Welcome back to Rebuilding Trust With Your Body, it’s Katy here. First of all – WOW! I am blown away by the response to episode 200, the one right before this. 

• Thank them for the episode 200 support
• Tell them about Masterclass – the transformation, not the details
  • Inside the Navigating the Balancing Act Masterclass, here’s exactly what you’ll learn to finally feel free, at peace, and comfortable enough in your body to fully live your life, without the constant mental battle with food and weight…
  • You’ll learn how to:
    • ✔️ Look in the mirror and not flinch, pick apart, or avoid your reflection.
    • ✔️ Feel “normal” around food, like your friends or partner who eat pizza without spiraling.
    • ✔️ Stop wasting years of your life waiting for the scale to finally give you permission to live fully.
  • And you’ll learn how to feel at home in your body so you can stop hiding, avoiding pictures, or opting out of life experiences.
  • When you master these things, you will see your health AND body image improve, without it hinging upon a number on the scale or how your jeans fit.
  • Even if weight is still on your mind, you deserve a life that isn’t ruled by your worries about the scale. This masterclass will teach you practical tools to feel better in your body, improve your health, and enjoy food without the constant stress.
  • Grab your spot at nondietacademy.com/masterclass

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: The whole food plant based diet

Now let me preface this by saying I don’t think there’s anything wrong with whole foods, or plant foods. They’re great, and if you like them, eat them. 

I want to get into this actual diet and all that it entails. 

This diet was created in the 1980s by a guy named Colin Campbell, a nutritional biochemist. And he basically took a vegan diet and called it plant based because he didn’t want to associate himself with the politics of veganism. 

He’s also the guy who published The China Study – which I covered in the Wellness Woo segment of episode 136.

The book is essentially based on a big observational study from 1983 where they selected 6500 people across China, and the eating habits of one adult family member were surveyed, and they compared this information to mortality rates of 48 types of cancer and other chronic diseases from the years 1973-75.

They used a bunch of self-reported data to look at correlations (which is statistics 101 that correlation doesn’t equal causation) and used it to claim that a vegan diet is the best.

One of the biggest criticisms about the book (and there are a LOT of criticisms out there if you google it) is that it way oversimplifies the data, and that the authors make these big generalizations that aren’t actually supported by their own study. 

It wasn’t until after The China Study book was published that Campbell added “whole foods” in front of “plant based” to describe his diet so that it could sound novel and unique.

Now, again, there’s nothing wrong with including plant foods. They’re great. But there are some downsides to the WFPB diet:

• It’s really restrictive – you’re missing out on key nutrients from the foods not allowed, especially foods that are high in protein, iron, calcium, vitamin B12, and zinc. It’s very easy to become anemic following this diet.
• It’s socially restrictive. It’s hard to go to restaurants or social gatherings and follow this diet. 
• It has a cult-like following, and the problem then is that your identity becomes wrapped up in it, and it fuels further guilt and shame if you don’t keep following it
• Part of the appeal is the rigidity of the rules – because people don’t’ trust themselves, and that in and of itself is a big problem
• You can receive many of the health benefits by eating in a much more flexible manner – it doesn’t need to be this extreme

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…The grass Isn’t always greener – how weight loss doesn’t always deliver what you think it will

1. Set the Scene: Why the Grass Looks Greener

• Diet culture sells the fantasy that weight loss = happiness, health, confidence, and belonging. (billboards, social media weight loss journeys, accolades)
  
• Many people chase weight loss not for the number itself, but for what they think it will unlock (better relationships, more opportunities, self-worth).
  
• Acknowledge the very human longing behind this—it’s not superficial; it’s about wanting to feel safe, loved, accepted, and good enough. (And when you look at it that way, it totally makes sense we yearn for this – AND it’s pretty messed up that we equate it with losing weight and being thin)

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2. What Actually Happens After Weight Loss

• Initial “high” or honeymoon period of compliments, attention, and feeling in control. You might be on cloud 9.
  
• Over time, this fades—compliments stop, old insecurities return, and life’s stressors still exist. I had a client recently who was talking about how she lost 70# and had assumed that it would improve her dating life and she’d get into a long-term relationship, and she still got ghosted by the next guy she went on a couple of dates with. We talked about how it was actually easier for her to assume that the reason she was previously getting rejected was because of her weight, and now she worries that there’s something else “wrong” with her or that it’s something about her personality. That’s a really painful thing to work through. There’s a comfort in blaming our weight for these things.
  
• Maintaining weight loss often requires unsustainable restriction, which can fuel anxiety, obsession, the binge–restrict cycle, and feeling like you’re basically at war against your body (because you kind of are at war against your biology and your metabolism).
  
• Clients often say: “I thought I’d finally feel good in my body, but I still hated myself and didn’t like my body even at my lower weight.” I’ve worked with people whose desire for weight loss took them to a scary low place where they were malnourished and even being tube fed and they still thought they needed to lose weight. That fantasy about weight loss is often like a mirage in the desert…I had a client last year who got lower than her initial goal weight, and ended up in eating disorder treatment.

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3. Common Myths That Don’t Pan Out

Have a seat and prepare your heart, because this next part might sting. I am going to challenge some of your deeply held beliefs – because I’m not here to tell you what you want to hear. I’m here to help you heal your relationship with food and your body, so you can actually live a happier and healthier life. 

Myths:

• “I’ll feel more confident.” → Confidence comes from self-trust and respect, not clothing size.
  
• “My health will automatically improve.” → Health behaviors (eating, movement, stress, sleep, accessing healthcare) matter more than weight. I had a client a while back who had been to the doctor and had lost 30# and she still had diabetes. She had been led to believe that weight loss alone would basically cure her diabetes, and it didn’t.
  
• “I’ll finally love my body.” → Body image struggles don’t disappear with a smaller body; they often just shift. I’m hearing this a lot from people who are on GLP1 medications who have lost a lot of weight. It didn’t magically fix their body image.
  
• “I’ll be happier.” → Happiness is multifactorial; research shows weight loss doesn’t guarantee lasting improvement in mood or quality of life. In fact, research also shows that intentional weight loss correlates with higher rates of anxiety and depression, and worse body image. (And that IE correlates with improvements in anxiety, depression and body image. This goes to show that how you feel in your body and about your body isn’t solely determined by your weight.)

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4. The Hidden Costs of Weight Loss Pursuits

• Social: Missing out on experiences (vacations, birthdays, eating with friends).
  
• Mental: Constant food noise and food obsession, obsession with exercise, or body checking.
  
• Physical: Metabolic slowing, hair loss, muscle loss, all sorts of digestive issues, nutrient deficiencies, headaches, cardiac issues, injuries from over-exercising – it can literally impact every organ system in the body.
  
• Emotional: Guilt, shame, and fear of regain, depression, anxiety, 

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5. Shifting the Question

• Instead of asking: “How can I lose weight?” ask: “What am I hoping weight loss will give me?” >> I literally want you to journal about this.
  
• Explore deeper needs: belonging, energy, confidence, peace, joy.
  
• You can work on meeting those needs directly, without waiting on a number on the scale. 

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6. Stories and Relatable Examples

• I had a client who suffered from joint pain for most of her adult life. She entirely blamed it on her weight, and went so far as having bariatric surgery in hopes she’d be out of pain, and she went on to lose 100#. Well, it didn’t fix her pain – because the pain wasn’t being caused by her weight in the first place. It broke my heart when she said to me, “Well maybe now my doctors will take my pain seriously.”
  
• Celebrities Who’ve Spoken Openly About Body Image Struggles

• Demi Lovato – Despite being in a conventionally thin and fit body at different points in their career, Demi has shared openly about eating disorders, relapse, and how body image struggles didn’t disappear when their body changed.
  
• Taylor Swift – In her Miss Americana documentary, she admitted that she used to restrict her food and overexercise, despite being in a smaller body, and that the pressure to “look a certain way” caused deep struggles.
  
• Kesha – Talked about her eating disorder and the intense body image pressures in the music industry, even when she was thin and “fit the mold.”
  
• Jessica Simpson – Wrote in her memoir about struggling with body image and dieting since childhood, even when she was at her smallest and praised for it.
  
• Lady Gaga – Has spoken out about her history with bulimia and the constant scrutiny of her body, regardless of her size.

• If thinness really guaranteed happiness and peace, Taylor Swift wouldn’t have struggled with starving herself when she was thriving in her career.
• Relatable “ordinary life” scenario: You finally fit into the jeans, but you still worry about what happens if they get tight again.

On the flip side…

At heaviest weight ever and is happiest she’s ever been

Gained weight – and got her life back

Weight has stayed the same, and health has improved

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7. The moral of the story:

• Weight loss doesn’t always fix everything we hoped it would
• Even if it does, it’s usually temporary, and there’s a dark side to it that our culture doesn’t usually talk about because we’re too busy celebrating weight loss
• When we zoom out and see the bigger picture we can honor health, and feel better in our bodies without it requiring weight loss
• You might lose weight, you might not – that’s not the point. 
• Real freedom isn’t chasing the grass on the other side, it’s tending to your own garden (self-trust, health habits that feel good, meaningful relationships).
• And THIS is exactly what we’re going to be covering inside the Navigating the Balancing Act Masterclass – where we’re going to lay it all out on the table, talk about these thoughts you’re still having about weight loss, how you don’t like your body, and how you’re struggling in this messy middle space of intuitive eating – and how to work through it without getting sucked back into diet culture. I’m going to give you real tools, mindset coaching, and actionable strategies you can apply right away. There are 2 options for you to attend live this week on Thursday and Friday (which I highly recommend coming live – because those who come live get my Snack Hack guide to Intuitive Snacking, which is such a powerful tool because snacking tends to be where people go off the rails with IE, and I know you’re definitely going to want to get your hands on this. I’ll show you how to snack on the things that you love, and how to pair it with other things strategically so that you’re less likely to overeat. I’ve also include TONS of examples of snacks for you!) Grab your spot in the masterclass at nondietacademy.com/masterclass. This is the only time I’m running this masterclass in 2025, so run don’t walk if you want in. 

In case nobody has told you today – you are worthy just as you are. We’ll talk again soon.

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