Food Psych Podcast with Christy Harrison

Fat-positive sex and relationship coach and fellow podcast host Dawn Serra returns to the podcast to discuss how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting our relationships with food and highlighting existing social injustices, how diet culture robs us of our ability to embody pleasure, desirability politics and its links to diet culture and oppressive beauty standards, navigating romantic relationships while in recovery, and so much more. Plus, Christy answers a listener question about how to tell whether your eating and exercise are intuitive or compulsive amid COVID-19 stress. (This episode originally aired on May 11, 2020.) Dawn Serra has dedicated her life to unraveling the cultural stories that impact our relationship to our pleasure, our bodies, and our lives. Dawn is considered a leader in the field of sexuality and relationships, with a focus in pleasure for people recovering from eating disorders and those in fat bodies. She is a therapeutic sex & relationship coach, a Certified Body Trust® Provider, speaker, podcaster, facilitator, consultant, and entrepreneur. Host of the weekly feminist podcast, Sex Gets Real, and creator of the free annual online conference, Explore More Summit, Dawn has interviewed dozens of thought leaders from around the world. As a white, cis, middle class, queer, fat, survivor, Dawn's work is a fiercely compassionate invitation for each of us to deepen our relationships with our bodies and our pleasure as an antidote to the trauma, disconnection, and isolation so many of us feel. Your pleasure matters. Your body is wise. Dawn's work is all about creating spaces and places for you to explore what that means on your terms. Find her online at DawnSerra.com. Subscribe to our newsletter, Food Psych Weekly, to keep getting new weekly Q&As and other new content while the podcast is on hiatus! If you're ready to break free from diet culture once and for all, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course. You'll get all your questions answered in an exclusive monthly podcast, plus ongoing support in our private community forum and dozens of hours of other great content. Christy's first book, Anti-Diet, is available wherever you get your books. Order online at christyharrison.com/book, or at local bookstores across North America, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. Grab Christy's free guide, 7 simple strategies for finding peace and freedom with food, for help getting started on the anti-diet path. For full show notes and a transcript of this episode, go to christyharrison.com/foodpsych. Ask your own question about intuitive eating, Health at Every Size, or eating disorder recovery at christyharrison.com/questions.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Fellow anti-diet dietitian Lauren Newman joins us to discuss how to manage diabetes without weight loss and restriction, why the restrict-binge cycle and weight cycling are especially harmful to blood-sugar regulation, why carbohydrates are necessary for health, how to take the focus away from nutritional minutiae and numbers, and so much more. (This episode originally aired on January 27, 2020.) Lauren Newman, RD, LD is a registered dietitian in Houston, TX passionate about helping individuals with diabetes make peace with food and their bodies. Lauren practices from a Health At Every Size® and weight inclusive approach to help clients connect with their body’s needs, and learn to respond without rigidity, restriction, or shame. Find her online at LaurenNewmanRD.com. Subscribe to our newsletter, Food Psych Weekly, to keep getting new weekly Q&As and other new content while the podcast is on hiatus! If you're ready to break free from diet culture once and for all, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course. You'll get all your questions answered in an exclusive monthly podcast, plus ongoing support in our private community forum and dozens of hours of other great content. Christy's first book, Anti-Diet, is available wherever you get your books. Order online at christyharrison.com/book, or at local bookstores across North America, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. Grab Christy's free guide, 7 simple strategies for finding peace and freedom with food, for help getting started on the anti-diet path. For full show notes and a transcript of this episode, go to christyharrison.com/foodpsych. Ask your own question about intuitive eating, Health at Every Size, or eating disorder recovery at christyharrison.com/questions.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Fellow author and podcaster Caroline Dooner returns! We discuss her new book, The F*ck It Diet: Eating Should Be Easy, why mental deprivation is just as much of a problem as physical deprivation, why people often treat intuitive eating as another diet (and why that’s wrong), the essential role of rest in healing our relationship with movement, why focusing on fullness can be problematic, and so much more! Plus, Christy answers a listener question about whether a certain model of treatment for binge-eating disorder is actually making the problem worse. (This episode was originally published on March 25, 2019.) Caroline is the creator of The F*ck It Diet, where she teaches chronic dieters how to heal their relationship with food and weight. Caroline recently released her first book, The F*ck It Diet: Eating Should Be Easy. Find her online right here. Subscribe to our newsletter, Food Psych Weekly, to keep getting new weekly Q&As and other new content while the podcast is on hiatus! If you're ready to break free from diet culture once and for all, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course. You'll get all your questions answered in an exclusive monthly podcast, plus ongoing support in our private community forum and dozens of hours of other great content. Christy's first book, Anti-Diet, is available wherever you get your books. Order online at christyharrison.com/book, or at local bookstores across North America, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. Grab Christy's free guide, 7 simple strategies for finding peace and freedom with food, for help getting started on the anti-diet path. For full show notes and a transcript of this episode, go to christyharrison.com/foodpsych. Ask your own question about intuitive eating, Health at Every Size, or eating disorder recovery at christyharrison.com/questions.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Plus-size-yoga teacher and wellness coach Rachel Estapa returns to discuss why mindfulness is a tool rather than a be-all-end-all, how seeking validation on social media mirrors seeking weight-loss praise, how to balance vulnerability and boundary-setting when sharing your lived experiences, the role of forgiveness in healing from diet culture, and so much more! Plus, Christy answers a listener question about how health and wellness professionals can handle concerns about potential clients getting “scared off” by the anti-diet approach. (This episode originally aired on September 23, 2019.) Rachel Estapa, founder and CEO of More to Love, is passionate about empowering people to love and appreciate their bodies. Her own path to body acceptance began many years ago. After yo-yo dieting throughout her teenage years and into adulthood, Rachel took stock of her life and realized she wasn’t happy. Even when she reached her “goal weight,” she felt something was missing. That’s when she decided she would stop trying to change her body and instead she would focus on loving the body she has. Find her online at MoreToLoveYoga.com. Subscribe to our newsletter, Food Psych Weekly, to keep getting new weekly Q&As and other new content while the podcast is on hiatus! If you're ready to break free from diet culture once and for all, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course. You'll get all your questions answered in an exclusive monthly podcast, plus ongoing support in our private community forum and dozens of hours of other great content. Christy's first book, Anti-Diet, is available wherever you get your books. Order online at christyharrison.com/book, or at local bookstores across North America, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. Grab Christy's free guide, 7 simple strategies for finding peace and freedom with food, for help getting started on the anti-diet path. For full show notes and a transcript of this episode, go to christyharrison.com/foodpsych. Ask your own question about intuitive eating, Health at Every Size, or eating disorder recovery at christyharrison.com/questions.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Fellow anti-diet dietitian and certified intuitive eating counselor Ayana Habtemariam joins us to discuss how she’s bringing intuitive eating to marginalized communities, whether food environments influence health, the oppressive roots of diet culture, paternalistic nutrition policies, and so much more. Plus, Christy answers a listener question about how to deal with worries about your partner’s health. (This episode originally aired on February 17, 2020.) Ayana is a nutrition therapist, certified intuitive eating counselor, and macro social worker. She is the founder of Truly Real Nutrition, LLC, a private nutrition practice where she empowers clients to give up dieting in exchange for trusting their bodies and breaking free from food rules that result in feelings of failure and shame. She encourages her clients to embrace the beauty, power, and connection that their food traditions, personal experiences, and values add to their lives. Ayana is committed to increasing awareness of intuitive eating and weight inclusive philosophies in black communities. She believes that weight-centric approaches to health and wellness only serve to exacerbate body image issues, stress, and anxiety which contribute to increased rates of chronic diseases often seen in black and other communities of color. Ayana has 10+ years of experience educating the public on the relationship between the nutrition environment and health outcomes. Prior to transitioning to private practice, she worked with community leaders and local politicians as a nutrition policy advocate and community nutrition educator, in the healthcare field as a clinical dietitian at Mercy Philadelphia Hospital, and as an award-winning, top performing account manager at a Fortune 500 company. Find her online at TrulyRealNutrition.com. Subscribe to our newsletter, Food Psych Weekly, to keep getting new weekly Q&As and other new content while the podcast is on hiatus! If you're ready to break free from diet culture once and for all, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course. You'll get all your questions answered in an exclusive monthly podcast, plus ongoing support in our private community forum and dozens of hours of other great content. Christy's first book, Anti-Diet, is available wherever you get your books. Order online at christyharrison.com/book, or at local bookstores across North America, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. Grab Christy's free guide, 7 simple strategies for finding peace and freedom with food, for help getting started on the anti-diet path. For full show notes and a transcript of this episode, go to christyharrison.com/foodpsych. Ask your own question about intuitive eating, Health at Every Size, or eating disorder recovery at christyharrison.com/questions.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Weight-stigma and eating-disorders researcher Kendrin Sonneville joins us to discuss how diet culture steals our well-being by perpetuating fatphobia, why even seemingly subtle forms of weight stigma can lead to poorer health, the role of science in the paradigm shift toward Health At Every Size®, why weight stigma is more than just a health issue, and so much more. Plus, Christy answers a listener question about intuitive eating and fears around weight loss. (This episode originally aired on December 9, 2019.) Kendrin Sonneville, ScD, RD is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. Dr. Sonneville also holds an adjunct appointment at Harvard Medical School and is a Collaborating Mentor for the Strategic Training Initiative for the Prevention of Eating Disorders (STRIPED) at Boston Children's Hospital and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Dr. Sonneville is a registered dietitian, behavioral scientist, and public health researcher whose research focuses on the prevention of eating disorders among children, adolescents, and young adults. Dr. Sonneville uses a weight-inclusive framework to study how to promote health and well-being without inadvertently increasing body dissatisfaction, disordered eating, and weight stigma. Find her online at KendrinS.sph.umich.edu. Subscribe to our newsletter, Food Psych Weekly, to keep getting new weekly Q&As and other new content while the podcast is on hiatus! If you're ready to break free from diet culture once and for all, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course. You'll get all your questions answered in an exclusive monthly podcast, plus ongoing support in our private community forum and dozens of hours of other great content. Christy's first book, Anti-Diet, is available wherever you get your books. Order online at christyharrison.com/book, or at local bookstores across North America, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. Grab Christy's free guide, 7 simple strategies for finding peace and freedom with food, for help getting started on the anti-diet path. For full show notes and a transcript of this episode, go to christyharrison.com/foodpsych. Ask your own question about intuitive eating, Health at Every Size, or eating disorder recovery at christyharrison.com/questions.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

In this special bonus episode, Christy returns briefly to answer a listener question about how to navigate intuitive eating and eating-disorder recovery while pregnant, and to share some exciting personal news. Christy Harrison, MPH, RD, CEDRD is an anti-diet registered dietitian nutritionist, certified intuitive eating counselor, certified eating disorders registered dietitian, and journalist. She’s the author of Anti-Diet: Reclaim Your Time, Money, Well-Being, and Happiness Through Intuitive Eating (Little, Brown Spark 2019), and her second book, Rethinking Wellness, will be published by the same imprint in 2023. Since 2013 Christy has hosted Food Psych, a weekly podcast exploring people’s relationships with food and paths to body liberation. It’s been one of Apple’s top 100 Health podcasts for the past 5 years, reaching tens of thousands of listeners worldwide each week. In addition to her media work, Christy offers online courses and private intuitive eating coaching to help people all over the world make peace with food and their bodies. Christy began her career in 2003 as a journalist covering food, nutrition, and health, and she’s written for publications including The New York Times, SELF, BuzzFeed, WIRED, Refinery29, Gourmet, Slate, The Food Network, and many others. Learn more about Christy and her work at christyharrison.com. Subscribe to our newsletter, Food Psych Weekly for weekly Q&As and more. It's a great way to keep getting new content while the podcast is on hiatus! If you're ready to break free from diet culture once and for all, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course. Christy's first book, Anti-Diet, is available wherever you get your books. Order online at christyharrison.com/book, or at local bookstores across North America, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. Grab Christy's free guide, 7 simple strategies for finding peace and freedom with food, for help getting started on the anti-diet path. For full show notes and a transcript of this episode, go to christyharrison.com/foodpsych. Ask your own question about intuitive eating, Health at Every Size, or eating disorder recovery at christyharrison.com/questions.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Nurse practitioner and fellow HAES dietitian Robyn Nohling joins us to discuss her experiences with disordered eating and hypothalamic amenorrhea (HA), how diet culture wreaks havoc on our hormones, why doing less may actually be better for our health, how The Wellness Diet is making us sicker, and so much more! Plus, Christy answers a listener question about how to navigate intuitive eating with diabetes. (This episode originally aired on May 13, 2019.) Robyn’s own health journey has been the catalyst to her career focused on counseling, nursing, mentoring, and teaching in the field of women's health and eating disorders. As a Board Certified Family Nurse Practitioner and Registered Dietitian, Robyn specializes in hormone & reproductive health along with eating disorders and disordered eating. She uses a weight inclusive and non diet approach and firmly believes health goes far beyond your plate and exercise routine. Alongside her private practice, blog and inpatient NP position, Robyn opened an online learning center in 2017 to both educate other practitioners and empower women to advocate for their own health and healing.
 In both her RD and NP practices, Robyn works through the Intuitive Eating and Health At Every Size® framework. She is a member of and involved in several women's health and eating disorder organizations including the International Association of Eating Disorder Professionals, Nurse Practitioners in Women's Health, and the International Federation of Eating Disorder Dietitians. When she's not working with women or behind the screen, she enjoys exploring Boston and the northeast with her husband and baby boy, traveling despite her fear of flying, cooking new recipes, hosting others in her home and experiencing the food scene wherever she might be. Robyn loves connecting on social media. Find her online at thereallife-rd.com. Subscribe to our newsletter, Food Psych Weekly, to keep getting new weekly Q&As and other new content while the podcast is on hiatus! If you're ready to break free from diet culture once and for all, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course. You'll get all your questions answered in an exclusive monthly podcast, plus ongoing support in our private community forum and dozens of hours of other great content. Christy's first book, Anti-Diet, is available wherever you get your books. Order online at christyharrison.com/book, or at local bookstores across North America, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. Grab Christy's free guide, 7 simple strategies for finding peace and freedom with food, for help getting started on the anti-diet path. For full show notes and a transcript of this episode, go to christyharrison.com/foodpsych. Ask your own question about intuitive eating, Health at Every Size, or eating disorder recovery at christyharrison.com/questions.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Intuitive eating & HAES dietitian Katherine Zavodni shares her own experience with chronic illness and The Wellness Diet, how it ultimately led her to embrace a Health At Every Size® approach in her work, why the popular narrative of personal responsibility in diet and wellness culture is harmful, what to do when others are stuck in diet mentality, and so much more! Plus, Christy answers a listener question about how to stop obsessing over getting "enough" exercise. (This episode originally aired on January 28, 2019.) Katherine Zavodni is a registered dietitian in private practice in Salt Lake City, UT. She is a certified eating-disorders dietitian and specializes in child and family feeding concerns, intuitive eating and Health At Every Size in addition to nutrition therapy for disordered eating. She is passionate about non-diet work and particularly about a non-diet approach to school nutrition education, and is working on developing a curriculum to teach food and nutrition within a positive, age-appropriate framework. Find her online at KZNutrition.com. Subscribe to our newsletter, Food Psych Weekly, to keep getting new weekly Q&As and other new content while the podcast is on hiatus! If you're ready to break free from diet culture once and for all, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course. You'll get all your questions answered in an exclusive monthly podcast, plus ongoing support in our private community forum and dozens of hours of other great content. Christy's first book, Anti-Diet, is available wherever you get your books. Order online at christyharrison.com/book, or at local bookstores across North America, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. Grab Christy's free guide, 7 simple strategies for finding peace and freedom with food, for help getting started on the anti-diet path. For full show notes and a transcript of this episode, go to christyharrison.com/foodpsych. Ask your own question about intuitive eating, Health at Every Size, or eating disorder recovery at christyharrison.com/questions.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Sociology professor, writer, and performer Kimberly Dark returns to the podcast to discuss her latest book, Fat, Pretty, and Soon to be Old; why appearance is a form of privilege; how ageism intersects with other oppressions; how diet culture has influenced our ideas about self-improvement; why women are often penalized for not wearing makeup; and so much more. Plus, Christy answers a listener question about how alcohol consumption fits into intuitive eating. (This episode originally aired on February 10, 2020.) Kimberly Dark is a writer, professor and raconteur, working to reveal the hidden architecture of everyday life so that we can reclaim our power as social creators. She’s the author of Fat, Pretty, and Soon to be Old, The Daddies, and Love and Errors. Her essays, stories and poetry are widely published in academic and popular publications alike (Ms, Ravishly, Everyday Feminism). Since the 1990s, Kimberly has been facilitating discovery-based learning internationally -- in person, as well as in writing. She hosts retreats, and travels to teach workshops and offer keynote presentations. Her work uses storytelling in lectures and performances themed to help audiences discover the contours of privilege and oppression and use their own complex wisdom about the world. Kimberly teaches sociology at Cal State San Marcos and writing/arts courses at Cal State Summer Arts. Learn more at KimberlyDark.com. Subscribe to our newsletter, Food Psych Weekly, to keep getting new weekly Q&As and other new content while the podcast is on hiatus! If you're ready to break free from diet culture once and for all, come check out Christy's Intuitive Eating Fundamentals online course. You'll get all your questions answered in an exclusive monthly podcast, plus ongoing support in our private community forum and dozens of hours of other great content. Christy's first book, Anti-Diet, is available wherever you get your books. Order online at christyharrison.com/book, or at local bookstores across North America, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. Grab Christy's free guide, 7 simple strategies for finding peace and freedom with food, for help getting started on the anti-diet path. For full show notes and a transcript of this episode, go to christyharrison.com/foodpsych. Ask your own question about intuitive eating, Health at Every Size, or eating disorder recovery at christyharrison.com/questions.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy