‘If Diets Work, Why Are You Looking At The Next One?'
SEASON 1 EPISODE 9
with Tiffany Thoen
In this episode of Neighbourhood Nutritionist, I talk to Tiffany, a Registered Nurse and Intuitive Eating Coach.
In my conversation with Tiffany, we talked about:
Her personal experiences as a Registered Nurse and how it led to certain eating habits
Food-related emotions, self-worth and self-value
Celebratory eating and triggers for shame spirals
Intentionality and discernment, locus of control
Toxic masculinity and Freddie Flintoff
Expectations on our shapes and sizes, and role models
And finally… what intuitive eating really means
Books/names mentioned:
The Body Is Not an Apology by Sonia Renee Taylor
Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole
Matt McGorry https://medium.com/@MattMcGorry
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If you want to connect with Tiffany, you can find her on:
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/CoachTiffanyRN
Link to group program info: https://www.coachtiffanyrn.com/group-program.html
Website: https://www.coachtiffanyrn.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coachtiffanyrn/
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Tiffany’s Path into Nutrition
so I am a registered nurse here and I'm in the United States. And for me, I really started out I actually started having kind of challenges with food as a young girl, my mom was very much into diet culture. And and then when I got a little bit older, I struggled with substances. So I went into recovery. And then I became a nurse and started mentoring, you know, the mentoring women in recovery and mentoring women in the nursing role, and actually became a coach and our main nursing licence, and was coaching people in health and wellness and more like self care focused, you know, mindfulness based practices, these kinds of things. But throughout all of that I was struggling in my relationship with food, I was struggling with binge eating, I was struggling with emotional eating, I was struggling with like, you know, using food to soothe, I would do really restrictive diets, and then, you know, quote, fall off the waggon and beat myself up had all this kind of shame around it. And so what happened for me is that shame really built up and turned into this kind of bad cycle of, you know, restricting and then bingeing and then having all this shame, and it turned into kind of like self loathing, I felt like a hypocrite, you know, I would go to bed feeling like there was something wrong with me, I was broken. And if people knew, right, I would just be really, really mortified. And so what happened for me is that after one of these, another one of these cycles, where I would bend, and then I got up and went on back on my like, really restrictive diet in the morning, like, Okay, I'm back on track, and I was measuring broccoli, and was like, this is this. I mean, no person should have to measure their broccoli ever, like what is happening in the world. So it's total madness. And I realised that even though I had all of these skills, and all of these tools, and I'd been like seeking personal growth for so many years, and, you know, being in a helping role, and learning all of these things, I still was not able to, like fix my relationship with food, I kept hitting my head against the wall. And so I reached out and got support. And I'm so glad that I did because I was really able to transform my relationship with food, I was introduced to intuitive eating and really heal my relationship with food and my relationship with my body. And so now, you know, I don't wake up in the morning like worrying about food anymore, I can think about all of the other things that I love about my life. And I have this kind of peace and ease and satisfaction. I love that you brought that like food is delicious. Food is meant to be fun, and it's tasty, right? And so now I can really embrace those pieces. And I have freedom from like all that mental chatter, all that noise, I can instead do the things I really want to do. And so that's why I do this work. I see how many people are struggling with that and how many know how much shame they're experiencing. And I don't want anybody to have to experience that. So yeah, so now I do this work exclusively. I did get certified in intuitive eating in addition to my, you know, my previous coaching role and my nursing experience, I'm still actually a registered nurse. But I focus entirely on helping people heal their relationship with food.
Stress in the Medical Industry
So I definitely experienced overworking. You know, you could, I could have poured, every I was really pouring every ounce of, you know, energy into my job, and there was still more to do at the end of the day, I would go sometimes, you know, all day without eating, and then I would go home and be just like, primally hungry, and, you know, eat everything that I could. And I also felt like I had an extreme amount of stress. And so I was using food to soothe from that as well. And then at the same time, being in the hospital, like you experience, you know, weight bias, and like that stigma at the hospital, too, because it's really ingrained in our medical system, especially, you know, we're in the States, and in the States, there's, I don't know about other places, but there's a lot of misinformation about like, relying on BMI and you know, all of that stuff. And so, diet, culture is really ingrained in to the healthcare system as well. So at the same time, I was like, hearing people talk about, like, you know, people in a really disparaging way, if they were in larger bodies are talking about how, you know, it's just terrible to be unhealthy. And here, I was, like, kind of killing myself or my job, and my relationship with food really suffered because of that.
Do you learn about Nutrition in Medical School?
Yeah, we have nutrition, kind of one on one. And the, and then from there, we learn things like, you know, for wound healing, you want to make sure that you're eating protein and vitamin C, you know, that kind of thing. But really nothing about, like disordered eating or relationships with food. Or, I mean, really, it's interesting, because we don't really learn about health, we learn about illness.
Why do we Feel SO Guilty or Shameful about Food?
well, food is so tied to our culture and the messages that we've received, and we receive these messages kind of everywhere we go. A lot of times, it's tied to our appearance as well. So we feel like if we're in a larger body, that or something, you know, that we're not as good as someone else, or that people won't accept us or we won't be right. I really love something named Renee Taylor's book, 'The Body is Not An Apology', because and she was just on Brene Brown's podcast, and they talk about the hierarchy of bodies, and how our culture has this idea that like, if you are like thin, and you know, conformed to like Eurocentric beauty standards that like, then you're somehow better than someone who maybe doesn't have the same abilities, or who's in a larger body or, you know, different, you know, people of different races and all of that, right. And so it's it's really interesting, the way that she ties that to our social kind of need to be accepted socially, and how we kind of retry so hard to like, be thin, so that we can move up further on the ladder. But that that's just a never ending cycle of feeling like you're not good enough. And so stepping off of that ladder. So there's that aspect. And then a lot of times, there's all of these shoulds around food. And so this idea that food is good or bad. And if you believe that a food is good or bad if you eat a food that's bad, that makes you bad.
And so like our value, and our worth has nothing to do with what we eat or our appearance or any of those things. And then there's the other layer that you were talking about, about. wanting it to be simple, like we want to categorise good or bad. And then think about it. Right. But when, as you mentioned, going back to like being a baby babies, if you try to feed a baby with not hungry, they will turn their mouth, they'll spit the food out, you know, they did not want it right. And so we lose track of that over time because of our culture. And for a lot of reasons, like you said, marketing our family that the whole like finish your plate, you know, all of those things.
Our Intelligent Bodies
And so there's that idea of kind of bringing the focus back to body attunement. And like you said, your body if we are able to kind of regain that connection, and that trust in that body attunement. I like to think of it as like, your own inner compass, like you find your inner compass. And then it does, you know, tell you like what it wants or needs. And of course, there's room for like, just celebratory foods and all of those things. But in general, it's kind of like when you go on a, you guys call it a holiday, I think but when you go on vacation or trip, and you know, you're eating, like, maybe you're driving in the car, or even like road trip food, or maybe you know, you're somewhere that you haven't been, and you just want to eat all of the like fun, you know, fun play foods. And then after a few days, it's like, Ah, I just need a salad. Like, I feel right. And our bodies really are wise. But we have so many layers of things that have gotten us away from that body attunement, that we have to really rebuild that.
Eating During the Holidays
the holiday thing, it's really interesting. Because a lot of times people just kind of like, you know, they get on that, again, that kind of binary like good, bad black and white, like all or nothing. And so, like, Okay, I'm through the holidays, I'm just gonna eat whatever, I'm gonna throw everything out the window. And then in January after the new year, I'll start again. Right. And as you guys have a dry January as well. Oh, yeah, we have we have sober October and dry January. Yeah. I'm actually I'm actually sober all the time. So it's kind of amusing to watch my friends, like, count down the days. Like, you know it. Yeah. But the thing is, like, I actually it's funny. I had my my group coaching this morning that I have a group of women that I coach and we were talking about the holidays coming up, and we were talking about I was I was sharing about my first time I had a Thanksgiving. I don't know if you know what other people think about this. But in the in the States, a lot of people have a traditional meal. There is some you know, we have our indigenous folks here, like, some people are kind of recognising like that that holiday isn't awesome, you know, in terms of like, recognising indigenous but anyway, yeah. In the past, I've celebrated Thanksgiving with my family, things have changed for me now. So I don't usually do that. But but the first time I had a Thanksgiving meal where I didn't over stuff myself, like when I had the intuitive eating principles, and I was being aware of like, my hunger and my fullness. And I even shifted the way I make some of the dishes like, I don't like the way we have this thing called green bean casserole. It's got like, cream of mushroom soup. And you like mix it all up with the green beans. And then they put like fried onions. bacon in the oven. It's really gross. But a lot of people love it. And then we have with sweet potatoes. We put sweet potatoes in a pan, like mash them up. And then you put marshmallows and then brown it.
So one year, I was like, I'm just gonna roast the sweet potatoes and I'm going to saute the green beans. That's how I like them. I'm going to make them this way. And I made sure I ate meals leading up to I didn't like because a lot of times people will say like, just don't eat all day. Yeah, save up. So I ate meals throughout the day. And then I just had a plateful and I only ate the things that I actually wanted. That sounded good to me. I left the other things, you know, and I just felt like super satisfied. And it was so magical. I was like, Oh, I can there's a different way to do the holidays, right? Like I can really take joy in this and have the experience with my family. But I don't have to eat in a way that makes my body feel bad later.
Who or What is Telling us to Eat?
That’s the kind of concept of like making decisions with discernment based on body attunement, like what your body is telling you versus like a should around food. And that can look like you know, that kind of good, bad thinking that can look like meal, you know, like, I have to eat these things at this time measure, but it can also look like social pressure. So come on, it's my birthday. Like have this cat you know, have this cake with me even if you don't want the cake or, you know, yeah, grandma, like, in in the US. It's like Italian families are kind of the classic. Like, if you don't eat, if you go there and you don't eat you're it's like offending them, right? And so really looking at like, where is this coming from? Where, you know, am I making this decision because of a should? Or am I making this decision because this is what feels good to me. This is what my body is, this is honouring of what my body wants or needs. Or this would even if it's like, celebratory, right, like, Okay, I want to celebrate, I want to enjoy this food. But doing that from a place of, you know, honouring of yourself rather than someone else's idea of what you should and shouldn't be doing?
What is Intuitive Eating?
so with intuitive eating, we focus on, you know, health interventions over weight, and we're weight neutral. And so I really appreciate that, because it gives a different perspective of like, what do I really want for myself, and most often, the people that I'm talking to, they're like, I just want to have the energy to do what I want to do in the world, like, I want to be able to, you know, go for hikes or run around with my grandchildren, or I want to Yeah, feel good. And a lot of times, you know, when people are coming in struggling with food, they're also wanting to be free of that kind of shame spiral, right and free of that, like struggle and that stress around food, they just want ease and peace. And so there's so many things that we can focus on, that aren't about our size, that are much more about like, our real wellness, and nurturing ourselves.
IT was developed by a couple of dietitians here in the states in about 25 years ago. And what they saw was that they were counselling people to lose weight and giving people like an eat this not this kind of diet, and then people would, you know, fall off that, quote, fall off the waggon and be beating themselves up, and it really wasn't working for them, and they would wait cycle and all these things. And so they started doing research and then through their own, you know, practice of shifting to focusing on health instead and focusing on like healing our relationships with food, then they were able to develop 10 principles. And so the principles of intuitive eating and they published him in a book, there's the newest edition just came out. So there is a book called intuitive eating. So it's Evelyn Trimboli, and Elise rush. And they, they created these principles, and they're really designed to initially they're designed to kind of reject that diet culture mentality. And we talked about like, good bad thinking around food, and the food police is one of them, like all of those shoulds we have an in our idea or ideas about food. And then we start going into more body attunements so we look at hunger and fullness, right? So like I have a hunger and a hunger scale that people can have access to if they want and looking at you know, how does this actually feel in my body? Those sorts of things. And and then we start talking about like, how to deal with emotions in a way you know that with kindness that isn't about like soothing with food, right? How do we start to like, find other ways to cope. And then the later principles are really about like honouring your health, using gentle nutrition, making sure you're getting movement in for your body, but not as a way of punishment instead of as a way of really caring for yourself. And so that's really the kind of idea behind Intuitive Eating is it's shifting from good, bad, should shouldn't, too, you know, really being connected with our bodies and honouring and caring for our bodies.
Key Takeaways
Here are Tiffany'’s three actionable steps for you:
Don’t only focus on your weight.
Instead focusing on you know, what do I really want for myself?Get curious about those should’s around food.
What am I, you know, like, why am I choosing this right now? Is this something I really want? Or am I doing this? Because I should, you know, my finishing my plate? Because I was told when I was a kid I'm supposed to? Or do I actually want this food right now? You know, so getting super curious, letting go of judgement and, and bringing in that curiosity and compassion.Get some support.
Finding some people that you can trust to start having these conversations. Because dismantling diet culture is so everywhere, we're just inundated with it, right? And so it's so hard and it's so confusing. And so even, you know, when you were talking about the different, like, I need to see people who have similar bodies to me, right? And so I when I started getting on Instagram, I like curated my Instagram feed to be just like, every size shape, every kind of body out there. Like there's I have people who are differently abled, there are people in larger bodies that hike all the time I have, you know, just like a wide variety of people that I follow. I follow you know, Sonia, Maria Taylor, she's always like, telling us exactly how it is about, about, you know, body acceptance and these kinds of things. Right, so, so really starting to be intentional with where you get support around these conversations and what you're really seeing in the world.
The One Food That Takes You To Your Happy Place
I would say Thai food I absolutely love just probably about every dish at a Thai restaurant, but but I will let what I love about it is especially like curry, I love the energy of food, like warm savoury food in a bowl. And by warm I mean both in temperature but also in the like the spices, I love the combination of flavours and the ginger and the the tumeric and all of all of that combination, you know, spiciness of it.
It just makes me feel like being wrapped in a blanket or like, very warm and kind of reminds me of being like tucked in when it's like raining and cold outside.
