Ep. 7: Shame Free Eating with Dietician Julie Satterfeal

Shame Free Eating with Dietician Julie Satterfeal

Julie Satterfeal is a registered dietician, author, speaker, podcast host, and coach helping people to develop a shame-free relationship with food. Julie is a weight inclusive, anti-diet dietician with an empathetic, thoughtful approach. She joins Lorilee on the podcast to discuss her important philosophy, why dieting doesn’t work, and what authentic nutrition actually looks like.

Highlights:

On Julie’s playlist: “Crowded Table” – The Highwomen
Why Julie focuses on relationships with food rather than weight loss
Understanding intuitive eating
Anti-fat bias and diet culture
What it means to eat shame-free
Learning to love and respect your body (and yourself)
Challenging perceptions of ideal beauty
Debunking diet myths like BMI
Taking small, sustainable steps toward shame-free eating
One tool for our G&G toolbox

Mentioned in this episode:

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Sponsored by Her-Bank.com

Episode 7 – Julie Satterfeal Transcript

[00:00:00] Lorilee Rager: Hey there. I am Lorilee Rager and this is Ground and Gratitude. It is a podcast about designing the life you want, one that not only grows but also gives.

Before today’s episode, I’d like to tell you about where I bank, Her Bank by Legends Bank. This episode of Ground and Gratitude is sponsored by them. Her Bank celebrates, honors, and supports women, especially entrepreneurs, by providing financial services and resources through a core team of experienced female bankers, which is so reassuring to me. Her Bank creates a bridge to help women overcome barriers when it comes to money conversations and decisions while providing women with a better banking experience. Check out Her-Bank.com to learn more. Her Bank is a brand of Legends Bank. Legends Bank is member FDIC equal housing lender.

Today I’m sitting down with the endlessly wise and caring Julie Satterfield. Julie is a registered dietician and runs a diet coaching business called Shame Free Eating. She also hosts a podcast with the same name. She takes great pride in her unwavering history as a non diet, weight inclusive, intuitive eating dietician and in leading people towards a greater love for themselves and lifelong peace with food. We’ll be talking about how to find joy in food and remove the shame that diet culture puts in our lives. Just so y’all know, we will be talking about some difficult topics surrounding food and diet that may be a little triggering for some people. So with that, let’s dive right in.

Okay. Good. Hi Julie. How are you?

[00:02:12] Julie Satterfeal: I’m great. It’s good to see you.

[00:02:15] Lorilee Rager: I know it’s so good to see you too. I really appreciate you doing this. I know you’re busy with your own podcast and all your other things.

[00:02:22] Julie Satterfeal: No, I’m so excited to be here and I love that you’re, that you’ve got a podcast. This looks so great.

[00:02:29] Lorilee Rager: Thank you. Thanks so much. So the first kickoff question is hopefully not too difficult. But I would love to know what song is on repeat on your playlist today.

[00:02:53] Julie Satterfeal: Well, I have this one on repeat periodically, I really love it. And, um, it is a song by The Highwomen called Crowded Table. And I adore it.

[00:03:09] Lorilee Rager: I absolutely adore them, that it, everything I’ve heard that they’ve put out I’ve loved. And so I have listened to that. It’s been a while, so I’m glad you mentioned that. I’ll have to key that one back up again.

[00:03:20] Julie Satterfeal: Yeah. I love getting tips for music that I love that I maybe have not listened to in a while, but that’s a, um, that’s a go back to. I was listening to it in the car with my daughter yesterday.

[00:03:34] Lorilee Rager: Oh, that’s perfect. Yes. That’s, that’s why I actually opened with that question, because I always want to know what am I missing or what Idid I forget about or, so, yeah, that’s a good one to bring back for sure. Okay. Perfect. Well, um, all right. I thought we could just begin, um, with a fun question also, and this is a Southern thing, of course, but I’ve thought about talking about supper. Do you call it supper? Do you call it supper or dinner?

[00:04:02] Julie Satterfeal: Um, both because I have, I’m Southern, I have a Southern, one side of my family is, my grandmother deep South. And so she would always call the last meal of the day supper and lunchtime dinner. I tend to call dinner dinner, the last meal dinner, but I will be formal when I need to.

[00:04:27] Lorilee Rager: Right, right, right. I definitely grew up with a Southern grandma that was supper was the last meal and dinner was the middle meal, lunch, lunch. Yeah. So, um, yeah, I thought that we would talk a little bit, speaking of supper, bringing us around food, I really wanted to just kind of hear your story and how you got started and explaining a little bit about shame-free eating and your, your passion that you have for helping people from a nutritional standpoint. Tell us a little bit about that.

[00:05:05] Julie Satterfeal: Yeah, I would love to. So I’m a registered dietician. I don’t share that a lot when, I try to avoid the topic of what do you do sometimes because it can be a real touchy subject. And as soon as I say I’m a registered dietician, people are like, oh, you probably eat perfect. And I put that in quotes. And, oh, don’t like, I don’t want to tell you what I just ate. Or they start asking me about the newest diet and what do you think of this? And it’s just, ugh. But, um, it makes me, it makes me sad. And so, one of the things that I say is that I am a weight inclusive anti diet dietician. And so sometimes I will say that because that really is, um, how I have practiced from the very beginning. Even when I was in college and I started learning about even therapeutic diets, it was very obvious to me that, um, I certainly didn’t want to follow one of those. I was like, whoa, man, I hope I don’t get diabetes or celiac disease because there’s no way I can do that. And then I started realizing, well, nobody can do that. Nobody can do this in the way that it is presented. So whether it is a therapeutic diet for, um, healing something in your body or people are focusing on weight loss, there’s so many confounding factors. I mean, we don’t, um, first of all, our body does not like to lose weight. It’s going to resist that. We know that 98% of all diets fail and, um, our body just is geared against it and so many things happen when we try to restrict food. And so this was really pretty intuitive to me from an early age. And so I kept trying to figure out, well, how can I help people if they need to make nutrition changes without throwing them into this tailspin of diets. And so that’s where it really emerged. And when I was a senior, the year I graduated from college, a book called Intuitive Eating, um, came out. And when I read that book, I went, oh my God, this is exactly. Okay so there are other dietitians that understand this, but that was almost unknown at that point. And it’s started to become more known,. um, and I’ve just always practiced within the scope. And so for years, and years and years, people would say, well, can you help me lose weight? Well, no, I can’t, I don’t focus on weight loss, but I can work with you on your relationship to food and your body and we can talk about how we actually create change in our life. But most of the time we have to focus on, I call it how to eat before we can look at what we eat.

[00:07:58] Lorilee Rager: Yeah.

[00:07:59] Julie Satterfeal: Long story.

[00:08:00] Lorilee Rager: I love it. Um, it really, it resonates and begins to make sense to me just as I’ve gotten older and started to now, in my forties, look at my relationship with food and, and begin to, to try to really understand my own why. Because I understand the tailspin of diet, all the diet culture, the way I was raised, speaking of, you know, dear grandmothers and Southern food and eating too much and being, you know, loved with food, and then the body shaming and body image of just puberty and high school and college and all of that. I definitely now can see all the ways it just, wasn’t a healthy relationship, really maybe ever with food that I’ve had. And so I know when we met many, many years ago, um, and it’s so interesting also how graphic designers get to connect with some people in the greatest ways over, you know, your first brand many, many, many years ago. Um, but I really, I really, um, was interested at the time. But it’s also one of those things where from a professional standpoint, as a, as, in my profession, as a graphic designer, and I wonder if you can relate as well, it’s not something you really want to confess, um, when you’re working with a client relationship to also be like, oh, you know, I really want to know more about what you’re saying, because I may personally be struggling, you know, behind closed doors or behind the scenes. Um, and in recently, in my own, uh, sobriety and recovery, the eating thing has, has become a new challenge that I just didn’t expect. With sugar, anorexia, and, and it’s something based on my research from grad school that I’ve learned is kind of a common numbing coping mechanism in the way we use food. Um, and I’m beginning to try to understand intuitive eating a little more. So could you explain a little more in depth what that is? I mean, I know we only have so much time today, but maybe a surface level for our listeners.

[00:10:14] Julie Satterfeal: Yeah. So one of the things that, that I talked a lot about is that food is a comfort and food is part of our history and it is okay to use food, to comfort us. And that’s wonderful. And that’s one of the ways that we come around a crowded table is to share and to, um, love, to love each other with food. And so when people are hurting or when we’re excited and we want to celebrate, we do that with food and that’s definitely okay. But it can cross this line, and I think what’s happened in our society is that we have really, um, we have such a huge anti-fat bias and there are so many messages that are just false about weight and health and size and health and size in general. And the stigma that is associated leads people to get really, really strict with their food at young ages. And oh my gosh, my body’s changing. Oh, you better not eat that. Like there’s so many messages. And so we can start these disordered eating patterns early on. And the way that I see intuitive eating fitting in is that we have to kind of break that. We have to take a look and say, you know what? This is the body that is taking you through life and it is strong and capable and we have so many factors that affect it, including, and most predominantly our genetics. Um, food and activity is really such a small piece of what our body shape is. And so we have to unlearn some of that and we have to take in, um, some body acceptance and learning how to respect our body in the process so that we can be present with food, learn other tools for tough emotions, but also learning how to listen to our body, give ourselves permission to eat, trust our body. So that’s kind of the foundation as I see it. When I talk about intuitive eating it is foundationally, we want to start to learn to trust our body and listen to our body and recognize what hunger cues actually feel like. And it’s okay to be full, it doesn’t mean that you’ve done anything wrong. And so taking all of the stigma out of eating and, um, really coming back to a gentle, loving place with your body.

And once you can do that, it actually gives us so much more control and freedom around food. But when we’re trying to dictate everything we eat and count calories and weigh ourselves and, um, checking the Fitbit every five seconds, that actually takes control away and it makes us more obsessive and it makes us, um, constantly focusing on food. And food should not be the center of our, of our thoughts. We should be living our life. Food should be on the periphery. I mean, yeah, it’s great and we want it for this comfort when we need it, but we also want to have other tools in our toolbox for healing tough emotions and ways to deal with other things.

[00:13:31] Lorilee Rager: Oh, wow. Yeah, that’s so true. And I never thought about the notifications that my Apple watch and my Lose It app in my former Fitbit days that chirped at me all the time, it, it made me feel obsessed, you know. And if I wasn’t thinking about it, it was this little reminder tapping, you know, in my brain, did you think about, you know, have you moved, have you ate, you know, log your food. And so,

[00:13:56] Julie Satterfeal: And it can make you deny your actual true feelings. Like what you really need, you might now deny because this computer or this idea of calories has given you new information. And you’re like, oh, I should, why am I hungry right now? I shouldn’t be hungry. It’s not time. I’ve already had my calories. And so now we’re denying what our body is telling us, and that leads down a harder road. Because if you’re not eating breakfast because you’re trying to save calories, and you’re not eating lunch or you’re having a small lunch, and then you wonder why mid-afternoon you’re starving and all you can think about is a snicker bar and a donut, um, it’s, that’s your body trying to tell you. But we blame it on our brain and we say, oh, I just don’t have willpower, I’m just this, I’m just that. And we beat ourselves up instead of just respecting the process and what our body’s trying to help us do.

[00:14:49] Lorilee Rager: Oh, wow. Absolutely. It’s, you’ve just made me want to turn off all my notifications of all these apps that do.

[00:14:56] Julie Satterfeal: Do it.

[00:14:58] Lorilee Rager: Um, because the beauty in what you said about intuitive eating, to me, is the words acceptance, permission, and trust. I mean, those are words I have never heard in a diet culture and in a diet plan. And they’re such comforting, important words that, that I think are so important in everything else in life. So applying it to eating also seems important and makes sense to me. So, yeah. Wow. So, oh, that’s good. And I definitely want to read that book. I actually noticed it was, um, in my Audible account, like with my subscription, like a new version.

[00:15:41] Julie Satterfeal: Oh yeah, they do. They have a, um, a new one that came out a few years ago, just an updated, um, for the times.

[00:15:48] Lorilee Rager: Yeah.

[00:15:48] Julie Satterfeal: Same concepts, just new, you know, texting. You know, when in 1995, when it came out, there was not any smartphones.

[00:16:00] Lorilee Rager: That’s right. Yeah. I mean, I graduated college without a cell phone and that kind of blows my mind.

[00:16:05] Julie Satterfeal: Same.

[00:16:05] Lorilee Rager: I’m not that old, but yeah, to be 43 and, and know that I can say that it makes a huge difference, so, um, interesting, interesting. All right. Well going onto my next topic, I’d love you to explain a little bit about, you know, shame-free eating, which is the name of your business and company website. And really again, um, a little bit of my personal experiences is full of shame, binge eating as a child and, again, anorexia in high school and college. And then, um, later in life with marriage and stress and kids and being an entrepreneur, it seemed like I began to just binge eat or try to save calories for alcohol and wine and then, then find myself hungry and starving the next day and angry and confused and binge eat again in this terrible cycle. And it all, it all was filled with shame and it was the center of my attention and addiction, um, at the time. So I wanted to hear a little bit more of, you know, your take on shame-free eating and maybe where do we begin?

[00:17:22] Julie Satterfeal: Yeah, that’s a great question. So, um, Shame Free Eating, I changed my business name to that a few years ago because I really found that it was just the crux of everything that I believe in and that I do in life and with my clients and with food. And I, I strongly believe that there shouldn’t be shame around our eating and I want to inspire empathy for everyone. And one of the ways that I do that is by letting people know that we can eat and we are allowed to eat and there’s nothing wrong with eating. And I don’t care if you’re having a doughnut or tons of broccoli or a soda or whatever it is, um, and I don’t care what your size is, you have permission to eat these foods and you should be able to do it and feel good and not feel like it means there’s something wrong with you. And one of the, um, people that I really like and have learned from in the world of shame is Brenee Brown. And she’s a researcher in Texas, and she has a definition of the difference between shame and guilt that I like to share sometimes. She talks about that guilt is like I did something wrong, shame is I am wrong. It’s like, it’s so deep. And you hear shame when people say things like I am an idiot, I’m so dumb, I’m a loser. And I think that we do that in our culture way more often than, I mean, we just do it a lot. And that, that way that we speak to ourselves, we would never speak to someone in our life that we love. We would never talk to someone else like that. And, um, so elevating the respect that we have for ourselves. And the love that we have for ourselves I think is so important and giving grace to the people around us. And, um, so that is kind of where, where the name came from, just Shame Free eating just is I want you to eat and enjoy food and love it in a shame-free manner, because that’s how you’re going to live the life that you want. Food, you don’t want to just be thinking about food all the time. You want to be able to eat it and enjoy it and let it go. And sometimes you might not enjoy it. Sometimes you’re grabbing something cause you don’t have time and you just only can get a, uh, granola bar on the way out the door. That’s okay, too, you know. So food is, should be flexible and it should move with our life. Um, we shouldn’t be wrapping our life around the food.

[00:20:18] Lorilee Rager: Oh, food should be flexible. Wow. I love that very much because it’s, it’s not something I’ve ever thought about, uh, from a flexibility standpoint and, and a shame standpoint. I completely relate to Brenee Brown as well and her trying to help the shame culture. And like you were saying, the negative self-talk is something that I feel like we maybe all are so used to we even don’t realize we’re doing it.

[00:20:51] Julie Satterfeal: Absolutely.

[00:20:51] Lorilee Rager: While we’re brushing our teeth or while we’re in the shower or an hour after we ate that piece of cherry pie from grandma. And, and I think it’s so important to be, uh, I guess, intuitive enough and mindful enough to stop that. And, and I know, I think we all, at least in my experience struggle with what self-love is, but you said respect and I definitely can identify with self-respect. I can, I may, I may have to learn how to love myself and be kind, but I definitely know how to respect, you know, myself the way I would a best friend or a family member.

[00:21:36] Julie Satterfeal: Yeah. And that’s perfect, what you just said, because it is a, um, it’s a journey. And I think that sometimes you hear that like, oh, you need to love yourself. And that’s just such a tall order, right, for a lot of people.

[00:21:52] Lorilee Rager: It is.

[00:21:52] Julie Satterfeal: And so you have to start somewhere else. And, like, with body respect and body acceptance, how do I get there? Like society is telling me my body is not okay and society is telling me I’m not okay. And how do I get there? And so that is a continuum. We can start with that respect piece, and how do I learn even to respect my body and move into appreciating my body and myself and moving into self love, or radical self-love as Sonya Renee Taylor would say. Um, Another amazing book. But some of the ways that I feel like we can do that is really changing up our social media feed. You know, following different accounts that talk about self-love and body positivity and an anti diet culture, and intuitive eating and moving in some of these ways where you’re seeing different shapes and sizes of people living their life to the fullest and starting to change your perception of what beauty is and what ideal looks like. And as you surround yourself with that, I think it makes a big difference. I think also like in terms of our body, body functionality is huge. And so if we can, um, pay attention to what our body is doing for us, if we can recognize and value the, these pieces, like even just really small. You know, I’m able to make myself breakfast this morning, you know, or I am, um, able to take the dog around the block. And you see and feel and notice that functionality of your system and your body can lead you towards that respect and appreciation that will, that will move us along that contimuum.

Yes. Yes.

[00:23:48] Lorilee Rager: Oh, such good tips and takeaways in all of what you just said with changing your social media feed I think is huge. I mean, huge on so many other levels, but when it comes to shame and eating and body image and definitely self-love, I think muting all of the toxic-ness that makes you feel bad about yourself is a huge win. Curating that and removing that, and it’s really important.

[00:24:17] Julie Satterfeal: Yeah. And you know, some people ask, well, how do, um, what do I do then? This is all fine and great, but what about if I need to make nutrition changes in my life? You know, what if I have diabetes and I need to do certain things to help my blood sugar? Or what if there are these other, like I mentioned earlier, celiac disease, you know, how do I incorporate this intuitive eating and this self-love with that? And so that’s one of the things that we work on a lot too is that, this, that we’re talking about is the foundation. Like you can’t start looking at and figuring out the individual foods in your diet that you need to, um, that you want to add for your health or that you want to incorporate without first taking care of some of this foundational work and learning how to listen to your body. But then as we start working through that, then we’re able to really, um, make these small changes and do these small things that can impact our life in a way that is going to be more sustainable than like what we all do on new year’s, like pick 10 things that we want to do and it all lasts for like two weeks. I mean, so we have to kind of put that application in there too. So we start with that gentleness and that love and that, let me start to trust you again, my awesome body. Then we can start taking these little pieces of, well, you know what, I really need to spread my carbohydrates and protein out throughout the day in order to help level my blood sugar. How am I going to do that? I’m going to start by having a breakfast that incorporates, you know, a nice amount of carbohydrate, a little bit of protein, a little bit of fat. And what’s that going to look like? We come up with lots of different ideas and then that’s your one thing. We’re going to work on breakfast. So the food piece comes in, but that’s like at the end, you know. All this other stuff is what’s going to set us up for being able to do that without falling back into guilt and shame when we can’t fix that breakfast. Right, because life is not that linear. It’s going to change and there’s going to be plenty of days where, what you planned, isn’t going to work. And if you, I’m terrible, I can’t do anything right, look I tried to do this and I failed, then what do we do? We fall back into the old patterns and we say, forget about it, I’ll start fresh later. If we can just let it go and be like, no, no, no, no, no. This is part of being an intuitive eater and living the life that has been handed to me and that I am creating. I’m busy today and that sandwich isn’t going to work, but I’m going to see how that, um, how I can work this moving forward.

[00:26:59] Lorilee Rager: Yeah. And that’s okay.

[00:27:00] Julie Satterfeal: Yeah, for sure.

[00:27:02] Lorilee Rager: It’s so funny because I would think, which I don’t want to start a new year’s resolution and diet and, and start all these restrictions and be miserable and not even able to think and have a headache and be angry at work or, you know, all, yeah. I don’t want to do that at all. And, and that’s why these, I think it’s so interesting to think. Well, we’re not even approaching it with, okay tell me what to eat, tell me what I should or shouldn’t eat right now, then I’ll worry about how I feel. Um, I wrote an essay in grad school that was called, Just Be Nice to Your Back Fat. And it was just, you know, that, that image you see of yourself before you get in the shower, and just making sure that you’re just kind to yourself and what you see that this is the only body the good Lord gave us.

[00:27:47] Julie Satterfeal: Yes, yes.

[00:27:48] Lorilee Rager: So be kind to it. And then thinking exactly what you’re saying, it makes me envision and I will nourish myself with a good breakfast and not shame myself into I’m skipping breakfast because of what I just saw in the mirror, per se.

[00:28:04] Julie Satterfeal: Yeah. Or shame yourself into eating something that you don’t like.

[00:28:10] Lorilee Rager: Yes. Oh my gosh. Yes.

[00:28:13] Julie Satterfeal: For the most part food should be enjoyable. And it should we’ve, we wrap, there are so many foods, there are ways to create the meals that sustain us that we also enjoy. And if it’s always terrible, it’s probably because it’s some crazy diet like that doesn’t have any carbs in it. I’m sorry. We got to have them.

[00:28:37] Lorilee Rager: Right. That’s right. That’s right. They do get a bad rap. I think they do get a, carbs do get a bad rap.

[00:28:42] Julie Satterfeal: They do.

[00:28:43] Lorilee Rager: Um, yeah. Well, so tell me a little bit more, um, like what are some of the common, you know, questions you get, or the most common myths that you, um, help people understand and when it comes to the shame-free eating. Um, and, and what, what in general, um, I guess it’s not tips because I know that’s what people probably want first right out of the gate, tell me right now what I should do today. But, um, what are some of the common things that you say the most or talk about the most or,

[00:29:20] Julie Satterfeal: Um, well, there’s a few. So I want to say that probably the thing that I feel like we have to come back to is this whole idea that a certain weight is healthier than another weight. And coming down to the BMI, which is the bane of my existence. Oh my gosh. So really just dispelling the idea. People go, no, no, no, no, if you’re in a bigger body, you’re not as healthy. Not true. Not true. You cannot judge someone’s actions or their health or anything by the size of their body. And like I said earlier, we come in so many different shapes and sizes and by trying to manipulate it from a young age, we are, um, resetting that set point, um, so we are going to probably be in a, in a bigger body later. But it doesn’t mean that we’re unhealthy and it doesn’t mean that we have to get into a smaller body to be healthy. And when we look at BMI, all it is is a cross section between height and weight that was developed in the 1700s by a European researcher, mathematician, statistician, astronomer. Okay. Has nothing to do with health.

[00:30:36] Lorilee Rager: Wow.

[00:30:37] Julie Satterfeal: He proposed that, and this study was done on like 40 European men or something, maybe 200 somewhere in there, um, probably not that many. Anyway, he, um, said, well, the average must be, so I want to see what the average is, and then that’s what we’ll go with. And this information has propelled forward, which is that the average of a European man in the 1700s is what’s considered healthy. And when you look, I mean, it’s, it’s just it’s mind boggling. But when you look even at the good research and you look at these long-term studies and you look at mortality, the people that are living the longest are the people in that category of BMI that is considered, and I’m putting this in quotes, trigger warning, overweight. Um, I think those are also things to remember is that these terms that we use to describe people’s bodies can be very hurtful and offensive. And, um, so it’s, uh, that’s one of the big things that I try to clear up is that. We can make changes in our lives and we can create, we can have health promoting behaviors without focusing on weight. And so there’s this whole, like we were talking about, this body acceptance, body love, peace that we have to really try and get on board with, learn to love this body that we have so that we can make peace with food and live in a way that feels authentic. But that’s probably the, that’s probably one of the really big ones. Just the weight and health piece.

[00:32:31] Lorilee Rager: I had no idea the BMI history. It’s not even a diverse study. It’s not even global, it’s not. And from the 1700s and here I am today. And, and that’s what the doctors have and, oh, you so mentioned it. And it is a trigger warning because when I go online to my patient portal to make an appointment, you know, to get a flu shot or whatever it says in my list of ailments or whatever, anxiety and obesity. And seeing obesity, when I, you know, and I don’t care to say it, I fit in a size, you know, 14 to 16 pants and I’m 5’9″ female and I’m like, wow, I have obesity on my chart.

[00:33:15] Julie Satterfeal: That’s a horrible word and label.

[00:33:18] Lorilee Rager: It hurts. And it’s from the BMI index. I recently redid my paperwork on just like, uh, estate planning, and had to get a full physical. You know, somebody came to the house to do blood work. She pulled a scale out of her bag that was super old and like wobbly and set it on the floor and wanted me to stand on it, wasn’t calibrated in any way. Made it all, wrote it all out, and my rate changed because of the BMI index of what I was going to pay for my life insurance.

[00:33:49] Julie Satterfeal: Absolutely. It’s furiating.

[00:33:52] Lorilee Rager: This is huge. I didn’t even think about it.

[00:33:55] Julie Satterfeal: God, I’m so sorry. That is traumatizing and upsetting. And we spend a lot of time on that.

[00:34:03] Lorilee Rager: Yeah, where we’re trying to do the best we can with what we have. And I, and I want food not to be the center of my every waking thought. And I want just, like you said, to enjoy gathering around a table and be flexible with it, and then you get hit with things like that, um, or you just get, you know, told you need to be on some type of medication versus even having a conversation with your health and how you physically feel. Um, yeah. It’s super, super interesting stuff.

[00:34:35] Julie Satterfeal: So many, there’s just so many pieces of that we could talk about all day.

[00:34:39] Lorilee Rager: I know. We really, really could. I know. Bleh. Well, um, so, what, what else, what else would you like to share about, um, shame-free eating? Cause I know we talked about, which we could talk about more, of self-love. Because you know, self love and food to me go hand in hand for sure. And then, how do we maybe learn to self-love our size or anything else.

[00:35:09] Julie Satterfeal: Yeah, yeah. It, well, it’s a process. And I think that it just starts with giving yourself permission to eat and making sure that you’re getting enough to eat. When you have enough food in your body, things start to level out. Your thinking levels out, your cravings level out, all of that. And so that’s one of the places that I start with people is first we’re not going to do any of the diets. We’re not counting calories, we’re not weighing ourselves, we’re not following any of those. And then we’re going to try and figure out how we take steps into getting enough, enough food into our body and learning how to listen to our body, and sometimes that can take some time. So that’s really where we start. And, um, I have a program where I work with people for a year and it’s a online program and we have, it’s a kind of customized both one-on-one and group counseling and an online platform. And it’s a year because that’s what I’ve seen it just takes as we start working through this. It’s not just, I tell you all the things and you know it and now you can apply it. Because we go through all of these diets seasons and we go through all of the, the things that happen in a year, and it’s really great to be able to process it and work through it and see how do these principles play out in my personal life. So for me it’s really important that I work with everyone individually, know really what your life looks like and what you do day-to-day and what foods you like. And so getting to know people and understanding them and helping them work through, this, um, making peace with food and their body is just a long-term, it’s a long-term kind of thing. And I work with plenty of people for far longer than a year. I think just having in your head that I’m going to be patient with myself and I’m going to give myself grace and this is a process and I am unlearning information that has been pounded into my head decades. And it’s a process, it’s hard. And you’re getting the messages from everywhere, so also learning, how do I create boundaries? And how do I talk about this with people? And do I have to talk about it with people? And again, that’s a process. So, but you have to protect yourself. Just like when you go to the doctor, when you have to fill out a form, like you said, there are ways that you can learn to protect yourself a little bit and ways that you can, again, continuum, take steps. What I did this first time versus, okay, the next time I go, I’m going to prepare, I think this is coming, this is what I’m going to say, and you practice it, and this is how I’m going to respond to this. And just remembering that we have power and we have autonomy and, um, but that’s hard.

[00:38:01] Lorilee Rager: Yeah. Yes. Yes. Power and autonomy too. And I love that you said the seasons of diets because absolutely. I never, I never thought of course, I don’t believe in quick fixes, magical elixirs, six week plans, none of that’s ever worked because I’ve tried them all. But 12 months and the seasons of diets. I mean, that just blows my mind open because it’s so true. And you work with somebody and, and counsel them and coach them and then, and then the power of having, having you there through the entire seasons and cycles is really huge because yeah, you’re trying to unlearn, in my case, 43 years of, um, of this culture, that’s been, you know, pushed upon us. That I don’t, I don’t blame anyone. It’s not, it’s not a fault situation, but it’s my responsibility to, to learn better care for myself and understand the relationship with food. So having, having a coach or somebody in my pocket to help seems huge. And I know from my recovery groups, the power in community.

[00:39:13] Julie Satterfeal: Oh, for sure.

[00:39:14] Lorilee Rager: Oh, like-minded, sharing, you don’t really don’t even have to share a lot cause we all, we all just get it because we’ve been through it in our own stories, but there’s similar threads.

[00:39:28] Julie Satterfeal: And it’s nice to have that community. It’s a safe place where we can talk about this and know that we’re not going to be judged and we are going to be loved. And, um, sometimes I tell people, definitely show up for the community pieces because you may not think you have a question, you may think everything’s fine, and you hear what someone else is talking about and you go, oh my God, I never thought of it that way, that is a thing. And so you get value and from these other people’s experiences, and I just think it’s so huge. Because what we’re exposed to on social media day-to-day in our lives is not this community. We’re exposed to diet culture and it’s really hard to get out from under it. So yes. Agreed. The community piece is so valuable.

[00:40:17] Lorilee Rager: Yeah, I can understand that so well. Um, I think it’s just more, I feel more successful and more, I hate to use the word normal, cause I don’t know what normal is, but I feel, you know, more successful and normal when I’m able to hear somebody else’s share and be like, I thought I was the only one.

[00:40:36] Julie Satterfeal: Yes.

[00:40:37] Lorilee Rager: You know, that sort of thing, so

[00:40:39] Julie Satterfeal: Yes.

[00:40:40] Lorilee Rager: Talking about it, it’s just, it’s just huge. I think it’s really an important key to the, uh, the iceberg of all this where people think the tip of the iceberg is food, but there’s so much more, um, underneath.

[00:40:54] Julie Satterfeal: Yeah. And the tip is, the tip is food. But we got to get all the underneath first.

[00:41:00] Lorilee Rager: That’s exactly right. That’s exactly right. Well, um, yeah. Is there anything else you’d like to share or add before we wrap up today? This has been so good. Such, so many aha moments.

[00:41:13] Julie Satterfeal: Well, I’m so glad and I love that you had me. I appreciate it. And, um, I just appreciate the opportunity to chat about this cause I think it’s so important and I think it’s a message that, um, I want everyone to hear.

[00:41:29] Lorilee Rager: Yeah, me too. Gosh, me too. Me too. We shouldn’t be suffering alone, um, at all about it. So there’s power in sharing it. Um, okay. One last question that I will end with. So at Ground and Gratitude we have a toolbox, and I would like to ask is what is one tool that you would leave in the Ground and Gratitude toolbox for others? And it, it can be anything. It can be something that helps you get grounded, helps you get through what I call dry ground when it comes to farming aspect or a season or moment. What, what would be something you could leave us?

[00:42:07] Julie Satterfeal: You know what I think it has to be the practice of yoga. If you have never thought of that before, it is a wonderful way to get grounded. And personally, I fought it for a very long time. I thought I need to do yoga because I need to, like, be more stretchy. I need to be more bendy, I need to be more flexible, right. And then I would go and I was like, oh, quiet my mind, oh, breathe, you know. And I was like, I can’t do it. And, um, it felt like drudgery. But I went back to yoga over the pandemic and what, towards the end, like, we’re not at the end yet, but once we were able to go back inside, and I see it with my clients, I’ve experienced it personally, as something that the practice itself is so grounding and you learned to be in your body and you learn to appreciate its functionality. Which is why I leave it in this toolbox for you, because, um, if you can channel that and learn how to breathe and learn how to ground yourself, then you can take that from yoga and use it in your everyday life when things come in blind side you and things, um, turn you upside down. You’ve got this tool that you’ve been practicing, practicing, practicing. So if you have access to yoga, there’s a really great app that I like too. Um, I do like going to the studio and it’s just really the studio that I go to is very much about, um, nonjudgmental and not comparing and you know, each your own practice and

[00:43:55] Lorilee Rager: Yeah, be where you are.

[00:43:57] Julie Satterfeal: Yeah. And I really love that. I think that it’s something that is valuable.

[00:44:02] Lorilee Rager: I’m so glad you said that because I’ve off and on practiced and felt, like you described, at first about it. Once I understood that it is, it’s like, oh, this is on my terms. This is actually like not a group sport. This is a one-on-one thing. And I fell in love with restorative yoga. And really just like you said, if I’m really stressed out and really not sleeping well, doing it from an app, if I can’t get to a place, doing a restorative yoga or something on YouTube makes the world of a difference how I, how I feel physically and mentally.

Oh, that’s

[00:44:40] Julie Satterfeal: so great.

[00:44:41] Lorilee Rager: So, gosh, that’s good. I’m glad you’re reminding me of that for sure. That is definitely tool box worthy.

[00:44:47] Julie Satterfeal: Great. Win.

[00:44:50] Lorilee Rager: Yes. Well, good. Well, thank you so very much for being here today. I can’t thank you enough. I just really, really appreciate it.

[00:44:57] Julie Satterfeal: You are welcome and thank you for having me Lorilee. It’s good to see you.

[00:45:01] Lorilee Rager: Good to see you too, Julie. We will talk again, promise.

[00:45:04] Julie Satterfeal: I’m looking forward to it.

[00:45:09] Lorilee Rager: Thank you again, Julie, for opening up such a safe and positive conversation about putting the joy back in eating. And thank you for tuning in to another episode of Ground and Gratitude. You can always find more information about the show, resources to help anyone struggling with the negative effects of diet culture at GroundAndGratitude.com. Join me next time for more honest conversations exploring what it means to truly live a life grounded in gratitude.

Ground and Gratitude is produced by the amazing Kelly Drake and AOMcClain LLC.