a food rule is something you're telling yourself about what you should or shouldn't eat, or when you sh...

This idea of going "all in" is a phrase that's gotten tossed around more in recent years in the intuitive eating and eating disorder recovery communities. And the idea behind it is that rather than dipping your toe in the water, you just take the leap and go for it. It's not a free-for-all with food, but it really is about letting go of all the dieting and disordered eating behaviors (things like...

A lot of people are afraid that they'll never be able to change their relationship with food and that they're going to be stuck battling food and negative body image for the rest of their life. But I'm here to tell you it doesn't have to be that way. No matter how long you've been struggling it absolutely is possible to recover from all of this.    How do I know? Well, this ain't my first rodeo. I...

Today's episode is an interview with a woman named Colleen Fitzpatrick who has watched her mother diet throughout her life and into her 70's. Colleen decided she wasn't going to do that for her entire life, and that's how she discovered intuitive eating. She discusses how she is working on the intuitive eating principles, which include: making peace with food, learning to accept her body, gentle n...

When it comes to intuitive eating, meal planning can actually be REALLY helpful. You might be surprised to hear this, because sometimes people say, "But Katy, how am I supposed to eat what sounds good in the moment if I planned my meals ahead of time."    I totally hear you. But here's the counter-intuitive thing: Not having a plan with food will make it harder to eat intuitively, because you'll a...

My guest today, Judi Amey, is about 6 months into the intuitive eating process, so she's still somewhat of a newbie, but she also has been such a great student of the process that she's really seeing the benefits even though there are also challenges.    And that's the thing - it's not a quick fix like a diet. (And if we're being honest even the diets aren't quick fixes - there more like quick pro...

Towards the end of this past school year I got an email from our PTA asking everyone to take a survey about a new "healthy eating" initiative they were wanting to implement. And, of course, given that I'm a dietitian and I can already see the red flags all over this type of thing, I enthusiastically took the survey.    And I understand that the heart and intention behind this is good. These people...

Our beliefs about health and beauty have a major impact on our body image and self-esteem. My guest today is Diana Herrera. As a model and beauty pageant contestant turned educator, Diana knows this better than anyone. She grew up in an environment where her worth was completely tied to her appearance, but now she's shifted that mindset and has learned to love and accept herself (and her body) as...

There's a huge overlap between eating disorders and trauma, which can make it especially challenging to recover from these conditions. It's common for people to spend years and years in treatment, and to continue to struggle with their symptoms.   When traditional forms of treatment, such as talk therapy (including CBT, DBT, ACT and more "alphabet soup" treatment modalities) and medication don't w...

What comes to mind when you hear the word "exercise?" The truth is, most of us existing in diet culture have a distorted view of exercise.    Diet culture tells us: Exercise to burn calories and lose weight. (pssst…that's actually not now it works!) The more intense and extreme, the better! (e.g. HIIT? Yes, please! Ultra marathon? Wow, impressive! Yoga? Doesn't count. Hot yoga? That sounds like mo...

  You know that feeling - the feeling of guilt and shame after you eat way too much?   (And let me be clear…by "too much" I mean more than your body wanted and therefore you're uncomfortably full. "Too much" is often a construct handed to us by diet culture trying to tell us how much we are allowed to eat. I'm referring to the type of "too much" being communicated to you from your body.)   This fe...

You see, the diet industry might be toxic in some ways, but to their credit these companies are VERY good at marketing and giving people what they want (even if it's not actually what they need). I was recently lucky enough to get the inside scoop about what diet companies aren't telling consumers, and it's juicy.   This is why I was so excited to chat on my podcast with "Nicole" (not her real nam...

What exactly is "intuitive eating?" Most people hear the term and they assume they know what it means just based on how the words make it sound. They think "Oh, intuitive eating must mean eat whatever you want, whenever you want." And that actually couldn't be further from the truth.    Let me explain…So if someone turns this into "eat whatever you want, whenever you want," it essentially becomes...