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

I'm your host, Kristi 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 118 of Food Psych. I'm your host, Kristi Harrison, and today I have a very special guest on the podcast.

One of the only three time guests that we've ever had on this show is Belle Fox and Duke is back.

She's an emotional eating expert who helps women stop fighting food, and she's been on the podcast a couple times before to talk about her story in episode 36,

and then to talk about emotional eating in episode 74. So if you haven't heard those episodes yet, definitely check them out.

And then listen to today's for an even deeper dive into all the concepts that we touched on in those other episodes.

So we talk about emotional eating, we talk about why it needs to stop being demonized, we talk about privilege and weight bias, and control, and how to handle triggers as a recovered person,

and also we get into healthism, and that's a super important topic. So definitely stay tuned. We have such a rich, beautiful discussion coming up, and I can't wait for you to hear it.

And before we get into it, I want to let you know that I have become an affiliate for Isabelle's program Stop Fighting Food, because I love it so much, because I believe in her mission and philosophy, and we're just so aligned in how we think about food and body image.

And there are very few people who I really trust so much when it comes to talking about these issues, and Isabelle has been a fan favorite for a long time.

So I know that some of you out there would love to join her program. So if you want to find out more about it, you can do it through my affiliate link, which is Christy Harrison dot com slash IFD. That's for Isabelle Fox and Duke.

Christy Harrison dot com slash IFD. That will take you to the Stop Fighting Food page on her website, and you can learn more about her program there, and it'll let her know that I sent you.

So you'll help out the podcast. You'll support me, support my work and the podcast if you end up signing up for her program. So again, that link is Christy Harrison dot com slash IFD. Be sure to check it out, and I can't wait to share our episode with you.

First, I'm going to answer the listener question from this week. So this is from a listener with initials MD who writes, hi, I love the podcast first off. It's so helpful and inspiring to hear so many people's stories and have such great examples of people advocating for the body positive and health at every size movement.

I was recently diagnosed with IBS irritable bowel syndrome, and I've been really struggling with bad digestion problems. I found that when I try to eat certain foods and foods I considered quote unquote healthier that I have less digestion problems and I do feel better most of the time, but I did have an eating disorder. And so I'm worried about getting into an orthorexic mindset or getting into bad diet behaviors by eating a certain way because it helps my digestion.

Do you have any recommendations on how I go about this? I don't want to have to deal with the troubles of IBS that really disrupted my day to day life, but I also don't want to get into negative eating behaviors. Thank you so much for the podcast.

Well, thank you so much, MD, and before I answer your question, which is a great one, I will just say my quick standard disclaimer that these answers are not meant as individual medical advice.

They're for informational and educational purposes only and are not intended to diagnose or treat any condition.

Okay, so this is a great question and it has a few different layers to it. The first layer I want to address is this idea that when you try to eat certain foods that you quote unquote considered healthier that you have fewer digestion problems and feel better most of the time you say.

So I just want to unpack that a little bit because when we have ideas about food, right, when we think of food as good and bad in our minds and we hang on to that diet mentality to some extent, the foods that we are feeling good about, we probably have less stress when we eat them, right, and the foods that we feel bad about are scared of.

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