A Guide to Reestablishing Trust in Our Bodies with Leslie Schilling

This is all because, kind of bringing us back to, kind of where do we lose this trust, this ability to trust ourselves, is because diet culture told us we had to micromanage our very wise bodies.

Hey there, I'm Amy Connell. Welcome to Grace Health, the podcast for women who want simple and grace-filled ways to take care of themselves. I'm a certified personal trainer and nutrition coach who wants you to know your eating, movement and body don't have to be perfect, you just need to be able to do what you're called to do. As you know, if you have listened here before, we have conversations here on the Grace Health podcast about physical, mental and spiritual health Right now, and then we have a unicorn come across and talk about all three. Today is one of those days. I am thrilled to have Leslie Schilling on the show, who is a registered dietitian and author of the new book Feed Yourself, which I have read and you will hear me talk about and I love it. We talk a lot about trusting our good and wise body, taking back the trust of our inner wisdom, relearning to trust our bodies and the process of doing that, because we've been doing other things for a really long time. I can't wait for you to hear the mic drop lesson about the only time the scale is mentioned in the Bible. You are going to love this. In fact, I loved Feed Yourself Leslie's book so much that I have chosen it as an inaugural book club book. That's right. We are going to have a free book club over on the Grace Health Community Facebook group. I will link to this in the show notes and you can head over there to learn more information. But I am very excited to read this again with you all, discuss it with you and maybe I think we're just going to learn together. There's so much in here that I just know that I need to read it again, head over to the Facebook group to learn more. And let me tell you just a little bit more about Leslie. Leslie has a lot of letters after her name, including registered dietitian nutritionist, and then also she's certified in various eating disorder specialties. She owns a Las Vegas based private practice specializing in nutrition counseling for families, people with disordered eating concerns, professional athletes and performers. Leslie has served as a performance nutrition consultant for Cirque du Soleil and the NBA and is an expert contributor to US News and World Report. You may know Leslie best as the creator and co-author of the award-winning book Born to Eat. This new book, feed Yourself, is about diet culture in our safest places, including our faith-based places, and is available everywhere books are sold. Let's bring on Leslie. Welcome, leslie. Thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to have you here. This is super exciting. I tell you what you've got it all from the nutrition standpoint and it's just a whole broad thing. There's so many things. First of all, I want to say we're going to be talking some about your book Feed Yourself. This is a phenomenal book, especially with those who are trying to understand their relationship with food, understand the broader scope of how food impacts not only ourselves but also other people's stories with it that may not mimic our own. I think it's a very important read and I'm so glad you put that out in the world. Thank you, thank you. One of the things that you talk about a lot is your standpoint of intuitive eating. We have had a lot of discussions here on the Grace Tealth podcast about intuitive eating. The thing that I want to hone in on, at least at the beginning of our conversation, is this concept of trusting our body. I'll just start there with saying, from that intuitive eating standpoint how do you define that trusting your body?

One. It's trusting that your body was made good and wise. First, we have to really trust. When I speak on this topic, I'm like God doesn't make jump. Your body is good from the get-go. The first part of that is trusting your body, is believing your body is good even when it doesn't feel good, when not feeling good could show up in a lot of different ways. We have to get back to trusting ourselves. We have to stop outsourcing our inner wisdom to external devices that could look like our spark watches. I'm not saying you can have it right. I'm just saying it is not smarter than your body. Yes, it is not smarter than you are. The first part in trusting your body is taking back the trust in your innate wisdom. We can't do that when we're busy outsourcing. That would be like to apps or to calories or to ignoring hunger, which many of us don't have hunger cues, and that's a whole different thing, but we can usually get those back. Trusting your very wise body looks like remembering that if you've seen an infant start to eat and that would be bobbing at the breast or the bottle or hand like pomegranate grasping food to feed themselves that we are born with the wisdom to nourish ourselves, to know that we need nourishment. So I think that is the very first step is to reclaim whether we're there or not physically, but to reclaim that these bodies are coming to the world with innate wisdom and because of DietCulture we're tall, also very early to not trust it.

Oh my gosh, you have just dropped so many truth bombs on there. Yes, to all of them. It's funny, I think, before we got on that I've been writing this new book for young women and one of the chapters starts with once upon a time you were a baby and I bet you were pretty cute and you ate, slept and poop and kind of went into that, and when you were hungry you cried, or you fast, and when you were full you turned away and somewhere along the way we have lost the trust in ourselves to do that. And the fitness trackers and the apps and all of that kind of stuff. I do not agree more and it is a relearning so many times over for so many of us. I mean, I've got the smart watch, but also I'm smarter than my smart watch and I do not have to close the rings every day.

You do not have to close the rings. I do not, and that's something we have to be really careful about, right? Because I know people that are like I've got to close my rings. I'm like is this service of self or is this service of something else? And so, like, closing your rings every day might not be service of self, and sometimes we forget that because we've learned that falsely, that we need to outsource our wisdom. So true.

Why do you think we've lost the ability to trust ourselves? I mean, you kind of start touching on that and the diet culture, but let's dig into that some more.

Well, it starts so early, right? I mean it starts with, maybe a caregiver comment of is your baby eating too much? You know, like it starts and this is because, like we have, most of the grown people in Western culture very, very indoctrinated in diet culture, which is a system of beliefs that overvalues thinness as a means to health and worthiness, and it's wrong. But it's also in all the safe places. It's in your medical offices, it's in academic research, it's in schooling, it's in places of worship, it's in dietitians offices. I used to be, I was a student of diet culture as a baby dietitian, so it is everywhere and just and it's wrapped up with health and we regarded as truth, we don't question it. So when we see the commercial as a 24 month old, which a lot of people joke and are like, why do we say that? Like it's two, there's a two year old. It's when a two year old is watching watching maybe a channel and there is a villainous pack of french fries and a super righteous superhero apple. We don't have to say the words about good and bad. The seed is planted. There's so many subliminal messages. There's so many direct messages like, oh, the trend on the growth chart might be going too high. Well, the growth chart is really volatile, and so is growth. So we're used to seeing we really do. It's okay in the first couple of years of life to see a lot of volatility, even during puberty. There are times where volatility is very normal. But diet culture has told us it all has to be within this very narrow window, which is really keeps us from celebrating our divine diversity in bodies across the spectrum. But yeah, it starts early. It starts like. There's an example that I write about. My daughter started a parents day out when she was like two. I think she would go Tuesdays and Thursdays from like nine to 12 or nine to one or something like that. Sorry, one of the sweet ladies they do a coloring page and ice cream, and what my daughter was picking up is like these are yummy things, but not too much. So there is this, the little the messaging here and they are like we can mean well and still plant seeds of doubt about trusting our body and our food. And so, yeah, it starts really young when we we kind of start to question and it might be that you never really had one of those food experiences. But you're looking at your I'm going to just use women in this example You're looking at your aunt or your neighbor who you love so much, who loves you like family, and you're watching this person diet to change your body and you're picking up that this person really hates their body, even though this person is the most influential, beautiful person to you, because you're a child and you're learning that. Oh, my goodness, as I get older, I'm really going to have to watch it. I can't trust this really wise body.

And so we have so many influences and even people who love us deeply can influence us with diet culture as well, and I think, like that example that you were talking about, of watching someone you care about, oh, diet, or I'm losing weight, or all of the things, that's what we see and that's what we see as normal, and that is hard to unlearn. One thing that I've been giving a lot of thought to this is deviating a little bit, but I would love your thoughts on it is so I have two kids who are how old are they now? 18 and 19. And one of them was a great eater and one of them just like he ate, he would eat some, and then he, and then he was done. And I feel like I really messed up, because there were these times, you know, like when they're finally starting to eat solid foods and getting going, and because like he got a full, like I nursed him for nine months and then we did the bottle, like I knew how much he had then and I, looking back, I think, man, I mean there was like come on, eat some more, eat some more, eat some more, keep going, keep going and just keep shoving that in there. And fortunately he's still pretty attuned very well to. But I just think, man, that could have gone sideways real fast and I wonder how much of these influences of us like I mean selfishly, it was like I just wanted to sleep through the night Totally, but like even little things like that that we don't even know.

Yeah, and that's the thing is like, and you really wanted what's best for your child, right, but it and here's the thing too it doesn't mean that that like, it turned out well. You're not having to worry about any of that, but we all I think I'm a dietitian and I wrote a book about infant feeding and feeding kids and toddlers, like. I think about that too, like, and I get it wrong, because we're human and we want what's best for our kids. We want them to be fed, we would love for them to have a nice variety, but our culture has taught us that they must have the most varied variety and they must have the exact amounts of this and that. And we've really started to overthink it. And probably, what happened with your child is he, you know, in autonomy matters? Here, too, he was probably like thanks, I got it, you know, and it turned out okay, and so, like, I think I think in that you hit the nail on the head. It's like preserving autonomy, so like we can offer support and guidance and ultimately, we really want to trust that they have what they need. So it sounds like you did a great job, and if you had to go back and do it over again, maybe there would be less of the have a little bit more. And, like in the pediatric research, we're like it doesn't sound like you did it, enough to backfire, but like when we do, like push, push, push, push, push, the exact thing that we want to happen usually doesn't happen. So if we're trying to get a kid to eat more, they tend to back off and eat less. If we're trying to get a kid to eat less, which I don't recommend then we might find them hiding food or over over interested in food. And this is all because, kind of bringing us back to, kind of where do we lose this trust, this ability to trust ourselves? Is because diet culture told us we had to micromanage our very wise bodies. And we don't, right, we don't. And but diet culture is also in the pediatrician office, probably telling parents like, oh, I don't like where this grouch art is. We got to push, push, push, push, push, push, push, which is not necessarily what we do. We might just watch and see how this little human interacts with food and body relationship. And are they getting enough? Does it matter that it looks like a magazine article? No, it doesn't, it doesn't. So we, we learn a lot along the way and we learn it. We learn diet culture in those safe places. So it makes self. It makes a lot of sense that we will question ourselves and our own tactics. And I've had parents who decided they did something really awful Like I can't believe I said that. Or maybe supported dieting in their kid or whatever. Like I can't believe I did that. I wish I would have known now that that was probably not the best for my child. And what we do is we repair. Like being human is a series of rupture and repair and we say you know what, I did the best with the information I had and I'm sorry and I know better and we're going to do, we're going to do things differently and I'm real, I'm going to support you. If we need to do extra repair, I'm here, we're going to do it.

We're going to punch diet culture in the face yeah. And the the grace in it all as well. I what you're talking about. I really appreciate, which is in line with our faith of God. Doesn't ask us to be perfect. It's just it and we will mess up and we are human. And so I think that if anyone's listening and they're like, oh my gosh, you know I have messed up teaching my kids to trust themselves. I've messed up with me trusting myself, that there, that there can be a lot of grace in there and learning and and re attunement to our bodies and let me validate that we all have even people with degree.

Like you know, like I have degrees and certifications, like we've all messed up and that's because, like diet culture was heavy, heavy, heavy heavy in my training, like I jokingly not jokingly say I have a master's degree in diet culture because there's so much that I've had to unlearn. And just just to validate that it makes sense. If you feel, like man, I had no idea. Like me either, and I got to pay for that degree for 15 years.

So my mistake was worse than yours. Oh man, yeah, the relearning all of that.

That's a painful, expensive thing and the thing I always joke with people like I promise I did learn lots of good stuff too, because, like, I learned to like my master's degree with like nutrition and exercise, science and immunology and learned a lot of really lovely, lovely, very useful things, and also diet culture was very prevalent and so over the years I was super fortunate to do a decade or more. Still, like, lifelong learning is a value of mine and still unlearning and relearning, and I think, as long as we're on this earth and moving forward, I think we'll be doing that.

Oh, so true, so true. So, speaking about kind of relearning, I have spoken with a lot of people who say the whole intuitive eating thing like that sounds great, but if I let myself have cake or cookies or soda or ice cream, pizza, whatever the thing is, I will never stop. I don't know how to learn to trust my body. Can you give us some guidance in that? And the person who is afraid of trusting their body and of trusting the oh my gosh, what do you say? The good and wise body that we were given?

Yeah, yeah. Well, I would say it makes sense that you feel like, feel like that because we've been told that we can't be trusted with those foods since we were little. Like, oh, you can only have two cookies, or. Oh, like, or, or it's not allowed in school at all, right. And I would say something is good or bad if it's not allowed, right, so something's got to be wrong with it. There's just so. It makes sense that you feel that way, that you can't be trusted with it, but you can in the absence of restriction, and so that is really what, like, if you're hungry, of course you're going to eat more cookies. If you're hungry, of course you're going to eat more cake. If you're not fully fed, we're really going to have a mind game with all the foods that we're afraid to eat because diet culture told us they were bad or they're. You're going to have too much of these or whatever. It makes sense that we feel that way. But when we realize that food is neutral Brownie, chicken, salad wrap, potato chips, piece of steak, baked potato neutral Food should not elicit some type of emotional hierarchy for us. That culture makes it do that because we make things good and we dichotomize Like it's good or it's bad, it's healthy, it's unhealthy, it's junk or whatever, and I do not recommend using those phrases at all, because food is neutral. Call food what it is. A potato chip is a chip, it's not junk, it's a potato chip. A brownie is a brownie, and if you have it for breakfast, it's a chocolate breakfast muffin. So let's be clear. So, neutralized food. Food needs to be neutral, and food is not related to your morality. Now, I am not in any way saying that food is nutritionally equivalent across the board. It's not but when we're not eating foods that we feel are taboo, we're probably not having a big game in our head about it. We're like oh, there's a brownie on my plate with my barbecue chicken and my green beans and some roasted potatoes. I'm gonna eat around my plate until I'm full If I eat the brownie first. Okay, and I can tell you from, like, supporting my own child and just really trusting, I trust myself to put food on her plate and I trust her to decide what she's gonna put in her body. That kid will leave a brownie, part of a brownie, on a plate almost every time, and there are times where she'll eat the whole thing. Because, like, and I can tell you, when I was a new mom, I might not have been fully, fully invested in diet culture. I might not have been fully there, I mean invested in stepping out of diet culture and so but I was invested in her not learning it and so, even though I might be worried oh no, is she eating too much brownie? Like that would not come out of my mouth. I was gonna let. But I will say I'm fully there. I'm fully there and I'll say, watching, watching an infant and a toddler, truly trust their bodies, is a beautiful, beautiful thing to bring you back to yourself and your own body. Trust Because you can look at this, this human and be like, wow, they do have it and food is neutral. So like when she's eating dinner or and this is not just my daughter, this is like. This is just, we all are capable of this, but what you really want is chocolate cake. Okay, well, eat some chocolate cake. And might you eat too much of it? At first? Yeah, because you've been restricted from it for 10 years because you wouldn't let yourself eat it. You had to have something more. I mean my air quotes clean or or healthy or approved or whatever instead. So it makes sense, as we come back to honoring our cravings and come back to honoring our bodies, that we might feel like we're gonna eat more of the things that have been off limits, because who doesn't want off limits things Like, if you, if you have like three cups on the table and you tell your kid not to look on the cup, what are they gonna do? They wouldn't look under the cup. And that's bringing us back to that autonomy, like I want to be in charge of me. I want to be in charge of me. I want to eat the foods that I like and it doesn't mean that you're gonna eat these foods all the time because you're gonna eat them and then you're gonna be like okay, I'm good. How do I feel? You know, like and I help people kind of okay, if you don't feel like you can sit with a box of cookies at night, that doesn't feel safe to you, like you don't feel supported and that feels scary, why don't we just pack a bunch in your lunchbox and take them to work and then let's have them there with your lunch, where you feel like okay, we can try it here, we try here, we could try it every day for a week, we could try it for two weeks and at some point you're gonna be like okay, it's time to switch it, switch it up. So it's really about leveling the playing field with food and and really removing the hierarchy Are there nutritionally? Are there foods that have more nutritional, that are more nutritionally dense? Absolutely. Does it mean that that's all you can eat? No, because God gave us taste buds for a reason, and it is too like I love a North Carolina tomato, but I love some Cheez-Its and I love cupcake, and I'm gonna eat all the things because nutrition is a gift and it's what we give our bodies and so we can really level the playing field with food. And and try to remember that food is emotionally neutral, not nutritionally equal, and that's okay and it can all fit.

And then the other thing I hate. So I've been taking all kinds of notes I'm sure you can see me looking down Same. So I hear I hear kind of three themes from from that that I want to, I want to pull out and you can clarify or correct. I mean one is it may take some time, 100%, because we are taking the time to relearn that food is neutral. It does not have. I love the way you talk about the hierarchy there's and just leveling the playing field. So I guess that's the three, and then just trusting the, the autonomy of your body. But the time is the one thing that I think I, when I hear people saying I mean so what you may, what I think I hear you saying is, yeah, you may eat the entire sleeve of thin mints on the first time. Yeah, and that's okay because we will get there. It just takes time.

Yeah, and that say, your client coming to my office and you're like, okay, I did what you said and I ate the whole sleeve of thin mints and I'll be like, okay, how'd that feel? Yeah, it felt well. Did it feel guilty? Was that a feeling? Or was there a physical feeling that was like actually felt okay, because it was my whole dinner. I'm like okay, like what did you learn? Well, you learned that. Hey, why don't I put some thin mints with my dinner? If that's what you want, that's fine. And there are times where, if you just eat cookies, for dinner like it's not going to kill you. I mean, it's really not. It's one meal. I mean, it's one meal and we get all wrapped up in that. Now there are people that are diet culture prophets that would definitely argue with me on that, but I have not, in my 20 plus years of being a nutrition professional, see that happen. But yeah, it does take time and what I want to remind people is like they'll come in like two weeks later for a follow-up and be like this didn't work. I'm like you're 42 and you've lived in diet culture for 42 years. I think it's going to take longer than two weeks. So let's trust your very wise body and let's small step this let's really small step this into. Like if we want to add these foods back in, and a lot of the time what people figure out is that they've built these foods up and put them in a pedestal in their minds and they're like, when I was really paying attention to these foods not shouldn't know myself saying I can't have it when I was really paying attention to these foods, I realized that I don't really like it. Like I didn't like that flavor at all. I realized it wasn't as good as I remembered, or I realized that I only liked it because it was taboo growing up and that my mom hid them for me, and so I just they were good because they were, they were like taboo or special.

So we learn a lot in it. Yeah yeah, things seem to quote unquote taste better when they're forbidden.

So funny, how that happened.

Wait a minute. I think I've heard this story before.

Yeah, but, and that's the thing, like what I know, I know we just said wouldn't it be cool? It's like God did say you can have everything. You have everything, that one thing, and I feel like it's like. It's like what does what a setup for diet culture to be so pervasive?

Mm. Hmm, well, the other delineation that you made I that I appreciate is because I talk a lot about and, in fact, this new book. I'm like these, I might use it too much. We'll see what my editor says. But how do you, you know, feel and function Like? This is what we're going for. We want to feel and function well. But I really like how you targeted in on how does it make you feel physically or mentally or emotionally? Because if I have salmon and broccoli and rice for dinner, that makes me feel good in my body. But is is that like? Do we think that it makes us feel good because we've put that on a hierarchy or is it because actually I have a really good workout the next day and I sleep well and like I just I just feel it just feel good. So I think that that's a good. I like that too. That's a good question to ask. Is like how, when we talk about feeling, is that in our head or is it in our body? And we really want to be focusing more on the body, because the food has no hierarchy.

But it could be both. It could be both and that's true. And and I love how you talked about like I really like eating this because I have a workout tour and I feel good and I sleep good and that's really like that's kind of the very last part of Intuitive 82 is kind of that gentle nutrition. I'm like really making decisions that honor your own values and health outside of diet culture and so. But what I work with but say you ate that, your broccoli and your rice and your salmon, but for the last three days all you've been thinking about is having a piece of chocolate cake. And so maybe there's something there. Right, Like, if all you're thinking about chocolate cake, is there's something there. Could we have the chocolate cake and eat it inquisitively and be like what is this about?

You don't have to figure it out.

But did it get you satisfied? Do you do it all the time? Probably not. And even if you did, you might be trying to bitch away like chocolate cake, like hey, we're good with it. But the thing is I'll tell my clients too is like meals have to happen, or food has to happen in a way that brings you satisfaction. And I will tell you, elise Resch does that. She is always talking about satisfaction as the primary piece of Intuitive eating, and Evelyn too. But like, the satisfaction has to happen physiologically and psychologically. Because what if you had that meal and you weren't really paying attention? That made you physically satisfied, but your mind might have been somewhere else and so you didn't have that physical satisfaction too? I mean that psychological satisfaction too. And for me, like, if I'm craving something like let's find a way to put that in, because I feel like I need a complete satisfaction. And I will say like I was talking to a client and I tell this to my daughter all the time too, because sometimes she'll say, well, that doesn't sound good, right. And I'll say, well, listen, not every meal is a party in your mouth, but so sometimes we do just eat to get the job done and we don't need that kind of satisfaction from like this has to be the most mind blowing meal in the world. We just have to get the job done in terms of satisfaction. But we do really want to pay attention to where, like if something has really been on our mind, giving that a place on the plate so we can honor it, so we can figure out, like, what is this about?

But you don't have to figure it out.

But there's nothing wrong with honoring and craving. There's nothing wrong with like, hey, I'm gonna plan that in because I really have that on my mind, and what we do is then we shame ourselves for having a craving. We're like I cannot believe all you think about is cake. Usually, if we're thinking about something like a lot, it's because we're restricted in some form or fashion, and there's also a lot of metaphor and food and like from our childhood experiences, and so we might like ice cream might mean connection with people I love. It might have there's, there's meaning in kind, of the food cravings too. So sometimes what we need might be connection with another human, and thinking of this food all the time gives us this memory of a time where it was more present in our lives, and so there's just so much more to it. When it comes to satisfaction, and one of the questions I ask my clients to ask themselves, and I use in my own life too, is like what do I need right now and I? Your meal sounds good. The rice, the broccoli and salmon sounds delicious, but I might also need a hug. I might also need to walk with a friend. I might also need to be alone for an hour. So what is it that we need? And so that's that is all kind of within the framework of intuitive eating, this, this, this beautiful autonomy that is so multifaceted, and it's not just about food.

Right, right, it's funny. As you were talking, alcohol kind of came to mind as well, because I think that we will use alcohol as the, as a hug, as a connection as a 100, and I'm not demonizing it at all. I mean, my community knows I'm not, I enjoy glass of wine, but I think it's very easy to like. Oh man, I've had a really rough day. I'm going to do well that's. Is that really what I need? So the parallels are there too.

Absolutely, and that is the same thing. Because it's like it's funny to use the same example, because I'll talk to my clients when they're like I'm wondering about my alcohol usage too and I'm like, well, do you feel like you need a glass of wine, or do you feel like a glass of wine is really, really yummy with my salmon dinner? You know, like happy life. What's really the premise? The intention is is it, is it necessary for you to have connection? If that's true, then okay, well, we'd like to give you other avenues that bring connection into your life besides alcohol. I'm the same. It's like that's something that you can have if you choose that in your life. And also, how are we choosing to use it? What is the intention? And so, yeah, it's, we can definitely do that, we can use it. We can also use it kind of as a stand in for connection and I've seen that play out a lot in my office when we really lacking connection, like a glass of something in your hand is a companion and so and that's when we know it's like okay, we got to. We got to work on some different connections that mean that one has to fully go away. It can, if you decide that's right for you. But yeah, connection is one of the greatest, greatest tools that we have and the and the greatest health. One of the greatest health promoting behaviors is focusing on good connection and relationships in your life. More than what you're, more than a number on the scale that your relationships in your life are the most when we're talking about mortality risk, it reduces your risk more than anything else.

There's been a lot of research that has come out in the last few years just about the importance of connection. I mean, dr Sanjay Gupta included that in his book Keep Sharp, just in terms of cognitive decline and preventing that. And yeah, connection, connection, connection and and I think kind of circling back to our conversation, I think and I this is also another little story I have in my book but if you think about the last time that you sat around the table like, say, you were on a girls night out or with really close friends and you laughed until maybe you had tears streaming down your face and would just like all of that kind of stuff and you just walk away going, man, that was good for my soul Totally. That's totally what we're looking for. And my guess is you probably had more than salmon and broccoli and rice on your plate.

Totally, totally, and I will say that is a very like that's a beautiful play and also like that is not what a lot of plates look like and that's okay yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And totally I was just kind of trying to get like one of these I don't know that's, that's.

that's what I eat a lot for lunch, just because it's easy and it's totally yeah, and we get and we have that, and it's okay to have those things that like really work for us. Like one of the things that works for me in the office is like yogurt, I bring a bunch of nuts and granola and some fruit and some sparkling water and like I'm making this giant snack through the day, or or I'm bringing like my seam which, so it's like it can, it can look, so it doesn't have to look pretty, as one tried to say, like it can just be a hodgepodge of things that get the job done. But but kind of circling back sidebar on connection, that I really want to kind of hone in on is that social media is not the connection we are talking about. Amen. Now, can it be a great thing? Can it be a good tool? Yes, it can, but I can tell you it is in the in terms of the body relationship with your food, in your body space. It is far more dangerous than helpful and, like the evidence suggests that even in terms of mental health markers depression, anxiety, scoring being off social media improves mental health. Now, I'm not saying you have to abstain, but I will tell you it is so, so detrimental to someone who feels at risk for falling into disorder deeming patterns. And let me be clear about that too Dieting, as we know, it is disorder deeming. So I'm gonna be real, real clear about that, because sometimes people are like they're not talking about me. You're talking about people with diagnosed eating disorders. I'm like no, I'm talking about the very real and prevalent chasing a number on a scale via weight loss, dieting, and it is you're more likely to have body dissatisfaction and engage in disordered eating behaviors the more time you spend on social media. Just want to be really, really clear about that. Can it be good and we can meet some cool people? Sure. Can it be harmful? Yes, and we really have to be careful about our shield and our boundaries if we're going to engage in that way.

Yeah, and guarding ourselves, yeah. I agree, I've been off the socials for like three months as we're recording this. I'll be back on by the time this goes live, but I'm gonna kind of miss not being on it.

I know I mean it takes a minute, like you get off of it and you're like wait, your thumb's already going to where it usually goes to see what's going on on the socials, and but yeah, it's, it is freeing. Once you kind of get past that, wait, I want to see what's happening. That kind of automatic. It's really automatic, but it kind of prevents us from the connection you and I are really talking about. And so having good boundaries around it when you're on it and I'm envious that you're not on it at the moment, I take times off too Right now is not one that I can take time?

No, you're not. You're not Seasons we all have seasons, that's right. And, yeah, I will be in it. I will be in that season here, especially in the beginning of the year. Okay, I feel like we could just talk on and on and on. I want to ask one more question. Your book has covered so many themes and I highly recommend people that if you're interested in this, you want to dig in, go get that book, feed yourself. And just so many wonderful things you talk about. I mean this, but I'm going to tell my community this. You talk about God designed diversity in the body of Christ. You talk about diet culture, like we've just been discussing the privilege of having adequate food and medical coverage. I mean, that's something we could have a whole, completely different episode on. And so you just totally dig into a lot of that stuff. But there's one chapter that I was wondering if you could give us a crash course on. There's a lot of meat in your book about it, but I would love, considering that much of my community is faith based. Much is in safe spaces, is in the walls of church. Talk to us about and give it, like I said, a crash course on. Your weight secures your righteousness.

So somebody left a review on Amazon. They were like I love your snarky titles of your chapters. It's funny because I like came up with the titles and thinking I would go back and like soften them, but I didn't.

Well they're, they're like. Well, actually, that's how my book, your worthy body is is their rules to break. So they are like rules to break.

Totally so in the. This chapter that you're talking about is in part one. There's there's part one to part two and part one all the chapter chapter titles are lies. So your weight secures your righteousness is a lie that we're going to break down in this chapter and it's really about how, how it shows up like truly shows up in the safe places, and it might be churches that are do weight loss programs together, like we can mean well and at the same time, cause harm, and we're really promoting that like, oh, believers must conform to diet culture for lack of really a better phrase at the moment. But and so we have ways that we perpetuate that. We perpetuate it in doctors offices. Can you hear, let's get your weight and like, how, about no, 90% of adult doctors visits don't actually require a weight check and you, you have full autonomy, if you feel safe to use it not everybody does to decline a weight check and to talk to your provider about it if it bothers you. It actually keeps a lot of people out of the doctor's office because they don't want a weight lecture or a weight loss intervention. That's not why they're there. So we also see this wrapped up really in sermons. Sometimes we might see the new year, new you type of stuff from the pulpit and we falsely because weight, because diet, culture is in all the safe places, this, this system of beliefs that thinks thinness is equal to health and worthiness, which is false. But we've also seen that kind of kind of fall in to, unfortunately, this place that should be the safest place of all, which is the church, and so maybe we have an influencer or a pastor or whatever Bible study leader that really believes that bodies do have to be smaller to be working towards righteousness. And I will just tell you nowhere in the Bible, nowhere, nowhere, nowhere does the only place there is a scale in the body that we talk about, scales that are that is not fish, that is not a scale on a fish is Job measure measuring his misery. Oh, so I mean talk about some foreshadowing, foreshadowing right there. So I mean the only place that we use a weight balance measure in the Bible is Job measuring his misery, or making that or stating it in that way. And so weight has nothing to do with our righteousness. We don't need to be chasing it. When we are chasing it, we tend to not be connecting with other believers, we tend to be preoccupied with external controls. We're preoccupied with the scale, which tells us nothing about our worth, tells us really not much about our health either. It's not a good proxy for health, even though that is our cheap and easy way to do health care in our country at the moment which is very sad.

I'm over here. You guys can't see me, but that's what I'm doing.

Oh, don't give back. We could really go down a rabbit hole there. But yeah, your weight does not secure your righteousness, but we have to acknowledge that we need to disconnect it in this, particularly in the safe places and so that and listen, there's, there's that one, there's, we're all just gluttons in the temple. That might be one of my favorites and that that's a lie, right. So we really have to break down these very wise, beautifully diverse bodies are made good and made different and made heavier and lighter and lumpier and skinnier, like on purpose, like we are different on purpose. Like nobody looks at my size nine and a half shoe and says, girl, that should really be a six. Nobody has ever done that because it's like, oh, it's just genetics, it's who you are, but bodies are the same. And nobody looks at like a saint ben-ar and like, oh, but you should really really get down to like Hocker-Spain, no size, never. And they're all dogs right, they're all dogs, but different types and we can respect it in lots and lots of places. But because diet culture, we believe that weight secures our health and our righteousness and that is very dangerous.

It is. It is. I have so many questions that I wish I could ask you, but I won't. But I do have some more questions that I ask all my guests, so I want to get into some of those. The book is Feed Yourself, so make sure you grab that if there's any of these little bits of. I mean, we've covered a lot and we've kind of just skimmed the surface on a lot, so make sure that you grab Feed Yourself if you are interested in learning more. Ok, leslie, so this is something that sometimes embarrasses my family, but I love learning about people's tattoos. So when we're out to eat, I will ask about people's tattoos, because I have found that often when people get something on their body for the rest of their life, they have meaning behind it. I was wondering, if you have any tattoos, if you would like to share what it is and the meaning behind it, and if you don't, but you had to get one, what would it be and where would it go?

Well, you might be surprised that I do not have one, but I've thought about it a lot in my life. My husband has lots, but I have thought about it and there are times where I almost did but didn't Because I was like I really don't know what I would put on my body. But as I've gotten older I'm pretty clear about what I would do. I would on my forearm, which I would have Aslan from Narnia, the lion just busting out of my forearm, because I love the symbolism of the lion of Judah and just how beautiful that symbolism is. There's a pastor out of Texas who actually does have that tattoo that I had it in my head and I'm like, oh my gosh, he really has it. I saw it on the socials and I just thought Aslan is just so symbolic and to have the lion with you on your body we always have it, but to have that visual would be pretty cool If I ever do it. My husband has lots, ok.

OK, well, we so far are a tattoo-free family and I have always told the kids I'm like it's kind of like the food thing, like I don't care if you get one, but if you're going to get one you just need to make sure that you're going to be OK with it being.

You're like when I'm 80, am. I going to really.

This is why I don't have one especially. Yes, this is why Same?

I almost got one and then I asked myself that question. I'm like, when I'm 80, or when my body changes which it's supposed to and it will is it going to look the way I wanted to do?

Exactly OK. Do you have a meaningful Bible verse that you would like to share with us?

I do, and it's kind of my life first, and it's the verse that kind of guided me gosh through the last decade of my life and through the book, and it's one of the early verses in the book too, and it's Romans 12, 2. And it's do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And when I really think about the pattern of this world, I think about how diet culture is preventing us from being our authentic selves and moving through this world, doing whatever we're called to do.

Yeah, so true, I completely agree. Tell people how they can connect with you and get your book.

Yeah Well, feed Yourself is available everywhere books are sold. It's in every format and if you get the audible or audio version, I read it, which it was super fun to do and kind of hard, because there's some hard parts. I'm like, wow, I wrote that that's hard to read. So yeah, so yeah, feed yourself Anywhere books are sold, all formats. My website is leslyshillingcom. I have a free newsletter that goes out every Friday that gives kind of dinner ideas and ways to stay resilient in diet culture. Yeah, if you're on the socials, if you choose to be on the socials, I like to think my account is a safe place and it is just at Lesly Shilling Joe.

Yeah, all right, and I will have that. You've provided that to us, and so I'll have that in the show notes of this. Ok, leslie, we've covered a lot. I want you to break this down and pick out one simple thing for us to remember, ok.

Even when it feels hard and even when it feels wrong, it is never wrong to feed yourself.

Amen. Ok, that is all for today. Go out there and have a graced day.

Thank you.