Deprogramming Diet Culture & Reclaiming Our Intuition - with Dr. Supatra Tovar

Leanna Laskey McGrath  0:08  

Welcome to the executive coach for moms podcast, where we support women who are attempting to find balance and joy while simultaneously leading people at work and at home. I'm your host, Leanna Laskey McGrath, former tech exec turned full time mom, recovering perfectionist and workaholic and certified executive coach. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  0:28  

Hi everyone. Thanks so much for tuning in this week. I am ecstatic to announce this week's guest, Dr. Supatra Tovar is here to talk to us about deprogramming diet culture. And she has quite a bio, because she's very impressive. So I'm going to tell you all about her, and then we'll jump into our conversation. Dr. Supatra Tovar is one of the few clinical psychologists in the nation who is also a registered dietitian and fitness expert. Dr. Tovar teaches clients how to use research based techniques in behavioral psychology, nutritional science and exercise, kinesiology to overcome complex challenges. She harnesses the different disciplines of her unique background to show her clients how small modifications to daily habits can transform mindsets, enhance personal relationships and accelerate professional trajectories. Dr. Tovar has helped clients navigate through trauma, eating disorders, depression, anxiety and grief, driven by her deep understanding of the mind, body and nutrition and by personal experiences that revealed their interconnections. Dr. Tovar founded ANEW, Advanced Nutrition and Emotional Wellness, to offer simple routines to improve your mindset, your health and your spirit. The flagship online video course, Deprogram Diet Culture, guides participants through the successful seven step method she has employed to help her clients break free from the destructive cycles of dieting and weight gain. A condensed version of the course is available as a best selling book, Deprogram Diet Culture: Rethink your relationship with food, Heal your mind, and Live a diet free life, which published in September of 2024. Future publications will further explore the integration of psychology, nutrition and physical wellness. Dr. Tovar earned her doctorate in psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology, and holds two master's degrees, including a Master of Science in nutrition. She is also a BASI certified Pilates instructor, reflecting over 20 years of dedication to integrating physical fitness with mental and nutritional health. I hope you enjoy our conversation.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  2:55  

I am so so excited to announce today's guest and introduce her, Dr. Supatra Tovar, and we are going to be talking about diet culture and dismantling it ,all the things. So welcome. Dr T.

Dr. Supatra Tovar  3:11  

Oh, thank you so much. It's so good to be here with you. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  3:14  

I want to dive in. I know you have a book that you have published and you are practicing psychologist and dietician, and so first of all, I just would love to hear what brought you to this work. 

Dr. Supatra Tovar  3:30  

Absolutely. It started, obviously, from the beginning. I think most people get the hint of their journey early on in childhood. And so for me, I grew up in Colorado, and basically I was outside all the time. I was very active, very athletic. Never had to worry about my weight, my shape at all growing up. And it really wasn't until I experienced in high school a friend of mine who was suffering with bulimia, and that was really eye opening for me, because I'd never known that you could have a problem with weight, shape and eating. I really was, like, not clued into that at all. I'm dating myself a little bit, but this was way before any kind of social media and those kind of influences and things like that. So that kind of put a little spark inside of me, mainly because I felt so helpless and that I couldn't help this person recover. And thankfully, she recovered, and she's fine now. So when I went to college, I studied pre med biology, knowing that I may do something in the health science field. I'm not sure what it is. I wanted it to be broad enough so that, you know, my undergrad covered that. But at right after college, I totally turned tail and came to Los Angeles and was in the entertainment industry. I'd also had a passion for performing and theater and things like that, and so I worked in the entertainment industry for a really long time, and that's where I started to see, you know, disordered eating and eating disorders on a larger scale, people really struggling with that. And that's when I actually started to struggle with my own weight and shape. And I basically ate whatever I wanted. And it wasn't often, you know, on the healthier side of food, and I started to gain weight. And so I was like, oh, no, what do we do we diet? And so I went into periods of dieting and then weight loss, and then weight gain, and dieting and weight loss and weight gain, and I also, at the same time, became a Pilates instructor, and that's when things really shifted, not necessarily because of what it did for my body, although Pilates is amazing for how you feel, and for core strength and all of this stuff. But it was when I started to help people, the spark really turned into a flame, the one that started in high school feeling helpless. I was finally able to be helpful. And I also was seeing so much disordered eating and eating disorders and problems with my clients, and I knew, Okay, I can't help on that end. So that's what really inspired me to go into nutrition, because cooking and food has always been a big passion of mine. Even then, when I was a dietitian, I didn't feel like I had enough in terms of a scope of practice to be able to really help people with eating disorders or disordered eating, and that's why I went into my clinical psychology program and focused much of my studies on holistic health, but also mindfulness interventions for disordered eating and eating disorders. And so I've been doing this now for years, and have seen with my system that I created a really sustainable, lasting way to help people go into recovery, and those stories of my clients have been so inspirational that I created a course called Deprogram DietCulture and wrote the book Deprogram Diet Culture: Rethink your relationship with food, Heal your mind, and Live a diet free life, so I could reach a broader audience. And I really want to get this method out there so people know that if they are struggling with weight or shape, they do not have to go the prescribed diet culture route. There is a way to return to your healthiest self completely naturally, without medications, without restriction, without suffering and without pain.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  7:28  

And when you say diet culture, I would love to hear more about what that means to you. What does it look like? How do we spot it? How do we know that we're in it? 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  7:40  

Absolutely.

Dr. Supatra Tovar  7:40  

Absolutely. We are definitely in it. It's pretty hard to miss. Diet culture is based off of two very distinct biases. One is lookism, or the unhealthy pursuit of this thin ideal. And so if you look, that's actually changed over time, what people have defined as perfect and healthy. If you look before the Industrial Revolution, it was actually much more preferable to be overweight, because that proved that you had money, that proved that you had access to health care, you were in a higher social class, and the poor people didn't have as much access to good food and health care. But when the Industrial Revolution came along that all shifted, and so people's bodies started to look similar, and that's when the rich or upper class started to then basically differentiate themselves from the rest of society by becoming thinner. And that became when that, you know, the corset came into fashion, and you know, people were really looking at the hourglass figure for women and just more of that kind of thin, buff stature for men. It really took off in the 50s and 60s, but it's been prevalent ever since early 1900s and so basically, people are trying to pursue this thin ideal at this point right now, it was a little bit more body inclusive. Now it's back to thinness and emaciation as the ideal, especially for women, and super muscular, of course, for men. 

Dr. Supatra Tovar  9:11  

So that's the lookism bias, and then the weightism bias is the more insidious bias. And basically what that is is just fat shaming and fat phobia. People are so deathly afraid of being labeled overweight or obese because the treatment that they receive in society. And so when you really kind of look at diet culture as a whole, it's also capitalist driven, because there is a very kind of prescribed and almost easy way for people to make money, and that is to inundate them with these two fears. I'll never look like this, you know, skinny, thin, emaciated person, and I certainly don't want to be ridiculed for being that. And so industry just keeps driving, that's why you see so many diet after diet after diet and fasting and all of these different companies, and, you know, food delivery services and personal trainers, and you know all of these ways where we can, like, hack our body and spend tons of money trying to achieve this ideal. And that, I think, is one of the main drivers, along with a lot of issues and problems from childhood that drive eating disorders and disordered eating. Most people, I don't even know if I know anyone who isn't affected by diet culture, who doesn't have an incorrect belief about themselves or about the world or about what we should be and should look like. But I know that with my clients, kind of deprogramming them out of diet culture is actually one of the healthiest things that they can do for themselves, and there's easily and accessible ways that you can actually start to extricate yourself from diet culture.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  11:01  

I know that that's your program, and maybe can you just kind of give us an understanding of what that looks like, or maybe at least how you get started. Because when I think about being a part of any culture, I think about the deeply rooted beliefs that we have that are just so ingrained that they feel second nature, right? We just say things and accept them as truth, and whether they are or not, we believe them. And so how do you go about doing that, to start to deprogram it or get away from it a little bit?

Leanna Laskey McGrath  14:59  

Yes. 

Dr. Supatra Tovar  11:35  

Absolutely. Well, I think first comes education. And most people are told by doctors, by, you know, whoever is the weight loss guru out there or the gym person, that the way to lose weight is to eat less and move more. And that is true ish, in theory. I'm going to say that we are not a math equation. We can't just say I'm going to eat this many calories and I'm going to burn this many calories, equals thinness and weight loss. That's not how the body works. And so really understanding how the body works and understanding that the body completely and totally rejects dieting is the first step. Diets always fail. When they don't, when you continue to be on these restricted diets, that's when you get into some real big danger zones with your body. Your body is programmed and designed to actually reject dieting, because evolutionarily, we started out in caveman times and even before feast or famine, and so the body developed all these mechanisms to help the body survive during famine. And so what happens when we diet is our body, you know, say we were having 2400 or 3000 calories before. And most diets that you see today are like 1200 calories, which is not enough to fuel a toddler. You go from cutting your calories in half, you put your body into this stressed out danger mode, starvation mode, and what it starts to do is it starts to basically ramp up your defenses against losing weight, mainly by suppressing thermogenesis or the burning off of your fat stores, the one thing you want to go is held on by the body. And whatever else starts to be, you know, let go at a, you know, as slow rate as possible. So you may be losing a lot of muscle, you may be losing a lot of water, but you're not necessarily losing a lot of fat when you're in a diet. So it's very deceptive. And then you think, Ah, man, this is awesome. I reached my goal weight. Yes, it sucked. Yes, I was unhappy the whole time. I was foggy headed. It was terrible. I want carbs back. So when you put the carbs back, that's when the body's like, yes, we're not in danger zone anymore. Yes, we can then just eat as much as we want, and it goes into this process called compensatory hyperphasia, which just means to make up for what was lost before you're going to eat a lot. And so you just go into this kind of automatic overeating mode. You don't even necessarily have awareness of it, and you gain the weight right back. 

Dr. Supatra Tovar  14:18  

So when we look at that alone, why should anybody be in diet culture? Why should we be doing this if it's not to fuel the pockets of somebody else? So once people kind of get the awareness of that, then they can really learn how to basically pull themselves away from diet culture. And I recommend three things. I recommend them to deprogram their social media feed, take out anyone and anything that makes them feel less than about themselves, hide and block them, and then reprogram that for things that are inspiring, things that bring you joy, things that make you feel good, I also recommend that you limit as much as possible any advertisement consumption, because that is the most manipulative way to get, you know, your dollars from you and most advertisers, especially the ones in fashion magazines, are, you know, just inundating you with the not enough vibe. 

Dr. Supatra Tovar  15:14  

The next step to get you out of diet culture is to really look around you at the relationships around you and ask yourself, Do I have any people who are like telling me to die, who are weight shaming me? Who are, you know, telling me to over exercise and to limit time with those people and to focus on time with people that bring us joy, that love us just as we are. When we do that step, all of that, I think, needs to happen first, then the rest of the work is diving inward. The focus becomes inward, as opposed to outward. We learn what are the deepest, most prevalent negative thoughts that have driven us for years in diet culture, and we can reformulate them, because they're often just lies. They're often not true, like I'm worthless. There's not a person on earth who's worthless. They have inherent worth just by being. I'm told I'm not supposed to eat carbs now. I'm told I need to over ingest in animal protein. All of these things are actual lies. They're keeping us stuck in this, oh, I'm supposed to take this weight loss medication because obesity is a disease which, you know, we understand why it's classified as a disease to help reduce stigma, but it also makes people powerless. So I am not powerless to my body. I'm actually powerful in my body. 

Dr. Supatra Tovar  16:40  

When we change those thoughts, and then when we really tune into the body, our bodies are giving us signals all the time. There's not a time if you're really paying attention that your body's not giving you a signal. It's either telling you I'm energized or I'm actually hungry. And when we actually listen to our hunger, as opposed to deny it. When we listen, the body doesn't go into this crazy starvation mode. It's like, Oh, yay. She loves me. She's feeding me. And when we sit with our food, and we're present with our food, and we eat mindfully, eat slow enough for our body to register the food in our stomach, and then when we listen to when our body is full, our body naturally regulates itself, naturally brings us to the healthy weight that is right for us, and that might not be emaciation. It really isn't for anybody. It may be where your body fits right and is functioning and performing at its best. So all of those steps I teach in the course, and I teach in the book, and then I also teach how to make all of these new behaviors and this new mindset and all of these thoughts around ourselves and around our food permanent. And I have seen all of my clients go into recovery from eating disorders by following this route. And I've seen all of my clients that have struggled with diets and all of these kind of disordered eating behaviors recover from those as well. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  18:14  

It sounds like to me what's available instead of dieting, you know, and the cycle that you've talked about, which I'm sure we can all relate to, we've either done it ourselves or seen people do it right where we want to lose weight and then do that, and then it all comes back, because it's not sustainable. And what's coming up for me that I think is similar in the work that we both do, I work with women who are kind of recovering from workaholic ism and kind of like I used to work so much, and now I have children, and I need to change that relationship with work. But what I find is that there is a question of, can I trust myself? And there are some gifts of the discipline, and, you know, being able to push myself when needed. And I'm afraid that if I let go of that discipline and structure and pushing myself so hard that I'm gonna become a lazy couch potato and not strive for anything and not succeed and not meet the goals that I want to meet for myself. What I find is that there's basically a lot of work to do in terms of repairing that relationship with oneself and rebuilding that trust in oneself. And I wonder if that's similar in the folks that you work with, of kind of feeling like this fear of, well, if I don't put these restrictions on myself, I can't be trusted, I'm going to eat everything, and then it's going to get out of control. And so I'm curious if you see that come up, and kind of how you work through that with clients. 

Dr. Supatra Tovar  19:50  

Oh my gosh, yes. Perfectionism is essentially a cognitive distortion. Basically it's seeing things as all or nothing, or black and white. And when we go all in, especially when we're trying to be perfect at our job, perfect at mothering, perfect in our body, perfect lover, wife, partner, that's not sustainable, and it's actually not realistic, and it's really not good for the body. Yes, it's very important that we pursue what fuels us and what brings us joy and what enriches our lives. But when it comes at such a high cost, you have to really look at, how can I find balance? What is actually the gray area? Because that kind of thinking like you just said, If I let up just for a second, I'm going to fail. I'm going to become a lazy couch potato. When you actually let up of that restriction, when you embrace that you can actually be in the gray area, that means you can provide yourself that time where you're really pursuing and you're going for your career, and your focus with rest, with allowing yourself the time to just be and enjoy life. And I think that is so difficult for, you know, super high achievers, and I can totally relate to that. I'm a I'm a very high achiever, but I'm also really militant about self care, and so I spend a lot of time making sure that I'm taking care of myself, that I'm feeding myself well, that I'm going for walks every day, that I'm getting sunshine, that I get sleep, that I am making sure that what I'm trying to put in my body, although I have zero rules on food, and I think that that's really important, that we have all foods open to us, and there's no food off limits. But that we let our bodies guide us to what is going to help us perform at our best. And our bodies always tell us, you may be getting a craving for, you know, carbohydrates, well, that's because you're probably low on energy. That's because you need carbohydrates. And just fun fact, for everybody, our bodies run mostly on carbohydrates. So when we reduce them or eliminate them as diet culture wants us to our bodies are very, very, very unhappy, and that is actually not the way to lose weight. If you if that were, then everybody would be at their, you know, healthiest weight, right? No, that is actually not how it works. And when you really look deep into like the blue zones, especially the people who, you know, the centenarians who live the greatest proportion of centenarians in the world, their diet was mainly carbohydrates, actually very little animal protein, very little fat, because they were living off of the land. So we have to start to, you know, redefine, especially for women, what is their high achieving pursuit, what is the cost of that? And can we find a more balanced way when you actually live in the gray area and you say, I will work as hard as I need to, as long as I need to, until my body tells me I need to rest. And when you actually listen to that and you provide that for yourself, it's more sustainable. You're not going to burn out. You're not going to become the martyr for your family and do everything for your family. You're going to ask for help, you're going to then give yourself that time. You're going to take that massage when you need it. And that can be sustainable for the long term. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  23:33  

Yeah, I think what I am curious about is like, what is available on the other side? So what does that look like? And anyone listening to this podcast is a high achiever, a hard worker, someone who is like if I have a goal, I'm going to do whatever I need to do to make it happen. If I want to lose 15 pounds, I'll do whatever it takes. If that's my goal and that's what I want to focus on, I'm going to do that. If I want to get that promotion, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to set my sights on it. I'm going to work and do whatever I need to do to make it happen. And what you're saying, and I 100% agree, is like, what is the cost of that, and is it worth it? And also, like you said, the sustainability of it. And I think having children is what made me realize that life is much more of a marathon than a sprint, because it's, you know, we're in this for the long haul. And if we are going at a sprint pace, at some point we're going to burn out, or at some point we're going to have to do it all over again and repeat the cycle over and over again. And that really isn't very efficient. You know, if you look at at your whole life from a bird's eye view. And so I guess what I'm curious is like, like, what does it look like living deprogrammed from diet culture? And I think a question that everyone have is, can I be a size that I'm comfortable with, and can I, you know, be the way that I feel comfortable with if I'm not dieting, like, how do I do that without dieting?

Dr. Supatra Tovar  25:03  

Absolutely, I think I'm a living example of that, and I have many clients who I mentioned in my book who are also a living example of that. So I'll just go from my perspective. Once I really just learned that dieting was futile and I saw diet culture objectively and like holistically, I realized what a toxic environment that was, and how unhappy it made me just adjusting, you know, the social media and watching these advertisements and just being inundated. And so I made a very safe environment for myself. On my social media, I only follow people that inspire me, that you know, people that make me laugh, animals and kittens. You see a lot of dogs on my on my Instagram feed. That, in and of itself, doing that was such a relief. I realized I don't need to see any of that. It is not helpful for me. It does not fuel me. It only makes me feel terrible about myself. Then, knowing dieting doesn't work, I opened up all food to be available to me, and that's everything from the ultra processed all the way to whole foods, right? And that was also important, because removing the restriction, removing that kind of taboo, you cannot eat this, made it so much easier for me to just exist in the world. We all have to go out to eat sometimes, we all eat with other people, we have Thanksgiving dinners. If we have these food rules, it is so unhappy making. It is so toxic for us. So when we open that up and we say, I'm going to allow it whenever I want and whatever I want, then the body is free to choose, and that's where it really comes into play. Listening carefully to the body. Your body doesn't like to eat a lot of processed food. You can tell the minute you start to eat potato chips. You can tell in your mouth when you've had enough, and when you're really paying attention to that, yes, you can totally allow that for yourself, but I listen for that moment where I'm like, Oh yeah, that I'm not loving that anymore, and I'm going to just let that be. I can have it anytime I want, but I've had enough, and that's great. 

Dr. Supatra Tovar  27:24  

And then I listen even deeper into my body. What is my body actually telling me it wants? Sometimes I might just get like, oh, a salad in my head, like, and it's telling me you really need some vitamins and minerals and you need some fiber. Or I might get like, you know, bready carbohydrate, you know, visions in my mind, and that means I need to go further and give my body more carbohydrates. Or I might be feeling a little weak, and I might need to give myself protein. And my body loves plant protein and doesn't love too much animal protein. So I like listen for that. And for me right now, I'm mainly plant based, but it's very flexible. If I'm out and there's something that I really want to try, I'll try. But when I do this and I eat slowly enough and I eat mindfully enough, and I'm really paying attention, because there's all sorts of signals my body's giving me, my body tells me exactly when that's the right amount of food and the type of food, and when we have the type of food that our body really loves, we really listen to that, we have energy. So I have so much more energy to get up in the morning and be on an early morning podcast or get up and exercise first thing in the morning, because I'm listening to my body. I'm also listening to my body when it's tired and I'm providing it what it needs. I kind of always give myself a little siesta in the middle of the day. I try not to have a midday appointment so I can go take a nap, and I can allow myself some rest. And I'm very, very also listening to my body at night, when it starts to wind down, when I'm starting to get tired, and I prioritize sleep. So when we really tune into our body, it's telling you all along the way, and when you provide your body what it needs, it then is in balance with the environment, and that is really important. 

Dr. Supatra Tovar  29:16  

And ever since I've done this, I have gone to my natural, perfect weight without even trying, no dieting whatsoever. I actually eat a lot of food, like a lot of food, but it is food that fuels my body and I have the energy to then go exercise, although I also have a very realistic view of exercise. A lot of people think that exercise is actually the primary driver of weight loss. It's really not. It's really not. It exercise the maximum most people are going to burn off in even a heavy cardio sweat session, maybe 300 calories, and that's really not going to do very much, although when we look at exercise and we count exercise, not as a weight loss method, but as a way to increase our strength, to strengthen our core muscles. I mean, I'm a Pilates instructor, and I've been doing Pilates forever, and I have never felt better doing another exercise. Although I love to run and I love to jump on my trampoline and things like that, I listen to what my body wants to do, as far as exercise, and I'm eating enough to fuel it, and that also is telling my body it's safe. And when we tell our bodies it's safe, that's when our thermogenesis then goes up. It doesn't go up when we are pushing ourselves too hard, when we're exercising too much when we're restricting too much, when our cortisol levels are high, we just hold on to fat because the body's like, no, no, no, no. But when the body feels safe, that's when thermogenesis naturally happened. And when I did that, I was losing maybe, like a pound every two weeks, or something like that, until my body was just like, Okay, this is it. This is where it wants to be, and it's just stayed there, but I haven't done anything necessarily to try to get there, other than listen to my body.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  31:09  

It seems like a lot of work, and maybe that's a question that you get whenever you're talking to people about doing this. But then I think what came up next was like, it's also a lot of work to think about what I'm eating every day and obsess over that count my calories and things like that. And so, like, it's work either way. And so maybe this work is more like a better use of time, right?

Dr. Supatra Tovar  31:37  

Right. It's also, I think dependent on your mindset. I actually had a client who said in the kind of realized she had gotten where she is now, which is, you know, heavier than she wanted to be because she was so busy taking care of everyone else. And so she couched now her journey into, you know, really, kind of paying attention to her body and really addressing it as work. She, she originally was like, now I have to do this. And I said, Well, that's one way to look at it. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  32:13  

Yeah.

Dr. Supatra Tovar  32:14  

Certainly, especially if you've had to do things before, if you've had to restrict your calories, you've had to exercise like crazy. You've, you know, had to gain weight, and then you have to lose it all again. Ah, feels like so much work. I said, what if it's now I get to take care of myself. What is the difference there? Instead of a have to, it's get to, and when I look at the process itself, it is really the ultimate form of self care, because you're listening to yourself finally. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  32:49  

Yeah. 

Dr. Supatra Tovar  32:50  

And you're allowing things as opposed to restricting things. You're opening up your food choices, you're becoming more flexible. That's another thing a client said yesterday. It's flexible now and it's joyful, and I think that that's the mindset that is sustainable. That's the mindset that will actually help you get to your healthiest self, as opposed to the mindset of, I've got to do this. I have to count my calories. I have to exercise. No. Body, Hi. How you doing today? Body, well, I'm a little hungry. Oh, okay, what do you want? Hmm, I think I want oatmeal for breakfast. That's what I do all the time. I'm like, Hi. Body, what would you like today? And I never see it as work. I never see a workout as work. I see it as I get to move my body now. iI I don't move my body, I feel gross because I'm sitting all day and I turn into a little comma, right? So I get to stretch, and I get to expand, and I get to work my muscles, and it feels so good. And I get to take my dogs on a walk, and I get to go to sleep early. I'm like, so excited to go to sleep. I'm like, Let's get ready. You know, I think it's a joyful process, especially if you are working on your mindset around that. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  34:11  

Yeah. 

Dr. Supatra Tovar  34:11  

And the primary mindset I think people have, in general, but especially when they're dieting, is a scarcity mindset. I can't have this, or I'm never get that, or I'll never look like that, or, you know, I get this one cheat day and I gotta like, just Whoa, go crazy on that day. That's a scarcity mindset. When you have an abundance mindset, you realize, okay, all foods are open to me. I have so many choices. I have so many ways that I can move my body today. What does my body want? That makes it a joyful process, and that's a big part of my book. Because if you see a lot of like, kind of, you know, anti dieting books and things like that, if they don't really totally delve into the cognitive behavioral therapy behind it, and basically what you're trying to do is you're trying to have thoughts that fuel positive feelings that then fuel positive behaviors, as opposed to going the other direction. So when you embark on this work, it really does become joyful, especially changing your thoughts. I make sure that that's a joyful process. I encourage people to create a mantra of their new thought and to practice that. And when you're actually repeating a mantra, it's technically a meditation, you're reconditioning your mind. You are shifting and creating new neural pathways, but you're also calming down and relaxing. And I don't know anybody who's gotten done with two minutes of I am safe, or I am loved, or I am a work in progress, or I am loved just the way I am, when you have that as a mantra, two minutes of that, I don't know anyone who's come out of that and felt worse. So I think to embrace this and to make it sustainable, we also have to view it as joyful, and it really is. Everyone that I've worked with has been like, I never felt better. I've never felt more positive. I've never felt more hopeful. To even think about going back to restricting is like, No way, man. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  36:20  

Yeah. 

Dr. Supatra Tovar  36:20  

When they see the other side, the other side is so joyful.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  36:24  

I love that one final question, because I know that we've got a lot of people listening who are moms who are maybe dealing with kind of the postpartum feeling like my body's different than it was before. And, you know, I miss looking like I did before I had a baby. And what would you say to them?

Speaker 1  36:48  

Yes. Well, first of all, I think they should congratulate themselves for creating a human.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  36:53  

Yeah. 

Dr. Supatra Tovar  36:54  

That is no small feat. It is an amazing miracle that your body is able to do that, that your body is able to house and create and form an actual human being. And so I think taking the time to really thank your body for that, as opposed to saying, Oh my God, what's going on with my body? yYs, it is different, but giving yourself that moment to thank it for creating this incredible creature that's in your arms, is it the first step. Then I think the second step is patience and allowance, as opposed to, now I gotta get back on the treadmill. Oh, my God. I've got to lose this baby weight fast. What you're doing is actually creating more cortisol in your body. And when we have stress, mainly in cortisol, but also adrenaline and all those things that come from these terrible thoughts about ourselves, you're only prolonging your body being in that state. And so my suggestion to all women after they've given birth is just slow down and allow. This time that you have with your newborn is precious. It is also the time to focus on the bonding and the creation of a safe space for your child. If your child does not feel safe because mom is super anxious or worried, then they're going to absorb that, because mirror neurons are completely on fire, even if a child can't remember before the age of three. So it's really important during that time to just focus on being calm, being in your body and allowing, as opposed to going back to restricting. And when you do that, the body then has the opportunity to heal itself, and it will heal itself. Yes, you may have stretch marks forever, but I think it's really important to really kind of reformulate. What are these? What are these stretch marks? Because my body actually made a human and that might be okay. And you can also do things that take care of yourself, you know, basically, you know, moisturizing the body and making sure that you're not stressed out. That's also going to help the body heal. Then when you're doing this, you can really focus on, well, what is my body asking you to do? Is it asking me right now to move? Okay, maybe it's slower. I'm going to ask, I'm going to I'm going to move, and then I'm going to see how my body feels. When we do this continuously, whether we've had a baby or not, your body, when you're working in harmony with it, will then go to whatever it needs to be naturally. And when you can take yourself out of diet culture with those three methods that I suggested, and you're not constantly inundated with this messaging, you can then just focus on actually living and enjoying and being with your baby while returning to your body's natural weight as it's supposed to, as it's meant to, not as you are trying to plant down and make it happen. That's not how the body works, and it's not what the body likes.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  40:17  

Thank you so much, and thank you so much for being here today. I would love for you to share just where people can find you. I know you mentioned a course and a book. So what resources do you have available for folks, and where can they find them?

Dr. Supatra Tovar  40:31  

For my practice website, it's ddrsupatratovar.com, D, R, S, U, P, A T, R, A, T, O, V, A, R.com, that's where you can come and work with me, or work with any of I'm bringing on a bunch of associates coming up soon, and I have one already right now. So if you're in California, Colorado, Illinois, I will also be licensed soon in New York. You can work with me. If you want to take the course or find out about the book or book me for speaking, I actually have my own podcast as well. You can go to anew-insight.com and you can find out all about that. I also have some free resources on there that I think are really helpful to get you motivated and moving towards mindfulness. And one is the mindfulness cookbook for busy people. That is something I created for myself, mainly because I'm so busy, I wanted to have recipes that were easy to make, that were, you know, helpful, that provided me with the nutrients that I needed. It also has some lessons on mindfulness. It's free on my website. I also have a mindful eating journal, which is a 30 day journal, which really helps you get into tuning into your body and listening to your body. It has all sorts of prompts, and, you know, things that you can write as you're eating. And my hope for those resources is that people find joy in eating again. I really want people to realize that the only reason why we're alive is because we're eating. We can really enjoy this, and we can be with our food and still go back to whatever is our healthiest weight. So those are the two ways to get a hold of me, and all of my socials are on both websites as well. If you want to follow me.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  42:17  

Wonderful. Well, thank you so much, and we'll link everything in the show notes, and of course, all of the information will be available on the podcast website. So thank you so so much, Dr Tovar, for being here with us today and for sharing all of your wisdom about deprogramming diet culture. I know that everyone is going to find this so helpful, as I have. So thank you so much.

Dr. Supatra Tovar  42:39  

Thank you for having me. I really appreciate being here with you today. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  42:43  

Thank you so much everyone for tuning in, and we will see you all next week.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  42:51  

Thanks so much for tuning in to the executive coach for moms podcast. Please like, subscribe or follow the show so you'll be notified when the next episode is available. I hope you'll join me again next time. Take care.