In this episode I talk with fellow HAES dietitian Glenys Oyston and body image coach Sarah Vance about the confusing and difficult space between “non dieting” and “healthy eating”. There’s a process to changing to a non-dieter, which includes letting go of food rules, and then working with your individual food preferences as you build intuitive eating skills and learn how to “feel your feels”.
We go many different places in this conversation from the “Unicorn Drink Craze” that showed us how sugar phobic our culture really is today and how emotional eating can be informative and even helpful in life, especially while you’re overcoming dieting and working on coping with negative emotions in ways other than food.
Overall, we complain that dieting has ruined the idea of healthy eating because it labels individual foods as good or bad vs one’s overall pattern of eating, which literally can include all foods. We agree that “healthy eating” is highly individual and should not be tied to weight.
We close out our chat about weight stigma and the fact that we wouldn’t be so obsessed with “healthy eating” and dieting if we didn’t have fat phobia. Plus we reaffirm that giving up on dieting is not giving up on health (total MYTH!) and in fact giving up on dieting is one of the most important things you can do for mental health.
Listen here to Episode 45 here:
About Glenys
Glenys Oyston is a registered dietitian and eating coach who dares women to stop dieting and start living. As someone who struggled with her weight and feeling out-of-control around food for years, she knows exactly what others are going through and how to get them to food freedom. She coaches people in person in her Los Angeles office, online or by phone through one-on-one and group coaching programs.
Website | The Dare to Not Diet Society – Facebook Group | Facebook | Twitter | Dietitians Unplugged podcast
About Sarah
Sarah Vance is a body image & self-worth coach, host of the Reclaiming You Podcast, and creator of the life changing Breaking Boundaries Program. She specializes in helping women all over the world let go of diet dogma, body hate, perfection, and all or nothing thinking so they can live their damn lives feeling worthy, confident, loved, free, and enough in whatever body they have.
Great ethos on avoiding specific “diets” and figuring out a healthy lifestyle that works for you for the long-term. I’m reminded of the Blue Zones – these are some of the healthiest and happiest groups in the world, and they don’t adhere to specific diets or “good” or “bad” foods, but still eat incredibly healthy and have happy, active, and purposeful lives. And while there are similarities in their diets and lifestyles from a broad perspective (all worth checking out), I also like the fact that there are wide varieties across the board.