Episode Summary

In today’s modern world, dieting has taken on many forms. Beyond the classic weight loss programs and restrictive meal plans, a new trend of pseudo dieting has emerged. In this episode, we had the privilege of speaking with Krista Beck, a certified intuitive eating counselor and registered dietitian. With her deep understanding of the subject, Beck unraveled the hidden truths behind these disguised diets, and how they could be working against us.

The first point to discuss is the concept of pseudo dieting. Essentially, pseudo dieting refers to diets that don’t look like diets at all. They often stem from the desire to lose weight or achieve a smaller body size, and can manifest in behaviors such as calorie counting, restricting certain food groups, or overcompensating with physical exercise. Beck’s insights reveal that pseudo dieting is a significant issue, with many people unknowingly engaged in such behaviors, causing unnecessary stress and damage to their bodies.

Dieting and pseudo dieting not only fail to deliver long-term weight loss, but they also pose a series of harmful effects. One of the most detrimental is the impact on our metabolism. Our bodies are incredibly adaptive. When we drastically reduce our calorie intake, our bodies respond by slowing down our metabolism to conserve energy. This adaptive response can lead to a cycle of yo-yo dieting, where weight is repeatedly lost and regained, which has been linked to an increased risk of various health issues.

Beyond the physical, dieting also takes a significant toll on our relationships, emotions, and mindset. The restrictive nature of dieting can lead to feelings of isolation and guilt, and the constant preoccupation with food and body image can create a strain on personal relationships. Moreover, dieting often brings about a heightened sense of self-awareness and body dissatisfaction, which can negatively impact one’s mental health.

However, there is an alternative approach to this cycle of dieting and pseudo dieting – intuitive eating. This method encourages individuals to rebuild their trust and connection with their bodies, focusing on internal hunger and satiety cues rather than external food rules or restrictions. It advocates for regular, balanced meals, and a more flexible approach to food and health. This non-restrictive, non-diet approach can lead to improved physical and mental health and a more positive relationship with food.

To implement intuitive eating, it’s crucial to start by recognizing and rejecting the diet mentality. This requires acknowledging that dieting behaviors are not healthy or beneficial and understanding that health does not have a specific look. Next, learning to honor your hunger is essential. Regular meals and snacks can help re-establish our hunger and fullness cues, which are often suppressed through chronic dieting.

In conclusion, while the societal pressures to adhere to certain beauty standards and achieve weight loss can be intense, it’s important to recognize the harmful effects of dieting and pseudo dieting. Instead, embracing intuitive eating can help foster a healthier relationship with food and body, leading to a more authentic, fulfilling life. Let’s unmask these disguised diets and start our journey towards healthier living.

Show Notes

**Are you subscribed to our email list?  A special offer is coming that will help you navigate the holidays with ease so you feel in control, content and satisfied and avoid the New Year New You trap.  Subscribe here to be in the know! 

About Our Guest

Krista is a Registered Dietitian, Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor and dieter turned intuitive eater. Krista’s mission is to help as many women as possible overcome diet culture, stop dieting for good and mend their relationships with food and their bodies. She started her online business, Dietitian Krista, just over a year ago to do exactly this. She welcomes you to follow along with her on Instagram (@dietitian.krista) to start your healing journey with food and your body.

Krista’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dietitian.krista/

Krista’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kristathedietitian/

Free Intuitive Eating Training: https://www.dietitiankrista.com/free-intuitive-eating-training

About the Host

Kim Hagle (she/her)  is Certified Personal Trainer, Registered Holistic Nutritionist, Body Image Coach and founder of Radiant Vitality Wellness. 

Through mindset and movement coaching she helps women heal their relationship with food and exercise while disconnecting their worth from their weight, so they can feel healthy, happy and confident in the body they have.  

New Here?  Download our free guide: 5 Ways to Feel Healthy, Happy and Confident – without obsessing over the scale.  

Want to feel good in your body without focusing on weight?  Register for our 5 day mini training course. You’ll receive one short video and worksheet each day for 5 days that will help get started with the non-diet approach and  feeling better in and about your body.

Ready to take the next step?  Book a free consultation call to discuss how coaching can help you reach your goals.

Let’s stay in touch! Kim is on Instagram and Facebook @radiantvitalitywellness.  

Disclaimer.  The information contained in this podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical advice.  Always consult a health care professional about your unique needs.

Transcript

Pseudo Dieting

Kim: 0:36

Hey friends and welcome back to the Power in Motion podcast. I have a special interview to share with you today, but before we get into that, I just want to tell you about a special offer I have coming up to help you prepare for the holidays. Now, I know that the holidays can be a really busy, potentially stressful time, with lots of extra stuff to do, places to go shopping, spending and then also constantly being surrounded by food, and at the same time, the diet industry is ramping up their marketing. It’s a lot. I remember that feeling of pressure and overwhelm all too well and it was really pressing on my heart this fall to create a low ticket, low commitment offer to help women navigate the season calmly and powerfully, so that when the near year comes, you don’t feel exhausted and depleted and like you need that restart that the diet industry offers. Rather, you can finish the year feeling satisfied and content and like you’re on the right track and avoid that whole new year, new year trap. So details about that offer will be dropping soon and the one and only way to hear about it is by being on my email list. That’s the only place where I’m going to be talking about this offer. So if you don’t get my emails currently, then you’re going to want to get on my list, and you can do that by visiting my website, wwwradientvitalityca. Slash resources and then sign up for any of the freebies that I have on that page. Any of those will land you on my list and you’ll hear about the software when it drops, towards the end of November. All right, so on to this week’s interview. Today, we’re joined by Krista Beck. Krista is a registered dietitian, certified intuitive eating counselor and dieter turned intuitive eater. Krista’s mission is to help as many women as possible overcome diet culture, stop dieting for good and mend their relationships with food and their bodies. In this episode, we spoke all about pseudo dieting or diets in disguise, because most people know that diets don’t work and therefore don’t follow a specific diet, but still try to control their weight by avoiding certain foods or only eating at certain times. And Krista teaches us how to tell if you are pseudo dieting and how doing so could be working against you, and what to do instead. So let’s dive in. Well, hey, krista, welcome to the Power in Motion podcast. It’s so nice to have you here today Awesome.

Krista: 3:10

Thanks so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Kim: 3:12

It’s a pleasure, so I know we’re going to have a great chat today about food and nutrition and dieting and diets in disguise and things like that. But before we get into all the good stuff, why don’t you just introduce yourself to our listeners and tell us a little bit about how you came to be doing the work that?Krista: 3:29

you do For sure. So my name is Krista, I’m a registered dietitian and certified intuitive eating counselor, and I’m from Manitoba, canada. So prior to becoming a registered dietitian, I was actually a dieter myself, or I would, I guess, call it a pseudo dieter, which I think we’re going to talk more about. So that’s kind of what brought me, I guess, to wanting to be a dietitian. But thankfully on that journey I did find my way back to intuitive eating pretty early on before becoming a dietitian. So that was good, and I actually started my career solely as a clinical dietitian but then soon realized my passion was more helping people overcome kind of what I overcame in terms of disorder eating and dieting. So, just about over a year ago I started my business, dietitian Krista, and right from the start to my mission and my goal has always been to help others overcome diet culture, help them stop dieting for good and just really mend their relationships with food and their body.

Kim: 4:21

Yeah, it’s such important work and I know we’re going to get into all of those struggles and how our habits can become so disordered. But you said a word in your introduction that stood out to me. We’re all familiar with dieting and, like everybody who listens to this show knows that diets don’t work, and most of the people who listen to the show would say that they don’t diet or maybe have never dieted. But you said this word pseudo dieting. What do you mean when you say that?

Krista: 4:53

So, essentially, pseudo dieting is unconsciously dieting or unknowingly dieting, so a person isn’t deliberately following a diet, but they’re still letting food rules guide their decisions. So this could look like eating only quote unquote healthy foods and avoiding anything they deem to be unhealthy. This could be like counting calories or macros. It could be skipping meals, restricting food or food groups Carbs is a very common one, also like behaviors of overcompensating. So, for example, if they ate something they thought was unhealthy or bad or they overate, they may think they need to do like an additional workout or something to burn it off. So, like I said, I was 100% a pseudo diet, or myself. So for me that was like the macro counting, the calorie counting, the restricting the only eating foods I thought was super healthy.

Kim: 5:40

Basically, yeah, yeah. And what’s the motivation behind that? Like, what do you think propelled you to eat that way? What was the hope when you were engaging in those kinds of behaviors?

Krista: 5:54

Definitely to be in a smaller body and to lose weight, and I’ve never been someone who’s been in a larger body either, but I, you know, I had that, you know, little extra bit of belly fat for me personally and that is something I always wanted to get away. So I was constantly trying to, you know, get toner or get smaller. And I think that is the intentions, like people will recognize that they do want to lose weight, they want to be in a smaller body, like I even had people come to me and be like you know, I’ve never actually dieted before, but I’ve been trying to lose weight for this many years. And then it’s like, okay, well, what have you been doing to try to lose that weight? Right? And then that’s kind of when we get into that conversation, because it’s like, well, you know, I try not to eat this, I try to do that. And then it’s like, okay, so maybe what it is is pseudo dieting and you just don’t really realize what you’re doing as a diet.

Kim: 6:38

Yeah, yeah. And what do you think is behind that desire to lose weight? Like I mean, I know there are lots and lots of factors, but what do you think keeps bringing people back to that, even though they’ve tried it 10,000 times and it hasn’t worked?

Krista: 6:58

I think people think that there is going to be a diet that works. Like you see, in the internet there’s always like before and after photos and you know people who success stories or their friends who’ve lost weight, and that’s what they see. But what they’re not seeing is when the success is no longer there, right, Like they’re not seeing when people are posting a year or two years, five years down the road they’ve gained the weight back. So the media advertising like there’s so much pushed at people, making them think like this is what you need, you can do this, just if you do this diet, and then also just that pressure to be thin, right, Because people in larger bodies don’t have it easier. There’s a lot of weight stigma that they face. So it’s like I guess we live in a very fat phobic world that people are just scared of becoming fat and thinking that they can do it. That’s the other thing, right. I feel like people think that they can lose weight and they’ve seen people lose weight and they think the reason people gain back the weight is because you know they fail that the diet, when really that’s not the case.

Kim: 7:56

Yeah, yeah, there’s a lot of like personal responsibility placed on the diet, or the pseudo diet, or in the meat that making it your fault, but something I always say is like if you were buying an iPhone and they crapped out 95% of the time, you know iPhones would pretty quickly go out of business and yet the diet industry continues to thrive, even though it has such a high failure rate. Exactly, but that’s what you’re speaking to. The fat phobia is like. There’s just so much stigma and fear around existing in this world, in a larger body, so it makes sense. It makes sense that we suck back in.

Krista: 8:37

Yeah, and like, I totally understand that desire. And, like you said, with the iPhone example, like the example I always use is like the cholesterol example, which I think the original intuitive eating pros use, this example. But basically it’s like so diets have this 95% failure rates, 66% ish will be back even more weight than originally lost, right? And it’s like, well, what if you went to your doctor and you had high cholesterol and they said you know well, prescribe you this medication but there’s 95% chance it won’t work and there’s a 66% chance that your cholesterol is going to get worse? Yeah, right, like would you take it? No, like, would the doctor prescribe it? No, like would it have ever been approved? No, but they’re still prescribing weight loss in the same way, right, even though it has those same statistics.

Kim: 9:23

Yeah, yeah. So let’s kind of talk about how pseudo dieting is different from, but really, at its roots, similar to and the same thing as actually dieting.

Harmful Effects of Dieting and Pseudo Dieting

Krista: 9:36

Yeah, and really it is. It is a diet. It’s just a diet without a name, right? Because I think if a person you know does Weight Watchers or Keto or whatever it is, they know they’re dieting. It has a name. But because like things like like macrocating cells and name, but like things like that, like trying to eat super healthy or just avoid other foods, there’s not really a name to it. So I don’t recognize it as dieting behavior. But it’s this, it’s in every other way. It’s the exact same of dieting. It’s the same outcomes, the same effects, the same harms the same ineffectiveness.

Kim: 10:11

And how? How does this? We talked about the failure rates and how it’s actually like you’re more likely to gain more weight at the end of this type of behavior, but how else does dieting and pseudo dieting affect your life?

Krista: 10:28

Yeah. So I mean, it’s really harmful for one thing too, right, it’s not just about this ineffectiveness, and I guess part of this is Part of the harm can come from. I guess, in terms of ineffectiveness and harm, it does mess with your metabolism. So you know, if you’re someone who requires 2700 calories a day and you’re only eating 1900 calories, basically what’s gonna happen is your metabolism is going to slow down eventually. Right, you’re gonna lose weight initially, then it’s gonna put toe, your metabolism slows down, your body gets scared, it’s like feels it’s starved and it tries so hard to hold it on, and so that blunt of metabolism I guess kind of goes into that ineffectiveness too. But other harms is the yo-yo effective dieting, because no diets are sustainable. So people are on a diet off diet, on a diet off a diet and with that they’re losing weight, gaining weight, losing weight, gaining weight right, and this weight cycling alone is a lot more detrimental for a person’s health Then if they were to just maintain their weight, regardless what their weight was and it has been shown to be an independent risk factor for things like High blood pressure, inflammation, insulin resistance, heart disease, like there’s a lot of harmful effects of this yo-yo dieting, this weight loss effect that people are super unaware of.

Kim: 11:43

Yeah, I’m so glad you brought that up because there’s so much misinformation out there about BMI or fat being unhealthy. But really, as you say, the risk is in the losing and the regaining, and losing and regaining over and over. Like your health is actually Better if you just leave things well enough alone 100% and even like with that BMI.

Krista: 12:07

There is actually studies that show like and I think we both know BMI is crap but like there’s studies that show that people in I think it was like the underweight category had an increased risk of mortality compared to those in the Overweight. So those in the normal and underweight basically had this increased risk of mortality compared to those in the overweight category. So, like, when you look at studies like that, it’s like clear that it has nothing to do with this Arbitrary number your weight divided by your height.

Kim: 12:38

It was whatever it is actually yeah.

Krista: 12:40

Yeah.

Kim: 12:41

Yeah, and I often talk about, like the, the BMI. I mean, first of all, it’s so old, it was invented centuries ago and it wasn’t even invented by a medical professional, right. It was not intended for the reasons that it’s being used these days, right, it’s completely antiquated, so for sure. Yeah, okay, so let’s talk even even broader. How does being in diet mode affect your relationships and your emotions and your mindset? Like, what are some of the broader effects of life of just constantly staying in this mode, of trying to lose weight?

Krista: 13:14

Yeah, so it definitely affects all those things like your relationships, your quality of life, your life satisfaction. I guess even just like thinking of. Like thinking of a time you’re on a diet so say, for example, you are Intermittent fasting and you’re at work and they’re having a potluck at work at noon but you can’t eat to like four o’clock in the afternoon. So like, just think about how that can affect even something as simple as that. But over and over again, right, you could either choose to, you know, hide out in your office and hide away from your co-workers and not go. Or a person could choose To go to this potluck but tell themselves they’re not eating anything and be starving the whole time, thinking of food the whole time, probably pure, pretty irritable. Or, you know, call it a cheat day, given Indulging all this food and feel really guilty. So just little things like that, like your day-to-day living is very impacted. Or, if you’re counting macros, like it makes it really hard to go to a friend’s house for dinner, enjoy your like your mom’s home cooked meal. Or, you know, you know you’re on the keto diet. Okay, well, your family’s going for ice cream. You can’t go, you can’t do those things.

Kim: 14:18

Yeah, I Missed out on so much when I was in my dieting and pseudo dieting days too, and you know, another thing that I noticed is like it’s when you talked about the potluck example. I can remember being at several and not eating and being so proud of my willpower, but like I was not comfortable with the attention it drew, right, people were always talking about or commenting on my food choices or the fact that I wasn’t eating and like how strong I was and how disciplined and Healthy, which it was anything but right and I I felt so centered out, right, and I was like you don’t understand how much I want to eat that food right now and I hate that right.

Krista: 15:00

Like it’s and that’s the other thing like people praise these behaviors. So it’s like these behaviors that are so disordered are given so much praise. And like that was the case for me too. I used to count macros and, like I would weigh even my spinach, that I’d put, like you know, four pieces on my sandwich and I’d weigh that. It was ridiculous and I would get you know praise for that, like, oh, you’re so good, how do you do that? Oh, you go to the gym six times a week and you work out for an hour and a half and then you might run at night like, wow, you’re good, you’re dedicated. And it’s like, no, I have issues. Yeah, you have no idea. At the time I didn’t know that. I was like yes, I know, Thank you, I am, but no not at all.

Kim: 15:38

The praise feels really good when you’re feeling like, I mean, I felt so chaotic and out of control, right, but like to hear that, oh, I must be doing this, right. Okay, that then good, then, good, I can stay the course, right.Krista: 

15:49

Yeah.

Kim: 15:49

But yeah, when I look back I think, oh, it was such a miserable time it was just so sad.

Krista: 15:55

And that’s the same thing with, like the praise for weight loss too right. Like so many people are so quick to praise people when they notice weight loss and it’s like half the time you don’t even know what you’re complimenting. Like it could be an eating disorder, it could be cancer, it could be extreme stress, like a person could have had a miscarriage, like all these things could be going on and you’re complimenting their weight loss and like even in the case where a person wants like it’s fairly trying to lose weight you know that about them. Now you’re just reinforcing the fact that they weren’t good enough before and like how do you think they feel when they gain it back? Right? So these praising these behaviors and like body size and weight loss, like it’s actually a lot more detrimental than people are aware of.

Kim: 16:34

Yep, Yep. I had so much fear when I was in a smaller body of, like what will people think If I gain the weight back right? Like that fear of rejection perpetuated a lot of negative and I take responsibility for that. That’s nobody else’s fault, but it’s just you know, it’s something to be aware of when we make those comments that they are being received in a way that can be pretty harmful.

Krista: 16:58

For sure, and like it is people just trying to be nice and giving compliments, but it is something to take into consideration, I guess next time yeah.

Kim: 17:08

I’m just going to make a comment, yeah. So if someone recognizes that either they are for sure dieting or they’re making, or they’re maybe engaging in pseudo dieting and they know it’s not, it’s not working for them, it’s not sustainable, it’s not getting them the results they want, what is a mindset shift they can? They can make to get off the roller coaster and start to embrace food freedom?

Krista: 17:35

I think that’s a very difficult one to make and it’s like a work in progress, like even with my clients. It’s not like they have this magic moment where it’s like there’s total shift has happened. It’s like the whole time we’re working together. They’re working on that and beyond, right. But I think the first I guess shift to make is recognizing that what they’re doing is dieting and what they’re doing isn’t necessarily healthy behaviors, so that even that part alone can be quite difficult. And then second is recognizing and understanding all the reasons that dieting isn’t in their best interest in terms of the ineffectiveness, whether they’re looking at the research, they’re looking at their past attempts with dieting, they’re looking at whatever else, right, recognizing the harms that it can cause or it has caused for them and recognizing how much it actually impacts their quality of life. Because if you can start recognizing those things then and realize there’s really it’s doing nothing good for you, that makes it easier to at least take the next step. And then I think, like the third one is more working on your body image, right? So what you have been told is healthy and desirable, essentially your whole life, which is very difficult. So really just understanding that health doesn’t have a look and learning how to accept your body and learning to be okay with your body changing, even if it changes in the opposite direction you desire. Which so body image work as a whole, which is very, very difficult.

Kim: 18:58

Yeah, yeah, it’s a big job, right. It’s a lot to unpack all of those societal beliefs and like beauty standards that we’ve been taught for a very long time, but it can be done. I’m living proof that it can be done and you can learn to think differently about bodies and about health and about yourself in your body. So that’s a really important first step to start with.

Krista: 19:25

For sure, and a lot of people think like I could never love my body, like that’s just not in the cards for me. And it’s not necessarily about loving your body Cause some people might not ever get there right but like learning how to just accept it and not letting your body image hold you back from doing things in life that you want to Absolutely.

Kim: 19:43

Yeah right, I think that, like, as much as I love the body positivity movement, I think that’s one of the downsides is like we’ve been fed this alternate belief that now we have to like, love our body and all of our cellulite and fat roles and whatever. But really, what if we could just be neutral? What if we could just accept that we just have a body and it’s the thing that we move around life in and it allows us to do all of the things that we like to do, and it doesn’t have to be this object to be admired.

Krista: 20:09

For sure, exactly Learn to appreciate your body for what it can do for you.

Kim: 20:14

Okay, so then, what’s the alternative to dieting or pseudo dieting, and how does a person begin to change their relationship with food?

The Power of Intuitive Eating

Krista: 20:25

Yeah. So if your goal is to improve your health, there’s definitely more to it, I guess, than just stopping dieting. Right, because if you just stop dieting, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to make healthy choices and improve your relationship with food. But the approach I use, which you use as well, right, intuitive eating, which I’m sure you’ve discussed on here multiple times, so I’m not sure how much detail you want me to go in with it. Go ahead, share a little synopsis. Sure, why not? People need to hear it over and over again because it’s actually a really hard concept to grasp because there’s so many moving pieces. I know when I first learned about intuitive eating, I was always and people would say, what is it? And I’m like I don’t know, I can’t explain it. I’ve read the book, I’ve done this, but I can’t explain it. But essentially, it’s a non-weight-focused, non-diet, self-care approach to eating. A lot of people, when they start learning about intuitive eating, I feel like they think it just means eat whatever you want without considering your health, and that’s not it at all. It’s about eating in ways that honor your health, but without that restrictive mindset or behaviors attached to it.

Kim: 21:29

Yeah, I love that definition because I mean when I first learned about intuitive eating I’m going to confess I saw it as a free diet.

Krista: 21:36

It’s the eat anything diet right?

Kim: 21:39

No, I mean, yes, you get to honor, you get to eat whenever you’re hungry and you get to eat the foods that you enjoy without restriction. But it’s not to say that it’s giving up on your health and not caring about yourself. It’s like bringing all of that into one beautiful framework. So what are your first steps when you’re supporting someone to learn intuitive eating? How do you help them begin that process?

Krista: 22:02

I think the first two are actually kind of the first two principles, which there’s 10 principles and there’s no order to them. It just seems that that was always the first two I’m working on with clients. We can be working on a lot at a time and that after the first two it kind of can go in multiple directions. But first is always rejecting the diet mentality, which again, a lot of times when people come to me they’ve already started rejecting it because they followed me on Instagram and seen that and that’s kind of why they’re coming to me a lot of the time. It’s not always, but again, that’s a piece they’re working on for a long, long time. That’s a heart. You don’t just overcome diet culture and reject the diet mentality after reading about it once. But the second part, I think, would be honoring your hunger, because a lot of people another issue people come to me with is overeating and it’s always oh, I can’t stop eating at night and whenever we look at what they’re eating, they’re never eating enough during the day. So we’re always looking at eating regular meals and really getting back in tune with hunger cues, because I have people that will skip breakfast and not eat till supper, or eat breakfast and then not again till supper. There’s these really long gaps and they don’t even feel hunger. They don’t notice it until again in the evening or until they get really ravenously hungry, and then they’re overeating. So making sure they’re eating regularly is always a big starting point for me and my clients.

Kim: 23:19

That’s a really important point that you bring up about disconnecting from our hunger cues, not being able to feel it. That’s a pretty common side effect after years of dieting and being told you can only eat at these times, never mind when you’re hungry. You can only eat at breakfast, lunch and supper and snack times. So how do you help people reconnect to that feeling if they are saying they’re not hungry till supper? How do you help them reconnect to that feeling when they don’t feel it?

Krista: 23:49

Yeah, that one’s also hard, it takes a long time, but it’s always just kind of making a more of a schedule. So actually with a client when we first started, we kind of made a bit of a schedule and, like I said, this might feel a little diet-y initially, that you kind of have a schedule you’re trying to follow, but it’s totally different than a diet, because with a diet it never ends. There’s always a schedule with intuitive eating. If you give yourself this schedule to eat regularly, eventually you’re going to get to the point where you don’t need to have this schedule in your head because you’re going to recognize your hunger cues. Or you’re going to know if I don’t have this snack, I’m going to be really hungry later and I’m going to overeat and all those things. So it’s putting in those regular meals, putting a bit of a schedule in place just to get them on the right track, and then they’ll start noticing those more subtle hunger cues. But yeah, my one client that was doing it, she was like you know what I actually thought this was going to be a lot harder, like dieting has been. I was a little nervous. I was going to be like past diets, but it’s not. It’s like I enjoy eating now.

Kim: 24:51

I know that I need to eat now, so yeah, yeah, and it’s a big process about coming back into your body and rebuilding that sense of trust, because, I mean, really the bottom line of dieting is it teaches us not to trust our body and to ignore the signals that our body sends us. So I think that’s a really important piece when you’re learning. This is to like spend time connecting with the signals in your body and learning that they’re there for a reason. You can trust them.

Krista: 25:20

A hundred percent and even like I, what I hear a lot from like macro counting, and what I experienced myself was, you know, it helped me realize that, you know I didn’t need to be eating as much as I was, or it helped me realize how much I actually need. But it’s like it’s actually really disconnecting you and like tricking you, like your hunger cues are just becoming blended over time and now when you stop that, you’re not going to really you’re not going to be able to recognize those things and you’re going to continue to. You know, try and follow that plan, but you’re actually under eating and you’re not giving your body the nutrients it actually needs. Right, you may feel full because you’ve tricked your body, but now your body’s not getting the nutrients it needs.

Kim: 25:57

And so then cravings and binge eating ensues later in the evening.

Krista: 26:01

Oh, a hundred percent, and that’s that’s a very big one, right? Because the more you restrict the food, the greater the desire there is to eat that food. And then, when you know, when you’ve been restricting your food for so long and then you finally give in, then there’s this like increased reward response in the brain that takes place, that causes these cravings to happen. Right, there’s a lot of like going on in the body too. It’s like your hormones and your and certain neurotransmitters that go off that result in this. It’s like it’s not at all this issue of willpower that people think it is.

Kim: 26:32

Yeah, and it’s not simple math calories in calories, oh gosh.

Krista: 26:36

No, not, not at all yeah. I mean it’s our bodies are not that simple and I think that’s the coolest thing right Is that there’s so many of these three feedback loops and things going on inside that are like it’s really really fascinating and miraculous, and and I think that other I think the point I made earlier too, which can be scary I don’t remember how much detail I went into, but when people are restricting and, like I said, your metabolism can slow down so then when you start eating again normally, you’ll probably gain the weight back. But the thing is, if you are feeling your body like giving it the fuel it needs every single day and you know occasionally your, your calories needs and the amount you eat is going to vary each day right. But if your body knows it’s always going to have the fuel it needs, it’s not going to feel a need to hold on to extra fuel and calories, right? So if you’re, if you eat more than you actually needed one day, your body’s not going to be like, okay, let’s store this as that, let’s just gain a bunch of weight, like. That’s not how it works, whereas when you’re restricting it might take it that way because it’s scared. It’s scared, it’s going to be starved again.

Kim: 27:39

Yeah, so your body will end like as you rebuild this relationship of trust, your body will feel safe to reach its its happy weight For sure.

Krista: 27:49

And once it’s there, if you’re not fighting that happy weight, it’s going to stay there other than, like normal, lifetime changes, right, different life stages and all those things. But otherwise, yeah, your body’s not looking for reasons to put on a bunch of weight or lose a bunch of weight Once it’s out of weight that it’s happy at and it’s getting fueled appropriately at.

Kim: 28:08

Yeah, that’s so great. Okay, as we, as we begin to wind this conversation up, I always like to ask a question at the end around, because this is the power in motion podcast. I want to talk about how embracing intuitive eating and breaking free of dieting actually can help a woman like step into her power and be her most authentic self. What are your?

Krista: 28:32

thoughts. I feel like dieting does take over so much control over your life. Right, you’re always trying to, like, change yourself, whereas with intuitive eating, you’re just embracing embracing life, as it is right. You have all of this freedom now because what diets have taken away, right, like what we’ve said, like the amount of impact they actually have on your life, and it’s because you’re trying to change your body this whole time. So, to be able to learn how to accept your body and just be happy with where you’re at and be able to enjoy all the little things life has to offer, I think it’s an amazing change.Kim: 29:06

Yeah, yeah, it’s so true. Like when I think about how much brain space dieting and controlling food took up back in those days, like yeah, like no wonder I wasn’t getting anything else done right, oh gosh, yes, yeah, the amount of things that hold you back from right, and I reflect on these things all the time.Krista: 29:27

Personally, I’m like, oh, I’m so happy Like I found into a feeding, I’m so happy I am where I am because you know I’ll go to a party, and it’s like I can eat the cake, or like I don’t have to like eat my own meal ahead of time. I can accept a dinner invite last minute, even if it goes outside of my what I planned to eat for supper that night. Or like even the bodywork stuff, like the body image work is a big part of intuitive eating too. And just the other day we were going on the boat and I’m like, you know, before I would avoid this stuff because I feel like I should be in a swimsuit and I didn’t want to show off my body. And then if I didn’t wear a swimsuit, I’d feel like I’m judged for like why are you not wearing a swimsuit going in the water, you know? So just those little things. Like I noticed things on the daily that have changed.Kim: 30:05

Yeah, yeah, it’s so liberating.

Krista: 30:08

Mm-hmm.

Kim: 30:09

Amazing. Well, Krista, this has been a great conversation and thanks so much for coming on and sharing your expertise with our listeners. Is there any parting thoughts that you had before we sign off for the day?

Krista: 30:20

Um, no, nothing else, so I’m just, if you want to keep following along. I share a lot of stuff like this on my Instagram. You can find me at dieticiankrista on Instagram and I share a lot of tips like this dieting myths, intuitive eating tips and tricks and more, because, like I said before, my goal is to help as many women as possible overcome diet culture and stop dieting for good and just heal the relationships with food and their body.

Kim: 30:42

Fantastic. I will link all of those in the show notes, so make sure that you go and click those links and give Krista a follow. Thanks so much for coming on the show today, krista, so appreciated, no problem. Thanks so much for having me.