KATY:  Quick before we get started. I am going to hold your hand when I say this. You aren’t going to heal your relationship with food by doing more of what broke it. If dieting actually worked, you wouldn’t have to keep starting over Yet. Every Monday, part of you still feels like you need to be good or make up for the weekend.

Here’s the truth. Dieting disconnects you from your body. Intuitive eating helps you reconnect with it. That is a big difference, a life-changing difference. But here is where people get stuck. You stop dieting, yay, that’s amazing. But you’re not quite sure how to eat without rules. You’re trying this whole intuitive eating thing, but you’re not sure that you’re doing it right because your eating feels really unbalanced.

Sure, you’re enjoying the freedom of eating the things you weren’t allowed to have on diets, but you also worry about your health and let’s be honest, your weight, you’re not binging, but you’re not at peace with food either. This is what I call no man’s land, and it’s exhausting. You’re trying so hard. You want the [00:01:00] freedom, but you also wanna feel healthy and in control.

You’re scared of gaining weight, but you’re also tired of obsessing. You are not alone, and there is a path moving forward. Enrollment is currently open for my live group experience inside my program, stepping off the dieting roller coaster. This program is going to show you how to break up with dieting the right way and to get you out of the messy middle where you’re technically not dieting, but you don’t have peace with food either.

Normally stepping off the dieting rollercoaster is a self-paced course, but right now I am taking enrollments for a live group cohort to go through it together. In the month of June, you get instant access to the entire course curriculum, so you can go through it on demand as your schedule and your summer vacations allow.

And from June 1st through 30th, we will be hanging out inside a private Facebook group for accountability support and implementation challenges. Plus, I will also be in there doing live mindset coaching and q and a sessions. To help you find peace and neutrality [00:02:00] with food even faster. Details and enrollment are at non-diet academy.com/rollercoaster.

Hey, I’m Katy Harvey, a non-diet dietician. If you’ve spent years battling food in your body, I’m here to show you the path to healing here on the Rebuilding Trust. With your Body podcast, I teach you how to find your own freedom with food through tools, strategies, mindset, shifts, and heartfelt discussions around what it means to make peace with food and your body while still existing in diet culture.

I believe that all bodies deserve respect, and that health is so much more than a number on the scale. It’s about connecting with our true selves and learning that our relationship with food is more important than the food itself. So if you are ready to discover the freedom of rebuilding trust with your body.

Grab a seat and maybe a snack, and let’s [00:03:00] do this.

Hello and Welcome back to Rebuilding Trust with Your Body. It is Katy here, and I am so excited you’re here today. I’m so pumped for this episode. It is such a powerful discussion and I can’t wait for you to hear it. But before we get into that, I do want to shout out a listener. So over on Apple Podcasts, I have a review written by Do Remi 28, and it says, Katy is highly skilled in both knowing the information as well as in the sharing.

I always learn something new, whether it’s a less judgmental way of thinking or increasing self-compassion in the struggle of making peace with my body. More importantly, I feel reassured and hopeful listening to her. Thank you for making such a wonderful podcast. Thank you. For your kind words and for leaving this review.

Because not only is that like the warm and fuzzies, right, but more importantly what it does is it helps other people find the show and it creates this ripple effect where we are spreading these concepts and [00:04:00] this non-diet energy to the rest of the world and it really does matter. So if you have not done so yet, I would be so deeply grateful if you would go onto whatever podcast platform you’re listening on right now.

Leave me a review, give me a rating where you like Rate the Stars, and then if you feel inclined to write out a comment, to leave a review and share your thoughts so that others can get a sense for what you take away from the show and make sure it’s authentic. I’m not asking you just, you know, make things up, but I would love, love, love your feedback, and I would love, love, love if you share these episodes with other people in your life.

So today’s episode in particular, if what we are talking about makes you think of someone else in your life and you know that they need to hear this or that they would benefit from it, or that you want them to hear this because it resonates so much with you, I want you to take the link and send it to them because these types of shares mean so much when it comes from someone else in our life who says, Hey, this is really, really good.

I need you to hear it. So. With [00:05:00] that, let me tell you about our guest today. Our guest is Julie Duffy Dillon, a fellow registered dietician and the host of Find Your Food Voice, a popular long running nutrition podcast through speaking and writing. She helps people with a complicated relationship with food strategize, how to remove the shame and blame dumped on them from the diet industry.

Her work has been featured on TLC and in the New York Times outside magazine shape and other outlets. She’s the real deal, you guys. She is also the author of the brand new book. Find your food voice. So I will link to all of Julie’s information, her contact info, her website. I will put that in the show notes.

But what I want you to do is settle in for this really incredible conversation. We talk about our evolution, both her and I, from being, you know, very traditional weight centric dieticians, trained in the medical model to how we came to this intuitive eating and the non-diet [00:06:00] space and the reasons why, and.

The things that have surprised us along the way. And then she shares this concept of what it means to find your food voice and to remove the things, the obstacles that are blocking you from being able to listen to yourself, to listen to your body, to trust your body, to have peace with food, to have unconditional permission to eat.

And I think what she says about emotional eating in particular is going to be very thought provoking for you. And it’s a little bit controversial the way that she presents it, but it will make sense when she explains what she means. We also talk about some medical stuff. PCOS in particular is Julie’s wheelhouse.

If you are a client of mine and you have PCOS, it’s very possible that I have sent you to her website, or I have shared things with you that I learned from her. I remember being in one of Julie’s sessions at a conference for eating disorders. It was a clinician conference and the copious amount of notes that I took because of her expertise in [00:07:00] PCOS and how most people are told to do all of these dieting types of behaviors and actually that that makes things worse.

But there are many things that we can do to support health in very effective, gentle nutrition ways. And so we talk about that in this episode and so many wonderful things. So no matter who you are and where you’re at in your own relationship with food. You’re gonna get some nuggets of wisdom from this discussion because it applies to all of us who have been existing in this world where diet culture is all around us, and we’ve all had to live with this our entire lives.

And so you’re gonna be enlightened, you’re gonna be inspired, and I know that you are gonna take some things away from this that are going to help you in your own relationship with food, to make peace with food, to be more trusting at yourself. So I will even leave it at that. And without further ado, here is my conversation with Julie Duffy Dillon.

Julie, thank you so much for being here. Let’s dig in. I, I know that I gave a little bit of an intro before. Tell us more about yourself, though. I’d love to hear it from you. Tell us about you, the work you do. Mm-hmm. I followed you for a long time, and we were chatting about this a minute ago. I’ve, I’ve seen some of your evolution and I loved reading in the book more about like your origin story as a dietician.

So give the listeners a little bit of your backstory and context for where you’re coming from today. 

JULIE: Yeah, I definitely dumped out all of the nitty gritty of the drama of my origin. I love story and like spill all the tea. I wanna know all the things I, I did, I spilled it all. And there’s a lot of times in the book where I was like, I felt really good writing it, but then later it’s like a ba a massive vulnerability hangover basically, you know, with some of the things I shared.

But what I’ll say is my origin story I think is pretty common. Like for people who are in the non-diet space, I think we have a kind of a similar coming to terms with, oh gosh, this is not the right direction. But, you know, when I [00:09:00] was a dietician and something I didn’t mention in the book, but is that when I was deciding my major in college, I really wanted to go to this one particular college and my parents didn’t want me to go there.

They wanted me to go closer to home. And I was like, no, no, no, no. It’s time for me to like file a cup here. So they said, well, we’ll, we’ll let you go to that college, but you have to pick a major first. And so this was in 1994. So I got the big catalog of majors and I just opened up the book and I pointed to a random major and I was like, I’m gonna major in this.

And they’re like, oh, that’s great. And I didn’t even know what it was until like a couple hours later and I was like, oh, I’m gonna be a nutrition major, or a dietetics major, whatever they called it. And so I wasn’t someone who was like super into like healthy eating or, you know, things like that just weren’t that interesting to me.

But I did really enjoy science and I wanted to actually be a therapist. That’s something that I always was really thinking for myself that I wanted to do. So nutrition ended up working okay. Then when I was finishing up my internship, I kind of still didn’t feel like I clicked with the profession and my preceptor said, go find a job at the biggest hospital you can find so you can just see as many things as possible before you quit.

And so I did that. I found a job at this like thousand plus bed hospital and I did, I like worked in every single area and I, I name this because I think a lot of people who are outside looking into the, like the non-diet space, they assume all of us working in the non-diet space have never worked in like heart rehab or cardiac rehab places or in diabetes or like in clinics where body size is often.

Named as a cause to diseases. And that’s where I spent the first three years of my work was in cardiac rehab. It was on the, the floor of the hospital where people were getting discharges after having a heart attack. And so I was doing the discharge heart healthy eating discussions and then about a six months to a year into [00:11:00] that job, there was an opening in the pediatric area, which never opened up because the pediatric team was tight.

And so I ended up working in these subspecialty clinics where I was working with like pediatric, gi, and infectious disease, like all the subspecialists in pediatrics. And that’s where I really started liking work, working in pediatric endocrinology, and especially working with kids with type two diabetes.

And so then that’s when I became a diabetes educator by the end of a couple years. But after a few clients. People were like either not losing weight or they weren’t coming back to sessions. And I remember talking to some of my peers and some of the physicians on staff and I was like, what? What am I doing wrong?

And they’re like, oh, no, no, no, they’re just non-compliant. I’m sure you heard that word. I know our clients here it all the time. And so I was like, okay, it’s not me. But then after like 30, 40, 50, 60 clients, you know, all going through the same thing, you have to really start to like look at yourself. Like I remember being like, oh, the [00:12:00] problem is me to quote Taylor Swift, like the really, I am the problem.

And so I eventually went back to school to study mental health counseling. I got a master’s in that. And it started to help me to peel back, yeah, how the problem was me. But I still was in a place of like, oh, I’m gonna help people. Accept their body, make all foods fit and promote a healthier weight. You know, buddy years on that last part and my first job out of that master’s degree, I found a job where I was able to put the counseling and nutrition together, which was so fabulous.

And I was still a diabetes educator, so I was helping people cope with like having a chronic illness. And I was also helping people recover from eating disorders. But our clinic was funded by this like liquid diet company that I’d never like to name, but it is one that has been rebranded many times and it’s mostly an MLM now.

So you know what, it’s one, it’s, I’m sure I’ve probably done it in my wellness woo segment if people, I’m sure LA it starts with the vowel sound. So [00:13:00] anyway, this, but this company, like literally it’s what kept the doors open to the clinic and like the clinic saw so many people for like lower cost and for free that like it was doing some really great things and it was also super problematic and part of the every dietician that worked there, and I think there were like 10 or 15 of us.

We all had to teach a class once a week and help people with this meal replacement system thing. And I was in charge of teaching the positive body image class. They gave me a script, all the slides, I just had to show up and push play. I didn’t have to really even think, but I remember starting to do this presentation that was supposed to be 30 minutes long and like two or three minutes into it, it’s like my ethical crash button just, it finally just gave in.

And I was like, I can’t do this. Because I was telling my clients with eating disorders, Hey, you know your body, like let your body just recover. It’s gonna recover in the way it needs. Weight gain is healing and you know, let’s help you enjoy food again. But then I was telling people in higher weight bodies something totally different and [00:14:00] using the same kind of co-opted language of like positive body image, it just was not okay.

I was like, this is not, and so as I talk about in the book, my boss. I got some complaints as expected. So I got called into the boss’s office. I bawled my eyes out and, and basically she was like, you know, in order to keep your job, you need to keep doing these classes. So I quit and that’s when I decided that was the last diet I was ever gonna teach.

That was in 2005. So yeah, 20 years ago. So for the last 20 years, I’ve been stumbling around in the non-diet space, making lots of mistakes and finding my way. And in that same time period I was like, I don’t wanna work necessarily with diabetes anymore. I just wanna help people with eating disorder recovery and to quit dieting.

But people with PCOS kept showing up in my office just because so many were at diet rock bottom or recovering from eating disorders. And I was like, how do I, how do I do this? Because all more of our training as dieticians and PCOS, if any, is to just PE people on diets, right? And tell ’em [00:15:00] to restrict carbs and sugar.

And I was like, well, that doesn’t work for most people, so why would that work for PCOS? So then I went through just, again, stumbling around, figuring out how can I help people with this chronic condition? To enjoy eating again and promote health if that’s something they’re wanting to do. And over 20 years.

That’s what basically is included in this book, is like everything that I would’ve done with a client over a, a good year or two if they had PCOS or not. You know, some people did, some people did it. And how you can do experiments with food to see what actually helps you promote health and whatever you’re looking for without restricting, without dieting and mending this complicated history that you have with food so you can enjoy eating again and like finally put the blame where it needs to go, you know, on these systems that are pushing us to diet and not on ourselves.

Yeah. And I think that’s such a big aha moment for people when they can start to delineate that, that it’s not just that they didn’t have enough willpower or [00:16:00] yes, the right strategy, or they didn’t try hard enough. It’s, yeah, it’s so much more complicated than that, the systems and just like the sheer fact that dieting itself goes against your biology and all the things.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 

KATY: And I think it’s part of the, the package deal that the diet industry delivers to us. They seduce us into believing that this is gonna be the magic thing that’s gonna finally fix us. Like, and we don’t even need to be fixed. But it tells us that, and then it doesn’t work.

’cause it doesn’t work for most people. But then it somehow has figured out a way to like, make us believe that it’s our fault. And then we just keep going around and around and around. I mean, if you, I actually have in some ways a little bit of respect of like, that’s some good marketing right there, you know?

Yeah. No hardcore. 

JULIE: Yeah. They did a great job. I mean, also they’ve been refining it on the backs of racism for, for what, 200 years? Yeah. So they have a lot of power behind them. And it’s sneaky because whenever we talk about that kind of connection, I know people are shocked and like some are even clutching their pearls and – Yeah.

When you peel back the layers, it’s, it seems like, yeah, that makes sense why they’ve been so successful. It’s on and it’s a part of something that’s really horrible and has a dark past and lots of, lots of money and power behind it. Oh, for sure. I mean, even the BMI has kind of a dark past. Yeah. With where it originated from.

Yeah. Ooh. Yeah. 

KATY: I am curious ’cause my origin story is very similar to yours in, in terms of how, like my first job we were, I was working as a research dietician and we were doing these diet and exercise studies. We had these liquid shakes. As part of the protocol, you had to deliver the protocol, right?

Mm-hmm. And that was my thing too. Like I hit my ethical dilemma. So it’s just so funny. I’m like, oh wow. Such a blur. I’m curious for you, what surprised you the most along the way? What were some of the things where you just look back and you’re like, huh, I did not expect, that Surprised me. In what way?

JULIE: With, in my, either good or bad, you know? Like for me, I think one of the surprises was just I.  There’s a lot, like as wonderful as medicine is, and science and health, there’s also a lot that’s wrong with it. Like that was relaxing for me. Also, one of the things that surprised me that was so naive, I was just so young, was that like, you know, we as dieticians, we have the answers of like the, these are the foods you need to eat and not eat for whatever your health concern is.

Here’s your medical nutrition therapy. And it didn’t occur to me that like people weren’t just gonna go and follow the thing. Yes, the counseling side, right? Yes. That’s exactly it. And that was what led me to get that master’s degree. That was surprising to me too. ’cause I can remember the end of my nutrition training feeling like it was all coming together and like, oh, so when someone has high cholesterol, I just tell them to eat this and it fixes it.

Right. Uhhuh, and maybe that’s the thing that you and I are both like experiencing or we did back then was like, oh, so much of health is not just individual behavior. Right. And I think that’s the big lie. We were sold as dieticians in training was like individual behaviors are controllable and the biggest way to move them needle in health.

And then lo and behold, it’s like they were hiding all this research on social determinants of health and really that’s the big thing. And genetics as well. And the other thing I would say that was surprising, it took a a long time for me to connect to this and I think there’s like patterns in. Patterns replicate in so many ways therapeutically, but just like our patients and our clients blame themselves when a diet doesn’t work.

You know, I was blaming myself too when I wasn’t helping people to lose weight and I was like, I’m doing it wrong. Instead of like, oh wait, no, maybe this tool is what’s broken and coming to that place, like we’re all getting manipulated and duped here. That that’s really, I don’t wanna say funny, but it’s just really interesting how the pattern is like it repeats itself over and over again.

And there’s probably some theory involved in that that I just don’t know about. ’cause I, it does remind me of some psychological theories, like how we have parallel processes with patients all the time, like how people will be experiencing something and struggling and will be experiencing and struggling it too in the like conversation with folks.

Then the other thing was when I was first looking towards doing non-diet work, I felt so alone. And I felt that I was gonna hurt somebody by not promoting a diet. And so much of that was, you know, this was in 2005, so we had a bit of baby Google if that, and we didn’t have social media to be like, oh, there’s other people doing this work.

But you know, then that was a time where we could go to conferences once or twice a year and meet up with people. And that’s when I was like, I would find people who were in the same space. And feeling isolated is really what kept that like cycle going. And so yeah, the more we can connect with other people doing the same work or doing the same types of like moves away from diets, it’s just such a big part of it.

But I think it’s part of how the diet industry, they prevent us from doing that. They prevent, they, they’re like, did you hear about the winter arc? Like a TikTok trend of doing the winter arc? I don’t know if you heard about that. No, I don’t know what that is because I’m not an Instagram only on TikTok.

So on TikTok, they, this past winter people were talking about doing this thing where you like. As it gets cold and it’s getting to be wintertime, you go behind closed doors and you don’t see anyone and you just really go into the diet mentality. Oh no. Okay. And you do hardcore restricting and over exercising.

So then when it’s springtime, you come out and you’re this new person. Yeah. Wow. And like the diet industry like is really big on like, go hide ’cause you’re not acceptable and come out when you are and everyone will just love you. And I think that’s like the big part of all of this conversation for us who also like work in this space is like that same thing.

Like we all just are like, well there’s something wrong with me, but no, we need to [00:22:00] have, be in community so we can help each other. You know? Yeah. Yeah. So I think that’s something that really surprised me is that we can’t do this alone. You know? We need to share our stories and yeah. Hold onto them and yeah, stay in community so we can fix it.

KATY: I agree. I think that that community aspect, ’cause otherwise it is so easy to just feel like, yeah, like what’s wrong with me as an in one way, shape, or form. Yeah, yeah, yeah. KATY:

Let’s pivot here a little bit. I wanna talk, ’cause you did a good job of this in your book, and so I’d love for you to share your thoughts on emotional eating.

Mm.:

So it’s one of those things that people say it and the connotation is negative. Like, yeah, I’m an emotional eater, or I ate emotionally. Mm-hmm. So unpack this for us. What are your thoughts about it? Mm-hmm. How do you think about emotional eating? How do you work with a client who might be struggling with that?

Mm-hmm. Yeah. 

JULIE: My take on emotional eating is quite controversial and I also think it’s starting to not be as controversial, which I’m so excited about. But emotional eating is normal. Eating, like it’s everyone does it. Every human being who has a relationship with food and is in a family unit or just in a group of people, we all are emotionally eating and it’s healthy eating.

And I think it’s also really important. And when people maybe disclose that they’re an emotional eating and they emotional eater rather, and they feel ashamed of it, I think it’s because, yeah, we’ve been told that we should not eat outside of hunger. Like food should just be fuel and functional and, and it’s really trying to like treat us like we’re a, a robot or this like.

Amoeba and a Petri dish or something. Uhhuh, or I think of like the biohacking trend I think sort of gets into, into that territory. Yes. Yeah. Yes. That’s so true. And it forgets like this part of like humanity, like we don’t live in this bubble, you know? We actually like having relationships is part of like health and that’s been [00:24:00] studied for like over and over again.

Like if you are alone and you never connect with other people and you don’t have relationships with anyone, how that’s something that is really harmful to like health. And so having community is so important and, and emotional eating is a part of that because when we get together, I think about like celebrations.

Like weddings or funerals, there’s eating involved and I’m going to eat. I think I talk about the book, I’m half polish and half Irish and I talk about in the book, like every Polish funeral I’ve been to, I’ve had a lot of K Basa and like, it’s just like, especially like my family that’s mostly, that’s how the family is mostly from the Philly area.

Like it was always at the same funeral home reception area. Like we had the same caterer each time. So like I knew what to expect and I was always looking forward to that part of this like sad day, you know, to have the good ssa. And same with like weddings, like we always have wedding cake and, and my culture.

So like I think that’s a really normal part. And then also part of the diet industry and I talk about in the book, like part of the diet industry has really instructed us to only eat in a certain way and it’s really like how wealthy white people eat. You know, like they’re going to whole foods and getting salmon and the seasonal vegetable.

And probably a sweet potato or whatever carbohydrate is on the the okay list right now. And so when we think about emotional eating, a lot of times it’s also a part of our culture. It’s like eating that calbassa or you know, I grew up in Ohio and I don’t know if in Kansas City you have Buckeyes, but like during Christmas time, Buckeyes were this like thing that everyone ate in Ohio because that was just like a part of Ohio’s wintertime thing that we did.

And it’s something that when I get a shipment from a family member over Christmas, ’cause I live in North Carolina, it’s something that connects me to like my roots, like where I grew up. And it’s really nostalgic. And that is something that’s like bringing down my cortisol levels, it’s helping me feel warm fuzzies.

It’s really great. And so I think. The diet industry has been a part of trying to disconnect us from cultural foods and I mean, I’m, like I said, I’m Irish and Polish, so I’m white. So like a lot of my cultural foods are on the okay list. But I think about folks who are not in the same culture. They’re from different cultures that have different foods that are like staples and important, and how emotional eating is also a part of like including those foods and making sure that they’re like necessary.

So that’s why, yeah, I think like emotional eating is vital. It’s a important part of health. And then the other thing I haven’t mentioned yet, and I think this is probably where it gets the most controversial, is like, if you think about emotional eating, uh, eating outside of hunger, and maybe even binge eating, that’s the part where I’m like, yeah, that’s, that’s important too.

Like it’s a coping mechanism for when times are hard. And I mean, times are hard right now. They’ve been hard for a while and they’re just getting harder. Like, so emotional eating is this really wonderfully accessible way to cope with something that’s really hard. And why would we wanna take that away?

Well, of course it’s because of anti-fat bias. Like people like, but what if we gain weight? Yeah, we’re coping. And why is that a bad thing? Like our bodies will change. They’re gonna change. And a body weight that goes up because of coping. That’s not a bad thing, it’s just, that’s just coping. So, yeah, that, those are my thoughts on emotional eating.

And I talk about in the book too, one of my favorite sweatshirts is it says legalize emotional eating. I almost put it on, but I was too hot, so I took it off. I would’ve loved that. But whatever. I wear it. I get so many like, like whispers of like, thank you. And isn’t that interesting that people don’t feel like they can say it out loud?

Mm-hmm. It’s like, we gotta whisper this. This is a secret. Exactly. Yeah. Like especially if I’m like on an airplane or something. Mm-hmm. I, yeah, it’s my favorite. Especially to wear to the fencing, you know, are. Big conference. Oh, guess that’s where I actually bought it. Was that fencing too? I was just wondering where you got it from.

Yeah, yeah. The Hungry cle I love this take on emotional eating ’cause Yeah, I think you’re right. It’s, it’s a way of coping and of course we have to have ways of coping and yeah, we can be curious about what we’re coping with and what we need. Mm-hmm. But sometimes I say to people, like, part of why we keep doing it also is that it works.

Like on some level it does make us feel better. Yeah. Yeah. And what’s wrong with that? And for me, you know, there’s, there’s so many different things that I think someone can prioritize as they’re mending their relationship with food. For me as a clinician, there are two values that are like the most important.

Like they’re the things that I prioritize. And you know, when you’re having to hold a bunch of values, sometimes you have to put some in front of the others, right. Just to like figure out what your next steps are. And for me, body autonomy and unconditional permission to eat, those are the two things that are the most important to me.

I hope any reader of my book gets that. You know, like that is number one and it’s for a reason. Like unconditional permission to eat is what I have found over the last 25 years. What someone needs in order [00:29:00] to recover and to firmly be able to reject dieting. And it’s a really hard, it’s very hard, and especially if you live in a body that is marginalized for any reason.

Yeah, emotional eating and having permission to do that is a part of that unconditional permission. Like you can eat whatever the F you want, like whatever, like that’s your decision. And there’s nothing wrong with whatever option you choose, including emotional eating. Absolutely. You’re, yeah, you’re not bad or wrong for doing so.

KATY: So I imagine some people are listening and they’re like, wait, she said that binging is okay. What are you talking about? This is like crazy. What? And so let’s dig into that. 

JULIE: Mm-hmm. If someone is binging, how do you think about that? Or how do you explore that with them or what do you do? Yeah. And I appreciate, it’s a very nuanced experience, but I think permission to cope, and a lot of people who are in like harm reduction spaces are often naming this in a much more eloquent way than I can.

But this just comes from like sitting with people who are in the throes of like despair because of their eating. And what I noticed, I mean, especially as dieticians, we can easily see for a lot of people. The bingeing is happening because they’re starving. You know, like they just hadn’t, hadn’t eaten enough.

And, and also there were long periods of time where diets were a big part of their eating. And so sometimes it could take years of binging or, or emotional eating for the body to repair and the mind to repair. And the pull to binge can be something that I see oftentimes from diet trauma, like chronic diet, trauma happening.

And in order for someone to repair that trauma, like that’s that wound from diet trauma, the binging for a period of time, and I don’t know how long that’s gonna be, is just what’s needed. And it’s not something that, it’s not a light switch. You know, you can’t just be like, I’m gonna stop bing now because I mean, I tried that with clients for years and years.

I think that is what a lot of people try to do. Yeah. Then it will [00:31:00] power your way out of it, right? Yeah. Yeah. And, and a lot of times people will say, well, Julie, I’m eating enough. I know I’m eating enough. And maybe like. If we punch the numbers, maybe it is kind of quote enough, but again, it doesn’t really get to the trauma that happened from you being told you can’t eat for whatever reason.

And I know whenever I say like diet, trauma people, some people roll their eyes at me and I’m like, I saw that eye roll because, because like dieting is so normal. So how could it be traumatic? But I think it is very traumatic because just like other, like we need to breathe every day. And if we don’t, if we’re drowning and we are gasping for air and we finally get saved, we’re not gonna just like breathe normally and not be traumatized from that experience.

It’s gonna be super traumatizing. So when someone has not gotten enough food for whatever reason, the body’s gonna have like the hold this, like this wound from it. And when a person is experiencing binging, it’s attending to that need. And so someone who was drowning and got saved, they may be in an ICU for a while on a ventilator, they may feel like the need to avoid like.

Water and they won’t drive over bridges for a while. And no one’s like, oh my gosh, you’re obsessed with breathing. Oh, they’re like recovering and it probably will take years, maybe even their whole life to recover from. And I think that’s the same for dieting. And so when I would work with people who were binging and honestly like binging of some sort is like, along with restricting is like the most common like eating behavior package that I would often see with clients.

So like, it’s not that I didn’t work with this very often. I mean this was pretty much the the typical client that I would work with. And when folks would eventually get to a place, it would take time. But when they eventually would get to a place of like feeling more permission to like just deal with the feelings when they came up with and including binging as something that they had permission for.

That’s when I noticed like the healing was happening and it wasn’t like all or nothing. That’s what I was saying before, like the night light switch, like no one moves away from binging like that. It’s like, and I’m sure you see this too, it’s more of like a hindsight realization like, wow, I used to binge like three times a day and I think I’ve only binged three times this week.

Like it’s, it, it just like a slowly kind of thing. Yeah. And as a person is repairing and they’re recovering from that diet trauma and they’re binging less frequently and then they do binge, if there’s this experience of like rejection of that binge. Then it’s just, it’s reigniting and triggering that diet trauma.

So that’s why, again, I think it’s really, really important for someone to repair their relationship with food, to like have permission for this, this time period. And then I appreciate it’s a hard sell. Like it’s, but part of what makes it so hard is like, it’s not like we’re going into this world where like a drowning victim where everyone’s breathing and has oxygen access.

You know, because we live in this industry filled with like dieting as normal eating. So like you’re constantly getting re-traumatized. So Sure. Some people, emotional eating or binging [00:34:00] may just be a part of their life because, not because they’re broken, but because the world is broken with its relationship with food.

Mm-hmm. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. 

KATY: And to be able to look at that with compassion and understanding rather than just shame and trying to fix it and. You know, kind of the classic way that we tend to think of these things. Mm-hmm. I think that’s such a, a beautiful alternate viewpoint. Mm-hmm. Now what about, okay, let’s talk about like when illness and medical stuff enters the equation.

So, and I’m thinking more of kind of like chronic things. So like diabetes, PCOS. Mm-hmm. High blood pressure, arthritis, Hashimoto’s, those types of things. How do you see that impacting our relationship with food? 

JULIE: Well, like I talk about in the book, the area I have the most experience with is someone with PCOS and then also diabetes and insulin resistance.

But I. That classic kind of binge, restrict, binge or starvation kind of cycle in PCOS. That was like the majority of folks thatI was working with. Probably the, like the last 10 years I was seeing clients, that’s what we were working with. And what I noticed is there’s some parts of the PCOS experience and I would say probably other conditions too that have insulin as a part of it, where there’s gonna be more cravings, there’s going to be some challenges just because of like how exhausted someone feels from this chronic condition.

And our world is not really built to take care of people with chronic conditions or disability. So having to just navigate the world that’s built for just ableism and healthism. And when someone has a condition where food is the focus to fix the condition, and there’s even like this lie that it can cure it, that’s where the eating disorder pathology really like the, the match is like scratching the surface and it just blows up.

And is what pushes so many people, especially with PCOS, into a restriction, a restriction than binge kind of cycle. Of course,  if someone listening has PCOS or you know, someone, you know, they were told to like, cut out carbs and sugar, just lose weight or don’t gain any weight, and that’s such a harmful thing for PCOS.

It’s also not necessary and not supported by research, but it’s definitely like the number one thing. It’s what they’re, they’re told though. Yeah. Yeah. And I also hear a lot like cut out gluten and dairy that gets just like kind of thrown in there to a little side. Did you see my further restriction?

Yeah. I, I felt the eye roll. I was like, did you see that? I was like, my eyes just rolled out the door. Yeah, because gluten and dairy is like. Specifically with PCOS, there’s no research that supports it, especially long term on any, what am I trying to say? Honestly, any diet with PCOS shows in the first like six weeks that it does something positive, you know?

And I think it’s okay to like honor that any diet, whether you’re restricting carbs, sugar or gluten, dairy, keto, intermittent fasting, vegan, plant-based, you know, like carnivore, any of ’em, they all have really great sparkly outcomes in the first six weeks. Right? In the beginning, yeah. Yeah. And what I saw with clients is when they cut out gluten or dairy, or both, for about two months or so, it did seem to like improve like cycle length, that they were still having a cycle or cravings and things like that.

But by the third month, O it was back to way it was, and then another month later, it was worse than it ever was. And that’s basically what I’ve seen over the last 20 years with PCOS in particular is there’s a short-term kind of positive with restricting anything, but then there’s these long-term consequences from any of those interventions, and that’s supported by the research in the general population.

We don’t have long-term diet studies in PCOS. They don’t exist. I mean, it’d be great if we did, but every five years there’s, um, evidence-based guidelines for PCOS care that are released, and it’s a big deal. Like it’s always like 300 pages, thousands of people contribute to it. And the last two have said there are no diets known to help people with PCOS to promote health long-term and maintain that weight loss.

And unfortunately, then the next statement is, so just choose one. Oh no. It’s like that’s the conclusion we drew from, it’s like, you’re almost there. Come on. You could do it. You could do it. Reject it. No. Yeah. Oh, and it even fast. And I bet people listening with PCOS are like, what? Yeah. Like, what are you talking about?

Because that’s, we could drop the link in the show notes right now and you could look at ’em for yourself. It’s like ridiculous. And it has in there too, like people with PCOS can be any size. It’s mostly genetic. There’s some environmental connections to it. Like it’s really like just very similar to diabetes.

And so, yeah, they just can’t get there. And so what are you supposed to do? Like you can keep trying to diet and hit those short-term outcomes. Eventually what I saw, and this is kind of the privilege of working people for years and years, is in the beginning people would diet with PCOS and it would provide these really cool  short term outcomes.

But 10 years later, no, even the short term, they were not producing those outcomes and it would make things just get so much worse. And, you know, there’s a, there’s a strong link with eating disorders with PCOS, I think it’s like four times more likely. And there’s of course, a higher risk of diabetes. And so many people put the onus on weight gain as the reason why.

And what I think is really important is we’ve never studied people with PCOS who’ve never dieted before. To see the chance of that person getting diabetes. Like that would be really interesting to see how those outcomes would go because we know that weight cycling does, we know that weight cycling predicts much metabolic harm.

Predict, yeah. Yeah. Weight cycling, we know it. Even it causes it like we know it causes higher insulin levels and higher inflammation. So, and those are the two things that with PCOS that I would help people with lowering, like, we just gotta figure out for you what you need in order to have lower insulin and lower inflammation levels.[00:40:00]

That’s, uh, like, let’s just figure that out. And for most people it’s like eating enough. Getting more sleep, going to therapy and getting the toxic shit outta your life and eating enough, then adding some supplements in and not over exercising, but if you feel like the craving to move, let’s figure out what feels good to you.

Yeah. It’s so not sexy, but you know. Right. Yeah. 

KATY: Yeah. And speaking of things earlier, we were talking about things that surprised us. That’s another thing that surprised me about becoming a dietician, is how much time I would spend telling people it’s okay to eat enough. That’s, it’s kind of sad, really.

Yeah. Yeah. It is really sad because it should be like the human, like right, first we all have enough food. You know? It’s like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Like we all need to have enough food first and foremost. And that’s why like, yeah, like talking about food can be really political for that reason, because like, I really think we need to have, everyone needs to have access to enough food and then let’s consider health outcomes, and I have a feeling that would greatly impact.

The amount of people who have diabetes. If] everyone had enough food, I have a feeling it would be a lot less people having diabetes. It would be interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think it’s not only just access to enough food, but it’s like, no, there’s something about when you feel like you’re going to have enough food to not fearing the risk of food insecurity, you know, trusting that you’re gonna get enough food, that there’s something that’s really powerful psychologically that I’ve noticed in my client’s brain like that.

Just when they know that they get enough because they have permission from themselves and they live in a place where they have enough food at home, that’s when psychologically, the diet trauma would just loosen its grip and things like inflammation would come down because there was just not as much of this.

Like urgency and fear and stress. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And in your book, you do talk about how any medical thing, especially when it gets. Very intertwined with like food recommendations, whether they’re evidence-based or not. Mm-hmm. [00:42:00] You talk about how that does impact our actual relationship with food, and so for people listening who, if they have any type of health thing and they’ve been told to eat a different weight because of that mm-hmm.

Or they’ve been told you have to lose weight to get healthier, what are some of the ways from like the non-diet vantage point that you’re able to help those people with their actual health? 

JULIE: This is really hard, right? Because the way that it’s communicated for someone, you need to eat less of this thing and you need to exercise this amount, and it’s more of a punishment more than anything.

And I know for a lot of us, what we’ve noticed is, and, and specifically in PCOS, what I noticed is like taking away carbs and sugar was like putting the cart before the horse kind of thing. It was just, and it wasn’t necessary. I probably have worked with thousands of people now with PCOS. And what I found is once people were eating enough and then started adding in certain foods, and that’s something I go through  in the book or some experiments, I call it cur curious nutrition.

You know, just really trying to go into it with, let’s collect some data here. What happens if I add more protein to what I’m eating at breakfast? Am I eating a Pop-Tart? Don’t take the Pop-Tart away. Just what can you add to it to see like if, does it feel any different? Do you notice anything with your cravings or your cycles or your blood sugar when you do this?

Adding in more fiber, I don’t know, like there’s things you can do to add instead of taking away. And what we also don’t know as dieticians, and this may be the other surprising thing, is like not everyone reacts the same, like physically and emotionally to changes in their eating. Like for some people adding in certain foods.

Makes this huge impact. And for other people it doesn’t do anything at all. And they have to like experiment with different things. So again, it’s very individual, right? And so that would be like the, one of the biggest things besides like eating enough is instead of taking away what can you add? And with PCOS in particular, you know, it’s adding protein at that first meal.

And if, if you’re kind of burned out on protein or just need more ideas, fiber and fat also can help with that. And then adding some supplements, you know, there’s a couple supplements that I talk a lot about in PCOS care, like in Acetol is one that I know a lot of people know about it, but it’s, I think it’s really important to make sure you’re taking enough and you know why you’re taking it.

But that’s something that’s really powerful, especially for folks who have very high insulin levels and yeah. So instead of taking something away, what can you add to it? And knowing too, like nutrition is something like, it’s a really fickle kind of science, right? It’s like a really. It’s not black and white.

It’s not. Well, and it’s hard to study too, too. It’s so hard to study, to really get like true randomized control trials. You’d have to lock people in a like a room. Yes. And they can only, it’s inhumane what you give them. Yeah, exactly. Which is inhumane, right? Which, that’s what we’re telling people to do all the time.

But what I think is also hard here is that our bodies are always changing and the world is changing too. So there’s all these variables. And so there may be times where people will like add some supplements in and they’ll add the protein in the morning and they feel great for like a year or two. And then they’ll call me and be like, Julie, I’m doing something wrong ’cause it’s not working anymore.

And I’m like, oh, you just may need to like add something else. You may need to like increase a supplement or add more protein. And I like, so if it stops working, it’s not that you’re doing anything wrong, it’s just like our bodies are always changing. And especially if you do have a chronic condition, it’s not gonna stay the same.

It’s always gonna get worse. Even if you are the quote unquote perfect eater, that doesn’t exist. Like if you have diabetes, your blood sugars are always gonna get worse. You’re not doing it wrong. You’re just surviving being a human. Absolutely. And this chronic, I think people do feel like that, me, that must mean they’re doing it wrong.

Right? Yeah. Or that saying where their provider might label them noncompliant. I hate that word. It just, oh, sorry. Riles me up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it, it’s, there’s so many reasons why it’s problematic. Yeah. But it really is like, no, I think we’re the noncompliant ones, the providers, like we’re the ones that are not doing what we need to do to really help.

KATY: Yeah, absolutely. Let’s talk about, so your book is called Find Your Food Voice. Mm-hmm. Let’s talk about this concept of finding your food voice, like what does that mean? Why is it important? Like mm-hmm. Dig into that piece of things. 

JULIE: I love this question and you know, I didn’t always use the term food voice, but something that I found with doing intuitive eating work with folks and, and intuitive eating is kinda like the first like non-diet tool that I really found that spoke to me.

And I think for a lot of us, that’s where we kind of found a, a space in nutrition. But there were folks who maybe they read the book or they just kind of heard about the concept and they just didn’t feel like it worked for them. And so with finding your food voice, it’s really serving as a, an add-on to intuitive eating to help make it accessible for you.

And what I think of is a, a food voice is this internal system that we all were born with that communicates like when to eat, how much, what choices based on what is actually available to you. So, you know, not everyone has the same amount of access. And just like in intuitive eating, it’s like through communication of like hunger and fullness, but also fatigue, mood satisfaction.

It could also be through thoughts and feelings. And then for my friends and colleagues who identify as neurodivergent, you know, those are things that they’re like, that doesn’t work for me. And I’m like, yeah, it may not. So it may even be like structured self-care things that you have found that help you to make sure you’re eating enough.

That’s also your food voice. And it’s gonna be unique to an individual. You know, that’s something you, and I know we’ve, after working with people for a while, like everyone has their own unique way of navigating, like their own like way of knowing what to eat. And that’s what this food voice is. It’s this knowing.

And even though we all have a different way, there’s three qualities that I have found that are vital that the book and my work are serving to help people cultivate. And it’s connecting to that voice that’s flexible. Like it needs to be flexible, kind, and also nurturing. So if you’re like. Getting some kind of cue and wondering, is this my food voice or is this the diet industry?

If it’s flexible, kind and nurturing, then you know, it’s your food voice, you know? And the work that the book serves to do is to like remove all the blocks to that and all the blocks to that unconditional permission for, for food. And then also like really building the compassion for yourself when you just can’t, you can’t access your food voice.

Like whether it’s like availability time restraints, or oppressive systems like racism that are like blocking you from actually getting what you need. So I hope that helps answer the question. Absolutely. Yeah. It reminds me of, I don’t remember if it’s in the Intu eating book or the workbook where they talk about attunement, disruptors.

Mm-hmm. I, I think it’s the same thing, like the blocks. Mm-hmm. What are some of those blocks that prevent people from being able to identify or hear or listen to or trust their food voice? There’s so many and. I think about it can depend on kind of like the path you’re on, but for many folks they have a very strong genetic and propensity for an eating disorder.

So it’s part of some pathology that’s blocking someone from their food voice. For other people, they have inherited some like ancestral trauma that has taught them like, Hey, eating a certain way is gonna keep you safer. So that’s also blocking their food voice. That’s something that was compassionately given to them from their ancestors, but yet is still keeping them from eating enough and being able to use their voice to be able to get their needs met.

And then for other folks, it’s anti weight or anti-fat bias, rather that is getting in the way, like telling people to not trust their body. I don’t know if you remember, but maybe it was maybe 10 or 15 years ago [00:50:00] when Weight Watchers. Who was now back to Weight Watchers, but before it was WW and then Weight Watchers, they had this commercial where it was selling Weight Watchers and it was talking about hunger and it was this big like orange furry monster.

I remember this. Oh my gosh, I watch out and it was chasing people, uhhuh. And people are like, ah. Like trying to hide from it. And that like our food voice is not a monster. Sometimes it has to yell and sometimes it has to be constantly there, like food noise. But it’s not a monster. Like it’s there for a reason.

Like it’s telling you about the trauma. Like it’s again, the drowning victim who’s like scared and gasping. It’s that, you know, it’s like a, an alarm. And all of us now that are alive today have been brought up in the diet industry, like it’s been around that long. And so we’re born no matter what family we’re born into now with these blocks.

And so that’s why getting to a food voice. Getting to yours is going to be different than somebody else. Like, we need to remove all your blocks. And those are unique to you. And yeah, so like, it may be like your life’s work to figure out what are the blocks and how can I get back to it? And then how can you leave a world that’s better with less blocks for other people?

That’s a beautiful way to think of it. Yeah. Mm-hmm. I, yeah, because I think when you, when we do this work, I mean, I’m sure you notice it, like when, I mean, ’cause no matter what your relationship is like with food, Katy, like, I mean, my relationship with food improved so much by doing this intuitive eating work as a, as a practitioner.

Yeah. I’m so grateful for it. And so I raised my family differently. Like my kids, if someone’s talking about body sizes in a disparaging way or talking about a diet, my kids will just be like, stop talking about that. That’s stupid. I love it. I’m like, I don’t even have to do anything anymore. Because like, they just will say it because it’s, to them, it’s like.

Abnormal to think of it that way, you know? And so, yeah, like I think that’s part of it. Whenever we’re doing this work on ourselves, it’s gonna have a ripple effect, even if we intentionally not do anything about it. Like even just by doing this work, we’re providing a better space for who comes behind us, and especially for those of us who do have less.

Systems of oppression haunting us. You know, it’s gonna be easier for us with that. So then we can help build an easier way for other people to access their food voice. Mm-hmm. Who maybe have to deal with more, more blocks. I even think about, you know, like the friends or coworkers, if we aren’t engaging in diet talk mm-hmm.

Or colluding over bashing our bodies, just the positive ripple effect that that has versus if we were reinforcing that diet mentality for everybody around us. You know, sometimes it’s just these little things that are imperceptible but are making a difference. Right. Yeah. I can I tell you a story that kind, that kind of reminds me of something.

My daughter who is turning 17 today, I think this was. What was it, six, five or six years ago, she was in middle school and sat down at the lunch table and she had one of [00:53:00] my hand me down t-shirts on that says riots not diets. And she would wear it all the time. No one would ever say anything to her. But one day a girl sat next to her and was like, and she kind of whispered to her, Hey, I like your t-shirt.

And so they started talking about it and this, this child started telling my kid like, yeah, I have an eating disorder. Nobody else knows yet. And so like this kid saw the shirt and realized, oh, this may be someone who’s safer to sit next to during lunchtime because she’s not gonna be talking about this food is bad, or this body weight is bad.

Or in, I think it was in middle school. So it was a time where kids were starting to like really start to like disparage their bodies in, in a way that was part of the conversation and the bonding. And so, yeah, like this was a person. She could sit next to and not have to worry about that. And so that’s what I think stuff like that happens, you know, without even opening her mouth.

Like it just like invited someone to come in and [00:54:00] be able to do that. And you know, a part of my book that I really, really, really wanted was something kind of like that t-shirt without making a t-shirt. Like almost like a marker where people are like, oh, that person is also against dieting. And it’s the voice finder chord, you know, as a person gets to chapter three and they start to like describe what their food voice is in their own language.

It invites people to build this kind of chain. And of course, I was writing this book two years ago during Taylor Swift’s heyday with like all of her like bracelets and stuff. So I was like, well, I don’t wanna make a bracelet. It’s a, it’s basically a braiding system that you learn that has different meaning to it.

And I was picturing it like, yeah, it’s, you could put it in your journal, you can clip it on your bag. And it’s almost like a way to be like, I am someone who’s not going to be talking about bodies in a disparaging way. I’m gonna be fat positive, I’m going to be someone that is not. Dieting or talking about diets and doing the work, you know?

So I think however we can invite that connection, I think can be, oh, and [00:55:00] I just love’s mix. It’s one of those things where it’s, it’s kind of like an insider thing and like, you know, you know, if you Exactly. Cognize it. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That’s what I was hoping it would be, is something like that. Exactly.

So that’s amazing. Yeah. 

KATY: Are there any, because there’s a bunch of exercises and prompts in the book. I mean, it’s not just like, read this book. It’s like, here’s some things to do and reflect on. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Are there any besides that one that you really like or that would be a good starting place for someone who is having a hard time with this?

JULIE: Yeah. Yeah. You know what? I thank you. Yes. I want this book to be not a quickie, like this is a meaty. Let’s really? Yes. We were talking about this is not just like a self-help book that you read in three days and you’re like, oh my gosh, my life has changed. I wish. And that’s how I end it too. I’m like, I wish this could have been like one, you know when you like get a big, which also whose life was permanently changed by a self-help book that was like that where you just fly.

I know, exactly. But you know like when you buy, like you get like a new iPhone or something and it has a big sick like manual but then also has the quick start guide [00:56:00] uhhuh. Like that’s all you read. Right? I was like, I kind of wish my book would have the quick start guide ’cause that would be really great.

But you know, if you’re someone who’s like in the diet trap, like you just can’t figure out a way to eat without dieting, one of the things that I found to be really, really powerful is like we have all this research, like diets don’t work for most people. So like you’re not this anomaly. You’re kind of like the rule, not the exception, but really un figuring out have you dieted enough yet?

Like do you have enough data to know it? It doesn’t work for you. And this exercise basically helps people to make a timeline of their life. Like I have a squiggly line put all of the years you’ve been alive so far in major events. And I know for whenever I would do this with clients, if they like got married, their first boyfriend, they came out, I dunno, like big life events, they went to college.

Those all had diets associated with it. Like they were like, oh yeah, I remember when I left for college the month before I did this crash diet or something, you know? And so mapping out all of them. ¸Seeing how many and count them up, and there’s a specific knot in that voice finder cord that that number ident is like marked in there for you.

Like, I think finding your number and really sitting with, okay, do you have enough data yet? Is there a diet that exists that’s going to be different? You’ve tried 67 diets, do you really think? And no, I can’t answer that. And I, I think it’s really important just for a person then to be like, well, is this enough?

Do I have enough data to really know that that’s your data? Like we were saying before, nutrition and science is so fickle, it’s so hard to control for, there’s so many variables, but you have your own data, you have your own life story, your life experience. And that’s just the first part of like, when people get that number.

Then there’s exercise after that, like going through each one and like, okay, what, what seduced you into that diet? Like what was the mind fuck that got you into that one? And then what were the short term outcomes? Were the long term outcomes. And eventually people have themes, right? Like there’s, there’s something that always draws them in.

There’s probably like two or three things. There’s two or three really great outcomes that happen and then some long-term consequences because diets are always over promising and underdelivering. Right, exactly. Always. Yes. Always doing that. Yeah. So yeah, that first, like gather how many diets you’ve been on, like do that first and your mind is gonna be like, oh my God.

Mm-hmm. I can’t believe I’ve been on that many. Yeah. It can be hard to look at Yes, but so powerful to realize, okay, the data is right here in front of me. Yeah. And I, I’m glad you said that because I think that’s part of why this book is not like going to be this like instant bestseller because it’s not, you don’t feel good in the beginning.

Like, but that’s because the diet industry has like seduced us and like manipulated us to think that it was like there’s fantasy, this fairytale. It’s never existed. So like reality is sad sometimes, and it, it’s like there’s a grief. B Brie Campos talks so much about body grief. I love her work. I highly recommend her work in that area.

And there’s so much grief that happens. But then after the sadness and the grief is usually a lot of anger, and this sounds so like ridiculous, but whenever a client would tell me they were starting to feel really angry and they’re like, what is all this anger? I’m like, yes. You’re like, yes, yeah, this is, I’ve been waiting for you to get here.

Because that means then you’re not blaming yourself. Mm-hmm. Yep. You’re seeing the truth and you’re starting to blame who’s really at fault. ’cause it’s not you. It’s not me. It’s like it’s the diet industry. I don’t remember the exact like what study or what researcher it was, but I was at a conference one time and they were talking about eating disorder prevention programs.

And a lot of it’s about building awareness around mm-hmm. Dieting and diet culture and all that. And I remember them saying that when they took out some of the stuff that cre like around social justice and the ways we’ve been duped by diet culture and, and you lost like the anger component. It lost some of its effectiveness.

Yes, yes. And I think it makes so much  sense. Yeah. And I think that’s why it’s really great to come to that number of diets you’ve been on because you need to be really, really mad. Um, appropriately angry. Yes. Yes. Yeah. And I think, I don’t know, it is uncomfortable. It’s really uncomfortable. It was uncomfortable when I was teaching that class.

It was only three minutes long and it was supposed to be 30 minutes, and I was crying at my and my boss’ office. Like, it was so uncomfortable. I was so ashamed. And it’s a really hard thing. So if you’re in that spot, I know for me, I remember being like, I can’t do this. This is too hard. But I can remember a therapist telling me, like, Julie, like, you’re already feeling it all.

Like you’re already feeling the hard parts, you know? And you can keep avoiding it, but you’re already feeling it, so like you’re not really avoiding it. So like the only way now is through. So that’s what I think that anger is. It’s like it’s moving you through then, and it’s, it’s what’s gonna be, I call it like the jet fuel that’s gonna get you then to place where you, Ooh, I like that.

Jet fuel. Yes. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It’s, it’s it what help, it’s the fuel that helps you get to [01:01:00] your knowing, to your food voice. Yep. 

KATY: That’s awesome. What would you say, what are the main things that you want listeners to take from this discussion?

JULIE: I always want people to know that they’re not broken, they’re not doing it wrong.

It’s not your fault. You’ve been lied to and it’s gonna be messy. I think intuitive eating like lore, like the way we see it from, like other people doing it, it sounds like it looks magical and fun and everyone’s laughing, but it’s, it’s not all like that. But there’s definitely lots of joy on the other side, but there’s also all the other feelings.

And it’s real. It’s now the reality. And you have been, if you feel like you can’t do it, like you decide what you’re gonna do next, but you’re already doing it, so you can. 

KATY: Absolutely. That’s that’s awesome. I love that. And tell people about your book. So we, we referenced it, we talked about it a little bit, like give us the whole rundown on the book where people find it.

JULIE: Well, first thank you. It’s called Find Your Food Voice. You can buy it anywhere where books are sold. And I also have a] podcast Find Your Food Voice in case you’re like, before I buy this book, let me see what Julie’s about. And then if you’re more into like reading, I have a substack as well on the same with the same name.

KATY: So yeah, writing, talking about. You’re a food voice, like how to help you remove those blocks so then you can get to know like your own food voice and help you get there. So yeah, that’s, that’s how you get to all this up. Amazing. And I’ll say like, I, you get my full stamp of approval, endorsement and everything.

Oh, I’ve read the book. I listen to your podcast like all of your stuff. It’s legit. So, and people know that I don’t, I don’t bring guests on here that I don’t kind of vet first. So when I saw your name on my inbox, it was like a no brainer. So, Aw, thank you. I appreciate you being here. I always wrap up with a few just like fun questions.

Okay. So rapid fire, what’s currently your favorite snack? 

JULIE: Can I tell you? This is like always the hardest question for me to answer, but I would say it’s a weird combo ’cause it’s like spring, but epan and arugula, so, okay. I like it. Yeah. But in the spring and summer I’m like arugula, fanatic and my neighbor grows it and so she’s always bringing it over.

I’m like, get me the arugula. And then, oh, amazing. Epan is just. My boyfriend has introduced me to that, so I’m like, I love Meep Pan all the time. Love it. Yeah. 

KATY: What about seasons? Are you more winter or Summer? 

JULIE: Definitely more summer, except not in North Carolina where I live because it’s so hot. But I definitely like, I love, uh, the sun.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. 

KATY: Same. Same. Mm-hmm.: What about cats versus dogs? 

JULIE: Oh, my dog, Doug is like the best, so I, his name is Dog. Yes. I love people names for dogs. Yes, me too. My last dog was Frank, and the one before that was Pete. I like one syllable man names, but I, I have a cat who’s no longer with us. His name was Manny, and I loved him.He converted me into a cat person. Mm-hmm. So I can’t choose, don’t make me like this is my favorite child. 

KATY: Yes. What about, do you have a favorite TV show you’ve watched lately? 

JULIE: The pit. 

KATY: Oh, I haven’t seen  it. 

JULIE: Oh my gosh. It, because I, I kind of miss working in a hospital, Uhhuh and the excitement. I’m definitely someone who like, feels energy and I love hospitals for that reason.

Like all the emotions and the drama and the pit. It does a really great job showcasing and emergency room and a hospital where there’s lots of trauma. People don’t have a lot of access and it’s just like, you remember the show 24? 

KATY: Mm-hmm. 

JULIE: It’s just like that. But in a, a hospital ed, and I’ve heard now that you say that, I’ve heard a few doctors I follow on TikTok have said like, they really like that show.

And I feel like that’s a lot of an actual doctors like, okay, this is not just cheesy medical drama. No. And it’s like Grey’s Anatomy without out being outside of the hospital. Like everything is like minute by minute in the emergency room. They do a really great job. Fat phobia was one of the things that they exposed in it as well, so, oh my gosh.

Amazing. Okay. I have to go watch. Yeah, it’s, but don’t watch it during the day, like when you’re on a lunch break because you’ll cry and then you’ll have like puffy eyes. Oh, it’s one of those. Okay. Okay. Yeah. [01:05:00] Yeah. It’s intense. KATY:

Alright, last question. Okay. What’s your favorite form of self-care? 

JULIE: Oh, walking dug slowly in the sun with some music.

KATY: Mm. So good. Yeah. Mm-hmm. All right, Julie, so if someone wanted to reach out to you to connect with you, where are you most active or what’s the best way to reach you? You can probably on my Substack, like I would go there, come talk to me over there and if you’re not on Substack, just listen to my podcast and we’ll, we’ll kick connected over that way.

Amazing. And then if they wanna buy the book Amazon or is there a better place to go buy it? 

JULIE: No, I, you know, if you go to my website, Julie Duffy dillon.com/book there, all the places are listed, but really it’s just anywhere that works for you, anywhere you get books. Mm-hmm. Okay. Perfect. Mm-hmm. And we’ll link to all that in show notes, we’ll make people.

I appreciate it. Cool. Alright. Thank you so much for being here. 

JULIE: Thanks for having me on, Katy

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