SUMMARY KEYWORDS

drinking, rebuilding, trust, body, sobriety, culture, lose weight, shame, gain weight, health, eat, listen to our bodies, food, intuitive eaters, stop drinking, stopping drinking, quitting drinking, sober, happier, recovery, alcohol-free, good food, bad food, take a break from drinking, motivation, willpower, stopped drinking, drinking a bottle of red wine a night, sugar, dopamine hit from alcohol, get away from drinking, carbohydrate, protein, fat, muscle, blood sugar, sick, painful grief, anxiety, switch mindset, habits, non-diet academy, walk you through how and why to quit dieting, what to do, how to set up your food, mental work, the way you think about food, body image, self-care, your relationship to exercise, your health, diet culture, your body will be happier, workouts, energy, sleep better, benefits, the way you look, the way you function

SPEAKERS: Casey McGuire Davidson + Katy Harvey

00:02

Welcome to the Hello Someday Podcast, the podcast for busy women who are ready to drink less and live more. I’m Casey McGuire Davidson, ex-red wine girl turned life coach helping women create lives they love without alcohol. But it wasn’t that long ago that I was anxious, overwhelmed, and drinking a bottle of wine and night to unwind. I thought that wine was the glue, holding my life together, helping me cope with my kids, my stressful job and my busy life. I didn’t realize that my love affair with drinking was making me more anxious and less able to manage my responsibilities.

In this podcast, my goal is to teach you the tried and true secrets of creating and living a life you don’t want to escape from.

Each week, I’ll bring you tools, lessons and conversations to help you drink less and live more. I’ll teach you how to navigate our drinking obsessed culture without a bus, how to sit with your emotions, when you’re lonely or angry, frustrated or overwhelmed, how to self soothe without a drink, and how to turn the decision to stop drinking from your worst case scenario to the best decision of your life.

I am so glad you’re here. Now let’s get started.

 

Hi there.

Today, We are talking about

how to rebuild trust with your body.

Katy Harvey is my guest.

[00:01:28]

She’s a Midwest girl, a non-diet, dietitian, and the host of the rebuilding trust with your body podcast. She specializes in intuitive eating and helping women ditch dieting, stress less about food and make peace with their bodies so they can feel comfortable in their own skin and live life more fully.

 

[00:01:50]

Katy is all about eating the foods you love. Unapologetically without going overboard, she fully believes that you can eat for satisfaction while also honoring your health.

 

So Katy, welcome. I’m glad you’re here.

[00:02:04]

Yes, I am so excited to be here. Thank you for having me.

Yeah. And when we were connecting, I wanted to do this episode because I know for myself, but a lot of women.

By the time they get to the point that they’re ready to stop drinking or take a break from drinking, they really don’t like how they feel, right?

[00:02:25]

Waking up with hangovers, feeling like shit. But for myself, I also really didn’t like how I looked, right? I was puffy. I was bloated. I kept trying to diet, but still drinking, which didn’t work. And one of the big mistakes that I made before I was successful and that I see a lot of women make is trying to remove alcohol at the same time doing a big diet or health kick.

 

[00:02:49]

So, doing a whole 30 or a juice cleanse or whatever it is, and it’s setting yourself up to fail. But I, the emotions of why we do that is they’re real.

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it, it goes to like the core of our sense of worthiness, you know, like we attach so much of that to our body’s size and shape and appearance.

[00:03:12]

And we feel like if we don’t look a certain way that we are not good enough, like as a person, and our culture reinforces that, you know, it’s like when somebody loses weight, they’re getting all these accolades and compliments and how did you do it? And so, we get like this social currency from it. And then, of course the shame if we gain weight.

 

[00:03:34]

And so I mean, it makes total sense. Yeah, absolutely. And you’re right. Like everybody, you know, doesn’t say anything at all if you gain weight, but the minute you lose some, you get all these positive things. So, in my mind, I’m always like, Oh, they weren’t saying it, but they met, they were thinking that it was bad or whatever it is.

[00:03:55]

So, talk to me about the work you do and how people lose trust with their body and how they can regain it.

 

Yeah, that’s such a good question. I love that you’re going at like the trust angle.

So, as a dietitian, the bulk of my training was very just like medical. And, you know, these are the different nutrition interventions based on whatever health problem a person has.

[00:04:26]

And I think I was very naive to assume that, oh, you know, I would just tell people that you need to eat this way, you know, with this, this protocol and that people were going to do that. No problem, because why wouldn’t they? That’s what they need to do for their health. And I quickly realized when I started, got out of school and started working with actual human beings, that it’s so much more complicated than that. And when we look at, like, our ability to trust ourselves with food and listen to our bodies, we’re all born intuitive eaters.

 

[00:05:00]

And so, like, if you have an infant, they will cry and they want food. They want milk or formula when they’re hungry. And when they’re done, they stop. And you can like try to get that baby to take more milk, but they’re probably not going to because they know how to listen to their bodies.

 

[00:05:17]

And even with toddlers, they’re good about it too. Like they’ll unapologetically eat, you know, a whole bunch of goldfish and no vegetables because they don’t have good food, bad food thoughts. But then, sometimes all they want is fruit, or you might give them a cookie and they take one bite and they’re done because they know how to listen to their bodies.

[00:05:38]

And then, somewhere along the way in childhood for most of us, we start to hear things like clean your plate, or you have to eat your vegetables before you can have your dessert. And the unintended consequence is we’re teaching the child to override the signals of their body. That don’t stop when you’re full, stop when your plate is empty.

[00:06:00]

Or choke down these vegetables to earn this food that you actually want for dessert. And then, as we get older and we’re exposed more to just diet culture that’s all around us, we start to absorb more and more of these messages of good food and bad food. And then if someone grows up in a home where someone is dieting, or maybe as a child, you were put on a diet or told to lose weight.

 

[00:06:29]

Now, we’ve got that entering the equation and you can see where the trust with ourselves. It’s. It’s eroded over time.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And you’re given so many different messages. I mean, I remember when I was like 11, my mom would actually pay us if she didn’t eat like the donuts she bought from us for the week. And I was just like, at the time I was like, sure I can, I’ll earn some money. But looking back, I’m like, Oh, that’s messed up.

[00:07:00]

Yeah. Or I hear a lot from people that they. We’re paid to lose weight. If they’re like they were overweight. Yeah. I’ll pay you to lose weight. Oh, that’s such a bad message. And I get well, and I’m like, it’s coming from this well intended part on the parent where it’s like, I don’t want my child to suffer, but yeah.

[00:07:22]

Yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s so hard growing up in the culture we are, and I’ve, you know, over the last, I would say, decades since I’ve been learning more about it, have been way more aware of diet culture and of the messed up thoughts and actions that we have, and yet, At the same time, I’m still bought into it and trying to decondition myself.

[00:07:48]

Like, I’m aware that my thoughts are fucked up and yet I’m still a part of it. Like, it’s just, it’s a mindfuck. Like, I’m just like, it was almost easier when I wasn’t aware of diet culture as much. Like, cause at least then I didn’t have this internal, like, conflict every minute of every day.

For sure. Yeah, there’s like a blissful ignorance to it, you know, yeah.

[00:08:14]

Yeah, it is. I mean, it’s just messages all around us. And for all of us who are alive today, we were born into a society that already had all of this diet mentality going on. And by that, I just mean, you know, like. Putting weight loss on a pedestal, the fear of fatness, these ideas about like good food and bad food.

[00:08:37]

And granted that’s such a moving target. You know, we’ve been through all the different eras of the types of diets that are popular and, and we live through the low fat era and the snack wells, cookies, and now we’re in another low carb era. And. It’s so the idea of what’s healthy and not healthy, it kind of changes over time, but there’s always been some type of belief system around that.

[00:09:00]

And then, we start to attach our own moral character to it. Of, like, I’m a good person when I eat a salad and I’m a bad person when I eat a brownie and then all of that spirals into like, well, screw it. I already blew it. So now, I’m just going to eat the whole pan of brownies. Yeah, and it’s, you know, weirdly, so this is something I come across a lot.

[00:09:22]

The thought process when you are trying to take a break from drinking or stop and then you drink again is very similar to some ways when you’re trying to quote unquote eat healthy slash lose weight / go on a diet, meaning you’re all resolved, you’ve got all the motivation. You’ve got all the willpower.

 

[00:09:42]

A lot of times, you also berate yourself and talk shit to yourself. Like I drink too much. This is bad. I have to stop. I’m a piece of shit. What the hell is wrong with me? I’m going to do this and then you get to Thursday or 3 days, 5 days and you’re like, fuck it. I can’t do this. I’m going to break anyway.

[00:10:02]

Why? Why deny myself now? Yada, yada, yada. And then, you start again on Monday and that to me was very, very similar to how. I used to be around foods when I was trying to diet. And yet, it’s very different. Meaning that, like your body doesn’t need alcohol at all. Your body does actually need food. And a lot of times when we’re trying to quote unquote “diet”, we are denying our body the food we need. And not getting the protein or the fat or whatever it is.

So, where is my advice with stopping drinking? Is, you know, unless you are medically needed to detox because that can be very dangerous, but if you’re not physically dependent yes, cut it out of your, like, just don’t drink and do all the emotional support and physical support and accountability and, limiting beliefs whatever it is have it change to get away from alcohol. But food is very different and yet we try to use the same approach a million percent and that is consistently.

 

[00:11:13]

A place I see people tripping themselves up is they try to take this abstinence type of approach with food. And granted, we can’t like fully abstain from food in the sense of not eating. Because to your point, we have to eat to stay alive. We don’t have to have alcohol to stay alive. And so, then there is a decision process of like, what food is allowed and not allowed.

[00:11:35]

If that’s the way you’re thinking. And so, for most people, then they’re cutting out these entire categories of food. And they’re probably also trying to slash their calories at the time. And this is, you know, a fundamental reason why dieting itself does not work as a long term solution for the vast majority of people, because you’re fighting against your body’s biology, and eventually your body is going to win.

[00:12:00]

Yeah, because it’s, it’s so hard to consistently under eat when you’re hungry for a vast, for a long period of time. So talk to me about, I mean, we’ll get into it, but I, if anyone is trying to stop drinking, please, please, please. Don’t go on a diet. Don’t go on a health kick for all of the reasons, but especially because hunger is a huge trigger to drink and you are going to crave sugar.

 

[00:12:30]

Even if before I stopped drinking, I was like, I do not have a sweet tooth at all. Yet, I was drinking a bottle of red wine a night, which has A ton of sugar. So, and I was getting that like dopamine hit from alcohol, but you still get in a lower amount from sugar. So, please just get away from drinking 1st and you can eat the brownies and the cookies or the milkshake or whatever, because your body is already going through this huge change.

 

[00:13:00]

And once you move away from that, talk to me about what you’re, like, how do you teach women to rebuild trust with their body and eat intuitively and not diet and actually get the nutrition they need? I mean, it’s so huge. It’s complicated, right? And it’s A lot of both learning and unlearning and to me, it starts with some awareness.

[00:13:27]

It’s very hard to convince someone who still thinks that dieting is the right way to go that that’s not ultimately going to help them. And so, for a lot of people, they kind of have to hit a rock bottom of sorts with, with dieting to be ready to go. Okay, I need to look at my relationship with food and to approach this differently.

[00:13:51]

So I, I do in the beginning, a lot of education around why dieting doesn’t work and to help people see, like, it’s not that you don’t have enough willpower or that you just didn’t try hard enough. It’s not a you thing. It’s a dieting thing. It doesn’t work for almost anybody in the long run. The tricky thing is you share that.

[00:14:12]

Can you share that education about why diets don’t work and what you communicate with George?

Yeah. So essentially, your body can’t tell the difference if your diet. Okay, let me back up, dieting. Like, the goal of it is usually to lose weight. And so, basically, we’re trying to figure out, how do I cut calories in order to lose weight?

[00:14:31]

How do I create a calorie deficit? And then there’s all sorts of ideas of how to do that. You know, do you go low carb? Do you just count calories or points or whatever? At the end of the day, your body can’t tell the difference between you’re not eating enough calories because you’re on a diet and you’re doing this on purpose, versus what if there’s not enough food available.

[00:14:52]

And your body’s most basic primitive function is to keep you alive, because if it does not accomplish that, then game over. So, when your body perceives this threat to your survival, what it will do is, it will lower your metabolic rate. Meaning that it will literally burn fewer calories to compensate for the fact that you’re not eating enough.

[00:15:12]

And then, what happens is your total conscious time increases, which is the amount of thoughts you’re having about food. So, you’re going to start to think about food more because your body’s trying to get you to go eat some food. And when you do eat food, you’re probably going to seek out things that are very quick energy, which would be high carbohydrate foods, things that are more calorie dense.

You’re not going to be craving broccoli in that instance. You’re going to want the chips and the cookies and the pizza and the burgers and stuff. And then, when you do give in and eat it, it’s kind of like you’re, you were underwater holding your breath, and then you come up to the surface and you gasp for air.

[00:15:50]

You just like, inhale it all. And your body’s like, Oh, good. Now we have energy and maybe we’ll save some of that for later. So, we start to see the weight coming back on that you might have lost initially with the diet. And for people who go on diets, most people do lose weight in the beginning. And then between years two and five, about 95 percent of people will have regained the weight.

[00:16:13]

And for two thirds of those people, they’ll gain more than they lost in the first place. And when you do that, yo-yoing up and down, enough times. We call it weight cycling. It causes metabolic damage to your body. Like, it’s bad for your health. Weight cycling correlates with heart disease, with early death, with muscle loss, all sorts of things.

[00:16:33]

It gives you insulin resistance, which causes blood sugar issues. It’s not healthy for you, but we’re told over and over again that, well, you got to lose weight to be healthy. Yet the way that we’re going about doing it is quite literally unhealthy.

So, it just, it goes against your body’s survival instincts in so many ways.

[00:16:52]

And then, the more you damage your metabolism and jack with all of those things, it makes it harder to honor your health and have a peaceful relationship with food. And you’re most likely to gain weight and then, you’re frustrated and you do it all over again.

Yeah, that’s really interesting. I did an episode with, with one of my sober besties who actually is a anti diet weight cycling type coach, you know, like this the same thing that you’re talking about and I was telling her You know, oh, but I’ve lost like 30 or 40 pounds at various times in my life. So, I just you know I did it before my wedding and I did it, you know to some extent when I was 16 and I did it you know, after I had my son and she’s like, so I was like, I’ve lost this weight.

[00:17:43]

That is my ideal weight. And she was like, no, you’ve weight cycled like X amount of times. And if it had worked, you would still be that way. And yet, in my mind, I’m like, I still want to be the low weight I thought was perfect for me when I was 16 or when I was, got at 27, and I’m 49. Like, that is insane.

[00:18:04]

I’ve had two children. I’m 49. The idea that I would be the same weight that I was as a teenager is crazy, but we’re like, I’m the same height, so this should work. Right, yeah. No, and I hear this all the time from people when I ask them, like, what do you think you should weigh, or what do you want to weigh, and they’ll tell me, like, their teenage weight, and I’m like, you were technically still a child!

[00:18:24]

You weren’t even an adult yet. Of course, you don’t. I looked at my son once and this was a couple years ago. He was, he’s 16 now. Maybe he was 13 and he was like 5’10 and like 120 pounds or something. And I was like, looking at him cause he’s trying to gain weight. Like, cause he plays sports and, and I was like, thought to myself, Oh my God, any woman would kill to have your body.

And then, I was like, how fucked up is that? We want the body of basically a prepubescent boy and we’ve been taught that’s what we should want. You know what I mean? That’s so crazy. And if we back up and I mean, you could get real philosophical. Like, why do we want that? Why? Why does that seem desirable to?

[00:19:10]

I mean, it’s just so messed up because at the end of the day, it’s like a hanger. And they want your body, like, the model’s body to look like a hanger to display the clothes. And yet we’ve somehow internalized that to be what we were supposed to be. Yeah, and most of that, what we sort of see as the ideal and with the models and clothing and all of that. I mean, it’s not even biologically possible for most people without using some pretty scary behaviors or being a dangerously low body weight or low body fat. Like, it’s not healthy. Yeah, so, to some extent, we need to reframe what a quote unquote “normal” healthy body is for a human being. We’ve been told that the BMI is the metric of that of like, oh, well, tell me about that. Because I’ve heard that too. Right? And doctors use that. They’re like, you are technically overweight, so it must be right, you know, yeah, so the BMI, like, people will define themselves.

[00:20:18]

Well, I’m overweight as if it’s their identity. I’m obese by the BMI. The problem is the BMI actually doesn’t do a very good job of measuring an individual person’s health. Like, if we use it to look at very large population statistics, it can give us a rough idea of things. But for you to take that BMI number and apply it to your health and to declare that you’re healthy or unhealthy based on it is not very accurate.

[00:20:44]

And a lot of people don’t even realize that the BMI itself. The idea of the human body itself was invented back in the 1800s by some dude who was a mathematician and an astronomer. He didn’t have any health background and even he himself said this should not be used for individual humans. And the data that it was built off of was from white European men.

[00:21:05]

And actually what he was trying to do was to define the quote unquote like ideal body. Like it was kind of a eugenics, very racist type of thing. Oh Christ. I mean it’s just, it’s built on very Problematic ways of thinking, and we have many more accurate ways to measure health here in 2025 than we did in the 1800s.

[00:21:27]

And so, you know, when we look at health, we want to ask ourselves, well, like, are your organs functioning properly? And how would you know if they are well, I mean, blood work is a good way of assessing that your doctor can do a physical if needed, there can be imaging like we can really get in there and figure out is your body actually healthy and the number on the scale and the BMI really doesn’t tell us that we need to have more data to be able to make those determinations when it comes to health.

[00:22:00]

Yeah, and it’s complicated, right? Because I also hear from people or doctors or whatever in terms of like the amount of fat that surrounds your organs aren’t. You know, like that’s a lot in my community people because that’s kind of the new thing is like, oh, yes, everybody agrees.

[00:22:16]

BMI is junk, but now we’re replacing that with all this like waist circumference and ratios and stuff. And even if it’s true, like, there is data that says that, you know, being at above a certain weight or having a certain waist to hip ratio does correlate with certain health. Risks or health conditions like that’s true.

[00:22:40]

We’re not saying like, oh, it doesn’t matter at all. The problem is, well, what are you going to do about it? So that it’s still, even if that’s true, it still doesn’t make dieting and effective or healthy. It’s kind of like, you know, male baldness also corresponds or correlates with heart disease. That doesn’t mean that we give all the men, their heart disease goes away.

[00:23:06]

So, I’m just curious. Yeah, for real. Yep. It does. I like the men have something that they could be. I mean, I’m a terrible person, but I’m like, thank God they have something that they can be judged on from like, just looking at them. And, but that’s, you know, I feel bad. I have a husband, yada, yada, but you know, women get judged on fucking everything, like on everything, especially appearance wise.

[00:23:27]

Yeah. That’s what I mean.

 

Yeah. I wanted to talk to you about this, because the best analogy I’ve ever heard, the one that finally sort of broke through and made sense to me, and I shared it with my daughter, who at the time was 8, and we had a lot of discussions around it, like, it helped me.

[00:23:46]

It’s not, I still have questions about what the solution is. And I want to talk to you about that. Like, how the hell do you regain trust with your body or not overeat to the point where you’re sick, which I have done. And all that stuff. But I heard somewhere, someone described it as like, somehow the world has decided Marketing sales, whatever that the ideal dog body type is a Pomeranian and that everyone should be a Pomeranian and like all the Internet Instagram fitness models. You see your Pomeranians and this is the dog breed and so. All the other dogs, the Golden Retrievers and the Great Danes and the, like, Corgis or whatever, which, by the way, I think Corgis are the cutest, are, spend their entire lives starving themselves and beating themselves up because they’re not a Pomeranian.

[00:24:35]

And you’re like, hey, Golden Retriever! A lot of people love Golden Retrievers, you are never going to be a fucking Pomeranian. You are going to be a starving, miserable Golden Retriever when you could just kind of embrace that. You’re a golden retriever and people love you, and you’re gorgeous, and you know, whatever, whatever that is.

[00:24:54]

Does that make sense?

Yeah, it does. There’s actually, I know exactly where that comes from. There’s a video. Where does that come from? It’s called, Poodle Science.

Oh my gosh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I need to look it up.

You know, to kind of merge that into. Okay. So, how do we address our health and trust ourselves and all of that with the dog example, like the dogs, if they stop, you know, starving themselves and trying to become something they’re not, then they can be themselves live a wonderful life and take care of their bodies and not have to just torture themselves trying to conform to some other standard. That is just not genetically how they’re meant to be.

And we, as humans are very much the same. We’re not all meant to be the exact same size and shape. And We get that when it comes to height, but we’re led to believe that weight is something that we all can and should be controlling, despite the fact that our weight is highly genetic as well.

[00:26:02]

Yeah. Well, so tell me about non diet strategies to fuel your body without diet. You know, having restrictive eating or overeating, emotional eating, all that kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah, so, okay, so when, a little bit ago we were talking about how, like, I kind of start with that education of, of, okay, here’s why dieting doesn’t work, what it’s doing to you.

[00:26:25]

So, getting the person on board with, okay, I get why that’s a bad idea. And so then the question becomes, okay, now what do I do? So, where I like to start, I, I’m steering people towards intuitive eating. And for people who aren’t familiar, it is a framework that was developed by 2 dietitians. And they wrote a book about it.

[00:26:46]

It’s been updated several times. It’s backed by over 200 research studies. It’s considered to be an evidence based approach to our eating and to our health. And so, that’s what I’m referring to. So, read the book if you haven’t. And the thing is, though, if I just tell someone go eat intuitively, well, first of all, they’re probably just going to have a free for all with food, or they’re going to be like, I don’t know how.

[00:27:09]

I don’t even know what that means anymore because I don’t know how to listen to my body. I don’t know what normal eating looks like. I don’t know what I should put in my mouth. I don’t even know what I like anymore. So, I start people off with some structure that functions as a stepping stone to help them reconnect with their body and to build that trust and that intuition over time.

[00:27:30]

So, the structure that I start with is pretty simple. It’s eat breakfast within about an hour of waking up. Like there’s nothing magical about the one hour mark, but like, let’s get that going. Let’s get some fuel in your system and get your metabolism going and let your body know that there is nourishment on board and available.

[00:27:50]

And then, from there, let’s try not to go any longer than about 3 or 4 hours throughout the day without eating something. And so, if you think about your typical daily eating schedule and where your meals fit in, you can kind of anchor the meals in and then figure out where do you need snacks to fill in those gaps for when the meals are longer than 4 hours apart.

[00:28:11]

And so, now we’ve got, with that, a nice, simple, like, eating schedule. And you might even have to set alarms or reminders so that you can follow that because what will happen is as your body gets to know what to expect when food is coming, your appetite signals will sync up with that because our appetite technically is part of our circadian rhythm.

[00:28:34]

And so, your body will start to know, oh, hey, it’s lunchtime. Or, hey, we’re ready for a snack. So now we’ve got that hunger becoming more reliable and predictable. And your digestive system will know what to expect. So, your body will be ready with those digestive enzymes and hormones and all the stuff that goes into digestion.

[00:28:52]

And then, what I teach is when you are eating, if we can think about combining carbohydrate, protein, and fat. Those are your 3 macronutrients that are giving your body actual fuel and energy through calories. That’s where calories come from. And when we combine all 3 of those, it’s going to give us a good level of satisfaction.

[00:29:16]

It’s going to keep our blood sugar balanced, and it allows us to mix and match and pair foods together in a way that’s satisfying and not depriving. Because it’s the deprivation That will then drive the intense cravings and compulsions and the binging and all that stuff. Yeah, and I mean, that makes a lot of sense.

[00:29:38]

I always, when I’m talking to women, when they’re stopping drinking, especially I suggest setting an alarm for 3 to eat something. Yes, I heard you say that and I was just like, yes, exactly. Yeah, because otherwise you’re like driving home or at the end of the day when you normally drink and you’re starving and.

[00:29:58]

You know, you’re trying to get dinner ready and you’re like nibbling on things and then you’re not hungry anymore by the time dinner is on the table. And yeah, yeah, so what I mean, I always struggle with. Yes. Carb, protein, fat, snack. Like, what is that? Do you have any ideas of what those snacks could be?

[00:30:16]

Could you tell us? Snacks. I love snacks. So, here’s the really cool thing. All food on the whole entire planet breaks down into some version of carbohydrate, protein and fat. The only sort of exception to that is non starchy vegetables, like those are mostly just fiber and vitamins and water, which are great, but the reason they don’t have many calories in them is because they don’t have much carb protein or fat.

 

But all the other foods that are giving us calories have macronutrients in them. And when we can think about what the food is breaking down into, then it starts to strip away some of the judgment and the guilt about food. And we can think about how to pair foods together in a way that does support our health.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson 

Hi there. If you’re listening to this episode, and have been trying to take a break from drinking, but keep starting and stopping and starting again, I want to invite you to take a look at my on demand coaching course, The Sobriety Starter Kit®.

 

The Sobriety Starter Kit® is an online self study sober coaching course that will help you quit drinking and build a life you love without alcohol without white knuckling it or hating the process. The course includes the exact step by step coaching framework I work through with my private coaching clients, but at a much more affordable price than one on one coaching. And the sobriety starter kit is ready, waiting and available to support you anytime you need it. And when it fits into your schedule. You don’t need to work your life around group meetings or classes at a specific day or time.

This course is not a 30 day challenge, or a one day at a time approach. Instead, it’s a step by step formula for changing your relationship with alcohol. The course will help you turn the decision to stop drinking, from your worst case scenario to the best decision of your life.

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[00:31:00]

So, let’s say you’re, what I tell people for snack in particular, is to think carb protein. Because if you have carb protein, they’re probably will be some fat in there and you’ll be good to go. So a carb protein could be crackers for carbohydrate and then some cheese for some protein and that has some fat in it as well.

Or you could do pretzels with peanut butter or yogurt and fruit or a banana and some almonds. And when you just train your brain to think of food in terms of what it’s breaking down into, you start to see, oh, okay, I, I get how all foods can fit into a balanced pattern of eating. That makes a lot of sense.

[00:31:45]

Yeah. And part of me when, you know, whenever you’re doing, like, the quote unquote health kick, or when I used to do them, it’s like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what to do. So trust me, I’m 40. Whatever, like, I’ve spent my entire life being taught what I should eat, even though, like, the rules keep changing. Right?

[00:32:05]

Like, it’s always a different thing, but it’s, it’s like doing it for any sustained period of time. That’s so difficult. And that’s what you’re talking about in terms of, like, trying to take entire categories of food off the table or trying to have a calorie deficit. You know, you’re like, Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know what I should eat, but somehow in the back of your mind, you’re like, but I better eat way less.

[00:32:30]

I’ll eat the right things, but way less. And then, you give up and throw it out the window.

Absolutely. And essentially, what you’re describing is the difference between like working against your body by cutting out food groups or undercutting your calories versus what we’re trying to do with my clients is work with your body.

[00:32:51]

So, instead of depriving, we’re providing your body with what I need.

Okay. Yeah. Providing your body with what you need.

[00:33:00]

So, what are usually the biggest pushback that you hear from your clients when you take them down the path of intuitive eating? What are the biggest blockers? Probably two things. The first is the idea that there’s no such thing as a good food and a bad food.

[00:33:21]

People are like, that’s insane. You can’t tell me that like Cheetos are healthier than carrots. I don’t know why I can’t eat rich foods. And so, the way I address that is that there truly is no food that is inherently 100 percent of the time healthy or unhealthy. Context matters. And the situation, you know, different things call for different types of food.

[00:33:52]

So, If we have like, let’s say you walk into your kitchen and you see all your appliances, you’ve got your fridge and your microwave, your stove, your dishwasher, you’re not judging like, Oh, one of those is like better than the other. And oh, that one’s bad. And this one’s good. We can try to start channeling the same energy towards food.

Different foods have different nutrients and different tastes and textures, and that’s a good thing, not a bad thing. Like, we have to have a variety of nutrients for our body to function properly. And at the end of the day, the food you’re eating, so when we put food in our mouth, and it goes to our esophagus, and then into our stomach, and it’s breaking down, and it’s in your intestines where it’s getting absorbed into your body.

[00:34:32]

By the time it’s getting absorbed, it no longer resembles the Cheeto that you ate. It has been broken down into molecules of carbohydrate and fat. And your body doesn’t know or care whether that carb and fat came from a Cheeto or some avocado toast. It’s still carb and fat. And it’s still going to be used as carbon fat.

[00:34:52]

And am I suggesting you should just eat Cheetos all day, every day? No, of course not. But I also wouldn’t tell people to subsist on blueberries or kale all day, every day. Because that would also not give them what they need. And it would set them up to overeat on other things. And so, when we can neutralize a lot of these judgments about food and to realize that there is a time and a place for all types of food, and that as long as you’re eating a wide variety of food, you’re going to be fine.

[00:35:23]

It’s when you have this jacked up relationship with food and all these rules that are impossible to follow, that it creates the chaos with food that’s actually unhealthy for you. But when you have food neutrality, the research shows that you naturally will eat more fruits and vegetables, you’ll eat at home more, and you’ll get the variety and the nutrition you need in a way that’s not detrimental to your health.

[00:35:49]

So, that’s the first one, is like, You can’t tell me there’s no such thing as good food, bad food. The second thing, I bump up against a lot is, just the weight and health thing. People are like, my doctor said, I had to lose weight in order to be healthy, or I have to lose weight to get my diabetes under control, or in order to have the knee replacement surgery that I need.

[00:36:11]

And I think where people kind of misunderstand what we’re saying in the field of intuitive eating, we’re not saying that every single body is healthy at every single size or every single weight. What we’re saying is that, you can address your health regardless of where your weight is at and that there are meaningful things you can do to improve your health that aren’t about chasing a lower number on the scale and dieting because we know that in the grand scheme of things, that’s not going to produce the outcome you want.

[00:36:46]

Dieting is the number one predictor of weight gain, not weight loss.

And so, if we say, okay, let’s take that out of the equation for a minute. What else could we do to help someone with our diabetes example, with their blood sugar? There’s a million things we can do to help support better blood sugar, both from a nutrition standpoint, physical activity, sleep, medication, stress management, a million things.

[00:37:11]

When it, like the example with the knee surgery. A person could do physical therapy to strengthen the joints around their knees. That can help improve the pain dramatically. There are different types of injections for the knees. There are surgeons who will operate without requiring a certain BMI.

[00:37:28]

There’s all sorts of different things. And I get that all of those solutions are imperfect. But if we come back to like, just because theoretically being at a lower weight, Might make you healthier. How are you going to do that? Because we don’t have a permanent way to accomplish that. It, it’s just like, let’s say that you’re living paycheck to paycheck and basically you’re broke and so you’re stressed about money all the time winning the lottery.

[00:37:56]

Would it make your life better? Yeah, it would. It doesn’t increase your odds of winning the lottery though. And it’s kind of the same thing with weight, even if that makes a lot of sense to me. That when you said it that way, it’s like, yeah, winning the lottery would be fantastic. But yeah, it doesn’t increase your odds of being able to do it.

[00:38:17]

But we want to hold on and be like, no, even though, and I’ve seen stats, you know, better than me, I’ve read like 97 percent of diets fail over X amount of time. And, and I’ve also heard that over like two years, the average Weight Watchers customer participant. Loses five pounds, like that’s, I don’t know if that’s the right number, but it was something that I was like, nobody fucking joints weight watchers and does it for two years for the goal of five pounds being the amount of weight loss, but it is, you can see where people do blame themselves though.

[00:38:51]

Like, think about how many people, you know, who have done weight watchers 10 times, like, they’ll keep going. I did weight watchers. That’s how I lost weight before my wedding. Like, it’s like, Oh, 26, I was going to. And I did lose weight, but then I gained it back. But yeah, it’s, we blame ourselves instead of going, Oh, maybe their program or their product isn’t actually very effective.

[00:39:14]

Well, and you know, and now Weight Watchers has turned to the medical, injection. Which everybody’s like, oh, so your program doesn’t work and now we have to add medications on, huh? 40 years later, yeah. I’m not saying weight doesn’t matter, or that it has nothing to do with health. Because It does. I’m just saying, dieting is not the solution that we hope it would be. And that there are other ways that a million percent we can absolutely address and improve your health. There are so many other ways to do that if we get you out of the tunnel vision of dieting.

So, the answer is, Dieting is not a viable solution.

[00:39:57]

So what, what can we do instead? Or the way we’ve been taught to diet over the years, etc. Basically, it’s, to me, it’s first and foremost about like, well, let’s stop doing the harmful things. So let’s get off the dieting roller coaster ride. No, you don’t need to buy any more tickets to that ride. And let’s heal your metabolism.

Because, like I mentioned, like, dieting messes up your metabolism in so many ways, and by that I mean, like, the way your body’s burning calories, I mean, some of, like, the different hormones in your body that relate to appetite, sometimes it even messes with like, female hormone, like, sex hormones, estrogen, stuff like that, and digestive hormones, and so, Let’s correct all of that.

[00:40:38]

Let’s get your blood sugar to where it needs to be. And then let’s see where does your body want to be as far as your weight goes. Another thing is a lot of times when people are weight cycling, what happens is you will, Inevitably lose some degree of muscle when you’re losing weight on whatever diet you’re doing, but when we regain it, we regain it almost all his body fat.

[00:41:06]

And so, you do want time and you’ve jacked with your body composition. So now, your muscle and body fat ratio is worse than it was before. And this was what I saw my very first job at a college. I was doing breast cancer research. I was a research dietician and we were doing these weight loss studies with people and we would track their body composition as part of it.

[00:41:28]

And when it was all said and done, they lost weight on our diet. When they quit doing it, they regained it and their body composition was worse. And I’m, I want to be careful to couch this, that it’s not about, Oh, you have more body fat. And that’s like negative because of fat phobia. I’m just talking about this from like a metabolic standpoint, that your muscle is metabolically active in the sense that your muscle burns calories while we’re just sitting here.

[00:41:55]

So, less muscle means lower metabolic rate, lower calorie burn. Your muscle also helps with your blood sugar because your muscle cells are sensitive to insulin and can help keep your blood sugar in check. And so when you’ve got a higher, that higher ratio, that’s out of whack with your muscle to your body fat, it can create more insulin.

 

[00:42:18]

Which can actually drive up your appetite. It drives up your blood sugar. Then we start to see pre-diabetes and diabetes and fatty liver and all sorts of other problems. So, what we want to do is like, fix all of this the best that we can, and sometimes that does require medication in conjunction with eating in a more balanced way and all of that and physical activity and it’s from there that we can say, okay, where does your weight want to be at this phase of your life? Because your weight right now, like you said, you know, like the weight of a 49 year old woman is probably not what it was when she was 22 and just getting out of college and that’s okay.

[00:42:56]

It doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you.

Yeah. So, you gave us some, your recommendations of what would help, meaning possibly, you know, eating within an hour of waking up, not going more than three hours between meals, making sure that there is some combination of carb, protein, fat staying away from dieting or trying to do a calorie deficit.

[00:43:26]

Because that just doesn’t work. What else am I missing in terms of how we can rebuild trust with our body? What about the body image stuff that messes us up? I was just thinking that, yeah. I mean, I think with, with the body image. The first thing is like stop actively hating on your body, so when you’re in that space and you’re like thinking all these awful things about your body, like try to notice that and say, okay, like that’s not helping me.

[00:43:57]

We don’t make positive changes or sustainable changes when we’re in shame.

So, can we at least notice that really awful self-talk and just say, okay, stop.

Yeah. For a lot of people, they do need to take a break from the scale, especially in the early phases of this process. Like, you don’t need to be getting on the scale every single day, certainly not multiple times a day.

[00:44:21]

And even once a week, I think, I mean, we want to be careful with how much power does that scale have over your mood and your self-esteem and what you will and won’t let yourself eat. So, for some people, they just need to take a break from that for a while and let go of the number. And, you know, even looking in the mirror, thinking about how are you talking to yourself, and then with your clothing, are you wearing clothes that fit your body right now, or are you trying to squeeze into things that are too tight, and that all day long remind you of how terrible you feel about yourself, because you deserve to have clothing that fits [00:45:00] your here and now body.

[00:45:01]

Even if you don’t particularly like your here and now body and that in and of itself can be such a game changer because it’s just a genuine act of, of kindness and respect towards yourself to wear clothes that fit and you know, it, it can be hard to have to get bigger clothes and I’m not suggesting you have to go spend thousands of dollars on a new wardrobe.

[00:45:25]

Like you may have to do it in a really budget friendly way, but you deserve it. Clothes that fit.

Yeah. One thing that I have this quote on my like vision board, push pin board. That’s by my office and it actually really helped me because when I, you know, when I look back at pictures of me at 30 or 33 or, you know, I was so mean to myself and now I look back and I’m like, why did I spend all that energy and time being such an asshole to myself thinking I look terrible? Cause I look back and I was like, I was fine. I was fine. And even like, when I look at pictures of me compared to in the same image as my friends, where I thought that they were like so much skinnier and so much more gorgeous than me.

[00:46:13]

I look back and I’m like, yeah, we actually were pretty similar. I just had it in my mind that they were somehow exponentially different than I was.

So, I have this this quote up that says, 20 years from now you’d give anything to be exactly this age exactly this healthy and back in that this exact moment take a second to enjoy it now and that’s by Rich Webster and I just you know when I think of you know last summer I went to Provence with 3 other sober girlfriends, we had the best time and I’m like, okay. I could spend this 2 weeks thinking that I, you know, wish I looked differently or could realize that at 68, I would give anything to be this exact age.

[00:47:04]

Exactly. This healthy looking exactly as I do now. And in this moment, it’s such a waste. Yeah, and that kind of gives me chills actually, when you say that, because it’s such a powerful reminder to appreciate what we have now and. I think a lot of us look back on past versions of ourselves when we can remember thinking how terrible we looked and you look at it now and like, well, what I wouldn’t give to be that size now or that much younger and probably like you said, in 20 years, we’re going to think the same thing.

[00:47:38]

And so, can we look upon ourselves with softer eyes and more accepting eyes and to. Also recognize that what that also tells us is that magically being at a certain number on the scale isn’t just poof going to make your life sunshine and rainbows and you’re going to feel like a million bucks because when you were at that weight, you didn’t feel like a million bucks.

[00:48:03]

And so, it’s not just a function of being that way. And that’s hard to reckon with. Cause I think we like that. That’s the fantasy we’ve been sold for forever.

Yeah, and what’s interesting is, I mean, I always talk to women when they’re stopping drinking, and I’m like, forget about the scale right now, forget about trying to not eat sugar, try to eat less, or doing the math on, I drank a bottle of wine tonight, that’s a thousand calories, I should be losing like the math, but I was like, just take a selfie of yourself, The day you stop drinking and then do it weekly as you go along.

 

[00:48:41]

And even if you don’t lose a single pound, you will look so much better. You’re, you will notice not being bloated in your face. You will start to see cheekbones. Your eyes will be brighter. Your skin will look better. Your hair will look better. Like you’ll have less bloating around your stomach. Like, you will be exponentially healthier simply by removing alcohol.

[00:49:05]

Regardless of the scale budgets or regardless of if you’re eating the brownies or whatever it is, because you’re no longer poisoning yourself with this toxic substance. So, just you don’t have to also go to that extreme of like, I’m going to cut out alcohol and sugar and gluten and dairy and like all the things like, you know, like, just cutting out the alcohol is like a massive and it’s a big enough change emotional change. It’s a coping strategy change.

It’s a habit change. Like, it’s a huge change for anyone. So, allow yourself. I mean, just the idea even of habit stacking, like, I love atomic habits, right? That 1 percent improvement. So, in the beginning, you’re just removing alcohol.

[00:49:51]

That’s it. You’re going to be Tired, you’re going to be irritated. You’re going to be whatever. And then once you get past that, then the other reason I wanted to stop drinking was I was like doing really shitty workouts. I was feeling terrible. I was like doing burpees at 6 in the morning with a brutal hangover and a burp bottle of wine in my belly. Like, it was miserable. So, I started like going to my workouts in the morning, not hung over. That was amazing. I started running and actually enjoying it for the first time because it was like getting my anxious energy out and I needed that physical release. But you can’t do that all at once.

[00:50:31]

Totally. Yeah. And I’m so glad that that’s what you teach because I’ve also seen in the, the sober space, a lot of kind of diety nutrition advice of like, oh, okay, so you’re going to stop drinking and then you’re going to like do all these other quote unquote “healthy” things. And I love that you give people the permission to not have to do that and to like eat the damn brownie.

 

[00:51:02]

And let yourself comfort yourself some with food and get yourself through this really, really challenging thing. And let’s just see what that does for you. You know, when the other reason is it doesn’t fucking work. Like trying to remove alcohol while dieting. Like, I did that so many times and it just didn’t work.

[00:51:25]

I would get to 2 or 3 weeks and break or I’d be miserable. And it was like, is it because I’m not drinking or is it because I’m fucking starving. And eating nothing but lettuce, like you need to separate those two. So it’s, to some extent, it’s practical too. It’s like, do you want to keep doing the absolute worst part of quitting drinking over and over and over again?

 

[00:51:47]

Do 4 days, 5 days, 2 weeks. Do you want to do that indefinitely? Or do you just want to throw the book at stopping drinking? Forget about the diet and food. Get stronger, get healthier, get further away from cravings. And then you’ll have the clarity and energy to do what you want to do in life, and you can make an informed decision.

 

[00:52:09]

Hopefully, listening to Katy. Listening to this conversation about how to do it in a way that you might actually be successful, but, you know, don’t set yourself up to fail because of these, you know, outdated and also really punitive, crappy thoughts about yourself and what you quote unquote “should do”.

[00:52:36]

I think that’s so well said because yeah, the, in the punitive part of it in particular, I think sometimes that’s, it’s almost part of the allure of dieting is. I’m going to punish myself for how bad I’ve been and for how terrible I feel about myself and how unworthy I am in this body. And like, I deserve to deprive myself and it’s just that we talk to ourselves that way it really, really is.

[00:53:03]

And I, you know, 1 of the things I had to do in my friend who does similar work that you do help me do this is I had to clean up my, like, quote, unquote, aspirational. Instagram feed and get rid of, like, basically all the Pomeranians that were in there, like all these blonde, skinny, smiling fitness people who were telling me, just eat this or just do this work out or just do X, Y, Z and you’ll be fine and fill it with, like, more realistic Depictions of women’s body.

[00:53:41]

I mean, when we were growing up, it was the magazines, right? And there’s plenty of like actual scientific research on this, that like, the more you look at those types of photos, and they did a lot of this with magazine research, like the worst you feel. And now, it’s, we don’t do that with magazines. We do it with social media and it’s the unspoken message of, if you eat how I eat and exercise, how I exercise, you will look like me.

[00:54:03]

And that’s just, it’s not true. Like, we could all do the same thing. We’d still look different. Oh my God. And on like women’s health magazines, they do this interview. Like, what is this person eating? And I’m like, she’s fucking 22. Like, when you look at what they’re allegedly eating, there’s no fucking way.

[00:54:22]

Like, it’s hardly any food. And a lot of times it’s like really active people. It’s just ridiculous. , the social media thing is such an important one, though, because it kind of becomes subliminal messaging.

[00:54:32]

If all you’re ever seeing when you’re scrolling your phone for however many hours a day on it, do you get your like, weekly screen reports? Like, you averaged however many hours a day on your phone. And I’m like, oh, I like to pretend because it’s for work. Right? I’m like, oh, no, I have a Yeah, it’s not true.

[00:54:47]

It’s not true. When that’s all your brain is being exposed to is this narrow lens of what a woman’s body should look like, then we compare ourselves to that, even if we intellectually understand that’s not accurate. But like, what you’re saying, if we start to fill that feed with a wider range of body sizes and shapes and abilities and to prove to your brain that diversity is normal and it exists and it’s wonderful and it’s beautiful then we can start to recognize that it’s not that everybody else looks like this and I don’t because it’s not true.

No. Completely. That makes a ton of sense and it’s it is ingrained in us so early. And one thing that’s helped me, and I’m sure a lot of women listening to this, you know, when you know better, it’s still hard to implement in your own mind, you, it, but when I looked at my daughter, it really had me cut out a lot of the negative behaviors, like having her watch me weigh myself, having her watch me say, oh, I shouldn’t really have ice cream or whatever, like, I try, I may still think that and I’m working through that, but I don’t demonstrate it to her and the way that, for example, my mom did with me and no judgment on my mom, like, we were all raised in the culture that we were raised in her mother did it too.

[00:56:18]

But I remember my daughter was like 7 or 8. I mean, she was really young and we used to, I used to always put her to bed and we’d always talk when, you know, in our dark, her dark room, it was sort of our time. And she said to me once, she said, mom, my stomach doesn’t go in. Like, my stomach doesn’t go in.

[00:56:37]

It, like, goes out. And I was like, Lila, that’s where your organs are. Like, your organs are literally right there. And she was like, yeah, but it’s supposed to go in. And it was just, I was like, dude, you’re 7 years old. This is crazy. It’s gut wrenching.

Yeah. And there’s research that shows that like kids as young as preschool are afraid of being fat and kids by 7 years old are dieting.

[00:57:06]

And I mean, it’s bananas. And so you don’t want to set them up like, do I want to tell Lila that she should diet knowing that 97 percent of them fail or which I would never do. Right? I’m just like, your body is like, I can see what parents do. It’s like, oh, well, why don’t you like, do this diet with me? I’ll do it with you.

[00:57:29]

And we’re going to fix that. And it’s like, you know, a mom trying to help their child, but the message is actually, Okay. Kind of colluding with what they were thinking like, yeah, you can look at her friends and I’m like You can see the way I see with the women in my life It’s like your body is completely different than your friend age and your friend J is taller than I am at the age of 10 or 11 like Everybody just has a different body and that doesn’t mean that that yours is bad, but it’s so hard In our culture to get away from it, but I do think that once you know better.

[00:58:10]

You start to do better, you start to look around for evidence that everything you, you have internalized is not in fact true and try to enjoy your life as opposed to wishing it away. I mean, I realized when my son was born afterwards, like, and I’ve seen this with other people say this, like, I was literally erasing myself from my family’s history.

[00:58:34]

I was deleting, I was always taking pictures of my husband, my son, my daughter, whatever it was in the photo. I wasn’t in the photo. My husband would take pictures of me and I would delete most of them because I didn’t like how I looked. I would have a picture of me and my son when he was, And like, not like it, so not display it, and I was like, what the hell am I doing?

[00:58:58]

Like, do I want people to look back on our family and have like, no evidence that I existed, even though I’m a huge, clearly a huge part of the family and loving them. And you know what I mean? It’s just, it’s sad. And when you start to be like, I believe this way and act this way because of society. And yet, we’re like, oh, we don’t want women to feel like they’re, you know, they need to apologize all the time or not establish boundaries.

[00:59:25]

And we can only be liked if we smile. Like it’s, it’s somehow harder to realize that. You’ve internalized a lot of these thoughts. We think they’re true, but they’re because of the culture we’re raised in and even what you were describing. The way it gets passed down through generations. And it’s, you know, this is just what women in our family do and the thought that you are breaking that cycle for your daughter is, I mean, potentially life changing with. Then the ripple effect that has for the people in her life and her family and future generations. I mean, that’s where I have so much hopefulness that we can turn the tide here is by having different conversations and helping people start to do things differently.

[01:00:11]

And I think that’s what you’re doing in your work in your podcast, like, educating people and then offering solutions. That will help them, right? Because if your body is fueled more, if you’re not starving, if you’re eating protein and carbs and fat, then you’ll be happier. You’ll have more energy. You’ll be able to do more.

 

[01:00:34]

Yeah. And even the thing where, I’ve heard this and it’s always stuck with me that like when women get together, a lot of times we’ll be talking about what diet are you doing? Or we’re bashing our bodies and all of that. What if women weren’t doing that? And we were sitting there having more meaningful conversations about, you know, changing policy or volunteer work or heart to hearts about what’s going on in our marriage or with our kids. Life is so much richer when we’re not standing around talking about food and our weight and our bodies and dieting all the time anymore.

Yeah. And that’s another thing that my friend, Ingrid, taught me, is like, Don’t comment on anyone’s weight. Don’t comment if they gained weight, don’t comment if they’ve lost weight. Don’t comment if they look good, you know, whatever it is, because it’s again, whether you mean to or not, it’s reinforcing the idea that, that is one of the more interesting things about them.

 

[01:01:30]

And you know, also that people lose weight because they’re sick or they’re in really painful grief. Or for me, I used to have really a lot of anxiety. And the funny thing was that when I was having the worst of my anxiety, that’s when I would be the skinniest. Right? So I was miserable. I was radiating anxiety.

 

[01:01:53]

I was barely making it through the day, but people would be like, God, you look great. And I’d be like, well, and it’s kind of, it sends that message that how you look is of the utmost importance, regardless of how you feel.

Yes. Yes. And yeah, I hope, I mean, my daughter and I always talk. So, I worked at L’Oréal for years and it is literally the like industrial beauty complex.

[01:02:22]

Now, I really enjoyed it. It was fun. I still am obsessed with like makeup and skincare. So like, no shade. But Lila and I always talk about the fact that, like, who decided that women with longer eyelashes were somehow more attractive than women without like, that is an insane thing to decide. Now that said, yeah, I get my eyelashes done.

[01:02:49]

It’s totally fucked up, but we at least talk about how it’s fucked up and I actually pondered that before or even just like that. We have to get our nails done and the amount of time and money, and energy that like, we’ll spend going to those appointments and it’s like, well, gosh, I mean, men aren’t expected to do all that.

[01:03:05]

And yeah, I didn’t think that if you like, buy in, like, in full disclosure, I also get Botox and she totally knows that. And we, the only person who I don’t tell that to, is really my husband because it’s so fucking expensive and I’m like, yes. I realize this is fucked up and yet I’m doing it. I’m fully aware of it and I’m doing it for me or whatever it is like, you know, you’re just like, I just have to know that this is messed up and yet still enjoy it when you’re like, I’m aware and I’m owning that and I’m choosing to do this because I like it better. Anyway, but I’m not doing this for X, Y, Z, you know, whatever it is.

[01:03:43]

Like, if you know better, you do better. And sometimes, you still decide to do shit.

That’s kind of crazy, but you know. We all get to have those things, and I think it’s so cool that you’re having that conversation with your daughter and that she’s even aware of that at such a young age, you know, that she can ponder those things and recognize those things.

[01:04:04]

Oh, yeah, we’re always like the fucking patriarchy every single day. We’re like, why do we believe this? She’s like the patriarchy. I’m like, yeah, now let’s go get our nails done.

[01:04:17]

Yeah, so tell me about you and the work you do and how people can find you and learn more.

Absolutely. So, you mentioned before I have a podcast, it’s called, Rebuilding Trust With Your Body. So, if people want to go check out, there’s, you know, a long library of episodes there to see what jumps out at you.

[01:04:36]

I also hang out a lot on Instagram, so you can find me over there. It’s @katyharvey.rd. And I also have a Facebook group if you’re into that type of thing. It’s called, Intuitive Eating Made Easy.

That’s great. And do you work with people privately one-on-one? Do you have a program? What about all that?

[01:04:52]

Yeah, so I, I work with people privately one-on-one. I also have self-paced programs. I have group programs. So, it’s like, I got a little bit of everything for everybody based on what they’re needing and what they’re looking for, where they’re at on their journey, but it’s not a diet program.

It’s a program on how to rebuild, how to like, rebuild trust with your body, fuel your body, not deprive your body and sort of switch that mindset as well as habits.

 

[01:05:16]

Yeah, it’s my signature programs, non-diet academy, and I walk you through like, okay, here’s like how and why to like quit dieting. Here’s what to do instead. Here’s how to set up your food. And then, we do a lot of the

mental work around the way you think about food, body image, your self-care, your relationship to exercise, your health and all of this.

 

[01:05:34]

So, we kind of look at it from like a very, Okay. All-encompassing standpoint, and then I also have programs that are a little more specific around, like, exploring the principles of intuitive eating and stuff like that.

 

Yeah, I mean, I think that mental work that you talked about is something that, like, every single woman.

[01:05:53]

Needs to do regardless of, you know, what your BMI is or isn’t or how old you are. I mean, it’s just so pervasive and hard to get away from it is. And I mean, I work with people at all ends of this weight spectrum. I work with people who are young adults all the way up into like their 70s. I think I have a client right now who’s 80.

[01:06:16]

I mean, it’s. It’s it does. It spans everything. And it is one of those struggles that sadly is so universal for especially for women in our culture. And dominates so much of your thoughts and your energy and your perception of the world around you. I mean, like you were saying, if we could let that go, not let go of like exercise that makes you feel good or eating food that, you know, Letting yourself go, I think is how sometimes people worry about it.

[01:06:44]

Yeah. But if you could let go of that energy and negative energy that you have, like, what else could you accomplish in the world? Or how much happier or more at peace would you be? I mean, it’s a constant work that I feel like, I still need to do.

 

I mean, the other day she had she went on vacation with her family and her grandson was there and while they were on their trip, they celebrated his birthday. And she messaged me when she got back and she said, Katy, I haven’t eaten cake in decades, like my own children when I raised them, I didn’t eat cake with them and I ate birthday cake with my son for the, or my grandson for the first time in however long, like I’m going to choke up as I’m saying this, like she ate cake with him and it’s not about the cake, but it’s about like being fully present and connected to that moment and like, In her life, and it’s that type of thing.

[01:07:37]

Like, it’s just so powerful when we’re not only halfway living our life because of the rules we’re going to follow.

Yeah, I mean, I remember, obviously, I was a red wine girl. And so, I would go to dinner with my kids and have, like, 3 glasses of red wine and then come home. Someone else was always driving.

[01:07:57]

My husband always drove and, like have more and when I was stopping drinking, I was like, okay, I can’t do that. So, I would, my husband would go to the burger place or whatever. We’d meet there coming from different works and I’d be like, okay, if you get there before me, order me a chocolate milkshake because I was like, he would have ordered me a glass of wine.

[01:08:17]

That’s what I wanted. That’s what made me happy. And so, I’d sit there with my kids. My daughter was 2. My son was 8 and be drinking a milkshake with them and they were like, oh, my God, you’re so cool. You know, they were like, this is awesome mom, as opposed to me, like, you know, sitting there with alcohol, like drinking it and kind of getting fuzzier as the moments go on.

[01:08:37]

Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you for coming on and having this conversation and for the work you do. I’ve really enjoyed it.

Oh, right back at you. I mean, it’s I’ve been just sort of observing you for so long. And then, when I saw in our shared group that we’re in where you had mentioned something about like diet culture, I was like, Casey knows about diet culture.

Like she, she might be my person.

[01:09:02]

Yeah, I think that’s an important angle of the discussion versus like, how do you eat as little as possible to make the number on the scale go as low as possible.

Yeah, and you will, like, when you stop drinking, your body will be happier. You will make your workouts. You will have more energy. You will sleep better.

There are all these benefits to your body and the way you look and the way you function and what you’re able to do that will help you regardless of if you try to reduce calories. And like you were saying, when you reduce calories, most people, end up gaining more weight once that weight cycle is over.

 

[01:09:37]

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It has often the opposite of desired effect.

Yeah. All right. Well, thank you so much. It’s so good to talk to you. Thanks.