Hey hey hey, Katy here and welcome back to Rebuilding Trust With Your Body! I remember when I was in my diet mentality era, every night I would add up all the calories I ate that day while I was sitting in bed getting ready to fall asleep. It was the last thing I thought about for the day. And then the next morning, before my feet even hit the floor I would already be thinking, “How good was I yesterday? What am I going to allow myself to eat today? How strict do I need to be with my food?” 

Food was literally the bookends of my day – it was the first thing I thought about in the morning, and the last thing I thought about at night. It was exhausting. 

And knowing what I know now, I can so clearly see that the reason I was so obsessed with food was because I wasn’t eating enough of it. That’s your brain’s natural survival instinct to you trying to eat less food than what your body needs in order to lose weight….Your brain can’t tell the difference between that and there not being enough food available. So your brain – being the survival machine that it is – starts making you obsessed with food, hoping that you’ll find a way to find your own problem of not having enough to eat. And thank goodness that our brains do this. During times in human history where there really was famine, or we had to hunt and gather our food this was life saving and allowed the human race to continue to exist. The challenge is, your brain can’t tell the difference between you dieting or restricting vs you being in a food shortage. 

So in this episode I’m going to walk you through what it takes to quiet this food obsession so that you can get your mental energy back to focus it on other things that matter to you in your life – whether that be your kids, your pets, your spouse, your job, your passion project, your parents, your friends, the organization you volunteer with, your garden, your church…anything else that you value that’s important to you. You deserve you have energy and mental capacity for these things that isn’t being diminished by your constant food chatter that’s playing in the back of your mind 24/7.  

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: GLP-1 Booster Supplements – S/o to Mattie

https://www.instagram.com/p/DVcZwe0ALDj/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA%3D%3D

On one of their social media ads someone in the comments asked: Is this for people that already take GLP1’s or anyone can use it? And of course their reply was “Anyone can take it!”

On their website you can chat with their AI nutritionist which is so disturbing to me.

They drone on and on about how “clean” their ingredients are

So let’s drill down on this GLP-1 Booster Supplement. Wtf is that and is it legit?

It’s fiber. That’s what it is. A fiber supplement…Which is fine. I recommend fiber supplements all the time for various reasons such as helping with GI issues, or for cholesterol. 

But the issue I have here is how they’re calling it a “GLP-1 Booster” – and they’re trying to make you think that it’s either going to function like a GLP-1 medication if you’re not on one, or if you are already on one that it’s going to make your GLP-1 work better (i.e. make you lose more weight). That’s what they’re doing here – they’re promising weight loss without promising weight loss.

And to understand the claims they’re making, we have to understand what GLP-1 is and how it works in your body…

GLP-1 is a hormone produced in your gut in response to food. It tells your body to produce insulin, suppresses glucagon, slows stomach emptying (increasing fullness), and signals the brain that you’re full. This is part of how normal fullness works in the human body. 

The thing with GLP-1 that your body makes is that it’s really short-lived compared to GLP-1 medications. That’s why the meds make people feel full for so much longer. 

So HUM is suggesting that their fiber supplement is going to “boost” your GLP-1 production which is a stretch. Yes, fiber helps us feel full, and there is some truth to how fiber feeds your gut bacteria, and the little bacteria then produce SCFAs which then trigger the release of GLP-1 from your body…this is that thing I talk about ALL THE TIME with Wellness Woo – where there’s a grain of truth that they take and run with it to make grandiose claims. 

This fiber supplement is not going to magically produce weight loss like a GLP-1 medication. It’s just not. And for them to imply that it will is disingenuous and misleading, and they know it. This is so clearly a cash grab to capitalize on the popularity of GLP-1 meds and people’s desperation to lose weight. 

If you need more fiber, there are also less expensive ways to get it – even if you need a supplement. I wouldn’t waste my money on this product.

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…If the first thing you think about when you wake up is “What am I going to eat today?” and food controls your thoughts all day and you are DONE…this is what you need to do. 

The first thing you need to do is STOP with the restrictive dieting because THAT is why you’re having these thoughts in the first place. You’ve done this over and over again and you and I both know it doesn’t work long-term. 

All of the diets you’ve done – whether it be Weight Watchers, Atkins, keto, intermittent fasting, or simply “healthy eating,” clean eating or tracking calories – they have the same impact.

Initial weight loss.

You feel in control. It feels great.

Then you lose that control.

That’s followed by weight regain.

You feel like a failure and blame yourself. It’s a cycle that keeps repeating itself. It. Doesn’t. Work.

The dieting and restricting is a means to an end. It doesn’t work as a sustained strategy.

Research is clear that almost everybody who diets gains the weight back (plus some) within 2-5 years. So yeah, it might have looked like it was “working” at first…but it eventually backfires. 

In fact, dieting is the #1 predictor of future weight GAIN, not weight loss. 

It’s also the #1 cause of a slowed metabolism. 

Yup…that sucks, I know.

The other thing that dieting does is make you obsessed with food, thinking about it constantly. When you say “no” to foods for so long because you’re “trying to eat good”, your mind becomes obsessed because we always want what we can’t have. You find yourself thinking about dinner before you’ve even finished breakfast. And planning what you’re going to order at a restaurant 2 weeks from now. 

This doesn’t mean that you’re weak, that you “just like food too much” or that you’re addicted to food. 

Food obsession happens because it’s your brain’s biological response to dieting and constant deprivation. Your brain can’t tell the difference between you choosing to eat less to lose weight vs you being in a famine. 

Thinking about food more prompts you to seek out food so that you don’t starve to death. I know it sounds ridiculous, but our brains are primitive when it comes to our survival.

So many of my clients come to me exhausted, having spent decades on and off all of the diets, thinking about food constantly, and feeling like they know the calories in every food they eat…

…Yet they don’t know HOW to eat anymore.

And at this point they’re afraid of dieting AND afraid to let themselves “just eat normally” because it feels like a foreign language. They have all these crazy rules associated with food (good food, bad food, what they’re allowed to eat)… and they have no clue where to start.

Instead of continuing to do restrictive behaviors that make you more obsessed with food…

…You need to RELEARN HOW to develop a healthier relationship with food, rather than giving yourself rules 24/7.

These made up rules make you feel crazy, obsessed, and out of control with food. This type of distrust of yourself and your body keeps you dependent on diets, and allows diet culture to prey on your fears and insecurities.

There IS ANOTHER WAY.

Developing a healthier relationship with food happens by:

• Stopping dieting. Now.
• Deleting the calorie tracking apps from your phone.
• Putting away your food scale.
• Eating on a consistent schedule, at least every 3-4 hours. Every day.
• Combining carb, protein, fat and fiber at your meals for blood sugar balance and satiety.
• Neutralizing your “good/bad” judgments about food.
• Tuning into your hunger and fullness cues.
• Separating physical hunger from emotional hunger and head hunger – because those are all very different things.

Once you get off the dieting rollercoaster, ditch the food judgments and rules, and start providing your body with the fuel it needs (without deprivation) – you will watch your food obsession decrease dramatically.

Once the food obsession goes down, it opens the door to you being able to do the rest of the skills required for intuitive eating. 

No longer being on a diet, tracking your food, weighing yourself constantly, and avoiding carbs is JUST the beginning.

This is where the real work begins and it’s how I change my clients’ lives forever. 

This is the work that I do with my clients that makes them happier, healthier, and free from food guilt and food obsession. Here’s what one client said recently: 

She stopped dieting a few months ago, but she hadn’t done the deeper and practical work of intuitive eating until she hired me. More progress in ONE week than YEARS of therapy.

Another client recently told me that IE and our work together gave her her life back.Food is not the enemy anymore. Food is there to actually help my body. There are no “good” or “bad” foods. I don’t have to “earn” my food anymore. Exercise is actually a form of self care. I decided to try different forms of movement and found new ways to move my body. Now I look forward to movement instead of dreading it.

Wrapping Up

I’ll leave you with this…Not dieting is step one.

It’s not the finish line.

This is where the deeper work comes in:

• Body image
• Emotional coping
• Gentle nutrition
• Movement that isn’t punishment
• Trusting yourself in real-life situations

This is the stuff that actually changes your life.

Not another set of rules. Not another reset. Not another Monday.

If you’re listening to this and thinking, “Okay… I get it. But I don’t know how to actually DO this in my real life…”

That’s exactly the work I do with my clients.

Because knowing what to do is one thing.

But having the structure, support, and coaching to actually follow through?

That’s what changes everything. My email inbox and DMs on FB and IG are open, and right now I’m currently doing spring enrollment for my signature coaching program Non-Dieter’s Club, so shoot me a DM and we can chat about that, or my other coaching offers, to see which one is the best fit for you. 

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

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