Transforming Food Beliefs: Dr. Ginny Trier-Weiler’s Journey to Nourishment and Health for Women Over 40

Have you ever wondered how your food beliefs shape your relationship with health and wellness? In this enlightening episode of Real Food Stories, host Heather Carey sits down with Dr. Ginny Trier-Weiler, a psychologist and certified health coach, who reveals her transformative journey from struggling with weight and health issues to embracing a nourishing lifestyle. Dr. Trier-Weiler’s eye-opening experiences in nursing homes unveiled the stark reality of how poor eating habits contribute to chronic diseases, igniting her passion for understanding the true essence of food and health.

As she shares her personal food journey, Dr. Trier-Weiler emphasizes the importance of recognizing our food beliefs and how they influence our choices, particularly for women over 40 navigating the complexities of midlife and menopause health. With her expert insights, she provides practical nutrition advice and healthy eating tips that empower listeners to shift their mindset around food—from indulgence to nourishment. This episode is packed with valuable strategies for sustainable weight loss and health improvement, focusing on the seven pillars of abundance that prioritize self-love, self-care, and mindful eating practices.

Dr. Trier-Weiler’s approach challenges common weight loss myths and diet fads, advocating for an abundance of nutritious foods that support hormonal balance and heart health. She dives into the significance of understanding what our bodies truly need, rather than succumbing to the allure of packaged foods marketed as healthy. With a focus on culinary wellness, she shares cooking techniques that encourage joyful eating and sustainable eating habits, making it easier for women to embrace their personal nutrition journey.

Throughout the conversation, listeners will gain insights into developing a healthier relationship with food, recognizing that true self-care involves nourishing the body rather than indulging in harmful habits. Dr. Trier-Weiler’s passion for empowering women shines through as she discusses the role of food beliefs and culture in shaping our eating practices. Whether you’re looking to improve your midlife health, navigate perimenopause nutrition, or simply embrace a healthier lifestyle, this episode offers a wealth of knowledge and inspiration to help you along your journey.

Join us for this empowering discussion that not only highlights the importance of food beliefs but also provides you with the tools to cultivate a nourished body, mind, and spirit. Tune in to discover how to embrace your food beliefs and transform your relationship with food for a healthier, happier you!

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Transcript:

Speaker #0
Well, hello, everybody, and welcome back. And if you are just tuning in with me for the very first time, it’s so nice to meet you. And I’m really glad you’re here with me today. I am your host, Heather Carey, nutritionist, chef, mom, and a woman who has been around the block with food. I want to open up about real food in relation to health, weight, and our bodies so you can make peace with what you eat. Hi everyone. Today I am with Dr. Ginny Trier-Weiler, who is a psychologist and certified health coach who has scoured the research to find evidence-based answers to her own eating and weight issues. She felt she was on track to land at a nursing home in her 60s when she discovered key principles to naturally and easily release excess weight by learning to actually nourish the body and activate. health, and healing from within. Ginny combines this crazy effective eating approach with habit change expertise to help other smart women over 40 get wonderful results. It becomes so effortless and natural once you come to crave the good foods.

Speaker #1
Yes.

Speaker #0
I agree with that. Smart, mature women deserve to live their best life and the world needs us. And I agree with that. as well. So thank you, Ginny, for coming on today. It’s really nice to speak to you. And I want to hear your story first, because the fear of landing in a nursing home in your 60s.

Speaker #1
A little dramatic, right?

Speaker #0
Terrifying. Yeah. So why don’t we just start with talk about that first?

Speaker #1
And what was going on? Yeah. I’m excited to be here. I love your podcast. It’s just a great approach to talk about real food stories. Yeah, I thought I was eating pretty healthy. I was reading all the packages and, you know, trying to do my best. But little by little, I was seeing more and more concerning things. And so one thing is I had gotten by the time I was 55, I had gotten 60 pounds overweight and super uncomfortable with my weight, like hiding myself and feeling ashamed and like just I was having all kinds of hot flashes. I was having a lot of insomnia. The reason I started worrying about landing in a nursing home is I had so much pain and inflammation throughout my body, really for decades, that by this point, I could barely walk anymore. I had such inflammation in my feet. I had scheduled surgery twice. And I was pre-diabetic. And I had this big wake-up call because I’m going along going, I’m doing pretty well. And then I started working as a psychologist in nursing homes. And I thought they were going to be old people. And they weren’t. Most of the people in nursing homes are in their 60s and 70s. So to me, that doesn’t sound old anymore.

Speaker #0
Right? That’s a statistic I didn’t realize.

Speaker #1
I know. I don’t think people know it. We think of ourselves as very different. And I did too. I’m going to go see these old people. I’m going to help them with this transition in life. No, they were not very much older than me. And… A lot of them were telling me, Ginny, you got to get me out of here. I don’t belong here. My kids are stealing my house and my car. And so I started researching, what are these conditions that they’re getting and how do they get them and can they be reversed? And what I discovered is it’s too late to reverse them at that point. Nobody was getting out once they landed at that level of care. And the majority of the disease is landing them there related to our eating. It really shocked me. So it was heart disease and it was stroke and it was diabetes and all the things that go with that and dementia and cancer more than anything else. So a huge percentage, the majority of their illnesses are really highly related to the way we eat. So I thought, I’ve got to change the way I’m eating. I keep making excuses why I’m not that far off. I’m doing pretty well. This should be okay. Should be okay if I have a little of this and a little of that. I was having wine every night, but I wasn’t having sugar, you know, except that is sugar. So I just had this kind of freak out of, oh, my gosh, Jenny, the honest truth is you can’t walk for 10 minutes anymore. The honest truth is you’re headed for the nursing home in your 60s if you don’t change something for real and quit arguing about why the way you’re eating should be good enough. Right?

Speaker #0
Yeah. Well, all those, all… all those um diseases or illnesses that you mentioned, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, right? Those are all the lifestyle diseases, right? Those are, can really be helped significantly with changes in our diet and our just other lifestyle changes like quitting alcohol and cigarettes and things like that.

Speaker #1
Yeah. To me, quitting alcohol is part of changing your eating and your drinking. Like you want to start eating and drinking. So this is the insight I had. You can keep arguing that this shouldn’t hurt you and that shouldn’t hurt you. And you’re not doing this much. You’re not doing too much of that. Or you can start taking the approach of body. I’m sorry. I want to figure out what would actually be good for you. And I want to consistently give you that and quit giving you things that aren’t good for you. Like it’s going to make a real difference. I’m going to quit lying about that.

Speaker #0
Right. Yeah, exactly. It should. Rather than just saying like, right, we shouldn’t be eating this or just beating ourselves up. I mean, it sounds like you had a real wake up call. You saw firsthand what the future could be. And you were dealing with some health issues yourself.

Speaker #1
Yeah.

Speaker #0
So what happened next? You were working in the nursing homes with people who were close to your age. And it sounds like you had a aha moment or just a wake up call. And I think, like I said before, it’s one thing to just say, like, don’t do this, do this, eat this, don’t eat that. Right. I mean, that’s that never really works in the long run. Right. Yeah. What was it? What was the difference, do you think, for you?

Speaker #1
Yeah. Well, I was really I was really conflating self-indulgence with self-love. So I was this hardworking person taking care of everyone else. I was a nonprofit CEO in a Montessori school. before I went to the nursing homes. And I just was killing myself at work every day. And the only self-care kind of practice I had was eating and drinking at night, like the most indulgent stuff. And it wasn’t really self-care, right? It was self-indulgence. And I had to start, like, I want to cry when I think about it, because I was so scared to let that go. It was my source of pleasure and reward. It’s like this, oh, I love myself. I deserve this. And I started catching the phrase, I deserve this and asking myself, oh, did you hear that? Are you saying you deserve this about something good for you? Or do you only say this about things that are bad for you? And it makes me want to cry because really, I had gotten to the point where I almost would rather die than go on the way I was. I just felt like I’m failing at life right now. I can barely walk in my 60s. People think I’m doing really great, but I can’t. seem to stop drinking or eating things that are super indulgent. It’s like the most important thing in my life. So I was scared, but I started fighting for this new approach of I’m going to give my body what it actually needs. I’m going to be devoted to that until I, and it was like in tears every day at first, like I’m, unless I’m in a nursing home or I’m dead, I’m fighting for this. And it got easier and easier because it actually can be thoroughly enjoyable to eat what your body needs. So I kind of got over the fear and the upset over it.

Speaker #0
Well, I imagine you started seeing some positive results for your body and your energy. And I want to hear if you’re walking more and more now, but I wanted to just also mention, I mean, I can certainly relate to your story of the, I deserve. you know, I, I deserve, I ha I’m having a really hard day, right. And self-care equaled having a glass of wine at the end of the day or having some ice cream or having a cookie or whatever, whatever it is. I wouldn’t, you know, I, I stopped drinking. I have my own alcohol story that I stopped drinking about five years ago. And, and because of the same realization and I, you know, that I deserve and. alcohol or where do they where do those two match up I deserve and ice cream where where are the where’s the like the connection here and it’s really it’s really not and I know that it’s once you have that realization it’s it is hard but it’s freeing

Speaker #1
right it’s very good yeah I really feel like I ended up with so many food and drink obsessions that um I mean, that kind of attachment of being so scared to let go. I could see, I’m a psychologist, right? I could see this is not a healthy attitude toward food. I love the kind of approach that you take because I really just agree that we want food to be something that’s nourish, food and drink, to be nourishing and to feel good, but not to be like super, holy shit, exciting, excuse my language, right? Like when it gets too exciting, we may be out of bounds with what’s actually good for us.

Speaker #0
Right. Yeah. And then you start putting a label on, I mean, for me, the realization of alcohol, just wine, for example, to everything, I’m having a bad day. I’m having a good day. It’s Friday. I want to relax. I, that realization, I couldn’t believe the light bulb that went off in my head, because I, like you, you know, you are. a smart, educated woman. So am I, you know, I’m a nutritionist. I knew, I mean, I have these things. I know what’s good foods for you and bad foods for you and all of that. And yeah. And, and all the, and your behaviors can override that. So I, but I think right. Taking and stepping back from alcohol for me was a huge, huge, real, I just really honestly did not. understand the relationship of the, the habit I had with it until I stopped. And same with food, you know, I mean, I was a very mindless eater too. When my kids were younger, I was a very mindless eater. I definitely felt like I deserved a cookie at the end of the day or whatever it was. And it, and, and just stepping back, it made me, yeah, you can see the, the tie that you have. It sounds like that happened for you as well.

Speaker #1
Definitely. Yeah. And now because I help other women with these changes in their eating and drinking, one thing I love to hear is I just feel so much calmer. And so that kind of foodie attitude of, well, I’m a foodie and I get super, super excited. I really found it wasn’t serving me. It’s not serving a lot of my clients. And having this kind of calmer relationship with food like this is. pleasing. Like when I put my lunch together after I get off this podcast, I’m going to have this gorgeous, abundant bunch of colorful, nutritious food. And I’m going to feel it’s pleasing, but I’m not going to feel like I got to call people and I got to, you know.

Speaker #0
Yeah. Put it all over social media and show everybody your beautiful salad. Yeah. Yeah. Because it sounds like it’s pleasing for you. I mean, right. If you know, I mean, I don’t. You might feel the same way. This is how I feel. When I look at a plate of food, I plate a food and I’ve just prepared a nice lunch that I, yeah, I get this really like my serotonin like gets raised and like my dopamine because I know that what I’m eating is good for me. It’s kind. It’s like a kindness.

Speaker #1
That’s a good way to put it.

Speaker #0
And compassionate, right? It’s like, I know I’m doing something really kind and compassionate for my body, for myself. And I feel good about that. For me, food is medicine. I mean, I know that food is not really medicine, but it’s healing. And so that’s how I look at it too. It sounds like you’re doing this.

Speaker #1
It’s amazing. So I could barely walk. Now I can envision I’m hiking in the mountains again. I can envision hiking in the mountains in my 80s and maybe my 90s. I think that’s how we ought to feel. And it’s possible for so many of us, if we haven’t passed a certain threshold, If we start… eating in a way that really nourishes our body. And, and we can get past the Oh, but I’ll be so sad. I have a friend who was just visiting and was like, I’ve got to hold on to my stevia. I’m losing weight. But I Yeah, stevia is helping me. And I told her, No, it’s not.

Speaker #0
Right. Yeah.

Speaker #1
It’s in your way. She’s like, Oh, but how will I drink anything without it? And we all know that feeling, right? But she’s, so she’s been making some progress. progress with her healthy eating and weight loss, she said, okay, I’m going to try that next.

Speaker #0
Yeah. Well, that’s a good point too. You can’t, right. To change everything all at once. Sometimes people need small steps. Sometimes people need that big giant step, but she’ll probably get there. I imagine.

Speaker #1
But inviting her to look at the sense of attachment, like this is so important. I couldn’t possibly let it go. I think has been helpful to her.

Speaker #0
Yes, absolutely.

Speaker #1
And you were talking about that. I feel like our society encourages that so much. Are you celebrating something? We have something to sell you. Are you feeling sad? We have something to sell you. And we have all repeated this idea to each other and to ourselves so much that it seems natural to treat ourselves with things that are not good for us.

Speaker #0
Oh, I mean, particularly with the wine industry. I mean, and mothers, I mean, and You know, when I was a young mother, I mean, that was all I heard about all my friends talking about. We needed, we needed to. that was how we were going to cope right at the end of the day we were going to get together and have some wine even if we were with our kids you know we were getting together and and we just needed to cope and or we needed to where we made it through the week right yes so we deserve you know so I love that like you know I deserve is yes when I when

Speaker #1
I went through a training to be a coach to help people with quitting drinking And another one of the coaches asked to speak to the rest of us. And she said, I’m in alcohol marketing. And you wouldn’t believe how we sit around trying to figure out how do we addict more women to alcohol earlier, later? How do we find more of them and get more of them addicted? She says, yeah.

Speaker #0
Wow. That’s amazing. I mean, that’s, I mean, we already know that. But to hear it, you know, straight from somebody, that’s really incredible. But it’s true. I mean, we know it’s true.

Speaker #1
It became animating to me to get mad about this. Like these people don’t care if we end up in nursing homes in our 60s. Yeah.

Speaker #0
Yeah. No, I mean, so I mean, back to, yeah, I mean, back to the alcohol. It’s like, right. We’re like sold. I think especially as women, we’re sold a bill of goods that, you know, we need alcohol. We don’t need alcohol. Right. We really don’t. I know for me, the more I just learn about. with the marketing behind it and just those mixed messages. It’s a business.

Speaker #1
And when you feel how different your body is when you get it out of your body, you’re like, ooh, that was a big insight. I had such terrible insomnia. I would say on a scale of one to 10, my sleep was a two or a three. Every appointment I had in the morning as a professional was tentative because I may not be asleep until nine in the morning. It was disastrous. Then after I changed my eating and drinking, it’s like a nine or a 10 almost every night.

Speaker #0
So let’s talk about what you did. So we, you know, we talked about you, you quit drinking and, you know, you change your diet and then it sounds like you had just these amazing results. I mean, you weren’t really able to walk and you were having some health issues. Tell, let’s talk about the food. I mean, tell me what you did. As far as changing up your food, what was it like before? What were you eating and what happened after that?

Speaker #1
Well, I felt like I was eating healthy because I would, anytime I bought snacky things, they were in the health food aisle, right? I was getting the ones that had extra antioxidants and they had all the packaging that said they were healthy. And I love the word natural on the package, even though it has no meaning whatsoever as far as that kind of packaging goes. So I was, I felt like I was doing pretty well, better than 80% of the people. But what I started discovering is things in packages with advertising are not the things my body needs. And I need to change my mind from what do I want or feel like having to what does my body actually need and, and care about it. And so really a lot of it is shifting to eating. First thing I learned was I need to eat more of the nutritious foods, like maybe a lot more. like four times to 10 times as much vegetables as I’m eating. So I thought I was eating pretty good vegetables. And almost everyone that works with me thinks, not all of them, but a lot of them think I’m eating plenty of vegetables. And when we look at the amounts, not really, according to the research. So I was looking for key principles that would guide me. And then when I found them, it really translated to pretty specific quantities. And that was super helpful to me. So it was really clear, not a matter of. deciding, like the research shows we’re making over 200 eating and drinking decisions every day. This is ridiculously exhausting and draining. And so once you get super clear how to eat, then you’re making way fewer decisions, right? So it starts with eating an abundance of highly nutritious foods. Now, I used to, I realized I used to save space, like, okay. I ate a certain amount of nutritious food and I still have room for popcorn or whatever, right? So I used to always save space for that stuff. Now, no, I’m eating an abundance of nutritious foods. And then when I look at the things that are sweetened and that are highly processed and including alcohol, I kind of put it in the same category. I have changed my mind. These are treats. No, they’re not so much treats. I am calling them chip nipples, which is cravingful. highly processed, non-nutritious food-like substances.

Speaker #0
I love that, chip nipples. That’s something I can remember, right?

Speaker #1
It is. Like, people, I mean, here, I have a treat for you. Sorry, that’s a chip nipple to me. I’m walking.

Speaker #0
I mean, I love what you’re just saying about the food marketing, because I think this is very much like the alcohol marketing, right? I mean, it’s like, you’re like, oh, my God, I can’t believe how much marketing and like, the messages around alcohol, but the same goes for food. and The, you know, you mentioned the word natural, which I know right there. I mean, I tell people all the time. I mean, that word is absolutely meaningless in the food world. It is nothing, but people put it on labels to make it, make things healthier and better. And, and it’s every, you know, that word is everywhere. I mean, it’s on chicken, it’s on snack foods, it’s on drinks, it’s, it’s everywhere. Good. So food marketing. Yeah. Once you get educated, I think on the food, that’s the most nutritious for you and the best for you. You realize that most food doesn’t come in a package. It doesn’t have to come in a package. Right. I mean, most food is like, or has like maybe one to two ingredients, not a list of, you know, three dozen ingredients and things you can’t pronounce. Yes. And so it’s so, yeah, but, but we need to get educated.

Speaker #1
We do big time. 80% of the food in the grocery store has added sugar. So we’re looking for the lower amounts of sugar. We’re still getting so much. I read that 57% of our food now is highly processed food like substances.

Speaker #0
Yeah, I can believe that.

Speaker #1
Yeah. So even those of us who feel like I’m doing better than 80% of the people probably still are far enough away that we’re not getting results. like I’m saving space for these things. No, those things are hurting you.

Speaker #0
Yeah. So after changing up your diet, tell me just a little bit about your journey with your health. I mean, was it a, was it a radical change? Was it a,

Speaker #1
it was a pretty radical change. I don’t know how long it took. Cause I never knew I was going to be talking about this so much. I was just trying to get my life back, right?

Speaker #0
But I…

Speaker #1
60 pounds. I think that took me a year and it was a very natural, easy kind of weight loss. My sleep turned around, my blood sugar turned around. So not pre-diabetic anymore. My hot flashes went away. The pain and inflammation that I had lived with for 35 years went away. So it’s like the body, it makes a real difference to your body, whether you’re 80% eating well or a lot more than that. Yeah.

Speaker #0
Right. So it sounds like you are a real walking testimonial to the power of food and healing.

Speaker #1
Yeah. Yeah. I just turned 64. I feel better than I felt in my forties and my fifties until I changed my eating. Maybe my thirties. I thought I was doing well. Like it seemed to work. I stayed slender until my forties, but really I probably was doing all this little harm day after day after day after day.

Speaker #0
So it sounds like… You mentioned 80%. Is there room for treats and things sometimes in your…

Speaker #1
You mean chip nipples?

Speaker #0
Yeah.

Speaker #1
Sure. If you want, you can eat whatever you want. What I say is it does matter to your body if you’re eating non-nutritious stuff or you’re eating nutritious stuff. So we have a lot of cultural ideas that we should be able to have some treats. And what we mean is non-nutritious processed food like substances. And so I just really wanted to change my whole attachment to those things, my whole perspective on them. It’s not that I can’t ever get pulled back into that cultural idea that we need to be able to have a little. I can have a little if I want. But the idea that I’ll have this today and then I won’t have it for three months is not. As a psychologist, I can say it’s not really how our behavior works. What I eat today affects my behavior tomorrow. And I think that’s a piece that I’m just really starting to understand better that people don’t understand. So I will have people who work with me who have great success. It’s easy eating this way. I love it. And I’m going to start fiddling around with it. And a year and a half later, they’re trying to unfiddle still. So if it’s a craving for highly processed, non-nutritious food-like substance, I’m just changing my mind about whether it belongs in my body.

Speaker #0
Do you feel that there is a… a certain cutoff? I mean, I know, I think you work mostly with women over 40.

Speaker #1
I do. Yeah.

Speaker #0
And is there more of a struggle with women over 40 to lose weight and to get healthier than any other age group?

Speaker #1
There’s so many ways estrogen has been protective of us, right? And so when we start to lose the estrogen, it starts mattering more how we’re eating. It matters more for our metabolism. It matters more for our brain. functions, right? We really are losing a big protective factor at that point. So it starts showing up more. And also we’ve been building habits for so long and all the psychology that sustains those habits, like it requires a bigger interruption. So it’s true. If I were working with women and their women or men in their twenties and thirties, I might not be so feel so strict about chip nipples. Like if I could have started a lot smaller, back then and managed not to develop such cravings and attachment for them, maybe I wouldn’t feel like it has to be like so clear cut for me.

Speaker #0
Yeah, I understand that. I know that, you know, for some people that I work with, and I think myself included, that sometimes it’s just a no, right? I mean, sometimes if you think something is a trigger for you or if it’s a trigger food or… or alcohol or whatever, you know, it’s just an, you know, it just might have to be a no, it’s just no negotiating, right? No, like maybe sometimes when I feel like it, like, it’s just a no. And so it sounds like that’s something that you’ve identified with you and in the women you work with.

Speaker #1
I think people can be different about it. But I think people shouldn’t underestimate how quick you can get pulled back to habits that really don’t serve you. and make it hard again to stop. It’s like with alcohol, right? A lot of the sugar things, anything with sugar in it can really get all those cravings going again and be hard to interrupt.

Speaker #0
Yeah, no, I totally agree with that. I know for a lot of women over 40, I mean, estrogen plays an enormous role in the dip in estrogen.

Speaker #1
Yes.

Speaker #0
weight, metabolism, where we distribute our fat and our bodies and beyond estrogen. I mean, do you feel like there’s other struggles that women over 40, I mean, I know we can blame estrogen a lot and sometimes I do blame everything on estrogen, but what else contributes to women struggling with weight loss in their forties? I mean, I know for me, I mean, I have, I tell the whole. I deal with a lot of women who have been on and off diets for their entire lives. They don’t know how to eat, right? They just, they don’t even know how to like, they just know how to be on a diet, then off a diet, then back on. And you know, these strict fads. It’s terrible.

Speaker #1
That’s the best for weight gain over time is dieting. So the other thing, I mean, I could talk about a couple of things. There’s other hormones that really factor in, right?

Speaker #0
So we can really talk about those.

Speaker #1
we can really mess up our insulin functioning. And then our body is just really trying to defend this higher weight, which I felt when I was trying to lose weight at this stage, like, your body’s like, nope, nope, I’m going to make you hungry, I’m going to slow the metabolism, right? So when our a lot of doctors that study this stuff think most of us may be insulin resistant now. So we’re, we’re setting our weight set point up higher. And then our body’s defending that higher weight. And that’s going with high blood pressure, high blood sugar, and all those things. There’s also the issue of cortisol. So we find when people diet, so they really try to eat less or even just count their calories, they get an increase in cortisol through their system. That can start affecting our ability to sleep. It can start affecting our ability to lose weight. And the other set of hormones that get really affected when we eat things like chipped nipples, or if we eat too frequently, is our leptin system. So these hormones that regulate whether we feel hungry or we feel full. Like sometimes when you eat those, like popcorn, for example, I can eat an amount that’s probably enough for 10 people and just feel like I could still eat more. And that’s a sign. that those hormones that regulate hunger and satisfaction are not functioning correctly. So we can develop this kind of insatiable hunger.

Speaker #0
which is partly why people get scared when they go on a diet. This is going to be terrible.

Speaker #1
Right. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. But I mean, yeah. And just back to, I think cortisol, especially that’s a hormone I think that most women don’t really understand and they don’t understand the relationship between like eating, right. What we could get away with back in our twenties, like we’ll just like, I don’t know, skip breakfast for a couple of days and then you lose 10 pounds.

Speaker #0
And,

Speaker #1
you know, but now, I mean, in our forties and fifties and like midlife that it’s really stressful on your body to cut severely cut calories.

Speaker #0
Yes.

Speaker #1
It’s very stressful. And then your metabolism slows down and there’s a whole chain reaction to it. So yeah. So I think getting educated in how you’re, it’s not just estrogen, right? There’s all these other hormones that play a role in. What is going on with women in midlife?

Speaker #0
Well, the other things are that affect us at this age. Like I joined somebody else’s program to see how are the women my age doing? And they weren’t doing well. And so what I said, they were coming to me going, how are you doing this? And what I realized is it’s not just the eating. It’s the lifestyle, the identity, the mindset of I not. myself out for everybody all the time and nobody ever turns around and takes care of me. So this, I deserve this indulgence. And that mindset needs to shift. It is not self-love or self-care to be indulging in non-nutritious stuff. It’s a simple solution that seemed to work and it’s not working. It’s not giving us the life we want. So I find a lot of us in this age have to learn. what self-love and self-care actually looks and feels like. Like it’s time.

Speaker #1
So what do you define as self-care or self-love? Because I know that’s a really great point that we’re not, we not all of us, but many of us are so programmed to think self care, food is love, you know, food is comfort.

Speaker #0
Right. Well, I think that takes some. work to disentangle that idea. A lot of us learned food is love when we were little kids. And then we learned wine is love and self-care. And there’s kind of no escaping that we’re going to have to think this through. And our primitive brain thinks this is a terrible idea. Wait a minute, why are you thinking so much about what you’re going to eat? This is a terrible idea. Sabertooth tiger is going to come over and kill us if we’re thinking this hard. Just do what you always do. it’s safer. And so breaking the habits of what we always do feels a little freaky. Like, oh, this feels really uncomfortable, right? I don’t think this is a good idea. But there’s just no escaping that we need to sit and think this through and get more of our brain back, making more informed choices. So for me, part of it was journaling. I really, I wrote down self-compassion because I was beating myself up every time I ate something I didn’t think I should. And it really had to become a practice of taking a bit of time, changing my mind about what self-care and self-love is. Like it’s I think it’s about being kind to yourself like you’d be to somebody else who’s going through something hard.

Speaker #1
Exactly. Yeah. And I love that you said you use journaling and just a self-compassion practice. because for me, when back when, you know, my, when I. Mentioned my kids were younger and I had some weight to lose. And this is back in my thirties, but, but still, I was a very mindless eater, even though I knew all of the things I knew what from the nutrition, you know, perspective, but the, but the emotional part of it and the self-compassion and the mindfulness part were totally missing. So when I started to add those in and then look at that as a form of self-care, that was the game changer for everything for me. And that’s what carried me into, you know, making the decision to stop drinking. And that helped, you know, all those skills helped with all of these big, you know, what can feel like big challenges and the journaling too. I’m a big fan, big proponent of journaling. I’ve been journaling my entire life. So, yeah. Yeah, so I always fall back on that. So yeah,

Speaker #0
those apps absolutely can be like that can help us make change. Yeah. And just like I was really intentionally pairing positive emotion with the new way of eating. So I would get my plate together and do sort of grace like we used to do, right? Do some kind of gratitude practice of, wow, that looks delicious. We can’t succeed if we’re only feeling scared and trepidatious. We need to be intentionally putting positive emotion with giving our body what it needs.

Speaker #1
Absolutely. Now, what would be, you know, for, I know, like women 40 and over, you know, a lot of them say to me, like, I just look at food and I gain weight. Like, I just look, you know, so what would be a reasonable weight loss goal for most women? I mean, what do you see, you know, who comes into your practice and what are their goals? You lost a very large amount of weight.

Speaker #0
It was pretty large,

Speaker #1
yeah.

Speaker #0
I worked with people who wanted to lose less weight. I’ve worked with people who wanted to lose more. It’s interesting. People come from all different places with this. And I never try to tell somebody what their weight should be. There’s a lot of standards out there that people can look at to decide kind of what’s a good weight for me, right? And one thing we find is some people of different individuals, people of different races can more healthfully carry different amounts of weight. I went by the BMI. Just to have something to go towards. So at first I wanted to go from obese to overweight into the normal range. And once I got there, it felt like this is easy. I don’t know why I would stop at the top of the normal range. Why don’t I go to the middle of the normal range? And then I got to a size that I thought sounded scary. And I thought I better stop. And I started adding food. And I don’t think I needed to. Really, I think I probably could have gone down another 10 pounds and been good. The reason the size sounded scary is I never was that size, even in high school. But you know what, they’ve changed the sizes. So I got to a size six and I thought, I don’t want to be a size four. That’s tiny. I’m not that person. Well, what’s a size four now is what used to be a size eight. So, okay, that wouldn’t have been a bad size, actually.

Speaker #1
Did you feel just in your weight loss journey that there was a point, like you got to a point where there was more of a struggle to lose weight? You know, do you believe in having like a set point, you know, your body wants to?

Speaker #0
I started getting hungry again in a way I hadn’t been. And I don’t know how that relates to this psychological issue I was having of I don’t think I should get to another size. I don’t know. You know, there’s a lot of psychology mixed in with all these, all these.

Speaker #1
Absolutely. Yeah.

Speaker #0
Which I love. That’s the stuff that I geek out on. Yeah.

Speaker #1
Yeah. I mean, right. And that everyone comes with their own stories and histories around dieting and body image. And so they grew up.

Speaker #0
I was, I had thought, okay. I think 150 is as low as I can get over 40. So people have an over 40 idea like, okay, you have to gain weight at 40. So I’ll go for the best over 40 weight that I think I can do. And really, I just kept going to 135. It just, there was no reason to stop there. 135 is a better weight. I feel more comfortable, lighter on my feet, right? There’s a benefit to having a certain amount of fat. I had way more than was beneficial. So people have to figure this out for themselves. I don’t, I give them sort of guidelines they could use and then they have to decide.

Speaker #1
So let’s talk about your program that you have for women over 40. Yeah.

Speaker #0
It’s called Slender for Good. And the idea is that it’s for good in a couple of ways. One is it should give us better health. It should come naturally out of getting better health. So most of the approaches people are using are compromising their health to get the weight loss. And that isn’t going to be an approach that I want anything to do with. Like I, my, my health was first. So it’s for good in the sense of making our health better. And it’s for good in the sense of we should never have to diet again. We should lose the weight. Weight loss is hard on the body. You don’t want to do that over and over and over. So we want to lose the weight in a healthy way. And then just keep eating this way and keep our weight at this level and not go back and forth and back and forth. It should be for good. Never dieting again. So yeah, the program is, I created a 12 month program, because I can teach them the way of eating over about eight weeks, they can figure out how to implement it and figure out how to enjoy it. And over time, though, I really want them to crave the good foods and really make this way of eating so habitual and automatic that it doesn’t take effort anymore. That makes a huge difference for the sustainability of it.

Speaker #1
I think that’s such a good point too. And, and nice rationale for your program being a longer commitment.

Speaker #0
Yeah.

Speaker #1
A lot of women just want, just tell me what to eat. Put me on a diet. Just tell me, you know, let me suffer and struggle through it for a couple of months because anyone can do that. Right. Anyone suffer on a diet for 30 days.

Speaker #0
Right.

Speaker #1
Without thinking about the long-term consequences or the weight gain that they’re going to. end up having. And so it’s,

Speaker #0
and most people gain weight back at that point. And yeah, I really want to work with the women who are like, I’m done with that yo-yo dieting thing. I want to learn a way to eat that I can do the rest of my life and enjoy. So that’s what I, that’s what I teach them. Yeah.

Speaker #1
Well, that sounds great. Anything else, any other takeaways you want to leave for my audience? I think we’ve covered a lot about just dieting over 40 and your story. And thank you. I appreciate you telling your story. And

Speaker #0
I think the takeaway I would give is we really start with adding before we subtract. We don’t want to go into this with fear or resistance or this is going to suck kind of feelings. And even our body wants to feel. better, wants to be more energized. So find ways to really increase your nutritious food first, before you tackle the, all right, I’m going to cut these chip nipples out.

Speaker #1
I love that.

Speaker #0
You almost never see people succeed with that.

Speaker #1
Yeah, right. If you tell them all the things that they’re not allowed to have, they can’t do this, no to this, this, this, and this. It’s, yeah, that can be very defeating. But if you… Talk and educate people on all of the delicious, beautiful, beneficial foods that they can add into their diets and then make them taste delicious and then make them something to look forward to. Yes. And get filled up on and feel good in like a, you know, in a really, you know, great way, energized way. That’s a, that’s a great way to start.

Speaker #0
Yeah. I think the body starts saying, okay. I’ll release this excess fat. I don’t need it anymore.

Speaker #1
Tell me how people can get in touch with you. And I will also put the links in the show notes. But how can people reach out to you and work with you?

Speaker #0
Yeah. So my website is slenderforgood.com. And I often have some upcoming free events so you can get a sense of how I approach this stuff. And if you’d like working with me.

Speaker #1
Okay, great. I will put all those links in the show notes for people to find you. Jenny, thank you so much for just coming on and having a conversation with me today. I was talking about food, nutritious food, the healing benefits of eating your best. So have a great day. Talk to you soon.

Speaker #0
All right. Thank you.

Speaker #1
Thanks. And as always, if you loved this podcast. please consider gifting me with a five-star review. It is so helpful for me to get the word out on real eating, our real bodies, and real food stories. Thank you so much and have a great week. Bye for now.