Insatiable Ali Shapiro, MS, CHHC

While Laura McKowen is known for her work around alcohol sobriety, her first coping strategy was food.
Like Laura, I have many clients who come to me where their first “thing” was food. And after getting sober or soberish, their eating issues return or becomes a “thing”.
In this special Insatiable episode, we apply the wisdom Laura writes about in her new book to food, body image, and the overlap with alcohol.
 
We discuss:
How Laura’s original coping mechanism was bingeing and the overlapping and distinct root causes between her food and alcohol struggles
Why stopping bad habits like alcohol and battling food is different than starting new habits and how you change has to shift to what Laura discusses as “being willing to be led”
Grief from the loss of using alcohol, food, and the fantasies they offer  How wanting to be saved, desired, and chosen fueled Laura’s alcohol and body image issues and the deep work she did to heal and now be in a healthy relationship
How Laura views sobriety as an invitation into a “Bigger Yes” (we also discuss the pushback at this suggestion and how it’s even more politically incorrect to say your body battle is an invitation into a “Bigger Yes”)
The connection between eating disorders, alcohol use disorder, and sensitive, empathetic, and perceptive people (and their nervous systems), and where they need to push off too.
Buy a copy of Laura’s new book, Push Off From Here: Nine Essential Truths to Get You Through Sobriety (And Everything Else)  at https://www.lauramckowen.com/books or wherever you buy your favorite books.

Dr. Michelle Segar, one of the more progressive health behavioral change experts, says sustainable behavior change with eating and exercise is not a product of rule-following.
In other words, trying so hard to perfectly stick to a plan is not an effective goal or strategy. Rather, we need to learn flexibility. Because life is much more unpredictable these days. Anyone like me who sends their child to daycare knows this deep in their bones!
We also need to learn how to experiment to see what actually works in this stage of our lives. Not what worked 20 years ago when our stress was minimal. Or now, in the menopausal transition. 
How does one learn this flexibility and trust in imperfect action, which often just feels like guilt and shame for “being bad”?
I brought on my clients Whitnee and Erin to share their Truce with Food journey of how they learned to listen to their bodies to figure out what really works for them now and effectively experiment to reach their health and wellness goals.
 
In today’s episode we discuss,
The importance of finding fun and magic in our goal pursuits, not just the accomplishment outcome
The Catholic and Christian influences that formed both their stories and struggles to be “good”
How Whitnee finally made a “Truce” with her dairy intolerance after years of the restrict-over do it cycle.
How Whitnee and Erin both learned to be flexible with their exercise goals given Erin’s back pain and Whitnee’s knee pain, COVID, and then plantar fasciitis 
The challenge and freedom of growth mindset (ie.“trusting the process”) and how they set and work towards their goals now
 
Mentioned in this episode
SMART Goals: How They Sabotage Eating and Exercise Goals workshop (free, 1/11/23)
Truce with Food 2023: Registration runs 1/9-1/20. Save $500 in this once a year program when you register by January 16.
Erintusa.com
@trainwithtusa

When I surveyed my newsletter readers back In the April, a common survey response theme was:

“I feel uncomfortable in my body and feel ridiculous that I am focused on this when there is so much else that is so much more important to deal with.”
I sooo get this. I felt this way about my own weight struggles in the 9/11, U.S. invasion of Iraq-era. And today’s world issues feel much more urgent and complex.
Yet what I’ve discovered is that tending to our body discomfort is not ridiculous. With a holistic and root cause resolution approach like Truce with Food, our body discomfort reveals a values gap of what we say matters and what how we are actually living. And this values gap matters deeply right now. 
Collectively, we understand “normal” isn’t working; “bottom up” changes in how we spend our time, money, and energy matter if we want to create a new, healthier normal.

To illustrate what this values-gap driven body discomfort looks like to work through, my Truce with Food clients Charlotta and Margaret Louise are here to share their journey of self-authoring their values for more psychological safety and a radically different relationship to food and themselves. 
 
In today’s episode, we discuss:
A deeper understanding of how to embody safety to increase resilience and decrease out of control eating. How systems like capitalism and patriarchy, which value control, unknowingly molded our collective values and the personal values each of us had to change. An alternative definition of valuing discipline (that isn’t about control) to change our food habits and life. The new values that replaced perfectionism, hyper-productivity, “faster, better”, and trying to do everything on our own. How this values revolution evolved the stories that were driving our stress and body discomfort and led to better food choices, a more sacred relationship with our bodies, and more fulfillment.   
Mentioned in this Episode
Free Food as Safety Gatherings
Truce with Food 2023
The Sparkling Mud
@thesparklingmud

A Truce with Food foundational focus is learning how to effectively respond to the stress that makes you eat. Because we are often reacting to the past when our sense of safety was compromised, which fuels our current stress.

For example, I used to binge on sugar during my cancer “scanxiety” season even though it was 15 years later. Because in the past, MRIs did find cancer (and I didn’t know I could ever not turn to food!). Logically I knew I was probably fine. But emotionally I was a wreck. 

To effectively respond to your stress in the present, in Truce with Food, we tend to your body's physiology. Specifically, cultivating safety in your nervous system; your nervous system physiology under threat often leads to “Chuck it, F@#$ it” Ubereats, fantasy thoughts like “Diet starts tomorrow”, and binging. 
Because your body’s physiology informs your “mindset”.  Anyone who knows how crashing blood sugar fuels their anxiety knows this on one level.

To better understand your own nervous system reactions and accompanying food habits, I’ve brought back Stacey Ramsower from Episode 1 of this season. 
We discuss how our nervous system picks up on stress, often before our brain, and that leads to out of control eating. Stacey is one of the few people I know who understands how the most powerful change involves your physiology and psychology.
 
In today’s episode, we discuss:
The difference between your body, brain, and mind when trying to change your relationship to food (hint: most mindset work doesn’t address this and yet, your body communicates to your brain at 4x the speed!)
How “Diet starts tomorrow” is a fantasy thought and often a sign you’re in a “Flight” nervous system reaction
What the Flight and Freeze nervous system reactions feel like inside your body
The connection between Binging and the Freeze nervous system reaction
Two powerful practices to try and regulate your nervous system to better deal with your present stress and change your eating habits  
Mentioned in this Episode
Free Food as Safety Gatherings
Truce with Food 2023
https://www.staceyramsower.com/
Stacey’s Instagram

How many times have you thought: why do I self-sabotage with food? If those answers haven’t gotten you very far, I have a much better question for you.

“How does my eating protect me?” is a question that will take you far and deep. To guide us with this question and path to your answers, I have the wise Sil Reynolds to talk food, protection strategies, and the root vulnerability in our stories that our food habits are trying, perhaps begging you, to pay attention to. 

In this expansive, soul food conversation, we discuss:
Sil’s struggle with food and her journey to heal her Motherline to find a sense of home in her body and psyche.
The role of the archetypal feminine and emotional attunement in our food and body image struggles, including the symbolism in emotionally eating sweet carbohydrates
How perfectionism is a safety strategy, not a personality type and why we keep trying to be “Good”, even when it feels so bad.
How body image isn’t really about the body and a powerful question to ask when you feel fat to shift your mindset by getting to the root of the issue
About Sil Reynolds
Sil brings 40 years experience to her work as a coach and a teacher: experience as a nurse practitioner, psychotherapist, workshop leader, author, and a Mothering & Daughtering coach.
She graduated from Brown University where she majored in Women’s Studies. She graduated from Marion Woodman’s BodySoul Rhythms training in dreamwork, archetypal psychology, and the art and science of listening to the wisdom of the body. Sil explains that “Marion Woodman’s work reflects a unique Jungian lineage focuses on bringing the archetypal Divine Feminine into our embodied, earthly lives. Her lineage is my lineage, it is my spiritual motherline, and it has been my lifeline during difficult times.”
 
Mentioned in this Episode
Food as Safety Gatherings with Ali: Gather with like-minded health rebels who hate small talk to learn how to apply the Insatiable Season 13 podcasts to your life. Ali will teach, provide coaching exercise, tools and coach a few participants stress eating so you can get to the root of your stress eating and work through it. No white knuckling required. 
Sil Reynolds

The Wellness culture we see as we scroll through Instagram or listen to in our earbuds on various wellness podcasts often casts itself as the opposite of Western Medicine. And yet, both industries overlap via the same value system of Puritans and Protestantism. 
From “clean eating” to failed functional medicine protocols because “client’s aren’t disciplined enough”, Protestantism and Puritanism are alive and well in both industries. 
This wouldn’t be a problem except these guiding principles aren’t actually how the body works. As a result, while both industries have different offerings, both limit us because of their blindspots created by these religious values and beliefs. 
In today’s episode with one of my favorite writers, Dr. Anne Helen Petersen, we discuss: 
 
A background of what Protestantism and Puritanism are and how they’ve influenced diet and wellness culture and the deeper meaning implied in hashtags #blessed, #highvibes, and #nolowvibes
How Protestantism and Puritanism especially influenced fat phobia and the 80s and 90s body ideal of what Anne calls “aspirational containment”. How wellness influencers and celebrities like Peloton instructors have given us secular outlets to satiate the needs that religion provides. How Anne shifted and continues to shift her relationship to exercise and work by incorporating this value that is considered “bad” in Puritanism yet supports the body to thrive. Anne’s process of first intellectualizing how problematic these religious values are in relation to exercise, the body, and work and then actually making the changes to embody new values that support her feeling great and athletic in her body, now in her 40s.   
About Anne Helen Peterson Anne is an American writer and journalist. She received her Ph.D in Media Studies, where she did her dissertation on Celebrity Culture…we will get into why here in the episode. She worked as a Senior Culture Writer for BuzzFeed until August 2020, when she began writing full-time for her newsletter "Culture Study" on Substack. I know many of you read it. It’s so so good. Her most recent book “Out of Office” is about the future of work. And she has two new podcasts of her own: Work Appropriate and Townsizing, which is about people living in small towns.  
Mentioned in this episode:
Free Food as Safety Gatherings with Ali: Gather with like-minded health rebels who hate small talk to learn how to apply the Insatiable Season 13 podcasts to your life. Ali will teach, provide coaching exercise, tools and coach a few participants stress eating so you can get to the root of your stress eating and work through it. No white knuckling required. 
 
Culture Study with Anne Helen Petersen
The Millennial Vernacular of Fat Phobia
The Quiet Glory of Aging Into Athleticism
The Parameters of Peloton Celebrity