Gentle Nutrition with Liesel Maddox (Intuitive Eating #10)

Gentle Nutrition with Liesel Maddox

Amy: Hey there, welcome to the grace health podcast, your source for aging strong and your physical, mental, and spiritual health. My name is Amy Connell. I'm a weight neutral certified personal trainer and nutrition coach who loves walks with friends, chocolate, and Jesus. Whether you're looking to grow stronger as you age, nourish your body, mind, and spirit, or fit all the pieces of your health together to holistically thrive.

Visit gracehealthpodcast. com. This is the place for women over 40. I am here to guide you in the areas I can and bring on experts in the areas I'm still learning. And of course, we cover it all in a whole lot of grace. I'm glad you're here. And by the way, if you are new here, I invite you to go back to season 19, which started January 9th, 2024 to fully understand the foundation of the show and what we're about In short, in short, this is an intuitive eating based grace filled and Christ centered show focusing on women over 40 who want to age resiliently in a holistic way.

And then be sure to check out the bonus episode in season 19 called 30 plus non gym ways to improve your health and grab the free download that goes with it. All of those links are in the show notes. Okay. Today we are finishing out our series on intuitive eating. Today is Episode 10, Gentle Nutrition, and I have Liesel Maddox here to guide us through that conversation. Let me tell you a little bit about Liesel before we get into it. Liesel is a registered dietitian nutritionist specialized in eating disorder treatment and food freedom. We all want food freedom. Liesel provides nutrition counseling and group coaching to Christian women who are ready to break free from diet culture and disordered eating while healing their body.

With food and body image, she's in the process of becoming in network with a few major insurance companies to provide more affordable, accessible nutrition support because everyone deserves food freedom. Amen to that. Liesel lives in Colorado Springs with her husband and their dog and enjoys skiing in the winter, hiking in the summer, a good novel and finding the best brunch spot.

Liesel, we would be very tight friends if I lived in your area. Cause I love doing all that stuff as well. 

Liesel: Yes. 

Amy: Welcome to the show. 

Liesel: Thank you so much for having me. I am happy to be here today. 

Amy: I'm excited to have this conversation about gentle nutrition. So my first question to you is, can you just describe an overarching view of what this means?

Liesel: The principle of gentle nutrition was very intentionally placed. last in intuitive eating because it really is what I would describe as a dietitian a more advanced skill to be able to navigate eating in a way that's not based on food and diet rules And acknowledge that different foods provide our bodies with different nutrients.

Really the definition of gentle nutrition in intuitive eating is that you don't have to eat perfectly to be healthy. You're not going to get a nutrition deficiency or suddenly become, quote, unhealthy, whatever, however we're defining that. From one meal, one day of eating, even one week of eating, sometimes, you know, maybe one vacation's worth of eating.

And that it's really more about kind of our overall, what I like to call the big picture, bird's eye view of our nutrition intake. That counts and that does, you know, sometimes impact our health. And the reason this principle is placed last is because it's going to be really difficult to be able to think about, yeah, maybe the health benefits of different foods if someone is still really ingrained in a dieting or, you know, maybe disordered eating mentality.

Over time with practice of, you know, making peace with food and challenging the food police, it's going to become easier and easier. To think about sometimes the nutrition content or the different nutrients provided from food in a way that feels more just kind of easy and intuitive without feeling like that's going back to a place of restriction and having to say no to maybe the foods that used to be fear foods or the off limits foods.

And really gentle nutrition is about finding that balance of. Both, both the, you know, maybe more nutrient rich foods and the foods that we eat simply because they enhance our lives and bring joy to our lives.

Amy: I love that you use the word balance. One of the things that was in my tagline, which most people don't really see if they're not going to my website, but I chose the tagline from when I started doing all of this stuff in 2016 of balanced, healthy living, and then it was with a lot of grace and a little chocolate and balance is hard.

I really like how you talk about big picture in the bird's eye view. As we're talking and as we're recording, I'm actually traveling right now. And so when you talk about how, you know, yeah, you're going to go on vacation and you're not going to, you know, eat the way that you normally do. And that's okay.

Because it's like, what's the bird's eye view of your health? I'm like, okay, that is me right now. And five, 10 years ago, I probably would have been having a lot more feelings about it. And now I'm just more tuning into my body going I kind of feel bloated and ick because maybe I ate a little more than.

You know, what my body needed last night. So what am I going to, what kind of changes am I going to make today so I'll feel well, not because I feel shame for eating it. 

Liesel: Totally. I think that's such an important perspective to keep of like, the more someone practices the other intuitive eating principles and really practicing what we call that interoceptive awareness, that attunement to how does your body feel, that's what's going to guide it.

food choices that incorporate gentle nutrition. And just like you mentioned, you know, if you've, you've had a couple of days where like, Hey, you're just not feeling as great. And, you know, as a dietitian. This is one thing that I talk about with clients a lot. You know, let's say we're looking at like digestive issues and it would feel good for your body to eat some more fiber.

Well, that's a great, you know, gentle nutrition oriented way to bring some more nutrients. You know, a nutrient like fiber that does, has amazing health benefits for our bodies. By thinking about, like, adding more of that rather than the restrictive mindset of, man, what do I need to cut out or take away to be good, quote, with my, with my diet, with my nutrition?

And so it really is all about truly being in tune with how your body feels to guide those choices rather than diet culture's restriction based rules. 

Amy: Yeah, the restriction base, that's that does seem to be that like, that's how it points from one to another, if, or that's kind of the visual that I'm getting for that.

You know, I have read I read a lot and I love learning about nutrition science. I love learning about that kind of stuff. And I think I'm finally at a point where I can apply some things without getting too Obsessive or legalistic, or however, you want to call it about it. And I'm thinking of 1 book in particular that I read that was interesting in a lot of different ways, but also, bothersome in others. And in it, the author was kind of negative toward intuitive eating because he, and his whole thing was, well, that's just so that way people can eat what they want. And intuitive eating is just people's choice to eat whatever they want and not worry about the nutrition and the food and how it affects our body.

I have to imagine I can guess your initial thoughts about that, but you can tell us and then go into a little bit more about why you feel that way. 

Liesel: Yeah, to me, that sounds like. Someone who maybe hasn't fully understood what intuitive eating really is. And I would, you know, just to kind of build on like the other nine principles that have already been covered.

Intuitive eating is not simply eating whatever, whenever, however much we want with no regard to how our bodies feel. You know, and by feel, I mean, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, because otherwise that wouldn't be intuitive at all, you know, that would be the opposite and just Not being attuned to our body's signals, especially, you know, I think like fullness is one that I would bring up in this topic of conversation of, yeah, it wouldn't feel very good if we were never paying attention to our body's fullness signals or, you know, other, other signs that, hey, maybe The way we've been eating doesn't feel as great for our bodies if we're feeling really tired all the time or not having the energy you need to engage in movement that feels good or just activities of daily living every single day.

Intuitive eating and to get to this point where you can, you know, Kind of start practicing some gentle nutrition in your day to day life Needs to build on all the practice. Someone has already put in to really listen to their bodies And I like to say that gentle nutrition is kind of where all of those intuitive, you know, listening to your body's skills do start to meet the times where we, where we're incorporating the nutrition science and sometimes even leading with, I like to call it leading with logic.

You know, there are times where we know that it's helpful for our bodies to eat about every three to four hours, you know, for, you know, Balancing our blood sugar and helping our metabolism, you know, things like that, balancing our energy. And so we want to kind of mesh that with also listening to our bodies because what do you do if you wake up and you're just not hungry for breakfast, but you know, intuitive eating or maybe a dietician you've been working with is saying that you should eat breakfast.

And so gentle nutrition really does incorporate all of those listening and attunement skills with sometimes the logic or the nutrition science. of, what do I do if I've been told I need to do, you know, X diet for a medical condition? Or, what about even just an allergy? Or, how do I incorporate these nutrients that I've heard have a lot of health benefits, but I also don't want to go back down the dieting rabbit holes?

So, that's a longer answer to your question of, yeah, I would really want to explain to someone that intuitive eating is so much more than simply eating Whatever, whatever, however much we want, because the whole point of it being intuitive is that we're listening and we're following our body's lead.

And also incorporating some of the just, you know, nutrition science that might be helpful for our bodies and for our health at times. 

Amy: I wrote down attunement plus logic and I love how you just put those two together. You mentioned you brought up something which is something I wanted to talk about because I think this can be a bit confusing or maybe We're not quite sure what to do with that.

And that is this concept of when we have some more medical reasons to make some changes, you know, as we get older, Especially as women get older, our HDL starts to lower, which is our good cholesterol. Our LDL comes up, you know, all of this is based off of our estrogen. We lose insulin sensitivity. I mean like these are things that are happening.

So Lisa, I'm wondering if you can guide us through, I mean, obviously you are a registered dietitian. You are not our registered dietitian and I understand that all of our bodies are going to be different, but can you guide us through Maybe just our mindset of how we take some of the nutrition science that we know can be helpful with those or triglycerides or whatever and also a couple that with intuitive eating and that mindset.

Liesel: Yes, I love this question because it's what I get a lot just from clients or, you know, even just in casual conversation when I'm talking about intuitive eating is how do we reconcile or reconcile. You know, actual maybe medical or physical changes that are happening in the body and eating intuitively, especially if those medical related changes typically have some sort of eating recommendation that goes along with them, whether it's true and evidence based or it's more of a cultural myth or misinformation.

And how do we challenge those things? Eating intuitively and practicing gentle nutrition. It works with any sort of health and medical condition with very, very few exceptions. I'd say that probably the only exceptions, the only times where it's going to be really hard to practice gentle nutrition and eating intuitively with a medical condition is if you're, let's say 12 to 24 hours before surgery and you've been told not to eat or drink anything.

Or let's say you're. immediately post some kind of intense surgery and you have to be on a fully, let's say clear liquid diet. Yes. At those points, it's probably going to be really hard to eat intuitively. And I would even argue as a dietitian, And that's not the priority in those first few days. Your body's immediate recovery is, and it's okay if we're just trying to focus on fluids and whatever you can get in your body.

But for the most part, medical conditions that do have some sort of diet related component, and by diet, I just mean food recommendations, not like, you know a weight loss oriented diet per se you can, you can do that as you are eating intuitively. And I think the key here is really, like you said, to know someone's individual background and health history.

And I would really encourage people to think too about working with a dietician who has both, you know, an intuitive eating non diet. practice model and can provide you with what we call medical nutrition therapy, which just means managing different You know, medical conditions, or maybe we're looking at different points of your lab work to help make changes, but not from a diety way.

And I love that you brought up things like cholesterol or insulin sensitivity, because I think these are really good examples of lab values that sometimes can lead to changes in someone's, you know, Health conditions or maybe a different diagnosis where what we've been told from our culture in general and from diet culture is that we have to cut out all sorts of different foods to target those lab values or to help with insulin sensitivity.

However, With those things, you know, when I look at it from a medical nutrition therapy standpoint when, and all the evidence there are actually so many different things we can do to help our bodies out and improve, you know, let's say cholesterol or insulin sensitivity by, by focusing on what you can add in to your diet, maybe focusing on different nutrients like fiber or protein, Protein and different sources of dietary fat that are going to help balance blood sugar and help to, you know, fiber is one of the best ways that we can reduce cholesterol.

Getting inconsistent movement that feels good for someone's body is a great way to target both. Improved insulin sensitivity and lower in cholesterol. And those are things that don't have to do with cut out, you know, X, Y, Z foods. And so the, the main thing I'd want to leave people with, if they're navigating some sort of, you know, medical diagnosis that has a dietary component for treatment, or, you know, they're wanting to improve their lab values is.

That we can actually do a whole lot, a lot more than just, you know, you need to cut out this, this and this and it feel very restrictive. There's a whole range of ways that you can add things into your diet or focus on other, you know, what we'd call like health promoting behaviors. And it, it hopefully will feel a lot more freeing than how restrictive it feels to be told, okay, I've got to cut out these different foods and I basically feel like I'm back on a diet, which if someone is on this intuitive eating journey, I would imagine feels very defeating to be told that.

So I would really recommend, you know, if someone's managing a certain health condition, consider working with a dietician who can help you along both in your intuitive eating mindset and manage medical conditions to optimize your overall health in the process without it feeling like you're going right back into a diet.

Amy: I love that. And this is what I love when this happens. So we have these conversations and someone is on for one thing and I've had conversations with someone else and you're saying the exact same things without, you know, we're, and it's not planned, but it's supporting people. And it makes me think of two conversations I've had with the same person who is Dr.

Maria Colon Gonzalez, who's functional health. And I have an episode coming up with her this season on cholesterol. So I was expecting, actually it wasn't cholesterol, it was diabetes. We've had one conversation about cholesterol. I'll link to that if you want to listen. We're going to have another one about diabetes and same thing.

She didn't come in saying for diet, you know, for cholesterol, you need to cut out this, cut out this, cut out this. It was increase your fiber, increase your beans and legumes, increase your seeds. And so I, I love it when those things, Our complimentary in our different conversations. Okay, I Know for a lot of us who have grown up in diet culture One of the things that's appealing sometimes about diet culture is you get the book or the manual or the program and it says Do A, B, C, D, and E.

And if you do these the right way, you will be successful. And of course, we know now that they make all kinds of promises they can't keep. I think the appeal for many people is they just want someone to tell them what to do. And that is difficult in intuitive eating, and particularly with gentle nutrition.

How can we start to feel more confident in our eating? Our wisdom in our intro, intro. Why can't I say this in our inner awareness and just guide us through that, because I have to imagine you've had these conversations as well with your clients. 

Liesel: Yeah, I think the biggest component is time and I know that's not a fun or glamorous answer to hear because so often I think as human beings we like instant gratification, we like overnight changes and then on top of that diets and diet culture has programmed us to believe that making changes with nutrition or our bodies or weight can be as simple as You know, this 30 day program or all of those different false promises of overnight changes that we get from diets.

And that is simply not what, you know, Intuitive eating is and I would even go further to say that's not how God designed our bodies and the food to work either And so learning to find that gray area and really listen to your body Without diet rules and be able to think about the gentle nutrition component again without it you know, quote, triggering, you know, old diet patterns, thoughts, and beliefs.

It takes time and it takes a lot of time of being really patient. And being really gracious with yourself, being able to recognize when a thought creeps in that, you know, when you examine it, you think, Hmm, that could lead me down a route that I've been down before. And I don't want to feel that way anymore, that it's better to take your time.

And maybe even go back and revisit those beginning principles of intuitive eating as many times as you need to before it really feels, I would even say safe to start practicing gentle nutrition. And I know because of how much our human brains love rules and being told what to do, and we really like things that are black and white or all or nothing, it can be really tempting to feel like.

I have to do the intuitive eating principles in order, and once I reach number 10, I better be ready to start practicing gentle nutrition. But it's okay to maybe, again, go out of order. Go back to some of the principles where if you're getting really stuck on making peace with food, it's going to be really hard to practice gentle nutrition.

And just to kind of set some realistic expectations here, I really think this is a principle that for people who have struggled with You know, maybe years of chronic dieting, disordered eating, and definitely if you've struggled with an eating disorder and you haven't necessarily been in recovery for years and years and years yet, this principle is going, is probably going to take years to fully embrace.

And I say that as someone who, you know, my passion for nutrition and, and treating eating disorders comes from my own experience of having struggled with one. As a teenager and then getting in recovery, deciding, and not really me deciding, but more of the Lord laying it on my heart that I really cared about helping people in this way.

And I can say now it has probably been over 11, pushing 12 years of practicing intuitive eating that I feel much, much more comfortable with this gentle nutrition component and being able to say. Yeah, you know what, eating this food would feel good for my body today versus, hey, I'm going to pass up this food, not because I'm restricting, but because my body wants something else today.

And honestly, I think even, you know, five years ago or so, which would have been about five ish years into my own eating disorder recovery, that would have felt kind of threatening to me in my relationship with food. It would have felt restrictive to say, Oh man, well, what if, you know, should I get the salad instead of the burger and fries, but intuitive eating says that I can get the burger and fries.

It just would have been really overwhelming. and confusing. And so, although I know it's not the fun and glamorous answer we want to hear that things are going to just happen overnight, I think for a lot of us who have struggled with food before, it's okay to be really patient with ourselves and know that it might take years.

to really embrace this principle, and that's okay. 

Amy: Well, thank you for that, because you're right. We are just moving even faster and faster and faster to an immediate answer for everything. And thank you for the reminder that it can take time, and it can take years, and we are sitting here listening, and we have been in diet culture for years.

It's going to take time, and you're just telling us that's okay. So, thank you. I love the grace in that. I appreciate that. Liesel, if someone is listening and thinking, okay, I want more. I need more Liesel in my life. Tell us how someone can work with you if they are interested. 

Liesel: Yeah. So there's a few different ways you can work with me.

I provide right now, pretty much solely virtual or telehealth nutrition support. I am located in Colorado Springs, so if by chance someone's listening near there, we absolutely can find a way to work together in person, but for the most part, we would be meeting online. I offer one on one nutrition counseling, either for eating disorder recovery and for you know, kind of a non diet food freedom, intuitive eating approach to helping you heal your relationship with food and with your body.

And I love also getting to incorporate that medical nutrition therapy piece if someone is managing maybe a different diet. Health condition, and we're trying to marry those two recommendations together of intuitive eating and, you know, if there are maybe some dietary recommendations for managing their health.

With that option I am in the process of being in network with Blue Cross Blue Shield, Aetna, Cigna, and hopefully United Healthcare to provide nutrition support that could be covered by your insurance. Up to 100 percent depending on your health insurance plan. Aside from that, I also offer group nutrition coaching for people who want more of a community format for learning intuitive eating from a Christ centered.

And that option involves an online program with 12 learning modules weekly group calls, as well as three individual calls throughout the 12 week program and a group messaging community. That group option is slated to come back in the early fall 2024 timeline. So it's currently. There's currently a wait list for it right now.

And if you're looking to get started with a registered dietitian sooner, I'm offering those one on one online services. And people can learn more about those on my website, which is LieselMaddoxNutrition. com or visit my Instagram page at DietitianLiesel, and you'll find all the links. Great. 

Amy: And yes, this is airing at the end of August.

So this is perfect timing for those who are interested in that. And I do love following you on the socials when, whenever I'm on the socials, not so much right now. Okay. One last question. What is the one simple thing you want us to remember about our conversation today? And you're also going to be the Last, one simple thing of intuitive eating.

So this can be as big or as small as you want. You get the final, final word on gentle nutrition and intuitive eating. 

Liesel: Oh, I'm honored to get to to have put the cap on that conversation here. Time. And I would, I would say that applies for intuitive eating, all 10 principles and for this last principle of gentle nutrition.

This is not the quick fix false promises of diet culture. This is the really slow and steady progress kind of journey in getting to know your body's God given intuitive signals again, in doing all of the unlearning that it takes to Rip away the false beliefs and rules from diet culture and giving yourself just a ton of grace on this healing journey.

And specifically to this last principle of gentle nutrition, I would just really encourage anyone listening, give yourself the grace to put this one on hold if you need to. Again, I mean, it really took me probably over five or six years before I felt like I could really make. gentle nutrition, food choices without it feeling restrictive or quote, triggering for my history of having had an eating disorder.

And so, be patient with yourself in the process. And trust that over time, the more you keep practicing, you know, the unconditional permission to eat and making peace with food, not going back to diet, that's what's going to make it easier to make those gentle nutrition choices at times. No matter what, just giving yourself grace and knowing that there's nothing wrong with you or that you're doing wrong.

If this whole intuitive eating process is taking a little bit more time than you anticipated but it's definitely worth the journey.

Amy: Okay, that is all for today. Go out there and have a graced day.