#73 -Midlife Un-dieting Q&A with Amanda Bullat, RDN

Today I have a very special treat for you in this Q&A session with Registered Dietitian Amanda Bullat, who (*spoiler alert*) I am thrilled to announce will be joining us as a regular expert resource in the Midlife Feast community very soon!

In this episode, we tackle three of the most-asked questions about un-dieting in midlife. The answers to these questions are helpful for anyone who has considered intuitive eating before but maybe got bogged down by the most common challenges and misconceptions related to un-dieting.

We talk about how tempting it is to sprinkle in formerly “successful” dieting strategies while you learn to become an intuitive eater, as well as how to challenge the most common fears that pop up when you let go of tracking, measuring, and dieting. 

If listening to this episode prompts more questions about starting your intuitive eating journey, make sure to register for the Intuitive Eating Foundations Course which is my free gift to you for the month of June! 

To learn more about Amanda and her work, connect with her on her website at www.alpinenutrition.org, or follow her on Instagram @alpinenutrition, on Youtube @AmandaBullatRDN, or tune into the Savor Food and Body Podcast

Head to menopausenutritionist.ca/morningmakeover or hit the link in the show notes to get started.

Click here to hang out with me on YouTube!

Looking for more about midlife, menopause nutrition, and intuitive eating? Click here to grab one of my free guides and learn what I've got "on the menu" including my 1:1 and group programs. https://www.menopausenutritionist.ca/links

Transcript

Jenn Salib Huber  0:02  
Hi and welcome to the midlife feast the podcast for women who are hungry for more in this season of life. I'm your host, Dr. Jenn Selena Huber. Come to my table. Listen and learn from me. Trusted guests, experts in women's health and interviews with women just like you. Each episode brings to the table juicy conversations designed to help you feast on midlife. Hey everyone, welcome to this week's episode of the midlife feast. I'm going to keep this intro short because as expected my conversation with Amanda bullet fellow and diet dietitian from the from the states from the West Coast, and I had a really great conversation about all things related to midlife menopause, intuitive eating and nutrition. And we covered some really big questions, the kind of top three questions that we both get related to, you know, how do I know if I'm getting enough protein? How can I support feeling better in my body? And the million dollar question that everyone always wants to know can intuitive eating, help you lose weight, so tune in to this one. Amanda is truly one of my favorite people in this space. And we're really excited that she's going to be joining the midlife fees community in the fall. And so this is a great chance to get to know her and get to know her work, and how we will be able to help you manage menopause without dieting and food rules. Hi, Amanda, welcome back to the midlife feast. Wow,

Amanda Bullat  1:30  
it's so great to be here with you, Jen. And I'm so excited for our conversation today to dive into intuitive eating in the specifics around midlife and answer some questions. The questions we both get a lot. So it's gonna be a great show.

Jenn Salib Huber  1:46  
Yeah, and I was trying to I didn't have time to look back. But when was I on your podcast? Because that's when we first met.

Amanda Bullat  1:53  
Yeah, yeah. You've been on the show a couple of times, from what I'm remembering. And I'm like, we were just yakking before we pressed record, I've done almost 100 episodes. So they were in the 30s sometimes, so I'm gonna say like, I think you were in season one and season two. I don't know that we did anything this last season and season three. So probably within the last couple of years, you've been on the twice that I can remember.

Jenn Salib Huber  2:24  
Yeah. So I was just trying to think because I always, you know, I always find it so interesting how so many of what I would consider like my, my current friendships really are people that I have met online. And so we connect a lot offline now not in person yet, hopefully soon, one day. But, you know, we really, I think we kind of struck up a friendship online through our shared interest in midlife and intuitive eating and all things menopause. And, and yeah, I'm really, really excited for this conversation. Yeah. So why don't you just kind of orient everyone because your story session was super interesting, but I don't think we talked all that much about like your work. So tell us a little bit about what you do, how you do it, where you do it, all that kind of stuff.

Amanda Bullat  3:12  
Absolutely. And I know, you'll probably put links to that story session too, because that is a good intro. And because, you know, I was an dietician, and diet dietitian, or we were I was using the term non diet or anti diet at the time, and intuitive eating counselor. And then I hit 40. And I went, What the fuck. So So in my own personal story, I started seeing this bumping up against, okay, I've got all this professional training, been doing it for years now. But now I'm seeing these nuances start happening from a physiological perspective and my own lived experience. And now I'm looking at Intuitive Eating differently, which is what we're going to talk about. So as I started kind of jumping into that space, myself and my own personal life, the AHA started to come up like oh, so and so that I was working with over here like, she's the sage to, I think this is what might be going on with her too. There's some disruption and you're so great about talking about Intuitive Eating disruptors. We both talk about that in our work, and perimenopause and menopause is a huge Intuitive Eating disrupter. That's putting it mildly. I think people would use more colorful language with that, for sure. Most cases. So you know, it's really, I mean, I've been a dietitian for I was thinking about that this morning for almost 15 years. And I've gone through the gamut of sports nutrition, because I'm a retired professional marathon runner athlete, division, one collegiate athlete in the US. So I thought when I started this work, okay, I'm doing sports nutrition. And then I saw how disordered Eating filters into sports nutrition, I had my own disordered eating disorder, it wasn't diagnosed that way, because it was, quote unquote, atypical. And so then I transitioned into like, Okay, why can't do sports nutrition, because I am seeing the ugly side, I was the ugly side, I don't want to feed into that. So now I'm gonna go do eating disorder work. And so then I transitioned into working more with eating disorder clients. But even still, in all of those transitions, when I think about the type of clients that were coming into my practice, they were most of the time women, say 30, and up more like 35 and up. And so as I then like, had gone through all the stages of my career, all the professional training that goes with each one of these stages in the career. As I started entering into my own midlife journey, I started to see how all of these were like, butting heads. So now, so much of my work is, you know, depending on who I'm talking with, I might be pulling out the how do we eat for being an active person, and also always in the background is and how do I keep this person from having a full blown eating disorder in terms of the messaging that they receive, or maybe they have had that in the past, they just haven't been diagnosed that way. And I'm not in a position to do that from scope of practice. But maybe we have to talk about that a typical version of an eating disorder or disordered eating. So now the work that I do is really this kind of conglomeration between all of these different versions of being a dietitian that I've had, and I've worked in sustainable food systems and local organic foods and all of that, and they see how that filters into this space as well. So there's a lot of interesting conversations that I ended up having with women in midlife, oh, long of all these, and I think a number of people will come into my practice, because they pick up on these different pieces. Oh, she used to do sustainable and local foods cool. I'm into that, oh, she used to do sports nutrition, or she was an athlete, cool, I'm into that. But at the end of the day, it all comes back down to, you know, intuitive eating and using that intuitive eating model to go okay, well, how we're still going to talk about your relationship with food. And we're going to talk about how do we move into body respect, gentle nutrition? What does that look like in midlife when we're taking in all these individual experiences that a person has had over the decades. So I pull from a lot of different strings in my practice, and I've also started doing a lot more. What would we say somatic experiencing, I'm not necessarily walking clients through somatic experiences in our sessions together. But just bringing up that conversation with them kind of centered around mindfulness, saying like, you know, if we're outside of our bodies all the time, and dysregulated emotionally, which is happening all the time in perimenopause from that physiological perspective, it's really hard to even talk about hunger, fullness and satisfaction. So there's a bit of that that's now coming into the conversations too.

Jenn Salib Huber  8:22  
I love it. I love the the just the diversity of the experiences that, you know, have kind of brought you to this place. And in this conversation, I already have a tangent. So we actually have like three questions planned. But as you mentioned, about disordered eating. Let's talk about that for a sec. Because I'm sure I'm going to make some assumptions, which, you know, correct me if I'm wrong. But I'm going to assume that a lot of the people that you talk to, over the course of talking about food and eating and nutrition, realize that a lot of the behaviors that they have pursued in the name of health, in the name of weight loss and the name of whatever, are actually, you know, quite disordered. When we look at the fear the emotions, the consequences of those behaviors. Is that Is that something that you see to

Amanda Bullat  9:19  
100%? I, I think for a lot of the people, when they first get into my practice, they don't know that it's disordered or was disordered. If they're not currently doing it. Maybe they've started doing intuitive eating already. Because they just know that whatever they did before for weight loss, health, whatever, it wasn't working, so now they're going to try intuitive eating, but they haven't necessarily connected the dots. What they were doing before wasn't working, because it was disordered. So some of those first conversations that we're having is kind of helping them connect those dots. It's that whole, you know, wasn't your fault. You didn't fail at it. It's disordered, because here's what was going on physiologically in your body. And as you transition into a midlife body, here's even more what's going on physiologically, which means it's not going to work even worse. Now, if you were still trying to do those same behaviors, so it only, you know, takes him I don't know, a handful small handful of sessions. And then their brains start connecting the dots to going oh, of that conversation that I had with my mom when I was 13. Like, mind blown, like, Yeah, whoa, that's why I was avoiding carbs for the next 25 years. And so you know, it's in some of those depends on the person. Some of those conversations are a bit of like palm to forehead. And so we have a lot of conversation around, like, we're not here to blame anybody. We're not here to blame your parents, we're not here to blame, or boyfriends, or coaches or anything like that you had, we're just here to connect the dots and see, how did you end up getting here? And yes, we're going to name that those behaviors or that interaction with food was disordered. But we're not here to do that in a shaming way. We're just here to say like, Hey, this just is what it is. And I think that's kind of our first introduction to teaching compassion, self compassion. And also, maybe you see this in your work, too. I have found over the years of doing the undying work. And you know, previously calling it the anti dieting work. And this is an important point, this is why I don't use the word anti diet anymore. It's, I think that it can keep us stuck in this talk diet culture, pardon the French, but we can get stuck in this like, like diet, culture, or patriarchy, er, and then we don't move forward. Now, I'm not saying we shouldn't be angry about that, again, like we can have those conversations around, like, how did you get into this place into this disordered relationship with food? It's coming from all those places. But I'm of the mindset of a now what do we do? You are in this prime life transition? So how do we move past those aha hours of frustration, probably being pissed off. And now how do we take care of your body in the here and now? So

Jenn Salib Huber  12:24  
yeah, so many people really get stuck? Not intentionally, but kind of, you know, they get to this dieting rock bottom. And then know that, like, they they know, with every fiber of their being that they cannot count calories anymore, they cannot start another diet, because they've probably tried 100 times before they've talked to me. And, you know, they get to that place of like, I can't do that anymore. But I don't know what else to do. And it feels like they feel stuck again, it's exactly that they feel stuck again. So the interesting thing, too, about this whole, like dieting, you know, you haven't failed at diets, dieting has failed you whenever I say that, or whenever I see that on social media. There's always like this push back against that that like, no, no, it's not that the you know, the diets failed. You just didn't do it. Right. You know, or someone might say very with, you know, compassion and curiosity say, Okay, but why did it work before? Why did it feel like it worked? When I tried it before? Do you get that question? Or do you get kind of get to have those conversations?

Amanda Bullat  13:31  
I do, especially when someone is seeing that perimenopause, weight gain. And they're trying some of those, they try to go back to some of their old behaviors, or whatever it may be. They hadn't done calorie counting for a while, or they hadn't restricted food for a while. But it rears its ugly head again. And this is a body image piece rears its ugly head again, when they start gaining weight in mid 40s. And so they really try to go back to it. So I ended up having conversations, particularly in the early parts of my sessions of my work with someone around why it isn't working anymore. But I think the important piece that I'm I'm with you I don't see this talked about on social media, one, because we can only put so many, so much information right on a social media post. But, you know, again, this is another reason that I don't I don't necessarily engage with that anti diet mindset anymore, because we can't ignore that there is evidence that shows that we'll just say, quote, diets work. They work for a hot minute, literally a hot minute. So we're not saying in this work, that that diets don't work that you won't lose weight by restricting the amount of calories or restricting a macro. We're not saying that that doesn't work. It does work for 12 weeks for six weeks. are eight weeks, whatever those studies were that are backing, whatever diet does you're that someone wants to explore. But it's that short time period, that is the kicker, because we don't see that anytime we see a diet promoted, we don't see that. Yeah, this is only going to work for this short period of time. And then you're going to gain it all back. Now, both of our clients and our students have experienced that. And so I think that that conversation isn't as much about, you know that diets don't work and this and that, or we shouldn't do diets, because we'd need to validate, and one the people's experience of like, yeah, they do work, but they work for a hot minute, and then they don't work anymore. So it's not as much about you failing at the diet, you didn't fail, you did it to the tee, for that short period of time, you probably lost some weight. But your body isn't designed to keep doing that for forever, your survival mechanisms kick in. And that's why the weight comes back on or it only plateaus or more weight comes back on whatever. So I think that's an important nuance piece to that conversation is to to acknowledge, yeah, diets work. But they work in this blip of blip of a second in terms of your whole life and your experience. And here's why they end up not working in the long term. And that's what the research shows too. Yes, exactly. Your conversation. Yeah.

Jenn Salib Huber  16:36  
Yeah. And just one more thing before we actually get to the questions that we have planned, but because I just had this conversation with someone the other day, who said, Oh, you know, I, you know, and it was like 20 years ago, 20 years ago, I had worked with this dietician, and, you know, I was eating well, I felt balanced, I could go out to dinner, and all this kind of stuff. And I was like, Okay, well tell me tell me what was going going on at that time. Like, maybe there are some things we can pull from that, that we can work towards, that aren't necessarily, you know, diety she was living alone had a totally different career, wasn't married, didn't have kids was self employed, you know, was in her early 30s had complete control over all the aspects of life that most of us in midlife don't have anymore, right. And, you know, we don't eat and avoid. And so if I think back to my life, 20 years ago, there was a whole lot that I had control over. And, and that making decisions about food, I had more capacity for it, not that my eating was healthy, or my eating was definitely disordered 20 years ago, but I just had more capacity. Because I didn't have all the lifefy stuff happening around me.

Amanda Bullat  17:47  
Right. Yeah. And that's the piece the the, like, mindfulness piece that I try to bring into this work for people, I'll do exactly what you just said, Okay, let's take a look at your life 20 years ago, what's, what's the same as it is now what's different 90% of it is vastly different. But sometimes, like, just having that exploratory conversation helps helps women figure out like, oh, yeah, this is different. It is not, it's not my same body. It's not my same life. It's not my same emotional regulation system anymore. And so that kind of feeds into the whole conversation of lives are supposed to change, your life is supposed to evolve and grow. So is your body and soul is your relationship with food, you're probably not with the same friends, you probably have different friends or additional friends or whatever, like your relationships with other people in general are not the same. So why would your relationship with food be the same now to? Yeah,

Jenn Salib Huber  18:50  
okay, let's get to these questions. So let's start with one that I hear all the time. From not not necessarily new, intuitive eaters, people who've been doing this for a while, who say, I feel like I'm doing great with intuitive eating, I'm feel like I can, you know, eat in a really attuned way. But I'm not sure if I'm getting enough protein. This is the one that came up today in the questions. But, you know, this could apply to anything, any nutrient, anything like that. So how do you answer that question? When people kind of want to know how do I know if I'm getting enough if I'm not counting, measuring and tracking?

Amanda Bullat  19:24  
Yeah, that's a good one because people have been doing using those external regulators for so long to validate. And even if in counting and tracking, they say, Okay, well who I got my 75 grams, whatever, a protein. If they're still disconnected from their body, they still might not even know that that is enough. It's not enough. It's too much for their body. So I'll spend a hot minute explaining that to them. Like, okay, well, you could track it if you want to, to ensure you're getting enough but still, even if you had that number written down, how do you know that you're getting enough so When I'm having the protein conversation and I had two years ago, it's probably almost like three, four years ago. Now. It was probably one of your first renditions of your midlife Intuitive Eating course. That's the one that how I first met you when I started stalking you like, hanging to take dance class because yeah, I'm a dietitian, but I need to remind myself about nutrition for this stage of life. Okay, cool. I'm gonna take this class. So it took you took your online course. And I really love how you described. And I'm probably going to rearrange that, because now I've had my own version of it, but it's stems from yours. But how you have main main characters of protein, and supporting characters of protein, you might say a little bit differently, but somehow my like, previous hiring role supporting roles and audience member Exactly, yeah. And my, like, high school drama days, kind of, like filtered into that to do the characters thing. But anyway, so we'll move into that conversation. And of course, you know, always say, like, Hey, I got this from my friend, Jenn Huber. And she is, is a great way to describe this. And to where, if you note to get beginning enough, you know, I'm recommending the same as you like, we have a main character of protein, at most meals, if not all meals whenever possible. And we have a supporting character. And regardless of the amount of either one of those, if we know that most meal and snacks, we at least have a main character, and or snacks, we at least have a supporting character, you're going to be getting enough. And then I will tie that back into what I call the hunger fullness spectrum. I got rid of the word scale, because you know, the word scale loaded term. And I just also see, like, hunger fullness as more of a spectrum, because any given day, we could be more on this side of the spectrum. Let's on other side of the spectrum, any given meal, we could, it's very fluid. So I like that idea of the spectrum better. So we will tie into like, We'll first do the nuts and bolts of like, okay, what are main characters? What are supporting characters of protein? Like, what are the actual food items? And then I'll ask them, like, hey, let's just play around between this session in our next session, see what it's like to focus on those characters making sure you're getting them in? And now let's apply that to where do you end up falling on that hunger fullness spectrum? With your meals? Like, if you have a main character and a supporting character? Do you find that you spend more time on that fullness satisfied side of the spectrum longer? Okay, cool. That means, you know, you had enough if someone has been active, and they're, you know, maybe they're working on strength training, or they're working on endurance, it's hiking season, and folks that follow me see lots of hiking pictures. And so honestly, so we might bring that into the conversation too, going, Okay, well, now, as you're being more active, gee, are you feeling strong in your activity that you're enjoying? Are you still feeling a little bit on the weak side, if we're still on the weak side, maybe we need to add some more supporting characters, or we really need to, to connect main characters and supporting characters as much as possible. So I'm always helping people like get back into their body, whether we're either using the hunger fullness, spectrum and satisfaction to kind of give them some sort of like a visual to how they're feeling in their body, but they have to feel in their body to see where am I falling on this spectrum? Or, and or we might be looking at what is their lived experience? Like? How strong are you feeling in your daily activities, or intentional movement that you're enjoying, and that's when you know that you're having enough if you're feeling strong, you're feeling focused in what you're doing. So your brains getting enough fuel, and you're feeling satisfied, you're not diving into the bottom of the egg, Peg of m&ms, or the potato chips at five o'clock, nine o'clock at night. You know, if we're not seeing a bunch of nice eating happening, that's another example that then I that ends up applying to you're not eating enough during the day, and you're not eating enough satisfying meals and snacks during the day. So our body is trying to help you make up for that later in the day. So that's another scenario. So we'll pull from any one or all of those to help someone explore if they're getting enough. Now, that takes a lot more work than just adding up your grams of protein. But again, if you added up your grams of protein, if you're still if you're not connected to your body, you're still not going to know if you're getting enough or not. So,

Jenn Salib Huber  24:54  
yeah, no, that's so so true. I actually just had someone the other day tell me that you They, they realized in hindsight that when they were tracking everything, they never felt like they had enough like, what their upper limit was, was actually their mental minimum. And they were always like trying to get more. And so like, there was never this feeling of like I've had enough, I've had my minimum, but I've never had enough. So they were like, over prioritizing it to the point of like sacrificing other things, which I thought was a really interesting observation. Yeah, but what I love, I love your spectrum, the hunger fullness spectrum, I'm totally going to borrow that from you. But what I what I find, too, is that people are pleasantly surprised that as intuitive eating dietitians, we talk about food with intention. Because I think that there's this misconception about intuitive eating that like, it comes with a crystal ball, and that we never actually like think about it and talk about food as like, Okay, this is a good source of protein, or this is a good source of fiber, that like somehow we tap into this, like knowing that will just tell us what to eat. So, you know, when I when I start talking to people about protein, or like in my community, or my groups or something, when I'm like, Hey, this is a great source of protein. People are often like, Oh, I'm so glad that we can talk about that. And so I think that that's such an important thing for people to realize that gentle nutrition is one of the principles of intuitive eating, and is absolutely a major part of what we're doing. We're just trying to get away from the all or nothing thinking and all or nothing practices that often come with dieting and diet culture.

Amanda Bullat  26:39  
Absolutely. And I think that's a big misconception about intuitive eating. Along with the crystal ball idea. It's the eating free for all Intuitive Eating just needs to eat all the things all the time, and it's full permission that and it is but what I find, too, it's almost like from the messages that people get from social media, or wherever they are in their journey, they get to this halfway point, quote, unquote, halfway point intuitive eating, and they stop there. So they stop there, either in the free for all eating, or is one of my clients formerly called it the fuck of eating, and they're stuck there. Or then they get their labs drawn. And then they see what's going on with their cholesterol, blood sugar, whatever. And then they're like, well, but I can't talk about like, not eating some of those foods again, because then is that just mean, I'm dieting. And so they get stuck in that I think that's what you call the messy middle too, as we get kind of get stuck in this full permission version of intuitive eating. And in this like, seemingly obscure crystal ball, oh, I'm just gonna know what to eat. Now you have to do some work around that intentional eating first, while checking in with your body to figure out what is gentle nutrition for your body going to mean? You can't just autopilot. Intuitive Eating. Yeah, doesn't work.

Jenn Salib Huber  28:08  
Yeah. No. And I mean, I think that eventually there is an autopilot mode. You know, I think that now, I still have, I think some practices as part of just my routine. But I don't think about it the way that I did when I was first learning it. Right? Yeah, there is like an intuition around that. I was telling someone the other day that I've always been. Soon as my feet hit the floor, I'm hungry. That has just been my default. But now that I'm postmenopausal, I've actually noticed a huge shift in that. I'm sometimes not hungry till mid morning, which is totally different for me. And the other day, I had like, left the house and hadn't noticed that I hadn't eaten, which, like, this is ridiculous to me. Like, this is even possible. But it's because I'm just so used to looking and sensing those hunger cues. I'm not used to looking at a clock I'm not used to it's just like, Oh, my body's telling me I need fuel. I'm gonna go eat. And so you know, when you when you become an intuitive eater, sometimes it almost goes into autopilot. That intuition piece, right. And so some gentle attunement around practical eating is now what I'm kind of bringing.

Amanda Bullat  29:20  
Yeah, that's a good Okay. Yep.

Jenn Salib Huber  29:24  
Yeah, okay, so, um, oh, and one last thought I write down things as we talk. And I knew this conversation was gonna go sideways so many times, but I always tell people to when they start to get a little nervous about not counting and tracking. It's, I mean, I say it a little bit facetiously, but if we had to count and track and measure everything, the species wouldn't have survived. We wouldn't be having this conversation. So we already know that we can be okay without knowing exactly how much we're eating. That doesn't mean we can't benefit from some intention, some education some thought, but it means that we'll be okay if it goes sideways even for a long time. Right? And I think just bringing that like reality check in of like, okay, we're built for some, you know, varying circumstances and we'll be okay. As a reminder to

Amanda Bullat  30:17  
Yeah, yeah, agreed 100%. My, yeah, my first degree is in history. And so, yeah, let me think about historically, people didn't have trackers. And they still fed themselves just fine. Yeah. But they were more in tune with okay.

Jenn Salib Huber  30:36  
Yeah, well, they were more in tune, they also had less access. I feel like that's a whole other conversation. So we'll just shelve that for we go down that road. Okay. So second question, which is one I get almost daily, if not daily, definitely, at least a couple times a week is? Can Intuitive Eating help people lose weight? Or can Intuitive Eating be done at the same time as pursuing weight loss?

Amanda Bullat  31:00  
Well, to me, those are two different questions. But let's start with the first one. The first one, maybe? Yes, maybe? No. The honest scientific evidence backed answer is we don't know. And I think that there is that that grayness to that answer is kind of the point. Because there's grayness around intuitive eating, it's not black and white. So it's not around, or the whole practice of intuitive eating is getting away from that black and white thinking, I should say. So it's not that I lost weight, I gained weight, it's, it's not an either, or we don't know. And we don't know, because there's so much going else going on with your body, your life, your nervous system, all at the same time. So it's so much bigger than just calories in calories out what you ate, how you move, like, which is what diet culture teaches. So So that's, that's my answer to that one. The second question, and what is separate these two? Can you do intuitive eating while pursuing intentional weight loss? And I'm gonna say no. Because if you look at almost every program out there, in fact, I can't even think off the top of my head of a program, although they're trying to incorporate intuitive eating into many of them. But there isn't a program out there that isn't asking you to eat these foods, don't eat these foods, count this track this, put this into an app, whatever, in order for the program to quote unquote, work. Meaning, if you're doing intentional weight loss, at the same time, you are disconnected from your body. You are following external regulators for your food intake, your movement, all of that. So that's not intuitive eating. And it's going to inhibit those skills of you getting in touch with what is eating in an intuitive way, feel like in your body, because you're going to be following these we talked about food rules. I mean, that's really what these are. You're following a food rules, you're following some prescription, even if someone says, No, I'm not following a specific program. And you might not be, but you followed enough specific programs in your life, you have those skills built into you, you have those tools, you remember how to use them. So are you now applying those tools to what you're trying to learn with intuitive eating. And I would argue, you're never going to fully get to understanding intuitive eating, if these other tools are still in your life. So I don't you can't pursue intentional weight loss. At the same time, like the two, the two tools clash together.

Jenn Salib Huber  34:01  
And I think it's often when that's what happens when people say or feel like Intuitive Eating doesn't work for them. You know, so often the conversation people say like, Oh, I'm so glad that intuitive eating works for you, or I'm so glad that you know that someone else has found it helpful, but it didn't work for me. And so when we dig a little bit deeper into that, it's often that they were trying to do both at the same time. It was like they were trying to create a safety net, saying, I want to learn intuitive eating, but I'm gonna keep following this other plan, maybe not quite as strictly maybe I'm not going to do everything, but I'm still going to do some of it as like a safety net. And so the minute that something happens, that moves them, you know, what they feel like is in the wrong direction. They like abandon the intuitive eating. I described it to someone the other day, who is learning intuitive eating, but we're still participating in a Beachbody group. You know, I said it's Like an alcoholic who's going to happy hour every day, you know, you are not giving yourself a chance to experience what life is like, outside of that you're still going into that environment. And seeing all these people who look like they're having a great time, who look like they've got it all figured out, but you're just seeing that little snippet. And so I really don't think that you can pursue intentional weight loss at the same time. And that's, it's a hard one, and I get it, I totally get it. But it I think it really is, it's one of those, I call it a trustful, you just have to, you just have to jump and dive and trust that someone's going to catch you, in that you're not going to like you know, completely lose all control, because that's the fear, right? That like, it's just gonna go to hell in a handbasket. And like two seconds?

Amanda Bullat  35:53  
Well, so I totally, and I think there's this for casting with folks to have saying, like, there are stages of intuitive eating, and you are going to go through all of them. So as scary as it is, to get rid of some of those intentional weight loss tools or skills that you've learned in the past, you're gonna have to trust us get rid of them, having said that, your body's going to change, you don't know how it's going to change. But you are likely to experience some fuckin eating, some emotional response to eating in this way. And your body's going to change what however, that might look like for you, we don't know, having said that, you're not going to get stuck in that stage. If you hang in there, and you continue to do the practices, and you get the support that you need from whatever that looks like reading books, blogs, podcast, participating in our groups, whatever that means. But you will, and you can move through all the stages of intuitive eating and get to that, you know, quote, and happy place, balanced place with that they're seeing from all those other people that you're saying, Oh, it didn't work for me, but it works for them. You can get to that place where it's working for them. You have to give yourself the grace and the time and the patience to go through all of those stages.

Jenn Salib Huber  37:19  
Absolutely. Oh, such a good reminder. Such a good reminder. Yeah. And it's even been described like the stages of grief, right? When you're, when you're moving through that process of letting go of the thin ideal that you've been chasing for decades, you know, letting go of the genes that you've held on to for 15 years. There is some very legitimate grief there. I love how Desi Gillespie talks about that. We'll put a link in the show notes to her episodes, too. But you know, talking about how like, yeah, it's okay to be sad, that you're letting them go. But it's not helping you. It's not serving you to hold on to them either. Right. So, you know, I think that remembering that yeah, there is a grieving process. But in the end, what happens is that you come through with this really grounded confidence that you are through the messy middle like that, you're not going to stay stuck in that, that grief and that sadness. Yeah. So yeah. Okay, so getting on to our last question. I knew we couldn't keep this to 30 minutes. So the third question is, again, I don't think it's an easy answer. But it is a very common question, which is, somebody who's in midlife body is changing for all the reasons and can't get past this idea that if they could just lose some weight, they would feel better in their body, that, Oh, I can't tell you the number of times people have said, I'm going to come back to you, I'm just going to try this diet one more time. And then once I lose some weight, and I'm feeling better in my body, then I totally want to learn intuitive eating. And it is a hard sell to convince someone that weight loss will not improve their body image in the long term. So how do you tackle that? How do you answer those questions?

Amanda Bullat  39:10  
Well, I think it relates back to what we were just talking about a little bit to in that we need to address fear. We need to address the fears around what does it mean if you're, if your body gets bigger, doing this process or, or not even not get bigger, but because oftentimes our folks are they're already in there bigger to them. And they're like I don't want this bigger. I need to get rid of this bigger and then I'll come and do it right I'll come and do intuitive eating. And so it's it's a conversation around exploring around Okay, so what are we really bumping up against from a fear perspective? Is it fear of loss of visibility, Is it fear of loss of intimacy or relationship with your your part Are your spouse? Is it fear of ridicule from family members, quote unquote well intended family members that are so worried about your health? Is it fear of having to put up with those conversations? Is it a fear of being passed over at work for raises? Fear of being kind of outcast from friends circles, because, you know, they're all doing all the things, all the dieting things, and there's a lot of camaraderie, especially for women in doing that with, that's how women have connected for unfortunately, too long. So addressing that fear, like, Okay, what is this, either your current body size, or the fear of a bigger body size, what is that really about? And really drilling down to is the fear of, it's not as easy to go clothes shopping, it's the fear of there's no cute clothes, Desi is, is classic for answering those conversations. And she's such an amazing resource for that. So that's really what I'm hearing like in reading between the lines, listening between the lines, when anytime someone is talking about body image, body image, weight gain, all of those pieces is there's this underlying current of fear. What are we afraid of losing? What are we afraid of moving into that we don't like, even health stuff, we're afraid of getting diabetes, afraid of having heart disease, I've got those things in my family, okay. But those are all really different conversations, and can be supported in a different way than doing another diet. And so, you know, we have to have the conversations of recognizing around like, weight stigma, fat phobia, those cultural messages, that are the creators of these fears that we have. And validating those the person who didn't make up this fear on their own. They've, they've been taught this their whole life, that being in their current size, or a bigger size is not okay. So we need to have a lot of conversations around that. But then again, like we don't want get stuck there, you know, how do we move through that? So once we validate that whole experience, and kind of understand how did we get to this place of being so fearful of this current body, when we look at the aspects of, and this is where I kind of marry body respect and gentle nutrition together. It is not body respecting to not feed your body well enough, or over exercise to try to burn off all those calories. That's not a body respecting behavior. Our bodies have been through a hell of a lot to get us to midlife, and they're going through a hell of a lot in midlife. So the the how do we move forward through this is really leaning into those practices of self compassion. And being okay that it's scary to have this unknown of, I don't know how my body's gonna look, when I come out the other side, into post menopause, I just don't know. But there can be some cool things that come out of that too. But so helping someone kind of address the fear, but then be open to the possibilities. You know, if you stopped dieting, or you didn't go back to a diet, what are the possibilities that your blood sugar stabilizes, your cholesterol stabilizes or goes down? What are some possibilities that these actual health markers that we have evidence behind how lifestyle supports them? What are the possibilities that those change, for the better to help you thrive beyond midlife, as opposed to the scale and if you go back to trying to just just focusing on that body image piece instead of the body health piece, and we have to do some conversations of pulling those things apart? Right? But it's so anytime that we can have the conversations to move someone into considering what they're actually saying, as I'm afraid of getting XY and Z, chronic diseases or having this negative experience with life going forward. If I'm in a bigger body, we're helping them to really again, unpack that fear around that. But then at the same time, we're saying hey, but if you went and diet it again, you're actually setting yourself up for potentially worse metabolic health later and that's not what you're going for. But that's what the evidence shows us if we diet continue dieting chronically. So if you really want this better health, and a better quality of life. This is what the evidence shows us that when we can, um diet our lives, we're actually moving towards a better quality of life. And at the same time, probably still going to have to keep having those conversations around that fear of that of that different size body, the bigger body or being in a current body that they aren't recognizing. So, to me, again, it's not a linear process, we can't like, talk about the body image stuff, and fatphobia and all of that, and then move on, we never talk about it again, you know, it comes up again, still, in the conversations as someone is working on those health promoting behaviors, too. And oftentimes, you know, it rears its ugly head, like, oh, it's seasonal clothing change, ah, I closed on fit again this year. Okay. Let's have that conversation again, around what you're doing from a health promoting perspective, and how is that reflected in body size, How's that feeling in your body. So it's, it's a lot to unpack for people. And it's hard work. It's hard work. But it's totally doable with supplier support.

Jenn Salib Huber  46:09  
And it's, so it's June, we're recording this in June. And I can't tell you the number of conversations, especially in the Middle East community that we've had around, like, Okay, I have to go to a graduation, I have to go to, you know, a reunion, I'm going to this event, I'm seeing these people that I haven't seen in a long time. And I think one of the most self compassionate things that we can do is to remember that everyone's feeling that way. 100%, you know, if you are going to an event, and you're worried about what other people are gonna think I can guarantee you dollars to doughnuts, everyone in that room is thinking the same thing. And so recognizing that, you know, we have this built in programming, this social comparison, where, you know, using Sonya, Renee Taylor's work, like, we want to know where we're at in the ladder, like there is a natural human instinct to know that we're safe in the pack. But that doesn't mean that we have to follow that instinct, we can know that it exists, we can see it, we can observe it. But we can have that observation of like, oh, that's why that happens. That's why I do that. But I don't have to participate in it. Because I have this ability to think for myself, I don't have to just be this animal who's trying to be, you know, safe in the pack. And I think sometimes just seeing that it is a normal thing for humans to compare each other. It is normal to feel vulnerable, in situations that are new, or with a lot of people. And that most of us feel that way. When we go into that and feeling safe in your body. Again, using dating is where it's like that's the point of clothing is to feel safe and comfortable in your body. So regardless of your body shape and size, that should be how you move about in the world, when you're feeling safe, unsafe and scared is just dress not just for comfort. But for safety. What makes you feel safe,

Amanda Bullat  48:06  
I think this is the beauty of group groups and doing group work too, because then people get to see like, Oh, this isn't just me. Actually, there's 25 other women that are commenting on this post or this conversation that has happened. And they're all freaking about this out about their summer events. So it's not just me. And then when you put that in the context of everybody else that's going to be going to the same event you're going to they could also be in this group conversation right now. So there's, there's value in that normalizing of seeing like, See, you're not the only one concerned about this, because it's coming from that safety mechanism. It's trying to find like, where do I fit in the pack. And it's a normal human instinct, everybody's doing it. So that's the beauty of your community so that people can see all of that happening at the same time, and feel validated and felt normalized for their concerns.

Jenn Salib Huber  49:05  
And then the group I'm sure you haven't your groups to just this social learning of like when you see your own experiences reflected and other people. It's, it's the beauty of representation of diversity, of just seeing like, Oh, I'm actually not alone in feeling this way. It makes us feel less broken. Yes. To realize that, like what we're doing is what everyone else is doing to our fears are the same as everyone else is. Very few people. I'm going to go out on a limb and say 99.999% of humans, even those who don't have the traditional body image issues, still have days when they don't love their bodies. Like that's also we don't have to live our bodies. That's the body neutrality gift is that we don't have to love our bodies to be okay with them, or to or to take care of to treat them with respect. You're to take care of them. Exactly. Yeah. Oh my goodness. Okay. I'm Paul. On the blog, we're coming on 15 minutes. I think this will be like the third longest podcast episode ever, but I knew it was gonna happen. And I loved every minute. And I know, listeners will as well. So if people want to learn more from you, or work with you, what is the best place for them to find you?

Amanda Bullat  50:17  
Yeah, they can find me on most of the social media platforms, especially Instagram and Facebook. I spend the most of the time on Instagram, at Alpine nutrition. And they're the podcast. My podcast is the saver food and body podcast. And we can I can send you the links to your shows if you want to include it. In the show notes, for sure, yeah. So those are the best places and then my website is Alpine nutrition.org. And there are a variety of ways to get in touch with me there download my free Thrive guide. I also just released a top five foods for women in midlife list with some like serving suggestions and stuff like that. So people can go to Alpine nutrition.org and download any of those. And yeah, love to continue the conversation over there. Awesome. Yeah.

Jenn Salib Huber  51:10  
And little sneak peek that in the next couple of months, you will be joining us in the middle of feast community, which I'm really, really excited to bring to kind of bring you into our little cozy community and an offer some Pacific timezone support. Who's going to be really excited for that? So stay tuned for all of that. So what would you say is the missing ingredient in midlife?

Amanda Bullat  51:38  
I'm gonna say mindfulness. And you know, that's come up a few times in our our conversation today, too. And there's this nice marriage between mindfulness and self compassion. But when we can have that mindfulness piece of just given ourselves the minute and go, Oh, I'm feeling this today, or Yay, I'm feeling this today. But anytime we can have that mindfulness piece, like bring it into our experience, it'll help us navigate whatever we're going through the good, the bad and the ugly. Just so much easier, or at least with so much more empowerment.

Jenn Salib Huber  52:17  
Awesome. Thank you so much, Amanda.

Amanda Bullat  52:20  
Welcome, my pleasure.

Jenn Salib Huber  52:24  
Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of the midlife peace. For more non diet health hormone and general midlife support. Click the link in the show notes to learn how you can work and learn from me. And if you enjoyed this episode and found it helpful, please consider leaving a review or subscribing because it helps other women just like you find us and feel supported in midlife.