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Hello everybody and welcome back to another episode of the Awaken Together podcast.

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I'm Kat.

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I'm Jen.

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And today we are going to be talking all about body image and diet culture.

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But before we get into that, how you doing, Jen?

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Thanks.

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I'm good.

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Basically life has been super, super exciting and kind of adventurous.

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I've been, I've shared that I have lived on the road since February, but we've done a

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lot of pit stops along the way visiting friends and family.

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And so this last couple of weeks has been a ton of dispersed camping in the middle of

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the woods.

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So I've been living very simply.

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I actually didn't have cell phone service for three days.

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That was like the longest I think I've gone without cell phone service.

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Wow.

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Yeah, it was intense.

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It was intense.

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But yeah, it is nice.

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There's obviously like this initial like withdraw and kind of like, yeah, your imagination starts

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creating this picture of like everything could go wrong because no one can get ahold of me.

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It goes away pretty quick.

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And yeah, I've shared a lot of photos, but I went mushroom foraging and that was really

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nice and so nice.

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Oh yeah.

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Yeah.

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You were lucky, Kat.

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I have not shared that like living in Massachusetts.

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Like there, has you see a lot of mushrooms?

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Like I've never seen so many mushrooms around this area.

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It's funny you say that because I was back in Massachusetts over the weekend, as you

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know, and I went on a hike with Kyle and his mom and my dad and it was so beautiful.

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And now ever since watching Fantastic Fun Guy, I'm so attuned to look for all the mushrooms.

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And you're right, like they were everywhere.

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They were booming.

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And I started nerding about, nerding out about sharing what mycelium is and just the magic

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and mysticism behind it all.

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Literally the same, same thing here.

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Fantastic Fun Guy was a game changer.

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So I was literally like, Danny, they're speaking to us and we just can't see it.

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Oh my gosh.

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I love it.

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There's thousands.

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But yeah, we don't have, obviously, yeah, Florida has a totally different where I grew

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up.

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Yeah, you don't even hike really.

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And then Denver, yeah, I just never have seen this many mushrooms.

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So the Upper East Coast has been freaking awesome and super fun.

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And yeah, so what's been going on with you, Kat?

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Good.

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Yeah, I just shared being back in Massachusetts too over the weekend.

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It was great.

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Got to see a lot of family, got to see my best friend and yeah, just get the good family

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time in celebrating.

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There was a wedding we did.

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We went to and Kyle's mom's birthday.

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So it was really, really special.

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And it's my favorite time of year back there too.

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So grateful to get back for a little bit of time to explore while the leaves are changing.

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Fall.

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I love it.

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Yeah, we're in it.

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Fall is my like on time.

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That's where I am so much better.

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Summer has never been my season.

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And when fall hits, I feel like Jen comes to life.

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So it's so fun.

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And another important thing to share is that me and you both have online retreats coming

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up.

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So that's been fun.

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I've been working on planning that a lot and I know you have too.

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Yes, mine's next week.

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I think yours might be the week after or two weeks after.

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Yeah, November 4th through the 7th.

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So we both have some fun coming up too, exploring the virtual online retreat world.

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That's right.

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Good stuff.

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Well, to get into the meat of today's talk, we have mentioned before how much your gut

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affects your mental health for better and for worse.

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But for today, we're going to discuss the impact of diet culture interfering with your

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ability to fully step into self-love and keeping you focused outward instead of what's on the

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inside.

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So Jen, I'd love to hear your story around weight and how that's shown up in your life.

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Yes.

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Okay.

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Diving into it.

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And yeah, this is a huge topic for me.

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So weight loss pretty much consumed most of my life.

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I look back and I think that is a huge chunk of what was holding most of my thoughts, most

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of my space.

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I think I went on my first diet, which would have been Weight Watchers.

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My mom was a big Weight Watchers advocate.

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I think I went to my first meeting when I was about nine or 10.

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Wow.

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So very young.

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I had doctors constantly concerned about the BMI, where I was at on that, which yeah, I

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could do a whole tangent on when you're shorter.

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That's also huge.

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The BMI has so many issues.

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But yeah, I was a very alarming BMI for my age and the fact that I've always been very

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short.

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And I remember, yeah, going to school, it was always, there was so many little like

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mortifying memories, like a lot of the PE memories of the coaches talking about your

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weight or talking about your performance on certain sports or there was the physical fitness

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test.

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I always said terrible on that.

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I never, never did good on that.

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And I, yeah, I look back to a lot of, a lot of things where the voice in my head started

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getting louder and louder because of how many people were commenting on the fact that my

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body wasn't right.

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And so I think that that voice got so loud, that inner critic got so loud.

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But I also thought that that inner critic was kind of the voice of motivation.

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I remember having this kind of weird view of it that if I'm talking to myself really

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negatively, then that can be the voice that will convince me to eat better, work out better.

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So I remember doing runs and just having this voice saying like, yeah, you better be running.

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Like picture what'll happen if you weren't doing this.

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And just, yeah, just constantly thinking that that was this awesome fuel and that I could

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use all that negative self-talk for good.

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And yeah, there was, there was so much bad through middle school and high school, obviously

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periods where I had lost a lot of weight and then periods where I put on a lot of weight,

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but it was just all consuming.

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Then when I go fast, fast forward past college, when I really started into my spiritual awakening,

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my spiritual journey, I realized how much that negative self-talk was keeping me from

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like the very things that I wanted and how I focused so much on what I was lacking and

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what I needed to find externally that I hardly was ever figuring out why, what has kept me

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from loving and accepting myself first so that after that I can blossom and be able

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to pick and choose things externally that can only add to my self-love journey.

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So I remember I threw my scale away probably about, I think it was pretty close to about

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three years ago.

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And that was a huge shift too, because I was to the point where at one point I was weighing

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myself probably up to 10 times a day.

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I mean, I would eat something and just want to see the effects of what it did on my body.

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It was just constantly giving me the message on if I was okay or if I wasn't okay.

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And so throwing that away and no longer having a number to identify with all the time really

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took a lot of fuel away from that inner critic.

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And I think I was able to start tapping into so much more of the underlying issues behind

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it.

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So yeah, a lot to say.

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I resonate with that a lot, with a lot of what you said.

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And I think it's what you said too of like feeding the inner voices that are healthy

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and kind of starving the ones that are more toxic, those inner critics.

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So yes, yes to all of that.

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And thank you for sharing.

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I know it can be a really hard and heavy topic, one that's near and dear to so many of our

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hearts.

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So yeah.

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I want to hear your story, Kat.

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I got you.

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So yeah, I mean, it's kind of funny because thinking all the way back to when I was a

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kid, I think I was maybe five when I started understanding what weight meant and just kind

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of comparing my body to others.

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And naturally when that happens that young, it's probably some of society, but a lot of

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it stems from family, right?

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And just being a sponge at that age and trying to understand what's good, what's bad, what's

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right, what's wrong.

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And I grew up with that belief of if I wanted to be accepted, I had to be thin.

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And yeah, that really manifested its way into my life because I mean, first off, seeing

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my mom a lot, just like always trying to lose weight, never quite being happy with how she

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looked.

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And I mean, I don't blame her at all for any of this now, especially looking back from

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where I am now, because I know that she's just in her own struggle and how hard that

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must be and it's just passed down from my grandmother and what a joyous thing to be

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passed down between generations of women and men.

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We can't totally silo, but I know it's a different story that they receive, but it's

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equally as valid.

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So yeah, I mean, thinking about my thighs, they were always, and I was never actually

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overweight, which is funny.

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Going to the doctor's overweight in the sense of BMI, like you said, which is such crap,

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total updated.

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And yeah, being short, I've always been a little bit more muscular too.

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And I always hovered that line.

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So I always got the warnings of, oh, well, make sure you stay inactive and make sure

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you're eating your fruits and veggies and not too many pastas or cheeses.

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And kind of those warnings is what I remember a lot growing up.

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Whereas my comfort, I found a lot of comfort in, I have such a vivid memory of this, sitting

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on the couch at my grandmother's house during the summertime when school wasn't in session,

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watching the big comfy couch at 12 noon every day with a-

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I loved the big comfy couch, Kat.

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I like pre-stretched and got ready.

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Yes, but I did not stretch while I was watching it.

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Instead, I had a big bowl of tortellini pasta with butter every day for lunch while watching

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that show.

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And it was just the most comforting thing.

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So yeah, I also remember putting on weight because of that.

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And then it's what I was fed.

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I was a child.

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I didn't have control over this.

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I didn't know anything about nutrition.

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And then I was fed this stuff.

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And then at the end of the summer, I had gained, I don't know how many pounds, but you could

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tell by looking at me.

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And then I kind of got shame for that.

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Kind of got some guilt and I'm like, I'm a kid.

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What do you expect?

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You're feeding me.

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Yeah.

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So that's kind of how it started as a kid.

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And then growing up, in high school, I was in an abusive relationship.

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And I felt like there was very little I could control within my life at that time.

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And the one thing that I learned I could control was my weight.

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And I feel like this is how a lot of eating disorders start, is that lack of feeling like

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you have control over your life.

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This might be triggering for some to hear because it was very real.

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It was very real for me.

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And so yeah, like I said, I was never even overweight, but it was just something to control.

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So I ended up losing a lot of weight.

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I found community in this really toxic environment on MySpace.

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Back in the day, I had a separate MySpace for my eating disorder page where I wouldn't

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show my face really.

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It was just like body pics.

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And people would encourage each other to keep going.

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And like thin is in, and all of these quotes that are just so unhealthy and just really

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toxic would float around.

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And that would be my fuel to keep me going down this negative spiral of weight loss.

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And then that relationship ended.

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And guess what else ended?

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My extreme desire to be thin.

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Now it wasn't overnight.

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It did take time.

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I was seeing a therapist.

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I was on medication, but I began to understand that this behavior was linked to that relationship.

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And then I went to college, change of scenery, things got better.

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But then I kind of swung in the other direction of orthorexia, which is another eating disorder

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where you're just obsessed with being healthy.

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And I think it's really common actually in this day and age, but I don't think people

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talk about it nearly as much as it's a thing.

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So are you familiar with that, Jen?

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No, I haven't.

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I haven't heard that term.

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Okay.

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Yeah.

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So it's people who count macros.

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It's people who get obsessed with intermittent fasting.

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It's people who track every little thing to make sure that their health is just so on

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point.

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It's people who exercise every day and feel bad when they don't.

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And yeah, I definitely used to fall into that.

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I'd say within the past two, three years, pretty recent, I let go of being on MyFitnessPal

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every single day and tracking my nutrients with each meal, not even as obsessed with

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the calories as I was with I need to make sure I'm getting the right carbohydrates

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and protein and fat.

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So it's all linked there.

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So it's like, how do we find the balance knowing that there's one extreme to the next?

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We were talking about this before, how weight loss is often looking at the symptom rather

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than what the root cause is underneath it all.

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Yeah.

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Your story brings up so many points and things for sharing as well.

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And yeah, I think firstly, going back, we have to really look at the toxic generational

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patterns in the family because body image can be a huge centerpiece.

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My family, my mom's mom, they were all raised in Kentucky and Kentucky had this big emphasis

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kind of on your outer appearance and what you looked like, making sure that we were

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presentable in a certain way when we left the house.

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And I look back and I think of going to visit my grandma in Kentucky and the second we walk

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in the door, feeling like we're on this runway and we're going to be critiqued by the judge.

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She would immediately comment on if our body was looking better, we'd get praise for it

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and say, wow, the boys must really be after you.

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You're looking really good.

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Or it would be this, oh my goodness, what have you done?

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And then a lot of critique on my mom, like, what have you been letting them eat?

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What are they eating?

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And I really watch, you know, my mom, I think just kind of let it, you know, just go right

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over her.

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She didn't give it a whole lot of attention, but you know, she was raised with probably

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a pretty harsh critique about her body image.

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And I think my mom trying to be different than the way her mom raised her really tried

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to not bring up my body image very often.

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She was very open to us getting to eat what we want, which was nice that I wasn't feeling

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like all this pressure that I had to eat a certain way.

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That was probably her way of giving more freedom to it.

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But I also watched her beat herself up.

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So I didn't really get a good example of what true like self love looked like.

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She was constantly, you know, talking about how she looks terrible in this outfit or looks,

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you know, it's she isn't looking the way she wants to or commenting that she shouldn't

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have ate that, you know, all this all this little talk, but didn't really say a lot to

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us.

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But we still saw that as an example.

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So I think we have to look beyond just our our close family, but hone out some and look

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at the societal pressures that came in.

279
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And one of it is, yeah, there's there was such a lack of education, I think, in general

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on nutrition and also, yeah, people would just make comments really making it because

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the reason you're gaining weight or your underweight has so much to do with your food choices or

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how much how much or how little you're moving.

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And there would just be this critique on all this superficial stuff and not really looking

284
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at the mental health component.

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But as you said, Kat, when you were in that toxic relationship, your body really matched

286
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a lot of the issues that you were dealing with from that relationship.

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I feel the same way when I look back at pictures.

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I can really remember what was going on in my physical world at the time and where my

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mental health was in those moments.

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And I do think my body reflected a lot of those waves of mental health.

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There would be times I'm very, very stressed and you can just see the external manifestation

292
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of that if that makes sense.

293
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It really does.

294
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It totally does.

295
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And it reminds me of the energetics of weight and food and how I've talked with my mom about

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this a lot about how unhealed trauma will store itself in the body.

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And sometimes that looks like a lot of weight just feeling stuck on you.

298
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And sometimes it looks like a lot of restriction and not allowing yourself to take up space

299
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through healthy weight gain.

300
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And so that's a lot of what happens through therapy, through doing shadow work, through

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going on this personal and spiritual growth journey is reflecting on just that, of the

302
00:18:51,000 --> 00:18:56,840
stories that you've told yourself along the way, what you've been taught, what you've

303
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taken on and how that's affected you as a holistic person.

304
00:19:03,120 --> 00:19:08,000
And yeah, and beyond that, once you've done kind of that more particular self journey,

305
00:19:08,000 --> 00:19:14,000
I think it's also really good to always keep in mind that the message that society is constantly

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selling you, I think they do sell, as we said, to men a little bit different than women,

307
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but they want you to feel like you don't have enough.

308
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It's constantly advertised this body shape that we now know because of technology, we

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get to discuss this stuff a lot more openly, but we know how many of the ads are being

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highly edited.

311
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We can see a lot of the tricks, I think now we're getting more of the shadow side behind

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it all.

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But society has wanted to make us feel like we don't have enough because when we feel

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like our body's not enough, if we feel like we're looking older, we need to do something

315
00:19:50,800 --> 00:19:55,440
about that, if we constantly feel like there's something wrong with us, we will buy double

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00:19:55,440 --> 00:19:57,200
the amount of things to try to fix it.

317
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We will purchase the thing that's going to help and it just keeps us constantly drawn

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out of the external.

319
00:20:03,920 --> 00:20:09,920
So knowing that that is the message that society wants you to know, that is already can be

320
00:20:09,920 --> 00:20:14,280
a very groundbreaking thing and taking your power back.

321
00:20:14,280 --> 00:20:20,000
And we were discussing this beforehand too, but I think another huge shift for me beyond

322
00:20:20,000 --> 00:20:26,040
realizing that society wanted me hating myself and really just understanding that deeper,

323
00:20:26,040 --> 00:20:29,680
it also was good to see how the food industry even works.

324
00:20:29,680 --> 00:20:39,560
I am a huge advocate of all the documentaries such as Fed Up, What the Health, I Love Cowspiracy,

325
00:20:39,560 --> 00:20:40,760
Plant Pure Nation.

326
00:20:40,760 --> 00:20:47,320
I've watched so many of the documentaries and they really explain that some of these

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00:20:47,320 --> 00:20:53,000
big companies, Coca-Cola, McDonald's, some of these just big food chains, a lot of them

328
00:20:53,000 --> 00:20:56,480
are very tied into our American Heart Association.

329
00:20:56,480 --> 00:21:03,240
A lot of these advocates for health and wellness are being funded by some of the very things

330
00:21:03,240 --> 00:21:11,080
that are toxic and can have a lot of negative consequence on your body, yeah, physically.

331
00:21:11,080 --> 00:21:16,040
And it's good to know that too, that there is a whole world of things trying to pull

332
00:21:16,040 --> 00:21:21,760
us away and we really have to take that power back within ourselves as well.

333
00:21:21,760 --> 00:21:23,920
It's so, so true.

334
00:21:23,920 --> 00:21:31,280
And to add one little health trick, health tip to know when thinking about the scams,

335
00:21:31,280 --> 00:21:37,760
the mislabeling, the misinformation out there within the food industry is, well, one thing

336
00:21:37,760 --> 00:21:43,320
that comes to mind is when I was a kid, my grandmother, she would say, oh, this blueberry

337
00:21:43,320 --> 00:21:44,320
muffin is okay.

338
00:21:44,320 --> 00:21:50,240
She would say, in a diet, which in Greek means it's diet.

339
00:21:50,240 --> 00:21:53,200
And I looked at the label and on it, it said low fat.

340
00:21:53,200 --> 00:21:57,520
Well, guess what happens when things are labeled low fat?

341
00:21:57,520 --> 00:21:59,000
Double the sugar.

342
00:21:59,000 --> 00:22:00,000
Yep.

343
00:22:00,000 --> 00:22:02,640
It means the sugar has been increased.

344
00:22:02,640 --> 00:22:04,000
And same thing with the sugar.

345
00:22:04,000 --> 00:22:09,920
A lot of the time when there's reduced sugar, there's increased fat or increased other chemicals

346
00:22:09,920 --> 00:22:14,720
because the companies still want the stuff to taste good so that you buy it again.

347
00:22:14,720 --> 00:22:17,280
They don't really care about your health.

348
00:22:17,280 --> 00:22:23,700
These big name brands, their bottom line is really at the forefront of their minds.

349
00:22:23,700 --> 00:22:27,320
So it's up to us consumers to educate ourselves.

350
00:22:27,320 --> 00:22:31,000
And really good rule of thumb is less processed the better.

351
00:22:31,000 --> 00:22:38,080
If you can buy things that aren't in boxes, aren't in packages, in plastics, you don't

352
00:22:38,080 --> 00:22:44,400
even need a nutrition label on there because you know it's just a sweet potato.

353
00:22:44,400 --> 00:22:46,200
That's going to be the simplest and easiest.

354
00:22:46,200 --> 00:22:51,360
But yeah, just a little tip there of not buying into the labels and the diet culture within

355
00:22:51,360 --> 00:22:52,800
the supermarket even.

356
00:22:52,800 --> 00:22:53,800
Yeah.

357
00:22:53,800 --> 00:22:59,760
And I just remembered another point that had popped into my head, but I think one of the

358
00:22:59,760 --> 00:23:05,780
other really confusing things, and yeah, we'll go into a little bit of this is definitely

359
00:23:05,780 --> 00:23:11,440
another societal issue, but a lot of these diets and a lot of these ways of eating do

360
00:23:11,440 --> 00:23:13,440
have success stories behind them.

361
00:23:13,440 --> 00:23:21,320
And that's the part that gets confusing is when you talk negatively against one of these

362
00:23:21,320 --> 00:23:25,600
very popular diets, you'll have a whole team of people attacking you because it changed

363
00:23:25,600 --> 00:23:28,480
their life and made a huge difference for them.

364
00:23:28,480 --> 00:23:34,520
But the big thing to look at is we're not wanting ourselves to be on a constant roller

365
00:23:34,520 --> 00:23:36,440
coaster of highs and lows.

366
00:23:36,440 --> 00:23:44,880
We're not wanting to have all of our power based on so much of the flow of how things

367
00:23:44,880 --> 00:23:48,440
are going because you're not always guaranteed your health.

368
00:23:48,440 --> 00:23:53,160
It's a very big privilege to even get to pick and choose what's going on because that's

369
00:23:53,160 --> 00:23:54,680
not the case for everybody.

370
00:23:54,680 --> 00:23:57,800
Something can always come in and affect your health.

371
00:23:57,800 --> 00:24:04,480
So making your groundwork and your base self-love and then from there building off of what we

372
00:24:04,480 --> 00:24:07,720
call a physical therapy that works, that is such a more sustainable way.

373
00:24:07,720 --> 00:24:10,560
And I'll share a story to help this make a little bit more sense.

374
00:24:10,560 --> 00:24:18,560
But I'm in physical therapy as my profession, so I've seen tons of different age ranges

375
00:24:18,560 --> 00:24:23,120
and I've worked with a lot of athletes and I've also worked on a lot of middle age people

376
00:24:23,120 --> 00:24:25,760
that had a more athletic background.

377
00:24:25,760 --> 00:24:31,240
And then all of a sudden are struggling with movement or they had an injury come in and

378
00:24:31,240 --> 00:24:36,280
they no longer can walk or they're having issues with walking or running the way that

379
00:24:36,280 --> 00:24:37,700
they used to.

380
00:24:37,700 --> 00:24:41,800
And all of a sudden I see this giant mental crisis.

381
00:24:41,800 --> 00:24:44,960
They're angry, they're deflecting, they're just so frustrated.

382
00:24:44,960 --> 00:24:48,880
And they're like, I just need to get back on the track, I need to get back on the track.

383
00:24:48,880 --> 00:24:55,040
And there's this ansiness behind it because so much of their value has been, I've been

384
00:24:55,040 --> 00:25:00,360
able to keep my body in this perfect shape and if it doesn't stay like that then all

385
00:25:00,360 --> 00:25:03,760
of my self worth is gonna go down.

386
00:25:03,760 --> 00:25:09,320
People build an entire franchise off of their body image.

387
00:25:09,320 --> 00:25:16,120
And that is lovely in some ways because yeah, you can have a healthier body and that's always

388
00:25:16,120 --> 00:25:17,480
wonderful.

389
00:25:17,480 --> 00:25:20,560
But we really wanna look at what that root is.

390
00:25:20,560 --> 00:25:26,600
What has been your base, your foundation, your soil to bloom from because yeah, little

391
00:25:26,600 --> 00:25:29,200
things can come in and take that away.

392
00:25:29,200 --> 00:25:32,040
Yes, it's so true.

393
00:25:32,040 --> 00:25:37,080
Bottom line, love yourself at any weight.

394
00:25:37,080 --> 00:25:41,220
And of course it can be easier said than done, but there's a lot of different things that

395
00:25:41,220 --> 00:25:48,080
you can do simply even looking in the mirror every day and telling yourself one thing that

396
00:25:48,080 --> 00:25:50,440
you love about yourself physically.

397
00:25:50,440 --> 00:25:52,160
And fake it till you make it.

398
00:25:52,160 --> 00:25:55,920
Like it sounds crazy, but this stuff works.

399
00:25:55,920 --> 00:26:01,600
There's also something to be said about normalizing it and so something with me, like I mentioned

400
00:26:01,600 --> 00:26:03,800
earlier, I used to hate my legs.

401
00:26:03,800 --> 00:26:10,520
And so I tried to trick myself into liking them by thinking about all that they do for

402
00:26:10,520 --> 00:26:15,760
me, all of the steps that they've taken in my life to get me here where I am now.

403
00:26:15,760 --> 00:26:22,600
Think about I would wear shorts more often and tell myself, you look good.

404
00:26:22,600 --> 00:26:26,040
And the more that I did that, the more normal it became.

405
00:26:26,040 --> 00:26:30,960
And so now I have a much healthier relationship with my thighs, which is a massive win.

406
00:26:30,960 --> 00:26:34,280
And it's funny to say that, right?

407
00:26:34,280 --> 00:26:40,620
But yeah, and so let's talk a little bit about diet culture.

408
00:26:40,620 --> 00:26:47,600
There's something called the dieter's dilemma and it all starts with the desire to be thin.

409
00:26:47,600 --> 00:26:53,240
What this does is it takes us to the next part of the spiral, which is dieting.

410
00:26:53,240 --> 00:26:58,360
If you want to be thin, it seems like that's the natural next step that people choose.

411
00:26:58,360 --> 00:27:00,420
So they diet.

412
00:27:00,420 --> 00:27:04,440
Then what happens there after they restrict food?

413
00:27:04,440 --> 00:27:10,600
Cravings happen because when you're in this place of restriction, it's problematic for

414
00:27:10,600 --> 00:27:14,080
both your mental health and sustaining your wellbeing.

415
00:27:14,080 --> 00:27:19,080
You tell yourself, I can't have that, which then increases your hunger and your cravings

416
00:27:19,080 --> 00:27:20,600
for those things.

417
00:27:20,600 --> 00:27:24,880
It decreases your energy and your feelings of worthiness while you're doing that too.

418
00:27:24,880 --> 00:27:27,000
So it's a pretty nasty combo.

419
00:27:27,000 --> 00:27:29,840
If you've ever been on a diet, you know this to be true.

420
00:27:29,840 --> 00:27:33,800
What happens after that is overeating.

421
00:27:33,800 --> 00:27:40,520
You can only suppress those cravings for so long until you're like, screw it, I need it.

422
00:27:40,520 --> 00:27:41,860
Right?

423
00:27:41,860 --> 00:27:47,720
And then you have it and then after that you feel like crap about yourself and you regain

424
00:27:47,720 --> 00:27:51,800
any weight that you did lose.

425
00:27:51,800 --> 00:27:57,520
So from there, the spiral continues, that desire to be thin, to dieting, to cravings,

426
00:27:57,520 --> 00:28:00,680
to overeating, eating, regaining that lost weight.

427
00:28:00,680 --> 00:28:06,160
And this spiral is exactly what the diet industry profits on.

428
00:28:06,160 --> 00:28:07,160
Yeah.

429
00:28:07,160 --> 00:28:08,160
Yeah.

430
00:28:08,160 --> 00:28:09,720
Thanks for sharing that.

431
00:28:09,720 --> 00:28:17,520
And I think, yeah, my top advice to just kind of integrate this, one of the biggest things

432
00:28:17,520 --> 00:28:23,240
that I realized in my own personal journey was I really stop and I ask myself, what is

433
00:28:23,240 --> 00:28:25,580
the motive or intention behind what I'm doing?

434
00:28:25,580 --> 00:28:27,500
And I ask myself that often.

435
00:28:27,500 --> 00:28:33,720
If it's coming from a place of fear or it's coming from a negative self-talk place, I

436
00:28:33,720 --> 00:28:35,000
better go run.

437
00:28:35,000 --> 00:28:41,480
I really just need to go do it because I ate terribly and I'm doing this like fuel towards

438
00:28:41,480 --> 00:28:42,920
this bad motive.

439
00:28:42,920 --> 00:28:47,480
I don't let myself do it under those intentions anymore.

440
00:28:47,480 --> 00:28:56,560
So I really have changed the intention to being around looking at, okay, I'm feeling

441
00:28:56,560 --> 00:28:57,560
anxious.

442
00:28:57,560 --> 00:29:02,000
My mind is very worried and I'm having a lot of busy thoughts.

443
00:29:02,000 --> 00:29:06,480
Let me go work on turning some of my thoughts off by dropping into my body and creating

444
00:29:06,480 --> 00:29:08,320
some sensations in it.

445
00:29:08,320 --> 00:29:13,160
And when I run, I'm creating enough sensations in my body that I get out of my mind.

446
00:29:13,160 --> 00:29:19,480
So I always am looking at what the intention is behind going into those movement practices

447
00:29:19,480 --> 00:29:26,280
and trying to make sure that I center my thoughts around it being more about my mental health

448
00:29:26,280 --> 00:29:28,080
and less about my body.

449
00:29:28,080 --> 00:29:33,280
If it becomes about my body, then I know that I'm feeling bad and not so much the good,

450
00:29:33,280 --> 00:29:35,280
at least for my own personal journey.

451
00:29:35,280 --> 00:29:38,080
Yeah, really, really good points there.

452
00:29:38,080 --> 00:29:43,340
And I think you're onto something because I really believe society's conditioning has

453
00:29:43,340 --> 00:29:50,840
caused us to lose the ability to listen to our bodies and let emotional eating and numbing

454
00:29:50,840 --> 00:29:53,200
out become the new norm.

455
00:29:53,200 --> 00:29:58,560
So I mean, in a society where numbing out is the norm, how do we understand what will

456
00:29:58,560 --> 00:30:01,560
truly benefit us in the moment?

457
00:30:01,560 --> 00:30:02,560
Right?

458
00:30:02,560 --> 00:30:07,120
It can get a little complicated because when you take away the distractions of food, of

459
00:30:07,120 --> 00:30:12,400
Netflix, social media, alcohol, any other substances, what's left?

460
00:30:12,400 --> 00:30:14,880
It's you and your thoughts.

461
00:30:14,880 --> 00:30:18,400
And this might be scary in certain times.

462
00:30:18,400 --> 00:30:23,160
So it's all about finding that balance of meeting yourself where you're at, giving yourself

463
00:30:23,160 --> 00:30:30,000
what you need in the moment, knowing that it's coming from a really healthy place rather

464
00:30:30,000 --> 00:30:33,320
than one of distraction or numbing out like you were just saying.

465
00:30:33,320 --> 00:30:34,320
Yeah.

466
00:30:34,320 --> 00:30:38,840
And that is a perfect segue into what our next episode is going to be, which we're going

467
00:30:38,840 --> 00:30:42,440
to go right into trauma because a lot of this stuff is linked.

468
00:30:42,440 --> 00:30:46,200
I already mentioned it a few times in this episode, but we're really going to talk about

469
00:30:46,200 --> 00:30:50,200
trauma and the body and how the body keeps the score.

470
00:30:50,200 --> 00:30:53,000
But thank you for this episode, Kat.

471
00:30:53,000 --> 00:30:56,640
It's been lovely talking and sharing with you as always.

472
00:30:56,640 --> 00:31:03,360
Always, always good to hear your side of the story too and how we're not so different.

473
00:31:03,360 --> 00:31:06,800
Yes, it's always so close.

474
00:31:06,800 --> 00:31:07,800
Yeah.

475
00:31:07,800 --> 00:31:08,800
Love you, Kat.

476
00:31:08,800 --> 00:31:09,800
Love you too.

477
00:31:09,800 --> 00:31:10,800
Talk soon.

478
00:31:10,800 --> 00:31:11,800
All right.

479
00:31:11,800 --> 00:31:12,800
Bye.

480
00:31:12,800 --> 00:31:23,480
Bye.