3: Empowering Female Athletes: Serena Marie RD on Shifting from Shrinking to Fueling

Jill Moellering (00:01) Welcome back to the Freedom and Flourish podcast. I'm Jill Moellering your host. And today I am excited to have Serena Marie on the show. She's a registered dietician and a running coach who specializes in helping active females shift their focus from shrinking to fueling their bodies. Serena uses a unique blend of intuitive eating, somatic counseling techniques, and a running nutrition to help female runners run free from crazy diets so that they can chase their big dreams. and learn to finally feel comfortable in their bodies. I love that. She is a runner herself and has run four Boston qualifiers, 33 half marathons and seven marathons. Wow. Serena, as a runner myself and someone who has struggled with body image, trying to shrink my own body and dealing with those health consequences as a result, I'm really excited just to talk with you, to hear your story and just to hear how you are helping other women break free from this unhealthy mindset. Serena Stewart (01:02) I'm so excited to have this conversation today, Jill. Thank you for having me. And it sounds like we're kindred spirits with very similar stories. So I think we're going to have a lot to talk about. Jill Moellering (01:11) Yeah, I'm excited. All right, well, let's just jump on in. I want to hear about your own story and what led you to specialize in working with female athlete runners. Serena Stewart (01:24) Yeah, you know, I feel like my path towards working with female athletes, it kind of chose me. So I started running when I was 13. I was so young. But the reason I started running was because I wanted to lose weight. I like breaks my heart to even think about it. But a little 13 year old girl. But, you know, I was teased in school and for my for my body type. And so I started running and. Jill Moellering (01:42) at that young of an age, I know. Serena Stewart (01:52) I was pretty good at running, so that kind of reinforced me just kind of really going deep diving into restriction and trying to lose weight to get faster. And really from the time I was 13 into like my mid 20s, I just kind of had this really chaotic relationship with running and food where I would restrict to lose weight and I would be running half marathons, marathons. And then I would start to binge because my body would be trying to, you know, not be starving to death. And then I would binge and then I would purge. And so I had this really chaotic relationship with using exercise to purge calories, using vomiting to burge calories, then sometimes just binging and gaining weight. And even though I was studying nutrition, even though I was, you know, really trying to be this like a health guru, I was engaging in all these really unhealthy behaviors. And it really wasn't until I was in my mid -20s that I was walking down the stairs and I stepped weird and I broke my foot, that I kind of have this wake up call of like, wow, all of that nutrition research that I read about how athletes need calories and they need carbs and they need fat and protein to have healthy skeletons. I don't think I'm doing a great job with that. And so that was a really powerful wake up call for me to really start to work towards healing my eating disorder and my disordered relationship with food and my body. And so, you know, really sometimes between, you know, my mid twenties and now I'm 36 years old, I've done so much work on, you know, really kind of accepting intuitive eating, food freedom, embracing the literature around how many calories runners need to eat. and really doing a ton of mindset work around embracing my body. So it has been a long journey, but here we are. So it kind of chose me. I kind of came to this field through my own lived experience, but it's very fulfilling now because I really understand the struggles of the athletes I work with. Jill Moellering (04:00) Yeah, that's great. I think our stories are very similar. Mine was a stress fracture and yeah, I had lost my period for almost two years. So I knew, you know, as knowing nutrition stuff, I knew there was something wrong, but at the same time, there was that struggle to get away from that mindset of having that small body. So where, how did you even get started? How did you get away from that look? I know there's this new kind of movement of health at every size, but I know when I first heard of that, I was like, I don't want to accept that. I still had this image in my mind of what my body needed to look like to be healthy. Serena Stewart (04:45) Yeah, so, and definitely it wasn't like the health at every size movement that converted me, although now I definitely am very on board with those principles. It's so funny because I can't really remember. I somehow bought the book Intuitive Eating. And I remember I got it delivered to, I was living in New York City at the time, so I would get packages delivered to my... my clinical job because you would get your stuff robbed from your stoop in New York where I was living. And so I opened the book in the clinical office where I was working and one of the dieticians saw it and she was like, I read that book. I kind of didn't agree with it. I kind of didn't love it. And I was like, well, I'm just going to read it. I was reading all the diet books. That was what I did back then. And I remember reading this book and it was just kind of talking about how... your healthiest body might not be your thinnest body and how it was possible for you to be eating in a way that was nourishing your body so that you weren't hungry all the time and having crazy sugar cravings. But it didn't necessarily mean you were going to be ripped or have this body type that I had always been trying to achieve. And for some reason, that chapter in the intuitive eating book just really resonated with me where I was like, wait a second, like I don't have to have the lowest body fat percentage. Like that's not the point of nutrition. Like even though, you know, it sounds so silly, but like for some reason that was the first time ever where I was like, wait, I can just let my body decide how much she wants to weigh, what she wants to look like, how much body fat she wants to have. And I don't need to try and control my body. And that really is what clicked for me. And so I kind of went hard on just like letting my body figure out like the intuitive eating pattern that worked for me. I did gain weight. It scared the bejesus out of me. And I ended up going back on a diet and going back to macro counting to lose weight. But as soon as I did that, I realized the binging was coming back. And then after that, like one last dance with macro counting, that was when I was really like, Okay, Serena, like there's so much peace in just like working on embracing your body and working on your mindset. And I wasn't there. I wasn't like, I love my body. I don't know if I'll ever be there, honestly. but, but it was like, kind of just like me choosing to not be stuck in that cycle of like binging and restricting anymore. I was so tired of it. that was really like what pushed me to sacrifice quote unquote, the, the look I had always been chasing. Jill Moellering (07:29) Mm hmm. 100 % 100 % my story as well. It was the the binging and then the doing well for a little bit of time and then binging and like the more I did it, the worse it got. And then I mean, at one point, I thought I had a food addiction and I did carnivore and it was just it controlled my life and it affected my relationships. Like as a parent, like thankfully, you know, you're going to you have this healthy foundation for your Serena Stewart (07:45) know me too. Jill Moellering (07:57) upcoming child, which is exciting. You know, I was irritated and annoyed all the time because I was so unhappy with myself, you know, and then that's where I just I wanted that freedom so much that I was willing to embrace intuitive eating, even though I was super scared that, yeah, I was going to go all out and just gain a ton of weight. And I didn't I had to experience for myself that not restricting. The restriction was what was creating my bingeing and not eating enough was creating the bingeing. So I love that. Serena Stewart (08:31) Absolutely, yeah. And I am currently pregnant as we record this podcast and as Jill kind of just alluded to. And so I'm so lucky, like my child will never see me in the throes of what I went through. But similar to what you were saying, I was living with my grandmother and kind of taking care of her when it was really almost like the cusp of where it was really bad. And I have so... much regret or shame around how I would treat her because I would be hungry or she would mess with my macros because she would make pasta and peas. And, you know, like, it's just so sad to remember how, you know, those memories with my grandma, who I love so much and, you know, she's gone now. So it's like, I can't get that time back. And yet, like, I wasted those precious moments with her, like, with my head stuck in my fitness pal instead of like connecting with her and eating her delicious food. And, you know, you know, getting angry with her because she wanted to have dessert. It's like, my God, Serena, what are you doing there? But, but, but yeah, like you're, you're not, I mean, your brain is not well fed. Like you literally are not yourself. You're a different version of yourself. You're operating from this part of your brain that is almost like focused on like fear and survival because you're, you're dieting and you're not getting enough calories. So you're truly not yourself. And so, you know, it wasn't my child that was like kind of, struggling with this relationship, but like I can kind of relate there where like I was so not nice to my name my grandma and I hate reflecting upon that. Jill Moellering (10:10) Mm hmm. And yeah, I hate how this dieting mindset steals so much of our life and like we are so much more than our body size. And life's meant to be lived and not it's not all about you know, an image. So how do you then approach nutrition you were talking about, you know, counting macros and A lot of people are into macro counting and calorie counting or eliminating food groups or needing to know exactly what to eat. How do you approach nutrition with people? Serena Stewart (10:43) So, you know, now in my practice, I really focus a lot on running nutrition. And so I wouldn't say I kind of teach straight, like the intuitive eating framework, but a lot of it is kind of derived from intuitive eating principles. So I essentially, when a person decides she wants to work with me, we're really focusing on... how to focus on wins that are not related to the aesthetics or the weight loss metrics that so often diets focus on. So rather than focusing on like your body weight or your pant size, we're focusing on like, hey, like how are you feeling on your runs? Are they feeling easier? What is your heart rate doing on your runs? Are you noticing lower heart rate? Are you noticing you can run faster or run further distances? So. we're really using the running or the lifting weights to motivate the choices around food. And so I really teach my athletes to think of their body as their teammate. So this is a little bit silly almost, because obviously you live in your body, you are your body. But I almost want you to think of your body as your teammate. And so she's doing all of these fantastic things for you. She's lifting the heavy weight, she's running really fast around the track. And so we're asking herself, How do I set up my teammate for success? Like how do I take care of her so that I can get my next workout in and feel really fantastic? And so this may mean I'm not hungry right now, but I know I'm about to do a workout that requires a lot of energy of my body. Let me make sure I'm setting up my plate in a way to have extra carbohydrate. I'm not hungry right now, but I know I just lifted heavy weights. I need to have protein. So really kind of - learning how to think about food as a tool to nourish your teammate, your body. That's really how I teach nutrition. We use a lot of estimations. So rather than saying like weigh or measure or count your calories, we're just kind of looking at like hands and fists and portion sizes. We're estimating with our hands and we're paying attention to our hunger and fullness cues. So if I have two fists of rice after that, run, do I notice I'm hungry an hour and a half later? Maybe my plate needed something else on it. Maybe I needed two and a half fist of rice. Maybe I needed more fiber or protein. So really kind of learning how the different nutrients work within an athlete's body and then learning how to get feedback from your teammate, your body, to adjust and perfect and critique that nutrition plan for yourself. Jill Moellering (13:22) Mm -hmm. 100 % the way I do it too. I call it like intuitive eating mixed with food education and yeah, tuning into our own body signals because it will let us know if we're getting it right or wrong. Things like, you know, fatigue, like you're talking about, like, do I have enough energy to get through my day or am I crashing? And those types of things is what's gonna lead me to know how much to eat and then prioritizing things and understanding that, like I said, the food education piece. So. That's funny that we are almost exactly the same. We did meet in an anti -diet professional group. So, you know. Yeah. So can you share some of your strategies with us about building confidence? Because I know, you know, a lot of women, I would say most women struggle with... Serena Stewart (13:54) I love it. Makes sense. Jill Moellering (14:17) like self -confidence, which is why we're trying to shrink our body. And so I've seen that that has to be mixed together. You know, we need to build our own self -confidence while working on the nutrition piece. So how do you interconnect that? Serena Stewart (14:33) Yeah, I do think everyone here is different and different athletes respond to different cues or different prompts. But I think it really comes down to really understanding how your self -talk is so impactful to your beliefs. And really, our thoughts can really control our feelings or impact our feelings, which can really then impact our actions that we take. So often, so many of us have been kind of like, brainwashed or we just like assume because it's what we've always been told that, you know, if you gain weight or you wear a certain size or you eat a certain food, then like you are bad or you are less than and you deserve to be punished and you deserve all this really mean negative self -talk. And so really kind of trying to realize that you actually get to change the narrative here. A really, I think powerful, way to get by in here is for us to think of like a picture that maybe you took a few months ago or years ago. And when you saw that picture back then, you hated it. You like detag yourself on Facebook. You're like, my God, I look horrible here. Like, I hate this picture of me. Look at this, look at that. And then if I was to show you that picture today, you would look at it and you'd be like, my God, I look so great. Like, what was I thinking back then? Like, I was crazy. I look amazing. I would do anything to look like this again. and pointing out how that picture has not changed. You have changed. Your mindset has changed. And a lot of times that'll be like kind of how I get buy -in where they're like, okay, yeah, you're right. Like it's my thoughts that are changing. The picture is the same picture it's always been. At one point I hated this picture. I was embarrassed of it. Now I would like, you know, plaster it all over my room. I love it so much. So, so really realizing like we are actually more in control of. our thoughts and our feelings around our body, then I think the media gives us credit for, or popular culture gives us credit for. So really just trying to pay attention to your triggers. Is there a person who's making you feel really bad about yourself? Is there a certain situation that comes up that really makes you feel bad for yourself? Is your closet filled with clothing that fit last summer but doesn't fit this summer? Do we need to... hide that clothing or donate that clothing and get you some new clothes. So really looking for triggers that kind of gets you stuck in this, you know, self -sabotage cycle. And then like I was saying before, looking for what can we do to add nutrition or tweak nutrition to make you start to track some of the new metrics of how we can feel good in our bodies. So like Jill was saying, Hey, I eat breakfast in the morning. I'm way more patient with my kids. getting them on the bus and we have a great morning now. No one is talking about that in the diet world, but that's really special and important and it's gonna make you feel like a good mom, a good person, and it's gonna make you more likely to make more healthy, help promoting behavior choices during the day. So I would say just recognizing that you actually do have more control over your feelings around. your body and food than you probably think you do and recognizing how that starts with your thoughts and your self -talk, recognizing if there's any triggers or patterns that are leading you to kind of have this mean self -sabotaging behavior and how to eliminate them or tweak them or change them, and then also really paying attention to what are some wins or positives that I can focus on during the day that have nothing to do with the scale or calories or... or these more traditional metrics that people usually use in dieting. Jill Moellering (18:22) Mm -hmm, definitely. I do some a lot of the same stuff. I'm like, my gosh, we're like the same people here I think you know a lot of people just want to be happy and I think they look at I'll be happy if I look this way or I weigh this certain amount and in working with women I want to know what are your thoughts on if What's the mindset do can they still? want to lose weight or Is that kind of? Serena Stewart (18:28) I love it. Yeah. Jill Moellering (18:52) Is that something they need to shift away from in order to achieve the type of results that you're talking about? Serena Stewart (19:00) perfectly okay to want to lose weight and to try the journey that Jill and I are kind of advocating for. And the reason I say this is because I think if people are being honest with themselves, like 99 .9999 % of people. are hoping to lose weight. And that's just like something that is deeply embedded in them. I know when I started my intuitive eating journey, I was hoping, my sugar cravings will go away and I'll lose weight. Like that was why I started, you know, intuitive eating. So I think it's okay to say to yourself, I want to lose weight, but I need you to put an and after that. So I need to lose weight. And I want my, I want to be like, like Jill was just saying, like I want to. These are the reasons I want to lose weight. And so we can look at those reasons you want to lose weight. I want to feel sexier around my partner. I want to be happy and I want to feel like comfortable when I go walk into a party that I feel like comfortable in my skin and confident. Like we can look at the reasons you want to lose weight and then we can say to ourself, Hey, why don't we start pursuing these health promoting behaviors? Because when you do that, you're gonna be less stressed out, you're gonna be well fed, your blood sugar is gonna be stable, you're gonna feel better. And sometimes you do lose weight, sometimes you don't. And all of those things that make you feel better, a lot of times, inadvertently help you achieve the things that you were hoping to get from weight loss. Like you're gonna realize like... I actually do feel sexier like when I greet my partner at the door because I'm just feeling so good and I had the time to brush my hair and wear a cute outfit because I felt good about myself. Like, hey, I actually do feel more confident when I walk into the party because I didn't crash at three o 'clock in the afternoon and binge on candy. And so I'm feeling better in my skin. You accidentally actually start to check off the things that you wanted to achieve by losing weight. whether the weight loss happens or not, simply because you're focusing on treating your body like a teammate, treating her with love and respect, which is something that the dieting world doesn't encourage us to do. The dieting world says like, punish your body, over exercise, don't eat, skip a meal, fast. And like all of that is setting you up to feel like a hot piece of garbage. So I think it's okay to want to lose weight, but I do also want you to open up to asking yourself, What do I want from that weight loss journey? And getting curious about whether you're accidentally meeting that criteria with or without the weight loss. Jill Moellering (21:38) Yes, 100%. I like the way that you explain that. Yeah, I typically say, you know, it's okay to want to lose weight, but the primary focus cannot be weight loss because it calls for more unsustainable, unhealthy measures that are going to keep us stuck in that cycle versus what you're saying is finding your true reason why and focusing on those things as your measurement of success. And as a result, you will... likely get the weight loss, but like you're saying, not everyone does lose weight. But the reason why you want to lose weight is usually for confidence. Yeah, for happiness and you get all those things. So I don't know. I agree with you. I like how you explain that. Serena Stewart (22:18) Yeah, yeah. I think the weight loss can be really, it can cloud our judgment because if we're so focused on like, and I remember this from like my days of weighing myself. I used to weigh myself every single day and I would like get on the scale and before I get on the scale, I'd be feeling really good. And then I'd get on the scale and I would see a number and I would hate myself. Or I'd get on the scale and I'd see a number I wasn't expecting to see and I'd be like, my God, like I have so much leeway today. And then I would overeat. And so it's like that scale was never doing me any favors. I was like, I couldn't win no matter what I saw. And it was disconnecting me from listening to my body and really forming a relationship with my body. I was giving all my power to this piece of machinery in my bathroom. And so really I think what we're trying to do here as dieticians is, really teach you that you're a human being, you're smart. You are not going to, because you can eat chocolate chip cookies now, only eat chocolate chip cookies. You are going to feel like you want to feel good in your body. You're going to notice that only eating a chocolate chip cookie diet doesn't give that to you. And you're going to make those informed decisions for yourself. You can understand nutrition and then understand how to put that together in a way that makes your body feel good. And you can trust yourself. And I think that's something that I know I was extremely dissociated from trusting myself because I, like I said, I thought I had a, you said, I thought I had a food addiction. I thought I had a sugar addiction. And it wasn't until I gave myself that trust back that I realized like, wait, I'm not addicted to food. Like I need to just trust myself a little bit. Jill Moellering (24:00) Yeah, and sometimes, you know, maybe you will eat too many chocolate chips, but the point is, is that you're paying attention to how those chocolate chips made you feel because you're coming from it from a place of, I can't have those chocolate chips. It's, I don't want to eat that many chocolate chips because I don't like the way that it makes me feel. And that makes it an easier shift. And that doesn't have that restrictive mindset that creates the obsession. Like if I can't have the chocolate chips, then I really want the chocolate chips. But back to the scale, I just recently had an experience with the scale and I hadn't in a while, because I don't weigh myself anymore. Because like you, I don't want my happiness to be defined by a number. And I used to be so caught up with that. And even at my smallest, when people were worried about my weight, was I still unhappy with myself. And so just recently I found a trigger that I didn't know I had and I was sick. And so I wasn't eating as much. And so I really wanted to step on the scale. to get that gratification to see how much like I weighed now since I hadn't been eating as much those few days. And it was a struggle. It is a struggle to let go of that number and that, yeah, I mean, I just think we are somehow from society program that, you know, this is my number that I need to reach. It's crazy. Serena Stewart (25:21) How did you fight that impulse to want to step on the scale? Jill Moellering (25:26) man, luckily this is what I do. So in my mind I was like, my gosh, you're gonna have to share this. But at the same time I'm going through that, you know, whether it says something good, what does that matter? I mean, if it says something like what you want it to say, or if it doesn't, like it's going to ruin your day. And it didn't matter. So I had a great day planned out ahead of me. And I was like, you're not gonna let this thing, cause I've just had so many experiences with it, you know, that I'm not gonna let this one thing ruin my day. one way or the other. I'm just not going to give it that power. Yeah. Serena Stewart (26:00) Absolutely. Yeah. And I think like you said, it's like what I do for a living so I can like coach myself through it. But I think it's really important to realize like, you know, having that human moment of realizing like, like I still get this desire to check my body in some way and how that doesn't have to go away in order for you to know. And I'm not going to choose to engage in those behaviors because I know like it doesn't bring me happiness and peace. So, yeah, I love that example of just like, Jill Moellering (26:15) Mm -hmm. Serena Stewart (26:29) This is messy. It's not going to be like, I commit to this way of eating or living my life. And then like, that's it. Like, it's not this like clear cut path. They always say success is a squiggle. It can be very squiggly ups and downs, but it definitely gets easier as you do it for more and more years for sure. Jill Moellering (26:45) Definitely. It's definitely a journey. And I don't think, you know, I'll ever be perfect. I mean, you kind of mentioned it too. It's like, I will still have some days where I'm like, gosh, you just, you're way too much. Or, you know, I can feel it in my clothes or something, or I see my belly a certain way and I start to get, you know, down on myself and I have to coach myself. And that's what I want to empower other women to do too, is like, we are our own cheerleaders. And I think our perceptions of ourselves, can be inaccurate. Not only that, but I think it's not normalized enough that women's bodies are not necessarily, I can't speak for everyone, but I can speak for myself that my body is not meant to be chiseled and ripped and super thin. This is the way my body's meant to be. And some days I'm bloated and some days I weigh more. I can just tell. You know, some days I have bad days where my confidence is down and I have to go back to some of the tools of, I want to get into your somatic. But journaling is a huge one for me and just that inner self -talk that I have to walk myself through it. But I want to hear about the somatic and how do you work? Because I'm wondering if you do that with like stress eating and emotional eating. Serena Stewart (28:08) Yeah, so definitely can be helpful for anyone, but definitely if I have somebody who is stuck with binging and the binging trigger is not necessarily just from sometimes when we're under eating, we will overeat then because our body's trying to find a healthy weight. Sometimes if we were restricting a food, like Jill was saying, you were saying, I'm not allowed to eat chocolate chips. Your body almost has this like temper tantrum response where it only wants chocolate chips until you really truly neutralize that food and say, hey, this food is is neutral. I can eat it whenever I want. But sometimes people use food for comfort and for coping. And that was another, we didn't get into that part of my story, but that was also something that I was really good at doing, using food for comfort and coping. And so really realizing that your body is craving comfort, is craving some kind of positive stimuli if you're dealing with a negative emotion and loving yourself or having enough acknowledgement that you deserve that comfort. You deserve that positive feeling if you're struggling. And I think kind of just like realizing that as a human being, you don't deserve to struggle with things alone. And so so many of us just use food, right? Food is so easy. The kids, they're driving me crazy. I don't have any time for myself. And while I'm taking care of the kids, I can also be snacking on cookies or crackers, or I can jam a bunch of ice cream into my mouth. between work meetings or something. So food is just so convenient and accessible and gives us that immediate dopamine response of like, yum, this tastes good. However, if we're constantly using food for comfort and it's our only coping skill, what tends to happen is you notice like, yeah, maybe that first few bites of ice cream is really rewarding and delicious, but if I eat too much of it, I feel sick. I'm actually now taking, I was feeling crummy, I was feeling sad, I was feeling lonely, and now I've also made myself sick. In some ways this works well because we kind of distract ourselves from dealing with the real thing that was bothering us because now we're just beating ourselves up and saying, I hate myself. I ate so much ice cream and we're fixated on the diet you're going to do tomorrow. But it didn't really ever address the core of what was going on there, that you were feeling sad or lonely or stressed or bored or whatever. Jill Moellering (30:14) Mm -hmm. Serena Stewart (30:28) And so some of the practices I'll use with my clients is really just trying to recognize that feeling within them. And this takes a lot of practice because a lot of times when we're dieting, we are not connected with our body. And so really trying to ask yourself when you notice I'm craving food, asking yourself, am I hungry? And when was the last time I ate? If you're somebody who's maybe newer to hunger fullness. If you haven't eaten in two, three, four hours, you might be hungry and so go please feed yourself. But if you just ate and you know you're not hungry and you still are wanting the chocolate or whatever, we can kind of then ask ourselves, what am I feeling in my body? And so asking yourself, do I feel any kind of discomfort or sensation in my chest? Do I feel it in my stomach? And then if you do notice a sensation, asking yourself, What does it feel like? Is it warm? Is it hot? What is the shape of it? Is it like dense? Is it fluffy and big? Is it light? What color would it be? And just kind of starting to like connect with that feeling in your body, that sensation of your body. And then if it feels safe for you, you can kind of put your hand there and maybe even close your eyes if it feels safe for you and just try and breathe into it. And I like to kind of almost imagine the shape shifting and changing. So maybe thinking about like light embodying it or maybe like breathing it out and like it lessening and just kind of taking that moment to realize like, wait, I'm not hungry. I'm just, I'm feeling a type of way. I'm feeling a lot of sad, heavy energy. And then checking in with yourself of like, what could I do before I eat the chocolate to see if it helps with the sad, heavy energy? Can I? Can I call a friend? Can I cuddle with my cat? Can I go to sleep? Can I put some comfy clothes on that aren't pinching my belly? And then if you still want food, please go have some food. Sometimes that's a tool that works really well for you. But really just kind of connecting with your body, touching the place in your body that you feel that sensation, doing some breathing. It can really just help you to kind of build that relationship with your teammate, your body. and really get to know her and really learn how to listen to her when she's asking for something rather than just numbing yourself with food. And that was like a very simplistic description of how this works because it definitely is quite challenging. And I don't want you to feel frustrated if you're like, Serena, I don't understand what you're talking about. That's okay. But really it's just about pausing before you go eat and kind of checking in with yourself and asking yourself, like, am I actually sad or lonely or bored or? Jill Moellering (32:52) Mm -hmm. Serena Stewart (33:11) or depressed or whatever and seeing if you can kind of have like a list in your phone or written somewhere of other activities you can try before you just go to the chocolate or whatever it is that you would like to eat. Jill Moellering (33:25) Yeah, I know for some listeners this might sound very weird or it might seem very scary. You know, a lot of women that I work with are really scared to face feelings and the idea of trying to sit with a feeling is very scary. And so I, but I think, you know, the reason why, what I believe is this is it's changing the feeling. It's giving it context, right? It's not something unknown. And the idea behind this from what I believe is that, you know, when we are trying to resist that emotion or run from that emotion and that feeling, it is sticking with us. We cannot run from it. It gets stuck in us and there's this resistance which creates this attachment to it. And this might sound woo woo, but give it a shot. But when you do these... tools that you're saying and I do some tapping and stuff too and I'll do some breathing. But it allows the emotion to move through you and to be released. So it's not about necessarily sitting with it because you're going to stay with it or even like reminiscing and you know going through it again and again and again. It's not about that when you learn these tools. It does help release that so that you have that freedom. from that emotion. Serena Stewart (34:50) Yeah, I think you nailed it. It's like the more we resist something, the bigger it's going to become. And so it's just kind of acknowledging it and allowing it to change or to let it go and reminding yourself that it's temporary. But absolutely, I also think it's important to acknowledge before you do something like that, kind of. grading yourself on a scale of one to 10 with like, how distressing will it be for me to close my eyes and sit with my feelings right now? And if you're like, that's a 10, like that is terrifying, then please don't do it. Like you need a therapist to guide you through that activity and that is perfectly okay. But yeah, definitely only want to kind of proceed with that if you're kind of judging that as like a six or less on that distressed scale. Jill Moellering (35:21) Yeah. Yeah, and what I've realized is what works for some doesn't work for everyone. And so, you know, like some people do like the meditating or some people like to go out for a walk. Some people do like the breathing. Some people like the tapping. So it's learning all these different tools that are available to us and picking the one in that situation that will work for you. Yeah. What would be like one bit of advice? Serena Stewart (35:37) That's all. totally. Jill Moellering (35:58) For someone out there right now that is just really caught up in this cycle, they're struggling with food, they're struggling with their body image, what's one thing you think would be a good stepping stone that they could do today to kind of get them on this journey? Serena Stewart (36:18) Hmm, that's a really good question. I think I almost have like a two parter. I think one is I know this is really hard to believe, but the struggle is not the result of like a choice you're making. It's not because of the sugar or the carb or the diet or, you know, it's because you're like, it's because we're not, allowing our body to do what she naturally wants to do, which is eat and be nourished. So really, I think the solution is not a diet, so to speak. The solution is to stop dieting, which sounds so hard to wrap your head around when you're stuck. And I would say the first action item I would want you to take is I would want you to start to pay attention to... like your hunger and your fullness cues. And I think this is a little bit more nuanced than just, am I hungry? Because I think if you're really stuck right now, you might not notice your hunger. But hunger cues can be, I have a headache, I'm irritable, my energy is really low, or my energy is really anxious. I'm just like, I have a lot of energy, but I feel kind of crazy, and I feel kind of discombobulated. That can be that you're hungry and your body's very stressed out. Looking at like, those signs of like, what would happen if I started to eat every three hours, having something to eat and to nourish my body every three hours. And just starting there, like there's so much more to learn from there of like how to take those meals and make them nourishing to balance blood sugar. But we can just start with that very simple, like one, if you're really just so sick of the yo -yo dieting cycle. Can we realize that the solution is letting go of dieting? And then can we start to get curious about what hunger and fullness feels like in your body and what would it be like to eat more regularly? The body image stuff, this is so hard to say, because it sounds like I'm dismissing you and I promise you I'm not. It's a long journey and it might have to come later. Like you might have to just be so sick of binging or dieting or... the lack of quality of life that you have from dieting that you're like, I'm going to figure the body image stuff out later. I just need to start figuring out how to eat. And I feel like that can sometimes be the journey that my clients and I take where we start to focus on how food is making them feel so much better. And we're working on body image stuff too, but that journey is quite long. And so I don't want you to think you need to figure out the body image stuff before ... you decide to allow your body permission to be nourished. Jill Moellering (39:09) Mm -hmm, definitely. And it is such a hard shift in the beginning to just start feeding ourselves because you think you're just going to gain a ton of weight. And I don't know if you agree with this and you see this in your practice, but so many people are eating so little, not enough to nourish their body. But it's actually when you start feeding your body on a consistent basis and giving it the nutrition that it needs that you restore your hormone balance and that you improve your metabolism. And so. Yes, you're eating more, but your body's using it. And so you're not actually, it's not just gonna gain weight, but in the beginning it can. And that's why I get rid of the scale. Serena Stewart (39:50) Yeah, I see that in my practice all the time. And especially I'm working with athletes who are burning, you know, hundreds or thousands of calories. And so it's like at first, you know, there might be this like immediate kind of like rebound, like the body is just holding on to to energy because they were so malnourished to begin with. But with consistency, like here's here's the hardest part of this is that we have gotten so addicted to like lose 20 pounds in 20 days or like all those crazy diet scams where you're dropping, you know, water weight and you're losing all this weight and you feel great and you're starving and then you gain it all back super quick. That is so damaging to metabolism. We didn't even talk about today, like how all of these diets, not only is it like ruining your quality of life, it is also really bad for your metabolism and your female sex hormones and how, if we're thinking long -term here for... You know, you want to be running marathons in 10, 20, 30 years, or you don't want to be, you know, living through a nightmare called menopause, let's say. Like there are all these things that we're doing now today to set your hormones and your metabolism up for success. But if we're starting from a place of years of chronic dieting, agroyo dieting, it takes time. It's going to take six months, a year of consistently feeding your body and eating a nourished balanced diet. And sometimes, It's a rocky road at first, because if you really have been restricting, you might not want to jump into the beautiful blood sugar balancing hacks. You might need to spend a lot of time with the chocolate chip cookies, like Jill and I were saying before. And that's part of the journey that's important. We can't skip it. But I promise you on the other side of the chocolate chip cookie bonanza is this place where you are totally at peace around food and are making choices 80, 90 % of the time to feel good in your body that are restoring hormone balance or healthy hormones. I don't know if the word balance is not the best there, but healthy hormones and healthy metabolism. But it's really about sticking with the journey and not letting weight fluctuations scare you off. And again, so much easier said than done. I also want to acknowledge right now, I am a white woman in a thin body, so this journey looks different for me than somebody who's recovering into a bigger body. And I acknowledge. It's not easy, the mindset work we need to do around it, but ultimately I think every single woman is worth the work because this really is how we optimize your hormone health, your metabolism, but most importantly, your quality of life, which every single woman is entitled to. Jill Moellering (42:32) Definitely, definitely. It really is understanding how what we've been doing is so damaging and it is not working and it will continue to not work to be willing to give something else a try and letting go of that. So thank you so much for chatting with me today. I enjoyed it so much. Where can our listeners find you or learn more about you, your services, or any upcoming events or programs that you have that you'd like to share with us? Serena Stewart (43:03) Thank you, Jill, for having me. Jill's going to be on my podcast next, actually. So I feel like the magic's just going to keep brewing here because we have so much to talk about. You can find me on my podcast, Dear Runner Bod, which mainly focuses on running nutrition and body image in female runners. So if you're a female runner, please tune into that. I am super active on Instagram. You can send me a message. I love chatting and interacting in the DMs. You're never bothering me. I'm runner girl dietitian. A dietitian is spelled with a T. So D -I -E -T -I -T -I -A -N. And yeah, I have a very valuable free master class available right now. It's called Hack Your Hydration. So if you are a female runner who is training in the heat or you're out there, you're running 60 plus minutes, it's really important that you understand how to hydrate correctly. It's not just about drinking more water. We need to make sure we're optimizing our calorie intake, our electrolyte intake, our fluid intake to really help our heart rate and our hormones and our nervous system feel good on those long runs so that we don't crash and burn or have GI issues. And I am literally guiding you step by step in how to create that personalized hydration strategy. So if you DM me on Instagram, the words cruel summer, I'm a, I'm a Swifty. a cruel summer, then I'll send you that link to register or Jill, I can also give you the link to put it in the show notes if you want. Jill Moellering (44:33) Yeah, we'll put all that in the show notes so that they can just easily go and get that. But thank you so much. I look forward to talking to you soon again on your podcast. And thank you everyone for listening. Bye. Serena Stewart (44:43) Yay!