Love Life & Lose Weight with Camille Martin

Welcome back to the doctor body mind soul podcast. My name is Dr. Jude. And this is a podcast which explores how we can integrate modern medicine and alternative therapies to help you get the holistic health care that you deserve. I will be speaking to healers and seekers, researchers and authors who will share their experiences and the evidence to help guide us all to Holistic Health. Let's do this. Camille Martin is a registered dietician public health writer and former chronic Dieter, who is now dedicated to helping women quit dieting said bigger and better goals and lose weight in the process. She spent nearly 25 years of her life on a diet. And she's passionate about showing women how to improve their relationship with food and lose weight without dieting. The welcome Camille,

thank you, dude, I'm so excited to be here. Thank you for having me on.

Absolutely. I'm really excited to be talking to you about this topic, because I think it's really topical. And it's actually a journey, I'm sort of navigating myself, right. becoming increasingly aware of how diet culture has impacted my own relationship with food, and sort of trying to find a balance, which feels me comfortable in my body without falling into negative patterns that I'm becoming increasingly aware of. Right? So is that sort of a common pattern that you have found with many women?

Oh, absolutely. It's, it's such a multi layered conversation, because there's so many things that go into women's, you know, body dysmorphia, shame about their bodies, not feeling connected to themselves authentically from their identity. And I think what's so crazy to me is that this whole thing, we're always talking about it from the standpoint of dieting, trying to lose weight, and what we're eating, but it really goes so much deeper than that, because what's inside of you is really driving all those behaviors. But for some reason, we get stuck on the surface, and never go any deeper. And that's why we keep spinning our wheels, dieting and failing, because diets just don't work. So there's a whole lot that goes into it.

Yes, so food is so emotional, isn't it, but there is so many layers, let's scratch the surface here. What makes up all of those layers?

Well, um, the first thing is, and this is what I always tell women that and I'm a dietitian. So food is obviously I know all about food, I know how it affects my body. But what I always tell women is that we're so overly focused and preoccupied with the food that we're eating, and you know, the nutrients and carbs and calories. And we're missing the whole thing, which is how you eat. So I always tell women, it's more about if you're struggling with your weight, and you've been dieting over and over again, trying to lose the same 10 pounds, 15 pounds, 20 pounds, like you're trying and you're failing. It's not what you're eating. Because if you've been dieting all diets do is they they change the menu. So what's really going on is your eating behaviors. For instance, when I was training for a marathon way back when in 1997, I experimented with different types of dye or you know, menu plans, whatever, but I never lost weight. Even though I was running like on average 15 to 20 miles a week, I never lost weight. And it was because I was inhaling my food. I was almost using all of that extreme extra exercise as an excuse to just keep eating the way I wanted to eat, which was to shovel the food in. And now I know that all of that that eating behavior went way back to my childhood learning how to use food to self medicate. So what you eat is important, but the way you eat has to be addressed first or nothing will ever change.

So it's less about what and it's more about how I'm hearing and underneath of that underneath that is why you've talked a little bit about emotional eating. Can you can you speak to that?

If you want to know if you eat emotionally there are signs if if you eat past the point of fullness, like you just keep eating. If you're eating in response to something other than true hunger and a lot of us don't even realize why we're eating because we're just you know running around the kitchen crazy. In, you know, stress eating. But if you're not truly aware that you're hungry or not hungry, that's a sign. And then also, if the act of eating itself it is, is what's filling you up rather than the food itself. These are signs that you eat emotionally, but I'm sorry, I could just go on all day. But the takeaway that I would want anyone listening to this to get is that emotional eating, binge eating, feeling like you can't stop eating is not you, it has nothing to do with you, as a human being. You trained yourself to do this, and you can train yourself out of it.

So many of us are emotionally eating without realizing we're emotionally eating. And I think that many of the listeners or some of the listeners may have heard about intuitive eating, is that what you're talking about?

Yes, very much so. But that's almost like the second part of the process. The first part is to, to really just get past your behaviors and the shame you're heaping on yourself with your inner critic in your ear talking about how awful you are, and disgusting and worthless you are. You want to give back and see like, just think about how did you grow up? This is not to blame anybody, but how did you grow up? Do you remember when you started using foods to make yourself feel better? And you got to identify why why you developed this behavior so that you can release the shame involved in it, you know, so that's really step one. And then yes, getting in tune with your real hunger. And you can't do that if you're blazing through your day, like most moms working moms working women are doing, we don't take any time hardly to sit quietly. And it's almost like uncomfortable, like, oh my god, I gotta sit and meditate or journal, and I have to get fun time for myself. It's like, Oh, my God, when I don't even want to do that, because it's so painful and uncomfortable to get, you know, who am I? Who are you really, but by doing that, it helps you get in touch with your body and how you feel. So Intuitive Eating is really important, but you have to get in touch with yourself first before you can start doing that. Okay, so here's a practical tip that has really helped me with accepting and loving getting up accepting and loving but like that's so intellectual, but like to really get in touch with my body and feel relaxed in it. We walk around so often with our stomachs completely sucked in and like contorting ourselves in these unnatural positions, or get our getting our photo made and like trying not to let your arm fat show and like, just by relaxing, it's even hard for me to do in the privacy of my own home, I find myself sucking it out. I'm like, there's no one in here. Why are you? Why are you doing this, but it's I've trained myself so much. And that I mean, literally, you're sucking your gut in it can't even like, relax, to do the work of healing your body. So I would tell anyone, if you want a practical tip, just practice in your home, not sucking it in breathing naturally, like we're taking shallow breaths because we're holding ourselves constricted. And um, yeah, if you do that, that goes a long way toward helping you feel relaxed and your own body, which will help you get in touch with your hunger and, you know, and so on. So that would be a good one.

That's a good one I really see in the work that you're doing in the world that actually you want to take our focus to a different goal. And almost the impression I'm getting is that the weeds takes care of itself, because that's just when we're so we're spending so much time preoccupied, as you're saying, with our ways, we are still trapped within the culture, and how it just our, the culture of our family culture, and we're still trapped. So can you talk to us a little bit about why setting bigger or different, completely maybe unrelated goal for ourselves, helps us to lose weight and why that's even important.

Yeah, definitely. So trying to say I'm just going to love and accept my body. That's great, but it's very hard to do. So if you can take your focus off what you look like just for a little bit and do something that just fills you with joy, and when you nourish your soul that changes how you nourish yourself with your food. So, when I know women, my business is called love to lose love your life, lose the weight. I call it that because I know women want to lose weight. But that's a way of bringing them in to say, you will lose the weight. I'm not saying that if you set a big goal, all of a sudden, you're gonna wake up and have the perfect bikini body, because that's not the point. That's the reason why we're in this mess in the first place, is because we are chasing this impossible standard. That is bullshit. And it doesn't even exist and It enrages me. So when I say set a goal, and start working toward it, and feel peaceful and feel joyful and feel good. That is the opposite polar opposite state of what most of us find ourselves in day to day, I hate my body. I hate the way I look, I look disgusting. I just ate a whole thing of Ben and Jerry's ice cream. I'm such a pig. When you go over here, and you start setting a bigger, better goal that gives you joy, you're in a different state of flow, just like what you're saying. So what happens is you the weight, it's not about the weight, as you said, your body will stabilize, it will become what it's meant to be. So it's not the point of it to get a bikini body. You know, what does that even mean? What does that even give you anyway? Listen, I've chased it for years. And I'm not gonna lie, it's something that will never leave me because of my conditioning. But I recognize it. Now. I wake up every morning, and I have to consciously choose to focus on something that I love about myself, you know, I'm grateful I'm alive. I'm grateful. I have two beautiful children. Here's what I love about my body, you know that? I don't know, you know, stuff like that, instead of waking up and looking down at my stomach and going, Oh, my God, falling back from yesterday, what did I eat? What did I eat.

So when we're focused on a goal, that is bring us joy, when we're feeling motivated to do that, we are going to be feeling less stress, when we feel less stress, there's less cortisol that is entering and circulating around our bodies. When that's happening, then there are body deals with his energy in a different way. So it's actually going to be storing less that the places it tends to send because we, because there's less cortisol in our systems, so our weight will naturally just fall off us. Yes, but it's not the goal. To do that. It's just a reflection, my body is actually a really good barometer on how things are in my life. If I'm feeling more stressed, I will feel more stressed, I will feel heavier, the weight will just feel I will feel heavier, but that's my soul is heavier, my body is happier, my energy is denser. And that's my body is reflecting what my soul is feeling. To your

point, the better you feel inside, the more peaceful and relaxed and joyful about your life, all of that pressure and stress is not going to translate into sitting in front of the TV, eating ice cream, it's not going to translate to you know, chug in a bottle of wine, and you're just going to feel differently, your health choices will change and then your body will adjust to match. I mean, a whole other element of this is female sexuality and how we're trained to totally disconnect from it. Like we're in sexual relationships where we don't even enjoy it. We can't feel pleasure in our own bodies, because we're so focused on what we look like. But yeah, I mean, we were trained as little girls, you need to be like this, like full of competence and, you know, embodying your sexuality. And then you know, little girls are like, trying to be what they think society wants them to be, but that if they take it one step too far, they're sluts. And then they're just flushed down the toilet. And it's just, it's just, I mean, this is why I'm doing what I'm doing. It enrages me. It makes me It's devastating. It's got to stop. So my main thing if I had to do my elevator pitch, it would be you know, you're wasting your whole life obsessing about what you look like you're wasting your potential as a woman and a human being. And we need your potential. We need every single woman I don't care if your dream is to make candles we need you, you know, and that collective energy if we all came together and said, You know what, I'm not going to die. I'm not going to do this anymore, I'm sick of it, that's what happened to me, I was like, I just can't do this anymore, and then put your energy toward a worthwhile goal and the world would change overnight. You know,

we're not giving it we're not energizing ourselves to actually go out into the world and do what we are here to do. Instead we just get distracted by these messages which dulls our very vitality and distracts us from actually contributing and showing Shining Armor should our true potential because we get so wrapped up in what we look like and obsessed with. Obsessed with that which is just such as you see a waste of energy and waste of potential a waste of life.

Yeah, when it you're right, it dulls your it's like you're in a you're in a fog of like, you know, it really honestly Jude, like I there's not one probably still, if I'm honest, one hour that goes by that I'm not you know, like assessing what what do you look like? What are you eat, you know, later on, here's what I'm going to eat. I mean, this is what I'm doing for a living, but it's still with me, but it like, not only does it dull, your personality and your potential, it is so negative and self destructive in this is what enrages me is that so many women feel like they're worthless. It sounds dramatic that I if you ask any woman, like, what do you feel like? What are you even if you said what are you qualified to do? What is what's the big goal? I could never do that. Like, we don't even give our dreams like a chance to breathe? We kill them. You know, I've got to do this for my family. I'm we're a series of roles. Like I'm a mom, I'm a wife. I'm a you know, I'm a sister, I'm an employee. I'm a friend. These are my it's not like who are you? Would it? What do you love what like and this is when you start having to ask yourself tough questions like, when you hear that little question that that evil question? Is this all there is it's not evil? Actually, it's like your soul talking to you? Is this all there is? And then you shove it down and say, Well, you know, I'm a mom, I've you know, I have this nice house to live in. I've got all these things, and I should be so grateful. But you should answer those questions. Is this all there is? And the reason you're hearing that question is not because it's not wonderful to be a mom, or a, you know, a wife, or a sister or friend. These things are wonderful. But that is not who you are. I don't think you even most women don't even know they have no concept of how powerful they are through this whole process of my divorce. And finally, that coincided with I mean, it was the reason why I started speaking up and saying, No, I don't want to do this anymore. I mean, I like went from Oh, sure. It's fun. And like, oh, I support my husband. I went like I mean, I pulled the ripcord on my whole life because I was so fucking angry. And I was like, No, I told everyone in my vicinity. No, not doing this anymore. I don't want that in my life. And it was like, shocking. And people were like, Who are you like what happened? But now I see I was being I was I finally couldn't take it anymore, being quiet and nice and people pleasing and selfless. And I was like, I'm just I want to live, I want to be happy. And I'm not happy. So

I know I'm really not seeing as well. It's like this, this connection of what we put in our bodies and what we what we see what we put in our mouths and what comes out of our mouths. So and I think that there's such, there's such a connection here. So you know, the control the control of what comes out of our mouths, and the control with what goes into our mouths. This is such a bloc, as you're saying, yes, so many women,

that we shoved down our rage, we shove our voices down and stuff our voice

is down, we shove our anger down and we shove our opinions down we shove our emotions down as you're saying because culturally we have been encouraged to do so. So the control about what goes in and what goes out sometimes it's the only way we can get control is to actually control this. So and in controlling all that goes up and down our throats like this. You know in spiritual terms. This is our throat chakra. And there's so much that is going on here. And in the women's journey that is very interesting to me. This link from what you're seeing around, you know, a big life event looks something like So like I've I've had enough like, enough is enough. Yeah. And this and an anger which is such an useful and motivating emotion to actually change things up, there was a relief in the in the control of what you said and in so and as a result I released have control over what you were putting in to your to your body. So I think that this is just a an interesting link again, like of this, this, this element of control.

Yeah, it's all connected. I mean, I would go one step further and say that we're not encouraged to be quiet and selfless. We're brainwashed, we are brainwashed. The patriarchal culture, it's, that is a real thing. But I always want to say that men are also affected. Men are experiencing their own brainwashing from this patriarchal culture, it just keeps getting passed down. So men are not the enemy. And at total fault for what you know, it's just a big mess.

Yeah, it's become so toxic, it's just become so toxic. And and we were, we're, we're quite obviously out of balance in the western world with both what's coming out of people's mouths, and also what's going into people's mouths, and we are consuming so much junk.

I get up every morning, I make sure I read something inspiring. I want to set my intention for the day, to do something for other people to bring joy to someone else's life, my kids, and I want to bring joy to my life too. But like, we have to have something more important to focus on than our looks and turning in on ourselves and shoving down rage. And we're of no use to even our own families if we are carrying around this negative energy of how much we hate ourselves. And I mean, women have just, it's just, it's so bad. It's so toxic and so poisonous. And I think we don't we're talking about it now. And that is so amazing. But I don't think we even know the level to which our self hatred is poisoning everything in our lives. So that's why let's bring it up on a positive note, Camille, let's don't be negative, but like, focus on something you love something small, go plant flowers in your garden, bring yourself joy, bring joy to your family, put that energy out in the world, and it will come reverberating back to you and you'll feel good. You will choose healthier options, you will not want to shove yourself full of sugar and you know,

and alcohol, because that's so much of self medication. Yeah, it's really a self. It's really that it's that self soothing that we that we turn to like we did when we were when we were little babies taping though. So yeah, it's really it is important to be conscious about what we're consuming, not just what we're putting into our bodies, but what we're putting into our minds. Yeah, we're putting what we're feeding our soul with, you know, are we nourishing our soul because if we nourish our soul, we will automatically want to nourish our bodies because it's going to be asking for that. Thank you so much for for being one of the changemakers and for sharing your story and shining a light on how how our emotions are actually what we should be focusing on. And everything else takes will fall into place when we actually take care of what it is that our soul is really crying out for.

Absolutely. And thank you for all you do. I mean you're living it, you're setting goals, you're creating a program or that is just amazing. I love that. So I'm so happy to have connected with you and I appreciate you giving me time to talk about what you know what I'm passionate about. And I think they definitely go right hand in hand. So thank you.

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