Does Food Addiction Exist and What's the Middle Way Between Diet and Anti-diet Approaches?
Michelle Shapiro and I first met on Instagram. I had been following her for awhile and deeply resonated with everything she posted. So about a year ago I reached out to her to ask her to be on the podcast and we had an amazing conversation on the difference between Coddling and Compassion in Nutrition. Since then, we've kept in touch and I'm so grateful to have met someone who approaches the food and body healing journey in a similar way as myself.
Michelle is an Integrative Functional Registered Dietitian in New York City and today we dive into the messy middle between diet culture and antidiet culture. I had been sensing for awhile that there are two polarities being created where you have to abide by the diet culture rules or the antidiet culture rules. So what happens when you want to change how you're eating without feeling like you're on a diet? What happens when you legitimately don't feel vibrant in your body and you're wondering if changing your body's physical weight would kick you out of anti diet culture?
This is a fascinating conversation where we will even challenge ourselves in what we're saying to reveal the complexity of our relationship with food and that, ultimately, a lot of what this all comes down to is you being an authority on your own body and learning what supports you in feeling safe and regulated. Take what resonates with you in this conversation and throw out what doesn't. Each person is at different points in their healing journey and some of what we talk about here may be in alignment with where you're at and some may not. Only you will know what feels best to you.
And, if you're looking for more support on this adventure, the doors to the Somatic Eating® Program are open! We start on October 30th and spend 11 weeks together where you will learn the somatic resources to cultivate the safe, secure, and satiated relationship with food and body you've been looking for. Go to somaticeating.com to learn more and sign up today!
Now, welcome Michelle Shapiro...I'm so excited to connect with you again today!!!
Michelle Shapiro 00:04
Anytime we talk is just a blissful opportunity. So I can't wait even just as friends, I get so excited. I'm so excited.
Stephanie Mara 00:11
Yeah, I completely feel the exact same way. And what I really wanted to start off with today is something that you talk a lot about on social media. And I find that I'm still like stepping into that space, although I really resonate with everything that you put out, but it feels edgy to talk about the middle ground, there's either you're anti-diet, or you're dieting. And there's this space in the middle, like you just put out something the other day about, I think it was about gluten or something like that, that it was like, okay, you could be someone who could eat gluten, or you could be someone who, you know, maybe doesn't have celiac disease, but they can't touch gluten at all. And there's just no spectrum that we talk about. It's either you're this or you're that. And I think you do such a fantastic job, especially in social media, just addressing this middle space.
Michelle Shapiro 01:04
You know, you're one of the people I love talking to about this the most for a lot of reasons. But something that I think we should start this conversation off with, which we never have talked about before, is the current model of the treatment of eating disorders. Because a lot of people who will have come to you or I from kind of the conventional eating disorder treatment world are now being introduced to more the models of Intuitive Eating, Health at Every Size practitioners and things like that. The kind of former model of eating disorders was always inpatient treatment is of course, psychological care, unquestionably. And then also like really making sure you're eating structured meals at certain times, not letting yourself get too hungry. And a big part of that was that you could not have any food restrictions whatsoever. So much so that when I applied a very long time ago, maybe nine years ago, to work in the eating disorder facility, I was at the time gluten free, and they said can't have you working here, I can't have someone, and I didn't have celiac disease, and they said you need to be able to eat pizza and to not demonize these foods with people which I also really understand that treatment mindset. It's kind of been now taken where almost feels like out of those inpatient facilities and inpatient outpatient facilities and into the public realm of any food that is perceived as diety is toxic for your relationship with food. And any food that is unhealthy is productive for your relationship with food. And I don't know where the lines got mixed. But to me, there's nothing particularly productive about eating Oreos, for your relationship with food. Like, to me that doesn't make your relationship with food instantly better, the work that you do, and that you, you said this beautiful line on my podcast, you said Somatic Eating® is the step before Intuitive Eating, because Intuitive Eating is really a mental framework. And Somatic Eating® is really a body focused emotional framework. And I think that we're missing the mark so much with this polarization on social media, when we're only focused on bad foods, make your brain healthy and good foods make your brain unhealthy. That correlation not only isn't causation, it just doesn't exist to me. I don't know. It just feels not like not true.
Stephanie Mara 01:05
Yeah, I actually had a very similar experience, where I was working at an outpatient eating disorder clinic, and we did a weekly group where it was a group meal. And I was also gluten free at the time. And you know, in that experience, luckily, the individuals I was working with, they were like, well put as much variety on your plate as possible. And you know, the individuals we were working with, it's not like they were necessarily looking at my plate to make sure I was like eating the gluten things too. They were so immersed in their own experience of like, oh my gosh, this is anxiety provoking, this is fearful of the things that I'm considering eating right now. And so I would kind of just load up my plate with a whole bunch of other foods and not choose to, like have the foods that people brought that had gluten in it, but just that alone, of like you said, it's coming at it from a mental place, instead of how do these foods feel in my body? So let's take the Oreo example. That okay, if you eat a bunch of Oreos, how do you feel in your body? If we take away the label that even this is a good food or a bad food or you should be able to eat this food or this food should be an OK thing for you to have some times. How does your body experience it? And what I often find with those that I work with is that when they start to slow down and actually listen to their body, the foods that maybe we have put in the this is a bad food label and we take that away, it's just it doesn't make you feel the way you want to feel. That doesn't mean that you can't eat it, you can. But these kind of more involved foods, I don't want to use any of the traditional words like, you know, processed or anything like that.
Michelle Shapiro 03:34
Like hyper palatable, like the hyper palatable, like foods that are designed specifically to light up your brain, even though they're not maybe we don't need to use polarizing words like good or bad, but they, they are designed for that way and they're designed in a lab to make you feel a certain way. Sure.
Stephanie Mara 05:26
Yeah, absolutely. That when you eat those foods, if we kind of say, Hey, you're allowed to trust yourself and trust your body in this, you're saying no, isn't coming from you being on a diet, you are allowed to say no to some foods to put the vibrancy and the vitality and the energy of your body as a top priority.
Michelle Shapiro 05:46
Yeah, that's I mean, that is the actual work that we're doing is helping people to grant autonomy back to themselves. And saying that all foods, you know, the chemical composition of foods doesn't matter. It only matters what your relationship with food is, is not only a betrayal of self, it's quite untrue. And I don't think people resonate with information that's not true or true for them, because everyone knows that they eat like, we'll just use Oreos and not not because again, Oreos are the number one worst food or it just because it's whatever, I don't know why they always come up as an example and everything I don't know, they just are very easy to pick on for some reason. But if someone eats a container of Oreos, versus eating a container of blueberries, there's a lot of different biological interactions that happen inside of the body from that happening. I mean, we can measure many of them for what's happening, right, there's going to be changes in your blood sugar right away, we can see it, it's tangible, it's real. So to say that just because Oreos have a different carb amount or something, it's they're the same. They're just it's literally not, it just is not the same. So I think people are much smarter than the internet gives them credit for and saying that all foods fit, you know, these foods don't impact you differently, I think people are just a lot smarter than that. And I think it's condescending almost when we speak like that. So I'll ask you this hard question to bring our conversation around a little bit too. Do you think it's necessary to liberalize all food restrictions when someone is dealing with an eating disorder versus and I'll ask you the same question, do you think it's necessary to liberalize all food restrictions when someone's dealing with disordered eating, that would not be classified as a eating disorder?
Stephanie Mara 07:20
I feel like it's twofold. First, I feel like we need to take the labels away from the food because that's actually what is perpetuating the experience of fear in the body, the food is labeled as bad, it's wrong. As soon as you interact with the food, the body moves into a survival response, you are about to engage with something threatening. Now, of course, it becomes a little bit of this self fulfilling prophecy of your digestion shuts down because you're moving into a survival response, your resources are moving to your limbs to be able to fight or flee. And so you know, you're like, Oh, I, you know, I should be able to eat this food. And you're eating it in a state where it's much, much harder to be able to pick up on how does this food actually feel in my body. So I first feel like, yes, we do need to de-label all foods and say, yes, we may need to try different foods that you haven't eaten in a really long time. So I kind of see that more as a like, the way I like to describe it as a collecting data phase. You know that it's just like, okay, you haven't eaten this food in a really long time. Of course, you wouldn't know how does that food digest in your current day body because the last time maybe you ate that you were a teenager, you had a different body.
Michelle Shapiro 08:41
And things were like, so easy. So I need to, like, re-emphasize what you're saying because I just hit something in my own head when you said that, which is that the healing agent is the collection of data on how your body is operating. It's not the food itself. So it's not that eating Oreos, because they're Oreos is healing your relationship with food. It's are you noticing how you feel when you eat Oreos before, during and after. And I think that's where we've gone wrong. I think we're so focused on the food itself, and the experience of eating something that's oh, we're not restricting this. This must be cool. This must be good. More than we're focused on how we're feeling during that food episode. Is that like a translation on top of what you're saying? I feel like I've never said that before. But I want to say that.
Stephanie Mara 09:23
Yeah, no, I'm so glad you brought that. Yeah, yeah, it's definitely like that, that yes, a food that you have labeled as bad or wrong, or you know, is going to change your body in a particular way that feels really scary and frightening to have that change occur that already your body is going to move into a dysregulated state. So it's really hard to actually hear from your body how does this food feel. And so yeah, I think there is some work that needs to be done first to feel safe around all food. But what I often find is that when you start getting into that place where okay, you're maybe feeling a little bit more regulated, safe around all foods, all foods are open and available to you, you're not going to feel as naturally drawn to those foods anymore.
Michelle Shapiro 10:10
And so do you think that that alright, this is the hard question. These are the hard questions. Do you think that that is because you have liberalized those food restrictions, because that would go quite alongside with the intuitive eating model, right, that liberalizing food restrictions will lead you to say, Ooh, since I can have this, I don't need it as much anymore. I think that's like 50% of the battle. But the other 50% of the battle is, again, the experience of how does this particular food feel inside of my body, because something that would deter me from eating a food is knowing how it's going to make me feel and some foods are definitely going to make me feel not good. And I think if we like drew a line with like, something that we knew was inherently not good for us, like we know that like drugs, let's say like hard drugs are like not good for us, right? First of all, it's definitely not the same thing. I don't believe like sugar is as addicting as cocaine, like, I'm not in that vibe at all. There are many verifiable and incredible therapists who do believe that by the way, so I'm not taking that away from them either. But it's not the model that I labor under. But if someone was a drug addict, let's say and I'm not again, not drawing the line between food addicts and drug addicts, not a thing, not comparing it, not the same thing, but in our head to build a framework. If someone was addicted to drugs, the first thing we would say as being like, well, don't be around them and let's see how you feel when you're not around them. Right? And then when taking them thinking about how you would feel after or before, yes, but not having the drug with you or doing it is the most important thing, but the actual, like growth around it happens not during the times when you're doing the drug and how you feel but how it feels when you're abstaining, and what's your emotional regulation patterns and all of that stuff, too. I think, again, we're too focused on food being either not threatening like not at all threatening and not at all changing your biology or too threatening to your mental health where it's like that balance is not there. Because I don't think the food is the thing. I don't think the drug is the thing. I think if someone who was not, who was emotionally regulated and does not have a high disposition for drug addiction, could even do some of these drugs one time and not become addicted to them. The restriction pattern and the binging pattern is it's the food is just a tool. It's not the whole game. I don't know if that makes sense.
Stephanie Mara 12:23
Absolutely make sense. What that really made me reflect on was okay, so again, we're kind of even focusing on the food even right now. And really, if we like, I don't believe in food addiction, either. Like, I don't want to label it that way. When someone comes to me and says, I'm addicted to food, I'm like, Hmmmm.
Michelle Shapiro 12:43
You know, like, you're addicted to stress reduction, you're addicted to feeling normal and safe inside of your body. And that's why you're using food as a tool to do that. Yeah, exactly.
Stephanie Mara 12:50
You know, it's just like, oh, like you, you're leaning on food for regulation for a reason. And if we can start to address that, then maybe your experience of food can change, not necessarily that there is an addiction happening, I don't know, if we can be addicted to something that we need, you need food to be alive.
Michelle Shapiro 13:08
Let me give you I'll give you the one pitch I'll give you around food addiction that I think people make a good argument for, even though I also don't believe in food addiction, I believe in like you said, emotional regulation, things and impairments and dysregulation. But I will say that there are foods that are designed to prey on your proclivity towards wanting them more, you know, like that there are foods that are designed to do that. And I think it just stacks the odds unfairly against people by not acknowledging that too, because I don't really believe that a food addiction could occur with food addiction, even in a classical term, if we believed in it, which we don't, could occur with naturally occurring foods, because it doesn't have the opioid effect on your brain. And again, not to the same level as drugs do, but where we think of addiction as being something that you need, like a threshold for that you need, you get some sort of a withdrawal from like there's requirements for something to be considered an addiction, that only falls in the hyper palatable category. And certainly, even when I eat a gluten free Oreo, I'm like, might be interesting to have another and I'm like, that's weird. Like it's not it's that's not an emotional regulation thing. That's a literally biochemical thing. And there is a piece of that for all this. But most likely in most cases, both of us believe that binge eating or restriction is going to come from not the food itself causing it all the time. But if you're in that case, and you'll notice this to people who binge eat, binge eat specific foods, usually, I mean, it's not it's you're not going to find people binge eating vegetables generally or things like that. There's reasons why but it's always coming back to the food itself can do something and it is important to say it can do something, but it's not doing everything. It's much more about the regulations. So if we know that the food can't be the cure, if it's not the problem, it's also not the cure. Yeah.
Stephanie Mara 14:54
So here's where I bring in just a lot of curiosity is okay, so we're choosing these hyper palatable foods for a reason. And where I get really curious is how it mimics what's already happening in your body. And what I mean by that is, you're already living in this maybe hyper vigilant dysregulated state, you're used to kind of being in that sympathetic nervous system, go, go go. And then this food kind of perpetuates the same feeling inside of your body, like you are drawn to those foods for a reason, because of also how they feel in your system and what they do. And I'm curious, to hear your thoughts on that.
Michelle Shapiro 15:32
Like, they almost match your intensity that you're experiencing, as opposed to like counteracting them. Yeah, I mean, you're also getting like a really legitimate dopamine hit from them, you're really getting like, Damn, I can't believe I'm using this word, but you're kind of getting the high from them, whatever the high is, and right high again, we're not talking about it being compared to a drug addiction, do not compare it to drug addiction in your head, I really don't believe it is like that. But there is definitely from those foods a lift versus if you're eating even grass fed meat, you might get the production of amazing neurotransmitters as a result of eating a proper amount of protein, but you did not get the lift. And so what you're saying is that people can continue to get the lift. And it's really powerful and important for people who are dealing with binge eating specifically, because those foods, you know, if we think about it's interesting, now, I don't know why this is turning into a food addiction conversation. But it's an interesting angle that we've never talked about before. But there's a you know, GraySheet, which is the Overeaters Anonymous like most kind of like structured program, but they really believe in like abstinence from those foods in the beginning. And I do kind of believe there's a case to be made for that. If you feel like you can't find a way to regulate yourself, and you can't find out what regulation you need if you're constantly getting that high. Right? If you can't feel the low, then you can't explore the low and you can't be curious about the low. So the structured eating disorder world that you worked in, that's like classically trained therapists and dietitians if the deal was no food restriction, on the other side of it, there is a case to be made for the eating disorder world, which is a lot of food restrictions to help with binge eating and with overeating. So if both of those can exist, again, I think we can come back to the same thing that like those tools, maybe aren't the only tools and that food isn't the thing. Still, they're both using food as a major tool. And I always felt Stephanie, when I was like, interested in working with clients with eating disorders, I always felt like what are dietitians even doing in these scenarios? I know many dietitians who work with eating disorders now in a very powerful positive way, like you do. But in those facilities, dietitians are really doing meal planning, and I'm like, but to me eating disorders are psychological conditions that should really be treated by therapists more than dietitians, which is interesting, based on all this because I feel like the kind of cultural climate we're seeing on social media now, it's like a lot of dietitians, treating psychological disorders using food liberation. And I'm like, that's not therapy, and you're not a therapist. So how can you use a psychological tool for a physical solution? Because dietitians are, of course we're coaches, but we're not therapists, it's not in scope to only focus on the mind, we have to focus on the body too. And when I see all foods fit, intuitive eating, and really like just focusing on having no food restrictions, I start to think like, isn't that a therapists job, not a dietitians job too.
Stephanie Mara 18:18
What I also just reflect on is when we talk about all foods fit, the first thing that individuals often go to is oh, if all foods fit, I can eat all the foods that I haven't been eating. And we don't often go towards like reclaiming for yourself, how the different foods feel in your body, and that what fits for you. For example, I've had this conversation with a lot of those that I've worked with as well of, you know, they maybe were scared to like eat a certain vegetable or salad or make a smoothie, because then they're like, oh, this feels like dieting. Am I on a diet now? And it's like, okay, well, how did the salad or the vegetable or the smoothie, how did it feel in your body? Is that what your body wanted? Did it feel good? Did it feel regulating? Did it stabilize your blood sugar levels? And so I feel like there's all these other questions, but it's just like, okay, if all foods fit, then I have to make sure that I'm also always...
Michelle Shapiro 19:17
All foods fit means bad foods only, I think, right? Like, healthy foods doesn't count. Let's make one distinction clear though too, intuitive eating professionals are not all all foods fit people. That's the all foods fit is like a tiny group of really registered dieticians who are posting like I had almost had a heart attack. I was watching a dietitian posted on their stories, this Frappuccino they were drinking that had 70 grams of sugar and at what at some point, I'm like, hey, you have people who are following you for health information objectively, and she said this really helped my relationship with food. Objectively, it is not necessary to consume a Starbucks Frappuccino in order to be healthy. In the same way, it's not necessary to have a smoothie to be healthy, healthy, quote unquote, smoothie. We have to be liable at some point as dieticians and you know, I'm hurting my own people. I love my dieticians. I'm a dietician, I love dietitians. I think they're the most like amazing people in the world. But like, there are things that are objectively non health promoting. And there are things that are objectively more health promoting. I think it's easier to point out what's not health promoting. And at some point, I really want us to return to a place where your therapist friends can post a picture of their freaking smoothies or salads without people also taking that on as a personal reflection of I have to eat that. Social media is tricky, because it feels like it has everything to do with you. But it just has nothing to do with you. They just want to eat a salad. But the powerful part of one of your therapist friends eating a smoothie or a salad is the fact that they could do it without thinking about it and just enjoy what they're eating. I think that is the power behind it. And ultimately, we're going towards the same direction. We hope all of us. Two ways, especially as dietitian, and you as a therapist, I want people to be physically healthier and mentally healthier, and you want people to have better relationships with food and be physically healthier. Our goals are kind of flipped like I have as a dietitian, you're more liable to have the physical health be a priority. I do believe that. And I believe for you mental health is more of a priority. But you and I practice in almost the same exact way. So it tells you that you can prioritize both without having to sacrifice one or the other. I don't think you have to eat on healthfully to have a good relationship with food. And there is such a thing as eating unhealthily. And that has nothing to do with being afraid to eat every meal. And being in a state of chronic stress. I think being afraid of a banana, even if you have a histamine intolerance is different than being afraid of, and I don't I don't know if the fear is afraid of but it's we don't want people I don't even want people to be afraid of diet soda, I don't care or soda, whatever it is, but I want people to connect how they are going to feel and what could happen in their long stream downstream effects of something with the food that they're having now without driving themselves crazy. I want that I want them to be able to do that, too.
Stephanie Mara 21:47
Yeah, what this makes me think of is kind of like the the definition of trauma is not the event itself. It's how your body processed it. And so if we kind of connect that with, it's not really about the food itself, it's how your body is processing it. And that also, if we just bring in this extra layer of okay, so we're talking about all of these foods and how they interact with your body differently. And I just want to come back for a second of like, what you were saying, yeah, some individuals will be supported by taking something out of their daily intake for a period of time and other individuals that will actually fuel their binge eating more, there isn't like a right strategy here, they are both going to work. And again, it's how your body is processing it, we have to look at the fact that how is my body processing this food. And it's processing differently, also for a bunch of different reasons as well, that someone who grew up, let's say, with secure attachment, and a non traumatic home environment...
Michelle Shapiro 22:42
You know people who have grown up that way? I've never met anyone like that.
Stephanie Mara 22:46
::Laughter:: It does exist. It does exist.
Michelle Shapiro 22:48
I'm like what people are you referencing? I don't know what you're talking about.
Stephanie Mara 22:51
Yeah. Yeah. I know. It's like, okay, like, if you grew up in that kind of environment, you have a very different nervous system. And so you have a very different digestive tract. So someone who's just like, oh, yeah, I can, I can just eat a piece of chocolate and like, move on with my day, like, it's just chocolate. It isn't about the food. It's about how that person was interacting and perceiving the chocolate that it digested differently in their body. And what I hear is people are like, I don't understand how that person could just eat that food and then just be fine and get over it. They're living in an entirely different body with a different nervous system than you are. And so it's not about that they can eat a piece of chocolate and move on. It's they are living in an entirely different internal state than you are in your life.
Michelle Shapiro 23:39
Exactly. And you know, it's interesting, like even my sister wouldn't mind me saying it, but she always says that to me, because we grew up in the same household with the same Holocaust DNA issues, you know, we grew up in the same place. And she used to say to me, like, you just don't care about food at all. And I'm just like, No, I literally don't. And it's interesting because I always grew up in a larger body and then lost weight through an eating disorder. And then after that foods not like even my thing, once food wasn't a tool to regulate my nervous system, I like didn't care about it anymore. It wasn't even that exciting for me it just it's like as a dietitian I like am the worst because I don't even like cooking like I'm just not that fun with food. What food did for me was like regulate my nervous system. And now that I actually regulate my nervous system using other tools, and very consistently and it's extremely hard work, food doesn't have the like allure for me so I could have potato chips or chocolate in my house and I would never think about it now. And I do and don't think about it because I work extremely hard. It does not come naturally to me at all to regulate my nervous system but I have to work 10 times as hard as other people when I come from that dysregulated background so that is absolutely true and holds true for like a lot of my clients. I think the goal of like working with either of us would be like getting to the place where like you can remove the emotion of that decision or the constant thinking around it which is real and biological and happening for people and turn it into like not change you into the person who doesn't care about chocolate but like hopefully that's the goal where you just don't really care that much. And you just end up what you're left with is enough space to make food decisions based on what you like. But also what makes you healthy. I think that's like really important. And we have so much abundance of choice now, which is a really powerful thing, but can also feel really debilitating for people too. So I think that the kind of first goal would be regulating your nervous system, and then food becomes so much less of a thing. It's just like, okay, yeah, I'll have it or I won't, this is gonna make me feel good or not, I need to do this. But that's the real work is the regulating your nervous system, then the food, actually, the goal is for foods become like not that important, not as unimportant as me eating bland, stupid foods that are an interesting but unimportant in that you're not hanging your hat on your next meal, you're not relying on the food to make you really feel good or bad. It just is what it is. It's great. It's social. It's, it's love, it's community. It's all those things. It's and it's wonderful. But it's not the difference between you having a panic attack or not. And I think that's like what the distinction is, and there is no liberalization of any food that can regulate your nervous system. So it doesn't do the work. Intuitive Eating doesn't do the somatic work. It is an important step often for people like you said for them to not feel super scared around food. And then at the end of the day Stephanie, like, I don't really care if people are pretty afraid of drinking regular soda, if they have diabetes. Afraid is different than like, don't want to do that. Like I like when people would make that choice for themselves if they're at a state where their body can handle that. And you know, like I think of something like blood sugar control, like there's kind of a window where your prediabetes can turn into diabetes, like pretty quickly, and it's a little bit like a boulder rolling down a hill. And in that time, if people are prioritizing, liberalizing foods over what symptoms they're experiencing, or what lab data is telling them, it can be like very dangerous. So we don't always have the luxury. And a lot of times, as you can imagine people who have extensive trauma also have extensive health issues. So it really depends on like, the person's time, you know, their timing, their privilege standpoint, of course, and all this. But often people can only prioritize liberalizing their relationship with food. It's just not the most important thing to people. Nervous system regulation and physical health are often more important.
Stephanie Mara 27:11
Yeah, yeah, I completely agree with that, you know, I think it's kind of assessing for you as an individual, because you are unique in what is going to feel most healing for you is deciding what needs my attention first. Because what I have found is even if someone is on that verge of maybe going into diabetes land that if they take the sugar out, and that is actually not the first step, so to speak, that resonates with them, that they actually need to feel safer around food and in their body first, they might end up binging on food. Now for other individuals, yeah, they might be at a place where I'm really scared to go over into diabetes land, and I am so ready to change how I'm eating that, yeah, maybe assessing and playing with eating differently, they might feel ready for that, that then they can focus on. Okay, why was I eating this way to begin with? And how was it supporting me and regulating me and I totally agree with that I had that kind of relationship with food as well. And so like, I think it's just assessing for yourself, this is why I wanted to talk about this middle ground, we're always I feel like trying to find what's the right way. Like I see this on social media, so much of like, this is the way, if you're not doing this, then all your other work isn't going to work. And it's like, well, it's got to be your way. And you are the only person that's going to know what's the first best step for you because you are the only person that lives in your body.
Michelle Shapiro 28:44
And all these things are tools, right? Like, nervous system regulation, intuitive eating, they're all valid tools. They're all really good tools. I just have never seen only one tool work for someone. And you know what, there's a season for each tool like I will tell you like I have clients again, I always bring this up like histamine intolerance because one of the worst diets like ever, but like if you have a histamine intolerance issue, and you're having like, even like really nourishing foods, like lemons, like bananas, like these are great foods, like they're unquestionably awesome foods, but your body's not recognizing them as being healthy. I never put people on a low histamine diet first. I'm like, let's see if we can add some supplements and get away with it before we have to do that. Because I know even elimination diets can be very triggering for people with disordered eating or eating disorders. But still, if someone eats a food high in histamine, they have diarrhea for like seven hours after like, the priority is not going to be feeling safe around food. Then they're going to create a debilitating fear of that food. And I'm like, wait, no, it's not always gonna be like this. Tell your body it's not always gonna be like this, but we can't aggravate the issue as is. And the reality is Stephanie 60 to 70% of the population is suffering from one or more chronic illness in this country. So the likelihood is, and what I see on social media a lot is like the intuitive eating dieticians, who I see are like very and I'm sure it's very true eating disorder community too if they're using intuitive eating and all foods fit, I mean in ways of therapists, not only dietitians, but very thin, able bodied people who absolutely have their basic needs met. And when your basic needs are met, food, shelter health, then you can focus on self actualization creating a great relationship with food, eating disorders, life threatening and a basic need and absolutely has to be treated aggressively and immediately but disordered eating in a non life threatening scenario is not often the most important thing for people's health. And I don't mean binge eating. I mean, like having disordered thoughts around food or feeling fearful of certain foods or something like certain foods, but you're still getting enough nutrition. And basically, when you are unable to get proper nutrition in and it's life threatening. Again, it's a completely different story. But just focusing on feeling restriction around food is not often a basic need to meet first, I don't know if that makes sense. But that's how I've been feeling recently is that I feel like it's a little bit privileged. It is privileged because my clients all suffer from really debilitating chronic illness until hopefully, we work together and then they feel better, you know, but they're coming to me very often with very serious chronic illness. And certainly, they're not interested in me wondering if they have a specific food fear of a processed food or a hyper palatable food or something like that. So we have to understand what's your timing on this? What's your priority on this? And is it your season, because sometimes for myself, even I'm like, I can't even think about the histamine thing. I myself have mass cell activation syndrome so I'm like I can't do this week, I can't, I'm just gonna take a lot of DAO supplements and just keep the histamines down, but eat what I want, and sometimes I'm like, I don't really care, I just don't need to eat that I'll swap the food out. It depends on like how resilient your body is in the moment. Also, for what tool you can tolerate, because different tools require different energy inputs from you, too. So for every single client I have, there's one week we're on intuitive eating, there's one week we're on the elimination diet, there's one week we're doing just supplements, it just depends on what the person needs in the time. But I would never limit my clients to only one tool. They have every tool and what you're talking about when you see all these people posting about it online, is they have one tool, one path one way, and that is just not how human beings work. If we know anything, it's that everyone is so ridiculously different.
Stephanie Mara 32:11
I so appreciate you bringing this in because I feel like a lot of the times when we see these messages of all foods fit or oh, you know, I could have ice cream today and you know, could have like one scoop and be great and you know, just get over it. And that one scoop of ice cream, if you have a dairy sensitivity could be kind of the most dysregulated thing that you could do for your body. Again, I always like to bring in compassion that maybe there's some impulse of wanting to dysregulate your body, there is that factor. But what I want to bring in is that you live in a unique body that yeah, if you are navigating also health symptoms this isn't you being on a diet, that's not what this is about. It is about can I view my relationship with food as something as a resource that could support me on the healing journey that I'm on, instead of something that is like either going to take me away from it, or I'm going to feel deprived if I don't do this, like it's just your relationship with food is going to change over and over and over again throughout your lifetime. So it's just like, what kind of relationship with food at this time of your life is going to most serve you now.
Michelle Shapiro 33:25
100%. And I think, again, even on an individual basis, there's certain months where I'm like, let's do low carb. And then I'm like, you can't do low carb, you're literally it's not only the thoughts about food or stuff that come up, I wake up immediately in the middle of the night. Even practitioners like us, we have varying times and seasons and places for things you have to know what your body what's right for your body at the right time. You start working out more you need to introduce more food like and this idea that at all times, all foods fit and at all times your body always needs the same thing, which is to just be like coddling yourself. There's times when that's literally not true. And we know this. It's so funny, because when we have dogs who are sick, right, like your dog who was knocking on the door before, so cute.
Stephanie Mara 34:06
And I talk about my dog on here a lot that he has a very sensitive digestive tract, I have had to make his own food and I've had to play with it and then change it and then change it again. So I love where you're going with this analogy.
Michelle Shapiro 34:19
Exactly. So we know when our dogs are sick, we have to give them a specific diet, but we don't treat our bodies in that way either. And I understand humans and I don't I don't want to offend dog lovers, I love dogs. But humans have a different kind of consciousness than dogs do, obviously. But we're kind of like giving all of our food making decisions to our like highest level of consciousness or like our maybe lowest level of consciousness, but highest known consciousness, which is the one that we can perceive when in reality. We're like dismissing the most like duh kind of things. Like when I think of us being sick, it's very obvious to me when clients come to me with chronic illness or autoimmune disease or something like that. I'm like oh, oh, you're literally not sleeping, your digestion is totally whacked, your livers totally off, like those essentials of being human are not being met. And it's always it always comes back to like those basics and foundations and the food restrictions are not solving any of those lifestyle problems. And resolving those food restrictions are also not solving any of those lifestyle problems, they might make you a little bit less anxious that helps that you don't have constant painful anxiety about it, which is important and real. But it doesn't make you know, if your dog was feeling sick, you wouldn't intentionally give them treats that are going to hurt its stomach, because it's like, oh, they'll feel better. It's like, well, you won't feel better because you're sickening them more. I think where we've gone is that we no longer believe as a people on social media, I don't know a practitioner, that we have the capacity to heal at all. And where that leaves us is, well, what can we do then if we can't heal the body, which me and you totally disagree with, I could not disagree more with that, if we can't heal the body, and we don't believe in healing the body, which the western model of medicine does not believe in, what can we do? Well, we can make things a little bit less anxiety inducing and repair our relationship with food. And that's not nearly enough for me. And I know, it's not nearly enough for my clients, either. If a client came to me and was sick with chronic illness and said, as a part of that, I want to help improve my relationship with food and I said, great, let's only focus on improving your relationship with food, they'd be like, but I'm sick. Like, what is? Why would I care about that? You know, it really depends on the person. I know how taxing and important eating disorders and just sort of relationships with food are, but they have to be one part of a health journey. They are not oftentimes the whole health journey, and they really shouldn't be when you're talking about registered dieticians working with clients. I don't know, in my opinion,
Stephanie Mara 36:42
Yeah. And what this makes me think of is you actually put out a lot on even the middle way of like a body change, for example. So when you're approaching, like wanting to change the body in a particular way, what I'm referring to is maybe a losing of weight.
Michelle Shapiro 36:59
Stephanie, how dare you! How could we talk about this!?!
Stephanie Mara 37:01
How could we talk about this!?! So you know, again, like, I think that this is multifaceted, and it's complicated. And I really take the approach that I don't know if we have quite figured out what supports someone in having a body change. So I just really bring in a lot of curiosity into this conversation in that if someone legitimately says, I just don't feel like myself in this body, I want to listen to that. I do want to kind of get curious about like, okay, how could we support feeling safer in the body exactly as it is right now. But what I often find is that even as that safety comes online, and this is kind of something I'm coming to in my work as well is that, there's still this sense of my body still just doesn't feel grounded here at this place. Now, I'm talking about someone who...
Michelle Shapiro 37:02
Is occupying a larger body versus someone who wants to lose like five pounds or something like that, like someone who...
Stephanie Mara 37:11
Right, exactly. That is just like, yeah, I have this, like, five to ten pounds that has just been hanging on and it's just like, okay, we can get curious about that. And, you know, this is such an interesting conversation to navigate, because I also am a proponent of Health at Every Size. And that, you know, we have different body shapes and sizes, and that legitimately for some individuals, it's like, this is your body, this is your genetics, this is what you were born with, your body may not be any different. And you can still support this body exactly how it is in thriving. But then I also bring in this curiosity of, okay, you know, if someone is feeling like, I don't really feel like my body is feeling very grounded here and they've done kind of the nervous system regulation work, I get really curious about that as well. So I just want, I know you talk about this a lot, so I would love to hear your thoughts on all this.
Michelle Shapiro 39:02
When it comes to weight. We have now made it in our social media climate, impossible to talk about wanting to lose weight in any way that is positive. We obviously know that. In the past, we attached weight, with morality, we always attached, you lose weight, you're better, you gain weight, you're worse. We know this is a huge issue. When you remove the morality from weight loss, it becomes very obvious to see that from a health perspective, some people do better at different body sizes. It's always bad to be underweight. And it's never bad to be overweight. It's kind of how it feels. Oh, I'm putting overweight in quotes because I don't really use BMI standard or anything for weight.
Stephanie Mara 39:43
Right. Over what weight?
Michelle Shapiro 39:45
Exactly. Yeah. But it's not only that, when you're occupying a larger body, your knees can hurt or something like that. Fat is like a bioactive substance in our body and it creates and by the way also stores toxins and trauma and all these things too. So wanting to release weight in some way is completely normal. And it can not only be feeling like you don't recognize who you look at in the mirror when you see yourself, which is something you want to work on with a therapist and more. Because obviously, no matter what your body size is, you should feel valid and worthy because you are at any body size. But to feel outside of just knee pain. There's other valid reasons. That's always the one that's like, well, what if someone has knee pain? Fine, there's other valid reasons to want to lose weight. And again, what's my problem with all this, Stephanie, is that we tell someone you shouldn't want to lose weight, you're still taking away their autonomy. No matter what, if you say you should want to eat every food, you should want to do all foods fit, you should want to do intuitive eating, it's the same problem I have over and over again, which is that like, there's no should. What do you actually want? And I think when we're being honest, I noticed a difference in myself, if I gain or lose 10 pounds, it makes a difference for me. I noticed real serious biological differences. But that's part of that fine tuning and connection with your body. And noticing the difference. Because muscle is also bioactive, like these, it's not just sitting on you, it's doing things interacting with every single part of your body, your fat cells release hormones, your muscle releases myokines that communicate with the rest of your body, there's an immune activity from our tissues, like there's a lot more to it than just our relationship with food and our relationship with our bodies. It's not always about making yourself more comfortable. Sometimes it is about changing things while you're making yourself comfortable and changing those things. And it's okay to want to lose weight. It's okay. Now, I'm not saying I think that we have grossly overestimated the relationship between health and our weight, though, I think that there is like such a gross overestimation of like, if you are bigger, you're going to die. Like that's a crazy incorrect thing that's been disproven. But now we've taken it to the other level, where we say weight is not correlated with your health. And I don't believe that's true, either. I do believe, especially when it comes to muscle versus fat mass, there's so much evidence, including insulin sensitivity, and all these things that are very related. And the answer to all these is not just to stop food restriction. That's not that is no, that's not it. That's one, maybe 1% of it, and it is something for people, but it's 1%.
Stephanie Mara 42:15
Yeah, yeah. Something that I often when someone comes to me, and is like, well, I want to stop my pattern of binge eating, let's say, for example, and I also want to lose weight, like we were talking about before, of you need to kind of decide where you're at and what is a top priority. What I often find in my work is that the binge eating needs to kind of be addressed first. And sometimes the weight loss needs to kind of be put on a shelf for a little bit so that you at first feel safe with food. But my perspective is okay, if you are doing a behavior that isn't sustainable to begin with that however that behavior is potentially changing in your body, that when you cease that food behavior, your body's probably going to change. Probably. Not always.
Michelle Shapiro 43:06
It really stinks when it doesn't. But it's it's not an always thing, but it often does. And yes, I would say reducing the total amount of food you're eating, if you're eating up quite a bit in would say reducing the total amount of food you're eating, if you're eating up quite a bit in binges may result in weight loss. Yes, I think that's...And it's crazy, that we have to talk like this, Stephanie, because it's so real and obvious. And like that, we have to tiptoe around it when people are smart. And they know that. People are smart, and they know that. And that's why I don't even want to condescend people by tiptoeing around it. Yes, most likely, if you're binge eating a tremendous amount of calories at any moment, it could result in weight gain in the long term. And that's not true again, for everyone, but it is true. I mean, for many, for sure.
Stephanie Mara 43:51
Yeah, I think what comes up for me when I enter into these conversations is that I would never want anyone to feel like it's their fault, you know, that it's just like, you get to bring in so much compassion on this journey, that it's, it's not your fault. While you're doing your food coping mechanism, it's not your fault, that your body shape is the way that it is. And so I think when individuals start talking about especially like in the fitness culture, that it's just like, you're just not doing it right, you need to gain more control, yada, yada, yada, all the toxic messaging that we get there, it's like, I want to just bring in so much compassion into this space that any way that your body is expressing itself is doing it for a reason. And it can be both physiological and emotional. You know, it's not just one it's not this one thing of like, you know, what has been debunked, I feel like at this point, and then there's other individuals that are like, this is still kind of true, you know, the calories in calories out thing that it's just like, that's not necessarily the total picture. Could it be a factor? Maybe.
Michelle Shapiro 44:52
That's a 1% thing for me like just like repairing your relationship with food for your overall mental and physical health as a small part of it. Calories in, calories out, it's a tiny part too. I mean, it's it really is there's so it's so much more involved and so much more precious and delicate than that when I'm saying all this, I'm saying it much more ragging on practitioners than I would ever put the personal accountability on any person, we are in an exact system for nervous system dysregulation, health issues. And so anyone who falls into patterns that feel unsafe for them, or patterns that do feel safe for them, or things that are not working out for their body or health, I think every single person is doing the absolute best that they can. And because of that, I don't want them to get the wrong message that they should be listening to anyone but themselves. So that's why I know this is like one of my more, I'm usually much more mushy and much more middle, but I find it's so problematic, because people are serious when they come to work with us, Stephanie, people are serious when they listen to this podcast, and I take them seriously. So if they want to improve their relationship with food, but also improve their health, and they're both really important, I take that seriously. I don't take that to mean, oh, let me tell them what I think they should do for themselves. Let me tell them what I think is good, or like, is the new cool thing. I want to know what the heck they actually want. And I want them to know that there's not only one tool, there's not only one path. And it's really what they need and what their timing is, but we never ever need to dismiss science in order to help people, we never have to lie to people and say, well, on one hand, your weight absolutely does not determine your worth factually true, done. Let's close that box and never even have to discuss it again. On the other hand, your weight can influence how you biologically are interacting with the rest, how your organs are interacting, and can influence how you feel and how you feel inside of your body. And that's also valid and real. And you don't have to like brainwash yourself to believing that that's not true, you could just believe that it's true, because it is true for you. You're not crazy. You're right. It's your body.
Stephanie Mara 46:39
Yeah, yeah, that's where I find that I feel like there needs to be again, this middle place of it's both, you might be at a place where you've been trying to force your body into being a smaller body for way too long. You feel like it is fueling your food coping mechanisms, because now you are constantly dysregulated because your body doesn't feel safe just to be here as it is, that might be the place that you need to start with is just allowing yourself to relax into your body as it is. Or you might be in a place where you've been relaxing into your body image for a really, really long time and you still don't feel the way you want to feel in your body. And I don't want to diminish that either. That there are people out there like you who could say, okay, I want to take that seriously, you've been doing the emotional work and let's take a look inside, let's make sure that everything's in balance. Let's actually see like, okay, is there something that your body is trying to tell us through how it's expressing itself in the world that something is potentially out of alignment.
Michelle Shapiro 48:06
Exactly. I think where we're seeing, and I'm sure you're seeing this with your clients, I'm certainly seeing with my clients is that the buck stops after the relationship with food. That's what it seems like. It's like, oh, that's it. Now, you're not allowed to have those other concerns. And we can't address those concerns here. I've had so many clients come to me, Stephanie, in the past three years, saying that they wanted to lose weight, we're working with a HAES practitioner, who again are necessary vital practitioners who I love essential health care workers, honestly, but then wanted to lose weight or improve their digestive health. And they said, you shouldn't want to lose weight so we can work together, but weight is off the table permanently. Weight very often has to be taken off the table in the short term. That's a fact I completely agree with you, it has to be taken off the table in the short term. Very often, from a safety perspective, your body can't really know what's coming either. You can't like say I'm going to starve you and then do it. There are too many psychological consequences of that. But from someone coming to me and saying that's important to them, we can say let's set a timeline for it. Let's not throw it out. Totally, let's just set let's say realistically, this is how we might have to go about things from a priority perspective, and from a safety perspective for your health, because you have to prioritize whatever is important to them. But you also have to prioritize what's right for their body. And that's something that a really skilled practitioner can do. And then we're going to come back to it. And I always tell my clients when we're working on other things before we work on weight loss, I say I'm just telling your body, I'm not forgetting that you want to lose weight. I'm just telling your body directly. Forget about your brain, I'm telling your body. I'm not leaving you hanging. I know what's important to you. But we have to shelve it, and we are coming back to it and then we come back to it because if I say that I mean it. And then we do come back to it when the time is right.
Stephanie Mara 49:45
Yeah, yeah. And I think just what we're talking about this topic of a body change, is that how you mentally think your body should look and how much weight you think you should lose, you can't choose. So if you're like, I'm coming to you to lose X amount of pounds, that is coming from your brain. And like, where is that coming from? Where is that number coming from?
Michelle Shapiro 50:13
A random thing you read in a magazine. Probably. Exactly. That is hilarious. Yeah, it's like, exactly.
Stephanie Mara 50:20
Yeah, you know, it maybe was a weight you were at a time of your life where it was the happiest time of your life, you felt like you were the most regulated at that time of your life. And really, you want to get back to that time of your life, not necessarily the body shape. So, you know, I think we just get to bring in a lot of curiosity around these goals that we mentally create, because your body is going to tell you. So I want to do this also in the opposite direction, because I actually work with some individuals who are underweight, and not necessarily in the anorexic realm, that actually they have quite a hard time gaining weight.
Michelle Shapiro 50:57
They just have a metabolic, like a quick metabolism, essentially. And it's hard for them to gain weight.
Stephanie Mara 51:01
Yeah. There's a whole digestion is impaired, there's a whole bunch of things that are happening, but it's actually living in a dysregulated body, sometimes it goes the opposite way where someone could eat and eat and eat and their bodies just not absorbing it. So you know that it's also like, you have to find the place that on a felt sense that body shape feels the most regulating to you. So when someone says I just don't feel like safe or grounded in this body, there can be both a physiological and an emotional component to that. But also, I've seen individuals try to push themselves towards the lowest part of their weight range and they actually feel very ungrounded, constantly anxiety provoking, and then when they allow themselves just to like, eat more and let their body be where it wants to be that's where we have to step out of the mind of just saying, Oh, this is where I'm supposed to be and saying, oh, you know what, actually five pounds difference, 10 pounds difference, 15 pounds differece actually more, helps me feel more grounded in my body that then it's I think there's a grieving part there of like what you thought you should be, and then actually integrating the body feedback of oh but this is where my body's actually giving me the feedback that I've been waiting and looking for that this is where it feels the most alive and free and grounded and regulated.
Michelle Shapiro 52:20
I think this idea that we have a weight set point or a sweet spot is very hard for people to accept and tolerate. Because now we've taken that limit off and said, all weights are up for grabs, basically, unless you're underweight, which is very bad, you know, and there's definitely a sweet spot when it comes to it. And there's also like a, I don't know, if you shoot for the stars, but land on the moon thing, when you're losing weight, where it's like, you'll know when you're feeling more settled when you stop feeling so out of your body. Because part of that is, like you said, an emotional experience, you do the emotional work and part of it might be a physical experience. So you might actually feel like, here I am, I'm in a home that I recognize. And this is like where I'm living and it feels safe in here. If you have an extensive history of trauma, as discussed with everyone I've ever met, you might not be able to understand the safety signal of what that physical body is, which is why it's so important to do the emotional work first, because you're not going to know you're safe until you know you're safe. So even if you are in a body that's at the right size, or function or form, you're not going to know you're there if you are using your mental state to push you in a perfectionism way. And it's like, okay, there's this Googoo Dolls lyric that I'm obsessed with. And it's like, you can't see when all your dreams are coming true. And I was like love that. Because you can achieve so many of these things. But if you're not feeling it, and you're not feeling at home, and you're not feeling safe, you're never going to acknowledge what you've done or where you are. So it's it is equally as important to treat the emotional as it is to treat the physical and at the same time, because then you also get into a place where you're like, I'm loving where I am from a mental standpoint, but I'm hating where I am from a physical standpoint, and then you just start kind of gaslighting yourself. And that's kind of what I really don't like about the social media stuff is that it's like, No, you're good. It's like, but I'm telling you, I'm not good. I'm telling you right now I don't feel good. It's like, Nah, you're good. That's just in your head. It's like, but I did the emotional work, and I still don't feel good, then you can do the physical. And I think you know, I hate to tell people it's not the time to lose weight, because it's very, it's like a mean thing to hear. I even have a quiz on my website, is it the right time to lose weight? And someone killed me, they emailed me and were like, wow, you don't just say yes to everyone. I'm like, oh, no, of course not. That's that's the whole point of it. But they were like, I made it very sensitive if they got a no from the quiz. I was like, no, but sorry, hold on, you know, and it's not no, never. It's no, but not right now. Probably.
Stephanie Mara 54:38
Yeah. Yeah. And one of the other reasons and you know, we can wrap up soon after this that I wanted to bring in that I would...
Michelle Shapiro 54:44
Never!
Stephanie Mara 54:45
I feel the same way! I wanted to come have you back on is how much we both have been talking about how much trauma and weight loss is being connected on social media, which makes me so angry and disgusted because the point of trauma work and healing is not to then have your body change, you might get a body change because your body just feels safer and more regulated and you're living more in the parasympathetic nervous system, but that is not the end result of everyone and the purpose of trauma healing at all. And I just kind of wanted to bring this in as a last piece that maybe we explore, because I think that that's something that you just started to kind of go towards is how much individuals expect, okay, maybe if I finally release the trauma from my body, then I can release weight. And a lot of individuals are connecting those two, and they are basically capitalizing on that belief or that side.
Michelle Shapiro 55:45
Yeah, that's straight up diet culture in a different form. Again, who are the people who are mostly posting that by the way, it's like thin white women who are like always posting the same thing, and they're like shaking on the floor. And they're like, once I did this, I lost those 20 pounds and like, it's it's a Jenny Craig commercial, but trauma. Like it's the same, it's the same thing. Trauma work stands to save your life. Trauma work stands to make your wildest dreams come true, it does not stand as a physical tool to lose weight, there is no belief of mine that shaking or doing trauma therapy will result in direct weight loss. It doesn't do that. It results in a pathway of safeness where your metabolism and your body and your hormones can activate properly, hopefully, but to believe that you could shake it out, and that that's going to cause weight loss is not true. And it's extremely misleading. And it's extremely cruel, I believe, to tell people that to sell a fake promise to use someone's ultimate worst pain to possibly perpetuate that and I tell you something, Stephanie, I've actually seen the opposite happen oftentimes, when people are doing trauma work, because trauma work is very uncomfortable and very intense. I noticed that they need more nervous system regulation during those times more than anything else. So there is no cellular notion that when we go through trauma therapy, that weight loss is a direct result. Can it be a long term indirect result? Yes. And is it extremely misleading to say otherwise? Absolutely. And I feel terrible that's the messaging that people are seeing.
Stephanie Mara 57:13
Yeah, I feel the exact same way. And to the point that you were just making it sometimes actually, you might need to sleep and eat more.
Michelle Shapiro 57:21
Isn't that true for most people? I feel like it's like, you're so scared, you're so dysregulated, you're kind of like pulling up really intense stuff from the inside of your body, you're pulling up toxins, if anything, I can see when people aren't even doing detoxes, if you don't have your lymphatic straight, if you don't have your drainage pathways, you know, on point, it could cause the opposite. Now, I'm not dissuading anyone from doing that, please get any support you need. But what I am saying is, the intention needs to be the long haul. First of all, always a trauma therapy and the intention needs to be the emotional work, it is not again, a physical solution. Now, I will tell you two people with digestive issues, it's the same exact conversation, because if you do release trauma, and you are able to heal, and whatever means possible from trauma, it makes digestive issues and the pathway to healing them better. But if you have a parasite, trauma healing doesn't kill the parasite. Intuitive Eating doesn't stop the parasite from hurting your digestion. If the cause of your weight gain is that you're eating because of trauma, then very much likely, the pathway to weight loss would be the opposite. But if you're gaining weight, because you have PCOS, and your hormones are not balanced, trauma therapy is not going to fix your PCOS. That's not how that's not our understanding of what this work is.
Stephanie Mara 58:34
Yeah, yeah. And, you know, the way that I like to think of it, if we work this backwards is okay, so let's say you experienced a trauma as a baby or a child or a kid, and that that left you in a very dysregulated nervous system. Now, the longer that you stay there, the more that your body is going to get out of balance. And so yeah, then maybe you get microbiome disruption, then maybe your hormones, your hormones get off. And so yes, the trauma originally needs to be healed, but that doesn't heal the microbiome disruption then you also have to do that as well. And again, it's not this one or the other, it's not, oh, I have to do this and that's going to solve all my issues. Sometimes it's all of the above. And I know that can be really frustrating. I think also when a lot of this isn't covered by health insurance, and that a lot of individuals have to work with a bunch of different practitioners and they're trying to find the best support that they can, I know that I experienced this a lot on my own journey, that it was like I had to find the next practitioner and the next practitioner to work with to get to the healing that I was looking for. And I think that's one of the the difficult parts is finding someone who really gets it and really sees you and doesn't just narrow it down to this one thing that a lot of practitioners want to do. Okay, like if you heal this one thing, like then then you'll get there and it's like, okay, we're gonna work on this one thing together. And then you might need to go work with my colleague over here that I'm going to refer you to. And then that person might be like, great, you healed that and you healed that. Okay, now we have to work on this. Because what trauma does is it can disrupt so many different layers of your body. And if you've been living in a dysregulated body for 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years of your life, it is actually going to be like an onion, of peeling back the layers. And sure, yeah, working with the therapist is one part of it working with someone like me is part of it, working with someone like you is part of it, there's actually a lot of different avenues you are going to need to go down to get towards living in a body that feels safer to inhabit.
Michelle Shapiro 1:00:39
Exactly. And you might need the body work person like there's like, you know, you might need like every different angle, so you might want to also titrate it one person at a time. And also, I would say just my greatest piece of advice for all people is just the thing you can do at home for free is get those damn foundations locked in, get your blood sugar, get your nervous system, get your sleep, get your hydration locked in. If you can get those foundations of sunlight, human connection, those foundations of being a human locked in, the rest of the work, you can be more selective with who you go to, if you are really especially financially conscious or don't have the privilege of working with a bunch of practitioners, which most people don't, if you're in that spot, get your stuff and align first. Get your essentials down packed, because then you'll see very obviously, what problems are still there. Because a lot of times, the first month of working with me, I want to be making sure you're getting those essentials down packed anyway. So that would be my advice for someone too and like you said, Stephanie, when it comes to like the childhood dysbiosis or something like that, trauma is not the event, it's our reaction to the event. So fixing the trauma doesn't fix the reaction that happens from the trauma. So then you have to fix the reaction. So I say this all the time, too. It's like with COVID how we saw all these people have mass cell activation syndrome too. Having COVID sucked like that definitely suffer, it was horrible. And then more importantly, for many people, was what that immune response did to their bodies. So again, if you fix the COVID, you get rid of COVID, great, what are you going to do that immune attack, that's still happening a year later for people. And that's the same thing with trauma, you're not going to instantly lose weight, because you have to fix all the cellular and hormonal stuff that happened as a result of the trauma in the first place, which is very hard to do without fixing the actual trauma out of your body. It's all extremely complicated. But if you are doing the essentials of being a human, it makes a lot of it easier, have to be honest, and especially exploring the root cause a lot easier too.
Stephanie Mara 1:02:30
Yeah, I think this is a great place to end. I'm wondering if you could list out what these essentials are.
Michelle Shapiro 1:02:36
Yeah, drink eight cups of water per day minimum, it should be closer to like, I'd say 10 cups of water per day, drink 80 ounces of water per day. Sleep as much as you can close as close to eight hours as you can. That's really hard. It's that's not telling you how to do it thing that's telling you what to do, which is like super not helpful. But I have a whole sleep episode on my podcast, there's a tremendous amount of sleep information out there. Make sure you're talking to people that you like and who understand you as a human being on a daily basis. Talking to people who we don't like or talking to people who don't get us is just as bad as being alone. So connect with human beings. Wake up and get 30 minutes of natural sunlight in the morning. Connect with nature at least once a week, we're supposed to spend almost all of our time outside. And then every time you are doing anything in your life. Check in with how you're feeling. Just check in with yourself more than you think is appropriate. Check in with yourself. That doesn't mean be hypervigilant. But check in with yourself in an authentic way. Blood sugar regulation, I would say eating regular meals that have protein every few hours, and carbs and fat that are in a balanced way. And then nervous system regulation doing any of the things you're going to learn from Stephanie on this podcast, take one little tiny bit from any of her Instagrams, from her shows from her courses from her work one on one work, take one of those things and implement it every single day. If you can do all of that, which is a freakin hard thing to do, the rest of the health stuff becomes a lot less complicated. And that's the honest truth. That's the secret that the wellness industry doesn't want you to know. And that is the absolute truth.
Stephanie Mara 1:04:03
Yeah, I 100% agree that because these are everything you just listed, they're within our own power and they're free. They're absolutely free. You can take a walk outside and take a fresh breath of air whenever you're starting to feel overwhelmed and stressed and just hug a tree.
Michelle Shapiro 1:04:20
Exactly, yeah, we just don't live in any sort of way that's in congruence with how the human body is supposed to operate like at all. And then I would also just say like spend less time on your phone if you can, it's hard but like that's, it's another one that's really big. But again, if we can nail four out of those, let's say five or six down, you're gonna see your health problems right off the bat change, you're gonna see your relationship with food, even change when you're honoring your body and walking just freakin walking. When you're honoring your body on a daily basis in all those ways, you're going to want to honor your body when it comes to food and all those things too and you won't have as much dysregulation because you'll feel inside of your body as opposed to we're staring at a phone all day not connecting with nature, other people, we feel very outside of our body. So get inside of your body whatever way you can, even if it's not a great place to be right now, tolerate being inside of your body as much as you can.
Stephanie Mara 1:05:09
So well said. How can individuals keep in touch with you and all the amazing work you do in the world?
Michelle Shapiro 1:05:14
They can find me on Instagram @MichelleShapirord. I work one on one with clients. As we talked about, my staff dietitian is accepting clients Nikki, she's awesome. And I'm mostly on Instagram. I'm fakely on TikTok. And then you can find me on my podcast Quiet the Diet.
Stephanie Mara 1:05:28
Yeah, and I will reshare so I was also on Michelle's podcast. And we've done another episode and I will share both of those episodes in the show links so that you can all have access to that as well.
Michelle Shapiro 1:05:41
Stephanie, your episode was one of my favorite things I've ever done in my life and my career. So I really hope you guys listen. And I thank you for letting me be harsh while still I know that you understand it's coming from a place of true love and protection for all of you. And I will also say that if I said something like, hey, Coca Cola is not good for you, think about for yourself this whole episode, if that triggered you think about why it triggered you as opposed to oh my god, I have an eating disorder, oh my god I have disordered eating, think about what that meant for you and what part of your body is communicating with you think about the messages you're receiving if they're triggering you or they're not and what that means to you. And thank you so much for having me on. Obviously, Stephanie.
Stephanie Mara 1:06:22
Yeah, such an awesome note to end on. I always love connecting with you. Thank you so much
Michelle Shapiro 1:06:30
I couldn't thank you more or be more honored.
Stephanie Mara 1:06:32
Yeah, well to all that are listening, if you have any questions, I will also leave our email and our contact in the show notes. So reach out anytime and I look forward to connecting with you all again soon. Bye!
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