Intuitive Eating and the Anti-Diet Approach with Registered Dietitian David Orozco

Welcome to Chefs Without Restaurants. I'm your host Chris spear. On the show. I have conversations with culinary entrepreneurs and people in the food and beverage industry who took a different route. They're caterers, research chefs, personal chefs, cookbook authors, food truckers, farmers, cottage bakers, and all sorts of culinary renegades. I fall into the personal chef category as I started my own personal chef business perfect little bites 11 years ago. And while I started working in kitchens in the early 90s, I've literally never worked in a restaurant unless you count Burger King or Boston Market. This week, we're joined by David Orozco. David owns Orozco Nutrition, a nutrition and wellness practice in Atlanta, Georgia. David's been in practice for close to 20 years as a registered dietician, nutritionist, and he's a certified Intuitive Eating counselor and exercise physiologist. He's also the host of one small bite, a podcast that seeks to help people build a positive relationship with food and their body through an anti diet self compassion driven approach to vulnerable conversations about nutrition. On the show, we discussed many aspects of nutrition, health and wellness, including intuitive eating, intermittent fasting, and special diets such as keto. David talks about his approach to working with clients and why he doesn't focus on weight and weight loss. David also talks about disordered eating and share some of his favorite resources. So this was the first time I had a dietitian on the show before and I know that health, diet and eating are very personal subjects. Obviously, I myself am not a doctor or dietitian. And you know, you have to do what works for you. I know that diet and nutrition can be one of those hot button subjects. You know, a lot of people are on keto diets. And if that works for you, then great. You know, it's not something that David prescribes, necessarily. Some people are on intermittent fasting. I've even done it at times. It sounds like it's not something that David really believes in or advises his clients. You know, obviously, this is just one man's opinion, I guess with me two people's opinions. So we're not looking to offend anyone. I just wanted to have a dietitian on and hear what his approach is to things. I think it's really interesting to get different takes from different people, as you hear in the show. My wife is also a registered dietician, I think she and David share a lot of the same opinions and mindsets on things, although I don't think they necessarily take the same approach, which is okay. So I hope you enjoy the show. I really hope you get something out of it maybe gives you something to think about. If you have any questions, David's contact info is in there, reach out to him. And I hope everyone enjoys these last two weeks of the holiday season. If you celebrate Christmas Have a Merry Christmas, and I will still probably be dropping an episode next week before New Year's. So stick around for the show. It'll be coming right up after a word from this week's sponsor. Did you know restaurants turnover employees four times faster than most businesses? What if somebody created an affordable and effective hiring solution for the restaurant industry? What if there were a job site that only focused on people looking for food service jobs? What if that site only cost $50 A year to advertise for every job your restaurant needed? Forget the big corporate sites like indeed and monster. Our sponsor savory jobs has a job site exclusively for restaurants. The best part is savory jobs only charges $50 for an entire year. And you can post all the jobs you want. And for our loyal listeners use the code savory 10 and get 10% off. That's S A Vory one zero. So you go to savory jobs, calm and discover the job site shaking up the industry. And remember to use savory 10 for 10% off. And now on with the show. Thanks so much and have a great week. Well, hey David, welcome to the show. Thanks for coming on today.

Hey Chris, man, I'm excited about this and I really am pleased that you had me on are you having me on? So thanks for having me.

Well, definitely. I mean you have a a podcast called one small bite and I figure that's close enough to perfect little bites that it it seemed like it was meant to be right.

Right. That's what I think too. Yeah, absolutely. And I really I love it. Man, I love what I do. And I love talking about small bites and in the nutrition world that I'm in.

So we dropped the fact that you have a podcast and it sounds like you have a nutrition and wellness practice. So let's kind of jump in there. So you have your own business. Can you talk about your business, what it is and what it is? You do?

Yeah, great. So I'm a registered dietician, nutritionist, and I have a practice called TT wellness. And people can find me to to wellness.com. And I've had the practice now for going on 15 years. So it originally started with a lot of nutrition classes and corporate wellness stuff. So I did a lot of corporate wellness work. So think education, sessions, luncheon, learns corporate wellness, individual coaching and counseling, biomedical health screenings for companies, I moved into a lot more of the personal counseling, so individual, nutrition, medical, what we call medical nutrition therapy. And so I moved into that I slowly started getting on insurance panels. So becoming an a credential provider for insurance, kind of like a physician, you go to a doctor and your insurance covers it. And so that started growing my business quite a bit. And that's pretty much where I am right now. I have two dietitians, a virtual assistant, I used to have an office but don't need an office anymore. So I got out of that. And like I said, 85% of my business is helping people enhanced their relationship with food. And by that I mean, I'm an anti diet, nutritionist, dietician. And just to give your listeners a little bit of an understanding, the difference is a nutritionist can be anybody. There's no credentialing, there's no schooling, you can have a diet and call yourself a nutritionist. But a registered dietician nutritionist is someone who has a background has credentials, they have to go through rigor. So you get into a undergraduate program, then into a graduate program. And then you have to then get supervised hours. So an internship, kind of like the culinary world, and then you then after that have to sit for national board. And then you have to have continuing education. And for the first two to five years, you're pretty much a greenback, you're really learning a lot of the ropes. And so it takes a little while to get into the profession and kind of find a niche in an area that you really like. And so that that's where my niche is, is that anti diet, compassion, focus nutrition, where I'm really looking at helping people establish that positive relationship with food. So there's no bad or good foods, there's no foods that are off limits, it is how do we want to do it? And what's the way that our bodies are needing it or wanting it. And so that's the direction that I go with a lot of people. And I often call myself a food therapists. So that means that I am looking at the cross between physiology and emotion. And so how does that relate in relationship to food? And so food I often tell people has both a physiological and an emotional response. So there's a physiological feeling, and an emotional feeling. And so food does both. And so that's why I call it food therapy.

I love that the term food therapy, we talk a lot about this in my house. My wife is a registered dietician. She went to culinary school with me, but she always wanted to get into health and nutrition and wellness. Actually, Johnson Wales was starting a nutrition program, she would have been the first graduating class and I think once she started, she wasn't sure she wanted to be the test subjects. In fact, at that point, they couldn't even tell you if it would be accredited. And then you could go get your licensing afterwards. So she decided to work a couple years, but she's gone down a very similar path and has a similar mindset. You know, it's there's so many armchair nutritionists these days, right? Like, we all have the internet, we all have a platform, and just the kind of stuff that's out there, whether it be someone you know, talking about anecdotally what they've seen work for them, or just some really bad misinformation yesterday at home we were talking about. There's some keto pill now or something like that, that you take in your weight. And we were looking into it but what happened is, is it doesn't even seem like it's real, but they're saying that it one shark tank and if you were to Google Shark Tank, keto pills, supposedly it's a scam. All these companies stole logos and images of the judges on Shark Tank and our actually telling people that at one, and now all these people are out there taking these, they're just like vitamin supplements. And it supposedly helps you burn fat and lose weight. And it's not even, it didn't even do what they said it did. Like it didn't win this. It doesn't. But also it didn't even win this competition, but the fact that they're still out there, and the Better Business Bureau hasn't shut them down, it seems like a lot of people are looking for a quick way to lose weight and get healthy, and they're grasping for anything. And there's a lot of snake oil salesmen out there right now kind of capitalizing on that. And I think it's really scary. 100%,

my friend, but it's been going on from, gosh, ever since the concept of a snake oil salesman. I think that Coca Cola got started that way to where they were selling their concoction, their recipe, and that was big because they originally use coca leaves. And they were talking about it being a concoction or it being a medicine or a remedy for lots of ailments. But I don't want to bash any, you know, soft drink or anything, although it's not really about that. But when we talk about the Keto pill, it reminds me one of the reasons I got into nutrition was partly because I was at a place in my life where I was doing a lot of fitness stuff. I was in martial arts, I was doing hiking, I was doing triathlons, I was biking, and I was in a bad place. I didn't like where I was in my life. I was running my family's travel agency, not what I wanted to do. I had a degree in biology. And I thought, Okay, this is not great. And then all of a sudden my mother gets diabetes. And then right after that she gets diagnosed with colon cancer. And then I mean, talk about adding insult to injury. My father then was diagnosed with prostate cancer and cardiovascular it was like, boom, boom, boom, boom. And then what what then happened after that was my parents were big conspiracy theorists. And they thought that the health industry was out to get them in the pharmaceutical industry, which is not far fetched from a lot of people, the pharmaceutical industry is out to kill us. And so my mother never wanted to do that. She was my parents were buying this supplement called nRT. It was supposedly, and I'm doing air quotes, a natural killer cell enhancer, that will help alleviate cancer. And they were using careful words there, right? Because they weren't allowed to use that. And so the FCC closed them down. And I remember my parents bought the last box, they spent $1,200. On the last box, wow, these pills, and they had like 25 or 30 bottles with like, I don't know how many pills in each bottle. But they taught they dropped$1,200. And this is when my mother was you know, dealing with all of this stuff. And she also did this raw living food diet program. And we thought back then I wasn't a dietitian yet. And I haven't even started my program. And I thought, oh, yeah, this is going to be great. And I remember talking to the owner of the living food industry Institute. And she said, Well, we're not dietitians, we don't prescribe diets. And I said, but delivering food, you've got recipes, and you've got meal plans, and I don't understand what you're doing. And so she said, No, yeah, we you have to talk to a registered dietician, nutritionist or physician. So, man, when I hear you talk about the Keto pill, this is something that I probably get at least three, four or five times a week from either new clients, or sometimes even Oh, clients, and that is, what's the quick fix? What's the magic bullet? How do I make this fast? And I tell them, it just doesn't happen that way, you know, and we're always trying to look for ways to outsmart our bodies. And so this is one of the reasons why I love what I do, because I really look at what is the holistic approach to a person and what's really driving what's going on with their, their eating, and what is their relationship to food and looking at behaviors and how those behaviors dictate the way they eat. And I wish I could have done that with my mom. You know, granted, I was 18 years ago. So you learn a lot over time. And so to hear you talk about the Keto pill, yeah, man, I'm faced with that day in and day out.

There is no easy fix. And I've talked about this on the show. You know, I've struggled with weight and health since you know, I was always a stocky or Husky kid growing up and, and bigger. And you know, I've been concerned, you know, my dad had diabetes. His mom had diabetes, like something that was in our family and just last year I was pre diabetic, but I've been able to get that under control through my eating and exercise. And just in the matter of a couple months been able to drop, you know, my a one C and my blue Coast levels back to normal levels, which I'm so thankful for. So that's something I'm always monitoring. But, you know, as someone who's been in the obese level of weight for quite some time, you know, trying to figure out what the best way is to get the weight down and keep it off.

Yeah, this is where I do a lot of work with chefs like yourself, the world that you live in is fraught with a lot of challenges, your schedules, sleep, physical activity, eating times of eating, erratic schedules, the amount of different foods that you have to try or taste or understand and, and learn and then do you have time to eat and then you're maybe not even eating some of the things you even make, you know, there are a lot of times where I know a lot of chefs that will get home and they're just exhausted, they're not going to cook again. So they'll just order out or they'll drive thru and, and their lives just have that consistency. And this is where it's really challenging. So a lot of my chef clients, one of the things that I try to do quite often is really focusing on what's going on in their behaviors and how to change that. I love hearing where you are on this, I don't fixate on helping people lose weight, that's not my direction. But I definitely look at someone's health. And so I always, I'm always working on okay, what's going to make you feel better. And oftentimes people think, Okay, what feeling better is, is getting weight off. But what you find out is that feeling better is so much more complicated than that, it's so much more than that. And that means it may be just having a little more time to relax or saying no to a few things, not necessarily food, like taking on another job, or doing a task for someone else that should be doing it or not standing up for yourself or understanding that you need to set some boundaries with your employer about certain times. Although in the restaurant, specifically industry, that's really tough, right? Because they're very, you're trying to make it and they're gunning for some kind of position. And they're jockeying for that position. And it's really, really difficult. So I play a lot with a person's lifestyle, and is how it is very good to get to a place where a person feels better. And that will often mean that there anyone sees they're going to get better and that their blood sugar levels are going to improve, and they are going to lose weight. And so one of the ways that I do that is I maneuver through their lifestyle, and we look at one small bite, we look at small approaches, I am very familiar with the fact that people will have traumas, and those to me are very major events in a person's life, it doesn't mean that you've had like sexual abuse or drug addiction or, or you got hit by a car, sometimes dramatic events, or traumatic events could be a celebration that you have, or a new position, or a promotion, or a job change or a lifestyle change. And so that all affects our lives. And so I weave in and out small things that they can do to undo some of those big changes. Because people don't handle big changes really well. I mean, let's look at the pandemic, right. People are just still struggling to figure things out. And mental health is a big problem. And we're still not out of it yet.

For me, it's not eating meals, and then not eating meals when I should and then by the time you're hungry, you don't eat things that are best for you. You know, that was the biggest adjustment for me. So I never really worked in restaurants. So I would work a job and get home at a decent hour and could still eat when I started the personal chef thing I was basically on a restaurant schedule now. So I've never loved fast food, but from a quality and just like you know, it's just not what I like eating. But what I found was I would leave my house at three o'clock to drive to a client's house for dinner. So I didn't eat dinner because it's three o'clock, but then I'd be there working and leave their house at 930 10 and I'm starving because I hadn't eaten since noon. So I'd go to Taco Bell and get two or three tacos at 10 o'clock at night. That is in my opinion not the best thing it didn't work for me and it made me put on about 50 pounds over the course of three years but just feeling not well not just the weight but just feeling like you're not eating food that's giving you the the nutrients and the quality stuff and then you just go to bed like almost right away on this heavy stomach. It just wasn't doing me any good. And so now having to figure out well what does that mean? If I'm leaving the house at three and getting back on the road at 10? Like what am I going to do to eat dinner or whatever For that, maybe

Yeah, I mean, you were literally bringing up a lot of the things that I'm doing with a client, and it's let's look at what's going on in your life, not look at what you are eating, but look at the consequences that are getting you there. And then how does it feel to be eating that on a regular basis. And so there's nothing wrong with having Taco Bell, there's really there's nothing wrong with having talked about the problem is, like you said, 10 o'clock multiple days a week, multiple weeks a year, and then maybe other types of foods very similar that at that time of the day, and then when you do this, it multiplies. It's a multiple multiplicity multiplicity factor, I'm getting all tongue tied. And so what ends up happening is, that's the same approach in the opposite, I'm looking at helping small changes occur, that will then substitute kind of like habit changes, that will substitute those old behaviors, and then there's neuroplasticity, or to where you're starting to see that there is more malleability in this, oh, I can do it this way, oh, I can set a time at six o'clock to have a little something so that I'm not getting home starving. And then I can just have a little something at home when I get there. So then I tie it off, right? Simple things that take that kind of approach. The other thing that you said that was really interesting is, a lot of times I'm working with clients, and I'm getting them to eat more often. And not, I'm not talking about six meals a day. I think one of the things that you said that was really key there is like sometimes you'll go all day without eating. And it doesn't matter what kind of job you're doing. Whether you're a traditional chef at a restaurant, or you're doing your own personal chef business, or other non traditional chef businesses. I think it's really, really important no matter what career is to understand, sometimes people will just go Go, go, go go. And then when you when stopped to eat, they'll skip breakfast, or they're skip lunch, or they'll skip both. And then maybe again, by the time you get to the end of the day, you don't want to do anything, you're exhausted. And so you're willing to order out or you're willing to just snack through the night, or, you know, choose foods that would not normally be part of your routine. But it's because your body is starving. And funny, though, why you skip meals like that. What often happens is your metabolisms slows down quite a bit. So now you get to the end of the day when your body doesn't need the energy anymore, but your hunger level is high. And it may not be like you want a big platter of food, it may be little urges and cravings and temptations and you eat a little something, then you eat a little bit more, eat a little or eat a little bit more. And by that time you're getting to bed your body's like well, I don't want any more of this. Or your body's I well, I don't really need this energy anymore. So I'm just gonna go ahead and store it over time. And so yeah, it leads into those kind of challenges later in life.

So do you have a stance on intermittent fasting?

Yes, don't do it.

But it's all the rage right now everyone is doing it. It is it is

it is it is all the rage. But you know what it's so was Atkins when it was the rage. And so was keto when it was the rage. And so was paleo when it was the rage and so was whole 30 I think keto is still the rage. keto, you know what's interesting is, and I often find people that will do intermittent fasting and keto dieting at the same time.

So you skip a meal, and then you eat a whole bunch of fat for lunch and dinner. Pretty much.

Yes, yeah, I mean, that's so fraught with disordered eating, it's incredible. But often what happens is that you're not only creating a stress by not eating earlier on in the day, you're also creating a stress by not getting a variety of nutrients into your body. And so your body is going to your body's gonna win pretty much. Most people are just unable to sustain something like that. But let me talk more specifically about intermittent fasting. Because it's not about what you eat, it's about the time that you eat. And so the idea the concept comes from, alright, let me not eat it this time, it shocks my body to use up stored fuel. Oh, this makes sense. And then I'll eat in this small window of time. And then then that's, that's good. And that's traditionally what I've seen, most people do. There are various forms of intermittent fasting. But that's the most common they'll do either a 16, or an 18 hour fast. So they'll stop eating somewhere between six or 7pm. Until new 11 or noon, the next day, what happens is then from noon, they might eat three meals, because they're going to have to stop at six or seven again, and so they might not get three meals. And the problem is the biggest problem is not so much that a diet doesn't work. Intermittent fasting works for losing weight initially. But like any diet after about three to six months, forget it. It's just gonna stop doing it. And it's not because of the diet, necessarily. It's because the body the body is not designed to move that way. So here's a couple of things that I often tell people. If you were Ferrari, and you were Formula One, would you put half a tank of gas in that car help No, you got 60 to 70. laps? You of course you wouldn't. In fact, you're gonna fill it up maybe two or three more times, right. So that's number one. Number two, you are a Ferrari, or a Porsche or whatever kind of car in your own life, you are gunning, and on all day long, whether you're a stay at home parent, or you've got a career, you are running at all cylinders all day long. And so imagine not fueling yourself, what ends up happening is a state stealing from Peter to pay Paul kind of concept. What I mean by that is yes, if you fast, yes, you will burn energy, but your body always looks at the easiest energy to burn. And that's going to be either in your liver, or in your muscle. So it's going to be glycogen that's stored in your liver or your muscle. And so what often happens, whether you do intermittent fasting or any diet is that your body is going to go for that energy first, it's not going to go to your fat first. Now, it will burn fat. No, I'm not going to say that it won't, but it will go to the lean tissue fastest. Because burning fat is very laborious, it takes a lot more three or four times more the amount of enzymes that it does to take glucose out of muscle, your liver. So that's one thing. I mentioned this a little while ago, too, at the same time, your metabolism slows down. So four or five years down the road. And this is what most people don't see, yeah, you might have lost weight during intermittent fasting. And it was great. Four or five years down the load, most likely most people gain the weight back. And what ends up happening is the body has great memory. So the body goes up, he she you're added again, oh, no, no, no, wait, they're starving, hold onto that fat, hold on to that fat hold on to the Fed, don't let her him lose that weight. And so actually, it gets harder and harder, then the second part is you've also aged five more years. And if you're doing this multiple times, what happens is that the person gets what's called a weight loss intolerance, the body is actually incapable of losing the same amount of weight. However, when you're 40, or 50, your mind still thinks that you are the same person in your 20s Even though you physically know you're not right, right. But it's no longer that way. And so I know that's a long explanation to intermittent fasting. But you could have asked me about Paleo, or keto or whole 30 or Atkins or South Beach or whatever. And I would have told you the exact same thing. It's the same concept.

Well, I think one of the things I see is, it seems easier if you don't care about food. Like, that's crazy to me that people don't care about food, but I love food. And I think a lot of people love food. But I see all these people who do like weekly meal prep, and they eat the same thing every day. Like, it seems like sure I could cut my daily caloric intake. If I had a boneless, skinless baked chicken breast seven days a week, that's like 150 calories, and some kale or whatever. But like, I want a piece of pizza for dinner tonight, or I want this. But I'm just always amazed when I see these people line up these tables and take a picture of the same thing. And they just like make their food on autopilot. And they're eating on autopilot. Like where's the joy in that? And I guess some people don't care. But I can't imagine how. How not fun or enjoyable that is to just everyday like a robot, like take your little black container out of the fridge and take it with you to work and eat the same thing that you had yesterday, just over and over. And that's not going to be sustainable. You can maybe do that for months or even a couple of years. But in 15 years, are you going to be eating the same thing every day for lunch? At some point, you have to have a normal relationship with food where you can eat things. It's the same with like social situations, like if my friend say, Hey, do you want to go out for tacos tonight? I don't want to have this panic attack where I'm like, Oh, well, what can I go? Are they gonna have Paleo Food for me are? Am I gonna be able to have this and that, you know, I'm not talking about obviously, allergies, if you have celiac or something, but people who are having self prescribed restrictive diets, it's, in my opinion, looks like an eating disorder or a mental issue more than anything else. And I just kind of see. See that as is a new challenge we're going to have as more people having an unhealthy mental relationship with food. I mean, is that kind of where you're thinking about?

Oh, yeah. Oh, absolutely. So before having an eating disorder, there's a concept called disordered eating. And so that is sort of the entry into eating disorders where eating disorder is is actually a mental illness and a medical condition. It's a diagnosis. And so we think of it as anorexia or bulimia. There's also binge eating disorder, but there are other categories too. Like perfectionist eating, which is called orthorexia. And so disordered eating would be sort of every one of those things at a starting point. It's like, it often starts innocently with diets, for example, diets are an an easy access into that disordered eating world, where what you're talking about social isolation, you can't go out to his restaurant with your friends, because you are keto, and they don't make anything keto, or a person that truly has celiac disease has to then maneuver with somebody else that's on some crazy diet, and then socially, you can't hang out with them anymore. Because it's like, okay, you're putting too much stress on me, or from a chef standpoint? I mean, I bet you are tired of doing five different eating nutrient restrictions. It's like, oh, gosh, I can't do all that in one in one meal.

Yeah, I have to if you have more than one, everyone has to to get that I can't split it up. Like if there's one, one celiac or one gluten free I can kind of deal with. But if you're going to throw in something else, like everyone's eating a vegan meal tonight, like everything, I try and make a whole gluten free meal for everyone, because it's gonna be so hard to do for different people. So it's like, okay, well, you have like one vegan and one gluten free, like, we're probably going to have to do a gluten free vegan meal for a good portion of it,

and who wants to eat that way. But I'll tell you, you said something that I think is really, really important. And that is the autopilot zone, the autopilot that people are on. So a lot of the work that I do is getting people to build awareness and consciousness. And so I I recently have written this book it's going to publish in February. And one of the chapters in the book is on consistency, these four C's, which is curiosity, compassion, commitment, and consistency. And I talk in consistency about the autopilot problem. And that is how we are gunning through the day with the same thing on autopilot, Baba, Baba Baba. And in many cases, that's extremely important. That's very beneficial, because it gives us efficiencies, right? It allows us to do things quickly. So it's helpful. I'm not saying you shouldn't have these things. But when it comes to your diet, we're not slowing down. In fact, one of the examples that I give is a client that I've been working with. And I said to her, Well, what time are you having lunch? And she was like, Well, you know, what's when I can have it? And I said, Okay, we need to prioritize you. This is where self compassion comes in. We need to prioritize you, you need to put on your calendar, block it, lunchtime, stop, slow down, because what's going on is that you're not eating the way your body needs. And then you're going to do some crazy diet. That's not giving your body what it needs. And so that's a perfect example of how I'm getting around that automaticity or autopilot concept here, right? So yeah, man, you're spot on. It's like, socially, it's isolating. Emotionally, it's challenging. Food wise, it's boring. And it's the same, same, same same all the time. And then from an emotional standpoint, it's very, very challenging. It's just like, wow, I can't do this. And then people start feeling the sense of, of depletion of self worthiness that just goes into the gutter. I can't do this. I'm not good enough. I'm not great. I can not Oh, how many discipline? That's my diets are

just horrible. Yeah, and we've talked about this a little you and I, so I've, I'm at the point, I've lost 35 pounds this year, which, you know, I felt like I needed to, and it's not just the weight, it's also, you know, fat makeup and everything. But I wanted to figure out how to do it where I could still enjoy the foods because that was important to me. So taking the time to do it, right. You know, for me, it was just making some substitutions, and saying like, Okay, I'm hungry right now, obviously, Doritos is a less good choice than, you know, having some fruit. But I also still want to be able to have to redoes at some point. So like, figuring out the balance of how often I had those things. And for me, the big component was physical activity. I just found that I wasn't moving, like at all like, especially when COVID started, you know, I wear a Fitbit. It's like, Oh, I've taken 2700 steps, and I've been awake for 16 hours, like, I probably need to move a little more, you know? So just uncovering that, but I always want to be able to eat the things that I want in moderation. Who doesn't? Doesn't that sound great to be able to eat whatever you actually want?

Yeah, so I practice something called intuitive eating, which is a fun foundation of everything that I do. And in intuitive eating, there's a principle called making peace with food. And inside that principle, one of the things that they say is giving yourself unconditional permission to eat. Now I want to be cautious here because one of the things that you're saying is very, very important. You do want to eat whatever it is that you do want and and need. I never focus on a person Weight though, you've lost 35 pounds, great, great for you. But I am never here to work on someone's weight and have them lose weight. Some clients that I work with never lose any weight, but they feel fantastic. That to me is very, very important. Some people feel fantastic. And a consequence of feeling fantastic is that they're losing weight because they're eating in line with what they value. And what I mean, when I start telling people unconditional permission to eat people freak out, like Oh, my God, you're telling me that I can just eat everything that's gonna make me gain weight? And I said, I don't know. Maybe it will. But when you get to a place of making peace with that food, you're not going to have that. I'm going to gorge it kind of mentality. You're going to go Oh, it's just Oreo cookies. Oh, it's just Doritos. Oh, it's just a taco. Now don't get me wrong. There's, I'm not trying to say you can't enjoy it anymore. It's not like, oh, it becomes just bland, normal food. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is, there isn't an a greater importance of that food than you?

Well, I guess weight is a metric and probably the easiest metric, right? Like because it's something that's measurable. And that doesn't account for zani fat or all these all these things. But isn't there a point where let's say you're 400 pounds, and you probably need to lose weight?

You know, that's a really good question that you ask. And so even with someone who has 400 pounds, I know that this is sounds really crazy. So bear with me here, I don't focus on getting them to lose weight. A lot of times someone who is at 400 pounds, they're in some really serious challenges in their lives. Now, don't get me wrong, there are consequences of that amount of waking. But the vast majority of people that I'm working with, are not at 400 pounds, although 400 pounds is very sensationalized in shows on TV, like the half ton woman or the half ton man or, you know, my body is killing me or something like that. And it's sensationalized. And so what, what happens is we create a stigma around someone's Wait, we create, oh, they're lazy, or they're horrible, or they are doing something bad or look. And a lot of times we are not anywhere are aware of the consequences that have gotten them in there at that point in their lives. So a lot of the work that has to happen, is looking at variables that are more important. Like maybe it's more about with someone like that, it's maybe about learning how to breathe better, or learning how to find a comfortable way to sleep. Or maybe it's about learning how to use certain equipment to help you do a little bit more movements. Or maybe it's about learning how to set a time for a meal, so that you pay attention to what your body is needing. And that's where I'm going with this now, may they need to lose weight? Probably they probably can feel a lot better when they lose that way. Because I would imagine that nobody that's 400 pounds is gonna feel fantastic, right? So yes, but the problem is, if that we focus squarely on weight, we lose a lot in the nuances of what I've just mentioned. And those kinds of things like where their sleep is, where their mental health is, what conditions are going on at home, what's their, their social aspects, their social determinants, what is their health insurance, the job, the occupation, there's so many other variables. And then what ends up happening is that we end up stigmatizing that person, that person then feels themselves and I get this from not 400 pound people from people that are 210 pounds, people that are 10 pounds heavier than they, quote unquote, again, air quotes want to be. And so what ends up happening is that they feel like they don't belong. And that's a horrible, horrible feeling to have. It's really very challenging. And so what I try really hard to do is get people to go, Hey, no, let's pay attention to this, which is something other than their weight in many cases. But I do understand what you're saying, yes, someone who's 100 pounds, needs a lot more help. But that's different. You know, the vast majority of people that I'm working with, don't, I do get people that end up getting bariatric surgery too, which is stomach surgery where they shrink the size of the stomach, and I'm also not judgmental look, I'll work with someone around intuitive eating and anti diet approaches. And if they still feel like they have to do some kind of diet. I tell them look, I'm with you. 100% and I'll support you in any way I can. So I try not to judgment because Look at me, I'm not in a 400 pound body. I'm very privileged. I never gained that kind of weight. I don't know what it's like. So I have to empathize quite honestly, with a lot of the people that I work with in many regards.

Well, I'd love to jump over to your podcast. So you have a podcast, can you? How did you start a podcast? Why did you start a podcast? I guess?

You know, it's interesting. There's a, a financial guru here in Atlanta, he had a national syndicated radio talk show host or talk show back in the late mid 90s. His name is Clark Howard. And I was going through my nutrition program After years of listening to him. So I graduated in 2005, with my nutrition program. And so I always joked about how I wanted to be the Clark Howard, the radio talk show of nutrition. And so fast forward. I said to my wife, you know what, there's this podcasting course. And I think it was like 600 bucks or something. And I said, this is my opportunity to finally get on the radio, but on a podcast, and she goes, Oh, you got to do it. And she goes, but you have the time. I'm like, I don't care. So I've always wanted to take nutrition, especially what I do to a lot of people that can't afford nutrition. You know, health insurance is a big challenge for a lot of people. And so I wanted to reach a lot more people through the anti diet compassion focused approach. And so that's where I ran into this guy named Pat Flynn. And he has a program called smart, passive income. And he has a course called Power Up podcasting and bought the course. And so a little plug for Pat Flynn, but I bought it and I just went through the motions. And I, I mean, excuse the pun, I chewed on that, like, you wouldn't believe I just devoured it. And I put everything together. And I was like, Yep, I'm gonna do it. I started my podcast for men originally. And I started going more towards the diet stuff that I just mentioned, I don't want to do, which is so unfair to a lot of the listeners. But I thought I needed to reach an audience somehow. And I thought, Okay, I'll talk about losing weight. And I'll talk about diets and stuff like that. And then probably come around, oh, well, I would say May or June, I was like, I can't do that anymore. I started shifting. And so that's where the whole podcast came in. And I love it, I do it. I do a show every Wednesday. And then I have once a month I'll do a Friday food cast. And I'll talk about 15 or 20 minutes, it'll be a solo show, where I talk about a specific area of either intuitive eating or emotional eating, or something nutrition and give people some like one two threes on on what to do and how to change.

That's great. How do you find your guests that come on your show? Do you reach out to people who you just are you looking at like topics specialists in any one area?

So yeah, go three areas. So three areas would be medical, the second mental health and the third culinary. So those are the three main areas that I'm looking for guests. Now, every once in a while I might have guests that have something similar to what I do. Like I've had an athletic trainer, I've had a person that calls herself has a program called mama Nars, where she helps young adults, you know, maneuver life a little bit. So every once in a while I might have guests like that. But those are the three main areas that I try to reach out for I specifically like mental health quite a bit, because a lot of what I do is in the mental health realm, but chefs fascinate me the lives the stuff they create. They're so artistic, and they're so creative. And that's kind of where you know that intersection is those three areas.

You said that you were you didn't say on the show. In your bio, it says that you auditioned for the show, Master Chef is that yeah,

man. That was cool. That was so cool. I did that back in 2017 or 2016. I can't remember exactly. And it was so cool. I think I got to the fourth round, but I didn't make it. And you know what's interesting about the show, what they're looking for is you've got to have like a personality. Not only can you make a great dish, but you've got to have personality. And so they're looking for crazy, crazy people. Sometimes this is kind of like what I had. But so yeah, I went to a hotel, and I brought in so I have the recipe on my website. It's called Alma that suit or southern soul. And it's a play on words meaning because I'm from Colombia So what I did is I did this on EPA, right? So it's a corn pancake that we make in Colombia, Colombia, Venezuela is very famous for it. So it's a EPA with I made a poll chicken. And so I pulled I put chicken inside a slow cooker, and I did beer and a whole bunch of spices to it. Onions, garlic, and I forget what else was just sheer balsamic vinegar, a little bit of sugar, cumin, coriander. Anyway, I did a whole bunch of this stuff in the slow cooker. And then it was, you know, pull off the bone kind of soft, you know, shredded chicken. And then I laid that on top of the audit, Bob will actually I guess, will Blonko a little bit of butter, I put the pulled chicken on top. And then I sprinkled a little bit of garnish on top of that. And I had that with a side of mango kale salad. And that was the winning recipe for me on that show. But then what I started realizing it had nothing to do with the food after that it was all how spectacular can I be? How much can I move my hands on? How can I how crazy was my story that was kind of the the draw? Well,

isn't that how all of like social media is as well, too, you know, you kind of see the rise of the tic toc cooking star these days, you know, and it's all about you know, I'm gonna take this pad of butter and throw it 40 yards across the kitchen and get it to land in a cast iron skillet and it's gonna sizzle. Like, people love that. And, and it's cool. It's entertainment. But that's exactly what it is. Right? It's entertainment, versus the actual cooking skill at some point.

Yeah, good luck doing that in your own kitchen.

So I always like to ask, what are some of your favorite tools or resources. So like, whether this be about eating or cooking, or anything that you use in your business? What are some things that you love, whether books, computer programs,

alright, I'm going to go with the simplest. And then I'm going to do some other things. So one of the simplest things that I love using on a regular basis, which really helps people a lot, but they absolutely despise having to do it. And that is a food journal. I think that the food journal is so important because it's a reflection of who you are, you know that saying you are what you eat kind of concept, a love of food journal, because the journal can really tell and show you what your patterns are. So it's the best best way to enhance a person's up a person's awareness of what they're doing. With that said, I love I mean, and quite honestly, I tell people, pen and paper is enough. And I really only look for three things. One, the time that you're eating, what you're eating, and what you experienced, either at the moment that you ate, or maybe towards the end of the day, that's the only three things that I'm asking people to do. But what it does is it helps people understand emotionally where they are with their eating, as well as what it is that they're doing on a regular basis. Because a lot of us, if you ask someone what they had to eat last night, they have to really scratch their heads. And they can kind of broadly tell you what they had. But when it's when you start parsing down to the specifics are like, Oh, wait, there were peas in that, oh, you know what, actually, I didn't put any salt in that. So you don't really realize how much you're doing something till you start writing a food journal. So that's one of the first tools that I say our easiest and the best thing to do. And I often tell people, three, four days. And that's it, even if you're not working with a registered dietician, nutritionist. Keep it for food journal, because that will help you understand your patterns, it'll help you and also writing it down makes you go Wait, do I have to eat this? You know. So that's very impactful. It's one of the best tools that I have in the arsenal. Along with that I use an app that I love. There's two of them, but one is called the eight app at E. And it's a photo journaling app. So you take a picture of what you're eating, or you can actually type what you're eating, but it doesn't count calories doesn't count grams of anything. And then it has some questions about kind of similar to what I'm asking people to do emotionally or their experience. It's like, where did you eat? Who did you eat with? How did it feel. And so I love that app, because I could also connect with my clients on that. So I work with clients while they're using that app. So the journaling and then the apps are one. The other tool that I love a lot is intuitive eating and intuitive eating is a book. It was published originally in 295 1995. So it's 25 years old. They are on their fourth edition of the book. So the fourth edition just came out this past June. And I've had both co hosts or excuse me, co authors on my show, Evelyn and Elise, and so you can listen to some of those podcasts. I think it's podcast third, teen with Evelyn and podcast 37 and 38 with Elise on episodes on my show, but Intuitive Eating is a great place to start. They also have a workbook. And then the other tool that I love using a resource that I love using quite a bit is I have to get a plug in to our national organization, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Finding a registered dietitian, especially one that is intuitive eating, specialized or counseling certified. And that's a great place to start as well. So those are four tools or resources that I always say are quick go twos there. And there are a couple of things that I might do on social media. On my website, I do have a meal planning kick, it's very, our guide that's very intuitive eating based. And then I have some other resources, like a pausing exercise that I do. And then also a meditative eating exercise exercise that I do with clients. So those those are pretty much my go to you the resources or tools.

Great. Well link all that up here. Hopefully people will reach out. I think it's it sounds like great tools. So I hope people take advantage of that. I know my wife will be appreciative of you plugging, you know, finding an actual dietitian to help you with your journey. Thanks so much for coming on the show. I really enjoyed talking to you.

Yeah, I really did, too. I really appreciate it. I'm so glad that you asked me to come on. And I'm glad that you were able to come on my show as well. So yeah, I think Chris, thanks a lot.

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