WELCOME to the 100th episode of the Rebuilding Trust With Your Body podcast! I still can’t believe it’s been 100 episodes already, and I am so excited to jump in and share with you some lessons that I have learned, and how I have healed and grown along the way, including some of the most powerful things that my clients and students have taught me, which I know will be some of you who are listening to this episode and I cannot thank you enough for being part of this journey with me.

To make this extra special, I am going to make this interactive and I’m going to be doing a fun giveaway. So here’s how this is going to work:

• After you listen to the episode I want you to either come into my FB group OR share on your IG stories and tag me with your biggest takeaway from this episode. I want to know what jumps out at you and what resonates with you – because YOU are why I do this show!
• Everyone who shares their biggest takeaway by October 31, 2023, will be entered in a drawing for a free entry to Intuitive Eating Exploration: A 5-week Workbook Group Study to Discover or Rediscover The Power of Intuitive Eating and Giving Up Diets for Good that’s happening in January. This entry is valued at $97 and you’ll have the chance to snag a spot for FREE! I’ll be announcing the winner on November 1, 2023.  
• If you’re listening to this episode in the future, after October 2023, I still want to hear your biggest takeaways and things that clicked for you, so message me with those either on FB or IG! I love hearing what’s resonating with you and to connect with listeners!

Lessons Learned Along the Way

• One of my biggest lessons over these past few years has been realizing that it’s ok for me to not have all the answers. The perfectionist part of me wants to always be right, always have the correct answer, and to always know exactly what to tell someone to help them move forward or work through something. I’ve realized that’s just not how this works. I was recently reminded by a coach of mine that nobody can be an expert in everything, myself included, and it’s ok to say I don’t know. 

In fact, one of the biggest paradigm shifts that I have made is what I learned from Bri Campos and her body grief framework. What she taught me is that it’s ok to allow ourselves to sit with the feelings of grief around our bodies, around the fact that we might not ever weigh what we want to weigh, and that all of the time/money/energy that we have spent trying to control our food and change our bodies has really not been helpful. That sucks…AND acknowledging that and validating it for ourselves allows us to begin to heal and move forward in ways that are much more productive.

• Another lesson that I’ve learned – and I learned this one the hard way – is to not argue with people on social media. To quote Leslie Knope from the show Parks and Rec, “All I have on my side is facts and science. And people hate facts and science.”
  
  

I remember one time getting in this really long exchange with a guy on social media and I thought at first that I might be able to change his mind, which was naive of me. And I kept trying to throw stats and logic at him as “proof” that my way of thinking about how diets don’t work is “right.” And all this did was make him further entrenched in his own point of view that anyone can lose weight and keep it off if they just try hard enough.

If you ever see me arguing with someone on the internet please stage an intervention and remind me what a waste of energy it is.

• Another thing that I have REALLY deeply learned through this process is how health will never NOT be nuanced. There is rarely any universal truth to things that pertain to our health and wellness. What works for one person might not work for another. And because of this, different perspectives are helpful. 

• The other thing that I have seen time and time again in the past few years, both with the students in my online programs like Non-Diet Academy, as well as my individual clients, is that power of compassion and self-compassion. There’s a ton of research that has come out about self-compassion, and if you haven’t read Kristin Neff’s work definitely start there. She’s a self-compassion researcher at the University of Texas Austin. Her teachings on tender and fierce self-compassion have helped me grow so much both personally and professionally. 

Ways My Students Have Grown and Healed

Shifting away from some of the lessons I’ve learned, now I want to brag on some of my students and the ways that they have grown and healed, because this shows what’s possible for YOU.

• I had a student inside my course Non-Diet Academy who told me that she went from binging multiple times per WEEK, to not having binged in MONTHS. Think about what a big deal that is! To be feeling out of control with food several days per week is such a frustrating cycle to be in. Because usually we’re doing that thing where we’re trying to “be good” one day, and then we’ll give in and eat something that we feel like we shouldn’t be eating, and we’ll go overboard and eat way more than our bodies needed. Then you feel like crap both physically and mentally, and the next day you decide that you’re going to do better.
  
  Sound familiar? So many of us get into that cycle, and it’s hard to break out of. Because it requires you to stop restricting your food. Which is terrifying when you are afraid you’re going to never stop eating. So when I suggest to my students in Non-Diet Academy that they bring back into the house the things they’re afraid to eat it takes a leap of faith to trust the process. But you know what? It works. And this student I’m referring to is a perfect example. As soon as she stopped restricted and started giving herself permission to EAT, unapologetically, she stopped binging.
  
  Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t encourage people to go have a free-for-all with food. There’s a method to my madness. We actually do it in a somewhat structured and systematic way where we are working on specific experiments and challenges during the process. And that allows us to put the concepts and strategies together like pieces of a puzzle. I don’t want to imply that it was just magic that she decided to stop restricting and all her food issues went away. It’s certainly more complicated than that, and it requires some mindset work to think of food differently, and some intentional strategies around giving our bodies what they need rather than restricting or depriving ourselves. And all of that is what I teach inside the course. But again, I want you to hear this and have HOPE that you too can stop binging, and stop feeling obsessed and out of control with food.
  
• Let me give you another inspiring example. One of my students reached out to me one day and she said, “Katy, people are constantly bringing donuts into the breakroom at work, and I feel like if I go in there I can’t resist them but then if I eat a donut – or multiple donuts – I feel really guilty for the rest of the day.” And her initial instinct was to try and avoid the break room. She figured if she just didn’t go in there then the donut problem goes away.
  
  I told her, “You’re going to think what I’m about to say is bonkers, but here’s what I would recommend. If you’re open to it, I want you to have a donut for breakfast every single day this week.” The idea was instead of avoiding the donuts, to lean into the donuts and to decharm them. Decharming is something that I teach in depth inside Non-Diet Academy, and I’ve talked about it a little bit here on the podcast, and let me tell you what – it works. It sounds bananas, AND it works.
  

I had one client who thought she was addicted to sugar and we worked on decharming sweets, and she came to a session with me one day and said, “Katy, you’re never going to believe this but I found a package of cookies in my pantry that I forgot were in there, and they were stale so I threw them away.” THIS is what happens when you have peace with food. 

3 ways that I have intentionally worked on my own growth

1. Mentorship and coaching
   • Hands down, without a shadow of doubt, I would not be where I’m at today without my mentors. From the very beginning of my private practice I invested in what’s called “clinical supervision” which is where I paid a more experienced dietitian who talk through the work I was doing with my clients. She gave me advice, guidance and tools. This is something that’s not required for dietitians the way it is for therapists in their training, but frankly it should be. I would have had no business trying to work with clients, especially people who have eating and body image issues, without this type of training and supervision. So much of what I learn and how I operate is because of my mentor, Kathi.
     
   • Another form of mentorship I’ve embraced on this journey is from my business coaches. Building this podcast, and my courses, and my online presence is such a different process than it was to build my brick and mortar private practice back when I first started. I didn’t know what I was doing when I started this online work. So I sought out training and mentorship from people who do.
     
     One of my coaches is Amy Porterfield, who I had on this podcast earlier this year. Amy is a big deal in the online education space. She has a well known course called Digital Course Academy, which I took back in 2020 and it was the system I followed when I built Non-Diet Academy. Yes, I took a course on how to build a course, and it was one of the most helpful things I’ve ever done! I’ve continued to work with Amy through her membership program that’s for the alumni of Digital Course Academy, and having that ongoing mentorship and guidance from her and her team has been invaluable to me. I actually got to fly out to Nashville to meet Amy and some of her team in person back in March and I felt like I was meeting a celebrity. It was such a pinch-me moment and I feel so blessed to be connected with her. They had flown me out to interview me talking about my business as one of their student success stories. I’m not saying this to brag, ok maybe it’s a little bit of a humble brag, but the point I want you to hear is that a coach wants you to succeed it can be such a rewarding experience. We don’t have to struggle alone! 

A good coach or mentor can help you feel supported and encouraged and give you that energy and that excitement to keep moving forward. And they can help guide you with strategies and suggestions that will help you make progress faster and more effectively. That’s my hope when I’m coaching someone else – that I can help you get to where you want to go by helping you stay the course and avoid pitfalls and mistakes, because trust me I’ve seen it all over the course of my work as an intuitive eating specialist. I’ve literally worked with hundreds of individuals and I have seen what works and doesn’t work, and I know the mental traps that will keep people stuck, so I love when I can help someone through their roadblocks. And that’s exactly what my coaches and mentors have done for me. So shout out to Amy and Jo, I love you guys!

2. Courses
   • It’s no secret that I LOVE learning and I’m a bit of a digital course junkie. I would spend all day attending webinars and taking courses if I could. Every few years I invest in a big national conference in the field of eating disorders.
     One conference that I invested in this year is a self-compassion summit. It is an entire conference all about the framework and skills of self-compassion and it’s been fantastic. In fact, I can’t wait to share more of what I’m learning with you in some future episodes.
     
     Another type of course that I frequently will take pertains to building the online side of my business. I was never trained in marketing, or accounting, or entrepreneurship in my dietetics training, so I’ve had to seek all of that out on my own. Like I mentioned earlier, I took Amy Porterfield’s Digital Course Academy, I have done and am still doing several of Jo White’s programs, I am a member of Social Curator with Jasmine Star and she’s a rockstar coach too. Her trainings and group coaching light me up like nothing else.
     
     This is why you’ll continue to see me offering online courses, programs and trainings. I think they are such powerful ways for us to learn, grow and heal in various areas of our lives.
     
3. The 3rd way I’ve intentionally worked on my own growth is through community.
   • All of the coaching programs that I am currently part of have a group or a community aspect to them. And for good reason. Being among like minded people who are working on something similar to what you’re working on is so powerful. One of the things that brings me so much joy is when someone in one of the programs I’m in shares a win or a success they had and I can clap them up and celebrate with them. It feels SO good to support other people and to lift each other up.
     
     That’s why I am so passionate about my FB group as well as the group coaching element of Non-Diet Academy, as well as the ongoing group chat and group coaching that I have for my alumni members in the Non-Dieter’s Club. Healing happens in connection and community with others.
     
     If I didn’t have the support of colleagues and other people who are working on similar things, I’m certain that I would have given up and gone back to working in a hospital or some type of more traditional dietetics employment setting. And saying that out loud I cringe thinking about not being able to run this business and podcast that I love so much.
     
     So those are my 3 intentional forms of growth: coaching, courses and community. 

What’s Next For Me?

Looking ahead to what’s next for me, I have several things in the works. In January 2024, I will be doing my new and revamped book study called Intuitive Eating Exploration. It’s a 5-week Workbook Group Study to Discover or Rediscover The Power of Intuitive Eating and Giving Up Diets for Good. So I’m VERY excited about that. Last January I called it the IE Workbook Study Club, and it was a huge hit, but I also discovered several ways that I can make it better so you’re getting the shiny new version of it. 

Another thing that’s coming in 2024 is my spring cohort of Non-Diet Academy. If you’re interested and think you might want to do it, feel free to reach out and I can get you signed up with early bird pricing. 

I’ve also got some things up my sleeve to make my Non-Diet Academy alumni group program bigger and better in 2024, so if you’ve already taken Non-Diet Academy and you’re looking for some ongoing support, training and a community of others who get it, definitely reach out to me about that. It was brand new in August of this year, so we’re just getting started in terms of the goodness that’s to come for that program. 

From the bottom of my heart, thank you for being here, and thank you for listening and allowing this show to grow to 100 episodes! I could not be more thrilled with how it’s going, and I can’t wait to keep pumping out content for you here on this podcast, so I hope you’ll stick around, tell a friend, and keep following along. 

I’ll be back again next week with another new episode, so I’ll talk to you then! 

Let’s get connected!

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