Welcome back to Rebuilding Trust With Your Body, I’m Katy Harvey your host. As you can tell from the title of this episode, we are going to talk about 3 ways to speed up your intuitive eating journey. 

• Intuitive eating can feel slow, messy, or frustrating at times.
  
• There are strategies that help it “click” faster, without turning it into another diet where there are rules to follow, and things to feel guilty about. We can speed up this process by taking some very intentional steps here. And these are some things that you probably haven’t thought of, or that you’re not aware of. It’s things that as a coach and an outsider looking in I am able to see and guide my clients through ALL the time because I have that external vantage point. I’ve also seen how these specific things will help you avoid mistakes, and work through the difficulties that come up along the way. Because if you’ve been on this journey towards peace with food for any time now, you’re probably realizing that it’s not always easy. It’s downright hard and terrifying at times. But there’s part of you that knows it’s worth it, or you wouldn’t still be here.
  
• Today I’ll share 3 (plus a bonus) that will shorten the time it takes for you to make peace with food, trust your body, and fully break free from diet culture so that you can enjoy your pumpkin spice lattes and tailgate foods this fall without feeling like you have to do an extra workout to make up for it. And so that you can leverage gentle nutrition to help improve your bloodwork, so the next time you go to the doctor your doctor is thrilled to see your labs have improved WITHOUT you dieting, and so that you can switch your wardrobe over from your summer to your fall and winter clothes without going into a total spiral if your jeans from last year are snug. When you have worked through all of your hangups with food, with your body image and weight, and how to take care of your health in effective ways that don’t include skipping the bread basket at dinner…when you’ve worked through all of this you will find that your life feels so much freer and more expansive because you’re not wasting all your time and energy fixating on the calories in a muffin or comparing your body to that picture on social media of your sorority sister that you haven’t seen since college. You can be present in your life now, in the body that you have now, without feeling like a walking ball of shame and failure.
  
  I want to help you fastrack yourself to the place where you walk right past the scale in your bathroom to get dressed each morning, without picking yourself apart, and you can feel relatively confident in your clothes (not like your entire self-esteem hinges upon how you look, but rather you just feel good, and fine, and it’s not a big deal), and you go make yourself breakfast and trust yourself to eat when you’re hungry all throughout the day and it’s just not a big deal. Your energy is high, and you’re not on a blood sugar or hunger roller coaster all day because you’re eating consistently, and you’re pairing foods together that give you satiety and balance your blood sugar, but nothing is off limits. And you no longer feel guilty unless you actually do something morally against your values – and that has nothing to do with food. Eating spaghetti or hitting the Taco Bell drive thru no longer feels like you committed a crime.
  
  You 100% can get to this place of zero guilt with food, feeling comfortable and accepting of your body, and taking care of your health without doing rigid, obsessive or restrictive behaviors. It requires you to stick with this process, even when – ESPECIALLY when – the going gets tough. And we can speed this up for you, so that you don’t have to sit in the suck for as long, by taking the steps that I’m going to share with you today. So prepare your heart and get ready to take notes, because this is going to be a strategy packed episode that you’re going to want to implement things from. 

Before we dive further 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: Cold pressed black seed oil 

The Hype:
Also called black cumin, this little seed has been used for over 2,000 years as folk medicine. Today it’s marketed in capsules and oils claiming to fix everything from asthma to joint pain to high cholesterol.

The Research:
There are some studies — mostly small or animal-based — showing possible benefits for blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar, inflammation, memory, even cancer cells in test tubes. A few human trials show mild improvements in things like LDL, triglycerides, and allergy symptoms.

The Catch:
Results are mixed, changes tend to be small, and when people stop taking it, their numbers go back up. Plus, doses aren’t standardized, supplements aren’t regulated, and safety data is limited. Pregnant and nursing women are advised to avoid it.

Dietitian Perspective:
Experts say: interesting, but not ready for prime time. At best, it might help mild allergy symptoms, but proven, safe strategies like nutrition, movement, sleep, and medication (when needed) are still the go-to. Supplements can also interact with meds, so “check with your doctor first” applies here big time.

Bottom Line:
Nigella sativa sounds exotic and promising, but it’s mostly Wellness Woo for now. Don’t count on it to cure your high cholesterol or diabetes — stick with the boring but effective basics.

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…

1. Use Food Experiments Instead of Rules

• Diet brain = rules → “don’t eat after 7,” “only eat when at a 3 on hunger scale.”
  
• IE fast track = experiments →
  • What happens if I start eating at a 5 instead of waiting? What happens if I wait until I’m at a 2?
  • What happens if I eat just a bowl of cereal for breakfast? What happens if I eat a bowl of cereal AND a couple of scrambled eggs with it? 
  • What happens if I spend a day acting “as if” I am confident in my body? 
  • What happens if I dance around my living room instead of doing the 30 minute workout I had planned? 
  • What happens if I don’t wear my step tracking watch for a week? What happens if I stop tracking my food?
  • What happens if I get clothes that fit my here-and-now body? And if I clean out my closet and set aside the clothes that don’t fit?
  • What happens if I eat a small piece of chocolate with every single meal and snack?
  • What happens if I combine carb + protein at my snacks?
  • What happens if I tell my mom, sister or friend I don’t want to talk about food or weight with her anymore? 
  • What happens if I decline to get weighed at my next doctor’s visit?
  • What happens if I look in the mirror and say what I’m grateful for about my body?
  • What happens if I eat a bigger breakfast in the morning instead of just a protein shake or some oatmeal?
    
• Experiments = trying something to see what happens
  • Experiments get you into ACTION mode, not just listening and learning. You can listen to all the podcasts and watch all the TikToks you want about IE, but if you don’t go DO something, you’re not going to actually see the change you want. Take imperfect action, learn through doing. 
  • Experiments also foster curiosity + data, rather than judgment. There is no “failure”, just data.
    
• Results: clients learn faster because they’re observing rather than policing themselves.
  

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2. Audit Hidden Diet Behaviors

• Diet culture sneaks back in quietly and subtly without us even realizing it.
  • E.g. Light dressing, skipping bread, “earning” dessert, body checking, diet talk with friends, buying a walking pad for your desk and accidentally becoming obsessed with steps, even stopping exercise all together can be a subtle form of diet culture and all/none thinking with movement
    
• These behaviors slow down your progress because they reinforce old rules, and they deepen those old neural pathways in your brain (when we want to be creating and strengthening NEW non-diet neural pathways)
  
• Challenge: spend a week as a “Diet Detective,” jot down every subtle choice that’s rooted in diet culture.
  • Awareness is powerful. You can’t change what you don’t see.
  • “How will I know what’s diet culture?” Good question. And you might not…sometimes we’ve been so conditioned to think in terms of diet culture that we don’t even recognize it or we don’t know any other way. Just the other day I had a client who is a medical professional who gut sucked into some wellness woo from another medical professional and she didn’t even see it until I pointed it out to her. Being able to check things out and to ask “Is this diet culture?” is so helpful – feel free to use my IEME FB group or to shoot me a DM to ask if you’re wondering about something. A lot of times my answer will be “It depends…” and I’ll walk you through my thought process on how to determine what is and isn’t coming from diet culture (and that’s going to help you to be able to do that for yourself once you learn the thought process).
  • A quick way to help identify remnants of diet culture is by asking yourself, “When do I still feel guilty about something with food, my body/weight, or exercise?”
    • If there are foods you feel guilty eating, or an amount of calories you feel guilty for going over = diet culture
    • If you feel guilty for not exercising, or for walking instead of running, or for doing yoga instead of your usual weight lifting = diet culture
    • If you feel guilty for eating a piece of pie because you saw a photo of yourself where you didn’t like your body = diet culture
      

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3. Rehearse Responses to Triggers in Advance

• Common stall: being blindsided by diet talk, holiday food rules, or body image spirals.
  
• Instead: anticipate triggers → rehearse scripts and coping strategies.
  • Doctor’s visits
  • Seeing relatives this upcoming holiday season
  • Having lunch with a friend, or a coworker who is always talking about their diet
  • Being in photos from a social event, or having family photos taken
  • Upcoming wedding – yours or someone else’s
    
• Example: in Non-Dieter’s Club we just practiced body image triggers and created what I called a Body Image First Aid kit for skills they can have ready for in the moment with a trigger, how to soothe themselves afterward, and strategies that promote long-term healing of those old body image wounds that get reopened from time to time.
  • In NDA, which starts on Sept 29, we’ll prep specifically for holiday triggers that are right around the corner. We’ll be talking about what to do with Halloween candy, how to navigate Thanksgiving, all the food and social gatherings during the holiday season, and then all of the diet and wellness stuff in the new year. They aren’t going to be blindsided by any of this, because we’re going to talk through it and plan for it ahead of time.
    
• Rehearsal and preparation shrinks recovery time and allows you to avoid certain triggers or to respond to them more effectively, which is going to speed up your overall progress and build that confidence that you know how to handle these situations. Because let’s face, it diet culture isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. It’s all around us, and you aren’t going to be able to live in a bubble. So let’s anticipate, plan, and prepare. 
  

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BONUS: Stop Waiting for It to Get Easier Before Committing

• Common objection that I see ALL the time that gets in people’s way: “I’ll do this later, when life calms down / money isn’t so tight / after I try a little longer on my own / after my kids are older / after I finish this project at work / after I read the IE book again / after we get past the holidays.”
  
• Truth: Life never pauses. Diet culture never pauses. Waiting only keeps you stuck in the struggle.
  
• Every season has its challenges (holidays, vacations, work stress, kid stuff, health stuff).
  
• Committing to going all-in now is going to speed up your progress. Otherwise we could easily fast forward 6 or 12 months and you’re still sitting in this exact same place, with the same struggles and frustrations, and you’re feeling even more hopeless and defeated because you’ve been floundering for so long, and are only giving your relationship with food a little bit of time and attention, and not the full healing that it deserves. If you go all-in right now, you could be in a drastically different place by Christmas.
  
• Let me share what one of my clients said last December after she committed to her IE journey in September: 
  
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• And you want to know what else is brilliant about this client? She just reached out to me last week and said, “Katy I want to join you guys for NDA again right now to solidify my progress and to make sure I’m fully prepared for this holiday season.” (Side note – I have a special offer for my NDA alumni to join us for this live cohort at a heavily reduced rate. So if you want the live experience with the camaraderie and group coaching, DM me and we can chat.) THIS my friend, is how you do it. You lean in. You take action. You commit, and to prepare ahead of time for things that are challenging.
  
• If you’re feeling pumped up and excited to take action, and you want to arrive at December 31 and look back on how much has changed in your relationship with food these past few months, Non-Diet Academy is where you need to be. It is going to  accelerate your progress now so you stop spinning wheels and start living in freedom sooner. Those things I read to you above, those happened for her in a matter of 90 days inside Non-Diet Academy. And that can happen for you too. I don’t guarantee results, but I will guarantee that you will get the tools, the guidance, the coaching, and the hands-on support with me that you need in order for that to be possible for you.
  
• If you’re thinking about joining us, don’t sit on this. The doors are closing this week and we kick off on Monday. Either go to the link in the show notes, or DM me “NDA” and I’ll send you all the details. Above all else, I want you to pick at least 1 of the 3 + the 4th bonus step that I shared today and for you to DO IT. And what would be really cool is if you DM me and tell me which one you did so I can be your hype woman! I love getting DMs from you guys. (And yes it is me responding, not a bot, not an assistant – ME). 

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Wrap-Up

• Reinforce: faster doesn’t mean rushed, or that we’re skipping over key things or doing mediocre work. It means intentional.
  
• NDA is where you practice these steps with guidance, tools, coaching + support that will all make it go 10x faster for you.
  
• CTA: Join the upcoming cohort before doors close! (And if you’re listening in the future, after the doors have closed, just reach out to me to explore what coaching options are available. I’ve got lots of options for different points on your journey, different price points, different types of coaching – there’s something for everyone and we can have a zero pressure chat to find what’s right for you.) 

That’s all for this episode. Thanks for listening, and in case nobody has told you today – you are worthy just as you are. We’ll talk again soon.

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