Welcome to Food Psych, a weekly podcast about intuitive eating, health at every size, and body liberation.

I'm your host, Christi Harrison, and I'm a registered dietitian and certified intuitive eating counselor.

Join me as I talk with interesting people from all walks of life about their relationships with food and their bodies.

Hey there, welcome to episode 116 of Food Psych. I'm your host, Christi Harrison, and today I'm talking with Jenna Hollenstein, a non-diet dietitian who helps people struggling with chronic dieting, disordered eating, and eating disorders.

She uses a combination of intuitive eating, mindfulness techniques, and meditation in her work.

And in addition to being a registered dietitian nutritionist and certified intuitive eating counselor, Jenna is also a meditation teacher with the Open Heart project.

We had a really awesome conversation about food as self-care, disordered eating, eating disorders, and alcoholism as coping mechanisms, the connection between dieting and religion,

tolerating discomfort and setting boundaries, diet cultures role in keeping social progress from happening, and lots and lots more.

It was a really wonderful conversation, and I can't wait to share it with you all in just a moment.

Today's listener question is from a listener named Kelly who writes,

My question may be too specific to me, but as a fitness professional, I'm wondering how I can best support my clients who are practicing health at every size.

I already avoid talking about calories, thinness, etc. whenever possible, and focus on non-weight and non-thinness benefits, but I'm always looking for ways to fine tune my approach.

So thanks so much for this question, Kelly, and before I answer it, just a quick disclaimer that these answers are for educational and informational purposes only, and are not intended to replace individual medical advice.

Okay, so this is a great question, and I definitely don't think it's too specific to you, because I think both fitness professionals and non-professionals could really benefit from understanding a health at every size approach to fitness.

And so the first thing I would say is that's awesome that you're working on this, and that you're trying to be conscious of not talking about calories or thinness, and thinking about the other benefits of movement and physical activity.

That's so great, and we need more fitness professionals like you, because there really are not enough fitness professionals who are trained in health at every size.

So it's awesome what you're doing already.

I think in terms of fine-tuning your approach, one thing you might consider is thinking about fitness as not being a moral obligation, right?

Because diet culture tells us that health and fitness are moral obligations, it tells us that people are better people if they are engaging in a certain type of fitness or movement that looks a certain way, right, or eating that looks a certain way.

And especially in this day and age of Instagram where people are always sharing what their pictures of health supposedly look like, and their pictures of fitness, right, too, there is a real emphasis on having it look a certain way and fit into a certain box.

So I think one thing you can do is a fitness professional, but also that all of us can do just as health at every size advocates, is to blow up this idea that fitness looks a certain way or that health looks a certain way, right?

And so people can practice gentle movement that has nothing to do with structured fitness and structured activity, and that still counts as movement, right?

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