[00:00:00] In today’s episode, Mallory page, who’s a registered dietitian, dives into the world of intuitive eating and how it can help listeners break free from diet culture. She shares how tuning into your body’s natural cues can lead to a healthier, more peaceful relationship with food. Stay tuned.

[00:00:21] Podcasting from Dallas, Texas. I am Shireen, and this is the yamlish Podcast. Yumlish is working to empower you to take charge of your health through diet and exercise and reduce the risk of chronic conditions like type two diabetes and heart disease, we hope to share a unique perspective and a culturally relevant approach to managing these chronic conditions with you each week.

[00:00:55] Mallory page is the founder of Live unrestricted, a nutrition counseling company that has helped over 500 women break free from disordered relationships with food, exercise and their bodies, especially those that don’t qualify for clinical eating disorder support. Welcome, Mallory, such a pleasure having you on.

[00:01:14] Yeah, so excited to be here.

[00:01:16] So Mallory, I want to talk a little bit, and our episode is really based around talking about intuitive eating and really understanding this, like diet culture and just really trusting your intuition before we dive in, though, we want to learn more about Mallory. We’re so excited to have you here. So can you first start off by telling us a little bit more about your background and what just really led you to this focus on intuitive eating, and what was your journey to getting here and specializing in this?

[00:01:45] I always say that my journey started with the personal trainer, because I was around 16 years old when I had a personal trainer that told me to write down everything that I was eating to improve my athletic performance, basically alter it so I could get better at my sport, which was truly my life focus at the time. So I was all in plus, I thought it would just add to how disciplined and healthy I felt like I was. So that seemed like it would be a great thing, but really, I didn’t know that that would be the catalyst to both my eating disorder that was very unconventional, called orthorexia, which is essentially an obsession with health to the point that it becomes unhealthy, and then also my company live unrestricted much later down the road that, as you said, helps women and anybody that’s dealing With disordered eating. And so the gap between those two things was that I essentially was constantly feeling just this pressure to eat so perfectly, to exercise perfectly, to look perfectly. And it worked for a while, and really served me, quote, unquote, until it didn’t, and I realized I can’t keep doing this, but because I was so praised by society, you know, I was in college, people kept telling me how healthy I was and how great this pursuit was. I felt so scared to heal, and I didn’t qualify for clinical eating disorder support either, necessarily, because I wasn’t underweight. So that’s why I’m now so passionate about helping others with this, because I was becoming a dietitian in this process, and I originally was going to, quote, unquote, help people be healthier when I was going to become a dietitian, and later realized, actually, I want to truly help people become healthier by listening to their intuition by not just listening to diet culture and arbitrary rules.

[00:03:46] That’s fascinating and sort of tapping into your own journey and realizing like there’s a parallel here, and that that’s exactly what you want to be able to do and help people there. So first, I want to go into what is intuitive eating. Now, by the way, we’ve done several episodes on intuitive eating. So to our listeners, if this is a topic of interest to you, we have multiple other episodes as well around this. But to our new listeners, Mallory, can you tell us a little bit more about what Intuitive Eating is? It sounds very simple, but I feel like it’s a little bit more complicated than that.

[00:04:17]That’s such a good way to put it, because in in truth, it’s listening to your hunger and eating when you’re hungry, and then stopping when you’re full, and also leaning into what foods you are really craving, which seems like, yeah, I can do that, until you realize that diet, culture, our past experiences, the stress that we undergo, can lessen, dampen, or even remove, sometimes these cues that we’re meant to listen to. So I always like to say that although Intuitive Eating is so groundbreaking, and the dietitians that founded it are incredible, truly, we’re just talking about eating normally before all of this noise really came in. And for that. Reason I even like to speak about intuitive eating a little differently, because I help so many people, right, that are in a doesn’t even have to be defined as disorder, but they don’t feel like they’re in the best space with food. But I like to say intuitive eating, that’s like our end goal, that’s what we’re working towards, that we want to have you be experiencing. And if you feel like I could never do that, that’s okay and that’s normal, because it’s likely the steps in between to getting there that are going to be really helpful for making that feel more feasible.

[00:05:30] Now, when it comes to intuitive eating, can you help us understand how someone who’s never heard of it really starts to incorporate intuitive eating?

[00:05:41] So everyone is a little bit different, because some people, let’s say you’re listening to this right now, you want to assess your readiness for intuitive eating, which, for which, with my clients, I have a whole assessment that they can go through. But let’s say you have pretty good hunger and fullness cues. You know you’re eating multiple times throughout the day. You don’t have a ton of fear, maybe around certain foods, but you also feel like I’m not eating in a way that feels great. I don’t feel really in touch with myself. For someone like that, what you could start to incorporate is truly starting to ask yourself a little more intentionally, what is it that I actually want to eat? And starting to notice, how do I feel when I have this type of food or this meal? Am I sluggish throughout the day at certain times, or really energized? Right? So it’s almost more of this assessment that you’d be going through, and these little ways that you can just start to ask yourself questions for a lot of the people that I work with, and maybe you guys even see there’s a difference between them feeling in touch with their hunger and fullness cues and even knowing maybe what they crave or not having a lot of trust that they could even eat certain foods without it being horrible. So for that person, we really, actually need to work on rebuilding hunger and fullness cues and also starting to Lessen the Fear around what they’re eating. Because, as I was saying a little bit earlier, if we don’t have those cues, we really don’t have the building blocks yet to do the same thing that I was just saying, the person that has them could start in on.

[00:07:19] Now what are some common ways that diet culture in particular, manifest into our daily lives, and how can individuals begin to recognize and challenge some of these influences.

[00:07:31] Diet culture is so pervasive, I have an entire podcast called seems like diet culture, literally for this reason, because I just feel like the topics are endless, right? It’s every little thing that is even associated with wellness that can be affected by diet culture. And I say that because it’s important to remember that something being impacted by diet culture, it doesn’t automatically mean that it’s bad. It just means you have to associate or to assess, I should say, if that works for you. And yet, many things that are impacted by diet culture don’t work well for a lot of people when they assess and those things I see are just this pressure to look a certain way and put that above anything else, right, your mental, physical, emotional health. And that can show up in small ways, such as comparing yourself constantly on social media, always trying these new diets, thinking that unless you are a certain size, you’re not as valuable or worthy, right? But it can also show up in really big ways, in terms of how our society views other people’s bodies, in terms of our beliefs about how women should be conducting themselves, in terms of how we view food in such a moralistic way. So there’s honestly, all things that are impacted, and yet, when you assess in your life, maybe these ways, these things are showing up, it can be the most insightful, because you start to understand the way you’re impacted too.

[00:09:04] My next question is really understanding about what we were talking about earlier, which is disordered eating. So for those, by the way, who have struggled with disordered eating or even chronic dieting, what steps can they take to rebuild trust in their body’s hunger and fullness cues? Because that seems to be the crux of intuitive eating.  

[00:09:23] One of my favorite things to talk about is what I call an eating rhythm. I like the term eating rhythm because schedules or plans can feel really co opted by diet culture, so it doesn’t always feel very good. So I instead like to say a rhythm. And what a rhythm is, is essentially testing out what works for you in terms of when, and not necessarily exact amounts you’re going to eat or anything, right, but just making sure you’re getting enough at your meals and snacks. So I personally am a fan, and from the research, think that we should be having the three meals in a cup. Full snacks. Most times. Are there exceptions? Of course, there always will be. But when we look at it, especially for women hormonally, eating consistently is really helpful, and also can help to generate hunger and fullness cues. But I think where some people get stuck in that if I say, Okay, well, eat consistently, make sure you’re eating enough, is, well, I’m not hungry for breakfast, or I don’t want to have to force myself to eat, which I get. And that’s why I’m a big fan of saying, let’s figure out what this could look like for you, because eating consistently over anything else is going to be the most supportive. So maybe you have a snack in the morning, then your second meal isn’t as big, but then you have bigger lunches and dinners and your dessert, or maybe you love breakfast, so you have a really big breakfast, and then you have lunch, and then you have a snack in between lunch and dinner, and then afterwards, right there’s no right or wrong, but truly, as the very first critical step of getting those hunger and fullness cues back, we have to help you To start to eat consistently. And then I would add to that in terms of the amounts, if you’re noticing throughout your day that you still feel kind of tired, sluggish, you’re thinking about food a lot, that’s probably your sign. Okay, we wanna up those, the amount that you’re having, and add some more to it, in order to help your body actually be satiated enough so that those hunger and fullness cues can also balance out. Because many people will feel like, Oh, I’m all fine and disciplined throughout the day, quote, unquote, and then I get to the end of the day and I just eat everything. And I always, always think to myself, probably because there’s not enough earlier in the day, or you’re not having what you truly want. So all of those elements make up some of the important groundwork for having those hunger and fullness cues back.

[00:11:50] I love what you mentioned there, and in fact, which takes me to my next question, which is around like cravings and temptation. Okay, now, how do I deal? How does one deal with cravings and temptations while still following intuitive eating. Because what if you were being taken a direction that is not that healthy for you?

[00:12:09] Where I see Intuitive Eating feel really challenging for a lot of people is that they come in in the second group I mentioned earlier in who we’re talking about, they don’t have the clear hunger and fullness cues. Maybe they’ve been a chronic Dieter now that food is on a pedestal, right? It’s Oh my gosh, if only I could just have the chips in my house without eating them all. And I like to say that in these ways, we’re like little kids, right? When you tell a little kid not to do something, they only want to do it more so think of your self in that way that you may have put this food on this pedestal. And so if you come into intuitive eating and you say, Okay, I’m going to have whatever I want, you are naturally going to be drawn more to those foods because you have suppressed them for such a long time. And also you may not be eating enough, which also makes us want these more energy dense foods, more because your body’s trying to get enough food. So there’s multiple factors at play there, which this is why I often will take an approach with someone that may feel really overwhelmed by that of doing more sustainable integrations of foods. Like, if you think buying every chip and every food that has been scary feels like, oh, that’s going to be too much for me. Why not try one? See how it feels, have it in the house. You know, expect that you may still be attracted to that in a different way than foods that you haven’t had this mindset around, but at least you don’t feel like everything is going in the direction of you eating every craving and temptation to the point where it feels way too overwhelming for you.

[00:13:54] Are there any, and I wonder if there are any exercises or things or tools that we can incorporate in our day to day to feel like more connected and more in touch or mindful about those choices and what our body is telling us.

[00:14:08] This is such a random one, but I love to say it, because it can make a difference. I talk a lot about how we speak of intuitive eating, but the idea of being in tune comes from intuition, which involves listening to yourself right, being able to actually hear your own cues. But I often say, How much do you ever sit in silence to hear anything from yourself? And I’m not saying you have to meditate or do any of that. I’m saying, Do you ever drive in the car or take a shower without listening to something. It’s just a way to start to get in touch with your knowledge, rather than always outsourcing it. And sometimes people will do that, and they’ll think, and they’ll tell me, Oh, I actually did start to notice different things when I just took a moment. I mean, same thing with even just taking a couple deep breaths before eating. Then the difference it can make and just activating your rest and digest, which also, if anyone has gi stuff, can help with that. So added bonus, those are both huge to be able to do. But along with that, I really just encourage people to start to genuinely ask themselves before a meal, what do I want? And it’s okay if the answer at first is, I don’t want anything, or I don’t know what I want, because we’re really used to outsourcing our beliefs around food and what we should have. But that’s what starts to develop as you become an intuitive eater. You can go into a meal, or you wake up and you can say, What do I want today? And you actually a lot of the times, will get an answer. So getting in that practice is going to be helpful, pretty much, no matter what, and it will also start to give you a better idea of what foods you may like, what foods you may not crave as much, that you’re potentially forcing yourself to have that you really don’t want. So those are really simple practices. Of course, they can get more complex depending on the person and what their current habits are, but I like that they can just be integrated into day to day. Since we’re all very busy. 

[00:16:17] Speaking of habits, I’m curious, like, is there a habit that you constantly hear about from individuals, or, you know, the patients that you see, where you say, Man, this. This is a recurring theme, or this is a trend that I see in a lot of the people that you may see.

[00:16:32] I would say health trends that actually aren’t healthy for the individual. I feel like our society overall is really good now, at least a lot of people at pointing out blatant diet culture, so they know the South Beach diet or those infomercial things, oh, that’s diet culture, right? I’m not gonna do that. But then wellness culture is so strong that it makes it hard to discern when something is truly wellness versus maybe when it’s wellness. It’s kind of just actually masking true diet culture. So an example of that would be, there’s a lot of hype around protein right now. Is protein important? Of course, one of the three macronutrients, every macronutrient is important, but I will see people eating astronomical amounts of protein saying they can never have a meal without it, getting so stressed that they don’t have that or another example, even vegetables, like same thing. We love vegetables. We want vegetables. But if you’re having extreme stress because you don’t have protein or vegetables at a meal, or because it’s not hitting the macro amount you want, that’s where you start to think, is this really healthy for me? And also, is my body responding well to it? I’ll have people telling me I have GI distress and I constantly feel overly full, and they’re consistently just having so much protein, there’s so many vegetables, and it’s kind of that question of, do I do this because it makes me feel good, or do I do it because I think that it’s healthy? And a lot of people do things they think are healthy without actually listening to if their body is telling them it’s healthy for them.

[00:18:19] And that is so powerful to really be like that in tune to where you you know this. You know, what does a What does a person look like who has really incorporated intuitive eating into their day to day? How would you describe them? What does their day to day look like? And what are the types of things that we should be cognizant for? Is like, Okay, now I’m getting it. Now this is something that sits well, and it’s working for me. What does that person look like?

[00:18:46] I will say for a lot of the people that I see a big difference they notice, on more of a mental level, is that things just become more simplistic. They’re not thinking about food so much. They’re not second guessing themselves so much. It starts to feel more normal. That’s my clients. Who are they say, Oh my gosh. It feels like things are just more normal. So I know that’s a little less tangible, but that is something that I would say in terms of how that plays out physically. As someone that’s been an intuitive eater for a long time, I find that the recipe for success is, of course, still having things on hand, right? You have your groceries, you have things you eat. So you’re not, every morning waking up asking yourself what you want and then going out to buy it, right? But when you go downstairs to make breakfast, you can say, Okay, what do I want? And you want this. And if you don’t have a strong and you eat that if you want it, but if you don’t have a strong craving, you say, Okay. Or if you’re not that hungry, you say, okay. That doesn’t mean I’m not gonna eat. Just gonna eat this and I’m gonna move on. And it doesn’t hold so much weight, right? We’re not acting as if every meal is the end all be all of our experience. So that’s kind of the day to day. But then also. I would say looks like going out to a restaurant being able to order what you want and actually eating how much you want, whether that’s the whole plate, and no one else finished their whole plate, or that’s half of it, and you save it for afterwards. And it can also be that when you go out to eat, or when you’re at home, you have a salad or a smoothie because you’re craving it, or it can be that you have a sandwich with chips, and you trust so wholeheartedly that any of those choices at the end of the day, they are all going to be fueling your health as long as you continually check in with yourself. And I think having faith in that is also huge that, as I was saying, one meal being different, whether that be, quote, unquote, societally viewed as nourishing, right or less, nourishing means something about you and your health, because you trust that you know how to listen to your body.

[00:20:54] You know, I do want to ask a flip question, which is like, What are the cons to intuitive eating? So one disadvantage that I can think of right out the gate is that it can, at least initially, can be a little bit confusing, kind of like we were talking about earlier, right? Like at the beginning. Is it something that works? Is it not working? Am I really listening? Am I really connected to what I’m supposed to be eating, or what I want to or what my body is craving? It feels a little intangible to attain at first, right? Because it doesn’t come with a guide, it doesn’t come with specific recipes, it doesn’t come with the diet plan or anything like that. So what would you sat to that?  

[00:21:31] Just to give context, because I think it may be helpful on a more tangible level, in the program that I have, there’s nine total modules we get into intuitive eating in module eight. So that’s kind of a way I would describe and remember again, I’m working with people that are coming from a more disordered background, which is super important, but each of those modules has specific steps. So it’s working on the eating rhythm, okay, integrating different foods. Now we’re working on body image, then we’re working on making sure your movement is self care and it’s not that structured in the sense of those are the only things that are coming up. But although Intuitive Eating talks about those different frameworks, I do think the biggest shortcoming of anything about it is that it does not give tangible steps for someone that is in a space where they need more tangible steps, and so when someone just enters into intuitive eating with the mindset of, oh, this will fix my eating disorder or disordered eating, or my relationship with food completely without that, as we were saying earlier, it can feel really frustrating and really confusing, and it just doesn’t give enough structure for people not to feel like it goes to the opposite extreme, and then they freak out, because usually it’s sensing, there is a change to their body. It’s not the same for everyone, but usually it’s sensing, oh my gosh, my body has changed. Then don’t have the tools for that, right? They don’t know how to handle it. Then I’m not doing this anymore, and they go back to square one. So, and it’s understandable, so it’s just making sure that the right people are entering into it at that phase of, oh, just listen to when I’m hungry and full.

[00:23:15] I love that. With that Mallory we are toward the end of the episode. I do want to try to squeeze in here so that folks know how to connect with you. So tell us a little bit more about how people can connect with you, stay in touch and just, you know, keep in touch with your work.

[00:00:00] Yeah, I loved being here, and it’s pretty simple. Mallory J page on Instagram, Tiktok, YouTube, all the different platforms. My Instagram is kind of my hub, where you can also then find everything from my podcast teams like diet culture, my program, live unrestricted, and then even have a free community as well that you can join into. And all of those are going to be present at that link. And if you search, live unrestricted as well.

[00:23:29] Love it. Thank you so much. We will link up, by the way, all of this below this podcast episode. Thank you so much, Mallory for your time. To our listeners. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of the yumlish podcast. You know what time it is, head over to our social media @yumlish on Facebook, on Instagram, find this podcast post and comment below to tell us what is one food rule or belief from diet culture that you’re ready to let go of. So again, head over to @yumlish on Facebook, Instagram, find this podcast. Post and comment below to tell us again, what’s that one food rule or belief from diet culture that you’re ready to let go of? We’ll keep the conversation continuing there. Mallory, thank you so much for your time again. 

[00:24:41] Thank you.

[00:24:44] Thank you for listening to the yumlish podcast. Make sure to follow us on social media, @yumlish_ on Instagram and Twitter and @yumlish on Facebook and LinkedIn for tips about managing your diabetes and other chronic conditions. Us and to chat and connect with us about your journey and perspective. You can also visit our website, yumlish.com, for more recipes advice and to get involved with all of the exciting opportunities yumlish has to offer. If you like this week’s show, make sure to subscribe so you can hear more from us every time we post, thank you again, and we’ll see you next time. Remember your health always comes first. Stay well. 

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