Welcome back to Rebuilding Trust With Your Body, it’s Katy here, and as you can tell from the title,  this episode is going to be about 5 signs that you’re not actually practicing IE (even though you think you are)  – because I see this ALL the time where people genuinely believe that they’re doing IE, and when they start to talk about what they’re doing, or what struggles they’re having with it, it quickly becomes apparent to me that they’re not actually doing IE the way it’s intended to be done, and therefore OF COURSE it’s not working well for them. This episode is not meant to judge you or throw shade – you know me, I’m not just going to point out these 5 signs, but we’re also going to talk about how to fix this because I want you on the path to success, where you can order Friday night pizza with your family, let go of food guilt, support your metabolism through gentle nutrition, and break free from the sneaky little ways that diet culture still has a chokehold on you that you might not even be aware of.

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: Peptides – s/o to Sonya in IEME

You probably have heard people talking about using peptides for…drumroll please…you guessed it: WEIGHT LOSS.

Let’s start with what is a peptide? A peptide itself is a short chain of amino acids, which are what proteins are made of. Peptides are building blocks of proteins, but they aren’t full proteins, which are composed of longer chains of amino acids.

Your body can make peptides internally, and what they do in your body is function as signaling molecules involved in a variety of physiological activities such as cellular protection, thermoregulation (body temp), and your immune system. Peptides do a lot of things biologically, including functioning as antioxidants, antimicrobials, and they sometimes have anti-inflammatory activities, they can also inhibit enzymes – which is why they’ve drawn a lot of attention in the cosmetic industry for use as an anti-aging product for skincare. One of the problems with them though is apparently that they don’t very easily get through cell membranes, so when you’re using skincare products with peptides in it, it’s not necessarily getting into the cells of your skin to do what it says it’s going to do. 

Like I mentioned earlier, your body can produce some of its own peptides, and many of them act as hormones in the body. Insulin and oxytocin are examples of this. (Insulin = blood sugar, oxytocin = bonding hormone). Other examples are human growth hormone, and endorphins. Now, not all peptides are hormones, only some of them are.

Now, back to the way that peptides are currently being promoted for weight loss – this is stemming from the popularity of GLP-1 medications. GLP-1 drugs are a type of peptide. GLP-1 is also produced by your body – it’s a chain of 30 amino acids produced by your intestines and your brain. The medication form of GLP-1 drugs are designed to mimic the GLP your body produces and they are “receptor agonists” which means they bind to the GLP-1 receptors in your body to make it break down more slowly and have a longer lasting effect than the type your body naturally produces. 

GLP-1 medications have obviously soared in popularity, and they can be quite expensive. Sometimes >$1k/month. So it’s no surprise that the diet and wellness industry has come up with a way to sell people on the idea that you can take peptides and that it’s going to do the same thing that an actual FDA approved medication will do. We should be skeptical about this, right?

If you do a google or Amazon search for peptides to buy online, you’ll find an abundance of supplements branded as peptides for weight loss, and a lot of them are labeled with a play on words to make you think it’s the same thing or similar to a GLP-1. A lot of them are also collagen peptides – which I covered in episode 158 as wellness woo. 

Are these peptides that are sold as supplements as effective as GLP-1 medications? No. They’re not. They’re a marketing ploy, trying to capitalize on people’s desperation to lose weight, the popularity of GLP-1 drugs, and how unaffordable they are. They’re basically a scam. If you are wondering if you need a GLP-1 for medical reasons (which there are valid medical reasons), you should talk to your actual doctor about that and not mess around with supplemental or compounded peptides which can be dangerous or simply ineffective. Either way, not a great idea. 

If you have an example of Wellness Woo that you want to share, DM it to me!

Ok, that’s enough of that. Moving on to today’s main topic…5 Signs That You’re Not Actually Practicing Intuitive Eating (But You Think You Are)

1. You’re adding new habits without addressing old ones
   1. For example, you’re practicing “all foods fit” – but you’re still getting on the scale every day or every week to check and see what’s happening to your weight and then you are back to food guilt, or you’re pulling back from choosing satisfying foods because you’re afraid you’ll gain more weight
   2. You’re listening to your body and letting yourself eat when you’re hungry, but you’re still eating mindlessly or distracted, and you’re missing your fullness signals and you end up repeatedly over or under eating
   3. You open a pint of Ben & Jerry’s and know you’ll automatically eat the whole thing, but you also know that restricting it sets you up to binge so you don’t want to do that either
2. You’re using intuitive eating as a band aid approach, without getting to the root of your issues with food
   1. You might be listening to your hunger and fullness, but also having a lot of scarcity mentality showing up if you dieted a lot, have an ED history or grew up with food scarcity or a large family
   2. You might be trying to do IE, but if you have deeper issues such as an undiagnosed or untreated ED or mood or mental health stuff like anxiety/depression/ADHD, then no amount of white knuckling it with IE is going to fix these deeper issues
   3. You might be trying to do IE but have metabolic issues that aren’t being addressed that are causing you to have intense cravings, a lot of food noise, blunted fullness signals, or difficulty regulating your blood sugar – until that’s addressed it’s going to be difficult for you to eat intuitively no matter how hard you try
   4. Maybe you have GI issues… 
3. You can’t even name 5 out of the 10 principles of intuitive eating – yet you think you’re doing it correctly
   1. You say you’re doing IE, but if you don’t know what the IE principles are, then you’re not doing it the way it’s designed to be done. A LOT of people think they’re doing IE simply because they’re not dieting anymore, and they’re letting themselves eat without rules or guilt. But that’s not really what IE is. Those are PARTS of it, but there are gaping holes in that approach. 
   2. You need to think of IE more like a jigsaw puzzle (explain)
4. You’re not pausing before you eat to actually listen to your body
   1. Impulsive eating
   2. Not discerning between physical vs emotional or head hunger
   3. You’re not checking in with your body to consider what’s going to make your body FEEL good and FUNCTION well  – this is an often overlooked part of IE, and it’s where gentle nutrition comes into play
5. You’re letting yourself eat things like donuts and potato chips, but you’re still thinking of them as “crap and “junk”
   1. It’s GREAT that you’re letting yourself eat those things. 
   2. But if you’re still thinking of them as bad, unhealthy, crap or junk…then you’re missing principles 3 and 6 (make peace w/ food and challenge the food police)

If you’re feeling a little called out, GOOD. You know my heart, and that this is done with love because I want you to succeed with this. And you don’t succeed by continuing to do the same things that aren’t working for you. The great news here is that this is pretty simple to fix – and it starts with slowing down and looking at the entire framework of what IE actually is, what the 10 principles are, what skills are associated with each one, and how they all fit together. Because if you’re only doing some of them but not all of them, then it’s like riding a bike with a lopsided flat tire. You’re not going to get very far.

And don’t worry, I’m not going to leave you hanging. Starting March 16 I’m going to be running another round of my super popular program IE Exploration. Inside this program we will use the official IE workbook to explore all 10 principles and how they work synergistically together. And what makes this different from doing the DIY approach and going through the workbook on your own is that I’m going to show you your blind spots, and the common misconceptions and mistakes people tend to make with each principle. I’m going to be sharing additional trainings and insights on each of the principles, and giving you practical ideas and strategies for how to integrate it into your everyday life. What I’ve seen over and over again is that people who try to just go through the workbook on their own rarely finish it, and 90% of the time they revert back to their old ways and fail to implement all of the principles. 

But that’s not going to be you if you join me inside IE Exploration. Together we’re going to systematically look at each principle and make sure you’ve got it put in place properly and correctly. 

We kick off March 16, so grab your spot now so that you can get all set up and prepared to begin discussing principle 1 on the 16th. You can either DM me the word EXPLORE or go to nondietacademy.com/explore to get signed up. Even if you’ve done this program before, you can and should absolutely do it again – in fact, I have a special discount for you to join us at a heavily discounted rate, so just reach out to me directly. There’s a lot of power in revisiting the principles, refining them, and looking at where you’ve grown, and where you still need to dig deeper.

AND you register right now you get a bonus mini-course included with your enrollment with on demand video trainings and practical ideas for each principle that you can refer back to again and again. 

(For those of you inside NDC, don’t pull out your wallet because you’re getting this program complimentary for being inside the membership.)

IEE is where you’re going to lean in and make sure that you’re doing IE the way it’s meant to be done – and that’s going to skyrocket your progress with IE because you’re not going to be held back by the missing components or aspects that you weren’t quite doing correctly. 

Let’s recap the 5 signs that you’re not actually practicing IE and then we’ll wrap up:

1. You’re adding new habits without addressing old ones

2. You’re using intuitive eating as a band aid approach, without getting to the root of your issues with food

3. You can’t even name 5 out of the 10 principles of intuitive eating – yet you think you’re doing it correctly

4. You’re not pausing before you eat to actually listen to your body

5. You’re letting yourself eat things like donuts and potato chips, but you’re still thinking of them as “crap and “junk”

Mastering the skills within each of the 10 principles is what’s going to fix this and allow you to fully trust your body, have peace with food, and honor your health. This is where you no longer even entertain the idea of dieting, because you’ve gotten so clear and confident about your IE approach to food, that you can’t even fathom going back to restricting and punishing yourself. 

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

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