Can we talk about fat loss and NOT promote diet culture?

This episode was inspired by an instagram post, which spoke about the messy middle between diet culture and aesthetic goals and whether you could pursue fat loss specifically,  and NOT promote diet culture at the same time.

This is certainly a nuanced issue.  We live in a dieting culture which worships thinness above all else and where weight bias is prevalent.  Of course, we are going to think about changing our bodies and conforming to the current cultural ideal. But at what cost....?

Why are we pursuing fat loss?  Does that align with our values?  What about letting our bodies take up space? What about body respect? What about attunement and our internal hunger and fullness cues?   What about the fact the restriction is by far the biggest predictor of future weight gain?
What about the myriad of other benefits movement brings and how we want to FEEL in our bodies.

What about the racist roots of fatphobia? 

What about the concept that we are MORE than a body?

Weight loss is not a behaviour so can we pursue health promoting behaviours, and let our bodies take care of the rest?

We dig deep this week and would LOVE to hear your thoughts.

Are you simply fed up with hating your body? Are you stuck in the 'earn and burn' cycle when it comes to exercise?
You are not alone and your body is NOT the problem

Please reach out if you would like some support. We both have limited slots for Intuitive Eating and Strength Coaching, so get in touch with Christine or with Ela.

AND if you enjoyed this episode, please share and follow the 'Find Your Strong podcast' and if you have time, write us a short review. It would honestly mean the world. Love to you all, Ela & Christine x

Transcript

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Christine Chessman: So welcome to today's episode. We're very, very pleased to have you here, aren't we, Ella?

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Ela Law (she/her): Absolutely. We love you.

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Christine Chessman: Today we got a bit of a juicy one.

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Christine Chessman: This is a post from a fellow influencer.

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Christine Chessman: So smug when I say that and it's about.

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Ela Law (she/her): My kids laugh at me because they think it is like we're all influencers because we are on Instagram by default. We're influencers. It just makes me laugh.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah, we influence some people. Maybe not. You know.

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Ela Law (she/her): To you.

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Christine Chessman: Hundreds of phone.

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Ela Law (she/her): I mean.

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Christine Chessman: Definitely, hopefully, some, but the topic today. So I saw a post on Instagram, and I'm never. We talked about this. I don't want to bad my other fitness, professionals or nutrition professionals who are just doing their best to navigate this weird world that we live in. But it was it really caught my attention because it was, can we talk about fat loss in a way that doesn't promote diet culture and not just fat loss, but weight loss in general.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah. And

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Christine Chessman: of course there's nuance.

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Christine Chessman: But hmm, so we I'm gonna ask you first, st Ella, I'm pounding it over. What do you think.

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Ela Law (she/her): What do I think, Christine? Right? Well, I think. Oh, I think a lot of things about this, and it's really difficult to kind of

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Ela Law (she/her): to be

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Ela Law (she/her): concise, so I'm going to waffle permission to waffle.

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Christine Chessman: Yes, absolutely.

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Ela Law (she/her): Thank you. So the 1st thing that came to mind is that

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Ela Law (she/her): I cannot wrap my head around. How

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Ela Law (she/her): the pursuit of weight loss in any way, shape or form

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Ela Law (she/her): can be happening at the same time as you're trying to eat intuitively

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Ela Law (she/her): and to

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Ela Law (she/her): move intuitively and to be kind to yourself, because by default, if you're pursuing weight loss, you are not

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Ela Law (she/her): accepting your body, you are not

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Ela Law (she/her): necessarily eating in tune with what you want, what you fancy what you like, what you need.

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Ela Law (she/her): because you are still looking at a different goal. Your goal is not

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Ela Law (she/her): being in tune, healing your relationship with food and your body, accepting your body, coming to a place where you build resilience and boundaries and kindness towards yourself, you are still trying to fix your body, which then means that you think there's something wrong with your body that needs fixing so in my head. I cannot, I cannot combine those 2. I don't.

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Ela Law (she/her): If you feel the same. But I for me, those 2 things are just so polar opposite

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Ela Law (she/her): from each other that I just cannot.

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Ela Law (she/her): I cannot wrap my wrap my head around it. How that could possibly be happening in the same

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Ela Law (she/her): space.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah, I can. Just I can just hear Evelyn Triple's voice if we put this question to you know it is you. You cannot call yourself an intuitive eating counselor, or promote intuitive eating. If you are pursuing or helping your clients to pursue intentional weight loss, it's simple as that. So if you are a nutritionist, and you're trying to find a middle path.

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Christine Chessman: But don't call yourself an intuitive eating counselor. Then that's I. You know there's I have less issue with that, because you can run your business as you want to run your business.

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Christine Chessman: But I really think so. And in this post

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Christine Chessman: the person sort of mentioned that fat loss shouldn't be our only goal, and only pursued after we've built a solid foundation of knowledge, habits, and confidence.

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Christine Chessman: I.

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Christine Chessman: You know intuitive eating. There is a whole principle on gentle nutrition. It is not like we are ignoring nutrition. It was created by 2 dietitians who are very passionate about the nutrients that food contains, and you know, and how food makes us feel in our bodies and

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Christine Chessman: on our health. So it's not because you're in. You're pursuing intuitive eating does not mean that you don't care about nutrients

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Christine Chessman: or nutrition or eating food that that makes you feel good and is is, you know, an invert was good for your body.

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Christine Chessman: But how can we say it's okay. You've built the solid foundation. Now let's pursue fat loss. If you have had disordered eating and eating disorder, it is completely negligent or irresponsible of me to then try and guide you down

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Christine Chessman: a fat loss pass.

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Christine Chessman: because.

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Christine Chessman: you know, it takes. I don't think to me any time that I have done any elimination, diet, or anything like this. Any kind of high protein, anything. It really upsets me and triggers me so I feel it. If I feel too hungry you don't grow out of an eating disorder, you manage it you can recover, but I think it's a big risk to go near

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Christine Chessman: anything to do with restriction ever again.

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Ela Law (she/her): Oh, listen!

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Christine Chessman: If you wanna stay on a path of recovery. It is a really really massive risk.

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Christine Chessman: So you can build all the foundations that you want.

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Christine Chessman: but your brand is wired in such a way that you know if if somebody

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Christine Chessman: give me an intermittent fasting, wake my I I immediately my brain would go right and strip back into it. So that is why I know. For myself I could never

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Christine Chessman: with. I could never go down that path, and I could never leave my clients down that path.

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Christine Chessman: No.

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Ela Law (she/her): It makes total sense. And you made a really good point there that we need to really be aware of.

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Ela Law (she/her): You know, what is our clients story people were working with

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Ela Law (she/her): I mean eating disorders that that should absolutely. I completely agree with you. There should never be any talk about

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Ela Law (she/her): intentional weight loss there, because that is not what that's not what we're aiming for. We're aiming for healing and recovery. But even even with people who are serial dieters who've just had disordered eating, but not actually an eating disorder. I think even that it can be incredibly

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Ela Law (she/her): triggering. And also it feeds into this thing that I really find so frustrating that intuitive eating has been co-opted by so many people into something that is used as a

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Ela Law (she/her): almost like a

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Ela Law (she/her): like another word for a diet without saying diet, because, you know, saying diet is a bad word nowadays, isn't there? No one says diet anymore? So therefore we're going to do intuitive eating, but looking at losing weight whilst doing it. And there's so many people who

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Ela Law (she/her): I've I've personally worked with. But also I've spoken to that said, well, I was hoping that I'd lose some weight doing this, and I'm gaining weight, or I was hoping that I'd I'd be a bit slimmer by the end of this.

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Ela Law (she/her): and I think.

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Ela Law (she/her): having this

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Ela Law (she/her): narrative of well, we shouldn't completely disregard intentional weight loss. We can still eat intuitively whilst pursuing. That is so damaging to the whole concept of intuitive eating, because it gives people that idea that. Oh, okay. Well, if I eat intuitively, I'll shed some pounds in the process, and then everything will be fantastic. And it's not like that. It's not about that. It's it's very much, not about your weight. It's about healing your relationship with food and your body.

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Christine Chessman: And it is as we were saying before we hit record, it's about tuning in. It's not about the.

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Ela Law (she/her): And Sir.

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Christine Chessman: Messages. It's about. Actually, it's not about overriding your hunger signals and only eating what you think you should eat to pursue fat loss. It is about tuning in and saying what feels good in your body. And you know, reaching that point where you can recognize comfortable fullness, and you can recognize your hunger cues, and you listen to them. You listen to your hunger cues rather than having a diet, coke, or coffee, or whatever it is to

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Christine Chessman: to, you know, stave off the hunger so you can pursue fat loss, and that's not to me that's not respecting your body, and

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Christine Chessman: which is one of the you know, the principles and of intuitive. And and so I I think the point this post was trying to make is that there's 2 extremes, and we're trying to get away from all or nothing mindset. And I think that comes from a misunderstanding of what intuitive eating is.

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Christine Chessman: because I think it's

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Christine Chessman: it's not an all or nothing mindset the whole. That's the whole point. It is not that diet culture, extreme intuitive eating is very much no rules

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Christine Chessman: based on.

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Ela Law (she/her): And.

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Christine Chessman: Self care framework. It's about treating your body with respect. It is not about overfeeding or underfeeding your body. It's about nourishing your body really well with nutrient, dense food, having space, lots of space for pleasure and joy and satisfaction in food.

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Christine Chessman: and you know, just feeling better in your body and letting your body

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Christine Chessman: do what it needs to do.

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Christine Chessman: and I don't see that as an as a deep. Do you get 1 point? I don't see that as an all or nothing kind of extreme.

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Christine Chessman: Do you? Do you know what I'm trying to get a.

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Ela Law (she/her): Yeah, totally. I think that the whole idea of nuance is great, and there is a lot of nuance in in all of what we do, but I completely agree with you that it's been misinterpreted into. Oh, we can't have all of nothing on weight loss, because in that particular situation we do have to.

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Ela Law (she/her): because if we don't, we feed into diet culture, and the 1st principle of intuitive eating is reject diet mentality, and you can't do that if you're pursuing intentional weight loss. And now I just want to say neither of us, and I'm speaking for you here. But you probably completely agree with me. Neither of us will say to anybody.

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Ela Law (she/her): you are not allowed to pursue intentional weight loss, if that is what you want to do. That is what you want to do, and that is completely your you know you. You've got agency over your body. You've got autonomy over your body and your decision.

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Christine Chessman: 100%.

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Ela Law (she/her): In our very phobic society.

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Ela Law (she/her): We cannot blame you for wanting to do that.

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Christine Chessman: Absolutely.

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Ela Law (she/her): Anyway. Probably

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Ela Law (she/her): no, and we've probably both had clients who said, I can't do this. I've been putting on weight. I cannot. I cannot continue with this, because my fear of gaining more weight is just too big, and I completely respect that. And I'm not here to kind of judge or to say to people, Well, you have to stay with intuitive eating.

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Ela Law (she/her): That's not what this conversation is about. This conversation is about the fact that yet again shoot of eating with 10 principles has been co-opted by someone who's still in a little bit of a tired mindset.

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Christine Chessman: There are.

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Ela Law (she/her): And.

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Christine Chessman: Yes.

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Ela Law (she/her): Whatever reason, you know.

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Christine Chessman: Let's just ask the question again, can we talk about fat loss, intentional fat loss and weight loss in a way that doesn't promote diet culture. No, I just believe we cannot. I think.

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Ela Law (she/her): Saying goodbye.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: I think I think you can talk about it.

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Christine Chessman: but it is still part of diet culture. It is pursuing intentional fat loss and weight loss. Now we both have to say that neither of us are in larger bodies.

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Christine Chessman: so we're don't have the lived experience of that. We've not gone to a doctor and been told to lose weight before they will treat you.

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Christine Chessman: and so the pressure to lose weight and pursue fat, loss and weight loss is immense.

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Christine Chessman: so we are.

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Ela Law (she/her): But.

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Christine Chessman: No, mates, are we saying that it's

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Christine Chessman: it's a trivial thing at all, and I can understand

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Christine Chessman: why this post has been made, because it would be lovely if there was some sort of way to just lose weight in a really healthy, intuitive way. But

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Christine Chessman: unfortunately that does not exist, and I think the idea around intuitive eating is that once you and maybe you have done binge eating, maybe you have done restrict binge. Maybe you have done restriction. Maybe you've done whatever you've done. Intuitive eating is stepping away from the behaviors and really tuning in, and your body, once you have gone down that road

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Christine Chessman: your body will find its place.

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Ela Law (she/her): Is he?

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Christine Chessman: Happy, and that is to me. That's the joy of it, because it's trusting your body to actually take care of it.

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Christine Chessman: It's like, if I feed my body well, if I move my body in a way that feels good.

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Christine Chessman: you know, it's gonna it's gonna be happy and take care of it. It's gonna take care of me, I trust it.

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Christine Chessman: And and you can't trust something you're trying to change and control. Does that make some sense.

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Ela Law (she/her): It makes sense, and I think I 100 agree with what you just said, and I'd like to add an. And

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Ela Law (she/her): you can have all of that, in any shape and size body, you can have that freedom and that liberation, and that peace.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah.

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Ela Law (she/her): And

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Ela Law (she/her): you can still struggle in a phapic society because of what you said. Right at the beginning you might go to the doctors and all they see is your weight, and tell you to lose weight, even if all your markers come back perfect. You still struggle finding clothes to buy in the High Street stores that fit you, and you can also still be discriminated against. Have stupid stuff thrown at you, and people calling you names, and all of that that can also still happen

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Ela Law (she/her): in the same space. So you can feel happy in your body and content and liberated, and you can still struggle in this society in a larger body, and therefore you can still want to lose weight. But what you will end up getting to is a place where you acknowledge that that's happening, that you do want to lose weight.

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Ela Law (she/her): But you also know that you don't want to go there because it's going to take all of the other stuff away. All of the freedom, the liberation, the contentedness, the peace with food and your body that you have worked for and gained will be taken away as soon as you actually act on that wish to lose weight. But I'm saying that you can still have that weight loss. Wish.

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Ela Law (she/her): If you act on it, you're moving away from it.

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Christine Chessman: And you know, the really interesting thing is, as I quote her, a lot. But, as Evelyn Triple would say, is restriction is the biggest

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Christine Chessman: indicator or or contributor to Wiggin.

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Christine Chessman: So it's restriction. Dieting will lead to it again in the majority of cases. So you're trying. You're actually counter everything you're doing in terms of chasing that fat loss is actually counter intuitive, counter, productive in the at the end of the day. And the white the way it's cycling the up and down.

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Christine Chessman: It's really damaging to your health, really damaging. And that's not spoken about. There's so much science behind that which we'll put in the show notes, but the constantly losing, gaining, losing, gaining, which is part of dieting culture, and the cycles that we're all in

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Christine Chessman: is really quite damaging to your heart and your cardiovascular health, etc.

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Christine Chessman: Has an impact, you know. So it's another reason

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Christine Chessman: to not

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Christine Chessman: pursue these

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Christine Chessman: Whitlock goals. But I I

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Christine Chessman: sorry. Go ahead.

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Ela Law (she/her): No, I've I've got question. I was wondering whether what you think about the kind of whole.

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Ela Law (she/her): So we we sort of talked about

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Ela Law (she/her): health, and how you know, when you go to the doctors, you've been told to lose weight, even though you're perfectly internally perfectly healthy. Do you think this post was written with an aesthetic kind of

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Ela Law (she/her): goal in mind. Do you do you think there was something about

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Ela Law (she/her): pursuing weight loss for aesthetic reasons, because I think I think it's and this is something I've been speaking to several people very randomly about recently is the whole idea of.

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Ela Law (she/her): If we don't care at all about our appearance. Isn't that what we're striving for when we do the whole intuitive eating thing and body acceptance thing and body positivity, or whatever you want to call it. Isn't that what we want? We want to leave the house the way we got out of bed. We don't want to care about what we wear. We don't want to care about our weight. We don't want to care about our hair.

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Ela Law (she/her): Do you think there was something in that post that says, Well, we are allowed to care about that.

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Ela Law (she/her): But just sort of

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Ela Law (she/her): kind of went down the wrong path, because if they focused on weight loss? Does that make any sense my question.

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Christine Chessman: Maybe so, maybe I'm gonna talk about that. That's something that I I have an opinion on. So I think.

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Christine Chessman: especially in the work that I do because

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Christine Chessman: I I did a post yesterday. If if exercise had 0 impact on your appearance, would you move in the same way? And a few years ago I would not have.

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Christine Chessman: but.

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Christine Chessman: No, I absolutely move in the way I want to move. But.

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Ela Law (she/her): Him.

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Christine Chessman: I doesn't mean you can't enjoy seeing a muscle develop if you've been doing strength training, and you've been working hard at it and enjoying it and feeling good in your body.

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Christine Chessman: And of course we want to. Why would we not wanna look nice? Why would we not want to make the best of ourselves. I think it's absolutely absurd to think that cause you're not chasing a weight loss goal that you don't wanna feel good in your body and feel confident.

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Christine Chessman: and there's absolutely nothing wrong and taken pleasure in your appearance, and to be

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Christine Chessman: and I. But I just think the more connected you are

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Christine Chessman: internally

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Christine Chessman: not to. So if I

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Christine Chessman: connect to my body, and if I move my body and and feel good in my body, I feel better about my body

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Christine Chessman: that makes sense.

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Ela Law (she/her): Yeah, it does. So I think I think

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Ela Law (she/her): if I'm hearing that correctly, I think you're saying there's 2 things going on.

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Ela Law (she/her): Yes, the internal thing, which is from each eating stuff that feels good in our body, from moving our body in a way that feels good. But then there is also the external thing that feeds how we feel about the appearance of our body.

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Ela Law (she/her): Yeah. So we wanna, we we feel better if we

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Ela Law (she/her): feel we look nice.

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Christine Chessman: Well, I mean. So I I think it's a human thing to wanna brush your hair and not for everybody. I mean, you might. Everybody's completely unique. You have your own in a way, body autonomy. You have agency absolutely do what you want to do. I feel better if I've brushed my hair. If I've put some eyeliner on.

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Christine Chessman: you know I I dress in a way that seems good in my body, and I think that's a bit self care for me. That's my little bit. Then I feel like, yeah, I feel a bit better to having, you know, having worked very hard on my own relationship to my body and food and movement. If I'm more connected to my body, regardless of

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Christine Chessman: my wits, whether it increases, decreases whatever I feel better about my body.

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Christine Chessman: So if I'm more connected

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Christine Chessman: to my body.

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Christine Chessman: I think better about it. Naturally.

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Christine Chessman: that's my argument.

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Ela Law (she/her): Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: But I don't think.

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Ela Law (she/her): Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: And it's, you know, aesthetic goals.

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Christine Chessman: It's I can. I can't pursue a set of goals, because I can never guarantee a set. It goals, because our bodies are all entirely different, and our definition I build muscle in a very different way to that person over there and to that person there, and to.

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Ela Law (she/her): We.

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Christine Chessman: All day.

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Christine Chessman: and so there's.

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Christine Chessman: It's never a place for. Do this work out with me, and you will know your body is your body. I want you to feel better in your body.

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Christine Chessman: and if you, if you're lifting weights and you see a muscle and you go oh, look at this! There's nothing wrong with that so so equally, I would never say there's nothing wrong with taking pride, and

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Christine Chessman: in how your body looks, and feeling good about how your body looks. There's nothing wrong with that, I think. What do you think.

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Ela Law (she/her): Hmm.

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Ela Law (she/her): yeah, I've I

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Ela Law (she/her): to be completely honest with you? I struggle with this a little bit, because I think.

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Ela Law (she/her): as the society we have come to a place where we play, put so much emphasis on looks. And there are all these friends of you know the I don't know. Whatever you know the the fake lips and the you know Phil is here, and.

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Christine Chessman: My colleague.

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Ela Law (she/her): Brian, I'm

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Ela Law (she/her): yeah. I I struggle with sort of tallying those 2 up, you know, when you when you read, for example, books like more than a body by Lindsay and Lexi Kite, which I highly recommend

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Ela Law (she/her): it. It's a real you know. You Re, you really start thinking about well, how much of what I do is feeding into society's norms of what it look. It is like to look attractive, beautiful. Well groomed, whatever you wanna call it, and how much of it is actually complete objectification? By yourself.

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Ela Law (she/her): as in you, looking at yourself as an object rather than.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah.

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Ela Law (she/her): Ding.

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Christine Chessman: Like my.

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Ela Law (she/her): And how much of it is actually well, it makes me feel good. But why does it make you feel good? Is it because society accepts you as looking after you. Do you see what I mean? It's I find it very difficult to wrap my head around, and I'm someone who puts on makeup. I'm 1 who has highlights put in. I'm 1 who sometimes paints toenails in a nice bright color. I I try and wear things that look nice.

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Ela Law (she/her): I'm presenting myself to the world in a way that I think is acceptable. So where do you then draw the line when it comes to wait. It's just I. I find it a struggle with that

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Ela Law (she/her): in the sense that.

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Christine Chessman: There's a bit of a difference.

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Ela Law (she/her): So, people.

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Ela Law (she/her): Well, I can see how people put a lot of emphasis on their weight as part of that whole package. Do you see what I mean?

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Christine Chessman: Oh, 100%, a hundred percent. And we live in a culture that worships thinness.

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Ela Law (she/her): Oh, my!

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Christine Chessman: You're gonna feel people are gonna treat you differently if you're in a different body. This is why intuitive eating is so hard.

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Christine Chessman: But the cost of staying

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Christine Chessman: in that place where you are dictated to. As to how exactly how you should like, what you should eat, how you should move your body is, is not. It's a torturous place, and you'll get to the end of your life, and you'll just be. I wish I'd lived. I wish I'd lived.

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Ela Law (she/her): Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: And not just made myself small and absolutely all you know. Why do I color my hair when it's going gray? Why do I do that. I feel better when I color my hair. But why do I feel better? Because.

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Christine Chessman: Society then treats me a little bit better, because I you know I'm not. I don't know. That's a it's a very. It's very hard. Separate those, isn't it?

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Ela Law (she/her): Yeah, yeah, I think.

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Christine Chessman: Like.

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Ela Law (she/her): Good.

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Ela Law (she/her): It's very complex, and it's very difficult. I don't think there is like one right answer here. But one thing that you just mentioned. I think that's something that's really important is that if you go out of the house without having your hair highlighted, you're not going to get discriminated against, whereas if you go out in a fat body, you might well, and I think that that's you know. When I said, Where do you draw the line. I think there is a difference there, isn't it? There is a difference when it comes to weight.

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Christine Chessman: And I also think if you are manipulating, if you're constantly monitoring exactly what you've if we think about what we're feeding our body, and we're talking about our internal organs, our brain, how our bodies are functioning. It's a bit different to drawing a line

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Christine Chessman: across your eye or putting on some mascara. It's you know what you're feeding your body which your body needs. Freaking nutrients. Your brain needs carbs. We need the food we need to make sure that our bodies are functioning, not just surviving, but they are actually thriving. And that's what is behind intuitive eating. It's helping us live, making room for life and enjoy in our life. But I do agree with you there. It is a really squiggly place.

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Christine Chessman: you know. Why do we wear makeup? Why do we.

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Christine Chessman: I have never seen a problem with it.

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Christine Chessman: I

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Christine Chessman: again. I don't judge anybody if they want to have.

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Ela Law (she/her): 6.

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Christine Chessman: Surgery. I completely understand why you would.

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Christine Chessman: And you know it was I. I thought about it my whole teenage years, because I have a long nose, and I was made fun of.

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Christine Chessman: I might, I thought, by a nose job. But then I saw Jennifer Gray and interview with Jennifer gray. He said it ruined her crime.

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Ela Law (she/her): Oh, yeah. Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: She was. She had an amazing, beautiful face, and then she had a nose job, and everybody was like, Hey, who are? You? Couldn't recognize her, and I thought, maybe

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Christine Chessman: I can learn to just

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Christine Chessman: accept myself. And that was the beginning for me of trying to accept.

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Christine Chessman: My body is not conventional. My face is not conventional, but maybe I can accept it because it's mine, and it's and that's the same way I think about my body. If it's not. Do you know what I mean? If it's not perfect in society terms, that's okay. Because that's only a cultural ideal which changes every 10 years. Why should I

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Christine Chessman: make myself fit into that little box when my body doesn't want to? And it doesn't fake it there.

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Christine Chessman: And it's not thriving. It's just existing, you know.

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Ela Law (she/her): Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: I do?

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Ela Law (she/her): Yeah, it does make sense. And I think that is a I think that's a really important point, isn't it? To kind of say, well, my body is my body, and my body.

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Ela Law (she/her): you know, looks different from someone else's body, and I'm learning to accept it the way it is

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Ela Law (she/her): rather than and and whilst doing that

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Ela Law (she/her): there is nothing wrong with wearing a nice outfit or earrings, or

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Ela Law (she/her): coloring.

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Christine Chessman: Ow.

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Ela Law (she/her): I like it. It's a.

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Christine Chessman: In.

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Ela Law (she/her): It's I think it's it's awareness, isn't it, around that. So that we actually do understand that there is new ones there, there's different kind of opinions there, but also that moving away from just that to intentional weight loss. There are so many caveats. There's so many issues with that in terms. Of what narrative are we feeding and reinforcing intentional weight loss doesn't actually work long term. What we doing

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Ela Law (she/her): when we sort of explore, that is, we are setting someone up to to do the exact opposite generally to gain weight. And we need to kind of be aware that there is a huge amount of stigma in society around weight

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Ela Law (she/her): which we're also feeding into. If we encourage

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Ela Law (she/her): people to lose weight.

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Christine Chessman: A 100%. And you know what Aubrey said in the movie. So obviously, we watched the documentary and both met Aubrey Haha.

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Christine Chessman: Have on the podcasting. But she said, in your thought, friend, the the amazing documentary. Where was that? Yes, she said, people look at me and think I need to do all the things.

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Christine Chessman: whereas I am here because I have done all the things. And you know Kim also talks about that Kim from body image fitness, she said her weight. She started gaining weight because of diet culture. She always says that, you know. She started. Her body got larger because of dieting, and I love that because of diet culture, because you're dieting and your body is so hungry. Then you're binging. And then you're dieting. And then you're back on. Because I'm not.

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Christine Chessman: That is a that is a biological physiological reaction that is not lack of willpower. That is a human

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Christine Chessman: Hello! I'm in starvation mode. Give me food. It's gonna go. Yes, give me food. Give me food because I want you to survive

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Christine Chessman: So I don't.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah. And I I it's, you know, it's a really complicated one, Ella, because we, as we're saying, we do not. We live in straight size bodies, and we are not judged when we go into the world. So it is, of course, easy for us to say, Accept your body, you know

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Christine Chessman: and it's

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Christine Chessman: it's it's a tough one. But

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Christine Chessman: despite all of that, I go back to. Can you?

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Christine Chessman: Can you encourage fat loss or help your clients to lose weight

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Christine Chessman: and not promote diet culture, I think. No, you can't.

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Ela Law (she/her): No.

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Ela Law (she/her): I agree.

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Ela Law (she/her): We've come full circle. Yeah, I would. I would say exactly that, I think.

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Ela Law (she/her): yeah, you you can't it? They they're just not aligned, and I don't. I didn't think you can. I think you can work with your clients on.

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Ela Law (she/her): you know, finding a way to eat in a way that feels better, because, you know, a lot of people might not know what they actually like and what they what they enjoy. And

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Ela Law (she/her): you know, as I always say when I come to the gentle nutrition part of courses and working with clients is well looking. Let's have a look at at what we can add, that is nutritious and fulfilling and satisfying.

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Ela Law (she/her): but I do think that

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Ela Law (she/her): that that's not the be all, and end all. I think we place a lot of importance on that being the way to lose weight. And I don't. I don't think it is. The sustainable nutrition doesn't also equate weight loss only because you're eating in a way that fulfills you in. That

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Ela Law (she/her): is what your body needs doesn't actually mean that. Oh, if I get to that principle. If I get to gentle nutrition, then I'll lose weight. That's not what's going to happen. Necessarily, you know you may, but I think I would say the majority of people who are going into intuitive eating, they will have at least a period of weight gain, and that is because they have been restricting for so long.

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Christine Chessman: And I think but I think that is dependent on where you're coming from. So if you've been cheating for years, if you have been cheating to sort of might stabilize actually. If you've been restricting. I totally agree with you that.

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Ela Law (she/her): It might.

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Christine Chessman: Be that your body needs to gain weight, to be in its happy place.

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Christine Chessman: And but we can't again. We can't say.

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Ela Law (she/her): The other time.

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Ela Law (she/her): no.

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Christine Chessman: There's a really lovely quote from Jill Angie, who's not your average runner, which is rather than setting way at law schools. Why don't we just develop habits that feel good in our body and trust our bodies to take care of it.

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Christine Chessman: And I think to me, that's and it's nice to simple, but it is rather than weight. Loss is not a behavior, it's an outcome. It's not a behavior. So why don't we just introduce behaviors such as eating food that feels good in our bodies, and fun food and satisfying food, moving our our bodies in a way that feels good

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Christine Chessman: and see what happens.

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Ela Law (she/her): Yeah.

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Christine Chessman: Wouldn't it be nice if it was awesome?

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Ela Law (she/her): Oh, wouldn't it be? You know what? That's why we're here, because we support people in trying to get there.

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Christine Chessman: Yeah. And you know what the cost. As we're saying, the cost

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Christine Chessman: of staying in diet culture versus breaking free from it.

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Christine Chessman: You know it is hard work, it is frigging hard work, but it is

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Christine Chessman: to be in a place where you feel free around food and movement is something that is invaluable.

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Christine Chessman: obsolete, and valuable.

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Ela Law (she/her): Absolutely. And you know, if you haven't already anyone listening, listen back to the episodes we recorded with Abby and with Liana, who share their experiences of what it's like to

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Ela Law (she/her): have liberated themselves from diet, culture, and diet mentality, and how worth it actually is from someone who's gone through it.

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Christine Chessman: Next

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Christine Chessman: evaluate like.

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Christine Chessman: But, Ella, thank you as always, and we will be back.

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Ela Law (she/her): You too.

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Christine Chessman: Next week with another episode.

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Christine Chessman: Bye, Rachel.

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Ela Law (she/her): Bye.