206: Not Passing Down Unhealthy Food Mindsets and Eating Disorders with Psychologist Dr. Shawn Hondorp

1 (1s):
My name’s Randi Rubenstein and welcome to the Mastermind Parenting podcast at Mastermind Parenting, we’re on a mission to support strong-willed kids and the families that love them.

0 (13s):
Okay. Hi, I’m so glad that you’re here, Shawn. I wanna briefly introduce you if that’s okay. I’m gonna reach a bio so I know it can be cring to just, just cover your ears. Got it. Okay. Shawn Hor is a more certified health Psychologist. There we go. And health expert. She earned her doctorate from Dressing University in Philadelphia and completed her pre-doctoral internship in Fellowship in Health Psychology at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. She’s a top rated podcast called Motivation Made Easy Body Respect True Health, where she outlines effective approaches to improve health and well being by looking at how research and real world experience collide via conversation and personal stories.

0 (59s):
She has unique training and experiences, is the good part you guys. This is the part you care about. She has unique training and experience doing research and patient care in the fields of weight management and eating disorders at top rated hospitals and universities around the country, including but not limited to. Michigan, State, University, University of Chicago, Eating Disorders, Program, Drexel, University, Penn, Center for Eating and Weight. Disorders and Rush. University Medical Center. She lives in Grand, Rapids Michigan with her husband and two kids and pug named Teddy. Her Dream Vacation Day is hiking along a lake surrounded by mountains, holding a warm cup of coffee, followed by delicious center and soap and hot tub with an ice cold.

0 (1m 43s):
Ica. Very descriptive, right? You’re very descriptive. So thanks for being here. I appreciate being here. Okay, so here’s a back story was why I invited Shawn on the podcast. So Shawn is currently a member in my basics bootcamp program. You saw you joined in the Last Coach Week. You, how did you find us exactly? I, I searched a podcast for Parenting, strong willed kids and podcast and I started listening not that long ago, and then I did coach week and jumped in that I’ve been in the program for, what, nine ish weeks.

0 (2m 26s):
That’s been great changing. Well, you added so much to the group and you know, it’s so coach we, for anybody that doesn’t know is how I’m, it’s kind of like a mini program where it’s free. Actually, last time it wasn’t free, but this, Yeah, I stayed a little bit for it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which that’s kind of, And the only reason you paid a little bit for it honestly, was because I just felt like sometimes what people invest then more likely to actually like invest their time and get more ABPP. For sure. So this time we’re, we’re doing it for free. It’s coming up in October, I think October 10th is our next coach week.

0 (3m 7s):
So we’ll see. We’ll see. But the bottom line is, is that we have had the most amazing group that came out of that Coach week and youth brought so much to the group. Obviously when you signed up, I didn’t know about your expertise and as the program unfolded, because most of the people taking part in the program, like 95% of the people taking part in the program are female. And many of us have a history with body image down our relationships with our body, and then we want to raise even healthier humans than we are.

0 (3m 50s):
I think that would probably be the goal or the dream for many of us. Would you agree with that? Oh yeah, yeah, that’s right. So and so, you know, in a very respectful way, you came forth and you let us know. So I got a little bit of information and some knowledge. I maybe studied this for gazillion years and I story, and so you brought that expertise to the group and I think it’s really impacted the group in such a big way. And I was like, okay, we need to have a podcast episode because the rest of the podcast listeners need to be able to benefit from what our current group is spending from in terms of your knowledge.

0 (4m 34s):
So yeah. Yeah, yeah. It’s been, it’s been fun. And I’ll add that I, I left the healthcare like a standard healthcare job I worked at, I was always working in hospitals. It’s been almost two years now and I’ve been on this interesting journey where I’m like bringing my professional experience more and more into my personal world and it’s been really good. And I think this group is just one example of how, whether or not people have like a diagnosed civil eating issue or concerns with their weight or their health, this is like you’ve kind of alluded to, it’s all, I have always thought of these, these issues, if you will, on a continuum.

0 (5m 17s):
And I’ve done a lot of work to heal my relationship with food and I, and now end up having these conversations in my personal life where I’m like, ooh, there’s, even though they’re not someone that maybe would seek out therapy, they would greatly benefit from unpacking and realizing that the way we are training, the way we think about eating and weight is there’s a lot of flaws with it, which is what we’re gonna talk about today. So. Well, and will you share, like, I don’t remember when it was, but you shared with the group why you ended up going into this field and how you were looking for the resources and just kind of like talk about even like where the gaps are and, and what you realize that would be helpful I think.

0 (6m 3s):
Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think looking back now, I think I had an inherent interest in this field partly to try to heal myself. And I started studying like the Psychology of eating behavior really early on. I had some really great mentorship early on and it was more about genetics of eating Disorders. But then I went to grad school and my focus really since then, it’s been Unhealthy people change their behavior and, and it’s interesting, I know we talked in the group about language and I, I use very different language than I used to. So my dissertation and my grad school experiences was on like weight loss, kind of obesity, treatment and prevention.

0 (6m 44s):
I don’t use the term obesity anymore because it’s based on a bmi, which I know will probably talk in, talk about. But basically it’s just a very poor measure of health. So I don’t use those terms now because they’re based on a term that’s just not very helpful. But yeah, I essentially went through undergrad, grad school, many, like grad school is five years and then two year fellowship, like all these years of training. And mostly a lot of the work I was doing was weight loss trials. So people trying to lose weight with like calorie counting and like healthy kind of, I mean, I would say different than Weight Watchers, but like kind of just our standard like non-surgical approaches to weight loss.

0 (7m 27s):
Like restrict your calories, eat a little bit less, exercise a little bit more. And, and really looking back, like I was stuck in my own cycle of like chronic anxiety, binge eating. I’ve shared a little bit, like it’s, at times I, I looked very disordered from the outside. No one would’ve known, but like I was very disordered in my thinking, but I also had periods of relative like feeling pretty good with food. And so I, so I’ve fallen on different phases of the continuum throughout my journey. Like you think of like someone who has an eating disorder as looking a certain way or acting a certain way.

0 (8m 7s):
And that’s just a huge myth. People can have eating Disorders in all body sizes and they can eat all different ways when you’re around them and they can talk about food in all different ways. So, but yeah, I was, I kind of, I would say I like healed my own relationship with food. I forget probably eight or 10 years ago now. I’ve felt very free and grounded and, and how I relate how I trust my body for a number of years now. But I eventually, I, I was, a lot of my work in healthcare has been the last job I’ve had. I worked in weight loss surgery, so bariatric surgery for part of the time that I worked in preventative cardiology for the other part of the time.

0 (8m 49s):
It was just really hard to do meaningful, effective work within the healthcare system for a bunch of reasons. So I’ve kind of gone off on my own. I have a podcast and I do practice one on one with people helping them with, with this. And I do have a online program that’s kind of shifting and evolving in terms of how I’m helping people in a more innovative way. But yeah, I just think there’s, I would say the main gaps are we are a very weight focused, weight centric culture and that harms people at all body sizes because we’re just basically told like smaller bodies are better socially but also healthier and that the health argument ends up being sort of a, it, it sounds plausible, right?

0 (9m 37s):
Like lose weight, feel better, get healthier, but it’s, it’s really a flawed argument for a bunch of reasons. And unhooking from that, accepting diverse bodies are, are like, there’s supposed to be a variety of body sizes, body types and we spend so much energy, effort and money trying to control and we usually shrink our bodies or sometimes for, you know, more often for men trying to bulk up, right? But trying to like arbitrarily change our bodies in a way that it really doesn’t serve our health, it doesn’t work with our bodies and it works against it. It throws off all of our systems. So we’re basically out of touch and that causes tons of problems down the road.

0 (10m 22s):
So if you had to boil it down to let’s say like one or two sentences, people who, which is a lot of us, all different shapes and sizes, having Unhealthy relationships, you know, just not loving our bodies, wishing that our bodies were different than they are. And they go and they’re like, Okay, here’s my problem. Let’s say they, they’re super self-aware. It’s a person super self-aware and it’s a mom, I’m gonna get more green alert, it’s a mom and she knows that she doesn’t have the healthiest relationship with her own body.

0 (11m 5s):
She’s constant, like she tries on a pair of pants. I remember this like for like, I don’t know, 10 years or something. I carry probably not a ton of weight, extra weight, but like maybe an extra 12 pounds more than I wished I weighed. So my body was 12 pounds bigger, let’s shift and the way I gain weight is it’s kind of all over. So I looked fine, like nobody would ever would’ve looked at me and said, Oh my god, she really needs to take a few pounds off or whatever. What happened? She ent it all go like I pull it off air. I was wasting so much bandwidth like when it came to getting dressed, even dressed for the day and things that looked like I kind of just like picked up stuff off my floor and threw it on.

0 (11m 52s):
But I was still sometimes like trying on three pairs of pants or when it was time to actually go out, let’s say for a Saturday night or to a special event, I had to get dressed. I would stress about it, I would try on multiple outfits, I would waste time, ugh, if we were going on a beach vacation or whatever, I was like, Oh God, like I have to try my bathing suits or God forbid I would have to go bathing suits shopping. I was just wasting a lot of of my energy on this issue that I knew was superficial and I knew I wanted to be thinking about things that were more important than that. But if I’m, if I’m truly honest, there was a ton of time and energy spent on this ridiculousness and I knew it was ridiculous, but I didn’t know how to change this pattern.

0 (12m 46s):
I didn’t know how to feel better at that time in my body. I didn’t have the Motivation to truly eat less and exercise more. And I also knew that I did not want to pass this pattern down to my kids and specifically my daughter. So let’s just say I’m so self-aware at that time, which I wasn’t, that I was like, okay, I’m wasting way too much bandwidth on this, on this superficial issue. I wanna get this under control. I wanna solve this problem and I have to solve this problem if I don’t wanna pass it down to my daughter.

0 (13m 26s):
And so I go to the traditional medical professionals and I say, How can you help me solve this problem? How do the traditional medical professionals aim to help me solve this problem? Yeah, it’s a great question. Usually they wouldn’t do the work that I think you do so well and I try to do, which is like digging deeper. The image I often use is like the, you know, that tip of the iceberg image. I’ve been really into that image lately where you see the top of the iceberg and that’s the behavior, right? That’s the, the, I feed myself this or I do this exercise or I tell my kids this, the behaviors that are on the surface and more obvious.

0 (14m 15s):
And I think the traditional medical professionals usually are focused on the behavior. They’re focused on what is that person’s weight. So probably for you they would be like, don’t stress about it, it’s fine. Like your body’s great. Like they would probably tell you something like that and you’d be like, okay, this doesn’t really health because I still feel really ashamed of how I’m feeling and I, I already know that I shouldn’t be stressed about this. So then you probably just feel more ashamed, feel more bad, and you don’t really have a solution, right? First is understanding that like the issue is that, I mean, bodies do change and morph over time, but probably the biggest problem for you was just that internalized judgment and shame and trying to like fix it biologically.

0 (14m 57s):
Telling yourself this doesn’t make sense. Don’t think this way you’re gonna harm your daughter. Right? And that doesn’t help, that doesn’t help anyone. And I think so many people and women especially get so caught up in like, I should accept bodies in a diverse size, but all of us are implicitly conditioned to believe that smaller bodies are better. And we’re all, like, they’ve done a lot of research on weight bias and sometimes you’ll give the term fatphobia because the, the word fat is sort of trying to be like reclaimed. And so people have different thoughts about that, those words. But essentially weight bias is just judging someone based on their body size.

0 (15m 37s):
And the medical professionals usually were trained in that bottle. I know I was. And so they are coming to it not really understanding that. So they’re gonna treat you different probably than someone who comes in and says, I’m worried about Passing my food issues down to my daughter and they are in a larger body. So I, they’re probably gonna be given different advice and probably more harmful advice, maybe accidentally saying, Well you could really work out Elle’s habits and then that would really help your daughter. That person’s probably gonna get more entrenched in their shame, right? And most people, they’re in a larger body size, they get different medical care, they get different messages about what’s their fault and basically their fault like weight’s controllable.

0 (16m 23s):
And, and what we know from research is that our weight is highly determined by our genetics and our biology. Yeah, there’s, and most of us have some degree of control, but not much. It’s really a much narrower degree of control. And the problem is when we start to micromanage our body and not listen to its signal, that’s what causes weight gain over time. Poor health outcomes. But we are not really taught to like work with our bodies. We’re taught ignore it signals or Hey, this program you’ll never feel hungry. Isn’t that great? So well adaptive. The, the thing I think it that, and tell me if I’m wrong on this, the thing that our traditional medical model misses is that many of us learn early on that one of the fastest, easiest ways to feel immediately better in our body is to grab some type of, so to either cure our, you know, to really quell not to cure, to quell our, the, let’s say like the negative feelings you’re feeling in your body because you’re bored, right?

0 (17m 40s):
Like I don’t know what to do with myself. I’m going just mindlessly go to the pantry and grab something sugary or carve to quickly snack on or something upset me today I had a hard day. And as we get older, a lot of times I think people also use other things, you know, alcohol or drugs or whatever or online shopping or social media or whatever it is. But it’s like one of the instant wings feel better. And I remember like I remember binge eating when I like hiding and binge eating when I was like five. Like I remember binge eating where I was five and I remember like knowing that it needed to be a secret, didn’t want my, you know, parents to find me.

0 (18m 30s):
And I mean I had some trauma happen when, from the ages of four to five and I distinctly remember. So as a little tiny child I learned, okay, I must have been having all kinds of feelings in my body from the trauma. I didn’t have any adults helping you with that. Helping me to understand that, helping me to find the right resources to help through my trauma. So as a resourceful little teeny tiny human who was probably confused at how I concealed better cause I just knew I felt terrible. I sound shivering, junky air quotes, food and, and it made and I ate it and I was like, yeah, it works better.

0 (19m 19s):
And I felt better and I felt better. So, so there then conditioning began right there. The conditioning and, and only through time have I sound out, I really was like, I wonder how I could have had a better relationship or I couldn’t have been helped. And, and what I really came to was this whole thing that you just talked about keeping our body small. Like I have a distinct memory of my bo I was in like I think third grade my mom came home from, she’d got her, my dad had gone out town and she’d gone to in outlet mall or something and she bought me two pairs of short.

0 (20m 2s):
So I’m in third grade so I’m probably like nineish. And she brought them home and I tried them on. So I was considered a little chubby, not like, you know, I don’t, in this day and age, I don’t think any doctor would’ve been saying my, maybe a doctor in this day and age would’ve said my, I was really high. But I was like a little bit, I was very inactive, I was a little chubby and or I was considered a little chubby. And she comes home and I third grade and she either had a size 12 or 14, but she bought size. She probably, cause that’s what they had the out mall slim. So they were like maybe 14 slim or 12 slim.

0 (20m 44s):
And I tried ’em on, I don’t remember, I couldn’t get into but for my belly. And I remember her getting mad at me like, Damnit Randi, I can’t return these. I bought ’em at an outlet mall that was out of town and I can’t return these. And I remember feeling so much shame and, and that story I held onto for so long and I was relieved, angry at my mom that like she took little third grade old me and, and you know, she was just, she was frustrated probably because she was like, damnit, I wasted money. She wanted to do something nice for me, she wanted to come home and bridge and then, you know, that shame message was, you know, disturbed upon me.

0 (21m 24s):
So I was really mad at her. But when I done into it through the work that, you know, we do in the program, the mind mastery piece, which is what’s, what’s really the story I realized like my mom was always a very thin woman and that was part of her identity. And really she had an older brother who had been a, a huge bully and and my mom, it was my mom came from a family where there were four kids in five years. Boy, girl, girl, girl. And my mom was the second girl. Her older sister and younger sister struggled with their weight.

0 (22m 7s):
Her older sister, there was only enough money evidently to send the kids that had a reason to go to camp. To camp. And her older sister got to go to fat, fat camp like back in that, those days, right? 1950s they sent her to fat camp. So the older brother who was apparently a big bully and he was a big boy, you know, so he went to fat camp and the immediate younger sister went to fat camp. My mom desperately wanted to go to camp. She was too thin, she didn’t get to go to camp. So she was the skinny one in the family. And the older brother apparently bullied her older sister who was only a year older than my mom relentlessly.

0 (22m 49s):
Her older sister was just teased and bullied relentlessly, You’re so pretty, you could only lose the weight. Blah blah blah blah, blah. MI mom, my theory, and I don’t know if I’m right, I don’t know if I’m wrong, my mom passed away last summer. She never talked about things from her past like this. She never verified it. But the theory I came up with is my mom being the thin one flying under the radar, it protected her. And, and so when she damn it Randi, you know, when she got mad at me, which I took as, you know, there’s something wrong with me obviously I think it was actually my mom’s protective part that really was like, don’t you understand what keeps us safe is being tin.

0 (23m 42s):
You need to be tinier. Yep. So, and once I kind of like created that narrative, which it may be true, it may not be true, but all I know is that when I created that narrative, all of a sudden I released so much anger towards her and it made sense that she, she didn’t mean to shape, she really ultimately just wanted to protect me. Yeah, for sure. No I think that’s that and that’s where like sometimes parents definitely have fears about like their child’s health or something and they’re really worried about how that what they’re eating will impact their health. But a lot of times it’s like there is a social privilege associated with smaller bodies.

0 (24m 26s):
There has been, there always has been, right? And like you could say we’re making a tiny bit of headway, right? You see like more diverse bodies, social media, TV shows. But realistically it’s, we’re still incredibly judgemental and and we’re it’s, you always talk about like we’re past animals, right? There’s like this safety and being able to see other people that look and act like that to know like I belong here. Right? And if you’re always looking at, and parents know that instinctively they want to protect their kids and so a lot of it comes from this internalized view then their legs will be easier if they’re in a smaller body cuz it probably will be.

0 (25m 7s):
Well and you know, this is the thing about where I feel like there has to be Psychology included because let’s just say that that being my history then I go to have a daughter and my daughter on the BMI index is at the end that is considered not acceptable or in the scary rate and let’s just say that it doesn’t happen to be the case. And I’ve always said thank goodness that I had a daughter who had more of my husband’s genes. And don’t get me wrong, I still fucked it up plenty.

0 (25m 50s):
We talk about it all the time. But so she is my husband’s gene so that was never the case for her. But I, I’ve always said thank goodness because if I had a daughter who was built like me and was super inactive like I was when I was a young child, who knows the damage I would’ve done to her because I hadn’t worked any of this stuff out yet. And so I almost feel like it’s like God or the universal, whatever you believe in that protected me to heal this pattern by not having me have a daughter that had that issue. But let’s just say I did have a daughter who was built exactly like me and we go in for her third grade, you know, well checked and the doctor’s like yeah the EMI’s getting into the, you know, kind of scary range.

0 (26m 41s):
Yeah. Is that doctor gonna say, tell me about your family history, Tell me about your relationship with weight and the messagings you got when you were a kid. No, they don’t have the time or the training, right? They don’t have the time where the training. And so I kind of feel like it’s like what I’m hoping that this conversation breaks is we wanna disrupt that. I feel like so many parents who are trying to solve problem and maybe the problem is I don’t have the best relationship with my body. I want my kids to have a better relationship with their bodies.

0 (27m 21s):
We’re going in for their well check and the doctor is telling me that their weight is in the unacceptable range. So now how do I solve this problem and make sure that my child does have food and body issues and has a healthy, a truly healthy relationship in their bodies. Exactly the size it’s meant to be. How do I solve that problem? What do you think? In a perfect world, just let’s say we could just sprinkle and carry us and in a perfect world that mom goes to the pediatrician for that, well check how would it be handled? Encouraging them to understand first of all to not gives the feedback, maybe to talk about, have some discussions about health habits and see like maybe is that child, maybe they’re on their perfect trajectory or maybe there is some things that we could tweak and improve.

0 (28m 18s):
But so having that PRODUCTIVE conversation but ultimately looking at, you know, if it brings up fears for the mom and, and most, for most women, like you said, like we have something going on there, right? Like even with me, I’ve healed a lot, I feel very healed up and If that happened to me. I would, there would be some fears that would come up, right? So encouraging and normalizing like that for them to look at like what is the fear and then give them a resource to go explore that right to, and really be like the best way to teach a healthy, we gotta prioritize a food relationship for your kid above and beyond what their body looks like above and beyond even their habits.

0 (29m 1s):
We have to help them understand how to respect and listen to their body above and above all else. And so here’s the tools to help you learn that first because you have to teach them and be their guide. And you can’t do that if you don’t know it. And most women don’t, right? Like, and men too frankly. Like it’s not just women, it’s just women have different pressures and different messages that it’s probably more common. There’s a more acceptable range of bodies for men. There’s like the dad bo, right? That’s like celebrated but it’s everyone and it, and I work more so with women now, but I’ve worked historically a lot with men. They have a lot of the same stuff and a lot of the same really unhelpful messages which is like don’t listen to your body and suppress hunger and eat this healthy portion.

0 (29m 51s):
And it’s all external. It’s all this like imposed what is good and, and it’s really inappropriate. Like the 1200 calorie, 1500 calorie limits that we were, that I was teaching that so many people thoughts so inappropriate, so little. It’s like, it’s exactly what you said. I love the metaphor tip of the iceberg. It’s just the tip of the iceberg. And I feel like it’s, I feel like a big portion of, in a perfect world, if we could just like p change some things, I would provide the, you know, someone, the information from someone like you and a script for every pediatrician at every single one of the, and for them to ditch this BMI stuff and to really teach that it’s all about listening to your body.

0 (30m 48s):
Let’s look at sleep and for the pediatrician to say I like to live by, you know, let’s say like for me like you know how I teach like the 80 20 pool like 80% of the time like we’re really aiming for food that it’s really gonna fuel our body and then 20% of the time will kind of just, you know, have some fun and eat just because it tastes good. And a little bit like really arming the doctors and medical community with the correct information and the correct resources to sort of have a more proactive approach before we about a kid with an eating disorder and before we have a mother who has damaged her relationship with her daughter and she’s ultimately like my mom who really was such a kind sweet woman who had accidentally sent the message that you are safe in the world when you fly under the radar.

0 (31m 47s):
So be smaller in your body. Don’t be dramatic in your words. Like that really was what my mom did and kept her safe in many ways. And so she was sending that message to me but ultimately it damaged her relationship with me because I saw her as unhelpful, you know? And then I was left alone to struggle with the things that I’m struggling with when, you know, all any girl wants is to be close to our mom. And I think as moms all, most of us want, we wanna be close to our kids, we want our kids, you know, we want to be their soft place to land.

0 (32m 27s):
So when we go to a medical professional and they give us just tip of the iceberg type information that isn’t even accurate or helpful, ultimately it like sages that whole dream of think coming their soft place to lean root to our relationships. Right, Right. No, and I love what you said is like having that script. I think that would, that that is something that like I’m very passionate about, especially cause I’ve spent so much time in the medical field is just like all the people that I work with, they just wanna help their patients, right? Like they just wanna help them get long-term results but they have to understand like they weren’t equipped with those tools to feel effective and to like really connect with that person and help them feel seen and heard for what they’re currently experiencing, which is usually a lot of shame.

0 (33m 15s):
And to normalize like this is, this is all very common, very normal, whatever you’re feeling and to have yeah scripts for, here’s how you can work on this yourself and alongside your kiddo and here’s how you can, as you’re working on it, as you feel ready, teach them what you’re learning about how to listen to your body and how we tune in and just these skills that most of us were not taught. Well you know, I, as I’ve been planning and mapping out, researching and doing all the things I’m doing, writing the books that I’m writing right now with pediatrician, she met with a colleague who happens to be a child psychiatrist and he was, you know, really on board is what we’re writing cuz we really wanna disrupt the current medical model in many ways and rmt nutritions with the writing whatever.

0 (34m 10s):
Yeah. And he said, you know, the minute you start talking about Parenting, like people come in and they have a child and the child’s struggling, do we need to medicate him? What, you know, do we need to diagnose him with something? And he said, the minute you talk about Parenting, he was like, they either get angry and defensive and you know, you’re never hearing from those people again. Or they don’t act angry and defensive and you never hear from most people again. So yeah, it’s extremely taboo. He said, I mean people are coming because they’re worried about their kid and it’s very difficult to tell a parent that this is more of an adult issue and and to evaluate your own, you know, what’s going on for you?

0 (35m 3s):
How are you showing up as a parent? Like nobody wants to hear that or face it. And so I right. I just wanna acknowledge that so that I want to help not just parents, I wanna help these doctors that truly want to do right by their patients and, and are the the good folks. I wanna help them and make their life easier. So here’s a script and here’s a way of saying, and it might be instead of like you need to go do your own work because kids are like truth barometers and they know when you’re being, being hypocritical and you’re just trying to thanks them without facing yourself. Like right, nope, s you be ready for that.

0 (35m 44s):
No one’s ready to hear that, right? Like that’s basically saying on a first date like let’s just skip the kissing and can we just jump into bed? Like yeah. But I feel like even if it was a script that was like, let’s talk about as a family, you know, like these bodies that were given, they’re beautiful and so as a family, how are you guys taking care of your bodies? And let’s talk about how, how you’re sleeping, you know, what kind of sleep we’re getting. Cause look, I do think that that lots of people when walking around and lots of children walking around sleep deprived and chronically sleep deprived.

0 (36m 27s):
I mean I always use that example of remember back when you were in, you know, when you’ve had those hungover days or maybe now when you have those hug over days and it’s like who wants to drink green juice and eat health food on those days? Like you wanna great see something, you know, or Oh yeah, lots of people, yeah, lots people I work with that’s like, that’s, they have untreated sleep, ABPP the end and they get that resolved back. My goodness, I feel so much better as opposed to the years of chronic dieting I’ve done. So. Yeah. Well and the one thing too, and I didn’t mean to interrupt you, but what I’ll say about what you were saying was the talking with the pediatrician, and one of the reasons I think you and other people that teach based on their experience, it reduces that shame and like if the provider, the physician, the pediatrician is willing to own their own stuff with this a little bit and be like, you know, here’s some of the things that I realized that I did or how I was projecting my own eating and body stuff onto my kids.

0 (37m 29s):
And I’m not saying that’s happening necessarily, but I’m saying it’s super common and it’s like normalizing that. Like what, how powerful could that be? And again, they have to be willing to be vulnerable in that way and not assuming, right? But just being like, here’s how it’s applied to me and here’s how it can free up like honest, authentic conversations. Here’s how you can learn to trust your body feel good and your kids can, that could be really powerful too. So that was just something I’m thinking as you were talking, like before you even get to, cause then the sleep conversation’s even more powerful. And that’s what I find the work that I do with people a lot is when they come to me, they haven’t ever heard that.

0 (38m 9s):
Like it’s not their fault. They haven’t heard that like weight isn’t very controllable and they’ve been told like, just work harder, come on. And so just reducing that shame and having that connection piece first and having, and again I just think it’s a powerful way of if the physician ready to do that work themselves or if they’ve done some of it and they wanna share some of that to normalize it, right? Like I, the message always when we were growing up, it was all about willpower. You know, it’s my family. My dad would talk about willpower, willpower. Cause my brother has struggled with his weight for many, many years. And I feel like that what you just suggested, like if the pediatrician or the provider was able to lean into that vulnerability and share a little bit of a personal story just to kind of normalize things, you know, I feel like that is what would bring back that mentality of just because our world has become more complex and sand and we have telehealth and all of these different, like I feel like that would bring back that human element that so many people who became doctors, you know, became doctors because they actually care about people.

0 (39m 27s):
And so I feel like it would be, it would bring back so much more of a human element, but it also I think goes against doctor culture, which you know, the way they’re right, right? You have to be the expert show no vulnerability. I mean, you know, I mean as Sarah who’s writing the book, she’s like, we’re not trained behavioral strategies. We’re trained to diagnose and train actual illness. So anytime we share behavioral strategies, it’s really just what we think personally. It’s not our medical expertise. And, and so I feel like it’s like we don’t just go to doctors because we think they’re good doctors.

0 (40m 10s):
If a doctor has a terrible bedside manner, you’re out of there, right? And so I feel like it’s like doctors understand like, we want you to be human. We want you to, to bring that element because it it, when you’re able to normalize and connect with us, we’re much more inclined to take your advice, right? Definitely. Yeah.

1 (40m 38s):
Hey podcast listeners, do you have a kid that just won’t, We’ve all had those days, right? Haven’t we, where our kids just won’t do anything we ask, they won’t listen, they won’t follow simple requests, they won’t stop destructive behaviors. They won’t let anything be easy. You have those days, but then you know, if you’ve got a kid where it’s like every day is those days. And as parents it’s tempting for us to jump straight to a consequence. In fact, I think it’s like a reflex. You want the behavior to stop and it’s so easy to go there first. In fact, you may believe it’s your job as a parent to shut the problematic behavior down forcefully, right? And overwhelming majority of the parents I’ve coached over the years, they come to me wanting to know the consequence that will stop the defiance.

1 (41m 26s):
Like it’s gonna be the magic solution, the magic bullet. But here’s the secret, it’s not really about the consequences. At least not until you’ve tried my proven method that stops this kind of behavior, the behavior that just won’t, where they won’t let anything be be easy in its tracks quite often before we even need to get to a consequence because all behavior is communication. I know y’all have heard me talk about that on the podcast and that’s what we’re going to dive deep into during my next Live Coach week. What’s Coach week? Coach Week is an intensive mini program that consists of three days of live coaching with me and it’s coming up the week of October 10th.

1 (42m 13s):
And I really developed this mostly with you guys, my podcast listeners in mind because you know me yet I don’t know you. And we did one of these coach weeks a few months back, it was so much fun. I got to know so many of you and we’re doing it again. So this time our theme is how to deal with the kid that just won’t dot.dot won’t make anything be easy, right? So when you come to our October session of Coach Week, we’re going to find out the biggest mistake most parents are making that actually makes the problematic behavior worse. We’re gonna investigate, I’m gonna be right there with you holding your hand.

1 (42m 56s):
We’re gonna investigate and find out what’s really underneath your kids’ behavior. We’re going to work on building trust by using the tools and language that these strong willed kids can actually hear so that they’re able to improve their behavior. And you’re gonna walk away from this intensive week with a clear plan and framework to deal with behavior challenges in the future. So don’t miss out on this free training and get to kind of see for free what the inside of a Mastermind Parenting program really feels like. Okay? I’m so proud of our programs and I’m so excited to get to share this with you. So save your seat now by going to Mastermind Parenting dot com slash october coach week.

1 (43m 44s):
All lower case, all one word, Mastermind Parenting dot com slash october coach week. I cannot wait to see you guys there.

0 (43m 60s):
Yeah, and even like, you know, I think some of the things I talk about is like shifting language and there’s kind of a lot to like learn, not a lot, but like there’s things to learn there. If you are anyone of a physician or someone wanting to shift up your language, that could feel a little overwhelming. But the reality is that I have many people that go to doctors who don’t get it all right? They don’t perfectly use the perfect language and they’ll use like, you know, whatever that means. The term orbit obesity is still in most charts, like it’s always there. But because they have that human element and they’re real and authentic that my, my clients are like, it, it works for me. And so you don’t have to have all the perfect strategies immediately.

0 (44m 40s):
It’s just like Parenting, right? Like you’re not gonna do it all right right away, but you’re going to show up authentically, be a human being. And, and that’s, I mean, psychologists were trained not to share. That’s why I was so nervous about sharing my story on my podcast. Not because I had shame about my story anymore, but I was like, people are gonna think I’m not professional because we’re trained to like be the experts and kind of just share our expertise and, and people doesn’t do that at this point. My life, most of the time they assume like, I didn’t struggle with this, I just for whatever reason got into it. Like no, and it’s not true at all. And so it’s, I think that reducing that shame piece and how big people feel seen and connected and, and not alone in their their pain is the base for so many forms of change.

0 (45m 32s):
Well I agree. Okay, so I wanna dig into a real scenario that one of the members of our group shared. She asked me you to weigh in and I said we’re gonna address this on the podcast. And I think that it’s going to resonate with so many listeners because I think for so many of us, we, you know, we, we use the language of wanting to teach them to have a really healthy relationship with their bodies. And you know, my language, we eat the food that helps us to grow. And so we have all this language and we can mask, we think we’re asking our true agenda with that language, but when control is on the scene, we start to try and hyper control what our kids are consuming.

0 (46m 24s):
I think it can be tricky and I think that quite often we’re in our own blind spots about it. And so I thought this would be a really good scenario to share. So let me, let me play her message.

3 (46m 38s):
I know you guys kind of talked about a similar scenario with another family recently and I did listen to that, but I just would like some input on the specific situation that happened to. So yesterday I had to pop out to the grocery store very briefly and neither the kids wanted to come with me. And we’ve, you know, reaped the point where I feel like it’s, you know, safe to leave them for very short periods of time. I’m not worried about them harming each other or you know, getting into things that would be concerned for, concerning for safety. So I, I left them and then I came back maybe like 30 minutes later and started helping Julian and saw that he had this like very strange looking bulge in his pocket and I asked him, what’s in your pocket?

3 (47m 25s):
And he came clean very quickly. Oreos, he had shoved Oreos in his pocket so I asked him to give ’em to me and gave to me and I didn’t say anything but like clearly was like annoyed that he had snuck the Oreos. Oh, this is also important to mention. When I left the house, I specifically told him, Please let me know if you’re going to eat something, you know, if you’re hungry that’s fine, just let me know. Like I don’t want you to have junk food, but if you want something just let me know what it is and I’ll say if it’s okay or not.

0 (47m 56s):
Okay. I think we can stop there. Okay. I wanna hear your take on that situation. Yeah, so first of all, I think one of the things that, I mean I know she had shared later on that one of the things she was most concerned about was like the deception and the lying. But first of all, when there’s any like restriction of food, it’s very, very normal for there to be like some sneaking and inadvertently we actually give this message that like, Oreos are bad even if you’ve never said that, right?

0 (48m 37s):
I, I doubt she’s ever been like, Oreos are bad. No, they’re not bad. They just, we need to learn to have a healthy amount. We think we’re teaching that healthy portion control. But first of all, it’s actually incredibly adaptive when kids brains, when they’re given access to more, they eat more. Because guess what, that kid would’ve survived in the wild cause when food was available, they, they ate more, they stored it up and then high calorie foods help us to like survive. So that’s a super adaptive, like primitive desire of our brain and and in our culture it’s very easy to have shame wrapped up in that. So he’s learned like, this isn’t good and I need to, to hide it versus just like, no, there’s more available, right?

0 (49m 20s):
And so there’s the, there’s the restrictive piece but then there’s also the what it means about me piece and they’re, they’re related. So one of the main things that we wanna do is disrupt that pattern and help and the person doing the binge eating, which again I did binge eating for many years. No, like that’s just your brain like trying to keep you alive. That’s just literally your survival mechanism. And and that’s why the talk, what I talk about in terms of feeding kiddos, it’s the division of responsibility that Ellen Satter Institute is what came up with this. But parents determine timing and type of food and kids determine ’em out.

0 (50m 0s):
Cause you wanna, as much as possible reduce that feeling of restriction and control. Cuz most of the time that’s just gonna have them eating those things more than their bodies necessarily need because they’re like, there might be a famine in the future. Which really the fam is just that self-imposed restriction from the parents for it, for adults it happens. They are like, I’m gonna probably impose a diet of myself in the future so I’m gonna get it while I can. So that’s the big piece that often goes missed. That’s what went missed for me for years. I was like, I’m not dieting, I’m not restrictive, but it’s, it can be really subtle, it can be obvious or it can be really subtle and it probably falls on the continuum.

0 (50m 40s):
But if there’s a feeling of restriction, our our brains rebel and it we and it it’s about the food but it’s not If. That makes sense. Okay, so so what do you think that, I mean I have my thoughts about this whole and she really got there as she continued on with her messages, which is, you know, Keith’s nine years old and she has also a history. There was, you know, a sister that struggled. There was some disorder eating was revolving around it when she was growing up. She doesn’t have necessarily an all dialed in in terms of her relationship with food and her body.

0 (51m 24s):
She also still struggles with the whole restricted eating thing. Yeah. Portion control, right? So she knows that she struggles with that herself. That whole call me if you want to eat something. Yeah, right. I mean it’s, yeah, it’s, and actually like what I talk about is like autonomous Motivation as the ideal type control Motivation as the non-ideal type. So we could think of it internal Motivation, external Motivation if that’s helpful. But yeah, it’s controlled. It’s, I’m, this is what I’m allowed and this is what I’m not allowed, There’s these external rules associated and it reduces that intrinsic ability to eat the portion that’s feels best for our body.

0 (52m 12s):
And it’s just not a long term strategy cuz otherwise, I mean then the, the kid will feel like they have to control themselves the rest of their life versus trusting their body signals. So, okay, so, so this is where y’all, for anyone that is like, what do you mean by control? We think it’s like, you know, well just call me if you wanna eat anything. You know, like I’m just being like tuned in mom and making sure my kids don’t ruin dinner and you know, we’re gonna give them a really healthy, well balanced meal and that, so just gimme a call if you’re gonna eat anything. So I’m just putting some boundaries and parameters around that. And I think that it’s hard sometimes to see If that it’s very controlling to tell your nine year old, Hey if you wanna eat something, I I trust you to know what to do if an emergency arises while I’m at this story.

0 (53m 9s):
You can ha and you can, i, I trust that you can handle that, that you could call 9 1 1. I trust that you could like handle yourself in an emergent situation but I’m not trusting you to figure out what your body’s hungry for and to eat that. Right. Right. There’s a lot of control on the senior and, and I think it’s confusing for kids. Right, Right. Yeah. Well and and for most kids it starts way earlier than nine. It just might look different at nine. Right. And cuz way earlier our kids’ lives we’re saying like eat this, make sure you have two bites of this. That’s what I was told. I think it’s why I don’t like meat. Like you have to at least eat three bites of your meat.

0 (53m 50s):
Like versus just here meat is available and you can, you can decide if you wanna eat it or not. So it’s so early on we give that message like your body doesn’t know, so here let me portion this out and I’m gonna put the rest away. And it just gives that message. So yeah, nine it looks like this at other agents it just looks like, or a lot of times deal beer too. Like good job for eating. Ooh look at you, you had a second portion, you’re such a good eater. I hear that all the time about my kids and I’m like, yeah they’re good eaters cause I don’t over control. And so like quit making comments about it. But they eat a variety of, I mean they may just, who knows, like they may just also, some kids are just pick your eaters and that’s not like, because there was over control per se, but I dunno, I have an adult expert versus the kids so I won’t make too many comments about that.

0 (54m 38s):
But yeah, like it’s so common for us to get so controlling so early on and yeah. And then at nine you’re starting to see like he’s home alone, so how is that gonna really work? And when they’re a teenager it definitely won’t work. Right. Or when they’re on their own. Well what do you think though about the whole, like how it’s primal for us that when it’s something high fat or whatever that, that we’re gonna want to eat a ton of it to, you know, store it. So, so tell me like what is, what is the science behind how we end up, you know, only eating two or three Oreos even though there’s a whole, if we’re given, you know, if we can environ, let’s just say we give our kids, you know, she didn’t put any of those parameters around it.

0 (55m 30s):
She’s got the Oreos in the house and you know, she, she lets ’em, you know, they’ve been taught the messages that that you know, the Oreos are the 20% that is the food that just tastes good. And 80% of the time we’re gonna check in with our bodies and seem we’re actually hungry and we’re gonna feed our bodies the food that feels like fuel. And then if we wanna have some of the food that just tastes good. I don’t know how you feel about that messaging. Yeah, I mean I think that messaging, I used to think of it that way too. I don’t really now, I mean although I think generally that’s kind of what I do in our family, I just don’t categorize it. And as we had talked about it in our thread, like I don’t, I I lean away from categorizing like foods in any way because it’s just so easy for that our brains to think of that as good and bad and to turn into shame and just again, arbitrarily make us want the food more.

0 (56m 25s):
Oreos are already ly something we’re going to want. Like they know what they’re doing when they design Oreos and there are addictive qualities to food. And that’s where this, this field is I think really fascinating cuz there’s different schools of thought and there’s a lot of like contention about like food addictions being a real thing and it’s really a big concern and really need to address it along with the obesity epidemic. The way I think of it is our, our environment has greatly changed. There’s a lot of highly palatable foods and we’re a lot less active and there’s a, there’s, that would be a huge reason why like we, we as humans would’ve probably gained weight even if we didn’t have the dieting, like misfire with the signals that chronic dieting causes probably all of us as the population would still be gaining weight, but dieting further amplified that by further creating mistrust with our bodies.

0 (57m 20s):
And so, you know, it’s, I’m trying to remember your initial question, but it is complicated and I think it comes down to the mom or the parents like learning to trust their own bodies and learning to trust their own decisions around food and then teaching that trust because yeah, Oreos, when you really remove judgment from your eating, you, most of us will stop at like a lower amount of boals, but it might not be the serving size of two, right? Some days we might not want any Oreos. Other days we’re like, I really want a bunch of Oreos. Maybe we still, you talk a lot about Maxwell consequences.

0 (58m 0s):
That’s what like whether we call it chew the eating or mindful eating, that’s what for me, I finally like healed my relationship with food cuz I let myself without judgment eat and just really notice like, oh, this is the fortune that helps me feel good, but guess what, we’re humans. We always overshoot so we’re always still gonna eat a little bit more than we intended to. But what we make it this big deal and this huge thing about our willpower and ourselves and we have so much shame attached to it. It’s just like you always say, we can’t learn in that environment. We don’t actually learn to be like, Oh, I felt kind of crappy when I ate six Oreos today. Good to know. I will say I think some people’s genetics are more proud to having a harder time with that than others, right?

0 (58m 45s):
Like I think some of us like food more than other people. I used to be really convinced that I was one of those people that just like loved food. But I don’t know if that’s true now, now that I’ve removed all the judgment from it. I’m like, I, like I I, I spray in all the cake and all the good things, but it really it’s, I think it’s interesting the more we remove that judgment, I think of it as you’re a Harry Potters fan, the, like, the little memories they like pulled outta the side of their temple, that like little silvery memory, like the memory thing. And then they put it in the, they watch it and then I forget what it, that thing was called pensive, I think. But just like removing that judgment, I I, I still have a lot of judgments about other things, but for food stuff I’m mostly like just food.

0 (59m 31s):
So that’s where I, and like language wise, I, I don’t use a lot of, I just describe as we’ve talked about in the thread, I describe this, so what it is, cake, cookies, Oreos, you know, the, the processed foods are very like addicted to our brains for kids. Like I wouldn’t give free range accents necessarily, but that’s something that I, I told you guys in the thread, I, my kids are two and five, so like, I haven’t really had to think a ton about it because I have a lot of control over what, although they go to school, they go to daycare and now my daughter started kindergarten. It’s funny, they have a, a fun lunch, which is like lucky chars, like tricks, yogurt and like a cheese.

0 (1h 0m 15s):
I’m like, she loves this fun lunch. I’m like, could we maybe get the one with like a little bit of broccoli, like the actual food please? But it’s tough. And so I’m having a little bit of a zip into less control. But ultimately, like I don’t stress a ton about it because at home for us, we, we don’t bring like a ton of dessert type foods in. But, but we do, I don’t know. And again, it’s just questioning, like I need, so much of it is about the unlearning, the messages that have the harmful messages about controlling bodies and not trusting bodies. It becomes a little bit more obvious over time, but we just have so much judgment around like, and some people have Oreos all day every day and their kids don’t struggle with it.

0 (1h 0m 58s):
I would look at like, if I were any mom looking at this, I would just like observe my kids’ behavior and how they’re responding to the food. And I know you had said like, let’s take a break from it. Let’s get it outta the house for now. I think that’s fine as long as the kids don’t perceive that as super restrictive and it just makes them wanted more. And I think that would probably depend on the kid, you know what I mean? Like, I think some kids would, and they be on you and they know like, I know what you’re trying to do. You think I’m too big and you’re trying to fix me. Like they’re not gonna, like, that’s gonna feel really bad to them. So I mean, I might like change up what you have in terms of like the different, like just trying different sweet foods and, but I don’t know that’s, that was something that like as we were going through the thread, I’m like, I’m not exactly sure how I would respond to that, but I would really, I’m just not that convinced our overreaction to having you extra Oreos.

0 (1h 1m 53s):
I think it can be a really good healthy national consequence to be like, Oh dang, I ate too much. Like my daughter at BS had that often and we’re like, Oh yeah, yeah. Well it was too much cake huh? Like, makes your stomach hurt. Like yeah, it’s source. I’ve done that too. You know, you’re like, Oh, what do you think would help you feel better? You wanna just, you know, wanna rest or wanna lay down or you wanna have some water? Like what do you think would help? And teaching that, that kindness, right? And it’s like normalization of like, yeah, of course you had a little bit too much of that. Cause cake’s delicious and it’s like we all eat too much cake sometimes. Super good. And, and normalizing that and, and having that experience I think is way more important than how often they have cake.

0 (1h 2m 35s):
Right. Okay. I think that that, that is it. You know, I would have to say, I think when we go into control being onto ourself and just like asking yourself the question of what was really coming up for me there. Right. What was really coming up and digging into that. But I also wanna say that it’s interesting, I’ve, I’ve made mistakes with my daughter because it was more unloaded with my daughter because of the whole, I think probably generational pattern.

0 (1h 3m 15s):
Hey, if you’re a small woman, you know, who’s considered attracted in our culture by having a small body, if you fly under the radar, that is what will keep you safe. And so that generational pattern, which I didn’t even realize, you know, that was what was going on, that’s what caused me to be more invested in what my daughter consumed. Because neither my daughter nor my sons, they all, you know, especially when they were little, they all had similar body sizes. So why would she have gotten this message? And my boys did not get that message because it wasn’t as loaded for me.

0 (1h 3m 56s):
And, and, and so exactly what you’re saying, I, I can distinctly remember my boys like and Corey doing more than anyone understanding that like when him and his friends, when he got to be like a teenager or s teenager before he drove, but they would like random bikes. There’s a donut shop that they all loved, it’s not too far, it’s in our neighborhood. And they could ride device there. So a lot of times they’d ask sleepovers on the weekends and then they would ride their fines to Shipley. Right. And I remember him saying to me like, Ugh, it feels so gross. Like just, we got up, we went to Shipleys, we had, you know, or when I, when he eats the collages or the whatever it is, he’s like, it just makes me feel so gross.

0 (1h 4m 45s):
And it’s interesting because when they were little and they would have donuts we would on the weekend or whatever, I noticed that. And so I made a rule that on days that it was really Scott that wanted to take up to get donuts on days that Scott wanted to take him to get donuts, I was like, you gotta make them eggs or something first. Like they have to have some kind of protein. Like they would have like eggs of fruit and then they would go and get donuts and that was just a way to Austin blood sugar. And so I was never saying like you could only have one donut or you can only have like dining didn’t care, you know, whatever. I didn’t care how many donuts they had as long as they had eaten the eggs fruit first to offset it.

0 (1h 5m 26s):
And so I think with the boys where Avery, she, you know, I’ll say she’s super lactose intolerant and she loves kaso so much and so like, or ice cream or whatever. And so we’ll be like at a Mexican food restaurant and she’s like, Oh my god, it’s gotta get to Kaso. I’m like, cuz I know what it’s gonna turn into and I won’t TMI here, but you know, I know it’s gonna be bad. And so, and I’m like, really? She’s like, I’m taking the hit. I’m just taking the hit. Like it’s fine. Yeah. Yeah. And I’m like, okay, you’re taking the hit. The boys are much less inclined to take the hit. They know it’s gonna make their bodies feel yuck later.

0 (1h 6m 8s):
They’re they are, they’re like, no thanks. Like it’s amazing to see that. And, and, and here are these three children were raised in this same household with my same, you know, unresolved issues and the way I do things and not, and categorizing food as the food that makes you grow and the food that just tastes good or the junky food. Like I made all of those mistakes and until really you’ve brought my attention to it recently, totally called in junky food and categorized it. And so I made all the same mistake and yet because I was less invested with the boys, they’re, they’ve gotten healthier relationships with it all.

0 (1h 6m 51s):
Right. Right. Yeah. And I mean, yeah, it’s also whether or not you gave those messages or not, the Avery still had to go into the world being a girl, just like inherent things that she got outside of the home that yes, you didn’t undo. Right. Like and I think that’s so much like you could do it perfectly and they still get those messages and women are more likely to get it then. Cause there’s like a less, there’s a smaller window of appropriateness for body size for women. So like a few extra donuts. Like it’s easier for your brain or their brain to then interpret that as bad versus like, I think, yeah.

0 (1h 7m 32s):
So it’s not always the case, but I think that’s just the reality of our world still. And I think it’s diet culture has gotten more like subtle. It’s, I just think it’s more subtle now, but it’s still a live and kicking very much and, and all the Desmond is still really there, but it hides behind health disguises and it’s like, hey, if it’s really truly about health, like awesome. But like a lot of times it’s not. And and that’s when we just don’t even realize it. Right? We’re just like, I’m trying to, that’s what I thought for years. I was like, I’m just trying to eat to feel good. It’s like, no, no I wasn’t, I thought I was but I wasn’t.

0 (1h 8m 15s):
I was, was doing the, the things that it was just all all really the ultimate goal still shrink my body. That was what I hoped for. And once I finally let go of like my weight is gonna be what it is like, and I just relinquish control of that. I’m not saying it’s always easy. Like I went through this healing and then I had my kids. So obviously your body changes a lot during those time periods. But for the most part I was like, it is what it is. Like my body weight is gonna do what it’s gonna do. And it was very freeing to just be like, how can I take care of myself? And a lot of it’s like emotionally or like for a long time I like, I always had a pretty healthy relationship with exercise, but I used to love running and I’m just, now my son’s two and half getting back into that and realizing like it’s just, I’ll worry about it.

0 (1h 9m 6s):
Like just not stressing about like I’m not exercising enough or I, I walked once this week. Okay. I mean I’m back to more now. But again, not stressing about the details is very freeing and just trusting our bodies that it, our bodies do know what we need if we listen. So in a nutshell, the bottom line is, is that we’ve, we’re not bullshitting anyone. Like we have like we have to like face using the whole like, Oh I just want them to be healthy or I just wanna be healthy. Just stop. Yeah, just stop. Yeah. If you’re, you know, you gotta, and I think every woman wants to feel good in her body, wants to hold her shoulders back and feel proud the way she feels and looks and walks out to the world.

0 (1h 9m 57s):
And so at the end of the day, I, we all deserve to heal from this and this is truly the way that we don’t pass the patterns down or at least Pat, you know, like what I said to Avery cuz we talk about all this stuff all the time now she’s 20, she just heard 21 is I said, Look, all we can hope for is that you do it better than I did. Like I feel like I did it a little bit better than my mom did and and hopefully you’ll do it even better than I did and we will break this generational pattern. I think that’s the best that we can hope for. And the more we talk about this stuff and talk about where I royally screwed it up and you also, you know, continue going to an amazing therapist and working through these things and we keep talking about it and you keep hearing, that’s the outcome that I think would be, you know, all we can really, really want.

0 (1h 11m 1s):
And frankly the more we talk about it, the more it’s amazing the more Shane seems to dissipate and the, I mean it’s just like unbelievable how like Renee Brown says one Shane can survived with secrecy. And so when we start talking about these things and we realize it’s not so taboo and we don’t have to be perfect and we get to be human and it’s messy business being a human, you know, Avery will say it to me cuz I taught her my body, my biz, like it’s my business. You know, it’s not your business mom. So like when I accidentally make a comment or a comment about someone else, which I’m a little bit sneaky about this, like I’ll be like, oh he looks different or she looks different than she used to.

0 (1h 11m 45s):
She’s like, I don’t know how that would be relevant. Like, she calls you out, I love it. Calls me out. That’s awesome. You know, it’s like nobody’s bullshitting anyone. Like just deal with your own stuff. Yeah. And you deserve to have a healthier relationship with your body. Especially if you want your kids to have a healthier relationship with their bodies, then you have with your body, like you gotta do the work. Yeah, yeah. And the thing that I’ll mention is there is a lot of shame even in cuz like there’s more movement towards like body positivity and more movement towards awareness and inclusivity, which is good of course and a lot of people have a lot of shame.

0 (1h 12m 28s):
But I still really wanna lose weight, right? Like, and it’s like of course you do, right? Like we live in a culture where you are going to be told over and over if you lose weight things will be better, life will be easier, you’ll be more confident. And that may or may not be true depending on just a lot of factors. But like I think there’s so much shame even in having that thought, like I should just love my body, I should just accept my body. And it’s like there’s a lot of, I think at a lot of the work that I do, it’s like this non diet approach of like just learning to relinquish control over the the weight piece. There’s a lot of grief there because there’s a lot of hope that people are sold. Like if I can just figure it out, I’ll get my body to this size and then I’ll like feel amazing.

0 (1h 13m 13s):
And the good news is you can feel amazing without that, but the bad news is this dream that you think it’s supposed to look like might look different. And in that, I just wanted to mention that. Cause I think for a lot of people that’s a hesitancy to doing the work. Not only they feel shame about their thinking about it, but also there’s just like grief there. And, and that’s a lot of people that I work with. I would say. I mean it depends, but I, I tend to, I think my experience with like weight loss surgery, they’re in the larger body size and they’re just like, this sucks. Like I’m glad you’re telling me this but like I’m kind of pissed at you. Like, and like they’re grateful cause they’re like I can actually trust my body and no it’s okay today and it’s really empowering but there’s a grief there too.

0 (1h 13m 58s):
And so I think normalizing that desire for weight loss, normal. And I’ll have conversations with people, here’s what we know about weight loss meds, weight loss surgery, behavioral approaches, here’s what the data show. And then empowering them like what feels best for you. Cuz often we make assumptions about like what’s right for people and like, I don’t know, I’m not in your body. Maybe you know, the data about weight loss diets and how ineffective they are and you still wanna do it, that’s allowed. And so I don’t know, If, that was just something I wanted to mention cause I think that that’s something that people get really caught up in because of the shame. Yeah, you made my brain go to a place of that when you sayre.

0 (1h 14m 39s):
I’m like, yeah, that’s where I think, you know, when when somebody’s like, Oh, I need to, if they make a new Year’s resolution, like I gonna lose the weight, right? I wanna feel better at my body. And they think maybe they’re gonna hire a nutritionist, a personal trainer. Are those people ever putting a Psychologist on their care regimen because Right. And, and and the Greek part like, like how having somebody walk you through like what If that was step number one was knowing that you were worthy of hiring someone, finding the right resource to walk you through the grieving process of I hated my body for many decades and that has felt terrible.

0 (1h 15m 38s):
And I want somebody who is a trained expert to know how to hold space, know how to walk me through my grief, know how to hold my gand and help me through this time. And maybe I decide to start eating differently or exercising differently and moving my body differently. But that piece seems like such a self-compassionate piece that most people miss. Oh yeah, this, that’s the underneath the iceberg, right? Like that is the hidden piece and then they just a new plan, keto, intermittent fasting, all these like I’m, I’m really into plant-based eating, but like if you do plant-based eating from the wrong plates, it’s not gonna serve you.

0 (1h 16m 21s):
And yeah, so just being onto yourself as you often say and like, yeah, if you don’t address that root cause and for most of us that’s, there’s some deep grief and pain and hurt there about either what you’ve done to your body or what you’ve thought about your body or things you projected on other people. And for a lot of people I work with, they’re really mad that they didn’t know this sooner in their life because they look back at these pictures of themselves and they’re like, my body was great but I hated it. And chronic diet tends to increase our weight over time and sometimes your weight won’t go back down for a variety of reasons. And they’re just like, why did anyone tell me this?

0 (1h 17m 0s):
Like there’s anger there and I think it’s justified. I understand it and I also feel like I’m like, gosh, we all deserve to feel amazing and to look in the mirror and love the way we look. I think that’s the other piece I love that you brought up was also feeling ashamed. Like, oh, I know all this information, right? I’m so conscious and progressive. I should be above, I should be above all this superficiality. But really I wanna look in the mirror and love the way I look.

0 (1h 17m 40s):
It helps me to feel confident when I walk out in the world. Like Right, that’s okay too. Right, right. Absolutely. And it’s hard biologically, genetically your body is in a larger body size or you’ve been chronic dieting and it’s a set point. Biological setpoint is basically like the weight our body’s like genetically like to maintain that can get pushed up over time with all the dieting. And I don’t think we know really very well. I, I’m seeing good data, like can we get that back down? I think it’s an open question, but like it’s harder. Like now some women that I’ve worked with like been decades of diet and so now your body is what your body is and learning to love that now is totally doable.

0 (1h 18m 25s):
Totally possible. And it can bring up a lot. Well, and I think, you know, I do love how the younger generation there, I mean Avery and I were just talking about this, we watched the Jennifer Lopez documentary, It’s so good. And it really talked about how Jennifer Lopez, you know, she was pre Kardashian. She was like, I’m a Latina woman, I have pers and I, they wanted her to get a nose job, they wanted her to lose weight. They wanted, and it was before it was celebrated for women being muscular and strong and having a tush and all the things, you know, it was like the era of Kate Mo and she was confident.

0 (1h 19m 9s):
She was like, and you see her on early interviews and she’s like, I’m a Latino one. If she was like, Oh my gosh, I should look just like Kate Moz. She wouldn’t have shown up in the world in her whole Jennifer Lopez way, but she was like, This is me. I’m freaking awesome. I’m hot, I’m Kirby, I’m hot, I’m awesome. And then all of a sudden she’s a role model for the younger women. And I’m like, it’s the same thing when I see a woman, whatever size she is, and she’s walking through the world where she has, you can tell she feels good about how, you know, whatever size she is, she took time and she cares about how she looks. She’s got her shoulders back and she’s wearing some kind of an outfit that you can tell she feels like a million bucks in.

0 (1h 19m 55s):
It’s like, okay, your size, whatever, 14 or your size four, you really can present with the same level of confidence based on how you’re thinking about it. Right, Right. Yeah. And I mean, one of my main mis mission, getting more people out of the ineffective diet cycle so they can show up with more courage and authentic connection. Because so often we don’t show up in the world the way that we were meant to or called to. And we just live small and we just like, if I can just fix this thing first, then I’ll go date or then I’ll go pursue the career I want. And it’s, it keeps a lot of people not, not speaking or living their authentic lives or their drew then it’s, they, they, they don’t share their gifts.

0 (1h 20m 44s):
Like Jennifer Lopez, she wouldn’t have maybe shared her gifts with the world and there’s just so many, so many people don’t benefit from that. You know, so many people are deprived of that person’s unique gifts. And so yeah, we need a lot more courage and authentic connection and a lot of spaces, so. Well thank you. This has been such a good conversation. Do you have any final thoughts or, or, or asks or anything that you would like to lead with the listeners? I’ll just say we, I just started up my podcast again. We did a hiatus song summer, so I needed to slow down myself, but Motivation made easy, Body Respect Your Health. We coming out with episodes and I feel really excited about episodes we have coming up this, this fall.

0 (1h 21m 26s):
And then, yeah, my website, dr Shawn Hondorp dot com is a great place to find me. And I’m not big at social media, but connect with me. Like if you, I love these topics. I love if if people have questions or I’m still working on some innovative ways to work with people, I might have some workshops coming out to this all. So make sure you get on my email list so you can be aware of that. And yeah, I’d love to, to connect and help more people feel, feel good in their bodies and regain that trust. And the thing I’ll say about Shawn you guys is, you know, I think a lot of times people go into the helping professions, whether you’re in the mainstream, traditional, you know, if you work in that way, which is like going in and becoming a doctor or Psychologist or a therapist or you become a coach or, or some other, a shamanic killer, whatever it is, anybody who goes into the healing professions, I think quite often people go in for personal reasons and sometimes it can even serve as a inflection from doing their own work.

0 (1h 22m 37s):
And I think this is not something that many people aren’t even aware of or thinking of. And so I’m really, really, really particular about the professionals that I endorse and that I recommend referred you. And what I’ll say about Shawn is, is you do your own work. And so like even coaching you as a mom within the program, you really are digging it

1 (1h 23m 7s):
And showing up

0 (1h 23m 8s):
Authentically

1 (1h 23m 9s):
In your personal life. And it just makes

0 (1h 23m 11s):
Me

1 (1h 23m 12s):
Trust you professionally all the more. So.

0 (1h 23m 15s):
Oh, well thank you. And I mean, I’m super, again, if we look at my, my iceberg analogy, like the middle of the iceberg, I think I’ve done a really good job prior to coming to you at like the diet mentality, like trusting my body stuff. Like I felt pretty solid in that, and that’s just how I think of it for health behaviors. But like that deeper part of the iceberg has nothing to do with food and that’s what I’m working on. Parenting is that like opportunity to unlock that new level. And it’s been great and I think anyone can like, I mean you don’t necessarily have to do one or the other first. Like that’s not the iceberg analogy that I think of, but like just doing that deeper healing work is so worth it. I’m super, super grateful for the opportunity as, as you know, to work with you because it’s been, it’s been awesome and I’ve done a lot of work on myself before, but I’ve unlocked new levels of the Shawn video game lately, so that’s been it.

0 (1h 24m 9s):
So Awesome. Okay, thanks for being here. I agree. Thank you.

1 (1h 24m 14s):
Thanks for listening today guys. I hope you picked up some tips tools, maybe some baby steps for creating more balance and boundaries in your life. And I just wanted to let you know if you want to continue moving the needle forward in creating this for yourself, having a happier household, I want you to go to my website and check out Mastermind Parenting dot com. We have three beginning programs and if you need some accountability and more support, then please look for the one that would be a good fit for you. And as always, we’re on all the social channels under Mastermind Parenting on Instagram, it’s Mastermind underscore Parenting.

1 (1h 24m 59s):
And you know, periodically I do pop up on different Instagram lives, Facebook lives where I give you teaching and coaching and I love engaging with you live to help you help your strong world kids so that they can feel better. Because when they feel better, they do better. And I love, love, love getting to know you guys. So thanks for listening. If you like this podcast, please don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review. Super, super appreciative.