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19. Honor your Hunger. Feel your Feelings. Eat the Carbs, with Diana Burge, RDN, CEDS
129 Plays1 year ago
We have the delight this week of learning from Diana Burge, Registered Dietitian, a highly recognized and respected expert in sports nutrition, diabetes, disordered eating, and womens hormonal health. Diana has a wealth of knowledge when it comes to food science, mental health, and what our bodies are going through during pregnancy and postpartum.
In this episode, Diana schools us on the real science behind the changes during postpartum with hunger, fullness, metabolism, cravings and nutritional needs for the best energy and mood restoration.
A few nuggets you will learn in this episode:
- Why you are SO GD HUNGRY --- and what to do about it.
- What you can and can’t control in parenting AND in weight management.
- The only natural way that our body releases serotonin (aka mood stabilizer).
- Why sugar and carbs are not evil.
- 3 main reasons we develop a complicated relationship with food.
- What “diet deprivation backlash” means.
- Thermogenics of eating and why your metabolism is like a fireplace!
- Why the term “clean eating” is harmful, and mis-informed.
- Why we start losing our connection with our bodies around age 3 years old.
- WHY you gain the weight you gain in pregnancy.
- How nutritional is key for your holistic mind-body recovery in postpartum.
- What to expect your metabolism and hunger to do during pregnancy and postpartum.
- Why you shouldn’t be afraid of your hunger and cravings.
- How to eat if you are at risk for or diagnosed with gestational diabetes.
- Why ignoring your natural hunger is going to have the opposite of your desired effect.
- How you can support your child’s developing relationship with food and their body image.
- What low-carb fad diets have to do with depression statistics.
May this convo nourish your soul, and give you permission to nourish your body, too.
xoxo + PERMISSION TO DITCH BOUNCE-BACK CULTURE
INTUITIVE (MINDFUL) EATING PRINCIPLES
Evidence-Based Studies on Intuitive Eating and Health at Every Size
A BIT FRAZZLED EPISODE 8 - Rethinking the way we talk about weight gain in pregnancy + Rachel’s story of being body shamed by an OB (major yikes)
You can learn more about Rachel's California-based group therapy practice and how you can work with her at www.racheldaggettlmft.com or on instagram @rachelscouch
Find and follow us @bloomafterbaby on instagram!
*Please note that this podcast is intended for educational purposes only, and is not a substitute for seeking individualized care from a mental health or medical professional"
Learn more about us and access all of our courses, coaching services, and free resources at bloomafterbaby.com
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Transcript
Introduction to Podcast & Guest
00:00:02
Speaker
You're listening to Bloom After Baby, the podcast. We're your hosts, Rachel Daggett and Jen Jordan. We're a therapist and a doctor and both moms of two. We're here to discuss the mental health and wellness needs that are unique to motherhood. From confusing hormone swings to your expanding body to boundaries and tricky relationships, we'll give you the information you need to experience motherhood in a way that feels good to you.
00:00:30
Speaker
Thanks so much for tuning in. Let's get to it. Hello. Hey, y'all. I'm not from the South. I don't know why I just said that, but I'm excited for this episode today. We have the privilege of hearing from Diana Burge, who is a registered dietician and just an excellent expert in the field of nutrition.
00:00:57
Speaker
She so a little bit about Diana before we jump into the conversation that I Rachel had with her.
Diana's Background and Passion
00:01:04
Speaker
Diana has been practicing in Southern California, specifically in Los Angeles for more than 30 years. She is very, very well known for her work with eating disorder, advocacy, sports nutrition. She's a certified eating disorder specialist and a recognized, highly, highly recognized and respected expert in sports nutrition. Like I said,
00:01:27
Speaker
in health at every size, also known as HAES. You may see that acronym and are around and wonder what that means. So HAES stands for health at every size. She will share a little bit about that in our conversation. Also an expert in diabetes treatment and disordered eating. She counsels patients on cardiovascular disease.
00:01:49
Speaker
irritable bowel syndrome, menopause, fibromyalgia, arthritis, ADHD. She has clients on the autism spectrum disorder, PCOS. So those are just a taste of the arenas of expertise that Diana has. And she also has a love and passion for working with women, specifically on women's health.
00:02:12
Speaker
I mentioned menopause, perimenopause, but also perinatal care, so pregnancy and postpartum nutrition and care. She has also worked for some very well-known clients, including the Grammy Association, the Motion Picture and TV Fund, Health and Fitness Journal, numerous Olympic and professional athletes, professional sports teams, including the Lakers and the Clippers, and Fortune 500 corporations.
00:02:39
Speaker
So as you can tell, Diana knows her stuff. She's been doing this for almost 40 years now. And I am just so excited to share her heart and her soul and her expertise with you. Everything she does, everything she teaches, preaches, and practices is science-backed.
00:02:58
Speaker
And she also just really has a heart for this work. I've shared many clients with Diana, specifically in my work with eating disorders and mental health management. And I can just tell you that every single person she comes in contact with feels cared for by her, truly nurtured. And yeah, I'm lucky to know Diana. So we talk about a few things in our conversation.
Motherhood & Matrescence Discussion
00:03:24
Speaker
She does share a little bit about what her experience was entering motherhood.
00:03:28
Speaker
I think 24 years now, I think her oldest is 24. And so it's, it's always interesting to hear what other generations of mothers experienced entering their journey of matressence, which you'll hear us use that word a lot, basically a word for similar to adolescence, but matressence, the process of becoming a mother, the holy transformative mind, body, spirit process of breakage and of becoming a mother.
00:03:58
Speaker
So she shares a little about her experience there, something she's learned from her motherhood journey. And then we of course dive into the topic of nutrition.
Intuitive Eating & Weight in Pregnancy
00:04:08
Speaker
And Diana mentions and kind of, it's kind of, we follow up a little bit on the conversation that Jen and I had in episode eight. So if you haven't had a chance, definitely recommend you go back and listen to that episode where we talk a bit about intuitive eating and what that concept is and how you can apply it.
00:04:25
Speaker
And also talk about this broad topic of redefining how we talk about weight with our clients, with our patients, with our doctors, especially in the realm of pregnancy and postpartum. And we really, we really, really want to be part of the voice and the movement of
00:04:49
Speaker
Gosh, shifting the focus from weight loss after baby to strength rebuilding and recovery after baby and also taking the emphasis off of rigid strict weight gain restrictions in pregnancy and focusing more on the holistic health of the mother and the baby and taking shaming language
00:05:13
Speaker
around weight out of the picture. So Diana is also part of that and really passionate about that. She breaks down the science of food and the science of how our bodies actually do processed food, really in a way that's easy to understand.
Carbs & Food-Related Issues
00:05:30
Speaker
You will learn why carbs are your friend
00:05:33
Speaker
Why sugar is not your enemy, you will hear kind of the three main reasons people end up in her office or maybe not in her office, but having a difficult, chaotic, or confusing relationship with food. So she breaks down those major three things and you'll hear her speak about the diet deprivation backlash, which you'll learn from the conversation. You'll get to hear what the only natural serotonin releaser is, which may surprise you.
00:06:02
Speaker
in your body. She breaks down why we start losing our connection with our bodies around the age of three years old. So that's something to think about not only from your development as a child and your history with eating and food and your relationship with all that, but also your kids and just thinking about how we want to encourage and teach intuitive eating and a healthy relationship with food and body in our little ones. Let's see how nutrition is such a key player in our holistic mind and body recovery in postpartum.
00:06:32
Speaker
So I won't keep blabbing on. Let's get to the conversation. Gosh, there's so much to get from this conversation. I hope this convo is a blessing for you. This definitely won't be the last time Diana is a guest on our podcast. And if you do hear this episode and have questions or have doubts or comments, please feel free to DM us over on Instagram. Our handle is bloom after baby.
00:06:59
Speaker
And you can also contact us via our website or email, and that's all linked in the show notes as well. But we'd love to have a conversation around this. I'm so excited for you to hear this. I really hope that this, gosh, nourishes your soul and gives you some permission to nourish your body as well.
Diana's Practice & Transition
00:07:20
Speaker
Well, thank you. Thank you truly so much for doing this. I'm so excited to have you on here, Diana.
00:07:25
Speaker
Thank you so much. I'm excited to be a part of this. So will you tell us a little bit about your practice? I know you have been doing this for a very long time and you work with a lot of different populations in your practice. I know you most from your work in eating disorders since that's the context we met in and that's what we work together on a lot. But we talk a little bit more about
00:07:46
Speaker
the array of clients you see, and then we'll get more into the perinatal population. Sure. You know, I've been in practice, gosh, going on about 37 years, and can't believe it that I'm seeing a lot of my clients when they were young, their children now, but I started really in sports nutrition. I'm working with the Lakers, the Clippers, some of the Olympic teams, and that kind of moved me into the eating disorder realm. We're blessed to work with you on the eating disorder level,
00:08:15
Speaker
And then just in general, women's health and pre and postnatal and working with a lot of teens in the eating disorder world with ARFID, which is Avoidant Restricted Food Intake Disorder. That kind of came along working more with children and some of their food issues, whether it's the full eating disorder anorexia, bulimia. And then now into just picky eating that I work with a lot of moms on helping feeding their kids. And usually that shows up around three years old.
00:08:45
Speaker
Yeah. And that reminds me, I need to talk to you about that. We'll get into that another day. Awesome. Yeah. So, so I love, I love how you really have worked with so many different ages and presenting issues. And so you started in sports nutrition and then did a kind of happenstance that way where you started seeing so much disordered eating in that population. Then you started focusing more on that too.
00:09:10
Speaker
Yes, yes. You know, with the Lakers and the Clippers, not so much, but some of the hockey players I saw had a lot of bulimia. And then when I started working with some of the gymnasts up in Big Bear here in California, that's when I really started seeing more of the anorexia and bulimia in obviously body conscious.
00:09:29
Speaker
sports with gymnastics and ice skating, some of the ice skating. Wow. So that then led me into this. And then my own disorder, it started really, I started as a dietician thinking, wow, if I can really learn everything about nutrition, then I'll really be fit. And I got into the field for a disordered reason. And then as I was studying, I'm like, wow, I've got a really
00:09:54
Speaker
you know, do my own support and own treatment if I'm going to be teaching this. And so here I am and blessed that I was able to recover and that motivated me. I'm like, if I'm going to be doing this and being a mother, I'm like, I knew I wanted kids and I'm like, I need to recover before I have this because it's hard enough having an eating disorder without kids. I'm like, wow, what would it be like to have to hide this and do all this with having a child crying and
00:10:22
Speaker
So that was a big push for my own recovery.
Motherhood Challenges & Body Image
00:10:26
Speaker
That's so beautiful. I thank God that you got into...
00:10:29
Speaker
this work, even if it was for disordered reasons at first, it was all for divine purpose. And I'm so grateful. Yeah, I often think about that with entering motherhood and also having had, as you know, my own history with disordered eating. And I have so much just this like heavy heart and compassion for moms who are still in the struggle with it. Because even having, you know, been
00:10:54
Speaker
in recovery and identifying as being recovered like years before being pregnant, it still had its challenges with, you know, body changes. Yeah. And so, gosh, I just really feel for moms who are still going through that and still... Don't have support too. Yes. Totally. How to work through it and walk through it.
00:11:15
Speaker
have maybe not liked the changes, but also I don't like my body and I still choose to take care of it and nurture it. That both can be true. Yes, exactly. It's holding both of those things that is really, really hard to do unless you have the support. Yeah, yeah.
00:11:33
Speaker
so you you're a mom also and your girls are grown and they're both out of the house now so tell us about your motherhood journey i know we didn't really talk about talking about this but i want to hear what was your motherhood journey like looking back now what do you this is a broad question but what do you like wish you had known
00:11:51
Speaker
back in the beginning. Yeah, great question. I was thinking about that. My husband, him and I always talk about it. I had a good pregnancy. I did have two C-sections, but good pregnancy. And my older daughter came out full of fire. And she definitely had colic and a lot of ear infections. And so that was tough, sleepless nights. And then got into mommy and me classes, which was
00:12:21
Speaker
a savior for me because back then we didn't have this amazing podcast that you put on we didn't have a lot of that back then and so the mommy and me just being able to be more open in those classes really helped us get through times but my older daughter was definitely the tough one she was always the one you think oh i've done so much work on myself i'm gonna be able to have a child that
00:12:43
Speaker
I'll be able to guide. And she was the one always biting the kids, stealing the silkies. I don't know if they're even called silkies anymore. They're little blankets. And she would run. She would get so excited to be chased. But all the moms were like, whoa, what's this little girl doing? Cute little big eyes. But yeah, she was the one that was definitely strong personality. And as she
00:13:11
Speaker
Went on you know i think as early as six just with her low frustration she would bite herself and that was really tough cuz i was just learning more and more about children's low frustration and and as we got help in therapy the therapist is like wow you know we can see maybe
00:13:29
Speaker
These are signs of, is there any ADD in your family? And my husband and I looked at each other, and I'm like, well, I probably have another DD. I probably have an OCD. And then my husband's like, oh, I probably have AD. He hadn't ever been diagnosed. But moving forward, she got diagnosed young, definitely ADHD, the hyperactive. And so that was a big journey of managing her strong emotion and getting a lot of support with therapists on that.
00:13:58
Speaker
And then after she got diagnosed, my husband got diagnosed and was very helpful for him to understand his journey as a child and not being diagnosed with that. And then my second daughter came along and she was very calm, very easy. I look back, some of the mom guilt that we have, I'm like, oh, poor thing. We were so focused on my older daughter and trying to get her settled that my younger daughter just kind of went under the radar.
00:14:27
Speaker
You know, she's 20 now. My younger daughter, my older daughter's 24. It's beautiful.
Parenting Lessons & Self-Care
00:14:32
Speaker
You know, my older daughter graduated in psychology, thriving in sales and hospitality. My younger daughter's at University of Arkansas in engineering and they're doing great. I could have a whole talk on learning. I think your question to kind of summarize this looking back is I saw a saying the other day and I wrote it down and I sent it to my husband.
00:14:53
Speaker
It said maturing as a parent is realizing parenting is less about controlling your kid's behavior and more about controlling your own. And I thought, wow, the more him and I worked on our own soothing tools and
00:15:09
Speaker
knowing that these kids come out of the womb with their own personality that we can guide but I thought the only when parents of my clients asked me what would you do also it's like wow the only thing and I'm a control freak with my OCD the only thing I can control is loving her loving both of them unconditionally that's that's about it you can guide and you know but really I
00:15:33
Speaker
loving them through all their trials is about what we have control over. So Sean and I, we were so lucky pre embarking on our parenting journey to really have been counseled by you and John in many ways. Probably without you even meaning to or knowing you were doing that and I think that's something we learned from you and John and your
00:15:53
Speaker
stories in parenting and with you and I what we've talked about is with motherhood and all my fears about becoming a mother and just that idea of you don't have control over what your children do and all you can control is yourself and your own growth right and your own
00:16:10
Speaker
heart and your own behavior and your own work. And that's such a big thing that Jen and I are so passionate about teaching moms is that like taking care of you is taking care of your children. And ultimately, that's really all you have control over. And so I just really, really respect you and always have for that. Thank you for teaching me that. Thank you. Yeah, it's interesting to once you have a child is so easy.
00:16:35
Speaker
to just want to make sure they turn out okay. And so all our energy will go to that. And then we lose out on, as you know, working with a lot of the eating disorders. Children, one of the best things to give them is have a healthy marriage. And that's one thing we've been working hard on. We've been married for so long, but we go to marriage conferences. We're going one coming up in a few weeks.
00:16:58
Speaker
And I thought, wow, that is huge with my clients. They just want their, feels calm when their parents are happy. And so it's always to make your children want number one instead of your marriage, number one, and then your children, number two. And that can be horrifying to tell a parent that like, Oh my gosh, you know, but in the end they, they blossom when you two are at peace and doing well. Absolutely. Yeah. So true.
00:17:25
Speaker
And you mentioned early on getting into mommy and me. Yes. And I love that. I think you still go on trips and you're still very, very close with moms who you were in mommy and me with and preschool.
00:17:36
Speaker
with right? That's amazing you remember that yeah we from us we all started probably when our kids were you know one two and yeah now we're all we've watched all our kids you know to have there's 10 of us that have stayed in touch and our oldest one is 24 so you know 23 years of the journey of
00:17:57
Speaker
holding each other's hands through the highs and the lows of parenting and supporting each other and going on trips and keeping ourselves healthy, keeping friendships strong when it would be easy to not go because staying home and doing everything for your kids and just trying to be a role model of what friendship is about too with kids.
00:18:17
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And it's just such a testament to how much we need each other, right?
Community Support for Mothers
00:18:22
Speaker
Like, back, you know, historically, there was so much more community around women after they had babies, like, it was a built in tribe, literally, right of women who were surrounding you and feeding you and taking care of the mother so that the mother could care for the baby. And so I'm so glad you mentioned mommy and me. And I'm so glad that that was a resource and has been for so long. Because like you said, now there is
00:18:44
Speaker
Definitely a lot more information and support accessible to moms in our generation, thanks to, you know, social media and the internet and just a lot more, I think, awareness and knowledge and research around the needs for maternal care. But when you see our generation of moms now, inundated with information and constantly getting feedback about our mothering and our parenting and social media, the
00:19:10
Speaker
Necessary evil that it may be do you feel like it's harder now or easier now? Because I even look back, you know, the only thing we had in my generation Was this book and I don't even know if your generation were even reads it what to expect I don't think you do but I know of it. Yeah Yeah, and so we just had this book that we had to read and look up what you know and and your question is so valid because I
00:19:35
Speaker
I think it could be harder, because even reading that book, I'm like, oh my gosh, I should have just put that book away. Because if it didn't look like that book, I was like, I'm doing it wrong, I'm parenting wrong, or I'm doing my prenatal wrong. And instead of that intuition and listening to what is right for you,
00:19:55
Speaker
And I think it is hard. I think it probably is hard for generation. I think both can be true again. I think it's a blessing. There's information out there, but that so much information can make you feel like you're doing it wrong. And it gets you into the world of listening to the external world and not that internal world again.
00:20:17
Speaker
of what's right for you and what feels good to you and quit comparing. I think your generation has a lot more opportunity to compare and comparing can be just so detrimental. One with how we're parenting, two with the eating and how we're raising our kids and the whole gamut of
00:20:35
Speaker
from parenting to eating to how our relationship is. So I think it can be a lot for you all that there is a lot of information out there. And I just love Bloom After Baby because it's just calm and real and authentic and transparent that there isn't a script of the perfect way to do it because there is no such thing as perfect. It's like it can be really messy and have grace for ourselves when we're
00:21:03
Speaker
freaking out. And thank goodness, I tell my kids all the time, I was reading a book, What's So Amazing About Grace? And my daughter, I remember when she was young, she said, mom, what does grace mean? And she said, and I said, well, what I know is forgiving even when it doesn't even seem forgivable. And I thought, wow, that is such a thing of motherhood and parenthood is
00:21:26
Speaker
being able to apologize to our kids even when it doesn't feel like they should forgive us and our children are so forgiving and it's so nice to be on the other end where you know they're not telling me they hate me anymore and you know frustrated and angry like wow they want to kind of hang out with us now that we're on the other side so just to be humble and have grace and know you're going to mess up and and that kids are forgiving it's pretty neat.
00:21:55
Speaker
So I love that. Grace, forgiving when it doesn't seem forgivable. Yeah. Yeah. And that's like, that's something they have to learn from us too, right? Because they're going to mess up and they're going to piss us off. Yeah. To know that that's okay, that their job isn't to please us, you know, that they weren't born. And I think some of us parents
00:22:15
Speaker
Forget that that they aren't here to make sure they're perfect for us and to look good We might have be like oh, I can't believe you're doing that when my child was biting other kids I'm like, oh, you know my pride would get in the way and but I had to just trust that Other people understood and the people that didn't oh well, right? Oh, well, it's a well and I think that you you work a lot with a
00:22:39
Speaker
with families too and your work, especially I'm sure when you have cases that are, there's mental health or eating disorder, comorbidity, but I feel like that's a lot where I see.
00:22:49
Speaker
trouble come up with parents and and teens when there is that like attitude going into parenting or that belief from wherever that like when children come into this world it's like they're coming in and their role is to fill some void for us or fill some purpose for us and to make us happy and complete us complete our world and our life and it just it's never never ends well.
00:23:15
Speaker
never ends well, never ends well. And like you said, you know, through the millions of years of therapy I've had, and I know it, and then I'm like, oh my gosh, I'll still drift. Yeah, it's because that's our ego, right? It's our ego, normal human ego.
00:23:29
Speaker
Yeah, I could just talk
Nutrition & Health Advice Overload
00:23:31
Speaker
about this forever. But let's talk a little bit about nutrition. But a good segue, I think, is that you mentioned kind of being in this modern world that all that information at our fingertips can be
00:23:45
Speaker
so detrimental and I think that that applies so much to food and diets and health and so and something Jen and I really want to I guess teach and encourage and support is helping women find the individualized and personalized care and support they need.
00:24:04
Speaker
through pregnancy, postpartum, and motherhood rather than taking all this external, objective, standardized information that's out there. So it's hard finding that balance because we're obviously on social media and trying to disseminate all this information through that. But that's part of why I want and was so excited to have you on today so that you could talk a little bit about how maybe a mom who is pregnant or postpartum and having some health, legit health or medical concerns or has a history of disorder eating, like how working with a dietician
00:24:34
Speaker
could be supportive to them in their individual journey. So talk a little about how you work with pregnant and postpartum mamas and what that support might look like. Yeah. You know, usually by the time people come see me for prenatal postpartum nutrition, if you can believe that there is three main reasons I see
00:24:53
Speaker
why they start getting frustrated with what they're striving for, whether it's weight management, mood, blood sugar management. One is just lack of truthful knowledge, kind of like what you're saying. We're in a world that there's so much, you know, people come in and they feel pretty knowledgeable, right? Because it's on every street corner, tons of blogs, all the social media. But when they come in, we start really going over how the body works with food.
00:25:18
Speaker
They start realizing they're very, very knowledgeable about a lot of wrong information. Good freedom of speech, right? There's tons of stuff out there. Anybody can write this. And I'm in an industry of nutrition that's a trillion dollar industry because it sells.
00:25:35
Speaker
with marketing. If you talk to anybody in marketing, you want to hit people's pain to buy your product. We have a lot of pain around nutrition. We all have egos that we want to look a certain way. So they're going to sell that making promises is how you're going to look. And then we're all scared of death. A lot of us don't want to die. So they're going to try to hit you that way that if you don't eat this way,
00:25:57
Speaker
You're going to get diseases and die and get cancer. So those are two big trillion dollar industries. So we really focus on, I'm very scientific in my counseling, helping moms get back in touch with really understanding the science of our body of understanding physical hunger.
00:26:17
Speaker
and teaching the hunger scale that I think you've had on podcasts. And then also the quality of food, how different foods, the carb, protein, and fat help our body. And because we take our body for granted that it just gets up and walks and talks. And we never really start thinking how our body works with food. So I deal with a lot of science and knowledge. The secondary is the emotional piece, the emotional side of eating that I don't know of anybody on earth that doesn't do some level of emotional eating, especially
00:26:44
Speaker
through pregnancy, postpartum, all the hormones changing. So a lot of us eat to kind of calm down and numb out emotion or we'll eat to feel more celebratory or we won't eat to numb emotion too. So
00:27:00
Speaker
We really look at that and get them working with a therapist to deal with some of that emotional piece. And then the third prime most predominant thing I see with a lot of moms, whether it's pre prenatal or postpartum is something I call diet deprivation backlash, kind of a weird word. But it's really where we're in a world, like you said, that's very black and white in our thinking about nutrition. Today foods are either labeled good or bad or healthy.
00:27:28
Speaker
or junk food, and nowadays we probably have more of an OCD word called clean eating. It's like, guess the opposite, it's dirty. So before we know it, there's this tiny list of foods allowed on our good food list, you know, huge list of foods called bad, and we're all scared, especially when we're pregnant, right? And so we're bound to want the food on the bad list because there's none on the good. But then if we eat the food, then we feel bad and guilty. And if we're an emotional eater, we eat even more to get out of feeling bad and guilty.
00:27:58
Speaker
or will restrict to get out of feeling bad and guilty. Then we say tomorrow I'm going to get really good. But getting good tomorrow means taking away your favorite food. So that sounds miserable.
00:28:07
Speaker
So it's a vicious, unconscious cycle of chaotic eating that just started with labeling food good and bad. And then we all have a rebel soul that we want what we can't have. So the more we're telling ourselves, no, don't stop, only two more, we'll grab five more and we don't even like it that much. So that's kind of the three, there's probably 500 tools under that umbrella of three, lack of truthful knowledge, emotional eating and deprivation backlash that I really work with.
00:28:37
Speaker
And you see those three things coming up in everyone that walks through your door, regardless of what they're going through or what phase of life they're in. Correct, correct. Do you see those three things also with people who maybe come to you being told they need to lose weight because they're overweight or in the category of obesity or high BMI or something like from their doctor? Do you usually see these three things coming up with those
00:29:02
Speaker
types of people too. 100%. And the biggest thing that my heart is so full for is people don't realize that we can't control weight. We can control what goes in this hole. We can control moving our body. We can control feeling our feelings. But 90% of our weight's genetic.
00:29:21
Speaker
And then working on mindful eating, but again, we're, it's, it's getting better the health at every size and body positivity, but unfortunately there's still that I, I, there's still a large part of the medical industry with physicians that.
00:29:37
Speaker
will tell our clients to that you have to lose weight as you're going to be unhealthy. And that, you know, years ago, and back in my young days, there was a book called Fit or Fat, you can either be fit or fat. And now we're really seeing you can live in a larger body and be very fit. Right.
00:29:54
Speaker
You know, I watch people I'm here in Manhattan Beach and I go down and watch the peer to peer and there's some plus sized people swimming that very fit. My lower weight body clients can do that. They eat very mindfully. And that can be people don't realize and I have to admit when I was younger, I had that prejudices and that if I saw somebody in a larger body,
00:30:13
Speaker
I thought they must really be overeating and not working out and not realizing there's a big population that live in larger bodies and they eat very mindfully.
00:30:25
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. That fat phobia that we've been conditioned to believe in and that our medical system has been hot, right? Tighten weight charts and the BMI and how they're going to slowly start to do away with that. Right. Yeah. So how do you work with women in pregnancy, maybe whether they have had an identified history of disordered eating or an eating disorder who are like,
00:30:49
Speaker
I don't want to gain more than X amount of weight in when I'm pregnant. Whether a lot of women are told that by their doctors, me included, I think I've told you this story, but who either are worried about it themselves or were getting feedback from a provider that they shouldn't gain more than X amount of weight. What do you tell those women? I tell them again that that's such an external information from a doctor that has
00:31:13
Speaker
one nutrition class in their, what, eight years of schooling. A lot of my clients right now are physicians, so it's interesting that there are a lot of doctors that are doing nutrition, telling them what to eat, and not referring them onto a dietician that specializes in that because the more you can get into doing hunger work and the intuitive eating work, if you're really connected to your body, and the blessing is we are born intuitive eaters, unless there's medical complications as a baby.
Intuitive Eating & Early Habits
00:31:43
Speaker
But we are born, you watch babies, they buy galleon or hunger, right? They'll cry until they get fed. They don't say, oh, I see you're busy. I'll wait. That would be so cool. Oh, just hold on. And then if you watch them eat, they'll eat until they're no longer hungry. They hit the spoon out of your hand. They'll put their food off their tray. They'll spit food out of their mouth. When they're done, they're done. So I help my clients go back to eating like when they were born, that intuitive eating.
00:32:12
Speaker
They regulate the weight. They rely on us for the type of food. But if we let them dictate their hunger and fullness, it's interesting that when they're first born, they eat up. I teach a zero starving, 10 stuffed. If they eat at a two comfortably hungry and stop at a seven, no longer hungry. The stomach with mindful eating holds about three to four hours worth of glucose at one time.
00:32:37
Speaker
and you'll watch babies six months into a year they're asking for food and crying for their milk about every three hours and and if we can go back and trust our body again hard but we've gotten disconnected by listening as early as three studies are showing us when we start getting disconnected from that intuitive eating because three things happen at three one
00:32:58
Speaker
A lot of us go to preschool at three. So we start learning to eat by the clock. Even though we don't tell time, the teacher says it's 12 o'clock. You have to eat whether you're hungry or not. Right. So we start learning. And then three is when cognitive development is starting to kick in. And if they feel sad and they eat a food that releases serotonin from the gut to the brain.
00:33:17
Speaker
They go, ooh, food might make me feel better. So emotional eating can start happening in as early as three. And then as parents mean well, but a lot of us parents will say, you have to finish your plate in order to get to the dessert. Well, kids aren't stupid. They want the yummy dessert. So that almost teaches them to overeat instead of, oh, tonight we're going to have some dessert. So we're going to shrink our meals so we get the yummy dessert. So we get it all, but stop when we're no longer hungry and comfortable full.
00:33:46
Speaker
And like you said, it's well-meaning. We've all been taught these ways, right? Yes. And do you feel like being in this industry, and I know you work with a lot of physicians, and do you feel like we are moving more in a direction of progressing in this way and being less rigid about BMI and weight restrictions and stuff, specifically with pregnancy and postpartum?
00:34:09
Speaker
Sadly, no, I'll be honest. I mean, I have a few, I have a maybe two, you know, that really understand it. But, and I, and I try to get out there and educate, but it's, it's hard for them to change, you know, a lot of their medical, you know, format that they keep getting fed. Right. Two, but I'm not seeing a lot of
00:34:30
Speaker
Change that I would hope would be out there by now the the interesting thing is Many of my clients now are getting bold enough to have tell their doctor. They don't want to be weighed especially they've been shamed because a lot of my clients don't want to go the doctor because every time they go they get shamed for their weight, so they're not getting early detection of problems going on because they don't want to go anymore because they get shamed for their weight and
00:34:55
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And I understand, you know, they might need to want to see the growth of the baby with weight. So that's one thing. But a lot nowadays with ultrasounds, they can see how the baby's progressing. But I do have, you had asked, I do have three clients right now that are
00:35:12
Speaker
pregnant that have anorexia and really trying to not gain very much weight. And I do, I go into the education of the basic of, you know, the baby weighs seven pounds. I think, you know, you maybe have even gone through this amniotic fluids, two pounds, blood flow is three to four pounds, breast tissues, two pounds.
00:35:31
Speaker
Fat just to nurse you need about five to six pounds of fat on your bike just have energy to nurse So it's not everybody thinks well, I'm just getting fat. It's like no. No, it's only five to six pounds that your body miraculously will form to have energy to nurse and then the placenta is a couple pounds so most people will average 27
00:35:53
Speaker
to 40 pounds on an average because there's specific things that are growing that again you don't have control over and disordered eating is all about control so it kind of gives them relief like you for once you don't have control over this you got to let this grow if you're eating mindfully and
00:36:11
Speaker
And once the baby, once all this comes out and then, then you lose a chunk of that, except for the little bit of weight you need to nurse. And then the uterus has to contract. So sure, the stomach is still going to be pooching out a little bit. And it, you know, the first baby, usually a lot of people are back to pre baby weight, maybe within a year. And the second baby is a little longer. Yeah.
00:36:37
Speaker
I actually haven't broken those numbers down. I don't think I even knew those specifics of like how much the amniotic fluid is and how much typical, typically how much fat you need on your body to be able to breastfeed. And I'm so grateful for the OB that I ended up seeing and who delivered both my babies because she, after I'd had one really, really shaming experience with an OB about my weight gain in pregnancy,
00:37:01
Speaker
This one, Carrie Price, down here in Orange County, amazing, love her so much. She, towards the end of my pregnancy, I had gained more than like the, I gained almost 50 pounds when I was pregnant. And that's what my body needed to do, right? And like, that was fine. But I- That the body will do what it needs to do to have a healthy miracle, have a healthy pregnancy, not only for the baby, but for you. Yes, yes, absolutely. And I asked her, I was like,
00:37:28
Speaker
You know, cause I'm human. So I was like, is that like normal? And she was like, do not worry. Like your body is gaining weight where it needs to gain. So you can produce breast milk. Don't even think another thing about it. Go home and eat whatever you feel like. Don't worry. And it was like, Oh yes. And it's so true. And it's so beautiful when, when, you know, when you can get that feedback when you're, cause you're in such a vulnerable, it's so vulnerable being pregnant and just having all that control taken away in your body.
00:37:59
Speaker
Yeah, that you don't, for once you don't have control. Right. So let's see, one thing we did want to touch on was the changes in metabolism and hormones and mood and like how all that is connected in pregnancy and postpartum.
Postpartum Changes & Cravings
00:38:13
Speaker
So when you, in postpartum, it's ironic that your basal metabolic rate goes up by about 500 more calories. So it, again, miracle that as, as you're producing milk, that burns a lot of calories. We take, we don't even realize like, oh, your metabolism is going to increase to be able to produce milk. It takes energies and calories are energy.
00:38:38
Speaker
Right? We calories always has a bad name. It's like they're just energy like a gasoline for a car So we're gonna our needs are gonna rise to be able to produce milk, right? And then just even the energy it takes to slough off The placenta, I mean it's a lot of energy so one hunger is gonna go up after you've delivered and and so not to be scared of that that
00:39:02
Speaker
and not counting calories, you don't have to know that, but if you do mindful eating, you automatically will eat that amount if you listen to your body of what your body needs, if you really listen. And then the other one I think you asked was mood. So one metabolism increases, so we're gonna be hungrier, so we don't wanna be scared of hunger. Then when your estrogen and progesterone's dropping, 48 hours after birth, the body rapidly
00:39:29
Speaker
goes back to that and releases a lot of estrogen and progesterone. When those drop, serotonin also drops and serotonin's an awesome mood stabilizer. So no wonder when we're, and when those drop, people are like, Dinah, why am I having more cravings? And it's like, and usually what we're gonna crave when serotonin drops, the only place our body gets natural serotonin is from carbohydrate. Pasta rice, cereal, cookies, crackers, the only thing that releases serotonin from the gut
00:39:59
Speaker
If you can believe it, serotonin is produced in our gut. And that releases serotonin to our brain. So no wonder when we're depressed and anxious after losing all these hormones, you're going to create more sugar and carbs and not to be scared of that. Because as you have more of those, that's self-care. That's self-care. To be able to go, gosh, I can eat them in a mindful way. I'm going to have my carbohydrate and buffer them with protein and or fat that turns into glucose slower.
00:40:26
Speaker
but I need to incorporate them because I want to be orally and emotionally satisfied and then the protein and fat will physically Help keep me full too so that we need both. Oh my gosh I knew it was created in the gut but that carbohydrates are the only
00:40:42
Speaker
thing that releases it. That's why we don't go, oh, chicken, when we're depressed. It doesn't release it, right? It's like, we want, but we get shamed by the world, like, shoulders bad. I can't believe you're eating sugar. It's like, wait, people will, oh, Diana, you know, I'm really mindful. I've quit eating sugar. I'm like, are you quitting? Are you stopping eating? Because all food that goes in this hole, digestive enzymes start breaking the food down the mouth. More enzymes excrete in something called the esophagus. By the time food hits your stomach,
00:41:12
Speaker
all foods turn into sugar. The technical word is called glucose, right? And then our 37 billion cells pull that in for every cell to stay healthy to be fed and nourished. So we need sugar. Sugar is a part of the carbohydrate, right? There's the sciences, there's complex and simple, but they both release serotonin from the gut to the brain.
00:41:32
Speaker
Yeah, that's fascinating. Yeah. Really is. And that's just like, gosh, it just speaks to the importance of being well fed in postpartum because it is truly a hormone supporter, a balancer.
00:41:46
Speaker
for like six months minimum to the first year. So if we're not allowing ourselves that, cause a lot of people will diet or try to do control their foods and they're not, can you believe depression was ranked at its all time high pre-COVID due to those high protein, low carb diets? We just were not getting enough carbohydrate to release serotonin and that's a big part with postpartum.
00:42:12
Speaker
Wow. So that makes sense as to why, like we talk a lot about bounce back culture and like postpartum jumping into a diet or, or food restriction or not honoring hunger or getting back into the gym and overexercising, then you're burning off more energy than you already are just by your body, just doing it naturally being in a postpartum state. And then postpartum depression is more likely to occur in those cases. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:42:39
Speaker
Yeah. And a lot of people, like you said, don't really understand that. And they're not getting the proper support to understand how nutrition is a key role in the mind, body part of that phase of postpartum to support our body. Yeah. Cause we're kind of taught the opposite, right? That like.
00:42:57
Speaker
Well, I'm depressed because I'm fat or whatever. I'm depressed because I still have this baby weight. So the solution then is to go back on this diet, to cut out sugar, to restrict my food, to get back into the gym right away, because I won't be depressed. I'll be happier when I have my body back. Correct.
00:43:17
Speaker
and look at the world, how they promote that. Look at, they're always saying, look at this famous person is already back. Look at her weight now. She's already back that, you know, they're always promoting, like she doesn't even look like she had a baby. Just all that pressure out there on social media, all the Tik Tokers that are right back doing hardcore working out.
00:43:36
Speaker
So, okay, so one thing, because as you know, Jen is a physician. And so we've talked a lot about this and like our heart and soul of wanting to encourage more progressive and individualized thinking in mental health care and medical care. And so one thing Jen was curious about was
00:43:53
Speaker
women who are either at risk for or who have been diagnosed with gestational diabetes.
Gestational Diabetes & Eating Cues
00:43:58
Speaker
How do you work with that? Exactly the same. Exactly the same because I teach all my clients to be a mindful leader. The belief that if you have diabetes, you should quit eating sugar, quit eating carbs, right? It's like, no, no, carbs are the number one source of fuel.
00:44:15
Speaker
Right. Right. They're the go foods. Protein is for the growth or muscle and fat is for the brain. So even diabetics need carbohydrate. They just need to buffer that or dilute their bloodstream whenever they have carbs. When they're hungry at a meal, they need to buffer it and eat it with some protein and or fat that turns in a glucose slower.
00:44:38
Speaker
So whenever your bloodstream is filled up with that carbon, you throw a little protein and or unsaturated fat in there with it, it will actually dilute and water down your bloodstream. So it goes in and comes out real nicely to keep blood sugar stable for gestational diabetics. So it's not quitting sugar, quitting carbs. We got to grow up and learn to eat it in a mindful way and buffer it with your protein and or fat at each feeding.
00:45:05
Speaker
Yeah. And it's that mindfulness piece and that intuitive eating piece that like you said, we're all born with and then we're conditioned out of it as early as age three. So, and that's like, so I had that, we did an episode where I kind of went through the, the principles of intuitive eating and I can't remember which one it was. I'll, I'll cite it in the, in the show notes for this, but I, um,
00:45:32
Speaker
I wish I had gone more in depth into it because a question that Jen had and that I get a lot and I practice and I'm sure you do too is like, well, that seems like a really lofty goal. But what about the people who, you know, who truly are not healthy for whatever reason, whether they are severely underweight or
00:45:52
Speaker
again, in an obese or overweight category and have like actually do have medical conditions due to that. And what I talked about with Jen that I wish I had gone more into in the podcast was how that's why we need so much more support around it. Because all those years, whether it's been 10, 20, 30 years of being conditioned out of intuitive eating, of course, you're not going to overnight be like, okay, I'll listen to my body then because those
00:46:17
Speaker
cues have been shut off, right? So you kind of do need someone to hold your hand through it and like trust them until you can learn to trust your body again and vice versa and heal all that stuff that has been happening emotionally and biologically is us. Yes, it's definitely a journey. It's definitely a journey and
00:46:38
Speaker
You know, you want to help them right away, but the only way out of any health condition, eating disorder, diabetes, cholesterol management, mood, it goes back to intuitive eating. If you don't get back connected to knowing when you're physically hungry, because there's only two hungers. Have you ever thought about that? Every time you walk toward food, you're either walking toward food because you physically need glucose to your cells, so you don't faint.
00:47:08
Speaker
so your cells are healthy and being that or it's emotional hunger so i teach my clients ways how to differentiate that if you're walking toward food and you're physically hungry abc how to honor that and menu options and good carb with protein or if it's like no i just ate an hour ago i got to a seven and
00:47:27
Speaker
comfortable fold so and I'm wanting food an hour later so that I know that's not physical hunger then to go figure out what if it's not food what am I emotionally needing right now and a lot of us I know I didn't ever learn that I never learned how to get my emotional needs met because I was just such a caretaker trying to rescue everybody to stay afloat when I was young so a lot of us never learn that aspect that you teach so well how to
00:47:55
Speaker
figure out emotionally how to get your needs met. Yeah, yeah. And what mother is not in a state of feeling like and constantly needing to rescue and care for everybody else and then shutting off her own needs and her own desires. Yeah, nature. And so people will say, well, you know, they
00:48:14
Speaker
They have, you know, diabetes. Well, really, we all should eat like we're diabetic, to be honest with you. We all should eat mindfully, honor hunger, wait for hunger. Hard to do sometimes. Respectfulness, balance our carb protein, fat, you know, move our body and fill our feelings. If we just did those four or five tools, it makes it sound so simple. But when you get back in tune to that, it's like whether you have severe disease states, if you can do that and understand
00:48:43
Speaker
food and how different foods turn into glucose and give us energy. You're doing pretty darn good. Yeah. And we, it's true. We've overcomplicated it. We really have a funny story that I was thinking about this morning while I was thinking about this conversation we were going to have.
00:48:57
Speaker
In the spirit of honoring your hunger, when I was pregnant with Reed, so first pregnancy, and I am sure you remember, I was so sick in the beginning, barely could eat because I couldn't keep food down, all that, you know, so many women deal with. And then when I got to the second trimester, it was like I'd never seen food before. I was so starving.
00:49:19
Speaker
And I'm sure part of it was, and I'm sure there's a scientific explanation for this, but I felt like my body was making up for everything from the past three months. And Sean and I were getting ready for work one day, and this was pre-COVID, so we were both going into our office, and I was making my lunch, and I was making two sandwiches, and Sean was also getting ready for work, and I was wrapping them up.
00:49:44
Speaker
It was like, oh babe, you made me a sandwich. Thank you. That's so sweet. And I was like, oh no, these are both for me. Yeah. That is so great. And it's like, we both laugh about that story still because I was like, Hey, like, Oh, sorry. I was not thinking about you. I was just prepping my own lunch. And no, I'm not, I'm going to be starving today and I'm going to be at the office for a long time. So I'm packing two sandwiches and
00:50:11
Speaker
thank god i i'd done the work i had done in my own recovery that i could allow that and not feeling any shame around that like i was proud of all that nice like no i'm very in tuned and i deserve this instead of like oh he thinks i'm over eating and
00:50:27
Speaker
And you make a good point scientifically, back to all my sciences, as since you were under eating, not only is it making up, but as you eat more, your body's like a fire.
Metabolism & Eating Patterns
00:50:39
Speaker
When you start putting more logs on the fire, it starts heating up and burning more. So your basal metabolic rate, once you start eating more, you started burning more. And as you burn more, you're going to be hungrier. Yeah. Fire came on that, that, you know, second.
00:50:56
Speaker
Yes. Okay, so tell explain that that fire metaphor of metabolism because I love that metaphor and so many people are always stunned by it.
00:51:05
Speaker
yes so that literally our body is like a fire and our fire for our body that only gives fuel is calories and calories are only found in food right and so as we eat more there's something called the thermogenics of eating so as you eat more and put more logs on the fire the fire
00:51:28
Speaker
Literal fire actually gets hotter our body actually gets hotter. So people will notice like Diana Why am I sweating more or I'll wake up sweating and that that's a good thing. That means your body's Burning more especially if you've gone through a phase of sickness in your early pregnancy and then it will start speeding up and burning more so you're as you burn more and if you're in tune to your hunger and Honoring it you're gonna need to eat more. Mm-hmm
00:51:58
Speaker
And that's a sign that your metabolism is actually doing its job and going faster. It's a good thing. Because we're taught that if you keep eating, you're going to slow down. It's going to gain weight. Yeah. And it's not. Your body will come safe. Just as, unfortunately, if you're restricting, your metabolism will slow down and you can shut down your endocrine system.
00:52:20
Speaker
by under eating because when you under eat, people think, oh, I'm excited. My scale weight's going down. But when you're under eating, not just eating mindfully, but under eating, ignoring hunger, your body's got to go somewhere for fuel and it will go to the carbohydrate in your muscle called glycogen. And you start burning up your lean tissue.
00:52:42
Speaker
So then, you know, we worry for our baby, but we need to worry for our own body to be able to carry the baby because we're atrophying a lot of important tissue to have a healthy pregnancy. So we're healthy in the delivery room. Right. Right. Right. Okay.
00:53:00
Speaker
Yeah, that's like, I always tell people that metaphor when they are someone who waits until like 12 o'clock to eat, and then they're starving, right? And then there's what you said, the deprivation diet backlash, then your body's really in a state of fight or flight at that point, right? Is that those are all 100%? Okay.
00:53:22
Speaker
And then, or if you've gone through like, you know, done the whole 30, for example, and then you decide you're done, or you do a 30-day diet restriction or whatever, then that's when that diet deprivation backlash happens. And the opposite of what you're trying to accomplish can occur.
00:53:39
Speaker
always always and then and that's trending out you know the intermittent fasting right don't eat till noon don't eat up but when you think logically about it because my clients have very wise when they come in they're doing intermittent fasting
00:53:55
Speaker
when i tell them like wait that's having you ignore hunger because you're hungry when you wake up in the morning you're always a two on the hunger scale you're hungry unless you woke up in the middle of the night nate you're always hungry and if you ignore that you're gonna again your body's gotta go somewhere to keep your heart beating breathing is gonna go to the carbohydrate in your muscle and burn that up
00:54:16
Speaker
And, but people get excited because the scales going down, but they don't realize they're losing lean tissue and water. And then many times once they do eat that first meal, they're so hungry and their blood sugar is so low. Their body thinks it's going into diabetic coma and you throw on food rapidly. And before we know it, now we're twofold.
00:54:34
Speaker
Yeah. And I always tell my clients, if you wouldn't, I ask them, would you do that to your baby? Would you say, nah, I'm not going to feed you till 12. Sorry. We'd probably be thrown in jail for child abuse. So why do that to our own little child and us?
00:54:53
Speaker
That's another thing that I think we've over complicated so much is that our our hunger needs and our emotional needs are the same as adults and it's like I just having this conversation with an 18 year old client of mine who she she has a little niece that she cares for a lot and
00:55:09
Speaker
And she was telling you about that inner critic and that voice of when she feels like she's being too dramatic about something and that she just shuts it down. And I'm like, would you do that to your little niece? And I know she wouldn't. And she's so nurturing to her. And she's like, no, but she's too. That's different. And I'm like, no, it's not. Those emotional needs are human
00:55:31
Speaker
And same with hunger. And we make it so much more complicated for some reason. We apply different rules to ourselves when we grow up. And that's where so much of that beautiful inner child work can come into play in this healing work. Very much so. I wouldn't have been able to do it without that work of myself.
00:55:49
Speaker
okay one last question so you talked about carbohydrates and the role that those play in releasing serotonin and mood management and what about protein do protein and fat play different roles with mood yeah well they they're not as dominant with mood but they have their own separate role right because if you're just eating carb
00:56:11
Speaker
Because some of us, when we're emotional, we just want a lot of carb. But if you can be mindful, whenever you eat carbs, since those turn into glucose first quickest, they go indoor bloodstream and get a lot of good serotonin. A lot of my clients with ADD, you know, they crave a lot more carbohydrate because it does wake up that front lobe of the brain, the executive function of the brain. So they're going to crave that to wake that up.
00:56:36
Speaker
but then even with all of my clients is if you then have a little protein and or fat, so since protein turns into glucose second quickest,
00:56:47
Speaker
and fat turns in third. So when we can use that protein or fat to dilute and balance or buffer, I use your bloodstream, it goes in and comes out real nicely. So mood, weight, energy, focus stays real balanced. Instead of if you're just eating carbs all day, because sometimes we just, that's what we want. If you're just doing that, that's just going to go in and then come out quickly. And you're going to peak and crash hunger, fatigue, and emotionally.
00:57:17
Speaker
Yeah. So that's why in a perfect world, the protein and fat are kind of boring, you know, for mood, but it's like, okay, I got to grow up and learn that I got to have that with the carb in a perfect world to just really have better results and better balance. So those play a role in buffering and balancing blood sugar to have
00:57:39
Speaker
Balance mood so it's not just peak and right. Okay, so we can think about if I could think about this in like my the simple mind of someone who's not necessarily science literate or nutrition literate it's the carbohydrates can be a mood elevator and then the fats and proteins will help that be more sustainable.
00:58:00
Speaker
and reduce the chances of a crash. And then of probably overly craving the carbs again to make up for that and get back up. Correct. Trying to get back up to where you were. Because if you're just eating a lot of carb, we have something called the pancreas, the excretes insulin. It will push your blood sugar down rapidly. So you're just kind of chasing that high if we don't kind of buffer and balance it a little bit better.
00:58:28
Speaker
Okay, this is making me think about Reed, little reedy boy too, because he's a highly sensitive child. He has some sensory processing stuff. All this kid will eat is carbohydrates. Bread, crackers, he'll have bars in there, like protein-ish, I guess, but that's all he wants. And this is helping me understand, because when we've had him, he's an OT, and I'll tell you more about this when I see you, but he started equine therapy recently, and it's so amazing.
00:58:57
Speaker
Whenever we've had him assessed, they always ask me that. Is he a picky eater? Yes. Does he eat a lot of carbohydrates and crunchy foods? And I always say, yes, that's literally all he wants. And now I'm understanding. Why? He's just doing self care.
00:59:14
Speaker
where it'd be so easy. A lot of people in the medical industry, well, they need to, I'm sure, do we want to keep supporting and exposure, like trying to buffer and get a little protein and or fat gradually with it? But, you know, that's in time and safety, so he feels safe doing it.
00:59:32
Speaker
because some of those with sensory integration, it can be overwhelming. Like a mushy food is just too overwhelming for them. And we've got to understand it, not shame them for it because it's so easy to get frustrated. Like, well, I don't know what to feed you. And I think we get frustrated because we take it back on to, well, everybody's gonna think I'm not being a good mom. And it comes back to us instead of what is this child going through? And we need to lean in.
00:59:59
Speaker
and meet them where they're at, we can supplement along the way. They can take supplements if they just can't tolerate certain foods. Thank goodness for supplements. They're the same molecular makeup as in the real food. So they work in time of slowly helping kids learn how to have a variety of food.
01:00:19
Speaker
This I want to cry right now because this isn't what we plan on talking about what it's so validating for me I cuz I can't help but worry even though I know all this and I teach it I you know with your own kid I'm always like am I like gonna mess him up and am I not pushing a food enough and Sean and I really try to take a hands-off approach and let him honor his own hunger and fullness and so for any other mamas who are listening and in this battle to I want you to hear what Diana is saying and that you know, he takes a picky eater multivitamin
01:00:49
Speaker
He drinks those, those organ kids protein shakes, at least one a day, loves them. He thinks it's chocolate milk. And, and that's okay. You're telling me that's okay. Really darn good. It's like, yeah, you you're not going to, you know, nothing bad is going to happen with that. And what causes more damage is the emotional damage if we
01:01:12
Speaker
Get on them about it, but it's just exposure and when they see and then the biggest time I see with my clients as they get older it their friends are more motivating to try foods than anything we can do to be honest pushing them to eat when their friends are all having certain foods to go into the pizza party or
01:01:30
Speaker
Something else that they don't want with protein that is that that will be their motivator Yeah, it's that rebel soul in us, you know, I have clients who like have a have legitimate food aversions to food They were forced to eat as kids. Yeah
01:01:45
Speaker
Yeah. And that's a real psychological, real thing. It's not in their head. Overcome. Yeah. Right. Right. Oh, this is, I could just talk to you forever. Okay. Well, so much. This is so, so valuable. So a couple of things and I'll sum up things in the show notes too, but this is definitely a more in-depth understanding of intuitive eating and mindful eating for anybody who listened to, let's see, it was episode eight, where I shared the story about the unfortunate interaction I had with an OB and then don't be afraid of hunger.
01:02:15
Speaker
And know that like, and this is something I feel like I say a lot to friends and clients, but now having this conversation with you and relearning what you're telling us about our intuitive self care of like truly when you're craving something that is actually your body telling you you need that. Especially emotionally. Yes. Yes. So thank you so much. You're welcome. What a treat.
01:02:41
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, this goes without saying, you've been such a huge support to me personally. And I know to every client you've worked with and to everyone listening here, I'm so grateful that you could share your heart and your expertise with us today. Thanks, Rachel. So nice to be on here. Just so grateful you're getting this message out. So tell our listeners quickly where they can find you if they want to learn more about you and your practice. Great. You can go to my website, the www.dianaberg.
01:03:10
Speaker
I do telehealth and in-person support, but that's probably the easiest way to find me. Right. And I'll put that in the notes too. All right. Thank you. Love you so much. Love you. Thanks so much for tuning in with us today. If you enjoyed this episode and feel like it brought you value, don't forget to rate the show and leave a review. Your feedback means the world to us and helps us know which conversations you are needing the most.
01:03:37
Speaker
And we'll keep bringing you new episodes every week, so hit subscribe so you don't miss a thing. Also, be sure to check out the show notes for any links or resources that we mentioned. We're on this journey with you, so be sure to find us on the Gram and TikTok. Plus, go to bloomafterbaby.com and grab our free guides on all things motherhood created just for you. Breathe, be well, and keep growing, Mama.