Your Nervous System on Diet Culture: How to Break Free and Find Peace

Your Nervous System on Diet Culture - How to Break Free and Find Peace

Amy Connell: Hey, I am glad you guys have joined us today. I am here with Sherry Shaban, and we are going to just talk about a myriad of things surrounding taking care of ourselves, particularly from an intuitive eating standpoint. How we integrate movement and nutrition in that without getting outside of a safe zone.

And then also, I'm really excited because Sherry's gonna share her story, which is. Quite remarkable, and I know you're going to appreciate that. Let me tell you really quickly about Sherry before we get on. She's an osteopath and an anti-D diet, health and life coach. She lives in Montreal. She is the founder of the Fall in Love with Fitness podcast, the Hit Deck app, and make peace with food the leaders.

In an anti-D diet approach that rewires the brain's relationship with food to naturally release body weight struggles forever. With over 23 years experience in the fitness industry, Sheri is a renowned expert in the most challenging weight loss cases and has helped thousands of people worldwide transform their health and fitness using her revolutionary method.

To rewire the brain release, self-sabotaging, limiting beliefs and patterns, and fall in love with fitness so that weight loss becomes easy, predictable, and enjoyable. 

Sherry, welcome to Graced Health.

Sherry Shaban: Thank you so much, Amy. I'm so happy. To be here today. 

Amy Connell: here today. I'm thrilled you're here. And I want to start just kind of zooming out a little bit.

I know you have a passion for helping others in their health and wellness journey. Often our passion comes from our story, our pain, and I know that you have had quite an incredible story, so I was wondering if you could share that with my community.

Sherry Shaban: Yeah, absolutely. I will always say that I kind of accidentally fell.

Into health and fitness. And the reason I say that is, I. well, growing up I was super involved in sports. I was a child athlete, I was a competitive swimmer. And by the time I got to high school, I was in varsity sports, always competing against the boys, always the MVP of whatever sport I played in.

And this all came to an abrupt stop.

When I was 16 years old, I was struck by a car,

and this happened when I was in boarding school. I was going downtown Luno, Switzerland to buy Pearl Jam concert tickets with my roommate.

I didn't see the car coming.

Amy Connell: coming. 

Sherry Shaban: And then the next thing I know, I'm waking up in the hospital

having absolutely no

idea what happened and and got this whole entire story, by the way, from my roommate.

And so after I recovered and I had abrasions on my face, I, I was a little bit sore and mangled up from the accident. I went back to basketball practice

and then I started to feel this intense pain in my right glute,

it just wasn't going away. It was getting worse and worse.

And then progressively it started to travel down my leg and it got to the point where I couldn't walk a pill.

I couldn't sit for a long time. And then at one point I needed help to shower, to change my clothes,

and that's when I went to go see the doctor.

I. So I flew back home, my parents took me to the doctor and that's when I discovered that I had herniated several discs in my lower back and I needed an emergency surgery.

And so I had my, my back surgery, and

then I was ready to go back. To sports,

and that's when my doctor said to me, well, sorry, Sherry, you've really your spine. Sports is now outta the question. You're gonna have to completely change your lifestyle

moving forward. Light walking on a treadmill will be appropriate.

Amy Connell: appropriate. 

Sherry Shaban: Oof. That

was a very bitter pill to swallow. That was the hardest news I had ever taken in my life. I remember just

paying my fist so hard on his desk and just being very, very upset. But I listened because that's what the doctor said. And

so that led me down this path of trying to discover myself.

And I'm 17 at this point, so my social circle is super important.

I need to find out who I am. I've always been the athlete and I've always been into sports now, who am I? 

Amy Connell: who my life.

Sherry Shaban: And so I started hanging out with a new crowd. who were doing the things that, you know, our parents told us not to do and the things that they always warned us about.

And that was just my life for a while. I was, it was chronic back pain, trying to manage the back pain. I was on all kinds of medications to try to control that.

And I was partying and then just kind of woke up one day and I'm like, okay, who is this person?

At this point, I'm doing my master's degree in chemistry at McGill University here in Montreal.

And then I had this big aha moment of just being completely out of self alignment

And so

against all doctor's orders and advice, I decided to sign up at a local gym. I had zero idea what I was doing. I'm a little scientist here

and I just started copying people.

like, Okay, what's that person doing? And then I just started doing the movements and

there was this pain I was working with at the time,

and that's when I really started to understand the difference between real pain and fake pain.

Real pain is that type of pain that's always there no matter what you do. It's when you sleep, when you're awake,

and the fake pain is that pain that goes away when the activity stops. And so I was playing with that pain

and then over a span of months just really building up my strength.

Until eventually I realized I didn't need the pain meds anymore,

that's when everything just kind of completely took a turn in my life.

I dropped outta my degree in chemistry.

I went back to school. My parents freaked out.

and I started

studying exercise science. I became a certified athletic therapist that brought me down to the path, of path of osteopathy.

And then during that time, took every single course I possibly could get my hands on when it came to wellness, prenatal, postnatal, anything about nutrition.

TRX, CrossFit, you name it.

that's also when I started to super get into diets and try a lot of different diets.

And that's

also when a lot of my relationship with food started to change. And so

what

originally started as this path to

really help myself and overcome pain and stability and then be able to help others 'cause I thought, well, if I'm gonna help others.

I gotta learn how to eat and I gotta learn how to teach them how to eat.

It ended up actually creating a very disordered relationship with food for me.

And so when I first started that journey, it was all about calorie counting, and so I started calorie counting. Then all of a sudden everyone's saying, fats are bad.

I'm like, cool, fats are bad.

So I took All those out. Then all of a sudden this guy came up outta nowhere called Atkins and said, Hey, fats are good. Actually, the carbs are bad. So I'm like, all right, carbs are bad.

Boom. Done. 

And then

it was macros, And then I, I joined the CrossFit world and then all of a sudden everyone's talking about eating like a caveman.

So I started eating like a caveman, and then it was the keto, and then it was.

complete confusion.

and secretly I was very outta control around food. Constant guilt, constant shame. I didn't know how to handle

my rules because every week my rules would change. And so

Amy Connell: And so 

Sherry Shaban: noticed that I was starting to binge on the weekends, and at first I thought it was the cheat meal, but the cheat meal isn't an entire box of cookies and the cheat meal doesn't actually bring you to that feeling of shame.

And so

during that time of struggle and really trying to get control over what was so out of control my life.

That's when I discovered that actually the reason why

we eat out of control, whether that's emotional eating or binge eating, or any other unwanted eating behavior, even like

evening snacking is all

stemming from the nervous system.

Amy Connell: system. Okay. You p, you've got a lot to unpack there. First of all, I love your summary of the diet rules. I think most. I sh, I don't know if I should say most, but so many of my women in the com in my community can relate to that. Like fat's good, fat's bad carbs, good par carbs, bad at gi. I mean, it's just, it's, it's, it's so crazy.

It's so crazy. Okay. So you stopped there with something that I think might be profound for those who have not, you know, it might be a little new to them where a lot of this is coming down from our nervous 

Sherry Shaban: Mm-hmm. 

Amy Connell: Mm-hmm. Expand

Sherry Shaban: Yeah.

So the part of the nervous system that I talk about is the autonomic nervous system, and this is, again, just super grateful for my education and osteopathy and biochemistry, and just really understanding the body

I. and understanding that

our thoughts, our emotions, and our actions are very much related to the autonomic nervous system.

Now, the autonomic nervous system, for those who are unaware, it's that part of the nervous system that's not under our governing. control. So the central nervous system, that's where I can raise my arms. I can lower my arms, I can think to do something and I'll do it. Whereas the autonomic nervous system,

that's heart rate, that's heartbeat.

That is

hormones, that's the chemistry that's going on in the body that you don't have to command.

And so there are two modes of this nervous system. There is sympathetic,

which is known as fight or flight or freeze, and I'm, I call this protection mode. So you'll hear my language anytime I talk about.

This part of the nervous system. I'm talking about protection mode because literally that is what your body is trying to do, is trying to protect you, in a disease. Everything in its possibility to do so.

And then there is also the rest and digest, which is the parasympathetic,

and that's where really our natural state should be.

And that's actually what I call safety mode.

That's where we feel at ease.

That's where we can be creative. That's where we're calm. That's where we don't feel like there's a threat in our environment.

And now.

When we talk about any out of control eating,

And especially if there is a massive struggle with weight, if there's a massive struggle with behavior now, what a natural fluctuation of weight could look like, let's say within a year.

And by the way, I really wanna make sure that we are all on the same page here, that this conversation is not about weight and how much we should weight, but just to understand

that there's a bigger and deeper reason behind why we are maybe behaving in the way that we are behaving.

And so a natural fluctuation of weight could be something like within 10 pounds, even within a month.

because especially if you still have a menstrual cycle, it's completely normal and a lot of it is water. One liter of water

that's in the body is two pounds on the scale. Just to

kind of bring it down to qualitative measurement, right? 

Amy Connell: right? 

Sherry Shaban: anytime we're seeing this massive fluctuations in weight, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, a hundred pounds, and we're constantly yo-yoing back and forth.

And food is constantly on our mind. We're constantly worried about what we're eating. We have to try to plan out everything. We're so worried about what we're gonna eat next, what we're not gonna eat, what we're allowed to have, what we're not allowed to have, and constant feelings of deprivation. Now we need to look at the nervous system.

And the way out of all of this is not going to be through more control of our food, which is of course, what diet culture tells us. Diet culture says, Hey,

come on, Sherry, get more discipline, move more, eat less, and then you should be able to release weight.

And that's not at all the case. 

Amy Connell: at all the case.

Sherry Shaban: So anytime our body senses any danger or harm in our environment,

so that could be due to any form of trauma, that could be emotional trauma, that could be verbal, that could be sexual, that could be physical,

that could be an invalidating environment an emotionally invalidating environment growing up.

And that could also be from food scarcity, which is also a form of trauma.

Food scarcity is

either real food scarcity or what I call imposed food scarcity.

Real food scarcity is really growing up. I had a single mom, she could barely put food on the table. We went to bed hungry a lot

and if she brought home one donut, donut, five kids had to share.

it. That is real Food scarcity imposed. Food scarcity is what we do when we diet, when we decide I'm only gonna eat 800 calories today or I'm gonna remove an entire food group, like carbohydrates, right?

That's imposed food scarcity.

So anytime we do this, anytime the body starts to sense this danger unsafety, it's gonna trigger protection.

mode, It's gonna trigger the sympathetic nervous state. Now, if this has been going on for a long time, because the body's a master adapter,

it is going to adapt to this place. So that will become our normal protection mode, becomes our normal.

And

so what happens physiologically in the body when we're in protection mode, in order to ensure survival, the first thing the body's gonna do is slow down metabolism.

It doesn't know,

Hey, I don't, I don't know. This is,

this is a threatening situation and environment. I gotta make sure that we're gonna survive this. So

whatever stored energy I have right now, I'm gonna make sure it lasts longer,

which is why

we have that hard time to release weight, or we see that our body is stubborn, it's working against us, not with us.

And so what do we do? We go exercise,

which the body sees like, oh my God, that's more of a threat.

Or we restrict more. Oh my goodness. So what do we do? We slow down more, right? We super put on the brakes.

And so the body's going to do that slow down metabolism. And then the other thing it's going to do is it's gonna turn on the binge mechanism.

the binge mechanism.

Because the binge mechanism, we all have it. We all have that ability, and this is actually

very miraculous. We don't like what it does. We don't like the side effect of binging,

but it's there for a reason, and it comes from the reptilian part of the brain. It's to ensure our survival, because when we were developing and when we were evolving over time,

we had to be able to endure a period of famine

and then be able to feast out of control anytime we saw food.

And when did we see that? Well, the change of the seasons, all of a, sudden there's no food for months and all of a sudden it's spring or it's summer and then there's food available, and then we were able to gorge. But we turn on that mechanism anytime we're feeling unsafe in our environment.

And so you'll notice when that binge mechanism is on,

because the body is so intelligent,

it's not asking to binge for carrots or celery,

right?

It's like, give me the high calorie stuff,

Give me the food that's gonna gimme a way bigger bang for my buck. 

Amy Connell: for my buck.

Sherry Shaban: And

so if you're noticing that you are having a hard time

trying to stay in just that consistency or stay on track,

then I'm going to just invite you to maybe

look at whether or not there's a nervous system issue at play.

And there, the way that we can know if there's a nervous system issue involvement here

is by simply monitoring our thoughts and our emotions.

Now, if we are in protection mode,

okay, our thoughts are going to be focused.

On worst case scenarios,

they're gonna be focused on things in the future and things of the past.

They're gonna be focusing on things that will ensure our survival, because if I can predict the unpredictable, I have a higher chance to survive. And so you'll notice that you're thinking about things, oh my God, what if this happens? What if that happens? What if? that? What if I don't get the job? What if?

What if, what ifs? And it's all the what ifs. Or again, projecting thoughts in the past where

maybe there's remorse. Maybe there's regret. Maybe there's depression or sorrow. Sorrow.

And so those will also be the emotions that you're experiencing.

When you are in protection mode,

those are the emotions.

You're feeling worry. you're feeling shame, you're feeling doubt, you're feeling uncertainty and fear.

Now, when you are in safety mode, you're really in the present moment.

Your thoughts are here, there's constant calmness. That's where you can actually get creative.

And what's so important is if we actually look at nature and we look at animals, they don't procreate.

They don't create, right? They don't procreate when they're in danger.

It's only once they're fed and they're calm and they have a good shelter and environment,

that's when they start to create.

Well, we are the same.

So when it comes to our business, when it comes to even

honoring our health and fitness,

if we can do it from a place of safety mode, that's very different than doing it from a place of protection mode.

And here's what I mean by that.

All right? Okay, so I did notice my pants are a little bit tighter.

I have two ways to approach this.

Oh my God. Sherry, what's wrong with you? You did it again. What's the matter. with yourself? FATI don't say that word, Amy. That's the word.

I don't say. 

You're so gross. You're so disgusting. Go, Go

lose weight. You need to lose weight.

And that,

Oh my god, that's so triggering.

Like if you said that to me, I'd be like, whoa.

Right. But This is our internal dialogue.

And so we head onto the gym with such self-loathing and then we eat our salad with such self Disgust, right? That's protection mode. That's doing all the actions and protection mode, which remember

slows down metabolism, turns on the binge mechanism, or

we could dialectically

approach the situation

Yeah. okay, so this happened.

That's okay. It's been a stressful moment. And you know what?

I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna go out for a walk. I'm not even gonna think about my weight. I'm just gonna go out and enjoy nature, and I'm gonna eat this food because it honors my body and it feels really good and I'm just gonna really focus on eating the foods I enjoy because if I'm eating this broccoli and I can't stand it,

that's not so enjoyable.

And so there's two different ways to approach it. And so if we approach our

health and fitness journey with such love and such compassion, and such honor and such kindness.

oh my goodness, kindness that we give so freely to others. We do that for ourself,

That completely changes the nervous system state, and that's when our body works with us

instead of against us. 

Amy Connell: of against us Going back to. When you were talking about protection mode, I really like how you were saying that the sympathetic is the protection mode and the parasympathetic is the safety mode. You, we've had a lot of conversations on the show about that, but I like how you've just simplified that and, and really brought it in.

It reminds me of a conversation I had with a, now, I can't remember what her role is, but her name is Elizabeth Christoph and she does a lot of somatic work and she had a history of trauma and it was all about like why your tight hip flexors might not be just a tight hip flexor like that, that there's so much going into that of a lot of what you were just saying.

And she said she had this light bulb moment of that she realized that her binge eating was actually protecting her. Yes. So anyway, I just, I love it when I have these different conversations and they're threaded together by the same stuff. And I, I just think I like also how you were talking about monitoring our thoughts and our emotions and the worst, you know, making the worst case scenarios.

And I think too particularly. Women in my community, we're also dealing with like perimenopause, body changes, post menopause, body changes. And it's very easy. And I have will be the first to tell you that I have done it too. Like you wake up one day and like that saying that people have said like, it's true.

Like I woke up one day doing nothing different and I've, you know, my body has completely changed and it's a lot bigger. And so I think that there's a lot of people who. Probably resonate with that, and particularly with the you know, the, the, the self-talk that goes along with that. And I'm also just thinking, you know, as trainers, you know, there's a joke in our, our personal training community that like, well, I'm a trainer, but I'm also a little bit of a therapist. I mean,

Sherry Shaban: Yeah. Right.

Amy Connell: not really, but I'm thinking, wow, like those who are working with Sherry, they've got, they get the extra bonus stuff. So I, I really love this. I'm wondering if you can share some more about.

You, you talked some about your transition to intuitive eating and anti-D diet, and I really appreciate that. At the beginning of 2024, I put a stake in the sand and I said, we're an intuitive eating F focused podcast. I personally have been on my own journey and you know, so we're learning, right?

Like we're all in this, and I was wondering if there was. Anything in particular or just a light bulb moment or something that made you realize like, this makes the most sense for me

and And I, there's no turning back.

Sherry Shaban: right. So good. So good.

I wanna just quickly touch on a couple things that you shared, which will help us segue into this, and

one of the things that you shared earlier about your previous guest who

Amy Connell: guest who

Sherry Shaban: Realize that her binge eating was actually.

Protecting her. And this is true because on a very primitive level, food for us does equal safety. And especially if we have gone through sexual traumas,

we unconsciously are actually

creating a barrier between us and the outside world through food.

And so this is, this is important to note. And then the other thing too is just

this concept of aging, right?

We have two options as as we age. this is, this is one of the things that I feel for all of us in society, especially for US women.

It's really

really, hard to, to grasp at moments.

But aging is a gift

and we have two options. We either age or we don't. And if we don't, it's because we're still,

we're not here anymore, right?

So

I've, I've started to embrace that and just really, again, honoring my body. And

there are all these experiments that are actually done on plants to show you the effects of bullying

just on plants. Just the impact. of Words

and words

are energy. It's a vibration.

And if you don't believe me, just go YouTube.

It just bullying effects on plants and you'll see what's gonna come up for you

But if you see what happens through just our words on plants, imagine what happens when we use those words on ourselves.

We know we don't do that to others. We know what the consequence is.

And so if we're just kinder and more loving, it's really is amazing how much the body will react.

But when we get to this place where we're like, I'm old, I'm gross, I'm good Everything's sagging, and this is, you know, this is the, the dialogue at all times.

Just realize you are being a bully and you are the biggest bully ever. So I just wanna just

add that 

Amy Connell: add Good point. That's a great point. Thank you for that.

Yeah.

Sherry Shaban: Yeah. And so coming back to intuitive eating, so first I'm going to say

before

we even get into intuitive eating, if currently right now you are experiencing out of control eating such as emotional eating or binge eating,

and you know what that means, you know, that it means any, anytime you feel a particular emotion, you find yourself at the bottom of a bag Of

Chips

or cookies or whatever that is.

What I would say is before you start on intuitive eating, I would say take that step back

and work on the unwanted eating behavior. And the reason we have unwanted eating, again, whether that's emotional eating, compulsive overeating, binge eating,

is because we are coping with something

that we are uncomfortable to sit in.

what we try to do as humans, our human behavior is

we are always trying to move away from pain. And move towards pleasure. And it doesn't have to be physical pain, but anything uncomfortable.

So I feel, I hear uncomfortable news. Let me eat something. I hear uncomfortable news. I'm gonna smoke a cigarette.

I'm gonna hear uncomfortable news. Let's go shopping. I'm I'm gonna turn on the tv.

And so if you're able to sit in that

and you're able to manage your emotion,

then you're going to be able to move into intuitive eating. Because if I'm currently now an emotional eater or a binge eater, and then I start intuitive eating

well, I'm gonna get the wrong signals.

So my signal to eat

is going. To be a, an actual signal to binge eat

right. It's

not gonna actually be intuitive.

And there's a way to distinguish between real hunger and what I call mind hunger or emotional hunger.

When we are really hungry,

there is a physical sensation in the body, It starts at the stomach, and then it goes away.

And then the next time it comes back, it's a bit more intense and it goes away. And we start to get cranky.

And when we are really hungry, we're actually craving real food. So we're actually looking at a meal, we're thinking about a meal.

Whereas

emotional hunger is an immediate onset. It is intense and it is very specific.

And generally what it's asking for is again, those foods that I just explained earlier. When we're in protection mode, it's the high calorie food. They give you instant energy.

And so

I see this often. Those of us who are starting their intuitive eating journey,

they end up actually exasperating their binge eating or emotional eating problem because what they actually need to address is exactly what you said earlier, Amy.

It is the trauma.

That's driving the eating

And that's hard work. I'm gonna say that's not easy work. That is, that is work that really

all of us have to do. We are walking byproducts of the traumas that we've had in our lives.

And if we learn how to send those emotions and what does that mean? Learn how to send the emotions.

Well,

maybe we grew up again in an environment where emotions were not easily accepted,

right? Let's say my parents, Egyptian,

They moved to

Canada. Life was tough. Let's go. Nobody sits there and cries. We work hard. Come on. Right? So.

we Don't learn how to manage those emotions.

Or maybe, let's say growing up, your mom always congratulated you with ice cream when you did something great or when it was a really bad day, there was also ice cream.

And so again, there wasn't a management of emotion.

And so emotion is energy in motion. And when we look at energy, it looks like the sign wave, remember back in calculus, when we did

the sign waves, there's an upward infliction a downward infliction.

And so anytime we're feeling an emotion, such as fear or anxiety or worry, or any of those emotions,

we're in the upward infliction.

So

it hurt, it's hurts. It's uncomfortable. It's something we wanna get out of, but we never really allow for it to pass. And so what we do is we end up trapping it in the body.

And as we trap it in the body, it now gets triggered very easily depending on what touches it. If there's something that reminds me of that emotion, boom, it comes up.

So I never really learned how to just sit in my stress

or sit in my anxiety, or even sit in my boredom because boredom is another thing that brings us to unwanted eating.

And so that would be the first step.

And that's what I had to do. So I developed a binge eating behavior based on my over restriction

and my sense of perfection.

So before I became an intuitive eater, I needed to manage that.

that was really understanding, okay, what are my triggers? Let me understand

how I can start to relax a little bit around food. How can I heal my relationship with food first? And that's what make peace with food is all about healing our relationship with food.

The moment you hear your relationship with food, you're not now eating for the mind. You're eating for the body.

And now the body's gonna tell you. Exactly what it needs and it's insane. It tells you how much it needs,

when it needs that. Some days you might eat four meals, other days you only might eat two.

Listen to your

body, it's gonna tell you

and it's gonna have weird cravings. I need olives,

or I need sauerkraut. And

you look weird things like, okay, alright, sure.

So when you get that place, when you start to listen to your body

and you're able to have this also beautiful relationship with desserts and with chips and all the foods that are fun.

Because that is what life is about. It's about being in the moment and, en and enjoying it.

I now

control my desserts, My desserts don't control me. And that was very different. I used to have to down an entire box of cookies. I don't have to do that because my body only needs a couple,

right? And so what

I would say is get to that place first, where you're

really at peace with food, that you really feel

that difference

between emotional hunger versus real hunger, and that takes some practice and more importantly, work through some of those traumas If you're still holding onto trauma, especially if it's something that you haven't dealt with,

If you're noticing it's still coming up

every single time. Again, you touched on that, It, it's, it's what ends up taking over your day. then work on that first, and before you know it, you're going to be able to move so comfortably into intuitive eating, you'll, you'll never, ever turn back.

Yeah. 

Amy Connell: Good, good stuff there. 

Sherry Shaban: Okay, 

Amy Connell: so first of all, you talked about the make piece with food. And that is a course that you have, right? So I was gonna have you do this at the end, but go ahead and since you talked, you brought it up, go ahead and tell people what they get with that course.

Sherry Shaban: So there's different ways to join, make peace with food.

You could do the course only, you could do large group coaching, you could do smaller group coaching or one-on-one coaching. And essentially it's a six month course that helps you shift your nervous system from protection mode. To safety mode. And so there's lots of different tools that we use to help you do that.

But your very, very, very, very first step is awareness. Is really understanding what's going on,

what are my triggers, what are my vulnerability factors? What is the reason why I'm doing what I'm doing? And of course, just making peace, even just with ourselves as to where we are,

because we can't

heal what we don't know, what we're trying to heal.

So awareness is the first thing. And simply through that process of awareness,

I already see a lot of people starting to shift their behavior because.

You can't unlearn what you just learned. And then the second part is really moving through the tools and I, I like to give a buffet of tools. For some people it could be diaphragmatic breathing and breathing is so powerful because that's one of the quickest ways to shift the nervous system.

For other people, it could be just getting more in tune with their hunger.

For some other people, it's understanding which human need is driving this behavior. So there's a lot of different tools like exposed to. And I also use a lot of hypnotherapy techniques as well, really getting into the root of the trauma.

And then the final part is now moving more into. fitness, moving more into nutrition in a way which is more intuitive and what I call habit stacking.

So we do this process where it's a future self map. So you

paint a picture around what it is you're wanting to move towards, and from there you start to add a habit at a time.

So we do something called the rule of addition first before subtraction. So before I stop sugar in my coffee, I'm gonna start drinking. More water before I stop, maybe eating after 8:00 PM I'm going to maybe start adding some colors in all of my meals.

And so very slowly you're gonna find that sweet spot for yourself, and it's gonna look very different for each person.

But what you're going to create is your blueprint, essentially, it's your roadmap to success, and that's always gonna look different for each person. But the most important thing is that it's gonna give you sustainability, and you're not focusing on

how many calories

in, how many calories out, and what the exercise is about.

You're really focusing on the habits That resonate and align with you the most. 

Amy Connell: most. That sounds very comprehensive and I love all of the well, somatic, I think, and, you know, all of the, the, the backend work and the head work before we get to the body work, because that's such the foundation of what we do.

Yeah, that's, that's really great. That sounds super interesting. Okay. I would like to hear, and so. I hope I'm not like skipping ahead to the end of the course here of what the, of you, what you provide with the course, but one thing I think is a challenge. With people as they are transitioning into a intuitive eating.

Like, I get this, it's against listening to my body. And it's, you know, being satisfied and being at peace with food and all of these 10 principles, which by the way, if you are listening now we go through each of the 10 principles in season 21. So you can go back and listen to those if you really wanna understand more of them now.

But then it's like, okay, well also. I know that as a 50-year-old woman, I need to be doing some strength training. I know that there are some things that I can do for my body that would be very helpful. I know that there are nutritional benefits of making sure that I get enough protein throughout the day.

And so talk to us about taking intuitive eating and being at peace with food. And also applying that to some of the other things that maybe are a bit more prescriptive rather than intuitive.

Sherry Shaban: Yeah. So good.

So diet culture tells us, all right, you gotta do this so that you can look this way and you gotta exercise because you have to look that way.

And there's a lot of focus on just physical appearance or physical body. But I love everything that you just said, Amy. You said, well, women strength train, because of all these really great reasons and. Maybe it's for posture and maybe it's for strength and

you know, so the why is so, so important.

And that's the major thing that has to shift

once we start to look at all of our habits.

So maybe in the past I used to strength train 'cause I wanted to look a certain way,

I. but now

I'm gonna strength train because I wanna age gracefully talking about aging.

And that's actually the reason why I train. I, I train because once upon a time there was a, there was a moment in my life I needed someone to bring me to the washroom. And I remember making this commitment to myself. I'm never ever gonna get like. that. Like that's never ever gonna happen again.

My mom also, she passed away in in 2019 from cancer and I watched her deteriorate over the years

and towards the end she did need some assistance.

And I just remember feeling like,

this is

this is why I train. I just wanna be able to walk up and down the stairs and I wanna be able to be autonomous up until my very last day. So The moment you change that why? You make it deeper, you make it more important. It could even be something like

this bucket list

adventure that you wanted to do.

Maybe you wanna hike up a mountain. or Maybe there's something that you wanna see in your life before it's too late, let's say. Those are the reasons why.

So when you start to look at that and you start to actually shift the reason and, and

really the empowerment as to why you wanna do something, that also changes your relationship with food.

So I'm going to eat this because, ooh, I remember that this actually supports my training, or maybe this supports my recovery, or maybe this helps me sleep better. And so now the reasons and and the motivation look a lot different. 

Amy Connell: lot different. Those are great points. I like that. I have a client who. Is just really incredible.

So I, we train virtually and every now and then I'll be showing her like some mobility. She's 60 years old and so, you know, just kind of things to keep her body supple and moving. And she said, oh yeah, I do this after I watch TV at night and, you know, I'll do something else. And she'll, oh yeah, I do this when, and, and I said, I am so impressed with all that you are doing.

And she said, I have too many people relying on me. To not be able to be strong and mobile. And she has a she has grandkids who are like four and one or two, and she said, I can carry them both upstairs at the same time. I'm like, those are huge wins. Right. So those are the, those are the kinds of wises as well that are, you know, on the smaller basis, but just impact our lives so much.

Sherry Shaban: Yeah, absolutely. So beautiful. What a beautiful story.

Yeah. And, and and as you're saying this, you know, you're just bringing me to this thought uh, around

again, the why, why we do certain things. So when we're dieting,

we're very much in a, in a can't mindset as I call it,

right? We go to parties, somebody offers us something like, oh, I can't have that.

No. I'm sorry. I can't, until Monday, or

whatever that is. Or, oh, I'm doing the 75 hard, so I can't, you know? And so there's all this can't, and anytime we say can't,

what we're actually implying is that we want to do something. So there's a desire, but we're not allowed to. There's something that's prohibited, right?

We're we're not allowing ourselves to do it. And there's a massive reward system, by the way, that's building up in the brain with dopamine.

And so

if we're able to shift from the can't to the don't,

that's where everything starts to change. And that's identity.

So if I go to a party, and I'm gonna say this, and forgive me for saying this, but

uh, without

judgment,

if I go to a party and somebody offers me

heroin, for example,

I'm not gonna say, oh.

no, I

can't 

no, I can't have any heroin.

Right? Because that implies that

I want to, I could,

but I just can't.

Right? My response is, no thanks. I don't do that. 

Amy Connell: don't do that. I don't do that. Right?

Sherry Shaban: So

if we're able to get into that place where, again, if I'm able to say I don't, it's because I have such strong adherence as to why this is important to me. I don't do this even if, let's say I just quit smoking this morning and somebody offers me a cigarette

because it's so important to me to quit smoking and because it's so important to me.

To shift who I am to shift my lifestyle. I'm not gonna say, no, I can't. I'm trying to quit and identify with a smoker. I'm gonna say,

no, I don't. I don't smoke identify with a non-smoker.

And so the shift in identity is also very, very powerful because remember, intuitive eating is helping us restore that natural inclination to call for the foods.

We have a natural appetite,

um, correction system that really tells us when we're supposed to eat. When we're not supposed to eat, how much of it we're supposed to have. It

brings us back to those natural cues. And so that's along the lines of really

also identity.

Just understanding what it is that are your principles and what it is that is really, truly important to you.

And the why is so, so important and powerful in that moment. 

Amy Connell: That's great. I love that. Sherry, I know that you are, you, not only do you have the the course, the Make Peace with Food Course, but you also are a podcast host. You have YouTube videos you have other resources. So tell us some about those and how we can glean more of this amazing wisdom that you are offering us today.

Sherry Shaban: Well, thank you so much. So,

yeah, I, I, I wanna open up the information.

and

And, make it accessible to everyone. So the podcast and obviously YouTube, this is, this is free access information and, and the podcast really focuses on two different things. I. every Monday there's an episode called Fall in Love with Fitness that releases, that's the name of the podcast.

And generally I have a guest there and we talk about ways to really fall in love with fitness or ultimately ourself. And that's, that's the process.

is Really moving away from diet culture, really moving away from this whole shoulds and shouldn't dos around fitness and how it's supposed to look like and put us all in that same box

and really allow for actual healing to happen.

then on Thursdays, I have a little make peace with food segment, and that's really where I start to focus a little bit more on the nervous system like we spoke about earlier on, unwanted eating behaviors. Just get into a little bit more of the core of

really why we

are behaving the way we are behaving, why we're self-sabotaging.

In the way that we are.

And then, you know, fitness is a really, really important part of my life. It's, it's what helped me overcome my two,

uh, back surgeries. It's really what helped me gimme strength and stability. I've had two babies. I'm so grateful

for that and it's, it really gives me a pain-free life.

And so I wanna share that with the world and the type of fitness that I do. And that's also what my app is, is about hits, hit Decks app.

It's about short workouts with very minimal equipment

that are only five to 12 minutes long.

And so I know we're all busy. we got things to do, and instead of driving to the gym, it's really amazing what you can accomplish in your own house.

On a small yoga mat in just five to 10 minutes. And so that's the message that I wanna share with the world. It's really breaking all the stigmas that we have around what fitness should look like, and that we need hours and hours in order to really be able to honor our health. And it's simply not true.

It's actually

a little bit of time and it's consistent that drives the results. Not the intensity. 

Amy Connell: That's great. I, my first book was centered around breaking all of these health and fitness quote unquote rules. And so every chapter is a rule to break, and one of them is, one of the chapters is entitled, I have to Work Out for an Hour.

It's like, oh no. Oh, no, No, no, no, 

Sherry Shaban: no.

no, no, no. 

Amy Connell: no, no, no. Yeah. Right, 

Sherry Shaban: and we're in this space. I mean, I'll tell you, I don't have an hour and I don't want. To invest in an hour. It's also, it's also

wears and

tears the body down, right? So it's, it doesn't have to look a certain way, and that's what we really need to move away from this, having to look a certain way for it to be successful, It's not at all, it's really just joy. It's consistency. It's really also sustainability. And you enjoying what? you're doing. 

Amy Connell: Yeah, I completely agree. I love that. Okay. I feel like we could go on and on, but I'm gonna wrap this up. So I have a couple questions I ask all my guests, and I know the answer to one of 'em because we're on video.

But I love learning about tattoos and so I have found when people put a tattoo on their body they often have a meaning behind it. So I saw something on your wrist and I was wondering if you could tell us a little, tell us what it is and tell us about it.

Sherry Shaban: It's,

um, a prayer. 

Amy Connell: prayer. 

Sherry Shaban: So this is a mantra that I say, and it's just this reminder that the jewel really, the, the beauty, beauty and joy in life is in all the challenges and the difficulties.

Amy Connell: Okay. Oh, that's great. I love that. Thank you. Okay, so is there anywhere else that you would like for people to connect with you?

Sherry Shaban: If anybody

would like to reach out for questions? They can always find me on Instagram at Sherry Chabon Fitness and then.

If you wanted to download a workbook to really work through some of the things that we spoke about and really understand what's behind the unwanted eating behavior, I have a free download at Make Peace with food.com,

and that's a great way also to start your journey if you feel like anything that we spoke about has resonated with you today. 

Amy Connell: you today.

Sounds great. Okay, Sherry, I'm gonna let you have the last word. What is the one simple thing that you want us to remember about today's conversation? Big or small?

Sherry Shaban: Ugh. Consistency

First.

then intensity. and that really is the way to any sort of success or results. Just stay consistent, make it small, and make it repeatable.

Amy Connell: repeatable. That's great. Okay, that's all for today. Go out there and have a graced day.

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