57 | The answer is never more restriction or another diet.

In today’s episode I’m addressing some of the follow up questions from last week’s episode, “I Quit Whole30”, and talking about where I’m going next in my business and with the podcast. I’m answering your questions about “what do we do now? How can we lose weight and fix our relationship with food?” But the answer might not be exactly what you were looking for.

Questions Covered:

1. Why did you announce this publicly instead of quietly making a transition?
2. What do we do now? How do we start to fix our relationship with food and our bodies? Or, how do we lose weight AND fix our relationship with food?
3. There were a bunch of other great questions too and I’m going to save those for next week’s podcast (because they will be very topical with my guest!) and the next listener questions episode. Which you can also submit questions too on the blog under the SUBMIT A QUESTION FOR THE PODCAST tab!

LISTEN TO REAL TALK WITH DANA ON ITUNES HERE !

LISTEN ON STITCHER HERE !

CHECK OUT THE SHOW ON SPOTIFY HERE!!

…or listen anywhere you can get podcasts!

You’ll love these episodes too!

56 | I Quit Whole30.
49| The Shame Spiral and why you don’t have to love your body with Noelle Tarr
45 | Weight vs. Health, and the impact of Body Image Stress on Weight with Amy of Wilder Nutrition
40 | Making Peace with your Body, Food, and Healing from Autoimmune Disease with Whitney Shook

EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION:

In this week’s episode of Real Talk with Dana I thought I would reintroduce myself, since it’s new year and I’m starting a new chapter in my business. So whether you’re new around here or not – My name is Dana. I’m an Integrative Clinical Nutritionist & Body Image Coach. I help people heal their relationship with food and their bodies, and break the diet cycle. I also teach people how to weed through nutrition BS and information overload by breaking down the science of nutrition in an easy to understand way, usually with some harry potter and mean girls or disney quotes thrown in there. My goal is to teach you to thrive and embrace your power in a world that wants to you to be smaller and take up less space. In a world that says you’re not good enough unless you can meet exceedingly unrealistic societal standards of aesthetics, fitness, business, family, and life – all at once. And that you’re a failure if you don’t.

I want to help you discover that you are worthy, right now, exactly as you are and you don’t need another diet, reset, detox, or exercise plan to get there. It’s not easy or comfortable. It takes courage, it takes vulnerability. But it is worth it. And I will be there for you every step of the way.

It took me years to get to this point in my life and my business. When i started my blog and began sharing my story with the world, I would only ever share bits and pieces of my story. They were important pieces on my journey to healing, but I wasn’t ready to share it all yet. And at times, I  felt like I was hiding inside a shell of myself.

For many years while trying to heal the damage from celiac disease I tried countless “healing” diets and therapeutic elimination protocols – from FODMAP to autoimmune to GAPS to Whole30 to Macros to everything in between. Little did I realize I was trying to heal the considerate damage I had done to my body caused by my eating disorder while perpetuating the diet cycle I was stuck in. Each one promised to heal me and to help fix my relationship with food in different ways. But nothing seemed to work all the way. Sure, I figured out what foods my body didn’t react well to. I figure out which foods gave me acne, which ones gave me brain fog, which ones gave me energy and made me feel good. But I was still stuck in the cycle, mentally and emotionally. Because under the guise of wanting to figure out my food sensitivities (which I thought were constantly changing) or clean up my habits after the holidays or figure out what macros or food plan worked best for me – it was all about losing weight. It was always about losing weight. Even after my eating disorder was far gone, the old thought patterns and motivations that go with disordered eating never left. I felt I would never be good enough, worthy enough, pretty enough…unless I was smaller. No matter how small I got. Even when I was at the lowest weight of my ED, when I was severely under-eating (on purpose), completely Orthorexic in my choices of the foods I would “allow” myself to eat, and if anything I ate was off plan, I would completely binge on it, then make up for it the next day by restricting my food even more and exercising until I almost passed out.

It wasn’t until I gave up all those diets, programs, detoxes, resets, whatever you want to call them, all in the underlying pursuit of weight loss and worthiness – until I gave them all up for good that I was finally able to heal my relationship with food and my body.

Now, an ED may be an extreme example. You may think, but I don’t have an eating disorder, so this doesn’t apply to me. But have you tried many different diets, programs, detoxes, or resets to lose weight? And then felt like a failure when they didn’t work for you, so you just went back to how you were eating before – then felt so guilty, you jumped on another round or another diet? Or maybe you went on vacation, had a birthday, a wedding, a weekend trip when you ate foods you weren’t supposed to. So when you get back, you start over with the new diet and workout plan. And the cycle repeats. Because the sheer willpower that gets you through the first few days of dieting runs out eventually.

So many people are stuck in this cycle. The diet cycle. And the answer to getting out of this cycle, to heal your relationship with food and your body? The answer is never more restriction or another diet. Another yes/no foods list. Another exercise program. Another reset. Whatever you want to call it. The answer starts with getting really honest and vulnerable and digging into your WHY. Why have you used all these diets and programs to pursue weight loss for so long? Why do you think your body isn’t good enough just the way it is? Why don’t you love your body? Where did your “it’s complicated” Facebook relationship status with food come from?

When you dig deep enough, you’ll realize that the answer to these questions doesn’t even involve food at all. And we can never solve those challenges with more restriction or another diet.

The answer lies in learning. Learning To stop hating your body. To stop telling yourself you’ll only be worthy when you do the next program and “finally” get to your goal weight. To stop letting food control your life and your happiness.

The answer is to break the diet cycle. And it is my mission to show you how to get there.

THAT BEING SAID. If you are new around here, if you’re here because you want to gobble up all the content on intuitive eating, healing your relationship with food and your body, and all that good stuff – I don’t actually recommend that you listen to all the episodes from the beginning of the podcast.

BECAUSE…when I started this podcast, I was a whole30 coach, and was producing some episodes for my listeners about the Whole30. And a few of my guests are also whole30 coaches. I also talked about different therapeutic diets like the autoimmune protocol, keto, intermittent fasting, macros, etc. – about what they are, about why some people choose to use them for healing, AND why they might not be a good choice for a lot of people. So if any of those topics are triggering for you or you don’t want to hear anything about the use of diets, even for a healing or therapeutic purpose, I would steer clear of those episodes.

Go to realfoodwithdana.com, click on podcast episodes by topic – all the body image and relationship with food ones are listed at the top. There are also sections for adrenal fatigue, anxiety, stress and self-care, breaking down nutrition science on things like leaky gut and food sensitivity testing.

OKAY. so now that we’ve gotten some logistics out of the way, let’s dive into a few of the follow up questions from last week’s episode. Starting with:

Main questions

• Why did you announce this publicly instead of quietly making a transition
• What do we do now? How do we start to fix our relationship with food and our bodies? Or, how do we lose weight AND fix our relationship with food?
• There were a bunch of other great questions too and i’m going to save those for next week’s podcast (because they will be very topical with my guest!) and the next listener questions episode. Which you can also submit questions too on the blog under the SUBMIT A QUESTION FOR THE PODCAST tab!

Why did I announce that I wasn’t going to coach any more so publicly, and not just transition quietly?

When you run part of your business on social media, you are flooded with hundreds of DM’s, emails, questions – are you doing a Whole30? Can I work with you on Whole30? Here are one million questions on Whole30. I would have had to explain it individually to a million people or just say it and get on with it. BUT. This pattern that I’ve been observing in most people since the Whole30 program has been expanding so rapidly over the past few years, that the way in which people are using the program is contributing to unhealthy cycles which isn’t making their relationship with food better, it’s making it worse- it needed to be said. And I would never say (nor was it ever my intent to infer that “the program is horrible, the people who created it are horrible, everyone who does the program is doing it wrong…” because none of that is true. When used in a therapeutic manner, for people who do not have any kind of history of disordered eating, disordered eating patterns, or an eating disorder, the program can be a very helpful learning experience. The unfortunate thing is, that’s not how most people are using the program now. Because instead of using it as a learning tool, many people are just going off the yes/no foods list, not doing reintroduction and in doing so, reinforcing “on the wagon/off the wagon” patterns and good vs. bad foods mentality – even though this was never the intent of the program. AND a lot of people that do elimination diets are NOT READY FOR THEM. More on this next week.

I couldn’t believe how many people reached out after my last post saying how even just doing one whole30 sent them off the rails, and even if they went Into it trying to find balance or improve their relationship with food, it ended up making it so much worse and made them even more entrenched in the diet cycle. And I heard this after I had recorded last week’s podcast. So if this is you, you’re not alone. This isn’t everyone, but it’s a pattern I’ve been observing over the past year, so it needed to be said.

Also. People will see and hear only what the mind is prepared to comprehend. And intent and perception are very different. So, as I expected, there was some criticism of the podcast. I just didn’t expect the amount of harsh criticism and personal attacks that happened as a result of me just wanting to speak about a pattern that I was seeing, and explain that as the reason that I would be finishing one chapter in my business and starting a new one without Whole30 coaching.

People can be really cruel on the internet when they’re hiding behind a screen. I’ve received more hateful, negative, and character-bashing comments and reviews in the first two days of the podcast being released than I have in the entire 4+ years I’ve had my blog. And it has not been fun.

It’s not easy to make a big pivot in your business and not only turn away but openly criticize something you used to support. It’s not easy knowing you’re sacrificing a big income source in your business to do so. And it makes it even harder when people are attacking your character when you’re trying to stay authentic and true to your message by turning away from that old thing you used to support. It makes you wonder: “Am I actually doing the right thing? Should I have stayed Whole30 coaching and supporting the Whole30, because it would’ve been easier?” There for sure would’ve been a lot less hate mail. The traffic on my blog and instagram would’ve blown up from all the Whole30 promoting. I would’ve run a huge January Whole30 group like I did last year, which probably would’ve been pretty lucrative. But I chose not to. Why?

Because I cannot on the one hand be promoting a mostly anti-diet message, preach about breaking the diet cycle and healing your relationship with food and your body, and at the same time promote a program that so many people are using (and perceive) as a diet – which again, was not the program’s intent, but intent and perception / how things are used in reality are very different.

“Soon, we must make the choice between what is right, and what is easy.” Albus Dumbledore (aka JK Rowling) said that quote and I’m resonating so hard with it right now. I’m choosing what is right for me, to stay authentic, to stay true to my message of what I’ve been promoting for the last few months with this change in my business.

And if you don’t like that, fine. I understand. If you want to see more Whole30 resources, there are many fantastic accounts with bloggers who are putting out recipes and resources galore,, and many of them are my friends. I’m not saying they are bad people for promoting Whole30 or that you are a bad person for doing a Whole30. I’m not saying that everyone who does the Whole30 is doomed to an eating disorder. I’m just saying it’s not for me any more, so you’ll no longer be seeing that content here. And I felt I owed it to you guys to explain why, hence the podcast.

The world has enough negativity going around. Let’s try spreading some positive energy instead. And as Brené Brown would say, creativity is vulnerability — which opens you up to getting your ass kicked. And “If you’re not in the arena, also getting your ass kicked, then I’m not interested in your feedback” and in particular, your nasty, non-constructive criticism. Constructive criticism? Bring it on. I’m all ears. I’m a scholar at heart and always looking for ways that I can improve my delivery on the podcast, ways that I can resonate with more people, explain things differently – that kind of stuff? Bring it on. But please don’t personally attack me, my character, or what you think my values are just based on a headline or very short blurb you read in an instagram caption. Or even if you listened to the podcast. Remember, everyone is entitled to their own opinions – and i’m not going to fault you if you disagree with mine. Just make sure you understand my reasoning and that I’m not attacking you or anyone in the Whole30 community for making the choice to do another whole30. Just merely asking you to reassess your WHY when you decide to do one.

NEXT QUESTION: so what do you recommend we do now to lose weight and fix our relationship with food? Or What do you think actually helps people develop a better relationship with food?

I’m going to have hours and hours of episodes going forward devoted to exactly this topic: healing our relationship with food and our bodies. So i can’t tell you what THE answer is for that – because it’s way too short for just one podcast, or even a handful of podcasts.

But I can 100% tell you what the answer is not. To break the diet cycle, to fix your relationship with food and your body? The answer is never more restriction or another diet. As I mentioned in my story above, I wasn’t able to finally fix my relationship with food until I stopped doing Whole30’s and I stopped dieting for good. And I wasn’t able to fix my relationship with my body until I stopped trying to constantly lose weight.

That’s really what this all boils down to – our fear, collectively, as a society, of gaining weight. Of taking up more space. Of feeling like we’re not worthy or will never be good enough unless we get down to our goal weight or a certain size.

There’s a quote from Summer Innanen, who hosts Fearless Rebelle Radio, that says “when weight loss is the driver behind our food choices, we immediately cut off trust to our body. We start relying on other people’s rules and what we think we “should” do instead of listening to what WE need.”

What if I really need to get down to a healthier weight? Where is that number coming from? Why do you need to get there? Weight loss isn’t BAD. But our fixation and total obsession with it at all costs is.

So, what you can expect in terms of content on here going forward:

Your passions are not mutually exclusive. They do not have to exist alone, and you do not need to choose to pursue one over the other. How this applies to me – I don’t have to choose an anti-diet / relationship with food and your body ONLY approach to the podcast. Because I am passionate about nutrition science, de-bunking nutrition myths, talking about self-care, stress, travel and digging into health conditions like adrenal fatigue, women’s health issues, etc. What the podcast is going to become: an all-inclusive resource for sorting through the nutrition and fitness BS on the internet, to make sense of nutrition science, and support you on your journey to rediscover your health, and your relationship with food and your body – so you can empower yourself to make the right decisions for you and your body, whatever you choose those decisions around food, fitness, and lifestyle to be. Because no one knows what’s best for you better than YOU. you’re the only one who has to live in your body and your mind.

THE END. thanks for listening, thank you for your feedback and all of you who reached out in support after last week’s podcast – you have no idea how much that meant to me. And I promise I will get back to all of your messages soon, I’m working through them every day but it’s taking me a while. Thank you again, and I’ll talk to you next week.

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