Episode 8: Unlearning Diet Culture: A Discussion on Body Image, Intuitive Eating and Food Freedom w/ Coach Ali
We've all been there - feeling chained to a diet or struggling with self-image. It's a burden many of us carry, but there's a way to break free. On this episode of the podcast, we are joined by Ali, an internationally certified body image and food freedom coach. She helps us shift our focus from size to strength, from control to intuition. Through her own story of overcoming disordered eating, Ali introduces us to the liberating principles of intuitive eating.
Intuitive eating is a philosophy that encourages a healthy attitude towards food and body image. It's about breaking free from the on-and-off cycle of dieting and learning to eat mindfully and without guilt. As Ali shares her experience with disordered eating, she sheds light on the futility of dieting and the importance of intuitive eating.
However, to truly embrace intuitive eating, we must first explore the roots of our body image issues. Did you know that our beliefs about food and our bodies often take root in our childhood? It's a fact that many of us are not aware of. In our conversation with Ali, we delve into our personal body image stories and the often unacknowledged fear that holds us back from embracing physical activities.
The fear of not being good enough can be paralyzing. It can prevent us from living our life to the fullest. But the truth is, we are more than our bodies. We are more than our size. And we are certainly more than our perceived flaws. As Ali says, "Building confidence isn't about achieving a certain body size or following a strict diet. It's about authenticity, resilience, and developing a secure relationship with oneself."
Finally, we explore the world of self-work and self-reflection. Ali guides us in reframing our thoughts, identifying and transforming our negative self-talk. Stress can have a significant impact on our body image, but it's not something that we often discuss. Ali emphasizes the fundamental importance of cultivating a healthy relationship with ourselves, especially in times of stress.
Remember, building confidence isn't about achieving a certain body size or following a strict diet. It's about authenticity, resilience, and developing a secure relationship with oneself. It's about breaking down barriers and embracing our true selves.
So, tune in for an empowering journey that could revolutionize your relationship with your body and food. It's time to unchain ourselves from diet culture and embrace body positivity and food freedom.
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Jess: 0:01
Hello, friend, and welcome to Sturdy Girl, a podcast focused on strength, not size, where you'll hear conversations around healthy body image, cultivating confidence and being a resilient human in both body and mind. Sturdy Girl is the podcast where we shift the focus away from your appearance and on to living the big, rad life you deserve. Hello, my Sturdy friends, and welcome to episode 8 of Sturdy Girl. I'm your host, Jess Heiss, bringing you a freaking awesome interview today. My friend Allie is an internationally certified body image and food freedom coach. A little intro on her she spent a decade of disordered eating and trying to hate herself skinny and she craved more from her life than a smaller gene size. Today she's changing the narrative of what healthy looks like by helping women transform their relationship with food and who they see in the mirror. We dive into what doing the work looks like for improving confidence, for improving body image, for showing up and living your freaking best life. I really don't want to give away too many details. I'm going to keep this intro short and sweet to let us just completely dive in. So let's get started. I can't wait to hear what you think. Okay, allie, tell me a little bit about what you do. What kind of coach? Are you All the things? I know all of it. I've been on Instagram for quite a while and I love that. This is our first interaction beyond messaging on Instagram On the DMs.
Ali: 1:28
I swear. Half the time I have conversations in the DMs and then I meet people in person or on a call. Yeah, we haven't known each other for years, are you sure?
Jess: 1:38
I know, immediately as we started talking, I'm like wait, this is our first conversation and I'm like hello friend, good to see you again.
Ali: 1:44
I don't do surface level. Deep soul connection is my vibe. So I laughed because when you asked me what kind of coach I am, that is like the one struggle that I've actually had as a coach is how to explain what it is. I do Everything. Yes, I hope you be a better human. My official title I'm a body image and food freedom coach, so I help women feel happier, healthier, more confident in their bodies without dieting, because I truly believe diets do not work and the reason you feel disconnected to your body, the reason you're scared of food, is usually because of decades of dieting and trying to hate your body into a smaller gene size. I love that.
Jess: 2:26
Okay, question for you Are you anti-diet, would you say completely against diets?
Ali: 2:30
So I feel like anytime we use kind of aggressive word choices like that, like anti, anti everything right, because I always feel like there's a gray space, I like to say I live in the gray space of I don't think diets work, because diets usually mean that there's a restrictive property to it. Right have to be perfect, or you have to follow a food scale, food rules, color or numbers or whatever it might be. So I definitely don't believe in any of that, but I do think the terminology is misconstrued. So the actual term diet right Just means like what you eat every day, yep.
Jess: 3:10
I was just thinking that when I'm like diet actually just means your consumption.
Ali: 3:14
What do you eat? Yeah, what kinds of foods do you typically enjoy? So I coach all of my women in intuitive eating. I feel like most people are like oh, it means I get to eat like an asshole and have no repercussions, right?
Jess: 3:28
No, no, but I mean there's a whole concept behind intuitive eating, right, I mean?
Ali: 3:32
yeah, so there we look at principles rather than rules. The big thing for my clients is that when you have dieted your whole life and that has been the only goal you've ever had and I know from personal experience that was my only goal for over 10 years of my life was to find a diet that finally worked, that finally made me smaller, whatever it was right. When you go from that mentality, it's all about being perfect, it's about making sure the exact number matches up, it's about weighing every single thing you eat right, so it's less about the food and it's more becomes a mindset problem.
Jess: 4:08
Oh, absolutely.
Ali: 4:09
So with intuitive eating, we look at principles, so we look at it as like it's messy action and it has so much less to do with what kinds of foods you're eating and more to do with who you're being around food, the mentality of like okay, break up with the concept that some diet or magic pill or some perfect plan is going to come around at some point and fix you.
Jess: 4:31
Some level of exercising absolute amounts of control around your diet and exercise and all of those things is going to fix you or magically transport you into this like perfect life that you'll never, ever have to do again.
Ali: 4:44
Yeah, that's not true, right? Most of us are going to live into our 80s. Well, if we're going to live into our 80s and what you're doing right now makes you miserable, exhausted and obsessed with food and with what your body looks like, you probably aren't very healthy and you're not going to enjoy that the rest of your life. It's not sustainable, it's not realistic for most people, and with me working with only women, I would argue that women have a little bit of a harder degree when it comes to, like, our self-image and our self-worth and the expectations that society places on us. Absolutely, you also add in now. Women now are not only in charge of kids and the home, but they're also working. Right, we've got more hormone disruptors than ever. There's just so many other factors that we now have to deal with.
Jess: 5:32
We try to control by food in our body Because it's something that we feel is within our control when so much feels out of it. It's a coping mechanism. And even you're saying these things that I'm nodding along earlier this week, talking about like we're meant to be raising the family and working and running the home and doing all these things and I don't have kids. We have four children.
Ali: 5:52
I.
Jess: 5:52
I found myself earlier this week. There's stuff going on in my career, stuff coaching, the podcast, all of these moving parts and pieces, and things are changing and happening everywhere all at once, at one point, like head between my knees, overwhelmed, and it's amazing to me that the first thought goes towards what you can control, and that's like food and exercise and what you're doing to and for your body. It wasn't in a bad way necessarily. It was more of the curiosity piece of I had to kind of pull back and realize I haven't drank very much water today.
Ali: 6:21
Yeah you're not.
Jess: 6:21
You're not actually I haven't eaten any plants today, anything with like a good amount of nutrients in it. How much of my move my body today? How long have I been staring at a computer screen? Do you start going through those things and you're like, hmm, maybe this is why I feel like an asshole.
Ali: 6:36
Question mark, right. And the thing is, you and I go through that checklist and our thought process leads us to okay, I'm eating like an asshole, I'm not actually taking care of myself. These are the common triggers, or these are the factors leading to that result, right, whereas the hard part is for a lot of women, they don't know what they don't know, and so when they're stressed and or they're emotional, or they're overwhelmed or they have anxiety right, the easy coping mechanism, the thing that makes you feel good right away Food is one of the top options. They go towards food. And then, when they calm down a little bit, they go oh, my God, I feel so guilty because I just ate food because I was stressed or I was emotional or whatever the reason, and then they've been taught that, well, that's bad, so I'm a bad person. So, nothing is not eat. I need to avoid all of the things that I need, simply because I need to magically find this balance that someone once told me I was supposed to match Right Like it doesn't make sense.
Jess: 7:34
It's a complete shame spiral and shame cycle that we go through Absolutely.
Ali: 7:39
And we wonder why our relationship with food is so screwed up and so complicated.
Jess: 7:44
Yeah, that's something too that in conversations I've had with, like, my dad or with other men in my world, where there isn't the same entanglement of emotions in food, it's so interesting. So, going back for a second where we're talking about like, when I asked you if you were anti-diet, I am reading this book right now. I forget the exact title, something about like, regaining body trust. I feel like part of this. So, stepping back for a second like, not just this book, but in order to get a book published, you need to have a pretty strong opinion, oh yeah, or strong facts or strong whatever, in one side or the other. And I think that this book started out really good and its concept. So, in regaining body trust, and they talk about losing the connection with self. Right, because we're doing all of those things as compensatory factors of can I control food, can I control exercise, what can I focus on? And I get that. But then a whole section of this book is how hugely anti-diet they are. Then it even goes into well, why does it matter if you pay attention to what you eat? So much of your health is determined by genetics and your environment and socioeconomic factors, which, yes, those play a part. But if you're just going to be like my health is all up to that and leave the rest, I'm like I have so many questions right now.
Ali: 8:56
Body trust isn't just saying I'm going to eat like an asshole all the time and then wonder why I feel like shit and that's where, when I said I live in the gray space, when I first started coaching and I was trying to explain what it is that I was trying to deliver on, a lot of people were confused because they're used to the two buckets of either the pro diet, following macros, there's a specific number calculator or something that you have to follow every single day. That mentality of like the fitness industry, and I could go down a rabbit hole of how unhealthy the fitness industry is. Right, yes, same. And then there's the other bucket, that is body positivity, and it is the pink washed version of body positivity Right. Let's be clear yes, you see the side of it that says I love myself for who I am and I don't have to change a single thing. I can do whatever I want. I don't have to worry about the outside factors like what you were just saying, right?
Jess: 9:50
This is why.
Ali: 9:51
And I live in this beautiful gray space that says, yeah, you can totally love who you are and still want to take care of yourself better.
Jess: 10:00
Yeah, that's to me like taking care of your body and nourishing it. I'm going to say nourishing right, Like I eat cookies almost every day, as you should, but I also know how my body feels when I make sure to eat foods that have lots of micronutrients. Exactly, it's that both and piece of if I respect my body and I want to take care of it because it is my forever home. Yeah, because that body positivity piece is like I accept my self and my being and all of those things. In fact, a couple episodes ago in our podcast we talked about, is body positivity the answer? And that was kind of the conclusion of like it doesn't matter what you identify with body image. Wise, because the definition of positive body image is very similar to a lot of body substance, body neutrality and those pieces. It has just gotten so taken over by social media A buzzword, yeah, and it's very like I love myself no matter what. But then it's turned into this Therefore I don't have to take care of me.
Ali: 11:00
Or it's either, therefore, I don't have to take care of myself, I can just do what I want and everything will just magically work out, or, therefore, I do this extremely strict thing because it makes me like because I'm taking care of myself. It's the almost toxic health trend. Yeah, versus. What you and I are saying is there's a difference between respecting the only body that you will ever have and forcing it to be something that society expects it to be Right.
Jess: 11:31
Exactly.
Ali: 11:32
We think of health. The hard part for most of us is that our mindset is so accustomed to seeing health as a flat stomach, as a size four, a size six, as being smaller, as being small Right Versus. Something I challenge a lot with my own clients is I'm not a small girl, but I'm also not a big girl. I'm pretty average sized. Right, I'm like a 10, 12 on any given day. But then that's also saying fashion likes to have vanity metrics, which also means you don't have any clue what size you are. No, exactly Right. But knowing like I have no idea what my weight is, I couldn't tell you. I haven't weighed myself in years.
Jess: 12:10
The only reason I know is because I compete in a sport that has weight classes Exactly.
Ali: 12:14
That's the only reason that has been. One of the most interesting challenges is that we're almost seeing, like the health and fitness industry, shift into the mentality of I'm supposed to train and eat and act like I compete, rather than I'm supposed to train and eat and act like I'm a human being.
Jess: 12:33
Like I'm taking care of myself to live my best life.
Ali: 12:36
Whereas I would just say, like we over consume so much of the mentality of aesthetics and performance, performance, performance. I want to look like her and we're not taking into account, like you said, yeah, genetics play a role. They don't play a huge role, but they play a role. It's more of like what you do with them. I, genetically, am not going to be six, five. I'm not going to be a supermodel, I'm five, seven. It's not happening Genetically. I'm built to lift heavier shit. It's just how I'm built. I'm not built as a runner. However, I would challenge that.
Jess: 13:07
I would challenge that.
Ali: 13:08
If I wanted to run right, I totally could, and you can, and the key word is if I wanted to. That's not something that sparks joy with me, and that's okay. Exactly Not a train to what works for everyone else, and instead figuring out like what actually makes us happy, healthy, confident, respect who we are and finding the joy in life, because that's something too.
Jess: 13:31
When I talk to people about being a run coach as one of my, you know you talked about like not knowing how to define yourself as a coach I'm like, yeah, I'm a run coach, I'm a strength coach, I'm a mindset coach, I'm a nutrition coach. I can go down the list.
Ali: 13:42
So, whatever you have, I can help you.
Jess: 13:44
Yeah, right, I've come to me it's fine, but run coaching was my original coaching modality and people are like oh, you're a run coach. I just I hate running and I'm never going to like running. That's great, that's fine. I'm not a run coach because I think everyone should be a runner. I wish that everyone could experience the joy that comes from getting out on a trail and being able to just like let everything else go and getting done with that run and feeling like your brain is completely untangled, like a ball of yarn. You know, I wish I could impart that joy and contentment and peace.
Ali: 14:12
But running isn't for everyone and I completely respect that and what I find interesting I was just thinking about, as you were saying that is that's a very common statement to hear from, especially from women. Oh, I hate running, I hate cardio, I'm not a runner. Do you think that comes from diet culture? Because we've always been taught you have to do cardio to lose weight, to be skinny, to be happy.
Jess: 14:32
I think there's definitely a factor in that. I think another point of it, too, was I had a client come to me and they said Jess, I hate running, but I have a half marathon on my bucket list. I want to run a half marathon and I want to see if I can not hate running anymore. And the thing that they hated was that they weren't good at it. That was the part that they hated. That running was really freaking hard for like three months of just embracing the suck, getting out of your comfort zone and letting yourself grow, because, as an adult, being bad at something, is the worst.
Ali: 15:00
It's so hard You're like it's terrible, right, but it's also where all the growth happens.
Jess: 15:05
Yep, but that ended up for them and that's a lot of the conversation I end up having with people is like do you hate running because you just the modality of running seems boring? Is it because it's something you haven't developed skill in? What about running that you just like, oh, I hate it, but diet culture, that's a really good point. That's something that I haven't had much conversation around, and that cardio bunny piece.
Ali: 15:26
Yeah, a lot of the conversations I have stem from not only their own experiences when it comes to health and fitness and their relationship there, but also what they heard growing up. So, as humans, a lot of our habits, our behaviors are learned. Most of the things that we, like, dislike, are scared of, are not things we were born with. I love to ask my clients the question when they first start. I'm like what are the two fears that you think we're born with? And it's always like oh, a fear of being alone, or maybe it's a fear of, you know, disconnection, like not having community or not being loved. We have this innate fear. The only two fears that we were born with are falling and loud noises. That's it. Everything else is a learned experience, and so maybe it's that they grew up with a mom that said, like you have to do cardio, you have to run in order to lose weight, because you're unhealthy or you're too fat or whatever it was. They heard that time and time again. Or maybe they saw a parent, a friend, who and this is just an example, obviously, but like who ran every single day and was a smaller bodied human, and so they associated those things together. Maybe they don't have the same body type and they've tried, or they already have a fear of starting because it's associated with that past belief. Those beliefs are so powerful oh my gosh, yeah, especially around our bodies and food and what we're capable of doing.
Jess: 16:46
It's interesting too because, as a coach, I'm like trying to think of how to word this right now. So many people don't have any awareness around what those beliefs are. I've had many conversations when we talk about body image and people learning to identify, kind of where they sit with, how they feel about their bodies. Our body image story is written from the time we were a child and the first time we were aware that we had a body or that people reacted to how our bodies appeared and being able to go back and see how that story was written to then say, oh shit, that's why I believe this thing. I have no idea.
Ali: 17:18
I see, actually the very first question I ask women when they get on a call with me. I always ask, like what's your story? And they're like, well, what do you mean? What's my story? I'm like I want you to think back to when this started, when you started to notice your body or when you started to think about food. When did that actually start? Because it didn't just start yesterday, it wasn't recent, right? If you feel deeply about this, this started a long time ago and probably earlier than we want to admit. I openly tell clients like I started tracking my food in sixth grade. I knew the macro breakdown of every food that I ate in middle school because I grew up in a fitness family and in their perspective, it was oh, I'm giving you education to learn to take care of yourself. Well, as a middle school female, in the culture that we have, I saw it as it's a tool to fix myself so that I'm small like my friends, and then I'm happy, I'm accepted. Boys like me, right, All the good things that were promised if you're just a smaller body.
Jess: 18:18
Did your family present it to you in a way that was like here's information, here is factual things, because that's one thing that I find really interesting. When you talk about learning macronutrients or learning breakdowns of foods or what a food contains, that's just information, that's factual. There is no emotion attached to that at all when I tell you that peanut butter has more fat than protein in it.
Ali: 18:40
Answer your question. No, the intention was education. The delivery was emotional because, as I've gone into this work and decades have passed, me and my mom have like really in-depth conversations about this stuff, because now that I'm a coach and like so passionate about it, she's understanding why she said the thing she did or how they came across differently than how she intended. And now it's making her have a better relationship with her body and a better relationship with food, because my mom has been a fitness instructor, has been a personal trainer, owned a gym my entire life. She's extremely well educated, knows her shit. However, she's still a woman with a body who has had negative experiences with what she looks like and used food to control them. And so you live with a lens of. This is my experience, so this must be true. So, as a middle school girl who's already taller than all of my friends, I'm already curvier than all of my friends. I got my period in sixth grade, so I'm already like becoming a woman, however you want to phrase it, and I'm not being taught to embrace those changes. I'm being taught. Well, you're not hungry, drink water or you don't eat french fries at lunch. I'll take you on a shopping spree. Oh yeah, if you weigh yourself during your period and you're really good this week, you'll probably lose weight because you gain weight during your period, right, and these are things that like. As I repeat them back to my mom now, she's like there's no way. I said that and I'm like you totally did. But I understand where it came from. It came from the lack of knowledge or her own experience, because now, as adults, we talk about the relationship her and my grandma had with body image and with food, and so I went all through high school restricting my food during the week because I truly believed if I ate less and I moved more while I was a dancer, I went to the gym every single day, I was in show choir, right Then I would magically be smaller and happier. But the kicker was that never happened. And even when I'm you're like that constant chasing pursuits, yes, and constantly exhausted and angry and frustrated, to the point where I was lashing out at my mom and blaming her for it, when all she was trying to do was help right, it just wasn't the help that I needed.
Jess: 20:46
It came from a good place with good intentions.
Ali: 20:48
I mean, I've heard those things and if we asked our moms who we maybe have a great relationship with, they would probably say, oh, I said that because that's what I learned, or I learned something else and so I thought this would be more helpful. Right, we're all in the best that we can with the tools that we have, but if we don't heal our own shit first, we don't like shift the beliefs that we have. All we're doing is more damage, no matter how many good intentions we have.
Jess: 21:13
So I was raised with a mom who had she had anorexia for well over 20 years and my mom and my two sisters are 510 ish and naturally very thin and I am 5859, depending on who you ask and not thin I never have been and have been. I was that sixth grader with curves and that whole scenario too, and it's so interesting talking to my mom as an adult and the same thing where I can relay conversations that we had in middle school where it came from good intentions but then it turned into spirals of controlling food, of trying to control my body and the size of my body. It's powerful just building that story, like going back and reflecting on what shaped why you can't have a better relationship with food, where I'm sure the people that come to you and seek your coaching, like I've tried all these things.
Ali: 22:02
Well, it's become so ingrained in them and I always challenge someone when they say, well, nothing works for me, I've tried everything. And I always say, yeah, so did I, but we were doing the same shit different day, expecting a different result. Yeah, when we say we've tried everything, it usually means we've tried every diet on the market, we've tried every you know different type of workout. But the thing is, we haven't tried is actually healing our relationship with how we see food and how we see our bodies, because we don't see that as part of the problem. We see that as this is just how I've always felt and if I do these things, then I won't feel that way anymore. Right, rather than if I be different, I feel different, than my results will change, we're just doing it backwards. I love that, mic drop.
Jess: 22:46
Yeah, I like boom. This is great. Do you have any tips at all for our listeners on improving relationship with self or improving their relationship with food? Anything that you give us like a direction for someone to, I don't know, maybe journaling prompts or things to think about, because, right, it's not like when someone's like Jess, what's a good tip for beginner runners, you know, and it's like start low and slow, find good shoes, like right, it's not that simple, step by step kind of thing.
Ali: 23:15
Yeah, totally, and I always laugh when somebody asks me these kind of questions because people are expecting like okay, so what's the quick answer we're so used to like quick and instantaneous, that's not how exactly.
Jess: 23:26
That's what I say. That is one thing throughout every one of these podcast episodes so far is the titles that get more downloads for podcasts are like three quick tips to solve your life.
Ali: 23:37
And it's like I said oh yeah, but you don't solve your life in three quick tips.
Jess: 23:42
No, it's not how any of it works. So the things that go on to enrich and improve our lives in ways that last take work, take time, take a lot of energy, I tell my women.
Ali: 23:53
When it comes to coaching and being in a space where you're like I don't know what to do, I don't know what my next steps are, and you're thinking about working with a coach, right? The biggest factors are consistency, accountability and support, none of which are quick, easy or instantaneous. Those involve time, they involve effort, they involve putting your heart and soul and sweat into something and a lot of self reflection. So much so like to even answer your question. One of the first things I start with my women on is not instantly shifting your mindset, right? Because if you're right now looking at yourself in the mirror and saying like, I hate my hips, I hate what my stomach looks like, I need to lose 10 pounds, I'm never going to be happy, right, all of the very negative things. You're not going to magically walk into the bathroom after this podcast, stripped down naked, and be like, wow, I am the hottest person I've ever seen. I love me so much. I love myself, right? You're just not, and if you do it, you're not going to believe it. And so I challenge my women to just start journaling down what and how you feel about yourself and why. What experiences taught you that? Who taught you that? Because the more we can get clear on where those beliefs came from, the more we can recognize they were never ours in the first place.
Jess: 25:09
That's just essentially bringing awareness. Bringing awareness around our thoughts and our thought processes and patterns, bringing awareness around that self-talk of how do I talk to myself, because that's something, too, that some people don't even realize the words that they say to themselves.
Ali: 25:23
Exactly. It's funny. I posted a reel this morning and probably no one will see it because Instagram hates me sometimes, but that's okay. But I basically said, like hypothetically if someone were to tell you you are ugly, you're fat, you're worthless, no one cares about you and they said this to you every single day how would you probably feel Really god-awful and you'd probably believe those things. The problem is that someone is usually you, and our brain grabs onto our own voice 10 times more than it listens to anybody else. So if it's hearing it in your own voice and it's believing it to be true, your thoughts create your feelings. You probably feel like crap, right, it creates your actions. You're probably not doing a whole lot of things that make your body feel good, that are very nice to you. We're probably restricting, we're probably punishing, and then the end result is you're definitely not getting what you want. You're not going to feel any better.
Jess: 26:11
No, Right and all of those things, our thoughts, our feelings, our actions, and that's eventually what turns into belief.
Ali: 26:17
Exactly, A belief is just a thought that you have thought so many times that you believe it to be true. That's it, yeah.
Jess: 26:25
I just lost my train of thought too, because.
Ali: 26:27
I'm like yes, all of this. Yes, keep telling me, allie, bring it on. I'm like you know what, if a belief is just a thought that you keep thinking, right, then the entire way that we shift, that is to think something else. Right, it's not to stop thinking, because good luck doing that, right, like, especially as a woman, good luck stop thinking. Your brain doesn't process negatives. So even if you told yourself don't think about that, all your brain hears is think about that Obsess over. Yeah, you can't think about it, right? So instead of saying okay, I'm not going to think about food or I'm not going to think about my body today, replace it, replace it with something positive or neutral or something different. That's going to give you the result that you want.
Jess: 27:06
Yeah, one thing that I found really interesting in reading about body image, about confidence, about all of these things that people want to improve. We will never get rid of all of our negative thoughts. They're never going to go away, whether that's negative thoughts about our body, about food, about any situation in our lives. But the point should never be to get rid of all of those negative thoughts, because they're still going to happen. We're still human. It's how do we cope with them? How do we handle them when they arise? How do we react to them? Is it something where you can hear it and you're like, oh gosh, this is my judge. Want a voice coming in again. Can you name?
Ali: 27:41
it. Oh girl, we name our egos in my program.
Jess: 27:45
I love that because I have my renters name the voice in their head.
Ali: 27:48
Yes, it's the same thing, right. It's the piece of you that says you're not good enough, you can't do this. It's judgmental, it's harsh, right? She's not a nice person and I always tell my clients I'm like name her because that's how you are, Ask your ego trying to protect you or trying to keep you safe or trying to say here's all the scary bad things that could happen.
Jess: 28:10
Let's perpetuate the beliefs that you have that haven't been healthy ways of coping.
Ali: 28:14
Exactly, and by naming it you almost get to I don't want to say detach, but you get to disconnect. It gives you a level of objectivity.
Jess: 28:23
Yes, exactly, I love that because it's so. I feel like saying it's really powerful seems kind of buzzwordy, but it can be when you can allow yourself to almost disconnect from those thoughts as they come up, in a way to say, like this thought comes up and I can take it out and look at it and say that's kind of crap.
Ali: 28:40
Okay, we learn to respond rather than react. You are not your thoughts. The things that happen inside your head could be true, not true. They could be an idea, they could be something that someone said. It could be just a random song that pops into your head. Right, you are not your thoughts. So if you're not your thoughts, we should be able to be objective and say, okay, this isn't about trying to control or trying to understand every single thing that comes into my head. It's about saying, okay, do I have a healthy enough relationship with myself, with my beliefs, that when those negative thoughts show up, can I hold them out and go okay, what do I need in this moment to shift out of this? You're going to live in it because you're bringing the light and dark of life. You have to have both. You have to. I tell you, we can't get away from it. The goal isn't light all the time, it's to read your vibration so that your dark is not as dark.
Jess: 29:35
I like that.
Ali: 29:35
So that we're not falling into the depths and getting stuck there. Agreed.
Jess: 29:39
So the takeaway is self-work is work. But, it's the most worthy work. Yeah, it's the most worthy work you'll ever do. I think every single episode now of Sturdy Girl. I have said that the work on ourselves is worth it because our relationship with ourselves is the longest and most intimate relationship we'll ever have. So when you talked about if someone were to say to you every day, like you're fat, you're ugly, you're worthless, we'd start to internalize those right. So, looking at our relationship with ourselves, we wouldn't stay in a relationship if the other person every single day was telling us all of these negative just like you're worthless, you're not good enough, all the things that give you. Start paying attention to what we say to ourselves. You would never stay in such an abusive relationship.
Ali: 30:26
If you knew a friend was in a relationship like that, you'd be like pack your bags, I'm going to light that person's house on fire and we're getting out. Yeah, or at least I would. But what we say to ourselves, we come up with all of these reasons that they're true and the other piece of this is we try to use those things we say to ourselves.
Jess: 30:43
As I'm going to use air quotes motivators.
Ali: 30:46
That's going to say that as motivation and discipline.
Jess: 30:50
Yeah, the words I can't stand and being on this end of things and being able to see that now and so recognize it in myself. Right, Because I will get dressed and I will stand in front of that floor length mirror and those thoughts will pop up in my head and you're like what?
Ali: 31:06
No? And I think the full circle back to even what we were saying at the very beginning is in that moment because we've done the work, we're capable of taking a step back and go. Okay. What are all the triggers that are making me feel this way? Well, yeah, I see plants today. I didn't drink any water, I've been sitting at a screen. This outfit actually isn't my size and doesn't actually fit me. I'm trying to either hide my body or I'm enclosed that I've outgrown. These are all play factors to how we feel, but who you are is not the problem, and your physical appearance is not the problem.
Jess: 31:38
Oh, like usually, what's going on up in your head that reflects outwards, for you to start taking all those things apart. I think for me, with that head between the knees moment earlier this week, stress impacts body image. Stress impacts our relationship with ourselves and how we process things and I'm not sleeping well, not eating well, not hydrating. All this stress, too much computer time, not enough self reflection time, and then it all just culminated and I was like I'm a hot mess, yes, and for me, I noticed that happens when I don't have enough genuine deep connection.
Ali: 32:09
I do a great job of eating foods that make me feel good and foods that I like to say like, nourish and satisfy. Yes, your girl loves, I love sugar. I love it. I'm never going to not love it and that's okay, right. Same, I drink water daily and I get enough sleep, but I still notice now, oh, if I'm not getting enough like social interaction, I'm not pouring back into my cup enough, right? There's so many other factors that have nothing to do with your body or with food. Great Mike Trump said it down this is. I love him Exactly, Heather. This is great.
Jess: 32:42
This is such a good bounce off conversation. I hope listeners are enjoying it too, because I'm just over here like nodding along. This connection has been so good.
Ali: 32:50
We're like we could just talk for two more hours. Who wants to listen to us? Yeah, yeah.
Jess: 32:54
The whole point of this for myself and for Allie, like what we want for listeners is to have a good relationship with ourselves, an improved relationship that, like you mentioned being a food freedom coach I like that terminology where it's being able to nourish and satisfy our bodies to be able to have that relationship with ourselves. So you realize that how you look really at the end of the day has nothing to do with the quality of your life. Yes, you are letting your physical being hold you back from doing things, saying things, like I talked about confidence last week on the podcast and so many people mistake confidence for actually like part of it is how they're feeling about their bodies and letting that determine their level of confidence that day and how much that plays into it.
Ali: 33:36
Confidence is not something that you can buy, borrow or steal. It's a skill. You can't achieve confidence because of a smaller gene size or because of something you ate or didn't eat that day. It's innate. I like to tell people. It is when you are your truest, most authentic self, that is when you're confident.
Jess: 33:54
It's also a skill. I mean, that's a big piece of it too. We talked about getting uncomfortable and the work involved in improving our relationship with self Confidence is one of those things that you have to step out of your comfort zone and get uncomfortable. Building a skill, building that confidence in whatever if that's like building confidence in your deadlift.
Ali: 34:12
And to your point, I think it's about feeling secure in yourself.
Jess: 34:16
It's trusting yourself with the ability to execute this task with a major of self efficacy.
Ali: 34:22
Yes, because confidence again similar to, like we were saying positive body image looks different for every single person. I feel confident walking into a bar by myself, looking like I own the damn room. That's not alley Ready. Oh yeah, I walk around like I'm a six-five man. It's fine. Can we hang out? This is great, absolutely. But like that's not confidence to everyone, sometimes being the quiet person in the room is confidence to someone they're secure in who they are.
Jess: 34:50
Oh my gosh, I put out a question box about what is confidence to you? What does it look like, what does it feel like? How do you develop it? Like I just kind of put out this broad strokes and I have three different people that are like confidence is not based on looks, it is not based on your physique. And I got this super long paragraph message. I did it as an anonymous link so I don't actually know who sent it. So I'm not hating on anyone, but it was one of those things that I'm like. But you know how to recognize confidence when you see it. And that was more. My point is you understand, when someone has that secure connection to themselves, you can see that whether that is walking into a bar solo, feeling like you're a six-five man who owns the place, or it's someone who is the quiet sort of confidence that just knows who they are.
Ali: 35:29
I use it as an example with my clients of like, a lot of my clients are fearful of wearing a bikini or like swimsuits. Yeah, and I say it of okay, you could be the smallest person at the pool, but if you're sitting there with a towel wrapped around you, you don't want anyone to look at you. You won't get in the pool because you're worried about what you might look like. Right, you're hiding. And then you've got the curviest, loudest, you know most voluptuous woman walks into the pool and she's rocking a bikini, she's laughing, she's having a great time, she's jumping in. The difference is not just yet. You have different body types. Everyone does. If you look around a pool, everyone has a different body. But the reason people gravitate to the other woman is her confidence, her authenticity, fearful and not hiding that's what people gravitate towards and I personally think that is so much more attractive than anything that someone could look like.
Jess: 36:21
Agreed. It's their relationship with themselves showing outwardly. Okay, I think that this is a really good place to end this conversation, but I could keep talking for hours. Beautiful, beautiful, full circle Agreed. Thank you so much for this conversation. I mean, the world had a great time. I'm so glad that I was here. Yes, thank you, and we will be in touch soon. I feel this conversation continuing, whether this is on the podcast or otherwise, but thank you, I girl, I'll show up every week, if you want me. I might take you up on that. We could have some fun conversations. But I'm going to go for a little self-care and get a manicure.
Ali: 36:54
I love that for you.
Jess: 36:55
Okay, I'll talk to you soon, friend. Bye. If you enjoyed this podcast episode, please feel free to follow, subscribe, like whatever the heck you do with podcasts. As always, stay sturdy, friends, and we'll talk to you next week.