Well Wisconsin Radio

Interviewer: Hello and welcome to Well Wisconsin Radio, a podcast discussing health and wellbeing topics with experts from all around the state of Wisconsin. I’m your host, Katie Lovell, and today my guest is Sammy Gollup. Sammy is a registered dietician and the founder of the Anti-Diet Mama. Her approach to nutrition has changed throughout the last decade as she has grown from college athlete to professional and now to mama. She has learned throughout her former career that the diet culture is detrimental to our well-being and changing the way you negatively think about food can be fixed over time and with the proper training. She focuses on all aspects of well-being to be able to help model what it means to prioritize health for our children. Sammie, welcome and thank you for joining us today.

Guest: Thanks for having me, Katie. I’m happy to be here and I’m excited to hopefully shed some light on the anti-diet approach.

Interviewer: Well, can you start our conversation off today by telling me and us what the anti-diet approach means to you?

Guest:Yeah. So, first I kind of want to take you back into the beginning of my professional career in weight loss surgery. So, when I first started out as a dietician, I was really interested in weight management. I had an uncle that died who was severely obese. And I also had a friend that had an eating disorder, so I was kind of in the middle of this space where, you know, I thought that helping people to be healthy and to be an appropriate weight was it. And I thought being a dietician was going to be that. So, when I was in the bariatric surgery clinic, I loved that I could see people for a long time, really get to know them, get to see their transformations. And while I was doing that I noticed some patterns, right? I noticed that the vast majority of my patients have been on and off dieting since they were 8, 9, 10 years old. And with those diets, they were restrictive, they were forced on them a lot of the times, and they took away each person’s body autonomy, so they really put all of the food and exercise, everything in this outside space, instead of helping people to really look inward and do what feels right for them in their body. So, anti-diet is a movement that really aims to steer people away from this chronic yo-yo dieting due to all of its known harmful effects, right? We know that dieting actually is really physically harmful, not only physically, but mentally as well. The vast majority of people who engage in restrictive dieting are unable to sustain it because it’s really hard, it’s really restrictive, and most of the time, once they go off the diet, they’re going to regain the weight that they lost and sometimes more. So, it’s also harmful mentally. It can cause low self-esteem, low self-efficacy, poor body image, and increase in the risk of disordered eating habits or eating disorders. And then physically, not only are you regaining the weight and sometimes more, it can slow down your metabolism, it can increase the risk of heart disease and diabetes. And those things alone are a lot of times the things that we’re trying to get away from when we are aiming to lose weight. So, as I learned more about these harmful effects of dieting and restrictive eating and more about eating disorders, I moved away from the weight management space of dietetics and more into the eating disorder prevention and also helping people to have a healthy relationship with food. Learning how to eat to fuel their bodies and exercise more so for longevity and those daily benefits of exercise. And also, to improve body image. So, it’s kind of this whole other realm of dietetics and mental health that help people to get away from this restrictive thought process with food and more into “what does my body need on a daily basis to be taken care of.”

Interviewer: Awesome. Thanks for that. Can you tell us more about what intuitive eating is and how you actually help people apply that principle?

Guest: Yes. So intuitive eating is an approach that was defined by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch in 1995. These are two eating disorder dieticians that wrote the book literally on how to get in tune with your body’s signals and why to get away from restrictive dieting. Intuitive eating is evidence-based, and it’s what we call a self-care framework that integrates instinct, emotion, and rational thought to foster a healthy relationship with food and body image. So, it really encourages people to get rid of this diet mentality. All of those voices that are telling you how, what, when, where, why to eat and to instead work on getting in tune with their body signals, hunger, fullness, satisfaction cues, and use movement in a joyful way instead of this compensatory way. Most of the time when I’m working with clients, I’m not going to be focusing on weight loss or restriction. They’ve already learned that dieting is not helpful to them. And we start to work our way through these 10 principles that are defined by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch. They kind of start with rejecting the diet mentality and go all the way to the end with gentle nutrition. In between, we’re learning how to honor our hunger, honor our fullness, feel satisfaction, improve body image, and then get rid of all of those dieting voices in our head and identifying those things that aren’t helpful to us. I like to start most of my clients by making sure that they’re eating enough, first of all, and balancing their meals and snacks throughout the day. Because I see most people who are in this mindset, coming into working with a dietician are eating very little actually. And then when they’re restricting all day long, even without maybe knowing it or purposefully doing it, they end up almost binging or just eating a lot at night to kind of make up for it. And they feel pretty out of control with food, low energy levels, all that jazz. So, what we’re trying to work through is eating enough, recognizing those harmful versus helpful voices that are telling them how, what, when, or why to eat, looking at exercise for longevity, and then finally looking at body image. Learning to accept their body each day as it is, instead of constantly wishing for it to be smaller. So, it’s complicated. I know I’m getting a little long-winded with this, but I think that intuitive eating is very not intuitive for so many people that have learned at a very young age to not trust their bodies.

Interviewer: It’s crazy how in-depth intuitive eating can go.

Guest: Yeah. Yeah. And it’s so intertwined. You know, so many people have all of these stories about, you know, when they were little, they were told to clean their plate, they were told that their body is not to be trusted from a really young age, they were put on a diet against their will when they were little or going through puberty at these really, you know, important times in development. So, it can get really messy. But once we can start putting labels on it and identifying it all, it all starts to click into place.

Interviewer: Yeah, for sure. How does the anti-diet approach help someone enjoy their relationship with food? And how have you seen that transformation in clients that you’ve supported?

Guest: So, as we approach nutrition, nourishment, and movement from a place of balance and curiosity, we’re working on reducing the shame and guilt that was learned through diet culture, and society, right? So many people are coming in with all this baggage that they’ve learned throughout their lives. And we’re not letting our bodies rest, we’re not trusting our bodies, and that can really spiral and cause this unhealthy relationship with food. It’s all of this really like messy, intertwined thoughts that can be so loud for people. And we just get so entrenched in these societal values of being thin and being smaller and shrinking our bodies. And what I’m really helping people to do is letting go of that shame, that judgment that they’ve learned on themselves and find that genuine enjoyment of food and movement because it’s so rich and everything just feels more calm and collected and purposeful, and it’s easier to make decisions about food. When you are in this place of making decisions for your body, just for what you need and what you are wanting, it’s so easier, so much easier to eat when you are hungry to stop when you’re full. And you know that if something like goes wrong, like you eat too much or you feel overly full, it’s not your fault, it’s not something to feel ashamed about. It’s just a signal from your body and we can take that and learn from it and move on. We don’t have to be in this state of ruminating or anything. It’s just so much more free and enjoyable. And while all of this work takes a lot of time for a lot of people, which is really the hard part. You know, I think we’re in such a society that wants like quick results. We want to not work very hard at things. We want it to just be there. Intuitive eating is just so powerful and makes so much more space in your life for everything else that you want to do. Right. I think when we are so filled with shame and guilt and all of this stuff just about eating and body image and all of that, it’s like there’s no space for anything else, right? Our power is kind of taken away from us. So, if we can shift and start to let go of that and look at food and nutrition and exercise as a way to fuel our lives and energize us, we are able to do so much more with our mental capacity.

Interviewer: Yeah. I love that you say intuitive eating helps create space for other things.

Guest: Yeah, it’s very true. You know, I think that food noise gets really, really messy and really challenging to deal with and it’s exhausting. So, this helps to let go of that.

Interviewer: Yeah. So, what is the most rewarding aspect of the work that you do?

Guest: Honestly, I see those light bulbs go off for people all the time. You know, they recognize so many connections of why they eat, why they have these feelings about food. And when that shame, that big monster of shame starts to dissipate and go away and shrink away, that is so incredible to see. People just feel so much more free, so much more energized. They feel better physically, and they’re really trusting eventually that they can do this on their own. It’s never my goal to see clients forever. I really want my clients to have a handful of sessions with me and then take it and run with it because they don’t need to see a dietician ever again. They have the tools they need, they feel free to make the decisions that they need to and to take care of themselves because they want to take care of themselves, not because they think they should or they have to. So, that’s the biggest thing. They want to do this, they love to do this, they love taking care of themselves. So, when I say farewell to my clients and “hit me up if you need me, but I think you’re going to do really well”. That is the best.

Interviewer: Yeah. That’s awesome. I love that you are able to just see those light bulbs, you know, come on. Yeah. So, what are some techniques that you give people to help mend their relationship with food?

Guest: So, there’s a lot here, but I always start off by looking at what they’re eating and we work on having more variety in their diets, right? When you’re coming from this place of restriction, you’re oftentimes missing out on big food groups. Most people aren’t eating enough fiber, their protein is kind of all over the place. We want more consistency. We want to see what we can add to their diet to feel more balanced energetically throughout the day. So, that’s always a great place to start because once we’re there and eating consistently, a lot of this food noise tends to dissipate a little bit, at least. And so we’re just making sure they’re eating breakfast, lunch, dinner, and some snacks to kind of bridge the gap between meals and snacks. Then we’re kind of looking at patterns in their day by using the hunger scale. So, the hunger scale is a really powerful tool that goes from one to 10. A one is like you are ravenous, you are so hungry that you’re like not even hungry anymore, you’re nauseated, you have a headache. We’ve all been there. You know, we feel just ultra emotional and when we are in that space of being super hungry or uncomfortably hungry, we tend to pick things that are high in fat, high in sugar, and go to the other end of the scale, which is uncomfortably full because we’re eating too much, we’re eating too fast, just trying to satisfy that need for food. And what I’m teaching people is how to stay more in that comfortable middle zone, eating when we’re feeling hungry, but can still make decisions about food, still have time to make a meal for ourselves and stopping when we’re feeling full or satisfied and can kind of fuel the next few hours of our day. So, we’re using that. And then if they’re still struggling with like, say emotional eating, we’ve got lots of tools there that can help. First, we kind of identify any patterns that are going on there. Are they always eating at night before they go to bed? Is it always in the middle of the day when they’re feeling bored? Are they feeling sad and using food to cope there? I’ll have them kind of identify what feelings are happening, what emotions, and then go from there with what are some other things that we can do to help us feel these emotions and experience these emotions in a healthy way, and to help cope with these emotions. And still giving them permission to use food if they need to, but also have a whole list of other coping strategies that are going to help them not only use food as a coping strategy. In all though, it’s so complicated, right? Like there are so many different things that can come into play here. There are so many techniques that we can use with clients to help figure this all out, which is the best thing. You know, I love helping clients to just utilize some of these tools and give them these ideas so that they can build their own toolbox that they can eventually use on their own.

Interviewer: Yeah, it sounds like there’s so many tools out there, so many resources. And I love that it’s not just, you know, fixated on the diet culture, but also on like emotions and physical activity and all of that.

Guest: Absolutely. Food is multifaceted for many people.

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Interviewer: And now we’ll head back to the Well Wisconsin radio interview. So, what would you tell someone who is struggling with their body image?

Guest: Yeah, so a lot of us get to this point where we’re dieting because we’re struggling with body image, right? We feel like we need to lose weight to fit this societal mold of what our bodies should look like or what we’re, you know, we’re told that we’re in 100% control of what our bodies look like, and that’s just not true. Body image is so hard, and again, is multifaceted. It’s okay for it to be hard. You know, there’s so many messages around us that, tell us that we should be looking this way and that it’s all in our control. But, know that it’s not, know that there are so many things that are causing our bodies to look the way that they do. That don’t have to do with what you’re eating or how you’re exercising. There’s so much more about genetics and your socioeconomic status and so many more factors that play a huge role in what you look like and what your body type is. So, knowing that can just help ease a little bit of this, maybe disgruntled feeling that we might have about our bodies, even if we’re doing all of the right things. It can still be hard and still not be what we want it to be. That said, knowing that weight loss is not a cure for body image, right? There are many studies that show that maybe weight loss can help you improve your body image temporarily, but not long term. It is not the answer. It’s more mental than physical. So, some things that I will help my clients do and some tools that I will give them as far as body image goes is one thing is to recognize that our bodies are not just here for appearance. They’re not just a show. They’re not just an ornament. Our bodies are for function. There is so much more that our body does, you know, they help us to live our lives. They help us to walk and run and jump and hug our kids and take the dog outside. You know, there’s so much more that our bodies are meant to do than to be this thing to look at. So, I help clients to recognize that and maybe show their body some gratitude each day by keeping a little gratitude journal. I am so glad that I got to pick up my kid today. I am so glad that I got to hug my grandma. I am so glad that I can stand to cook myself a meal. You know, there are so many things that our bodies do that we take for granted that if we start to recognize the functionality of our bodies a little bit more, we’re going to be in a much better place with our bodies because we’re showing it some respect for what it does for us on a daily basis instead of trying to fit into this mold. Another thing that can help is just recognizing all these unrealistic societal standards that are put on us. And just knowing that they’re unrealistic. The vast majority of people are not like thin toned models. You know that’s just not a place where we need to be. If people do look like that, it’s likely genetics, it’s likely their job, or there’s probably some disordered habits going on. So, just keeping that in mind that you don’t necessarily want to be in that place. And yeah I love to give my clients too, like a little mantra that if they’re having a bad body image day, they can like put this on their mirror or something like that, or remind themselves that “my body deserves kindness and respect”. That’s a little mantra that I’ll have my clients repeat over and over and over when they’re feeling like it’s a hard day or like they don’t want to exercise or they want to have compensatory exercise or not feed themselves or restrict. “My body deserves kindness and respect. Look at all this, this stuff that my body can do.”

Interviewer: Yeah, I love that. I love how you acknowledge that your body is there to function and it’s not just about the image.

Guest:Yeah, absolutely.

Interviewer: Are there any resources that you would recommend for our audience who may want to learn more about this topic?

Guest: Yeah, yeah. There’s so much out there. And I think once you start digging into this world of the anti-diet, intuitive eating, body image, you will see a lot out there and you can really get engulfed in it. Which I think is a really good thing actually. When I first started out in this space, I was constantly listening to podcasts and reading books and all the things. The first thing is reading the Intuitive Eating Book by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch. They came out with, I think their third or fourth edition in 2022, I believe. And that is a great place to start to learn why to not diet anymore and all of the science behind how to get back into intuitive eating and listening to your body and treating your body well. Because they have all the literature in there and it’s just a great book. That said, they also have workbooks. So, if you’re less of a, I’m going to read this kind of textbook of material, if you really want to put pen to paper, they have two great workbooks as well, so you can head to their website. If you are a listener, Evelyn Tribole has a great appearance on the 10% Happier Podcast with Dan Harris. It’s a great, it’s about an hour and a half, but it’s a great episode to listen to if you want to just learn more and kind of get the gist. Evelyn’s also like so fun to listen to. She’s kind of all over the place, but in a really great way and has wonderful stories. I know we’re going to get to this, but there’s a book called How to Raise an Intuitive Eater. So, if you are a parent, Sumner Brooks and Amee Severson, they’re both kind of eating disorder dieticians that have come to this world of raising an intuitive eater. Ellyn Satter is another person that’s a social worker and dietician that kind of lays the groundwork for how to feed your kids in a way that’s going to help nurture them long term. Lots of other podcasts out there, Rebuilding Body Trust. Anything with Bri Campos in it. She talks about body grieving. Christy Harrison is also another person to follow, or Sonya Renee Taylor. The book more Than a Body is really wonderful too by some twin psychologists who are fantastic. So, there is tons out there that is just like a fraction of what I would recommend for many people. And you can always head to my website too, antidietmama.com.

Interviewer: Wonderful, thank you. Yeah, it sounds like a lot of tools and resources out there to help everyone build that toolbox.

Guest: Yes. Yes, absolutely.

Interviewer: So, in addition to helping adults improve their relationship with food, I know you also help them become role models for their children. Can you tell us more about that and how we can set a good example for the little ones in our lives?

Guest: Yeah, so this is really important. And I know us parents have so much pressure on us to kind of break these generational cycles and to have our kids also be really healthy and eat well balanced and all of that. There is so much pressure out there and what I’m about to say is maybe going to help take the pressure off a little bit, but also, you know, maybe help turn the lens on you a little bit because the most important thing that we can do is model a healthy relationship with food and body, right? And that’s much easier said than done if we’re coming to this from a place of body hatred and we’re coming from this place of dieting on and off and obsessively exercising, right? We really want to show our kids that eating well and eating balanced means sitting down at a table and talking together. Not forcing our kids to eat, but rather having fun with food. Making sure that we’re setting aside time to meal plan together to cook to have food at the table, you know, and I know that’s easier said than done, especially for many of us working parents. But if you can get in at least three meals per week with your kids sitting down at a table that is going to have immense benefits for their relationship with food, but also so many other benefits for their development and yours and your social connections, et cetera. So, that’s really important. I think another thing that can be really helpful in this is kind of saying the quiet things out loud, right? You can say things like, “I’m so proud of my body for exercising today”, or “I’m so proud of my body for being able to make it through this whole day on my feet”. You know, things like that, we can kind of say those things out loud. We can also say out loud, “Hmm, I’m feeling really hungry right now. What sounds good?” And I know that sounds kind of silly, but if we are showing our kids that we’re tuning in verbally and kind of bringing that in, they are going to start to tune in verbally as well, and internally rather. Lastly, I think what’s really, really, really important is to never talk about bodies in a negative way. Don’t talk about your body negatively. Don’t talk about their body negatively. Don’t talk about other people’s bodies negatively. All of these things have been shown time and time again to be detrimental to their health. You know, your kids, even if you’re just talking about your body negatively, your kids are internalizing that they’re going to look like you. So, they’re going to think, wow, mom thinks her body is bad. Maybe my body is bad too. Maybe I need to lose weight. Maybe I need to eat better. Maybe I can’t be eating the ice cream because mom said she can’t have that. You know, our kids really grasp onto all of those things and looking 10, 20 years down the road, that is what they believe about their bodies as well. So, we’re just passing down that negative attitude towards our bodies and food. Same thing with food. You know, we don’t want to talk negatively about food while other people’s food. Let’s draw attention to the functionality of our bodies, not so much the appearance, but like, “wow, it is so cool that you did the monkey bars, amazing that your body can do that”, right? Can we get really excited about those little functional things that our bodies are doing on a daily basis and say those things out loud to get us thinking more about how cool our bodies are instead of how bad our bodies are.Interviewer: Yeah, definitely. As a new mom myself, I’m definitely going to take some of these tips and tricks into consideration.

Guest: Yeah, absolutely.

Interviewer: What advice would you give to parents, grandparents, or caregivers who may be struggling to encourage their children to eat healthy foods?

Guest: Tricky, right? Kids are, you know, they’re all about the things that are fast and easy packaged snacks. It was just Halloween. So, candy, you know, the holidays are coming up. So, you know, kids can get really fixated on those things, especially if we’re making them alluring to them by not having them around, by you know, restricting them. So, I know this is kind of going in the opposite direction, but really what we want to do is not encourage our kids, not bribe our kids, not make our kids eat certain things, right? We want to take the pressure off the table and let kids explore food on their own. It’s our job as parents to provide balanced meals at the table most of the time throughout the day. So, we provide the structure. They get to decide whether or not they eat what is offered and how much. Right? We want them to have that full body autonomy. I get to choose whether or not I eat from what is offered, and I get to stop when I’m full. I get to keep eating the things that are available to me until I am feeling full. So, kind of knowing that structure, that’s called the mealtime Division of Responsibility by Ellyn Satter. That helps to take the pressure off of us as parents to not feel like we’re forcing our kids to eat and not feel like that mealtime is a daily struggle and like, so stressful because our kids read into that they’re not going to enjoy family meals if you are forcing them to eat or encouraging them to eat or bribing them or, you know, anything like that. They’re not going to respond well to that. It’s going to backfire. So instead, can we take that pressure off instead? Have fun with food. Talk about the food, sort the food into different colors and make a make a green bean, a unicorn horn, you know, like whale tusks. You know, there are all kinds of things that we can do. Not whale tusk, walrus tusks. The play with food is so powerful and that’s what kids want to do. They want to play and that’s going to get them more interested. We don’t need them to take a bite to interact with food. It takes lots of exposures in order for kids to feel safe with foods. So, we want to enhance those exposures with play with talking about it, and we don’t want to add that pressure. So, if you can do a little bit more to talk about food in a neutral way, to have fun with it, kids are more likely going to eat what’s healthy. But again, modeling that and modeling the balance, showing them that you like to eat the broccoli, you like to eat the salmon, you like to eat the brown rice, those kinds of things are going to go a much longer way into the future instead of what they eat here and now. So, trying to not feel so caught up and wrapped up in what they’re eating at each individual meal, but kind of zoom out and look at it over time. That’s what’s most important.

Interviewer: Wonderful. Thank you for that. I love the fact that you encourage play with food.

Guest: Yeah. It’s awesome. And I know that some of us get like a little, can be caught up in it because it’s like, oh, you, you shouldn’t touch your food, or the germs or the mess or whatever. But that’s what kids really love and those are super valuable exposures to those foods. And guess what? Chances of them eating it again in the future, putting it in their mouth, chewing it, liking it, are much higher than saying take one bite before you have dessert or whatever. That is just not helpful long term.

Interviewer: Thank you so much, Sammy, for sharing all of this information and for being a guest on today’s podcast.

Guest: Absolutely. Thank you, Katie.

Interviewer: Thanks for listening to Well Wisconsin Radio. I hope you’ve enjoyed the show. You can find our survey in the well Wisconsin portal and our transcripts and previous episodes, all at www.webmdhealthservices.com/WellWisconsinRadio. If you’re listening to this podcast on your platform of choice, be sure to subscribe so you can never miss an episode.

The information in this podcast does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. It should not be used as a substitution for healthcare from a licensed healthcare professional. Consult with your healthcare provider for individualized treatment or before beginning any new program.  

Tune into this month’s episode as we interview Sammie Gollup, a registered dietitian and founder of the Anti-diet Mama. We discuss her approach of focusing on nutrition education to help you honor your body and give you the freedom to enjoy food. We also dive into the ways we can assist our own children with their food relationships and help them set up their own healthy habits.

Resources referenced during interview:

• Book: Intuitive Eating, 4th Edition – by Evelyn Tribole & Elyse Resch
• The Intuitive Eating Workbook: Ten Principles for Nourishing a Healthy Relationship with Food
• 10% Happier Podcast with Dan Harris – The Anti-Diet with Guest Evelyn Tribole
• Book: How to Raise an Intuitive Eater: Raising the Next Generation with Food and Body Confidence by Sumner Brooks and Amee Severson
• Ellyn Satter Institute
• Rebuilding Trust With Your Body Podcast
• Bri Campos – bodyimagewithbri.com
• Christy Harrison – christyharrison.com
• Sonya Renee Taylor – sonyareneetaylor.com
• Book: More Than a Body: Your Body is an Instrument, Not an Ornament by Lexie Kite and Lindsay Kite
• Sammie Gollup’s website: antidietmama.com