Hey there, Katy here. So imagine you have your phone out and you’re scrolling social media – you’re on FB, IG, TT, wherever you like to hang out…and BAM you’re hit with yet another ad for weight loss meds, or someone sharing about their weight loss journey…and now you’re triggered.

• You’re angry that this is being thrown in your face yet again
• You’re frustrated that the world continues to glorify weight loss and treats it like it’s the holy grail of health, beauty and success – and you’ve been working hard to break free from this mindset so that you can make peace with food and your body
• You’re questioning whether you’re doing the right thing by not dieting anymore, or by not taking weight loss medications. 
• You’re now confused about what to do, if you should keep moving forward with intuitive eating, if you should go back to keto or IF, or if you should talk to your doctor about getting on a GLP-1. 
• (some of you listening are probably on a GLP-1 and I want to be clear that this is not an episode scolding or shaming you for that. I think GLP-1’s are incredible medications for certain people with metabolic dysfunction, insulin resistance, cardiometabolic risk factors, and all sorts of other medical reasons – so you might have very good reasons for being on one of these meds and that’s great. We don’t med shame around here. Medications can be very powerful tools for health.)
  • This episode is about those of you who know deep down that you don’t need to be on a GLP-1 but you feel triggered by the constant conversations and marketing about it
  • This episode is also for you if you’re on a GLP-1 for valid medical reasons, and you are exhausted and annoyed by the way that they’re being abused and misused and by all the misinformation around it
  • This episode is for you if you want to feel empowered to do what’s right for YOU and your health – without constantly getting tripped up by what’s happening all around us. Because when you can tune out the noise and get clear on what YOUR body needs, then you will stop caring what’s going on all around us. It doesn’t matter what Suzie down the street or what Mary on IG is doing – you won’t feel triggered by them when you’re crystal clear on what you’re doing and you know + trust it’s working for you. 

So what I’m going to do in this episode is walk you through what exactly I said to my client that took her from feeling triggered by all of this weight loss propaganda that’s all around us >> to now she’s unbothered by it because it just doesn’t matter to her anymore.

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: Parasites.

If you spend enough time on social media you can easily become convinced that all of us and our children are walking around with parasites in our bodies….I see this CONSTANTLY in the moms group that I’m in on FB and it makes me want to lose my mind.

This is yet another example of a thing where it’s true that parasites exist, and that sometimes humans become infected with them…but it’s FAR MORE RARE than wellness culture would have you believe. 

Some common examples of parasitic infections that you might not think of in this category:

• Head lice
• Ringworm
• Malaria
• H Pylori 

What they’re mostly referring to or implying when you see this on social media though is intestinal parasites – for which they would of course love to sell you some type of detox or cleanse (which are scams). But when we look at global statistics on parasitic infections, you’ll see alarming numbers – but you have to keep in perspective that 1) this includes impoverished countries and places where sanitation is lacking; and 2) they’re lumping together all of these different types of parasites which inflates the numbers – while making you think that everyone has intestinal parasites that need to be detoxed and cleansed from our bodies. 

How do you get an intestinal parasite?
Most human parasites are transmitted via the fecal-oral route, often through improperly prepared food, unsafe drinking water, or contaminated hands. These infections contribute to significant health issues, including diarrhea, abdominal pain, malnutrition, anemia, and impaired physical development in children. 

The most common intestinal parasite in the US is the pinworm. Symptoms of a pinworm infection can include:

• Itching of the anal or vaginal area.
• Trouble falling or staying asleep, called insomnia.
• Irritable or restless mood.
• Teeth grinding.
• Occasional stomach pain, upset stomach or vomiting.
• Bedwetting.

If you have pinworms you need a Rx medication from your doctor – not something that you bought off Amazon or IG.

Accurate diagnosis relies heavily on:

• Histopathology (tissue analysis)
• Understanding specific parasite features

Parasites are:

• Real → yes
• Common in specific contexts → yes
• Randomly lurking in everyone causing vague symptoms → absolutely not.

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 Advice I Gave a Client That Took Her From Feeling Triggered By Weight Loss Ads to Empowered to do What’s Right for HER

Paint the scene:

• She’d been working on intuitive eating for 6-12 months now. She was doing it on her own for a while before we started working together, and she decided that she needed more support and she got inside one of my programs.
• She was making progress letting go of her old diet mentality, reconnecting with her body and getting her hunger/fullness cues recalibrated and back on board, and she was no longer restricting, and no longer bingeing or overeating. Things were starting to click.
• Feeling more stable with food, and her body image was having ups and downs, but she was starting to see more and more glimmers of hope that she could accept her here-and-now body and no longer chase a lower number on the scale as if it were her most important life’s goal. 

Then:

• BOOM → she’s scrolling on IG one night after her kids were in bed, and she sees weight loss ad
• Immediate emotional reaction

What she said (paraphrased):

• “I felt so triggered”
• “It made me question everything”
• “Part of me wondered if that’s what I should do”

👉 Highlight the tension:
She knows better… but still feels pulled.

The Real Problem 

The ad is not the problem. The problem is:

• The meaning she was assigning to it
• The authority she was giving it over her emotions
• The doubt already living in her brain

Let’s break it down:

• Ads don’t create insecurity, they activate what’s already deep within us
• If there’s still a belief like:
  • “Smaller = better”
  • “Weight loss = success”
    → you’re vulnerable to being hooked

The Advice That Changed Everything

“You don’t need to agree with everything your brain thinks or feels.”

The 4 things I told her:

1. “Feeling triggered doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong.”
   
   • It means you’ve been conditioned
   • It’s old wiring lighting up
     
2. “You get to decide what you believe next.”
   
   • Thought ≠ truth
   • Ad ≠ authority (let’s remember they’re trying to SELL you something)
     
3. “That ad is selling a solution to a problem you’re actively healing.”
   
   • Of course it feels compelling
   • That’s literally the business model
     
4. “You’re not missing out. You’re opting out.”

The Shift: From Reactive to Empowered

Explain what changed for her after this.

Before:

• Reactive
• Emotional
• Doubting herself
• Considering going back

After:

• Paused
• Observed the trigger
• Named what was happening
• Chose her values over the impulse

Empowerment isn’t the absence of triggers. It’s how you choose to respond to them – and that’s a key point here – it’s a choice…and I want to teach you now how to do that…

The “Triggered to Grounded” Framework:

Step 1: Name it

• “I’m feeling triggered by this ad”

Step 2: Reality check

• “This is marketing, not truth”

Step 3: Identify the hook

• What is it promising?
  • Control?
  • Worthiness?
  • Relief?

Step 4: Re-Orient with YOUR Values

• “What do I actually want for my life and health?”

Step 5: CHOOSE your response

• Scroll
• Mute
• Unfollow
• Or just… not engage mentally…”Let them”…

The goal isn’t to never feel tempted. The goal is to stop letting that temptation run your life.

This is actually something that comes up a LOT inside Non-Dieter’s Club…where clients will come to the community or they’ll share during our group coaching calls that they’ve been feeling conflicted and triggered lately. And I want you to know that just because this happens to you doesn’t mean that you need to bail on this process – it’s something that we get to talk through and work through. I also don’t want this to be a taboo topic – and I know that in a lot of IE spaces it is. We talk openly about GLP-1s, weight loss ads, and other societal triggers (or triggers that come up in people’s families, or other relationships in their life).

That’s why this program includes not just my NDA curriculum with all of my strategies and frameworks for making peace with food, your body and your health, but ALSO the ongoing support and real-time coaching for triggers like this – because it’s not if it happens, it’s when it happens – and you need to know how to work through it so you don’t inadvertently get sucked back into diet culture, and I want to normalize for you that this conversation often has to take place multiple times for it to really stick for you.

The ESSENTIAL Part You Cannot Skip

Let me tell you the part that changed everything for my client…and honestly, this is the part most people accidentally try to skip.

You have got to get crystal clear on what is right for you and your body.

Because if you’re not clear you will default to whatever is loudest, and diet culture is very, very loud…whether it be what you’re seeing on social media, or hearing it from your mom or your sister, or your doctor keeps bringing up your weight as if it’s the solution to every medical problem in our bodies. And now you’ve also this IE stuff in your ear, which can add a layer of confusion if you feel like you’re getting pulled in different directions.

You’re over here trying to build trust with your body…but if you keep getting triggered by weight loss adds or by your best friend from high school’s weight loss transformation pictures on FB, then you’re still letting outside voices vote on what you should do – and it’s going to keep you in a constant state of doubting yourself and your choices.

So you’ve GOT TO find a way to figure out what YOUR body needs. And that’s one of the coolest parts about the IE framework and the non-diet approach – it gets to look different for each person based on what they need. You might be somebody who needs to give yourself MORE permission to eat things like Lucky Charms or ice cream without feeling guilty, and without keeping a mental tally of the calories; or you might be a person whose body needs some gentle boundaries with foods like that, and to pair them with other types of food in order to balance your blood sugar if that’s a health concern that you have. You might be somebody who needs to back off on the rigid and militant workouts that you’re doing in order to burn calories and earn your food; or you might be somebody who needs to push yourself to move your body as an act of self-love and respect for your health and mobility (rather than doing it as part of the diet mentality). 

You see, each of you listening to this is different – and when you can own your truth and have clarity on what is right for you and your body, then what other people are doing becomes pretty irrelevant. They can live their life, go on their diets, post about their weight loss, and you can do what my dad always told me to do – MYOB and stay in your own lane. You can see a GLP-1 ad while you’re scrolling TikTok and keep right on scrolling (because you know that when you click on it, or pause ot read it the algorithm thinks you want to see more of these ads, right?). You can be unbothered by what everyone else is doing and by the ridiculous messages that we get from our society about how toxic processed food is and how carbs are the devil and everyone should weigh X amount of pounds…you become unbothered when you’re confident in the fact that you’re already doing what’s right for you and none of that really matters. THAT’S where I want to get you. And if you need help figuring that out, send me an email or a DM and let’s chat. 

And that’s a wrap for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. In case nobody has told you today – you are worthy just as you are. We’ll talk again soon.

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