Food is fuel and so much more. It is ok that food connects us to those warm fuzzy things in life--friends, family, pleasure, and humanity. Want to make this step on your Food Peace JourneyTM? Listen here now to the latest Love Food Podcast episode featuring guest expert Elizabeth Armstrong @PCOStherapist.

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This episode is brought to you by my courses: PCOS and Food Peace and Dietitians PCOS and Food Peace. You CAN make peace with food even with PCOS and I want to show you how.

I want to learn more about you! I would love if you could take the 2020 Love Food survey: access it here: JulieDillonRD.com/Survey. Open until March 31, 2020.

Check out my friend Summer Innanen's FREE Body Acceptance Masterclass. You will learn:

• The 3 biggest mistakes people make when doing body acceptance work (and why they keep you stuck feeling bad about your body)
• Her 6-Part Framework for radically changing the way you feel about yourself and believing you are good enough regardless of your body size
• Why it is possible for YOU (yes, YOU) to accept your body and feel more confident in who you are.

Learn more about Summer's Masterclass (aff) here: JulieDillonRD.com/FREEmasterclass

This episode's Dear Food letter:

Dear Food,
You have, and always will be, such a big part of life and identity. Growing up in an Indian household, you were everything - we would spend hours preparing delicious meals to eat and share with other people. My mum was an exceptional cook who loved nothing more than to research recipes to try out on me and her friends. Food, you are there in so many of my best childhood memories - going out for ice cream sundaes on the weekend, discovering the magic of baking, and making cheese toast as a midnight snack with my dad.
But now, at the age of 36, having battled with weight for as long as I can remember, and trying to figure out my PCOS, I realise that our relationship is really complicated. While you have brought me so much joy, you also come with a ton of fear and anxiety for me. I remember calorie counting with my mum in my early teens, being praised for controlling what I ate, and family members commenting on my body whether I had lost or gained weight. Food, I have starved myself of you so many times, and this always results in me punishing myself through binging and exercising. I'm tired of weight loss taking up so much of my headspace. I'm working really hard to get some neutrality on all of this but sometimes, even just noticing a shirt doesn't button up right anymore can set about a heap of negative thoughts.
From
Working really hard

Show Notes:

• Julie Dillon RD blog
• Link to subscribe to the Love Food’s Food Peace Syllabus.
• Be sure to follow Elizabeth Armstrong on Instagram: @PCOSTherapist
• Elizabeth's website: PCOStherapy.com
• Julie's episode on Don't Salt My Game with a PCOS deep dive: People with PCOS can totally eat birthday cake.
• Weight inclusive PCOS care from Laura Thomas
• Hunger So Wide and So Deep
• Intuitive Eating book (aff) and website
• Find an Eating Disorder Dietitian near you.

Do you have a complicated relationship with food? I want to help! Send your Dear Food letter to [email protected].

Click here to leave me a review in iTunes and subscribe. This type of kindness helps the show continue!

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Food PeaceTM is political, radical, and important. I've made mistakes and I am ready to plow ahead. Are you ready to stand up against diet culture with me? Listen now to my Dear Diets letter, and get fired up with me!

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This episode is brought to you by my online course, PCOS and Food Peace.

Product links may be affiliate. If you click and make a purchase, you'll support the Love, Food Podcast at no extra cost to yourself.

Episode's Key Points:

• To close out 2019, I'm going to be reading a letter written by me, straight to diets.
• It's time to dismantle diet culture, and I need your help. Send me your Dear, Food letter for next season to [email protected]. I'm looking forward to hearing them!
• Don't forget to subscribe to the show, and leave a rating and review. It's so important to leave a rating and review, as it helps people who are struggling with their relationship with food and body to find the podcast.
• “A culture fixated on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty, but an obsession about female obedience. Dieting is the most potent political sedative in women’s history; a quietly mad population is a tractable one.” - Namoi Wolf, The Beauty Myth
• We should all be raising our children as feminists.
• Food IS political, and dieting IS political. We HAVE to talk about politics and feminism if we hope to dismantle diet culture and the patriarchy for good.
• Diets have condemned certain body sizes, and they have distracted all of us from experiencing true joy in our lives and with food. Diets keep us from experiencing connection and joy with others! Diets tell us we aren't worthy of love until we're the "right" size. But none of the things diets tell us are true.
• Diet culture pretends to be about health, and even has begun to feel like a religion. Diets have gone way too far.
• Diets predict weight gain and eating disorders!
• People who oppose diets, and the damage that they do, are coming together. The next generation of psychologists, dietitians, and health professionals will take diet culture down!!
• We need to teach health professionals about weight bias and weight stigma. It's harmful to our health, even more-so than eating that french fry.
• Diets are sneaky manipulators, so smart that sometimes we don't even know we're being manipulated.
• It's time to engage in our politics, understand our privilege, and stand up to diet and body oppression. It's time for us all to feel more at home in our own skin, and to end the normalization of diets and fatphobia. See you in 2020!

Show Notes:

• Julie Dillon RD blog
• Link to subscribe to the weekly FREE Food Peace Newsletter. It is sent out every Tuesday morning and no spam EVER. By signing up, I will also send you Love Food's Food Peace Syllabus.
• Love, Food Podcast Episode 1
• The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf
• Fiona Sutherland of the Mindful Dietitian
• Deb Burgard
• Love, Food Podcast Episode 84 with Isabel Foxen Duke
• Kelly Diels
• Rupi Kaur
• Eating Disorder Dietitian

Do you have a complicated relationship with food? I want to help! Send your Dear Food letter to [email protected].

Click here to leave me a review in iTunes and subscribe. This type of kindness helps the show continue! Thank you for listening to the Love, Food series.

Our Sponsors:
* Check out Rejoyn: https://www.rejoyn.com
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Do you value sustainability? Vegan? Concerned about the agricultural impact on the environment? What if you want to improve the environment and have your food choices reflect that? Pull up a chair and let's chat. This episode of Love Food features guest expert Christy Harrison, author of the newly released Anti-Diet.

This episode is brought to you by my courses: PCOS and Food Peace and Dietitians PCOS and Food Peace. You CAN make peace with food even with PCOS and I want to show you how.

This episode's Dear Food letter:

Dear Food,

I've been in recovery from anorexia and orthorexia for over 6 months now and have been feeling so much better! Digestive issues I've expereinced for years have finally cleared up, and I love the way my body feels when I am nourishing it and giving it what it wants. Nevertheless, I struggle with the ways my food choices impact the environment. For a long time, while fully enmeshed in my eating disorder, I set out to live without electricity and try to grow all my own food--anything I did buy had to be something that I could concivibly produce in my area. This was a lot of rules and Ed loved it. During times when I fell short of vision and ate imported foods, I was ashamed, and during times when I succeeded I felt superior to others who lacked the discipline to care for the Earth the way I did. All and all I was unhealthy and isolated.

Now in my recovery, I no longer have such high standards. I try to live simply but give myself the joy of buying foods and now use electricity to do some of the things I love and carea about. I've also become involved in environmental activism. In the climate justice sphere, veganism is often touted as a major step one can take for the Earth. Inspite of this, I know deep down that eating animal products can be done in a way that it in balance with Earth and my body. I also know that the more time I spend obsessing on food, the less energy I have for this activism I care so much about!

But it is hard food, hard to be among people who claim that there is a moral imperative to eat in a certain way. Sometimes I wonder if I will ever be able to find food peace while also believing certain foods are better for the environment and others aren't. How can I have food peace when I feel my dietary choices are something I need to defend? How can I have food peace when a part of me knows that entire way we live now, including how we get our food, isn't in balance with the Earth?

Sincerely,

Letter writer

Show Notes:

• Julie Dillon RD blog
• Link to subscribe to the Love Food’s Food Peace Syllabus.
• Christy Harrison's website
• Food Psych podcast
• Anti-Diet book (aff)
• Intuitive Eating book (aff) and website
• Find an Eating Disorder Dietitians near you.

Do you have a complicated relationship with food? I want to help! Send your Dear Food letter to [email protected].

Click here to leave me a review in iTunes and subscribe. This type of kindness helps the show continue!

Our Sponsors:
* Check out Rejoyn: https://www.rejoyn.com
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

As we enter January, what we at Find Your Food Voice call, International Dieting Month, join Julie for a guided meditation and reflection exercise to help you get through this month and all the diet BS that comes along with it.

Please follow us on TikTok and LinkedIn @FoodVoiceRD to keep up-to-date with our socials.

Do you have a complicated relationship with food? I want to help! Submit your Dear Food letter here or send it to [email protected].

Mentioned in this episode: Belly of the Beast by Da'Shaun L Harrison / Your Body is Not an Apology by Sonia Renee Taylor / Fearing the Black Body by Dr. Sabrina Strings / Decolonizing Wellness by Dalia Kinsey

Food Voice resources: Julie Dillon RD blog / PCOS Power Free Roadmap / PCOS Power Course / 6 Keys To Food Peace

If you're curious about what it looks like to stop pursuing weight loss, click here for some fabulous freebies that will help guide you in your journey!

Click here to leave me a review on iTunes and subscribe. This type of kindness helps the show continue!

Find FREE food voice resources here.

Thank you for supporting Find Your Food Voice!

Our Sponsors:
* Check out Rejoyn: https://www.rejoyn.com
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This Diet Culture IRL segment is a continuation of last week's episode - Coleen Bremner joins us to chat about going to the doctor, having to advocate for yourself, and how medical fatphobia can lead so many folks to avoid appointments altogether. Listen for a dose of care and compassion.

Note: our Facebook and Instagram have been hacked! Please follow us on TikTok @FoodVoiceRD to keep up-to-date with our socials.

Mentioned in this episode: Join our email list! / Your Second Opinion PCOS Toolkit / Top 10 Reasons Why the BMI is Bogus (NPR) / Debunking the BMI (Center for Body Trust) / The BMI is Bullshit on (everydayfeminism.com) / Why BMI is a flawed measure of body fat, explained by an eloquent 14-year-old (Vox) / A new study just totally debunked the BMI scale as a measure of health (Hello Giggles) / There's a Dangerous Racial Bias in the Body Mass Index (Newsweek) / The Body Mass Index on Maintenance Phase

Food peace resources: Julie Dillon RD blog / PCOS + Food Peace Free Roadmap / PCOS + Food Peace Course / Food Peace Syllabus / 6 Keys To Food Peace / My PCOS Manifesto

If you're curious about what it looks like to stop pursuing weight loss, click here for some fabulous freebies that will help guide you in your journey!

Do you have a complicated relationship with food? I want to help! Send your Dear Food letter to [email protected].

Click here to leave me a review in iTunes and subscribe. This type of kindness helps the show continue!

Find FREE food voice resources here.

Thank you for supporting Find Your Food Voice!

Our Sponsors:
* Check out Rejoyn: https://www.rejoyn.com
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy