Welcome back to Rebuilding Trust With Your Body, I’m Katy Harvey your host. Today on the show we are going to talk about that thing that I know you’ve done before – trying to lose weight before vacation, or a big event like a wedding or your 40th birthday. 

I totally get it. We want to feel good about ourselves, especially for these special occasions, and when we know there will be photos taken. 

Diet culture has trained us to believe that when we are thinner we will be happier, more confident and have more fun. 

On the flip side, we’ve been trained to believe that if we see people we haven’t seen in a while at a wedding or a party, or if people you haven’t seen lately see the photos of you on your beach vacation and you haven’t lost weight they’ll think that you’ve “let yourself go” or that you are basically failing in life. 

Here’s the deal though: Not eating carbs 2 weeks prior to your vacation isn’t going to make you happier on the trip. It’s just not. 

I know how badly you want to lose weight to feel like you look better in your bathing suit (side note here – we are operating under the assumption that “looking better” means thinner, right?), and that you want to feel somehow more worthy and deserving of having fun and relaxing on the trip, which (again) we equate with thinness and weight loss. 

I get why you feel this way, AND I’d be lying if I didn’t challenge this thought process, because it’s not serving you, and it’s not making your life (or your vacations and special events in life) better. So this is a little bit of tough love, but you know it’s coming from a compassionate place because that’s how I roll. 

So in this episode we’re going to get into what to do instead leading up to your next vacation or special event. I’m going to share some strategies you can apply with your eating that are going to help you feel empowered with food, showing yourself that you can still eat things like carbs without going overboard, and I’m going to share some body image strategies that are going to help you with how you’re feeling about the swimsuit you’re going to wear, or the dress you’re wearing at the wedding, or the pictures you’ll be in. I’m really excited to share all of this with you, and if you know someone who has a vacation, a special event or a milestone birthday coming up, feel free to text them a link to this episode. 

Before we dive into our main topic for today, you know what time it is…We’ve got some Wellness Woo to talk about. 

Wellness Woo is the stuff that diet and wellness culture tells us we should do in the name of health, but it’s really based on pseudoscience, exaggerated claims, or just nonsense. 

Today’s Wellness Woo is: Cortisol

The wellness space on social media has weaponized cortisol as a new buzzword and a new thing to worry about in order to sell you crap you don’t need. 

Let’s start with what is cortisol? It is a hormone in your body, and it’s released in response to stress (not just stress like “my kids are stressing me out” or “my job is really stressful” – stress can also be something like exercise which challenges your body and that’s a form of stress). 

Our cortisol is kind of like blood sugar in the sense that it goes up and down throughout the day. That’s why if you’ve ever had to have your cortisol tested by your doctor, they’ll usually do it first thing in the morning because your cortisol levels will vary depending on the time of day. It’s normal for cortisol to be higher first thing in the morning. 

So for our cortisol to increase in response to things happening in our daily life is a good thing. It’s a normal part of physiology that helps us respond to whatever is stressing us out. 

What we don’t want is prolonged and chronically elevated cortisol levels. This can of course happen if your life is perpetually really stressful. And of course that’s not good for your health. It’s not good for you to be basically living in fight or flight all the time. But sometimes, we need that fight or flight response – it’s useful when it’s short-lived and helps us fight off the tiger, or put out the fire that started on your stove when you were cooking dinner (not me revealing my challenges in the kitchen, Lol). 

Here are some ironic things that will give you chronically elevated cortisol levels: skipping meals, dieting, over exercising – the things that we tend to do to lose weight and allegedly get healthier.

There was a RCT where they looked at what happens to women’s cortisol levels (which is important, because women and men respond differently to things at the hormonal and physiological level), they looked at what happens to women’s cortisol when they are dieting and tracking their food – and lo and behold it correlates with increased cortisol and feelings of stress.

Perpetually elevated cortisol can lead to increases in appetite, increased cravings for carbohydrates, and the body tends to deposit more adipose tissue in the abdominal region (aka increased belly fat). 

If you’ve been seeing things on social media or online that are saying “If you have moon face, or you can’t lose weight or you have belly fat, it’s because you have high cortisol and you need to take our supplement or buy our diet plan” – don’t waste your money. There is nothing in those supplements that is going to fix your cortisol. And there’s a good chance that the diet or exercise plan is actually going to increase your cortisol just like it did in the study we talked about. 

If you are genuinely worried that you have elevated cortisol, you should have your doctor check it. You need to have actual factual data to work with. There are a lot of things that could be causing these types of symptoms, and it could be that what you’ve been told are “symptoms” are just part of being a normal human being. 

If you’re just wanting to lower your stress and prevent chronic high cortisol then the things you should be focusing on are addressing whatever in your life is causing your high stress, eating consistently, having a healthy relationship with food, not skipping meals, moving your body, having downtime to relax and rest, and getting good quality sleep. Sleep is one of the biggest things that will jack with your cortisol, so even just focusing on that is good bang for your buck. (And no you don’t need the sleep mask you saw on TikTok to get you better sleep. Start with the basics of sleep hygiene and consider a sleep study if you are having trouble sleeping.) 

If you have an example of Wellness Woo that you want to share, send it to me at rebuildingtrustwithyourbody@gmail.com. 

Ok, that’s enough of that. Moving on to today’s main topic…How dieting or not eating carbs prior to a vacation isn’t going to make you happier on your trip.

The Temptation to Lose Weight

That temptation to restrict and to try and lose weight is so understandable. In fact, it’s such a normalized thing to do in our society that it’s almost expected that we do it. 

But here’s the thing: It’s not going to help you, and here’s why:

• Dieting and restricting (whether it be restricting your carbs, or calories, or trying to eat clean, avoid sugar or whatever) is almost guaranteed to backfire. It creates deprivation, and eventually your biological drive for the foods you’ve been restricting will take over.
  
  Whether that is at the end of the day when you are watching Netflix and you find yourself wanting ALL the snacks, or maybe it backfires while you’re on vacation and the whole thing becomes a food fest – it will backfire. You might be able to restrict your food for a period of time, but it’s like holding your breath, eventually you will have to gasp for air.
  
  Statistically, even if you did diet or restrict to lose some weight before your vacation, or before your 40th birthday bash, or before that wedding you’re attending, you are most likely going to regain more weight than you lost. That’s what the research shows. Most people who intentionally lose weight not only regain it, they regain it PLUS SOME.
  
  Therefore, trying to lose weight before a vacation is most likely literally going to have the opposite of your desired effect. Which sucks, I know.
  
  
• Telling yourself that you need to lose weight in order to have fun on vacation is reinforcing a really deep and painful core belief. The core belief that you’re not worthy of enjoying a vacation just as you are in your here-and-now body. The core belief that your body is something you need to be ashamed of. The core belief that when you are thinner you are more deserving of pleasure, joy and fun.
  
  None of this is true.
  
  We get to challenge these core beliefs. The next time you feel tempted to lose weight prior to a trip or event, I encourage you to tell yourself that you don’t have to change your body for vacations or events anymore. Your body is worthy just as it is, even on the days you still don’t like your body, and even on the days you deeply wish you were thinner, and even on the days that society tells you that you’re too big. YOU DESERVE TO ENJOY LIFE IN THE BODY YOU HAVE RIGHT NOW.

What to do Instead of Dieting or Restricting

When that temptation to diet is strong, it can be really hard to NOT do some degree of dieting behaviors. Even if you’re not going full-fledged into doing keto or intermittent fasting, you might find yourself avoiding carbs, or telling yourself you can’t have dessert. 

Instead, you can choose to stay with your intuitive eating process. You can intentionally choose to check in with your body, to honor your hunger and fullness, to choose satisfying foods. 

If you’re a strategy girlie, you’re going to love this part. What I recommend to my clients who are resisting the diet mentality is to lean on flexible structure with food, and to do menu planning each week. 

You might be thinking, “What did she just say? Is she talking about planning out my food? Like a diet?”

No, I’m not talking about planning it like a diet.

However, I am talking about intentionally planning meals that are satisfying, and that include all the food groups – including carbs. 

By doing this you are literally showing yourself that you can have the foods you love, and you can do it in a way that is balanced and satisfying, and that by choosing not to diet it doesn’t mean that you’re going to say, “Screw it,” and throw your hands in the air. We call that the “What The Heck Response” which is that thing where you’re thinking, “What the heck, if I’m not going to diet and be “good” with food I might as well just eat whatever the heck I want, whenever I want it.” (Which then becomes impulsive eating, not intuitive eating.) 

When I talk about meal planning, people usually go immediately to how that’s something they’ve always done while dieting. But diet culture doesn’t get to own meal planning. We can take back meal planning, and do it in a way that’s not diet-y, that’s not depriving, and that’s intended to make your eating more enjoyable (rather than just trying to control your food). 

So if your temptation is to cut out carbs in the weeks leading up to vacation, I want you to literally plan in carbs to your meals to show yourself how they absolutely fit into your life. And if your temptation is to skip breakfast to save those calories (or to do intermittent fasting), then I want you to plan out your breakfasts so that you are choosing to start your day off with that fuel and nourishment. If you feel like you can’t have sugar or dessert, I want you to plan in something sweet every single day. It doesn’t have to be massive quantities. Just something that’s there, intentionally as part of meals or snacks. 

If you’re a little uncertain on HOW to go about planning your meals, or it feels like it would be really time consuming and overwhelming, don’t worry, I’ve got you covered. I want you to go grab my menu planning cheat sheet and templates. It walks you through the quick and simple 6 steps to planning out your meals. It will take you about 30 minutes, and you’ll get faster at it the more times you do it. And it comes with templates for your weekly menus and grocery list, so all you have to do is fill in the blanks. You can grab it at nondietacademy.com/menuplan. (Linked in show notes)

I hate cooking, and I don’t particularly enjoy meal planning either – BUT I see how much time it saves me to sit down and do the planning so that I can make my grocery list and get ‘er done. 

You’re not going to be planning boiled chicken breast with steamed broccoli and brown rice (unless for some reason that sounds really satisfying to you). I want you to plan things that you actually enjoy, that aren’t chosen with the goal of weight loss in mind. Now, if you have a keto recipe that you genuinely like, that’s fine – but let’s add some carbs on the side. 

I was talking with a client the other day, and she was telling me that she wants something sweet most of the time after dinner, and she felt like there must be something wrong with her. She was worried that she is obsessed with sugar, or that she is going to become unhealthy if she’s sitting around eating sweets every night. 

Her inclination was to tell herself she can’t have sweets in the evening. And she certainly wasn’t going to be having dessert alongside her dinner. 

What I told her completely blew her mind. …I told her that:

1) It’s pretty normal to want something sweet at the end of a meal. It’s a very human thing. Most cultures have some form of dessert or sweet thing they serve at the end of meals as a palate cleanser. It’s like the punctuation at the end of a sentence

2) I recommended she just plan in something sweet as part of her dinner. It could sometimes be a dessert served with the meal, and sometimes it could be some chocolate or a piece of candy she has after her meal. The point is to plan it in, and to assume that she was going to eat it (and then if she didn’t want it, that was fine) – because psychologically this feels very different to not be fighting with herself about whether or not she’d allow herself to eat something sweet. The permission has already been given

3) By having the sweet thing in conjunction with dinner we are practicing some gentle nutrition by capitalizing on the satiety she is getting from the meal itself, and therefore she won’t need as much of the sweet thing to feel full and satisfied (vs waiting until later in the evening when she’s hungry again and wants a larger quantity that easily turns into a binge). 

If you’re someone who has a sweet tooth, I encourage you to plan in something sweet with some of your meals. I personally have some chocolate almost every single day after lunch. It might be a chocolate truffle, or lately I’ve been into these dark chocolate sea salt caramels, and sometimes I just break off a piece of a chocolate bar. I like to rotate through some options. But it’s pretty much a given that most of the time I’ll have it after my lunch. I just find it really satisfying at that time of day, and I don’t resist it or make myself wrong for wanting it.

So, planning your meals, planning some satisfying snack options, incorporating the things you’re inclined to avoid when you’re in diet and restrict mode – these are all going to help you stay with your intuitive eating process the next time you feel tempted to cut things out leading up to a vacation or special event. Don’t forget to push pause, and go grab the menu planning cheat sheet and templates – it’s going to save you so much time and help you see how you can be intentional with food while eating intuitively. It’s at nondietacademy.com/menuplan.

Body Image Strategies for Vacations and Special Events

Lastly, I promised you some strategies for navigating body image. Leading up to a vacation, you might be nervous about the swimsuit you’re going to wear on the cruise or at the beach, or if you’re going to a party or a wedding you might feel self-conscious about the way you’ll look in your dress. You might have the urge to avoid all photos, or to run and hide in the back of photos so that the people in front of you block your body, or to only be photographed from the neck up, or maybe your the person that always volunteers to take the photo so that you don’t have to be in it (and secretly this is your way of dealing with your body shame). 

Swimsuits

Regarding the swimsuit – just wear the darn swimsuit. Nobody cares. I promise you. (And if they do, that’s a “them” thing, not a you thing.) Most people you see on vacation you will never see again. And consider this: Have you ever seen someone in a swimsuit at the pool or beach whose body was so noteworthy that you still remember them to this day? I doubt it. 

I know this sounds ridiculous, but it is basically like exposure therapy…Practice wearing your swimsuit at home if you need to desensitize yourself to it. Wear it around the house. If you need to do it when nobody else is home, that’s fine. Get used to being in your swimsuit. 

You can also find yourself a swimsuit that you feel comfortable in for your trip. There are SO MANY styles out there nowadays for all body types and sizes. Try some different styles to see what you like. 

Often times the swimsuit situation is kind of like a bandaid. You just have to rip it off. Put on the swimsuit, be seen, lounge by the pool without being covered up and hiding your body, get in the pool or ocean. Let yourself live your life and have these experiences. It gets easier the more you DO IT (and conversely, it gets harder the more you avoid it). 

One of my Non-Diet Academy clients had gone on a vacation (this was sometime last year when we first started working together), and she posted from her lounge spot by the pool where she was reading the Intuitive Eating Workbook and wasn’t covered up with a towel like she would have been in the past. She said it felt so freeing to just be there, existing in her swimsuit, doing her thing. (And I love that she had the IE Workbook there with her which is so beautiful and symbolic. That’s actually a great tip that you could steal from her – take the workbook, or another non-diet book that inspires you and motivates you on your journey to read while you’re on vacation as a way to keep yourself in that headspace. The Body Is Not An Apology is a good one, or Anti Diet. And of course Intuitive Eating if you haven’t read that one yet.)

Dresses and Special Event Clothes

Maybe you are worried about how you’re going to look in the dress you’re wearing to a wedding, or the top you bought for your birthday bash, or the pants you’re wearing to your family reunion. Or maybe it’s not even the clothes per se, but you’re just worried about how you’re going to look and what everyone will be thinking of you no matter what you wear. This tends to bubble up if you’re going to be around people you haven’t seen in a while, especially if your body has changed and you’ve gained weight.

Spoiler Alert: BODIES CHANGE.

It’s a fact of life. Diet culture wants us to believe that our bodies shouldn’t change, and that we can control whether or not they do. 

Especially as women, our bodies are going to change across our lifespan. Your body went through some major changes when you went through puberty (which just so happens to be the most common timing of the onset of eating disorders and body image issues), and your body went through major changes if you’ve been through pregnancy, and your body went through or will go through major changes when you go through menopause. For women these big hormonal changes in our lives correspond with body changes. It’s normal. It’s part of biology. It’s the way Mother Nature has designed it to be.

Yet all over social media you’ll see propaganda about “balancing your hormones” (which isn’t how hormones work – go back and listen to my hormone episode if you want a breakdown on that, it’s episode 83 called “Can You Balance Your Hormones? Navigating Menopause, Intuitive Eating and Body Changes.”)

Bodies change. We are literally getting older each and every day. And with getting older, things change. That’s a beautiful thing. To me, there’s an entire branch of diet culture that’s dedicated to this “Fountain of Youth” thing where we, especially as women, aren’t allowed to age. We’re told we need all these anti-aging serums, and red light therapy, Botox, hair dyes to cover our grays, 3-day food plans to flatten our bellies during perimenopause, and all sorts of other stuff that is trying to override our natural aging process. You’ve earned every wrinkle, gray hair and roll on your belly by living your life. Your body has been there with you and for you every step of the way. Your body has been trying to take care of you this entire time, even when you have fought against it. 

So when you’re worried that people are going to judge you for how your body has changed, I have two words that I am borrowing from Mel Robbins – LET THEM. If they want to judge you, that’s their business. Yes, it’s painful to be judged. One hundred percent. AND we can’t control whether or not they’re going to do that. I know it feels like you can prevent judgment by shrinking your body, and maybe to a certain extent that would be true. But do you really want to keep living your life seeking approval from other people based on whether or not you’ve lost weight or are thin enough for their liking? That’s a type of hustle that is like being on a hamster wheel. You’re never going to arrive at your destination. It’s exhausting.

Whatever you’re going to wear on your vacation, to the wedding, to the family reunion, to your birthday party, in your family photos – choose something you like, that is comfortable on your body, and allow yourself to be seen and take up space. It’s kind of like the swimsuit thing where you just have to do it. You have to prove to your brain that it’s going to be ok, that you can handle whatever happens – even if someone does make a negative comment to you (which is unlikely, but let’s say they do – it would suck, but you can handle it, and you would survive). 

Instead of sitting around wondering, “What if someone judges me?” >> Flip it to, “Even if someone judges me…”

Being in Photos

If one of your big fears about vacation or events is the photos, the strategy here is very parallel to what we’ve already covered. It boils down to just do it. Like a Nike commercial. 

Avoiding the photos essentially means you’re erasing yourself from your own life. Think how sad it would be at the end of your life if there were no photos of you to display at your memorial service. If the only family vacation photos were of everyone else in the family doing the fun things because you were always the one behind the camera taking the photo. How sad. 

Even if you cringe at the thought of being in the photos, I challenge you to push yourself to do it. You don’t have to look at the photos. (And if you do, here’s the strategy I’ve been teaching my clients lately – make a pledge to yourself to NOT zoom in on yourself. No zooming in to pick yourself apart. Repeat after me…)

Maybe you’re worried about the photos being put up on social media for the world to see. First of all, how long do you think people scrolling are remembering that photo? Do you really think that Julie from your high school is thinking all day every day about what your body looked like in that photo from your cruise? We assume that what people see of us on social media is making a much bigger impact than it is. Truth be told, only about 3% of the people who follow you even see what you post. And they most likely scrolled right on by, or paused to look, and then moved on. It’s not this monumental thing you think it is.

Nobody besides you cares that your arms looked flabby in that picture of you with your girlfriends at the concert. Nobody besides you cares that the dress you wore to the wedding shows that belly is bigger than it was before the pandemic. Nobody besides you cares that your face is fuller in your family picture from vacation. (And anybody who does care about these things needs to find more important things to care about in their life.) 

Bottom Line

Not eating carbs, dieting, restricting and torturing yourself with exercise leading up to a trip or an event isn’t going to make your life better, and it’s not going to make your vacation or event better.

Avoiding the photos, hiding your body, RSVP’ing “no” to that wedding, wearing a cardigan to cover your arms even though it’s hot, not getting in the pool…all of these tactics we do to avoid body shame are actually making the body shame worse. And they’re limiting our joy in life. 

Here are a few takeaways from this episode:

• Don’t be dieting and restricting to lose weight before a vacation or event. This will backfire on you.
• Plan satisfying meals and snacks to help you stay in the headspace of eating intuitively and providing yourself with food you enjoy (rather than restricting). (Don’t forget to grab the templates for this at nondietacademy.com/menuplan)
• Wear the darn swimsuit. Desensitize yourself to it by DOING IT. Wear it at home to practice if you need to. Find a style you like. 
• Work through your fears of judgment about your body from people who you haven’t seen in a while. Even if they judge you, it’s going to be ok. You don’t have to spend your life dieting and obsessing about food to win their approval.
• Be in the photos. Capture the memories. Don’t scrutinize yourself. 

That’s a wrap for this episode. In case nobody has told you today – you are worthy just as you are. We’ll talk again soon.

Resources:

• Grab my Free Meal Planning Cheat Sheet + Templates
• Listen to Episode 83: Can You Balance Your Hormones? Navigating Menopause, Intuitive Eating and Body Changes

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